Brutal Youth: A Novel

by Anthony Breznican

  The nun’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Would hurting them help your friend?”

  Davidek sank in his chair. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt. “Go past Valley High School, then keep on through the intersection toward Parnassus,” he said. When they passed a gas station and a video rental store, Davidek pointed right and she turned down his street.

  Every window in his house was aglow. The nun parked at the corner and looked at the dashboard clock. It was 1:53 A.M. “How will you explain being gone to your parents?” she asked.

  “They’ll just want to yell, not ask questions,” he said. “I’ll just tell them I was hanging out with Stein and didn’t call because I didn’t want to come home. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Peter, can I count on you to tell the story we’ve agreed to?”

  Davidek got out of her car and reached back to pick up something he’d left on the seat—a red clip-on tie. “Everybody knows the school is falling apart,” he said. “The last thing you need is a kid trying to kill himself, right?”

  The nun leaned forward so he could see her face in the dome light. “If you’re his friend, you’ll keep his secret.”

  Davidek closed the door, then turned back and poked his finger against the glass. “Yeah, I’ll keep quiet,” he said. “But just remember—it’s your secret.” He looked down at the clip-on in his hands. “Stein wasn’t keeping them anymore.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The priest settled into the cushioned seat at the head of the main library table. Afternoon sunlight filtered in from the basement windows. The chatter in the cavernous room went silent. The entire faculty settled into their seats along the table, listening, every face grim.

  “I’ll let Sister Maria explain it,” Father Mercedes said. “She’s the one responsible for it.”

  Sister Maria began to speak what everyone already knew from gossip: The Stein boy had gone back into the school during the evacuation and wreaked havoc. Now he was suspended—indefinitely. “It’s a sad turn of events,” the nun said. “But this is for the best.”

  The school had been closed for a week, and this was the first faculty meeting since the flood. No one knew whether to be celebratory or serious. Mrs. Arnerelli whispered to Zimmer that they better not extend the school year—she and her husband had already purchased nonrefundable tickets to Vegas for early June.

  When Sister Maria finished, Father Mercedes rose from his seat. “You all give out a lot of grades at this school, but now it’s time you were graded yourselves.” He began to pace, slowly, caressing his hand on the back of each chair as he passed. “I’ve spoken with the parish council about a new plan: From now until graduation day, we’re going to fill the school with parish Monitors. These are regular people, concerned citizens—men and women from St. Mike’s who will oversee the behavior problems at this school firsthand. They’re going to spend the rest of the year documenting the problems here. And when it’s done, we’ll find out whether St. Michael the Archangel High School passes—or fails.”

  There was general unease and shifting among the faculty. “What happens if the council decides we fail?” asked Miss Marisol, the young, first-year Algebra and Trigonometry teacher.

  The priest fixed her with a flat expression. “Well,” he said. “The school closes.”

  He stood there awhile and let their panicked chatter build, then shouted over it. “I don’t want to see any surprised faces! You know this. You talk about it privately. Parents confront you and you shrug and say, ‘I know, we’re trying.…’ That’s not good enough any longer. Not for the children you teach. Not for the parishioners who continue paying for your mistakes.”

  He continued his slow walk around the table. “Another year will pass where I am asked, time and time again, ‘When will we rebuild the fallen church?’ After all the fund-raisers, all the donations, all the pancake breakfasts and candy sales and solicitations. After so much money is nearly raised to begin work on a foundation, I have to tell them, ‘Sorry. We gave what little we had … to fix the school.’ But right now, ‘the school’ is synonymous with ‘the embarrassment.’”

  The priest flattened his hands on the long table, and his dim reflection in the varnish pressed back against him. “Right now you’re thinking, ‘It’s not me.… I do my best.… I show up, teach the lessons, grade the homework.… I work hard and stay late and sacrifice.… I do a good job.’ And maybe you do.” The priest shrugged. “But if you’re not to blame, who is?” He let the question hang there. No one spoke. Most heads around the table were bowed shamefully. Only Bromine kept her face high, eyes locked with Father Mercedes, trying to send him telepathic messages of support.

