A Changed Man

by Francine Prose

Bonnie has the strangest thought: She’s like Satan tempting Christ. Offering him the world. Looking down from…where? The Bible’s not Bonnie’s strong suit. Anyway, Bonnie’s got it wrong. She’s not offering Vincent a chance to trade his soul for worldly power. She’s offering him a chance to change himself, and then to change what’s down there.

  MRS. GRABER WRITES on the blackboard, TALIBAN, in capital letters, then faces the class and says, “Okay, boys and girls, or should I say men and women, let’s play a game. Everyone close his or her eyes. Now imagine all the girls in the room covered by black veils. Imagine that a new law has been passed. Woman can no longer drive.”

  Danny thinks: They can’t drive anyway. As far as he’s concerned, most of the girls in the room could be walking around in black plastic trash bags, and school would be a more beautiful place. Though if Chloe were wearing a trash bag, Danny couldn’t have spent the first half of class idly wondering what would happen if he leaned forward and touched her tattoo. But didn’t the article Mrs. Graber just read aloud say that Afghan girls could no longer go to school? Did she somehow miss that?

  Last period, he and Chloe cut study hall and sneaked down to the riverbank and split a joint of high-grade Jamaican. Being stoned in school is an improvement on not being stoned in school, and not at all what you’d expect. It doesn’t make you eat everything in the cafeteria, or get paranoid, or giggle and stumble around and crash into the lockers. Everything seems more interesting, as if every thought has a litter of thoughts that give birth to other thought-babies.

  Danny squeezes his eyes shut and tries to imagine what it might be like if the Taliban took over Clairmont. Okay, his mom couldn’t drive to work. Nor would Danny be taking Driver’s Ed from Mrs. Limpovski, aka Mrs. Blimpovski, whose scary ass pastes you against the driver’s side door. Mrs. Graber wouldn’t be teaching this class.

  Danny opens his eyes to let the lingering afterimage of Blimpovski’s ass out of his head, and finds himself staring into the black hole of Mrs. Graber’s stare. Linda Graber hates him. She hates all the boys. Her forehead gleams with sweat. No wonder. The classroom’s broiling, and she’s wearing a short-sleeved turtleneck, a variation on what she’s worn every day for the past two weeks since she finally found out what every kid in school has known since Christmas. Someone had put up a Web site, grabermole.com, on which you could post school gossip and flame the teachers. On the homepage were photos of Mrs. Graber, with close-ups of the giant brown birthmarks all over her neck and chest.

  The text underneath one photo said: “Enter today’s contest! Name the continent that the splotch above resembles. (Hint: Australia!)” No one, at least not Danny’s friends, knows who put it up and then took it down when the principal offered amnesty, if the site came down, to whoever did it. Danny thought it was cruel. Yet some part of him thinks that Linda Graber deserved it.

  The geniuses who designed the site are probably not in World Civilizations, the class for the retards who can’t get into AP American History. Two things Danny’s grateful for: One, his mom doesn’t seem to know there’s an AP class, so two, she doesn’t know Danny’s not in it.

  Mrs. Graber glares at Danny. Does she think he put up the Web site? He wishes he had the computer skills. But he wouldn’t have done it. Linda Graber’s moles aren’t her fault, though plenty of other things are. If she weren’t so mean, her skin wouldn’t have gotten its own home page. No one has posted a photo of Mrs. Blimpovski’s ass.

  To escape Graber’s cattle prod of a stare, Danny shuts his eyes again.

  “Wake up,” says Mrs. Graber. “Yoo-hoo. You over there. The living dead.” Danny’s chest contracts until he realizes she means the whole class. World Civilizations has run out of steam ever since they finished the textbook about how the nations of the world have contributed to world civilization. Danny remembers nothing except the potato famine and Marco Polo bringing back pasta from China. Which could be a problem, with finals coming up. In these last weeks of school, the kids—that is, the ones so dumb they don’t realize there’s no point kissing up to the teacher in a class like World Civilizations—are bringing in articles from the newspaper, about AIDS, or Africa, or, today, Afghanistan.

  Graber waltzes over to Smitty, the most pitiful kid in the room.

