Numbers

by David A. Poulsen

  Some of us laughed. Mr. R did too. “That’s my pre-makeover look.”

  Then Mr. R put a third picture up on the screen. He was still standing there smiling, but now he was in the middle of the street and another bus, or maybe the same one, was right behind him — coming right at him.

  “Boy, that’s gonna hurt.” Mr. R turned away from the computer and looked at us. He had the same smile on his face as the one in the picture. We laughed again. Harder this time.

  “Now is there anybody here who thinks I was hit by that bus?”

  Nobody raised a hand.

  “Interesting.” Mr. R went back to the computer and hit the keys again.

  Everyone in the class either gasped or groaned. A couple of people yelled, “Eeoo, gross.”

  Which it was.

  The picture was of Mr. R lying on the pavement covered in blood and looking pretty much dead. It was definitely gross.

  “Well, I guess you’re all wrong. Obviously I was hit by that bus. And it did hurt.”

  There was silence in the room for a few minutes after that. Then one more picture — Mr. R standing looking at the camera with all the blood and goo still all over him. He was holding a little sign up to the camera. It read, “Gotcha.”

  The laughing was probably louder than it needed to be. I guess we didn’t know what to think.

  “Pictures. Can we trust them? Or can they be made to tell a story that’s quite different from what really happened?”

  He spent the next few minutes showing us pictures that were all hoaxes. One was of this person smiling into a camera from the observation deck of the World Trade Center. In the background was an airliner coming right at the building. I remembered that picture and how it had been in newspapers and on the internet and stuff right after 9/11. There were lots more pictures that did the same kind of thing. And some stuff from that old Forrest Gump movie — the Tom Hanks’ character with presidents and other famous people. There was even a hilarious picture of Britney Spears’ face on the body of a woman who must have weighed four hundred pounds. Hennie yelled out, “I thought these were supposed to be hoax pictures.” Everyone, even Mr. R laughed at that.

  But then it wasn’t funny. There were pictures of mounds of dead bodies — men and women, naked and piled in huge pits. Then these horribly skinny people, all of them bald and all of them looking like they were close to being dead. People looking out of the doors of train cars — cattle cars, I think, but these weren’t cattle, they were people and they looked scared. Lots of them were little kids and some were crying and reaching out, like they were trying to say something to the person holding the camera.

  And though I’d never seen them before I knew these were Holocaust pictures. And they were horrible. No action movie I’d ever seen, with mangled, bloody bodies all over the place, could match the grainy, black-and-white pictures we were looking at.

  Then it was over. Mr. R didn’t say anything, he just let the blank screen and the soft whirring sound of the computer be the only things that were happening in the room.

  Then in a very soft voice he said, “Horrific images. The worst. And not one person in this room can help but hate those responsible for what happened to the people in the pictures.”

  He took two steps toward us and leaned forward. “If they are real. If they are true. If they are to be believed.”

  For a few seconds more Mr. R didn’t say anything at all. The place was as quiet as any classroom I’ve been in since naptime in kindergarden.

  Mr. R shut off the computer and stood facing us. “Your assignment,” he was using his normal voice again, regular volume. And he was smiling. “Devise a hoax. It can be anything you want. It can even be your take on an existing hoax. But it has to be designed to deceive people, in this case your classmates and me, and you have to provide ways … methods that you would use to sell people on your hoax. Due in two weeks. Everyone will stand up in front of the class and sell their hoax to the rest of us poor unsuspecting lambs. We’ll start on Friday the 29th and take as many classes as are needed to hear everyone’s presentation. I’m thinking about five minutes per presentation. Much longer than that and it’s like an awards show. The bastards start playing the music and you get run off the stage.”

  The bell rang and we tumbled out into the hall, everybody laughing and loudly promising to “suck in the rest of you.”

  Another amazing class with Mr. R.

  Four

  I’d been walking to math class — and listening to dead guy comments — when Mr. R came around the corner.

  “Ah, Mr. Crockett. The very person I was hoping to see.”

  My first thought was that I must have done crappy on an assignment and was about to hear about it. Except that we hadn’t had any assignments recently.

  “Would you have a few minutes after school? I’d like to talk to you. It won’t take long.”

  “Uh sure … I guess so.”

  “Good, just come to my classroom after last class. And Alamo …”

  I’d started to walk away but I stopped and looked back at him. He was smiling.

  “Don’t let it get to you. They’ll let up on the dead guy stuff in a couple of days.”

  I nodded even though I wasn’t sure I believed him, and wandered off in the direction of math class.

  After school I was at Mr. R’s door as the last students were coming out of the room shrugging into coats and backpacks as they walked. Mr. R was sitting at his desk, writing something. I stayed at the door.

  “Uh, Mr. R? You wanted to see me?”

  He looked up. “Come in.”

  I walked in and stood in front of his desk waiting for him to finish what he was doing.

  Mr. R set his pen down, looked at me foe a few seconds before he said, “Sit down, Alamo.”

  I sat in the first desk of the row in front of Mr. R. I looked down at the surface of the desk. There was the usual graffiti: Physics Sucks, Danielle J is a slut, G.M. loves G.M. (I thought that one was a bit weird.)