  The priest faced Sister Maria, seated quietly in the chair at the opposite head of the table. “I believe you deserve the blame, Sister Maria,” he said. “I have told you this privately. Now, regrettably, I’m telling you in public. Your leadership here has been a shambles, and there’s no denying it. Brawls, scandals, and now vandalism. Still, you come with your hand out.”

  Sister Maria didn’t fight back. This was a little dance they did. Father Mercedes would harass her in front of the staff, blame her for the problems at the school, and she would let him. Ultimately, he had to provide the funds needed to repair the water damage and vandalized bathroom. That’s all she cared about. Let him menace her. She had faced worse lately.

  “Let’s hear from you, the teachers,” Father Mercedes said. “I’d like to hear your feelings about what’s going wrong at this school.”

  Another long hush fell across the library. Ms. Bromine raised her hand primly, but Mr. Zimmer slid back his chair and ratcheted his frame to stand before she could speak.

  “I’m glad you brought this up, Father,” Zimmer said. “Responsibility is a good topic to discuss. I don’t like the idea of ‘blame,’ that sounds awfully childish and unproductive, but it’s the word you used, so I’ll use it, too.” Zimmer opened his arms to the priest. “I guess I blame you, Father.”

  The faculty’s collective muscles tightened, and the priest’s expression changed from intrigue to heavy-lidded boredom. “Lovely, Mr. Zimmer. By all means, grind your ax later. I believe Ms. Bromine had something to say first—”

  Zimmer just kept talking. “You blame Sister Maria, but for a long time now, Father, it’s been clear to everyone around this table that you aren’t interested in helping this school.”

  Ms. Bromine boiled over, sputtering, “It’s not clear to me. You don’t speak for everyone in this faculty.”

  “I speak for the truth,” Zimmer told her. “For a while, Father, I thought you just wanted to get rid of Sister Maria,” the teacher went on as the priest sank into his chair, sighing heavily. “But now—I think that’s just a first step. Get her out of the way. Then you can get St. Mike’s out of the way. Right? But I can’t figure out: Why?”

  “Preposterous,” Father Mercedes said, forcing a smile.

  “You asked everybody around this table to think about what’s wrong with this place,” Zimmer said. “But think about this: When there’s a problem, who takes the time to say, ‘We can do this. We can fix it.’ … It’s Sister Maria. Not you.”

  Mercedes closed his eyes. He said, “That’s enough…,” but Zimmer kept talking.

  “Who has counseled every teacher around this table about personal issues that had nothing to do with work? I won’t mention names—don’t worry—but when marriages have been in crisis, or an older relative has been sick or dying, or the simple pressure of teaching becomes overwhelming, who spends hours talking it over in her office? Who stays late every day at this school, doing her paperwork at night since she has to spend the day policing the halls, all because some priest has been telling people the school is a haven for delinquents and lost casuses?”

  A silence crept back over the proceedings. Zimmer felt deeply uncomfortable standing in front of all these staring eyes.

  “You know it’s true,” Zimmer said, a shake edging into his voic
e. “You can blame Sister Maria for the fact that we can’t afford to rebuild the church, but Sister Maria didn’t make it burn. You can tell the parishioners to blame God for that one. Or maybe blame the priest who didn’t follow the insurance codes.”

  “Apologize to me,” Mercedes said suddenly.

  Zimmer’s hands fought not to tremble. His mouth felt like a wad of cotton puffs. He had crossed a line. But it was too late to go back.

  “Apologize to me,” Father Mercedes repeated. “Apologize, or so help me, you’ll regret it.”

  Zimmer scanned the faces around him. “Sister Maria didn’t cause the fire, and she didn’t cause the flood either. She has warned you all year long that we need a professional, major overhaul. Roof, walls, ceiling … And you’ve refused, haven’t you, Father? You could have spent a couple grand on a permanent fix, but instead we’re spending ten times that because your decision was to ignore her—and that made it much worse. I don’t know why it’s the church versus the school. There is no life without a next generation, Father. These kids we’re teaching, they are St. Mike’s.”

