by David Klass
Kris’s beautiful eyes narrowed in sudden anger. “You think I like somebody ’cause he has a fancy car?” she snapped.
“Well, you seemed pretty eager to take a ride in it.”
“Meaning what? Come on, meaning what? Say it.”
“You think I don’t know about going down to the Boat Basin?”
She slapped me. I had never been hit by a girl before. It feels very different from being hit by a guy. And then she started crying. It’s a strange thing, that she should hit me, and then she should start crying. I didn’t know what to do. “How dare you,” she said. “How dare you spy on me?”
“I wasn’t spying on you,” I told her. “Look, Kris, stop crying. Some guy on the football team saw you guys down there …”
“Oh, great,” she said. “Great.”
“I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. I’m sorry … but … he’s no good, Kris.”
Tears were running down her cheeks and she didn’t try to brush them away as she looked right back into my eyes and said, in a soft but strong voice, “Don’t say anything else, Joe. Because … I think I’m in love with Antonio Silva. And I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Then she ran away from me, crossing to the west side of the street, the side we never walked on. As if she still wasn’t far enough away, she veered wildly up the driveway of some house we didn’t know, and disappeared into some stranger’s backyard.
Somehow I made it to school that morning. But I was in a daze, almost sleepwalking. My homeroom teacher said something to me and I nodded, but I had no idea what she’d said. The morning announcements played over the intercom, but I heard only bits and pieces—something about a Spanish Club meeting, and a few jumbled fragments about the volleyball team. My mind kept swinging back to my conversation with Kris, that had turned into a confrontation, and then a disaster.
I had meant to let her know how much I cared for her, and to ask her out on a date. Instead, I’d insulted her and she’d run away crying. And for the life of me, as I sat on that plastic chair in homeroom and waited for the first-period bell to ring, I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. The one thing I was sure of was that I had managed to say exactly the wrong thing to her. And I didn’t know if I could ever fix it.
The bell finally rang, and I was off that chair and out of that classroom in about two seconds. It felt better to be standing up, in the hall, moving around. I passed Ed the Mouse, and I have to admit, he was being pretty successful at not looking like a victim. I won’t say he was swaggering down the hallway, but he looked relaxed and even happy to be back at school. He certainly didn’t look like a marked man. “Hey, Brickhead, how goes it?”
I heard myself mumble in reply, “It goes.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Never better.”
“Then why do you look like death warmed over?”
Two football players passed by, Jack Hutchings, limping, and Tony Jaws Borelli. Everyone in the hallway turned to watch Mouse, waiting for him to double-dip in humble repeat bows. But the Mouse stood straight and tall, as if he didn’t even see them.
“Hey, little man, aren’t you forgetting something?” Jack Hutchings said.
The Mouse turned to look right at Jack. He took a half step toward him, raised his right hand, and pointed a finger at him. This must have been something Ed the Mouse had read about on one of those empowerment sites on the Internet. He spoke very loudly and succinctly. “LEAVE—ME—ALONE.” It wasn’t a plea—it was more like an order.
Jack Hutchings looked a little surprised. I think he and Tony might have responded immediately and violently, except that it was a crowded hallway, and a teacher was headed our way, not to mention that I was standing there next to Ed. So Jack Hutchings smiled slightly and shrugged, and said in a low voice, “Okay, little man, you’ll get yours.” And then the two of them walked on down the corridor.
“Mouse,” I said, “What are you doing? I can’t protect you.”
“No protection necessary,” Ed responded, calm and cool as a plate of clam dip. “What just happened is called assertive confrontation. It’s a defusive strategy—one of the key steps to avoiding being a victim.” I don’t know what nonsense Ed the Mouse had been reading on the Internet, but it was clear he had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. “They got the message, that I won’t be messed with. Now, what’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. And then, because Ed kept looking at me, “I had a confrontation of my own. But I wasn’t assertive. Or maybe I was. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. All I know is I’m my own victim, which is pretty damn stupid, huh?” I pivoted sideways and punched a locker so hard I dented the metal. The few kids still in the hall moved away from me. My hand throbbed. I opened it and closed it: nothing broken.
“Why don’t you just bash your head into the wall?” Ed the Mouse asked. And then my best friend since third grade said, “C’mon, Joe, what happened? Who’d you have the run-in with?”
The warning bell rang, and I was grateful. I didn’t want to talk about it. Twenty more seconds and we would be late. “Gotta go to class. See ya, Mouse. We’ll talk later.”
Biology is normally my favorite class, but I was dreading it that day as fifth period got closer and closer. I was dreading walking into Mr. Desoto’s classroom and seeing Kris. What can you say to someone you love, who you made angry enough to slap you? I was pretty sure she wouldn’t speak to me. I imagined us sitting side by side in stony silence, listening to a lecture about the mammalian circulatory system. I don’t normally chicken out of confrontations, but I admit I thought of leaving school early—of escaping and just going on a long bike ride. But it turned out not to be necessary. After fourth period, the unexpected happened. School left me.
