Wait Until Twilight
Page 11
I climb the roof, taking the wire with me, and attach it to the television antenna. The sky is a dark blue hue with an edge of crimson. A few stars are just beginning to flicker. It gets me to thinking about my mom for some reason. She’s a ghost now, floating around up there somewhere. I stay on the roof awhile watching my dad tinkering with his pet project.
CHAPTER 8
THE NEXT MORNING I GET DAD TO DROP ME OFF at school on his way to work since my bike is still there. It gives me a chance to review my history textbook the whole way there.
“You gotta test?” Dad asks.
“Yeah, and I plan on acing the bastard.”
Mom would have never let me say “bastard,” but that’s beside the point. I get back to flipping those pages. I’d always been a good student, but it wasn’t until recently that I’ve felt compelled to ace everything. I didn’t even know what college I wanted to go to. I didn’t care. But if I had a test or exam to take, I did everything I could to get a good score. It wasn’t even getting the good score that made me feel good. It was focusing on one thing and wiping everything else out of my head. That’s when I felt best. That’s when I felt nothing.
Dad drops me off, and I go through algebra and then Spanish class with history on my mind. It isn’t until Mr. Peck’s art class that I forget about that test. I really enjoy art class. Mr. Peck allows us students to do whatever we want as long as we produce. Robert, an upperclassman with premature white hair, had originally approached me about doing a documentary about the basketball team before I made my own video. Later on he dumped me as a partner to do something on his own. Actually his hair is more gray than white, and he keeps it pointing straight up somehow. Everybody thinks he’s cool and talented, but I think it’s more his hair than anything else.
At the beginning of class that day Robert gets everyone to stop what they’re doing and come into the small auditorium to watch a short video sketch he made. Once everyone in the class comes in and sits down, Robert announces that he was inspired by Andy Warhol and is going to make a full-length film based on this sketch. He turns on the television in front of the small stage and squats down to turn on the video player. The video shows him and another fellow with white hair going into some abandoned theater. Where did he find another guy with prematurely graying hair? The two white-haired guys walk through that abandoned theater up onto the stage, where they start talking about waterfalls. Then it cuts to them at an actual waterfall somewhere in the woods. Robert’s standing by it then the other guy appears riding a blue canoe. He takes the canoe over the waterfall and disappears into the foam at the base of the falling water, then pops back up and continues canoeing down the river. I don’t catch the rest of the film because I keep looking out a window into the gym, which is connected to the auditorium. On the main court I can see a big fat kid dominating the area around the basket. He’s pushing people around down there, and no one is calling a foul. The other team keeps coming at him though, double-teaming him on defense and attacking him on offense. When I turn back to the video I see Melody, watching me from down the row. I bend down and pretend to tie my shoelace. When I sit back up the short video sketch ends, and Mr. Peck comes in.
“This isn’t Robert’s appreciation time. Get back to work. That includes you three,” he says to three Asian girls sitting on the small stage at the back of the auditorium. Everyone starts slowly moving back into the art room.
Robert and Tim, this other artsy hipster, start talking to Melody. Robert sees me and walks over with a nod of his head.
“So what did you think?” he asks me.
“You should run with it. I’ll work on something on my own. This is something you have to go with,” but I’m thinking, You jackass.
“Thanks. I was worried you would be lost without me. What do you think about Melody?”
“She’s okay,” I say.
“You know, maybe you could be next in line for a try at her.”
I have the urge to hit him on the head with a chair. “I’ll have to remember that,” I say, and walk away. I ditch the rest of art class and play basketball. Mr. Peck is back in his office and won’t even notice. He probably wouldn’t have said anything anyway. I jog to the locker room and change into shorts and a T-shirt and then go back into the gym, where I find a game. By the time I finish playing, third period has already ended. It’s time to go to homeroom, which means lunch. My real P.E. class is right after lunch. There’s no point in showering and changing when I’m going to get sweaty again, so I stay in my shorts and T-shirt. I walk to my homeroom, which is Mrs. Bickerson’s class on the south end of the building. Mrs. Bickerson is okay, other than the fact that she’s got these wispy white hairs on her chin that look kind of like a beard. She doesn’t even notice me coming in late. Or maybe she just doesn’t care any longer. Everyone else is there already at their desks, wiling away the time. I get a seat against the wall beside Will and take my shoes and socks off before stretching out my legs. My hair is still wet with sweat, and the endorphins are still pumping through my brain.
