Inferno

by Robin Stevenson

  My heart is pounding. I am crouching on the floor beside Parker. Jamie is towering over us. I stand up. At least I’m as tall as him. If he hits Parker, I’ll kill him. I will. I imagine the feel of my fist connecting with his face, nose crunching, bone and blood. I shudder, my stomach clenching. I was a scrappy little kid, but I haven’t actually hit anyone since fourth grade. “Look,” I say, “maybe we should all just calm down.” We. I sound like Shelley.

  Jamie snorts. “And maybe you should get your face out of our business.”

  There is a knock at the door.

  “Leo,” Parker says. She jumps up and runs to the door.

  “Hey,” Leo says, stepping inside. The easy grin slips from his face and his forehead creases in concern. “What’s wrong? You been crying, Parker?” He reaches a hand out as if he’s about to touch her cheek but stops short and lets his hand slowly drop back down to his side. He glances from Parker, to me, to Jamie. When he speaks again, his voice is guarded. “You okay?”

  She nods, not quite looking at him. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  There’s a tense silence. Leo opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something; then he closes it again. I wonder what he’s thinking. After a minute, he shakes his head and turns toward Jamie. “Well, I was just over at Keenan’s place. There’s going to be a demo Monday morning, down in front of Central School.”

  “A demo? What for?” I ask.

  Jamie gives me a scornful look, and I flash one back at him. Asshole. “What?” I say. “You don’t think I should know what I’m protesting? You might be happy to jump on any excuse to get pissed off, but I actually like to have a reason.”

  Parker places a hand on my arm, but Leo just nods. “You know Central, right?”

  I nod. It’s downtown, a huge old building near the hospital, with a reputation for being a druggie school.

  “Well, Keenan’s friend Paul goes there, and they just kicked him out for handing out anti-war flyers.”

  “Seriously? They kicked him out?”

  “Yeah. They called them ‘unauthorized materials’, like he was handing out bomb-making kits or something. Hauled him down to the office and basically interrogated him for over an hour. Then they suspended him.”

  “Shit.” I think about Parker, handing out flyers at GRSS. “Can they do that?”

  “Well, they did it, didn’t they? So I guess they can.”

  “But what about free speech and all that? Doesn’t he have a right to express his opinion?”

  Jamie looks at me like he can’t believe what a total idiot I am. “Duh. At school? What planet do you live on, Dante?”

  He has a point. Mr. Lawson practically sends me down to the office for breathing in class. Free speech is not a big part of my life at GRSS. Still...”Can he go back? I mean, to finish his diploma?”

  “Only if he signs some agreement to stop handing out flyers, and he won’t do that.”

  “Wow. That’s awful.”

  “So you’re in? For the protest, I mean?” Leo looks at me.

  “Monday morning? Um, I’ve got school.”

  Parker nudges me. “Oh, come on. You can skip one morning.”

  Mr. Lawson’s class. On one hand, I’d like nothing better than to miss it. On the other, I obviously would not get away with it. Detentions suck. Besides, I’m supposed to hand in the outline for my paper on Monday.

  “Well? We could pick you up at the corner, like last time.” Her eyes are still pink-rimmed, but she’s smiling at me, that crazy wide smile that’s too big for her face.

  I just want to see her again. Maybe I can finish the paper and the outline tomorrow and run it over to the school before classes start. “Okay,” I tell her. “I’ll come.”

  FOURTEEN

  I hang out with Parker and the others until eleven; then I sprint back to the mall to pretend that I’ve just come out of the movie. Mom’s car is waiting for me in the parking lot. As soon as I get close, I can see that Dad is with her, and I know something is wrong.

  She opens the car door. “Get in.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I slide into the backseat and buckle up, not looking at them.

  “Where were you?” Mom asks. Her voice is low and calm. Not a good sign.

  I decide to bluff. “What do you mean? I was at the movies. You dropped me off, remember?”

  Dad turns to look at me, his face creased and worried.

