The Savage Kind

by John Copenhaver

He’s striking, milky skin and a prominent jawline, very Nordic, but he’s always hiding out, a lobster under a rock. He’s out of place amid the MBBS girls and football jocks at Eastern. He reminds me of Blake Le Beux. I never knew Blake properly, just by reputation. He looked different than Cleve—dark hair, slight features—but his demeanor, particularly his aggressive moodiness, was similar. You always sensed that just beneath the surface anger shifted like black ooze, building up pressure. I steered clear of him. He frightened me, but at the same time, I felt sorry for him. Two weeks into my sophomore year, he committed suicide. We were all shocked, but I wasn’t surprised. That same intensity—that promise of violence—looms over Cleve.

  Eventually, he answered me: “I’m just doing homework.”

  “I see that. I meant, why are you still at school?”

  “Not interested in going home.” He sniffed, plucked a tissue from his coat pocket, and wiped his nose.

  “Why?”

  “I-I—” He faltered. “It’s…” He stuffed his tissue back in his pocket. A brief tremor of frustration flashed across his eyes.

  I didn’t realize he had such difficulty forming words. On the rare occasion he answered a question in class, he’d blast it out—for instance, what he said about Keats: “He’s done something terrible and wants to die.”

  “None of my business,” I said, trying for cheerfulness.

  He deflated a little.

  His clothes were neat—his white shirt tucked in, his dark wool pants hemmed and pressed with care, his thin red plaid mackinaw loose, but not too big. There was something boyish about him, and it made me feel sad for him. “Do you want to walk with me?” I said. “I’m heading up East Capitol.”

  “No,” he said sharply.

  “Okay, I didn’t mean to—”

  “You hang out with Judy P-Peabody, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, not understanding why he was asking.

  He scowled and looked away. “She’s rotten.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He glared at me, clamping his mouth shut, driving his blue-eyed boyishness away. What I’d read as loneliness or unhappiness was turning hot, morphing into anger. I stepped back from him. “Stay away from her!” he fumed. “She’s a damned b-bitch. And so is, so is…”

  “I’ll decide who my friends are, thank you,” I said, crossing my arms.

  His eyes glazed over, his acne-covered cheeks blazed, and his jawline began rippling. Whatever rumbled under the surface was lava-hot and about to gush through. I thought about what Judy said about him, about his spite for Miss Martins, about the Keats lines somehow suiting him: “Half in love with easeful Death.” My heart began racing, and I wanted to get out of there, but I didn’t quite know how without triggering him. I had to defuse him. A one-person emotional bomb squad. “What are you studying?” I said, shooting for upbeat but achieving something drier.

  He was mystified, and for a moment, he opened his mouth and closed it, as if he was stretching the muscles in his twitchy jaw. Eventually, he mumbled, “Uh, lobsters. Crustaceans.”

  “What are you learning about?” I said, harnessing the last of my depleting resource of goodwill. “Which lobsters are the best to eat, and which should be tossed back? Or something like that?”

  “I’m memorizing their insides,” he said, suddenly engaged, buoyant. “Cardiac stomach. Pyloric stomach. Dor-dorsal abdominal artery. Ventral abdominal artery.”

  “And you don’t want to do that at home?”

  “Too quiet,” he said, blackening again. His shoulders dropped, but it wasn’t anger. Very Blake Le Beux. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure him out. Moods flashed through him like a spinning kaleidoscope. One minute, he’s a bland wallflower. The next, a furious glowerer. And the next, a lost little boy.

  “Your parents work late?”

  “No—well, Pops does. But Mom, she’s just… you know.” His chin wobbled as he struggled to find the words.

  “Don’t mind me. I’m nosy. I’ve had to be. It’s the only way you make friends when you move around as much as I have.”

  “I’ve never moved, but I’d like to.” His voice brightened.

  “Do you want to go to college?”

  “I want to study marine biology.” His eyes lit up, and his forehead released. I saw how handsome he could be. “There’s nothing like being out on the Potomac in the boat.”

  “I’d like to be a writer,” I said, remembering Love’s Last Move wedged into my coat pocket. It felt odd for it to be there, even uncouth.

