Okay for Now (14 page)

questions. We want to be certain he's all right."

Sure. That's what they wanted.

I shrugged.

"Thanks," said the other policeman. "You've been real helpful. We'll go look for him ourselves."

They did—and it probably didn't help my brother that when he saw them, he took off on his Sting-

Ray and made them chase him about ten miles and he made them crash one—no, two cop cars, and

finally they had to call the state police, who ran him down when one of his tires popped because he

had taken a sharp turn on one wheel, which was something only a few people knew how to do and he

was one of them. He told us all this after Mr. Daugherty brought him home and sat with us while the

other policeman searched through our garage and basement and afterward asked my brother about

fifteen different ways if he had ever been inside the Tools 'n' More Hardware Store.

I could tell the other policeman didn't believe him all fifteen times.

It was harder to tell with Mr. Daugherty, except he said that maybe we should hold off on the

Saturday-night baby-sitting until things got cleared up.

Terrific.

After they left, my mother asked my brother the same question.

"You already heard me tell them."

"Tell me," she said.

"I didn't steal anything."

"Did you take anything from Mr. Spicer's deli?"

"No. Just because Lucas—"

"What Lucas did is over and done. I'm worrying about what you're doing."

"You don't have to worry about anything," my brother said.

"I am worried."

"You don't believe me?"

My mother went into the kitchen.

My brother watched her leave. He just stood there, watching her back as she worked at dishes in

the sink. He stood there a long time. Then he said something she didn't hear, dared me to say anything

—just one little thing—and went upstairs.

I did my homework at the wobbly kitchen table. Mostly Mrs. Verne's stuff. And copying a map of

the Mississippi River from
Geography: The Story of the World
—which I want you to know was still

as clean and perfect as the day Mr. McGraw-Hill sewed the cover on. I also drew costumes of the

samurai tradition of Japan, where we'd gone with Mr. McElroy after we left China. And of course, I

did a few pages of
Jane Eyre,
who was settling in at Mr. Rochester's house even though he hadn't

shown up yet. At least, I think he hadn't shown up.

I took my time.

When I finally did go upstairs, all the lights were off and my brother was in bed. The covers were

drawn up over his head.

You know, when someone has been crying, something gets left in the air. It's not something you can

see, or smell, or feel. Or draw. But it's there. It's like the screech of the Black-Backed Gull, crying out

into the empty white space around him. You can't hear it when you look at the picture. But that doesn't

mean it isn't there.

The trees were reddening and yellowing. You could see the color moving like a slow tide down the

hills that rose on both sides of stupid Marysville. One day it was only the trees toward the top ridges,

and then the next the color was coming down, first where the trees stood mostly by themselves, and

then in bigger patches of red and yellow, until the green was holding out only in the cut-ins on the

hills. And then when the tops started to thin out and you could see the bare rock beneath them, the red

and yellow reached the bottoms of the hills, and then the trees around town colored quickly, like they

didn't want to miss the parade.

Except the trees around The Dump. Their leaves turned brown and dropped.

Terrific.

My mother and I raked them across the front dirt and burned them in the street. Do you know what

that smells like?

"It's the smell of fall," said my mother. "Lucas used to love to play in the leaves before we burned

them. He'd rake them up, and jump in and scatter them all, and rake them all up again, and jump in

again, until he was covered in bits and pieces of leaves. Then he'd come get me, and we'd burn the

piles, and he'd stand there all serious and still, like he was watching something far away."

She shifted some of the leaves closer to the low flames.

"He'll be back soon," I said.

"I know he will."

I looked at her face.

She was watching something far away too.

"I hope there isn't any more trouble," she said.

And so you know, that's what I was thinking about in PE these days. I didn't want there to be any

more trouble, mostly because my mother already had enough. So I was really trying not to get sent to

visit Principal Peattie again, even though it would almost have been worth it to see the Brown

Pelican. But I was really trying. No funny business. No sirree, buster.

And things were going okay, even though Coach Reed and I didn't talk much. We were finishing up

the Apparatus Unit, which meant messing around on leather horses and parallel bars and ropes and

the high bar, which people who are skinny and wiry like yours truly can do without breaking a sweat.

Not that Coach Reed would ever say anything to me about that in a million million years. I could have

thrown a triple-somersault full-layout dismount, and he wouldn't have said a thing. Pretty much he

walked around the gym and hollered at Otis Bottom or someone else and he wouldn't talk with me and

I wouldn't talk with him and then he'd tell us to line up in platoons and he wouldn't look at me.

Which was fine. No trouble.

Until the day he announced that he didn't feel like spotting us for another hour, so we should line up

and he'd count off two teams and we'd play basketball, and he divided us into Shirts and Skins, and I

got on the Skins team and Coach Reed went into his office and I walked over to the Shirts team and

asked James Russell if he'd trade and he said "Sure" and so we did and Coach Reed must have been

watching because he came back out of his office, yes sirree, buster, and he was not a happy coach.

He wondered what I thought I was doing. Sergeant's voice.

I pointed out—and I think I pointed this out politely—that I thought I was about to play basketball.

He told me—and I don't think he did this politely at all—that I should shut my mouth and get over

to the Skins team.

Is this starting to sound familiar?

Then James Russell said that he had switched with me.

Coach Reed told James Russell that he wasn't talking to him and he should mind his own business

and then he looked back at me and wondered if we hadn't already been through all of this before and

hadn't I learned anything at all?

