Kiss Them Goodbye

by Joseph Eastburn

  Then it occurred to him that Gluckner might stop at the waterfall, or cut back toward the graveyard. The thought that he might be meeting someone there troubled him deeply. He had to know.

  It was dusk by now and Ballard moved from one oak to another. His eyes remained fastened on the football player, whose lumbering body was almost gone except for a white collar floating like a specter in the dark.

  Ballard moved behind the oaks, nearly breathless. He had never done this before—never walked willingly into fear. He had always run away. Again he glanced carefully around the trunk of one tree, saw Gluckner again turn, glancing back toward the main buildings of the school. Gluckner turned quickly and walked around the back of South End.

  South End was a white clapboard house on the edge of a bluff that overlooked the town. As it grew darker, Ballard waited another ten minutes, twice having to creep slowly around the back of an oak to avoid the headlights of cars driving up into the school.

  Finally, under the cover of darkness, Ballard cut along a rhododendron grove on the right of the fork. For an instant, he thought he heard someone behind him and turned around. He didn’t see anyone though. He doubled back through a clump of cedars into the backyard of South End.

  He stood near a hedge, looking up, trying to catch his breath. He saw a student on the second floor, through one window, in his robe, boiling spaghetti on a hot plate near the sill. Ballard smiled, as he knew hot plates were illegal. A blue reflection from a television set danced on the windowpanes. He knew TVs were illegal too.

  Ballard moved along the hedge, then glanced down the back of the house. There was only a stoop and a back door hidden by the hedge. He thought the door must lead into the master’s house but couldn’t remember who the housemaster of South End was.

  The windows on the back of the house were black. Ballard slipped up onto the stoop, lifting the top of the mailbox to see who the mail was addressed to—it was empty.

  He tried the door, turned the knob, and stepped into a dark entranceway where his eyes were drawn to a shaft of light coming from under a door at the top of the stairs. Ballard noticed there was a door on each side of this entrance hall, probably leading to more students’ rooms.

  He put his weight on the bottom stair. A groan from the floorboard echoed like a human voice up into the stairwell. He immediately stepped back down and leaned out of sight against one of the doors in a corner of the hallway; in the dark, his hand fell on a doorknob as he tried to quiet the pounding in his chest.

  No sooner did he step out of the entranceway than the door at the top of the stairs was flung open and a yellow light splashed against the inside of the back door, all along the stairs. At the same time, someone came bounding down the stairway. As the stairs sent up a chorus of grating wood, Ballard fumbled in a panic with the brass doorknob. It was locked.

  Someone stopped two stairs from the bottom and appeared to be listening. Ballard could hear several labored breaths, each outdistancing the one before it, each pulled back like an undertow. Ballard was sure the drum in his chest could be heard for miles. He stood completely still.

  Then the jowls and flared nostrils of Gluckner’s profile moved around the corner of the stairwell. His eyes were fixed on the back door. He reached over, turned the knob, and pushed the back door out, staring through the screen door at the stoop.

  Gluckner took two steps out onto the landing, and as the screen door began to close, the spring whining, Ballard stepped to the door on the other side of the hallway, and when the screen door slapped against the jamb, Ballard twisted the knob. It opened. He stepped backward into darkness. He eased the door closed just as he caught a glimpse of Gluckner’s beefy face coming back inside. Ballard’s hand was still holding the doorknob, afraid to release it, when more footsteps came rushing down the stairs.

  During the sound he released the knob and leaned against the door. He heard a woman’s voice, speaking very low. He couldn’t tell who it was, but the voice purred in a quiet way, slowly in supplication, like a cello. Gluckner’s gruff vowels drowned out the music.

  “It was nothing,” he said on the other side of the door. “You ready?”

  Ballard heard someone step hard on the floorboard, trying the doorknob. Ballard peered quickly around the dark room he was standing in and saw the outline of floor weights and a bench press. He groped sightless toward what he thought was an open door. He found himself inside a closet. He leaned his back against a row of hangers and tried to close the door—but a shoe on the floor kept the door wedged open.

