Brutal Youth (49 page)

“It’s
Saturday,
” he said coolly, prying at the fingers in his hair. “This isn’t
school.
You’re
nobody
here. I don’t have to respect you
anything
—”

Little flecks of spittle hit his face. “I
saw
you destroy that food, buddy boy.
Sick
.… Just for a laugh, right? You make a mess and ruin something that’s supposed to be fun. Well, I
saw
it. And I’ve been waiting a
long time
for you to screw up in front of everybody like this. So they can all see what
I
see.”

She pulled at his hair again, trying to make it hurt. Trying to make him cry—the way
she
had cried after he and his rotten little friend Stein had humiliated her in the parking lot that first time she even met them. “You’re getting a century of detention, little brat.” That seemed like weak menace, so she added: “And I’m going to report you to the Parish Monitors and Father Mercedes. I’m going to get you expelled. How do you like
that
?”

Davidek laughed at her again. “If you expel me … how will I serve my, uhh, ‘century’ of detention?”

Bromine felt her heart having a fit. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t what she did, how she acted. She felt control slipping away, just as it almost had that night at the Valentine’s dance, twisting Noah Stein’s arm as she squeezed it in her sharp nails. But this time there was no one around to see her, and no one around to stop her. “You want a
laugh,
huh? Here’s what makes me laugh—” Her hand cut across his face.

The boy slid toward the ground, but Bromine still held him by the hair. He stared up at her, his teeth white and glistening. “You’re gonna get fired now,” he said.

Bromine jerked his head back. Her fingers were beginning to hurt from holding his hair so tightly. “You’d like that,” she said. “To humiliate me. But I
know
boys like you.…” She felt nauseated, dizzy; the air she gasped felt thick as water. Gretchen Bromine could feel the boy in her arms straining against her, every muscle taut as she pulled him against her. “Your friend with the scarred-up face taught me a little trick. Do you remember? I know
I’ll
never forget it.… It’s called ‘Who Would Believe You?’”

Bromine’s eyes were watering at Davidek’s smile. “Boys like you never cared for this school. Not like
I
did. It was all about
you
 … what
you
wanted. It used to be a nice place when I was a girl.…” She could hardly finish. She began to choke: “Boys like
you
—made
me
—the bad guy. You made
me
—the monster. But it’s you. It’s
you.
”

Her free hand pawed sweat off her face. “You know how to play Who Would Believe You?” she asked, almost sweetly. She looked down into the boy’s lean, youthful face—his dark eyes staring up at her, the muscles in his arms braced against her.

She remembered boys like this. But they had once looked at her so differently.

Ms. Bromine pressed her lips against Davidek’s, sealing his face against hers, leaving a smacking taste of chips and salsa in his mouth as her tongue probed between his lips. The boy flailed in her grip, then slowed, his hands sliding along her sides, caressing her—until—

Bromine shrieked, rearing back as Davidek pushed up on his legs, squeezing fistfuls of her fleshy breasts and twisting them like he was ripping out twin champagne corks. It was the championship Purple Nurple of all time, a last-resort move he’d learned courtesy of countless beat-downs from his big brother, Charlie. If there was one mark Charlie made on the world, it was now imprinted on Ms. Bromine’s chest. The guidance counselor flopped her arms in a panic and sprawled backwards on her ass, her blue blouse making twin tents between his fingers as she fell away from him.

Bromine thudded on her back, kicking her fireplug legs to push herself away through the weeds.

“You’re right,” Davidek gasped, looming over her. “No one
will
believe this.”

“You assaulted me!” Bromine bellowed. “Get away!” Her hand scrabbled through the leafy undergrowth and seized on a chunk of rock—roughly the size of an orange, but sharp. It fit neatly into her hand as she struggled to her feet, ready to swing it at the boy’s face.

Behind her, a voice said, “Stop!…
Now.
”

Bromine’s hair dangled with leaves and stuck to the sweat on her face. She sniffed quietly, eyes focused on something standing in the woods behind Davidek. She began to sob, and crystal tears streaked down her face. “He attacked me!” she said. “You saw it!”