“Where you been?” Will asks me, taking a drink from a bottle of Gatorade. I’ve noticed these days he smells like marijuana most of the time. Ever since he started playing bass in a local country punk band with some guys from the Sugweepo High swim team, he smells like ganja. I’ve gone to a couple of their practices in their basement, and smoking weed preceded the playing both times. I figured it was the source of his musical inspiration. We don’t hang out as much since he’s turned into a semi-pro rock star, but it’s probably for the better. His pranks annoy the hell out of me.
“Art class,” I say.
“Must be some heavy art,” he says.
“I ditched and shot some hoop. Did Bickerson call roll?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I raise my hand. “Mrs. Bickerson! I’m here!” I yell.
“I saw you,” she says, without looking up.
I lean my head back against the white wall, and for a moment it feels like I’m not in school. I’m on a tropical beach and have just toweled myself off after having a swim in the cool waters of the sea. Then a shark lunges out of the water, and the lunch bell rings. I jump up front along with Will and Brad in my bare feet. They both seem as hungry as me as we three jog up the hallway ahead of everyone else. Today is the day Mrs. Bickerson’s homeroom gets to be first to lunch. As we make it onto the floor, Will thinks it would be funny to toss some of the water in his bottle onto the floor.
“What’re you doing that for?” I ask. He just smiles and walks into the serving room. My bare feet feel nasty on the cold wet floor. “Bastard,” I say. I know I’ll be giving up my place in line, but I jog past my homeroom whose just getting to the cafeteria.
“Where you goin’?” someone asks.
“My shoes,” I say.
I jog back to our classroom, but the door is locked. Other classes are already starting toward the cafeteria, so I hurry back, taking the shortcut through the darkly lit game room, which connects the main hallway with the cafeteria. Some kid is actually in there playing one of those four ancient video-game machines. My homeroom is already seated and eating. The rest of the tenth-grade class is lined up. These other guys won’t let me cut, not when I’m not in their homeroom. I’ll have to go to the end of the line, which is all the way down the hall.
I walk over to the serving room and see that they’re serving sweet-and-sour chicken. I think, To hell with it, I’ll just get in the other line, which is much shorter. There’re two serving rooms in the cafeteria. The lesser of the two meals is served in the second line. If it’s meat loaf in the first line, it’s usually Spam in the other, or if it’s hamburgers in the first line, it’s ham sandwiches in the second. I usually avoid the second line, as do most other students, but there’s no way in hell I’m waiting in that first line.
So I get in the second, much shorter line, and what do you know? It’s the same food. I get up to the counter, and the server, a young black guy who doesn’t
look too much older than me, gives me a plate of brown fried rice. I forgo the usual chocolate milk and get a cola. A short curly-haired girl I’ve seen around, who’s standing behind me, smiles and puts a straw in my Coke for me. I smile back at her and her big boobs. Then she puts in a few more straws and giggles before walking away with her girlfriend. My glass has about ten straws in it. The server is staring at my drink, too.
“Hey, what about the chicken?” I ask.
“They ain’t no meat left here. Go over there,” he says.
He points toward the end of the cafeteria, where the old soda machines sit dormant on an unused table. I walk toward the ice machine and see a buffet with two trays of chicken and what looks to be pepperoni or some sort of thinly sliced red meat. Brad is getting some meat, too.
“Man, there’s not much left, and this is my first time around,” I say.
“I’m just getting a little extra meat for my sandwich,” he says before sitting down. That’s right. Brad always brings his lunch from home. Everybody knows that.
