The Lottery (13 page)

Off to one side she spotted Brydan, also watching the proceedings. She’d forgotten that he’d been elected homeroom rep by acclamation the one day he’d stayed home with a cold earlier that month. He’d thought it such a good joke, he’d accepted the position upon his return. Now, watching him from the door, Sal was hit by such an ache she almost whimpered. That morning at band practice neither of them had spoken a word, had sat instead in parallel misery, tooting off-key and out-of-synch as usual. Their devil-may-care act had never been very good, Sal realized. Shadow Council had read it like a book and called their bluff, and here the two of them were, toeing the line, as frightened and obedient as the next guy.

If Brydan had stood by her, if just one person, anyone, would smile at her and include her in the human race, the whole situation would be invalidated. But that was the point, wasn’t it? The lottery ruled. No matter who you were, once your name was selected, fate took over your life. You were no longer an individual with specific quirks — say an affinity for tuna-and-alfalfa sprout sandwiches, or such an abhorrence for disco music that you broke out in hives — you were no longer even an individual with specific friends. Winning the lottery wiped out all idiosyncracies, reducing the victim to a simple equation — the person no one wanted to be. To look at the lottery victim, to consciously acknowledge what was happening to Sal Hanson, third clarinetist and Pony Express courier extraordinaire, would mean having to come up against your deepest fear, the realization that when everything was
stripped away — all those personal quirks and peculiarities — you as an individual had no meaning, were nothing more than a face in a crowd with needs that could be completely and absolutely denied.

She wanted to run screaming into the auditorium, claw her face until it bled, and yell, “Look at me, I’m human too. Can’t you see I need you?” But would anyone look? And if they did, would they see the blood? You couldn’t make choices for other people — wasn’t that how a democracy worked?

At the front of the room, Willis Cass stood and read out a proposal concerning student dances. When he finished, Brydan’s hand shot up, seconding the motion. Turning from the doorway, Sal stumbled down the emptiness of another hall.

Friday noon found her once again in the almost-deserted music room, nodding to Pavvie’s approving smile as she pulled clarinet #19 from the shelf. At the door to Room B she paused, flooded by a wave of unexpected hope that left her breathless and panicky. Biting her lip, she tugged open the door to find the room empty, nothing but a half circle of chairs and music stands. She entered, the wave of hope turning ugly, a wall of acid crashing in on itself. What had she expected, a weekly event? Some kind of mutual attraction? And what kind of attraction would that be, between a tyrant and his victim? What exactly had she come here looking for, anyway?

Behind her the door swung open and Willis entered, carrying trumpet #4. “Good, you’re here,” he grinned. “I signed the room out, so we won’t be disturbed.”

She was suddenly shaky, her mouth stretched into a stupid grin. Parking her butt, she began fumbling with her clarinet.

“So what kind of practice rituals d’you have?” asked Willis, sitting beside her and snapping the latches to his case.

“Practice rituals? As in practice often?” Sal asked carefully, slipping her reed into her mouth.

“As in scales, arpeggios, warm-up drills.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Okay,” said Willis, not blinking. “We’ll start with C major scale. Quarter notes. One, two, three, four.” Launching into the scale, he left Sal openly staring, her reed dangling from her lips. “C’mon,” he said, lowering the trumpet. “I’m lonely here.”

Slowly Sal tightened the ligature around the reed, then slid the clarinet into her mouth. C major scale — no sharps, no flats. It shouldn’t be too bad, if she played real quiet.

“You use cigarette papers?” asked Willis.

“Huh?” What was he on about now? Here she’d just psyched herself up for a wavering run at middle C, and he wanted to talk about smoking?

“Your lower lip gets sore from biting on it while you play, n’est-ce pas?” Willis asked mildly.

“You got that right,” she said emphatically.

Willis grinned. “My sister plays clarinet in a chamber orchestra. She folds roll-your-own cigarette papers over her bottom teeth for padding. That way she can play for hours.”

“For hours,” Sal said slowly.

“C major scale,” said Willis. “One, two, three ...”

He led them through various warm-up drills until Sal’s bottom lip ached and she was blowing air out of both
corners of her mouth. Pleading mush mouth, she sat and watched him sail effortlessly through several more keys. Trumpet to his lips, eyes closed, he lost some of his wolfish look. Notes poured out of him, fluid as thought. Listening, Sal felt the jagged gears of her mind begin to dissolve.

