Over the years, the one thing Clifton had learned about in-school suspension was that it was so boring that he was willing
15
to talk to people he might not ordinarily talk to. Not that that was generally a problem for him. There weren't too many people that ever bothered to talk to him anyway, unless it was to call him names. Mostly it was "Skunk" or sometimes "Oreo" or "Salt and Pepper." The names didn't even bother him anymore. They used to, but the sting had faded years ago to where now he hardly even noticed. In fact, he sort of liked the name Skunk. He thought it was appropriate. He didn't smell, but he was both black and white, and, generally speaking, most people tried to avoid him at all costs. Which was the way he liked it. He'd found that he sort of enjoyed being a loner. At least, over time, he'd more or less convinced himself of that fact.
So while the monitor was busy picking lint off her sweatpants and sweatshirt, Clifton decided to say something to Dweedle. He sort of admired him in a strange way. Dweedle didn't care what other people thought. He was content doing his own thing and actually had a small faction of four or five friends that he played D&D with, which was four or five more friends than Clifton could claim. "Hey, Dweedle, what'd you do to get ISS?" he whispered while the monitor was grooming herself. "Kill a herd of Pegasuses or a dragon or something?"
Dweedle looked up from his manual and turned his head to the side. Judging by his overall appearance, anyone seeing
16
Dweedle for the first time would assume he had a high, maybe even feminine voice, but it was actually quite the opposite. He spoke in a deep, husky baritone that didn't fit with his image at all. "For your information, Clifton, there is only one Pegasus, so that part of your question doesn't even make sense. As for the other part, don't meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup." Dweedle turned back to his book without another word.
Since that was the end of the conversation, Clifton started playing everything over in his mind from the day before. For one thing, it had been a bad day to start with. It was his birthday, which was generally a good day for most people, but for him it marked the anniversary of his father's death. A death that had been ruled in the official police reports as "accidental while trying to subdue a violent offender." And even though eight years had gone by, and the events of that night had faded to some degree, when his birthday rolled around, the dark memories always came rushing back.
So Clifton already wasn't in the best of moods on his sixteenth birthday. And once he arrived at school, it only got worse. The first thing he found out was that he'd received a D on his geometry test. Then in gym class he learned that he was starting a four-week section on square dancing. It was then that everything really went south. For a moment, things actually looked like they weren't going to be too bad. He
17
happened to get paired up with Julie O'Kane as his dance partner. Blond-haired and green-eyed, she was one of the prettiest girls in his grade. Besides being beautiful, she'd also always been nice to him, so he thought maybe square dancing wouldn't be so horrible after all. He remembered how years ago, shortly after his father had died, a couple of kids were picking on him in elementary school. They thought it was funny to clap the dusty erasers on his back, causing white marks to appear on his shirt. When he would turn in one direction, a kid would pop him in the back. Then he'd turn around again and the other kid would do the same thing. It was Julie who had come to his rescue. She had admonished both boys, and whether it was because of her stern demeanor or her good looks--even at nine years old--they had both hung their heads and walked away.
"Are you okay?" she'd asked, looking at Clifton with soft empathy.
"Yeah," he'd said, somewhat embarrassed at being helped by a girl. He brushed the white dust out of his wiry hair as she swept his back clean. "I'm fine. Thanks, though."
She had reached up and removed a streak that covered his arm. Ordinarily, if it had been anyone else, he would have instinctively pulled away. But because her touch was so gentle and her eyes so tender, he let her do it. "Your skin is so pretty," she'd said. "It's like melted caramel."
18
Clifton had smiled and walked away without a word, but he'd been grateful for her kindness.
***
But now , his joy at being paired with Julie for the square dance lasted only a second once he realized that Colt Jenkins was also in his group. Clifton mused to himself, as he usually did when it came to Colt, that he didn't know which was worse: being named Colt or being named Dweedle. He often wondered what their respective parents could have possibly been thinking. Had they been drunk in the hospital room while going over names with each other? But strangely, those parents had gotten their sons' names exactly right. Dweedle looked like a Dweedle, whatever that was, and Colt looked like he was supposed to be named Colt. But not because he resembled a horse. He usually wore tight jeans, tight T-shirts, and donned cowboy boots. If he wasn't wearing that, then it was cutoff jeans, flip-flops, and a Richard Petty baseball cap with greasy stains on the bill. Colt was a redneck, plain and simple.
Besides being a redneck, Colt was also the biggest lineman on the football team, mean as a blinded dog with a missing leg, and dumber than a sack of hammers. Big, mean, and dumb was a bad combination as far as Clifton was concerned.
19
It made him dangerous. He and Clifton had been going at each other since grade school. In fact, he'd been one of the kids with the erasers that day. Generally, Clifton could outfox Colt and escape most situations before anything serious happened, though they had come to blows on many occasions over the years. And when that happened, Clifton always came out the loser, though occasionally he'd get a shot in. But he was far better at taking jabs at Colt's mental deficiencies than actually punching him.
