The Big Door Prize

by M. O. Walsh

  “This is like a bird estate,” he said. “Makes me wonder what kind of bird can afford a place like this. A doctor bird?” he said. “A lawyer bird?”

  “Don’t make fun of me,” she said.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “These are great.”

  Cherilyn looked at him. “Thank you,” she said. “They’re for the bicentennial.”

  “I bet you sell out in ten minutes,” he said. “So, what’s the news? What else have you been up to lately?”

  “Not much,” she said. “Taking care of my mom, mainly. She’s losing it a bit, I’m afraid. She never much gets out of the house.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I worry I won’t be able to tell when my mom starts to go. She’s been crazy all her life.”

  “And what about you?” Cherilyn asked him. “I hear you’ve been busy.”

  Deuce set the birdhouse down like it was a fragile thing and said, “You have no idea, Cherilyn. Things are about to change for me, I have a feeling.”

  Cherilyn straightened the other birdhouses on the table, repositioned some of the twigs she had bundled up like a wreath on one of their doors. “Well, change is good, right?” she said.

  “See?” Deuce said. He slapped his hand on the table. “That’s one of the things I like about you. Not too many people in this town say change is good. It’s like they’re all stuck in the mud.”

  “Speaking of change,” Cherilyn said. “Why’d you text me about that DNAMIX machine? Have you tried it?”

  Deuce smiled. “It’s the talk of the town, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It’s certainly the gossip of the town,” Cherilyn said. “I’ve been hearing some weird things. Is it true that Judith Freeman is becoming a Buddhist?” she asked. “Somebody told me that the other day and I just laughed it off. But now I wonder if she’d done that machine. I mean, aren’t some of the readouts kind of bizarre?”

  “I heard Jamie Mize has started digging a pool,” Deuce said. “His told him he would be an Olympic Swimmer.”

  “That old pork chop?” Cherilyn said. “He’d sink like a stone.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Deuce said. “But it’s good he’s getting off his couch. It’s good when people can see what’s out there, I think, even if it might not make much sense sometimes.”

  “And what about you?” Cherilyn said. She wrapped both hands around her cup. “What did yours say? What’s out there for Bruce Newman?”

  “Let’s turn the question around,” he said. “What do you think mine would say? What answer could I give you that might change your mind about me?”

  Cherilyn sighed again. “So, you haven’t done it, then,” she said.

  “I didn’t say that,” Deuce told her. He placed his palms flat on the table and leaned toward her. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  Cherilyn smiled at him.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I haven’t done it. I’m not sure if I want to.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Deuce said. “You are a terrible liar.”

  “Well, then, what do you think mine would say?” Cherilyn asked him. “If you’re so sure.”

  Deuce leaned back and blew a big breath through his mouth. “Wow,” he said. “So many options. Derelict. Vagabond. Heartbreaker.”

  “Stop it,” she said. “I’m serious. Take a guess.”

  Deuce looked at her intently. Cherilyn felt him studying her face, her neck, even her fingers as she twirled around the coffee mug on the table. “Something important, is what I’d think,” Deuce said. “Somebody special.”

  Cherilyn felt her heart do a strange shaking thing, but instead of letting on how his comment made her feel, she just stared right back at him. They held eye contact in a way that felt competitive.

  “Wrong,” she said.

  “Well,” Deuce told her. “I bet I know what it didn’t say.” He reached out and put his hand on top of hers. “I bet it didn’t just say Mrs. Douglas Hubbard.”

  Cherilyn leaned back in her chair. She went to tighten her robe even though she was no longer wearing it.

  “You know, Bruce,” she said. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

  Deuce didn’t move.

  “It’s awfully quiet in this house, Cherilyn.”

  Cherilyn felt her eyes begin to well but she had been crying enough lately, she thought. She would not do it today, and she would not do it in front of him. “I mean it,” she said. “I have things to do.”

  Deuce stood up.

