Bonfires

by Amy Lane

  “Stow it, Principal Larkin,” Yoshi snapped. “I’m your best friend, remember? And you just said this guy had nice eyes.”

  “Well,” Larx muttered, stealing another chip. He’d forgotten his own lunch and probably would not get to eat until he stole a hot dog from the PTSA stand that night. “Even straight men would agree. You don’t see that shade of blue just anywhere.”

  Yoshi threw a chip at him and Larx caught it—and ate it. Yoshi threw the whole bag, intact. “Eat. And I’ll go get you a fruit juice. You need a keeper, Larx—I swear to God, I have enough trouble making sure Tane remembers he lives here, on earth, and not in some divine place of inspiration. This guy can keep you. Don’t blow it.”

  “Don’t we have a homecoming parade to plan?” Larx muttered, but Yoshi was already stalking off to the vending machine, leaving Larx to eat his potato chips.

  Mm. Larx could live off barbecue alone.

  Games

  “HOWDY!” AARON nodded to the family walking in the gates as they were looking apprehensively at all the white faces on the home side. “Welcome to Colton. Principal Larx right there will make sure you’re more than comfy!”

  He smiled reassuringly, and the father in the family showed his teeth back on pure reflex, eyes flickering guardedly from Aaron’s badge to the field, shoulders squared in resolution. Goddammit.

  Aaron flirted hopefully with the little girl, who stared back from grave brown eyes before hiding her face in her mother’s shoulder, the bright plastic clips in her myriad hair twists rattling against her puffy pink coat as she did so.

  “I promise,” he said quietly, “we’ll make this a fun game.”

  Dad nodded, Mom nodded, and the whole family looked to Larx, who smiled and gave them a free raffle ticket for the usual halftime giveaway.

  “C’mon up, folks, to the visitors’ side of the bleachers. We’ve got a hot dog stand, popcorn vendors, and somewhere around here the science club is selling hot chocolate to fund our trip to Monterey. I’m the principal—folks call me Larx—and if you have a question or a concern or want to gloat ’cause your boys won, I am here at your service!”

  And the family relaxed and laughed, and Larx made a show of finding them a spot on the bleachers. He bowed to the little girl, shook Dad’s hand, and winked at Mom, and suddenly all was well.

  He came back in time to greet the next family, and Aaron turned to the one after that and did his best, but it was slow going.

  “It’s not you, you know that, right?” Larx said, appearing at his elbow after an entire family had just drifted by like he wasn’t there. “It’s that scary bling on your chest. Freaks people out.”

  “You appear to be okay with it,” Aaron shot back dryly, and Larx rolled his eyes.

  “Hey, when you were as rotten as I was, if you weren’t on first-name basis with the po-po, you were not a happy boy.”

  This was not the first reference Aaron had heard to Larx’s misspent youth. “You talk a good game, Larx, but I’m starting to think that’s all it is.”

  Larx tilted his head back and laughed, the sound doing strange and awesome things to the pit of Aaron’s stomach. “Someday, Deputy, I shall awe and terrify you with all of the awful, immoral things I did as a boy.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  Larx turned to the new speaker and grinned. “Anthony!” he said, genuine warmth in his voice. “Deputy, let me introduce you to an old friend, Anthony Spano, who knew me as a green student teacher, long before the seasoned bureaucrat I am now!”

  Anthony Spano was five six, maybe, but he had a military bearing that made him look a few inches taller. Dark hair, blue eyes, and a body that had possibly been athletic in his youth but was now comfortably beefy—he wasn’t bad-looking, really.

  Aaron’s stomach chewed itself into a knot.

  “Anthony, what are you doing here? Where’s the wife and kids—God, they must be….” Larx shuddered.

  “Teenagers,” Anthony confirmed. “It’s terrible. I can’t even.”

  Larx looked at him in the frosty night air of fall in the mountains, lips twitching. “Can’t even what?”

  “That’s a complete sentence nowadays. It drives me fucking insane. I can’t even.” Anthony rolled his eyes and Larx doubled over laughing.

  “So what are you doing here tonight? Did you transfer?”

