Empire Falls (40 page)

Mr. Brown, sensing the potential for danger, said, “Pull over, Roby.” He’d managed to withdraw his hand from the handshake easily enough, but his wrist got stuck between the cushions and he had to peer over his shoulder to check on the progress of his driver. “I
said,
Pull over!”

Miles did as instructed. Had he been told to slow down before pulling over, he’d have done that too, but unfortunately he hadn’t. Therefore, had anyone living on the quiet residential street they were traveling down picked that moment to step outside, he’d have been treated to a strange sight: the Empire High School driver’s education vehicle doing forty miles an hour mere inches from the curb, its instructor facing backward, as if his primary concern was the possibility of pursuit, its backseat passengers pressing back against their seats and its driver patiently awaiting further instructions. Meanwhile, only fifty yards ahead, a car sat parked at the curb
.

Mr. Brown had a brake on his side of the car, of course, but turned as he was, his right wrist still caught between the seat cushions, he seemed unable to determine its exact location, though he pumped vigorously at what he imagined to be the floorboard with his foot. Had the brake been attached to the underside of the glove box where he was pumping, that would’ve stopped the car, but of course it was not, and Mr. Brown’s inability to locate the pedal now threw him into blind panic. Unable to decide whether it was more important to free his wrist or locate the brake, he went frantically back and forth between the two, succeeding in neither, all the while yelling, “Roby! Roby! Goddamn it!”

As Miles bore down on the parked car, it seemed to him that slowing the vehicle—indeed, stopping it—might be the most advisable course of action, but Mr. Brown’s gyrations confused him. Still unwilling to shift his gaze from the road, he assumed his instructor was in fact hitting the brake to no effect, which meant that the car was unaccountably without brakes, which in turn suggested there wasn’t much point in him hitting his, so he stayed his course alongside the curb until the last possible moment, hoping for further orders. When none came, he whipped the steering wheel to the right, bumped the car up onto the curb, over an aluminum garbage can and onto someone’s lawn. He noticed the address on the mailbox as they sailed by
—
116 Spring Street—and further noticed that the garage door of 116 Spring Street happened to be open, its bay empty, seemingly in invitation
.

The sudden crash into and up over the curb had the salutary effect of painfully freeing Mr. Brown’s wrist from the seat, which in turn allowed
him to be flung against the door, his bullet-shaped head spiderwebbing the window glass. Able at last to locate the elusive brake pedal, he was still unable to employ it, having been stunned senseless by the impact. So it was that Miles’s old friend Otto Meyer Jr. (the team’s second-string catcher) saved the day by lunging forward over the slumped body of the driver’s ed teacher and depressing the brake by hand. The car came to a screaming, skidding halt about a foot from the back wall of the garage, looking for all the world as if it had been Miles’s intention to park there from the start
.

“Is the car in Park?” Otto asked, his voice sounding strange down there in the passenger-side foot well
.

Miles put the car in Park. “Thanks, Otto,” he said
.

“That’s okay,” Otto said. “Pull me back up, all right?” The other two boys in the back obliged, and Miles then noticed that the pinky finger on Otto’s left hand was bent back at a rather unnatural ninety-degree angle. Otto himself noticed this when he switched the ignition off and the bent finger encountered the turn signal. “Darn,” he said, showing it to Miles, without the slightest ill will, before passing out
.

U
NLIKE
O
TTO
M
EYER
J
R.
,
Mr. Brown
did
harbor a grudge, and he nursed it long after the impressive knot above his temple had receded. If he’d had his way, Miles would’ve been kicked out of driver’s education, at least until he learned to drive. It wasn’t just that he was such a lousy driver, Mr. Brown explained to the principal, or that the damn kid had nearly killed them all. Mr. Brown also had a baseball team to consider, one he hoped to take to the state tournament this year, a squad that now, thanks to Miles Roby, featured a shortstop with a sprained wrist on his throwing hand and a catcher with a broken pinky on his glove hand. Half his damn team was taking driver’s ed, and he saw no reason to risk certain injury and possible death or dismemberment by putting them in an automobile with a boy who didn’t have any better sense than to jump a curb, fly over a lawn and careen into a stranger’s garage. And how could he coach effectively with all these headaches he’d been getting now since the accident? No, he wanted Miles Roby out of the class and furthermore hoped some sensible policy might be enacted to ensure that, in the future, any kid who signed up for driver’s education had some vague idea of what to do behind the wheel
.

