THE BEGINNING OF AN ILL FITTING CHAPTER
“HOW ABOUT YOU GET OUT of my way, Riley!” Matt Mercurio snapped, coming down the senior steps of Saint Vitus and slamming into the boy.
“Dude, are you even a senior?” Mercurio demanded. “I’m talking to your pimply face, are you?”
Mason Darrow was in the main hall of the school and he didn’t hear anything, but he saw. He saw Matt Mercurio being a bully, as he was to people he could bully, and he saw some other football players, all lounging on the stoops or the sides of the senior porch, getting up, to shove or stop others from shoving Dave Riley.
“What the—?” Balliol started because he’d just come down the hall, as soon as things started getting rough.
“I know you know these are the senior steps,” Mercurio was telling him. “And I know you know you’ve got to be one badass to even try to walk on them? Are you a bad ass, Riley? Are you?”
“I GOT AN IDEA!” Balliol’s voice came from behind him, suddenly.
Matt Mercurio spun around. Five seniors turned around with him.
“My idea is, why don’t you leave people alone. Oh,” Balliol said leaning against the inside of the door. Mason was beside him now, “I’m still inside the building so I’m not on your precious senior steps, all right? But I can ask why you would want to be? It’s winter. It’s cold,” he looked at the sky. “It’s about to snow, and the only thing the school gave you shit for brains was a flight of steps and that tacky little lounge to call your own.”
Balliol pointed to a glassed in room with chairs. “The senior lounge!” he said scornfully. “Ooh, I can’t wait.”
“You know what?” said Matt Mercurio when some laughter arose behind him. “I got an idea too, Balliol. How ‘bout you learn to shut up before you get your ass kicked?”
Balliol’s eyes lit up, and Mason saw him shoot up about three inches. He stepped out onto the porch and stood face to face with Matt.
“By who?” he snapped. And Matt must have seen something too. Mason grew up fighting. It was always a surprise because he was always so nice, so no one expected it when the fight light came on in his eyes. But Balliol... Until this moment he’d never realized Balliol would be willing to fight.
“Back off,” Matt said. “All right. Go home, Riley,” he turned around.
Dave Riley stood there. He’d been forgotten.
“Go,” Matt said, turning back to Balliol. Balliol still stood there his eyes on fire.
Dave Riley turned to head down the stairs.
“One day!” Dave turned around suddenly, “I’ll come here and shoot this place up, and then you’ll be afraid.”
Balliol was about to say something, but Matt Mercurio turned around and said, “Just keep walking, little man.”
Dave suddenly flashed them a vengeful, pimply smile and ran off. He nearly pummeled into Chris and Sully who coming up the steps.
“What was that all about?” Chris said.
“Nothing,” Balliol and Matt said together.
Sully looked at Balliol.
For a moment he was about to speak, and then Balliol said, “You better watch out, you’re on the senior steps.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sully said, “I am.” He seemed to realize this with a bit of awe and Matt cracked a smile. “Chill out, you’re all right, Sully.”
And then he turned to Balliol and Mason. It was respect more than any affection.
“You’re all all right,” he said.
“Thanks,” Balliol smirked. He turned around and walked back inside. Mason was already gone.
“What all went on?” Chris said.
Dick Manchester said, “Lincoln Balliol was about to try to fight Matt.” “He looked sort of fierce,” Matt admitted.
“Were you afraid?” Manchester jested. “He’s a smart ass, but he’s a rich little—”
“Balliol can fight,” Sully said looking back inside, to the main lobby of the school, which was empty now. “And he doesn’t try to fight clean. He tries to win which is why he does. Back in grade school when kids used to make fun of me Balliol would kick their asses all the time.”
“My jaws hurt, that means I’m sleepy,” Chris said. “We gotta get on home. Matt, you coming with us?”
“No,” Matt shook his head. “I’m going to my own home,” he stretched and yawned. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”
Sully chuckled on his side of the booth.
“You wait and see, young man,” Matt Mercurio said. “When you’re eighteen you’ll start to feel your age. They should have gave a senior elevator,” he remarked as Chris got up to go to the restroom.
“So,” Matt said, “how long were you friends with Balliol?”
“I told you. My whole life. We went to the same after school day care. Until Bailey went to boarding school. Then I left Catholic
school for a few years and me and Bailey went to the same private school.”
“No public?”
Sully feigned shock. “Bite your tongue!”
“Balliol went to boarding school?”
