Boy Nobody (6 page)

Ten minutes go by as I study the cluster group. I watch the patterns, the behavior, the styles of dress. I listen to the rhythm of the language in this new place. I learn the school procedures. I soak it all in.

At five past eight, three soft tones sound a few seconds apart, and the students stand up.

It’s time to meet Sam.

That’s why it’s preferable to start midweek. No excitement. Expectations are low.

Today happens to be Wednesday. I like Wednesday. It’s the day I might have chosen anyway if there had been more time.

I look at people in the halls. Yawning, rubbing their eyes, still waking up.

Unaware.

In a big public school I might stay below the radar for days, making myself invisible until I choose to emerge. Not here. Private school classes are too small, and the time frame of my assignment doesn’t allow for much subtlety.

So it is first period on Wednesday when I enter Sam’s AP European History class. I come in two minutes before the bell. Late enough not to be early. Early enough not to be late.

A few pairs of eyes rise upon my entrance. I am acknowledged and dismissed.

Exactly what I want.

I sit in the back row and I wait.

Sam comes in.

She is tall and athletic, the hardness of her body contrasted by the soft curls that spill down her cheeks and pool around her shoulders.

The photos did not do her justice. She is stunning.

She enters with confidence and sits near the front of the room. She is surrounded by friends, a beautiful girl with black hair to her right, a huge boy with a sloppy shag cut to her left. This Shaggy Giant is making a great effort to look casual.

The door swings open and the teacher comes in, a thin man with a beard, time pulling on the corners of his eyes. His face betrays his age, but his energy does not. In most schools teachers are tired, but not here. Here they are passionate.

This teacher enters the room in midlecture, as if he can’t wait to begin, so much so that he started his lecture in the hall outside class. Hell, he probably started in the parking lot this morning.

“Roosevelt and the Lend-Lease Act,” he says.

The class goes silent. He glances at me briefly. His brain has registered a discrepancy. I see it on his face.

He looks down at his roster, finds my name.

“New,” he says.

“Lucky me,” I say.

A few kids chuckle.

“Welcome. We’ll get you up to speed quickly,” he says, and he dives back into his lecture. “America lends arms to Britain during World War Two, ending American neutrality without officially entering the war. Tell me, was it an act of cowardice or simply good diplomacy?”

I know this question. I know where it is near the end of the AP European syllabus. Unit ten. The Rise of Dictators and World War II.

I know the entire high school syllabus. I’ve studied all of it; it’s just a matter of brushing up enough to remember these particular lessons.

If I wanted to, I could jump into the debate, fight my way to the top of the intellectual heap. But it would not serve me. Today I will hang back, listen, and learn.

And watch.

It seems I’m not the only one.

Sam monitors the debate, or what passes for a debate with this group. It’s more like a discussion of the motivation behind U.S. diplomatic initiatives. At least until Sam jumps in.

“We should have been involved in the war years before we were,” she says. “The Lend-Lease Act was passed by a single vote in Congress. Nobody wanted to be involved. We refused to choose a side.”

“Wait a minute,” a guy who looks like a soccer player says. “It wasn’t our war at the time. Hitler invaded Poland, not Pittsburgh.”

“So if it doesn’t happen here, it’s none of our business, right, Justin? Out of sight, out of mind. Like Darfur. Like Sarajevo.”

“What about Iraq? We got involved there,” another girl says.

“Economic interests,” Sam says. “I’m talking about doing the right thing for the right reasons.”

“You want the U.S. to make policy decisions based on morality?” Justin says. “That’s not the real world. In the real world, things are complicated. Just ask your father.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sam says, her back stiffening.

“Your father is sweeping up the homeless and warehousing them out of state. Is that the right thing?”

“Out of bounds,” the teacher says. “Remember our ground rules. Unless Mayor Goldberg was in office in the 1940s, he’s not part of this discussion.”

