Teach Me (13 page)

zeb in mourning

It’s Senior Skip Day.

I skip it.

Meaning, I go to school instead. The halls feel like arteries on a powerful blood thinner. Hub Christy’s seat in human phys is blessedly empty. Ms. Larimore looks at me oddly. What am I doing here?

Maybe I had to say goodbye on the last day to say goodbye. I would’ve missed this, whatever it is. Certainly not a ceremony.

Pussy Pancreatic is tucked in her bag for the final time. What do they do with all the dead, carved-up kitties? Do they remain in the Closet of Death from one year to the next, piling up, unchanging? Is there no method for burial, no decency, no release to a better world?

Why is this hitting me so hard?

The smell of stoppage as I handle the bag sends the room spinning around my head. Maybe if I leave Pussy Pancreatic’s bag unzipped, the air will take care of her, carry her away in microscopic bites where at least she can go to ground again, become something useful.

“Carolina.”

My head is down, but I see Ms. Larimore’s stringy shanks and sensible shoes. I wonder, Does her husband adore her? Does he smile when she comes home at night? Does he dream about holding her, kissing her, when she’s away?

“Carolina.”

Something is required of me. Why don’t I answer? What’s wrong? I’m a First-Born. I take care of my responsibilities.

Booyah.

“Huh? Um—yes?”

“I guess you didn’t hear the speaker, Carolina.”

“Huh?”

“The counselor’s office; they just called you.”

“Oh. Oh. Tell them I’m attending a funeral.”

“What?”

The eight other heads who decided to come to class all turn in my direction, the morning suddenly interesting.

I’m damaged. Crashed, wrecked. I don’t know how to fix myself.

I look at the Closet of Death, close to tears. “We should have done something for them. Why didn’t we do something for them?”

“I don’t understand,” Ms. Larimore says.

“I know.”

I leave. I’m halfway to somewhere when I realize I’ve forgotten my destination. Lunch? Too early. Home? Why would I go there?

His room.

Maybe his class is out swimming, little kois getting ready to join the big ones. Get eaten. Maybe he’s sitting at his desk, no one to teach, washing the blackboards for summer. We could close the door, I could kiss him again, awaken from this dream.

“Need help?”

A big man wearing a dark suit and a tie the color of bile is blocking my way. He’s bald without appearing bald—the slope of his forehead combined with a few wispy hairs creates this happy illusion. Long nose, skanky nostrils, yellow teeth. He smells of Wal-Mart musk.

“Hello, Zeb,” I say.

It’s Zeb Greasy. Our illustrious principal. A person who is
first, highest, or foremost in importance, rank, worth, or degree
, according to
Dictionary.com
. Zeb Greasy is none of those things. He’s simply Large and in Charge.

“Excuse me?” Zeb says.

“There is no excuse, really.”

“Carolina?”

The prime criterion for a good principal: a prodigious memory for names and faces. Of course, mine is easier than some. Unnaturally tall girl with hair shaped like a Christmas tree. Ought to be playing basketball; why isn’t she? Couldn’t catch a man with track shoes and night vision goggles. So serious. What’s the matter with her? Thinks every other student is stupid. Well, who’s the dum-dum now?

“Are you all right?” Captain Combover says.

I don’t know what to tell him.

I could just say it:
Mr. Mann. He’s the one; he’s responsible. He made me not all right. Fire him, hang him, drag his carcass through the restrooms facedown.
Here’s my opportunity.

No.

“I’m going to see the counselor,” I’m shocked to remember. “They called me.”

“Oh. Well. You looked kind of disoriented there for a moment. And the counselors are on the upper floor.”

“Right. I needed something down here.” Someone, actually.

“All right, then. I’m going that way; I’ll walk with you.”

Going what way? Maybe I haven’t gotten what I need yet?

But I fall in step beside him, arms swinging. Our steps click in the emptiness. I notice that Zeb Greasy’s hands were built for opening water mains. Or strangling livestock.

“Excited about college?” he says.

“I was.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yes, yes, sir, I am.”

“Good.”

We climb the echoing no-slip stairs and don’t speak again until we reach the counselors’ door.

“Here we are.”

Zeb gives me a pat and I go in.

Ms. Peggy Foster.

It says so on her desk. I’ve seen her around, but I’ve never been to this one before.

