Citrus County

by John Brandon

  The door was open. The counselor, behind her desk, looked up at Toby, almost smiling. Toby recognized her. She used to be the resource officer, the school cop. She nodded at the chair in front of Toby and he sat. The counselor looked odd wearing a blouse with a scarf around the collar instead of her blue uniform.

  “The old counselor wrote a book,” she said.

  Toby felt like he was wearing a blown disguise. He didn’t know why. No one was going to find out about Kaley. Those FBI agents had never contacted Toby after that day in the parking lot. If they couldn’t sniff anything on him, this lady sure couldn’t.

  “I have to call you kids out of class,” the counselor said. “You never come down on your own.”

  Toby had to piss. He’d had to piss during his pop quiz and had forgotten to stop at the bathroom on his way to guidance.

  “I take the files home on weekends and browse—see who might could use a nudge in the right direction.”

  “You think I could?” Toby said.

  “You were on a watch list coming out of grammar school.” The counselor leaned forward, pressing her shapeless front against her desk.

  “Can I go to the bathroom?” Toby asked.

  “Do you happen to know how many detentions you’ve compiled here at Citrus Middle?”

  “None,” Toby said. “My record is clean.”

  The counselor chuckled archly. “You’ve had twenty-nine. And that’s without all the undocumented detentions from Mr. Hibma.”

  “How do you know about those?”

  “I believe you met Cara, the receptionist. This place is full of spies.”

  “I’ve never been expelled,” Toby said. “That’s something to hang my hat on.”

  “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

  Toby was sweating. It wasn’t nerves. He really had to pee and it was hot in the office. He hoped this woman wasn’t going to start asking questions about his uncle, about his home life.

  “I’m thinking of a flag. I’m thinking of a church. I’m thinking of a mild-mannered, straight-A student, a lovely girl, who now runs around with a scowl on her face.”

  Toby tried to look out the window but it was covered over with newspaper comics, with dogs and cats thinking human thoughts.

  “I had nothing to do with the flag,” he said.

  “I know that. What I’m wondering is whether Shelby’s behavior is a result of her sister going missing—I don’t think it is, entirely—or a result of her being bored because she’s too smart for this place—I doubt that, too—or whether she’s under a good, old-fashioned bad influence. I’m wondering if someone’s taking advantage of her while she’s going through a tough time.”

  “Everyone gets taken advantage of,” Toby said.

  The counselor closed her eyes a moment. “I don’t claim to be great at this job, but part of the description is looking out for the well-being of the students, and that’s what I’m doing. Shelby’s well-being, not yours.”

  At that moment, the bell rang, startling Toby and also startling the counselor. Toby could leave now and piss.

  The counselor took a look toward the hallway. “Don’t think you’re slick,” she said. “Don’t for a second think you’re slick.”

  That evening Toby had a meet. It was a home meet, at Spider Field. Shelby attended, sitting herself neatly in the bleachers like a seasoned girlfriend, her hands wrapped around a big cup of soda. Toby still hadn’t figured out what he needed from Shelby. Since the old folks’ trolley, Toby had felt in debt, like he owed Shelby something, and he didn’t like owing anybody. Someone doing something generous for Toby, showing affection—he didn’t understand that. He didn’t understand the math of it. He felt queasy when he thought about what had happened on the old folks’ trolley. It was childish—people running around trying to touch each other and suck each other and everything else. Toby was as bad as anyone. He looked up into the scattered crowd and there was Shelby, straw between her lips, waving.

  Toby’s opponent this night was a wiry kid with bitten fingernails. The kid had a small radio on which he played manic-sounding music at low volume, and also a journal, which he flipped open from time to time and jotted things in. Toby’s opponent won the coin flip, then, inexplicably, perhaps to show how confident he was, chose to vault first. Toby stood by and watched as the kid faulted on his first vault. The kid turned off his radio and blew into his hands. His second vault, he faulted again. His third attempt, no chance. His steps were all wrong. The kid flopped down roughly in the grass and threw back the cover of his journal. All Toby had to do was clear the minimum height and he’d win. He was going to win. He glanced up at Shelby and she stood and let out a cheer.

