Tales of the Madman Underground

by John Barnes

  Squid said, “Ready? Okay, you got my name right, except everyone calls me Squid and I like that. I have depression and anger and I’ve done some binge drinking and I got some stuff on my rap sheet for fighting. My mom committed suicide, and my dad is remarried to a real bitch and he drinks and hits me.”

  Bonny and Darla explained about being abandoned while their parents went off to do their silly things, and about having to keep their houses running, and Darla even mentioned that Logan had been taken away because she’d kept hurting him, which she usually saved to spring on a shrink when she thought it would upset them; it was in the files, but most of them were too lazy to read those. (Maybe Darla was just guessing that Schwinn, bright-eyed and fresh from grad school, would be the thorough type.)

  Then Danny shocked us all by just opening right up: “My father’s a drunk who hates me.” He explained how his dad hit him, belittled him, made him do a lot of the work, and was letting the farm go all to shit, so that it was an even bet which would happen first, whether Danny would inherit it in horrible shape, or his father would lose it. “The plumbing hasn’t worked in the house for two years, which is why I play sports and take gym—showers every day—and I want to go to ag school but I figure without me working, Dad’ll just lose it while I’m away learning how to run it.” He finished in better shape than he usually did when he talked about this stuff, just wiping his face with his hands. This was way early for Danny; every year before he’d pretended that nothing was wrong until at least Christmastime, when the Holiday Hammer would fall on his house and his crying jags would become constant.

  That left me, Paul, and Marti, and we all stared at each other for a long breath before I swallowed hard. “I’m Karl Shoemaker. Last night I was locked out, and so was Marti. I usually have plenty of cash, so I got us a room at a hotel, and we slept naked in the same bed because there was only one bed, and we didn’t want to put our dirty clothes back on. We didn’t touch each other except for like back rubs and hugs and friend stuff like that. We got caught, and our crazy mothers threw huge shit fits, and brought the cops into it, and now it’s all over the school. Now, Paul is Marti’s boyfriend, so he punched me out this morning, but he’s also my best friend so I’m cool about that, I understand that he had to do it.”

  Schwinn, scribbling fast, asked, very reasonably, “Why did Paul have to do that?”

  “Because I’m the biggest homo in the school,” Paul said, angrily. “At least everyone says I am. And my best friend Karl is a crazy dangerous son of a bitch that people are afraid of. So kids in this school are so stupid that they think that just because I had a fistfight with a scary guy, about a girl, that means I can’t be a queer, and that will probably help keep me from getting beaten up.”

  “This is complicated,” Schwinn said, her face down in her notes and pencil flying. “And you’re Paul Knauss, of course. So then—”

  “Well,” Marti said, “it’s even more complicated than that. Because, see, it’s a big deal to my mother whether or not I have a boyfriend, because as far as she’s concerned that is what high school is about, and I never did have one because I’m not exactly pretty. So now I have a boyfriend, which is a big deal, except everyone knows he’s gay, so now Mom is mad at me for having my first boyfriend be a homo. Plus as Karl says I’ve just been labeled a slut. And besides all that I have some problems.”

  “Did, um, er.” Schwinn looked down at her pad and squirmed. “Did you want something to happen, Marti?”

  Damn, you can’t trust anything. A shrink straight out of school and she asks the most embarrassing possible question.

  Marti blushed purple and said, “Yeah, but Karl here is Sir Galahad. But the way he looked at me, it made me feel, I don’t know, like, beautiful.” She was studying her sneaker really hard.

  Bonny chuckled. “This is so typical, Karl.”

  I could see the headline in Stars and Stripes already: MASTER SERGEANT RETIRES AFTER 30 YEARS, STILL A VIRGIN.

  Paul was wrapped up in a tight little ball, arms around himself, and I knew he was furious. “So you’d rather be with Karl,” Paul said. “But you’ll go out with the fag so he doesn’t get beat up?”

  The room got real cold and quiet.

  “Aw, shit,” Squid said, which was about the smartest thing I’d heard all day.

