Beyond the Chocolate War

by Robert Cormier

  The kid didn’t stop walking and called over his shoulder: “She’s home. She’s been home two days.”

  “Oh,” Obie said stupidly, mouth hanging open, the taste of rain bitter on his tongue.

  “I don’t think she likes you anymore,” her brother said, not viciously but with the uncluttered honesty of a twelve-year-old kid.

  Obie did not reply, said nothing, stood miserable and abandoned, all the lights in the world dimmed and dying, knowing in the deep places of his being that he had lost Laurie Gundarson forever.

  PART THREE

  The heat wave came without warning. In May, for crying out loud. Out of season, too early, arriving before the body was prepared, blood too thick, skin too pale. The heat rose from the streets and sidewalks as the sun hammered at the earth without mercy, shimmering from budding trees and flowering shrubs.

  The heat turned the Trinity student body into a sluggish army of sleepwalkers. The exhilaration of the seniors, aware that final days had arrived and that classes were meaningless now, was muted by the waves of heat and humidity that moved indolently across the campus. Posters plastered to corridor walls and classroom bulletin boards announcing the coming of Fair Day, the last event of the year, were met with indifferent stares or yawns.

  Archie loved the heat. He loved it because other people were so uncomfortable, sweating and groaning, stalking through the heavy air as if their shoes were made of lead.

  He had many ways of avoiding the blistering temperatures. Keeping cool thoughts. Controlling his emotions. Laying low. No Vigil meetings or activities. His leadership of the Vigils was a thing of delicate calibration, and he knew instinctively when to call meetings, to adjourn them, or to allow the Vigil members to go their way. Like now. Knowing everyone’s discomfort, knowing they would resent any extra effort, any assignment.

  The heat also took the pressure off current events. Although maintaining a reserved attitude, Archie had as usual been keen-eyed without seeming to be, watching, observing. Two targets of observation, Obie and Carter, seemed like twins. Both walking trancelike, preoccupied with their thoughts and worries. Which meant they would be unlikely to do anything foolish or threatening. At certain moments Archie was a bit apprehensive—what was going on inside Obie? Was he plotting revenge in a quiet way or merely accepting his fate? Carter was easier to read. The swaggering athlete had turned into a shoulders-hunched, narrow-eyed specimen these days, like a hunted creature, passing quickly by, not talking to anybody. Archie knew what was going on inside him and delighted in the knowledge. Let him stew awhile in his thoughts and fry in the heat. Time enough to take care of Carter, the traitor, in his own way. Meanwhile, Carter was torturing himself—a sweet Archie touch, letting the victim be his own torturer. All in all, Archie found a certain satisfaction in the heat wave.

  The heat did not touch Caroni, either.

  He had erected a screen around himself, invisible obviously, which the heat could not penetrate. Neither could anything else in this world.

  His world was without seasons. And, thus, without weather. He operated beautifully in this atmosphere, his mind clear and sharp, a thing apart from his body. He marveled at the way he responded to the necessities of life, performing his silly but necessary duties as a student, son, brother. He could perform so well because he knew that he would not have to do so forever. He knew there was a moment when the command would be given, and events would be set in motion.

  David was drawn incessantly to the parlor and the piano. The parlor was cool, windows closed, curtains drawn, isolated from the rest of the world. David raised the piano lid, sounding middle C. Waiting. For an echo? He didn’t know.

  He was a bit afraid of the piano, the keys grinning at him in the shadowed room. As he was staring at the keys one afternoon, a thought occurred to him. Transmitted somehow from the piano to himself. The thought was actually an image. A knife. The butcher knife his father used on occasion for big roasts and turkeys. He checked to see if the butcher knife was in the special drawer with the other kitchen utensils. He touched the knife, ran his finger across the blade, and announced: “Yes, I found it.” He did not know whom he had said his words to. But knew that someone, something, had heard him. And that he was drawing closer to the time of the command.

  Thus, in the heat, David Caroni waited. For the signal. Knew it must come soon. He didn’t mind waiting, he didn’t mind the heat. Every day he went into the cool parlor and stood near the piano, waiting.

