by Simeon Mills
• • •
I was sitting in Mrs. Deal’s English class, staring at a blank sheet of paper, trying to write another story for Brooke. Actually, I just wanted one sentence: the most realistic, hilarious sentence of all time. But it was hard going. Brooke’s voice had taken root in my processor, helpfully annihilating my every attempt.
There were three knocks on the classroom door. The Ceiling Fan leaned into the room.
Mrs. Deal opened her mouth and then closed it, as though the Ceiling Fan were a former pupil whose physical characteristics had morphed just enough to scramble the letters of his name.
“May I borrow Darryl for a moment?”
Mrs. Deal squinted at him. She bit her lip, racking her brain to identify the man. Ultimately, she shrugged. “Darryl’s all yours.”
I rose from my seat, leaving my blank sheet of paper on my desk, and met the Ceiling Fan in the hallway.
“This way,” he said, and started walking. I could hear the static electricity snapping against the bottoms of his work boots. “Let me be real with you. Don’t trust these teachers, what they’re forced to teach you nowadays about what’s normal and what isn’t. We know what normal is. I’m normal. You’re normal. The rest of the guys on the team are normal. But is everybody normal?” We found ourselves in the senior hallway. The Ceiling Fan slowed next to a heavy brown door marked CUSTODIAN. He jingled some keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. “Come on,” he said, and stepped inside.
I followed him. The Ceiling Fan closed the door.
A dim light bulb illuminated shelves of plastic bottles. The air was filled with mold and chemicals. I leaned away from the Ceiling Fan, who seemed to have expanded in the tiny space, and my elbow banged against a grimy sink. The darkness at my feet was the exact place a murderer would hide a dead body. I looked up at the Ceiling Fan with my bravest face.
He said, “We’re going to do a team-building exercise. The guy whose closet this is, Mr. Virgil, he’s not normal. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah.” I had no clue what he was saying.
“Because?”
“Because . . .”
“Because he’s a toaster.”
I nodded. “How can you tell?”
“His eyes. Way too far apart. And this closet. Look at this place! Only a toaster like him could survive in here. Can you believe they hired this guy to be around children? I could do his job. Ain’t like it’s hard. I could take his salary and all those benefits he’s getting. What does he need the bennies for? He don’t need health insurance! The whole thing stinks.”
I nodded.
“So right behind you”—the Ceiling Fan nodded at the sink—“through that wall is the staff bathroom. The women’s staff bathroom. I’m going up through the ceiling. I got a little place to lie down up there. That’s where I’ve got a peephole. Okay?”
I stared blankly at him.
“I said Mr. Virgil’s a toaster, so I’m asking are you okay with me going up through his ceiling, or do you have a problem with that?”
I could feel my processor heating up. “It’s not a problem.”
“I’m going to say the name of a teacher. You tell me if you would watch her going to the bathroom or not. Ready? You have to be honest. Ready? Mrs. Deal.”
“No.”
“You hesitated. Answer true this time. Mrs. Zweer.”
I didn’t answer.
The Ceiling Fan leaned in and whispered, “You would cut off your pinky to see Mrs. Zweer sitting on the pot.”
The Ceiling Fan hitched up his pants and began to climb Mr. Virgil’s shelves, stepping skillfully around large jugs of bleach and vinegar. Up toward the ceiling, he steadied himself, then used a fist to pop a ceiling tile loose. He slid the tile back to create an opening just wide enough for himself. There must have been pipes to grab up there in the darkness, because he pulled himself up and was gone.
I felt cold. If Mr. Virgil barged in at that moment, I would be the one left to explain things.
I called up to the Ceiling Fan: “What should I do now?”
“Keep a look out,” he said, his voice muffled. “Go back to the hallway and make sure the toaster doesn’t show up.”
“But what if he does?”
“Then you give me the signal.”
“What’s the signal?”
But the Ceiling Fan didn’t answer, just tossed his keys down to me and used his boot to kick the ceiling tile back into place. There was a rustle. Dust fell from the fluorescent light fixture, and I knew the Ceiling Fan was working his way over to the peephole.
