He lived daily with their ghosts, but it was a lot easier to miss them than it was to live with them. They had been hard on their quiet, bookish boy—and unlike Sister Maria, their questions about girls weren’t so easily sidetracked by jokes. His father, a failed cop who found sporadic work as a security guard after alcoholism cost him that job, just assumed his son was queer, and after he died, Zimmer’s mother decided to finally ask him directly, which he knew was very painful for her. It was painful for him, too, so he hoped a blunt answer would make her never ask again: “No, Mama,” he said. “I’m just ugly.”
In the spring and summer, students often saw Mr. Zimmer out at the old St. Joseph cemetery, on the edge of town where the shops and parking lots of Natrona Heights gave way to farmland. He would go there to cut the grass around his mother and father’s plots because St. Joe’s had recently been closed by the diocese, and no one maintained the grounds anymore except the families of the buried. It wasn’t a sad chore for him. He enjoyed being out there—the birds heckling him from the tall weeds around the unkept graves, the smell of the cut grass and the way it stained his tennis shoes green. It was peaceful there, and most of all, he enjoyed talking to his mom and dad, freely, about anything at all. And now they listened without hounding or judging him.
“Do you know they call you The Grave Robber?” Hannah had told him once.
“That’s a new one,” he said. He knew Hannah was good at making herself small and going unnoticed, which made her an excellent spy. “Back in high school, they used to call me The Skeleton,” he told her. “They would’ve considered a cemetery to be my natural habitat.”
“I thought they called you Señor Gargoyle,” she said.
Zimmer sighed. “That was mainly Spanish class.” Hannah laughed at that, and it coaxed a smile out of him, too. Let the kids call him names. What teacher could escape that fate? Hannah reminded him how nice it was to talk to the living. He hoped he did the same for her.
* * *
The next few years were vicious ones for Hannah. And after any particularly rough time, she would appear at school with a different hair color—blond, black, brunette—as if she hoped to go unrecognized. Her small, pudgy face was always the same, pinched, suffering, dogged by that word, that horrible nickname. The one Zimmer couldn’t bear to hear or repeat.
Then a strange thing happened near the end of Hannah’s junior year: It all just stopped. The teasing, the name-calling, the torment—it simply ceased. When Hannah moved through the halls, the other kids shifted away from her, like a negative pulse pushing them aside. Zimmer had no idea what happened, but he doubted they had all grown souls overnight. Hannah had done something. She had frightened them somehow. Hannah had forced them to stop.
He asked her once what had changed. “I have no idea,” she answered, but the lie was heavy in those mismatched eyes.
On the last day of that year, with the floors polished, the chalkboards wiped clean, and the textbooks packed away for the summer, Hannah had found him shutting down the computers in his otherwise empty classroom. “I came to say good-bye,” she told him, and in her hand was a sheet of paper folded in thirds. “And to give you this.”
Zimmer opened the page, smiling at her. He’d gotten these kinds of letters before: “Thank you, Mr. Zimmer. You really inspired me.” Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. They were all the same, and priceless, too. He saved every one.
But on this creased sheet of paper there were just three words: Don’t be mad.
When Mr. Zimmer looked up, Hannah Kraut stepped forward, placing her left hand against the teacher’s cratered cheek. She tipped up on her toes and placed her open lips against his.
* * *
When he saw her again, another summer had passed, and it was the start of her senior year. He hadn’t told anyone about the kiss, not Sister Maria, and not even his parents, who were now good at keeping secrets.
He knew he had done nothing wrong, but still felt guilty. When Hannah had kissed him, he pulled away, staring everywhere but directly at her. But what could he do then—report her? Send her for counseling? Disrupt her already difficult life even more, just as it was turning around? “Hannah … I … You really shouldn’t have done that.…”
“I know,” she said. And as she left the room, she looked back one more time. “And I know you have to say that.”
There had been another metamorphosis in Hannah over the summer—a deep, dramatic, and lovely one. She had dyed her hair again, but it now hung smoothly around her shoulders, and a season of heavy exercise had transformed her previous squat awkwardness into a lean, girlish litheness. Her face was more serene, no longer furrowed and angry. She truly did look like a different person, and Zimmer almost didn’t recognize her.
