Going Underground (7 page)

“Hallelujah” and Burrito Farts, Not Necessarily Related

(“Hallelujah”—the Willie Nelson version. Yeah. Laugh. Dude is old and twangy, but he can
sing
.)

I could write some kind of research paper on the song “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. I listened to it over and over again during lockup, and any time I had to come face-to-face with the minion of Satan known as William Kaison, with his black suit and narrow, mean eyes—never mind the bad comb-over. Maybe there's no such thing as the devil, but if the king of hell does exist, no doubt he's got more style than Kaison.

Now I've heard there was a secret chord that David played, and it pleased the Lord, but you don't really care for music, do you?

Yeah.

Or, from the Jeff Buckley version,
Well maybe there's a
God above, but all I've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.

Those two lines just about sum up Kaison. Well, that, and the comb-over, and the belief that it was his divine right and electoral mandate to “teach young people how to act.” When he was in office, he picked targets and “made examples out of little hoods,” he admitted to a reporter later, after he left office due to some marital scandal. “If you force one teenager to pay a price, the rest sit up and take notice.”

“And if you bankrupt one teenager permanently, if you ruin one child's future, what does that teach the rest?” Mom had asked when she read that article. “Go ahead and try, but life's hopeless, anyway?”

Dad had taken the newspaper away from her and quietly thrown it away. Then he telephoned the
Duke's Ridge Daily
and told them if they ran one more story about that bastard, he'd cancel his subscription. We could have been mad at the coaches who turned us in, I guess, but that never made any sense. They were just following rules, and they could have lost their jobs and gone to jail if they hadn't done what they were supposed to do. It was Kaison who made it all crazy and miserable.

I've seen him a few times on the local news. He never acknowledges getting run out of office for being such a hypocrite, and usually babbles about some mix of God, country, and drawing lines in the sand to keep everybody and everything under control. I try really hard not to let that asshole bother how I think about God or the Lord or whatever you want to call Him or Her or whatever. But that's not easy. Even now, years later, when I close my eyes and make some attempt to pray, I have to stop, because it's Kaison's face I see in my head. I can't even conjure up some ancient white long-bearded grandfather like I used to see when I was little and thought about God.

I hate that.

But, I don't hate my “Hallelujah” mix.

I've got fourteen versions—the original, of course, with Cohen's whispery, murmuring I-so-need-Prozac voice. Hard to beat that, but Jeff Buckley sort of does, if you ignore the heavy breathing and weird chords at the beginning. I like Willie Nelson's take, the one I'm playing in my head while I try not to fall asleep at the end of first period, and Allison Crowe's cover is awesome—the arrangement and her voice and everything. Except it's on a holiday album, which is just totally weird. “Hallelujah” is about as close to “Christmas song” as somebody cutting up virgins with chainsaws.

The prettiest version is probably the one by Mary Angels, but my favorite is Brandi Carlile's Live at KCRW.com version. It's raw and pissed and sweet, and sometimes I just can't stop listening to it.

Also, Brandi Carlile is hot.

That definitely does not impair my enjoyment of the song.

“I can hear the music,” Marvin whispers, bringing him and the classroom back into focus. “You're gonna get busted if you don't knock it off.”

I pull out my one ear bud and slide it into my shirt pocket. The iPod's tucked in my jeans pocket.

“Have a good Thursday,” Mr. McCash announces, closing his teacher's copy of our physics book, and I get a grip on the fact that I totally forgot I'm in class, and that I've got no idea what he's been saying for the last half hour.

Concentration. Sucks.

I wish that would stop happening. I thought the music in one ear would help, not make it worse.

I glance at Marvin's notes, but instead of formulas, I see the name
Lee Ann
sketched in big fat graffiti letters, underlined, with flames coming off the top. Guess Marvin has his own reasons to be distracted, and I'm betting his reasons are more fun than mine.

“I was listening to ‘Hallelujah,' ” I tell him.

“I don't want to talk songs or music theory.”

“You're the one who got me hooked on all this stuff.”