I saw a two-gallon jug of vinegar. The cap was off. I took a quick sip and carefully placed the jug exactly as it had been. Then I poured another three-quarters of the jug down my throat. I wiped my mouth and exited the closet. The hallway was empty except for a lone kid walking in the opposite direction, back to class from the drinking fountain, dragging a lazy finger across a row of lockers.
The drinking fountain.
That’s where I made my lookout. Or rather, fifteen feet away from the drinking fountain. If an adult showed up, I would walk toward the fountain. I would stretch my arms. I would pretend to be looking at something gross in the drain. Then I’d drink. Take a breath. Then I’d drink and drink and drink until the adult passed by. But when Mrs. Clinow appeared, I did none of those things. I froze. I sensed a sudden pressure in my abdomen, watching Mrs. Clinow trudge down the hallway. What was the expression on her face? Guilt? Pain? Defeat? She entered the women’s bathroom. Mrs. Clinow! She had a daughter in tenth grade. Janice. I had always felt sorry for Janice, a hundred of her classmates having to stare at her mom for an hour every day. But more to the point, would I watch Janice’s mom going to the bathroom if I knew for certain I wouldn’t get caught?
Or I could be a hero. I could warn Mrs. Clinow about the three-hundred-pound man hiding in the ceiling. I could pound on the bathroom door. Mrs. Clinow! Don’t sit down!
Too much time had elapsed. Surely she had been disgraced by now, and the flush was coming. The washing of her hands with soap. I needed to be somewhere else when Mrs. Clinow came out, if only to avoid the look of relief on her face. I made my way in the direction of the boys’ bathroom. Halfway there, I spotted Mr. Virgil. He was carrying a newspaper and a thermos. His whistling told me he was moments from taking a break, and he would be spending it in the closet.
I regarded Mr. Virgil’s face. His eyes, indeed, were farther apart than most humans’ eyes. Yet his nose was plainly crooked, marring the symmetry of his face. Was he a robot? A toaster?
I ducked into the boys’ bathroom. It was empty. I used toilets to empty my food receptacles, so I was familiar enough with their operation: pull the lever, and the water in the basin gets replaced. Ten arm-lengths of toilet paper later, one of the toilets was perfectly plugged. I’d had to dip my fingers into the cold toilet water to make sure the dam was solid. I pulled the lever. Water cascaded over the edge of the bowl, creating a crisis only Mr. Virgil could fix. I pulled the lever again and took off running.
The custodian closet door was open a crack. Mr. Virgil stood near his sink, music softly playing from a radio on a shelf near his head. He was sipping coffee, reading the comics.
“Mr. Virgil?” I pushed the door open a foot. “The bathroom is—”
He swallowed a mouthful of coffee.
“The bathroom is flooded, sir.”
He stared at me a moment. “You don’t say.”
I was taking a long drink from the fountain when Mr. Virgil came out with a bucket and mop. He locked his door and headed toward the boys’ bathroom. I used the Ceiling Fan’s keys to open the closet back up, and I slipped inside. “Hey,” I whispered up to him. “I got rid of Mr. Virgil. The coast is clear.”
I waited. I wasn’t sure the Ceiling Fan had heard me. I was about to call up to him again, louder, when the ceiling tile slid aside. “I always forget how claustrophobic it is up here.” His boots appeared in the open
ing. “Gotta get out.” His legs squirmed like he was wrestling a snake. The Ceiling Fan’s feet blindly found the shelves and he began his climb down, careful not to kick over Mr. Virgil’s coffee, which the custodian had left in the way. Once he’d reached the bottom, the Ceiling Fan took a deep breath, and his face was more relaxed than I’d ever seen it.
“We gotta get out of here,” I said. “I messed up the boys’ bathroom, but he could be back any second.”
The Ceiling Fan chuckled and shook his head, as if I’d missed the whole point. “You feel sorry for them. I can tell by the look on your face. It ain’t your fault. It’s what they’re teaching you nowadays in school. All of them. Coach Belt, even. There’s a man who’s gotten lazy with his thinking.”
My back was to the closet door. I felt for the knob and held it tight.