  “Me, too,” he said. “Things to do. Always busy, you know. Big town hall with the mayor. Finalizing some stuff with my mosaic. I have a million things going on.”

  He picked up his blazer and put it over his shoulder and Cherilyn was possessed by the wild notion to keep him there. He was the only one she had talked to about this machine, she realized, and perhaps the only person who wouldn’t find it crazy if she told him. And the way he had looked at her when he guessed what it would be. It was like he knew. It was like he would have believed her. Damn it to hell, she thought. Damn it right to hell. She didn’t want him to leave.

  She got up to walk him out and had to resist grabbing the back of his suit coat to ask him to stay. Another cup of coffee, maybe, just to let her feel that way a little bit longer, because she was back in her dream now, in the land of fine sand, and if she could just be noticed that way, if she could just share that vision with someone, maybe that would make it all go away. But was its going away even a thing she wanted? And, if so, why was she following him outside?

  Deuce opened the door and climbed into his truck.

  “Bruce,” Cherilyn said, and put her hand on the door. “About that mosaic. Don’t you still need to take my picture?”

  He looked at her a long while. “I guess I do,” he said. “I don’t have my good camera, though. Later today?”

  “Okay,” she said. “But not here.”

  18

  The Caravan of Fools

  General George Custer. Benedict Arnold. Michael Dukakis. The Buffalo Bills.

  Many men throughout history have stared into the mouth of utter defeat and so Douglas was not alone in his mood. Only halfway through first period, his plan to expose his students’ DNAMIX readings as ­self-­aggrandizing slop had gone poorly. He had taken off his blazer and begun pacing up and down the rows between desks. All of his logical arguments against the machine were falling on ears as deaf as a majority congress, and Douglas seemed almost maniacal in his pursuit of at least one unbeliever. From outside the door, he likely looked passionate. He snatched another blue ticket from a boy’s hand in the second row and held it up.

  “A Puppeteer?” he said. “Now, here is a perfect example. Joseph Weems, answer me honestly. It’s the goddamn ­twenty-­first century. Do you have any interest at all in being a puppeteer?”

  The boy was nervous, as was the rest of the class, since Mr. Hubbard, cursing with a black eye, no less, had begun his odd crusade. He stammered as he spoke. “Well,” he said. “As a kid, I always sort of liked Elmo.”

  His classmates burst out laughing. One of them did an Elmo impression and said, “Hey, guys. I’m Elmo. I have no penis.”

  “Cut it out,” Douglas said. “Y’all used to like Elmo, too. Don’t be idiots. You forget I’ve seen just about every one of you sitting on your mother’s lap since you were born. But my point is that this, Puppeteer, is a totally random occupation that’s just been sort of suggested to you. Y’all understand that, right? You know how I always tell you history is written by the winners? It’s just a matter of perception.”

  “Maybe so,” Joseph said. “But ever since I got this, I’ve been sort of fiddling around with stuff.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a puppet about the size of a glove. It had long brown hair, big
blue eyes, a checkerboard dress, and resembled no living human being. “And this puppet business,” he said, and placed his hand inside the doll. “Well, it lets me put my hand right up her skirt, Mr. Hubbard. This is sort of like the farthest I’ve gotten.”

  Douglas looked at him.

  “Puppet proctology is not a destiny,” he said. “Now put that abomination away and seek counseling. Who’s next?”

  Douglas turned around to find every student avoiding his eye contact but one. It was Jenny Clarette. This was one of the nicest kids he knew. He reached out and snatched the readout from her hand and read it aloud. “Hopeful?” he said. “My God, Jenny, that’s not even a noun. That’s an adjective!” He looked at her. “How are you going to grow up to be an adjective?”

  Jenny Clarette played on the volleyball team. She was a straight-­A student and a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. There was an article in the school paper last year about how she spends her weekends collecting canned goods for children in Rwanda. She was a counselor, Douglas knew, at a youth summer camp. She looked up at him with the largest, most ­open-­faced smile he’d ever seen. Her teeth were in perfect alignment.