“I'm not that guy anymore.” Marvin gestures to the classroom around us as people jam out the door. “When you start talking about all the different versions of ‘Hallelujah,' I zone out like a big dog. It's boring if I'm not right in your head listening to it with you. There's a world outside your earbuds, you know that, right?”

“Music's better.”

“In moderation,” he says, doing his best straight-out impression of our health teacher from last year. “All things in moderation. You should try giving it a rest sometimes.”

He lets out a wide, long yawn before he stands and packs up his stuff. We wait for the rest of the class to get out before we head into the hall to get to Advanced Math, because we don't have that far to walk. I glance left and right, making sure I'm keeping my distance from everybody, even though it's second nature now, and I'm too old-news to stare at.

When I first got out of Juvenile, I had to go to alternative school and wear white T-shirts and black jeans every day, and ignore the bastards who liked to yell and fight and poke people with pencils—bunch of dill weeds. With “good behavior,” I earned out of there and back to real school in four months—hard, since I'm not supposed to live, work, or attend events within a thousand feet of “anywhere children congregate.” My parents had to sue so I could go to school, then Branson hammered out permission for me to do stuff like go to movies and community events as long as I'm not alone.

About school—yeah, I took some shit from a few people when I came back, but overall nowhere near what I expected. Everybody at G. W. had read about the case, or heard about it day after day for months. Lots of the other students felt sorry for me, even if they didn't want to hang around and be my new best buddies. A few parents protested me going back to regular classes even though I'd done my time and gotten probation. My parents and I knew they had been ginned up by Kaison, but his big affair scandal hit the news and he left office, and the conscientious objectors who didn't want me near their pure little angels got blown off by all the people on the school board who just wanted to settle the lawsuit and stop the news coverage.

After that, it was like I made some twisted peace treaty with everybody at G. W. without even knowing I did it. The agreement seems to be that I'll get a few grumbles here and there, but mostly I'll get totally ignored in exchange for not trying to talk to or stand next to or even look in the general direction of anyone else, or take part in any aspect of “real life” as far as high school's concerned.

Except hanging with Marvin, of course. He's never much paid attention to the “everybody's doing it” thing. My hero. Seriously. Everybody in the world should be more like Marvin.

When we get to Advanced Math, he's talking about some girl who hung out at the cookie counter last night. “She had red hair, long, down to here.” He slaps his chest, then gives a quick whistle he learned from Fred. “Perfect. And she likes action, so we're probably going to see the new
DrugRunner Chronicle
tomorrow night if I can get tickets before they sell out.”

“Is her name Lee Ann?” I ask as we wedge through the door.

He looks amazed. “How'd you know?”

“You're going to go out with her?”

“It's not really a date. It's just a movie. I don't date.”

“You're not on probation, Marvin. That's me.” We've been here before, and I know he'll blow me off—which he does, just by rolling his eyes.

“Eighteen.” He plops into his desk chair. “Not before. I'm not doing anything there might be a law against.”

I'm still standing up, blocking the aisle. There's only a few people here, and we're not paying attention to the people coming in behind us, so we don't see him.

Where's Fred and her smoke-alarm screech when you need it?

“It's the Great Marvolo,” comes the line that announces Jonas Blankenship's arrival, right before he sucker punches Marvin and knocks him halfway out of the desk where he's sitting.

Marvin smiles and shakes his head. He pulls himself back into the desk, but he doesn't rub his shoulder even though it probably hurts. Marvin's never been a fighter, so he gets by on charm and friendliness. He says, “Jonas,” with a quick nod, then glances at the posse Jonas must have towed through the door behind him. Three guys, easily as big as Jonas, stand there looking bored. I know their names but I never talk to them. The four of them don't take this class, and probably don't even know what it is. They just make a matching set with their jeans, football jerseys, blond hair, throwback scalp-cuts, and tans. One guy's hands are bigger than my face.

“Cherie says she hung with you last night.” Jonas smiles at me with big white teeth. We have that in common, smiling when we'd rather say a bunch of stuff I shouldn't put on paper. “I thought I told you to stay away from my little sister.”

