Just Another Week in Suburbia

by Les Zig

  Beth sits back down with Stan. Stan immediately picks up where he left off, lamenting how he found a first edition of David Copperfield in a second-hand bookstore for a ridiculously low price, given it was a first edition, but his wife refuses to let him ‘splurge’. Poor Stan. I don’t think I’ve seen him happy for as long as I’ve known him.

  As what little time we have before the first bell whittles away, talk turns to Stuart. People speculate where he is. Shirley fears he might’ve been in an accident. Olivia says she thought she might’ve seen him earlier in Principal Hetrick’s office. Jerry says he was there earlier and as far as he saw, Principal Hetrick was alone. Arnold Jeffs, the geography teacher, says he could be down with a cold because there’s one going around. Bob Sorenson, the legal teacher, suggests we all enjoy the peace while we have it.

  But we don’t get to do that as the bell rings.

  Time to go to work.

  First period English is uneventful. I scan the usual suspects: Dom and Justine sit close together, holding hands under the table. Bianca is absent. Deidre Kent and David Jenkins sit on opposite ends of the room—they express no interest in one another, so I guess they must’ve broken up. Anthony Tselikas sits straight, grinning like he knows something I don’t. Maya also sits upright, but she is rapt with my every word. Eric Duff scribbles on his books.

  Second period, I have a spare and sit in the staff room, marking papers. Stan sits on the opposite side of the table, reading The Great Gatsby. I’m sure he’s read it a dozen times since I’ve known him. At the end of the table sits Olivia, studying a Greek phrase book.

  It’s then I catch my first sighting of Stuart. He whizzes past the door several times. On one occasion, he’s accompanied by a man in a suit and an older, smartly dressed woman.

  ‘I wonder what that’s about,’ Stan says.

  ‘Looks like the board of education,’ Olivia says.

  During recess, the staff room is rife with speculation that Stuart has somehow been inappropriate and that he’s under investigation. Some of us laugh about this. Shirley points out that it’s the quiet ones you have to worry about. Jerry then talks about how neighbours are always the last ones to know they’re living next door to a serial killer.

  Third period is Year 10 humanities. We talk about culture and the way it’s developed over the last two hundred years. But as the class wears on, I get the feeling that some of the kids—Dom, Justine, David, and Deidre—are looking at me. Of course they are, they have to, I’m the teacher; but now their expressions are speculative. I check Maya, but her attention is fixed on her folder.

  Towards the end of the class, Stuart peeks through the door’s window, expressionless. Then he steps away, but I can still see him out there in the hallway, leaning against the wall, like he’s waiting for me.

  When the bell rings, the kids spill into the hallway. Stuart comes in and stands in the doorway.

  ‘Stuart, we missed you this morning,’ I say.

  ‘Casper, Principal Hetrick would like to talk to you.’

  ‘I have yard duty,’ I say.

  ‘Max will cover for you.’

  ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘I think that’s best left for her to discuss with you.’

  I stop in the process of stuffing homework into my bag. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘You can discuss that with Principal Hetrick. Now, Casper.’

  I close my bag, nod, and shuffle out the door.

  Principal Hetrick is stony, as if waiting for me to flinch. The desk between us seems too small. In the corner, arms folded across his chest, is Stuart. His glasses have slipped down his nose, and his beady eyes glare at me. But he has none of the gravity of Principal Hetrick. She is carved from a time a principal’s authority was totalitarian. ‘What can you tell us about this?’ she asks.

  She has a manila folder on her desk. Without opening it more than a peep, she pulls out a sheet of lined paper and holds it up for me to see. It’s my sketch of Bianca.

  ‘That’s one of my students,’ I say.

  ‘You drew it?’ Stuart asks.

  ‘Yeah. In the art class I took on Tuesday when Beth was sick.’

  ‘Do you have a relationship with this student?’ Principal Hetrick asks.

