Amid this sea of four hundred adolescents sat the group—not next to one another, of course, to maintain the illusion of ordinariness and preserve their secret lives to the very end. Tiffany and Greg were mixed on one side of the bleachers, E. and Alex on the other. Doug got put on the floor. The group alone seemed to suffer under the smell, perhaps owing to weeks in the open air. So many junior high kids crammed into the bleachers gave the gymnasium the palpable moisture and stink of steamed hotdogs, a beefy, salty odor unique to pubescent youth of the American Midwest. Distracted by the scrambled echoes of their peers’ inane chatter—snippets of graduation party plans and summer vacation plans, first dates and impending breakups—the group couldn’t think much about their plans to kill a kid later that evening.
The ceremony opened with the introduction of teachers and staff whom everyone already knew and/or would prefer to forget. Seemingly never-ending, laudatory speeches were made. Finally, the award pomp began and, as predicted, the crowd sensed something unusual and very wrong occurring. Students whom nobody had ever heard of were decorated. They belonged to the school, but not to its social fabric. Their names sounded foreign when announced, granted renown by the crackle and blare of the speakers to fabricate an alternate history of winners and losers. These were average kids in the graduating class who’d plodded along in their studies and respective sports and clubs with the work ethic of the unexceptional-though-tenacious, and after three long years their moment to shine had arrived. As they shuffled forward, other students began to recall, but only vaguely, that a few had been on the award stage before. The difference was that no big stars had risen today to blot them from memory, as if administrators were leading a pogrom against popularity, to which each winner also fell and receded, as, altogether, the most talented and hardworking stood beside one another in their ordinariness, only to rejoin their classmates as audience.
Equally unusual, Doug didn’t feel ordinary or unremarkable today. If a wide picture were taken of the gymnasium, he’d have bet on his head looming three times larger than other kids’, slightly greenish, sick and swaying like a balloon tied between his shoulders, swollen with the guilt of something he hadn’t done, yet. The group was going to kill a boy tonight. Doug risked glances at his friends above him in the bleachers, needing to feel like he wasn’t the only one second-guessing their plan to exact justice or vengeance or pragmatism. None returned eye contact or appeared deeply troubled. Bemused by the triviality of the ceremony, they wore faint smiles to keep outsiders from seeing through to their disgust with meaningless customs observed outside the woods, truly possessed by what they were, the Watchers of the Grove, which made Doug feel ultra-unordinary. Even among the outcasts, he didn’t fit in.
Applause washed around him, rhythmic and facile as waves lapping and retreating from a distant shore. He focused on the sound to drown out what he was going to do—but each round hit like clock ticks in slow motion, incalculable in intermission and duration, which returned his thoughts to the boy whose time was running out, whom they’d tied to a tree. All morning, guilt had crashed inside him. At home, he hadn’t been able to look his mom or dad in the face. Another life passing away, receding in time—and it would be his fault. That’s all it was, he told himself. Erika was a name, like John Walker was a name and these awardees were just names, and names come and go, if not now, then later, but eventually, inevitably. How many names would Rocky erase from history if left alive? Doug could almost convince himself that was the meaning of life: a light in the branches, then no light. Simple and strange and lovely, as it came and wasn’t. In fearing for E. over the last few weeks, he’d come close to understanding why life mattered. He tried not to answer and to focus on the clapping. There was no stopping his friends, short of telling the police. Big feelings made life worth something. There was more to it than that. Following the question threatened to make his head burst. More than the kindness of choosing to not inflict pain on another kid, necessary and silly as the awards themselves—a pact that things mean anything at all. The values of the outside world, however, didn’t reach the vacuum of the woods. What Doug knew for sure was that he mattered there. Though he’d feared them, the group hadn’t ever turned their backs on him, even after he’d attempted to do the same. He pulled at the spiky hairs along the back of his neck as though he could yank out the doubts and focus on joining indivisibly with E. tonight. What was the point of torturing himself? Rocky was basically gone already. Nobody here would miss him. He was a creep, a psychopath. It almost didn’t matter if the boy were the real killer. His dying would purge E.’s soul of her demons, so she could move on, with Doug. They would all move on (To where? And then?) at last. After graduation, not one kid here, but for the group, would remember Doug had ever existed. By allowing Rocky to die, he would only be treating others in kind.
The announcements of the two biggest awards were no shocker. Alex Karahalios earned the gold-colored medal for overall academic excellence. The acceptance was interesting in that Alex, the youngest person in the building, wore a tweed jacket like a college professor and sidestepped the principal to the podium to deliver a concise speech, never before attempted by a student. With wisps of blue under eyes that appeared frantically awake, as if from some grand secret procured overnight in conversation with the killer and the Dead Man, Alex thanked the mathletes coach for the opportunity to teach the team “a few new tricks,” and then paused dramatically before saying, “Expect to hear great things from me soon,” which garnered awkward giggling and a few slow claps. The school pride award was given to Damien something-or-other. The kid had been involved in a long list of collaborative artistic endeavors with obscure, embarrassingly earnest, and/or pretentious titles that no one mentally recorded, and, after a brief guitar performance riddled with mic squeals and deafening feedback and broken strings, followed by perfunctory applause, students and teachers stretched to leave, as there were no more awards to give away and everyone was eager to get home early, until Principal Pope silenced them to announce the inauguration of a new award.
