‘Actually, Kim, I think I’d like to know now. In fact, I insist on knowing now.’
Kim shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘Not possible, sir. Kwisin can show people what will happen in the future, but even Kwisin cannot tell what they will think of it. Some people much braver than others.’
‘You’re talking in riddles, Kim. I don’t like that. I want you to talk straight. Why is Kwisin so grateful?’
‘You will know soon, Mr Rook. I promise you.’
Jim stood there for a few moments, feeling increasingly frustrated by Kim Dong Wook’s refusal to answer him. But then he thought: Let this go, Jim. For now, anyhow. This will all unravel itself, sooner or later. And the last thing you want to do is antagonize this young guy.
‘OK, Kim,’ he said. ‘But I’m warning you now. Any more BS from you and you’re out of my class.’
Kim pressed his hands together and bowed his head. ‘Of course, Mr Rook. Quite understand, Mr Rook. In Korea they say, do not throw dirt into the well from which you drink.’
After recess, Jim stood up in front of the class and said, ‘I’m going to read you a poem.’
‘Oh, man,’ T.D. complained.
‘What’s the matter, T.D.?’
‘Come on, sir. I don’t object if you learn us how to communicate better. You know, how to tell our fellow human beings what we’re feeling inside. But poetry? How cissy is that?’
‘T.D., rap is poetry.’
‘Sure it is. But rap aint all daffodils and birds twittering in the trees and how does I love thee. Rap is like expressing your needs, and how angry you is. Rap is like saying this is me you dumbass and you got to respect me. Otherwise I’m going to blow your dumbass head off.’
Jim said, ‘Listen to the poem first, before you make any judgments. It’s called “Tomorrow Will Bring Me Roses” by Caitlin Livingston, who was a well-known poet from Marblehead, Massachusetts. And after I’ve read it, I want each of you to tell me what you want tomorrow to bring you.’
Teddy said, ‘It’s OK, sir. Please! You don’t have to read out the poem. I already know what I want tomorrow to bring me. Britney Spears. Naked, and smothered in molasses.’
The class whistled and laughed and Teddy sat down, clasping his hands triumphantly over his head like Rocky.
Leon leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms out, and opened his mouth in an ostentatious yawn. ‘Sleep,’ he said. ‘That’s what I want tomorrow. All day. And nobody waking me up by trying to read me any stupid poems.’
‘Hey – I want a phone call from the Raiders,’ said Grant. ‘Like, “We want you to wear the number eighty-six jersey for Saturday’s game against Seattle, and we’ll pay you fifty thousand dollars if you say yes.”’
Elvira Thomas said, ‘You know what I want? These amazing boots by Antonio Berardi. They don’t have heels. I mean who knows how you’re supposed to walk in them, but they look so-o-o fantastic, who cares?’
‘Hey, hey, hey, hold up!’ said Jim. ‘Before somebody tells me they want a recording contract with Sony or a house in Bel Air or a date with Jennifer Aniston, I want you to listen to this poem. It’s not all daffodils and birds twittering in the trees, T.D. In fact it’s pretty acerbic. Anybody knows what that means – acerbic?’
‘Is that like somebody from Serbia?’ Arthur suggested.
‘Good guess,’ said Jim. ‘But in this particular context it means bitter and harsh.’
He started to read, and as he did so he walked slowly up the aisle between the desks. Judii followed him with wide-open eyes. T.D. watched him, too, but kept jiggling his red-sneakered foot to show that he wasn’t really all that interested in poetry. Teddy was already scribbling pages of notes, while Billy was persistently tugging at one of the holes in his gray T-shirt so that it was growing even bigger, and Arthur was staring out of the window at the grassy slope outside, where four or five girls from Mrs Daumier’s art class were sketching the cedar trees.
Jim read:
‘Tomorrow when it comes for me
(and if it comes)
Will bring me roses, just like every other day
Your sweet apologies for everything you said and did
Tied with a silken ribbon like your lies.
‘Tomorrow when it comes for me
(and if it comes)
Will bring a fog of sunshine to my room
Light up the dust upon the table and the faded chairs
That photograph of us beside the lake
So leached of color that we look like ghosts.
