The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin (3 page)

On the bus ride home, those big rearview mirrors installed so the driver can (in theory) keep an eye on the throng make espionage easy. I watch my fellow passengers’ faces, read their
lips, enter their conversations from afar while they unwittingly spill their secrets. They say more about themselves than they mean to, more than they even know. The way one kid leans over the seat in front of him, laughing along with someone else’s joke—it shows how desperately he wants to fit in. The way one guy ignores a girl behind him but puts his arm up on the seat inches from hers shows his true feelings. And the fat deaf kid in the front, craning his neck and staring? He’s a pretender. By putting so much effort into paying attention to others, is he trying not to think about himself? Will one more slight make him crumble into a pile of dust? What does he want? Who is he hoping he really is? Let’s table these … for later.

So what’s happening on this bus? The most interesting stuff is in the back. All the cool kids sit in the back. It is pretty much a directly rising slope of coolness from the front of the bus to the back. From me to a weird skinny guy in a football shirt who clearly isn’t on the team to Marie (whose last name is Stepcoat) to the trio from my morning bus stop: A. J. Fischels, Teresa Lockhart, and Gabby Myers. If you keep going, you’d fly out the back of the bus onto the road itself and land in the cars belonging to the kids far too cool to ever set foot on a bus. I wish I had a damn car, or even a license. I sketch out this equation in my notebook. It all makes sense, but then I look out the window and clearly see Devon Smiley drive by in his car. He has a car? Devon Smiley may be an exception to all the rules that normally apply to humanity. Let’s keep an eye on that one.

I watch the football fan talk to no one about the upcoming game and then turn around. A.J., Teresa, and Gabby are too far
back for me to see in the mirror. I have to subtly turn around in my seat to see what nuggets they are offering. A.J.’s expression is dark, his body language a hunched ball of fury. The change from his cheery baby face is quite startling. Without drawing attention to myself, I smoothly rotate in my seat and watch.

“Don’t be sad,” Gabby is saying, messing his hair like a grandmother soothing a toddler. “I still think you’re cool.”

“Gabby,” A.J. says, “I believe it should be
(something)
clear by now that no one cares what you think. About anything.”

“Ow,” says Teresa. “Burn.” She then jumps into the seat in front of them and spins around, so I miss the rest of whatever she has to say.

What A.J. has to say is roughly: “He’s just, he’s just such a
(something something something)
, you know? I never wanted to go to his stupid party anyway.”

“Yeah, right,” says Gabby, laughing. “You’re telling me that if he gave you a playing card, you wouldn’t accept it?”

“If he gave me a playing card, I’d throw it back in his … uh, playing face” is A.J.’s witty retort. At least I think that’s what he said. “Playing face”?

Gabby laughs again. Then Teresa seems to say something, probably laughing too, or so it seems from the way her ball of curly auburn hair shakes. Suddenly A.J. sees me looking at them.

I try to quickly look out the window, acting interested in a billboard for a rock band on tour. Before I can pull it off, though, there is an instant where our eyes meet and lock hard.

“What?” A.J. shouts. (Yes, I can tell, even without benefit of
volume, when someone’s shouting.) “What the hell are you looking at?”

He bares his teeth, and foam forms on his lip like a rabid dog. He then gives me the universal sign everybody knows: two upraised middle fingers.

In my head I call this the GAJBF, for Great A.J. Bus Fiasco. (Did I mention that I like acronyms? Yeah.) A hot flush of embarrassment spreads up my neck and stays there. I keep my eyes down, peering into nothing more interesting than the gouges pocking the green pleather in front of me.

The mortifying diamond of the DEAF CHILD AREA announces to one and all that my stop is next. This stupid sign haunts my life. As the bus lurches to a halt, I get up, lumber swiftly down the three steps, and head toward home. But I can’t help myself and cast one last glance back. A. J. Fischels’s head is down, his shoulders slumped. He appears to be writing something in a secret notebook of his own. I would
love
to see that. Who made A.J. so livid? Who’s throwing this big-deal party? And what does he mean by a playing card? Also, what did Mom make for dinner? Hope it’s lasagna.

