King Dork (35 page)

quite so bad. Because you have to believe in something.

Don’t you?

I was also having some trouble squaring the clever young

Tit, who could write codes in backward French and manipu-

late biblical quotations to his own nefarious ends, with the fat, dumb galunk he had apparently become. But people degener-ate as they get older, and anyway, it was possible that Mr.

Teone wasn’t quite as dumb as he looked. He knew Latin, after all, though that could simply reflect the fact that he had gone to school back when they still taught you things other than how to make great collages. It wasn’t a matter of intelligence, really. Evil was the common thread here. And maybe

the obesity, too. Poor, dear little MT, I thought. Something told me we weren’t talking about top-quality ramoning here.

A thought struck: what if Mr. Teone wasn’t evil after all?

What if he turned out to be a Disney-ish figure, unjustly ma-ligned at the beginning, who would eventually be revealed as a kindly soul with an important message to impart? “Son,

your old man wanted you to have this,” he’d say, waving

some object or other, a sword or a curious gold coin. “But I had to wait till I knew you were old enough to understand.

Fortunately, you passed the test. Oh, you didn’t realize you are descended from kings? Well, you are, and it’s time to

claim your rightful place.” Descended from kings? Oh my

God, it all fits. “I’m terribly sorry,” he’d continue, “about the hazing, the mockery, the torture, the permanent psychological and emotional scars. We had to do that so you wouldn’t suspect the big surprise party we’ve been planning for you.”

Somehow, I couldn’t see it. I had to stand by my instinct

that Mr. Teone was a bad guy, the apex of a pyramid of des-picable, sadistic normal psychos who wanted me and Sam

Hellerman dead. I never really doubted it. The fact that he 268

had known my dad just made his evil a bit more complicated, that’s all.

That said, I realized that Mr. Teone would have answers

to many of my questions, if only I could figure out a way to ask them. I was still sitting in the kitchen, thinking things over. My mom got up and I could hear her footsteps as she

walked over to the living room. Then I heard some shuffling, followed by another little burst of giggling: and I knew she had just looked up “callipygian” in the dictionary.

I took out a sheet of paper and wrote another note:

Dear Mr. Teone,

In light of recent events, I feel

there are important matters we need to

discuss. These concern materials among

my deceased father’s effects which you

may be in a position to elucidate.

Please contact me at your earliest

convenience to arrange a meeting so that

we can discuss these issues and, I hope,

come to a satisfactory arrangement.

Best wishes,

Thomas Charles Henderson

I put the note in an envelope and put the envelope in my

backpack. Then I went into the living room. My mom was

sitting on the couch, reading the Chi-Mos zine and looking up words in the American Heritage dictionary.

“Mom, was Dad really in the navy?” I asked.

“Yes, he was,” she replied absently. “For three years.”

And then, since I was on a roll, I dared to add, “and did

he really commit suicide?”

269

“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered. I had a sort of feeling

that she meant that as a “yes, but let’s say no more about it.”

But it could just as easily have meant “no” or “maybe,” or perhaps “decline to state.” I tried one more.

“Can I see the note?”

“No.”

Well, that answer seemed to imply that there
had
been a note, but I remained unsure. I was ready in case she started to flip out, but she didn’t. She looked pretty sad, though, and there may have been tears in her eyes; but there were almost always tears in her eyes. So I just went over and kissed her on the cheek.

I left the room in silence. I was going to leave it at that, but then something came over me, and I reversed course and went back in and approached the couch.

“Why can’t you be straight with anyone?” I said. “You tell everyone different things and you keep the truth to yourself.”

She looked up, surprised: it was a very uncharacteristic

outburst from me. Then she said, quietly, “I’m sorry, baby.”

This time I knew what it meant. It meant she didn’t know

why she couldn’t be straight with anyone. She touched my

arm, and it was the most affectionate thing I’d had from her in a long, long time.