  Mom shakes her head. “Don’t lie to me, Emily. I had to pick up something at the mall myself. I parked the car, and then I saw you come out and walk down the street.” She drums her fingers on the steering wheel and waits for me to answer.

  I can’t think of anything to say that won’t make things worse.

  She raises her voice. “I tried to follow you in the car, but it was a one-way street, and by the time I got around the block, I couldn’t see you anymore.”

  I bet she’s been freaking out all night. “I’m sorry.”

  “I thought I could trust you.” Mom’s mouth tightens into a thin line. Her eyes are titanium-hard. “I can’t believe you lied to me.”

  I bite my lip. “I really was with someone I met at the group.”

  “So why the charade about the mall?”

  “She lives downtown,” I say. “I just went to her place.”

  “So why not just ask me to drop you off at her house?”

  I sigh. “Because she doesn’t live with her parents. She lives in an apartment with her boyfriend, and I didn’t think you’d let me go if I told you that.”

  Mom looks like she is going to explode. Her face is all red except for two tiny white lines by her nostrils. “Emily. You go on and on about how we should trust your judgment, and then you pull a stunt like this.”

  “See? I knew you’d have a problem with it.”

  “I have a problem with you lying to me and hanging out with god knows who in some dive of an apartment—”

  “You’re the one who wanted me to go to that stupid group. You’re the one who wanted me to make friends.”

  “Don’t try to twist this around.”

  I run my fingers over the back of my left hand and feel the roughness where my knuckles are still scraped up from climbing the school. “Look, Mom. I was with Parker, a girl from the social skills group. What difference does it make if we were at the mall or at her place?”

  “Emily, I’m sorry but if I can’t trust you to be honest about where you’re going, you can’t go anywhere.” She lets out a long breath. “You’re grounded.”

  Dad nods, like it’s only reasonable. I’m sixteen and therefore I have to do whatever they say, whereas they can do whatever they want. And they don’t want anything. They just go along, time ticking by, getting older, Mom agonizing about wrinkles and experimenting with new cosmetics and Dad setting up war games and cutting his food into cubes.

  I can’t stand it.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Mom demands. “Well, Emily?”

  “Dante,” I say. “It’s Dante.” I stare out the window all the way home.

  The next morning, I wake early but don’t bother getting up. What’s the point? I can’t go anywhere. I finally drag myself downstairs at noon because I am starving.

  I peek into the living room. Mom is scrapbooking the photographs from a vacation we took before we moved here. A lifetime ago. Glossy rectangles of beaches and Mayan ruins litter the glass-topped coffee table, along with everything from plane tickets to menus.

  She doesn’t look up, and I have no desire for a heart-to-heart chat about last night, so I make myself some toast and grab an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter. I’m about to go back upstairs with my food when the phone rings.

  I look at it, hesitating. Mom gets up and comes into the kitchen to answer it.

  “Hello?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “Yes. Just a minute.” She passes it to me and taps her watch. “Two minutes.”

  This is part of my parents’ version of grounding— time limits on calls, no phone in my
room, no TV and no Internet.

  I take the phone from her. “Hello?”

  “Dante? It’s Leo.”

  Mom is standing about six inches from me, and I bet she can hear every word. I step away and turn my back. “Hi.”

  “Hey. I was just wondering what you were up to tonight. Paul and Keenan are having a party, nothing huge, just a few friends. Want to come?”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Really? That’s too bad.” He sounds disappointed. “Can’t you come for a bit, even? I could pick you up. We’re going early, to make some signs and stuff for Monday’s demo.”

  I’m pretty sure he likes me. It would be so easy if I could like him back. I glance at Mom. She’s standing by the island, carefully rearranging the fruit in the bowl, which apparently I disturbed by removing an apple. “I’m grounded,” I tell him.

  “Shit. How come?”

  “Long story.” I don’t want to explain in front of Mom, which is kind of stupid since obviously she already knows why.

  “Ah. Can’t talk?”

