by Kyp Harness
But no (and shame rolls in mingling with his rage, making him angrier and hence more shameful again, as he groans, spent) he sees with an ascending sense of frustration and almost panic that he does not, cannot, hate his wife; that his rage let loose flows towards her but then goes through her and past her, back towards something unseen; it won’t stay stuck, but travels on to someplace unknown where something seems to stand mocking him, laughing at him from beyond the realm of his comprehension, some figure always lingering at the periphery of his vision who with a turn of his head, vanishes completely.
He is ashamed before it and also in awe, because it knows him completely and he is helpless; that is why he thinks of it as the law, with the law’s hardness, like the hardness of the naked woman. It seems to judge him like the eyes of the naked woman judge him, knowing that he is helpless, yet still demanding him to do the impossible, to accept what he cannot accept—not now, for a moment, but always—every time that keening, invalid whisper comes and sends his teeth clattering and clashing together with electric sparks, every time his heart aches dully and pointlessly and his fist slams down with a stillborn thud on his thigh.
He looks up to the battered alarm clock propped up on a boiler pipe, sighs, and hoists his body up from the chair, willing it into action with an herculean effort, rubbing his eyes and pulling himself up the dingy stairs. The last, blind thoughts flitter and fall away back through the darkness of his mind as he trudges down the empty school hall, his face blank, eyes unblinking, his plump lips like a steadfast ledge, the vast, meaty muscles of his great, marble shoulders straining smoothly beneath his uniform as he walks.
He picks up the mop where he left it against the wall and steps toward the light shining from the door of the teacher’s lounge. The door opens, and Mr. Millgrim and Mrs. Wertenbaker and Mrs. Crowley all come leisurely shuffling out, pulling on jackets and coats and arranging their scarves, the two women’s faces upraised to Mr. Millgrim’s and chuckling still at an unheard joke.
“Yes, that’s what I told him,” Mr. Millgrim says over the laughter and chuckling some himself as he rakishly arranges his scarf inside the collar of his overcoat, “and believe me, he knew what he could do if he didn’t like it.”
“Oh Bill,” laughs Mrs. Crowley, glancing over knowingly at Mrs. Wertenbaker who bends at the waist slightly and momentarily closes her eyes as she giggles.
Mr. Millgrim, laughing, looks over and notices Mr. Morton standing holding his mop. “Well, we’re all done, Pat—do your stuff!” he says brightly with a chipper wave, which at once bids Mr. Morton goodbye and dismisses him, then turns and leads the two ladies down the hall.
“I hope I can get my car started in this weather,” Mrs. Wertenbaker is heard to say giddily, still chuckling as she buttons her coat.
“Well I could give you a lift if you’re not afraid it’ll turn too many heads in the neighbourhood,” says Mr. Millgrim, wagging his eyebrows, and the two ladies again bubble up with merriment at his audacity as they reach the far exit.
Mr. Morton stands watching them as they fumble for their car keys at the end of the hall. As Mr. Millgrim reaches to get the door for the women, he looks up and shouts back, “Don’t forget to lock up when you’re done, Pat!”
“Bill!” exclaims Mrs. Crowley delightedly and the warm laughing of the ladies echoes down the hall and then fades following them through the door and outside. Mr. Morton smiles briefly in unseen response, a smile that jerks across his face for a moment as if facilitated by an electric current, then vanishes completely.
He stands staring at the closing door, the light from the teacher’s lounge falling over half his face, casting it into relief, jagged shadows eating away the other side of his features, the sockets of his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks ensconced in brooding darkness. He stands still staring at the door after they have gone, clutching his mop.
In the spring a new boy comes to the school, a little stockily built young man with choppy black hair. His parents just moved into the area as a result of his dad’s job being transferred from Texas. On the first day in class, Mrs. Crowley says, “Children, a new student’s come to join us, Joseph Hardwick. I hope you’ll all make him feel comfortable.” The boy sits with his eyes wide and staring down at the edge of his desk while feeling twenty gazes laid upon him, shamelessly curious, whispering and giggling here and there.
