by C. W. Trisef
What’s more, his nose was crooked, which made everything else on his face look uneven. He was an exceptionally scrawny man, especially in the legs, with a waist that seemed to come up higher than normal. While most of his fellow educators sported a business-casual sort of style, Mr. Quirk preferred his own unique manner of dress, which the students called business-ridiculous. On this particular day, for instance, his outfit consisted of an ivory-colored t-shirt and a pair of light blue jeans that must have been sewn out of scraps of Saran wrap, so tightly they adhered to his bony legs. The getup would have scored as one of his more modest costumes had it not been for the green cardigan. It was the kind with oval patches on the elbows and a single row of fringe that dangled along the span of each forearm, although the multicolored frills hung in such irregular intervals that they looked more like the accumulation of a lifelong collection of streamers from the handlebars of little children’s tricycles. Rather than read the assigned chapter, Ret found it more interesting to see if the fringe on Mr. Quirk’s coat contained every color of visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum, about which he had recently learned in science class. When the beloved dismissal bell rang, Mr. Quirk remained at his desk, saying not a word of farewell, too engrossed in his own thoughts, whatever they may be.
“See you at your house before the game, Ana,” Paige said as she went her separate way through the crowd of students, spilling out of their classes like a colony of disturbed ants.
“Game?” Ret asked.
“The football game,” Ana said as if he should have known. “You know, the rivalry football game that everyone’s been talking about for, like, a month now? It’s only the biggest game of the season. Don’t worry; I already bought tickets for us.”
“Us?” Ret cringed.
“Us; it means you and me,” she said in jest. “And Paige is coming, too.”
“But, Ana,” Ret fussed, “you know I’m not really into sports.”
“Just because you can beat just about anyone in just about anything doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time at a high school football game,” Ana told him. “And besides, everyone knows you don’t go to a football game for the sport of it.”
“Then why do you go?” Ret wondered.
“To scope out the guys, of course.” Ret should have known. “At least, that’s why Paige and I go. And that’s why you need to come.” Ana noticed that Ret did not understand; she made it more obvious. “So Paige will come, too.” Ana smiled as she pulled away from Ret, leaving him to contemplate what she had insinuated.
Later that afternoon, Ret sat outside on the porch and patiently waited for Ana and Paige to at last be ready to go to the football game. He passed the time by watching nature as it changed its scenery. Nature’s cyclical behavior was astonishing to Ret, as he contemplated the four seasons. He particularly enjoyed the times of year when his hemisphere would bounce into spring or fall into autumn. He thought of the seasons as nature’s very own changing of the guard, each with its own unique style of guardianship. Nature’s autumnal sentinel had already begun to wield its sword on Tybee Island, the shards of its seasonal swinging appearing everywhere: in cooler air that nipped summer garb back into storage; in clusters of brittle leaves and strands of Spanish moss, blown from the limbs of trees by the more prevalent winds; in acorns that rattled rooftops as they fell like hailstones from ancient oaks.
Ret could almost feel the elements rotating shifts as the curtain closed on their respective acts in earth’s year-long play. Spring’s delicacies buckle under summer’s heat; summer’s vibrancies fade into fall’s bareness; autumn’s fatigue crawls into winter’s hibernation; winter’s chill melts into spring’s warm colors—all coexisting in perfect harmony and not a single thing trying to dominate a scene, disrupt an act, or steal the show. Ret could feel it; he sensed it all.
* * * * *
The roar of the crowd could be heard from the street as Pauline dropped the trio off at the football game.
“Have a good time,” she yelled to them from the car.
“Oh, Mrs. Cooper,” Paige said, suddenly remembering something. “My dad told me he’d like to pick us up after the game, if that’s okay with you.” Pauline looked a bit surprised, but it was nothing compared to the shocked faces of Ret and Ana.
“Well…” Pauline replied slowly, as if at a loss for words. “Well, that’s fine with me, but may I ask as to the occasion? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mr. Coy in public—”
“I know,” Paige interrupted, slightly embarrassed. “I asked him to.”
“Very well,” Pauline said. “Now, go have fun, you three.”
“Got it, Mom,” Ana said.
“See you, Mrs. Cooper,” Paige said.
“Thanks, Pauline,” Ret said to their chauffeur, whose encouraging smile was enough to prevent him from crawling back into the car.
Ret so thoroughly detested attending tonight’s football game—no matter how eternally significant everyone made it seem—that he almost wished to instead be sitting in English class, enduring a monotonous lecture on yet another Shakespearean soliloquy. This was not because he was shy or timid or because he feared hard seats or loud noises; neither was it due to any personal bias toward jocks or cheerleaders or imposing crowds. In fact, he relished athletic activities and any form of physical recreation, they being his sole source of social interaction prior to his enrollment in school this year. The neighborhood youth once welcomed Ret in their pick-up games and unorganized sports, mostly on account of his large stature, but he needed only one match to prove his invaluableness. He immediately became the first-pick at team-making time, and every boy and girl wished to be on his side, as it most certainly meant victory.