  “Right.” I wonder what Leo’s thinking. None of his friends have to deal with parents. Keenan and Paul obviously have their own place, like Jamie and Parker. I wonder if Leo lives alone or if he has roommates or anything. Maybe he has a girlfriend, although you’d think I’d know that by now. I want to ask him if we’re still on for Monday but I can’t. “So...,” I say, wanting him to keep talking.

  “Man. Your folks keep you on a pretty short leash, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I glance across at Mom and she taps her watch. I lower my voice. “Um, is Parker okay? She seemed kind of upset last night.”

  Leo pauses, like he’s considering his answer. “It’s not the first time. She’s...well, she’s a complicated girl, Dante.”

  “Yeah, but...”

  “She’ll be fine,” he says. “They fight sometimes but they always seem to work it out, you know?”

  I don’t know. Personally, I think Jamie’s a jerk, and from what Parker said, it sounded like he’d hit her. I think she should dump his sorry ass. I think Leo and I should be helping her pack her stuff. But I don’t say any of that.

  Mom clears her throat and taps her watch again.

  “I better go,” I say reluctantly.

  “Well, I’ll see you Monday then. You’re still up for that, right?”

  “Absolutely.” I put the phone down with a click.

  “Who was that?” Mom asks.

  “A friend.” I reach deep into the carefully rearranged fruit bowl and pull out a pear. “Changed my mind,” I say, putting the apple back on top of the now crooked pile. Then I smile brightly at Mom and head upstairs.

  Monday morning, I tell Mom I’m going in early. I run all the way to school and I’m at Mrs. Greenway’s office at eight o’clock. I hand the secretary my outline and ask her to please give it to Mr. Lawson first thing. I figure he’d love to fail me. No way am I going to give him an excuse to do it.

  I walk down the empty hallway. It’s clean and silent and smells like bleach. I step into the washroom for a pee; then I wash my hands and face and look at my reflection in the mirror. The front of my T-shirt is a V of sweat. I wish I’d brought a clean one to change into.

  I hate it here. I hate everything about this school: the shiny green and blue lockers, the kitschy artwork on the walls, the never-quite-erased chalkboards, the green metal garbage cans, the locker room smell that the bleach can’t completely hide.

  I walk down the empty hallway and wish I was leaving forever instead of just skipping one morning. My heart is racing and I keep half expecting Mrs. G. or some teacher to pounce on me and ask me where I’m going. I make it outside and take one last look back at the building. GRSS: The tenth circle of hell. Dante Alighieri’s demons had nothing on Mr. Lawson and his ilk. I’d take heat, high winds and hornet stings over the petty rules and excruciating boredom of this place. I blow out a long breath, trying to steady myself. Then I jog slowly all the way back to the corner and wait for Parker and Leo and Jamie to pick me up.

  They arrive about two minutes after I get there, Leo’s car rattling down the wide lawn-edged road.

  “You know what I hate about school?” I say, getting in the car. “I hate the color of the washrooms. Who would choose that color, unless they actually wanted to be unkind to the inmates? Seriously.”

  Jamie rolls his eyes, like he can’t believe I am so petty and small-minded.

  Parker giggles. “What color is it?”

  I picture it. It’s a revolting shade that hovers somewhere between pink, orange and beige. “Hard to describe,” I say. “Okay, you know what it is? Imagine if you ate a can of ravioli, followed it with a glass of milk, and then threw up. That’s the color.”

  Leo gives an appreciative chuckle. “Puke Pink. Nice.”

  “They were pale green at my school,” Parker says in a low voice. “Institutional, you know? Hospital green.” Her jaw tightens and she ducks her head, fumbling for her smokes. “I hate that color.”

  There’s something about her voice that makes me shiver, and I wonder if she’s been in a hospital or something. I don’t feel like I can ask though, not in front of the guys. “You ever heard of Dante Alighieri?” I say instead.

  She shakes her head.

  “He was an Italian guy, like seven hundred years ago. He wrote this long poem called the Divine Comedy. You’ve heard of Dante’s Inferno, right?”

  She nods.

  “Well, that’s part of it. It’s pretty cool. It’s about this guy—well, Dante himself—who travels through hell and purgatory and heaven, and describes it all. Hell is divided into these circles, nine circles, with different kinds of sinners ending up in different places.”

