But it wasn’t right to say things like that Joel reminded himself, crossed himself. Seth was just waking up and the first signs of daylight were in the sky. Every night Seth filled the coffee pot with water and coffee so that in the morning all Joel had to do was hit the red button and the coffee was on. His son, his cranky, crabby son who looked like a pothead with all his hair and his flannel and his depression, laid out his shoes and his clothes and even his underwear while Joel was sleep. Joel had never asked him to do this, and whenever Seth became… the word Joel used was “throttleable”—strangling inducing—Joel remembered this. Every morning at about this time, Seth shambled out of bed, hair in his face, pulling his boxers out of his crotch and scratching his bare chest.
“Have a good day, Yadda,” he said.
And Joel would kiss his son on the head and leave.
The Number Seven groaned as it stopped at the corner of Morely and West Vernon, and Joel McKenna opened the door and smiled down at her.
“Good morning, Shelley!”
“Good morning, Joel.”
“You’re looking lovely as ever.”
She put her hand to the machine that takes your money and Joel put a hand over hers and shook his head motioning for her to get on the bus. There was only one other person on the bus this early in the morning as it trundled down Morely, and when he got off, Shelley said, “You can’t keep on letting me ride for free.”
“I have a question for you, Shel,” said Joel. “Is life hard?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” he said.
“More than sometimes.”
“Is life hard for you right now?” Joel said and then, lifting a finger, “Don’t answer that. My point is this. We should help each other out if we can, even if it’s just a little bit. You see what I’m saying?”
“You’re sort of a saint, Joel. You know that?”
Joel laughed and turned from the window saying, “No, I just sort of like you is all.”
“How’s your son?”
“He’s my son,” Joel shrugged. “No,” he waved that off. “He’s good. Not good like some parents want their kids to be, but he’s real smart. I mean, some parents want their kids to be Joe Football and valedictorian and all of that and then you get mad if you have an ordinary child.”
“I know all about ordinary children.”
“And then I got Seth, you see. And he,” Joel wagged his finger as he turned down Brummel Street, “he’s not normal at all. He’s weird. He’s got real smarts. They aren’t school smarts. His grades are terrible, but he reads all the time. And the boy can do anything. He’s just really moody half the time, but I look at him. I look at him and think I wouldn’t trade him for some Joe Football collegiate bound kid who just plays at smarts but all he can do is jump through the right hoops.”
Shelley raised and eyebrow and shot Joel a glance.
Joel shook his head and crossed himself. When Shelley looked to his right bicep with its Sacred Heart tattoo, flaming, wrapped in thorns.
“I get... I think I get jealous sometimes,” Joel said. “Not jealous. That’s not the right word. Sick and tired. I get sick and tired of what my kid’s supposed to be, and I got this friend and he’s so proud of his son who is a Joe Football and everything and... I’m boring you with all this.”
“Even if you were, Joel McKenna, you’re the only other person on this bus, so I’d just be bored anyway.”
Joel nodded at this and said, “Well, I just get sick of my friend. He’s a big shot doctor and everything. Not a bus driver. I get sick of him and his perfect son. He’s so perfect. He’s got this award and that award and the other and the thing is, my boy’s the same year and they grew up together, but you ask his kid anything about my kid. He won’t even know who Seth McKenna is. He rose above Seth a long time ago.”
“Sounds like a creep,” Shelley said, and then realized that her stop was coming up. She reached for the cord, but Joel said, “I know where you get off, Shel. You get off at the same place you do everyday.”
He let her off across the street from the public library where she worked in human resources. What would it be like to work in a library?
“Have a good day, Shel. Read a book for me.”
“Ha! You probably have more know how in your brain than two of these libraries but together.”
Joel shrugged that off and grinned, and then the bus pulled off on Hallowell. There was a red light ahead. He had to stop.
He rewound the conversation in his head.
“Even if you were, Joel McKenna, you’re the only other person on this bus, so I’d just be bored anyway.”
She knows my last name, he thought.
“Say it loud! I’m Black and I’m proud!
Good God!
Say it loud!”
I’m Black and I’m proud!
