Brutal Youth (37 page)

The nurse’s usual acknowledgment was enough. “I can’t tell you anything about that patient.” That didn’t mean Stein was getting better, but at least he was still being treated. At least Stein still
was,
period.

*   *   *

When school started again, Davidek visited Sister Maria’s office each morning, trying to learn more about his friend’s status, but she was evasive. “Oh, you know…,” she said. “… This isn’t really the best time.”

It was never the best time. He realized soon that Sister Maria was never going to tell him more, that she still wasn’t certain he could be trusted—though he already knew enough to be dangerous to her. “Sometimes you have to keep a secret by not acknowledging there
is
a secret,” she told him. “And your friend is not a student here anymore. He is indefinitely suspended. So it would look strange to people if I were giving daily updates to his old buddies.”

Davidek felt like he deserved more from the nun after the night they had shared.

Indefinitely suspended.
What did that mean?

Mr. Mankowski still read Stein’s name each morning during homeroom roll call. Mankowski would say: “Stein, Noah…,” and wait for the response he knew would never come. Then he’d check the boy absent. On the third day of this, Davidek said loudly, “He’s not here, and you know it.”

“Did I ask
you
a question?” Mankowski said.

Davidek told him, “No. You were just embarrassing yourself. He’s gone, not
invisible.
” And then
Davidek
was gone, dispatched to Sister Maria’s office for “verbally abusing” his homeroom teacher. The nun sighed when she saw him. “This has to stop,” she said. But it didn’t.

In the halls throughout the next month, Davidek bristled with violence.

Mullen and Simms moped by the water fountain, and he wanted to slam their heads into the brick wall. “Cocksuckers,” he whispered, and one of them called back weakly, “Oh yeah?…”

When he saw Lorelei Paskal, he wanted to bellow in her face, but his nerve always disintegrated when she was near. He couldn’t stand to see her, mostly because she still looked like the girl he used to know, the one he’d sneaked a cigarette with in another life. She had tossed away the rest of the carton.
I just saved your life,
she had said. And she would have kissed him then if he hadn’t flinched. If he hadn’t been shy, and afraid.

Most of all, Davidek was tired of seeing Smitty, tired of his ice-cube eyes and his big razor-smile. Davidek drove his shoulder into the bigger boy as he squeezed through the crowded hallway. Smitty wasn’t expecting a hit and lost his balance, bumping back against some sophomore girls.

“Watch yourself,” Davidek said. The larger boy, stunned, watched Davidek moving away. “How about ‘excuse me,’ shithead?” Smitty shouted. Davidek turned back, still moving, “Excuse me, shithead,” he said.

A pair of elderly Parish Monitors in the hall noticed that, and began scribbling in their notebooks.

*   *   *

Hannah stopped Davidek after school that day, ambushing him beside his bus. “I’d like you to stop picking fights with Smitty.”

Davidek shrugged her off. “Or else what? You gonna print up some photos? And why do you care about Smitty? He’s a big boy.”

She grabbed his arm as he tried to walk way. “What’s your problem? Why start something with him? Don’t you have enough people out to kick your ass?”

Davidek squinted impatiently. “That day, the rainstorm … He fucking rammed Stein from the back
. From the back.
For no reason. Stein had enough shit that day. He didn’t need
that.
”

“Smitty had reason,” she said.

“Whatever…,” Davidek said, and pulled away.

“Stein was gonna do something he’d have regretted, Playgirl!” Hannah shouted after him. “Anyone could see that. Mullen and Simms are dumb-asses, but they didn’t deserve what he—”

Davidek turned back on her. “They deserved
worse.
And you weren’t even around. What the hell do you know about anything?”

“I knew it before he even walked into school that day. All those people with the red scars. Of course he’d go after the two who caused it. Actually, I thought he might go after his little girlfriend, too. Let’s face it—your friend was psycho. Sorry. And Smitty says he showed you the steel bar.”

Davidek didn’t respond. Hannah said, “What if he’d shot or stabbed them or something?”

“He didn’t have a gun,” Davidek said, irritated by her implication.

“But he
could
have. So, fine, he had some
iron bar
instead. And Smitty took it off him. Where would your friend be if those two losers were lying brain-dead in the parking lot?”

