by Jaime Clarke
The day wouldn’t get any easier. Mr. Malagon reminded us that Mr. Baker, who would be our hostage before it was all over, was set to return that Saturday, to inspect the first phase of construction and give us guidance about the next phase. With the aid of the sophomores, we were able to bring ourselves back on schedule; but the walls of 1959 Regis Street, pocked as they were with openings needing drywall, lashed us to our work. We moved in a delirium, each minute warmer than the last as the sun rose.
Mr. Malagon was chastising Sprocket for napping in the supply shed when Roger’s fist glanced off Warren’s jaw in one of the upstairs bedrooms. As a testament to how exhausted Roger was, the blow hardly fazed Warren, who in turn collared Roger, dragging him to the ground. The wrestling match overturned a pair of drywall benches, a tape measure resting on one skittering into the corner. The combatants rolled into a drywall lift holding an unfastened panel against the ceiling, and a few of us rushed over to steady the brace, which wobbled and then came to rest.
Mr. Malagon burst through the crowd as Roger regained his composure, standing and delivering two successive punches to Warren’s midsection. “Cool it, Roger,” he yelled, but Roger was deaf to the instructions and continued to go after Warren, who was no less committed.
Mr. Malagon instructed Figs and Hands to remove Warren from the room. Without hesitation, they locked their arms around Warren and whisked him down the stairs as he screamed epithets at Roger. Roger headed for the stairs, but Mr. Malagon detained him, pushing him into a corner. Some of us slunk away as Mr. Malagon shouted for Roger to calm down. The fight had stirred the dust, and a gray haze floated through the room.
The subsequent minutes were spent interrogating both Roger and Warren, but Mr. Malagon learned only that the fight had started over Roger’s co-opting Warren’s tape measure. We found this explanation implausible (as did Mr. Malagon), though none of us knew of a beef that existed between Roger and Warren. The lameness of the fight’s impetus infuriated Mr. Malagon. He strode through the house, knocking a cut piece of drywall to the ground, calling out, “Any boy who is not inside his residence within five minutes will find his parents here to pick him up.”
We milled around for a minute, bewildered. Was he serious? There was work to be done before Mr. Baker’s arrival. Any deviation from the schedule jeopardized the Open House. We’d witnessed Mr. Malagon’s ire only once before, the time Garth Atlon made birdcalls from the back of the classroom every time Mr. Malagon mentioned Lady Bird Johnson during a lesson about LBJ and the Great Society. The first birdcall soared under our laughter—Mr. Malagon’s, too—as did the second and third times Garth put his hands to his mouth; by the fourth time, we were completely distracted from the lesson. Mr. Malagon called for Garth to quit, giving Garth his famous stare, which meant it was all right to goof off but now it was time to work. But Garth was dialed in, the birdcalls tickling his fancy, and Mr. Malagon’s stare couldn’t reach him. Mr. Malagon beaned Garth with an eraser from the grease board, an impressive throw that silenced us all. Garth snapped to and the lesson continued, though Mr. Malagon was visibly shaken.
Sprocket was the first to accede. He wheeled out of the house, then up the ramp and inside his residence. The rest of us pretended to drift toward our houses, though we were mindful of Mr. Malagon’s clock. Five minutes later, the streets were vacant, our tools scattered throughout the rooms of 1959, abandoned miduse.
Our residences were flushed with a foreign light, everything bathed in a paleness we never had cause to witness. The way the light fell across the kitchen counters, against the backs of sofas, and inched up the stairs lent the houses a new demeanor reminiscent of our own houses on a Sunday afternoon, thoughts of school on Monday held at bay for a few hours longer. Through the window we saw first Roger and then Warren released from custody, Roger breezing out of Mr. Malagon’s front door, stomping into his own house. Warren appeared with Mr. Malagon at his side. The two spoke calmly for a minute or two before Mr. Malagon slapped Warren on the back, sending him back to his residence. We watched Warren until he was inside, curious about what would happen next.
Mr. Malagon vanished inside his house for close to fifteen minutes. When he reappeared, he walked purposefully toward the house next door, where Figs and Hands and Lindy were pretending to relax in the living room, saying little as the drama unfolded out the window.