She’s not the academics counselor but the one for Student Issues. The one people like Kenny Atkinson get to know. What does she want with me?

“Have a seat.”

The room feels as if it’s on casters, rolling about. I have to hold my arms tight to my body, or they might flutter and gesture independent of my conscious thoughts. I sense my personality dissolving, disintegrating, actually. Expanding in all directions, fusing with the concrete objects around me.

Focus, I tell myself. Focus or lose everything.

Ms. Foster’s the first woman I’ve ever met with a well-defined Adam’s apple. Her hair’s undone, glasses hideously large for her small face. Her left hand perches atop a skinny paperback,
Spenser’s Epithalamion and Renaissance Pastoralism
. As she speaks to me, she thumbs a corner of the pages again and again. It makes a miniature poker-playing sound, elves playing Texas Hold ‘Em.

“Do you know why you’re here?”—She pauses to look at a folder—“Carolina?”

“No.”

“It was recommended by a member of the staff that you are having some emotional difficulties outside of school. Problems you need help sorting out.”

I sit bolt upright. “Who recommended me?”

“I’m not allowed to discuss that. It was thought—”

“He did it, didn’t he?” The room is no longer rolling; it’s swimming. The hands on the clock tick like a wrench banged on a pipe in a prison camp. My fists tighten. “The son of a— He’s trying to make you think I’m crazy.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”—pause—“Carolina?”

“No.”

“I’m guessing it has to do with boys, am I right?” Ms. Foster smiles hyper-sympathetically, eyes huge behind her glasses. “I can remember when I was your age, I was in a similar predicament where—”

“I can’t believe that bastard turned me in.”

Ms. Foster’s hands jiggle over the folder. She swallows; her Adam’s apple plunges up and down like a scarab beetle traveling under the skin of her neck.

“No, not at all. Recommended you as a student in need of counseling. A shoulder, someone to talk to. All confidential. It’s up to you. We have materials that can be”—she leans back hard enough to show every feature of her Granny-in-Training bra— “helpful. Here!”

She slides across a brochure with a forest on the cover. THREE RIVERS COUNSELING CENTER. Ms. Foster waits for me to flip it open, gives up and does it herself. Inside, the happy faces of teens on powerful antipsychotics.

“I’ve seen the facilities myself,” she says. “It’s impressive what they are able to do. Where does you father work? I’m sure the outpatient services at Three Rivers are covered by—”

Out.

Patient.

That’s exactly what I do.

I race down the hall and turn at the first intersection I come to and hide in the janitor’s closet. Ms. Foster’s anxious steps click past me. I wait in the ammonia-scented dark, count to 140.

When I open the door, she’s gone. I’m not used to coming to the bastard’s class from this direction. I descend the stairs and there it is, first door on the left. The door is shut. I peer through the glass, see rows of dark heads.

Get ready.

push

Enter.

As I push through the door, Mr. Mann sees me.

This is the last microsecond before the car wreck, two drivers, two people sliding together, helpless before their own momentum. The crash is imminent, but in this last moment we can still pretend things are normal before our lives are changed forever.

Then.

I shove the door so hard, it bangs against an unused podium in the corner.

There’s an air-emptying, collective inhalation. In spite of everything, the primary emotion suffusing the room is one of wrongness—I shouldn’t be here, not this period. These faces are alien, removed in time from my connection to this place. I fight the urge to run back out.

“Carolina, I—”

The bell rings like a shriek, making everyone flinch. The class stands uncertainly, wondering looks on their faces. Imagine what they would do if I knocked their teacher on his ass.

“It’s all right,” Mr. Mann says as they begin reluctantly filing out. He shuts the door behind them. Waits, touching his hair, rubbing his hands together. Starts to say something when he feels like it is safe. I cut him off.

“I can’t believe you turned me in.”

“Carolina, no, I thought it would—”

“You’ve got them thinking I’m crazy. A head case. In need of help.”

“What am I supposed to think? When you—”

“Shut up, just shut up. There’s nothing you can say.”

I take one long step and shove him hard against the blackboard.

The metal chalk tray shivers and falls off with a clang.

My face is numb. I’m not doing these things; I’m witnessing someone else do them. This never happens in your own town, your own school. How will it play out? Do I have a gun? Should I scream? Fall to the floor, protect myself? I’m witness to and agent of the fear at the same time.