  The heat always made Emile Janza horny. Actually he was almost always horny, but the heat intensified his feelings. Girls dressed flimsily in the heat, of course, wearing sleeveless, see-through blouses, brief skirts, or short shorts that exposed their bodies beautifully.

  Other things made him horny as well, something he noticed increasingly as time went on. He noticed it first in football during plays in which he tackled his opponents bruisingly and without mercy. A distinct wave of sexual pleasure swept him on these occasions. Sometimes when he engaged in a scuffle in the parking lot—Trinity was a very physical place—he would be instantly aroused. He had felt that kind of swift pleasure last fall when he had faced the Renault kid in the boxing ring, and even earlier when he had beat him up in the woods behind the school. Those were beautiful moments, really.

  The beauty had returned the other day when he spotted Renault in the park. Sitting on the lawn with his creepy friend whose name Emile did not know. Spotting Renault, recognizing him even from that distance, he was surprised to find he had returned to Monument. Janza had heard the kid had run off to Canada, afraid he might get beat up again. And now he was back. Asking for more trouble. Janza was tempted to tell Archie Costello about Renault’s return. Then decided against it. He wanted to keep Renault for himself.

  Now, in the heat, in his house, nobody home, Janza picked up the telephone book. Looked up the R’s. Felt nice and sexy.

  Flipping the pages, he found Rathburn … Raucher … Red Cross Hdqtrs … Reed, and, finally, Renault. Two Renaults in the book. Easy to check out.

  Renault, that little jerk. He should not have come back to Monument. He should have stayed in Canada.

  Sudden booming thunderstorms interrupted the hammering of the heat. The skies exploded with thunder, split radiantly with lightning. Rain sluiced down as if from giant faucets turned on full force. Steam hissed from the concrete pavement as rain drummed on heated surfaces. Gutters overflowed, debris bobbed along like tiny boats to the catch basins and sewers. Drippings from the edges of buildings and trees struck like a thousand small water tortures. Or so it seemed to Obie, who was undergoing a special kind of torture. The torture of losing Laurie.

  It had taken a few days to track Laurie down after her brother had disclosed the news of her return to Monument. The telephone route still did not work: she was never at home when he called or, at least, did not come to the phone. Making his way wearily through the steaming streets, he stood watch in front of Monument High, checked out her friends, all those Debbies and Donnas who regarded him with blank faces as if they had never seen him before, giving him no information whatever. Laurie? She was here a minute ago. Or Haven’t seen her for, oh, two or three days. He hounded bus stops and the stores in the vicinity of the school, moist with sweat, eyes stinging from the relentless sun, itchy and sniffling, realizing with dismay and disgust that he had somehow caught a cold. He sneezed three times in succession—maybe an allergy? Catching a cold in a heat wave would be the final indignity.

  His vigil was finally rewarded when he saw her emerging from Baker’s Drugstore (he had missed her going in) and walking to a mailbox, where she slid a letter into the slot. A farewell letter to him, saying good-bye forever? Not even that. A renewal of her subscription to Seventeen, she told him.

  On a busy sidewalk with the smell of bus exhaust fouling the heavy air, one of her girl friends, a blonde with bangs that almost covered her eyes, waiting near a yellow fire hydrant, a screaming child being pushed in a baby carriage while a yo
ung mother licked a melting strawberry ice cream cone, that was where Laurie Gundarson said good-bye to Obie. No throbbing background music, no hushed intimacy. Her eyes told him the truth before she said a word, her expression distant, as if her mind was on more important matters than Obie’s plight. He could have been a beggar asking for a handout, somebody passing out leaflets, a stranger asking directions. She answered his questions—he couldn’t remember afterward what words he’d used, what questions he’d asked—in monosyllables, patiently, as if talking to someone slightly retarded. Until she said: “Obie, it’s over.” Addressing him at last directly, recognizing him as a person.