  “Are you named after him?” Parker asks.

  “Yeah. Well, I chose the name, but that’s why.”

  Jamie cuts me off. “Don’t tell me you’re a Bible-thumper.”

  “No, no.” I shake my head quickly. “It’s not like that. I mean, I don’t believe in this. I don’t take it literally, you know? I just like it.”

  He looks at me like I’m nuts. “If you don’t believe in it, what’s the point?”

  “I don’t know.” I shouldn’t have brought it up with Jamie here. I bet Parker would have liked it, if I’d waited, but anything I say now will sound stupid.

  Leo turns down the music. “It’s a metaphor, right?”

  I look at him gratefully. “Yeah, that’s right. Or, um, what’s the word? An allegory.”

  “Listen to you two,” Parker says. “I feel like I’m back in school.”

  She looks interested though, so I keep talking. “I love the idea that hell is almost this orderly place, with these circles and rules and gateways and guards. Monster guards, granted, but still.”

  “Yeah, that’s cool. Hey, I made it out without getting lost this time.” Leo turns onto the highway and speeds up. It sounds like the car needs a new muffler. “I don’t think I could read all that heaven and hell stuff though. My parents are into all that. They’re the insurance policy type of Christians, you know? Like, we better say we believe it and show up at church once a week in case it’s really true. I don’t suppose they ever think about God or what any of it means, but they don’t want to risk burning in hell.” He shrugs. “It’s hypocritical, but at least they’re not crazy religious like Parker’s folks.”

  A clue about Parker’s family. I file it away to ask her about later.

  “People are scared shitless of chaos,” Leo says. “That’s why everyone thinks anarchists are bad or messed up. Like if there was no government telling us what to do, we’d all run around killing each other or something.” He laughs. “It’d be funny if my parents got to hell and it turned out it wasn’t chaotic at all, but more like some kind of crazy bureaucracy.”

  “Yeah.” I nod. “With Satan in charge of the whole hierarchy.”

  “Satan as the ceo.”

  “Or the principal,” Parker says.
>
  I laugh. “Handing out detentions. Yo, sinner—I hear you ate a whole pizza. Go spend a week in the third circle with the gluttons.”

  “What happens to the gluttons?” Parker asks.

  I frown, trying to remember. “I think they had to wade through stinky frozen slush or something. Or lie in it, maybe. Cerberus guards them anyway. He’s a three-headed dog and he snaps at them if they try to get away.”

  “Nice.” Leo slows down as he exits the highway and turns onto King Street. “Almost there.”

  Jamie hasn’t said a word. He’s in the passenger seat, facing forward, but I don’t have to see his face to know he’s pissed off. I look over at Parker and she grins at me. Under her left eye, a dark purple streak fades into light blue-gray. A bruise.

  She sees me looking and her grin slips from her face. She shakes her head ever so slightly, warning me not to say anything. As if I would. I turn away from her and stare at the back of Jamie’s head. I wouldn’t mind siccing Cerberus on him.

  FIFTEEN

  There are a ton of people milling around in front of Central when we arrive, and for a moment I think this protest is going to be huge. Then I realize that most of them are just Central students heading to class like they do every day.

  Jamie lifts some cardboard signs out of the back of the station wagon and drops them on the ground. NO FREE SPEECH AT CENTRAL, the top one reads. “Here, guys,” he says. “Stick these up anywhere you can. And if anyone asks you what you’re doing, see if you can get them to join the protest. We want the classrooms to be empty. That should get their attention.”

  He flags down a passing student, a serious-looking girl carrying a stack of books. “Hey, you know your school doesn’t recognize your right to free speech?”

  She looks at him like he’s crazy and keeps on walking. Jamie strides off into the crowd, handing out flyers and talking to anyone who will listen. Leo grabs a stack of signs and follows him, heading toward the front doors of the school.

  I look at Parker, feeling oddly disengaged from what is going on.

  She tucks her thumbs through her belt loops. “So.”