Twisted (15 page)

Yoda and his parents left for Kent State, Case Western, and OSU on Wednesday. Hannah and I rode the bus to school.

She did not sit with me.

I spent most of the day reading the entire US Gov textbook. I highlighted it, too. What were they going to do? Suspend me? Arrest me?

Mr. Salvatore dropped by during his lunch break and explained
Faustus.
I told him that Marlowe should have written it the way he explained it. Mr. S. thought that was funny. He pointed to a line in the play, towards the end, when Dr. Faustus is about to sign over his soul to the devil. “Do you know what means?”

“
Homo, fuge?
That he’s gay?”

“Don’t be an idiot. It’s Latin.
Homo
means man,
fuge,
fly, so ‘fly, oh man,’ or ‘fly away.’ God is speaking to him, dropping a giant hint that he should take off, follow the light, if you will; do something positive instead of sealing the deal with the devil.”

“So this is really important?”

“You could say that, yeah.”

I made a quick note of the page number. “Why did the guy write it in Latin? He’s making the most important stuff the hardest to understand.”

“But you won’t forget it, will you?”

“Huh?”

“Because it’s in Latin, because it’s different and hard, you’ll remember it. A friend of mine in grad school had that tattooed on his arm. Kept him out of trouble, he said.”

“No offense, but you had some weird friends.”

“It was grad school, what can I say? See if you can write that essay now.”

Somebody put a doughnut on my table when I was in the john taking a leak. It was a peanut-butter-and-jelly doughnut. It could have been either Joe or Toothless. Dopey didn’t share.

I must have nodded off doing calculus, chair leaning against the wall, arms crossed over my chest, thin strand of drool on my chin. It was hot in there. No windows.

I woke up when I heard the door open, the slow
cli-click
of the handle turning, the latch releasing. I opened my eyes and wiped my chin.

I froze.

Bethany was standing just outside my door.

She was wearing a pair of faded jeans, a light-blue turtleneck, and a baggy gray Warriors hoodie. Her hair was in a braid down her back. Her left arm was curled around a stack of books. Her blue purse was over her right shoulder. She didn’t have on any makeup or earrings. She looked like she was twelve.

Imagine you’re sitting in your living room watching ESPN, and you look up and a deer has wandered in. She’s shaking. Her legs are like twigs and her eyes so big you can see yourself in them. You’re afraid that if you move, or say anything, she’ll panic and run through the sliding-glass door, but if you don’t move, or say anything, she’ll walk away again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

I sit silent, a rock.

She sighs. “You’re still mad at me. I don’t blame you. I was a bitch.” She wipes the tears off her face. “I hope someday you’ll forgive me….”

I stand up, throw the chair aside. I walk towards her.

She didn’t say a word. She didn’t even come in, just stayed there in the hall with her hand on the doorknob.

I almost said something, but the bell rang.

Officer Adams showed up again at eight o’clock that night, and we all assumed our positions: cop in the chair, me on the bench, parents on the couch.

Dad was sitting square under the van Gogh print this time, directly across from me. He frowned. The creases in his forehead deepened into canyons.

Adams asked the same questions and I gave the same answers for ten minutes.

We were all confused when Mom left the room and came back holding her purse. That wasn’t in the script. She whipped out another one of her lawyer’s cards.

“The interview is over,” she said. “Call this number if you have any other questions.”

Adams took the card.

“Let me walk you to the door,” Mom said.

After the cops left, Dad poured himself a scotch. He made a gin and tonic for Mom, who had curled up on the couch with the remote and a photo-supply catalog.

“No, thanks,” she said, turning a page.

“What?” Dad said.

“I don’t want one.”

“You don’t want a drink?”

“Actually, I do.” She stood up and tossed me the remote before she walked into the kitchen. “Peppermint tea.”

I almost volunteered to take her G&T. Why not? I was back where I started in May, squarely screwed by the criminal justice system. Any day now the newspapers would call, and because a pretty white girl was involved, the national news trucks would park on our lawn and point their satellite dishes at the sky above our house and beam me around the world. That called for at least eighty proof.

Dad felt me staring at him.

“Don’t you have homework?” he asked.

The weird part was that my classes were getting easier now that I wasn’t actually in them. My teachers were sending along assignments, notes, links to research Web sites and worksheets. The one thing that kept kicking my butt was English. It was hard enough writing a paper once. Mr. Salvatore wanted at least three drafts, with correctly spelled words. And it didn’t matter how many times I reread the definitions, I could not figure out the difference between symbols, motifs, and themes. Apparently, this was important. So important that Mr. S. wrote a note on my
Faustus
essay that I should come in after school to go over it with him one more time.

