The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin (6 page)

Devon cringes the whole time like MTG really might hit him or something. I can’t see what he is saying.

“Sorry, kid,” MTG says to me, with something actually resembling a smile. Devon must have been really convincing.

“You are not forgiven, evil MTG,” I sign.

“That means ‘I’m sorry, and I’m here, sir,’ “ Devon says.

I nod.

With the roll finished, Mr. Tough Guy seems to think his role as educator is well and verily done. He announces that Miss Prefontaine left worksheets for us and that we should shut our mouths and use our brains for once. Good and apt teacherly advice.

I write a note asking if I can go to the library. MTG seems unsure what to do. He looks at the paper like a bank teller getting a stick up note. But then he just shrugs and lets me go. So there.

The library proves to be
a nice refuge. I like the quiet. (That’s a joke.) And the computer network. They have all sorts of firewalls and filters, but you can get around them if you are a genius like me. (That’s a joke too. Actually, I’m no genius, but I’m not the complete opposite of one either.)

I am online and filter-free in just over a minute, logging on to my mail and then researching a question on the Web. Mindy Spark’s comments have, uh, sparked my curiosity. Why would Pat Chambers’s father be in the national news? One problem: I don’t know Mr. Chambers’s first name. I take a shot that his is the sort of family where kids are named after their fathers and type “Pat Chambers” into the search box. There are way too many hits, including the faculty page of one Professor Pat Chambers, PhD in endocrinology. Hmm … Seems unlikely. I add “Pennsylvania” to my search and find two promising leads.
The first is a pesonal Web page; the second is a “news alert” at CNN.com. Pat’s dad is indeed the famous Pat Chambers Sr. I follow the link to the news alert. I read the article, copying the key points into my notebook:

I am somehow at once shocked and completely not surprised. Pat’s Dad
would
be involved in some slick-and-greedy business deals. And of course suck-ups like Mindy Spark would miss the whole point of the news story and just get excited because “Pat Senior was on TV!” So, Pat Chambers Sr. is a professional scumbag. Like father, like freaking son.

Sufficiently riled, I decide to check out the other search result: Pat Chambers’s Web page. It has all of the normal stuff you’d expect: thousands (literally, thousands) of “friends,” smirking pictures of Pat (looking drunk), cliché answers to dumb questions
(Fav music?
“A little bit of everything.”
Describe yourself:
“I’m a regular teenage guy”). Fascinating. And then under “personal homepage” there is a link to something called ChamberMaids.com. Above the link it indicates the last update (about a week and a half ago), alongside the headline “Check Out the Newest
Addition
to the List.” OK. I will.

Only, if you don’t have the password, a little box pronounces itself “sorry 4 u, suckah.” But I am pretty sure this suckah can guess the content. I’ve read about this, sleazy guys making online shrines honoring all the girls lucky enough to “date” them. Nasty pictures, sordid stories, lurid details, creeps who drug girls and film them. I start thinking about different tricks for hacking passwords. For example, you’d be shocked how many people just leave the default or do something truly dumb like “123” or “asdf.” Knowing a bit about the person helps too. The name of a pet, a birthday, predictable stuff. Sometimes it’s their favorite thing in the whole world, which means in this case probably a simple “PAT.”

Before I have a chance to try, however, a window pops up over the page.

I don’t really want to respond with any discernible enthusiasm, but I have to.

Just because I am feeling a little friendlier toward Smiley_ Man3000 doesn’t mean that I want to reveal my criminal past.

I crack myself up with this one. He doesn’t respond for a while, though. Maybe the connection has gone bad? Then the message comes back as this:

Several things about this are clear: The first is that Devon does not love dudes. The second is that somebody in class hijacked Devon’s Crony, read our chat, then added their own message. They must think this is the height of hilarity. Wait. Do they know it is me on the other end? Do they see my name on there? Are they swift enough to figure out who Hamburger-Halpin is? I scroll up and see that nowhere does it actually say my real name, so maybe I am safe. I don’t want my swim trunks, or my life, to be flushed down the toilet. Too much of a splash for Watcher Guy.

Lunch today:
hot dogs, some sort of broccoli casserole thing, and … an apple? It is unnatural to eat anything green, and apples are just pointless. Seriously, what am I, a horse? A pig? Don’t answer that. While wolfing down several hot dogs, I spy with my little eye A. J. Fischels sitting angry and more or less alone on the fringes, far from his usual group. Even Gabby Myers has abandoned him and is squeezing into a seat a few tables over with Teresa Lockhart.