“For about a year,” Sully shrugged. “Then he came back and went to Strathclyde.”
Matt Mercurio frowned up his face. “That figures.”
“They say it’s one of the best schools in Ohio.”
“They’re snots.”
“That’s why I think Balliol came here for high school.”
“But you all aren’t friends anymore?”
“I don’t know. I mean, no, I guess not.”
“What happened?” said Matt. “Not that it’s my business.”
Sully thought. “I don’t know. What did happen? We weren’t getting along. He was... always getting on my case about stuff. I thought that... I thought he was mean.”
“Well, he is mean,” Matt said. “But I’m mean too.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” said Matt. “I don’t mean to be. I don’t know what happens to me. I just... I am mean.”
“Well, I think Balliol means to be.”
“I think he does too,” Matt said. “He’s the most ruthless motherfucker I’ve seen. But he will do stuff like that. Stick up for people. Like today. And you said he used to fight people for you. So... maybe you have to be a little mean.”
“I don’t know,” Sully said. “There’s so much I thought I did know, but now I don’t. It’s like...
“Look,” Sully leaned over the table. “I thought I knew Balliol so well, but now that we don’t talk anymore I don’t think I ever knew
him at all.”
“Do you want to be friends again?”
“With Balliol?”
“Yeah.”
Sully shook his head and laughed. “You’ve seen him. He’s impossible. I wouldn’t even know where to start with him. He really is impossible,” Sully said again.
Chris was coming out of the restroom.
“Are you coming with us on the ski trip?” Sully was asking him.
“I can’t,” Matt played with his straw. “It’s Christmas. I have to go to Mass with my family.”
“My mom never goes to church,” Sully said.
“Well, my mom won’t stop going,” Matt said. “I think she’s probably praying for my soul right now.”
Allison Cromptley screamed Addison’s name down the hall as he was slipping on his coat.
Addison held up a finger, turned around, and Seth followed him.
“Addison!” she screamed again.
“I heard you the first time!” Addison screamed back.
His father’s study door opened and he said, “Addison, what did I tell you about screaming in the house?”
“But Allie—!” Addison began, and then said, “Never mind. And went to get the phone. As the study door shut Addison smacked his sister on the head.
“I’ll tell—” she began, but he began to pinch her so hard as he crooned into the phone, “Hello,” to the phone that she shut up immediately.
“Addison!” it was Andy Rathko’s voice.
“What’s up?” he said smacking Allie on the head and then shooving her away.
“I’ll tell!” she whispered.
“No you won’t,” Addison whispered back with a fiendish look on his face.
“You know Laura Wyler and Jedd Kern?”
“Yeah, the love freaks? What’s up with ‘em.”
“They’re dead.”
“Fuck!”
“What?” Seth mouthed.
Addison took a shallow breath and said, “Hold on, Andy.”
To Seth he said, “Laura Wyler and Jedd Kern are dead.”
“Fuck!” Seth said.
“What happened, Andy?”
“Suicide pact. Can you believe that shit?”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Adam found them.”
“Adam—?”
“He’s friends with Laura Wyler. He came in the house. There they were with a letter and everything.”
“But it’s Christmas in a few days,” Addison said, and looked outside. Out of a dark grey sky, scraps of white snow were twirling.
“Adam’s at my house,” Andy said.
“Well,” Addison said, trying to find his voice. “We’ll be there. Bye Andy.” Addison hung up the phone and Seth was standing there, fingertips pressed together, mouth open.
“They killed themselves,” Addison told him. “I don’t know why. Adam found the body. I told Andy we’d be there in a few minutes.”
Seth, who had forgotten why they were originally going out but had the truck keys dangling from his index finger, nodded.
“Well, that’s a bad business plain and simple,” Balliol said when he sat down on the couch in Andy Rathko’s house. He’d never planned ot actually be anywhere in Andy Rathko’s house, but see what changes a year could bring, and now this was the second time he’d been here.
“How’s Adam?” Balliol said.
“He really should come here,” Andy said. “He’s just at home, feeling really bad.”
“We could go get him.” Balliol said. “Addison could get the car and pick him up.”
Addison looked at him.
“Well, you could. Honestly,” Balliol told them all. “I’m just not the type of person who likes to sit around. I want to stand up and do something. Especially after some people have done the biggest nothing they could do.”
“They did do something,” Mason joked. “They killed themselves.”