  “If you say so,” he said, clearly unimpressed.

  “I want to write something dramatic and romantic, but with substance. Something timeless.”

  He just blinked at me.

  “You don’t like English, do you?” I said.

  “No,” he growled and looked away.

  “It’s a good class, though. Miss Martins is—”

  His entire face narrowed, his acne purpling like a bruise. “She is… She’s…” he said trembling. “You have no idea,” and he looked away, wiping his sleeve across his mouth. Something was eating at him: Miss Martins? English? Judy? Home? Something else? Someone else? I wanted to reach out to him, but then he glanced at me. The muscles along his jaw were undulating, and he was taking in sharp breaths through his nose. His mouth fell open, but no words rolled out, or perhaps they had just bottlenecked in his throat. If I pushed harder, the anger I’d sparked minutes ago might bubble up again—or even explode. I smiled and told him I had to get going. He just sat there, puffing and quaking. As I walked away, I could feel his eyes on me. I sped up.

  PHILIPPA, OCTOBER 14, 1948

  On my thirteenth birthday, Dad gave me a collection of leather-bound nineteenth-century novels that had been a treasured possession of my mother’s. He told me that, when she was younger, she had hoped to write a novel. Other than Wuthering Heights, her favorites were Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, and Northanger Abbey. During the summer before high school, I gobbled them up, turning the dusty, dog-eared, and heavily annotated pages at a steady rate. Dad was impressed that the Victorian sentence structure didn’t slow me down. I pushed through it, steered by my mother’s scribblings until the prose began gliding by. It was as if she were reading beside me, her finger gently dragging across the page, directing my attention to a brilliant line or plot point. Her marginalia were cheerful and frank: “Are we supposed to like Heathcliff?” “You tell him, Jane!” “Is it wrong of me to love Havisham?” “I was so much like CM as a child. Full of horrible fantasies.”

  I often cast my mother as Catherine Earnshaw, beautiful and remote, wandering the moors, adrift in the night, searching for Heathcliff. Or smart, passionate Jane, able to speak her mind, love boldly, and know herself. Or as a girl, Catherine Morland, foolish in dreaming up dark intrigue where there was none, but full of life and adventure all the same. Even Miss Havisham, full of decay and longing, somehow fit in with the rest. I wondered if she was sprinkling little pieces of herself for me to find. I shivered: Did she know she was going to die?

  I remembered those books—and the summer I read them—as I considered how to approach Love’s Last Move. Yesterday, I held it away from me like an untamed animal that might lash out. It isn’t refined, I thought. Or cultured. It didn’t match Miss Martins. But after taking a deep breath, I dove in. At first, Ray Kane’s writing struck me as blunt, even crude. But there was something to it—an energy or maybe an attitude that wasn’t so different from the Romantics. As the clues to a grisly murder fell into place, I found myself sucked into PI Calvin McKey’s dangerous world of goons, dames, and private dicks. After the first fifty pages, a spell was cast, and time vanished. McKey was about to enter a house where the suspected murderer lurked in the darkness when I heard a knock on my bedroom door.

  I shoved the book under my pillow and responded, “Yes?”

  “Phil,” Dad said, pushing the door open. “What are you up to?”

  Based on his photos, you’d t
hink he was as stern and monolithic as an old battleship, but in life, that’s far from true. His dark eyes are wide-set and roam ceaselessly, like he’s always picking up sounds at frequencies out of range for mere mortal hearing. His hair is a neat silver bristle, and of course, he carries himself like a military man, shoulders back and chin up. It suits him.

  “Just homework,” I said.

  “Aunt Sophie rang. She wants us to drive up to Harpers Ferry in a few weeks.”

  “Really!” I said. “Can we?”

  “If Sophie calls, we must come,” he said, stepping forward. “She has ‘important news’ to tell us. Whatever that means.” His eyes warmed, and he added, “Oh, and Quincy. He officially joined the metro police. I wrote a recommendation for him months ago.”

  Can you imagine, our own Calvin McKey in the flesh? My first cousin brandishing his weapon in the moonlight to hunt murderers. I hope this means he’ll be close by, and we can have adventures like we did when I was younger. I could tell Dad was pleased. “We’ll have a detective in the family,” I said and suddenly felt self-conscious about Love’s Last Move under my pillow.