  Then Schwinn said, “Right on, Squid. I was just thinking that.”

  We all laughed, even Paul, though I could sure tell he was still sore. Then we started figuring out what to do, which basically came down to three things:1. The other girls would look out for Marti and straighten out the gossip;

  2. Paul and me would make a big point of stressing that we were friends again because now he knew nothing had happened;

  3. Marti and Paul would talk things over soon because she liked him and didn’t want to lose him.

  “And,” Danny said, “Squid and I can probably sit on some of the jock humor about the subject. Like two percent of it. But it’ll blow over as soon as something else happens, and, guys, it’s high school. There’ll be somebody new to pick on by tomorrow morning.”

  Schwinn took her notes while we worked all that out, and when we’d finished, she scanned over the three pages on her pad, and shook her head. “This is so like the group I was in, in high school, and then another therapy group I was in, in college.” She let us go a little early.

  “I kind of hope she sticks for the whole year,” I admitted to Danny, Cheryl, and Marti.

  “Yeah,” Danny said as we all walked to trig together. “An ex-Madman herself. Hunh.”

  “I have a horrible feeling that when we did the run-around on her, at the start, she was trying not to laugh,” Cheryl said.

  Darla ran up and stopped in front of me and said, “Mister Babbitt needs to talk to Mister Shoemaker.”

  “Later,” Cheryl said, and she, Marti, and Danny shot out of sight, not quite fast enough for me to miss all the smirking.

  Darla grabbed my shirt, held up Mister Babbitt, and said, “Mister Babbitt would like to know if what Marti said about you was the truth?”

  I held up my hand in the Cub Scout sign. “Wall to wall and ten feet tall. Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye. And I’d rather talk to you than to a stuffed rabbit.”

  She held Mister Babbitt up to her ear, then in front of herself. “Because, Mister Babbitt, you silly little bunny, I have to be sure that what we have here is a goddam prince of a guy like I think we do. A guy who would give a girl a place to sleep, just because she was a friend, and not try to get anything from her, and never ever brag, or even suggest, to other guys, that she did something that she didn’t, might be a real cool guy. He might be so cool that even though he is not up to our usual standards, Mister Babbitt, by which I mean he does not have a motorcycle, a portfolio of disturbing art, or a prison record, I might want to see more of him.” She dropped her voice so only I heard. “Even if he won’t kill cats. Especially if he won’t because he won’t hurt a friend.” She stepped back, planted her hands on her hips, pulled her elbows back a bit to improve my view, and said, “So I was just explaining to Mister Babbitt that I might want to see what it’s like to go out with a goddam prince of a guy, even if he is still in high school and grounded until the year two thousand.

  “But. But. But. As Gratz might say.

  “Suppose it turned out the goddam prince of a guy actually lied about what happened, and either messed with a girl when she had nowhere else to go, or is just waiting to start hinting to the other guys that she put out for him. Now, Mister Babbitt, that would be a different matter. A guy like that has probably touched his last boob, because I would take his hands off at the neck, along with a trophy for my first apartment’s mantel, which will look very much like a mushroom floating in an olive jar full of rubbing alcohol.

  “So last chance for complete truth here, Karl. The thingie you save may be your own, unless I decide to take it.” She took a slow step toward me with a hair flip that put blonde hai
r down around her face in a way that was so sexy I figured she’d probably spent weeks practicing it. Softly, she said, “Did you and Marti tell the truth in therapy group?”

  “Yes, Darla, I—mrmph.”

  Kissing in the halls was a one-full-demerit offense which was really unfair, because if an ordinary kiss was one, what Darla did should have been like eight. Right in front of Mrs. Greimiladi, the Latin teacher, who had probably been Poster Bitch of 1925 for the National Pickle Up The Butt Association.

  She shouted “Stop that this instant!” and “That’s a demerit for each of you!” and finally pushed us apart, huffing out “Well, I never!”

  “Well, you should try,” Darla said, “it’s great,” and went slinking away.

  “I know who you are, Darla Pilsudski! I’m writing you up!”