“I don’t know. Couldn’t be much worse than where he is now.”

“What
ever,
” Hannah laughed. “Your angry pal with the big sad story smashes some toilets and gets expelled. At least he’s sitting out the school year at home instead of jail, right?”

She paced toward her Jeep, then whirled back at Davidek. “Smitty had reason to go after him. And
I’m
the reason, okay? I’m the one who thought something bad might happen and I
told
Smitty to watch you and Stein, to follow him around that day. To make sure nothing happened that couldn’t
un
happen—do you understand? Smitty did you
and
your fucked-up friend a favor. So try thanking him instead of giving him needless shit, okay?”

The bus driver called out to Davidek: “On or off, buddy?”

Davidek shifted his book bag on his shoulder. “So Smitty just does what you tell him?” he asked Hannah. “And why would he do
that
?”

The wind played in Hannah’s fiery hair. “Because I know
his
secret, too,” she said. Hannah was turning the key in her Jeep’s ignition when Davidek opened the door and got in. “Thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“For watching out for Stein when I wasn’t,” he said. The yellow school bus passed in front of the Jeep’s windshield. “And for giving me a ride home,” Davidek added. “No detours this time.”

*   *   *

“Are you going to come to the prom for me?” Hannah asked as the neighborhoods of Natrona Heights rolled by outside the Jeep.

Davidek said unhappily, “Why, you need a date?”

She laughed, brushing stray hairs away from her face. “I’d take you, Playgirl, I really would. But freshmen can’t go as dates. You can volunteer to help out, though—decorate, and clean up and stuff. Lots of underclassmen do that.”

“Not interested,” Davidek said.

“Then just come and see me,” she said. “There’s a little photo area and a red carpet and everything. Usually a lot of parents come, but some freshmen do, too. I’ll be all by myself, so it would be nice to see a friendly face. Maybe you could snap some pictures of me all dolled up in my dress.” She formed the fingers of one hand into a small invisible box and raised it to her face, clicking the nonexistent shutter.

Davidek shrugged. “And if I say no, do you head off to the Fotomat to order double prints of your little trick from under the bridge?”

Hannah looked at him steadily. “No,” she said. “I won’t do that. Prom is only if you want to, Peter.”

He nodded. “All right,” he said, not sure if he meant it.

THIRTY-SEVEN

In Biology the next day, Davidek asked Green if he planned to go to the prom. “Sure,” Green said, delighted that Davidek was feeling chatty again. “Where else can I see Bilbo Tomch in a tux?”

Davidek said, “You going to work? Like, that volunteer stuff … or just go for fun?”

Green shook his head. “I’m volunteering in the kitchen, but I’m also gonna take some pictures for the guys. My dad’s got a good camera. Plus, my mom said I should go. She said girls like guys who act interested in proms and stuff.”

Davidek said he might go, too. Just to see it. “Want to carpool?”

Green thought for a second and said, “Sure. My mom can come get you, and your mom or dad can pick us up.” Green was quiet; then he added, “The guys saw you get in the Jeep with Hannah Kraut yesterday, out by the bus.”

“Oh yeah?” Davidek said.

“Yeah,” Green replied, fiddling with his fingers. “So we’re wondering where you stand with her. Are you just going to do everything she says from now on?”

“She’s my senior,” Davidek told him. “You’re doing what
your
seniors tell you. That’s how it goes.”

“Yeah, but Hannah…” Green trailed off. “Maybe it would be best to make
her
your one big enemy, instead of making a million enemies out of everybody else. All the other students are crapping their pants, wondering what stupid-ass thing they did three years ago that’s going to rise up out of her notebook on Hazing Day. And with these old people, these parish Monitors, hanging around, watching everybody like hawks … The teachers are going nuts, too. The point is, Hannah’s a backstabbing bitch, man. And you have to decide whose side you’re on.”

“Hers or the rest of the school?”

Green pointed a finger at him. “Her side—or
your
side.” Davidek thought of Hannah’s little disposable camera, but his mind also drifted to the other things he saw during those moments in the Jeep, the glimpses under her skirt and between her shirt, the smoothness of her legs as she held his hand on her thigh.…

“I’m definitely not with the backstabbing bitch,” he reassured Green, who put a hand on his shoulder.