  Mr. R stood up, came around the front of his desk, moved some papers, and sat on the edge. He wasn’t smiling but he didn’t look pissed off either.

  “I told you that one day I’d like to talk further about your loss in the wrestling regionals.”

  I’d kind of forgotten he’d said that. But I nodded. “I should’ve won.”

  “Yes, you should have. That was a missed opportunity.”

  He didn’t say anything more for a minute and I tried to figure out what he meant. I mean, sure I would have liked to win for me and for my school. Was that the opportunity I’d missed?

  “Do you remember the name of the boy you lost to?” Mr. R made the word “lost” sound like it was the worst thing anyone could do.

  I thought. “Uh … Epstein … Julius Epstein, I think.”

  “You think. I know. It was Epstein. We don’t lose to those people, Andy.”

  For the first time I wasn’t Alamo, I was Andy.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Or what exactly he was talking about.

  “The good thing is that there may be another opportunity coming up … a chance to redeem yourself and to strike back at all that they stand for.”

  The whole conversation was starting to feel weird. And I still wasn’t getting it. I tried to make my face look like everything was making perfect sense to me.

  “I’ve spoken to a couple of other people about the need to stand tall against the influence … the evil.” When he said “evil” he leaned forward and the word was a curse word, no other way to describe it. “And I’m speaking to you now because I have a good feeling about you — that you’re a team player. That I … that we all can count on you when the time is right. It’s important that you don’t miss this opportunity.”

  I nodded.

  “Thanks for stopping by, Alamo (I was Alamo again). I hope I didn’t keep you from something important.”

  “No, sir, you didn’t.” />
  He reached out and shook my hand … and smiled for the first time since he’d sat on the corner of the desk. He stood up, walked back around the desk, and returned to whatever it was he’d been doing. He didn’t look up at me again and I knew the conversation was over.

  When I got back outside I sat in the Biscayne for quite a while before I turned the ignition key. Trying to put things together. Mr. R hadn’t said who or what was evil. But Epstein was Jewish, I knew that. And the whole Holocaust discussion. My private chat with Mr. R fit in with that, didn’t it?

  Didn’t it?

  The one thing I was pretty sure about was the “couple of other people” Mr. R had spoken to. It had to be T-Ho and Rebel. In my head, I had a picture of the time I’d seen the three of them after school — talking, laughing. As for what the opportunity was, I had no clue. I figured it was something I’d find out later.

  When the time was right.

  Five

  My second date with Patti went okay considering I didn’t think there’d be a second date after the drive-Uncle-Herm’s-corpse-around-the-countryside episode. When girls think you’re weird and that you come from an even weirder family, they tend to delete your emails without replying. What made this date especially cool, though, was that it was sort of a surprise.

  I’d been thinking about trying out for the football team in grade eleven so I went to one of their games. The games are always on a Friday night — and this was the last game of the season. It wasn’t like the game actually meant anything. Our team was in about the middle of the pack (remember what I said about Parkerville being average?) and we had no hope of a playoff spot. We were playing the top team in the league and pretty much getting our butts handed to us.

  But that didn’t matter because Patti was at the game with two of her friends — two girls I’d seen at school but didn’t really know.

  Now all I had to do was get her away from the two friends and I’d be in business. My attempt to talk to Patti didn’t start well. The first thing out of one of the friend’s mouth was, “I don’t know about dating this guy, Patti. You could like, die right there in the car or something.”

  The good thing was Patti didn’t laugh. The even better thing was that her two pals had boyfriends on the team and when I suggested that I could take Patti home the two friends were all, like, yeah that would be so nice of you. No dead jokes then, not when they needed me to help them ditch the fifth wheel. I wondered what they’d have done if I hadn’t been at the game — leave Patti stranded in the bleachers? But who cared — it was Friday night and I was with her.

  We went to Dairy Queen.

  Patti wasn’t a big talker, not at first. Actually, I already knew that. I’d found out the first time I phoned her. There had been a lot of silence on her end of the line. I kept thinking I had to fill the empty space with words so I said some fairly stupid stuff, like giving her this totally graphic description of when my brother got sick from eating bad egg rolls. I bet she was like, Mom, if that guy ever phones again, tell him I’ve moved to Bangladesh.

  The next couple of times I phoned her I had some stuff written down in case I needed it. My first list had about six things on it but I stroked off a couple of them just before I phoned her — the play-by-play of replacing the clutch in the Biscayne and a story about Hennie’s mom’s boob job, which was pretty funny when Hennie told it but I wasn’t sure would be as good coming from me.

  But then Patti phoned me this one time and we talked (and she talked) like we hadn’t seen each other in two years. So I was kind of surprised when she went back to being Miss Quiet again in the DQ. But this time it wasn’t shyness, which is what I think was the deal with those first phone calls. This time, she looked like she was just really thinking about stuff.

  “What?” I said.

  “Hmmm … oh, nothing…, I mean, not nothing…, I just…”

  I think she would have told me if T-Ho and Rebel hadn’t walked in just then.