  “Mis-ter Smith,” she says. “Seeing as how you haven’t passed one test since the semester began, you might want to listen and make a few notes before we’re looking at summer school.” She sounds like the witch in The Wizard of Oz. She skips away from the vulcanized ruin that, seconds ago, was Smitty.

  “Lights, please,” says Mrs. Graber. Someone dims the light, and an image flashes on the wall: an Afghan woman in one of those shiny, pleated body bags.

  Mrs. Graber reads aloud by the beam of the penlight that sometimes, when she feels naughty, she shines in kids’ eyes. “Among the most controversial Taliban edicts is a law requiring non-Muslims to wear an identifying badge.” Another click, and there’s a shot of an old Jewish man in Germany with a yellow star sewn to his coat. In case one single person doesn’t get where Linda Graber’s going with this. Half the class is Jewish. They’ve known about yellow stars since birth. The rest caught up in eighth grade when they did Anne Frank. And yet it makes Danny self-conscious, as if it’s his personal problem.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have smoked that joint. There is a downside to the slippery ease with which each thought leads to others, in this case to a memory from last night.

  In the middle of the night, he’d gotten up to piss and found a copy of Soldier of Fortune on the bathroom floor. It might as well have been a turd floating in the toilet, or a copy of Penthouse with its pages stuck together. That’s how grossed out Danny was by this evidence of Vincent Nolan’s presence. Did this mean that the Nazi sat here and took a shit and read this? Or that he sat here and read it and jerked off? Which would have been more disgusting?

  Danny sat on the edge of the tub and—suddenly nervous in his own bathroom—skimmed what turned out to be a weirdo fashion magazine, full of ads for boots and military gear, camping equipment, water canteens that these morons called “hydration systems.” Fake army medals to pin on your fake camouflage fatigues. And then, of course, the gun ads. At first it gave Danny the creeps, but after a while he got into one particularly silvery semiautomatic rifle, Model 92b1. It seemed so light and streamlined, like an alien praying mantis. He paged past photos of covert operations in foreign countries, paused at a piece about a former U.S. diplomat turned South American drug lord, then moved on to an article about the Oklahoma City bombing, which, like several others in the issue, offered evidence proving that Tim McVeigh could not have acted alone. A second yellow rental van, something about a motel. Danny couldn’t follow it. Maybe he’d been sleepy.

  This morning, when he woke up, the magazine was gone. Max probably hadn’t seen it, which made it seem like a private message from Vincent Nolan to Danny.

  In the kitchen, he’d almost mentioned it when Mom and Max were complimenting themselves on how good they were to adopt a homeless guy. He’d wanted his mother to know what her new pal was reading, especially since she’d made such a point of his being a reader. It’s hard to say what busting Vincent for having the magazine would have added to the information already provided by his tattoos. Well, how about this? The tattoos were about the past. He could have changed his mind since then. But he’s reading the magazine now. Something told Danny to save the magazine for some occasion when he might need it.

  “Danny?” Mrs. Graber’s jackhammer voice shatters his private moment. “Are you with us? Are you ay-lie-ive?”

  Why is she singling out Danny? He takes it back about weed never making you paranoid in school.

  Danny and Mrs. Graber lock eyes. Total communication. She knows he hasn’t been listening. He knows she’s disappointed in him, and also in herself for once again failing to reach him. Everything is understood except, he hopes, how high he is. And why is she saying his name? She’s reading from a list. Which mea
ns that there must be other names besides his.

  “Danny, you are one of three students left who have not yet deigned to inform me about the topic of your final paper.”

  Deign this, Danny thinks. But wait. It’s all coming back to him. Final. Paper. Topic. Pick an individual who has changed the course of twentieth-century history.

  “Hitler.” Why did Danny say that? Could it be because he’s sharing a bathroom with the führer?

  “That’s quite a demanding subject,” Mrs. Graber says. “Do you really think you want to take on such a challenging topic after having spent the whole year occupying that seat without giving any indication that you plan to do any work at all? Also you might think twice about spending your time studying a man who did so much harm, a man who was so evil—”

  “Kiss my ass” slips out, like a burp.

  “What was that?” Mrs. Graber doesn’t need to raise her voice. No one’s breathing.

  “Nothing.” Danny has to sound innocent. This could go so many ways.