Later during History when the students are taking turns reading paragraphs, Mrs. Crowley says, “Joseph, could you read the next part, please?” and all the kids focus upon him anew as he stumbles through the reading in his strange, southern accent, his words seeming weird and misshapen, differently coloured like exotic birds to the children’s ears. They all exchange mocking glances, erupting in hushed giggles throughout the room. Becoming conscious of this, the boy pauses in his reading, swallows, and starts reading again, losing his place, stuttering over the words as a bright red patch of embarrassment and anger, round and wide as a half-dollar coin, appears on each of his cheeks. He licks his lips, his mouth straining for moisture, his eyes darting to each side, and his voice dries out, weakens into something little more than a whisper.
“Joseph!” the teacher says. “I’m afraid you’ll have to start over again. We can’t make out a word you’re saying.”
The boy looks down, pursing his lips, the red on his cheeks spreading out. “And please speak up a bit and let us hear that wonderful accent of yours—it’s really quite lovely.” The boy looks up at her and then turns to the book, reading boldly, loudly, his voice rising and swelling over the phrases with emphatic pride.
At recess the children flood out from the doors, across the asphalt with the hopscotch and the basketball lines painted on it, and out into the grassy schoolyard. They separate into little clots of boys and girls, and Joseph brings up the rear, the boys in their camaraderie regarding him with backward glances. They play kickball and he stands at the side looking on, his hands in his pockets, his feet tentatively scraping the ground, his stocky body small and alone and hesitating against the sky until one of them yells, “Joseph, take it!” and he runs in, kicking, racing around the field, scores. Cheers and hoorays in the merry, determined play of boys in the afternoon field, echoes of whoops and exhortations float out and fade across the grass.
And when the bell rings, all the kids are around him; as they walk in, their heads turn to him with excited smiles. Even boys ahead of him walk backwards to gaze upon him, to hear his strangely accented voice and his jokes and phrases and strange figures of speech (which they repeat amongst themselves with delight). He walks in the midst of them, his face glowing with happiness, and a little surprise as well, puzzled perhaps in the depths of his mind as he looks excitedly from face to friendly face, his white teeth shining, his eyes darting actively from side to side and around.
And the week runs on, many recesses pass, and the boys gather round the stocky boy with the close-cropped black hair and the strange accent; the instigator of all games and feats of daring. The boys strive to speak as he speaks; he is the ultimate arbiter of young, frolicking, boy behaviour; they all want him to be on their team in Gym, competing among themselves to invite him to their homes after school, looking over at him for mute approval, compliance, commiseration during long and boring classes. They pass him notes, several of the boys seeking always to bolster the belief in themselves that he is their best friend, just a bit closer and in with him than any of the others.
They turn their somewhat desperate and expectant faces toward him, thrusting past the shoulders of the others for approval. And as each recess bell rings, he walks still in the midst of them, but now no excitement or surprise is in his demeanour and his face does not swivel to take in every beaming tribute with glee. Rather, he accepts their joyful attention with ease and complacency as his due; he looks not from side to side but straight ahead with a slight, heavy-lidded squint to his eyes, as if trained upon some destination far ahe
ad and manly, comprehensible only to himself, with a hint of disdain as they jostle about him which only excites their reverence and respect, the burning desire of each for exclusive proximity.
And in class again, the teacher now having secretly selected him as a favourite, calls on him frequently for special duties, to go down the hall and retrieve the overhead projector, to wipe the blackboard, and when he answers her with an impudence considerably more extensive than has been previously acceptable, she purses her lips and creases her brow briefly as if to say, Really, this is stretching it a bit, Joseph, before allowing her features to soften into a delighted grin. And even when Joseph, during one recess, leads a couple of the other boys to climb up a tree and to swing over onto the roof of the school—something strictly forbidden—Mrs. Crowley merely makes the boys stand with their faces to the wall for fifteen minutes in the hall. “And wipe that smirk off your face, Joseph Hardwick,” she says as she walks away. “Your cute face won’t get you out of this one.”
