by Andrew Cotto
“Wrestling shoes — I won Nationals in them last year,” McCoy barked, somehow thickening his already thick neck. “They got stuff written on the side.”
“Yeah,” puny Jeff Chester jumped up to get his buddy’s back. This kid had come to Hamden from the same hometown in Ohio as McCoy. He wrestled smaller guys. Much smaller. Him I’d heard speak, plenty of times, in class where he asked more questions than a game show host. It wasn’t like he had anything to say, or was even interested in the subject. He was just one of those kids who had to hear his own voice as often as possible. I sat as far away from him as possible, and never ever looked at him outside of class. Now he was living in my dorm, standing in front of the room, and getting ready to do even more talking in his Ohioan twang. Super.
“We was taking a break from moving our things upstairs and left them over in that stairwell there for just, like, 20 minutes before they was gone.”
I didn’t know what they were feeding those kids in Ohio, but it definitely wasn’t brain food.
“Hold on now.” Mr. Wright stepped toward the two wrestlers with his hands up. “Are you absolutely certain?”
“Yeah,” McCoy confirmed, while Chester looked around the room for signs of guilt. Now this was funny, because the kid was, like, 5-and-half-feet, tops, and he couldn’t have weighed more than my mother, but people were actually intimidated by the little loudmouth, just because he was on the wrestling team. Heads started dropping all over the place.
Mr. Wright jumped on the opportunity to act like a teacher. “I see. I see,” he said. “These shoes, in the literary tradition, are more than just shoes. They’re symbols. They mean more than what they represent in the literal sense. They are trophies. Like the white whale in Moby Dick, or Daisy in Gatsby, or...” He continued to run through his list of symbols, but nobody listened. Heads stayed down as Chester continued his scan.
After what I’d been through back home, I wasn’t about to be scared by a pip-squeak with a cold stare, no matter who he hung around with so, when his eyes met mine, I shot him a wink and motioned with my head for him to move on. He didn’t smile or anything, just looked to my right and locked his eyes on the new black kid. Now this was interesting. I didn’t think anyone would say anything out loud about skin color being a big deal or anything, but even more tension entered the room as Chester stared at the only black face in the crowd. Terence King from Houston just sat there, though, staring at his sneakers, messing with his fingernails. Chester crossed his arms and waited. What a tool, that Chester.
Mr. Wright finally stopped his symbolism lecture, and the silence was worse than his words. I swear. A real shift spread throughout the room; you could feel it, like in the movies when nothing is really happening on the screen, but the music changes and the tension builds and builds and builds until you can’t stand it anymore because you know something is about to go down. Terence King from Houston must have felt it, too (about time). He picked up his head and looked around. All the eyes darted away until he came to Chester, who held his gaze.
“The hell you looking at?” Terence King asked.
“Wha-whad’you say?” Chester stammered back.
“You heard me,” Terence said, sitting up.
With proper posture, this guy, Terence, was even taller than he’d seemed all slouched on the couch.
“Oh no, no, no!” Mr. Wright insisted, stepping in front of Chester with both hands up like a traffic cop. “No, no, no!” he said again. Some authority figure. He should have gone back to his lecture on symbolism and bored us into a coma.
Big Boy McCoy side-stepped Mr. No-No-No and bore his eyes down on Terence.
Terence twisted up his face and glared back at McCoy. “Oh, you want some of this?” he asked, rising beside me on his long legs. This all happened fast. Too fast. Sitting right next to Terence, I could feel his energy start to snowball. His hands flexed, his nostrils flared for air, and his shoulders jerked. He, for the first time, checked out all the strange faces in the room. He must have felt very alone.
There was a hint of body odor from the jolt of adrenalin that swirls in the moments before a fight. McCoy studied Terence for a second, then stepped toward him. The room practically burst into flames.
