Beyond the Chocolate War (9 page)

A
German shepherd sat, silent and still, beneath a hovering tree on the sidewalk in front of the white cottage with black shutters on Hale Street, watching the Goober's progress with baleful yellow eyes. He had seen the dog before, and always hurried past. He felt that someday the dog would strike, attacking him swiftly and viciously, without barking, without warning.

This morning he had more than the German shepherd to worry about, however. As he left the dog behind on Hale Street and turned into George Street, he felt as if he were running away from a ghost, the ghost of Brother Eugene, and he shivered in the morning air even though his body pulsed with the exertion of running. He had still not fully absorbed the fact of Brother Eugene's death, although the announcement over the intercom and the memorial mass had taken place days ago. Leon's voice on the intercom was still fresh in his mind.
Death, after a lengthy illness
. How long was lengthy? As long as the time between last fall's destruction of Room Nineteen and the moment Brother Eugene took his last breath?

Cut it out, he told himself now, as he almost twisted his ankle on a corner of sidewalk jutting slightly higher than the rest of the pavement. You had nothing to do with Eugene's death. It's a coincidence, that's all. Okay, a terrible coincidence, but a coincidence all the same. He had shouted the word
coincidence
in his mind a thousand times in the last few days. The scene in Brother Eugene's classroom, the clutter of collapsed desks and chairs, and Eugene in the middle of the rubble, tears streaming down his cheeks, his chin wobbling like an infant's, was burned into the Goober's mind.

The Goober had been the student assigned to take Brother Eugene's room apart. Archie Costello had given the orders: to loosen the screws in the chairs and desks—including Eugene's chair and desk—to the point where the furniture would collapse at the slightest touch. He was assisted in the job by masked members of the Vigils during the long night he spent in the classroom. The next morning he had witnessed the destruction of Brother Eugene, a shy and sensitive teacher who often read poetry aloud in the final moments of class, despite certain snickers and smirks. Brother Eugene had stood devastated in the midst of the classroom's debris, unable to believe the assault on his beloved room. Shocked, crying—the Goober had never before seen a grown man crying—shaking his head in a refusal to believe what his eyes told him must be so. He had immediately gone on sick leave. Had never returned to Trinity after that shambles of a day. He had died last week in New Hampshire, but the Goober knew that his death had really taken place last fall. And the Goober was responsible, as if he had held a gun to the teacher's temple and pulled the trigger. No, it wasn't like that at all, a small voice within him protested. A collapsing classroom is not fatal, doesn't bring on a heart attack or whatever physical illness caused Eugene's death. But who knows? He repeated the words now, gasping them out of the depths of his guilt and despair, as he ran blindly through the morning.
Who knows?

I know. I should have refused the assignment from the Vigils. But nobody refused Vigil assignments, nobody denied whatever Archie Costello demanded.

He found himself on Market Street, with its rows of high-rise apartment buildings and condominiums. His arrival here was not accidental. Jerry Renault lived in one of the apartment buildings. The Goober refused to look up at the building, kept his eyes riveted on the pavement. The ghost of Brother Eugene following him down the street was bad enough; he didn't need another ghost joining the pursuit. Jerry Renault wasn't dead, of course. Yet something of him had died. Although he looked like the friend he had known last year, that Jerry Renault was now gone. The guy who had been subdued and distant the other day was someone else altogether. Which was just as well. He had betrayed that other Jerry Renault. Just as he had betrayed Brother Eugene. . . .

He looked down the street toward Jerry's apartment building. He searched the facade, the rows and rows of windows, fastening finally on the fourth floor. Wondering if Jerry was standing behind the curtain at one of the windows, staring out.

Aw, Jerry, he thought. Why did things have to turn so rotten? Life at Trinity could have been so beautiful. He and Jerry on the football team, the quarterback and the long end, linked by the beautiful passes Jerry threw, linked even more by a budding friendship. All of it gone now. Brother Eugene dead and Jerry Renault maimed. And him, Roland Goubert, the Goober, dogged with guilt, almost afraid to look at his hands, afraid he'd see bloodstains.

S
tupid, he told himself. You were stupid. Acting that way when the Goober came. Stupid. The word was a theme weaving its way through his thoughts, and he got up from the chair, threw down the magazine he'd been holding for ten minutes without reading a word of it, and went to the window. Pulled the curtain and looked out at the street. Everything gray outside: the street, the cars, the buildings, the trees. Glancing back at the room, the drabness of the beige walls and the nondescript furniture, he wondered whether he was the one at fault, had gone colorblind, would forever see the world in muted tones.