  “I just plan to try my best,” she said.

  “Well, shit,” Douglas said. “Of course you do!”

  “I don’t know why you’re wigging out about all this, Mr. Hubbard,” a girl named Shaina said. “I mean, they’re all good. Why not be happy?”

  Douglas turned on her like she had insulted him. His teacher mode had now expanded beyond idle hostility to become a sort of weapon. “Who says they’re all good?” he asked her. “What, in the history of mankind, has been all good?”

  “Well, look,” she said, and held hers out. “Mine says Baker. Now, I’ve never cooked anything in my entire life.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a Ziploc full of cookies. “But I got my dad’s recipe for homemade peppermint cookies and I just sort of added some stuff.” She held out a cookie. “You should try it,” she said. “My dad says they’re even better than his mom’s.”

  “I will not,” Douglas said.

  “Try the cookie,” she said, and then other kids began doing the same. In less than a second, they’d started a chant: “Try the ­coo-­kie. Try the ­coo-­kie. Try the ­coo-­kie.”

  Douglas was sweating.

  “I will not eat that goddamned cookie!” he said.

  He looked over to see Principal Pat standing at his classroom door, holding a drill in her hand. He had no idea how long she’d been there.

  “Class,” she said. “Y’all are dismissed.”

  The students immediately began slamming their books and stowing their phones and, as they trudged past him out the door, one of them said, “You know, Mr. Hubbard. I’m with you. I don’t really think it matters what it says. I think it might be more about the way you interpret it than anything else. It could be just some sort of random algorithm spitting these things out, maybe some sort of ­facial-­recognition software.” He took his readout from his pocket. “I mean, mine says Glue.”

  Douglas looked at it.

  “Your parents must be so proud,” he said. “Thank you for enlightening me.”

  Douglas grabbed the few late papers students handed him as they tried to sneak out without conversation and said, “Okay, class. I want to thank you all for providing me this glimpse into the utter abyss. On Monday, we will have a quiz on television psychics, tarot cards, and divining rods. No need to prepare.”

  Douglas circled around his desk and sat in his chair. As the students filed out, thumbing at things on their phones, he thought of how, for most people, it would be time to go home. He had suffered through first period with a blinding hangover. Wasn’t that enough? He had worked an entire day in his head, had been enraged for nearly an hour, and was just getting started. He had also, he knew, been busted breaking Pat’s no-­cursing policy and prepared himself for a ­dressing-­down. As the last of the students walked out, Pat revving her drill at each one of them as if in mock mutilation, Jacob Richieu approached his desk.

  He looked pale and nervous. Something about his face that Douglas saw differently now, though. It was in the chin, maybe, or the manner in which he pinched at his eyebrows, and Douglas realized that Jacob resembled his father, who he’d been with the night ­before. Much of Hank in the boy, which Douglas knew was a good thing.

  “I just want you to know,” Jacob said, “that I didn’t do it.”

  “I know, Jacob,” Douglas told him. “That’s why I didn’t call on you. Actually, your two dollars may have started this whole thing.”

  “No, not that,” Jacob said. “Something else.”

  “Excuse me, Jacob,” Pat said, and revved her drill a few more times. “I need to speak to your teacher here.”

  Douglas looked at Jacob. “It appears I’m about to get screwed,” he said. “Can we talk later? I’m in here after lunch. My door is always open. Actually, that’s a rule instituted by your esteemed principal right there, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Pat said. “Pat Howell versus the Board of Sleepy Teachers.”

  “I just wanted you to know,” Jacob said, and walked out.

  Pat stood at Douglas’s desk.

  “Well,” she said, and pointed at his eye. “I’m guessing by the look of you that Cherilyn didn’t take the news too flipping well.”

  “Oh,” Douglas said. “This old thing?”

  “Don’t go cracking up on me now, Hubbard,” she said. “I sent in your name today.”