  Mrs. Graber hesitates. Does she want to make serious trouble? Does she hate Danny enough to start something that would mean her staying after school?

  “So is Hitler okay?” asks Danny.

  “Obviously,” she says. The class is all so glad the tension’s defused, they laugh, as if it’s a joke. Mrs. Graber writes something—presumably “Hitler”—next to Danny’s name.

  Not a second too soon, the bell rings.

  “Bring in your newspaper clippings,” Mrs. Graber sings after them. The minute the classroom door opens, her voice sweetens into something approaching normal.

  In the hall, Danny slows down until Chloe is trotting along beside him.

  “That was tough,” says Danny. “I mean, I was totally wasted—”

  “Oh, were you?” One of the things he is learning from Chloe is never to admit, not even to your best friend, that you are not in control. “You must have been high. Picking Hitler—are you crazy? Everyone’s doing Nelson Mandela. Every retard knows that’s how you get a good grade in Linda Graber’s class. You do Nelson Mandela. Or maybe Mother Teresa. Or Elie Wiesel.”

  Danny thinks his mom might know Elie Wiesel. Why didn’t he pick him? “What did Mother Teresa ever do? I mean, compared to Hitler.”

  Two pigtails, frosted pink today, jiggle like antennae as Chloe rocks her pretty head back and forth to underline the sarcasm. “Because Mother Teresa represents the values”—she’s imitating Linda Graber—“we’ve learned about in World Civilizations.”

  “Values?” says Danny. “Boring. Values is a girl thing.”

  “So what’s a boy thing?” Chloe asks.

  “Hitler,” Danny says.

  HOW DESPERATELY MEYER DEPENDS on his staff! How impossible life would be if these energetic, capable women were any less good at their jobs. Roberta has contacted the media and set up a press conference so that all Meyer has to do is show up in the foundation’s Jean Moulin Conference Room at eleven-fifteen. And Bonnie has not only fed and housed their white-power poster boy, not only groomed him, sartorially and spiritually, not only worked with him, one-on-one, but has achieved near-miraculous progress. Meyer can see it when he passes Vincent in the hall. That squirrelly furtiveness is turning into something presentable and convincing.

  Bonnie scares Meyer sometimes. There’s something alarming about a person who will do anything you ask. The scary part is seeing how much you will ask. It’s lucky that Bonnie found Brotherhood Watch, where she is among friends who would never abuse her generosity. Knowing that she is working to make the world a less hate-filled place has to be good for a wife and mother whose husband abandoned her for a woman who already killed two husbands. Meyer tries not to hear office gossip, but his staff tells Irene.

  As he enters the conference room, Meyer’s spirits sink. Huddling at one end of the long table are Roberta, Bonnie, Vincent Nolan, and a young woman in a smart black suit and a volcano of shiny black curls.

  In other words, one reporter. Meyer hates it that he cares. But isn’t everyone vain? Even Vincent Nolan, rocked back, one arm slung over his chair, as if the conference table were a flashy car he’s driving. Did Bonnie buy him that shirt and tie? Meyer hopes she billed the foundation. But how could anyone, even Bonnie, have made his hair grow in so fast? He’s already sprouted a reddish fuzz that softens the angry message delivered, just days ago, by his skull. Testosterone, thinks Meyer. God’s hair tonic.

  Roberta rises to greet him. “This is Colette Martinez, from the New York Times. Colette, Meyer Maslow. The Times asked if they could have a day’s jump. Lead time on everyone else.”

  “Certainly,” says Meyer. His mood improves slightly when the reporter, Colette, says in an awed voice, “It’s a great honor to meet you.” In fact, she’s quite pretty. Exotic.

  “It’s a pleasure, Miss Martinez.” Meyer gazes into her eyes.

  Her laugh is like a gulp. “I don’t want to misrepresent myself. Please don’t get your hopes up. They’ve got me on page two in the Metro section.” Since when do reporters require so much emotional support? Is this one waiting for a group hug?

  “Ink is ink,” says Roberta.

  “We’re delighted you’re here,” Bonnie says.

  Bonnie looks well. Her skin has the pinkish sheen Irene gets from the dermatologist Meyer calls Doctor Three Hundred Dollars. Bonnie reminds him of a girlfriend he had when he first came to this country. Attractive enough, a certain waifish appeal. But the girl burst into tears after sex. Some men like that sort of thing. Some men like one-legged women. Irene used to make him laugh in bed. That seems so long ago now.