Like most everybody else, I hated fights. They were one of the worst things in the world. Your heart throbs and bloods rushes your brain, and your mouth goes dry in an instant, and you can’t find your breath no matter how hard you try, and all you want, all you want in the world, is to be anywhere but where you are right then, standing there with your body bailing out and your brain cursing you for ever having fooled yourself into believing that fighting was a good idea. But unlike most everybody else, I knew, no matter how it seemed at the moment, a fight wasn’t the end of the world. You survived either way, and you lost either way, and hopefully you were able to avoid such situations in the future by minding your own business, which was my new motto: Mind Your Own Business. And even though I was in the perfect position to help, I sat back and watched. And what I saw was pretty amazing.
Nobody knew what to do. Bodies bumped into each other trying to get out of the way, or separate the guys anxious to fight. Couch legs squealed across the waxy floors, and you could hear people moan and gasp because they wanted to run away but had nowhere to go. Poor Sammie backpedaled into the corner and hugged himself like he was next on McCoy’s hit list.
Tiny Chester tried to sneak around the crowd, but was held down by a few guys smart enough to keep busy with a safe and easy job. A group by us, on the couches in back, stood up and kept Terence from going anywhere as he jabbed a finger and shouted threats over their heads. McCoy, no master of language, passed on the verbal part of the program and moved around the common area furniture. He plowed through the crowd, and it seemed certain he was going to get to Terence and was only a few scared separators away when Mr. Wright — in possibly the boldest move ever attempted in the history of literature/drama teachers — removed his glasses, stepped onto a couch, and leaped through the air onto McCoy’s massive back. I swear.
McCoy staggered forward but didn’t fall, then shrugged Mr. Wright to the floor, bringing everything to a halt. Everyone circled around poor Mr. Wright, who was on the ground and not moving. It was a heavy few seconds, thinking about an adult being hurt, and the reality of reporting to the headmaster that our dorm master had been knocked cold during the first meeting of the year. Great start. But Mr. Wright moved, and everybody began to breathe again. Once on his feet, he pulled his sweater over his exposed belly and, with wild eyes, ordered, “Everyone to their rooms until dinner!”
Cool with me, I thought. Time for some tunes.
Chapter 2
From the second story window of my single room, I could see most of campus. The small field in front was empty. The skirtwearing hockey players, with their wooden sticks, must have climbed up the hill beyond the other sideline and returned to their dorms. Being the first day of school, everyone had to be back for a 4:00 orientation. I figured the other meetings had probably gone better than ours had.
To the right of the field, an asphalt path split the backside of campus and sloped up toward the main buildings. The stone, ivy-covered monster in the middle spread across the ridge. Our dining hall was on the first floor, and the younger girls slept upstairs below the slanted roof that shimmered in the afternoon sun.
A patch of trees, just past the field, blocked from view the glass corridor that connected the dining hall to the administrative wing, where more ivy climbed over more stone to where even more girls slept upstairs. The other end of the administration building neighbored the unofficial center of campus — the Arch — which appropriately arched in brick over the campus’s only road before connecting to the mail room. Below the mail room was The Canteen, the only place on campus to get a decent bite to eat.
To the right of The Can, and closer to home, I could see the white spire of the Chapel just past the roof of the old Victorian that housed the fourth-year women. Even closer was the bac
k of the gymnasium complex, divided into brick and cement compartments. And right next to Montgomery, off the bend in the path, was the other dorm for fourth-year guys, Carlyle House, an identical rectangle of cinder block, glass, and not a bit of charm, built back in the ’70s when Hamden Academy (thankfully) went coed.
There was more to the campus, like the academic building opposite The Can, and the new Language Arts building across the field to the left of Montgomery. Beyond sight from my window were the old wooden dorms over the hill, where the younger kids lived. I was glad not to be in those dorms anymore. I was a fourth-year student, on the back side of the school grounds, living all alone in a dynamite room that looked over the campus like I owned it.
