Rook: Snowman (7 page)

Suzie Wintz had written: ‘A wrecked angel.’ He really liked that. It was accurate. It was seductive. And it was very, very flattering. It spoke of a bruised, classically handsome face. It spoke of burned feathers and high tragedy. He gave her seven and knew that he would probably regret it.

The last paper he picked up was Jack Hubbard’s. Unlike all of the others, this paper was neat and uncrumpled, as if he had scarcely touched it. The writing was extremely small, and he had to hold it closer to his nose to read it. While he did so, he could see Jack Hubbard watching him with an expression that was half-expectant and half-suspicious, optimism and cynicism mixed. ‘Your face was gone and there was nothing but a blizzard in its place. You were lost behind what you had done.’

He had tried this exercise before: asking his students to describe him. They always ended up revealing far more about themselves.
You were lost behind what you had done
. It didn’t sound as if he were talking about himself, but then it didn’t sound as if he were talking about Jim, either. He didn’t even know Jim, after all.

Jim lifted his pen but to mark Jack’s work but he couldn’t decide how much to give it. It was poetic, and it was expressive. It reminded him of Hart Crane, who would write lines like ‘adagios of islands complete the dark confessions her veins spell’. You knew what it meant but at the same time you didn’t.

He beckoned Jack over to his desk. Jack unwound himself from his chair and walked over in the sulky, loosely connected way that good-looking young men do. Suzie Wintz patted her hair as he went past, and splayed out her fingernails, which were sparkly yellow today.

Jim said, “What you’ve written here, it’s very interesting. But I get the feeling that it’s not about me. Or not just me. Me and somebody else.”

Jack shrugged and didn’t answer.

“I like the image of the blizzard in place of a face. That’s very imaginative. Coldness, whiteness, and a total lack of focus. But what have I done that I’m lost behind?”

“Partied too hard, I guess. Drank too much.”

“I don’t know … the implication seems deeper than that.”

“Well, I guess it can happen to anybody who says to hell with tomorrow.”

“But am I the only one you’re referring to? I can’t really explain why it is, but I get the feeling that you’re addressing this comment to somebody else as well.”

Jack thought for a moment, his eyes giving nothing away. Then he said, “Somebody told me you could see things.”

“Who told you?”

“One of the girls. She said you could see ghosts and stuff. Spirits.”

“Well, that’s right. I had a near-death experience when I was a kid. Ever since then, I’ve been able to see psychic manifestations that other people can’t. Not necessarily ghosts, but auras, too, and invisible marks. I think other people could see them, if only they knew how to. They’re a bit like those 3-D Magic Eye pictures made up of patterns. You just have to look at them exactly the right way.”

“Have you seen anything around here? Like, recently?”

Jim shook his head. “Unh-hunh. Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing. I was curious, is all.”

Jim leaned back in his chair and looked up at Jack, turning his ballpen end-over-end. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”

“No, sir. Everything’s fine.”

“I’ve been a teacher for a long time, Jack. I know when somebody’s got something on their mind.”

“I’m fine, sir. There’s really no problem.”

He went back to his desk, with Suzie Wintz’s eyes following him all the way. “Such a cu-u-ute ass,” she mouthed across the classroom to Linda Starewsky. Linda giggled and went pink.

“Okay,” said Jim, getting up from his desk. “I’ve marked yesterday’s work and I am amazed to tell you that it’s all exceptionally good. Obviously my ravaged features brought out the creative writers in all of you. I’m not too sure about your rap, Tarquin. ‘Mr Rook’s face … what a disgrace … looks like a bowlful of mayonnaise.’ Questionable simile and even more questionable rhyme.”

“Hey come on, Mr Rook. You was a paler shade of yellow. Mayonnaise, that was your exact color.”

“All right, then. I’ll mark you up to five. But next time, hold the mayo.”

They took so long to discuss each other’s descriptions of Jim with a hangover that there was no time left to get on to the Karl Shapiro poem. Jim told them to read it again overnight; and to read it out loud, too.

“When you do that, you’ll discover the background noise that Shapiro was able to create through onomatopoeic words and rhythms. You can hear the ambulance bell. You can hear the crowd. You can hear the crunching of broken glass. This poem is eye-witness stuff.

