by Suzette Mayr
After a lunch spent eating an egg salad sandwich from the machine in the cafeteria and looking out his office window at a snowy honeysuckle hedge, he meets with two students, Laura Giardini at 2:30 p.m. who wants to argue about her aptitude test, — I don’t want to be a hairdresser, I want to be a lawyer, why doesn’t the test show that I should be a lawyer? Can I take it again? How many times?
Josh Gatchalian at 3:00 p.m. who doesn’t want to talk about anything, — My mom told me to come, he says. — Nope, don’t know why I’m here. So what if I’m failing band, I never wanted to play the trombone anyway, only fags get good grades in band, Mr. Boyle.
Only a half an hour left in this Monday. Walter opens files on both Laura Giardini and Josh Gatchalian, adds their file icon selves to his list, types in Laura’s history from her pink Grade 10 sheet, figures out Josh’s aptitude test results say he’s suitable for the police or law enforcement or party planning. Walter leaves a voice mail on Josh’s parents’ phones, — I think it would help Josh if we all had a meeting to talk about why playing the trombone is vital. Okay. Awesome. Hope you have a great evening!
Sequestered in his office, he opens his Tupperware again, a piece of carrot crunched in half when he picks up the ringing phone and Max is calling him from down the hall, — Mr. Boyle. Walter, I need to speak with you immediately. I need you.
A piece of carrot half-bitten, half-chewed, the secret thrill he gets when he has to interact with his boyfriend at work. Their dangerous, exciting secret.
Thirty seconds later, his hand on the principal’s doorknob.
The door opening, the vice-principals Morty and Gladys standing at attention on either side of the principal, a carved wooden crucifix hanging on the wall behind his head. Their silence cool metal. Walter’s heart falters.
Walter’s Monday should have been the tedious photocopy of every other Monday, but Max the principal tents his pale fingers and breaks open the rotting egg of Patrick Furey’s suicide to him and the two vice-principals, turning this Monday into a Monday of unique suffering.
— A student in our school has made the disastrous decision to end his life, Max says, his voice quavering. — I have already begun taking the appropriate measures.
It’s okay to cry, Maxie, Walter wants to say. You blubber away. — I’ll draft a memo for the teachers and staff, Walter says instead.
— And put in your memo, says Max, — that staff and teachers are forbidden to discuss the death with the students until I have all the facts. We’ll let the students know on Wednesday.
— In my position as head guidance counsellor I have to ask if you really think that’s a good idea, Max, says Walter. — Better to give them the facts as we know them as soon as possible because the students will figure it out themselves but they’ll figure it out all wrong. We know enough already about how he died, don’t we? Today’s Monday. By tomorrow afternoon the rumours will be out of control. Better to get the grief counsellors in first thing Tuesday morning.
— Get that memo written up, says Max, turning to his desk and picking up a stack of paper. — You may go now, Walter.
Walter exits the office like a butler instructed to go scrub the chamber pots, his face and feelings sutured tight as he trudges back down the hallway, slams through the drawers on his office desk, prepares to write his memo, Monday fucking afternoon.
He tries not to dissolve into the 98 percent water he is made of when Joy rushes into his office and grips him in a bosomy hug.
— Oh Walter, she says, as she grips his upper arm, his overflowing waist, — You looked so sad. Like you needed a hug.
— Sometimes it is hard to understand God’s plan, gasps Walter, trying to pull himself away. — We just have to trust He knows what He is doing. The boy’s in a better place now.
He accidentally touches her bra strap through her blouse, yanks his hand back, pulls himself away from Joy. Clumsily pats her on the shoulder. Joy’s crinkled eyes squish out tears.
— I never understand how that’s supposed to make someone feel better, she says in a flannelly voice, her nose bright red.
Walter starts to draft the memo that Joy will slip into all the teachers’ mail slots Tuesday morning. He tries to hunt down the right words for the memo, thumbing through his thesaurus, settling for appropriately vague, consoling words: unfortunately rather than tragically, passed away rather than died, please refrain rather than forbidden. His face to the computer screen in his office, he swallows, his Adam’s apple sliding up his throat, tipping further up into his sinus cavity, cutting off his breath.