  A kid on a skateboard zipped by, brushing Obie’s sleeve, spinning away.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “A million things,” she said. “God, it’s hot.” Touching a stray strand of hair. “But mostly because I don’t feel anything anymore. Nothing.”

  “Was it because of what happened that night?”

  She shook her head. “That was bad, Obie. And I always thought your creepy friends at Trinity did it. But don’t blame them. Blame me.” She looked around, as if the words she wanted were written in a store window or on the side of a passing bus. “I don’t know. It was all too physical. We hardly knew each other—”

  “We went out four weeks,” Obie said. “More than that. Thirty-one days …”

  Laurie lifted her shoulders, dropped them. Christ, she acted bored.

  “I don’t believe what you’re doing, Laurie. People just don’t fall out of love like that—”

  “Who said it was love?” she asked.

  “You did. More than once.”

  “Love … it’s just a word,” she said.

  He wiped his nose, jammed the damp Kleenex into his pocket, and braced himself. Then asked the question he had been dreading to ask:

  “Was it all that stuff about Archie Costello? And that secret society?”

  She looked away. “I knew you were lying, Obie. I knew you were a part of it. One of the … bunch.” Had she almost said stooges? “I heard all about the dirty tricks you guys played on people.”

  “Okay, okay. But after we met, after we started going together, things were different. I was breaking away—”

  “But you didn’t, did you? You still belonged, still served your lord and master, that monster Archie Costello.…” Her voice lacked conviction, as if she were only going through the motions of responding.

  “Yes, but …”

  And saw the futility of explanations. Because the spark was gone, the glow had disappeared, replaced by a terrible indifference. Something rare and precious that had flowed between them was no longer there. Nothing left. That monster Archie Costello …

  Her girl friend, tossing her long hair impatiently, called: “Hey, Gundarson, you coming or what?”

  Laurie turned toward her, answered: “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Then, looking at him again: “Obie, it was nice while it lasted, but then it was over. It happens like that. Blame me—it’s happened to me before. I mean, I like someone and then I don’t feel the same way anymore.…” She ran her hand across her forehead, wiping away a small cluster of perspiration. “I’m sorry.” Looking up at the sky, she said, “I hope it rains pretty soon.” And walked away, out of his life, catching up to her girl friend, going down the street and around the corner without a backward glance. While he stood there, motionless. I hope it rains pretty soon. Her final words to him, banal, a comment on the weather, for crissakes, something you’d say to a stranger.

  In the terrible vacancy left by her departure, he floundered, turned around, mouth agape, as if appealing to the world to witness what had happened to him. Hey, look, I loved this girl and she loved me and it all went wrong. What went wrong? The attack, yes. Bunting, that bastard. He had avoided Bunting since his encounter with Cornacchio. A showdown was meaningless without Laurie in his life. But he knew without any doubt whatever who the real villain was. Archie Costello. He doubted that Archie had given any direct orders to Bunting to attack Laurie, but he also knew how Archie worked, playing one kid against another, toying with Bunting, dangling the role of Assigner before him so that Bunting would be willing to do anything to impress Archie Costello. Including an attempted rape. So he hated Bunting and would someday, somehow, make him pay. But the attack had not broken up his relationship with Laurie. They could have weathered that together. The breakup had been caused by what he had become and what Laurie had discovered him to be—a stooge of Archie Costello, a member of the Vigils, one of the guys playing dirty tricks on others. How could she love him, knowing that?

  The rain that Laurie Gundarson hoped for came with the thunderstorms—Obie would never again see rain fall without being haunted by all the possible heavens he might have missed. He walked aimlessly in the rain, aching with longing and, under the aching, a growing anger, an anger that was almost sweet as it surged within him. The ache and the anger warring inside him. The ache for Laurie, acknowledging his loss of her. And a seething anger focused on Archie. Archie, who had ruined his chances for Laurie, ruining his life as well. He thought sadly of graduation, how he was lucky to be escaping Trinity with a dull B average, no honors, no achievements. He had been a top student at Monument Elementary, with great promise for his high school years, both in scholastics and athletics. His parents had long ago stopped asking: What happened to you, Obie? The Vigils had happened. Archie Costello had happened. Because of Archie he had lost everything, his high school years and the only girl he had ever loved.

