A Changed Man

by Francine Prose

  As soon as the bell rings, Danny hurries out, then hangs back. The last thing he wants is to get to Armstrong’s office early and stand around making small talk until Graber shows up. Taking baby steps to the second floor, he gets there just as Mrs. Graber walks in.

  She sits down beside Armstrong’s desk. There’s no chair for Danny. But he never expected this to be a friendly social occasion. For a moment they pretend he’s not there, allowing him to observe their perfect mutual understanding. They’ve already had a talk about him. The thought gives him the shivers.

  David Armstrong is the one person in the whole school most likely to hate his essay. Because he’s one of those gay guys who thinks he has to be super straight. Maybe Linda Graber is gay, too. Just because she’s married…Whether anyone is gay or not has nothing to do with this. What matters is what Danny meant to say, and what he said, in his paper.

  “Hello, Danny,” Armstrong says. Have they actually met? They’ve said hello as they passed in the hall. Armstrong says hello to everyone and pretends he knows you. He probably thinks he does know you because you say hello. He probably thinks that’s what knowing you is.

  Stepping forward to shake his hand, Armstrong’s doing his slightly hunched, pigeon-toed school-administrator walk, like the wild ostriches Danny saw last week on Discovery Channel. Armstrong’s hand feels cool and soft.

  “Hi,” says Danny. “Hey, Mrs. Graber.”

  Graber rolls her eyes and sighs.

  Mr. Armstrong says, “As we suppose you can imagine…” Who is this we? And what can Danny imagine? By suggesting he can imagine something, Armstrong’s suggesting that Danny already knows something, which proves that he’s guilty. “Mrs. Graber and I are terribly upset about the paper you turned in for World Civilizations.”

  Graber and Armstrong both sound like astronauts’ names. Houston, we’ve got a problem.

  “What was wrong with my paper?” As I suppose you can imagine.

  “We feel…Mrs. Graber and I both feel that it’s extremely homophobic of you to say that homosexuality or even the fear of his own homosexuality can turn a man into history’s most evil mass murderer.”

  That’s what Danny was afraid they thought he said. Except that he didn’t say that. He never said that was why Hitler did what he did. He just said maybe Hitler was gay. And he was evil. Neither thing caused the other. They’ve completely misread him.

  Ultimately, why should he care? Who are Armstrong and Graber? Two losers who work in his school. Still can’t get past the fact that someone thinks he meant and said something he didn’t mean or say. It throws him so off balance that now he isn’t sure what he did mean and did say. Maybe he didn’t say it clearly. Is there a way to explain? Danny’s afraid there isn’t, that he’ll never change their minds. His only choice is to fall back on what’s in his heart, what he believes. Which is that being gay doesn’t mean you want to kill six million Jews, nor that all gay people are murderers. He’s tired. He wants to sit down. What he really wants is to punch someone. It’s so frustrating. A teen cliché. Nobody understands me.

  “That’s not what I meant,” says Danny. “I never said that Hitler did what he did because he was a closeted gay. I never said that all gays are capable of doing what Hitler did. I said that Hitler had a lot of problems. And one of them was maybe sexual…”

  It’s as if he hasn’t spoken, as if he’s moving his lips. Testing, testing, has someone turned off the audio? Graber and Armstrong don’t blink. Danny wishes he weren’t stoned. It’s making this twice as scary. Danny will never get high again. Not ever, as long as he lives.

  Armstrong runs a hand through his blond bristles and leans across his desk. His pink face shines at Danny like those interrogation lamps you see in movies about Nazis. Best not to think of those films now. Danny has to stay clear.

  “We so want our students to understand that the most valuable thing we can teach them, even more important than what they learn in class, is a sense of community, of inclusiveness and tolerance, of live and let live.”

  “I know that.” Danny ought to. He’s certainly heard it enough.

  “And to believe or say anything counter to that is…well, it’s a re-al problem for the community. Danny, I’ll be straight with you. It’s like a knife in our hearts.”