  In theory, this conference is Roberta’s show. But it’s Bonnie who, with a prompting smile, signals that they should begin. The job is doing Bonnie good. It must be satisfying to accomplish what she’s achieved with Vincent. Meyer wishes he had the time. How far he’s come from those early years when each person he met seemed like a fallen angel crying out to be rescued! One heart at a time.

  So let’s start with this reporter’s heart. Getting her on the foundation’s side will translate into donors and enough hard currency to bribe whoever can spring the Iranian. In the long run, Meyer knows, the press can help him accomplish his Robin Hood mission, separating the rich from their money without the Merry Band, the muggings in Sherwood Forest.

  Colette produces a tape recorder and notebook and coolly appraises Vincent and Meyer, then scribbles a few notes and says, “Maybe we should begin. The material I got from my editors said that Mr. Nolan has recently left a neo-Nazi hate group and has decided to work with Brotherhood Watch.”

  “Exactly,” says Meyer, encouragingly.

  “You’re so prepared!” says Roberta.

  “Well, obviously—” says Colette.

  “You’d be surprised by some reporters I’ve met,” persists Roberta.

  Colette swivels to face Vincent, cocking her head like a boxer. Poor thing, she wasn’t brought up to ask strangers personal questions.

  “Let’s go back a bit,” she says. “I think our readers will want to know how you got involved with the Aryan Resistance Movement.”

  “Good question,” says Vincent, with a bashful smile, above which he’s making confident, steady eye contact with his interlocutor. The two of them could be alone in the room. It’s second nature for Meyer to seduce the press. But he should be taking lessons.

  Yesterday at the staff meeting Bonnie declined to say exactly what Vincent would tell the reporters today. She said that the more she and Vincent talked, layers were peeled away, and everything was turning out to have multiple reasons and explanations. Why he joined ARM, why he left. Basically, who the guy is.

  “Vincent’s intuitive,” Bonnie had said. “He gets things. Even stuff about my kids. I think we ought to trust his instinct for what a particular reporter needs to hear and for what each situation requires.”

  “Basically,” says Vincent, “it’s all about the IRS.”

  “The IRS?” says Colette
.

  “Can I back up a little?”

  “Please,” says Colette. “Feel free.”

  “Well, when I was a kid, all I knew was that my dad had left my mom and then died, which put Mom and me in a tough situation. I got into trouble, kid stuff. I guess I wanted attention. Eventually, I pulled my act together. Sort of. Finished high school, got a job, another job. Girlfriends, whatever. Nothing seemed to work out. Pretty boring, huh?”

  “Not at all.” Colette’s taking notes.

  “I kind of lost touch with my family. And then things fell apart. I got fired. Split up with my girlfriend. I was broke and practically homeless. Then one day, I’m eating breakfast in this diner on Route 17, and my cousin Raymond walks in.

  “It was strange. I hadn’t seen the guy for, like, five years. I tell him my sad story, and he says it all makes sense, and I say, What do you mean, it makes sense, nothing makes sense. He says, What he never understood was how everyone in the family except me knew that my dad got reamed by the IRS for some bookkeeping screwup when he tried to start that pathetic electrical business. Some crazy IRS fucker came after him, some licensed U.S. government killer, loaded for bear. My dad lost everything and left us and shot himself in the mouth. He did it in my uncle Vern’s—Raymond’s dad’s—garage. A real mess to clean up. Raymond’s dad made Raymond’s mom do it, even though it was his brother.”

  “Gosh, I’m sorry,” Colette says.

  “It’s not your fault,” says Vincent. “Not your fault and not your problem. I was three.”

  Colette can’t help sneaking a glance at Meyer, and then at Bonnie, whose jaw has dropped. Has Bonnie never heard this? Somehow Meyer thinks not. Colette writes something, pauses, writes more. This is more realness than she bargained for when she left the newsroom this morning.

  “Should I go on?” asks Vincent.

  “Please. But I’ve got to tell you, I’ve only got three hundred words—”

  “Unless it’s a fabulous story,” says Roberta.