As Clifton's group circled up and began following the instructions given by the caller on the warped record, Clifton noticed Colt eyeing him. He had a feeling the blockhead had finally figured out who had recently vandalized his locker. The caller's words hissed and scratched over the PA system as the square dancers began bowing to their partners and neighbors. Clifton kept his eye on Colt as the dance began, smiling to himself as they went through the same motions they'd been doing since the first grade. When Colt locked his eyes on Clifton and stared him down during a do-si-do, Clifton couldn't help himself. He winked at Colt and puckered his lips. A second later, as he was promenading Julie all the way home, he felt a hard smack to his shoulder. He stopped and turned around, only to find Colt right in his face.
"Hey, Skunk," said Colt, "I got a little problem I need to talk to you about."
20
Clifton and Julie stopped as the rest of the students continued circling around them. He knew what was coming, but he decided that since he was probably going to end up in a fight either way, he might as well take advantage of the situation. It was a predicament he'd gotten used to over the years, and he'd learned that wit, if nothing else, was something most kids admired about him. He intentionally stared at the upper part of Colt's left arm, a forced look of bewilderment on his face. "Is it about that dickfor on your shirt?"
This took Colt aback. He looked confused. "The what?"
"The dickfor. It's right on your shirt," said Clifton, pointing at the top of Colt's thick shoulder.
Colt glanced down, looking for something that wasn't there. He examined his shirt for a moment, even stretching the end of his sleeve to get a better view. He looked back at Clifton and said, "What the hell's a dickfor?"
Clifton gave a sly smile at Julie, and she immediately cracked up as the loud music continued to swirl through the gymnasium. Colt stood there, dumbfounded, still trying to figure out what had just happened. Clifton grabbed Julie's hand and they quickly slid back into the circle. It took only a second before he felt his body snap forward as Colt stuck a meaty shoulder into his spine. He fell face-first and slid across the slick wooden floor, stopping near a blue stripe of foul line. By
the time he rolled over onto his back, Colt was on top of
21
him. Julie had been knocked to the side but managed to keep her balance. She yelled at Colt but he paid no attention. The screech of the fiddles and the caller's annoying voice continued loudly, and, as of yet, no gym teacher had noticed what was happening.
"Listen," spat Colt as he pinned Clifton's shoulders to the floor with his knees, "guess what I found in my locker the other morning?"
Colt's weight crushed Clifton's chest, making it difficult to breathe. He must have outweighed him by seventy pounds. Clifton glanced at Julie and caught her eye, if only for a moment. She was too busy pulling at Colt's arm, attempting to get him off, which unfortunately didn't help much. But Clifton did catch her eye, and that was good enough for him. "I have no idea what you found, fatboy," said Clifton. He wasn't scared and he didn't care. Messing with Colt had always been one of his favorite pastimes, though he knew he was going to get punched in the face if the teachers didn't break it up soon. He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he couldn't help himself. "What'd you find--your mama's underwear? Didn't think those things could fit in your locker."
The punch connected on the pointy knob of cheekbone just underneath Clifton's left eye. It hurt like hell, and he actually saw little white flashes sparkle around him, just like in a cartoon, but he fought through the pain in order to
22
keep smiling. He knew that smiling and laughing drove Colt insane.
"No, you little asshole, I found a brown lunch bag filled with dogshit. How'd you get in my locker ... Skunk? He emphasized Skunk as if it might cause extra pain. But it was the second punch that hurt far worse than the name. And then, out of nowhere, two gym teachers pulled Colt away.
***
The gym teachers , of course, were two of the football coaches, which explained why Colt was nowhere to be seen in the ISS room that Clifton now found himself in. But as he tapped a pencil against the desk with one hand and probed the tender spot on his face with the other--one good thing about his skin color was that bruises didn't show up quite as prominently--he thought about what had happened the day before and smiled once again. He had seen Julie as he lay on the floor, looking down at him with what he liked to think of as admiration, though he couldn't be sure. For one, he hadn't exactly been seeing too clearly at that point, and for two, he was getting manhandled by two varsity coaches who pulled him to his feet and carted him to the principal's office. But he was pretty sure she had looked at him that way. That's how he had decided to remember it anyway.
23
The ISS monitor broke Clifton from his reverie. "Okay, come on," she said in a deep, nearly masculine voice. "It's time for the Balloon Ascent. Hello? Anyone home?" She rapped on the wooden door a couple of times to make her point.
Clifton looked up from his desk to see, much to his surprise, that everyone else had left the room. The monitor stood in the doorway, one hand in a fist against the open door, the other on the sweatpants of her prodigious hips.