  ‘Relationship?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you asking if I have a physical relationship with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No. God, no. She’s a kid.’

  ‘Why did you draw the picture of her?’ Stuart asks.

  ‘I gave the kids the task of drawing something. I was seated at Beth’s desk. Just at that moment, I thought Bianca had a really good pose for a portrait.’

  ‘So you admired her?’ Principal Hetrick says.

  ‘No. I’m saying that aesthetically—the way her head was bowed, the way her hair fell over her face—that she looked good to draw. From the point of view of an artist, that is. Not, you know …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not from the point of view of somebody with any sexual interest in her.’

  ‘You must know drawing her is inappropriate.’

  ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘Your intent is irrelevant.’

  ‘I draw. I mean, at home, I draw. Beth—Miss Buckley—can tell you. I didn’t think, okay? It was just a good picture to draw at the time. Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘Bianca was sexually assaulted.’

  ‘Bianca was raped?’

  ‘Assaulted.’

  ‘Sexually assaulted,’ Stuart says.

  I want to ask what that means exactly, but it would be inappropriate. ‘Is she okay?’ I ask.

  ‘She’s in hospital. Shock.’

  ‘At the moment, she’s not speaking …’ Stuart says.

  He leaves it hanging, the bastard, as if to suggest that it’s inevitable she will speak, and when she does …

  ‘And I’m a suspect because of that?’ I point at my picture.

  ‘We’re just trying to place where everybody was.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘This morning. Possibly around eight-thirty while Bianca was on her way to school,’ Principal Hetrick says. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘At that time, at home.’

  ‘Can anybody corroborate your story?’

  ‘I really don’t like where this is going,’ I say. ‘I drew a picture. Just because.’

  ‘You’re meant to befriend the students, Casper,’ Stuart says. ‘Not over-friend them.’

  ‘I don’t even know what that means. I have a good relationship with my kids. There’s nothing untoward. I really resent the accusation—’

  ‘There’s no accusation levelled at you, Mr Gray,’ Principal Hetrick says.

  ‘Then I resent the unspoken accusation. Just because I drew a picture.’

  ‘Have you drawn a picture of any other students?’ Principal Hetrick asks. ‘Perhaps of a male student?’

  ‘I drew a picture because I had to take Beth’s art class. That’s it.’

  ‘So that’s the only reason?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because you filled in and took this art class.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And because at the time it seemed a good picture to draw.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then perhaps you’d care to explain this.’

  Principal Hetrick pulls another lined sheet of paper out of the manila folder, this one all wrinkled. It has a giant cartoon cock on it. It’s the one I drew on Monday morning.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ I ask.

  ‘After we discovered the first picture,’ Stuart says, ‘I checked the bins of your classrooms. I discovered that also.’

  Discovered. Like it was a secret I’d hidden.

  ‘That’s a …’ I don’t know what to say.

  ‘Yes?’ Stuart asks.

  ‘Are you in the habit of drawing pornography?’ Principal Hetrick asks.

  ‘I was tr
ying to draw on Monday morning. I was frustrated because I was blocked. It just came out.’ I rub my forehead. Worst phrasing.

  ‘You drew this in an English class?’ Principal Hetrick says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Although you claim you only drew in the art class because you filled in.’

  ‘We all doodle at times while the kids are working in class. That’s just one of those stupid scribbles we all do.’

  ‘I have never scribbled a penis,’ Stuart says.

  There’s not a lot I can say to that.

  ‘Let’s get back to this morning,’ Principal Hetrick says. ‘Where were you between 8.15 and about 8.45?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No, my wife would’ve been with me.’

  ‘For all that time?’

  ‘For most of that time. She had to go to work.’

  ‘So how long was your wife actually with you?’

  I want to lie, and I’m sure Jane would alibi me, but that Kai picked her up concretes the facts. Of course, he might be willing to lie, but that’s when things unravel. There’s no point lying anyway. I haven’t done anything.

  ‘Probably about ten minutes,’ I say.