“Trust me, I do whenever I can, but she won't stay away from me.” I keep my arms perfectly still at my sides. It's not that I couldn't defend myself if pinhead jumps on me. He's big, but I'm fast and strong from digging. I'd probably hold my own, or maybe even take him. Only, he'd get griped at and sent to detention while I'd face violation of probation, maybe new charges because of my record, and going straight back to Juvenile and on to prison after I turn eighteen. Definitely not a fair fight, and besides, Jonas isn't that much of a fighter. He's just a pinhead.

“Hartwick—” he starts, frowning, but I interrupt his dramatic lather-up by lifting my books and dropping them hard on the desk beside Marvin's. The crack of the impact makes the five or six people already in the room for class look up and stare at us.

“Cherie's safe, Jonas.” My arms go still again. “You take real good care of her, and I respect that. I'll never lay a hand on her, no matter what. I swear it.” I'm not imitating his cadence and style on purpose, but it happens whenever I deal with him. Something instinctive on my part, I guess. Maybe it puts him more at ease. “Want me to swear it on the Bible, or my mother's life? Name it.”

Jonas's frown eases. “Nah.” His muscles relax, and his three buddies look more bored than ever. “Cherie's a little mixed up, that's all.”

One of the buddies snickers, and Marvin goes to add a few words to that opinion, but stops when he sees the warning look on my face.

“Is she still showing up at the graveyard a lot, like last night?” Jonas asks.

“Three or four times per week. Harper's told her not to, but she's—”

“Stubborn. Like me.” He sounds proud, but also worried. “Tell Harper I'll talk to my folks again.”

“Will do.”

Jonas and his buddies make their exit as the rest of the class wanders in, and I don't really feel relieved or weak-kneed or anything. I've read a ton of “young adult” books, too. Guys like Jonas are supposed to be brain-dead zombie hulks who bully everyone weaker than themselves. Every story's got to have some sneering jerk called (insert tough thug name of your choice, fantasy or contemporary—your call). To tell the total truth, I met guys like that in Juvenile, and a few in alternative school, but mostly, G. W. doesn't have zombie bullies, or at least I haven't run into any, maybe because I'm just made out of paper, or I don't really live on the same planet.

There are few natural zombie-bully targets like me, and some of the scrawny or “different” guys or girls in each class year, but we don't get mowed down on a daily basis. As for the football team and the other jocks (not thinking about baseball, not thinking about baseball), some are thick, some are pinheads like Jonas, and some are smart and on the honor roll. Some of the popular girls are mean as hell, and some are sweet and kind to everybody. It's just not that black-and-white around here, in what passes for my real world. I might get glared at or snickered at or, as previously noted, thoroughly ignored, but that's about the worst of it.

Marvin and I sit and take out our math books. He pulls a few sheets of paper from a folder and lays them next to his book, then says, “Jonas is cranking up on you and Cherie.”

I get out my paper, but I don't arrange it neatly like Marvin's. “He won't do anything.”

I'm not just blowing smoke. I really don't think pinhead's any kind of threat, but when I close my eyes for a long blink, I flash on Cory's smile and Kaison's comb-over, and I hear a few strands of “Hallelujah”-like ghost mutterings in the back of my brain.

Meaning clear, message received, no problem. Okay, universe, I surrender and admit the following: it's hard to say what will and won't be a threat, and what will and won't be a problem. Satisfied?

When I open my eyes, the hateful image of Kaison fades away and the song gets quieter, but I still feel stupid. If anybody should have figured that last part out, about how everything's always an unknown—it's me. In fact, I think I know it. I think I have it memorized, but I keep it a few inches out of my conscious thoughts, so it doesn't turn me into a screaming, head-banging candidate for a straitjacket. I try to breathe through it, but it's too late. My body tightens like something bad's hovering just behind my left shoulder out of sight, where I can't see it or touch it or even be sure when it's going to lunge forward and sink its teeth into my head.