Tomorrow when it comes for me
(and when it comes)
The phone will ring and ring and I will let it ring
Until it stops, and never rings again
And I will sit and listen while the roses die
Petal by petal, dropping on the floor.’
Jim stopped next to Maria Lopez, a quiet, plump girl with long black braids. She hadn’t said a word all morning, except to say ‘here, sir!’ when he had called out her name. She was wearing purple jeans and a bronze satin blouse with puffy sleeves and a necklace made of multi-colored wooden beads. She sat with her head bowed, fiddling with her wooden-bead bracelet as if it were a rosary, but Jim stayed where he was, close beside her, and recited the last verse as if he were reading it to her alone:
‘Tomorrow when it comes for me
(and it will come)
Will bring me rain, and breezes, and a walk alone
And all the roses in the park will nod their heads
As if they are applauding me for breaking free.
But – back at home, a silence. No applause.
No lies, no dying roses, only me.’
Jim closed the poetry book and went back to his desk. In his basket in the corner, Tibbles restlessly turned around and around, making the wickerwork creak, as he tried to get comfortable.
‘So, what do you make of that?’ Jim asked.
Judii said, ‘This woman is stone sick of the man in her life because he’s a lying creep and so she decides she’s going to dump him.’
‘Ah, yes. But will she?’
‘Yeah – she says so, doesn’t she? She knows he’s going to call her but she’s not going to answer the phone.’
‘OK . . . but she’s not going to dump him today, is she?’ said Jim. ‘The whole point of the poem is that she’s talking about what she’s going to do tomorrow. But if that faded photograph is anything to go by, she’s been forgiving this guy for more tomorrows than you can shake a stick at.’
‘I think there’s something else, too,’ Janice piped up, her cheeks flushing pink. ‘At the end of the poem she goes back home, doesn’t she, and it’s all silent and it’s almost like she misses him, even if he is a cheat and a liar.’
‘That’s very perceptive, Janice,’ said Jim. ‘She knows for certain that she’s going to get her roses tomorrow, by way of him saying sorry. And she knows for certain that he’s going to call her. She thinks that she ought not to answer his call, and she thinks she ought to leave him. But when she imagines what tomorrow is going to be like, all on her own, without him, she’s really not so sure that she will.’
Kim said, ‘What reason you choose this tomorrow poem, Mr Rook?’
‘That’s a strange question.’
‘I am interested you want to talk about tomorrow.’
Jim thought about it. Then he said, ‘I couldn’t tell you specifically, Kim. I guess I was interested to find out what each of you wanted tomorrow to bring you, if you had the choice.’
‘But none of us have choice. Tomorrow bring what tomorrow bring.’
‘I disagree with you, Kim. We always have some choice. If we choose to behave well toward the people we care for – if we choose to make the best of who we are and what we can do – then all of our tomorrows have every chance of being so much more rewarding.’
‘Sure,’ said Leon. ‘So long as we don’t step off of the curb and get hit by a four-one-three bus.’
Jim stared at him. ‘A four-one-three bus? Why a four-one-three bus?’
Leon pulled a face. ‘How should I know? It’s the only bus in LA I’ve ever ridden on.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Jim. He couldn’t help thinking about that packer at Ralph’s saying, ‘stepped off the curb – right in front of a four-one-three bus – driver stood on the brakes but he didn’t have a hope in hell.’
He stared at Leon for a long, long moment, but Leon simply looked confused. He obviously had no idea of the significance of what he had said, and why it had made Jim react so sharply.
Jim turned back to Maria’s desk. ‘How about you, Maria? What would you like tomorrow to bring you?’
Maria raised her eyes. She had a round face with heavy black eyebrows that joined in the middle and a spread-out nose. ‘I do not know, sir. I cannot tell you.’
‘You must have some idea. How about winning the lottery? How about getting married?’
‘You believe that this all Latino girls ever think about? Winning the lottery and getting married?’
‘Hey, of course not. Only kidding. But surely you have some dream, don’t you?’
‘I dream only to be left alone, that is all.’