The slight figure of Sister Maria stood amid the maple saplings. The nun’s mouth was a razor line as she began to walk. “Yes. I did,” she answered, moving between them. “It looked like quite a little game.”

“Game?”
Bromine barked. “I wouldn’t call it—”

“Yes,” Sister Maria interrupted. “I believe that’s exactly what I heard you call it. ‘A little game called … Who-Would-Believe-You?’ Isn’t that right?”

Bromine’s weepy expression hardened, becoming a silent declaration of eternal war.

“Maybe you should leave now, Ms. Bromine,” the principal said.

Bromine jabbed an accusatory finger toward Davidek. “
He
did it,” she said, her voice breaking. She repeated it again, louder this time, but the claim was useless. “I’m telling the Parish Monitors!” she declared finally, heaving to her feet.

“You’ll
shut
your mouth and never open it to contradict me
again,
Gretchen, or I’ll do what every teacher wished they could do when you were just a student—and
boot
you out for being a miserable, know-it-all, pain in the ass.” The nun squinted at the guidance counselor’s dumbstruck expression. “Oh, please. Your mother and father
begged
us to hire you. And all you’ve done in the years since is prove me wrong, time and again—I used to think even the
rottenest
students could eventually change for the better.”

Davidek piled on. “Maybe
I’ll
tell the Monitors what you just did to me, you perverted bitch!”

Sister Maria spun on him. There was rage in her eyes—but a pleading neediness, too. “
Nobody
is talking to the Parish Monitors,” the nun said. “So let’s decide that what happened just now in this clearing—
all of it
—never happened. Understand? If I find out
either
of you spoke about this, I will make certain we speak about
all
of it.” She looked squarely at Davidek. “Every last part.”

The guidance counselor backed away through the trees, overwhelmed with equal parts fear and fury, shouting that this was wrong, that whatever the boy said, whatever Sister Maria
thought
she saw … it was a lie.

But she had no more fight left.

Sister Maria and Davidek watched in silence as Bromine retreated, stumbling and muttering through the trees like a lost bull. When she was gone, consumed by the forest, Davidek turned on the principal. “If you hate her so bad, why are you protecting her?”

Sister Maria started walking away, back toward the picnic—determined to present a smiling face to the Monitors and guests still gathered there. “For the same reason I’m protecting you,” she said.

Davidek brushed at the dirt and leaves on his clothes. “Sister!” he called as her figure grew small between the trees. “Sister, tell me again … who’s looking out for
who
?” Maybe she didn’t hear. If she did, she didn’t care to answer.

*   *   *

Davidek sat down on one of the big rectangular stones at the river overlook.

Upstream was a barge loaded with muddy grit and gravel, turning a distant bend between the hills in slow motion. No birds sang. The wind was still.

After a while, Davidek heard footsteps on the path behind him.

Green took a seat beside him on the rock bench. The heavy boy was holding his guitar, cradling it carefully, and his fingers began moving along the strings, strumming a soothing song. Green hummed the lyrics, not singing. Occasionally a word emerged, murmured more to himself than to Davidek. Finally, Green said, “I wrote this song, but I need to work on the lyrics. Maybe it’s better I didn’t have to sing it today.”

Davidek nodded. He said, “Sorry they didn’t let you.”

Green was still strumming. His chubby face split open in a smile. He hummed a few more lyrics and they watched the barge pass below them, short waves grabbing at its sides.

“I’m sorry about … us fighting,” Green said. “
You
said some things,
I
said some things … but what you did back there … just now—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry to me, Green. Don’t ever,” Davidek interrupted. “You don’t owe me any ‘I’m sorry’s.’ I’m the one who should have said it. Right away. Long ago. I’m sorry, Green. Sorry about what I said. Sorry about all of it.”

Green just kept strumming. When people are particularly good at playing guitar, the world around them stops existing for a while. The music carried over the bluff. Far below, the river moved the barge silently away from them.