“Everybody now!” Addison commanded as he, Mason and Tommy walked down the halls of Saint Vitus.
“Say it loud! I’m Black and I’m proud!
Good God!
Say it loud!”
I’m Black and I’m proud!
“But you’re not Black,” Tommy reported.
“My soul is Black,” Addison told him.
“Now that I will agree to,” Mason said. “Here’s my class. I’ll see you all at lunch.”
“Say it loud!” Addison demanded.
Mason just stared at him.
Addison had his fist balled up into a microphone.
“Say it loud!”
“If you don’t say it loud, he’ll never let you go to class,” Tommy told him.
“Say it loud!” Addison insisted.
Mason took Addison’s fist and sang: “I’m Black and I’m proud!”
“Good Gawd!” Addison sang, and turned around heading down the hall for French to bam on Seth McKenna’s locker.
“You ready for class?”
“Ready to fail,” Seth said shutting his locker.
“You never know how you’ll do,” Tommy reminded him as he headed down the hall to his first class. “You could surprise yourself.”
“He’s so goddamned chipper,” Seth said looking after him.
“It’s annoying and cute,” Addison told him. “All at the same time.”
“Balliol!’ Seth called out. “Balliol!”
Lincoln Balliol turned around from his locker and Seth took his ink pen and made to take a drag on it.
Lincoln lifted a finger and came over.
“I’ve got a half pack of Bensen and Hedges and that’s about it,” Balliol told him.
“I hate Bensen and Hedges.”
“I swiped them from my mother,” Balliol shrugged. “Stealers can’t be choosers. But they can be sharers,” Balliol waited for Mr. Brenner to pass by and then, took a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. He handed three to Seth and three to Addison, who he didn’t know.
“Thanks,” said Addison.
“Sure thing.” Balliol gave him a thumbs up. “Gotta help each other out! Ey, Sully!”
Addison watched Balliol go toward Sullivan Reardon, hair spiked, lapels turned up chewing an ink pen.
“It’s amazing,” Addison shook his head, “How you can know someone your whole life and never actually know them?” He shook his head and said, “Well, fuck, I’m a philosopher now.”
“Sully Reardon,” Seth muttered. “Freak show extraordinaire. Like I’m one to talk.” He undid the rubber band that made his short ponytail. “They say he’s a writer.”
“They?” Addison watched Sullivan, putting his shades in his breast pocket, still gnawing on his pen.
“At least,” said Seth, “you always see him scribbling stuff in those little notebooks of his.”
Sullivan Reardon was sketching something in a little notebook. He was in calculus, which he was failing. Sullivan was slouched low in his seat, his long legs wrapping around the book basket on the desk of Jim Haggard who sat in front of him.
“Stop it,” Jim turned around.
“What?”
“You’re making my desk rattle.”
Sullivan shrugged.
“Mr. Reardon, is it too bright in here?”
“What sir?”
“Is your future so bright you have to wear shades?”
Everybody laughed which Sully thought was odd because that wasn’t really funny. These kids were assholes. Mr. Steingass was an asshole.
“No, sir,” he said, shielding his eyes. “But these shades between my eyes and your face are the only thing that keep me from turning into stone.”
Balliol got the news before lunch that Sullivan had earned himself lunchtime detention for the next three days. Of course he had. He never shut his mouth.
“Sully’s problem is he doesn’t know when to shut up,” Balliol realized. He was going to sit Sully down and tell his friend that the way he looked at himself was not how everyone else looked at him. Balliol saw someone who was almost a second fiddle, who was easily impressed and easily scared and innocent to the point of naiveté. He also knew Sullivan was lonely a lot, and he tried to be there as much as he could but, damnit, everybody was lonely.
What everyone else saw was the turned up collars and the moods. The surliness. Yes, Sullivan was surly to everyone but him. The mouth. Someone who had just a little bit of compassion and mercy would have known that Sully was in trouble.
Hell, I don’t have compassion or mercy, and I know he’s in trouble.