The principal at the time was Clarence Boniface, who was generally disliked because he wasn’t from Empire Falls or anywhere near Empire Falls. He’d been hired in preference to several local, in-house candidates, including Mr. Brown himself, because Mr. Boniface could boast (although he didn’t) an
advanced degree and considerable administrative experience as the assistant principal of a large high school in Connecticut. In his two years at the helm of Empire Falls High, he’d proven himself to be serious, dutiful and competent. He was a good listener and slow to take offense—both excellent and necessary qualities in a high school principal, though they failed to gain him acceptance with the majority, who had determined he was an asshole even before he arrived. In any event, he listened soberly to his baseball coach’s solution to the “Roby kid problem,” waited patiently until he was sure Mr. Brown had finished making his case and then burst into violent laughter that rapidly became a full-blown fit of hysteria from which he could not be rescued. He hooted, then howled. His face grew red, tears streamed down his cheeks, and he soon was gasping for air. His secretary, greatly alarmed, brought him a glass of water, but he was shaking too badly to drink it
.

In the end they had to lay the principal facedown on the carpet, where at first he flopped about like a bass on the floor of a boat, then curled into a fetal position and lay inert, with just enough energy left to whisper, “Oh, God, oh, God. I’m so sorry, Mr. Brown. I never meant … I’m so sorry … I haven’t laughed like that since I was a child … my uncle used to tickle me until I wet my pants.” Finally he was able to sit up and lean back against the wall. “I must have been suppressing that laugh since the day I moved here,” he concluded
.

Mr. Brown had no idea what the man had or had not been suppressing, but he didn’t like being laughed at in general, and certainly not by someone from Connecticut, and having his principal cleanse his soul at his own expense made him furious. Rising from his chair, he glared down at Mr. Boniface, who remained right where he was, his back against the wall, looking like a man on the wrong end of a firing squad. “You think this is
funny?”
Mr. Brown said, pointing to his own narrowed right eye. “You think seeing double’s
funny?”

He had more to say, too, but Mr. Boniface was now holding his aching ribs and pleading with his baseball coach. “Stop … please … Mr. Brown, I’m begging you … I can’t take it … you’re killing me.…”

Which left Mr. Brown no alternative but to storm out of the office, having arrived at a firm resolution henceforth to oppose Mr. Boniface in anything the principal favored, whenever the opportunity arose, no matter the cost, a resolution that strengthened over the next month whenever he encountered Mr. Boniface in the corridor and saw his shoulders begin to shake in recollection of the Roby incident. Mr. Brown was in no mood to share his good humor. The note he received from his principal the day after their meeting was curt and unambiguous:
You will continue to instruct Miles Roby in driver’s education, a course for which there has never been a prerequisite. In the future I hope you will be able to give him, and every other Empire Falls student who wishes to learn to drive, your complete and undivided attention.

A year later, when Mr. Boniface died suddenly of a massive embolism, Mr. Brown boycotted the funeral, remarking to friends, “Who’s laughing now?” He seemed not to understand the significance of the fact that he himself wasn’t laughing when he said this
.

S
O
M
ILES
,
after a poor beginning, was allowed to continue. Mr. Brown let it be known, however, that he was playing the rest of the game under protest, and he actually seemed disappointed that the remainder of the spring term passed without further incident. In truth, he seldom allowed Miles behind the wheel except in the most straightforward situations, nor was he allowed to attempt parallel parking. When the class ended, Mr. Brown informed Miles that he would be receiving a failing grade and further claimed that in all the years he’d spent teaching students to drive, he’d never run into one with less God-given talent. He sincerely hoped that Miles would proceed through life on foot
.

