Idea. He printed this on the page, below his drawing of Franklin’s hand. WALK NORTH.
He spun the page around to start over—more drawings of hands and wrists, ink-stained calluses, a miniature of a man’s face and then another, ice-blinded eyes and blackened cheeks—and to let the new idea settle more deeply. View it from another perspective, inverted, sideways—WALK NORTH—make it more questionlike. Determine whether or not he might really mean it. Walk? North? Could he do that? How far? What preparations would be involved? Sledge of canned foods; tent, pad, sleeping bag; cookstove and mess kit; spare boots and runners; all of his warmest clothes.... Anyway, how had it been when he first decided to quit foods containing vitamin C—how definitively had he made that choice? He didn’t remember. It had been summer, that much he was sure, because it had been so very hard at the start, with a lot of backsliding. No fruit, no milk shakes, no frozen fruit Popsicles, no lemonade, cherries, melon, berries. All the good summer foods—all the foods that were best all summer. It had been almost impossible, really. Pleasantly impossible, and infuriating to his father, which, he supposed, was a sweet natural side effect of the experiment, if not the whole point itself: mystifying the old man and leaving him baffled. Unconcerned as ever, of course, and positively wrapped up in himself and his book, but still aware that something was going wrong, even if he had no clue what it was or how he might control or stop it. Fool. Let him come after me, he thought. He would, too. If Thomas walked, his father would follow. He’d be desperate . . . insane, even, reading his son’s disappearance as a measure of his own epic failedness. Might not find him, but he’d try.
Again, Thomas spun the page, and this time he wrote out the inequality from his math book. Stared at it a moment and could not focus. Something his father had said that morning on their way into school was echoing in his memory now—not the exact words at first, but the feelings the words had woken in him, which, he supposed, had been resonating all morning without his having realized it.
Of course your mother wants to be an activist. She’d love nothing more than a life of total activism. Protest. What do you think she’s doing up there? Counting snowflakes? But you’ve got to understand that just . . . how stubborn she can be. I could tell you stories....
Please, Dad. No stories.
She wants to change the world, but not according to anyone else’s agenda. That’s all. She won’t be part of any organization or its political talking points, smear tactics, manipulative press, what have you. Which is to say, no Greenpeace for her, no Earth First! None of that “save the polar bear” crap . . . “save the baby seals.” Essentially, she’s all on her own out there, a one-woman nonprofit taking on the world with her “quantifiable observations.” And sad to say, but the historical record is full enough already of examples for how that particular equation works itself out, right?
His only comeback: You don’t know everything, Dad. When’s the last time you talked to her?
Not the point. She’s my wife. I know her and I can tell you exactly where her deal is headed.
The conversation had ended there not just because they were arriving at school, his father lovingly gearing the transmission to PARK and leaning up sideways in his seat with a rumble of seat leather to face Thomas, keep him there talking. But Thomas, vaguely alarmed and panicked, wishing simultaneously to run and to hear much more of whatever his father would say (they never discussed his mother openly, let alone clashing over interpretations of her plans and intentions or what she was doing up in the north), found himself suddenly in the grips of an uncontrollable physical corollary to his panic, unkinking days of his bad diet and causing him to cramp sharply and go limp through the core, stricken. All other concerns vanished.
Dad. Kind of an embarrassing question. Can you let me into the teacher’s lounge—the toilet there? It’s early enough; no one will care. . . .
Now Thomas tipped his head to the side, wondering what the relationship here was.
I can tell you exactly where her deal is headed.
WALK NORTH.
What did one have to do with the other? Anything? Or did it matter? Did he always have to be reacting to his father?
