I didn’t have an answer for any of that because none of it made any sense. I didn’t say anything.
“And somebody else who gives a shit — Mr. R, that’s who, A-la-mo.”
“Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that Mr. R wants to see some old lady’s house burned down?”
“Not just any old lady, A-la-mo. An old Jew lady.”
I shook my head. It still didn’t make even a little bit of sense.
“Let me explain it to you.” T-Ho leaned forward and stared hard at me. “The Bidwell Plant.”
“What?”
“The Bidwell Plant, for Chrissake. Are you deaf?”
“I heard you, I just don’t get —”
“That old Jew lady burned it down. Burned it down because she hated her job. Hated her boss. So she used explosives, burned the place down, and then came back into the plant during the fire and supposedly saved some guy’s ass … a guy that wouldn’t have needed any help if the Jew bitch hadn’t blown the place up and set fire to it in the first place.”
“Okay, but what does any of that have to do with Mr. R?”
T-Ho leaned back, looked around, and took a couple of pulls on his milk shake. Got nothing but air. Then he leaned forward again.
“Have you heard anything the man has said all year? He hates that stuff — he hates that this … woman starts a fire, all but kills some poor shmuck of a janitor’s assistant, who gets his leg broke in the explosion so he can’t get out, and she supposedly drags him out and saves his life. She was like this big celebrity after the fire for saving this guy and all the time she was the one who caused it. And Mr. R said the guy had pretty well dragged his own ass out of there and she just came along at the end to look like a hero.”
I swallowed a spoonful of Blizzard and looked at Rebel and T-Ho. It was like they had suddenly become Mr. R’s two favourite students. That was another part of this I didn’t totally get. I wondered when they first heard about the Bidwell Plant. I was betting it was a few days before the time we all stopped at the ruins.
“Mr. R has hated what she did — Numbers — he’s hated her pretty well all his life. But, of course, he can’t do anything about it.”
“Why? I don’t get that. Why can’t Mr. R do something about her if she’s that bad?”
T-Ho looked at Rebel. “See what I mean?” Rebel nodded.
T-ho leaned forward in the booth and stared hard at me. “Because he’s Mr. R, genius. He’s a good guy. And good guys can’t be getting after old ladies even if they’re bad bitches.”
“But in class he said —”
“I need you to listen to me. Mr. R can’t do this.”
Rebel snapped his fingers. “But we can.”
“And here’s the cool part, A-la-mo. We are going to let you in on the deal. You get to be jen-you-wine for the first time in your life. You come with us, we burn the old lady’s place down, and everybody’s happy. Mr. R is happy, everybody in town is happy, and Rebel and me, we’re happy too.”
It was all starting to make sense. The time I’d seen Mr. R with T-Ho and Rebel after school — all buddied up. And the time Mr. R talked to me, told me — what had he said? — “We all can count on you when the time is right. It’s important that you don’t miss this opportunity.” So this was the opportunity? Burning down the old lady’s house …
I looked at T-Ho then at Rebel then back at T-Ho. “Did Mr. R say that’s what he wanted — to burn the house down?”
“Hell no, he didn’t say those words. But sometimes you just know what the right thing is without it being spelled out. The woman is a Jew.”
For a second I wondered if T-Ho had ever spoken that word before this year’s social class. But did that matter? It seemed like the whole town hated the woman. And Mr. R hated her. So, what if they were right … T-Ho and Mr. R? What if this was the opportunity? My opportunity …
“When are you —”
“And to show you just how happy me and Rebel are gonna be, The Six is done, there’s no more Six after this. It’s The Seven and you, A-la-mo, become totally jen-yoo-wine.”
Genuine.
“When?” I asked a second time.
“Tomorrow night.”
“It’s Christmas freaking Eve!”
“Remember what I said about presents? What better time to give the people of Parkerville a present?”
“Does Mr. R know about this? That it’s tomorrow night?”
T-Ho put a finger against his lips. “Shh, Alamo. Shh. Nobody knows anything, right, Rebel man?”
