by Barry Rachin
“No?”
“They’re eighth graders and their hormones are out of control.” She spoke impulsively without bothering to edit her remarks. “The children are already overwhelmed by the increased workload.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.” Grace shrugged. Principal Skinner rubbed his chin and a disgruntled noise welled up in his throat. “Well, at least you didn’t try to humor me.”
“And you didn’t shoot the proverbial messenger.”
"Sordid business earlier today," he said changing the subject.
“Sordid and unsavory,” she wasn’t quite sure if she should smile or assume a more serious expression, “but I think you handled it well.”
Around ten o’clock shortly after first period, the librarian, Miss Curson, caught Benny Finnegan thumbing through a glossy magazine, Slatternly Sluts and Brazen Bimbos. The boy with the floppy ears and goofy, Alfred E Newman smile was hunkered down at a table near the reference desk ogling the centerfold, when Miss Curson sidled up behind him. The librarian dragged Benny straight to the office where, after reviewing its content, Pam Sullivan slipped the girlie magazine in a manila envelope. "Benny Finnegan is here to see you,” she said delivering the envelope to Principal Skinner.
The secretary went back to where Benny was sitting. “What exactly is a slatternly slut?” Pam asked with a menacing edge to her voice. “Enlighten me.”
“I dunno,” Benny whined. In a daze, he seemed unable to properly collect his thoughts. “It’s just some stupid stuff. I dunno nothin’ at all.”
“Bimbo,” Miss Curson accentuated the first letter of the word with an explosive burst of air. “Can you even spell the word?”
The boy muttered something unintelligible, crooked his head to one side and began biting distractedly at a fingernail. “Speak up!” Miss Curson shouted.
“I only memorize the words on Mrs. Paulson’s vocabulary list. Bimbo ain’t on the list.”
The two woman eyed each other in disbelief. “No, I shouldn’t think so,” Pam said frigidly. Her brow furrowed and she leered at him suspiciously. “Something funny?” The boy shook his head violently. “Then why are you smiling?”
“When I’m scared,” Benny spoke haltingly, “I smile a lot. It’s a nervous habit.”
“Well,” Miss Curson noted, “judging by the look on Principal Skinner’s face when he opened the envelope, your cheek muscles are going to get a real good workout today.” Hearing this, the boy, who was snuffling and wiping his runny nose with the back of his hand, began to wail despondently.
He was still sobbing when Grace was summoned to join Principal Skinner for the formal inquisition. Pacing back and forth in front of Benny, Principal Skinner had the look of a man on the edge. At six foot five, two hundred and fifty pounds, even some male staff were intimidated by the hulking bear of a man. "This is how you reward Mrs. Paulson, a woman who dedicated her entire life to educating young minds?"
Benny Finnegan continued to make unintelligible snuffling sounds. "Where did you get this filth?" the principal demanded.
"Under my father's bed."
"Which is where it should have stayed," Grace noted dourly.
"You tell my old man I took his magazine, he'll kill me," Benny moaned and bent double with his fists balled up under his soggy eyes.
Now that the initial shock had worn off, Grace was beginning to collect her thoughts. Benny Finnegan was a C student at best. A goofy, lovable dope. But in his defense, he seldom caused trouble, and his father was as much to blame for leaving the dirty magazine lying about. In all likelihood, Mr. Finnegan would whack his son a half dozen times when he found out what happened. Then he’s take a short drive to Parker Street in the city’s south end where, in a back room off the shabby Convenient Mart, he would purchase the latest, December edition of Slatternly Sluts and Brazen Bimbos.
Principal Skinner continued to pace about the office for another minute or so waving the manila envelope fitfully in the air. He didn't seem particularly angry anymore but the boy was too upset to notice the difference. "Normally I'd call your parents for an indiscretion this reckless, but I'm going to give you a break. Just this once and against my better judgment."
He momentarily left the room. When the man returned he was lugging a small paper shredder, which he set up in the far corner. "You will sit here," he pointed to a chair next to the shredder, "and remove all staples from the inside binding. Then you can feed your father's girly magazine into the shredder, one perverted page at a time."
