Brutal Youth (43 page)

“You guys would just deny what Hannah writes anyway, so who cares what she makes me say?”

LeRose drummed the table. “I
still
don’t want her to say it.… I could sit here and say your mama’s a whore, and what difference would that make? You still don’t want to hear it, right? Same way I don’t want her talking about me or my dad.”

Davidek leaned back in his seat. “I probably said this to you already … but does your
dad
really care what some random teenage girl says about him?”

LeRose poked a sausage finger into Davidek’s chest. “My dad is clean-cut all the way, but he’s coming to the picnic with some other parish Monitors, and some of his old school buddies are going to join him. Maybe my mom will come, too.… So I’d thank you very much if you can help me stop Hannah Kraut from throwing shit all over him.… You know?”

Davidek looked around the library. A lot of people were watching them. “Well, if your dad is such a fan of the school, he knows that on Hazing Day I don’t have much choice. I have to do what my senior tells me.”

“Apparently, I’m not being heard,” LeRose said, nodding patiently. “You saved my ass once, so I want to help you. I know Hannah’s terrorizing you, but what you need to think about are all the
new
Hannah Krauts you’re going to make for yourself if you don’t stand up against her and be a man. You’ve got three more years at St. Mike’s. Every person you let Hannah hurt is going to remember it. And when the time comes, they’ll be happy to hurt you back.”

LeRose nodded soberly, his eyes wide and heavy with adolescent gravitas. “They took out your buddy, didn’t they? You want to end up like Stein, too?”

Davidek’s jaw set. “So what should I do?”

LeRose leaned in close. “See, we’ve got a plan. But we need your help,” he said. “If you can’t resist Hannah openly, maybe you can help the rest of us in secret.”

Davidek raised his hands in the air. “Yeah. Fine.
How?
”

“Help us stop her
for
you. Fucking
physically
!”

LeRose made Davidek promise to keep quiet before continuing: “Some of the juniors—John Hannidy, Raymond Lee, Janey Brucedik—they got the idea that we use
military intervention,
if that’s what it takes. Just like over in Desert Storm. Only this is Fuckslut Storm.” The chunky sophomore snorted at the term. “A bunch of seniors are on board now, too. Prager and Strebovich told me they’re ready to kick Hannah’s ass if that’s what it takes. And they’re like your buddy Stein—they don’t even care about hitting a girl.”

Davidek squinted, and LeRose went on: “We’re gonna jump her the morning of the picnic. Before she shows up at the park, we’re gonna grab that bitch and turn her upside down and shake her until that fucking notebook falls out. Then we take the notebook and fucking destroy it. Nobody at the picnic is the wiser. You get off scot-free. As far as she knows, you had nothing to do with it. Secretly, though, you’ll be helping us.”

“Again—how?”

“We need you to find out what she has. Not really the secrets and all that, but what it looks like, this notebook: a binder, a bunch of crumpled-up drawings like a crazy guy in a shack would write? Photographs, scribbles …
Whatever.
Anything she’s going to shove you onstage with. We just want to be sure we take everything she’s got. No surprises.”

Davidek said, “I have no idea what she has.”

“Then find out,” LeRose said, standing up. “It’ll be good for you.”

“What if she tells somebody you ganged up on her?” Davidek asked. “What if she calls the cops or something?”

LeRose laughed and rolled his eyes. “I love you, man, but you’re one dense dude.… Remember? My dad
knows
the cops. They owe him. And the cops wouldn’t like what Hannah’s up to anyway. So let her complain. We’ll already have the notebook at that point.”

“And what if she tells the teachers?”

LeRose said, “Look, that’s another thing you just don’t get. The people in charge don’t want any of her shit. Not with these Parish Monitors around. They want to have a place to fucking work next year. Understand?”

LeRose mussed Davidek’s hair. “You worry too much,” he said. “This will work. And you’re gonna wanna kiss me. Because everybody is going to fucking love you when it’s done.”

Davidek considered this. It would be nice to feel protected. To be watched out for. For months he’d been fretting over this. Now he finally had a way out.

“Fine,” Davidek said.

LeRose messed up his hair again and kissed him on top of the head.

FORTY-THREE

A week went by, but Davidek hadn’t delivered anything useful.