At first I wasn’t sure if he was serious; I mean, what if he was just going to bitch at me for an hour? But I was getting a little desperate for human contact, and I didn’t think he hated me as much as some people I could name, so I went.

“Motif. Symbol. Theme.”

Salvatore covered the board with the definitions and gave a million examples from our books.

I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. You could tell by looking at him how into this stuff he was. And he took the time with me after school when he could have been at the gym or looking for the future Mrs. Salvatore, so props for that.

But I didn’t get it.

He spent every minute of that hour trying to cram stuff into the concrete block I called my head. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t have a jackhammer.

I put my pencil down when the late-bus announcements started. “I got to go.”

“Right,” he said. “Wow, it’s dark already. Don’t you hate how that sneaks up on you?”

“Yeah. They say it happens gradually, but I don’t believe them.”

“It’s a conspiracy on the part of the meteorologists,” he said.

“I don’t think meteorologists are in charge of sunsets.”

“Well, whomever, then. I wasn’t very good at science.” He pulled a backpack out from under his desk and started sticking his books in it. “How are you doing, Tyler?”

“I think I’m passing,” I said.

“No, not that. The other stuff.”

“Oh.” I stacked my books. “Okay, I guess.”

“You don’t have to lie.” He set his backpack on the floor and perched on the edge of his desk. “Some of us are convinced you didn’t do it, you know. It’s unfair that you’re being treated this way…. We wish we could change that.”

“Oh, well, thanks. I guess.”

“I heard the police are looking at a number of suspects.”

“Yeah.” I stood up. “But I don’t see anybody else living in suspension. Thanks, Mr. S., I gotta go.”

“I’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Cool. Happy motif or whatever.”

He was chuckling as I closed the door.

My freaking locker stuck again. My jacket was in there and it was freezing out, so I fought it and kicked it. By the time I got it open and grabbed the jacket and sprinted to the front door, the late buses were gone.

Crap.

It wasn’t that the walk was so long it would kill me. I just wasn’t in the mood.

The car started following me a couple blocks away from school. I tried to sneak a glance over my shoulder, but the glare from the streetlights made it impossible to see who was inside. They sped up and passed me.

Four and a half blocks later, just before I turned the corner, I noticed the sound of the car doors slamming, but I didn’t really notice, if you know what I mean.

The footsteps were fast and heavy.

I rounded the corner and there they were. Three guys surrounded me, their arms out. They were my size, more or less, and wearing Halloween masks. I spun around. There was no room to run.

I wanted to pee my pants.

Instead, I launched myself at the guy right in front of me. He wasn’t expecting it and stepped back. Just before my fist connected with him, something covered my head. I pulled at it. It was blanket, or a piece of a blanket. It smelled like a dryer sheet.

No more time to think.

It started. Not the beating of a lifetime, not bad enough to put me in the hospital, but painful. A fist to my head, kicks to my legs. I spun around, trying to stay on my feet. One of them laughed. It sounded like Parker. I was tackled. Someone was punching my stomach. I panicked, kicked, trying to get the blanket off my head so I could breathe. He finally got off me and I puked in my mouth a little. I swallowed it.

It stopped. Just like that, it was over.

One of them said something, but all I heard was a rumble, the beginning of an avalanche. The blanket was still on my head. More rumbles. The avalanche picked up speed, momentum. I blinked, could only see the dim streetlight through the weave of the blanket.

A dark shadow moved and I flinched. Someone giggled.

The shadow came close and whispered, a familiar voice. “That’s what you get for hurting my sister, you perv.”

A car engine started. Doors closed. They turned up the bass.

The avalanche faded away down the mountain.

I took off the blanket. It was pink and edged with satin. I spit and hawked and spit again. I folded the blanket, tucked it under my arm, and walked home.

Dark house.

Hot shower until the water ran cold.

Nothing was broken, I was sure of that. One of the advantages to being beaten up by a group of suburban jocks was that they wore sneakers, not boots. If they’d had boots on, I would have been bleeding to death from internal injuries.

I couldn’t let myself think of the sound of Chip’s voice in my ear, because it made me think about borrowing Dad’s gun and going for a walk. I took a couple swigs of NyQuil, a bunch of ibuprofen, and slowly made my way to the kitchen.

When my parents came in from their therapy session, I was sitting at the kitchen table, watching my Lucky Charms dissolve into a bowl of milk.

Mom swooped in. “Oh my God, what happened? Who did this? Oh my God, Bill. We have to get him to a hospital. Oh, Tyler, look at your poor face.”

“It’s just a busted lip,” I said.

“Just?” she shrieked.