As often happened at about this point in second period, Dalia Harvey, seated two rows back on his left, done with her homework, was reclined in her desk chair, feet lifted to the lower rung of her desk and wool skirt taut across her lap, paperback novel propped open on the edge of her desk, and all her attention sucked into its pages. If Thomas (or any number of boys seated in the rows ahead of her) leaned forward and tipped his head at just the right angle, he could see straight up to her floral-print underwear. It was astonishing and irresistible—a miracle of sorts: a more than halfway pretty girl regularly displaying herself to the world. What was wrong with her? Didn’t she know? As soon as one boy sensed it from another’s body language, they were exchanging smirks, tipping casually from desks, peeking from under forearms, pretending to have dropped things. He tapped his pencil eraser on the page but wrote nothing further, drew nothing, the sticky pressure mounting in his groin as he looked and looked again, waiting for the end of class. Today after school, maybe it would happen finally . . . him and Jill on the floor of the basement rec room, canoodling. Worth a try anyway. As long as he touched her over the clothes, she was fine with most anything—receptive even, cooperative, grinding back against him—but the moment she sensed him fumbling with a button or strap or snap, she stopped. Went rigid. Picked away fingers. Closed her mouth. Said, “No. Don’t. Thomas, stop.” Once, he’d been delicate or fortunate enough to open the top button of her corduroys without her noticing and had slid in a hand for a glorious full few seconds before she realized what was happening, at which time her hand closed viciously over the back of his wrist and a noise began in the back of her throat. The trick was . . . obviously the thing he needed to do....
Bell. End of class.
He stood, slapped shut his books, lowered them to waist level, and strode out and down the hall with the rest.
It was still true. He could walk. Maybe all the way to Inuvik. Offer his help. I’m here, Ma, he’d say. I’m going to film you being the world’s greatest one-woman activist team. I’m going to make you famous. Together, we’ll save the world.
Coming out of the boys’ washroom and heading east again up the orange corridor, he became aware of a force mounting in the crowd behind him, some nameless chaos or commotion, but did not connect it with himself in time to brace sufficiently, so the shock of someone’s body hurled against his and slamming and pinning him to the lockers on his right was almost total. Black hair, jeans, turtleneck sweater. One of a pack of wild younger kids he’d seen around sometimes. “Hip check!” the kid yelled. And immediately following that, another body—blond hair, plaid shirt—flew against him, shoulders ramming against Thomas’s rib cage and causing his arm to whip out spastically, the back of his hand striking locker metal. His books spilled to the floor and were kicked out, skittering from under him across the corridor. “Shoulder check!” the kid yelled. “See you on the ice, pussy!” And both of them, whoever they were, were gone, ducking and weaving out of sight through the crowd of students so fast, Thomas could determine where they’d been only from the disturbance left in their wake. Not Malloy. Neither kid had been Malloy. He was pretty sure of that. But he was just as sure they would have been acting on Malloy’s instruction.
“Hockey morons!” he yelled after them. “Douche bags!”
He bent, and bent again to begin picking up his books. “Sorry. Scuse me. Do you mind?” Stinging heat of embarrassment in his face, thinking, Stupid, stupid, I’m such an idiot. His math book was on the other side of the hall, splayed facedown in a puddle, notes and homework sheets scattered everywhere. His notebook binder and history text were back closer to where he’d been standing. The drawings of Franklin’s hand would have blown upstream with the rest of his loose math papers, all of them being kicked along, caught against feet and legs and then kicked to the
wet, sand-tracked linoleum, stepped on or stepped over. Thomas went after them, one by one, retrieving bent, scuffed, and footmarked pages, old tests and homework assignments. “Thanks. Sorry. Hey—yeah, that’s mine, too. Thanks.”
And out of nowhere, here was his father, stooping to retrieve the last few pages of notes from in front of his own classroom door, jovially flushed and energetic in his Hey, I’m Mr. Franklin, the new teacher persona, the blue of his eyes infuriatingly snappy and accentuated by his blue oxford shirt, causing Thomas to speculate, incongruously, What’s up with him? Something’s up. He’s in love again? Holy smokes. Who’s he in love with? He didn’t realize he’d drifted this far afield of his normal route. He’d never make it to his next class on time. And now here was his father, holding the last of his papers, shaking them in his face, causing him to reconsider all of his perceptions. Mad, not jovial; vengeful, furious, not in love.
“Who did this?”
“Some kids. I don’t know. Didn’t see.”
“I need to know. Was it Jeremy Malloy? What—”
“Negative.”