  ‘That’s not most of the time, is it?’ Principal Hetrick asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘I sat at home until it was time to come to school.’

  ‘What time did you get to school?’ Stuart asks.

  ‘Ten-to, five-to. You can ask the others. I was there in the staff room.’

  ‘So you were late for the staff meeting? Again?’

  ‘There was no staff meeting.’

  ‘But if there had been, you would’ve been late.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Can anybody account for the time between when your wife went to work and when you showed up in the staff room?’ Principal Hetrick asks.

  ‘I don’t know. Probably not. But let me get this straight: after my wife leaves for work, I sexually assault Bianca, then show up for work as if nothing happened? I have like all of twenty-five minutes. And that’s not even counting time needed for driving, parking, getting in and out of the car, and that stuff.’

  ‘Improbable, maybe,’ Stuart says, ‘but not impossible.’

  ‘Mr Gray,’ Principal Hetrick says, ‘we have spent the morning talking to detectives. They will proceed with their investigations. They may eventually want to talk to you. We would therefore like to establish that you have nothing to hide.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with this.’

  ‘Can you think of anybody else who may have assaulted Miss Orsino?’ Principal Hetrick asks.

  The answer’s obvious, but I worry how the information will portray me.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘There’s a guy who hangs around The Corner—’

  ‘Corner? What corner?’

  ‘It’s a line of shops at the corner of Stark and Werner,’ Stuart says. ‘The kids call it The Corner.’

  ‘I only know his first name is Bruce. He wears a jean jacket all the time. He’s a drug dealer or something. I can’t be sure, but I think Bianca had some sort of interaction with him on Wednesday.’

  ‘Some sort of interaction?’ Principal Hetrick says.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And you didn’t report this?’ Stuart asks.

  ‘All I saw was her walking away from him. I didn’t know if she was leaving him or just passing. I didn’t see any direct communication.’

  ‘Still—’

  ‘I did talk to her yesterday about it. She said he was being flirtatious, she handled it and that was that.’

  ‘She handled it?’ Principal Hetrick asks. ‘You were satisfied that a teenage girl handled the dalliances of a possible drug dealer.’

  ‘I saw the same thing on Monday morning before school,’ I say, remembering. ‘He called out something to her and Justine Gardiner, they laughed him off and kept walking.’

  Neither Principal Hetrick nor Stuart speak. Or move.

  ‘I can’t report every incidental interaction.’

  Principal Hetrick and Stuart exchange a glance. They’re trying to work out if I’m concocting an alibi or whether I’m telling them the truth.

  ‘You go ask anyone who runs a business on The Corner and they’ll tell you about this guy. They’ve even called the cops on him. The cops will know him.’

  ‘Mr Gray,’ Principal Hetrick says. ‘Casper. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?’

  Right then, I know she’d cover this up to avoid a scandal. Then there’d be a forced resignation in a month or two when nobody would connect it to whatever’s happened. Oh, Mr Gray decided he’d had enough of teaching. I want to confess to something I haven’t done to shock her.

  ‘There is nothing to tell,’ I say.

  ‘Mr Gray, we will have the truth in this.’

  ‘There’s no truth to have outside what I’m telling you.’

  ‘Mr Piper lauds your teaching,’ Principal Hetrick says. ‘He says the kids respond to you. Regardless,’ she jabs first my portrait of Bianca with her index finger, then the cartoon cock, ‘you seriously need to examine every course of action you intend to take before you take it. I wonder if you understand the responsibility you wield in this position. You are not a teenager yourself. You are entrusted with the next generation of society.’

  I’m unsure what to say. Jumbled thoughts tumble through my mind.

  Principal Hetrick takes my two pictures and puts them back in the manila folder. She closes the folder and crosses her hands over it.

  ‘I think that will be all,’ she says.

  I get up, start for the door.

  ‘One more thing,’ Stuart says.

  I turn.