They meet Monday night in the front foyer of their house, Walter and Max, when Max finally swings closed and bolts the door behind him. He kicks off his winter boots, the air heavy. Walter puts a hand on each of Max’s shoulders.
— This day, exhales Max.
— I’ll crack you open a beer, Maxie, says Walter. He kisses Max’s temple. The skin sticky.
They eat from the bowls of stew in front of them, Lieutenant Fong perched neatly in Walter’s lap, studying every movement of his spoon from the bowl to the mouth to the bowl. Max inserting spoonfuls of stew into his own mouth as though administering to an assembly line: deposit, chew, swallow, deposit, chew, deposit, swallow.
Walter’s lips slack, Max’s lips tight.
— At least it didn’t happen on school property, says Max, his words clipped and cauterized. — That’s one good thing.
Walter’s ears pop. — What did you just say? Walter’s spoon clattering into his bowl. Lieutenant Fong skitters to the floor from Walter’s lap.
The growing puddle of stew in Walter’s belly sour, coagulated.
— It didn’t happen on school property. It’s technically not a school issue.
— You know what? says Walter, — This stew tastes like diarrhea. It looks like diarrhea too.
— My mother made this stew, snaps Max.
— Lucky she didn’t make it on school property.
Max’s jaw clicking rhythmically, the scrape of his metal spoon on the bottom of the ceramic bowl. Walter tosses his bowl in the sink, grabs the pot from the stove.
— Oh, and by the way, I don’t appreciate the way you talked to me today, says Walter as he scrubs the glutinous remains of the stew from the pot with steel wool, his man-boobs bobbing under his T-shirt. — We have enough facts about how the boy died. What other details do you need?
Max stands up from the table, rattles cups and plates in the dishwasher as he inserts and reinserts them, his elbows jabbing, stabbing the air.
— Do I need to remind you of suicide contagion? says Max, his face swivelling from the dishwasher to Walter, pencil-dot eyes. — Or are you having some kind of neuron seizure? You cannot even begin to conceive of the damage this will do to the school’s reputation, can you?
Walter harrumphs as he slops the dishrag back and forth across the counter, knots up the plastic bag of garbage, the bag sloppy and heavy as he trudges it out the back door. He swings the green garbage bag in an arc into the trashcan, the metal clanging, the bag landing with a tinny squelch. He clumps back into the house, snow squeaking under his feet.
— The students will not find out ahead of Wednesday that there was a death, says Max. — Or any erroneous details about the death, if news management is done correctly. News management is your job. He slams the dishwasher door closed, his elbows folding back to his sides.
Walter sloshes water into the kettle for a cup of instant decaf.
Walter regards Max in his old sweatpants, his oversize T-shirt proclaiming Don’t Mess with Sulu drooping over his ass, Max locking the dishwasher door, stabbing the On button.
— Tell me, says Walter. — What are you feeling? It’s okay to cry.
— One moment please. I can’t hear a word you’re saying with the water on, Max says in that strident principal’s voice that makes Walter want to set his own hair on fire as he double-checks, triple-checks the lights on the dishwasher. — What did you say? asks Max.
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— Oh forget it, says Walter, turning to the cupboard for a coffee cup. He stops. His hand rests on the cupboard door.
Something suspended inside him has just dropped. Lieutenant Fong meows.
Max adjusts the single magnet on the fridge, a mini replica of the Starship Monoceros from his favourite television show, Sector Six. He brushes past Walter on his way out of the kitchen and into the TV room because tonight is Monday night and Monday night is Sector Six night even if it’s just mid-season reruns and a boy died today. Max dusty, mouldy, plumped on the couch.
Sunday, Saturday, Thursday, Friday. Last Friday.