“That,” Balliol repeated, “is the biggest do nothing you could ever do. Putting it all away, cutting it all off. I can’t imagine.”
“Well, now I can,” Mason said.
Balliol looked at him.
“Life isn’t fair. Right?” said Mason. “You’ve got to work for things to turn out right. It’s a struggle and one you didn’t ask for. I can see getting so tired of the struggle, you’d just give in.”
“But they didn’t have a struggle,” Seth said. “They were just weird and gothic. I have troubles, and I’m not killing myself. None of us is. We’re still here.”
“Well maybe the reason we’re still here is because we’re not brave enough to kill ourselves.”
“What are you saying, Mase?” Seth said. “That you have a death wish? That you and me, and everybody here has a secret death wish and those two were just brave enough to carry it out? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Brave enough or honest enough about how they felt,” Mason said.
“Now, listen. I don’t want to die, but there isn’t a person in this room, except maybe Balliol, I haven’t heard say they wanted to die or who didn’t mutter something like ‘kill me now’. And Seth, you’re always going on about how life is pointless and sucks.”
“Maybe this isn’t the time to talk about this right now,” Andy said. “Maybe Balliol’s right. Maybe one of us should go over and check on Adam.
“No,” Seth said. “I think it is the time. To talk about this. I think...” Seth sighed.
“I have said that. I’ve said all of those things. And I do act like I don’t care a lot, but... Yes, I don’t know where I’m going half the time, and I get sick of the world. I get sick of all this a lot, but I don’t want to die. I don’t hate life.”
“Me neither,” Addison said suddenly. “I act like I do. But I don’t hate it. I haven’t given up on it. I… think that it’s worth holding onto.”
“I don’t think any of us has that great of a life,” Balliol said simply. “I’m saying that and I could pay for four year’s school tuition on my credit card. None of us has an ideal life. None of us gets up singing “Zippity Do Dah” in the morning. It’s not a one of us who can’t think of ten things that would make our lives better or ten hundred things that we could afford to get rid of. But we’re here.
“I think we’re here just to prove something,” he said clearing his throat.
“Just to show someone up. Not God. I don’t know, maybe just life in general. Sometimes I do want to throw in the towel. It would be nice. But to give up, to quit... I wouldn’t give the crap in my life the satisfaction!”
“And that’s the thing,” Addison turned to him. “I would have never thought you had crap in your life.”
Balliol shook his head:
“You know what the real thing is? When this year began I wouldn’t have thought I did either. Everything just went naturally, the way it always does. Life was just life. Nothing good and nothing bad was happening, and then, for the first time I’ve actually started to live, and all of a sudden my life isn’t filled with just good things, easy things. It’s filled with bad things and hard stuff too. That’s why I couldn’t give up life. It’s not finished yet. It’s not done. And I hate to leave a task undone.”
“You think life is a task?” said Mason.
“A task. And a test. That’s the way I’ve always felt. I know some people say that they’re just drifting, but... I am not.”
“I thought I was,” Seth said, sounding half asleep. “I thought that’s what I believed in. Drifting, meaninglessness. My dad always told me how life was a gift from God and he told me everything that it meant, everything the Bible and the Church said. But I never believed there was a meaning. I thought he was just saying it all to make himself feel better. But... when I heard they were dead, I knew that I was wrong. There is some sort of meaning.... I don’t know what it is. But I know I’m not going to let myself die until I find out.”
“They were really quiet,” a girl at the restaurant was saying on the news. “You could tell they were really in love. It’s such a shock. It’s really just a shock.”
Another girl said, “It’s right before Christmas. And no one wants this to happen before Christmas. But that’s when the emotions come out, so…” She sounded very world wise, like she wasn’t a sophomore at Magdalene, and Chris knew she was.
He, Mark, Rick Howard and Sully Reardon were watching the news in the living room of the Powers’ household.
“The guy was sort of weird…”
“Oh, God,” Sully murmured as Derrick Kerch, who was on the wrestling squad was interviewed.
“I mean Jedd was into Gothic stuff and everything, so it’s not a surprise he offed himself.”
“On that note,” Mark raised the remote control and switched channels. “In my school,” Rick said. “In my own school. Why couldn’t I tell?”
“You can’t know what’s going on with everyone, Dean,” Chris told him.
“I try though,” Rick said. “And one of my students was crying out for help. I didn’t even see.”
“From what the report says,” Mark told him, “he wasn’t crying out that much, and Rick, if their parents couldn’t even tell, how could you?”