  The door to the room opened. The light on the stairs shone on Gluckner’s forearm as he slowly opened the door. A woman walked into the darkened room. She was holding a purse along with his shirt and blazer. As she twisted fitfully, looking around the room, her face turned away and Ballard couldn’t tell who it was. A wafer of light moved across her forehead, disappearing as the door slammed. For a moment, there was only the sound of two people breathing in unison.

  A desk lamp went on as Gluckner strutted around the room in gym shorts and a T-shirt, closing the blinds in all the windows. He reached out suddenly and grabbed the things out of the woman’s hands. He threw them on a chair. The woman crouched, moving in a circle away from him. A skintight red bodysuit twisted in the lamplight. She turned around, smiling—it was Ms. Coates, his math teacher.

  Gluckner reached over, seized both her hands, and flung them up and down to loosen her muscles. She giggled and wrenched her arms away from him, straddling the bench press, lying back slowly. Gluckner stared down at her with an almost uncontrollable desire. He walked around behind her, fumbled, sliding weights onto the barbell that rested on the floor, all the time looking up at Ms. Coates lying there gazing at the ceiling.

  “Having trouble?” she said breathlessly.

  “No, I got it,” he said, hoisting the bar over Ms. Coates’s head and placing it in the steel supports. “One seventy-five. Ready?”

  Ms. Coates smiled, inhaled and drove three short breaths out of her rib cage. “Move in closer.”

  Gluckner grinned and edged his thighs near her, on either side of the cushion.

  “Closer.”

  He inched forward again so his thighs were above her. He stared down at her mouth, tightly creased, expelling breaths.

  “Okay,” she announced.

  Gluckner lifted the bar out into air above her outstretched arms and placed it in her palms. Ms. Coates wrapped her fists around the bar and let the weight slowly down to her chest, thrust her hips up and in a coiling motion, pressed the barbell into the air.

  “Good,” Gluckner said. “Do five reps.”

  “No,” she said, letting the weight down and pressing it up again. “Too much.”

  “Come on,” he said, guiding the bar down, squatting toward her.

  “No!” she yelled, straining the bar up into the air again.

  “Yes.” He squatted closer to her face, the hair on his thighs brushing her cheek.

  “You son of a—” She strained the barbell up, her left arm sinking. “I can’t.”

  “One more!” Gluckner yelled.

  Ms. Coates let the bar down again, craned her neck back, her face turning crimson, pressed against his leg. She thrust her hips and hoisted the bar halfway up, straining, her arms wobbling. The bar stuck in midair.

  Gluckner whispered. “Come on.”

  She wrenched her face over and bit Gluckner in the thigh.

  “Ow!” The bar fell back to her chest and Gluckner squatted down, taking the weight. He stepped back, lifted the bar, and lowered it onto the support. He massaged his thigh. Ms. Coates’s chest was heaving, her face covered with sweat. She stared up at Gluckner.

  “Now,” she said. “It’s . . . your . . . turn.”

  “Oh,” he muttered. “We’re going to play games?”

  “No,” Ms. Coates said indignantly. “I just think you should get in shape.”

  Ballard watched Gluckner saunter around the bench. Ms. Coates took
a step back, glanced at her watch, surveying Gluckner’s musclebound body. “Take off that T-shirt.” Her deep voice was detached.

  “When is he coming?” Gluckner whispered slowly as he slipped the white fabric over his head.

  “He’s always late.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Get down,” she ordered sullenly.

  Gluckner was surprised at her tone, then began to smile. He lay down on the bench, his eyes darting across the ceiling.

  She slid fifty-pound weights on the bar and locked them into place. She positioned her legs on either side of the cushion, then lifted the bar off the supports and squatted, lowering the bar to him. Gluckner took the weight in his hands, expelled air, and pumped the bar back into the air quickly four times.

  “Ten more,” she ordered.

  His eyes burst open. “Forget it.”

  “Ten. Do you hear me?” She rubbed her hand across his face.

  “Lay off!” he blurted, his chest swelling as he drove the bar up.

  “Don’t talk back.” She squeezed the sides of his face with her thighs.