Fourth-period history class was just dragging to a close with Mr. Muldowney detailing the political repercussions of the Alien and Sedition acts when an unexpected crackling came over the school intercom, and the voice of Vice Principal Tobias sounded. “Hello, students and teachers. First, let me assure you that there is absolutely nothing wrong.”
We sat there, listening, and even in my dazed state I realized that he wouldn’t have said this unless something was very wrong.
“Fifth period and the rest of classes today are canceled. Repeat, there will be no more classes today. You should all remain in your fourth-period classrooms until someone from the front office comes to escort you to the auditorium. We will be summoning you by grade, starting with seniors. There will be absolutely no talking in the hallways. Teachers, please enforce this.” A stern note of warning crept into his voice. “You will all be on your best behavior and do exactly what you are told.” It took him a second to shift back from his harsh, disciplinarian voice to his warm and fuzzy voice. “Thank you for your cooperation, Lawndale students. See you soon.”
We were one of the first classes to be summoned. Mrs. Eckes, her face looking even more flinty and severe than usual, came for us and led us to the front of the auditorium. As I sat there, and watched the vast hall fill up with the eight hundred students of our school, I tried to guess what had happened. There were at least five cops in the auditorium, and then I saw Deputy Police Chief Coyle walk in with Vice Principal Tobias. So I figured something had happened that morning that registered on the Red Flag warning system. At first I worried about Ed the Mouse, but then he came in with the rest of his fourth-period calculus class. So I gave up trying to figure it out and just waited silently, as row after row of seats were filled, and finally Vice Principal Tobias climbed onto the stage, his stomach jiggling with each step.
“Good morning,” he said. He was such a big man that standing there in his pin-striped suit, with his great bald head shining in the light, he looked larger than life. Deputy Police Chief Coyle stood on one side of him and a thin man sporting a bow tie, who I didn’t recognize, stood on the other. “I’m going to keep this brief,” Mr. Tobias began. “An incident occurred this morning that we don’t have
to go into right now.” He glanced at the thin man in the bow tie, who seemed to nod in agreement. “Except to say it was an unfortunate, unpleasant incident … and one of a chain of such incidents involving students of this school that I intend to put a stop to here and now.”
There was a complete, almost unnatural silence in the auditorium. No one was shifting around or coughing or whispering. Maybe it was the presence of the police, but everyone was paying respectful attention.
“Since Principal Landisman is away, I’m responsible for this school and all of you, and I’m not going to drag my feet. I would rather err on the side of being too safe than not do enough. So, starting right now, we’re adopting a zero tolerance policy when it comes to violence and inciteful behavior at this school. There will be no more fighting. No more bullying. No more teasing. No more drinking or drugs. No more stealing. None of it. It will end here and now.” He repeated the three words again, looking out at us as if he were warning each one of us personally. “Here and now.” He had started to sweat, and he wiped his enormous forehead with the back of his right hand. “If you’re a troublemaker, and you’re sitting there thinking that what I’m saying doesn’t apply to you, I have some simple advice for you. Don’t test me. Because you will be suspended or expelled from this school faster than you can say Lawndale or Bankside. Are there any questions?”
For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Patty Margolis, a senior cheerleader from an old Lawndale family, called out, “Yeah. What exactly happened this morning?”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time, but we are not going to go into that now,” Tobias almost growled at her. He glanced at the thin man in the bow tie and seemed to read a message there that he should not end things on such a gruff note. So he forced himself to smile at us. It really was an awful, thin, uncomfortable smile—it seemed to slither onto his big sweating face and unfold itself reluctantly, like a snake emerging from a dark hole. “What you need to know is that this school will be safe. All trouble will end here and now.” He rubbed his hands together nervously, and a bead of sweat slid off his forehead and ran down one side of his nose. “There’s absolutely nothing to worry about,” he assured us.
“The situation is one hundred percent completely under control.”
14
One problem with Vice Principal Tobias’s decision not to go into specifics about what had happened at our school was that it opened the door to all kinds of speculation.
Rumors began flying even before the auditorium emptied out. Some said a threatening e-mail had been sent to the school. Others whispered about a fight between a student and a teacher. Some pointed out how many cops there had been in the auditorium and said that a large stash of drugs had been discovered in a locker. And then there was the story that I first heard as I walked home from school that Tuesday afternoon with a bunch of my soccer teammates—the one that turned out to be true.
It had nothing to do with Ed the Mouse, or friction between the soccer team and the football team, or anything else I would have predicted. Instead, it involved one of the least likely people imaginable. His name was Carson Feeble, and he was as wimpy as his name sounded. Think of a fifteen-year-old boy as skinny as a stickball bat, with a big mop of uncombed black hair that he tucked beneath a Mets cap. Maybe there were shyer kids at Lawndale High than Carson, but if so, they must have been hiding in their lockers.
The only reason I knew him was that I had taught a junior lifesaving class at the town pool the previous summer, and Carson’s mother had made him sign up. He swallowed too much water during the first class and threw up in the pool. Throwing up in the pool is not a great way to make your fellow swimmers like you. Ditto for your teacher. Carson was so embarrassed at what had happened that he never came back for another lesson, which didn’t seem to me to be such a bad decision. Certain people are not cut out to be lifeguards.
