[sic]

by Scott Kelly

The detention hall served a number of purposes, one of which was as a dark room for the photography class. Just walking up, knowing what I was in for—it was a struggle of willpower. The lack of windows made it a shit place to spend two hours. I’d wasted a lot of time in that little cage.

  David had not. He never got caught for his crimes, and so I was surprised to find him leaning against the side of the shed.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  He turned, uncrossed his arms and stood straight. “Experimenting.”

  The door swung open; a bulky coach stood within, hand on the doorknob. Before I could say another word to David—who stood out of view—I was ushered inside.

  The detention monitor extended his hand, motioning for my cell phone.

  “I don’t have one,” I said. He relented.

  Maybe ten students in attendance, freshmen through seniors. I knew a few personally: some of my worst enemies.

  “White trash,” someone barked out in fake coughs as I sat in the corner. The coach looked up, searching for the offender, and the coughing stopped.

  I settled in for a long afternoon.

  Fifteen minutes in, a cell phone chirped. Everyone looked around, eager to find the culprit—but the monitor was the guilty party. He glanced at his phone, looking shocked, then worried, fidgeting for a few moments.

  His eyes jumped between the door, us, and his phone. Little surge of excitement: something was happening. Would we get out early?

  “Excuse me,” the coach said. “I’ve had a personal emergency. Someone will be here to replace me in a couple of minutes, just sit tight. They will be here any second.”

  The coach shoved the door open and exited.

  Could hardly believe the luck. My fellow inmates turned in their chairs, making eye contact and smiling in disbelief. A few began picking up their backpacks, ready to leave.

  Then the lights went out.

  The door opened and closed; abyssal blackness. I couldn’t see the desk in front of me.

  That moment of tension. Quick blackout, or long? Nothing to do but sit perfectly still.

  “Hey!” a baritone voice shouted. “Hey, turn the light back on.”

  No response. Might as well be blind. The sounds were just abstract notions coming through this all-encompassing dark.

  “I’ll get it.” I heard a voice near the door get up, followed by the sound of stumbling. A desk squeaked across the floor; a chair toppled. The impotent clicks of a dead switch.

  Heard a knob twisted; a door shaken against its frame.

  “The door is locked.” Panic rising. Then, again, twice as loud: “It’s locked!”

  “Hey! Who locked us in here?” The baritone voice took on a threatening tone.

  “Cell phones,” a voice came from the black. “We can call out.”

  I heard a series of shuffling sounds as the objects on the teacher’s desk were knocked all over the floor. I could make out pens falling, and papers, but nothing that might be a box of cell phones.

  “They’re gone.” The voice confirmed what we all instinctively knew by now: We were trapped together.

  The first few minutes were chaos. The big bass-filled voice in the room raged uncontrollably: “Let me out,” he commanded. “I’m gonna kill whoever did this, I don’t even care. Let me out!”

  He must’ve rose from his chair. Feet slid across the cement floor. The sound of a foot hitting a desk, followed by the firm thwak of something solid—a knee, a skull—smacking against something even more solid—a table, a floor. A five second pause, then “Christ, my head” in a low groan.

  I sat in my desk in the corner, hands gripping the wood. Trapped. I suspected David had something to do with this, so I only wanted to watch.

  As we settled into the void, it became impossible to ignore that someone was crying. A boy’s voice. It didn’t let up, growing louder by the minute, vocalizing our shared despair. We grew quiet, listening, feeling the awkwardness rise. By the time the sobbing voice spoke, it was the only sound in the room. “Guys, this is embarrassing, but I’m nyctophobic.” The boy’s words came out cracked and chipped.

  The baritone voice: “What the hell does that mean?”

  “He’s afraid of the dark,” a female voice sang forth.

  “What kind of pussy is afraid of the dark?” The baritone.

  “It’s a real medical condition.” The tremulous voice of the nyctophobe. “I think I’m gonna pass out.”

