Career Day

by Barry Lyga

  CAREER DAY

  AN I HUNT KILLERS PREQUEL

  B A R R Y L Y G A

  C A R E E R D A Y

  For all intents and purposes an orphan (Mom dead, Dad…gone), Jasper Dent hated most holidays. Christmas. Thanksgiving.

  Easter. New Year’s. He was even beginning —— at the tender age of sixteen — to develop some unkind thoughts in the direction of Arbor Day, a holiday which, as best he could tell, had nothing to do with families, but which just sort of irked him, anyway.

  Holidays were when families got together. When people celebrated. Together.

  For three years now, though, it had been just Jasper and his grandmother, and Jasper had begun to suspect that her senility wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. His grandmother, he realized, was legitimately nuts, and she wasn’t getting better.

  If anything, she was getting worse. He couldn’t confide this to anyone, of course; she was technically his guardian (even though he did most of the adult stuff around the house), and doing so would bring Social Services down on him like hurricane rain.

  The last thing he needed was that noise in his life.

  Thanksgiving. Christmas. All the rest. Sometimes Jasper could glom onto his best friend Howie’s family for these occasions, but Howie’s parents — his mother, in particular — didn’t really like Jasper all that much, and hauling Gramma to someone else’s house was like traveling with a baby. He had to pack a bag with her favorite snacks, some weathered old soap-

  opera magazines for distraction, and even an adult diaper. Just in case.

  Howie fought to help Jasper live a normal life, and for many of the usual holidays, he came pretty close. But he couldn’t help Jasper with Career Day.

  “Jazzmatazz!” Howie crowed, coming around the corner of the school corridor, carefully dodging the jostle and bustle of Lobo’s Nod High School’s between-class rush. Howie was a hemophiliac, and he bruised if you looked at him too hard.

  “How goeth it, m’lord?”

  “You just came from English, didn’t you?”

  Howie nodded enthusiastically, bobbing like a headbanger. On anyone else, it would have looked ridiculous, but Howie was six foot seven and gangly, so it looked completely idiotic.

  “I dig the Willy Shakes, Jazz. He stirs my romantic soul.”

  Falling in step with Howie as they headed to algebra together, Jasper said, “No, what’s getting stirred is your loins, and that’s because of the student teacher who doesn’t understand how the lighting in that room impacts her bra.”

  “Nipples like this, Jazz,” Howie said with the solemnity of a priest, holding up his thumb and forefinger, half an inch apart. “Honest to God. You could dial your Gramma’s phone.”

  Gramma Dent still had an old dial phone. She was convinced that the government could listen in on any other kind.

  Jasper didn’t have the heart to tell her that the government could listen in on this one, too. Easier that way.

  “I’m so glad to know this,” Jasper said drily. “And please stop calling me ‘Jazz.’”

  “You need a nickname. As your best friend—”

  “My only friend.”

  “Even better! Anyway, I’ve taken it upon myself to give you one. Jazz it shall be. I declare it thus and hence!” Howie bellowed this last, and everyone in the corridor turned to look at them.

  “Stop it,” Jasper said, almost whispering. He couldn’t abide the eyes on him. He knew people always looked. Stared.

  When he wasn’t aware, they did it openly, nakedly, and when he was alert, they did their best to look like they were otherwise occupied. But he knew better.

  That’s him, people said and people thought. That’s the one. That’s the one whose father…

  “Stop what?” Howie demanded. “Stop loving you, Jazz?

  I wish I could quit you, but I can’t. Someday, we’ll run off to New York and get married, the way God intended it.”

  Despite himself, Jasper cracked a grin. “Sorry, man — my nips only go out about this far.” He mimed a quarter inch.

  “Oh, well, in that case, nice to know ya…”

  * * *

  After algebra, it was time to head to the library for the dreaded Career Day. Howie and Jasper settled into seats next to each other. Jasper wished he could disappear into his book bag. He hated crowds like this. It was bad enough being in a classroom with thirty other kids, but being jammed into the library with a couple hundred?

  People matter. People are real.

  He’d begun repeating this mantra to himself recently, over and over. Trying to believe it.

  “I bet we get four guys in ties who try to tell us about what they do on the weekends so that they sound ‘cool,’” Howie said. “Like, ‘And then on the weekends, little dudes, I take off this suit and tie and leave behind my actuarial job and totally kick it eighties-style with my band, Humpbeat.’”

  “Five,” Jasper said.

  “Deal.” Howie shook Jasper’s hand.

  “What did we just bet?”

  “Ah!” Howie raised a finger in the air. “That I shall determine after I learn if I won or not. Momma didn’t raise no fool. Speaking of fools, check it out.” He pointed down a few rows, where a beautiful African American girl with beaded braids down past her shoulders chatted with some friends.

  “There’s the girl crazy enough to go out with you and not me.”