Rebel grinned. “Nobody knows anything.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. So are you in, A-la-mo? Are you in and jen-yoo-wine or are you gonna sit there and say ‘shit’ and just be A-la-mo, the guy who was almost one of The Seven? Make up your mind because we don’t have a lot of time.”
All I wanted was to think, not to have T-Ho and Rebel sitting there watching me and talking to me. I just wanted to think. But there wasn’t time for that.
I wanted to go with them. And I didn’t want to go. I thought back to the time I’d seen the old lady crossing the street with her grocery bags. Maybe I should go along just to make sure T-Ho and Rebel don’t do something really stupid. Yeah, nice try. Okay, Alamo, this is your chance to do something that matters. That people might actually notice. That Mr. R might notice.
“Yeah, I’m in.”
“Well, god-damn.” T-Ho grinned at me. “Remember the Alamo!” We knocked knuckles and the two of them stood up. “Tomorrow night. We meet by the dairy. Bring your car … just in case.” And they were gone.
Just in case what? I couldn’t ask because the Crap Wagon was already rumbling out of the DQ parking lot.
But at least now I had time to think. And the more I thought about the plan the more I liked it. An old Jew woman who Mr. R hated. Okay, maybe he didn’t hate her, but he hated what she’d done, right? She’d started a fire and now we’d start one. What did they call that? Full circle. Perfect.
And it wasn’t like we were going to hurt the old woman … we’d just get her out of the joint and burn the damn thing to the ground. Just like the Bidwell Plant. T-Ho hadn’t said the part about her being out of the house, but he hadn’t said we’d hurt her either. That was good. I didn’t want to hurt anybody. I just wanted to pay her back for what she did at the Bidwell Plant … and for being a Jew.
And maybe forty or fifty years from now, people would walk around where Numbers’ house used to be and they’d talk about the day it burned down, just like we’d talked about the day the Bidwell Plant exploded.
Full circle.
Six
No school on the twenty-fourth. Which meant like major sleep-in.
Except I didn’t sleep in. Hardly slept at all. Thinking about Mr. R and Numbers and The Six and how I didn’t have a girlfriend and had lost my match at the regionals and what Mr. R had said after.
I mean, it wasn’t that I wanted to burn somebody’s house down. But this wasn’t just somebody, this was a Jew. What had Mr. R said that day in class? About people being willing to make an unpopular stand because it was the right thing to do? Wasn’t that what this was about? If I just had the courage to do it.
Because I was scared — real scared. I was like hands-shaking, swallowing-every-five-seconds, taking-deep-breaths scared.
The day went by slower than any day I could remember. I watched this ancient black-and-white version of A Christmas Carol on TV. I tried watching sports after that, but I couldn’t get interested. I went for a walk. I never go for a walk. And the whole time I was walking I was looking around like maybe something was going to jump out at me and Give Me The Answer. Like somebody I’d never seen before would walk out of some house and hand me a note that said, “Burn down the house and be somebody.” Or there’d be a neon sign in someone’s living room window flashing on and off, “Make a stand. Do the right thing.”
But there were no signs, no clues. Just a cold wind from the northwest that
made me wish I’d worn a heavier coat. A few snowflakes were swirling around in the wind. And there was the smell of Regan’s Bakery from around the corner. One of my favourite smells in the world.
What the hell, why not? I went through the front door and saw Mrs. Regan bagging up cinnamon buns and dinner rolls. I looked at the clock. Ten to three. Getting on toward closing time and I figured with the holidays coming people would be able to buy the buns at a discount for the rest of the afternoon.
Mrs. Regan smiled at me. “Hello, Andy. What’s the weather doing out there?”
“Looks like it might get a bit wintery,” I told her.
“Just in time for Christmas.”
She went back to bagging buns. Mrs. Regan never rushed you. I liked that. She just let you look around and decide what you wanted. Mr. Regan was a different story. Big hurry if he was behind the counter. And it didn’t matter how many jelly donuts you bought, he gave you one napkin. Like a second napkin would break the outfit.