His speech began about a boy they might recall, an exceptional boy who should long be remembered, and the crowd got the creeps. Their rising discomfort crested into a wave of nausea as he recounted the achievements of alumnus John H. Walker, including the boy’s hall-of-fame-worthy t-ball record and a list of state and regionals he’d led. John was more than an athlete, the principal reminded, as if they needed reminding, and recounted the kid’s years as an assistant coach of the school’s Special Olympics team and the other service work and fundraisers he’d started or been integral to, not because John was ever asked, but because he believed in giving back to the community that had celebrated his potential. The award Principal Pope had created was not for the boy, but in honor of his legacy. He held up the plaque, as if rather proud of it, made of wood with an austere square of dark metal, the boy’s name and the award’s details inscribed in cursive. No one clapped or even smiled. His former classmates didn’t want to think of him, let alone honor him. He was the past and they wanted the present, and maybe the future. Yet here they were, transfixed by the sight of the plaque, rounded at the top like a gravestone. The John H. Walker Memorial Award would be given each year to a student who exemplified not his unparalleled successes, but his virtues: good character, teamwork, and a positive spirit. The first would be given to John, who couldn’t be with them today, so instead Principal Pope asked students to bow their heads in a moment of silence, to reflect on the good times they’d shared with the boy, the inspiration, the light above Palos Hills, he said, as if the kid had been dead a year already, which was weird, but weirder in how comforting it was, particularly to the graduating class, for whom this chapter of their lives couldn’t have ended more poetically.
The group warmed with esteem, hearing John praised. They knew him no longer as the legend of sterling reputation and towering ego. He was their friend, larger-than-life, yes, but not flawless. During the principal’s recounting, they rec
ognized John’s virtues, thinking back on the last few weeks in the woods, and they were proud to have played on his team in the final game against the killer. Though his failing strength made him no longer useful as a leader, their belief in his power—now and forever entwined with the Grove’s—persisted. John would never die, not in those woods. The thought assuaged their guilt of already having accepted his death, as well as gave them hope. And with their heads high and eyes wide open, the group saw the Dead Man walk in through the gym doors.
His shuffling sneakers first gave him away to the back rows. The gymnasium was that quiet in remembrance. The sixth graders on the floor, more familiar with his name than the physical manifestation of the boy, turned their heads up in religious-like awe, as if one of their prayers had finally worked, phoned a higher power and manifested what was lost before them. Could it be …? He scanned their faces, the room, as if about to speak. He went for the podium, not showy or in a hurry, but determined. He stepped through the field of whispers with a lightness that made kids imagine the cancer had eaten his bones hollow, cleaned him in a way, maybe his organs, too, preparing him for a saint’s death, so that his body might too ascend, accompany his soul to heaven. He wore his old baseball cap, the Pirates logo dusty and the maroon bill frayed, screwed low to cover his bald head. There was no hiding his condition. The kid looked terribly sick—his skin waxen, his cheeks sunken, his eyes dull. Yet, for having spent all night in the woods, he was immaculate. His shoulders glimmered from the light rain outside, and the body itself bathed and powdered and in fresh clothes—a shirt and tie under his rain jacket, stiff blue jeans. They could’ve buried him in the outfit. The rest of his venerable aura was secured by his lifted chin and forward gaze.
“John Walker, everyone!” the principal shouted from his gut to crescendo the moment.
The astonishment in the room was too great. The audience needed the release of hellish clapping. But no one did. His name boomed, echoed, and died against the huge lights in the rafters as they followed the simple vision of him, persevering against terminal illness, against rumors he’d been dead for a month. Those nearby were fascinated enough to reach out and touch him, to be imbued with John, his potency to endure. They were terrified of it, also, of being cursed to share his fate, cut short too soon and soon enough.
John rose to the stage as he’d done countless times, only more laboriously. He didn’t glide up. Each step required attention, which said enough. Principal Pope put the award in John’s hand as the boy came forward. John accepted it as a means of reaching the podium, his momentum unrelenting. The principal reluctantly backed from the microphone, blabbered about his joy, what an honor it was, too much of a believer to deny the boy command of the room and eager as the audience to hear what had compelled Mr. Walker to come before them after so long.
John began without clearing his voice.
“I haven’t been around much this year,” he said. “Many of you tried to keep in contact. Especially you guys on the team. I failed you, then. I don’t feel good about that. You know I hate losing.”
A handful of kids in the audience tested nervous, sympathetic laughs. John’s face was difficult to read between the hat and the microphone. His voice was steady and clear.
“It’s been a difficult time.
