by Andrew Cotto
He didn’t say anything, so I asked him again if he was going to dinner.
“Nope,” he said, turning to look over the posters hung all over the room: Bruce in concert from the early days, a NY Met here, a NY Met there, Christy Turlington for inspiration (now useless, thanks to Mr. ‘I’m not going to report this as a fight, per se’).
“Alright then,” I said, grabbing my dinner jacket. “I guess I’ll catch you later.”
My new roommate said nothing.
This is going to be some year, I thought on my way downstairs.
Too bad I wouldn’t see the end of it.
“And what else happened?” Meeks demanded as I walked to dinner with him and Grohl and Sammie, who had caught up to us on the path.
“Nothing!” I said to the freckled bag of bones who was already on my nerves. “I told you already,” I said, leaving out the part about being caught dancing in my undies “they showed up, we had our little chat, and then he told me he doesn’t like Springsteen.” I poked Grohl on the shoulder of his leather blazer. “Can you believe that? Doesn’t like Springsteen?”
“It’s, like, the ’90s, man,” Grohl said. “Why don’t you listen to somebody else?”
“I don’t like anybody else.”
He scoffed, patted the top of his mousse-piled hair, and checked the status of the shack. The smoking shack, a piece-of-crap Peg-Board shed, sagged beneath a weeping willow across the field from Montgomery. Kids could go there and smoke or just hang out, and there was usually a decent crowd during off-hours from studying and whatnot.
“And that’s it? That’s all Terence or Terry had to say?” Meeks asked.
“Oh, yeah — he had some problem with Mr. Wright saying oversee or something.”
“The hell for?” Meeks asked.
He was full of questions, that kid.
“I think it’s a racial thing,” Sammie said. “You know, like the guy who looked after the slaves was the overseer, I think.” “Hey, Sammie,” I said, “thanks for the history lesson, but you heard the man. It’s, like, the ’90s, alright? The 1990s. Don’t give me any noise about slavery.”
Poor Sam. Even when he was right, which was practically all the time, it ended up, somehow, like he was wrong.
“Wow, that’s pretty amazing,” Meeks waxed sarcastic as we crossed the road and entered the courtyard between the two main buildings. “It’s his first day at a new school and the guy tries to take on the Wonder Twins. You’d think he might have more to say about it.”
“What can I tell you?” I asked, putting on my jacket in the reflection of the corridor that connected the structures. “Anyway, I’m the one who should have something to say about it. I had to give up my single room.” And moments alone with Christy Turlington!
“Never mind,” he said, passing into the marbled walkway. “Serves you right anyway.”
I spun him around, and he looked at me with more guts than a kid of his size and upbringing should have. Meeks was a preppy derelict who’d been booted off to boarding school from his rich Jersey suburb.
“Say that again,” I challenged, not all that excited about taking crap from a guy wearing a green jacket with a pink tie.
“Relax,” he backed off, in his usual way. “I’m just saying.”
“Just saying what?”
“I’m just saying,” he continued, his strawberry hair under my eyes, “we have two blockbuster stories on the very first day of school, both of them running right through your room, and you don’t care about either of them.”
“What do you want from me?” I asked him.
“First,” he said, counting with his finger, “the shoes. Did your roommate steal them?”
“What?” I asked, shocked. “Nobody took those things.”
“Earth to Danny boy. In case you missed it, we got a shoe thief in the dorm.”
“Says who? Chester and what’s-his-face McCoy? That moron probably left them things back in Palookaville, OK? I mean, come on, things disappear. I know it firsthand. Remember my lucky shirt from last year?”
No one seemed to remember me searching the dorm, over and over last spring, for a T-shirt of mine that had vanished. It was just a crappy shirt, given to me by a beautiful girl named Brenda Divine. It had meant a lot, but only to me. “We’re talking about valuables missing,” I continued. “Not used wrestling shoes. What kind of weirdo would take those things?”
I don’t know, Danny,” Grohl chimed in, still looking around as he talked. “Both Chester and McCoy seemed sure they were in the stairway and, you know, based on how your roommate bugged out, he looks like the prime suspect.”
“Suspect?” I asked. “What are you guys, the freaking Hardy Boys all of a sudden?”
“Just ask him about the shoes, OK?” Meeks said.
“Yeah, OK,” I cracked. “I’ll get right on that one, Geoff.”
“Good,” he said, as if I was serious. “Second, what happened with Todd?”
I expected that question, and had no answer, but was kind of curious myself. I mean, what could have kept that kid away? I was thinking (hoping) a shark attack off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, or maybe some sort of alien abduction where they probed all his holes with painful things.
“I can’t help you there, either, Geoff,” I said. “I don’t know about Todd.”
Sammie and Grohl tugged their ties and watched people enter the dining hall.
“Geez, Rorro,” Meeks blurted. “What good are you? You didn’t know your roommate wasn’t coming back? You didn’t even talk to him over the summer?”
“Why didn’t you talk to him?” I shot back at Meeks. “You’ve known him longer than I have.”
“I was in Ireland all summer,” he said, like it was no big deal.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “I was in Chinatown.” I’d stocked shelves all summer, in a Chinese market in Flushing.