“That’s more like it,” he said, clearing his drain valve. “Now we’re ready to start playing.”

“Have you had the nerves pulled from your lips?” Sal asked suspiciously.

“Never,” crooned Willis. “I’ve got other uses for these lips. How about we have a go at Choppin’ Ettood?” Pulling the music from his folder, he set it on his stand.

“How about first you tell me why I’m handing out those plastic tabs?” Sal countered, leaving her own folder closed.

She held her breath while he held his. The room went into a long pause, Willis staring into the middle distance while she watched the pulse beat in his throat.

“Recruits,” he said finally. “For next year. The tabs indicate who we’re considering.”

“I thought anyone could apply,” she said, confused.

“Three or four positions open a year.” Willis fiddled with his valves, not looking at her. “Anyone can apply, but we decide who gets in. The tabs are just to let certain kids know we’re watching them. They’re possibilities.”

“Do they know the tabs mean that?”

“They might, they might not. Not knowing keeps them on their toes. If we like what we see in them this year, they’ll get a more direct invitation to apply later on.” He gave her a quick glance. “You’ll deliver it.”

Sal thought of the sick twist in Brydan’s expression and the double-studded girl’s moody laughter. There had been
fear in that laugh, though she’d covered it well.

“How come so many kids know the Sign of the Inside?” she asked slowly.

“It’s built up over the years,” Willis said easily. “Shadow has its buddy system, but if you abuse it once, the next time you use it you’ll be left to drown.”

Sal stared, wordless, at her clarinet. How was it possible things had gotten this complex? Last year she’d been aware of Shadow Council’s reach — who wasn’t? — but only as an ugly kind of vibe, vague and undefinable. The closer she looked, the more tangled its tentacles became, and they were everywhere. “Does the Celts’ staff supervisor know what you’re doing?”

“Darryl McCormick?” Willis laughed softly.

“Who?”

“Head of maintenance. He’s pretty slack — lets us know when he wants a couple thousand chairs unstacked and pretty much lets us hang out otherwise.”

“And no one supervises you in that room?”

Willis shrugged. “Teachers and club reps drop in with duties for us to perform. We’ve passed out a schedule that lets them know when the clubroom’s officially open and the Celts are in business. Shadow operates around the Celts’ schedule. The only club member who gets a key to the room is the president, and I call meetings for both the Celts and Shadow. Usually our meetings overlap. We keep a low profile, there’s no reason for administration to get suspicious.” He blew a breathy riff of notes, his eyes fixed on his musical score. “Don’t worry, that room’s just a place for mind games. It’s all virtual reality — Shadow never gets into any actual violence.”

Thoughtfully, Sal opened her music folder and pulled
out the Chopin Étude. Talk about mind games — so far she’d distributed twelve tabs and only four vacancies would be opening next year. Shadow Council sure liked to jerk people around. Gingerly, she placed the clarinet in her mouth and bit down on her puffy bottom lip.

“Start signing your clarinet out on weekends,” said Willis. “A month from now, you won’t recognize your embouchure. Okay, Choppin’ Ettood, here we come. One, two — ”

He launched flawlessly into the trumpet’s silvery introduction to Chopin Étude.

Dusty and her mother were both out, the house holding another empty Sunday afternoon. Sal had been practicing the clarinet in her room, but C major scale just hadn’t done it for her. Now she was down in Retro-Whatever, rocking to solid sonics, The Wall Live pumped so loud every carpet shag vibrated in orange ecstasy. Turning the volume up, she slammed herself through a reverberating bass line, then sent her soul arcing along electric shimmering notes. The music was a shape-shifter, invading her body and transforming every movement. The jab of an arm released the fury of the unspoken, the whip snap of her body emitted wordless groans, the long drag of her torso across the floor was the snake ache of loneliness.

Whipping and spiraling around the room, she dug into her own breath and muscle, the gut-singing fear where nothing could be touched by words. At some point she looked up to see Dusty in the room with her, whipping his body in parallel contortions, his thin hair vibrating about his head. Though they didn’t speak or watch each other,
their movements fell into an odd synchronicity — not mirror images, but conversations. She’d twist the question of an arm, he’d spin a mad reply. He’d snap his head, she’d convulse into a long gut groan. Finally, Dusty staggered to the stereo, shut it off, and sank to his knees. Across the room, Sal echoed him. For a moment they looked like two penitents at evening prayer.