“I wish
sorry
was a stronger word,” Davidek said. “I wish it were as strong as other words, the ones that make you
need
to apologize. Like what I said to you on the phone that night.… Because I am, Green. I’m so s—”

“That’s the cool thing about being real friends,” Green told him. “If you really mean it, you don’t have to
keep
saying you’re sorry. Once is enough. For good friends, I mean … Like us.”

The two freshmen sat silhouetted against the sunny river valley, looking down over the cliff at the slow, dark water churning by below.

*   *   *

Back at the pavilion, most of the students and guests had gone. The sun crept toward an orange horizon, but it was still a couple hours until sunset. Clouds of gnats buzzed over the grass fields. Davidek found his father’s car, where the old man was standing with The Big Texan.

Carl LeRose caught up to Davidek as he walked. “Hey, you know, if you were gonna smash all that stuff, you could’ve at least done it onstage. For a laugh.”

Davidek said, “Is that how everybody feels?”

LeRose raised his hands—nonthreatening. “Nobody feels anything, big guy. We’re cool. All right?”

“All right,” Davidek said, too tired to say anything else.

Davidek’s father was pissed. As his son approached, he threw open the passenger door. “Where the hell’ve
you
been?”

LeRose’s father, The Big Texan, laughed too loud and said, “Settle down, Bill! This boy did a helluva brave thing up there today. A helluva thing…” At first, Davidek thought he meant the smashed food, but The Big Texan was talking about his apparent refusal to read Hannah’s notebook, which now seemed like eons ago. “Your boy stood up for himself today,” Mr. LeRose said. “He stood up for all of us at St. Mike’s.”

Bill Davidek didn’t like hearing someone else tell him how to feel about his kid. The Big Texan put out his hand. “Not always easy to stand up to people … But you and I know that, don’t we?” Bill Davidek hesitated, then shook it, and whatever secret history they shared passed between them.

The Big Texan looked across the car to Davidek. “I want to thank you again, for everything, Peter. For helping my son, here, when he needed it. I believe we need more boys like you at St. Mike’s.”

Davidek’s father got into the car and started the engine.

“You know I wasn’t the only one who helped Carl that day,” Davidek said. LeRose’s father looked at his son, and Carl gave him a hey-I-was-unconscious shrug.

“There was another boy who helped me,” Davidek said, feeling nervous and talking a little too fast. “His name was Noah Stein.… He never wanted any credit, but Stein is the one who helped me get to Carl. One of the teachers was trying to hold me back, but he stopped her. With a big fat kiss on the mouth.”

“Bromine?” Carl asked, his face lighting up. “So that
is
true?”

The Big Texan said, “Okay, well, where is this mystery hero? Let’s meet him.” He looked expectantly at his son, who may have been an upperclassman suck-up, but had never worn a red scar on his cheek.

“Carl can tell you what happened to Stein … and what they did to him. Right, Carl?”

LeRose said, “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He was proud to be of service.

As Davidek’s father drove them away, the minivan passed Mullen’s boat-sized Pea Green Love Machine, parked along the grass near the football field. Davidek looked out the back window at a curious scene. Carl pointing to Mullen and Simms, who were still hanging out at the swing set, then walking his father toward the old green jalopy. The elder LeRose, The Big Texan, drew a small booklet out of his jacket pocket, studied the rear of the car, and wrote something down.

As the woods rose around them, Davidek’s father said, “I never liked that guy.”

FORTY-NINE

The parish council’s vote on whether to close the school was unanimous.

Father Mercedes paced the hallway outside St. Mike’s library as the ten members debated the issue in an upstairs classroom. Most of the seats in the library were still empty, though about two dozen more people were at this monthly council meeting than usual—mostly clusters of concerned school parents amid the twenty or so ancient, shriveled busybodies who spent their final years on Earth obsessing over the minutiae of church matters. They all waited in uncomfortable silence for the public portion of the meeting to begin. But it was starting late.

The priest took that as a good sign.

There was no doubt—St. Mike’s would be closed. Everyone knew it, because Father Mercedes wanted it. And Father Mercedes, as the pastor appointed by the Diocese of Pittsburgh, brought five votes to whatever decision the ten members decided. That gave him leverage to overrule any divided issue.

But winning by a slim majority was not enough to keep him safe.