"What do I tell my dad," Benny Finnegan’s voice was cracking, "when he asks what happened to his favorite magazine?"
"Great question," Principal Skinner patted Benny playfully on the head, "and I'm sure between now and when you get home this afternoon, you'll figure out an equally clever answer."
Grace left the room and went back to class. Twenty minutes later, Benny Finnegan shuffled into the room wearing a haggard, beaten dog expression. The other children eyed him uncertainly but soon lost interest. Ten minutes later when the bell rang, Benny bolted for the door, but Grace pulled him up short. She waited for the other children to empty out of the classroom. "Tough morning, huh?"
Benny kept his eyes lowered waiting for permission to slip away. "You did something pretty dumb today, but that doesn't mean you're stupid." There was no response. His face frozen in a sour knot, the boy was going catatonic on her. "How's your sister?" she asked, changing the subject altogether.
Benny raised his head. "Which one?" There were four Finnegan sisters in all.
"The bow-legged girl." It was, admittedly, a peculiar moniker to hang on someone, but the Finnegan's were a queer lot. The mother, a stout woman who suffered from chronic roseola, dominated her husband, who was a hair taller than a dwarf with a receding chin. When they came to the parent-teacher conference in October, the couple reminded Grace of the culturally challenged hillbillies in the movie Deliverance.
"Nadine. She's okay now, I guess."
Grace remembered a painfully thin girl in hand-me-down clothes. Where Benny was awash in freckles, Nadine's complexion was pale and flawless. She was a stick-thin beauty with jet black hair which she seldom bothered to comb, translucent, pearly skin and buttery almond eyes. The ungainly limbs were ridiculously long for the emaciated body and her pebbly teeth, which looked like they belonged in a toddler’s mouth, were separated by neat little spaces. The legs, like spring saplings, bowed perversely. Nadine Finnegan was damaged goods.
"Tell Nadine Mrs. Paulson was asking for her." Grace removed a small envelope from the desk drawer and handed it to Benny. "I wrote a short note to your parents, explaining what happened today. I told them that you were properly disciplined by Principal Skinner and terribly sorry for the foolishness." She peered at him intently. "You are sorry, aren't you?"
The boy grunted sheepishly and averted his eyes. "I suggested that your father find a more suitable place to store his adult reading material and not punish you anymore. What's done is done."
Benny Finnegan swallowed hard and his Adam's apple did a fleeting little jig bobbing up and down. "Gees, Mrs. Paulson, you're a peach." The boy mumbled something else under his breath but the words were unintelligible.
"Excuse me?"
"Mrs. Sullivan ain't half as nice as you," Benny growled. "She's just a plain old nasty bitch on a stick."
Grace smiled. Yes, Pam Sullivan, the office manager, is a sadistic, castrating bitch, who would spend the rest of the school year regaling the teaching staff with her personal account of Benny Finnegan's fall from grace.
“Bitch on a stick.” Grace turned the phrase over on her tongue, savoring the colorful imagery.
******
The geeky young man at Home Depot who helped Grace with the light switch was named Reginald Worthington. Grace reached Reginald at the number on his business card. “I want to wallpaper my living room.”
“No problem. Come by the store before closing and I’ll get you situat
ed. How’d you make out with the light switch?”
“After I remembered to shut the electricity off at the junction box, it was a piece of cake.”
Grace spent twenty-nine dollars and thirty-five cents. She bought a wide brush for smoothing out the wet paper, a utility knife with a set of snap-off blades, a seam roller, scoring tool and five-gallon pail of wall primer. Reginald discouraged Grace from purchasing the plastic water tray. “Just roll the sheets inside out and soak them in your bathtub.”
******
“Where’s the repeat?” Grace held the roll of flowered wallpaper up alongside a fresh cut piece. Angie slid the two sheets back and forth until the patterns meshed.
“That looks about right.” Two halves of a leaf fit snugly together. She penciled a mark on the paper and laid an aluminum square across the sheet. Her mother gave her a questioning look.