All of which was evading the question, of course.

What question?

The question of the Goober and why he'd acted so stupidly when the Goober visited him.

I should have stayed in Canada, he thought, turning from the window. I shouldn't have come back.

After those bruised weeks of pain and desolation in the Boston hospital, he had accepted without protest or any emotion at all his father's decision to send him to Canada, to spend a few months with his uncle Octave and aunt Olivine. They lived in the small parish of St. Antoine on the banks of the Riviere Richelieu, where his mother had lived as a child. His small Canadian world had three focal points: the modest farm operated by his uncle and aunt; the village, which consisted of a few stores, a post office, and a Sunoco service station; and the ancient church, a small white frame building overlooking the aimless river. He spent a lot of time in the church, although he found it spooky at first, creaky, buffeted by stiff river winds. The winds breathed life into the old building, made the floors squeak, the walls buckle, the windows rattle. He didn't pray; not at first, anyway. Merely sat there. The winter had been mild by Canadian standards but the wind was relentless, blowing away the snow that fell almost every day. The church was a good resting place after his daily walk from the farm to the village. He picked up a few groceries, checked the post office for mail (his father wrote at least once a week, brief, keep-in-touch letters that said nothing, really), and began to look forward to the church visits.

The wind made the church talk. The Talking Church. The small hum of the boiler addressing the hiss of the steam pipes. The walls and windows chattering to each other, and the creaking floor contributing to the conversation. He smiled as he listened to the small whispering, chatting sounds. His first smile in ages. As if the church had induced his smile. After a while he knelt and prayed, the old French prayers his mother had taught him long ago—"
Notre Père
"; "
Je Vous Salue, Marie
"—the words meaningless but comforting somehow, as if he and the church had joined each other in a kind of companionship.

His aunt and uncle treated him with gruff tenderness and affection. A childless couple, farmers, at the constant mercy of the elements, they were patient, quiet people. His uncle's only vice was television, and he watched it continuously when he wasn't out in the fields or the barn, marveling at the succession of programs on the glowing tube, uncritical, amused, whether watching a soap opera in French or a hockey game with his beloved Canadiens from Montreal. His aunt was a small peppy woman whose hands were never empty and fingers never still as she knitted, crocheted, sewed, cooked, dusted, swept, bustled around the modest house. She did all this in silence. The television provided the soundtrack to their lives.

Jerry spoke a bit of French, enough to get by, but he too enjoyed the absence of conversation, learned to accept the sounds of television. He immersed himself in the daily routine of chores, going to the village and the church, reading late at night, blocking from his mind all thoughts of Monument and Trinity, as if by some magic he was able to turn his mind into a blank screen at will.

More and more drawn to the church, he found comfort there, despite the chilled atmosphere. He had read somewhere of contemplatives, priests or brothers or monks, who spent their days and nights in solitude, praying, musing, contemplating, and Jerry could understand the peace these men must attain. The afternoon sun would lose its warmth, the church growing colder, the pipes rattling, and Jerry would shiver himself back to the warmth of the farmhouse.

So the winter passed, a succession of peaceful days and evenings, Monument and Trinity existing in another world, another time, having nothing to do with him. Until his father telephoned to say it was time to come home. "I miss you, Jerry," he said. And Jerry felt tears stinging his eyes.
I miss you, Jerry
. Although he was reluctant to leave the peace and serenity of St. Antoine, he felt a leap of gladness at his father's words.

Once back in Monument, however, he longed to return to Canada, to see the spring season bursting in the fields, wondering what kind of conversation the church would be carrying on with the windows open to the outside world. But knew that was impossible. He had to resume his life here in Monument. Enter Monument High in the fall. Live according to the rules he had established for himself after the chocolate sale. Don't make waves, go with the flow. Pretend the world wore a sign like the kind hanging on doorknobs in motels:
DO NOT DISTURB
. But the Goober's visit had upset his balance, taking him by surprise.

"I really acted stupid this afternoon. Right, Dad?" he had asked as they sat at the supper table that evening.

"I wouldn't say stupid," his father replied. "Besides, it was my fault. I didn't realize you weren't ready for that kind of thing. . . ."

"But I should be. And I should tell the Goober that he didn't double-cross me last year. Cripes, he acts like he was a traitor or something. And he wasn't."