I get some chicken and sit down in front of Brad. I can’t help noticing Katy and her girlfriends sitting at the next table. The rumor around our grade is that I like her. But it’s not true. She’s cute, but I’m just not that interested. I act as nonchalant as I can around her, hoping to kill the rumor, but you can’t kill a rumor. It has to die out on its own or be replaced. Brad suddenly pulls this nacho out of his brown bag and starts talking about it. “Look how brittle and dry it is,” he says. “Look at it.” He holds it up to the sunlight coming in through the large cafeteria windows. The light reflects off of its yellow body, making it look almost diaphanous. “It’s gotten dry and stale. It’s dangerous. This thing is so brittle, so old that, if I stabbed myself in the ankle it would break my skin and bleed…”
He keeps going on and on. It’s impressive how much he can talk about that nacho. I’m too busy stuffing my mouth with rice and sweet-and-sour chicken to respond to his nacho soliloquy.
“…something needs to be done about this nacho…” he continues.
Then with a mouthful of food, I say offhandedly, “You exaggerate.” After a slight pause I start laughing with all this rice and chicken in my mouth. I can’t control myself. Brad’s face turns red, and he has his eyes closed he’s laughing so hard. This Christian girl from my class is sitting alone a couple of seats down from Brad. She’s one of these serious hard-core Christian girls who I have never seen talking to anyone except her twin sister. She must have overheard us because her face is redder than Brad’s. This goes on for quite some time, and we three can’t seem to control ourselves. Other kids are staring and asking what’s so damn funny, but I really don’t know either. Tears are coming down my cheeks I’m laughing so hard.
“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “It’s my fault.” Slowly the laughing subsides and we get back to eating. Across from us Katy and her friends are watching a video iPod. They’re trying to guess the name of some classic sitcom that’s on. I lean over to take a look.
“Oh, it’s The Jeffersons!” Brad says immediately before I can even answer.
Debbie says, “Brad’s got it right. He’s one ahead of you, Samuel.”
I look at Brad and say, “I should be up a ton on you just because of what I said just a second ago.”
“Don’t say anything, Samuel,” he says, holding his stomach. And for a minute, having that laugh at lunchtime on a sunny afternoon, I remember what it feels like to be a normal high school kid. And I wish it could always be like that.
CHAPTER 9
I GET HOME AND PUT MY BIKE AWAY before hopping in my car. Sitting there behind the wheel, thinking to myself, the memory of the day at school seems so absurd when I weigh it against that night at Mrs. Greenan’s, about the babies and that greasy bastard, my own feelings…it’s this double life, and one end is a whole lot heavier than the other. But I don’t know any other way to live. I don’t know what to do. Why do I even think about going back there? To help the lady and the babies? I don’t care about her, and I want those things to disappear. But at the same time I want to know…I need to know what’s happening to them. I start the car, and within twenty minutes I’m parking in front of the house. Dusty and his brother are out in their front yard playing around with mud when I pull up to Mrs. Greenan’s house. The lawn has been mown and the hedges around the house neatly trimmed since the last time.
“Hey! You came back!” yells Dusty.
“No thanks to you, Judas,” I say.
“It all happened too fast. I didn’t have time.”
“Forget about it,” I say, and start going in.
“Where’re you going?” he asks. He just stays put as I go up to the porch. I can hear his big brother calling him back to their front yard, back home. Before I knock I can see a figure behind the screen door and my hackles rise and my adrenaline revs up. But it’s only Mrs. Greenan. “Samuel, come on in.” She leads me through the foyer into the living room. The house is well lit, all the drapes are open, letting in light, and everything’s tidy like the very first time I came to visit. There’re even some fresh flowers in a vase on the coffee table.
“I just wanted to apologize again for the way I acted that day,” I say.
“It’s okay, Samuel. When Margaret told me about your momma dying at such an early age, I thought, That poor boy. And you came back to apologize. Nobody’s ever done that. I felt bad the moment you left. How about some sweet tea?”
“No thanks, ma’am. I just wanted to see how those babies were doing. Is there any way I could take a peek?”