“It doesn’t matter where you were,” he said. “You’re supposed to talk to your roommate. It’s code. I called this dope from a pub in Dublin.” He smacked his roommate on the arm, and Grohl nodded like it was law.
“Yeah, well, good for you, but after what that guy did to me, what’d you want me to do? Call him up to see how far he’s getting with Brenda? And maybe, while I’m at it, find out what side of the room he wants?”
Meeks rolled his eyes and looked at me all disappointed. “Danny, Danny,” he said with fake pity. “She wasn’t your girlfriend.”
“Close enough,” I said.
“And besides,” he said all matter-of-fact, “there are no rules for chasing the cat.”
“Oh, OK,” I said, shaking my head, baffled by some of the so-called rules these morons had. “Whatever you say. But if you want to find out why he ain’t here, Sherlock, you can go ahead and call him yourself.”
“I already left him a message,” he said. “I’ll let you know what he says.”
“Do that,” I answered, my voice echoing in the hall.
“Ah, we better get in there,” Sammie pointed out. “We’ll be late.”
“Only if this guy’s done breaking my shoes,” I said.
The boarding school guys loved the expressions from back home, and I tossed them out whenever I was in a jam or needed a laugh. Sammie and Grohl laughed at my shoe-breaking line, but Meeks managed to keep his face straight.
I pointed at my shoes. “Done with them already?”
“I am,” Meeks said, releasing his smile. “For now.”
“Super,” I muttered as we approached the dining hall, and the first rib-sticking meal of the year.
“Hey,” I said to Meeks at the smoking shack afterward. “Thanks for telling me dinner was optional. There were three people at my table.”
Seating was assigned for lunch and dinner, even when you didn’t have to be there.
“Dinner was optional,” Meeks said, as he scanned the decent crowd that surrounded the rotting shed.
“You’re a real pal,” I said, kicking lightly at the dirt.
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“It was our first chance to check out some of the new Bettys. Besides, would you have rather stayed in your room, talking about nothing with your new roommate?”
“Good one,” I said. “Got a smoke?”
“Ask him.” He nodded at Grohl, who was busy with some younger girls.
A couple dozen people milled around, but I didn’t bother with them. I bummed a smoke from Grohl and returned to Meeks.
“He starting already?” I asked.
“No rest for the wicked,” Meeks said, flipping that scary green jacket over his shoulder.
“So why ain’t you mixing it up?” I asked.
“Got nothing to say,” he spat like a child. “Thanks to you.”
Not good-looking or talented or anything, Meeks got by mostly on information. Gossip was his game. That and a smart mouth, but the smart mouth usually came after he got to know you through gossip. He knew about most things going on around campus, and used that information to get to know people, especially girls. I couldn’t believe some of the girls he ran around with. Foxes. I swear. Out by the shack that night, I started to feel sorry for poor Meeks with nothing to say. People were talking about the fight, and the witnesses from our dorm were all holding court in separate circles. Meeks told good stories, and he could have stolen the show, but he didn’t deal in known information, and the fight, at that point, was known.
“Hey,” I said to Meeks. “You know he got an athletic scholarship, right?”
Meeks perked up. “Who?”
“Terence King from Houston.”
“Get out of here,” he said. “For what sport?”
“Field hockey,” I joked.
“Basketball?” he assumed. “They gave this guy a basketball scholarship to the World Wrestling Academy? Are you sure? Are you absolutely, no-doubt-about-it sure?”
I nodded.
“Hey, hey people,” Meeks called, walking into the crowd. “Get a load of this...”
I went in the other direction, toward the edge of the smoking area. I dropped the half-finished butt and rubbed it out with my shoe. Those things tasted like death, and that funky Styrofoam feeling in my mouth always reminded me of that day at home when I busted those windows and choked down half a pack of my mother’s smokes. I spit on the ground and waited for my Brenda Divine to walk by.
I stood there alone as the sun went down. A cool, kind of pink twilight hung above the hills that rolled off into the distance. After the hills disappeared into darkness, I kicked around with a small group of guys I didn’t really know. After talk of Terence and the fight had finally finished, and most people had gone back to their dorms, I listened to what I hoped were made-up stories of summer girls and summer places I’d never know.
The walk home across the field was quick, but the lobby and common area were dark by then. All the couches had been straightened, the TV screen was back up on its perch, and there was no noise from the laundry room or the pay phone around the corner. You’d never be abe to tell that a serious brawl — including wrestlers, a basketball player, and a high-flying English/drama guy — had nearly broken out there a few hours earlier.
Upstairs in room # 7, Terence was behind his desk in saggy shorts and a basketball jersey. His bed was made and a few things, mostly books, were neat on the shelf.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Aight,” he said, not lifting his head from a book.
“You didn’t miss anything at dinner,” I said rolling up the posters, which had been taken down from his side of the room and left on my bed. “You didn’t even have to be there, being the first night and everything.”
“I know.”
How come no one told me?
“Well,” I said, after tucking the posters away, “you got any questions or anything?”
“No.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about them guys,” I said, sitting on the edge of my bed to slip off my dress shoes. “They’re stupid, but not, you know, retarded or anything.”