Everybody seemed willing to give him some time, since LeRose assured them he was on their side, but others weren’t so sure. Bilbo and his Stairwell Boys were in their usual spot, drinking Cokes, telling jokes, and staring up through the big void stretching three stories above them when talk turned to Davidek. Bilbo mentioned that Green and he were pals.

This piqued the interest of Michael Crawford, who kind of hated the way Bilbo, Alex Prager, and Dan Strebovich had made a pet out of Green. This chubby, black freshman, best friends with seniors? Stupid. But they loved Green. Whatever.

“So how good a friend are you to this Peter Davidek guy?” he asked.

Green’s face scrunched, like his soda just turned to sour milk. “We’re not what I’d really call friends anymore, guys.”

Bilbo said, “But he’s a good guy, right?”

Green shook his head. “He’s a piece of shit, actually.”

This lit a fire in Crawford. Resentment had been building up for months in the handsome, dashing senior as his senior year sputtered out into nothingness. The basketball team he captained had sucked. He was graduating without distinction in the middle of his class, while the valedictorian would most likely be his girlfriend, Audra Banes, who was beginning to grow as tired of him as he was of himself. He hated her increasingly thick thighs, and just because she was class president didn’t mean she had to wear those damned black-rimmed glasses to make herself look smarter. She was the cheerleading captain, for God’s sake. Show some goddamn sex and sass!

Still, he didn’t want to lose her, even though that was bound to happen when she moved to Rhode Island in the fall to attend Brown. He was sticking much closer to home—at St. Vincent’s in Latrobe, way out in the sticks beyond Pittsburgh. He didn’t get into Brown.

Crawford had always been the smartest boy in his class, the most charming … the leader. Yet now he felt like nothing was in his control. This Hannah thing felt like a chance to salvage his reputation. “So you think we can trust this Davidek guy—or not?” he asked.

Green just shrugged, and tipped back his Coke. “I wouldn’t.”

*   *   *

After another week of no progress, Crawford’s warnings about Davidek started to spread alarm. John Hannidy pinned Davidek in the corner of the hallway one morning, while his friend Raymond Lee bent the freshman’s arm behind his back. “You promised you’d help us, but we’re starting to think you’re a fucking liar,” Lee drawled.

Hannidy’s girlfriend, Janey Brucedik, folded her arms over her scrawny chest as she paced behind them, keeping an eye out for Parish Monitors and their ubiquitous little notepads. “I say he’s too much of a pussy,” she said.

“Why don’t you guys just ban her from the picnic?” Davidek’s smooshed mouth asked as his lips tasted the metal of the locker. “Or cut the mic when it’s her turn?”

“We’ve already thought of that, genius,” Janey said.

“Do you want to be the one to tell her?” Hannidy asked.

“Nobody wanted to step into that line of fire alone,” Raymond added.

Of course, that’s why they had to stop Hannah as a school, as a collective—dozens of kids, not just the three of them. Hannah couldn’t get revenge against everyone. But first they needed Davidek to do his part and tell them what they were looking for.

“Why don’t you tell
me
what you’re afraid she knows?” Davidek sneered.

The three student council members, who as juniors had spent the year covering up irregularities in the student activities fund they’d been skimming from, shared a worried look. Then Hannidy punched Davidek in the stomach.

*   *   *

Other seniors tried to win him over with kindess.

A few days after Davidek was manhandled by Hannidy, two other juniors named Will Framalski and John Jay came forward and asked Davidek if Hannah knew about their little marijuana-dealing operation. Secretly, they also feared Hannah might know that they’d been supplying Alexander Prager, the onetime basketball team high-scorer, with anabolic steroids. (The drugs had made him not only thick with muscle, but lately quick to violence.) His juicing was one reason for the team’s losing season, since the thickening muscle mass that helped in baseball and football only slowed him down on the basketball court, where speed was more precious than mass. The dealers just hoped graduation came before Prager realized this.

Framalski pressed a small plastic bag into Davidek’s hands. Inside were three tight joints.“It’s a gift,” he said. “Just, you know, make sure Hannah ain’t gonna say anything about us.”

“You help us, we’ll keep you stocked. Cool?” John Jay added.

Davidek, fearing immediate arrest, dumped the joints in the second-floor toilet and flushed them.