She launched into a rant filled with Mom-things, asking a lot of questions and not waiting for the answers. Dad said Dad-things, which were the same as Mom-things except with a lot of swear words. I wanted to tell them to be quiet because they were making my head hurt, but my head hurt too much to say anything.

I have to admit, it felt good to have Mom fussing over me. She checked out the bruises, she studied my pupils, she called the doctor, she made me lie down on the couch in the family room, she covered me with the afghan, she did it all.

Dad stood watch in the background, as if they might come through the door any second and try again. I guess that was nice of him.

They argued about whether or not to call the police, then Mom had to leave to pick up Hannah from Mandy’s house.

Dad sat in the chair across from the couch. “She’s gone,” he said. “Do you think this is related to what happened?”

“What do you mean, ‘what happened’?”

He pursed his lips. “Do you think this has any connection to your being accused of taking those pictures?”

“Thank you for saying the word ‘accused.’”

“Don’t start. Your mother wants you to stay calm.”

I poked my fingers through the afghan. “Yeah. It was Chip and his friends.”

Dad took a deep breath. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

“Because we both know that Mom would insist on calling the cops. She still might, but I’m telling you right now, if she does, I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I am not going to say a word, so it’s a waste of time.”

“All right, calm down. I agree. There’s no point in calling the police. It would just complicate things.”

“Complicate.”

“You know what I mean.”

I cocked my head to one side. I thought I heard something far away—a plane engine, or maybe a train. Dad didn’t hear anything. He was picking at the lint on the arm of the chair.

“How come Milbury hasn’t fired you yet?” I asked.

“Who knows? He’s doing everything he can to keep me out of the office. I have to catch a six o’clock for San Diego in the morning.”

“That’s another reason not to call the cops,” I pointed out. “If I accuse Chip, you’re hosed.”

He rubbed his hand over his face once but didn’t say anything.

“I’m not going to school tomorrow,” I said.

“No, of course not.”

“I’m getting tired of all this.”

No answer.

“Dad? What am I going to do?”

“I’ve been thinking along those lines. About your options.” He stood up and walked to the bookshelf at the end of the room. He took a handful of envelopes off a high shelf. “Your mother doesn’t want me to show these to you yet.” He waited while I sat up and then handed the envelopes to me.

Each one had a brochure in it. Hargrave Military Academy. Fishburne Military School. Valley Forge. Uniforms. Drill instructors. Lines of teenagers at attention. Discipline, they all promised. Integrity. Excellence.

“What are these?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “A boarding school, a military boarding school, is a good decision. A fresh start. I’ve already spoken to their admissions directors, explained things—”

“Things? What things exactly?”

He kept on like I hadn’t said a word. “—and they all said you could enroll in January. It’s in your best interest to enter as a second-semester junior; that will increase your college chances tremendously.”

The noise grew closer. It was the avalanche, back to finish off whatever life was left clinging to the side of the mountain. Imagine a hurricane mating with a blizzard, then add gravity to the mix, and seat yourself at the bottom of it, chained in place, watching it head down the mountainside, straight at…

“You’re sending me away.”

“None of these schools are cheap, but it’s a sacrifice we need to make.”

I stood up too fast and had to reach for the back of the couch to keep my balance. The afghan fell to the floor. Dad stood his ground, feet planted shoulder-width apart, jaw locked in position.

“You’re sending me away because I’m an embarrassment,” I said. “It’s easier if I’m gone. You’ll keep your job. You’ll save on the food bill.”

He didn’t say a word.

Mom’s car pulled in the driveway, her headlights raking through the unlit part of the house.

“We’ll discuss this later,” Dad said. “I’ve already completed the applications. They’ll be mailed off as soon as the police are willing to go on record saying you are not a suspect.”

The car doors slammed outside; first Mom’s, then Hannah’s.

I ripped the brochures with military precision into pieces that measured two centimeters by three centimeters. When Mom walked in, I handed them to her.

The cage match, round 32,415, started up shortly after I got into bed.

Mom fired the opening salvo. “For the love of God, Bill, can’t you leave him alone for one second?”

“We have to face the reality of this, Linda. We have to deal with it.”

“We agreed to wait another week. As usual, you bullied your way—”

Hannah’s feet thumped up the stairs and down the hall to her room. She didn’t bother checking on me. I imagine she went straight to her computer. I know for sure she cranked her music to drown out the noise downstairs.

I kept my door open to listen. Why? For the same reason you slow down when you pass a horrific car crash. You want to see the severed limbs and the blood.

I didn’t need a computer or a pathetic role-playing game. Hell could be found at 623 Copeland Drive.