  Gluckner’s tongue had worked its way out onto his lower lip. He nibbled at her leg, taking the red elastic in his teeth.

  “Come on,” Ms. Coates murmured. “Be a good boy.”

  As the barbell was beginning to strain into the air, she lowered herself and begun slowly undulating her hips above his face. “And if you perform well, like a good boy, you can come back for a workout again sometime.” Her gyrations began to slow down now, moving into prolonged circles, long slow arcs which drew every ounce of strength from Gluckner’s arms as if her body was a magnet. His mouth was open, sluggishly following her pulsations.

  Ballard raised himself up to see Gluckner’s Adam’s apple descend and reappear as he kissed up and down her thighs. The barbell sunk to his chest. Ms. Coates began to rub her thighs against the boy’s face. Gluckner was grunting now, unable to lift the bar. Ms. Coates squatted down and yanked the bar into the air, her biceps bulging out. She shoved it onto the supports and swaggered around the bench.

  “Couldn’t do it, huh?”

  Gluckner sat up and grabbed her hips like a vise with both hands and pulled her down. Ms. Coates hit the cushion facedown. He pinned her hands at her sides and tried to push her face into his lap. She pulled away, reddening, twisting her torso up into the air as she yanked her arms free, her chest heaving.

  “You nasty boy,” she hissed. “You dirty little boy.” She began to writhe. “You naughty, dirty little—”

  “Shut up!” Gluckner barked.

  Ms. Coates pursed her lips. “You dirty little—”

  Raising an open hand up, Gluckner said, “One more word and I’ll—”

  “Filthy,” Ms. Coates whispered petulantly.

  Gluckner brought his hand down hard across her face. The slap left a red blotch on her cheek. Her head had been thrown to the side and her open mouth emitted a scream. Gluckner pulled her into a sitting position and stood behind her, stroking her breasts from behind. He then leaned forward and closed his lips down over her mouth.

  Her arched neck twisted back, yearningly. She sucked against his lips, moaning in a way that startled Ballard. Gluckner’s mouth rubbed her lipstick across her face. She dug her nails into his back. Ballard thought he was becoming powerless to remain still in one position. The sounds that came out of her terrified him. His eyes seemed to fog over. He realized sweat was pouring down his forehead.

  As Ms. Coates’s strident moans began to get louder, Ballard lost perspective and imagined her cries echoing on the hills at the far side of town. He needed to calm himself but decided to settle for wiping his brow. He ran his palm across his forehead and knocked a hanger down inside the closet.

  Suddenly the moaning stopped as Ballard panicked, pressing his body farther back into the closet. Then a winter coat came dislodged from a dowel—it slumped to the floor—the zipper from the lining rattling down the door molding. Ballard saw a flash of red through the cracked door stumble out of sight.

  There was a long dead silence before he heard Ms. Coates’s hoarse whisper. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Another pause. Ballard realized again that his heart was hammering. Suddenly the closet was ripped open, and Ballard felt the light fall on his sweaty forehead as his hands instinctively covered his head. A massive hand wrenched him over the fallen coat on his knees out into the room. The boy saw the back of Ms. Coates’s hand fly toward her face, swabbing the red blotch on her cheek.

  “Cary?” she said in disbelief, pulling her bodysuit down.

  Ballard felt the buttons on his shirt pop, then bounce against the wall as Gluckner ripped his shirt up into the air. His hands clamped around Ballard’s throat. “You punk,” Gluckner said, his voice in a free-fall. “Now you’re gonna get it.”

  At this instant, the buzzer for the back door sent a shock through all three of them. Ms. Coates froze. Gluckner’s arm was raised, his fist circling the air over Ballard’s head.

  “That’s him,” she whispered. “Don’t make a sound.”

  She pulled out her compact and—standing there sweating, transfixed—with inhuman reserve, she covered the red blotches with makeup, applied lipstick, and matted her mouth against a piece of tissue in a matter of seconds.

  Outside, the visitor had come inside and climbed the stairs. When Ms. Coates heard the feet stop at the top of the stairs, she smoothed the elastic down once more, opened the door into the entranceway, kicked the outside screen door open with her sneaker, turning her body, with a smile, up toward the stairs as she soundlessly shut the door to the room. She said, “Hello.”