  Jasper froze up. The “girl crazy enough” was Connie Hall, a new girl in town. In tiny, white-bread Lobo’s Nod, Connie had stood out at the Coff-E-Shop, where Jasper had spotted her a week ago, right before school started. It had been near closing time, and only Jasper and Howie were there, except for Helen Myerson, who was locking up that night, and Connie, who’d been nursing something tall and icy in a corner by herself while flipping through a book. Howie had raced to the bathroom after gulping down three large iced teas and, before he knew it, Jasper was staring at the unfamiliar girl.

  Who totally busted him a minute later when she looked up and locked eyes with him in a way no one in town had since his father had been arrested three years earlier.

  Jasper was momentarily poleaxed by the girl’s bravery, her coolness. Her uninhibited grin.

  And her looks, of course. Let’s be honest.…

  Without even realizing it, he was up and walking over to her. He was almost within hand-shaking distance when he realized he had no idea what he was going to say to her.

  “Jazz!” Howie cried as he emerged from the bathroom.

  “You won’t believe what color my—” He broke off, not finding Jasper at their usual table, spinning around to look for him.

  “Jazz?” the girl said, arching an eyebrow in a way that made Jasper want to lurch toward her.

  “Jasper,” he corrected, and figured a handshake was in order.

  “Connie.” Her hand was slim and dry and strong.

  “I’m Howie Gersten,” Howie said, ambling over and holding out his gigantic NBA-sized hand. “I bruise if I put my watch on too tight. You’ll like it. You’ll come to find my vulnerability sexy.”

  Connie smirked at Jasper, as if to say, Is this guy for real?

  Howie, oblivious, kept up the patter he liked to think of as “flirting.”

  “And in case you’re wondering,” he said, “I’m totally down with the sistahs.”

  “The sistahs are rethinking their options,” Connie said with an unself-conscious confidence that stabbed at something deep in Jasper’s brain. The next thing he knew, he was asking her if she was busy the next night, and she was saying that, in fact, she had nothing going on.

  It had been easy to ask Connie out. Easy to go on the date with her. He’d stuck to the basics — dinner and a movie.

  Her family had moved to the Nod from n
ear Charlotte because her dad had been transferred. Better job, more dough, tiny town of mostly white kids.

  “Have you ever dated a black girl before?” she’d asked Jasper at one point during dinner.

  Jasper had shrugged. “I’ve never dated anyone before.

  Have you ever dated a white guy?”

  “Nope. My dad isn’t exactly thrilled.”

  “Is that the only reason you agreed to go out with me?”

  The question came out more blunt than he’d intended, but Connie had just laughed with such free ease that he envied her.

  “That’s just a side benefit,” she assured him, and then the waiter came and they moved on and discussed it no further.

  Easy.

  He wondered now if maybe it had been too easy. His father, Billy, had found it easy to charm people, too. And Billy was now imprisoned at Wammaket State Penitentiary for the rest of his natural life.

  Not that there was anything natural about Billy’s life.

  Now Howie broke into his remembering, dragging him back to the library and Career Day. “You guys had a second date last night. I still have not heard deets. This mighty engine”

  — he tapped his chest — “runs on deets. Preferably unleaded.

  Never diesel.”

  Despite himself, Jasper grinned at the memory of the previous night, then forced himself to scowl. Given his history and his likely future, going out on a date had been foolish.

  Going on a second date, doubly so. So on the second date, he had told himself this was it. This was enough. It stopped here.

  He didn’t want to hurt Connie, but he would have to ease her out of his life. The best thing for her, really.

  And then they had stood in her driveway and he’d kissed her. Or maybe she’d kissed him. He wasn’t sure who moved first. The moment was a crush, a crunch, time compressed with alacrity as though they had intended to move in slow motion, but then were shoved along by the universe itself. That kiss was proof of the physics of the universe.

  “How’d it go?” Howie prodded, and as Mrs. Hereford tapped on the microphone for attention, Jasper shrugged and said, “We kissed,” as though it happened every day.

  Howie extended his fist, knuckles out, and intoned with all the gravity of the Pope: “Poundeth me, mine dawg. I demandeth it of thee.”

  Jasper lightly tapped his best friend’s knuckles, the closest they could safely come to a pound.

  * * *

  In the end, it turned out to be six guys in ties who swore that they were still ragin’ party animals on the weekends, so the bet was canceled. Jasper had no classes with Connie, but he saw her in the hall once. She flashed him a dazzling smile that filled him with a writhing, fizzy combination of lust, shame, pain, and fear.

  Could she ever be safe with someone like him?

  He shook the thought out of his head and went to his final class of the day, Mrs. Hereford’s “modern thinking,” a pretentious way of saying “social studies.” They were halfway through the War on Drugs lesson, but that was put aside for the day in favor of a wrap-up discussion on the Career Day event.

  “First,” she said, “thank you to everyone whose parents came in and talked to us today. I hope this was enlightening for all of you. Now, for homework tonight, I’m going to have you all fill out this questionnaire.…”

  She passed out the sheets. Jasper scanned his quickly.

  Short essay questions. Junk like “Which job sounded most interesting to you? Why?” “Which one sounded least interesting? Why?” “Which one would you like to know more about?” “What are some ways you could learn more about these jobs?” The usual crap.