  “Just so she spells our name right, Mister Babbitt,” Darla said, turning, flipping her hair, and rolling her hips as she strutted away. She blew me a kiss before she vanished around the corner. Greimiladi stared at me like I was a newly arrived Martian.

  Something touched my elbow. I turned and saw Cheryl grinning like a fucking moron; Marti was pretty much limp with giggles, hanging on Danny. “Hey,” Cheryl said. “For some reason I was just thinking about something in bio class. Before she mates with him, the female praying mantis eats the male’s head. What do you think?”

  It was one of those moments when, “Yeah, well,” comes in handy.

  26

  How Uncle Al Became My Favorite Hollering Asshole, and Vice Versa

  BY NOON EVERYONE had heard that I had spent a night with Marti in a hotel room and when the cops came by, with our mothers, I had asked for time to get dressed. It was also all over the school that I had deliberately provoked Gratz and lived to tell of it, and that Paul had knocked me flat. And on top of that, that Spooky Darla had given me a thermonuclear kiss in public.

  No getting away from it: I was now Public Madman Number One.

  At least nobody had said anything about Cheryl by the tar ponds, naked Darla down by the creek, or hugging Paul on a street corner. Maybe Stacy had laryngitis.

  Paul ate outside again, but Larry seemed to be very pleased to sit with me; he explained The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch to me twice and I still had no idea what he was talking about, but it was clear we were in-tight friends again, even though I didn’t want to go to Detroit and lose my virginity to a fat girl.

  Just after lunch, Harris and Tierden stopped me in the hall to tell me I wasn’t so tough and I wasn’t so special and that they were gonna have to teach me a lesson and I wouldn’t be protected by old man Browning forever, and I better watch my ass and they’d get me even if I did, and stuff, but that was a pretty one-sided conversation, and it got broken up when Mrs. Hertz noticed them hassling me and walked over to see what was going on. I told her “nothing” as those two stood behind her giving me the finger, and while I was talking to her, I gave Harris such a big smile, and focused my eyes on his crotch so much, that he moved over to hide behind Tierden. There was going to be a lot of bragging about which one of them had really scared me most, I figured, in that big heap of a car tonight.

  And after all that, the strange thing was that despite all the strange stories, and people coming up to ask me about them, all I had to do was keep saying, “We were locked out, we just shared a room, and we didn’t have pajamas,” “He knows I didn’t do anything with his girl now, but he didn’t then and I don’t blame him for hitting me,” and “Well, I was kind of pissed off at Gratz about something else, and I guess he just decided to cut me some slack,” over and over, and mostly it was all still okay. I guess everyone loves a good story and they’re willing to let you be normal if you’ll tell one.

  After French, I went to my locker to stash the textbooks and get a couple things to take home with me, and while I was fiddling around in there, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and discovered Stacy; she had a shy little smile and she looked like she’d just freshened her makeup and fluffed her blonde mane. “Hey,” she said, “can you still explain everything?”

  “Well, there’s a lot of everything.”

  She stood a little closer. “Sometime soon, I want to hear the whole story.”

  “Will you promise to believe it?”

  “If it’s true.”

  “Then I’d love to have an excuse to talk about myself.” I figured I was totally misunderstanding something somewhere—I mean, I’d always been invisible to popular socials—so I was just kind of playing, being a little cool and cracking jokes, while I figured out what was up with her.

  But she grinned and said, “Don’t be too slow about calling,” and walked away, giving me the little social-wave over the shoulder for the second time that day. Maybe Cheryl could interpret this for me, if that wouldn’t violate the Secret Protocols of the Socials or something. Anyway, the view of Stacy walking away was pretty nice.

  “Karl.”

  I turned around and it was Gratz and for one crazy second I felt like blurting out Okay, you saw me looking at her ass, but I can explain.

  Not seeing any way to escape, I said, “Coach Gratz,” and waited to see what would happen next.

  Strangely, nothing did happen for a couple seconds. Like he had some other script in mind entirely and was baffled by what I’d said. Finally he seemed to shake himself and make himself say, “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Which is not an easy thing for a teacher to admit to. If you don’t mind, I’ve got a couple important things to discuss with you—I promise, I’m not still angry about this morning—and what I’d like to do is give you a ride home.”

