The War Against the Assholes

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FOR REBECCA AND FELIX

“SOLDIERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE A RELIGION.”

—JACOB FRANK

1

N
othing ever turns out the way you imagine it will. You think there's going to be someone telling you the great and painful secrets of this world. Or opening a golden, final doorway. Beyond which would lie what, exactly? That's not what happens. What happens is: you meet Hob. All you get. Then again, if you need a more instructive and obvious guide, you've already lost the whole game. Certain schools consider that a radical notion.

You wouldn't have thought there was anything unusual about Hob, other than his being a weak-looking kid in a school full of much bigger, stronger kids (of which I was one, I admit). Saint Cyprian's, where I went to elementary, middle, and high school, under the supervision of Carmelite nuns. I knew Hob that whole time. We didn't formally encounter each other until senior year. His full name is Hobart Callahan. Everyone only ever called him Hob, that I heard. My name is Michael Wood, for which people mocked me. Kids at Cyprian's—a boys' Catholic school, in case you couldn't tell from the name—talked about dicks and gayness a lot. I never dealt well with the consequent teasing I suffered. Because of my last name. In fact I beat up Greg Gilder for giving me shit about it.

That's how I first got to know Hob. Not a lot of friends in the school. He didn't act lonely. He didn't see people. He would walk right past you. Never bat an eye. He always had this book with him during lunch and gym. Coach Madigan had basically given up on him and let him read during class. A small green book. Gold letters on the spine. He put it away whenever anyone got close. I assumed it was either poetry or pornography. Either one would land you in trouble. If Greg Gilder caught Hob reading poetry, he would have knocked him unconscious on principle. At least that's how the operating theory ran. The day Hob actually entered my life was not extraordinary. I had overslept, which happened two or three times a week. The sky was cement colored. Or something. My imagistic vocabulary was limited. No one's fault but my own. I had to wait eight minutes for a train. Pacing the platform edge, staring down my fellow laggards. The main hall of Cyprian's had just been washed when I arrived, and the dead-fruit smell of floor cleaner filled my nostrils as I raced across it. In the center a mosaic of the saint himself: his white-haired head backed with a flat, orange, Russian halo. Our motto carved into the ribbon of stone beneath his thin hands:
Melior Audere
. Sister Immaculata reamed me out for missing the first ten minutes of world history. The Treaty of Versailles. I didn't follow. Wars and treaties: they go on existing whether you know about them or not.

Greg Gilder muttered, “Morning, Wood,” as I passed him, and the two kids sitting next to him, Simon Canary and Frank Santone, both laughed behind their hands. I think I may have had a premonition that I was going to kick Gilder's ass at that point. This was more than ten years ago. Risky to rely on memory. Though it's all we have. Hob sat in the back of the class not talking. As usual. He read his green book during gym, as he had for the past three years. Things just got weirder and weirder with Gilder. He kept saying, “Morning, Wood”—like
morningwood
, like the hard-on you have in the mornings just from consciousness—all day. Gym, lunch, Greek class (I never managed to learn much more than the alphabet), right through math. At least I was well rested. Hob was there too. He might have been watching me, or that just might be my mind weaving another strand of historical narrative. Makes no difference. What happens, happens. My school day ended. It took forever. It always did. When the last bell rang, I caught Hob giving me an up-and-down. I shrugged and he grinned, and then I went down the hot, gray stairs that led to the locker rooms. You could hear the permanent whine of a machine there, behind the deep walls, loud and shrill. We called the hall Old Egypt. As the rest of the team came bounding down the stairs, I changed and started hammering out push-ups. I did this, every day, to get started. After everyone arrived, I calmed down. We muttered our hellos and a few profanities. Gilder didn't speak to me. He grunted as he bench-pressed. “Don't strain yourself,” said Coach Madigan. We all cackled at that. Gilder racked the weights and sat up, face pale. We all had to go up with Coach Madigan every month or so, to Yonkers, and help his mother: raking leaves, lifting boxes. Even Gilder went. The Catholic Church knows how to extract free labor from its members. I enjoyed it. Seeing the house and yard of another human being. Call it native curiosity.

“Gentlemen,” Coach Madigan said, “start your engines.” It was cold enough on the field that Coach Madigan's head—squarish, red haired, it must have weighed about thirty pounds by itself—steamed when he took off his hat. It's absurd to me, even now, that Saint Cyprian's possessed enough real estate to have its own football field in Manhattan. Then again, that's another specialty of the Church: acquiring valuable land. We got into position for warm-ups. Gilder did his jumping jacks and push-ups and screamed. His normal display. Embarrassing the rest of us. When we started scrimmaging, the trouble began. Coach Madigan assigned Gilder to block me and Gilder kept making these late, late hits and muttering, “Morning, Wood,” every time. I could have retaliated, then. Coach Madigan wouldn't have said anything, even if one of my teachers had asked him about it. He believed, as he once expressed it, in a wall of separation between church and state. I knew it would be safe. Which explains maybe why I didn't do anything.