"Come on, already," she said. "Even you hoodlums are set free for the Balloon Ascent."
Clifton slid his legs from under the desk and walked into the hall where he saw his fellow criminals leaning against lockers, waiting. Dweedle had one side of the cape draped over his arm, covering his mouth and chin as if he were Dracula. The punk rocker guy was repeatedly kicking the bottom of a locker with the toe of his combat boot, leaving black smudge marks. It appeared that his eyelash experiment had been a complete success. The normal-looking guy had disappeared altogether, blending in with the rest of the students who now filled the halls as they filtered their way through the exit doors on their way to the football field.
The Balloon Ascent had been the vision of the principal, Mr. Longsworth, who had decided that Crocket's Mill High School needed more school spirit. The whole promotion and buildup for the day had been going on for weeks. There were
24
hand-painted banners in the hallways, flyers on the lockers, and a Balloon Ascent committee had even been created. At first, Clifton had found the whole idea to be pretty stupid. It seemed ridiculous to him that a group of high schoolers would stand around on the football field and let go of balloons. He had thought it was stupid, that is, until he found out how it worked.
This was the theory: Every student wrote his name on two identical index cards that had been stamped with the school's address, and then tied each card to the string end of a balloon. Each student got two balloons, one blue and the other gold, representing the school colors. Then, on the official day, so deemed April 21 by Mr. Longsworth, all of the students convened on the football field, each of them holding two helium-filled balloons. When Mr. Longsworth gave the word, they would let them go. What was supposed to happen was that when someone eventually found the balloon, whether it be in a different county or even in a different state, that person would hopefully mail the card back to the school by the May 21 deadline. Then, when it was determined whose balloon had traveled the farthest, that student would win a hundred dollars. There were second- and third-place prizes too.
What had really surprised Clifton as he had stood on the field, his two balloons banging against each other above him,
25
was how much he had actually enjoyed the whole affair. It had been a perfect spring day, not too hot, and there hadn't been a cloud in the sky. When Mr. Longsworth had given the word from the bleachers over a hand-held megaphone, hundreds of Clifton's peers let their balloons go. The sky was suddenly clouded over with blue and gold as the balloons wiggled their way higher and higher. For a moment it had reminded him of the movie he'd had to watch in health class, where all the little sperm jockeyed for position to be first to the egg. The students had squirmed in their seats and snickered at snide comments to mask their own awkwardness. But what he had witnessed with the balloons was a thing of beauty.
Everyone had roared while watching the balloons climb. Though some balloons strayed from the pack when the breeze picked up, most stayed together as tightly as a flock of birds darting and changing direction for reasons that only they understood. Clifton had tried to keep his eye on his two balloons, but it didn't take long before they all seemed to meld into one. At least his balloons hadn't gotten stuck in the trees or power lines on the far side of the field like some others had.
As he had watched them slowly disappear and make their way over the mountains surrounding Crocket's Mill, he realized that he'd never wanted to win something so badly in his
26
life. And it wasn't about the money, though that would have been nice. What it was, more than anything, was that he had just wanted his balloons to have a long and successful journey. He wanted to get word that they had traveled to Oregon or Maine or maybe Mexico or even Holland. To someplace foreign and exotic. And he wanted to be recognized as the one who had let them go, as if he'd masterfully solved the complex riddle of balloon release.
But as it turned out, he didn't win. In fact, neither of his tickets was ever mailed back to the school. The winning balloon was released by Barbra Cowherd, who was in Clifton's history class. The balloon had ended up in some town called Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey, nearly five hundred miles away, and the ticket was returned by a middle-school English teacher. He'd written a note saying he'd found the shriveled balloon tangled up in an azalea bush in his front yard. Upon hearing who the winner was, the thing that had hurt Clifton the most was that he'd been standing right next to Barbra when everyone had let the balloons go. Why was it that her balloon had made it that far while his had probably never even reached the county line?
But in one way or another, Mr. Longsworth did achieve his goal of boosting school spirit. That is, everyone wanted to participate because what could be easier than letting go of
27
some balloons and then possibly winning a lot of money? And if nothing else, it had gotten Clifton out of ISS for part of the day.
***
Though he hadn't won, there was still a positive outcome to the Balloon Ascent. The experience had given him an idea. Shortly after he'd found out the disappointing results, he'd decided to create his own Balloon Ascent of sorts. Instead of throwing away all of his mother's wine bottles like he usually did (seven bottles a week, every week), he'd decided to stash them in the lawnmower shed in the backyard. Then, at the end of that first week, he'd written different notes, stuffed them into the bottles, recorked them, and then carried them toward the Palisades in a cardboard box. As he walked with his bottles, he couldn't help but think of the first time he'd heard about the Palisades from his father. And also about the chilling details of the legendary Killing Pit.
Gray baby: a novel Page 2