Their eyes slid together briefly. Thomas did not want to witness or apprehend his father’s emotions; did not want to give away anything like his own emotional condition, either. He wished they’d come to a tacit agreement about this immediately, keep it cool for school, wait, talk later, if at all, but from the way his father kept staring, clench-mouthed, eyes flicking from Thomas’s right eye to his left and back again, he knew there would be no such agreement. His father smelled of teacher’s lounge coffee and that unique singed garlic smell Thomas only ever noticed on him at school—something to do with his metabolism maybe, his failing antiperspirant and the work of teaching. Or maybe it wasn’t him at all. Maybe it was from the school—some combination of elements he absorbed out of the air here and converted through a personalized reverse osmosis process into his own soap-and-garlic-tinged funk.
“Dad. It wasn’t Jeremy Malloy. Just some kids in a rush to class or something.”
“‘Or something?’”
“I don’t know.”
“You listen to me, Thomas. . . .”
“No.” He shifted his books to his other hand. “Not now. OK? I’ve got class. It was an accident.”
“This is unacceptable.”
“It’s pretty normal. Actually.” He flipped a backward wave and went back the way he’d been heading.
“Thomas!”
Only later, sliding into his seat seconds after the final bell and patting down his pockets for a pen, zipping open his notebook binder and settling lower in his seat so as not to be registered as tardy, did he notice his hand: the middle knuckles of his left hand split, red and skinned where he’d struck the lockers, fingers already swelling. This was no ordinary wound. He pressed between the tendons, made a fist, and flexed his hand open again. The fingers were tight where they’d begun swelling, but otherwise he felt no pain. He placed his hand flat on the table. Maybe a slight ache spreading up from the palm through the knuckles. But that wound—it was like something from the movie! Ghoulish. Like the pictures of hemorrhagic sores Devon had sent. Easy bruising: one of the top ten symptoms. It was happening!
“Dude.” It was Griffin, the stoner-huffer kid who often shared Thomas’s table and who, in exchange for being allowed to copy answers off multiple-choice exams, had always been mostly kind and friendly with Thomas. Griffin leaned closer, moist mint-over-smoke breath covering the side of Thomas’s face. “What happened, man? Girlfriend bite you again? I’m so sorry.”
Thomas laughed. Shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
Again, Griffin leaned in. “Check it out. I got just the thing for you.” He pressed his knee to Thomas’s and directed his gaze downward, under the table, open palm flashing an amber pharmaceutical vial. “Hyrdros and methadone or some shit. Stole them off my old lady after her operation. Only a few left. No shit, hey? Take them.”
“Thanks. No . . .”
“For reals! Shit like that has to hurt.”
“It doesn’t, actually. But . . .” To make him happy or at least prevent his getting them both busted with all the whispering and nudging, Thomas accepted. Squeezed the bottle’s cylindrical warmth in his busted hand and tucked it into the front pocket of his jeans, nodding, all the while fixing his gaze on the front of the room: Ms. Johannesen—poor misled, iron-haired Ms. Johannesen, thinking anyone was listening to her or wishing to learn anything about the current state of world affairs or the history of Western civilization. “Thanks.”
Griffin was nudging him again. He was a handsome kid with dark blond hair to his shoulders and reddish beard stubble, a few millimeters of it always covering his chin and cheeks. Pink chapped lips like a little kid, and perfect skin. To look at him, you wouldn’t guess he was high more than half the time. In fact, Thomas had not believed at first, but had learned gradually, that Griffin was not lying—he’d seen enough folded paper packets of pills, stolen pill bottles, flattened green buds in Baggies, and had too often witnessed Griffin snorting hits of something from a brown vial, after which his eyes would roll back and his eyelids twitch shut for minutes at a time while class droned on. “Oh man. What day is it?” he’d ask afterward. “Did she even notice? Did she say anything? Of course not. Fuck yeah, dude . . . you gotta try.”
“Go on. Take them.”
Thomas waved him off. Almost giggled from all the attention.
“Can’t dry-swallow?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Dude, this is serious. You have to keep ahead of the pain. That’s what my mom says. She’s a nurse. She should know.”