  Anthony shrugged. “Place wasn’t the same without you, Larx. And Johnstone was such a fuckin’ weenie. Yeah, I transferred. This school’s got a young staff—all optimistic and shit. Reminds me of you when you first started.”

  Aaron watched as Larx almost melted. “Oh my God—Anthony. Dude—it’s so good to see you!”

  They hugged fiercely, Larx’s lanky frame draping over the smaller man like an adolescent puppy’s. “You gonna sit with me?” Anthony asked. “And where’s the principal—I heard he was a new asshole, all progressive and shit. Probably your kind of guy.”

  Aaron burst out laughing, not jealous anymore. This was an old friend—he had guys from the service he’d greet like this—and the shit-eating grin on Larx’s face told Aaron everything he’d ever need to know about his past. The rebelliousness obviously hadn’t stopped when he’d made it through high school.

  “No…,” Anthony said, eyes big. “No! They didn’t! Some idiot made you God? That’s fucking horrifying, that’s what it is!”

  “Oh, he didn’t go easy,” Aaron added, nodding to the next family troupe through the gates. This one actually smiled at him and moved to the visitors’ side. “They had to drag him kicking and screaming into it. It was legendary—the kids would come home and report to us adults so we’d know how the campaign was going.”

  Anthony grinned at Aaron, delighted. “That’s the Larx I know. What was the attrition? What concessions did they have to make?”

  Larx was looking at Aaron in surprise, and Aaron winked at him. “They had to let him teach AP Chem,” Aaron said, struggling to keep his face straight, “and he had to have his best friend as VP—”

  “Who hasn’t forgiven me yet!” Larx informed them.

  “I don’t blame him,” Anthony chortled. “I’d fuckin’ kill ya. What else?”

  “I didn’t get it,” Larx muttered, shooting Aaron an amused look.

  “Yeah, but what’d he try for? I need to know this is Larx we’re talking about.”

  “He wanted to coach the track team,” Aaron said. “Yoshi—his VP—called a kibosh on that, though, on account of Wonderboy here being human.”

  “Something about not enough hours in the day,” Larx added, shrugging like Aaron hadn’t seen him working through the time he used to go running.

  “Yeah, that was you from the very beginning. You should have seen him after his first kid was born. He’d get in early to plan his lessons, teach all day, coach the track team, supervise a dance, and then go home to take over baby duty. It was insane. I used to ask him what he was teaching that day and he’d say, ‘I dunno, Tony, whatever comes out of my ass!’”

  Aaron laughed, and Larx? Larx actually looked embarrassed.

  “I knew,” he said, darting his gaze to Aaron. “I knew what I was teaching. It’s just… you know… easier to articulate, I guess, when you’re in front of the kids.”

  Aaron’s heart thundered hard in his throat. Something about the way Larx was blushing, looking from Aaron to Anthony, made Aaron’s breath shorten. He wants me to think well of him.

  “I get it,” Aaron said reassuringly. “Thinking on your feet.”

  Larx grinned and Aaron had to look away. In doing so he realized the press of people had slowed down to a trickle.

  “Larx, they’re gonna start—you need to go up to the booth and make opening remarks, ’kay?”

  Larx nodded. “Yeah. I’ll go over there, run up to the booth, and join you guys ASAP—Aaron, I got a radio, but you can always tag me on my cell if it’s less dire.” He turned to trot through the crowd to the booth above the home side, and then paused. “Aaron—hey.
If you see Christiana or Kirby, ask them if they need more supplies. There should be another big thermos and a few more boxes of hot chocolate mix in the concession stand.” Larx’s face darkened. “And those PTSA assholes in the concession stand better not be taking my hot chocolate—I bought that mix with the science club funds.”

  On that note, he started cutting through the crowd at speed, and Aaron gestured to Jim Parks, one of two other deputies on football duty.

  “Jim, you want to maybe close that gate? Then you can take home side, I’ll take visitors’ side, and Percy can get the gate for the last few stragglers.”

  Jim nodded and picked up his radio to call Percy Hardesty from the home side, where he was apparently talking with his family. Percy was homegrown, and frankly he was exactly the sort of redneck Eamon had been afraid of when he’d asked Aaron to supervise. Aaron had sent him to the home side on pretext—the farther that guy stayed from the visitors’ bleachers, the better.