It was then that Jim saw the dark crimson bruises on her wrists – bruises that looked as if somebody had gripped her tight and twisted her arm. She had a bruise on her cheek, too, which she had covered up with foundation.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’s as good a dream as any other. Tamara – how about you?’
‘You know what I want tomorrow to bring me, Mr Rook. An offer from KTLA. Anchorwoman for the nightly news.’
‘Sure. But what about you? What about the way you feel about yourself?’
‘I feel fine. Tomorrow I will feel fine.’
‘Fine? Is that all?’
Tamara frowned at him. Her eyes flicked from side to side as if she were trying to focus on something inside of her head – something that unsettled her. ‘I feel fine,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t want to think about tomorrow. The bathroom. The bath’s overflowing. There’s too much red.’
‘Tamara?’ said Jim. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘What?’
‘What do you mean about the bathroom?’
‘What?’ She didn’t seem to understand what she had said.
Jim stood up straight and looked around the classroom. Outside, the sun was shining and the girls from Mrs Daumier’s art class were still drawing. Yet he was aware of a strange feeling of dislocation inside Special Class Two, as if none of his students were sure what they were doing here. It was the same feeling that Jim had experienced after a bus crash, on a tour of Italy. Nobody had been hurt, and yet afterward everybody had milled around by the side of the highway, bewildered.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you about tomorrow,’ he said, returning to his desk. ‘You all seem to have enough problems dealing with today.’
‘Hey, I know what I want tomorrow to bring me!’ T.D. volunteered. ‘An Uzi, so I can scare the living crap out of my mom’s latest boyfriend!’
‘Yes, well,’ Jim told him. ‘When I say that you all seem to have enough problems dealing with today, that’s a prime example.’
During the midday break, Jim drove Tibbles home. As he was lifting the cat basket out of the back seat of his car, Mrs LaFarge appeared at the top of the steps, carrying a huge bouquet of white lilies.
‘Well, well!’ she said, and she sounded more than a little disapproving. ‘Bought yourself a new cat already, Jim? And Tibbles not even cold in his grave.’
Jim climbed the steps and set the basket down on the landing. ‘Somebody made me a surprise offer of a new cat, Mrs L., and I couldn’t really say no. Besides, I’ve always had a cat around. I have to have somebody to complain to, even if they can’t answer back.’
Mrs LaFarge nodded. ‘I know what you mean. It took me years to get used to living on my own, when my late husband passed over, even though he never said a single word from one week’s end to the next. My sister used to call him Bloc-de-Bois, my lump of wood.’
Tibbles let out one of his irritated ‘warrooows’. Mrs LaFarge said, ‘Aren’t you going to show me? Is it a he or a she?’
‘It’s a he. Pretty much the same as Tibbles. Half Russian Blue and half something else. Nothing much to look at.’
‘Well, come on, then. Let me say bonjour.’
Jim cocked his head and lifted a hand to his ear. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs L.! I can hear my phone ringing! Listen – I’ll bring him down later and we can have a proper cat-warming party. Maybe you can help me think of a name.’
‘Your phone is ringing?’ frowned Mrs LaFarge. ‘I don’t hear anything.’
‘It’s my new ringtone. Sounds just like cicadas.’ Jim scooped up the cat basket and quickly mounted the next flight of steps. He opened the door of his apartment, carried the basket into the kitchen and set it down on the table. When he lifted the lid, he expected Tibbles to jump out immediately, but Tibbles stayed where he was, staring at him with undisguised disgruntlement.
‘OK,’ said Jim, and lifted him out. ‘You’ve had a very difficult morning. We both have. One minute you’re squashed flat, then you’re three-dimensional again. I can understand how you feel. But you have to understand how I feel, too. I thought I’d lost you for ever, and I was going to have to get to know some totally new cat, right from scratch, so to speak.’
He held Tibbles close and stroked his ears. ‘Listen, Tibbles, I don’t understand what’s happened any more than you do, and even if you did you couldn’t explain it to me, could you? You don’t even sign. So let’s agree to accept it and draw a line under it and move on, OK? Friends?’
Tibbles hesitated for a moment. Then he wrestled himself free from Jim’s arms and jumped down on to the kitchen floor. He padded over to his dish and started to eat his shrimp dinner. Jim could only presume that he was forgiven.
