Brutal Youth: A Novel

by Anthony Breznican

  Lorelei groaned. “I get it. So you’re the guy who flirts with every girl in class?”

  The boy with the scar shook his head. “No,” he said. “Just the prettiest ones.”

  The chatter in the room was cut off by the slam of a door. Ms. Bromine stood with her hand clenched on the knob, in case she needed to slam it again. “Good morning,” she said sweetly. She walked to the podium beside the teacher’s desk. After more silence, she said: “Aren’t you going to wish me a good morning?” which was followed by a disjointed response of “Good morn-ing, Miss-us Bromummum…”

  “Bro-myne,” the teacher corrected them, dashing her name on the chalkboard. “I am the school guidance counselor, and I also teach this class on Catholic catechism. This is not church, but it’s about church, so I expect you to behave ac—” That’s when she noticed the scarred boy. Their eyes locked. The lips he had once planted a mocking kiss on pursed. “Do you have a problem, young man?”

  Stein looked behind him. Bromine said, “I’m talking to you. What is it you have there on the side of your face? Some kind of … rash?” As every eye in the classroom penetrated him, the teacher adjusted her little Ben Franklin glasses and said, “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was just … well, how God made you.” She put a hand to her mouth to cover a small smile, and coughed to clear her throat.

  “You should see the other guy,” Stein said. “And it wasn’t God.” The kids in the class chuckled, but Ms. Bromine no longer had a smile to hide. “Let’s not talk out of turn,” she said, unable to think of a better comeback.

  A hulking, blue-eyed boy in the back row snorted one out for her. “Is that from when your mom tried to abort you?” Bromine pretended not to hear this. Stein turned to glare at the big kid, and mouthed: Shut up, shit head. The boy, who appeared too large for his desk, sat up straighter and hardened his gaze: Make me, asshole.

  “In any case, where was I?” Bromine said. “Oh, yes. This class is where you learn right from wrong. This is not a place for you to sit around and discuss what you believe is right, or what you don’t feel is wrong. ‘Believing’ and ‘feeling’ aren’t welcome in a mathematics course, and they’re not welcome here either.”

  Bromine had them go to a table in the back and pick up a textbook, Exploring Modern Faith—or, as some of them had been vandalized by past students, Exploding Modern Farts. As the kids returned to their desks, the classroom door opened. Bromine looked over at the new arrival. Good Lord Jesus. The other one, too?

  Davidek, his hair and blazer still dripping with rain, wandered in nervously, raising a freshly printed class schedule like a talisman to ward away evil. “The secretary gave me a sophomore list by mistake…,” he said.

  “It’s always somebody else’s fault with you, isn’t it?” Bromine said. She folded her arms. “Take a seat,” she said. “And congratulations.”

  “For what?” Davidek asked, hunching toward the empty desk on the other side of Lorelei.

  “For collecting the first detention of the year,” Bromine said. “And in the first class of your first year, in the first minute you enter. You should be in the record books.”

  Davidek sank into his seat. Stein leaned forward to tip him a friendly salute that Davidek didn’t feel energized enough to return.

  “You’ll need to get a textbook,” Bromine said. When Davidek stood up, she snapped: “Play catch-up on your own time. You’ve already distracted me enough. Let’s go around the room, and each of you say your name. And don’t go changing seats after today. I can’t remember who’s who if you keep shifting around.”

  Bromine barely heard any of the kids saying their names. She was focused on the two hooligans, evidence of how things had changed for the worse around here since the days when she had worn the St. Mike’s uniform.

  When the scarred kid introduced himself as “Noah Stein,” Bromine raised her pencil-thin eyebrows. “Noah, eh?” she said. “So, where’s your ark?”

  She basked as the class chuckled at her zinger (which had been her whole reason for the introductions), but Stein shot back: “Where’s the second animal who matches you?” It was a reflex from a lifetime of dumb “Hey, Noah, where’s your ark?” jokes.

  Bromine’s eyes went wide. “You,” she said, “have earned yourself the second detention.”

  Stein shrugged. Bromine started scribbling the punishment slips at her desk. She didn’t bother with the rest of the students’ names.

