The Tragedy of Dane Riley

by Kat Spears

  “You know, I’m still waiting on your overdue report about the American author of your choice. I really want you to turn it in, even if it’s so late now that you can’t really get any credit for it.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing,” I say, trying not to come off smart-mouthed, just honest. “There’s no real incentive for me to turn it in if I won’t get any credit for it.”

  “Well, like I said before, I think you should complete it and turn it in, if only to build your self-confidence academically.”

  “You were serious about that?” I ask, blinking a few times in surprise. “I’m sorry. I thought it was a joke.”

  “Do you think your education is a joke?” She’s so earnest. It seems impossible that she isn’t shining me on.

  “Is that question strictly rhetorical?”

  She ignores my response and plows ahead with her agenda. “I was looking at the list of colleges our seniors will be attending. I noticed that you had ‘undecided’ next to your name.”

  She hasn’t actually asked a question. I wait.

  “So, you haven’t committed to going anywhere?” she presses.

  “I didn’t apply anywhere.”

  Her forehead creases above the bridge of her nose. “May I ask why not?”

  “Sure,” I say with an affable shrug, and wait again.

  After a few seconds, realizing that I am going to make this conversation as awkward as possible, she tilts her head and her eyes become warning. “Why,” she says, and waits for a dramatic pause, “did you not apply to any colleges?”

  “I didn’t really see the point. I don’t like school much. My dad went to college for seven years and he had a job he hated and that stressed him out. All he did was work. And then he died before he ever got to retire and enjoy anything.”

  Most people would stop now, express some sympathy about my dad. Or their eyes would cloud up with pity, and they’d let it go. But not Ms. Guinn. She ignores the subject of my dad and says, “I know that high school can be pretty boring for an intelligent person like yourself. But once you get beyond all this, school can be quite interesting.”

  “You think I’m intelligent?” I ask. “What gave you that idea?”

  She smiles, as if she thinks that maybe now I am the one shining her on. But I can’t remember anyone telling me they thought I was smart before.

  “Yes, Dane. I think you’re intelligent. Maybe you don’t work as hard as you could, but you’re perfectly capable.”

  “Well,” I say, thinking as I do that my logic won’t come across as reasonable once I say it out loud, “I guess I figure school doesn’t really matter. What’s the point?”

  It occurs to me that what I have said is somewhat insulting to Ms. Guinn. After all, she has spent her entire adult life teaching people like me. People who don’t care about books that some expert, probably some expert who has been dead for a while, decided were great works of literature.

  She seems puzzled, maybe unsure how to argue against my line of reasoning. It is an awkward position for her, having to defend why a student should care about the books that are required reading for graduation. Suddenly I am curious about what argument she is going to offer.

  “I know that right now,” she says slowly, considering her words, “it seems like none of this is important. But if you want to eventually have an interesting job, to have some reason to look forward to getting up in the morning, the course you set for yourself now really does matter.”

  “I just don’t see myself going to college.”

  “So, what’s your plan?” Ms. Guinn asks. “Sit around playing video games for the next sixty years?”

  “Sixty years?” I repeat loudly, with some alarm. I try to imagine living another sixty years. Fail. Then say, “I guess I never really thought about it.” Because I haven’t. I have never pictured life beyond right now. I think of myself like that character in that movie where the guy ages backward and his childhood is the end of his life instead of the beginning. It’s an interesting idea, but kind of a stupid movie.

  “You know,” Ms. Guinn says, her voice gentle now, “sometimes, when people are depressed, it can make it hard to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning.” Her cheeks redden slightly, as if she has said too much, and I wonder idly if her coffee mug is filled with something other than coffee.

  “Are you telling me that because you’re depressed?” I ask. “Or because you think I am?”

  The corner of her mouth turns up with a smile at my question and she says, “Maybe both. It is sometimes depressing to teach high school English. My audience isn’t exactly going crazy for me like I’m Kanye West or something.”

  “I would maybe steer clear of pop-culture references when you’re talking to students,” I say. “Especially Kanye West.”

  “Oh?” she asks. “Is he not famous anymore?”

  “He’s still famous,” I say, “just more of a punch line than a metaphor.”

  “I see,” she says, and I get the impression, definitely now, that she is poking fun at me, at the world, with everything she says. “Anyway, I’m just saying I can relate. Being a high school English teacher is a pretty thankless job.”

  “Well,” I say, “I wouldn’t get too down about it. You get summers off, right? Not a bad gig.”

  She laughs now, as if I have said something intentionally funny. “Dane, I’m not really concerned about my own happiness at the moment. I was thinking that you might be struggling yourself. Struggling to find a good reason to get out of bed in the mornings.”

  “Why would you care about that?” I ask, genuinely mystified.

  “I’m not an English teacher just because I love literature, you know?” she says as her forehead wrinkles with the question. For a second she reminds me of my mom, the way her eyebrows will disappear behind her bangs when she asks me questions like that, questions for which I am supposed to know the answers, but never do.

  “Oh?” I say, reverting to the kind of response that makes you seem present in a conversation, while letting the other person lead until you can catch up.

  “I had a pretty shitty high school experience,” she says.