  “But I haven’t even talked to Cherilyn about it,” he said. “I’m leaning toward turning you down.”

  “I’m not too worried,” she said. “I’ve been making guesses about people for thirty years. You are what they call a safe bet. Take it as a compliment. That’s not the whole reason I’m here, though.”

  “I’ll pay my fine to the curse jar,” he said. “Buy yourself a nice hammer.”

  “Was Trina Todd in your class today?” Pat asked.

  Douglas shook his head. “She was a no-­show.”

  “Look,” Pat said. “Harold said he saw her coming into school this morning holding some sort of long blue duffel bag. Now, I’m not the type to overreact to things but Harold is, and he said this is on the list of things we are supposed to look out for, in terms of Code Reds and the like.”

  “Well, she doesn’t really fit the profile, does she?” Douglas said. “I mean, she doesn’t have testicles.”

  “Yeah, but I think there might be a bit more to her story than we know about. I’ve been hearing rumors about what happened that night Toby died. You know, things that went down with her and some of those boys before it happened.”

  “Shouldn’t you be telling Pete about this?” he said. “Or her dad?”

  “I will,” she said, “but it’s not going to be easy. Like I said, men of God are fragile, Hubbard. That’s one thing I’ve noticed. Anyway, I’m telling you all this bric-­a-­brac because, starting next week, this is likely to be your problem instead of mine. And I hate to even have these conversations. You know, I don’t think these kids are really any flipping different than they were when I started. It’s just their role models have changed, you know? It’s the adults who have changed.”

  “That’s certainly debatable,” Douglas said. “But what are you asking me to do, exactly?”

  “Just textbook stuff. Be on the lookout for anything suspicious. On the one hand, you’d think this weekend might make the school a ­high-­profile target. That’s Harold’s take, at least, since everybody will be tromping over here for the opening choir concert tonight and such, but he’s sort of a conspiracy guy. On the other hand, though, it wouldn’t make much sense to do anything illegal this weekend because we’ll have more cops in town than we’ve likely ever had.”

  “You know,” Douglas said. “You’re making this promotion sou
nd less and less appealing.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she said.

  “On a different subject, let me ask you this,” Douglas said. “If I was principal, would I be in charge of the curriculum?”

  “Of course,” she said, “with certain limitations. We are a Catholic school, you know.”

  “What if I wanted to start a jazz studies program? Or maybe teach a Jazz History class once in a blue moon. Could I do that?”

  “You’d have to take it up with your boss,” she said. “Which would be you.”

  Pat revved up her drill and did a little ­told-­you-­so with her ­eyebrows.

  “See, Hubbard?” she said. “God has opened you a door. So, now I’m going to fix your window.”

  Pat walked to the broken window and removed the piece of plywood Wilson had lodged in there. She took four screws out of either her breast or pants pocket and lined them on the sill.

  Douglas heard a knock on the classroom door. It was Pete.

  Pat looked back at him.

  “Father?” she said. “Don’t you have Reconciliation today?”

  “I do,” Pete said. “I’m just looking for Trina.”

  Pat returned to the window. She put on her safety goggles and drilled noisily into the frame.

  “Well,” she yelled. “Join the frippin’ club.”

  19

  Never Will Go Out of Fashion, Always Will Look Good on You

  For the first time she could recall, nothing in her house would do.

  Cherilyn took nearly everything out of her closet and laid it on the bed. She tried dresses and nice blouses and eschewed anything Douglas adored. It struck her as hurtful to wear something he liked to meet Deuce and, aside from that, she didn’t want to look like her regular self anyway. She wanted to be impressive. More impressive than she ever had been. If this was to be the picture broadcast to the rest of the town, if it was going to live on forever, she wanted to look her best and now believed, perhaps paradoxically, that the best version of her had likely never been seen. She’d always been too safe. She’s always been too Deerfield. This would be her ­coming-­out party, Cherilyn figured, a stunning photo, a way to tell the town who she was without having to say it, maybe even a way to tell Douglas.