U NC LE TONY

On Monday morning, it was already clear that our perform-

ance at the Festival of Lights had had an impact on Hillmont High society. Sam Hellerman’s new version of the lyrics zine was quite popular. He was selling them for two dollars apiece, and he already had over a hundred dollars by the end of first 270

period. It was a good thing, too, because Todd Panchowski’s parents were reportedly planning to sue our parents’ asses over his wrecked drum set: we needed the money. At this

rate—well, I couldn’t quite calculate how many we’d have to sell to cover a drum set and legal costs and still maybe have enough left over so that my share would be at least a hundred and fifty dollars so I could schedule my own appointment

with Dr. Hexstrom. Because I really wanted to discuss Tit

with her, after all that had happened.

Anyway, our band had sucked and had been hated by

one and all, but the zine was a hit. A couple of kids in homeroom even asked me to autograph their copies. (I noticed,

though, with a slightly guilty pang, that Kyrsten Blakeney was absent. Or I think that’s what that pang was.) It wasn’t like suddenly everyone wanted to be our friends or anything.

Well, Shinefield, Syndie Duffy’s fake-hippie boyfriend, did seem to want to be friends. When I passed him in the hall he said, “Chi-Mo!” and put out his fist, which I dodged by force of habit. But he was only trying to do the hipster patty-cake secret-handshake thing, where you touch fists, then touch

them again with one on top and then the other on top, and

then snap your fingers and say “my brother” or something. I don’t really get how to do it, so I gave him the Vulcan “live long and prosper” sign instead, which was just going to have to do.

Other than Shinefield, the general public still gave us a

wide berth, and most of them probably wouldn’t have con-

sidered being seen doing the hipster handshake with either of us. But it was a bit like when I had accidentally beaten up Paul Krebs. Somehow we had inched up the scale. We had

produced useful materials and provided a needed service.

Laughter at Mr. Teone’s expense was in the end more valu-

able to society than strict enforcement of the pecking order.

271

Speaking of which, after homeroom that morning, Mr.

Teone once again accosted me in the boys’ bathroom. If I still harbored any hope that there was in the offing a Teone-related surprise party in my honor, it quickly sank, killing all on board. His transformation from pudgy, freakish, administrative buffoon to terrifying PE teacher–ogre had reached yet a further stage. I mean, his face was the color of sweet-and-sour sauce and a vein in his neck was throbbing to the beat of a dance track that it alone could hear. I almost didn’t recognize him. He looked like a less flat-chested Ms. Rimbaud.

“God damn it, Henderson!” he whisper-roared. “What in

hell you think you’re trying to pull?”

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings,” I said deliberately, “but I believe my right to satirize you, as a public figure, is protected by the First Amendment.”

He ignored the legal argument. “What we need to estab-

lish,” he continued, his damp, vibrating, PE-teacher face a re-volting inch or so from mine, “is where you’re getting your information.”

I reached into my backpack, pulled out my
Catcher in the
Rye,
CEH 1960, and looked at him meaningfully, sure he would recognize it. But I was wrong.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “A timeless classic. I used to carry one around with me when I was your age and

it changed my life and society. Now cut the cute stuff—” I kid you not, he said “cut the cute stuff.” Despite the vibrant, Technicolor facial hue, this was pure black-and-white B-movie dialogue.

“Look,” I said, when it was clear that he hadn’t been able to come up with a way to end that sentence about the cute

stuff. “Don’t you think you ought to be a little less unpleasant toward me, considering everything?” It seemed reasonable,

given that we were two people separated by a common rela-

272

tionship with Charles Evan Henderson’s copy of
Catcher in
the Rye,
and I said it as politely as I could. He didn’t take it that way, though.

“If that’s supposed to be a threat, let me assure you: you are fucking with the wrong guy.”

A weird thing to say. From a deeply weird man.

He didn’t even wait for an interloper before he stormed

out. “Keep your nose clean,” I called out helpfully, but I don’t know if he heard.