I could have said that I'd learned a whole lot. The periodic table and
Jane Eyre
and even the

location of the Brown Pelican. But I didn't say anything, which is important for you to know so that

you don't blame me for what happened.

Coach Reed guessed that I hadn't learned anything at all, but he was going to give me a chance now.

He told James Russell to put his shirt back on and get over to the Shirts team, and when James said he

was fine on the Skins team, Coach Reed gave him the kind of look that said he was going to gut him if

he spoke one more word.

James put his shirt on and went over to the Shirts team. "Sorry," he whispered when he walked by

me.

"Shut your face," Coach Reed said to him.

Then Coach Reed—who is the kind of person that Joe Pepitone would probably want to pound into

the dirt with his baseball bat—looked at me again.

"Get over to the Skins team," he said. Growled, really.

I shrugged. What was I supposed to do? I walked over to the Skins team.

You can see I was really trying.

"With your shirt off, Swieteck. You have to have your shirt off if you're on the Skins team."

I looked around at the two teams. "I think we're all smart enough to remember who's on our team," I

said. "It's not like we're gym teachers or something."

Okay. So, there I wasn't really trying. I guess that was sounding like Lucas.

Coach Reed said, "Over there now," in a kind of double sergeant's voice. Each word slow. And

apart. And long. Carrying a whole lot of atomic weight.

"So are you going to shoot me if I don't?" I said.

I think Coach Reed crossed the floor almost without touching it, and the words "Who do you think

you're talking to" filled the gym.

He reached for my shoulder, but when he reached, I pulled back, and all he got was my PE uniform

shirt.

Maybe that was what he wanted anyway.

And I don't know if it was him reaching or me pulling back, but whatever it was, the whole stupid

gym shirt got torn right down, the whole way.

Everything in the gym stopped—again. But this time, it wasn't because I was mouthing off to Coach

Reed. It was because of what they saw.

And what they saw—it's not any of your stupid business.

It got around the whole stupid school in probably a minute and a half. When I walked down the hall

after PE, it was like I was in a circle of silence. Ahead of me, people would be talking and laughing

their heads off, and then they'd see me and stop talking. They'd hold their mouths shut like the funniest

thing in the whole stupid world had just happened and they wanted to bust out talking about it but they

couldn't until I walked by. So they'd watch until I got past them, and then wait a couple of seconds,

and then I'd hear them start up again, laughing their heads off, and talking, but low enough so I couldn't

hear exactly.

You know what this feels like?

When I got to Mr. Ferris's class, I walked in the door to this: Otis Bottom was standing over a

group of guys—and he's tall, so he can look pretty threatening—and he was saying, "Shut up, just shut

up," and Mr. Ferris was going over to calm things down, I guess, when everyone saw me come in and

everything went that eerie quiet.

Mr. Ferris looked at me for a second and then said, "Let's all sit down and get started," except that I

turned around and walked out. He came to the door and called after me, and I started running.

So did he.

We reached the front doors of Washington Irving Junior High School at the same time.

He grabbed the bar handle so I couldn't open it.

He grabbed the bar handle of the next door so I couldn't open it.

And the next.

I reared back and hit him in the stomach as hard as I could. I know: After School Detention for

Life. Didn't care.

He grabbed my arm. (So I was crying by now. So what? So what?) He walked me across the

school lobby. Slammed through the auditorium doors. Shouted to the Washington Irving Junior High

School Brass Quintet that they'd have to go practice somewhere else—Now!—which they did, in a

hurry. He pushed me down into one of the auditorium chairs. Sat next to me. He said, "Tell me."

I tried to get up and he pushed me back down.

"Tell me," he said again. So I did.

How my father came home late on the night of my twelfth birthday, and how he'd missed everything

because he'd been with Ernie Eco. How he sounded when my mother told him that. How he came up

into my room with beer on his breath and told me we were going someplace for my birthday present

and I should get dressed right now. How I said he didn't have to and he smacked me and said he'd

better not have to tell me again. How he'd taken me past my mother, who wasn't smiling. How we got

into the beery car and he gunned it and said hadn't I always said I wished I could have a tattoo like

Lucas did? Hadn't I? I nodded because I was afraid not to. How we arrived at the mostly dark place

and got out of the car and I said I wanted to go home but he looked at me with beer in his eyes and

said I better get in there so I did. How I lay down on this couch and my father talked with this guy and

they laughed and my father covered my eyes with his beery hands because this was a present and he

was picking out a real surprise and this fat sweaty guy bent over me and I could smell and feel him

close when he pulled up my shirt. How it started and I said it hurt and my father pushed me down with

his hand over my eyes and said I'd better be still if I knew what was good for me and so I did even

though I was crying then too. How when it was done after a long time I looked into the mirror and

saw the scroll and the flowers at each end and the words I couldn't read so the fat sweaty guy read

them for me:
Mama's Baby.
And I told Mr. Ferris how they both laughed and laughed and laughed and

laughed and laughed. The funniest thing in the whole stupid world.
Mama's Baby.

How I spent days trying to wash it off, and then trying to scratch it off until it bled.

How I hadn't gone swimming since then.

How I changed for PE in the locker room stalls.

How I wished he would...

Mr. Ferris didn't say anything the whole time. He sat next to me and listened. And when I finished, I

looked at him.

He was crying. I'm not lying. He was crying.

I don't think it was because of how hard I hit him.

I know how the Black-Backed Gull feels when he looks up into the sky.

Maybe, somehow, Mr. Ferris does too.