“Wait,” Sam says. “I want to talk about it. Because that’s not what’s happening. My father would never do that.”

“Reality called,” Justin says. “It says it misses you.”

“I’m sick of this,” Sam says.

She slams her book down on her desk.

“I’m sick of the bullshit intellectualism that passes for debate in this school.” She jumps up. “We think we’re so smart sitting here and arguing for hours, meanwhile people are suffering around the world, and our government refuses to take sides. And what do we do to change that? Talk and talk some more.”

“What are you doing about it?” Justin says.

Sam doesn’t say anything.

“So you’re just like us,” Justin says. “All talk.”

Sam stands with fists clenched, her face blotched red.

“He’s full of it,” the Shaggy Giant says. He puts a hand on her arm.

“Let go of me!” she says. “I’m fine.”

But she’s not fine. Her eyes are darting around like she’s going to hurt someone.

It’s a big reaction to a little class debate. And it’s got me wondering about Sam’s emotional stability.

Most of the class look away from her, staring at their desks or scribbling in notebooks.

Sam takes a minute to calm herself.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she sits back down.

“It’s okay,” her friend with black hair says. She rubs Sam’s back.

“It’s just politics,” Justin says. “Nothing personal.”

“For me, politics
is
personal,” Sam says.

The teacher purses his lips, looks back and forth between the students.

“Now would be a good time to lighten the mood with a joke,” he says. “But my sense of humor seems to have left the building.”

The students laugh. The mood is broken.

I see Sam’s frustration as she attempts to disengage from the debate.

Passion plus intellect, with some deep emotional baggage beneath the surface.

It’s an unusual combination. Challenging.

The question remains: How do I approach her?

I don’t have the answer yet. But I’m getting closer.

The teacher says, “Ladies and gentlemen, your mission, should you choose to accept it—”

I’m expecting a groan, but I get the opposite. Excited faces, notebooks open, pens at the ready.

“Our dramatis personae: Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini,” the teacher says.

He scans the room, a mischievous grin on his face. He glances at me and moves on.

“The scenario: These three infamous dictators meet in hell to discuss their mistakes during the war. Write it in the form of a dialogue, ten pages minimum. You may work with a partner.”

The end-of-class tone sounds, and the students stand, looking to partner up and talk about the assignment.

I’m packing my backpack when I hear Sam’s voice:

“What about you, new guy? Which side are you on?”

She’s standing over my desk staring down at me. No posse now. Just her, a couple of feet away and glaring.

First contact. And I didn’t choose it.

I can think about why she’s here later. Now I have to react.

“You really want to know what the new guy thinks?” I say.

“You’re the only one who didn’t say a word all class, and I was the only one who actually cared about it, so yeah, I’d like to know,” Sam says.

“Maybe the new guy is stupid and doesn’t have much to say.”

“Doubtful.”

I want to shake her up if I can, try to regain the upper hand. So I say, “I think the assignment is bullshit.”

She nods, interested. “Go on,” she says.

“Why should we assume the dictators are in hell?”

“Hitler doesn’t belong in hell. Is that what you’re saying?”

“No. I’m saying the underlying assumption of the assignment has gone unchallenged. Dictators are bad. War is bad. Bad people go to hell and good people go to heaven. It’s simplistic.”

“So you’re making a case for moral relativism.”

“Why not?” I say, and I see her bristle. “Every dictator on the list believed he was right at the time. Or at minimum, he was doing wrong for the right reasons.”

“The ends justify the means.”

“Sometimes they do. It’s easy to be outraged about genocide
because what’s the counterargument? It doesn’t exist. But think about a whistle-blower at a company. A father who cheats on his taxes to have enough money to pay his child’s tuition. A mother who lies about her medical history to get health insurance.”

And me.

The things I do. My assignments.

“All bad things,” I say. “All good reasons.”

“So I can hurt someone if it will be for the greater good?” Sam asks.

“Maybe so.”