But soon, Ret frowned at an unexpected turn of events. He fell from his top-pick status to not being picked at all. Word on the street placed an unofficial ban on Ret from all after-school pastimes and spontaneous athletics. Even Ana managed to excuse herself increasingly more often from Ret’s sporty petitions, whether involving game boards or sport courts. She told him that no one likes to play against someone who always wins—that everyone needs to lose once in a while. But Ret did not understand, for he played to make friends and have fun, never to win or to lose. He struggled to comprehend his peers’ competitiveness. From the sidelines, he was troubled to watch such an intangible force pit allies against each other and turn friend into foe. Wondering where such a demon could have originated, Ret ruled out nature as a possible birthplace, for, as he had noticed, all things work together in perfect union in the natural world. It was true, he knew, that some elements and compounds were superior to others, but Ret was also aware that their individual constitutions and inborn functions were far too different and much too varied to warrant any comparability.
Hence the lens through which Ret viewed the world: every person as a unique element in a globalized mixture, each performing an essential function—a function that no other element could adequately perform.
“We’re winning! We’re winning!” Ana announced as they neared the entrance to the stadium, the scoreboard now within sight. She handed three tickets to the young woman who stood at the turnstile to collect them.
“Hi, Ret,” the ticket taker charmed. “How’s Tybee High treating you so far?”
“Uh, good,” Ret replied, though confused why she was speaking to him.
“Better than your first day, I reckon,” she joked, laughing daintily.
“Yeah.”
“Save me a seat?” she asked as she slipped his torn ticket stub into his shirt pocket.
“Umm, sure,” Ret promised, assuming it to be the gentlemanly thing to do.
“Come on, Ret,” Ana said loudly, pulling him along. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to find THREE empty seats in this sellout crowd.” She yanked Ret into her private huddle. “Who do you think you are, Mr. Suave?”
“What do you mean?” he wondered.
“I mean, what are you doing, flirting with a gir
l like her?”
“Flirting?” Ret tried to clarify.
“She’s trouble,” Ana informed. “You don’t want to get mixed up with the wrong crowd, Ret. Now promise me you’ll try harder to stay out of trouble?”
“I promise,” Ret agreed. “But Ana,” he continued, smiling, “everyone knows you don’t go to a football game for the sport of it.”
“Oh, brother,” she said, rolling her eyes and poorly suppressing a smile of her own.
Like a fearless war general, Ana led her few but mighty troops into the stands. Ret left it to Ana to find space for three on the congested bleachers, especially since it was her idea to arrive fashionably late. He regretted his lack of input, however, when Ana pointed to a small sliver of bench on the topmost row near the middle of the grandstand, a spot that appeared to have room enough for maybe one.
“Come on,” she motioned, starting up the stairs. As the trio made their ascent, the surrounding crowd couldn’t help but notice Ret instead of the game.
“Hey, look! It’s Ret Cooper,” said one hushed voice.
“You mean that guy from the first day of school?” said another.
“He’s in my English class.”
“What’s up with his skin?”
“I think he’s cute.”
Then a familiar voice was heard nearby: “You should see his eyes,” said Harvey Ledbetter. “They’re so weird!”
“Not as weird as you, Bedwetter,” Ana rebuked as she strode past Harvey.
By the time they arrived in the nosebleed section and wiggled into their chosen gap, the players of the game had been supplanted by dancers of some halftime show, in which Ret quickly lost interest. Instead, he surveyed his surroundings: the setting sun that found reflection in the sea of sunglasses that was the other half of the stadium; the balding patches on the grassy field where play most commonly took place; the feigned friendship between rivals’ fans, forced to intermingle in order to procure their midgame treats at the snack bar.
At the base of his section of bleachers, Ret spotted the face of his ticket-taker. Scanning the stands, Ret assumed she was searching for him. Rubbing her bare arms in futile defiance of the chilly breeze, her fairness was now muffled by the twilight. Despite Ana’s warning, she scarcely seemed like a troublemaker. Ret shifted his gaze toward Ana; she and Paige were still captivated by the halftime presentation. Just as Ret was about to reveal his whereabouts, the ticket collector was wooed by a group of young men seated in front of her. Ret recognized them as the same rough crowd who tried to entreat Ana and Paige when they purposely hurried past them just moments earlier. Like so many others, their patronage obviously stemmed from an ulterior motive, and Ret was beginning to wonder if anyone attended sporting events for the sake of the actual game.
“Told you so,” Ana said soberly to Ret, who had long since been convinced that Ana possessed additional sets of eyes, so miraculously was she able to observe multiple scenes simultaneously.
Ret spent the better part of the third quarter deep in thought. Over the last ten months, he had quickly mastered anything and everything that he had ever attempted, and still, despite his dexterous hands and agile mind, there was yet one mystery that he could not quite put his finger on—there was still one puzzle that he had yet to conquer: people.