Silence in the dining room. Their lives were filled with silences, but not the comfortable land that existed in the farmhouse in St. Antoine. Because his father was quiet and reserved by nature, they had never talked at length, communicated mostly in brief conversations with many stumblings. The death of Jerry's mother a year before had stunned them into a deeper silence, his father moving as in a trance through his days and evenings while Jerry had been immersed in his own troubles. Entering Trinity. Football and making the freshman team. The chocolate sale. And everything that followed. Which Canada had helped him forget. Until the Goober showed up.

"I should call him, right?" Jerry asked.

"Not if it hurts you, son. You're the important one. The Goober can always wait. . . ."

Again the silence. In the silence, Jerry was grateful for his father's words. Let the Goober wait. He felt bad for his old friend, but he had to make certain that he himself was back to normal again, restored and repaired, before he worried about others.

And yet. And yet.

Later, after his father had gone to work, Jerry found himself at the telephone, looking at the phone book under the instrument. Could almost recall the Goober's number, not certain of the last digit—6 or 7? Reached for the telephone book but, finally, didn't pick it up. Some other time.

He went to the window, glanced out at the dark street, and withdrew into the room. He knew that he had to get out of this apartment, pick up the pieces of his life. Walk the streets, drop in at the library, check the record store, breathe some spring air into his lungs. And call the Goober.

Maybe tomorrow.

Or the next day.

Or never.

T
ubs Casper had sworn off girls forever. But the result of that decision was agonizing. He hadn't realized it would be this way when he broke up with Rita, said good-bye forever, stalked off in anger and desperation and, yes, pain. Jeez, what pain. Pain in his heart and in his groin. He felt wounded, as if he'd been through a war in the trenches like the soldiers in World War I—the War to Make the World Safe for Democracy, they had called it in Social Science—trudging through his days and nights like the walking wounded, trying to keep himself from feeling anything, which was impossible, of course. Worst of all, he was eating like a madman and had gained nine pounds, which meant he was now forty-five pounds overweight. Found it hard to breathe going up the stairs, sweated all the time, perpetually moist, oozing. And on top of all that, the Vigils.

He was bubbling with sweat now as he stood in the small storage room in the gym. He had to blink to get rid of the perspiration gathering in his eyes. He knew that he looked as if he was crying. But he wasn't. He didn't want anybody to think he was a weeper. Underneath this terrible felt that he couldn't get rid of or disguise, he was brave and strong and durable. As he stood before the members of the Vigils, he was determined to put up a good front, despite the fat and the sweat. He recognized some of the guys who sat in the room's dimness, knew their names but had never talked to any of them. Freshmen like Tubs kept out of the way of upperclassmen. He looked around for the kid called Obie but did not see him here. Obie was the only Vigil member he had talked with, and he preferred not to think about their association, because it had to do with Rita and the chocolates.

There was an attitude of waiting in the room, the guys talking together in low tones, acting as if Tubs didn't exist. Tubs knew who they were waiting for. Archie Costello. He dreaded Archie Costello's arrival. He knew all about him, his power and his assignments.

The door swung open, admitting a shaft of light. Without looking, Tubs knew that the great Archie Costello was now on the scene. All conversation ceased and the guys became alert, tension developing as if somebody had lit a fuse and everyone was waiting for an explosion to occur.

"Hello, Ernest," Archie said.

Caught off guard by the use of his real name (he really hated "Tubs" but had learned to accept the nickname), Tubs swiveled toward him.

A smile on his face, Archie regarded Tubs with something like affection. Tubs wasn't exactly put at ease, but his sense of doom and foreboding diminished a bit.

"Too bad about Rita," Archie said, after pausing a moment, speaking casually as if they were continuing a conversation begun earlier.

Tubs was caught off guard again. First, he'd expected the meeting to be called to order. Second, nobody was supposed to know about Rita and what had happened. But the kid called Obie knew about her.
Too bad about Rita
. Tubs's heart began to thud in his chest.

"Remember Rita?" Archie prompted, the smile still on his face, a fake smile, Tubs realized now, like the smile painted on a clown's face. But Archie was no clown.

"Yes, I remember," Tubs said, his voice small and squeaky. He hated his voice, couldn't control it, never knew when it would come out high and squeaky or low and rumbling. Either like a belch or like a fart. Embarrassing him, either way.

"Beautiful girl, Rita," Archie said, tilting his head a bit, voice soft, as if he'd known Rita and his memories were fond and gentle. "Isn't she?"