  “He hopes to be, eventually.” He exhaled. “Well, I should say good night.”

  That’s when I said, “I’m beginning to like it here.” It’s true, I am.

  “Well, good.”

  “I want you to meet Judy.”

  “This new friend of yours?” I’d mentioned her in passing.

  “She’s the one.”

  “Well, I look forward to it.”

  “And I want to study literature in college,” I blurted. “My English teacher thinks I would make a good writer like Mother.”

  “She does, does she?” He smiled, but I didn’t know what he really thought of my idea. Most likely, he’ll proclaim it “impractical.” I love him, but he can be frustrating. His emotions tumble and clank behind his iron plate face. I’m often left in the dark about what he feels.

  “Maybe I’ll write a book one day,” I said, nudging him further.

  “That’s an idea,” he said, turning away, his face in shadow. “Now, go to sleep.”

  JUDY, OCTOBER 15, 1948

  So much to report. Damn. It began when I slipped out of lunch, doing my best to dodge the runny Chicken à la King. I wanted to find Miss M and ask her about a poem I’d read last night called “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. It’s about this duke who shows a representative of his fiancée’s family a portrait of his late wife. He tells him that he executed her for being a flirt. At least that’s what I think is going on.

  As I turned the corner to the southwest hall, I stopped in my tracks. It was empty and dim. The polished linoleum reflected light from the frosted glass window at the end of the corridor. Outside the entrance to her classroom, Miss M stood with her back to the wall, trapped by Cleve. He was leaning toward her, his shoulders hunched and his stance wide. The muscles in his sinewy corpse-gray arms twitched. He was speaking to her in a biting whisper, but I couldn’t make it out. Miss M stood tall, but her arms were crossed over her chest and her face was averted, as if she’d just been slapped or was bracing for it. Chills cascaded through me, and a line from the Browning poem came to mind: “I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together.” For the first time, I could imagine Cleve, mute and dull-as-hell Cleve, attacking Miss M and driving his balled fists into her stomach, into her face, as if she were some sort of blasphemous idol he was bent on destroying. My heart clanged like an alarm bell. To diffuse the situation, I dropped one of my books, alerting them to my presence. Cleve jumped and looked around; Miss M caught my eye. Her face was bloodless, her eyes dark with fear. He took a step back and, like a rubber band being pulled taut, snapped, spun around, and blew past me, his eyes unblinking and hot with anger.

  For a beat, I stared at Miss M, breathless. I started to say something.

  “Not now,” she stammered, holding her hand out. “I’m sorry, just not now.”

  I wanted to press her, but the words wouldn’t form. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. I was too stunned, too shaken.

  I lingered a moment, then left.

  I found Philippa in the cafeteria, reading a book and eating, no longer swarmed by MBBS queen bees. “What class does Cleve have next?” I said.

  She frowned. “How would I know?”

  “I need to find him. Now.”

  She dropped the biscuit she was about to eat. “He doesn’t like you very much, you know,” she said, brushing crumbs from her palms.

  “I had that feeling.”

  She closed her book, something trashy called Love’s Last Move. “I bumped into him yesterday, and he growled at me for hanging out with you. I told him to mind his business.”

  “I don’t even know him,” I said with a twinge of anxiety. “We’ve never had classes together. Not that I care, but it’s just weird.” His ire toward me bugged me and still bugs me. I don’t care about being disliked, but I want to know why.

  “He seems off,” she said.

  “He’s something all right, and I want to know what.” My stomach gurgled, so I reached down and snatched up Philippa’s neglected biscuit. “Finders keepers!”

  After classes, we waited thirty minutes at the south entrance for Cleve, but he didn’t show. On our way home on East Capitol, he crossed in front of us on his bike, heading north to south. He was hunched over his handlebars, his red backpack’s straps pulling at his shoulders, focused on the road. I called out to him. He slid to a gravel-crunching halt and whipped around. He squinted at us. When he realized who it was, his eyes glittered with rage, and the acne across his cheeks blazed like slashes of war paint. I shivered, but being frightened of him pissed me off, so I stood a little taller and said, “Don’t fuck with Miss M! You hear!”