“But he picked the right job. Be a high school teacher. That’s how you do it. You, Darryl, go and get yourself a teaching certificate. There aren’t enough good teachers. Everybody knows it’s the problem, but what does anybody do about it?” He made a disgusted face. “And what other job pays you for sitting on your ass all day and then gives you your summers off? It seems stupid to me, stupid, at this point, not to become a teacher. Not to mention the aspect of working with female teachers. It’s just a perspective worth thinking about.” The Ceiling Fan leaned against Mr. Virgil’s shelves. “You wouldn’t go on a date with another teacher in your own school. Probably you wouldn’t even talk to them much. You’d see this person, this sexy teacher in the halls every day. In the parking lot. At basketball games. Maybe you share a ride to school together in the morning. Maybe kiss a little. But what if you break up? Forget it. Who needs that crap? I say keep it professional. Do you have any idea what Pam Zweer looked like when I was in high school?”
The bell rang, signaling the end of third period. The hallway outside trembled.
“You just going to stand there all day?”
I pushed into the hallway and flew from the custodian’s closet, catching a glimpse of Andy Hestra dancing in place at the entrance to the boys’ bathroom. The sign on the door read OUT OF ORDER.
13
I WAS FINE. Nothing happened. I didn’t get in trouble, and it was over, so I needed to think about something else. Get my mind off it. I was fine, so what was I dwelling on? My body was functioning. My processor was processing. I was fine. I was fine. I was—
My neck itched.
The Ceiling Fan had poisoned me there, on that nub of my spine, and I knew that if I scratched there, the poison might spread to other parts of me. He could read my thoughts. I was certain. But worse, he was putting new thoughts into my processor. I tried not to think about anything, his thoughts or mine, which made me think about Mom, naked, that time when I accidentally crashed into the bedroom while she was changing: a snapshot captured by my eyes, now framed and centered on the living room wall of my mind. The Ceiling Fan was in my mind too, and we were staring at the picture together. He whistled, pointing to the blue birthmark on her hip. Her square nipples. The measuring cup of hair between her legs. “Your mom ain’t quite normal, is she?”
But I was fine.
It was after school. I was sitting beside Kanga in Mr. Belt’s room for a team meeting. The players already had on their practice clothes and were sitting at the desks, watching Mr. Belt spell out each of our names on the chalkboard. Thirteen names, printed in capital letters, including my own. Being manager meant I was part of the team. The Ceiling Fan was at Mr. Belt’s desk. I dared a peek at him. He winked, as if to say, Your mom ain’t no Mrs. Zweer . . .
Mr. Belt addressed us: “The regular season is nearly over, gentlemen. That means we’re nearly to the ninth-grade championship. But keep your cows in the barn. That championship game isn’t for a couple of weeks.” Mr. Belt looked at the chalkboard. “Who can tell me what this is?”
The players stared at the list of names. Nobody raised a hand.
“Let’s get with it! Here’s the board. What do you see?”
They looked at their desks.
“Come on, men. This is high school. Not middle school. Not Sunday school. I’m asking you to use your minds. Tell me—”
“Names?” somebody whispered.
“Yes. But wrong. We all have names. Without names, where would mankind be as a society? But there is something more important than names. Tell me what it is.”
“First names?”
“Christ,” said Mr. Belt. “Look harder, would you?”
Nobody moved except the Ceiling Fan, who had found some grime beneath a fingernail. He began chewing on the end of his finger.
“Kanga,” said Mr. Belt. “Please, you, of all people, should be able to tell me what in the holy heck I’m talking about up here. What is this, Kanga?”
“Everybody’s names.”
“Okay!” Mr. Belt pointed at Kanga. “Yes! We’re getting somewhere. Everybody. That’s my point. Nice work, Kanga. Way to keep your head in the— My point is we’re a team. T-E-A-M. Got it?”
Everybody nodded.
“Now we’re reading the same book. But what is a team composed of?”
Rye raised his hand.
“Players,” continued Mr. Belt. “A team is composed of individuals. Different entities. Everybody is unique. Look at the clouds. No two clouds are ever the same. Take a look at the sky.”
The classroom lights flickered inexplicably at that moment. The team looked at the ceiling. Somebody laughed. Suddenly everybody was laughing.