Mr. Malagon gave a blunt rap before letting himself in.
“How’s the arm?” Mr. Malagon asked Lindy.
Lindy stared dumbly at his cast, yellowed from the dust that blew through Garden Lakes, black where his fingers folded into his palm. “Okay, I guess.”
Mr. Malagon rocked up on his toes. “Figs. Hands. I’d like to see you boys next door,” he said. He turned and left as swiftly as he’d arrived. A surprised Figs and Hands followed in his wake, closing the door on Lindy, who bored under his cast to reach an itch.
As Figs and Hands would later say, Mr. Malagon’s house had an uncharacteristic chaos about it, one that hinted that our confinement was related to something other than the fight between Roger and Warren. In fact, Mr. Malagon did not allude to the fight in his instructions to Figs and Hands.
“I’m canceling the rest of the day,” Mr. Malagon told them. There was to be no lunch, no class, no sports, no dinner, no tutoring, no free time. “All privileges are suspended, and tomorrow’s privileges are subject to how well everyone behaves today.” Mr. Malagon spoke in a measured tone, asking for Figs’s and Hands’s help in maintaining the quarantine. A siege of questions raced simultaneously through Figs’s and Hands’s minds, paramount among them the question about Mr. Baker’s impending arrival the next day. A second question, and one of even more concern, was Mr. Hancock’s return on Monday. He would doubtlessly be displeased about the sophomores’ tutoring being in arrears.
But Figs and Hands raised none of these questions; instead they nodded and accepted their charge. Hands would patrol Loyola Street, and Figs would marshal Mr. Malagon’s rules to the fellows. Hands was grateful for his luck of the draw. He knew the sophomores would rejoice in a day spent lounging around their houses (even the cancellation of lunch and dinner would be cause for celebration along Loyola Street). The fellows, on the other hand, would see Mr. Malagon’s edict as an attempt to submarine their fellowship; the exceptional nature of the lockdown would surely bring derision from generations of classes of fellows to come, not to mention that the perversion of the construction schedule was risking our showing at Open House.
We didn’t believe it when Figs first told us. Assburn ravenously downed a quart of gazpacho the moment he heard, gulping the soup from its plastic container, searching the cupboards for filched fruit or stale bagels. Roger remained in his room, not even coming out to use the bathroom or to raid the refrigerator.
Sprocket staved off boredom by working seek-and-finds. Warren had sequestered himself in his room, traipsing down for a glass of water, wearing a glum look. He regretted losing his temper with Roger, though he had no intention of apologizing, as Mr. Malagon had urged. Roger was a bully, and bullies get what they give from time to time, Warren had told Mr. Malagon, who hadn’t disagreed. “Some situations are better than others for reprisal, though,” Mr. Malagon had said. “You want to be careful you don’t do as much damage to yourself—or more—by striking back in a setting like this. And now you’ve both put me in a bad spot. One fight leads to another if it goes unpunished. That’s not my rule, that’s just the way it is.” Warren appreciated Mr. Malagon’s position and said so, slinking away to await Mr. Malagon’s verdict.
Night fell without word from Mr. Malagon. The light pulsing from behind the blinds in his house implied he was slaving over appropriate sanctions. Roger and Warren came out of their rooms and joined their housemates, who had congregated in their respective living rooms to pass the time playing cards or telling stories.
Figs and Hands made the rounds, checking that thermostats were correctly set. Empty soup containers were piled high in
our sinks, crusted with lip prints in drying shades of green and red and brown. We’d rummaged every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen in the search for food. Some brought out the fare they’d squirreled away in their dressers: bagel halves and oranges and biscuits formerly fresh and buttery but now so hard they had to be moistened before they could be eaten.
The sophomores had less sustenance, having been too afraid of Mr. Hancock to pilfer any food. They complained to Hands about their hunger, and Hands said he’d see what he could do, knowing there would be nothing he could do short of sneaking them food, which he wasn’t prepared to do.
“Let’s go to Mr. Malagon,” Figs said when Hands mentioned the sophomores’ plea in passing.