“I square up lumber with Carl. It’s the same process.” Angie cut the top then measured down six and a half feet and trimmed the bottom away from the roll. “Moment of truth.”
They let the paper soak in the bathtub for half a minute then checked for dry spots. Grace climbed up on the step ladder, easing the damp paper up against the wall along a vertical line they had drawn earlier using a plumb bob. She ran the bristle brush straight down the middle of the first sheet then, in a sweeping motion, flattened the paper against the wall brushing from the center toward either side. Angie crimped the bottom around the baseboard and trimmed the excess away with the utility knife.
“One down, twenty-eight to go,” Grace grinned and reached for the second sheet. At noontime they broke for lunch. The rear wall and half of one window was finished and, with the exception of a small patch under the window sill, they encountered no major problems.
“What the heck!” Angie gestured ominously toward the kitchen window. Dwight Goober was sitting on the rusty, backyard swing staring through the window at them eating their lunch.
Grace felt violated. She pulled on her coat and, grabbing the utility knife, wedged it in the pocket. “For God’s sakes, don’t do anything crazy!” Angie tried to restrain her mother, but Grace was already out the door.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Dwight just stared at her through bleary eyes. The bluish-red welts from his acne stood out in bold relief in the midday sun. “I ain’t bothering you.”
“You’re on my property, you idiot.”
Dwight rose and glowered at her, a cold-blooded, vindictive expression. She’d never seen such a look. The burnt out alcoholic at Adam’s Diner was physically repulsive; he had a foul mouth and violent disposition, but there was a critical difference between the two: the older man had a soul. Dwight’s eyes were dead - like looking into the soul of a monster, utterly satanic.
His feet remained firmly planted on the frozen earth while his upper torso twitched and twirled in a spastic dance. Grace felt her mind unraveling. She reached for the knife, placed her thumb on the plastic nub and, while still concealed in her coat pocket, extended the blade full length. “Get off my property.”
“Okay, bitch.” He rose from the swing and, in no great hurry, shambled off in the direction of the main street. “Wait a day or two. We’ll see who’s the idiot.”
Grace went back indoors. “What happened?” Angie pressed.
“Nothing. He just went away.”
“So why are you shaking?”
Her whole body was shimmering like jello. “I’m just cold, that’s all,” Grace said petulantly. “It’s getting late. Lets hang the rest of the paper before we lose the light.”
******
In the morning Grace called in sick to work and went over to the courthouse. A line in front of the red brick building stretched down the granite stairs halfway to the Dunkin’ Donuts. “What’s the problem?”
A boy with a stud in his nose and chipped tooth glowered at her. “Everyone’s got to pass through security.” Fifteen minutes later Grace made it to the front door.
The security guard ran her purse through a scanning device. “I need to speak to someone in probation.”
“Juvey or adult?” the guard asked.
“He’s a minor.”
“Second floor, turn right at the elevator.”
Grace took a seat on a wooden bench next to the Magistrate’s Office and waited for the window to open. Built in the late forties, the courthouse was quite elegant in its day; now the building was just a creaky old dinosaur with a cracked marble façade and faded wainscot. A good thirty people were already milling about, all inner city types. Teenage boys with garish tattoos on their necks and body piercings sprawled on benches next to a motley collection haggard, middle-aged women. No adult men accompanied any of the youths. No fathers. None at all.
A girl in her late teens took a drink from the water cooler. A silver hoop dangled from her nostril and her punk hairdo was dyed orange. The chesty girl wore stiletto heels and a tank top. Where her nipples mashed up against the thin, stretch fabric, a matching pair of nibs protruded.
“A tank top in early December,” Grace mused. “Very apropos!”
“Great news!” A balding man in a dark blue suit rushed up to the girl. “Judge tacked another year onto your current probation. Finito!”
“No jail time?” the girl pressed.
“Zippo!”
The girl’s mother leaned closer. “We ain’t paying no goddamn restitution!” Her brown hair was streaked with grey, the horsy teeth caked with a grungy yellow film. Despite a sallow complexion, she wore no makeup.