“Tomorrow’s the last day in this building for the eighth graders. Look around.” The bill of his cap pointed to the back corners of the gym. “You know now what it’s like to be at the end of something. But your story is just starting. You’ll be in high school next year. You won’t have classes anymore with kids you’ve known your entire life. It might feel like the good parts—the friends, the familiar places that feel like yours now—are gone. They won’t be. Your world will be getting bigger. You’ll have to get bigger, too, and keep going. You’ve probably heard a lot about what that’ll be like. I hope it’s the best of those things.”
He smirked. It wasn’t handsome and revealed the illness beneath, and the hardship. For the first time his peers saw that the boy was really going to die.
“It’s not easy, saying goodbye. This is the last time I’ll be seeing most of you. The award …”
He lifted the plaque and paused over the inscription. He tugged the bill of his cap lower. His voice sounded hoarse when he spoke again.
“I couldn’t win my own award.”
He laughed. The crowd joined him. The remark wasn’t funny, but they needed release, if not by laughter then by heartbreak. This could be his last joke ever. The room waited for an explanation as to why he’d come before them today, what he needed from them, one and all attuned to his words. There was a sense that John knew it, too, that they sat charmed, eyes subdued, bodies lax under the spell of his image and words, like the old days, when, for a magic moment, time moved in breaths, not seconds. Even to a crowd, his voice poured silver into your ear. It was just you and John. He was almost everything. So much that you could love him for it. So much that he could love you. This would be the last time.
John’s good humor faded. His head dropped as if ashamed. The audience mimicked with a churchy hush. When he looked up, he stared out at them, dead serious.
“Don’t be a stranger to yourself. I was a stranger to myself until recently,” he said. “I’ve been there to help others who needed it. Honestly, I never thought too much about what I was doing. I never asked if it was enough. I didn’t wonder if it was the best way to help or if maybe I was part of the problem in other ways. Asking questions takes strength of character. I still struggle in that. It’s like a sport—some out there were born with the ability and the rest have to put in the work. I’ve learned something about it, though. Either way, the work never ends, and the ones who keep playing are the winners.”
John took a deliberate pause. Gradually, a smile relit his face, lukewarm but steady, reminiscent.
“I owe my wake-up call to a good friend out here today. And I’d like to give this award to that person, who really deserves it.”
John looked for an approval from the principal, who shooed him to continue, brow lumpy with mild disappointment at the derailment, yet saying John could do with his award whatever he wished and secretly hoping the awardee was himself. The boy peered into the audience, scrupulously searching for the person, as if it were absolutely requisite before disclosure to witness the reaction of being named, as he and those before him had been named. With heat and light, his gaze swept over the kids, and their hearts expanded and hummed. They wanted to be named. Even if it didn’t make any sense, if they’d only ever said hi to John or met his glance once in the hallways, they believed it could be them. They recalled the good things they’d done, miniscule things, picking up a classmate’s pencil up off the floor, lending paper to the kid who never brought a notebook, seemingly insignificant acts of kindness they’d not have remembered otherwise, and the big stuff, too, apologizing after school to a girl they’d teased, helping their lousy moms and dads to bed, daily heroics that made each half-believe they’d inspired John Walker to be a better person, that they should’ve.
“Doug—Doug Horolez,” he said.
Hardly anyone clapped. The eager clappers quit as the name thudded without currency, not any of the school’s preps or jocks or nerds or freaks or anyone of talent, useful or otherwise, but a guy whose name they would’ve preferred to unlearn, if such a thing were possible, so inept, so clumsy and personality-less and pathetic and awful-looking a guy that, many realized then, a “Doug Horolez” had long been an archetype in their subconscious for all things unexceptional, subpar.
Doug felt the room ice over. He didn’t dare move for fear of being mobbed by kids who believed themselves more deserving. If he stayed perfectly still, maybe John would move on, think him absent and select another lamb for the sacrifice.
John paused, vaguely homing in on his direction in the audience. He lifted the bill of his cap. The guy eyed him like a fresh batter stepping up to the plate.
“I can’t do this alone, buddy.
” He smirked to break the tension. “This is the last time I’ll ask for anything. Promise.”
Until he stood, Doug hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. He let out a spurt and expected his body to deflate and curl like a rubber snake on the floor. He remained on two legs. He stumbled and apologized through kids who began to part for the anomaly, sure that he would receive the blunt end of a joke that John would soon and hard deliver. Sneers lined Doug’s path. Even he thought it absurd that the word “buddy” had stirred his heart and strengthened his limbs. Still he came on. The Dead Man had again put him into a situation nearly impossible to refuse. Doug was certain he could’ve—gotten up, turned his back on him and the others too, pushed that far by the group and their conditions for acceptance and E.’s conditions for love. This time, John’s proclamation felt genuine. By publicly admitting their friendship and alluding to The Work, he’d defied the group’s vow of anonymity, and the cool, electric freedom packed into the transgression was infectious.
Doug got onstage and suffered judgment before four hundred sour faces. Principal Pope looked ready to tackle him if he did one stupid thing. John beckoned to join him at the podium. For once, he felt safer beside the guy.
Into that Good Night Page 27