  Ballard heard the muffled tones of an older man. The cadences sounded vaguely familiar. He heard the man’s footsteps on the stairs, the screen door banging, then voices moving down the sidewalk, away from the house. The boy’s attention was diverted as he realized Gluckner’s hand was tightening around his neck. He heard Ms. Coates’s deep laugh trailing off.

  Then silence.

  Gluckner’s face, now impossibly red, turned toward Ballard. The wide forehead was covered with rivulets of sweat. The imposing jowls lifted into a hideous smile, a grin that grew wider, with more teeth appearing, as if a proscenium arch had been revealed, a curtain raised. Ballard felt for the first time he was center stage in a life that did not belong to him, a life he never understood and never wanted.

  Gluckner’s fist seemed to brood over the boy’s features. It hung in the dim light, then slammed against his jaw and repeated this enough times that Ballard could no longer feel the blows as they struck him.

  There was a moment when Ballard thought his face had caved in. He thought his insides were lying on the floorboards. There was something wet on his face, and, in his state of delirium, he was sure that Gluckner was washing his face for him. He tried to thank him but his lips couldn’t pronounce the words.

  He remembered his legs dragging and knew at the time his feet were plowing new ground. He knew with a certainty that people who are not really conscious know anything; fragments filter down into a submerged mass of dreams, that web of closed rooms beyond which no one can go, and there—where new thoughts are hurled against the wall of memory—strange connections are made.

  BALLARD WAS RUNNING. In the distance a long gray corridor was laid out before him. He heard his feet hit the cement floor with uneven thumps. On one wall, a long, endless sheet of glass stretched as far as he could see. He looked over and noticed Gluckner behind the glass, in another hallway, sailing along as if he were a moving train; he smiled, holding up a pocket watch.

  Ballard’s legs felt rubbery. They struck the floor while his arms lurched to the side—straining—beating the air as if he had wings. Gluckner was practically floating over the surface.

  Without warning, Ballard saw the hallway behind the glass change direction, twisting away from him. Gluckner waved goodbye to him and turned with the hallway, at the end o
f which two figures were beckoning him on. Ballard tried to break into the other hallway. He called out, but Gluckner’s body was plunged against the light, getting smaller and smaller.

  34

  MAUREEN MCCAULEY NERVOUSLY kicked the gravel with her foot as the man behind her knelt down and looked into the keyhole. Sergeant Robby Cole turned and glanced at her legs, his eyes flitting up and down. He focused again on the lock.

  He unscrewed a wide ball-point pen cartridge, pulling a black metal device out. He studied the irregular angles of the pick. He then twisted the squiggly end into the keyhole. “Usually these motel doors are cake.”

  Maureen didn’t want to make small talk. Her eyes were frozen, looking away from him, out toward the highway. She had gotten an anonymous phone call suggesting vital evidence was being withheld in the case. She had agonized over what to do. Judy, the dispatcher at the station house, couldn’t help; she was being closely watched. Then Maureen got a second tip from that teacher up at the school—same story—data was being withheld. She knew this was invasion but had to act. Her thoughts raced back to the scraping sound behind her.

  The cop was working the pick, but his eyes kept darting back at her. “You’ll have to conceal how you got it,” he said.

  “I know,” Maureen said.

  “If you could prove he was obstructing justice, then I could—”

  “I don’t have time for a warrant.”

  The lock clicked open. He stood up, slipped the metal piece back into his pocket. “You never saw me tonight.”

  “That’s right,” she sang quietly, brushing past him. “Thanks.”

  An arm reached out and grabbed her. “Wait.”

  She looked down at the arm, up into his eyes. Cole was leaning toward her. “I’ll see you later, though.”

  “What?”

  A low laugh. “You don’t think I did this for my health, do you?”

  She drew away from him. “No, your civic duty. Now—”

  He was whispering. “Ever since you leaned over that fence down by the marsh and showed me your stockings, I’ve been thinking—”