  At home, Toby took out his mother’s mirror. He breathed on the mirror and buffed it with his T-shirt. He’d had a new thought, and he had to shine a light on this thought. The thought was this: He could leave Kaley in the bunker and quit taking care of her, quit feeding her, let her bones be found in ten years like that girl near Buccaneer Bay. This was the thought. There it was. This was an easy way out. It would set him back to nothing, set him free. He’d have a clean record then, like he’d told the guidance counselor. He could go straight to school and straight home like a regular kid. He could worry about his grades, things like that. He could probably sleep. He would sleep if he knew that in the morning he didn’t have to go to the bunker. He hated the bunker. It was his to find and wasn’t it his to give up? It was Kaley’s now. If Toby left her to go permanently quiet down there, then he could do whatever he wanted in the afternoons, whatever he wanted with his weekends. He could let Shelby have him. Kaley would fade. Toby would forget her, almost. Kaley would be another mistake, like the rest. People made mistakes all the time. Toby could welcome the days instead of bracing for them. He’d never welcomed days before, Kaley or not, but he’d never had a reason to. He’d never had Shelby.

  Toby pressed his hand against the mirror’s glass, leaving a print. He couldn’t look at his face. His face was full of guilt and weakness, and abandoning Kaley would require more strength than taking her had, more strength than keeping her. Toby was unworthy. He had to get control of his mind. He was being a crybaby because his evil wasn’t spoon-feeding him instructions every two minutes. He had to listen harder. He had to feel his instincts. He couldn’t, though. All he could feel was what the future might be like.

  Shelby took an elevator and found the passport office. She’d been to the drug store for her photo and she’d dug out her birth certificate. All she had left was the paperwork. She wasn’t sure if she was going to have to forge her father’s signature. She was prepared to. He wouldn’t have minded her getting a passport, but Shelby didn’t want to tell him why she needed one. She didn’t want to tell anyone anything until she’d actually been invited. Aunt Dale had sent Shelby e-mails complaining about that guy she’d never married, and complaining about traveling and about people she had to work with, the kind of complaining one did to a friend, to a confidant. It was a relief to Shelby, hearing about someone else’s problems instead of being asked about her own. At this point, it took Shelby longer to reply than it did Aunt Dale, because Shelby couldn’t always get to a computer. Shelby was a little surprised that her aunt hadn’t suggested they talk on the phone, but for someone like Aunt Dale phones were dusty old history. Phones were for regular, slow people.

  There was one lady working in the passport office, no other customers. The lady had high-waisted pants and a big wooden hair clip. Shelby told her what she needed and the lady began compiling forms.

  “Shouldn’t you be in school?” the lady said.

  “Yes, I should.” Shelby put her elbows on the counter. “But you guys aren’t open on weekends.”

  “So you’re running some errands today?” The lady was good-natured. She used a blunt, manicured fingernail to flip through the forms.

  “I love errands,” Shelby said.

  “Where’s your accent from, sweetie?”

 
“I don’t have an accent,” said Shelby. “I pronounce the words correctly. You have an accent.”

  “Everybody has an accent.”

  “That’s what people with accents think.”

  For the wing meeting he was hosting, Mr. Hibma brought in strawberries from Plant City along with a jug of Romanoff sauce he’d cooked up. He brought a twelve-pack of cream soda and some tamales a woman outside his villa complex was always selling.

  Besides Mr. Hibma and Mrs. Conner, there were nine teachers in the East Liberal Arts Wing. Of those nine, seven blended together—dumpy but not disheveled, out of shape but not fat. The other two were young. One was Pete, a guy who taught advanced English and on weekends played in a punk band. Mr. Hibma had been inside Pete’s classroom only once, back when Mr. Hibma had first come to Citrus Middle. Pete had shown Mr. Hibma all his Sex Pistols and Ramones posters. He’d confided to Mr. Hibma that all the old teachers were against him, and seemed to think he and Mr. Hibma were going to be friends. He’d kept asking Mr. Hibma to come see his band play for months on end, before finally giving up. Now their interaction consisted of nods in the hallway and the occasional strained chat.