  On the back was just one question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Mrs. Hereford.

  “You’re thinking that you did this back in first grade, but let me tell you something: Back then, you all wanted to be police officers and firefighters and astronauts. You’re older now, and you really need to think about this stuff seriously. So I want you to put in a good effort on this.”

  “How long does it have to be?” someone asked.

  “That’s what she said,” Howie called out, to a rumble of laughter.

  “Length isn’t as important as what you say and how you say it,” Mrs. Hereford answered.

  Howie shouted, “That’s totally what she—” He broke off as Mrs. Hereford interrupted him with a glare, which she held until the laughter died down.

  “As to length,” she said when everyone had quieted, “you know my mantra: Just get the job done and get your point across. If that takes ten pages, fine. If that takes a single word, fine. But make it count. Think about what you heard today.

  Think about what your parents do, maybe, and whether you want to follow in their footsteps — maybe go into the family business? Or would you rather do something different, maybe even a little crazy to some people? And why.”

  When she’d first mentioned parents, her eyes had flicked in Jasper’s direction so quickly that no one else would have noticed. But Jasper noticed. Noticed the flick, and the sudden guilty awareness in it.

  Jasper’s father, Billy Dent, had mostly been a salesman.

  Boring. He traveled a lot and had no office — he was a “freelance marketing expert,” his business cards said, selling wares in any number of territories for any number of clients who needed his temporary services. Billy was very good at selling. He did quite well for himself.

  Billy was also a murderer. He was very good at that, too.

  Jasper had grown up with a killer in the house. A killer for a father. Combine the murderous impulse with the paternal impulse and you got…

  Well, you got Billy Dent. A guy who raised his son to understand the human body in a very special way. A guy who taught Jasper how to hit an inside fastball and how to separate an arm at the shoulder joint. Who showed Jasper how to spell his name in neat, conservative print, and also showed Jasper how to wipe a crime scene free of clues in just as neat and conservative a manner, leaving nothing to chance and nothing for the cops.

  Jasper sat at the desk in his room. He could have done Mrs. Hereford’s assignment on his computer, but for some reason it just seemed easier to write his thoughts out. Maybe he would type them up after he had them down on paper.

  He took out a pencil and his father’s voice came to him, suddenly, unbidden, as it often did.

  Make your J like this, see? He could remember it like yesterday. No, more than that — worse than that. He could remember it as though it had happened seconds ago, as though he were once again a child and his father — Dear Old Dad — would come around the corner and lean against the doorjamb the way he always did and grin and say…

  Say…

  It could have been anything, in that deceptively simple drawl of his, that local-yokel voice that caught everyone off-

  guard. It could have been Want tacos for dinner? or it could have been Let’s go to the movies or it could have been I’m still thinking about that redhead I killed; let’s go look at that necklace I kept of hers again.

  His father’s hand — rough, strong, sure, steady — on his own, helping him to trace the lines of his name…

  And then the A . A little A . Some folks make ’em like this,

  just a circle with a little stem, and that’s fine, Jasper. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. But maybe you want to try this cute,

  clever little number here. More like a typewriter or a computer,

  see?

  His father’s hand, guiding him.

  Think about what your parents do, Mrs. Hereford had said. Whether you want to follow in their footsteps — maybe go into the family business?

  Which family business was she talking about? Itinerant salesman or serial killer?

  Or would you rather do something different, maybe even a little crazy to some people?

  Jasper nearly collapsed there at his desk. He thought of Connie, of the kiss, of the softness
and the yielding of her. He had never thought he would kiss a girl. Not when the world knew him as the son of a serial killer.

  He would love nothing more than to live a normal life. To be a man who went to a boring job and who never, ever took his tie off, who never, ever went wild.

  But Billy’s voice whispered to him so often. His father had been in jail for three years, and Jasper had never visited, and still…

  Still it whispered. Jasper, it said. Jasper, there’s so many out there. So many special ones for you to kill. I can’t do it anymore, son. They done locked me up for good. But you got a hell of a career waitin’ for you. Best job in the world. Lots of vacation time, lots of travel, no boss lookin’ over your shoulder,

  and all the rape you can handle, Jasper…

  “Please stop,” Jasper said quietly. He stared at the homework assignment in front of him until the words all blurred and his father’s voice went away.

  * * *

  At the top of the paper, he started to write his name, the way he’d done it his whole life. He didn’t get to his last name, pausing instead to take in the word Jasper in his obsessively neat penmanship. The J, its hook perfectly aligned with the lower loop of the A, which was precisely the same size as the S, the P

  dropping just slightly below the line…And then the E, the same width as the A — the exact same — and the final R, its crook like a perfect little hanging peg.

  He stared at its too-perfect alignment, its unwavering sameness, its unalterable consistency.

  And then — before he knew exactly what he was doing — he savagely erased it and scrawled, in a sloppy hand, Jazz, the two Z s misaligned with each other.

  Yes.

  Better.

  He pondered the question for one more moment — What do you want to be when you grow up? — and then, without hesitation, wrote a single word:

  SAFE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the

  product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.