Hob was up on the one set of bleachers. Watching me. This time for sure. “Callahan,” said the coach, “I see you've decided to honor us with your presence.” Hob went back to reading his book. When my side took possession, I concentrated on taking Gilder down. Clean. Every time I hit him, the world slowed down: I could see where he was going and get there first, one second ahead of him, two seconds. Call it poetry, maybe. I'd felt that way before—time slipping—during my best games. I ran the table on him, as we used to say. Tackled him every time. The weird slowdown stopped. My vision cleared up. Hob was just sitting there with his green book.

I kept taking Gilder down. He called me a bitch and a faggot, at first. Then he just transitioned into more grunting. Success leads to success and confidence leads to confidence. So I followed him after practice. I didn't have any other intentions at that point. Then again, you never do. It was starting to get darker. Colder. The sun had already gone down, lurid orange. The faint clouds still carried its tint. My brown cap pulled down to my eyebrows, my brown scarf wound up to my philtrum. Amateurism. I had no other choice. Simon Canary bumped into Gilder on the front stairs and Gilder shoved him. Simon stumbled to the sidewalk. Came up with bloody palms. Gilder told him that's what he got for being a faggot. Simon rapid-walked off. He passed me. Didn't see me. I kept far back. Crows gliding above. Keels of cloud. It was easy to trail Gilder in the crush of kids leaving the school. Then the crowd thinned. I didn't mind. Even if he spotted me I knew I could catch him. I could outrun him. Greatness equals endurance. The air had that blue-black color it gets during winter twilight. Makes you certain of yourself. The crows kept circling. A good omen, I thought.

Gilder walked west, into the last fires of the sunset. He had turned into the green, dimming park and was crouched over his shoes, fumbling the laces, when I ran at him and slammed my knee into his lower back. A curt, garbled cry. Then his face hit the path. He stopped shouting. This just made me more furious. I scanned the street: uninter­ested drivers, uninterested pedestrians. You can get away with a lot of violence when you're a kid. Moral law and human law make exceptions for it. I grabbed Gilder's arm. I frog-marched him. He blubbered. Kept asking me what I was doing. He tried and tried to get a look at my face. I gripped his arm tighter. Locked the elbow. Twisted upward. He shrieked. He said he didn't have any money on him. We reached the deeper shadow of a forked, mottled sycamore. I shoved him against the trunk. He thrashed and gasped. Called me a cocksucker through his tears. Or it sounded like
cocksucker
. The back of his neck was grimy and pale, divided by a smiling crease. I waited for him to calm down. I'm not a coward. I wouldn't have ambushed him ordinarily. But my ribs still ached from his bullshit late hits. So I wanted to make sure we stood on even metaphysical ground. He had these watery greenish eyes that suggested he couldn't see anything. Crowded, crooked teeth: at Cyprian's you never knew if substandard teeth meant the kid was on a parish scholarship or if his parents simply did not give a shit. I never found out. Can't say I cared. A cab whizzed to a halt near where we were. Its roof light came on above the lip of the stone wall. Seven seven one seven. That I remember. Two women got out. I could just see the tops of their blond heads, both uncovered. Their clear, high voices echoed in the cold, empty air. Gilder was struggling again. Throwing his free elbow at my face. Still weeping. Choking it back. One attempt landed. My inner cheek tore on a molar. He asked me, voice snot-thick, if I wanted any more. Platitudes he used all the time. “Who wants some?” “If I ever see that faggot again, I'll kill him.” He was no weakling. I'll give him that. He just had a weakness for dialogue.

Most people go through life, I imagine, without ever injuring another member of their species physically. Not me. Not me with blood on my tongue. I didn't care about his tears. I grabbed Gilder's fake-lamb's-wool coat collar and punched him in his temple, as hard as I could, and then I spun him to face me and hit him—mouth, neck, cheekbones, nose, eyes—until I felt a slashing pain in my fist and heard Gilder whimper. Not cry. Not speak. Whimper. His head lolled on his wide throat. I hit him eight or nine more times, ignoring the pain in my fist. It helped, even: your brain releases pain-fighting chemicals when you get injured, Coach Madigan liked to remind us. “And that, gentlemen, that is the only high you'll ever need.” Gilder's left eye had swollen closed. Both his lips were split and bleeding, and blood, too, was dripping from his nostrils. Though the sidewalk hitting his face might have done that. He mumbled. Probably asking me to stop. Another piece of dialogue. He'd miscalculated. My hand was aching. Blood warmed the skin over my tendons. I dropped him to the hard park path. He moved his arms and legs. A slow swimmer. I kicked him in the ribs, twice, three times, five times, seven. He cried out at the first blow. He stopped crying out at the second blow. After number eight, I paused to breathe. To consider. I heard someone say: “Nice work, Michael. Efficient.”