She assumed they would return to their regular after-school study sessions again, but Zimmer said he couldn’t. “Is it because of The Note?” she asked.
He countered the intimacy of her code language by feigning ignorance. “Note? No. No, I just have nightly commitments now that I can’t break. I’m working almost every evening on a special project for the school.” He hated to sound mysterious; that made it seem like a lie. “I wish I could tell you, but … it’s kind of a private matter.”
“Secret agent man,” Hannah smirked. She didn’t believe him. But whatever.
Hannah took out a disposable camera. “Do you mind?” she asked. “To commemorate the first day of my last year?”
Zimmer looked at the open door leading to the hallway. “Sure,” he said.
He leaned against the edge of his desk and Hannah squeezed in close, standing on the tips of her toes again to get her face beside his. “Someday we’ll look at this picture, and it will seem strange that it was so long ago,” she said, holding the camera at arm’s length. Her head rested against his shoulder. There was no flash, just a click of the shutter.
They both smiled, though Mr. Zimmer’s was a little awkward.
Not that anyone would have found that unusual.
FOURTEEN
“It’s a notebook,” Green said, standing in biology class while fastening a dull gray apron around his waist. “That’s what this Hannah chick’s got that has everybody freaked.”
He and Davidek stood by the stainless steel sink in the back of the room, dumping little tins of liquefied grape Jell-O and pineapple slices into the garbage disposal. Mrs. Horgen had the lab learning about the substrate-enzyme complex, with the acidic fruit dissolving the collagen cells in the gelatin. The experiment was also delicious, the class agreed.
Davidek was grateful to Green for the news. Since LeRose first warned him about Hannah Kraut, rumors of this most dangerous of senior mentors had trickled through the freshman class, and intelligence on her was at a premium. Not everybody knew an upperclassman well enough to get information, but Green had made friends in high places.
“She’s been keeping a diary or something, all these years,” Green told him. “They say she’s got a whole book full of embarrassing things written down about everybody. And that’s why nobody messes with her. The guys”—the guys were the seniors Green had befriended—“say she’s been dropping hints that she’s gonna make her freshman read it out loud at the big Hazing Day picnic thing.”
“So what’ll that prove?” Davidek asked.
Green shrugged. “All I know is, she’s outta here at the end of the year, but we’ve got three more to go,” Green said. “If she’s lighting up an inferno, I don’t want to be the match.”
Davidek knew Green had a lot less to worry about than he did. Someone safe would choose him as a little brother. Green had ingratiated himself by being a good sport, which made the upperclassmen want to pick on him less. Sometimes, he even volunteered himself for hazing.
One afternoon, a group of upperclassmen were forcing freshman boys to march in formation through the halls singing old-time songs of woe—their favorite was “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which the freshmen chanted in creaky mock baritones.
&nb
sp; “Hey, fellas, how come you didn’t pick me?” he asked Michael Crawford, who was leading the cluster of freshman captives. Crawford looked at his friends, who had nothing.
“You know that song they’re singing, ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’? That song is what they call a Negro spiritual,” Green said. “It’s a religious song that black folks would sing when they were picking cotton or doing group labor during the slave times.”
“Aww, jeez…,” Bilbo groaned, looking like he’d rather die than have this conversation. “It’s got nuthin’ to do with Negro anything—oh, ah—I mean black people anything. It’s, uh, an Eric Clapton song. I have it on my dad’s CD to prove it!”
Green became very animated. “Eric Clapton?” he said. “Are you kidding me?” Crawford, Bilbo, and the other seniors looked scared, like they’d accidentally inflamed a one-man race war with the school’s lone minority. It took a second for them to realize Green wasn’t angry; he was excited. “My dad has that album, too!” Green said. “And I learned to play some of the chords to that song by listening to the Clapton version.”