  The most important thing is not to crack up because David Armstrong said he wanted to be straight with him. Danny didn’t write what they say he wrote. And what if he did? What about his freedom of speech? His First Amendment rights? Where were Graber and Armstrong last year when they took American History, and Mr. Hellenschmidt, one of the only cool teachers, made sure that even the slowest kids understood what the Constitution guaranteed.

  “So what happens now?” asks Danny.

  Armstrong and Graber look at him, surprised and a little stung. They want to torture him longer, and Danny’s ruined their fun.

  “We need to think it over and discuss it amongst ourselves,” says Mr. Armstrong. “We need to consider your case.” So they are going to torture him more. Starting with the disgusting idea of them discussing his case.

  “And until then?” Danny’s been a cringing wreck ever since Linda Graber stood over his desk. What would happen if he needed to fight a real enemy—let’s say, the Nazis? He fears cowardice above all things. He fears he’s the kind who runs away from danger instead of the kind who runs toward it. He fears he’s inherited it from his mom. It’s in his DNA code.

  Graber and Armstrong exchange looks. They’ve got this all worked out. Why don’t they say it in unison, like cartoon chipmunks? Why does Mrs. Graber defer to Mr. Armstrong? Because he’s the man.

  “Let’s start with a temporary suspension,” he says.

  “Fine. Let’s start with that.” Danny likes the feeling of saying it, so he says it again. “Let’s start with that.” The second time may have been a mistake. Anyway, it’s his exit line. Danny is up and out of the office.

  Testosterone is the wind in his sails! It carries him past Armstrong’s secretary and straight toward the door, toward the sunlight and warm air. Let the hall monitors stop him. Danny is following orders.

  Outside, it’s a beautiful day. Only lunatics would be rotting in school, wasting their time in class. Danny decides to go home and figure out what he needs to do next. The thought of home leads directly to Mom, who will not be pleased by the suspension. But Danny will show her his paper. She’ll understand what Danny was saying, and she’ll take his side. Despite how often Danny wishes his mom were different, he’s glad she’s the way she is.

  It all feels unaccountably fantastic, the charitable thoughts about his mom, the residual high combined with the pleasant weather, the beautiful streets of Clairmont. Every flowering tree is in bloom. Too bad for those puppies stuck in school beneath the fluorescent lights. For all that Danny complains about Clairmont, that it’s boring, there’s nothing to do, today he has to admit that it’s a great place to live. Not that he’ll be here long. He’s got college after next year. Oops. Temporary suspension. Which ultimately won’t matter. It’s in the school’s interests for him to get into college. They’ll downplay this little glitch. And the truth is, Danny is Mr. Tolerance. That’s in his DNA code. Just look at where his mother works. If worst comes to worst, Mom can get Maslow to write a letter testifying to Danny’s brotherly love credentials.

  Danny rounds his corner. Something’s going on. More cars than usual are parked on his street. Maybe there’s something at the church. Maybe somebody’s selling their house and is having the realtors in.

  The parking thins near his house. The bad house on the good block. Danny used to get annoyed when his parents said that, as if living in the neighborhood dump was something to boast about. But Danny’s come to like the fact that his house is the real house, as opposed to all the pretentious fantasy houses, the Scarlett O’Hara, the Mount Vernon, the Addams Family mansion. Danny’s still slightly wasted. That was good weed Chloe had.

  How happy he is to see hi
s house. It’s how he’s been feeling about his mom. His house, his mother, he loves them. Nothing like a chat with Armstrong and Graber to make you appreciate what you’ve got. He wishes Mom were home now. He could tell her what happened. She’d be upset at first, but then she’d read his paper….

  There’s a pickup truck in his driveway. Is Mom having work done on the house? Danny doubts it. She would have told him. A million times. She would have spent days reminding him that someone was going to be there, someone it was safe to let in, as opposed to all the serial killers trying to break down the front door. She would have given him a detailed description of the electrician or plumber: mug shot, license number, psychological profile.

  Maybe some creep is casing the house. Maybe Mom’s worst fantasy has come true. Or maybe it’s just some guy who’s decided to take a nap in Danny’s driveway, or trawl for neighborhood kids to molest. In any case, it’s not what Danny wants to deal with at the moment.