Must not get caught staring at A.J. again. Then, ah, the random universe smiles on me, because, just as I begin my search, the most beautiful girl in school sits clearly in my line of sight. Leigha Pennington. I don’t get to use the word “gorgeous” very often, especially since I can’t quite remember the sign for it. (I do know the sign for “good-looking”—you just point to your own face. Our signing forerunners must have been a vain
lot.) But “gorgeous” is the only word for Leigha. Words like “pretty” or “hot” just don’t cut it. I guess every school has a Leigha, and ours is Leigha.

Today, in very un-Leigha fashion, she is alone. I contemplate smiling at her or waving or even passing a note. Maybe Leigha is lonely too, at least for this one tiny moment? But, no, of course not. In less time than it takes for me to swallow a hot dog, she pulls people into her orbit without even trying. Pat Chambers comes over to her side and gives her a little kiss on the cheek that she seems disgusted by (maybe, I dare to hope, we share a mutual revulsion for the odious P.C.—wishful thinking?). They don’t exactly look like a couple in love. She pulls back from his touch and stares at the dirty floor.

Purple Phimmul slides in next to her and starts patting her hair, an oddly sweet gesture. D. JONKER hovers in the background. And then the iron anvil head of Travis Bickerstokes drops in the seat across from my Leigha, effectively turning the channel on the only good thing to watch.

I continue to stare at the back of Travis’s head, just sort of zoning out on his bristly haircut and massive ears. I feel like when you’re a kid and you drop an ice cream cone on the sidewalk and are just so completely sad, like that ice cream cone is the whole world. Then Pat notices me staring at Travis’s head. His eyes light up like he is happy to see me. “Hey, Trav,” he says. “Looks like you have a new boyfriend.” Travis whips his massive head around and is staring at me eyeball to eyeball from just a few feet away, but he still doesn’t see me. He turns back toward Pat.

“That fat deaf kid,” Pat says. “I guess
(something something)
his relationship with Devon Smiley isn’t exclusive.” He then starts telling all of them (yes, including Leigha) about how he caught me and Devon chatting “like two little girls in love.”

I want to point out that what he is saying doesn’t make any sense. Are we boyfriends or girlfriends? How are two little girls supposed to be in love? What’s wrong with texting someone? I am not in love with Devon Freaking Smiley! I am in love with beautiful Leigha Pennington!

But Leigha laughs too, just like all the others. And then Travis comes over to my table, picks up my broccoli casserole, and throws it at me. It only sort of grazes my shoulder, and I didn’t want to eat it anyway, but, still, having food thrown at you is rarely a pleasant experience. The one upside of the incident is that it draws the fury of Mr. Yankowski. Old Yanky-Wanky comes flying across the room, a whirling tornado of gleaming scalp and khaki pants.

“Bickerstokes!” he yells, the vein in his neck throbbing like a drum. I don’t see the rest of the conversation because I slip behind him, skirt the traffic circle that inevitably forms to gawk anytime something terrible happens, and disappear into the hallway. I calmly walk toward the double doors to the parking lot and am gone.

Poof!

Trees and birds. The warmth of the sun. Sweet-smelling flowers. Cars cruising by, their drivers in their own little cocoons. Maybe I’ll just stick out the old thumb. That’s one sign that everybody knows. But what then? Where do I want to go?
What if I get picked up by some scurvy perv with icky intentions toward a handsome young lad such as myself? I wish I had my own car, but there’s the matter of driver’s ed, a class where you need an interpreter, and neither the public school nor the deaf one offers one.

So I just walk. Behind the school grounds, the mountains slope down an ancient, ratty road built to search for coal, always searching for more coal. Up the hill is a barbed-wire patch labeled
DANGER, ABANDONED MINE SHAFT: KEEP OUT!
From the party rubble (beer cans, condom wrappers, cigarette boxes) stuck in the barbed wire, it seems like maybe everyone
isn’t
keeping out. I think about going up there and checking it out, but I’m not exactly a fan of physical exercise, so I walk only as far as seems necessary to escape being caught. I find a patch of surprisingly soft grass on the hill’s scarred side. The midday sun filters through the trees, making a twinkling pattern all around. I decide to lie down for a little while and just stare up at the big sapphire sky. I have never skipped school before and have no idea what to do next. Lots of uneasy thoughts flutter inside my head as birds and fat, lazy bees flutter above me. Will Mr. Yankowski notice I am gone? Will Travis seek some sort of revenge? Will I get detention? Electroshock therapy? Tasered?