  “Jim?” Aaron asked tentatively.

  “Yeah—I’ll keep an eye on him. Asshole never met a civilian he couldn’t harass.”

  Aaron grunted. Well, yeah. But Percy was what they had to work with. Aaron turned to Anthony with a smile, liking him already.

  “I’m sorry,” Anthony said as they turned toward the bleachers. “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Aaron George. Larx has got the manners of a sixth grader—it’s not your fault.”

  Anthony laughed. “Yeah, well, it’s why he’s so great in the classroom. He’s always been one of the kids. I’m frankly surprised they managed to get him in administration at all. He’s always been more fight the establishment than join it.”

  That did not surprise Aaron in the least. “Well, they blackmailed him with the worst second choice in three counties. I think that’s why he caved.” Aaron gestured for Anthony to precede him up the middle section of the bleachers. “I’ve got to stand here on the track,” he said, “but if you take the first row, we can gossip like old women.”

  Anthony laughed. “Oh, you must be good for him. He’s a great guy, but God, worse than the kids, you know? He’s always needed a grown-up in his corner.”

  Oh yeah. Aaron knew. “I think Larx just requires a little more room than most folks,” he said diplomatically. “Like my oldest daughter. Has to spread her wings and not have people telling her what to do.”

  Another laugh, this one a wee bit cynical. “Yeah—until suddenly, they totally need people telling them what to do. Larx always needed a little bit of help with control. Man, he almost decked an administrator once, defending a teacher from the guy. Guy was a fuckin’ prick, and Larx? He had sort of a soft spot for Dana….”

  Aaron listened avidly as Larx’s old friend told him stories of another Larx, someone younger and more idealistic, with a fiery temper and—Anthony’s words—a “smartassed fuckin’ mouth.”

  Then the man himself started to speak over the intercom, and suddenly it was time for the band to march out onto the field and play the national anthem. Anthony watched them in admiration as they retired to the home bleachers, the better to pound out “Go! Fight! Win!”

  “Hey, those guys are pretty good. I mean, we have a decent drum core and all, but that was the whole shebang. I think I saw an oboe out there!”

  Aaron nodded. “My middle girl played the bassoon—that was something to see. But yeah. They’re one of the best in this part of the state. Larx told me the football coach got pissed ’cause they went out of town for a competition during a Saturday game. Larx told the guy he was just pissed ’cause the band has a better chance of winning than the team. He said it almost started a bloodbath.”

  Anthony cackled, and Aaron tried not to gloat. Yes, he had Larx stories too.

  The whistle blew and Larx trotted over to them. It was slow going. He stopped and talked to people on the home side, waved at kids, shook hands with parents. By the time he got to the visitors’ side, half the first quarter was over, and blessedly, all appeared to be quiet. But then, nobody had scored yet either.

  “So,” Anthony said lowly, watching Larx’s stop-and-start progress. “Any reason we’ve got a deputy and a principal—”

  “And the vice principal,” Aaron said, giving Yoshi a salute across the bleachers. Yoshi waved back from his spot between Mrs. Pavelle, the biology teacher, and her brother. Nancy waved too, but Tane ignored Aaron completely, and Aaron wondered who Tane thought he was kidding. Everybody knew he and Yoshi were living together, and Aaron would place money on the guest bedroom being full of art supplies with no bed. But then, you just didn’t talk about things like that—not in Colton.

  “So,” Anthony continued, “any reason at all we’ve got the upper-level staff over on this side of the stadium?”

  “We are just trying to make a good impression, sir,” Aaron said dryly. “Given that your side of the stadium is a bit cosmopolitan for our people, we thought that giving you all a full-court press welcome, complete with raffle tickets and hot chocolate, would impress you and let you feel neighborly toward us.”

  Anthony grunted. “Twenty years working in a culturally diverse school, junior. You were afraid of the brown people. Am I close?”

  Aaron looked him in the eyes. “Not even a little,” he said sincerely. “We’ve played your school before—and we know your coach and your kids have been nothing but gentlemen. We’re not afraid of you, we’re afraid for you. We wanted to make sure that if you won, you got the friendliest reception possible from our crowd, and that included as many of us in your stands as possible.”