  The other twenty-six-year-old was a round-faced girl who held advanced degrees in Spanish. She drove down to USF several evenings a week. She was a master of Latin linguistic study, but couldn’t leave Citrus County because her husband ran a river rock company that serviced the entire Nature Coast. And she apparently had no problem with this. She had no problem with working at Citrus Middle rather than at the UN or an embassy in Madrid.

  Mr. Hibma waited by the door as his guests arrived, offering greetings and indicating the refreshments he’d put out. Pete ate a tamale. Nobody touched the strawberries. Mrs. Conner patted Mr. Hibma on the shoulder and he gave her his most congenial smile. She set up shop at the front of the room and everyone else settled into the students’ desks. The social science teacher, a woman with an expansive forehead who wore a Spider Pride T-shirt every Friday, excused herself and returned with a Snickers. She explained that her diet allowed her one serving of candy per week, and this was when she was choosing to have it.

  The meeting began with an update on the progress of a new remedial program, updates about former students Mrs. Conner remained in touch with. Reports were exchanged about problem students. There were kids who needed drugs and weren’t on them, kids who were on drugs and didn’t need them, kids with overbearing parents, kids whose parents were never around. Mrs. Conner also had two staff petitions for everyone to sign, one backing the idea that students not be able to miss class for sports-related activities, the other backing a ban on the books of Kurt Vonnegut. Not one teacher in the school assigned Kurt Vonnegut. It was a preemptive strike, probably an order passed down from the headquarters of Mrs. Conner’s church.

  “I ain’t signing it,” said Pete. “Unless you help me get my shows approved as music extra credit, I’m not helping you do anything. Gathering around a flagpole to pray is extra credit and witnessing the creation of live music ain’t?”

  Mr. Hibma had noticed that, for effect, Pete sometimes said the word ain’t.

  “Your shows are in bars,” Mrs. Conner said.

  “Not all of them. You know that.”

  Mrs. Conner’s face was bothered yet composed, like she’d breathed in a sour smell and was waiting for it to blow away in the wind. “You’re comparing prayer to rock music?” she asked Pete.

  “I’m comparing prayer to punk music. They both enhance your soul. They’re both things to believe in.”

  The sour smell had not blown away from Mrs. Conner. Mr. Hibma could tell she wanted to say a million things to Pete. Mr. Hibma’s gut impulse, despite himself, was to stick up for Pete, but Mr. Hibma had a fence to mend and he didn’t mind sitting this one out. He’d left behind that ridiculousness about killing Mrs. Conner, had left behind that stupid letter he’d written. It was history. He was glad Dale hadn’t responded.

  Mrs. Conner sighed and something gave way in her eyes.

  “Let’s hear it,” she said. “Let’s hear the music.”

  Pete zipped out of the room. The other teachers looked at one another, listening to the slaps of Pete’s converse sneakers fade to nothing. The slaps returned, grew louder, and here was Pete again, boom box in hand, searching for an outlet.

  To Pete’s credit, he did not identify his muse or expose symbolism in his lyrics. He pressed play and backed away from the boom box. At first there was only hissing on the tape. In a stifled voice, someone counted off, and then noise filled Mr. Hibma’s classroom. The noise was not fettered by a melody. Each member of the band was playing as loudly as possible, forcing the maximum yield out of his instrument. Occasionally, confoundingly, the sound intensified. Someone was singing, but only because someone had to. When the noise ceased, it was just as startling as when it had begun.

  “Okay, okay,” said Mrs. Conner. “All right.” She waved her hands, imploring Pete to stop the tape before the next song began.

  He lunged forward and smacked the panel of buttons.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter what you’re singing because no one can understand it,” Mrs. Conner said. “Draw up a petition and I’ll sign.”