  When the bell rang, Lorelei turned to Davidek and reminded him to pick up his textbook from the back desk. He thanked her, and she noticed his gaze linger slightly above her face.

  She raised a palm to her forehead, like she was taking her own temperature. “What?” she demanded, though she knew exactly what. The misshapen eyebrows, the crooked hair.

  “Nothing. Just your hairdo is a little different.… But different is cool,” Davidek added.

  Lorelei, hand still on her forehead, told him acidly: “You know what else is cool? Your clip-on tie.”

  * * *

  In Biology class, the students sat at long, high tables with gas pipes jutting out of the center for Bunsen burners. The scorched-egg smell of sulfur hung in the room—the ghost of experiments past. The Biology teacher, Mrs. Horgen, handed out textbooks and a set of copied notes, telling the students to pick a partner for the semester’s lab work.

  Davidek scanned the tables for a seat and saw Stein talking with Lorelei, and since he had so recently offended her, he settled at a different table beside another person he recognized: the chubby black kid, last seen dodging projectiles in his tangerine sweater. Davidek told him, “I remember you from that day in the parking lot. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d come back after getting stuff thrown at you the first time.”

  The black kid looked amazed and flattered. “That was me, yeah. Hector Greenwill—but everybody calls me Green.… You and that Noah guy were the ones trying to help that hurt kid, right?”

  Davidek nodded. Green said, “That was a weird day, all right.… My parents said this would be a good school for me, though. I’m really into music and stuff—I play guitar—and I want to learn about choirs and arrangements and all. The sucky part is the school’s music teacher quit over the summer. Anyway, they say at a smaller school like this, you get more attention.”

  “When you’re not dodging bricks,” Davidek said, but Green waved it off.

  “Honestly, that kid on the roof made me want to come here even more. It felt good helping that teacher, like I was a part of something, you know?”

  Davidek shrugged. “What do you think happened to that kid anyway? The newspaper made it seem like nothing happened.”

  “He’s probably down in a psych ward somewhere, banging his head in one of the padded rooms,” Green said. “But I’ll tell you this—that guy could throw. If the loony farm has an all-crazy softball team, he’d be an all-star.”

  Davidek said, “It’s hard to pitch in a straitjacket.”

  Green contemplated this. “If a guy with four multiple personalities gets to home base, does that count as a grand slam?”

  They started to laugh, and then they couldn’t stop. It went on for so long, Mrs. Horgen told them they couldn’t be lab partners, and separated them.

  * * *

  Computer Science class was taught by Mr. Zimmer, the human praying mantis who had scaled the side of the school and saved the boy on the roof. He was telling them they’d learn how to format term papers, and create spreadsheets and other programs.

  The faces of the students blinked at him from behind their computer monitors.

  “Okay,” Zimmer said. “So you have an empty screen in front of you. Put your hands on the keyboard and start writing—it doesn’t matter what. Swearwords, the Gettysburg Address … I just want to get a sense of your typing skills. But, seriously … don’t type any swearwords. I was just kidding about that.”

  Zimmer prowled through the room, and when he got to Green, he asked softly: “Do you mind ta
lking to me in the hall for a second?”

  Green nodded mutely, and they walked out of the classroom and down the corridor near the main entrance, where there were two wooden trophy cases full of aging honors, and between them a large crucifix hanging on the wall. A long-departed priest, who had been pastor back when Sister Maria was only a student at St. Mike’s, had commissioned the art class to paint wide white eyes on Jesus—an unsubtle reminder to students that they were always being watched. The Christ figure with the stark, crazy eyes loomed over Mr. Zimmer’s shoulder, chest out, arms spread, like it was trying to taunt Green into a fight.

  “I wanted to tell you, I’m glad you decided to come to school here,” Zimmer said. “I never got a chance to thank you for running interference for me that day. You’d make an excellent running back—if we had a football team.”

  “I was glad to help,” Green said.

  Zimmer nodded. “I wanted to talk with you privately because … well, you’re clearly a good kid and I’m a little worried. Maybe unnecessarily, but there are some things you should know.… Have you heard much about initiation and hazing at St. Mike’s?”