I turned from the window when the music began, called by the notes of an electric guitar going ’round and ’round and ’round. Then an organ hummed and drums joined in with a boom-rollcrash! A saxophone smoothed out the melody: ba-da-vum–voom, ba-da-vum—voom, ba-da-vum—voom, ba-da-vum—voom…
I shot across the floor with the opening verse of “Rosalita (Come out Tonight).” It had been awhile since I’d jammed along with my favorite Springsteen song, but the news about my backstabbing roommate not being at school was reason enough to try and coax old Rosie out of her room. I rocked out in front of the closet mirror in nothing but black bikini briefs. A push-up routine, picked up over the summer, had given some shape to my shoulders and chest, but I was still pretty much a noodle with nipples, to tell the truth.
I raked a hand through my black hair, letting it separate in the middle and layer into place, over the top and down the back where it hid my thick scar. My head had been busted in Queens, and my heart torn apart at Hamden last year, but I raised my fist and imagined myself a rock star on stage. I got chills thinking about all those people cheering for me, but I’d pretty much given up on being adored by the crowd. All I needed to save my last year as a high school kid was a couple of solid friends and someone to love. And touch. All over. That’s all. Everyone else could leave me alone. My fourth year had started off pretty good: no friend-turned-enemy in my room, solid Sammie next door, Meeks and Grohl on the first floor. Best of all, I had a someone to love. My Brenda Divine was across campus by now, I figured, safely in her room in the Victorian dorm.
The only problem on my plate was getting a tie fastened by 6:00. Dinner at Hamden Academy was a mandatory, semi-formal affair and, even after a year’s practice, I couldn’t get the knots just right without trying 10 times. So, while dancing around in my undies, I strung the first tie around my neck and worked a knot while The Boss and I continued to woo Rosie with promises of skipping school, playing pool, and being cool... staying out all night.
My tie was in place for the best part of the song, when the whole band, together as one, claps and yells about Rosie’s papa thinking that I’m no good. I danced on the mattress of my no-show nemesis in tie-bouncing near-nakedness, back in front of the makebelieve crowd as the energy built and the big news got dropped on Rosie’s old man. Two lines into the song’s final frenzy, I whirled to find a real-life audience standing in the doorway: Dorm Master Mr. Wright and Terence King from Houston.
“Hello, Daniel,” Mr. Wright droned over the blaring music. He had a hand on his hip and a face with no patience. “Sorry to interrupt your little performance, but I’ve been knocking for ages.” I stayed on top of the bed, still rocking a little from both momentum and shame.
It wasn’t too often that I was speechless, but being busted in nothing but a paisley necktie and eye-patch underwear had my tongue tied. I stepped from the mattress, walked across the room, put an end to the music, and returned with my wits.
“What’s with the pants?” I asked, with my hands out to the side.
Mr. Wright shook his head and entered with the stone-faced boy from Texas. I motioned for them to sit on the bare bed while I scrambled into some dinner clothes. Then I faced them from the opposite bunk, all of us with elbows on our knees, positioned for a serious discussion.
“Now, Daniel,” Mr. Wright began after adjusting his glasses and taking a giant breath. “As you are aware, we had an unfortunate incident at our meeting today, involving Mr. King here and the two other boys.”
“Mr. King” had his eyes on the floor. He had round cheeks, puffy like ravioli, but a sharp, clenched jaw. He scratched and matted the tight waves on his head. He had on some untied white high-tops, oversized designer jeans, and one of those short-sleeved alligator shirts.
“Danny,” I said, sticking out my hand.
“Terence,” he responded with a deep voice, his long arm reaching mine across the open floor. He pushed out his purple lips and squinted before turning his eyes down and away.
“Well,” Mr. Wright continued, “it’s my responsibility to oversee such matters, and considering no blows were actually exchanged, or even attempted, I’ve decided not to report this matter as a fight per se, but only as inappropriate behavior.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“It means that the potential pugilists won’t have to face the headmaster with the possibility of expulsion, but instead must accept the punishment as determined by me — two weeks of Sunrises.”
“Ohhh!” I reared back, thinking of those clever-named but brutal 6 a.m. detention session. “At least it ain’t February,” I said to Terence.