There is something in the nature of the boy’s growing prepossession and arrogance that charms the older woman; something in the cocksure swagger of him as he leads his disciples into further acts of daredevilry on the playground that moves and amuses her as she gazes out the window from her desk. Such a healthy, young spirited scrapper of a little fellow, such a handsome—well, cute’s more like it—little guy with that charming accent; you can’t stay mad at him for long, even though of course the discipline and order of the class must be maintained.
“And when I asked him what he was doing up on the roof, he looked up at me as if he were the most innocent, young child in the world, as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth,” she says to Mrs. Wertenbaker in the restroom.
“Well, isn’t that the way it always is with these young charmers—see how early they start,” says Mrs. Wertenbaker.
“Yes, I suppose he knows in his heart he can wrap anyone around his finger just with those eyes of his, the little sneak,” says Mrs. Crowley with a show of indignation to herself in the mirror.
“Oh yes, I don’t suppose there’s any doubt in his mind of that at all,” says Mrs. Wertenbaker as she flushes and emerges from the stall, matter-of-factly adjusting her skirt and the vest over her sweater. “Every so often you get them like that,” she says.
“It was all I could do to keep a straight face,” says Mrs. Crowley. “Really though, I’ll have to take him in hand soon, it’s getting a bit much,” she laughs, turning from the sink.
“Reminds me of my young Robert when he was that age,” chortles Mrs. Wertenbaker, and they chuckle knowingly as they exit through the swinging door that sweeps back and forth a couple times before closing motionless in the empty washroom, their heels clicking down the hall outside.
Joseph is now outside in the misty morning recess with his cohorts—it being the morn after a heavy night’s rain, so that limpid puddles gleam here and there across the black asphalt, a kind of haze settles in the branches of the trees, their trunks blackened luridly, the grass vibrantly green. Joseph and his many best friends run out past where Mr. Morton stoically sweeps the back steps of the school.
“Hey! Look, Joseph!” calls one of the boys upon sighting the many dew worms laid out across the pavement. The boys run and kneel in fascination, their faces crowded over the flesh-coloured worms languidly lying in stunned sightlessness scattered over the black steaming asphalt, squirming spasmodically from time to time, having slithered from their sanctuaries but now somewhat befuddled, lost, seeming like so many amputated fingers but shining smooth with tiny, barely perceptible ridges along the sides of them, raising their heads—or is it their tails?—up questioningly every so often with great effort, then letting them fall lazily to the pavement again.
Joseph picks up one of the worms and pulls it in half with scientific detachment, lays it down again and watches the two pieces squirm around. The other boys follow suit, pulling the worms in half and watching the tiny, shiny pieces of worm slither mindlessly about.
“Look!” says Joseph, and he picks up a particularly long worm, leaps to his feet and runs with it in his outstretched hand across the asphalt to where the girls are skipping rope, one at each side and two in the middle jumping, the rope doubled over, all absorbed, until one hears the laughter of Joseph and looks up, sees him and then sees the long, curling worm dangling from his fingers.
“Get out!” she cries, dropping the rope. They all rush away, some of them screaming, and he flings the worm at them. They shrink back and flinch with a collective shiver, and here come the rest of the boys with worms—with bright, roguish leers, they whip and fling the worms through the air, the girls running yet avoiding them easily, extensively voicing their extreme repulsion, their eyes glittering with anger and amusement and even the smallest of the boys runs off with the worm outstretched, pursuing a loudly crying girl in the foggy morn, until he stops and throws it at her, then runs back to the fold, chuckling mischievously and self-satisfied, grinning with downward slanted eyes.