“Doesn’t hurt.”
Again, he nudged Thomas. Again, Thomas shook his head. Pretended to write something in his notebook. Watched his pen moving—circles, squares, dashes—and wondered, Why not? And then he remembered. His feet. Still aching. Had to keep his head on straight. Figure out a few things. Plan.
“Later,” he whispered. “For sure.”
“Dude, whatever. Live life. That’s all I got to say.”
ALONE IN HIS CLASSROOM after hours with the debate kids, no sound of other classes in session or corridor traffic, only the solitary click of the custodian’s mop on the hallway floor scrubbing from side to side, his AM talk radio coming a little nearer, a little louder with each mop swipe, Franklin often felt a peculiar kind of loneliness (really an awareness of the general isolation of a single life and the ridiculousness of most social conventions) so keenly, it made him want to laugh aloud. That or blurt weird, inappropriate things to shock the kids and get them riled. The pointlessness of these hours spent after school, pooling information, testing logical semantic tricks on one another, rhetorical positions, and surfing the Web for every possible statement of truth or half-truth to learn their given debate topic, could seem to him so terribly, comically obvious. And, of course, that the whole essence and raison d’être of the debate team itself (the thing he was always harping at them to bear in mind: People, people, please lose your sentimental attachment to truth; believe what you want outside the club, but here truth is immaterial; here linguistic and reasoning skills reign supreme; truth is whatever you make it!) so neatly intersected his existential gloom only made for a perplexing overlay of irony. Bunch of goofballs alone after school arguing and practicing verbal gymnastics. What for? Well, to keep his job, for one thing. Score big in the upcoming tournament in Cranbrook, for another, and thereby maybe assure his reassignment to this extracurricular post instead of being assigned, say, assistant coach of basketball.
Meanwhile, outside, the bronze tones of afternoon turning to early evening and the hammocky tree shadows lengthening across the school yard cued some half-pacified animal part of his brain in a way that contributed to the melancholy (Wright: . . . I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on. / A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home. / I have wasted my life.), making him long for an action he couldn’t name or specify, but which might look a lot like throwing on sweats a
nd runners and going for a jog, if he could, feeling the blood surge to the surface of his skin, the sweat freeze, breath race—if he weren’t committed to the rest of the afternoon here with these lonely, misfit teens. Twelve of them, total. None handsome yet (though more than a few, he suspected, would one day mature into surprising attractiveness), many with crooked, metal-encaged teeth, bitten, bloody nails, most of them a little overweight, two severely underweight. Bumpy, greasy skin. Dandruff flakes on collars. Eight of the twelve wearing glasses. Nine of the twelve, boys. Not a one of them sporting a pocket protector or carrying a slide rule or oversized calculator—none of the classic nerd indicators of his own bygone era.
So far, they’d done admirably in one debate, marginally in another, and had been shut out in the others. Not too impressive. They needed to knock heads in Cranbrook next week if they wanted a shot at the spring invitational in Ottawa. The topics were good for their particular mix of talents and intelligence, especially the number one Lincoln-Douglas proposition: Quebec should be allowed to secede from the union. This they could nail. He was pretty sure. He just needed to keep his focus, keep all of his attention in the room. Help them. They liked and trusted him, even if he was new; he was pretty sure of that. And he’d earned their trust, he supposed, by liking them back in his way—by letting them more or less run the show, giving them that respect, and by breaking up the session unpredictably with dramatic free-association exercises (also new to them), which they claimed to love, though he suspected mainly they loved it because of his own occasional hilariously overplayed bumbling participation, freely making an ass of himself. Cued extemporizing. “Get used to it, people. Being comfortable speaking in public is a little like controlled barfing, puking on command . . . a skill like anything else, and especially valuable in this context. That’s what we’re here to improve, right? Out of ideas? No problem. Just keep talking and stay on point.” The club had such a feeling of isolation, he sometimes wondered if a person coming in or overhearing them from the hallway would have the first idea what they were up to. Some cultish, argumentative variation on Toastmasters.
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