Brutal Youth: A Novel

by Anthony Breznican

  Davidek’s mind began putting together pieces. “You were … my dad’s senior?”

  The Big Texan shook the boy’s shoulder. “I was not,” he laughed. “And good thing, too! My buddy, Lester Branshock, had your dad, but they didn’t get along. No, sir. Cats and dogs! Your dad was a fighter!” The Big Texan put up his dukes, jabbed at the air, then laughed again. Davidek’s father didn’t.

  “We were all just boys back then,” he said. The Big Texan nodded, as if this grieved him terribly. “Yes, we were,” he said, and patted Bill Davidek’s shoulder. “Good of you to come, Billy. On the phone I didn’t think you would.”

  Then, winking at the boy, the Big Texan said, “Carl should be here any second. He’s taking care of that problem you helped him with.”

  Davidek thought: Carl? And his father pushed in the last piece of the puzzle for him. “Pete, what problem is Mr. LeRose talking about?”

  “Just this troubled girl your boy unfortunately got for his senior,” The Big Texan said, giving Davidek’s father the lowdown on Hannah. Davidek watched them talk, and thought of LeRose lying bloody out in the parking lot, and how he had just run out to save him because he hoped someone would do the same for him. And that good deed was why the fallen boy’s father had come to their house, pressuring the now-grown freshman he and his pals once bullied to send his son to the same school.

  And Davidek’s father had given in.

  Davidek’s old man finally taught him something worth knowing: The things we surrender to when we’re young, we keep surrendering to the rest of our lives.

  * * *

  Just then, a procession of vehicles announced by the fanfare of honking horns and cheers emerged from the woods of Harrison Hills, led by Audra Banes’s white convertible and followed by a stream of other cars that had ambushed Hannah Kraut just an hour earlier. Students hung from the windows, cheering as the vehicles roared up onto the grass.

  A group of sophomores looked up from where they had been stoking a blaze in a stone fire pit just outside the pavilion. The campfire crackled with a demonic orange glow, and the long branches they had dragged from the woods were sticking out of the blaze, which was slowly gnawing them down. Everyone at the picnic turned toward the caravan of newly arrived cars.

  Audra hopped from her convertible and opened the trunk, raising the stack of bound paper in the air like the severed head of an enemy barbarian. The mob of admirers followed her as she walked past Davidek, on her way to the bonfire. “I’ve got it!” she assured everyone. “It’s over.”

  Davidek closed his eyes. Audra spotted him out on the other side of the fire as she held the notebook over her head. “Oh, hi, Peter,” she said. “Thanks, by the way. It all worked out!”

  With that, she tossed the binder into the blaze, sending up a column of sparks. Davidek could read just a few words in the center of the page: “Michael Crawford: Compulsive masturbator…” before it blackened and the binder folded in on itself. Everyone applauded.

  In the distance, Hannah’s Jeep was emerging from the woods, followed by LeRose’s Mustang, and Mullen and Simms in the Pea Green Love Machine.

  When Hannah parked, she walked stiffly toward the swing sets, where she rocked back and forth, her shoes brushing the dust.

  Davidek knew then that it was true. He wanted to go talk to her, but all the people he wanted revenge against were crowding around to congratulate him.

  * * *

  Ms. Bromine stood with Father Mercedes by the potluck spread, watching the growing crowd of picnic-goers. “Honestly,” she said with a mouthful of taco, “it speaks well for our students that they rose up and stopped her themselves. You should tell that to the parish council.”

  Father Mercedes grunted. He was watching the Parish Monitors wander the park grounds aimlessly. He was disappointed they wouldn’t get to hear what Hannah had collected. Disappointed he wouldn’t hear it, too. “I don’t see anything positive in students acting like vigilantes,” he said. “I’m sure the Monitors will make note of that as simply more evidence of the lawlessness here.” At least, he hoped so.

  Ms. Bromine munched her taco. Sometimes she didn’t understand the priest. Honestly, I wonder whose side you’re on, Father. She thought about saying, but didn’t.