2

I
t was Hob. Leaning against a light pole. The flyer for a lost, black, button-eyed dog above his head. Its fringe of phone-number tabs still intact. Ultimately people don't care about dogs, despite all our sentimentality toward them. Hob was wearing only a sweater, no coat, no hat. He didn't look cold. He looked calm. “I have to say you're pretty stealthy,” I said. As I watched, he lit one of his weird-smelling cigarettes with the still-glowing butt of another. “I thought it might be interesting to observe,” he said. “And,” I said. I was shivering, despite my warm wrappings. “It was interesting, but not for like moral reasons,” he said. “For moral reasons,” I said. “He'll be in school like telling everyone how four guys jumped him and he beat up three of them. You know how it is. You know how he is.” As Hob spoke I could just
hear
Gilder saying that, tossing his sweaty forehead around. “I know how it is, but that doesn't explain why you followed me,” I said. “Michael, relax,” he said, “I wasn't exactly following you. More like going to the same place you were.” “You sound like a faggot,” I said, “no offense if you're gay.” He said, “So what if I am?” And there I had it.

Gilder moaned a quiet moan. I thought about kicking him again. Hob and I stood there, wreathed by that viscous, sweet smoke. In the harsh light I saw how badly I'd banged up my right hand. The ring finger's first knuckle was sliced open. A chunk of tooth glistened in the black wool of my coat cuff. I pincered it up and held it to the light. Hob went apeshit laughing when I finger-flicked it out over the dead grass. “Oh my god,” he said, cackling out his weird high laugh, “oh man, was that part of his tooth.” The fragment rustled against the lawn. A rat trotted out from one hole to vanish down another. “You seem to love messing up the natural order of life,” said Hob. I said, “This is the natural order of life.” He looked at me sidelong. Went quiet. I wondered if he was planning on robbing me. I was pretty sure I could take him in a fight. I didn't know what was what back then. He looked fast, and I was already tired, so I assumed I would have to knock him down and then go to work on him. No one's a brilliant tactician as an adolescent. I don't judge myself for it.

I asked him what he wanted. Shifted my weight. “How do you know I want anything,” he said, “maybe I just came out here to watch.” I waited. Hob smiled. “I have a gift for you,” he said. As he reached into his coat pocket I tensed up, ready to go for him. I assumed his hand would come out around the handle of a knife. Maybe he wanted to make an example of me. Maybe he was an errant murderer. That's a mystery of city life. It wasn't a knife he removed from his pocket. It was the green book he read instead of running sprints. “I want you to have this,” he said, “and I want you to read it.” “I don't want to read your poetry. No offense,” I said. “Just give it a chance,” said Hob, “you might like it. It's not even poetry.” Green cover. Gold letters on the spine. In the half-light of the lamp. A stage prop. That's how I remember it. “Don't you need it,” I said, “or what will you do during gym class.” “I'll figure something out,” he said. No title: the writing on the spine said
HERMANN CORVUS
~
LONDON
. “Is that who wrote the book,” I asked as I lifted the stiff cover. “That's one of its publishers,” said Hob, “and don't do that.” He pushed the book closed in my hands. “Don't read it out in the open. At least at first,” he said. “You read it out in the open all the time,” I said. “That's because I know what's in it,” Hob said.

“And if I don't take it,” I said. “I'd have to tell the authorities,” he said, “about you and Gilder. My conscience wouldn't let me do anything else.” He was grinning now. I have to admit I was too. I could see he was telling the truth. This I admired. He would let Sister Ursula know what I'd done. That much was clear. Sister Ursula ran Saint Cyprian's. Silver hair and dead-black, dead-looking eyes. Drifting around, wearing her brown-and-white habit. “When he wakes up he might do that anyway,” I said. “You know he won't,” said Hob, “and anyway you snuck up on him.” “A moral arbiter,” I said. “I'm not judging you for it. That guy's a total fascist,” said Hob. He had a point. Gilder was, spiritually speaking, a Nazi. I had no problem imagining him at a rally brandishing a torch. I didn't say anything, though. I couldn't believe Hob Callahan had the upper hand. You never want to believe that. Especially when it's a guy you think you can beat up. Again, that's the nature of morality in adolescence. In adulthood too.