  The way she uses “shitty” isn’t the way most adults do when they use foul language around teenagers, as if they are trying to sound like they’re “hip to our jive.” She says it as if she has a pretty good grasp of swearing vocabulary. Like she would be more comfortable if she could swear all the time. I have never noticed it before, but Ms. Guinn is actually kind of … cool. And now I am really listening to her, interested in what she has to say. “I spent ten years teaching in an inner-city school,” she says as her shoulders go slack and she sighs, as if some huge weight has been placed on her. Then she turns to pull open one of her desk drawers, using the distraction to minimize our connection as she continues with her story. “It got to be too much. Being around those kids—smart kids, decent kids—who were just victims of the hand they had been dealt. It made me feel helpless. I was powerless. I wasn’t doing a goddamn thing to improve their lives.” She punctuates her use of another swear by slamming the drawer shut, giving up on busying herself with something to distract from her emotions. “So, I took a position here. Figuring it would be like a vacation. Everyone at this school has plenty of money. Nobody’s hungry or living in a house without heat or running water. But I was wrong. The kids here are in just as much pain as they are anyplace else.”

  She seems embarrassed now and is looking around the room, looking at everything but my face, too uncomfortable to look me in the eye.

  I feel the need to comfort her somehow, give her a boost. She’s sad, and angry with herself, two feelings with which I can intimately relate. I reach out to put a hand on her shoulder—just a brief touch, because it isn’t socially acceptable for teachers and students to really care about each other, and say, “You want a Klonopin? I have some on me.”

  Her laugh is sudden and explosive, and then she shakes her head. “No. No, I’m okay.” />
  “Well,” I say as students for her next class are filing in, “I’ve got to get to my next class.” I am edging toward the door, unsure how to end the conversation.

  “Sure. But Dane, listen,” she says, turning suddenly serious. “You can’t experience joy if you don’t also experience anguish. Don’t give up on joy. Okay? Don’t give up on joy, and I won’t, either.”

  Her eyes and voice are pleading and I don’t know how to respond so I just say “Okay” and give her a weak smile.

  “Do you need a tardy pass? You’ll be late for your next class.”

  “That’s okay,” I say with a reassuring smile. “I think I’ve already failed it for the quarter anyway.”

  Her eye-roll in response is more playful than annoyed and she waves me out the door.

  As I walk to my next class I think about Ms. Guinn and her sadness. She seemed so genuine in her disappointment about not having more of a positive impact on the students she teaches. It makes me sad for her, so much so that I try to shake away the feeling before it can settle in too deeply.

  For a moment I wonder if my conversation with her will become an important memory, like those moments in childhood that for some reason stick in your brain, like a briar clinging to your pant leg. It seems to me that you don’t really get to choose which moments get lodged in your memory. No way to tell your mind which memories you want to become stuck there.

  Part of me hopes that it is a memory I will carry with me. It’s just a moment in time that will disappear with all of the rest when I die. Like memories of my dad from my childhood, which only exist as long as my brain does.

  * * *

  Business is slow at Mr. Edgar’s after the early-evening rush of a Friday. I am just killing time until my shift ends at nine. I dust the shelves, and the cans of things like water chestnuts or chickpeas—things that will sit on the shelves for years. They will probably only get used if there is ever a zombie apocalypse and the store gets looted.

  Mr. Edgar comes up from his office while I am cleaning the glass doors of the beer coolers. “Employee of the month!” Mr. Edgar shouts.

  This is our own inside joke because, technically, I am Mr. Edgar’s only employee. Sometimes his wife works the register and occasionally Mark will work a shift. But I am the only employee who isn’t related to him by blood or marriage.

  I do my best to give him a smile. The joke is so old and he uses it all the time. “When do I get my plaque?” I ask him. “I noticed over at the Burger King they put a photo of the employee of the month right up by the register where everyone can see it. Why don’t we have that here?”

  Mr. Edgar waves his hand at me, as if to say, Just wait. “Stay with me for another nineteen years, Dane. I will buy you a gold watch.”

  “Can’t wait,” I say.

  It’s so much work to maintain an appearance of nice and normal for other people. I go back to my glass cleaning, thinking about Mr. Edgar and his recycled jokes.

  I like the time that I spend in Mr. Edgar’s store. When I arrive at work I always feel like a weight has been lifted from my chest. As if, somehow, I’m safer within the familiar routines of my job and the predictable nature of Mr. Edgar.

  It’s dark out now, my shift almost over, when the bell on the front door announces the arrival of a customer. The bell is just another constant of my shift and I ignore it. Mr. Edgar is working the register and I’m restocking the drink coolers.

  The new customer walks into the rear aisle where I am working and stops a foot away from me, as if waiting for me to get out of her way. I am unloading a hand truck full of boxes, so it is obviously going to be a while. But instead of saying “excuse me” or something, the person just stands there, impatiently patient, waiting for me to acknowledge my faux pas of working for a living.

  It’s only because I feel the weight of her impatience on me that I turn to look at the person standing behind me. And when I do, it almost takes my breath away.

  Ophelia.

  She is wearing a short skirt with a wraparound sweater that creates a deep vee at the neck. Her shoes are high-heeled and extend the line of her legs to almost impossible lengths.