The seniors gaped at him. Green said, “You know … guitar?” and mimed strumming in the air. “I went through a really intense Clapton phase last summer. I love that his version of ‘Chariot’ has a kind of reggae thing going on.”
The seniors were perplexed. “Soooo, it’s not racist to make them sing it … right?” Prager asked. The freshman boys lined up behind him were wide-eyed, waiting to see how this played out.
Green shrugged. “It’s just singing. You’re not treating these guys like slaves, right?”
“No!” Crawford said. “No, no no. No.” The freshmen behind him shared subtle expressions of doubt.
“It is a good song,” Green said. “So you should sing it right. Like Clapton did. It’s an old work song, but it deserves some respect.”
Some pink color returned to Bilbo’s blanched, sweating face. “I’m kind of into guitar, too, you know,” Bilbo told Green. “Well, I’m trying to learn … was trying.”
Green looked at the silent freshman singers, who were still awaiting further instruction. “You’re singing it like it’s torture. You got to sing it sweet. It is ‘sweet chariot,’ you know? Don’t make it a dirge.” And Green walked in among his classmates and sang a bit of the verse and showed them what a harmony was. Green’s voice wasn’t perfect, but he hit actual notes instead of chanting in monotone like the other boys. They got so good at it that Green helped organize the hazing singsong marches all through the week. Even some upperclassmen joined in.
“Just don’t leave me out next time,” Green had told Bilbo. “If you’re into music, maybe we could hang out sometime. I’m always looking for someone to play with.” Strebovich stepped forward to tell Green he used to play drums, and Prager said he also always wanted to learn guitar.
“You into rap?” Prager asked, and Green shrugged.
“I’m mostly into guitar stuff,” Green said. “I’m in a real nostalgia phase. Lotsa ’70s stuff. I’m into, like, Pearl Jam, too, and Tom Waits. You know him?”
“You know who I like?” Bilbo said eagerly. “Hendrix.”
Green bobbed his head. “Hendrix is God.”
“And, umm, that guy B.B. King,” Prager added.
Green said, “B.B. King is also God.”
Strebovich snapped his fingers, trying to jog something loose in his brain. “Who is that other, uh, bl—uh guy in a rock band … uh, whatshisname? Living Colour.”
Green’s face soured a little. “I like white musicians, too, guys. The Who, The Doors, Pink Floyd. Dylan. U2. Neil Young…”
The senior boys stared at him blankly. “How about Prince?” Prager asked hopefully.
Green rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.” Pretty soon, they were meeting up on weekends, and Green was welcomed into the mysterious group of seniors who gathered every day at the bottom of the south stairs, drinking Coke in that open space at the bottom and laughing at their private joke. Davidek couldn’t figure out why they hung out there.
One time he asked, but that made Green suck air between his teeth. “You know, I can tell you a lot of stuff, but that one … I can’t. The guys would kill me.”
* * *
Green was one of two freshmen considered to be honorary seniors. Lorelei was the other.
In the weeks since Davidek and Stein were released from suspension, she had spent most of her time with Audra Banes, who—after saving her from the Groughs—had already announced she was choosing Lorelei as her little sister, even though the sign-up sheet wouldn’t be posted for another month. Lorelei was welcomed into the coterie of sophomore, junior, and senior girls who worshipped Student Council President Banes (when they weren’t secretly deriding her thickening legs and deliberately nerdy black-rimmed glasses).
When Lorelei visited the freshman lunch tables, it was like a congressional representive visiting the home district, reassuring them that they had nothing to fear from the upcoming Brother–Sister initiative, and basking in the adoration most of her classmates had for her. The one who had none was Zari, who still resented the attention Lorelei received from Stein.
One late October afternoon, as a harsh wind outside turned the leaves into a flame-colored shower, she sat beside Zari in study hall and asked, “Do you still have those fortune-telling cards?”
Her lanky, black-haired classmate raised her head sharply, jangling her long earings. “Tarot cards,” Zari corrected.
“Tarot, right, right,” Lorelei said, adding with a whisper. “Can the cards, like, help me figure out what to do about a boy?”
“Which boy? Stein?” Zari said—loudly.