Walter should have noticed, should have hooked the dead boy Patrick Furey back from the edge of that cliff. He should have stood at the bottom and let the boy bounce off his belly. Walter never met the parents, he never met the dead boy really except to squirm across the desk from him last Friday as the boy insisted on opening his mouth and confessing his obsessions into Walter’s ears. Patrick Furey was addicted to another boy. I’m in love, he told Walter. Patrick’s voice jumping and squeaking as he creaked forward on the chair opposite Walter, Walter nervously spooning out globs of canned therapy-speak as fast as he could in the direction of the boy, — Is that so? How do you feel about that? Really? Mm-hmm.
Walter noting every papery curl, every ragged edge of the posters pinned to the wall behind the boy’s head: the poster of the Hang In There ginger kitten clinging to a fence, the Black History Month poster trumpeting Inspiration in rainbow colours. Walter still managing to blob out platitudes, a horse shitting in a geometrically perfect line in a parade.
But as the dead boy talked, his problem mushroomed between them, the boy blowing his problem into a giant word balloon that squished them into opposing corners, — He’s in my English class, said the soon-to-be-dead boy. — I really love him. He gave me his grandmother’s necklace. I can’t sleep anymore, Mr. Boyle. This school is an insane asylum. They stole my skateboard. Mr. Applegate says that because it was off school property the school isn’t responsible.
— Insane asylum is a bit harsh, don’t you think? said Walter.
The chair’s hiss as the boy leaned forward, fingers at his chest, fiddling with the heart pendant on the long chain around his neck, his sweater on inside out, his eyes wet and wide. He said, — You know what I mean, right?
The dead boy wearing a girl’s heart-shaped locket around his neck. His fingers tangling in the delicate chain. His heart exposed outside his clothes.
— I don’t know what you mean, said Walter.
— Well you’re— you’re—
— No, Walter said. Because he would not lose his job for this kid. — Let’s focus, he said. — This isn’t about me. Sounds like your problem is a lack of focus. You don’t know what your feelings are. You’re distracted from your schoolwork. Keep focused on the important things.
Walter caught up a pencil from his desk, started tapping his front teeth with the eraser end. He dropped the pencil, slid open his desk’s top drawer and crinkled open a package of Sezme Sesame Snaps. Crunched a Sezme wafer loudly.
The boy leaned back in his chair. His mouth a straight line.
Walter finished chewing his Sezme. Swallowed. Picked sesame seeds from his teeth with tongue, then cleared his throat. He picked up his pencil. — Life is all about focus, Walter said, resuming tapping the pencil against his teeth.
— Mmm, said the boy.
— Awesome, said Walter. — Thanks for the talk. Good luck!
And the boy slipped from the office. Walter too sweaty to call out a goodbye, his hands clasped in his lap to clamp down on the shaking.
The boy left the door ajar so Walter wheeled over in his desk chair and pushed it closed himself. He turned to his computer and clicked open a new file. The boy’s name, Furey, Patrick under the file icon. Under category Hobbies, Walter typed, Likes skateboarding, into the electronic file. He clicked the file closed, then turned to his lunch bag for another package of Sezme Snaps. He jammed all the Snaps in at once, the sharp corners piercing his gums.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Monday. Monday. Monday. Monday.
The boy having solved his problem then.
Mrs. Mochinski
As Mrs. Mochinski pulls open the door to the school Tuesday morning, she smells that familiar smell of floor cleaner, basketball rubber, gym socks and chalk, the smell that tricks her into believing every time she walks into the school that she hasn’t yet received her Grade 12 diploma, that she hasn’t yet gotten past high school or scored a high-paying corporate job like the ones they always give advice about in the newspaper’s career section. She grabs her mail from her pigeonhole, scuttles through the hallways, traversing the long, wrong, subterranean way to her classroom because she doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Anyone. She unlocks the door of her classroom, inadvertently slams it behind her. She found the divorce papers in her mailbox this morning. Her husband’s inky signature scrubbed into the papers. He dropped them off last night, in the dark, like a coward. When she signs the papers she will be a single woman, and her life will be over.
Then she reads the memo, the paper limp in her hand. Reads that she and all the other teachers are to ‘Please refrain from discussing the tragedy with students until Principal Applegate has gathered all the facts.’ For a moment, she can’t even remember who Patrick Furey is, is sure she’s never taught him, and then her head threatens to cave in.