“I knew you weren’t, man. The guys’ll be glad to know it, too. You know, they’re not so bad. I think you’d like them. And if the guys believe you’re on their side, they’ll be a lot nicer.”

“Awesome…,” Davidek said unenthusiastically.
The guys …

*   *   *

Each morning, Mr. Mankowski still read Stein’s name in the homeroom roll call. And each morning, Davidek wondered if that would be the day his friend came back. He kept calling the hospital at night, never learning anything.

Sooner or later, Stein would get better. Then he’d help Davidek figure out what to do about “the guys,” Hannah, and everything.

But it never happened.

*   *   *

The next Friday ended early so it could run late.

That was the tradition at St. Mike’s before prom night: classes cut off at lunchtime as the upperclassmen hustled home to prepare themselves in the finest and most glamorous attire they could rent. It would be the best they’d look in their young lives—until they were married, or possibly, as the teachers liked to joke about the less attractive students, until they were buried.

The prom took place each year in the same location—Veltri’s Restaurant, a glass-and-steel box leaning over the bluff atop Coxcomb Hill, overlooking the towns of Springdale and Cheswick, as well as the rocket-sized orange-and-white smokestack of the Duquesne Light power plant between them, which belched coal smoke into the orange sunset.

The first people to gather at the prom were the underclassman volunteers, then the paparazzi crowd of family and friends—overeager parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts and glum younger siblings, all setting off storms of photo flashes as the formally attired teenage couples began arriving to walk the red carpet (donated courtesy of the local Prizzant’s Carpet Warehouse chain, as a sign beside the walkway attested). The prom-goers smiled and waved for the starstruck relatives, who saw them all the time, but now acted as if they were looking at Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Quite a few freshmen were gathered along the photo line, most of them girls who cheered for their upperclassmen friends, then snottily pointed out amongst themselves who had lifted her hairstyle directly from
Prom Time
magazine instead of the glossy and more respected
Spring Fling.

The school tried to add a touch of class to the night by having Mr. Mankowski stand near the entrance and announce each couple through a microphone wired to a small amplifier at his feet. He was bad at it, and some guessed deliberately so—although that wasn’t true. He tried his best. He was color-blind, so every dress was described as “light” or “dark.” He also had trouble remembering students’ names.

Stretching out in the property adjacent to the restaurant was a gravel parking lot that crumbled away at the edges to hardpan dirt and grass. Thick stands of trees rimmed the grounds and swayed to the muted throb of music coming from inside the building. Parked along the trees in the shadows, far away from the other vehicles, Hannah sat in her Jeep, watching the festive line of classmates move inside. She had a jean jacket over her bare shoulders, and the shimmering layers of pink chiffon puffed up around her midsection, as if she had sunken into a pile of cotton candy.

Since she had no date, Hannah preferred to wait until everyone else was inside so Mankowski wouldn’t announce her solo status. Plus, she hadn’t seen Mr. Zimmer’s car in the lot, and she didn’t want to go into the party until she had someone to talk to.

Mr. Zimmer was really the only reason she was there. She was hoping to end this year with one happy memory. A dance with the person she loved. Even if it just looked to everyone else like a lonely student dancing with a sympathetic teacher.

Zimmer arrived around the last of sunset, and he and Mankowski stood outside the doors staring into the horizon over the bluff like old sailors appraising a storm front. They exchanged a few words; then Zimmer bowed his head and vanished into the restaurant without noticing her parked in the distance. Still she waited. Davidek wasn’t here, and he had promised he would take a picture as she walked inside. Her mom and dad wouldn’t be here. She told them not to come. She didn’t want people in the crowd to say anything about her to them.

Hannah was in no hurry to get inside. She was about as welcome among her classmates as a drunk-driving fatality. Before the night was over, though, it would be nice to get one photo of herself, smiling, looking cute in her new dress, which she had saved her own money to buy.

The sun settled into its cradle behind the hills. Hannah Kraut waited awhile longer, wondering where her little freshman could be.