Next day at school
. History class. Farterberry has made a disturbing announcement. Our class, it seems, will soon be taking a trip to something called Happy Memory Coal Mine. Ever-perky Mindy Spark shoots up her hand to say something like “Oh my God! I’ve been there
(something something)
Girl Scouts! Remember, Leigha? They do this
(something something)
they shut off all the lights and it’s totally black!” As she speaks, she whips her head around with such excitement that her blond ponytail flops like a dying fish. Leigha Pennington nods ever so slightly in reserved agreement. Oh, Leigha.

The rest of the class, except for me and Chuck Escapone, seems to share Mindy’s boundless enthusiasm. I’m not afraid of the dark, but when you rely on the sense of sight to speak and hear, being in total darkness with a bunch of mostly strangers is just creepy. Chuck, I am noticing, never responds to anything.
His eyelids did, I think, open slightly more than their usual half-shut stupor. Perhaps to Chuck Escapone this is the equivalent of jumping up and dancing with Mindy-like glee.

Escapone excluded, my classmates’ faces light up, and they all start talking at once, which sucks. While I can’t tell what anyone is specifically saying, I get the basic premise. Most are psyched beyond belief, while I am filled with dread beyond, uh … something dreadful. Only a few minutes into the new day and my stomach is lurching and my throat is closing in on itself.

“Now, class!” Arterberry says, actually standing where I can see him and enunciating under his big mustache. “Control yourselves, please!” But the class does not control themselves. Can you believe it? Even though he said “please,” they
still
do not settle down. Shocking!

He writes “THE COAL-MINING EXPERIENCE” on the board for the benefit of the few paying attention. “Tonight’s assignment: pages 114 to 133 in your text.” I look around the room to see how this assignment will be received. Some students copy it down dutifully; others make no pretense that they are going to do the work. D. JONKER is one of those who write it down. Pat looks over at him like his buddy suddenly smells terrible. He doesn’t say a word, but it is obvious what he means. “You’re not seriously going to do this lame assignment, are you?” But D. JONKER apparently
is
going to do it. Maybe he comes from a coal-mining family like me? Maybe our ancestors all worked together in the mines. Maybe they were friends? Maybe someday we’ll be … Yeah.

A lot of people have recently moved to our humble corner
of the world from New York (where, apparently, there are no more unfilled apartments). Do any of them care that the little kids who spent fourteen hours a day in the mines could have been their classmates’ grandparents? Do they even get that? I mean, they must have noticed that our football team is called the Coalers, right?

A few more people appear to be a little interested when Arterberry says, with a twinkle in his eye, “This is an especially interesting passage in your text because there’s a ghost story. …”

Now, I have always loved ghost stories. Perhaps because people often seem to vaguely sense my own presence while rarely acknowledging it. I’ve been brushed off like a specter, a chill. …

The sound-discriminatory bell announces the end of history class. Would it kill them to get a strobe light to flash when class ended? Or maybe a beautiful girl who could hold up a sign for me like in boxing matches? I pick up my books and begin my journey to math class. What wonders will The Dolphin have for us today?

When I slink in
, Miss Prefontaine has already started her “lesson.” I scamper to my houseplant-seat. Devon Smiley is at the extreme front and far end of the row, making him my closest human contact. It is just a fluke of the seating chart, no more meaningful than the fact that Dwight Carlson sits right next to Pat Chambers, but Devon apparently takes it as cosmic proof we are meant to be best buds. I do not feel precisely the same way. Devon has a dumb ponytail. He smells faintly of nacho cheese. He uses a monogrammed handkerchief to wipe his nose. By insisting on being my friend, he is seriously threatening my incredibly cool status at CHS. (Kidding, of course, but still …)

Prefontaine is so absorbed in making flirty faces while “teaching” that she forgets to keep her mouth where I can see it. We are supposed to figure out the distance an object will fall
if the angle is forty degrees and the height is forty feet
(something something)
and the rate of a falling body
(something something something)
. Lipreading is exhausting in the best of circumstances, and these are definitely not those circumstances. I try to spy off of Devon’s paper, which makes him really happy. He writes a note to me on the corner of the page. “Hello, William!” I hate when people call me William and really don’t want to get caught passing notes with Devon.