  Green said, “Sorta. Like in the movies where the frat brothers are all getting spanked and saying ‘Thank you, sir, may I have another’?”

  “Well, St. Mike’s isn’t quite Animal House.” Zimmer laughed. “But it can get a little mean. Not all of us like it, but it’s a part of the school’s tradition. So, it’s difficult to stop.”

  “It’s just fun and games, right?” Green shrugged. “A little teasing?”

  Zimmer proceeded cautiously. “St. Mike’s is a good place, but … the seniors have a lot of pressures facing them. College applications to start, scholarships to fight for … It makes them a little—severe. Tempers are high, emotions can be, too. What troubles me is, well, you’re different from the other freshmen—and that’s a good thing. But when this hazing thing gets under way, I don’t want anyone to take advantage of that difference. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

  Green did, and he made it easy on the struggling teacher. “You think they’ll come after me since I’m the only black kid.”

  Zimmer ran a hand on the back of his neck. “We’ve had other people of color at St. Mike’s—not many, I’m afraid, but a few. None right now, though. Just you. Kids can say stupid things sometimes. If it ever happens, just know you can come to me for help, okay?”

  Green studied his shoes, then looked up at the teacher with great hopefulness. “Can you stop them from making fat jokes, too?”

  * * *

  For a while after Zimmer left the computer classroom, there was only the raindrop sound of keyboards being tapped, and the actual rain, still blasting against the arched windows.

  Davidek felt something tap his shoulder, and turned to see Noah Stein leaning across the side of his computer.

  Stein squinted one eye, like someone appraising faulty merchandise. “Do you believe in the supernatural? Psychic prophecy? Karma, and that kind of stuff?”

  All Davidek could say was: “What are you talking about—ghosts?”

  “Nah.” The scarred boy leaned closer, his voice hushed and urgent. “I’m talking about big weirdness. Strange coincidences. Haven’t you noticed odd things happening?”

  Davidek considered this. “Did a great big, fat bald man from the church come by and tell your parents to send you here, too?”

  Now it was Stein’s turned to be bewildered. “I never met any big, fat bald guy, but I did have a long conversation with her today.” Stein gestured to a girl in the back row who had a short bob of unnaturally black hair and dark red lipstick that stuck to her teeth when she smiled at them. She wiggled her fingers in a wave, rattling the silver bands around her wrist.

  Stein waved back and said to Davidek: “Her name’s Zari, and she’s into all that gypsy-type hocus-pocus. In homeroom this morning, she did a tarot reading for me, turning over all these creepy cards. She says, ‘Sorry,’ and tells me that there are lonely times ahead. That’s her exact words: ‘Lonely times ahead.’ Then she turned over some more cards and said, ‘Your old companions will not finish this journey with you.’ I asked what that meant, and she said that I couldn’t count on my girlfriend or my old buddies anymore. Well, I told her I don’t have a girlfriend and I don’t know anybody at this school. That’s when I thought of you!”

  “Why’d you think of me?” Davidek demanded, outraged to be drawn into someone else’s metaphysical grief.

  “Look what’s happened to us so far,” Stein said. “Our first class is with that teacher we pissed off—and she starts picking fights right away. You think that’s going to get better the rest of the year?”

  “We were bound to run into her again,” Davidek said. Then, smiling, added: “At least I’m not the one who kissed her.”

  Stein flashed his eyebrows. “I learned that one from Bugs Bunny.”

  Davidek shrugged and sank back in his seat. “Tarot cards?… Forget about them. Don’t those always deal you a bad hand? They always predict lonely times ahead for everybody.”

  Stein crossed his arms. “So, tell me, my doubting friend … what would you think if the walls of our new high school appeared to be bleeding?”

  Stein gestured like a carnival presenter to the back corner of the room, where the plaster ceiling was bulging downward in a nebula of brown and red stains, and crimson tears trickled down the wall in a slow race to the bottom.