“The problem with that is—who gets to decide what the greater good is?”

“That’s a fair question,” I say.

“Do you have an answer?”

Who gets to decide?

I think about it for a second.

“Not us,” I say.

She crosses her arms and gives me a disappointed head shake.

“Sounds like the new guy is a Republican,” Sam says. “I’ll have fun crushing you in future debates.”

She smirks at me, then turns and walks away.

Conversation over. For now.

The moment I’m out the door, he steps up to block my path.

“Did you really get kicked out of Choate?” he says.

News travels fast in this school.

I look at this guy playing alpha, his chest out, his tone mocking. I consider the options, and I decide to answer the question, see what he’s up to.

“I really got kicked out,” I say.

“For being an asshole?”

“A big one.”

“That’s not going to fly here.”

Behind him, Sam is talking to a girl with blond hair, a skintight skirt, and dimples. Not someone from AP European. Edgier than her other friends. I watch their body language as they speak.

The Shaggy Giant notices my attention has drifted from him. “You get distracted easily.”

I look back at him.

This guy talks a good game. It’s time to push back a little, see how good he really is.

“I’m not distracted,” I say. “You had nothing interesting to say, so I assumed the conversation was over.”

“I’ll tell you when it’s over.”

“Who are you, my mother?”

“I’m your worst nightmare, my friend. I’m the guy between you and what you want.”

He points at me. One long finger stabbing in the air.

“What do I want?”

“Every new guy in school makes a play for Sam,” he says. “It’s the fastest way to get in.”

That explains it. He’s got some connection to Sam.

“I’m not making a play,” I say.

“I saw you talking to her after class.”

“She was talking to me.”

“In your dreams,” he says.

“Believe what you want to believe.”

He frowns, glances behind him. Sam and her group head down the hall without him, disappearing from view.

“I guess Sam’s your girlfriend?” I say.

He twitches.

Guess not.

“For your information, we are longtime friends,” he says. “I look out for her. Think of me as the early asshole warning system.”

“You specialize in ass, that’s what you’re telling me.”

“Funny man,” he says. “Consider yourself warned.”

He points at me again.

Less than a second
, I think. That’s the amount of time it would take to disable him.

A quick grab and twist. In the movies the tough guy pulls the finger backward toward the wrist. That’s effective enough, but it takes a little too long.

The finger joint has backward flexibility, but very little side flex. If it’s about speed and shock, a side snap works better.

Shaggy Giant stands with his finger outstretched, not realizing the danger he’s in. But I don’t need to take this guy down, not yet at least. Better to show him I’m not afraid and use his anger to find out more about Sam in the coming days.

He says, “I’m watching you. Don’t forget that.”

“How could I forget?” I say. “You’re fourteen feet tall.”

That’s the benefit of an open campus. I leave school without causing so much as a head turn and walk south, taking the opportunity to learn the neighborhood better.

The best way to do that is to walk. Walk and walk some more. Walk until I feel like a local.

As I walk, I think about Sam. Why she might have approached me in class.

I don’t know her well enough yet, so I table the question for now.

When I get to the gleaming glass cube on 67th Street, I walk in and buy the newest iPhone with cash.

“Do you want me to set it up for you?” the guy at the Genius Bar says.

“You’re the genius,” I say.

He nods appreciatively.

“You’d be surprised how few people get that,” he says.

He turns it toward me, and I type in my Apple ID for this assignment.

He gets the phone set up and hands it back to me.

“How’s your Wi-Fi here?” I say.

“It’s awesome.”

“Maybe I’ll download some apps before I go.”

“Let it rip.”

I find a corner of a table to lean on, go to the App Store on my phone. I search for an app called High School Locker. I download it and open it up. A graphic of a combination lock appears on my screen.

I put in a combination code. Not a three-number code like a person using the app. I put in a ten-digit code. When I finish, there’s a click, and the lock starts to spin.