I sneak my history textbook out of my bag, hoping to pick up where I left off reading about mining. I start flipping through this chapter:

I have to say, I get into it. Then something flitters in my peripheral vision. I ignore it. It won’t go away. I hate that. Then it is close—right in front of my face, in fact—too close to ignore. A hand. I know what it signifies before I lift my gaze. Prefontaine is waving, doing that obnoxious gesture that means “Hello! I’m freaking talking here!” I try to pretend that I am actually paying attention, but I am nabbed. My face flushes the hot red of an embarrassed fatty. Of course she would ignore me 99 percent of the time but turn and stare at me just
the moment that I’m, of all things, doing homework for another class. Couldn’t it at least have been porn?

And then she zings me a second time! Again, I have no idea what she says. I just see Miss Prefontaine turn her back on me, and then I watch the class crack up. Was it “Well, well, well, Mr. Big Deaf Fatty thinks he’s too good for us?” Or “Mr. Halpin would rather look at pictures of coal miners than me? What does that say about him, class? Do the math!”

I try not to look anywhere. My eyes fall on Devon. Without looking at me, he makes these letter shapes with his left hand. “
W-H-A-T A B-U-N-C-H O-F A-S-S-H-O
—” And then he points to the clock. Saved by the bell. And by Devon Smiley, at least a bit. Hmm …

Time for the joyride
that is the bus trip home. Retards sit in the front, so there I am. Simple deduction. (I can hear the voices of Mom, a bevy of guidance counselors, and the entire self-esteem industry revving up for a speech, but please, folks, hold your breath. For once, shut up. It’s just a joke. If I can take it, so can you.)

I watch the crowd, anxious to see if I can get more information about yesterday’s card drama. At first I see the weird football fan raving. “We are going to kill Wilkes, how ’bout it!” he says. This guy has the coordination of a drunk walrus combined with the physique of a nine-year-old girl. Why does he say “we” when he is not on the team? I notice that his book bag has his name written on it with marker. I put it into my notebook: PLANDERS = INSECURE JOCK FAWNER.

“Yeah!” Planders yells, punching the back of the seat in front of him. “We’re gonna kill ‘em! Undefeated in the new
stadium.” Then he says something that baffles me for a minute until I realize he is throwing a bit of Spanish in there. I’m pretty sure he said, “Thank you,
número
45!”

Marie Stepcoat, the girl from math, who’s wearing one of those name necklaces, rolls her eyes at this burst of school spirit, like she is way above all that, even though I am pretty sure she is not. I guess we all enjoy having someone to make us feel better about ourselves. Look at me, ripping on Planders’s physique. This from a guy with the body of a sedentary manatee. Before long, Jimmy Porkrinds lurches the bus toward my stop, and day two is over.

I storm into my house and head straight for the kitchen. I am ready for an after-school snack that could easily be mistaken for a second lunch. For ten. Slices of cheese eaten right out of the wrapper, two pickles, a bowl of ice cream. I suck it all down like a stoner on a binge. It doesn’t make me feel better. Just fatter. My pants (which are already my designated “fat pants”) are tight, and I feel gross about the whole thing. But I eat one last giant scoop of ice cream anyway. Damn.

I bust out
Freedom Isn’t Free: The Story of America
, and I flip it open to the assigned chapter and quickly find where I had left off. What had started as mild interest suddenly turns to a lump of anthracite in my throat. Right there in black and white is mention of a coal miner who not only was deaf but also, apparently, is me.

William Halpin? A deaf person with my name had been living right here in northeastern Pennsylvania? Too weird. I stop and imagine how Pat and his crew will be cracking up at the phrase “driving deeper into the shaft.” It
is
sort of funny. The text continues: