‘Actually, Sheila, I’m not too sure,’ he told her. ‘I think I might already have plans.’ Then he thought: Excuse me, Jim. What plans, exactly? Sitting on that springless maroon couch with a bottle of Fat Tire beer, watching yet another repeat of The Mentalist, with Tibbles rattling on your lap?
‘It was just an idea,’ said Sheila, replacing her eyeglasses. She looked a little hurt, but also as if she was used to being hurt. ‘Why don’t you get back to me? I think it could be fun.’
‘Fun’ wasn’t exactly the word that Jim would have chosen for an evening of warm chardonnay and crop-haired women reading out poems about getting their revenge on wife-beaters, but off the top of his head he couldn’t think of a better one, so he said, ‘Sure. Yes. I’ll let you know. The Brentwood Theater? That’s on Wilshire, isn’t it?’
Sheila said, ‘Yes. Wilshire. I’ll wait to hear from you.’ She click-clacked back to her classroom in her pencil skirt and he stood in the middle of the corridor watching her. No VPL. Maybe she wasn’t wearing a garter-belt. Maybe she was wearing a black lace thong. Maybe she wasn’t even wearing that.
That afternoon it started to thunder, and Jim gave Special Class Two a list to study.
As he handed them out, he said, ‘This is a list of one hundred ideas by a writer called Michael McClure, who is a well-known writer of what they used to call the Beat Generation. Nineteen-sixties hippies, to you. A typical idea in this list is “The Stars Are A Gas.” Another one is “Man Is A Panda.” Yet another, “War Is One Color.” It’s safe to say that none of you will understand what in hell Michael McClure is talking about.’
‘So why do we have to read it?’ T.D. demanded. ‘You tryin’ to prove that we all stupid or somethin’? We already know we all stupid. We’re not that stupid.’
‘You won’t be able to understand any of Michael McClure’s ideas at face value, but then you’ll be gratified to know that nobody can.’
‘Well, if nobody can understand him, why does anybody have to read what he write? Especially us. What are we, like goatscapes?’
‘That’s scapegoats, T.D. But no you’re not. This list of ideas will show you that words can be so much more than just descriptions, or explanations, or instructions. OK, words can tell you that the sky is gray and it looks like a storm’s brewing up. Words can warn you that you’re driving the wrong way on the freeway off-ramp, or that a candy bar may contain nuts. But words can also stretch your brain to its very limits, right to the very edge of your sanity. Come on, you know that from rap.
‘Words can give you brilliant insights, even if they don’t appear to have any literal meaning. Words can do unimaginable things.’
‘Like say what, for instance?’ asked Arthur, leaning on his elbow to show how unimpressed he was.
‘OK – let me give you a comparison, from basketball. Think about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook shot. If you had tried to tell people about that skyhook shot before he actually did it, it would have sounded impossible. They would have said, “Nah – nobody can climb straight up into thin air like they’re going up a ladder.” But Kareem did, using the same muscles that everybody else has, and it was amazing. It was a revelation. What I’m hoping is that some of you may find a similar kind of revelation in this list by Michael McClure. A skyhook, inside of your mind.’
Lightning flickered behind the San Gabriel mountains, and after a few seconds they heard the crumpling of thunder.
‘I don’t think God approves of this Michael McClure dude,’ said Billy. ‘I think He’s trying to tell us to go back to reading Hustler instead.’
‘Just get on and study it, Billy,’ Jim told him. ‘Make notes if it’ll help you. Tomorrow I’m going to ask you to write ten original ideas of your own. Ten off-the-wall ideas, like these are. Not just “Eating Ten Krispy Kreme Donuts At One Sitting Will Temporarily Make You Hyperactive.”’
While the class shuffled and muttered and coughed and scratched their heads over their assignment, Jim perched himself on the corner of his desk to read through the menus they had selected for their last meals on Death Row.
Leon’s was the first. Lox, eggs and onions for starters, followed by a triple-decker sandwich of knockwurst, pastrami, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing and coleslaw, on grilled rye bread, finishing up with a sour cream, raisin and nut rugelach.
Although Leon would have broken the first commandment to end up on Death Row, Jim was interested to see that he was still going to make sure that his last meal was completely kosher. He might be sarcastic and defiant in class, but Jim guessed that he was very respectful to his family at home, and at the synagogue. That gave Jim a good handle on how to deal with him when he was being obnoxious. Ask him how his parents would feel if they knew that he was behaving like such a schmendrick. Ask him what his rabbi would say.
To Jim’s surprise, Grant wanted ‘Lobster ravilolli followed by roce chicken with black figgs and sore toe potatoes.’ In spite of the creative mis-spellings, Jim was impressed. Grant clearly saw himself as more than just a highly successful football player. He saw himself as a highly successful and wealthy football player, who would be able to live a sophisticated life of luxury. His menu suggested that he had been reading celebrity magazines like OK! although Jim doubted if he would ever admit it. The only nagging uncertainty that he would ever play at the thirty-million-dollar-a-year level was revealed in his choice of dessert, a Twinkie. But Jim realized that there was a whole lot more to Grant than he liked to show anybody – a yearning for glamour, as well as sporting glory. A feminine side. He was the kind of guy who could knock you flat with one punch but still used moisturizer.
Then there was Kim’s menu: bindaddeok, mi yeok guk, dak gal bi and in jeol mi. Jim wouldn’t have been able to understand it at all unless Kim had translated it, but now he knew that it was very uncomplicated: only beef and chicken and vegetables and rice. But that was like Kim himself: although he liked to appear mysterious, he was using enigmatic words to hide a very simple secret.
Simple, but not necessarily benign. Jim had encountered enough demons to know that whatever they gave you, they always wanted something in return, and that what they wanted in return was usually more than you were able to pay. If Kim was capable of bringing a crushed animal back to life – or he knew somebody or something that could – he had to have a motive for being here at West Grove that went far beyond remedial English.
Elvira had been waving her arm for nearly half a minute to attract his attention. ‘Sir? Michael McClure says here, “Men feed mustangs to dogs, and whales to cats.” What does he mean by that?’
Jim said, ‘So far as I can make out, he’s pointing out that we nourish our domesticated pets with the flesh of wild animals. He wants us to think about the rights and the wrongs of it. Most of us humans eat animals, too – some of them tame, like cows, some of them wild, like deer. Is it morally right for us to do that?’
‘I think it’s morally wrong for us to eat anything that can’t put up any kind of a fight,’ said T.D. ‘You know, like carrots. Or baked beans.’
‘Carrots and baked beans don’t have emotions,’ Janice Sticky protested.
‘Yeah, but Big Macs don’t have emotions, neither. Did you ever see a Big Mac cry?’
‘Just get on and finish the text,’ Jim put in. ‘We can talk about vegetarianism later.’
All the same, the next Death Row menu he picked up had only one word written on it, and that word was ‘Lettis.’
The name on the top of the paper was Patsy-Jean Waller. Jim looked up at her. She was sitting in the front row, at the opposite end from Kim Dong Wook. All the euphemisms in the dictionary couldn’t have disguised the fact that she was obese, well over two hundred and twenty pounds, with curly brown hair scraped back with a yellow plastic Alice band, and eyes that were little more than slits. She was wearing a loose brown smock to cover her enormous breasts and her protuberant stomach, and underneath she was wearing tight white leggings and yellow vinyl Crocs.
Jim
stood up and went across to Patsy-Jean’s desk. She was reading the Michael McClure text with intense concentration, moving her lips as she did so, and she didn’t realize for nearly half a minute that Jim was standing next to her.
‘Patsy-Jean?’ said Jim, very gently.
She looked up at him, and blinked, her mouth turned downward as if she had done something wrong without knowing what it was.
‘I just read what you wanted for your last meal,’ he told her.
She swallowed hard, and her double chins wobbled. ‘Did I spell it wrong?’ she asked him in a hoarse voice. ‘I can never spell it right.’
‘Yes, you spelled it wrong,’ Jim told her, with a smile. ‘But don’t worry about it. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be spelling “radicchio” with your eyes closed.’