“ ‘
Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating,/ And down the dark one ruby flare/ Pulsing out red light like an artery,/ The ambulance at top speed floating down
…
We are deranged, walking among the cops/ Who sweep glass and are large and composed
…
One with a bucket douches ponds of blood/ Into the street and gutter
…’

“And then he catches the shock that everybody’s feeling.
‘We speak through sickly smiles and warn/ With the stubborn saw of common sense,/ The grim joke and the banal resolution.’

“And then he asks the questions we all ask in situations like this. ‘
Who shall die
?
Who is innocent
?’ For this – this auto wreck – ‘
cancels our physics with a sneer
.’”

As everybody poured out of their study groups for recess, he collided on the corner of the main corridor with Karen Goudemark. She was dressed all in black today – black jewel-neck sweater, black skirt – and her hair was severely pinned up. She had obviously finished serving ice creams in Heaven and now she was ready to greet grieving relatives at the mortuary, giving them ideas that were entirely inappropriate for a funeral.

She dropped a large maroon folder on to the floor with a loud slap and he picked it up for her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m in kind of a hurry.”

“Well, I’m sorry, too.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I was out of line yesterday. The way I spoke to Roger and Chuck. The way I spoke to you. I was very hungover.”

“You said your cat was jealous of me. I thought that was very flattering.”

“Well, I guess you’re easily flattered. How was your evening?”

“Very pleasant, thank you. Very … what’s the word?”

“Riotous? Orgiastic? I don’t know, I wasn’t there.”

She smiled at him, and she had the widest smile and the plumpest lips and the whitest teeth he had ever seen. She was standing so close that he was breathing the perfume that had been warmed inside her cleavage. He thought that now might be a good moment to kill himself. Maybe he could stab himself up the nose with a mechanical pencil, like those Japanese students who failed their exams. After all, life could only get worse after a moment like this.

“Professional,” said Karen.

“Say what?”

“The evening with Roger and Chuck. It was professional. They were sharing some of their ideas on curriculum presentation and student enablement.”

“So … no disco dancing? No wopping and a-bopping?”

“You have an imagination, Jim. I’ll give you that.”

She started walking back along the corridor toward the science block. “I have to set up a presentation on natural selection,” she said. “You know we’re having this visit this afternoon, from the Department of Education?”

“Oh, yes. Bruce Friendly told me to make my students
look as if they had started to crawl on dry land, at the very least.”

“Bruce Friendly makes my flesh creep.”

“Well, mine too. But it’s character-building, having a head of department like that.”

“No, it’s not. He’s a bigot and a throwback. And besides that, he tried to grope me.”

“Bruce Friendly tried to grope you?”

“Oh, he pretended he was reaching for his coat. But who reaches for their coat with a cupped hand?”

Jim cupped his hand and looked down at it. Then he looked at Karen Goudemark, straight in the face. Standing so close to her, the very word ‘cup’ seemed erotic, and it took a supreme effort of will for him not to lower his eyes any further. “I’m shocked,” he said.

“No, you’re not. But I appreciate your sympathy.”

They reached the door of Biology I. Karen said, “This is me. Maybe I’ll catch you later.”

“Maybe we could have a drink. I’m pretty good on curriculum presentation and student enablement.”

“I can get all that from Roger and Chuck,” she said; and there was a challenging look in her eyes which he recognized from what seemed a very long time ago. She was flirting with him. “Why don’t you show me some wopping and a-bopping?”

“Wopping and a-bopping? For sure. It’s Thursday tomorrow. Maybe you’d like to come to The Slant Club and meet my friend Meryvn. And wop. And a-bop.”

“That sounds fun. What do you think I should wear?”

They were still breaking off their conversation in little flirtatious pieces when Nestor came running along the corridor, his eyes wild and his spotty face bleached with panic.

“Mr Rook! Mr Rook! You gotta come quick! It’s Ray!”

“What’s the matter with Ray?” asked Jim, running already.

“He’s stuck! He can’t get free! He’s screaming with the pain!”