  “Take deep breaths,” the concerned female voice came again. “Put your head between your knees.”

  “Please, talk to me.” The scared voice got softer.

  “Okay,” the girl said. “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t care, anything. Talk to me. I don’t think I know you. Which one are you? What do you look like?”

  “Umm, y’know…” the female reply came. “Blonde hair, I’m skinny, I have green eyes. Pretty, I guess. I mean, not like, beautiful or anything. I’d say I’m pretty, though.”

  Someone scoffed sarcastically.

  “Oh my God, who made that sound when I said I was pretty?” the female voice asked. “Do you even know who’s talking right now?”

  Another chuckle.

  “Well, I am pretty,” she reassured us. “If I’m not pretty, why do I have so many boyfriends?”

  “Technically, that just means you’re easy,” said a dry voice from the back. Enter a new character—the smartass.

  “Shut up, she is pretty.” A second female voice, this one supporting the first. The personalities of the darkness were splitting and dividing schizophrenically.

  “I think you’re hot,” the baritone voice spoke again.

  “You’re just trying to get laid,” the smartass said.

  “Well then, what do you look like?” The first girl, the one whose beauty was challenged.

  Silence.

  “See? Not so easy, is it?” The second female voice.

  “Well, you’re not pretty in the dark,” a new voice said. “Technically, you don’t look like anything.”

  Someone interrupted: “Would you stop arguing?” The crying voice again, the boy with the phobia. “You’re making it worse.”

  Silence.

  Felt like we’d been trapped for hours.

  “I think I’m going to have a heart attack.” The nyctophobe again.

  “If he gets seriously hurt, what are we going to do?” One of the girls.

  “Sit here and listen to him die,” the smartass answered. “What can we do?”

  “Don’t say that. That’s not helping.” Female.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s stand up. Link arms. We’ll move as a unit and find our way out of here.” Baritone.

  “Stupid,” murmured the darkness.

  “Who said that?” The baritone voice got loud again, more commanding. “You tell me, I’ll smack the shit out of you, I don’t care how dark it is.”

  “I think we should do what he says,” said one of the girls.

  “Cheerleaders and jocks, always sticking together. What’s the point? We’re locked in here. Linking arms isn’t going to fix anything. We might be in here all weekend. Better just chill out and try to relax.” Smartass.

  The nyctophobe let out a pitiful whimper. “This is like my worst nightmare coming true.”

  “You’re a coward,” a boy accused. The anonymous sound of the darkness again; an indistinct male voice I hadn’t placed yet.

  A second voice began sobbing, creating a pathetic chorus.

  “Screw this. I’m gonna get us out of here,” baritone said.

  “You’re not strong or smart enough to get us out of here,” the darkness informed; another voice without an identity. Just data, hanging there.

  Silence.

  An indeterminable length of time later, a voice mewed forth.

  “I am pretty, right?” she asked. The voice of the girl who’d been mocked for her claims earlier.

  “Yes, you are beautiful.” The second female voic
e.

  “Maybe a six,” the darkness said. “Seven, if I was drunk.”

  “Who said that?” the female demanded, sounding frantic.

  Silence.

  “What will we do for water?” the darkness asked. “If we’re in here for the weekend, we might dehydrate. We could die. Especially if you keep crying.”

  A second person’s weeping joined the first, then a third. The chamber became a symphony of fear-wracked whimpering. Sounded like a jungle at midnight: Panicked panting, pocked by short howls of sorrow. Too loud in here; the sound was crushing. One voice in particular sounded terrified, sobbing relentlessly.

  “I bet I could kick down the door,” the baritone voice said.

  “Are you kidding me?” the smart-ass responded. “It’s metal. Besides, you’re not that big.”

  “Big enough to kick your ass.”

  “You wouldn’t be saying that if the lights were on. You’re weak.” That unidentified voice, prodding us again.