Hands argued against the idea. He hadn’t been in class the day Mr. Malagon whipped the eraser at Garth Atlon, and was surprised by the quarantine. Nothing had suggested Mr. Malagon was even capable of such drastic measures. Hands secretly coveted Mr. Malagon’s reputation, always striving to inculcate the student body with the same loyalty and casual deference they showed Mr. Malagon. Unflappable, they would say—the word Hands had heard Principal Breen use to describe Mr. Malagon. (A trip to the Randolph library gave Hands the definition of “unflappable.”) The letdown Hands felt over the end of Mr. Malagon’s streak of imperturbability shattered his practiced art of cool.
Typically, Figs was ready to lead the charge on an idea that wasn’t his. Figs’s intimate rapport with the staff in Principal Breen’s office made him a conduit for the groundswell of ideas generated by other students. Some approached him looking for an indication on how the administration would respond. If Figs was enthusiastic, he would talk the idea up among the principal’s staff, so that when the idea was presented, the administration felt as if it filled a need left void until that very moment. If, however, Figs was not enthusiastic, the student was spared presenting a proposal that would hurt his credibility. In this way it appeared to us that Figs was serving us, looking out for us the way he had in Mazatlán and a hundred times since, from advocating for a better menu in the cafeteria to lobbying the administration to allow students in academic clubs to be excused from class to meet during school instead of after.
Hands knew Figs’s MO, though he didn’t mind Figs constantly ingratiating himself with the administration and with his peers. Hands recognized Figs’s savvy, and on more than one occasion he had been the direct beneficiary of Figs’s ability to form a field of goodwill around himself and anything he deemed worthy. What irked Hands was Figs taking undue credit for a particular idea, or shifting a disproportionate load of the blame onto someone else in the face of failure.
Line One was a good example. The air band at Lincoln Elementary had technically been Hands’s idea. He couldn’t deny that Figs had done the legwork in recruiting the other members and arranging with Mr. Butcher, the Lincoln music teacher, for the band to borrow the needed instruments (keyboard, drum set, amps for show) from another music department in the school district. And Figs had called practice, helping choreograph the lead guitar’s movements around him while he lip-synched. He also came up with flourishes for the drummer and the bassist, and positioned the stage lights to shine on Hands in a flattering way.
Still, Hands couldn’t help but feel slighted. He could’ve made a play for another instrument, or even to be the lead singer, but he didn’t. He understood Figs’s powers of persuasion. What did it matter whose idea it was? Line One raised everyone’s profile, even with teachers. So what if Figs received a smidge more attention for an idea that wasn’t his? And what did Hands care if Figs offended a pair of seniors at Summer Griffith’s party, resulting in an ass-whipping Figs like as not didn’t deserve but Hands did nothing to stop? Hands watched long enough to have his thirst for equality in his friendship with Figs quenched and then slipped away from the crowd. At first he was ashamed of resisting his instinct to jump into the fray, but he realized that he was sick of Figs prancing through life unscathed. He’d never paid any real price for stealing Julie Roseman away from him, though at the point at which Figs and Julie confessed, Hands had covertly been seeing his old girlfriend Kristina for months, so it hardly mattered. But still, Hands liked lording it over Figs, calling him out at graduation, avoiding him for the summer, not thinking of either Figs or Julie while he and Kristina holed up in his older brother’s apartment in Florida to live like husband and wife, if only for a couple of weeks. He was over it, and was even missing Figs’s friendship by the time Figs showed up on his doorstep, his apology spurred by his admission to Randolph. Hands viewed the beating as a corrective, which restored his conviction in the natural order.
And so it wasn’t a surprise when Figs, the expert field commander, led a delegation consisting of him and Hands to appeal to Mr. Malagon to excuse us from the quarantine for dinner. We half believed that Figs and Hands would return triumphant, the dining hall opened up for a buffet of anything we could scrounge from the refrigerator. Some of us could taste the salty meats and the sweet desserts, could imagine washing them down with ice-cold soda, fantasies that were dashed by Figs’s and Hands’s hunched shoulders as they reported back from Mr. Malagon that the quarantine was in strict effect until the morning. Figs and Hands plopped on their couches, agitated, not speaking or looking at each other. They shifted restlessly while Lindy busied himself pointing the telescope out the living-room window, then finally agreed to an early curfew check, Figs complaining he was tired, Hands echoing the sentiment, grumbling about having to do Mr. Malagon’s job for him.