Patsy-Jean tried to smile, but it was obvious that she still felt anxious. Jim said, ‘It really wasn’t much of a meal, was it? Lettuce. Didn’t you even want some tomatoes with it? Maybe a couple of scallions, or half an egg?’
Patsy-Jean’s cheeks flushed red. ‘I want God to know that I’d repented.’
‘And lettuce? That’s your penance?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve been eating too much all of my life and it’s a sin. I didn’t put on the freshman fifteen when I started college. I put on about fifty.’
‘What are you talking about? Eating too much isn’t a sin, it’s a disorder. At the very worst, it’s a lack of self-discipline. People do far worse things in this world than eat too many chocolate fudge sundaes. People kill people, and actually get medals for it.’
Jim hunkered down beside her and said, ‘Listen, Patsy-Jean, one of the things I always do with Special Class Two is have each student stand up and explain what they want to change about themselves, and why. I’m not trying to play psychiatrist, or social worker. I’m trying to teach you how to express how you feel to other people. Once you’ve done that – once you can clearly describe to your classmates who you are and why you eat too much – I believe that you won’t be asking for lettuce for your last meal. Maybe a diet burger without the bun, and a jacket potato instead of fries, but that’s not too much of a penance, is it?’
Patsy-Jean’s slitty little eyes suddenly filled up with tears. Jim took hold of her hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m on your side, Patsy-Jean. We’re all on your side. You wait. Tomorrow you’ll get roses, I promise you.’
Halfway through the lesson, Maria put up her hand, and said, ‘Sir?’
Jim looked up from the notes he was jotting about Judii Rogers’ Death Row supper (a KFC family bucket, all for herself, with family-size fries, but with Moët champagne instead of Coke, and an Oreo cookie ice-cream pie to finish). ‘Maria?’ he asked her.
‘Can I leave the room, sir?’
Jim frowned at her. All the color had drained out of her face, so that the two spots of rouge on her cheeks looked almost like clown make-up, and her eyes were glassy black.
‘Are you OK there, Maria? You’re looking a little peaky, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘I’m OK,’ she nodded. ‘I just need to leave the room, that’s all.’
‘Sure you can. Do you want one of the other girls to go with you?’
‘No, thank you, sir. I’ll be fine.’
Maria stood up and tottered unsteadily out of the classroom, taking her gold vinyl bag with her. She had to pull at the door twice before she managed to close it. Jim checked his watch. Ten after three. He frequently had trouble with his students taking drugs – anything from their mothers’ tranquilizers to crystal meth. Maria wasn’t the usual type he would have flagged as a substance abuser, but she had spoken to him very aggressively when he asked her about winning the lottery and getting married, and she did have those crimson bruises on her wrists and her cheek. She obviously had some underlying problem, even if it wasn’t simply drugs.
He carried on writing comments about the Death Row menus. Like the last meals ordered by real condemned murderers, most of them were very plain, with a predominance of cheeseburgers, steaks and fries. He wondered what he would order, himself, if he were about to be executed. He would have to have a large slice of his mother’s key lime pie – or he would do if his mother was still alive.
Kim raised his hand and said, ‘This idea is very interesting, Mr Rook. “Each Self Is Many Selves.”’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Do you think he means that our self changes day by day? Tomorrow we will be different self from now? Or does he mean that we are many different selves all at once? I am child that I was, but also old man that I will be?’
Jim cleared his throat and tried to look as if he understood what Kim was talking about. ‘What do you think?’ he asked him.
‘I think that life is similar to book. Beginning of story and end of story exist at same time. You can read beginning, then turn to end. Or maybe you can read end first. You can read half of book, and never finish, but end still exists. It is still there. If you wanted to, you could pick book up again and read it. Or not.’
‘I don’t think I’m entirely sure what you’re trying to say here, Kim,’ said Jim.
‘I am saying that tomorrow is today, and yesterday is today. And the day we were born is today. And the day we die is today.’
‘Pretty busy day we’re having today,’ put in Teddy, without looking up from his frantic scribbling.
Kim turned around in his chair and said, ‘It is not difficult. All you have to do is open door.’
Jim was about to ask him to explain further, although he could see by the baffled expressions on the faces of the rest of Special Class Two that he had already left them way behind.