“Let’s keep a lid on it. Act like men, not boys. I don’t know what’s wrong with you guys.” Mr. Belt clapped his hands. “Okay! Everybody get out a sheet of paper and a pencil!”
The players looked down at their practice clothes, then at Mr. Belt.
“Terry. Go and hand everybody a piece of paper and a pencil. Please.”
“Where do you keep the paper, Coach?”
“Are you serious, Terry? You know where the paper is. Get hopping.”
“I don’t have you for science.”
“What? You’re not in my fourth period? With all those other dipsticks?”
“I have Mrs. Conway for science.”
“Kanga,” said Mr. Belt. “You have me for science. Pass out the paper and pencils.”
“Where do you keep the pencils?”
“Christ . . .”
After Kanga had given every player a piece of paper and a pencil, Mr. Belt ordered the team to look at the list of names on the chalkboard. He wanted them to vote for the best basketball player on the list.
“Who’s the best guy on the team? In other words, who would beat every one else in a game of one-on-one? I’m not asking whom your best friend is or whom you like to play grab-ass with on the bus. This is confidential. Anonymous. I want you to fold your vote in half. Then raise your hand. I’ll collect it from you. Then you can put your head down on your desk and sleep, if need be.”
I scribbled “Kanga,” folded my sheet of paper, and raised my hand. I peeked as Kanga wrote “James” in small letters on his piece of paper, folded it twice, and raised his hand. The rest of the class followed suit and soon everyone had their heads down on their desks. Mr. Belt set about reading the folded pieces of paper and marking down the tally on an index card.
“Okay gentlemen, here are the results. Twelve of you voted for one person. That means almost everybody thinks that one person is the best basketball player on the team. I didn’t vote, because I’m the coach. I won’t tell you whom everybody voted for, seeing as everybody knows who he is because everybody voted for him. Almost. Somebody else got a vote. A certain somebody. You know who you are, because it appears you voted for yourself, which is not something teammates do. Everybody else, good job. You voted righteously. To this certain other teammate, well, I guess, congratulations. Your name is written on a single sheet of paper. Nobody else voted for you.”
Mr. Belt was squinting at James Botty, who squinted right back.
“Not that any o
f this matters. I’m throwing the ballots in the trash. If any of you buttheads thinks he can sneak into the school tonight, into the trash, and figure out who voted for himself, well, don’t. Because I’m keeping that particular ballot right here in my pocket. I’ll be dealing with that particular ballot later in life. Let’s get to the Cave.”
Rye raised his hand.
“Goddamn it, Rye.”
“Do you want these pencils back?”
“Pencils? Yes. Give your pencils to Kanga. Kanga? All these pencils are for you. Keep them. Don’t lose them. They can be school pencils, or you may take them home for your personal use.”
The team gave their pencils to Kanga.
• • •
Practice was grueling. Mr. Belt couldn’t stop yelling at the guys for being selfish, for being timid, for being philosophers, for not getting back on defense, for not finishing at the rim, for standing around like it was some kind of formal soiree. But while Mr. Belt’s dissatisfaction was spread evenly across the team, the Ceiling Fan had eyes only for Kanga’s mistakes, berating my brother again and again for deficiencies in offensive position, persistence, and body language.
But I saw it too. Something was wrong with Kanga. Something about my brother’s throat. He was guarding that area with his hands. Robots didn’t get sore throats, so why were Kanga’s fingers massaging the sides of his Adam’s apple? It was consuming him, so much so that Kanga didn’t notice when Rye threw him a pass. The ball plunked Kanga in the belly—the kind of blow that would knock the wind out of a normal human. But Kanga didn’t even react to it. He just kept his hands under his chin, rubbing his throat.
“Kanga?” asked Mr. Belt.
My brother made an anguished face then rushed off the court, leaving us all to listen as he spit a huge chunk of grease into a trash can. It had been caught in his throat, apparently, and Kanga had been trying to ease it out. From the sound of it thudding against the bottom of the can, the grease was thick and hard as clay—not the sound of something produced by a human body. Kanga remained above the can, working his tongue around inside his mouth. He then used a finger to claw some additional grease from the back of his throat before flicking it away.