“I’ll have one of those glazed donuts … and how much are the bags of cinnamon buns?”
“Two dollars. And I’ll throw in the donut. It’s Christmas.”
“Thanks.” I pulled a five out of my pocket and handed it to her.
She handed me my change, the cinnamon buns, and my donut in a piece of wax paper. And three napkins.
“Thanks,” I said again.
“Merry Christmas.” She smiled at me and bobbed her head up and down.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Regan. And to Mr. Regan, too.”
The door opened and more people came into the bakery so I waited until they passed me before stepping back outside. I stood a few feet from the front of the bakery and downed the donut in three bites. I realized it was the first thing I’d eaten that day.
I walked back home and gave my mom the cinnamon buns. “A little pre-Christmas surprise,” I told her. Actually I hadn’t spent much more on her actual present, or Dad’s or my brother’s. But they never seemed to mind.
Dinner was like a slow-motion replay of “Worst Plays of the Week.” I knocked over my water, dropped my fork on the floor, and had to be asked three times to pass the peas before I realized Dad was talking to me.
“Christmas excitement,” Mom said.
Yeah, that’s it.
In a way it was excitement. I’d never done anything like what we were going to do that night and I was a little scared and a whole lot nervous. I kept trying to think what the whole thing would be like. T-Ho hadn’t said anything about how we’d do it. What would my part be? Would I be the one to lure her out of the house? Or would I start the fire? And if I did — with what? Matches? Did people use matches to start houses on fire? Maybe gasoline?
After supper I helped with the dishes. Mom was chattering away about Christmas and kept saying she hoped I’d been a good boy or Santa wouldn’t be coming by. Most years that was pretty funny but this year I was having trouble seeing the humour. A couple of times I tried to smile, but I didn’t say anything.
Then it was time to go. I had to figure out what to wear. What does somebody wear when they’re going to burn someone’s house down? I stared into my closet for a while. I decided on the dark blue hoodie I got for my birthday (I would have preferred black, but I didn’t have one), a sort of army-looking green toque, and a dark brown jacket that was too light for how cold it was but I picked it because it was the darkest jacket I had. I figured dark was good.
At the front door I yelled to Mom that I wouldn’t be long (how long could it take to start a fire?) and hurried out to the driveway before she could answer. I climbed into the driver’s seat of the Biscayne and stared at the dash for quite a while before I put the key in the ignition. The engine was cold and the inside of the car wasn’t any warmer. The windows weren’t frosted over, though, so I didn’t have to wait for the Biscayne’s heater to warm up.
I drove slower than I usually do all the way to the dairy. I parked the Biscayne on a side road — the closest one to the dairy — and kept the motor running. The car had a good heater and it was all right inside by then. I rolled the window down — my dad told me to do that whenever you let a vehicle idle, just in case carbon monoxide gets in.
The smell from the dairy was bad that night — real bad. I’d driven this way a lot of times and some days were worse than others, but this was one of the worst. The smell of cow shit and urine came in through my nose and eventually settled in every part of my body.
It was cloudy so there was no moon and no stars. I nodded like that was all part of the plan. What plan? Were we going to sneak up and pour gasoline on one of the walls, light it, and run like hell? Or go in there screaming like banshees to scare the old lady out of her house and then throw in a lit gasoline-soaked towel wrapped around a stick? And then watch the place go up? I realized I had no freaking idea what was going to happen in the next hour of my life. I also realized this was the second time in the last couple of hours that I had asked myself the same questions. Except this time I’d asked them out loud. Talking to myself. And drumming my fingers on the steering wheel.
Christmas excitement. Headlights appeared on the highway coming from my left — the direction of town. Could be them. I watched the lights and listened. I figured I’d recognize the sound of the Crap Wagon. And I did. It was coming fast.
T-Ho and Rebel went past me without slowing down. The only window that worked in the Crap Wagon was open and they were screaming or singing or something. Whatever it was, it was loud. Apparently our plan didn’t involve sneaking up on Numbers’ house. Turns out they did see me because Rebel gave the finger out his window, then signalled like I should follow.