Arthur said, ‘If yesterday is today, what am I doing here in class? I should still be bowling.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ T.D. told him. ‘Tomorrow is yesterday, too, so you’ll be bowling tomorrow.’
‘Yes, but I’m going to be born tomorrow. I won’t have the time to go bowling. And I won’t know how to. And I’ll be much too little.’
‘OK, OK, that’s enough!’ said Jim. He checked his watch again. Maria had been gone for over ten minutes. ‘Janice . . . do you mind going to the restroom and making sure that Maria is OK?’
‘Hey, I’ll go,’ Billy volunteered. ‘I love those Latin looks. Penélope Cruz, mmm-mmmh!’
‘Penélope Cruz is a vegetarian,’ said T.D. ‘She eats things that can’t fight back.’
‘Who cares? With an ass like that? You could serve lunch for six people off of that ass.’
Jim raised both hands for quiet. ‘Let’s get back to Mr McClure, shall we? We can finish our existential discussions tomorrow. Those of us who are not going bowling, anyhow.’
He was sitting down again when Janice came back in. ‘Maria’s not there, sir. I knocked on all of the stalls, but she’s not in any of them.’
‘OK,’ said Jim. ‘She wasn’t looking too good, was she? Maybe she went to the infirmary, or went home. I’ll go check in a minute.’
But he had only just lifted up his pen again when the classroom door burst open with a shuddering crash. Judii and Tamara both screamed, and even Leon said, ‘Shit, man!’
Maria was standing in the open doorway, holding out both of her hands as if she were pleading for mercy. She was stark naked, and she was smothered in blood from head to foot. Her hair was a riot of bloody black curls, and her eyes were staring white out of a scarlet mask. She was criss-crossed with gaping cuts and covered in huge red bruises.
She had left an erratic trail of bloody footprints on the vinyl floor behind her, and two bloody handprints on the door.
Her mouth was stretched wide open but she said nothing – just stood there, with her hands held out.
Jim jumped up from his desk, went across to her and took her in his arms.
‘Teddy!’ he shouted. ‘Call nine-one-one! Paramedics and police! Do it now! Grant – go to the infirmary and fetch Nurse Okeke! Tell her to bring blankets and a stretcher and a first-aid
kit!’
Maria’s knees gave way, and she started to sag. Her skin was growing tacky as the blood started to congeal, and Jim felt as if they were stuck together in some kind of unholy embrace. He lowered her gently to the floor and said, ‘Kim – my coat!’
Kim lifted Jim’s crumpled linen coat from the back of his chair and spread it out. Jim lifted Maria a little and laid her head down on it.
‘Here,’ said Arthur, ‘you can cover her up with this,’ and he handed Jim his Michael Jackson sweatshirt.
Maria’s eyes were still wide open and staring, but she didn’t seem to be focusing. She opened her lips and a bubble of blood formed between them, and then softly burst.
‘Maria,’ Jim urged her. ‘Maria – can you hear me?’
Maria’s eyes rolled toward him, although he couldn’t tell for sure if she could see him.
‘Maria, what the hell happened? Who did this to you? Maria!’
Maria opened her lips again and mouthed something, but there was a sudden clatter and squeak of running feet in the corridor outside the classroom, and Jim couldn’t hear what it was.
‘What did you say?’ Jim asked her. ‘What happened, sweetheart? Who did this?’
‘Door,’ she whispered. ‘Door.’
FIVE
Lieutenant Harris arrived ten minutes after the squad car and the paramedics. He climbed out of his bronze Crown Victoria and walked across to the ambulance, where Jim was standing with Dr Ehrlichman, the principal, and Nurse Okeke.
Two uniformed officers had assembled Special Class Two under the cedar tree, and were taking notes. One of them had hay fever and kept sneezing. Lieutenant Harris gave them a wave and called out, ‘See you in a minute, you guys.’
Lieutenant Harris was short and almost square, bull-necked, with a gingery buzz-cut, and a gingery suit to match. ‘What happened?’ he asked, patting his perspiring forehead with a balled-up Kleenex. ‘I picked up the call as I was driving home.’
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