  Getting into Gratz’s car was weird enough to begin with; he kept it so pristine that I was really hoping my feet were clean enough for it. It was a big Continental, white, black landau roof, with those silly wire spoke wheels that were so hot in 1960, and you could tell it was absolutely his baby. I felt like I was sitting on an old lady’s antique chair.

  He drove a couple blocks before he said, “In my planning period, I was noticing that I was wanting to kill you, and that was making me want to drink. So I decided that I wouldn’t kill you and I wouldn’t drink, and instead, I went and caught a midday meeting at Saint Iggy’s. I’m sure you know how that goes.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Well, there was a new guy at the meeting, name of Bill, an English professor, but not one of those jerks I try to warn you all about, the good kind that loves books and wants people to love them and could do something besides teach English. And he was trying to figure out what to do about a big problem.”

  I almost told him to turn at MacReady, but then he put his blinker on. Of course he knew the way.

  Gratz seemed to be thinking hard. “So I’m violating a lot of the traditional rules, but, sheesh, Karl, you know the way that is, it’s a small town. Like it or not, most of the stuff that comes up in meetings, you know what it’s about and you know who it’s about. So, all right, it seems that Bill has been having some trouble with this new girlfriend who he is crazy about for all the wrong reasons, and who is absolutely everything that a guy in Bill’s situation should be running away from, and I’m sorry to say that about your mom but—”

  “But it’s true,” I said. “That’s why I don’t go to Alateen meetings, to avoid hearing true stuff about my mom. But I sure know it anyway. Did Mom do something new, since I saw her this morning?”

  “I guess so, from what Bill says. He went back to your house to check on her after an eleven A.M. meeting and she was drunk, setting up a night at the bars with Rose Lee Nielsen on the phone, doing a lot of things that aren’t good for her. Bill didn’t stop her—you never can—but he was dumb enough or infatuated enough to try, and he had a quarrel with her, and felt awful. So he did the right thing—finally—and went to another meeting, and that’s where Dick Larren and I ran into him.” He made a strange little face, and the deep tan crinkled around the blue eyes. “Dick got most of the story out of him, and he’s kind of tak
ing care of Bill and they’re kind of taking care of things together, and so now I’m Dick’s relief, because he’ll need to get down to Philbin’s and cook pretty soon. We’ve got kind of a plan we want to present to you, and if you say it’s okay, we’ll do it right away.”

  We pulled up at my house, the Continental floating up to the curb like riding a cloud, and I got out, wondering what I was about to find.

  Dick and Bill were in the backyard, just finishing painting the now-reglazed storm windows. I could tell at a glance that they’d picked up the glass from the lawn, too.

  Bill was puffing away on a vile cigar and still wearing that damned cap, but I couldn’t seem to come up with any disgust at all. “Karl,” Bill said, “you should know that Dick here can be trusted to do perfectly acceptable work, in case you ever want to hire him.”

  “I did this stuff for years,” Dick said. “I’m just rusty, is all.”

  I realized I was wiping my eyes, and the two of them were improvising because they were embarrassed that I was crying. I also realized I didn’t give a shit, wiped my face one more time, and said, “So what’s going on? Coach says you have a plan.”

  “We do,” Dick said. “And we’re going to try to make it work. You know how trying can go, Karl, no one knows it better than you do, but we want to try this.”

  Bill puffed out a big foul cloud, set a piece of cut milk carton against one of the stiles, and painted that side in one neat stroke, no drips, no hurry. He turned the cardboard around and did the other side, backhanded, and then one clean stroke long the top of the stile.

  I looked around. The reglazed window so far was perfect; I suppose I knew it would be, but I liked to see for myself.

  Coach Gratz must have seen me look. He shook his head, grinning sadly. “You’re lucky I had to teach this afternoon, Karl, or I’d’ve insisted on helping and it wouldn’t have looked half as nice.”