  Motion; someone stood and tried to move across the room. Tables shifted, squealing along the linoleum floor. Bodies collided, shouting erupted. “It’s not me!” and “Get off me, asshole!” could be heard from minor players in the masquerade as each scrambled to get away from the rampaging baritone.

  Then it stopped.

  “See what I mean?” the darkness asked once the commotion ceased. “Weak.”

  “I’m not weak,” the baritone insisted. “Ask any of my friends, they know me. I’m tough, seriously. I’m in detention for beating the shit out of that loser Patrick. Probably your friend.”

  “You think that makes you tough?” The first girl’s voice. “That just makes you a jerk.”

  The baritone sighed, and that was louder than anything he could say—helplessness.

  “Talk to me.” The nyctophobe said. “I feel better when I can hear you talk.”

  “What do you want to know?” The second female, the supporter.

  “I don’t care, just talk. Tell me about yourself.”

  Silence. No one dared speak, after what’d happened to the others. The darkness was cruel.

  Finally, someone stepped up: “I’ll talk about myself.” The smart-ass. “I’ll tell you why I’m in detention. They caught me smoking behind the school. They thought I had a cigarette, but old-ass Ms. Melker didn’t know it was weed. So, the way I figure, I actually got lucky with detention. This isn’t so bad, considering.”

  “Oh wow, big bad boy, watch out,” the first girl’s voice sneered sarcastically.

  The second female voice pitched in: “Doing drugs doesn’t make you any cooler than beating up geeks.”

  “Do you ever think for yourself, or do you just echo whatever she says?” The smartass ignored the pretty girl and challenged the second one.

  A response was mounted, but sputtered and died on the lips of the second girl.

  I put my head down on the desk. The anger and fear in the room was suffocating. Felt like I’d been here for hours; couldn’t stand the way everyone picked themselves apart in the dark. Why did this work in the light?

  Silence.

  “Please, talk to me,” the quaking mess of the nyctophobe. “You can’t understand how horrible this is for me. I can feel everything closing in, it’s like the shadows are squeezing me. I can’t breathe. Please, someone, let me know I’m not alone.”

  Moments passed. I held my breath, curiosity rising. No one spoke.

  Silence.

  Another ten, fifteen minutes gone. Seemed like everyone had given up trying to communicate: it only led to arguing, pain, and judgment. We just listened to the sniffling of the nyctophobe, waiting for him to die of a heart attack, or whatever happened when a panic attack got worse and worse.

  Then, the sound we all dared to hope for—keys jingling in the door. We fell silent; no one dared move. Another jingle, and our suspicions were confirmed. Everyone burst into cries for help at once.

  The door swung open. “What the hell is going on here?” the janitor asked.

  A dozen explanations were thrown at him at once. My eyes stung from the invading sunlight as bodies began pushing their way through. Electric lights dazzled; I walked through the frame and into the world. Sun was setting; must have been inside for a couple of hours.

  I turned and watched the people I’d been trapped with as they emerged, dazed, from the detention hall. Some voices were easy to place: the tallest, biggest boy was the baritone. The prettiest girl and her slightly-less-pretty friend followed—girls one and two. The smartass with his unkempt hair, patchy beard and glasses came next, along with a host of supporting characters who apparently never had the nerve to announce their presence.

  While many noses and eyes were chafed and red, I couldn’t pinpoint a person who might’ve been the nyctophobe. No one appeared so distraught they might be having a panic attack; they only looked defeated and depressed.

  The last person stepped through. David, hands in his pockets, smile on his face.

  “You…”

  He smiled. “They weren’t the same in there, were they? With the lights off, I mean. Like everyone started coming unglued.”

  “You put yourself in there. You planned this!” I accused. “Who were you?”

  We walked side by side as night fell around us. At least it would be cool on our long walk to Broadway.

  Something occurred to me. “You know, in church they say the devil makes us sin. I think he’s a scapegoat. Hell could be all around us, you know? Sidewalks and street signs, but no mirrors. No mirrors in hell. People in hell can see everyone but themselves. Those people in that room didn’t know who they were. They gotta ask someone else, and they never hear what they want to hear.”