“I’m not worried,” he said, holding my gaze.
“Alright,” I said. “Good for you.”
I swapped my dinner clothes for jeans and a T-shirt. I didn’t feel funny getting changed for the first time in front of a stranger, since he’d already seen me dancing in my underwear. I brushed and flushed in the bathroom down the hall, and when I got back, Mr. Wright stood in the open doorway.
“I’m glad to find you decent this time,” he said, with this devious kind of smile.
“Yeah,” I said, sneaking by him. “Me, too.”
“But you’re supposed to be in the room before check-in, Daniel, not during.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, putting my toiletries away in the corner closet.
“Well, I’ll let it go this time.”
I thanked him and sat on my bed with my back against the shelf and my feet over the edge of the mattress.
Mr. Wright took a few steps into the room and crossed his arms as he looked to the desk by the window where Terence sat.
“So,” he began. “Now that everyone has had a chance to settle down, can I assume this matter is behind us?”
“Ask them,” Terence spat, his face twisted up like a pretzel.
“I will be asking them as well, young man, but now I’m asking you. I trust everyone involved will honor their promise to be on their best behavior from now on.”
“Mm-hmm,” Terence mumbled. He clamped his hands behind his head.
“Very good,” Mr. Wright said, relaxing his arms down. “And things are going well in here, also?”
“Mm-hmm,” Terence repeated.
“And for you, Daniel?”
“You mean besides the fact I can’t shut this guy up?” I said, mocking a gabbing mouth with my hand.
Mr. Wright let out a little gust of air. “Well, it’s been a long day for all of us,” he said, “and I’m sure tomorrow will bring better things.”
About time…I thought, desperate for all those things I’d been denied.
Chapter 3
On the first day of school, I went to classes, ate a meal, and looked all over for Brenda Divine. After seeing the same faces too many times, I started to worry that she wasn’t coming back, that she and Todd had run away together. I pictured him pulling up in front of her house in a sports car or something, and driving away together with the windows down and the radio playing. Then I started thinking that I’d listened to too many Springsteen songs. Still, I started breathing easier when I spotted Brenda underneath the Arch.
“Bella Faccia!” I called to her. Her arms were tanned under a dress with no sleeves. Her cheeks looked a little emptier than I remembered, but she was still the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.
“Bella Faccia,” she echoed with half-a-smile. “I haven’t heard that in a while.”
“Where you been?” I asked playfully. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I was looking for you, too.”
“Really?” I said, straightening my spine. “How come?”
“Nothing. Well, something,” she said. “I have to get going, but I want to talk to you about Todd.”
“What about him?”
“He didn’t come back, did he?”
“No,” I said.
She exhaled. Kids shuffled by with their backpacks and whatnot, but Brenda seemed to be staring at the ground, off in space or something. She raised her head and her eyes didn’t seem as green as I remembered. A sparkle or something was missing.
“What?” I asked. “You didn’t know?”
“Not really,” she frowned. “We sort of broke up.”
“Say that again?”
She did, and I nodded even though I felt like breaking into an embarrassing dance.
“Well, I want to talk to you about that,” she said, moving toward the academic building. “Can you come by after classes tomorrow?”
“Why not today? I’m good today, you know. Today... works.”
&n
bsp; Very smooth.
Brenda blushed at my enthusiasm. “I have to talk to the soccer coach today,” she said. “I’m not playing this year.”
I should have known right then that something was wrong, because Brenda not playing soccer was like me not playing baseball, and I could never even imagine that. But at the time, all I could imagine was me and her meeting after school the next day.
“What time?” I asked.
“After classes,” she said, for the second time.
“Sure thing,” I said. “After classes.” I suddenly had a shirt full of spiders, though I fought the urge to wiggle until she walked away. Then I wiggled and filled up like a helium balloon.
Instead of floating off to class, I walked a couple of loops through the Arch, then ducked into the mail room. I was the only one in there. There were two walls lined with fake-gold boxes, and a long wooden counter where bigger packages could be retrieved. You could also purchase school supplies, and just about any other item you wanted stamped with the name of Hamden Academy in bold.
The last wall was all cork, and covered in tacked notices I never read because they only listed stupid things about clubs or dances or whatnot. During the wrestling season, the boards held nothing but fliers about their matches. But this day was different, because it wasn’t even close to wrestling season, yet they’d taken it over already. The only thing up there — all over every inch of the boards — was a WANTED poster, with a photocopied picture of some wrestling shoes. On the bottom, it read: Dead or Alive. It didn’t make sense, of course, but the message was clear. At least it was clear to me. I should have known Mr. Wright was nuts to think that the deal with the wrestlers was going to go away just by moving Terence downstairs. I’d seen this kind of thing before.
The next day, right after last class, I walked under the Arch, over the road, and across a grassy meadow to the old wooden mansion where the fourth-year women lived. The brown paint peeled in some places, but the house stood in pretty good shape. A stoop led to a wraparound porch and a screen door. I wiped my palms on my dress pants as Brenda came down the wide staircase of the open foyer. She had changed into old jeans and a gray Hamden T-shirt. Her hair bounced in a ponytail.