Tubs nodded, dumbfounded. How much did Archie know about Rita? Rita, his pride and his agony, his throbbing love, his ultimate betrayer. Hell, he'd almost gone to jail for her. Well, probably not jail but district court, at least. That's what Obie had threatened. Tubs had loved her, hated her now, of course, but still wanted her, still feverish for her, that body of hers, the only girl he'd ever touched, caressed, held. Those breasts. Willing to die for those breasts. Willing to keep the money from the stupid chocolate sale. Not stealing, as Obie had accused him of doing. Merely borrowing. Going into debt to buy her that birthday present, the bracelet she loved. $19.52 including tax. The amount was seared into his heart, his brain.

"You still believe in love, Ernest?" Archie asked.

Somehow, Archie didn't act like the bastard he was supposed to be. Maybe it was his soft voice, the
Ernest
on his tongue, the sympathetic eyes.

"Do you?" Archie asked gently.

It seemed as if they were alone in the room, just the two of them, the members of the Vigils receding, his heart beating almost normally now.

"Yes," Tubs said. He believed in love, believed in Rita, even now. In a small and secret place in his overweight and perspiring body, he harbored a belief that somehow there had been a mistake and Rita would come into his life again, apologetic, loving him, offering herself to him.

Obie chose that moment to arrive at the meeting.

Obie was late for the meeting because he'd been trying, without success, to call Laurie Gundarson. Her line had been busy. He'd waited in the corridor, stalling, placing the call again and again, greeted by the busy signal that taunted him agonizingly. It occurred to him that her line might not be busy at all. Laurie had once confessed that she often took the phone off the hook when she wanted to avoid certain people. Did she want to avoid Obie now? The possibility filled him with anguish.

His first impulse when classes ended for the day was to dash out of school and drive to her house. But the inverted
Y
on the bulletin board detained him. The Vigils meeting. He realized that the meeting might in some way be connected with last night's attack. He had not anticipated a meeting today, knew no reason why Archie should have suddenly called one. He also knew that news spreads quickly in a school like Trinity. Was the attack already common knowledge? Depositing the dime again, dialing, then hearing the blurt of the busy signal once more, Obie hung up and made his way downstairs, miserable and confused. He nodded to Jimmy Saulnier, who kept guard outside the meeting room, and entered "to find Tubs Casper the center of attention. Poor blubber of a kid who looked as if he might faint at any moment. Obie flushed with guilt at the sight of the kid. Hell, one more lousy thing on the lousiest day of his life.

Obie winced as he listened to the exchange between Archie and Tubs.

"Yes, what?" Archie was asking.

"Yes, I believe in love," Tubs said, his voice an agonized whisper.

Obie swore under his breath. He'd hoped that Archie had forgotten all about Tubs Casper. He should have known better: Archie never forgot. Archie, in fact, had goaded Obie into giving him Tubs's name, back in January, half a lifetime ago. Archie had been taunting Obie about his lack of proposed victims.
Running on empty, Obie? Losing your touch?
Obie had winced because Bunting and Carter and some other guys were present, gathered on the front steps of the school.
Or maybe you just lack imagination
. Obie's pulse throbbed in his temple; his cheeks grew warm.
You haven't come up with a decent name in weeks
. A decent name meant a victim, someone vulnerable Archie could use in an assignment.

Like Tubs.

Obie had learned about Tubs Casper's existence as a Trinity student in the final frantic days of the chocolate sale last fall. Checking the sales roster for delinquents—guys who had not sold their quotas—he had seen Tubs's name listed as having made two sales. Preposterous. It had taken Obie three days to track him down. Tubs had proved elusive, staying a few steps ahead of Obie, quite a feat when you considered Tubs and all that fat. Somehow, Tubs always seemed to have left a room moments before Obie got there. Or stepped on the school bus just as it drove away. Obie finally caught up with Tubs Casper at Cogg's Park one evening, spotting him with a girl, the girl clinging to Tubs the way ivy clung to the south-side wall of Trinity. Obie knew immediately what had been going on, knew that Tubs had been selling chocolates all along and not making returns, spending the money on the girl: typical. Sitting in his car, he watched Tubs and the girl cavorting as they strolled along, feeding the pigeons, pausing on a bench. The girl couldn't keep her hands off Tubs. She brushed him continually with her breasts. She was built beautifully, tight sweater, tighter jeans. Obie felt himself swelling with envy and lust (this was before Laurie, of course), and knew he had Tubs Casper exactly where he wanted him.