I put the Biscayne in gear, pulled out onto the highway, and started after them. Except I went like a snail and even kept the volume down on my radio. I knew it was stupid, bothering to be quiet with the decibels of a Radiohead concert and the Indianapolis 500 leading the way.
I didn’t speed up either. I wasn’t sure why. I still wanted to be part of this — to not miss the opportunity, as Mr. R had put it — but the way T-Ho and Rebel were going about it didn’t make sense to me. This wasn’t supposed to be a party, was it? Wasn’t this all about evening a score for what had happened at the Bidwell Plant? Weren’t we making a stand, doing the right thing, striking a blow against the wannabe world dominators — the Jews? I’d thought we were doing something serious — something important.
I kept driving and eventually came to the turnoff into Numbers’ place. I turned into the driveway and the sound of my tires crunching over the gravel sounded like a couple dozen uzis all firing at once. There were trees all around the driveway and they opened up into a sort of big yard. I wondered about the stories I’d heard, saying what a crap house the old lady lived in — an “eyesore,” everyone said. The thing is, no one would be able to see the house unless they actually drove into the yard.
It was dark so it was hard to tell, but the yard didn’t look like one of those well-kept places that in the summer would have the lawn and trees totally looked after. T-Ho and Rebel had parked in about the middle of the yard and they weren’t singing or hollering or whatever the hell they’d been doing earlier. I was glad. Maybe they’d come to their senses, were taking the thing seriously. Which is how I was pretty sure Mr. R would have wanted it.
Except I was wrong. I watched them bail out of the Crap Wagon, laughing like they’d just heard Hennie’s best joke ever. Then they walked around to the front of the Crap Wagon and stopped, still laughing and staring at the house. Laughing, but not as loud. T-Ho was holding a propane torch. It was attached to a propane bottle and Rebel was carrying that. I got out of the Biscayne and came around in front of them, my back to the house. Rebel glanced at me for maybe a tenth of a second and T-Ho didn’t look at me at all.
“Rea-dy?” T-Ho dragged the word out. He was grinning but still not looking at me. I didn’t know if he was talking to Rebel or me or both of us.
“How are we going to make sure she’s not i
n there?” I kept my voice at just above a whisper.
Neither one answered. I turned and looked at Numbers’ house. It was two storeys, but not real big and definitely not fancy. Even in the dark there was enough light to show the place needed painting. Looked like it had needed painting for a long time. So maybe you could call it an eyesore.
A couple of steps led up to a porch that ran along the front of the house. There were a few lights on inside. But the part that freaked me out was the light on the porch. It was on, too — like the old lady was expecting company or something. Like maybe someone might drop by on Christmas Eve. Then I remembered she was a Jew, and I recalled reading somewhere that Jews don’t celebrate Christmas. Still, the light bothered me.
The dairy smell was less here in the yard, but the place was no daisy patch. I looked back at T-Ho and Rebel. “If she’s at home, how do we get her out of there?” I still wasn’t clear on that part.
They started toward the house and as they passed me, T-Ho looked at me and winked. Another smell. Not as powerful as the cow shit but there. Definitely there. T-Ho and Rebel had been drinking … this time a fair amount.
“That’d be a real good job for the Alamo man,” T-Ho said, a lot louder than I figured was a good idea.
I started after them. “How the hell do I…?” That’s as far as I got.
Because that’s when the night took a turn I hadn’t expected. I guess if you’d asked what was the last thing I figured would happen when we got to Numbers’ house, I might have said having the old Jew lady walk onto the porch to face us. That would have been right up there. But it was the other part that freaked me a whole lot more.
The other part was that Patti Bailer was standing beside her.
Seven
T-Ho and Rebel stopped walking. For the first time I noticed how quiet it was. Without the rumble of the Crap Wagon and loud voices laughing and jarring the stillness, it was like the night I’d been at the Bidwell Plant. Totally quiet.
Numbers Page 12