  Some of the flint softened in Anthony’s eyes. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. That sounds more like Larx. Okay.” He thought for a moment. “Hey—you’re the one who helped us out two years ago, right? After the basketball game? I wasn’t there, but the coach told me the sheriff’s department and some of the teachers helped to get the boys home.”

  Aaron nodded. “That was me and Larx and Yoshi right there.” He let some of his own guard down in return. “We’ve got good kids here,” he said. “But the parents need to be pulled kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. We’re doing our best.”

  “Yeah,” Anthony said. “Same here.”

  They were quiet for a minute, and Larx managed—finally—to push through the crowd. He came to a stop near Aaron, and for a moment the two of them stood side by side, immersed in the game.

  “So,” Larx said, close enough and soft enough that Aaron had to tilt his head. “Anthony tell you all my dirty secrets?”

  Aaron grinned at him, fighting the sudden urge to… oh hell, nuzzle his cheek. God. The things he must never do in public! “He told me you haven’t changed much in the seven years since you moved here,” he said, winking.

  To his dismay, Larx looked hurt. “I’ve changed a little,” he said sadly. “I mean… I don’t know if you’d need to pull me away from a fistfight anymore.”

  Aaron gave a little shrug. “Don’t know if you need to put all your fire out, Larx. I think it serves you well.”

  And this time it wasn’t his imagination. He felt the heat waft off Larx’s body.

  He was blushing. Underneath the jacket and the stocking cap and the blue-and-white school-colors scarf, Larx was blushing.

  “That’s kind of you, Deputy,” Larx said, and like that, the hurt went away.

  For the first time ever, Aaron wanted to know why Larx had gotten divorced. Something had made him embarrassed about the person he was.

  “So,” Aaron said, changing the subject, “how do you think they’re playing?”

  Larx eyed the field critically. Like a lot of teachers, he didn’t really believe in the game so much as he followed the students.

  “That MacDonald kid is playing rough,” he said, scowling. “And the kids are starting to notice. Kellan is throwing exclusively to Isaiah—it’s like he doesn’t trust anyone else out on the field. The defensive tackles are out for blood, when the other side’s offense is mostly playing a fast long game. I
am not liking this, Deputy. I am not liking this one single bit.”

  Aaron nodded. “I can see it. What about the home side?”

  Larx looked at him and shook his head soberly. “We won’t get a lot of help from them.”

  There was a sudden gasp from the crowd, and Larx and Aaron gaped openmouthed at the field. Aaron wished furiously for an instant replay of a real-life moment.

  “Did you see that?” he asked dumbly.

  “Did I see our quarterback tackle his offensive end? Yes, yes I did.”

  And both of them started jogging for the field.

  When Larx got there, the coach was mediating a hot dispute between Kellan and MacDonald. Both kids had ripped off their helmets, and the look Kellan shot Larx was filled with such relief and gratitude that Aaron stepped back to watch the man work.

  “Uh, Kellan?” Larx said, smiling genially. “I, uh, take it there’s a reason you did that?”

  Kellan nodded furiously. “He’s using bad words, Larx. Mean ones. The other team’s getting riled. He’s being an asshole, sir, and it’s not right.”

  “You just said ‘asshole,’ fucktard!” Curtis MacDonald snarled, and Kellan got back in his face.

  “It’s not the same thing and you know it! You get the folks in the bleachers all stirred up by screaming racist shit and nobody won’t come here and play us no more!”

  Oh!

  Larx turned to MacDonald and was about to say something when the ref walked up to him. Great. And reffing for the home team was Lloyd Albrecht, the power-hungry prick of a two-year teacher that the school had used to leverage Larx into being principal.

  “He was just trash-talking,” Albrecht said. “Boys do it, Larx. Wasn’t no harm.”

  “Sure, if you think a fucking riot is just a garden walk, wasn’t no harm at all. Baiting the other team like that should get a player expelled, Albrecht. You shouldn’t leave it to the kids to do your fuckin’ job.” Oops—his language was slipping. Aaron could hear, more and more, the Larx who probably hung out with Anthony Spano in the staff room. Larx turned to MacDonald. “Curtis, go get your bag. You’re out of the game.”