  Danny considers pretending that there’s no guy and no truck in his driveway. He could walk around the block, cut across the neighbor’s yard, sneak in the back way. Lock the door, keep the curtains pulled. That’s what the weed is suggesting. The problem is that Danny can’t forget that conversation with Vincent about the people who run away from trouble and the ones who run toward it. Danny’s a guy from the first group who wants to belong to the second. And the truck in his driveway is definitely a test.

  There’s no way he can sneak inside with that guy sitting there. Since Dad’s gone, Danny’s the man of the house. So he’s got to do something besides what he would love to do—which is to keep going.

  It takes all the nerve Danny has to walk up to the truck. He pulls himself up to his full height and tries to swagger like a cop giving a ticket. Which is not what he wants to look like, a cop handing out a ticket, unless he wants his head blown off by whoever is sitting in the rusted, twenty-year-old pickup. The other end of the line from what Dad was driving. Danny can see his blood and brains splashed all over the driveway, his little brother finding him when he comes home from school. And calling Mom. Poor Mom!

  This is what bravery is. Bravery has nothing to do with giving Armstrong and Graber attitude. It serves Danny right for even imagining that took courage. His punishment for even thinking that is to come home and face the real thing. What happened in school was foreplay. The nightmare is beginning.

  Danny approaches the driver’s-side window. He’s investing so much energy in trying not to look scared that it keeps him from getting as nervous as he otherwise would. That is, until he looks in the truck and sees a butt-ugly, scowling, bald guy. There’s a funny indentation around his forehead, as if he’s got permanent hat hair without hair or a hat. He’s also missing a couple of teeth. Where did they get this creep? Call central casting, get me a redneck. But wait. It gets worse. A redneck Nazi. Danny can’t help but notice the swastika tattooed on the back of the guy’s right hand.

  Which absolutely takes guts. Unlike Vincent, who’s got his tattoos higher up on his arms so he can hide them, this guy wants it in your face. There’s no going back for this dude without laser surgery. Vincent was always hedging his bets. Danny sees that now.

  The guy is here for Vincent. Anything else is too coincidental. Adopt a skinhead, and surprise! Another one comes along. Danny knew this would happen. His mom mentioned it the very first night Vincent came home with her. And then somehow Danny forgot.

  Isn’t Danny supposed to talk first? Say something weak like, Excuse me. Can I help you?

  The guy looks Danny in the eye for a long time, very dramatic and stagey.

  Finally he says, “Hey, kid. Tell me something. You live here?”

  Danny would laugh if his legs didn’t feel like rubber. Once again he wishes he’d never smoked that joint. Should he admit he lives here? In case the guy is planning to come back and rob and kill him and Mom and Max? Or maybe he means to do it right now. Is there some way to communicate that his parents are home, or better yet, the high school football team just happens to be here right now? But why would the football team hang out at Danny’s?

  “Yeah.” A simple statement of fact.

  “Who else lives here?” says the guy.

  They might as well bump chests, lock horns. There’s no point to this conversation. The guy knows Vincent lives with them. Danny’s hands are shaking.

  “Why do you want to know?” Danny says. All right! This is more like it. This beats telling Graber and Armstrong to take their suspension and shove it.

  “Census,” says the guy.

  “Yeah? Census my ass.” Danny’s heart starts to pound.

  The guy reaches for the door handle.

  “Watch your language,” he says. “Who lives here is all I asked.”

  “My mom, my brother, and me.” Danny regrets it instantly. Couldn’t he have invented a father? Oh, and my dad, the professional wrestler. The head of the FBI.

  “And who else?” repeats the guy.

  “Nobody.” Who is Danny kidding? This psycho’s not cruising the neighborhood for a house to rob.

  “Nobody,” he repeats. He smiles and shakes his head. What a joke. Then he says, “You little shit, you’re lucky I’ve got kids myself. Otherwise you could get hurt.”

  Danny’s relieved. It sounds like the guy isn’t going to kill him. At the same time, he’s vaguely insulted. He reminds this guy of his kids? Imagine being this guy’s kid. Would you have your own tiny swastika tats? Do they make stick-on tattoos for babies? Danny’s had a bitch of a day. First they threaten him at school, and then he goes home and gets threatened by a guy parked in his own driveway. First he takes shit for writing about Hitler, and then Hitler’s number one fan shows up at his house.