But Joseph now is detached and looks far off over to where the asphalt gives way to the gravel of the teachers’ parking lot. He sees the boy David Crowe, who kneels looking happily down upon the worms, his eyes behind his thick spectacles hidden, his hands dancing excitedly in the air above the worms as they squirm and writhe.
A sombreness falls down across Joseph Hardwick’s face and he walks slowly and deliberately from the melee he’s created, striding purposefully across the schoolyard, his stocky body drawn inexorably as if on a wire across the asphalt to David Crowe. He cries as he approaches, “Hey! David likes the worms!”
The rest of the kids all laugh as they look over and see David grinning obliviously down at the worms and Joseph at his side now inquiring, “David! You like the worms?”
The boy looks up a moment dumbfounded, unseeingly at Joseph’s face, then turns merrily back to the worms on the ground. The children are all now running towards the edge of the parking lot. “David, ya get those pants from your mother?” asks Joseph regarding the plaid, polyester slacks David wears, the knees of them on the gravel, his head turned down and away from Joseph.
“David—can’t ya hear me?” asks the stocky boy, his lips twitching in a smirk, his eyes actively taking in the small figure, dancing with unfocused amusement, his daringness riding upon the buoyancy of the tentative laughter gathering behind him, the children crowding around at a distance, all watching with expectant fear.
“David!” says Joseph again, bending and looking into the meditative face, shifting his head around to look into the eyes of the boy. “David!” he says, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder and shaking it.
David glances down at the hand on the shoulder of his sweater with troubled eyes, his mouth slightly open; he looks up at Joseph’s mocking face uncomprehendingly, the children watching with hungry silence.
Joseph looks at David’s face with an ironic benevolence causing his features to sharpen and gleam, his eyebrows at the same time narrowing angrily. “Hey, David—you must like the worms,” he proclaims as he pulls on the sweater, David stumbling to his feet, now panic-stricken and trying to struggle away, his sweater stretching off his torso and his arms swinging, his face contorted with quick, confused fear, his mouth open.
Joseph pushes him and David falls flailing down into the gravel, his eyeglasses spinning off into the tiny clouds of dust rising. The smaller boy lifts his head from the gravel, dirt on his chin, looking back over his shoulder at Joseph advancing relentlessly. Joseph grabs him by the collar and pulls him to his feet, his arm around the neck of the boy.
“Make ’im EAT the worms!” calls out one of the boys.
“Hey, ya wanna eat the worms?” Joseph asks, bending David’s arms behind his back and marching him over to a Volkswagen car in the parking lot.
He shoves David up against the curved hood of the car, David hardly conscious enough to be frightened, hi
s mouth gaping open as if in a dream where one can’t scream, the children all around in strange silence, their eyes trained upon the spectacle, smiles frozen on their faces, one making a vague dissenting gesture.
“David!” Joseph shouts directly into the face of the boy, a husky commanding harshness rising in his voice, his one hand pinning David’s thin chest to the Volkswagen, the other coming up with a tiny wriggling worm, his hard eyes feeding on David’s helplessness. David uncomprehending, stricken with fear, his head swinging around convulsively—and at this point, across from the parking lot on the school’s steps, Mr. Morton’s head suddenly jerks up like a dog’s who’s heard something.
In a white flash he sees the group of children in the parking lot, the parking lot by the wire fence and the farmer’s field beyond, beneath the grey morning sky, the back of Joseph’s head and his shoulders and over his shoulder the shrinking paralyzed face of David wilting against the hood of the Volkswagen. In that white, flashing instant Mr. Morton’s hulking body flies from the school steps, the broom standing straight up by itself magically for a moment before it tilts slowly and clatters to the pavement. Mr. Morton in his blue uniform and his meaty hand grabs Joseph by the back of his neck, jerking the boy backwards, his hands on the collar of his shirt lifting him slightly from the ground and shaking him back and forth, his eyes burning with anger, his face red.
“Hey! Don’t you ever!” he shouts—shaking the boy, the boy’s arms and legs dangling and jerking. “You hear?”