“No financial restitution. No jail time.” The lawyer waved a hand dismissively in the air. “Let’s go sign papers.” They marched off triumphantly toward a paneled door and disappeared into the judge’s chamber. The steel grate on the magistrate’s window rose with a metallic clatter. Grace approached the window. “I need to speak to someone in probation.”
“The youth’s name?” The man was in his sixties with blond hair and a pleasant smile.
“Dwight Goober.”
“Tall kid, ... awful complexion.”
Grace nodded.
“Your son?” Grace looked horrified. “You’re out of luck.”
What?”
“Dwight Goober turned seventeen a little over a month ago. He’s no longer technically a minor so he’s off probation.” Grace groaned and put her head in her hands. She told the officer what had happened. “You could get a restraining order,” the magistrate counseled, “but then it’s nothing more than a civil process. The bum gets a slap on the wrist and you’re back to square one.”
“I have a teenage daughter.” Grace was emotionally worn out, tired to death. Nothing made any sense. “This kid is terrorizing my family, running amok, and nobody cares.”
The older man stared at his hands with a sober expression. “Next time Dwight screws up, he’s off to the big house.”
“Next time?” Grace laughed convulsively, making a snorting sound through her nose. “It’s the next time that worries me.”
The man stared at her blankly. “He’s a nasty creep, but it’s out of my jurisdiction.”
Grace went out onto the courthouse steps. As she exited through the metal detector at the front of the building, the grey-haired mother and her daughter with the protruding nipples came skipping down the courthouse steps. They looked absolutely triumphant, delirious with joy. No jail time. No restitution. Grace was curious to know what crime the sluttish little felon committed but didn’t think either one would readily volunteer the information. The feisty, in-your-face defiance of both women was vintage Dwight Goober. The glacial eyes and brazen sneer that played at the corners of the lips branded them kindred spirits. At the bottom of the stairs the mother paused to light an unfiltered cigarette. She breathed in deeply blowing the white smoke out her nose in a thick plume. The woman offered her daughter a cigarette from the pack and lit it from the burning ash of her own butt.
Grace felt defiled, physically unclean. She would ha
ve to soak her weary bones in a shower of scalding water for at least a week to wash away all the fetid crud from a morning at the Brandenburg District Court.
******
As the winter progressed, Mrs. Shapiro obsessed with feeding the few remaining diehard birds. She sent Carl regularly to the feed and grain store to purchase supplies - a mixture of black sunflower seeds, cracked corn and millet for the jays and cardinals, thistle for the finches plus blocks of greasy suet for the woodpeckers and other, insect feeders. She occasionally asked Grace to help her restock the feeders. “Hard to believe,” the old woman said, letting a feathery-light thistle sift through her fingers, “there’s nourishment in such tiny seeds.” Mrs. Shapiro tended to stuff the feeders to overflowing.
“Except for the most common varieties, people don’t know their birds,” Grace said. “Recognizing the differences among species - the downy woodpecker, let’s say, from its close relative, the ladder-back or a goldfinch from a pine siskin - that’s a bit harder. But still, what’s the pleasure of bird watching if you don’t know what to look for? It’s like giving a house party and not bothering to remember your guests’ names.”
“I think,” Mrs. Shapiro protested warily, “your analogy’s a bit thin.” She pointed out the window in the direction of a tall pine tree in the back yard. “A pair of cardinals were here earlier. A male and his brown mate. They only stayed a short time. I think the hungry jays scared them off.”
Grace placed blocks of peanut butter suet in a rectangular, wire cage then wiped the greasy mess from her fingers. “Did you know that in winter, a black-capped chickadee can raise its body temperature to 107º Fahrenheit?” Grace was constantly collecting fragments of incidental trivia from various birding magazines and newsletters she subscribed to. “Their bodies become feathery furnaces, internal combustion systems to ward off the extreme cold..” She took a sip of tea and put the cup aside. “At night while they’re resting, their temperature can drop as much as 30º, a survival mechanism to preserve energy for daytime foraging.”
A loud din floated up from the basement. “I think the planer blades are getting a bit dull,” Mrs. Shapiro said. “Your daughter already knows how to set the thickness gauge, so Carl tells me.”