  Mercedes had shifted his gaze to Mr. Zimmer, who was directing the students who were laying chalk lines in the field for the football game. “Have you ever heard stories about a teacher at this school having inappropriate contact with a student?”

  A speck of taco fell out of Ms. Bromine’s mouth. She thought about Noah Stein’s humiliating kiss last year, but decided that might not be what the priest was talking about. Anyway, Stein was gone for good now. “It draws a lot of TV cameras, doesn’t it?” Father Mercedes asked.

  “Things like that … well…” She didn’t finish the sentence.

  Two of the senior boys tossing the football out near Mr. Zimmer had removed their shirts, and beads of sweat glistened on their chests. Ms. Bromine avoided even glancing at them.

  * * *

  Over by the stage, Davidek saw Green talking with some of the boys who had installed the sound equipment. Green was opening a guitar case for them, and they stood back admiring as he held out the instrument.

  “Yeah, Bilbo said I could play a couple songs for my part in the talent show,” Green was telling them. “I’ve always wanted to play in front of people. But I’m a little nervous.” He placed the strap around his neck and started strumming. Davidek couldn’t hear it very well, but the boys with the sound equipment were bobbing their heads.

  The crowd at the picnic wasn’t just St. Mike’s students, but parents, almost all the teachers, and a lot of kids from other schools who came just to hang with their St. Mike’s friends. Davidek saw his dad talking with some older guys who were wearing matching T-shirts saying: ARCHANGEL ALUMNI. There were a lot of those shirts around. And lots of Parish Monitors, too, looking glum as they patrolled the park grounds, writing in their notepads.

  After lunch, the first event was the Freshmen–Senior football game. Mr. Zimmer and Mr. Mankowski were referees, but the whole game was a fraud designed to let the seniors trample the underclassmen while breaking as many rules as possible. Davidek spent most of the game trying to avoid being near Green.

  When the game ended, the freshmen were defeated, 224 to nothing.

  * * *

  Lorelei watched the game play out while sitting alone at the pavilion, nursing a piece of cake that was too big for her to finish.

  On the other end of her picnic table sat another girl from her class, chewing on some gummy bears. Lorelei didn’t know her well, but lately she noticed the outcasts more. Now that she wasn’t one of them anymore.

  The other lonely girl said something, and Lorelei asked, “Sorry, what?”

  Seven-Eighths cleared her throat politely. “I said, what is your senior making you do? For the talent show?”

  Lorelei shook her head. “I don’t think anything.” If Mullen and Simms even tried, Lorelei now had enough friends to force those two losers out onto the stage instead.

  Seven-Eighths was impressed. “I had a senior, but she hasn’t really bothered with me since the start of the year.… It feels weird to feel bad that no one is picking on me.”

  “Lucky you,” Lorelei said.

  “Lucky us,” Seven-Eighths replied.

  * * *

  Finally, the moment they all were waiting for …

  Audra Banes walked to the microphone and raised her arms in the air to the not-so-adoring faces at the foot of the stage, who were whistling and applauding weakly. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “We now begin an eight-decade tradition. The long-awaited … and much-dreaded…”

  There were some heavy oohs from the audience.

  “… St. Mike’s freshman Talentless Show!”

  A few people chuckled and Audra said, “Oops! I meant Talent Show!”

  The first act was her own: The freshmen of her friends Allissa,
Sandra, and Amy came out crooning “My Guy” to moonfaced Justin Teemo, dressed like super-nerd Alfalfa from the Little Rascals, complete with a cowlick standing up in back. After that came a group of guys in Hawaiian grass skirts, shaking their big balloon boobs to some island drum music. One of the guys was Smitty, who peeled off his shirt and flexed his considerable muscles for the crowd. Sister Maria—all too aware of the Monitors’ notetaking—came over to Audra and whispered, “Please, it’s not a strip show,” and Audra went out and told Smitty to pull the shirt back on.

  The show went on for about an hour. Most of it was pretty lame. One group of seniors made their freshmen run around, trying to catch tossed Skittles in their mouths. (The crowd booed.) Mary Grough dressed Zari as a homeless person and wouldn’t let her change until she’d begged one full dollar in pennies from the crowd. (The rest of the show went on, in the meantime.)

