Brutal Youth: A Novel

by Anthony Breznican

  “Your dad? The church councilman? Now he’s Don Corleone?” Stein said. “I like you, LeRose, but seriously…”

  LeRose’s beefy neck bulged against his collar. “You want to laugh? Let me tell you about this guy, a patrolman with the Tarentum police. A few years ago they get a call—house alarm. Lots of crime over there since the—” he shot a barely perceptible glance at Green “—since a lot of poorer people started moving in.”

  “I live in Tarentum. Haven’t poorer people always lived there?” Green said.

  LeRose ignored him: “This happened five years ago,” he said. “So the house alarm goes off, and the cop shows up. There’s this guy out on the front lawn. It’s dark, the lights are off in the house, the guy’s in shadows. He’s waving his arms.… The officer is the first one there, but he hears sirens off in the distance. His backup is coming, but it’s not there yet. He says, ‘Hands up, get down on the ground!’ The guy keeps walking over to him, so the officer says it again, but the guy doesn’t stop. Finally, the officer draws his gun. Now all the sudden the guy wants to cooperate, but when the cop goes to cuff him, he starts getting all panicky again and ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ and all that shit. The guy starts struggling. The cop draws his gun again. Stop! But the guy doesn’t stop. Then suddenly, Pow! The gun goes off, right across the side of the perp’s head.”

  LeRose paused, letting it sink in for the boys around him.

  Davidek said, “Are you going to tell us the cop shot your dad in the head, and that’s why you’re rich today?” Green and Stein laughed out loud.

  “No, stupid…,” LeRose said, his dramatic pause ruined. “My dad wasn’t anywhere near there. The twist is—the dude the cop shot was the homeowner. He’d come back from vacation and his wife opened the door, sent the kids in, then he came out to unload the car—forgetting to turn off the alarm.

  “So when the cop arrived, the guy was just trying to explain—false alarm, right? And when he started getting arrested, he freaked out, didn’t follow orders—and that’s what got him shot.”

  “So what’s this got to do with your dad?” Green asked. “Or Hannah’s notebook?”

  “Well, you can imagine—the cop was royally screwed, right? Career in ruins? Wrong. First, the dude didn’t die, but he had part of his skull sheared off. Minor brain damage and disfigurement. Then my dad steps in. This isn’t just bad for the cop, who happens to be my dad’s friend—he’s got a lot of cop friends—but it’s going to cost the city a fortune, too. Dad talks to the police chief and gives the department access to my dad’s private lawyers. This homeowner who got popped, he had some drunk driving arrests, an assault charge in his past. He’s no saint. He managed a shoe store over in Lower Burrell, which was in a strip mall my dad had a partnership in.… So my dad comes up with a plan: The cops charge the guy who got shot. Disorderly conduct. Resisting arrest. Soon as he gets out of the hospital, he’s going to the slammer. Then the lawyers search for—and find—some irregularities in the lease the shoe store signed. Rent’s going up. You can’t stay in business here? Oh, sorry. Maybe you need to lay off some staff.…

  “So jail time looming, the employer is cutting him loose, legal and medical bills mounting … The guy’s wife decides to strike a deal. They settle the lawsuit against the city for cheap, no charges against the cop. Misdemeanor disorderly conduct for the victim—suspended sentence. The city covers medical expenses, and the shoe store rent goes back to normal. The family didn’t stay. They moved elsewhere. The cop did stay, and he got promoted. Officer Bellows was his name. Now he’s a captain in the department. And all because of my dad.”

  “When does your old man pick up the Nobel Prize?” Davidek asked.

  LeRose stood from the table. “I like you, Dav, but you don’t get it sometimes. The point of this story is, it’s important to have friends. When you don’t have friends, you end up losing your job at the fucking shoe store. You get me? There are other stories about my dad … things I wouldn’t exactly want announced to a crowd.… So just check with Hannah, all right? See what she’s got. Lemme know. I’d appreciate it.” He extended his hand to Davidek. “Okay, friend?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Bilbo grabbed Davidek’s sleeve as he walked up the steps. The usual cluster of senior boys was standing at the base of the stairwell, joined by Green, who usually didn’t say much to Davidek when his older buddies were around. Like always, they were sipping Cokes and laughing to each other as they loitered in the open space at the bottom of the stairs.