  “Kids who trash bathrooms,” Father Mercedes snapped. He was looking at Sister Maria now—his eyes screaming with contempt for not silencing her employee.

  “Yeah, kids who trash bathrooms,” Zimmer said. His legs were unsteady, so he sat down again. “Maybe those kids matter more than even the good little ones who sit in the front row and try to answer every question.”

  Father Mercedes rolled his eyes.

  “I wish you were a student here,” Zimmer told the priest. “You’re acting like a bully, Father. You might benefit from a little of the humanity Sister Maria tries to teach.”

  No one in the room was breathing.

  Father Mercedes rose from his chair. “I thought you could be spoken to as adults. Clearly, I was mistaken.” He pulled on his coat and fixed his hat, then picked up his valise and walked to the door. “The Monitors will be in place on the first day that school resumes. Be ready.”

  He walked out of the library and was met in the hall by Ms. Bromine, running to catch up with him, her chest heaving as her legs clattered down the corridor.

  “Father, Father!” she called. “Father, I’m sorry for what happened there … so sorry…” The priest’s eyes were cold. He tapped his pack of cigarettes and didn’t stop walking.

  “Father, you know I’d love to see Sister Maria removed—more than anything. But … these people, these parish Monitors … You don’t really want them to close the school? I mean, you don’t, right? It’s just something to scare everyone?”

  The priest slowed to a stop. He almost felt pity for this clueless woman.

  “Can I do anything to help?” she asked.

  The priest considered this. “I’m quite concerned about Mr. Zimmer,” he said. “Perhaps you could let me know if he demonstrates any other … erratic behavior.”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “He’s weird—and he’s nuts. Wants to be one of the students, not one of the grown-ups. You know the type, Father. I’m glad the parish will have people watching us. They’ll see for themselves.”

  “Excellent.” He started walking again. Bromine called out: “But to be safe … I’d like to suggest we cancel the Hazing Day picnic. There’s too much chance it could go bad. And with Hannah Kraut planning her sick little thing…”

  The priest stopped again, but didn’t turn around. Hazing Day getting out of hand? That would work just fine for him. As long as that Hannah girl didn’t attack him, why not let her stand as an example of the worst St. Mike’s had to offer? He just needed to be sure there were plenty of Parish Monitors to see it. And he also had to be sure he wouldn’t be among her targets.

  But that was the catch. The gamble. Luckily, he had a way to check the odds. He smiled to himself. “Don’t worry. I’d say things are … seven-eighths in favor of working out just as we hoped.”

  He put a hand on Ms. Bromine’s shoulder, and she smiled, too, even though she had no idea what he was talking about.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It began with looks. That’s what Lorelei remembered from years before, when all her old friends fell away from her. When she had felt her existence shrink to nothing. When she had become the strange one, the hated one. When she had stopped mattering. No one said anything. They just stared.

  Lorelei counted only a few friends at St. Mike’s, and she expected to have none of them left when she returned for the first time since International Day, since betraying the one boy who had shamelessly devoted himself to her.

  In some way, perhaps, she had always known this would happen, and had even invited it. A twisted part of Lorelei knew that her mother, that her old friends, that her new enemies all had it right—she was despicable. Deep down in her core. She was a shallow little shit.

  And that was the attitude she struck two weeks after the flood shuttered the school, striding down the hallway of the newly reopened St. Mike’s—her chin high, those lovingly curled gingerbread locks of hair flowing out behind her, hips tempting with each step in the blue-and-yellow tartan skirt. Lorelei held a thin smile on her face, and refused to let it fall, no matter how terrified she was.

  It was her “go fuck yourself” smile.

  Those who despised her were the ones looking away, turning inward, staring at the floor as she passed. They busied themselves with books and papers and rearranged lockers or examined coats as she passed, all fully aware of her presence. People stopped their conversations and turned away, at least as far as their peripheral vision would allow.