  Near the end, Hannah brushed by Davidek and said, “We’re coming up soon on the schedule … get ready.”

  Davidek said, “What are you talking about?” But she was gone, weaving through the crowd toward Smitty, who by then was back in the audience, but was still wearing his grass skirt and straw hat.

  Hannah whispered something in his ear, and Smitty argued briefly—then grudgingly followed her. Davidek moved to the edge of the crowd for a better view, and he wasn’t alone. More eyes were watching Hannah than the stage.

  Hannah reached inside her Jeep and pulled a lever that made the hood of the vehicle cough open. Smitty stood beside her, hanging his head, while Hannah reached under the hood and pulled loose a package strapped to the underside with an orange extension cord.

  As they walked back to the crowd, Hannah held the package under her arm like a seminarian with a Bible, and Smitty stayed close beside her as a security guard—a necessary one. Right away, Amy Hispioli ran at Hannah and tried to grab the package, but Smitty tripped her flat on her face and they kept walking.

  LeRose broke through the crowd and began cursing at Hannah, a demonstration of courage for his upperclassman friends, but when he got too close, Smitty grabbed his shirt and knocked him out of the way.

  He didn’t like helping Hannah, but had no choice. John “Smitty” Smith used to live in Hannah’s neighborhood. In fact, she had once grabbed him by the face and shoved him to the ground for burning insects with a magnifying glass. The secret she knew about him was that Smitty looked so much older than the other freshmen because he was. He was her age, eighteen now—but had been held back several years in grade school. He had been doing whatever Hannah asked to ensure she would never tell. Now, as far as he was concerned, the debt was paid.

  Hannah beckoned Davidek to the side of the stage as Smitty left her.

  Audra approached the microphone like it was wired to explode. “Next up…,” she said, her voice pinched. “Uh, musical presentation, by Danny ‘Bilbo’ Tomch’s freshman.…” She was going straight to Green’s guitar playing. But Hannah extricated a blue binder from the black plastic wrapping and called out, “I think you’re moving out of order.… We’ve got to follow the rules, right?”

  Audra didn’t answer. She looked at the crowd, which stared back at her, baffled. No one wanted to challenge Hannah. Not with that book in her hands.

  “No, Hannah,” Audra said into the microphone. “No! I’m not going to allow this!” She stepped away from the mic and blocked Hannah at the back of the stage along the curtain. She looked ready for war—but then whispered, “I’ll let you go—but only if you swear not to make him say that thing you wrote about me.”

  This caught Hannah by surprise. “And … what about your boyfriend? And your other friends?”

  Audra swallowed, then repeated: “Nothing about … me.”

  Hannah poked her tongue into her cheek and cocked her hip. “Yeah?” she said, as much a question as an agreement.

  Audra stalked back to the microphone looking super-fucking-pissed-off, like she had done everything in her power and the sheer injustice of it all simply galled her. “Ladies and gentlemen, Hannah Kraut’s freshman … Peter Davidek.” Then she marched down the front steps of the stage, and all the onlookers stared around helplessly.

  * * *

  Behind the stage, out of sight of the others, Hannah and Davidek stood alone amid the tables and props discarded from the earlier acts.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had a double?” he asked. “I thought they burned—”

  “That was a fake,” Hannah explained. “Those pages were all just the same page—printed over and over again. Since it was all about Audra and her boyfriend, I knew they wouldn’t look long, or let anybody else check.”

  Davidek wondered, “Why didn’t you just print out a whole other copy?” But Hannah didn’t answer. He’d find out soon enough.

  “Are you going to do this thing, or ask a million questions?”

  Davidek raised a finger. “Only one more—how’d you get that asshole Smitty to do your bidding?”

  “I can’t tell his secret any more than I could tell yours,” Hannah said, fluttering her eyes.

  She placed the binder in Davidek’s hands. “Whatever happens, just come talk to me. Don’t worry. I’ll be right back here.”