Too fickle to figure out and too mercurial to demystify, Ret had always assumed people to be good by nature. He did more than merely look for the best—he found it; and rather than bestow the benefit of the doubt, he chose not to doubt at all. Perhaps it was a flaw of his naivety. Maybe it was the overriding quality of his utopian universe. Or, most probable, it was the aura of innocence radiating from his own good-naturedness. He saw in others what he himself was.
But, with eyes opened wider by public school and heart now burdened by his associations with the ticket-taker, Ret decided that it was high time to realign his people paradigm. For the first time, he entertained the idea that not all people were as pure and unadulterated as he was—that some elements in this globalized mixture called the world could be manipulated for dark purposes.
“Hey, isn’t that what’s his bucket?” Ana pointed to a squirming referee on the opposite sideline who was clutching one of the bright orange end poles of the first down measuring chain.
“It’s Mr. Quirk!” a surprised student yelled from a few rows below, several others vocalizing their amazement in like manner.
“What’s Quirk doing on the field?” Ana wanted to know. At the end of the play, Mr. Quirk scurried onto the field with his chain gang, resembling a spunky ball boy shagging tennis balls at a Wimbledon match. Thanks to Ana’s eagle eyes, the audience now had something to entertain them, as the victor of the game had now become certain.
“Who thinks I should call the police and tell them that one of their prisoners escaped?” Harvey Ledbetter proclaimed, raising his cell phone in the air. His wisecrack in reference to the referee’s traditional black- and white-striped uniform earned him a few cheers.
“Well that’s not very nice,” Paige said quietly, though loudly enough for Ret to overhear. Ret slowly turned his head to face her. Not only were these the first words he heard from her since bidding farewell to Pauline, but Ret was also relieved and impressed to discover Paige to be of his increasingly rare breed of compassionate peacemakers. Feeling Ret’s gaze, Paige’s cheeks blushed as her head sunk between her shoulders.
“Hey, Bedwetter,” Ana called out, “prisoners wear horizontal stripes, not vertical.” Her correction was greeted by a heartier round of applause than the original jab. Harvey lowered his phone in embarrassed defeat.
When the clock finally expired, a flood of fans fled the stands and rushed the field. Ana seized the opportunity to grab her companions, slip down the bleachers, and beat the crowd to the parking lot where Paige’s father was likely awaiting them. During their descent, Ret’s curiosity was sparked when he saw Mr. Quirk conversing in a most suspicious manner with the ticket-taker and her clique of hoodlums. He wondered why they, of all people, were taking Mr. Quirk so seriously and why he, of all adults, would have anything to do with such a group. Ret watched the post-game huddle disperse before it escaped from view when he set foot on ground level.
En route to the parking lot, the trio took the path behind the bleachers, finding it to be much less gridlocked than any alternate way through the field, now sardined with celebratory fans. They dodged debris and other fallen litter as they shuffled along the earthen trail. Emerging from the shadows at the approaching end of the grandstand were the silhouettes of two hooded figures. Realizing them to be part of the same meddlesome gang that had tried to get their attention earlier, Ana and Paige instinctively wrapped themselves more securely in their jackets and lengthened their strides, making certain to avoid eye contact. The two suspicious individuals positioned themselves, shoulder to shoulder, in the middle of the walkway, blocking the narrow exit into the parking lot. Ana and Paige slowed to a snail’s pace, unsure of what to do and unwilling to inch any nearer. With faces hidden and voices mute, the two dark figures began to advance toward the frightened females.
Ret knew that it was up to him and him alone to protect his sister and her friend from whatever might happen next. With no time to lose, Ret jumped in front of Ana and Paige and faced the approaching villains.
“Stop right there!” he ordered, extending both arms. With the palms of his hands turned toward the intruders, Ret was clueless as to his next move, and the unabated march of the antagonists sent his heart racing. Then, in the blink of an eye, Ret felt a wave of energy enter his frame from the ground. Like lightning, the pulse jolted up his body, darted down his arms, and surged into his hands. From the ground near his feet, two parallel streams of dirt raced up to his hands, then straight towards the two attackers, pummeling them like a gush from a fire hydrant. The brief but geyser-like spouts buried their immobilized victims in earth. Amazed, Ret slowly turned his palms toward his wide-eyed face. One of the scars on his right han
d was glowing.
“Caught red-handed,” a jittery voice hissed from the shadows. A referee stepped into the afterglow of dusk. It was Ronald Quirk.
“You know, I really got to hand it to you…” he said, his continued pun giving him the giggles. He slithered over to the scene of the commotion, planting one foot on the buried torso of one of the attackers. “Never, in a million years, would I have guessed that your gifts would have surfaced to you so quickly.”
“Quirk!” Principal Stone appeared on the scene. “What goes on here?”
“Ah, Lester!” Mr. Quirk saluted. “Always a man of dramatic entrances, and oh, what splendid timing, yes, quite apropos…”
“Ronald, we must be going,” Principal Stone advised.