  Two nearby girls gaped at me as if I’d just made their ears bleed.

  Cleve circled his bike around, slipped out of one of his backpack straps and slung its bulk over on his right shoulder. He stood on his pedals and started pumping his legs, driving the bike forward, toward us. At first, neither of us moved. Perhaps we were frozen in disbelief or maybe just slow to realize that he wanted to hurt us. We were caught in that strange limbo for a moment, but as he gained speed, I murmured, “Run,” to Philippa. She didn’t move, so I shouted it: “Run!”

  It was too late. Cleve dropped his shoulder, slid the straps of his backpack down his arm and clutched them. As he advanced, he swung his book-ladened bag at us like a medieval flail. Apparently, we were jousting. Quicker on my feet than Philippa, I shoved her out of the way. In doing so, I twisted awkwardly, taking the full weight of the bag in the small of my back. I flew forward and hit the ground hard, my breath flying from me. I saw stars and my back cried out, but I raised myself to my elbows. A warm trickle of blood ran down my cheek where I’d scraped it on the pavement.

  Cleve slowed his bike, spun around, and adjusted his grip on the straps. More humiliated than afraid, I wanted to scream, “What do you want?!” But I still couldn’t catch my breath, so I just glared at him, trying to steady my vision. His feet were spinning, his blond hair was flapping, and his blue eyes were little sparks of hellfire. He was coming—and fast! He wanted to run me over or beat me to death with his stupid bag. With all my strength, I gave a heave-ho and groaned. I pulled my knees under me, so I could stand, but there wasn’t time. He was closing in. I swiped my hands across the ground, searching for a rock or a piece of concrete or anything I could arm myself with. If I couldn’t dodge him, at least I could be armed.

  As we were about to collide, Philippa rushed at him. From over her shoulder, drawn back like a baseball bat, she swung at him with something long and dark. It made an audible, satisfying thwack when it connected with his upper arm. My heart lurched in my chest. He yelled, wobbled, and tumbled over, a tangle of bike chain and book bag innards.

  I got to my feet, taking a moment to steady my spinning head. Philippa was breathless, limp. She clutched a wrought iron post in her right han
d, an arrow-like rod from a nearby crumbling city-issued fence. I swelled with gratitude. “It was loose,” she muttered and looked at it, seeming astonished that she’d just whipped a boy with it. Suddenly horrified, she dropped it. As it clattered over the pavement, I snatched it up. My relief had reshaped itself into something sharper. I strode over to Cleve, who was beginning to stir, and lifted it up. I won’t lie. I wanted to brain him with it. He deserved it—and I didn’t want him to think that he could come at us again. But passersby were starting to gather. “Leave him!” Philippa cried. “Let’s go!”

  “Why are you doing this?” I hissed at him.

  He stared at me, wide-eyed and scared. His cheeks were tear-smeared, and his complexion blotchy. It was a little boy’s face, huffy and tender and distraught. I suppose I should’ve felt something, some twinge of sympathy—or at least restraint, but I was bleeding, I was trembling. He didn’t get to ask for mercy.

  “Leave us alone. Leave Miss M alone.” I lowered the post, pointing its arrow-shaped tip at his chest. “Or I’ll shove this through your goddamn heart.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I must interject. Philippa and Judy didn’t react to Cleve’s aggressions in a particularly ladylike manner. I know. Consider your concerns noted. Yes, they should’ve dodged him and ran, although he was moving quickly. Or, no, you’re right: Judy should’ve kept her mouth shut and never drawn his attention. And what was Philippa thinking vandalizing city property and using the fruits of her savagery to strike a young man? Oh, the horror! Had one of the schoolmarms in their sad hats or bunched stockings witnessed that exchange, they would’ve swiftly concluded that Cleveland was provoked, that these girls were serious troublemakers, a touch wicked really. Miss Martins wouldn’t have thought that, of course. She would’ve seen it for what it was. She’d already had a taste of Cleve’s dark side. But in 1948, that sort of behavior from young ladies wasn’t tolerated. At all. Can you imagine threatening to drive a stake through a boy’s heart? Horrible.