  The relief brought by the rain was only temporary. Within an hour the heat returned with a vengeance, worse than before, penetrating, merciless. The sales of air conditioners boomed although summer was officially a month away. The Monument Times published a photo showing a reporter trying to fry an egg on Main Street. In this new blast of heat, sneezing and wheezing, swallowing capsules and chewing aspirins, Obie held on. Held on to what must happen, what he must make happen. Soon. Before school ended. When the heat subsided. Must make happen to Archie Costello. And through Archie to the rest of this terrible world he now inhabited.

  The heat vanished.

  With a final thunderstorm, more violent than earlier storms. Trees fell, power lines snapped, a small bridge over the Moosock River collapsed, sweeping a seventy-two-year-old man to his doom. Darkness enveloped Monument, broken only by occasional lightning splits.

  Toward morning thunder echoed wearily in the distance and lightning scrawled faint flashes near the horizon. Bird cries greeted the dawn, and dawn itself brought the sun and fresh breezes. The breezes leaped from tree to tree, through the streets and avenues of the town. Early risers stretched magnificently, filling their lungs with the clean, bracing air of morning.

  At seven thirty Obie left for school, his cold miraculously gone with the heat and the thunder and lightning. Maybe it had been an allergy, after all. He drove through the streets with purpose and determination, knuckles pale as he grasped the steering wheel, impatient with traffic lights. He drove with hope in his heart. Hope and hate. The hate, he knew, was his only means of surviving.

  That, and Fair Day.

  Some people called it Fool Day.

  This year he would make it Fear Day for Archie Costello.

  Afternoon: classes over for the day. Air sizzling with a thousand scents and colors, sun dazzling on car roofs, setting Trinity windows aflame, but the heat of the sun benevolent now, the sun of springtime.

  The Trinity campus leaped with activity—baseball players jogging to the athletic field, volleyballers lunging in the air, students in the assembly hall rehearsing the sketches for Skit Night.

  Obie searched for Archie in the halls and classrooms, on the steps, in the parking lot. He finally found him in the stands at the athletic field, languidly watching the action below.

  The hardest thing of all: approaching him.

  “Hi, Archie.”

  The long slow look from Archie, the slight lifting of eyebrows but quick to h
ide surprise, proud of his ability to remain always cool. Ah, Obie knew him like a book, like he knew himself.

  “Obie.” The name hung in the air, noncommittal. Not welcoming, not rejecting. Letting Obie make the move.

  “How’s things?” Obie asked, trying to keep his voice normal.

  “In control.”

  Down on the field the baseball practice went on. Players throwing the ball, hitting the ball, scooping up the ball. All that activity centered on a small round object. Obie thought of that other small round object, the black marble.

  “How’s things with you?” Archie asked.

  Obie felt as if he were poised on the edge of a chasm, a thousand feet above sea level. Tensing his stomach, he leaped.

  “Not so good. But I’ll recover.” Not wanting to say too much, letting Archie draw the information from him.

  “Recover from what?”

  Another leap:

  “That girl. Laurie Gundarson.” Despite his determination, her name on his lips almost brought tears to his eyes. “We broke up.”

  And then, astonishingly—but Archie was always astonishing—Archie turned to him, eyes melting with compassion, face twisted in an attitude of commiseration, understanding. As if Obie’s pain was his own pain, Obie’s loss taken upon himself like a cross.

  “Tough,” Archie said. But the single solitary word was imbued with such emotion that Obie felt Archie Costello was truly his only friend in the world, the only person who could understand his misery and loss. He had to forcibly remind himself that Archie was the architect of his defeat with Laurie.

  He was surprised to find Archie reaching out, touching his shoulder. Archie, who never touched another guy, who always held himself isolated.

  “Welcome back,” Archie said.

  Obie did not move. The leap was over. He had plunged into the deep, not knowing if he would sink or swim. He had come to the surface. The scheme was launched.