  ‘You’re meant to have bus duty after school, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s best you skip that. I’ll find a replacement.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Principal Hetrick says. ‘You may go, Mr Gray.’

  I leave the office.

  I take out my phone the moment I’m out of Principal Hetrick’s office and call Jane.

  It rings through to her voicemail.

  I try twice more, but no answer.

  When I exit the school building and head into the courtyard, I’m sure all the kids are looking at me, wondering about me.

  Humanities makes sense now—the strange behaviour of Dom, Justine, David, and Deidre. Bianca gets assaulted, they find out. Maybe Justine’s curious why Bianca’s late in the morning and rings her up. Justine gets her mother. Her mother cries to Justine. I don’t know. But they begin with a germ of information that mutates. Rumours in schools are killers.

  I want to run. Get out of school for the rest of the day. But that would be like an admission of guilt. That’s something which could stick on me even after they find whoever’s guilty—if they find them.

  I’m not on yard duty, but walk around the school, trying to look as unconcerned as possible. I try Jane several more times, to no avail. She could be in a meeting.

  I get to the back of the school and stop. Kids play on the basketball court. There’s nobody on the soccer ground—it’d still be too wet. But I remember seeing Bianca, Justine, and Dom sitting in the goals on Monday. I thought they’d been passing around a cigarette. In retrospect, nobody shares a cigarette that way, do they? Maybe it was a joint. Perhaps they scored it from Jean Jacket.

  I’m sure now he must be responsible. He extorted sex from Bianca. Being a stupid teenager, she thought she could handle him. But things got out of hand. It makes sense—or at least makes more sense than this belief that I’m responsible.

  ‘Hey!’ It’s Beth. She comes up behind me. ‘What’s going on?’

  I start walking again. I don’t want to be in a fixed position where kids can overhear me. Beth hurries to keep up.

  I tell her everything that went on with Stuart and Principal Hetrick. I even tell her about the big cart
oon cock, putting it in the context of finding a condom in Jane’s bag so I had it in my mind that—at the time—I was worried she was having an affair. I go on to detail Bianca’s interactions with Jean Jacket. Everything spills out because, as I talk, it becomes real to me that something I haven’t done could finish me.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Beth says when I’m done. She puts a hand on my back and rubs it up and down. ‘They’ll find who’s responsible. You’ll be okay.’

  We’ve come around to one end of the school, where it adjoins the parking lot. I stop. Beth waits for me. My shoulders are so tight that my arms are coiled and ready to spring. I clamp my hands in front of me. I don’t want Beth to see me shaking. She puts a hand on mine. I’m reminded of my response to Roger’s intrusion last night and hate myself for my weakness, for my fear.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she says, and I think she’s telling me that it’s not only okay for me to be scared, but also to show it. ‘You’ve had a tough week—this stuff with Jane, me unloading on you, Roger last night, now this. You should’ve told me about you and Jane.’

  ‘You had enough of your own stuff going on.’

  The bell rings. Kids zip past. If Beth were Jane, I’d hug her now and plant my head on her shoulder. But it’s Beth. And this is school. And even though the kids are getting to class, there are still too many of them around to be indiscreet. I’m sure by the end of the day there’ll be all sorts of rumours about me. God knows how they’ll fester over the weekend.

  ‘You want to call me and talk, you do it, okay?’ Beth asks.

  I don’t answer, thinking of dinner tonight with Sarah, the anniversary dinner tomorrow night, the Sheraton overnight, the picture on Sunday morning. I want to escape from the world and all its obligations.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Thanks, Beth.’

  On the way back to class I take my phone out and twice call Jane. Again, it rings through to voicemail.

  I put the phone away and get to class.

  Fourth period is Year 9 humanities. These are kids I see only for this very class, but their eyes are hard. Whatever suspicion eddied around me during third period has turned into a flood. Kids know I’m at the centre of whatever’s going on. I wait for one of them to question what I’ve done.