  Lorelei’s shoes clicked in the pockets of silence she created.

  There were strangers in the hall. Unfamiliar adults. She overheard other students calling them “The Monitors,” parishioners who were here to report back on what they saw to the parish council. They traveled in pairs, most of them elderly married couples with nothing better to do than volunteer as hallway cops. They didn’t scold or correct misbehavior; they were here to observe, not enforce. Uniform violations, or inappropriate touching, like boyfriends kissing their girlfriends by the lockers, just led to a line in a notebook. They didn’t tell stragglers to hurry to class, or order rowdy kids to settle down. They just watched. And took notes. And conferred with each other in grave whispers. They watched the other students watching Lorelei, and she supposed they wondered—who was this girl? What had she done? Maybe somebody would even tell them, and they could write that in their little notepads.

  Lorelei gathered the morning’s books from her locker. The area around her cleared. She scooped up her bag and pulled her sweater tight. The crowd parted as she passed.

  No one said a word. Not until she was gone.

  * * *

  The senior guys were standing at their usual spot under the north corridor stairs when Bilbo’s old friend Alexander Prager, the school’s star basketball center (and one of the thugs who cornered Stein and Davidek on Dog Collar Day) started a joke: “All right, guys, so who’s the only girl in school you don’t want to fuck you?”

  The other fellows shrugged, waiting for the punch line. Green, the only freshman in the group, tipped back his Coke can and wiped his mouth to cover up a burp.

  “Lorelei!” Prager declared anticlimactically. There were a few chuckles, and the boy felt compelled to add the postscript: “Because when she fucks you, she really fucks you!” He punctuated this by pumping his fist in the air and collected some more polite laughter.

  After a minute, Bilbo said, “That Stein guy was a prick and a half, but I wonder what he did to piss her off so bad. Blowing the whistle on him killing his mom?… Jesus, that’s cold. She wanted him to feel it.”

  One of the other guys, Dan Strebovich, said, “She screwed him over hard.”

  Green sipped his Coke. “Anybody ask Mullen or Simms why she did it? They helped, you know.…”

  Prager shook his head. “They’re tools. They’d love for you to think it was all their idea.” Everybody laughed for real at that. Asshole Fa
ce and Sandmouth—vendetta enforcers. Ha ha.

  Then a group of junior girls walked into the stairwell and all the guys took swigs of their sodas in unison.

  * * *

  Lorelei never explained it to anybody. She wasn’t sure she understood it herself.

  A few older girls, none of them friends, none of them even people she’d spoken to before, brushed by occasionally to say, So. What was the deal? What’d he do? And Lorelei always told them the same thing: “Nothing.”

  You can tell me, the girls would insist. Total confidence, I won’t tell a soul.… But I have to know.

  “There’s nothing to know,” Lorelei would say. This was the point where the conversations always soured. Lorelei knew she could craft an elaborate lie, a tale of justified revenge, and make one or two sorely needed allies out of these busybodies, but she never did.

  They always went away annoyed. One girl said to her, “Just because you’re a bitch to your boyfriend doesn’t mean you have to be a bitch to everybody.” A friend of that girl cautioned her later: “If I were you, I wouldn’t say stuff like that to Lorelei. You saw what she did to the one guy who was nice to her.”

  * * *

  On the third floor, plastic sheeting still hung draped from the ceiling, and fresh white lines of cement glowed from between the bricks. The heavy reconstructive work had been completed in a flurry in the canceled two weeks of classes. The rain had held off, which was a blessing because the rooftop was in the process of a quick and dirty re-tarring. That would be at least another week of work, and in the summer, it would need a more thorough job. Meanwhile, at night, a masonry crew came in to reinforce the cracked walls and ceilings. Until they were finished, students would have to maneuver between the scaffolding and drop cloths.

  It was there that Lorelei came face-to-face with Davidek for the first time since that afternoon in Palisade Hall. She had seen him distantly in the days since class resumed, often slumped over his desk morosely, isolated from everyone, even his other friend, Green.