  “Hey,” I say when I realize I have been staring at her without saying anything for longer than is socially acceptable for a non-special-needs person. “You surprised me.”

  “I know. What are you doing tonight?”

  “Working.”

  She sighs. A sigh that is so long and so dramatic, it’s as if our conversation is the most disappointing thing that has ever happened to her. More disappointing even than her parents, or her first time having sex.

  “I mean,” she says slowly, “what are you doing after this?”

  “Oh. Nothing, really. I was going to meet up with some friends.”

  “There’s a party at Andrea Marcinkevicius’s house. You know her?” Ophelia asks.

  “Not really.”

  Everybody at McLean High School knows Andrea Marcinkevicius. Her last name is a complete disaster, but the end of it is pronounced like “itches,” so that’s what most people call her. Her friends use “Itches” as a term of endearment, while others use it as a witty reference to STIs, with varying degrees of hilarity. Most of us know Andrea in the same way that people know the Kardashians, which is to say I know what she looks like and who she has dated, but I don’t really know her.

  Andrea is, perhaps, the most popular girl in school—maybe more feared than adored. Her parents are legendary for leaving her home alone while they travel for a week at a time.

  “I’m not friends with her or anything,” Ophelia says as her face scrunches into an adorable frown.

  “If you don’t like her, why are you going to her party?” I ask.

  “I mean, it’s not like I dislike her. It’s just that she’s … overconfident, I guess.”

  “Yeah.” I nod in agreement. “Confident people are the worst.”

  “Anyway,” she says, raising her voice to keep me from saying more, “it will be a good party. You should come.”

  “Maybe. I’m supposed to meet up with my boys. They don’t go to McLean. They won’t know anyone at the party.”

  “It doesn’t matter if they know anyone,” Ophelia says. “The place is going to be mobbed with people.”

  “I thought your dad had you on house arrest. How are you going to a party?”

  “My dad has a thing tonight for work and he didn’t want me to stay home alone. I told him I was going to a friend’s house to hang out.”

  “He doesn’t want you to stay home alone because he’s afraid that you’ll get murdered? Or that you’ll have a guy over?”

  “Oh, please,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I’m sure he’d rather I get murdered than have consensual sex with a guy my age.”

  I laugh because it’s funny, but I feel my cheeks get hot at her mention of sex. Just watching the word on her lips is enough to give me a half hard-on.

  “I told him I was hanging out at a friend’s house. I just texted him to tell him I’m going over there to eat popcorn and watch a movie.” As she says this she holds up the lighted display of her phone and wags it in the air. “I’m not entirely convinced my dad doesn’t have some kind of tracking app on my phone, so I had to give him Andrea’s address and say I was going over there.”

  “Your dad is preparing you for a life of crime.”

  “I’m texting you the address,” Ophelia says, ignoring my comment.

  “Who are you going with?” I ask.

  “I’m going with Eric. He’s the one who invited me.”

  “Eric?” I ask, incredulous. Dear God.

  “Yeah, what’s wrong with Eric? You practically live with the guy.”

  “What’s wrong with Eric? Are you seriously asking that question? He lip-synced a One Direction song at the winter talent show.” If I’m being honest, what’s really wrong with Eric is that he’s a better student, a better athlete, and an all-around more qualified boyfriend for Ophelia t
han I am. Except for the fact that he’s evil.

  It’s my belief that any girl who has been with Eric would testify to regretting it.

  I never thought of Ophelia as a girl who would fall for that trap, but I had seen plenty of smart girls become the victims of a guy like Eric. And I never could figure out why.

  The fact that girls never fall for me is the most compelling evidence I can point to that I am one of the good guys.

  I can’t explain any of this to Ophelia. One, I’m not comfortable talking about sex with her. Or suggesting that she might have sex with Eric, just in case it gives her ideas. And two, if I try to tell her how evil Eric is, it will just make me sound like I’m jealous and pathetic—in other words, a little too close to the truth.

  “So, what?” Ophelia asks. “So he has bad taste in music. It’s not a federal offense.”

  “Yes. It is. It’s really offensive.”

  “What are you getting so hot about? I’m just going to a party with him. He asked me and he offered to drive.”

  “Just because he offered you don’t have to accept. He’s evil.”

  “You’re being dramatic. What do you have against Eric?”

  “Ophelia, seriously. The guy is bad news. He goes out with a different girl almost every weekend. He’s a…” “Predator” seems like a strong word. But it fits Eric and his MO. “Creep.” Not strong enough. I wish that I had the courage to tell her the truth. Throw down my rag and bottle of cleaner and take her in my arms. Tell her Eric could never deserve her, and neither could I, but I want to try to be worthy. It’s one of the impossible goals I’ve talked about with Dr. Lineberger—to be worthy of Ophelia. Or even just ask her to a movie or something.

  “He’s a…? What?” she asks.

  “You know what?” I say, frustrated now because there’s no way to win with her. “Forget I said anything. If a guy like Eric is what you want, then I hope that’s what you get.”

  “I never said I wanted Eric. I just said he’s giving me a ride to a party. What are you getting so mad about?”