  “We want to know something,” Bilbo said. His face had the same hopefulness as LeRose’s last week. Davidek could almost predict the words as they fell out of Bilbo’s mouth. He’d heard them a lot lately: Hannah doesn’t know …

  “… about the hidden porno stash in the library, does she?” Bilbo asked.

  That was a new one. Davidek had no idea.

  He also didn’t know if Hannah knew about the junior guy who’d been selling date-rape drugs on the side. Everybody who asked him about that was certain who it was, though they all believed it was somebody different.

  And he didn’t know about the rumor that two sophomore guys on the golf team were seen making out behind the pro shop one weekend. Dan Foster and Pat Trombolla fumbled over their reason for bringing it up, saying they were asking on behalf of the actual boys—not that they were the ones themselves, of course.

  Davidek pleaded ignorance—and that was the truth. But after people approached him with their questions, they tended to turn belligerent—fearing he’d tip Hannah to something new. He seemed to make new enemies every time somebody asked him to be their friend.

  Only Bilbo was forthright. “That stash of porno was here when I was a freshman,” he said. “Hell, some of those beat-up stroke mags were probably here when my old man was a freshman.… It’s important for it to stay there—for tradition’s sake.”

  Bilbo sounded almost patriotic. Davidek said he sympathized.

  As he walked away, Davidek turned back to the stairwell sanctuary and asked, “So why are you guys always standing around here, drinking pop? Why here?”

  A wide smile spread on Green’s face, “Dude, it’s a secret.…” And then he tipped his head back and took a long swig. One of the seniors slapped the can out of his hand. “Don’t even hint around at it, dumb-ass,” Prager said.

  Green looked helplessly from Davidek down to his own reflection in the fading fizz of the spilled soda. “Sorry,” he said.

  * * *

  Davidek was waiting in the snow at Hannah’s Jeep again. Hannah brushed her bangs from her eyes as she took out her car keys. “They’re hassling you about the notebook, aren’t they?”

  “They’re asking,” he said.

  “Asking you or threatening you?”

  Davidek hesitated. “Which one are you doing?”

  When Hannah Kraut smiled for real, she only half smiled, like one side of her face couldn’t shake its unhappiness. That’s how she smiled now. “You’re sweet,” she said, ruffling his hair. “You’re a good kid, Petey.… And I’ve been pretty easy on you so far. Reading this thing at the end of the year won’t be too much to ask. So don’t worry about it.”

  Davidek’s heart hammered in his chest. “People are going to hate me!”

  Hannah slid into the driver’s seat of the Jeep, and a thought occurred to her. “You’ll be tempted to comfort people at the school, to tell them they’re not included in my little Secret History. You’ll want to make them feel better,” she said. “But when that turns out not to be true, when they are in there—that would be very bad for you. They’ll feel like you lied to them.”

  “Some of those people are my friends,” Davidek said, and Hannah’s eyes slid closed.

  “No one is your friend at that school,” she said. “Not a single person. Everyone you think you care about will disappoint you. They’ll all hurt you in the end.”

  “You, too?” he said.

  Hannah just stared at him. Then
that little half smile appeared again. “Little old me?” she said. “I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  * * *

  John Hannidy’s eyes pulsed in their sockets. His all-American smile was a snarl, and swatches of his black hair fell down into his eyes. The junior had a little American flag pinned to the lapel of his blue blazer, located just below a gold pin for the Holy Name Society. Both adornments jostled up and down as he slammed Davidek against his locker.

  “Why’d she say my name?” Hannidy asked. “Why’d she point at me? What’s she going to do?” Before he was strong enough to lift people up and swing them back and forth, Hannidy used to be known by the nickname “Turkey Baster.” Some people thought he’d been a test-tube baby because his parents looked like grandparents. Others said it was because his dick was thin enough to fit in one. Either way, Hannidy didn’t want the name coming back.

  Hannidy’s friend, Raymond Lee, a short, blubbery kid with the thick neck of a sea lion, tried to hold him back. They served on the student council together, and had plans for Hannidy to be president next year. Raymond wasn’t worried about nicknames—he was worried Hannah knew they’d been skimming money out of the student activities fund that the council oversaw. Hannidy, as usual, was fixated only on the bullshit.

  Green was waiting to help Davidek up when the juniors left him. “Maybe it’s time we turn to someone new for help,” he said.

  * * *

  As they stood outside Mr. Zimmer’s classroom, Davidek said: “This is it? Your idea of helping me is to tell?”

  Green pulled his hand away from the doorknob. “Mr. Zimmer told me a long time ago that I could come to him if I had any problems with the seniors. You can trust him.”

  Mr. Zimmer was overseeing a study hall, and his room was full of kids from various grades, most of them working on projects for the school’s upcoming International Day celebration, an afternoon of foreign foods, shoddy-looking dioramas, and stage skits presented by the language classes.

  “Hey, Green!” the lanky teacher called out, rising from his desk. “What can I do for you guys?” He clapped Green on the shoulder, and Davidek felt a pang of jealousy that he wasn’t pals with the teacher, too.

  “We need help with something,” Green said. “And it’s kind of serious.”

  “Very serious,” Davidek emphasized.

  Zimmer look from boy to boy. “Very serious. Okay. Well, let’s talk.”

  “Not here,” Davidek said, eyeing the senior Spanish students, who were arguing whether the “Murder of Gonzago” scene from Hamlet was too complicated to translate in time for their International Day show. Mullen and Simms were among the unfriendlies. “Up here, then…,” Zimmer said, and he walked with them toward his desk.

  Davidek was relieved to see only freshmen sitting nearby. He was safe. “You know Hannah Kraut, right, Mr. Zimmer?” he asked.

  The teacher looked at him steadily. After Davidek explained about the notebook, and her plans to have her freshman—him—read it at the Hazing Picnic, all Mr. Zimmer had to say was: “Hannah has been treated very badly here.”

  “Not by me,” Davidek said.

  Zimmer cocked his head toward the older kids in the back of the room. “By them,” he said. “She’s not the monster you think she is.”

  “Then why is she doing this to a freshman who never did anything to her?” Green said.

  “Will you talk to her?” Davidek asked. “Get her to back off?”

  Zimmer thought about it, then nodded. “Someday when you two are seniors, desperate freshmen are going to tremble in your shadows. When that day comes, remember how you felt coming to ask for this favor. Okay?”

  Davidek and Green walked to the door, and Zimmer called out: “One more thing…”

  They stopped, and he waited for them to walk back to him. “Just wondering. She say anything about the teachers in this notebook?” Zimmer asked.

  Davidek thought before answering. He had no idea. But maybe it would be good if Mr. Zimmer and the rest of the faculty felt invested in stopping this notebook from coming to light. “Yeah,” Davidek said. “Teachers. The principal. Father Mercedes. She’s got something on everybody.”

  After they left, Zimmer looked over to the spot where Hannah had once stood on her tiptoes and ambushed him with a kiss.

  In front of his desk, Seven-Eighths sat as still as a statue behind her computer screen. Davidek and Green hadn’t noticed her as they talked to Mr. Zimmer. No one ever did.

  She felt a swell of pride after school, as she walked over to the rectory and knocked on Father Mercedes’s front door. “You were right, Father,” Seven-Eighths told him. “That girl is going to try to hurt you.”

  * * *

  The next day, Sister Maria sat behind her desk as Father Mercedes stood behind her, and Ms. Bromine paced the floor of the small principal’s office. The priest said he had recently learned about Hannah’s notebook, and felt Sister Maria needed to take immediate action to ensure this irresponsible young girl did not needlessly damage the reputations of good people in the St. Mike’s community.

  Hannah Kraut kept her hands folded on her lap as they questioned her. She said she had no idea what they talking about, and kept repeating that for nearly an hour as she was interrogated, scolded, threatened.…

  “I’d like to know exactly where this so-called information you have collected is being kept right now,” Father Mercedes demanded.

  A silence followed. Hannah opened her mouth, then closed it. “I can only tell you again,” she said finally. “There is no diary or notebook or whatever.”

  “Hannah…,” Sister Maria moaned. “Can we please stop playing games here?” The nun’s heart wasn’t in this—Hannah could tell. But the priest was furious, and Ms. Bromine seemed gleeful.

  “Where’d you hear these things anyway?” Hannah asked. “Rumors are almost never true, you know.” She cocked a little half smile. “Not that I keep track.”

  Ms. Bromine slammed her palm on the principal’s desk. “I was there when you stood on the table in the lunchroom, threatening people,” she said. “What was that all about?”

  Hannah raised her eyebrows. “I was pointing out the people who were calling me a disgusting name. Why were you just standing there, watching me? I could have used your help.”

  The priest folded his hands. “I’m sorry to see it come to this.” That was true. He had hoped the girl’s little notebook would work in his favor as a nice smack across the face to St. Mike’s, proof that the high school was better amputated than saved. But he simply couldn’t risk himself being listed among the implicated.

  “Who exactly is accusing me of having this notebook?” Hannah asked.

  “Teachers,” Father Mercedes said, not wanting to reveal his real source. Not even Sister Maria and Ms. Bromine knew about his little freshman mole.

  Teachers? Hannah thought.

  Ms. Bromine’s lips pursed into a thin smile. “That name they were calling you, Hannah. It refers to something, doesn’t it? You have a reputation for being—let’s say—loose with your favors. Isn’t that so?” The guidance counselor’s eyes were bright, knowing. They said, fuckslut.

  “Maybe you’d like to enlighten us as to her history, Ms. Bromine?” the priest asked.

  “That’s enough,” Sister Maria said.

  Ms. Bromine ignored her, drudging up all the old slurs and rumors. Sister Maria looked away during most of it, but Hannah did not. At the end, the girl just said, “None of that is true either.”

  “You’re applying to Penn State, right?” Bromine asked. “Who’s writing your letter of recommendation—Mr. Zimmer?”

  Hannah didn’t answer.

  “That’s enough,” Sister Maria said again.

  “You know, it’s not unheard of for a letter to be rescinded,” Bromine said. “Even a state school might not admit a student if St. Mike’s sends the proper warning.”

  “I said enough! Enough!” the nun shouted, rising from her desk.

 
Father Mercedes finally acknowledged the nun. “Why is it only ‘enough’ when we’re trying to enact some discipline around here?”

  The principal turned to Hannah. “You are excused,” she said. “For now.”

  As Hannah walked out, Bromine came to the door, closing it on her until there was only space for their faces. “We’ll find out about this notebook—with or without your help.”

  “You’ll be sorry if you do,” Hannah said.

  Bromine smirked as the principal’s door clicked shut. Father Mercedes’s muffled voice from the other side said, “Just one more wreck of a student, Sister Maria.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  A day later, Hannah knelt in the hall, digging her gym shoes out of the bottom of her locker. A pair of long legs in khaki pants walked up beside her.

  “Ready to bowl a three hundred?” Zimmer asked.

  Ever since the church fire led to the school’s gymnasium being transformed into a chapel, the school had made an arrangement with the bowling alley in a neighboring shopping mall. It was walking distance for the students, even in the snow, and two hours of pin smashing fulfilled the state-mandated physical requirement during the winter months.

  “Maybe you could walk with me to the Lanes today, Hannah,” Zimmer said. “I think we need to talk.” The gangly teacher crouched down, and Hannah gazed into the older man’s face, the bruised half moons beneath his eyes, the long teeth in his smile. There was nothing beautiful about him, but she still wanted to pull him close.

  Outside, the class moved ahead of Hannah and Mr. Zimmer in a thin column led by Mr. Mankowski, pressing forward across the icy parking lot of the shopping center. With Hannah’s hood pulled up over her head like a monk’s cassock, she and Mr. Zimmer passed along the shopfronts—the CardVark greeting card store, the Little Professor Book Nook, the Jo-Ann Fabric outlet, a Christian music store called: Christian Music.

  “What do you want to talk about?” she asked, certain she already knew the answer. Who had tipped off Bromine, Sister Maria, and Father Mercedes? Teachers, the priest had said. Hannah guessed it was actually only one.