*   *   *

Days passed, and he hadn’t spoken to Hannah once. With the picnic just two weeks away, student after student pestered him, all of them losing patience with his excuses. Then one afternoon during Religion class, the door opened and brutish Mary Grough stuck her face in. “Ms. Bromine, the office sent me up here to get Peter Davidek.”

Bromine looked at the boy, sitting quietly in the back row, fiddling with his clip-on. “Well … get going!” Bromine said.

Davidek walked outside, and Mary closed the door behind him. A group of other upperclassmen stood silently in the hallway—Bilbo and his stairway pals, Streb and Prager. Morti and his Fanboys. Carl LeRose was with Hannidy, Janey, and their blubbery third wheel Raymond. Mary Grough took her spot beside her sister and their friend Anne-Marie Thomas. Audra Banes was in the center of the group, surrounded by her own coterie—Allissa Hardawicky, Amy Hispioli, and Sandy Burk. Michael Crawford scuffed his foot on the tile, sourly hanging near the back.

Audra put her hand on the door across the hall and opened it. “Please come inside,” she said. And Davidek did.

It was Mr. McClerk’s English room, but there was no class during this period and the lights were off. In the back, there was an alcove behind a row of bookshelves, and a long table with a pair of computers, which served as the de facto yearbook office. With graduation only two weeks away, the book had gone to print just days ago and would be rushed out just in time. The scattered remains of its frenzied assemblage were still spread out in slivers of layout pages and discarded photos.

In one of the chairs beside the table sat Sister Maria. Audra closed the door to the classroom, leaving only the three of them in the room.

Sister Maria asked Davidek to sit down. “Are we friends, Mr. Davidek?”

Davidek shifted in his seat. He wasn’t sure what to say or not say in front of Audra. “Is the welcoming committee in the hall gonna beat me up if I say we’re not?”

“I wanted you to see how many of your fellow classmates are concerned about your plan to disrupt the Hazing Picnic,” Sister Maria said.

Davidek sat up. “
My
plan? You’re the one who came up with this great Brother–Sister idea.”

“Very well, your
senior’s
plan,” the nun corrected herself. “To use
you.
And your inability to resist her. It’s something that can’t be allowed. I have no actual control over this picnic, but whatever happens there reflects on me and this school. And we are in a time of extreme volatility at St. Michael’s—as you well know.”

“Maybe you should talk to Hannah, then,” Davidek said.

“I have,” the nun said in a clipped, businesslike tone. “But I was unable to persuade her to relent. And I have also been unable to persuade Father Mercedes to cancel the picnic.”

“Could he even
do
that?” Davidek asked.

Sister Maria answered without answering. “He says the students of the school must be able to behave in a civil manner at a public event, and believes the Hazing Picnic will prove that, one way or the other.”

“He’s right,” Davidek told her.

Sister Maria’s fist tightened. She had been so much friendlier two months ago, when she was smashing up toilets. “I know you to be a cooperative boy, Peter,” the nun said. “So why haven’t you been able to help Audra and the other students with this problem?”

“Do you even know what they’re planning to do?” Davidek asked. “They want to beat the shit out of Hannah and take her—” But the nun put a hand up to silence him.

“
No one
wants to hurt Hannah,” she said. “I’ve been assured of that. And under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t allow any of this. But I happen to trust the students of St. Michael’s to do the right thing.”

Davidek scoffed. The nun said, “Maybe you won’t laugh when you see this.…” She spread a stack of photographs across the table like a deck of playing cards. They were glossy, eight-by-ten portraits of students, snapped by Zari on the day of the flood. Dozens of them. All familiar faces—each smile was accompanied by a fake red scar.

“The yearbook committee wanted to publish some of these,” Sister Maria said. “Audra found out, and we forced them to stop.”

Audra spoke up from across the room. “We did it as a favor for you. To reward you for helping us.”

Davidek’s fingers sifted through the images, then studied one in particular. “Are you sure it wasn’t because you put a scar on your face, too?”

Audra opened her mouth. She said, “N … no,” but hesitated, then stepped forward and snatched the picture out of his hand.

She wasn’t in it at all. But Davidek had the answer he was looking for.

Sister Maria reached out and put her hand on top of Davidek’s. “Please,” she said, her eyes steely. “You, of all people, know what pain is caused when people have their deepest sorrows exposed as a joke.”