“Sure, you could. They’re taking a nap upstairs, so be quiet.”
“Don’t worry, I know how to be quiet.”
I follow her up those stairs, and I put my hand on the cold smooth banisters. We get to the room, the same room where I almost became a murderer and was almost murdered at the same time. But just like the living room, it’s clean and tidy now. The hardwood floor has been picked up and the stench had been replaced with pine. The three babies are huddled together, eyes closed and breathing steadily on the well-made bed. They almost look normal like that, sleeping together. Almost human. Was the other night even real? How could this be? I nod my head to Mrs. Greenan, and we walk back down.
“Sure you don’t want some tea or cookies? They’re homemade.”
“Actually I just wanted to see them one time,” I say.
Then from the kitchen a cold voice says, “We got a guest in the house?”
“Sure do, Daryl. It’s Samuel. Samuel Polk, that boy I told you about.”
It’s those heavy boots walking out of the kitchen. He’s wearing the greasy-looking blue baseball cap over that longish dark hair. I get a good look at that cap for the first time. It’s one of those old Braves baseball caps from back in the seventies and eighties, with the ‘a’ in little letters, worn by the likes of Dale Murphy and Hank Aaron. I don’t know whether I should run, warn Mrs. Greenan, or call the cops.
“I was really sorry to hear about your mother,” he says with a toothpick hanging out the side of his mouth. He holds out his hand. “It must have been such a shock at such an early age.” I look at his hand and see the old cut wounds on his forearm. “Don’t mind that, that’s from huntin’ skunk.” He smiles a big yellow-toothed smile.
I see Mrs. Greenan looking at me and then at my hand. So I take his hand and shake it. He squeezes it real hard with that smile on his face. I have to hold down a scream, his grip is so damn hard. Then he lets go with a friendly nod. “Sure you don’t want some cookies?” he asks. “They’re homemade.”
“Who are you?” My voice breaks as I ask.
“Daryl? Daryl’s my son,” she says with a laugh. “He helps me with my little miracles.”
“Yup. What with looking after those little miracles, working at the sewage plant, huntin’, and singin’ in my rock band, I barely even got time to eat.”
“I just wanted to see your little ones to make sure they
were all right. That’s all.”
“Why wouldn’t they be all right?” asks Daryl.
“Had a bad dream, that’s all.”
“Bad dream? Don’t be stupid,” says Daryl. “Ha-ha-ha! He came over here because of a bad dream. He’s a strange one, isn’t he?”
“He sure is,” said Mrs. Greenan. “You sure have a lot of bad dreams.” She turns to Daryl. “Why, I found him having one on our steps not long ago.”
“Really? Why didn’t you tell me?” With fists clenched, he steps up to Mrs. Greenan, who takes a step back.
“I did! I did!” she pleads. “Just the other day.”
“That’s right, you did,” he says.
“I’ll be going now,” I say, and head for the front door as fast as I can.
“You come back now when you’re ready for some tea and cookies.”
“How many times you gonna ask him about those goddamn cookies? Can’t you see he don’t want any?”
I’m already out of there: down the porch, across the front yard. I’m walking fast. The screen door slams, and I turn around. Daryl comes running down.
“Stop!” I yell with my hands out.
“I knew you’d come.” He puts his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Samuel Polk, I didn’t tell nobody.”
“Tell what?”
“Come on, don’t bullshit me. You’re a natural-born murderer.”
“No way. You were forcing me,” I say.
“I didn’t make you do nothin’. You did it on your own. Now get in the fucking car.” He opens his car door and pushes me in. “I know you ain’t gonna lie about not doing it because, Samuel, you couldn’t live with a lie like that.” God, this guy terrifies me. I get the feeling he could do something insane and terrible at any moment. Why me? And how the hell could he be the son of Mrs. Greenan? She’s so nice.
He starts the Charger and speeds out of the neighborhood, squealing his tires. I should have never let him get me in the car. Think, stupid. But it’s too late. “Don’t be a faggot, Samuel Polk! Man up! You are what you are.”