We woke before our alarms, our stomachs baying with hunger. We scarcely spoke during breakfast. Our banishment had cowed us, so that we felt thankful rather than angry toward Mr. Malagon, who seemed lively as ever, encouraging us to eat up. “We’ve got a long day in front of us,” he said. A morning prayer after breakfast substituted for chapel so we could train our fresh attention on finishing the first construction phase.
Mr. Baker’s truck parked in the littered driveway of 1959 distressed us. Mr. Malagon led him inside, soliciting Mr. Baker about his plans for the Fourth. Mr. Baker chatted amicably about driving to Flagstaff in the morning for a family picnic and fireworks.
We knew Mr. Malagon’s conversational ploy wouldn’t last forever, and we feared Mr. Baker’s opinion about the job we’d done hanging the drywall. To our surprise, Mr. Baker’s appraisal of our work was favorable. He pulled a mini T square from his back pocket and took spot measurements in every room, clicking his tongue as he hummed a tuneless number none of us recognized. Our confidence skyrocketed as we followed Mr. Baker from room to room. The upstairs bedroom, the scene of the previous day’s title fight between Roger and Warren, remained cluttered with tools and overturned drywall benches. Mr. Malagon stooped to retrieve the tape measure from the corner as Mr. Baker stood back from the far wall and shook his head.
“Too many butted seams here,” he said.
We followed Mr. Baker and with his help saw what he saw: two ten-foot panels nailed horizontally along the top of the wall, and five-foot panels on either side of a ten-foot panel nailed along the bottom of the wall. Mr. Baker tapped his finger on the butted seam running down the top half of the wall. “Remember what I said about butted seams,” he said. “If you have to have them, put them on the outside, like you did down here.” He indicated the two butted seams on either side of the ten-foot panel below. “But this wall has too many.”
Mr. Malagon spoke up in our defense. “This was the last room we hung, and we had to improvise. And we thought it would be better to stagger the butted seams, rather than align them on either side of ten-foot panels.”
“Well,” Mr. Baker said, staring at the wall the way we had to stare at the poster on the back of Mr. Malagon’s classroom door to make the figure of the naked lady appear. “We’ll have to patch the problem with some superior taping.”
Mr. Baker checked off all the electrical boxes, making sure we hadn’t walled over any outlets. He identified gaps between panels that would need to be
filled in with compound before taping, as well as a corner in the kitchen where the drywall had been damaged by an incriminating indentation the shape of a hammerhead punched wide of a nailhead.
We gathered in the living room for Mr. Baker’s phase-two instructions, each of us taking a space along the walls to copy down taping sequences, recipes for mixing joint compound, and the hazards of corner beading in our job journals. “If phase one was the most physically demanding, phase two will require patience. Phase three—sanding, texturing, and painting—will be a walk in the park unless you rush through phase two. It’s near impossible to fix mistakes made in phase two once you’ve started phase three. If you remember that, and do not cheat when it comes to taping and applying the three coats of compound required to stabilize the seams and make them part of the wall, which in turn makes the house one solid unit, you will have finished the job before actually completing the work.”
Some of us stopped scribbling when we realized Mr. Baker was indulging in the poetics of construction. Our focus was so intent on proper construction technique—which is to say we did not want to build a lasting monument to our ineptitude—that only the practical interested us. Sensing this, Mr. Baker veered from the philosophical and continued. As he began an aside on the difficulty of taping inside corners without roughing up adjacent corners, Mr. Malagon excused himself, summoning Figs and Hands to follow. Their excusal was an irritant, though, floating through the dust and heat, working its way into us with each chalky breath. The stress and lack of sleep wrought by the quarantine elicited a smattering of vulgar remarks directed toward Figs and Hands. We were used to Figs’s (and to some degree, Hands’s) insinuating himself in the good graces of the faculty and administration, and we’d welcomed their initiative on campus; but at Garden Lakes the advantage was an affront to the uniformity of our existence. Simply, their elevation by Mr. Malagon subjugated the rest of us, and it burned us up. We blinked momentarily in their absence, drawn back to our job journals by the resumption of Mr. Baker’s voice.