Mr. Boniface, aware that of all the vindictive, hateful, small-town morons on his faculty, Mr. Brown was the most lethal, had anticipated this result, so when he received Mr. Brown’s grade sheet, he invited Miles to drive him home in his own car. For both parties it was a nervous trip, but they arrived safely at the principal’s home, where both realized at the same moment that now Miles would have to walk all the way across town, so they switched places and the principal drove the student home
.

“You say you’ve had no opportunity to practice all term?” Mr. Boniface inquired
.

Miles, ashamed to admit there was currently no family car, said this was true
.

“Mr. Brown has given you a failing grade,” the principal said
.

“Well”—Miles shrugged—“I
did
almost kill him.”

“Still,” Mr. Boniface said, as if contemplating the long list of extenuating circumstances that might make killing Mr. Brown forgivable, “I’ll speak to him.”

He followed up on that promise immediately, phoning Mr. Brown at home. “In twenty-five years I’ve never changed a teacher’s grade, but I’m about to change one of yours unless you change it yourself.”

Mr. Brown didn’t have to ask who they were talking about. “The Roby kid fails,” he said. “He damn near killed me.”

“I’ve thought a lot about that,” the principal replied wistfully. “Believe me.”

Mr. Brown was normally not very quick on the uptake, but he caught this inference immediately. “Yeah? Well, you’re stuck with me. And we both know you don’t have the authority to change any teacher’s grade.”

“And you’ll be stuck with Miles Roby. If you fail him, he’ll have to repeat the course. Have you thought about that?”

Mr. Brown had not. Until now, no one had ever needed to take the course over again
.

“And a lot of your ballplayers are frankly marginal in terms of academic eligibility. It’d be a shame if James Minty, for instance, turned out to be ineligible for his senior year. There’s a good chance Gladys will be his English instructor next year. In fact, there’s a very good chance.” Gladys was Mr. Boniface’s wife, and whenever Mr. Brown was foolish enough to commit anything to writing, Gladys corrected its grammar and spelling and returned it to him
.

“I’ll change the grade,” Mr. Brown said
.

“And you owe Miles Roby an apology.”

“Never,” said Mr. Brown. Not for a dozen Jimmy Mintys. Not for a thousand
.

“Consider what it means to hate a sixteen-year-old boy,” the principal suggested. “Consider what it means for a teacher to hate a student.”

“What’s so bad about that?” Mr. Brown wanted to know. “You hate me, don’t you?”

Mr. Boniface, a fair man, conceded the point
.

M
ILES HAD JUST ABOUT
given up on the idea of trying for his license anytime soon when his mother returned from work one evening and told him that Mrs. Whiting had offered to serve as his interim instructor. Even more incredibly, she’d proposed they use her new Lincoln to practice with. Miles was so surprised by the offer that he couldn’t think of a reason to refuse it, which he would have liked to do. It had nothing to do with Mrs. Whiting, whom he’d met only briefly, and everything to do with her daughter, Cindy
.

In matters of affection, the rules of engagement at Empire High were detailed yet unambiguous, an extension of procedures established in junior high, a set of guidelines that couldn’t have been any clearer if they’d been
posted on the schoolhouse door. If you were a girl and your heart inclined toward a particular boy, you had one of your girlfriends make inquiries from one of that boy’s friends. Such contact represented the commencement of a series of complex negotiations, the opening rounds of which were handled by friends. Boy’s friend A might report to Girl’s friend B that the boy in question considered her a fox, or, if he felt particularly strongly, a major fox. Those experienced in these matters knew that it was wise to proceed cautiously, since too much ardor could delay things for weeks. The girl in question might be in negotiations with other parties, and no boy wanted to be on record as considering a girl a major fox only to discover that she considered him merely cool. Friends had to be instructed carefully about how much emotional currency they could spend, since rogue emotions led to inflation, lessening the value of everyone’s feelings. Once a level of affection within the comfort zone of both parties was agreed upon, the principals could then meet for the exchange of mementos—rings, jackets, photos, key chains—to seal the deal, always assuming that the seconds had properly represented the lovers to begin with
.