He gave me about half a second of eye contact before turning away.
“Of course,” Mr. Wright continued, “this leniency comes with promises from each to refrain from any subsequent confrontations. Isn’t that right, Mr. King?”
“Yep,” he answered, then took a turn studying the white-paneled ceiling with cheap tube lighting.
“We all know the consequences will be dire if there is such an event,” Mr. Wright said, with all the authority a tired, flabby English/drama teacher could drum up. “And considering all three are scholarship students here, I feel it would be best to keep them as separate as possible to avoid any embarrassment for the school, as well.”
“You got a scholarship?” I asked Terence.
He smirked. I was impressed (with the scholarship, not the smirk). I turned back to Mr. Wright, thinking of the usual so-called students who hogged all the scholarships.
“What are those guys doing here anyway?” I asked.
“Pardon me?”
“Those guys. The wrestlers. What are they doing here?” I asked with raised palms. “I thought they had their own dorm or something.”
“The floor in the underclass dorm, previously allocated for the wrestling team, is being utilized to accommodate a significant increase in the student body.”
“Hey, good for Hamden,” I said with a shrug.
“Yes,” Mr. Wright agreed. “The headmaster is very pleased.”
“Too bad for us,” I added with a wink. I was a pretty good winker, too.
“Truly,” he agreed under his breath.
“You ever think about joining up with those guys?” I asked Mr. Wright. “That was some move you pulled down there.”
Now both of my guests had the straight face going.
“OK, OK, I get it,” I said. “So you want Terry to move in here-”
“Terence,” Terry said.
“What?”
“Name’s Terence,” he said, a note lower on bass.
“Whatever you want,” I agreed before turning back to Mr. Wright. “So you want Terence here to move in with me to be on a different floor than the guys upstairs.”
“Bravo,” Mr. Wright said, with his own brand of sarcasm. Not bad.
“What about the other singles?” I protested. “I know Sammie, right next door, has a single, too.”
“Well, with you being the star of the basketball team-”
“Nah, nah, nah,” I interrupted. “I’m not the star of the basketball team! I bite at basketball. You must be thinking of baseball. It’s baseball I’m good at. That’s how you knew who I was, right? Because we had a good season last year and they gave me t
hat award at dinner and everything. Remember?”
His flat face convinced me he wasn’t searching through any memory files. “You were on the basketball team last year, correct?” he asked mechanically.
“Yeah, but only because I had to do two sports. Not this year. No way.”
“Are you making this intentionally difficult for me, Daniel?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a little but I’m also setting the record straight.”
“Consider it an arrow,” he said, standing to signal the end of our discussion.
“One more thing there, Mr. Wright…”
“What’s that, Daniel?”
“Danny,” I said. “I go by Danny, and I’m wondering who else this has been unfortunate for?”
“Pardon?”
“You said before that ‘we’ had an unfortunate incident, and I’m wondering who this has been unfortunate for besides me and him?” I flashed Terence one of my winks, but he didn’t seem all that impressed. Tough crowd.
“Juh swee tro fat-e-gay,” Mr. Wright moaned on his way out.
Once he hit the stairwell, I turned to Terence and poked my thumb toward the door.
“Did he just say he was fat and gay?” I asked.
“Fatigue,” he said with the appropriate accent, “means tired in French.”
“I was gonna say,” I shrugged.
With fists jammed into his pockets, Terence strolled over to the window. “It’s that bullshit about overseeing I got a problem with. That and him being the dorm master.”
“Say that again?”
“Never mind,” he said, repeating the “Jccth” sound he seemed so crazy about. On a trunk between the desks sat my small CD player. Terence poked a button and the lid flew open.
“So, ah,” I asked, reminded of my recent embarrassment, “you into Springsteen or what?”
“Nope,” he said and stared out the window.
Pebbles bounced off the glass. Terence stepped back and faced me.
“Oh, those are my guys,” I said. “You going to dinner? You can come with us, but you gotta get dressed first.”