Mr. Mann swipes at my arm, trying to get control of me, misses as I jerk it away.

“Let’s go, come on,” he says quietly.

But he can’t get hold of me. His next class will be here soon. Schuyler once did the calculations, actually, how long our breaks last: we have exactly 7.5 minutes before the kids start coming in— less if some of them have lockers close by. If Mr. Mann doesn’t want it all to blow up right here and now—

We struggle, a flurry of intense arms and noises.

Stalemate.

Mr. Mann realizes he’s the center of gravity in the room and lets go first. He steps through the door without me. I have no choice but to follow. He makes his way quickly up the hall and around a corner. He’s heading for his office. I’m right on his tail; I slam the door shut behind us when we get there.

He won’t sit down. Is probably afraid to. “What do you want?” he says.

“You know.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t know anything about what you want anymore. This is crazy. After last night, you’re lucky I didn’t call the police.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You don’t understand, do you? You really don’t understand.”

I lean in close, menacingly, spit the words out. “Then teach me.”

He makes a pained face. I say it again.

“Teach me.”

“For Christ’s sake, Nine. Are you out to ruin me? Go ahead then, turn me in.”

“Like you did me.”

He chews his bottom lip. “No. I was only trying to help you. I thought it could have been some help.”

“Stop pretending to be a grown-up, Richard. You suck at it.”

He laughs bitterly. “Shit.”

I grab his wrist and hold on. I dig my fingernails into the skin covering the bones and tendons there. I dig in harder and harder. I haven’t done this since my seesaw days. I have to do it now. To keep from biting.

He lets me.

I dig harder and harder. Surely he will bleed soon. Or scream.

Neither happens. I let go. The skin is not even broken; it’s marked with angry crescent moon indentations. Badges of my frustration.

“What can I do to make you stop?” he says.

“I’ll stop when you stop.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Stop being with her. Stop loving her instead of me. Stop stop stop!”

“Carolina.”

“Stop calling me that! Do you love me, Richard?”

“Nine.”

“Do you love me? It’s an easy question. It used to have an easy answer.”

In my peripheral vision I see someone hover past his door.

“Well, do you?”

“Nine, I—”

“Do you! Do you do you do you!”

Only now do I realize I’m screaming.

I’ve grabbed Mr. Mann by his shirt. I’m shoving him against the cinder block wall harder and harder, screaming at him. He’s putting his hands on me, trying to get control of the tornado I’ve become.

“Nine, please, Nine!”

This is where you slap someone hysterical; I’ve seen it in the movies. A good stinging slap to make my feet touch the floor again. But he can’t do that; it’s beyond the realm of possibility. But it’s possible for me. So very possible. Every time I get loose, I’m swinging at his face. His eyes become blurry comet streaks as our heads jostle, arms move, shouts echo.

I have to stop this—I’m going too far, my fury is too huge. What am I trying to do?

Hurt him. Kill him. Make him feel what I am feeling, even if only for a second.

Stop it, stop it now.

I spin away and slump against the door, scrabbling at the knob. I’m spilling into the hall now, pushing away from the door, backpedaling, now finding my feet and running. Running anywhere. The halls are emptying, but there are still a few kids here and there. I’m banging past them, trying to find my way to some kind of exit, some kind of door that will lead me out of this nightmare, show me things I can understand again.

Where is the parking lot from here? I’m disoriented. People are shouting now; I’m not listening. I run. At the intersection of a hallway I crash headlong into a solid mass of human being—it’s a large person with hugely sturdy legs. I sprawl to the floor, feel my cheek kiss the cold surface. I’ve never seen the tiles this close, the big square tiles in the hallway. Gray, flecked with bits of black and brown in random sprinklings.

Someone helps me up. I slap and tear and pull at this someone, feeling large hands under my arms, lifting.

He’s saying something to me, but I can’t understand the words; I’m fighting him too hard. We’re walking away fast, but it’s not really my legs doing the walking; it’s somebody else and my strides are matching his.

He’s much stronger than me; there’s only one thing, one thing I can do, swing and make it good, make it count. I get one arm free, swing as hard as I can with my fist, connect against the meat and bone of his face.

Zeb Greasy.