  Pete was confused. He was supposed to be held down by Authority. Authority was not supposed to be reasonable. Pete seemed to miss the irony: Mrs. Conner, to spare herself from hearing any more, was willing to petition that the students be subjected to Pete’s music; because the music was unbearable, it had gained support. Maybe Pete had just lived the first punk moment of his life. Mr. Hibma knew he shouldn’t hate Pete. Pete and the Spanish expert had done him no harm. Mr. Hibma despised them, he understood, because he was no better than they were. Despite arriving at Citrus Middle from vastly different paths, he and Pete and the Spanish expert were all here now, all willing to stay.

  Shelby received a note instructing her to skip PE and report to room 171E to meet with Mrs. Milner, the gifted teacher. She found the room and pulled the door open, and Mrs. Milner was sitting on a padded chair in front of a large table. The room was huge and carpeted. Against the back wall, in shadow, a bunch of half-built or half-destroyed mechanical devices crowded one another.

  “You’re late.” Mrs. Milner threw her head so she could look at Shelby.

  Shelby advanced a step or two before she realized there was no chair for her. This was a sort of test, Shelby figured. Shelby was supposed to employ her problem-solving skills. She was supposed to explore the junk in the back of the room and fashion a chair herself, or turn the table upside-down so she and Mrs. Milner could sit in it like a canoe.

  “I’ll stand,” Shelby said. This was the most trouble Shelby could manage to get in: being invited to join gifted. “I don’t have much time.”

  “Something life-altering going on in PE?”

  “Why don’t you pitch me?” said Shelby. “I’ll stand here and you give me the pitch.”

  “I’ll start with the price. The price is your beloved PE.” Mrs. Milner pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. “This room is a free zone. Explore, don’t explore. Interact, don’t interact. That kind of freedom sells itself. This is a place where chariots are built, where naps are taken.”

  Shelby now saw that the junk against the back wall was meant to become a Roman parade float.

  “Gifts can be scary,” Mrs. Milner proposed. “A lot of people are afraid of their gifts. Don’t you think that’s true?”

  “I’ll reserve all comments for when the pitch ends,” Shelby said. “Is it over?”

  There was a glint in Mrs. Milner’s eye. By being difficult, Shelby was making herself more attractive. “Higher mathematics are here,” said Mrs. Milner. “Reading Tolstoy in Russian. We have a guest lecturer once a month.”

  “What’s that crunching noise?”

  “Our ice machine. The Best Western donated it.”

  “Why do you need an ice machine?”

  “I would’ve asked the same question—in fact, I di
d. But now I don’t know how we ever got along without it.” Mrs. Milner pushed up her sleeves again, this time tucking them into themselves. “We have a blender, too.”

  Shelby was tired of standing. She had an urge to accept Mrs. Milner’s invitation, ask her to leave the room, and go to sleep on the tabletop.

  “I know there was some ugliness between you and Lena, and she wants me to tell you she holds no hard feelings. And there’s no preaching permitted in this room. It’s a free zone, and to me that includes free of religion.”

  Lena was the girl Shelby had pelted with grits. “I didn’t know she was in gifted,” Shelby said.

  “She’s very bright and very sincere.”

  “I’m going to respectfully decline,” Shelby said.

  “Tell me the reason.”

  “I don’t want to be sequestered with kids who think they’re exceptional. I prefer kids who are a tiny bit smart and don’t know it.”

  Mrs. Milner cleared her throat. She was not impressed. “Gifted gives you options.”

  The idea of options sounded odd to Shelby. Options in life. She had no idea what she’d opt for. She had never needed dreams, hopes even. Maybe now she did. Whatever her dreams might be, they’d have nothing to do with being in gifted.

  “The real reason is this,” Shelby said. “Someone I trust told me not to join.”

  “Who?”

  “I won’t say.”

  “That person is ill-informed. I take ten students in my class and most of them enrolled in the second or third grade. The only reason a spot is opening is Daphne Biner is moving. If you get in now, you’ll be grandfathered in for high school. You’re going to need gifted.”