Balliol looked around the cafeteria. Everyone in their blue blazers and pants, their white shirts. And he was the mean one? If he could see what the hell was going on with his friend, and with half of these people, and they couldn’t then didn’t that make them worse than him? Which is why he sat alone,
“Jesus,” said Hardesty, “the food looks like shit.”
“It looks like shit everyday,” Chris told him, tired. “They just take it out of USDA tubs. I saw that on some documentary—” He put a roll on his plate and took a Jell-O cup. “They don’t even really cook it.”
Ballard nudged Chris under his tray before they paid for lunch.
“What?”
“There’s your chance,” he sniggered and pointed at Balliol. “Just like coach said. “Walk over there and be a friend.”
“Actually, you’d better,” Mercurio said, pointing to a table where there was a computer geek with bad skin. “I’m gonna try him out. Dean Howard’s probably gonna walk in any moment.”
Chris nodded and went to Balliol’s table.
Lincoln Balliol looked up from his lunch and his book and his serious eyes stared directly at Chris Powers.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” Chris said, turning on his winning smile.
“Not at all,” Balliol told him pleasantly. Then he closed his book, swung his bag over his shoulder, folded up his lunch, and walked away.
Open mouthed, Chris Powers watched Balliol disappear.
Chris heard laughing behind him. He thought, Ballard must have seen.
But when Chris turned around he saw that it was, sitting at the next table with a half eaten sandwich in his hand, Mason Darrow.
Chris opened his mouth in a grin, and then Mason shrugged as if to say:
What can you do?
THE MUSIC ROOM WAS FOR choir practice. Today it was where Mason Darrow’s homeroom met, sitting in a wide circle, for Against Drug Day. Homeroom occurred for twenty minutes everyday and was the place where attendance was taken. Homeroom also meant that, theoretically, you could skip out for the rest of the day. No one ever did though. Whenever Mason was confronted with the chance to skip he always wondered what would I do? Where would I go if I weren’t here? Who would I skip with? Not even Addison would skip, and Tommy….?
“God, have you seen Valerie Piezecki? She’s the holy girl over at Sacred Heart—”
“The cheerleader?”
“Yeah,” Jason Bahadur went on, “with the really big tits and shit. Every time I see her I get this boner….”
“…But that’s what high school is all about,” Jeff Shmucker was saying in a corner, “I’m going to have to drop that class because I can’t get anything less than straight A’s….”
“—God, if I had Valerie in this room, you know, I would take her by her shoulders and I would just jackhammer her. I’d fuck her till Friday....”
“....I mean, I’m talking about going to some really good schools. Do you know Jack Butterfield?”
“You mean Butterbutt?”
“That’s not nice,” Jeff laughed. “But it’s true.”
Ryan Baum opened his mouth and belched.
“I mean, we’re talking like Mack truck coming down the road. Valerie wouldn’t even know what hit her! Jesus, I wanna fuck her so bad!”
“Mason! Mason!”
“Uh, hum?” Mason blinked up at Chris Powers.
“I didn’t know you were in my homeroom.”
“I’m not,” Mason frowned. Chris was a senior.
Chris blinked and then said, “Oh… No…. I’m your homeroom moderator, Mase. And I had no idea you were in… well, the homeroom I’m supposed to moderate.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Mason said.
“Um?”
“I mean,” Mason modified this, “It’s for twenty minutes a day. Big, crowded room and—”
“I do the news on the school station is all,” Chris said.
“Oh,” Mason remembered. “That’s right.”
The school had a television station and every morning a news team—of sorts—broadcast the daily minutes to the school, and then clicked to some inane station that attempted to sell you things. Mason always tuned it out. He was going to find a way to get out of homeroom. It hardly seemed like Chris could be much of a moderator, but then, what else were moderators supposed to do but show up on days like this?
Chris was still standing there.
“Hum?” said Mason.
“Oh, you just looked out of it.”
Mason thought a minute, took a gamble and then said, “I hate all these people.”
Chris’s eyebrows flew up.
“That’s rough.”
Mason shrugged. Chris looked around the room.
“Well, not J.D. He’s a good guy—”
“Hate,” Mason repeated, “all of these people.”