Lorelei looked around her, over to where the boys were sitting. They hadn’t heard. “No,” she said. “Peter Davidek. I think he’s … cute.”
Zari opened her purse and began shuffling the ornate deck. Inside, her heart did a little happy dance. The first card had a young couple beneath a flowery bow; the second was a dead man lying on the ground with ten swords sticking out of his back. “That can’t be good,” Lorelei said, and Zari shushed her.
“No,” Zari said, thinking for a moment. “That means you should definitely go for it.”
* * *
The next day, Lorelei asked Davidek if he was going to the Halloween dance. She didn’t ask him to go with her, or if he would dance with her, or anything like that. Just: Are you going? And Davidek, who was hoping to go, told her he wasn’t.
“I don’t really care about dances and crap like that,” he said, though he wanted to say yes. Still, he had made a decision: Stein was in love with Lorelei, so he wouldn’t get in the way anymore.
“What’s going on with you lately?” Lorelei asked.
Davidek didn’t answer as he stepped past her in the otherwise empty stairwell and descended out of sight.
Later that day, Stein not only asked Lorelei to be his date for the Halloween dance, but also suggested that they coordinate costumes. He wanted to go as Casanova, and hoped Lorelei would go as whoever it was Casanova was in love with. But still stinging from her rebuke by Davidek, Lorelei told Stein just as bluntly: “I doubt I’ll even go.”
When the Halloween dance finally arrived, none of them went.
* * *
It was early November, and Lorelei was walking out the front double doors when she heard a voice behind her. “Can I walk you outside?” It was Stein, standing against the trophy case beneath the white-eyed Jesus statue. “I thought maybe we could talk,” he said.
Hurrying students brushed past Lorelei, opening and closing the main doors as they flowed outside to their rides home. Her father would be out there, tapping his fingers on his steering wheel. “Why do you want to talk?” she asked.
Stein shrugged. “I don’t know. Because.”
Lorelei laughed at him. “Because? The answer you give is because?”
Stein’s face was serious. “Because … I don’t know. I thought we were friends, but you seem like y
ou’d rather be alone most of the time now.”
Lorelei shifted her book bag on her shoulder. Alone. “I never said I wanted that,” she said.
* * *
They left through the side entrance so her father wouldn’t see. He’d be angry his daughter kept him waiting, but he would wait—unlike her mother—at least for a while.
Lorelei and Stein walked down the street in front of the priest’s rectory and the nuns’ convent, the red-stone walls of St. Mike’s rising behind those homes. The trees lining the street cascaded autumn leaves around them, like ruby embers floating down from a bonfire. Stein reached out to hold Lorelei’s hand, but she pulled it away. “I like you, Noah, but you just don’t get it, do you?” she said. “You’re cute. But we’re just friends, okay?”
Stein smiled and opened his arms: “But I am cute?”
Lorelei took a few more steps, then looked back. The wind played with his short hair; the clip-on tie was a little crooked. He bunched his hands in the pockets of his blazer. “I owe you an apology,” he told her. “When you needed help, with the Groughs and the cigarettes, I wasn’t much. That was lame. I suck. And I’m sorry.”
“Why do you care about me so much?” Lorelei said, walking again. “You’ve got other girls who like you, who’d make out with you in a heartbeat. Maybe even more than make out.”
Stein caught up to her and said, “Because … well, because,” and Lorelei laughed at him.
“That answer again—you sound like you’re five. My mom won’t let me date, Stein,” she said. “That’s the end of it.”
“So?” He shrugged. “No candlelit dinners, I guess. But that doesn’t mean we can’t sorta date anyway, here at school.” Lorelei lowered her head. That was exactly what she had hoped for with Davidek, before he started being a jerk.
They were rounding the back of the gymnasium church, crossing through the grass along the pine shrubs and bare azalea bushes. Another turn, and they’d be headed back into St. Mike’s parking lot. Stein stopped walking again. No one else was around, and he wanted it to stay that way, just a little while longer.
Brutal Youth: A Novel Page 13