“Shit, that was good,” gasped Dusty, collapsing onto the floor.

“Yeah.” Crawling toward him, Sal rested her head on the rapid rise and fall of his chest. “You get your essay done?”

“Nah. Soccer with a bunch of guys. You practice your clarinet?”

“Three or four notes.”

They lay, gulping long passageways of air. Sal’s clothes were pasted, she ached in every possible way, felt like lying on the cradle of her brother’s lungs for the rest of her life.

“Dusty?” She counted the steady body-wide thuds of his heart. “I like talking to you like this.”

“Me too, Sally-Sis,” he whispered, clumsily patting her sweaty head. “Nothing better than you, little sis. Nothing better.”

Hours later, their mother found them in the same position, fast asleep.

The bike racks were full. Unwrapping the chain-lock from her seat, Sal locked her front wheel to the mesh fence that surrounded the school practice field. Monday morning, back to the same old grind, she thought, her eyes tracing
the silver links that crossed and crisscrossed the length of an entire city block without a break. As she turned toward the school’s east entrance, the full strength of the nearest wall hit her — thousands upon thousands of red bricks cemented firmly together. In that silence, nothing moved. The building was over a century old, and none of its bricks had shifted a millimeter. Even the windows took the morning light and threw it outward, letting nothing in.

But that was only the way it looked on the surface, Sal told herself. When you were inside, the windows let in light. It was only a trick of perspective that made it look as if the windows also functioned as a solid wall, opaque bricks of glass.

As she came down the hallway toward her locker, Marvin Fissett stepped out of the crowd, flashing the three-fingered salute. Even in the cacophony of the busy corridor, it came at her like a vivid electric current. Nodding once, Marvin continued down the hall and she followed, an obedient puppy held tight by an invisible leash. At the library he pushed through the turnstile and headed for the stacks, pausing midway into the geology section.

“Brad Carter,” he said, handing her an envelope. “Homeroom S18.”

“That’s next to my homeroom,” Sal said surprised, as if this was somehow relevant, gave the transaction some kind of meaning. Without a word, without even a shrug, Marvin walked off, leaving her standing with her mouth still holding the shape of her words.

Speaking without permission, one demerit — she could hear him thinking it as he exited the library. Staring down at the blank envelope, she repeated the name to herself: Brad Carter. She’d never heard of him. It looked like this one called for another nose-rubbing job.

That afternoon, envelope delivered, she filed through the crush of packed hallways toward the auditorium with the rest of the student body. Everyone, including the teachers, looked to be in sleepwalking mode — the scheduled assembly promised to be a snorer, an easily forgotten hour spent listening to the Leader of the Opposition, a federal politician touring western Canada, who’d decided to include several Saskatchewan high schools in his itinerary. Entering the auditorium, Sal joined the fifteen hundred students crowding into tight wall-to-wall rows of chairs. So, Shadow Council had been busy, contributing to the official side of its existence. Off to one side, members of the Celts could be seen lounging against the stage, watching as students filled the chairs.

Behind the podium sat the school principal, Mr. Wroblewski, and a second man who was studying the packed audience with an amused expression. Balding and double-chinned, he didn’t look like a worthwhile reason to hold fifteen hundred adolescent minds hostage for an hour. Reluctantly, Sal wormed her way past a dozen jam-packed knees, sinking into a chair just as Mr. Wroblewski walked to the mike and began reciting the Leader of the Opposition’s personal accomplishments in education, business, politics and charitable activities. Slouching lower in her seat, Sal wondered how much time this charitable politician intended to expend on his speech. A short speech, she figured, would be a charitable and much-appreciated donation to the frenetic lives of fifteen hundred high-school students.

Make it ten minutes and I’ll vote for you when I get old enough, thought Sal. Make it five and I’ll vote for your party every election for the rest of my life.

Mr. Wroblewski stepped back from the mike, and the
amused-looking Leader of the Opposition stood and approached the podium. Leaning into the mike, he opened his mouth, about to begin speaking, just as a piercing scream cut the air and a tall, skinny, naked male student with a paper bag over his head came tearing out of the wings. Running at top speed, he passed the gaping men at the podium and disappeared backstage. For two beats of a conductor’s wand, there was absolute silence. Then a tidal wave of laughter engulfed the auditorium. For the next five minutes, pandemonium reigned as wave after wave of hysteria rolled over the student body. Every time a pocket of calm appeared, someone would hazard another guess.