He picked up the empty basket and left his apartment. Tibbles didn’t attempt to run out of the door this time, and the last that Jim saw of him he was still bobbing his head down over his bowl.
Mrs LaFarge was standing at her window as he passed her apartment, arranging her lilies. He waved at her and gave her a smile. He thought the lilies made her kitchen look like a funeral parlor.
FOUR
As he turned into the college parking lot, he saw Kim standing in the shadow of one of the cedar trees, talking to Maria. He climbed out of his car, slamming the door twice because it didn’t fit properly. Kim was making chopping gestures with both hands, while Maria nodded and nodded as if she were agreeing with him.
Jim walked up to them and held out the empty cat basket. ‘Here, Kim. You can take this back now. I just took Tibbles home.’
Kim took the basket and bowed his head. ‘Thank you, Mr Rook. Cat is happy to return, yes?’
‘In every sense of the word, yes he is. I don’t really think he knows what hit him, any more than I do.’
‘Door close, Mr Rook,’ said Kim, with the faintest suggestion of smugness. ‘Then door open, like I say before. One day maybe door close for ever. But . . . maybe not.’
‘Well, let’s leave it like that for now, shall we? How are you guys? OK?’
Maria said nothing, but lowered her eyes, and looked away. Kim said, ‘Maria and me, we discuss future life. Like in “Tomorrow Will Bring Roses” poem.’
‘Oh, yes? You’ll have to tell me about it.’
‘We will, Mr Rook. But not yet. Nobody can speak about future life until they have seen future life. Not for certain.’
Jim looked at Kim narrowly, trying to work out what he was driving at. Kim seemed to have a philosophical agenda of some kind, like a Scientologist or a Zen Buddhist or a Zoroastrian, but Jim couldn’t really work out what it was. Doors opening, doors closing – what the hell was all that about? In Zen Buddhism, the world was going to end after the Three Great Calamities – Fire, Water and Wind. In Zoroastrianism, the whole world was going to be floo
ded in molten metal, to purify it, and that was going to be the end of that. The Big Sizzle. But doors closing for ever? Or maybe not closing for ever?
As he walked up the steps into the main entrance, Jim turned around just one more time. Maria had raised one hand to cover her face, as if she were trying to conceal the fact that she was crying. He stopped for a moment, but then he decided that it would be better not to interfere, at least not yet. Kids. They drive you doolally.
On his way back along the wax-polished corridor, he heard a woman’s footsteps click-clacking up behind him. When he turned around he saw that Sheila Colefax was trying to catch up with him.
‘Oh – Jim! Jim! Could I have a word?’
‘Hey, I’m sorry, Sheila, I swear to God, I’m doing my best to keep the pandemonium down to a minimum, but they don’t call it a remedial class for nothing. Those kids still need a whole lot of remediating.’
‘No, no. The noise level is quite acceptable, thank you. I’ll be sure to tell you if it disturbs us.’ Sheila Colefax took off her black-framed eyeglasses and gave her head a little shake, which loosened her hair. Jim was tempted to say, ‘Why, Ms Colefax . . . without your glasses . . . you’re beautiful!’ but he managed to resist it. Maybe she really was wearing black stockings and a garter belt.
‘There’s a poetry recital Friday evening at the Brentwood Theater. The Santa Barbara School. I’ve been given tickets and I was wondering if you’d like to come.’
‘The Santa Barbara School?’ said Jim, suspiciously. ‘They’re, like, feminists, aren’t they?’
‘Insofar as they have always believed that women have as much literary fire in their bellies as men. But they’re not militants, if that’s what you mean.’
Jim looked down at Sheila Colefax and realized for the first time that her eyes had very unusual violet-colored irises, and that she had the slightest of overbites, her top teeth cushioned on her lower lip, which for some unknown reason he had always found absurdly attractive. Actually, he did know what the reason was: it made a woman look hesitant and defenseless, as if she would be putty in his hands. He had experienced quite enough relationships with women who were domineering and opinionated and wanted to sit on top of him every time, as if they were lurching down the Grand Canyon on a rented mule.
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