  They came over to our table before they even ordered. T-Ho looked at Patti and then at me. I was mostly looking at Rebel. It was the first time I’d seen him since before I’d had the flat tire on the Biscayne, except for at Uncle Herm’s funeral, which didn’t really count since I didn’t actually talk to any of The Six. Probably because their mouths were full the whole time.

  Rebel was wearing his toque — a different one, though; not black, more of a dark green. That meant I’d been right — the one I’d found at the Bidwell Plant site was his. I felt in the pocket of my jacket. It was still there.

  “Let me guess,” T-Ho gave us one of those ah-ha-I-caught-you looks. “You’ve been studying together.”

  I shook my head. “Mm-mm. Just drove around for a while. Then came here.”

  “Driving or parking, you stud?” T-Ho grinned at me.

  I felt my cheeks suddenly getting very hot. “Driving,” I said but I hated the wimpy way my voice sounded when I said it.

  Patti nodded like she was thinking T-Ho still didn’t believe me.

  Which he didn’t. “Whatever.”

  T-Ho and Rebel started for the counter.

  “Hey, T-Ho,” I called to him and he turned around. Looked at me … waiting. Like I was about to confess that Patti and I had been doing it in the grocery store parking lot.

  “That place we stopped that time — the plant that blew up? What was it called again?” I said it to T-Ho but I was watching Rebel. He didn’t look like he was paying attention to anything but his food order.

  “Bidwell. Bidwell Gas Plant.”

  “You never told us how you knew about that place.”

  “Who cares?” T-Ho shrugged. “What does it matter how I know about it?” He turned and walked up to the counter where Rebel was ordering a double-cheeseburger meal.

  Patti and I didn’t talk much while they were in there. I was hoping they wouldn’t decide to join us. I wasn’t sure how Patti would take them. Or how they’d take her. I mean, you could hardly find people more different than Patti and The Six. Maybe they’d kind of accept each other. Or maybe they wouldn’t.

  But it was okay. T-Ho and Rebel were getting takeout. I remembered you couldn’t roll down the driver’s side window in the Crap Wagon. No going to the drive-through in that car. That’s why they’d come inside.

  Even with T-Ho and Rebel in the restaurant, it was pretty quiet. There was no one else in the place except for three girls who looked about thirteen and ate like they were five. A lot of talking and chewing and food-spilling and laughing at the same time.

  Then T-Ho’s order came and he and Rebel started for the door. But just as they were going out, T-Ho stopped and looked over at me.

  “Somebody told me about it. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I kind of waved my burger in his direction. “Okay.”

  Rebel never looked our way at all. Patti and I talked about school stuff for a while and then I don’t know why but I told her about the time The Six and I had stopped at the ruins of the plant.

  It was strange — like I’d pressed the Totally Interested switch. She sat up and looked really intensely at me the whole time I was talking.

  “Have you ever heard of that place — the Bidwell Plant?” I asked.

  She started to shake her head but then she didn’t. “Yes, I have. Just recently. I’d never heard about it before that.”

  “Whoa, that’s a wild coincidence,” I said. “Did someone tell you about it?”

  She nodded.

  “Who?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  And that was it. I could see she didn’t want to talk about it anymore and I didn’t think a second date (that barely qualified as a real date already) was the time to push her on something.

  The rest of the night was all right. It wasn’t one of those laugh-a-minute dates, but I just liked being with Patti, even when she was in a quiet mood. When I took her home, things got pretty intense on the physical side, but for once I didn’t push that either. I think that was a good call
, because Patti seemed a little happier by the time she hopped out of the Biscayne and headed for the house.

  On the way home I thought a lot about Patti and a little about Rebel. Actually I thought about his toque. I was sure he’d had it on when we left the Bidwell Plant that first time with T-Ho and everybody, so that meant he must have gone to the ruins another time and somehow left his toque behind. I tossed that back and forth in my mind for a while. And Patti knew about the Bidwell Plant, too. I wondered if there was some connection. But nothing came to me right away and I went back to thinking about Patti.

  And me. Together. Like a couple.

  Sweet.

  Six

  It’s weird when a teacher in your school dies during the school year. I mean, not that it ever happened before. But there we were on a Thursday morning — everybody standing around the common area all going, “Did you hear about Mr. Saarkahn?” “Isn’t it awful?” People were hugging each other and a bunch of the girls were crying. Some kids were getting flowers and other stuff to put by the door of Mr. Saarkahn’s room.

  The thing is, it all felt a little too television for me. I know that makes me sound like a cold-hearted creep, especially after almost laughing in the middle of Uncle Herm’s funeral, but this just seemed wrong. I’d never had him for a teacher but I knew Mr. Saarkahn wasn’t real popular in our school. He was East Indian or Pakistani or something and I’d heard kids say he was pretty hard to understand. Some had said really unpleasant things about him or at least about his teaching. Now he’d had a heart attack while he was out jogging and right away there was a shrine happening and people who didn’t like the guy when he was alive were some of the loudest mourners.

  I’d seen him in the halls and the cafeteria a few times, but I hadn’t really thought about him very much at all, which is about how I figured most people in the school were when it came to Mr. Saarkahn. Except the ones who said the nasty stuff and did bad impersonations of his accent.