Five

Jim ran after Nestor through the swing doors and out of the building. He saw a crowd of students gathered and he could heard a high-pitched howling, like a run-over dog. He ran across the grass and pushed his way through to the steps by the side of the arts block. Ray Krueger was standing at the top of the steps, holding onto the steel-pipe railing with both hands. His head was thrown back and there were tears coursing down his face. Dennis Pease was standing close beside him, trying to comfort him, while Clarence the janitor was tugging at his wrists. Several girls from Jim’s class were there, too – Joyce Capistrano and Laura Killmeyer and Dottie Osias – and they were weeping with shock and terror.

“Mr Rook!” Clarence called out. “Whatever you do, don’t go touching the handrail!”

“What’s happened?” asked Jim, climbing up the concrete steps.

“It’s cold, Mr Rook. That handrail’s so cold, you’ll get your hand stuck to it like Ray.”

“Stuck to it? What are you talking about?”

Dennis said, “He was leaning over the handrail, talking to Laura, and all of a sudden he couldn’t get his hands free. He kept saying, it’s cold, it’s cold, it’s burning me. And we tried to pull his hands away but we couldn’t, and I can tell
you something, Mr Rook, this mother is
cold
, and I mean cold to the max.”

Jim came up to Ray and held his face in his hands. “Ray! Ray, listen to me, this is Mr Rook here. I’ve come to help you!”

But Ray’s eyes were rolling up into the back of his head and he was quaking with pain. He looked as if he were going into shock, and it was only because his hands were stuck to the handrail so tightly that he didn’t fall down.

“Come on, Ray, everything’s going to be fine. Did somebody call nine-one-one? Paramedics and fire department?”

“Yes, sir,” said Nestor, who was close by his elbow. “They told me six minutes.”

Jim looked at the handrail that Ray was clutching so tightly. It had a frosty bloom on it, with a few sparkles that caught the sun, and it was so cold that it was actually smoking. From what he could make out, it was frozen all the way along, from the bottom of the steps to the front door of the arts block. Ray’s hands were white except for his fingertips, which were blueish crimson.

Next to Ray’s right hand, an empty red industrial glove gripped the railing surrealistically. “That’s mine,” said Clarence. “I tried to pry him free but even my glove got stuck fast.”

“Ray, listen to me,” said Jim, putting his arm around him. “Everything’s going to be fine. The paramedics are on their way and what we’re going to try to do is warm this handrail up a little to get you free.” He turned to Clarence and said, “Think you can connect up a hosepipe to the college hot-water supply?”

“Yes sir, Mr Rook! There won’t be no problematical difficulty with that!”

“Then do it, will you? And bring a hacksaw and a hose connector.”

He turned back to Ray. Ray had stopped moaning now, but his teeth were chattering and he was letting out little gasps of pain. He was so young, too. He hadn’t started to shave yet, even though his upper lip was wispy with a black mustache.

“My hands, Mr Rook,” he kept whimpering, rolling his head around and around. “They’re burning. They feel like they’re on fire.”

Jim heard the sound of sirens whooping in the distance. “Come on, Ray. Just hold on a couple of minutes. The paramedics are almost here.”

“But they’re burning! They’re burning! My fingers are burning! My fingers are burning and I can’t get them free!
Aaaaagggghhhhhhhhh
!”

Jim clutched Ray close to him. He saw the ambulance swerve into the parking-lot, and thought what an irony it was, that he had just been telling them about the ambulance in Karl Shapiro’s poem –
‘wings in a heavy curve, dips down,/ And brakes speed, entering the crowd’
.

At the bottom of the steps, where the handrail wasn’t frozen, Clarence was attacking it with a hacksaw, while two students frantically unrolled a long black hosepipe from the college boiler-house.

Two paramedics came running across the grass and up the steps. One was Hispanic, with a smooth calm face. The other was a tall red-headed woman.

“Don’t touch the handrail!” everybody shouted at them, a chorus of fright. The red-headed woman snatched her hand away and said, “What? What’s happening here?”

“The handrail’s frozen,” Jim explained. “It must be fifty degrees below. Ray put his hands on it and now he can’t get them free.”

“
Frozen
?” asked the Hispanic paramedic. “Was this some kind of a practical joke?”

The woman immediately went up to Ray and inspected his hands. The ends of his fingers had now turned black, and his knuckles were a deathly blueish white.

“Severe frostbite,” she said. “Both hands are already necrotized right up to the wrists. And it’s advancing fast.”