In her ten-minute Teacher Advisor group first thing this morning, the unicorn girl who always sits in the front shoots her hand into the air.
— Mrs. Mochinski? she asks, and Mrs. Mochinski dreads the question she knows will come, she just knows it. — Where’s Patrick today?
— Patrick? answers Mrs. Mochinski, scrambling with her chalk, her chalk holder, trying to stop her hands from trembling.
— I don’t know. He’s away obviously.
He’s away obviously. What is she? An android with a microchip instead of a heart? The stick of chalk in her hand snaps in half. She shakily fishes another one out of the box. Coughs. — Okay, time to call attendance, people, so listen up! she says.
And, accordingly, the rest of the day spirals down the shithole.
— Hanged himself is the correct grammar, Mrs. Mochinski corrects the goth girl in the afternoon English class, and immediately she wants to kick herself, correcting grammar about hanging on this day of all days, the dead boy’s desk a gaping hole in the middle of the classroom. The goth girl swearing like a trucker.
— This will be on the next quiz, she continues, trying to recuperate some kind of control. — Fumiko, quit swearing! And by the way, you people, Romeo killed himself with a vial of poison, not through hanging. Pay attention. This will be on the next quiz!
The students’ antennae spring up and they all write down Quiz on shreds and sheets of paper, backs of books, backs of hands. Then the class bursts into whispers. The worst little fucker of them all at the back of the class stands on top of his desk and whinnies into his hand.
— You at the back of the class, says Mrs. Mochinski. — You can raise your hand like everyone else, she says, and then her vocal cords kick back so she coughs. — Let’s have some respect around here, she croaks. Her voice dying early today. She tries to inhale a deep yoga breath, yoga breaths are supposed to keep the anger away.
Jésus raises his hand.
— Yes? she asks.
— Because he was a homo-sek-shhhhyoo-al, says Jésus.
The baseball caps at the back of the room howl with laughter, and she wants to shove a bar of Irish Spring soap in his mouth and scrub until it foams. She chokes on her yoga breath.
— What’s your problem, Unicorn Girl? he smirks to the unicorn girl.
— We don’t talk that way in class, Jésus. You know I think that attitude smells like poo, says Mrs. Mochinski. She grabs up her copy of Romeo and Juliet from the desk. — Where have all the manners gone? And there is no obvious indication in the play
that Romeo was a homosexual, but if you have proof to support your statement, by all means educate us— using respectful and appropriate language. Please—
Her voice too shrill, the control seeping away, she coughs again, these students make her sick!
— What’s wrong with the word unicorn? asks Jésus. — Is it pronounced unicorn-ee? Shit!
Mrs. Mochinski crosses her arms over her copy of Romeo and Juliet. She wants to boil Jésus’s guts in a pot. She wants to go home and pour herself a salad-bowl-sized glass of wine.
— Homosexual? says Jésus. — What’s wrong with the word homo-sek-shhhhyoo-al? Well, he was.
— You can talk about that with the veep if you keep pushing it, Jésus.
— All right! I’m sorry.
Jésus and his little crew giggling and poking. She will get through this day. She will live to the end.
— Now, asks the dead boy’s teacher, pretending her students are nothing but the hum of the furnace, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, — Now, she repeats. — Can someone please tell me how we know Romeo’s love for Juliet is the real thing?
Mrs. Mochinski does not want to die on this Jésus hill, her hands full of paper and chalk dust. God, her underwire bra is stabbing a major artery and she may be dead before the last bell, the thousands of students trampling her body as they buffalo-jump out the door. The dead boy’s desk sits in the middle of the room and she isn’t allowed to say anything to the students because the principal doesn’t have all the facts. Why would having the facts matter?
She turns her back to the class, her copy of Romeo and Juliet clutched in her hand. She rolls a piece of chalk between the fingers of her other hand, the many eruptions in the classroom only a background hum. Her face to the board, her fingers picking up then clinking down roll after roll of chalk. Her nose moist, just on the verge of running, her wedding ring dull under the dust. The dead boy a homosexual.