  FOUR

  The four stairwells of St. Mike’s were like chambers of a brick and mortar heart, one at each corner, pumping a lifeblood of students through the building’s armored body. On the ground level, stone passages led to the basement levels, like smaller capillaries, spiraling below to the subterranean auditorium; the solemn, silent library; and the deep-fried-chicken-smelling cafeteria. Davidek stood beside Stein in a traffic jam of students in one of the polished marble staircases, which curved heavenward along walls glowing with stained glass images of the saints.

  Everyone was trying to move upstairs and deposit their books in lockers before rushing back downstairs for lunch. Scores of uniformed shoulders shoved and pushed. People leaned over the railings, trying to look up at the source of the blockade. On the ground floor, peering up through the center void in the stairwell, a group of senior boys sipped sodas casually, smiling and nudging each other over some secret joke.

  Red water was trickling down the brick wall above.

  “Hey, so, uh, what is this?” Davidek asked as he squeezed by the janitor, who was trying to clean up the mess on the landing between the second and third floors. “I’m pannin’ for gold, smart stuff,” the janitor said, shaking his mop in the air with his good hand. Davidek and Stein looked down at the nubs of the fingers on his other hand, which were still dark and swollen, and not quite healed, even after all these months. The janitor made no move to hide them. “Yinz wanna closer look?”

  Davidek shook his head. “No, I mean … we were just wondering what are these leaks? We saw one in the computer room and—”

  This news seemed to break Saducci’s heart. “It’s leakin’ on the first floor awready?” he sputtered. “Jee-sus Christmas Christ.” He slapped the mop against a dry part of the wall, making a splatter like someone had been shot in the skull. “Gawdamm roof. Little cracks is all it takes.… Chews up the brick, and spits it back outtagain. And whose gotta warsh it up? Yers truly!”

  Davidek and Stein moved up the stairs, leaving the old man behind, not feeling any better that their new school was digesting itself from the inside out.

  * * *

  At lunch, Lorelei was very pleased. She had already become friendly with the pathological flirt Noah Stein, who had found a way to sit by her in every class that morning. Now it was time to charm her fellow girls.

  The freshmen were the last to be served in the lunch line, and once Lorelei collected her plate of meat loaf and potatoes, she settled at a table full of skirts, approaching them the way a missionary app
roaches a group of savages. Lorelei came not to join, but to lead.

  The girl beside her was Zari, the tarot-card reader, whom she’d seen cozying up to Stein in homeroom earlier, dealing her devil cards to him. “I love your dark lipstick,” Lorelei said. “Where did you get it?” Zari’s sleepily sarcastic expression perked up as she noticed Lorelei’s peculiar bangs and eyebrows.

  Lorelei reddened, but she’d been contemplating a defensive maneuver all morning. “I know, I know,” she said, flipping her fingers casually through the uneven cut. “Looks strange, right?… But my stylist says it’s the latest thing. Symmetry is so yesterday.”

  Zari said, “You’re lying,” and Lorelei, speaking faster than she was thinking, snapped: “The trend just hasn’t hit Pittsburgh yet.”

  Zari rolled her eyes. “Something needs to hit Pittsburgh,” she said. Lorelei didn’t realize it was a joke at first. Then she laughed a little too loud. Zari just stared at her.

  If she had given Lorelei a chance, she might have found they had a lot in common. Zari had also come from a school where she didn’t have many friends, though at St. Michael’s she didn’t see many people she wanted as friends. But Zari had liked the scarred boy—Noah. She liked the mark on his face, which meant he understood pain, and made him different. Plus, that morning as she did his tarot reading, he made funny jokes about some of the uglier classmates. It meant he didn’t think she was one of them.

  Her reading for him had been bullshit. When she told him his closest friends wouldn’t continue with him in this school, it was just a trick to find out whether he already had a girlfriend. She told him there would be “hard times” at St. Mike’s and he would be lonely. Then she’d given him her phone number.

  The very next class, she had seen Stein become preoccupied with this Lorelei, a much more conventional-looking bobblehead. Zari knew she could never compete with Lorelei’s avant-garde eyebrows and esoteric grooming fashions.

  She looked across the aisle to where Stein had settled for lunch at one of the boys-only tables. He was laughing with Davidek, who was irrelevant to Zari, and babbling about something—probably not her.