  He was quiet for a long time, just watching me. Then he smiled. “I think you’re right,” David said. “You did all right, though.”

  “Is that was this was? Testing me? You’re crazy,” I said.

  David began sniffling dramatically, breaking into fake sobs. The sound was familiar, and rightly so: I’d been listening to the constant crying for the last few hours.

  The sobs stopped. “A little crazy,” he said, smiling now.

  “You were him,” I accused.

  He just smiled wider.

  9. Father figures

  Freshman year

  I had another run-in with David a few days later, right after school. I’d just gotten home, and I stalled outside with my fingers on the aluminum doorknob of my trailer. Two voices spoke within. One was Dad’s, and the other familiar, but—the hot metal singed my skin, so I pulled away, cursing. Couldn’t touch anything in Texas, once it got sunny. I wrapped my shirt around my hand and jerked the door open.

  The second voice? David’s. He sat across from my dad, leg folded, hands in his lap. Tall, lean and tan. He had a kind of handsomeness that was hard to hate, because it seemed unintentional.

  “What’s going on?” I asked the pair, little bit of disbelief choking me. Hadn’t expected to see these two together. Felt weird; felt wrong.

  “We were just chatting, is all,” Dad said, somewhat defensively.

  “Okay…” I murmured, setting my backpack down. Whatever.

  “How was your day, Jacob?” David asked.

  “Boring. Do you want to go hang out somewhere?”

  “Oh, do you want to?” he asked, apparently surprised—as though it was totally normal to be in my home, talking to my dad.

  “Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” I shoved the front door open and stepped out. David stood, shrugged at my father as if to say ‘what’s his problem?’ and followed me outside.

  He caught up to me as I walked across the park.

  “Everything okay?”

  “You have a good time in there?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he’s a nice guy. You should talk to him more often.”

  “I talk to him plenty,” I said. “He’s my dad.”

  The stones made a chewing noise as we walked across them, like teeth gri
nding down bone. “I’m not sure how you came from him,” David said with hands behind his back, serene smile stamped on his face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got this awareness, you know? You’re different.”

  “I don’t know.”

  David sped up, almost to where I couldn’t notice it, except now I was following him across Broadway, and not the other way around.

  “You notice things, is all. Things that other people don’t notice. Like Eureka.”

  “You noticed Eureka,” I replied. “You made the whole thing up.”

  “I was just trying to manipulate you,” he admitted, shoulders slumped. “You’re the one who kept playing. You’re the one who likes it.”

  “It scares me,” I said.

  We crossed the park and reached David’s trailer. Black bags of garbage surrounded it. Ms. Bloom sat on a plastic chair, smoking a cigarette. David’s mom looked mechanical in an electronic world. Like something from the past century, run by ropes and pulleys, rusted and decrepit. Her arm shook with the effort of cranking the smoldering bit of cancer up to her thin, dry lips.

  “I want to show you something,” David said to me.

  We approached his mother. Ms. Bloom stared up at us with wide, startled eyes; the same deep brown as David’s, but milk-soaked. “Hey, Mom,” he said.

  Ms. Bloom narrowed those enormous eyes suspiciously, then swiveled her head left and right, seemingly relieved to find she was home. Her mouth opened; the dark tar of cigarettes greased her teeth. “Did the landlord send you?” she asked.

  I held my breath and searched David’s face for answers.

  “He wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful. So beautiful that you never have to pay rent again,” David answered.

  Ms. Bloom smiled, chipped gears in her brain finding leverage and twisting the contraption around for another revolution. David’s message was stored in a broken bin from which it would soon come tumbling out, only to be replaced again—a perpetual motion which wore down the cogs of the machine to useless nubs.

  We stood for a few moments, and then her smile passed. She stared blankly ahead at her son, unrecognizing, waiting for him to say something else. David turned, tugging my arm to draw me away.