Carson was a nerd’s nerd and spent most of his free time in our school’s computer lab. “Computer lab” sounds impressive, but actually all we have is a dozen old computers that were donated four years ago by some rich guy in town. Ed the Mouse used to hang out there to play computer games, but his father bought him much better equipment, and now Ed never goes there, so I don’t either.
There was a girl from Bankside who went to the computer lab once in a while to write papers. Her name was Tara and she was cute and popular. Whenever Tara had a problem with one of the computers, Carson would come over and help her.
I guess he got a big crush on her, and he started to bring her small, nerdy presents. Tara’s boyfriend Mitch, a J.V. football team member, found out what was going on and thought it was hilarious. Until he thought about it some more, and then it pissed him off. He taunted Carson about it right in front of Tara, and during gym class he yanked Carson’s shorts down to his ankles, and I even heard that one day after school he made Carson eat his own Mets cap, or at least chew on it while he stood over him laughing.
Tuesday morning, Carson snapped. He stole a gouge from shop class, and during gym class, when Mitch began shoving him around again, Carson pulled the tool from his shorts and tried to stab Mitch in the face with it. Mitch got a hand up to block it, but the gouge punctured his right hand. The guys I talked to who saw it all happen said the tool went right through Mitch’s palm, and there was lots of blood.
Mitch started screaming and rolling around on the grass holding his hand. Mitch’s buddies from Bankside went after Carson, who ran to the gym teacher and wrapped his arms around the teacher’s legs, and then the police were called.
So that was what had happened, to push us over the edge into zero tolerance territory. I think it was foolish of Vice Principal Tobias not to just come out with all these details. As I’ve mentioned before, at our school news spreads like wildfire. Enough kids in the gym class saw the stabbing so that even though they were all sternly cautioned not to talk about it, there was no way to keep it quiet.
I first heard the story from Hector, from my soccer team, and then other information began to complete the picture. By Tuesday evening, as phone calls and e-mails circulated between friends, all the little details like the computer lab flirtation and Carson’s past humiliations became known.
The next morning the Bergen Record ran a front-page story about a violent incident at Lawndale High, with details of the new zero tolerance policy. The article included an “unsubstantiated account” of the stabbing from an “unnamed source,” and a description of hundreds of worried parents calling the school’s switchboard with questions. Apparently, the demand for more information was so great that a public town meeting had been scheduled for that Friday evening.
My father read the paper at breakfast, which for him is always a Pop-Tart and a cup of coffee. “Jesus, you guys are screw-ups,” he said. Apparently he wasn’t one of those worried parents who were burning out the switchboard. “In my day we knew how far we could push things.”
My regular breakfast during a sports season is a cup of juice and a piece of fruit. I took a bite out of my Granny Smith apple and said, “Yeah, I heard you and Mr. Hutchings pushed things once upon a time.”
My father looked over at me and grinned, which is what he does when he hears something he doesn’t like. “Where’d you hear that from?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“Dianne? She’s not my girlfriend.”
“She thinks she is.”
“She can think whatever she wants. We’re just having fun together. And she shouldn’t be telling you such things.”
“So it’s not true?”
My father took a big bite of Pop-Tart. “Yeah, we had a fight.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked him.
“’Cause I’m not that proud of it.”
“I don’t see why not. He didn’t whup you, did he?”
“That’s not it,” my father responded slowly. He chewed for a while, and then swallowed. “Did you ever wonder why I never graduated from high school?”
>
“I figured you were a dumbass. Just kidding.”
“That was why,” he said.
“You got expelled for fighting?”
“We both did. Three months to go in our senior year.”
“How did they find out? If you had the fight off school grounds … ?”
“It wasn’t the kind of thing you could hush up,” my father said. “And Kevin Hutchings and I both had lots of souvenirs we couldn’t get rid of so easily.” My father touched the tip of his crooked nose with his index finger. I had always wondered where he had broken it. Then he tugged on his left earlobe, and I could see where a tiny piece had been bitten off. I had always thought he just had a funny-looking ear. “Must have been quite a fight,” I said.
“Like I said, I’m not proud of it. So are you going to this meeting on Friday night?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Probably.”
“Maybe I’ll go, too.”
“Don’t you and Dianne have a date Friday?”
“No,” he said. “I may be cooling things off with Dianne.” He glanced down at the paper. “Friday night I’ll be at that town meeting.”
“Why?” I asked him.
“Because it’s going to be a real barn burner.” And then, as he turned the newspaper to the Sports Section, he added, “And, of course, I’m concerned about my son’s safety.”
“Right, of course,” I said. “Or maybe it’ll be a good place to pick up chicks.”
“Maybe.” He nodded, and took another bite of Pop-Tart.
“Guess it’s about time to find a new one. I mean if you’re cooling things off with Dianne.”
“Any time is a good time,” my father answered. “’Bout time you found one, too, Joe.”
If there was one thing I didn’t want to do, it was talk to my father about girls, and girlfriends, and the lack thereof in my life. I drained my juice. “I’m looking,” I told him. “Now I’d better head for school. See what else they’ve got in store for us, to keep us safe.”