  “All right,” says the guy. “Let’s cut the crap. Tell Nolan I know where he’s at.”

  “Who should I tell him stopped by?” Danny asks.

  The guy gives him another stagey look and does a phony double take. He’s pretending to decide whether to break Danny’s jaw or just answer his question. He decides not to punch him out. He’d already decided. He considers his answer.

  “Who should you tell him stopped by? The Big Bad Wolf,” he says.

  SO FAR VINCENT’S DAY OFF has been everything he’d hoped for. Seven-point-five on a scale of ten. The situation with Bonnie’s van couldn’t have worked out better. He was genuinely sorry that he hadn’t been there for her when it died. But at least it wasn’t some hairy breakdown that left Bonnie stranded. She got the vehicle to the garage. And her needing him to pick it up is the icing on the cake. He gets another day off to recover. Already he’s so rested that he feels capable of going into the office tomorrow and dealing with Roberta and having the same conversation with a dozen different boring reporters. Except that tomorrow’s Saturday. He’s still got the weekend.

  He even feels up for going on Chandler, which he’d been edgy about. It’s got to be easier than the benefit dinner, since presumably he won’t be dying of allergic shock on a major network. Though Chandler’s people would probably think it was great TV. Don’t eat anything they give you in the studio. It wouldn’t be beyond the bastards to slip him a wad of peanut butter. And if his being on Chandler helps Raymond track him down…There’s no way he can control that. Let the chips fall where they may.

  Meanwhile a day of R and R is just the thing, especially a day on which Vincent’s doing it right: deciding against the Vicodin first thing in the morning just to show himself that he can, one skinny joint from the kid’s stash, then a stroll through the neighborhood, which has never looked so good, climaxing with a tuna fish sandwich at the Clairmont Creamery, a place that would have put him uptight not so long ago. Now he can simply occupy a booth and pass for your average Joe. Not that he is your average Joe. No, sir. Not by a long shot.

  His outing takes an hour or so. More than enough fresh air. He walks home—sun shining, air warm, neighborhood in bloom—and lets himself into the silent house, then lies down for a nap. W
hen he wakes up, he decides—as a present to himself, a reward for being so good—that he’ll borrow one more bud from Danny. In a way, it’s humiliating, stealing weed from a child. And it shoves Vincent’s nose in the fact that this isn’t his home. He’s been here almost three months, and he still hasn’t made a lousy pot connection. Probably the guys at the mailroom at work would know where he could get some, but that wouldn’t be smart. His brotherhood honeymoon would dead-end after the first tiny drug bust. Quick! Get me the Iranian! We’re cutting the Nazi loose.

  It took Vincent about a minute to find the kid’s pot. On the bookshelf, in a coffee can, behind the Abridged Oxford English Dictionary, probably a bar mitzvah present. Danny thinks it will be safe there because no one would dream that he would ever look at a book like that. Kids forget that everyone used to be a kid. Everyone grew up hiding their stash at the back of the shelves or the bottom of the closet.

  The Warrior never steals more than one joint’s worth at a time. It’s a new rule Vincent’s made up, and it seems to work. No getting greedy. The kid doesn’t suspect. He assumes he could have smoked that much. God knows how he’s paying for it. Vincent hopes he isn’t dealing.

  Vincent’s got the bud in his hand and is replacing the can when he hears the door open and wheels around to see Danny watching him. Which puts Vincent in an awkward position: standing on the bed holding a marijuana bud, balancing the coffee can and the abridged OED. The kid looks pale and shaken. But somehow Vincent senses that whatever is bothering Danny has nothing to do with him. It’s something he brought into the room.

  “Sor-ree,” Vincent says.

  Then he doesn’t know why, he can’t help it, he bursts out laughing. And Danny, who looks poised on the edge between pure what-are-you-doing-messing-with-my-shit? territorial rage and just as pure surprise, opts for the third choice: laughter. The strain melts from his face, and his color pinks up from chalk to something approaching normal.