  Davidek tapped the binder with two fingers. “I’m not the one who needs to be worried anymore,” he said, and walked up the steps through the curtain.

  What seemed to be a thousand faces greeted him. Davidek imagined all of them with painted red scars on their cheeks. Time to wipe those away.

  Bromine was inching close to the sound board, ready to make the kids there cut his mic the second he said too much, but Davidek would keep reading, no matter what. He would shout until his throat tore apart.

  There wasn’t a whisper from the crowd. Over in the corner, down by the base of the stage, he could see the Parish Monitors, their notebooks poised. Mullen and Simms were alone together far in the distance, not a part of the crowd, not a part of anything. Green stood alongside Bilbo and his senior friends, shielding his guitar in the jostling audience. Davidek’s father was out there somewhere, too … and Lorelei.

  Davidek opened the binder, prepared to make it hurt. His mouth moved closer to the microphone as he looked down to begin reading. But the first sheet was pure white.

  Empty.

  He turned the next page, but that was blank, too.

  So was the next one. And the next one.

  So were all of them.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The next few moments existed in Davidek’s mind only as snapshots and scattered sounds. At first it was just white, a total void on all sides. Then the whiteness receded; it was only the blank pages he held, and those were meaningless. Even the breeze flipped them dismissively.

  The faces in the crowd below weren’t people, just a smattering of color against the lime background of the Harrison Hills fields.

  Here was another snapshot: Hannah, her eyebrows forming an angry V, teeth bared. Davidek opened his mouth, and that’s when she swung her fist at him. The world went black, but not because she struck him. He had simply closed his eyes, expecting to be hit, but Hannah had merely swatted the microphone, skittering it across the stage. It made a sound over the speakers like a lawn mower digesting silverware.

  Davidek’s eyes opened again and Hannah was leading him by the arm through the backstage door, like an impatient lover. “It’s the wrong notebook,” he told her. And she hushed him, taking the useless binder from his hands.

  “It’s not the wrong notebook, Peter. It’s the right notebook. It’s the only notebook. There never was a notebook.”

  These notions all seemed to be at war with each other. He couldn’t understand and began peppering her with questions she didn’t have time to answer. Hannah insisted: “I’ll explain more to you later, but for now—you did great. This all happened the way I hoped it would. There’s only one more thing I need you to do.”

  Davidek listened. She said, “Stand behind me onstage and don’t say anything. Oka
y?”

  Then she was moving again, and he followed her through the curtain and back onto the stage, where she picked up the microphone and, like all great public speakers, warmed up the crowd. “Just so you all know … St. Mike’s is a wretched place on this Earth, and you all plague its halls, wallowing in your sick, cruel little lives.” She held the binder aloft. “That doesn’t change whether my freshman reads this today or not.”

  Nearly every breath in front of them halted. Hannah’s mouth became a thin smile. “My freshman here has been disobedient,” she said. “He tells me now he is refusing to read what I have told him to read.” Hannah looked back at Davidek, and was pleased by the angry and confused expression on his face. It fit quite perfectly with the story she was presenting. She had been right to keep him clueless all this time.

  “Maybe Davidek is a little soft on you, a little misguided,” she said.

  The audience began to jeer and holler at her. Someone threw a chunk of grass that flop-rolled across the stage. Carl LeRose, standing in the front row, raised a middle finger in the air. “Get off the stage, Fuckslut!” he shouted.

  Someone else yelled, “Freshmen only!” Another voice: “Cut the mic!”

  That sentiment was spreading quickly and the noise was rising. “The thing is … I like my freshman. Even if he is a little soft on the rest of you.” Hannah tossed the fluttering pages to Davidek. “Their secrets are yours now, tough guy—in case you change your mind.”

  Hannah lowered her mouth closer to the microphone, peering through the autumn hair hanging over her one blue eye and one green eye, and addressed her classmates one last time: “I suggest you treat him better than you treated me.”

  The heckling became a wave that pushed Hannah off the stage. The crowd screamed names at her, hurled a few more chunks of grass and half-eaten cookies, and booed and hissed and cursed and laughed as she walked away.