Obie had confronted Tubs later that night, waiting for him at his doorstep.

"But what about Rita?" Tubs had cried. "She's in love with that bracelet."

"That's the point, Casper," Obie had said. "She's in love with the bracelet. Not you. Figure it as a test. Make those returns tomorrow morning at school. Then see what happens with Rita. If she loves you, it won't make any difference to her if you don't buy the bracelet. . . ."

Confused, riddled with guilt, exhausted from lack of sleep, Obie shrank back into the shadows of the storage room wondering: What the hell am I doing here, anyway? But knew that he couldn't leave, not yet, not until he found out the real reason for the meeting.

"Do you know the procedure here?" Archie asked Tubs.

Obie watched Tubs Casper nodding his head eagerly. He had never intended to nominate Tubs for an assignment: The kid had enough troubles with his weight and with Rita, the teenage sexpot. Because Rita had broken up with Tubs when he hadn't bought the bracelet. Obie had met him on the street a few days later. "What happened?" he'd asked Tubs.

And Tubs, defeated looking, his pudgy face like that of an old man suddenly, said: "You know what happened." No resentment in his voice, no anger, only a heavy, weary acceptance of what life is.

"That's the way it goes, kid," Obie had said, strolling away, walking away from the temptation to tell the lad: Look, be happy, I'm not turning you in for an assignment. See the favor I'm doing you? Yet, taunted by Archie—and, yes, manipulated—he had eventually handed over Tubs Casper as a victim to save his own reputation as a selector of victims.

Archie's voice reached him again.

"You know, Ernest, there is nothing personal in these assignments?"

Tubs nodded, resigned, wanting to get it over with.

"Okay," Archie said, pausing.

This was the beautiful moment Vigil members looked forward to, the moment when Archie revealed his latest assignment, his newest caper, some of the beauty coming from the fact they were not victims, like the moment you are plunged into grief when a rotten thing happens to someone else and that small spurt of guilty relief when you tell yourself: It's not me.

"How much do you weigh, Ernest?" Archie asked.

Tubs squirmed, hated to talk about his weight. But knew he could not deny Archie any information he wanted.

"One hundred and seventy-five."

"Exactly?"

Tubs nodded disgustedly. "I weighed myself this morning."

"That's not so fat, Ernest," Archie said.

Again, Tubs had the sensation that he and Archie were alone in this place, that Archie was his friend.

"In fact," Archie said, "I think you could use a bit of weight. Say, like, twenty pounds. Give you more . . . stature. Make you more of an imposing figure . . ."

"Twenty pounds?" Tubs said, disbelief making his voice squeak.

"Right."

Someone sighed, the kind of sigh that comes with comprehension, and a slight shudder rippled through the room.

"That's the assignment, Ernest. Put on twenty pounds. In the next, say, four weeks. That will bring us almost to the end of school. Eat to your heart's content, Ernest. You love to eat, don't you? And four weeks from now we'll meet here. We'll have a scale."

Tubs opened his mouth. Didn't know why he opened his mouth. Certainly not to protest. Nobody protested an assignment. Stood there gaping, the prospect of more weight staggering to his mind. His life was dedicated to trying to lose weight, despite the fact that he was always hungry, always starved, and always lost the battle. But gaining purposely?

"Close your mouth, Tubs, and get out of here," Archie said, no longer the gentle Archie, the tender Assigner.

Tubs did just that. Hurried his ponderous body out of that terrible place, tripping on somebody's foot as he made his way to the door.

"Beautiful," someone called out. But certainly not Obie, who felt small and cheap as he watched Tubs stumbling out the door.

Archie called for the black box with a snap of his fingers, wasted no time as he thrust his hand inside and withdrew the white marble, looked at it with amusement, and tossed it back.

The members of the Vigils rustled in their seats, preparing for departure. But Archie held up his hand.

"I have an announcement to make," he said, his words as cold as ice cubes rattling in a tray.

He glanced at Carter, waiting for him to bang the gavel.

The gavel was an important part of Vigil meetings.

And Carter had become the master of its use.

Carter banged the gavel to emphasize Archie's words and actions, the way a drummer underscores the movements of a juggler or a magician on the stage. He'd hit the desk to prod some poor quivering kid into an answer. Or to provide impact for Archie's pronouncements.

Archie waited for attention to focus completely on him once more. Carter tensed himself.