I walked past his office on my way to first period, then

doubled back, took the note I had written on Saturday out of my backpack, and slid it under his door. Maybe he would be more reasonable when he’d had a chance to cool off. And

maybe then we could have a more productive discussion,

with our pants on, in neutral territory, say at Linda’s

Pancakes on Broadway, rather than in the boys’ bathroom,

though it would still be a weird scene. I’d even be willing to apologize for my rude lyrics, given the right conciliatory ges-ture. And he would tell me all about my dad and their carefree youth together, and the turmoil of the Turbulent Sixties, their hopes, their dreams of sailing away to sea to find the answers to their souls’ mysteries. Maybe he’d even reveal his softer, human side, and I’d realize that he wasn’t such a bad guy after all, just misunderstood. The wounds wouldn’t heal instantly. There would have to be time for reflection, for honest soul-searching, for letting go. But bit by bit, we’d learn to laugh again. “You know, you remind me a lot of your old

man,” he’d say from time to time, with a twinkle in his eye.

I’d start referring to him as Uncle Tony. And then Mr. Teone would finally explain the whole story behind Timothy J.

Anderson, CEH, the dead bastard, John the Baptist, and
The
Catcher in the Rye.
Not the most solid plan, perhaps, but it was worth a shot, and anyway, I couldn’t think of an alternative.

273

N E R D B LO OD

I missed out on a lot of what happened next and had to have it explained to me later, for reasons that will become clear in a minute. I still have some numb spots on my head from the experience, though they tell me that some of the nerve tissue may well end up growing back over time. We’ll see.

Anyway, looking back, I suppose it hadn’t been the

smartest idea to end our set with “The Guy I Accidentally

Beat Up.” The Paul Krebs–Matt Lynch people had been look-

ing for a discreet, plausibly deniable way to wreak vengeance on me ever since the
Brighton Rock
incident. What am I saying? They had been looking for d., p. d. ways to w. v. since they first became aware of my existence around the third

grade. And finding them, too. But that song, not to mention its inclusion in a bestselling publication—by second period, Sam Hellerman had unloaded another forty copies—had invited immediate retaliation. Sam Hellerman thought the conspiracy went all the way to the top, at least up to Mr. Teone himself, who of course had his own reasons to wish me ill, despite my magnanimous decision to give him the tentative

benefit of the barest doubt. I don’t know about that, but Mr.

Donnelly had certainly been in on it to some degree. If we could prove even that, Sam Hellerman promised, the lawsuit could bankrupt the school system, which was a nice thought.

But I doubted it could be proved. Their plan wasn’t particularly brilliant, but it was elaborate and involved several actors, all of whom were responsible only for their individual parts.

It did the job.

Sam Hellerman had just been sent to the nurse’s office,

having once again used his magic bleeding nose to end a boxing match before it began. Mr. Donnelly had slated me to box Mark McAlistair next. Mark McAlistair was one of the lower 274

Matt Lynch minions, no more than a gopher, really, but he

had clearly committed some transgression because he was

the fall guy in the scheme. Soon after our match began and everyone had begun the usual chant of “pussy, pussy, pussy,”

someone tripped me, and Mark McAlistair, as instructed, fell on top of me and pinned me down while a couple of accomplices in the “ring” stood on my wrists and knees. Then he removed his right glove and hit me on the back of the head

with his ungloved fist repeatedly as hard and fast as he could.

That was really against the rules, but Mr. Donnelly pretended not to notice at first. Then, when I was already seeing stars and starting to fade, he yelled, “What the hell are you doing, McAlistair?” and pulled him off me. Then he sent Rich Zim, another Lynchie, to escort me to the nurse’s office. On our way there, while I was still more or less in a daze, Rich Zim led me past the band room where a person or persons un-known stepped out while we were passing the door and

brained me on the back of the head with a brass instrument.

I lost consciousness completely at that point. I think they may have kicked me in the ribs a bit while I was out, judging from the feeling when I came to. At some point, though, Rich Zim and another guy carried me to the nurse’s office, bang-ing my head on lockers and posts and doors and dropping

me on the ground all along the way. At least, it felt that way when I assessed the damages after the fact. They did just