“Just take it,” he said, “seriously. It'll change your life.” He was sincere, I saw. Which almost made me laugh.
It'll change your life
: that's another piece of dialogue. Nobody's life ever changes. “So I read this book and that's it,” I said, “then you drop the issue.” Hob nodded and blew out two slow streams of smoke through his large, well-formed nostrils. He stifled a cough. “What are you smoking, anyway,” I asked. “Old family recipe. Does a body good,” he said. Gilder moaned at my feet once more, and I gave him another kick. No matter how much instruction you provide them, people never learn anything. Not even the most basic cause-and-effect relations. “How do I know you won't ask for more,” I said. Hob grinned. The brown cigarette traveled to one corner of his mouth. “I saw what you did to Gilder,” he said, “and I'm not stupid.” He had a point. It must be a leaf, I thought, that this cigarette was wrapped in. Veins glinted on the surface in the lamplight. “Tell you what,” said Hob, “I'll give you a fair chance. You have a quarter?” I handed him one. He danced it across the backs of his fingers, hand to hand; clapped his palms around the coin; and showed me two fists. “Which one,” he said. “Jesus, are you kidding me,” I said. “It's that or the book,” he said. I picked left. He opened it. Nothing. Then he opened his right. More nothing.

That's how we ended it. Hob waving at me. Protected by the yellow lamplight and the fact that a cop car was now driving east along the edge of the park. The smoke from his cigarette hanging. Charcoal and spice. I passed out on the train. From exhaustion, from I don't even know what. I woke up with my mouth dry and the green book in my hands. Still cold, though the train car was hot. Otherwise refreshed. I was only one stop past mine. I figured I would read a few chapters, bluff Hob, maybe threaten him, and he'd forget about everything. I was still sure he was going to work his way around to asking me out. Cold and moonlight. Our doorman, Henry, was sleeping at his desk. He kept an artificial poinsettia near him, no matter the season. Its leaves rustled and trembled in his breath. You make divisions. They're arbitrary. This I know now. I did not know it as a boy. Henry slept on. My healthy blood continued to pound stupidly through my veins. You'll never recapture that headlong speed. That I also know now. My parents were watching a show about apes when I got home. Or monkeys. They climbed up into trees to drop rocks on coconuts. I kept my hand in my pocket so they wouldn't see the cut and said good night. “Late practice,” my mother called. “There's lamb, if you want to eat,” my father said. I told them I was too tired, but thank you anyway.

No time like the present to embark on servitude, if servitude is your fate. Hob said the book would change my life. Possibly it was the bible of a cult. Or maybe one of the many tenth-rate books adolescents claim have changed their lives. The cover was about the color of a professional card table, that deep, flat green. Though there was no author and no title on the spine, I found both on the first page inside.
THE CALENDAR OF SLEIGHTS, BY F. R. ERZMUND
. “Are you fucking kidding me,” I said. To no one. The amber glow of light from my reading lamp kept on shining, and the beams of my building creaked in the wind. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said. I started to read the preface.
This work requires, in the opinion of its author, no justification—all justification being an exercise in casuistry.

The way it was written annoyed me. It also made me chuckle.
Piety has no place in its atmosphere; neither ready-made and repellent ideas of reform nor the whining of our muddled meliorists will obstruct the knowledge offered here.
Sentence number two. I could see this Erzmund lunatic standing there behind a green table (same color as the book) in a top hat and cape, waggling a silky mustache and gesturing with a cane as he preached about the moral amazements of his trade. Which turned out to be, to my mild disgust, card tricks and prestidigitation, all the techniques you need to master so-called games of chance. I read on. The first ten pages were just that: a long speech written in this annoying-­hilarious way. My parents came in to say good night. Not that they came in. They stuck their heads past my doorjamb. I sensed them do it. I couldn't look away from the page, though. “Well, that's encouraging,” I heard my mother say when she thought she was out of my earshot. I didn't blame them. Modern parents want to see their children reading. I think mine believed me to be a dolt. My radiator buzzed. I read and read. Erzmund went on in his self-assured vein:
Where we began, the world can judge: in trust, wholehearted; in unshakable assurance; in the overmastering faith we pledged to our own powers.
I read and read. I couldn't even remember the last time I had voluntarily opened a book. Now here was Erzmund, standing right next to me and telling me how to cheat at cards, in order to get what I wanted.

He didn't talk about his life, or his looks, or anything that writers usually talk about. All he talked about was cards. He sounded like Coach Madigan, who only ever talked about football, no matter what else he was talking about. I read on, not understanding anything of what Erzmund said. Borne along by the nasal, loud (so I imagined it) voice issuing from beneath his mustache. An old-time announcer in a newsreel. When I next looked at my clock radio, it was three. I hurled the book at my wall. It took out a divot near the light-switch cover. The primary and secondary thuds—book hits wall, book hits floor—didn't wake up my parents. They were sound sleepers. I was too.