Slot Machine (22 page)

They both burst out laughing. The string bean was totally naked, his privates flying every which way.

They didn’t say anything more about it. But the tension was all gone. They’d settled it their own way.

I wasn’t finished with it, though.

“This was very good for you, Mikie,” I prodded. “It’s kind of like, well, admitting you were
wrong
about something. This is good, this is good. Let’s keep going with this—”

“Let’s not,” Mikie said, and tried to spin away from me.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Come on now, let’s not lose our momentum. Say, ‘I was
wrong
to try to force Paul to be a basketball star.’”

“That’s not necessary,” Paul said, laughing.

“No, no, no, Paul,” I lectured. “Michael has a problem, and you are what they call an enabler. You must stop making it easier for him. He needs to do this.”

“Shut up, El,” Mikie said, this time breaking cleanly away.

“Okay, Mike,” I called. “We’ll try again later. Meanwhile, try to keep expressing yourself through your art. And practice when nobody’s listening: ‘I was
wrong
. I made a
mistake
. I don’t know
everything
. ...’” I was enjoying myself thoroughly, though nobody was listening anymore. I stopped only when the exhibit resumed.

Brother Fox pulled back the cover on the table to expose Eugene’s crude clay model of hands. Gigantic hands like his, sprouting up out of a flat base, turned upward with fingers spread, like you would do if you were examining your own hands for whatever reason. They were set in front of a chair so that we could all take turns sitting in position, trying on Eugene’s massive mitts.

“Oh my god,” Oskar said as he got his perspective on owning hands like those. “Gene, man, how do you scratch your balls without ripping them right off?”

Eugene cuffed him but clearly liked the attention. We were still laughing when we shifted down to the glass guy’s orange cut-glass sunburst. It was beautiful like an explosion, and dangerous like one, as he’d spent hours and hours snapping and cracking the tiny glass rays around the edges so that they were so jagged and edgy that nobody but him could touch it without getting their hands sliced up into angel hair.

“I got a artwork for you boys!” the first deep yell came from outside.

“Yo, Mary, wanna see a sculpture?” the second one called.

“Oh, not this,” Brother Percy sighed.

Eggs smashed rapid fire, like fat raindrops, on all the windows, all around the building. Then there were more laughs.

“Ignore it. It will blow over,” Brother Mattus said. “Let’s move on.”

“Let’s,” Brother Percy said.

I looked around to see what the other guys felt, the guys who, unlike the Arts Brothers, had not seen it all before. Their bodies had all sort of shrunk, shriveled, as if they were hoping to suck into new turtle shells till it, please god, blew over. Except Oskar who, that’s right,
had
seen this once before during his first freshman tour. He had his face pressed to the window, staring out numbly at them.

“We’re comin’, boys, whatchu gonna do?” the voice, Obie’s voice, called. Then the voices started moving. Like hyenas, they screeched and circled the building, each one getting louder, pushing the others crazier, out of control.

“Somebody’ll stop it,” I said, trying to fool myself calm. The library was the most remote building in the compound, other than the unused seminarians’ quarters, but still, wouldn’t this be seen and heard across the campus? “These guys’ll be caught.”

Mikie looked at me stupid. “El, I’ve only been here a few days, but even
I
know better than that. The only people who are bothered by all this are in here.”

“Maybe
we
should catch ’em,” Eugene growled. He was pacing, his great big head and hands purple.

“Whoa, how ’bout another brownie, Eugene?” I asked. He ignored me.

“It’ll pass. It always does,” Brother Crudelle said nervously. He hurried to turn over the tape, which had snapped to a stop.

“Must be twenty or thirty of them this year,” Oskar said from the window. The words were hardly out of his mouth before he added, “Shit,” and hit the floor.

Crash
, and
conk
, it shattered the window and bounced off the top of his head. It was a baseball.

“That’s
it
!” Eugene screamed, and beat it for the door.

“Yaaa,” Lennox yelled, and followed. Then Burman. Then Mikie. Then all the meek and feeble artsies, most moaning, “Oh my god,” or hyperventilating words, like “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

“We’re all gonna die,” I added, as I found myself outside.

“No we’re not,” Oskar said, wearing the baseball lump on his forehead like a miner’s beacon.

The whole pack of them—O’s, sub-O’s, and O wanna-bes—were well on their way by the time we got out there. They were running back up the hill, with a couple of our guys fanned out in a halfhearted chase. Except for Eugene. Eugene powered like a freight train, caught up to the last one, and felled him like a lion grabbing a zebra. As he finished the tackle hard and pushed the guy’s face into the turf, I ran up to see. Everybody else had stopped chasing, but none of the tough guys came back to help this one.

Eugene had his massive fist raised and was about to drop it when the pleading started. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I mean it, I’m sorry,” Frank said.

I grabbed Eugene’s fist with both hands. It was like holding a bumpy cantaloupe. “He kind of belongs to me,” I said, embarrassed.

“You should think about picking your friends more carefully, Elvin,” Eugene growled, giving Frankie’s head a hard shove before getting off him and marching away.

“I’m sorry, El. I’m sorry,” Frank said, his speech a little fuzzy. He was saying it now not because he didn’t want to get smacked, but because he was
sorry
. “It wasn’t my idea. I’ll stop them myself if they try it again. I didn’t even—”

Frank had looked past me toward where Mikie was coming to investigate. He wouldn’t let Dad see him now, so he bolted, back up the hill.

Mikie and I watched the last of the retreat. All of them ran as easily uphill as if it was downhill. All of them athletic. All of them strong and fast and tough and brave. All of them The Chosen.

They were wearing sunglasses and ski hats, a couple with hoods. But it didn’t really matter.

Mikie pulled up beside me. “Frankie almost bought it that time,” he said grimly.

“Come on, come on,” Brother Clarke said to each of us as we marched back in the door. “Drink? Drink, sure, there you go. Don’t let it spoil a fine time.”

“Ya,” big Brother Mattus said, circulating among us now, handing to each one a big stick. Some of us got broom handles, the janitor push-broom kind with the metal screw-in tip. Others got those old long-handled devices with the hook on the end for opening and closing tall windows. “Ya, we’re not going to let them spoil
our
fine time, are we?” He took his own pole and smacked it loudly against the hardwood floor.

Once again I looked at the faces all around me, trying to feel what I was supposed to feel. I decided I was feeling the correct feeling because the uneasiness inside me was splashed across every other face as well. What were we going to do, hunt them down?

“Yessirree,” Brother Fox announced, marching to the center of the room. “He who laughs last... Right?”

“Right!” the Brothers chimed together, while the students sat in chilled silence. Who were these Rambo guys all of a sudden?

Brother Percy let out a knowing low chuckle as he swept up the broken glass by the window. He was always doing that, acting as if he knew stuff. It bothered me sometimes. It bothered me now.

“What do they have at their party up there?” Brother Fox shouted. “Okay, so they have beer. Well we have...” He reached up and yanked a string that was like a light switch, unveiling—“... a piñata.”

The Art Brothers had gotten together to build it, and it was professional. Papier-mâchèd, bigger than life size. It had angel’s wings, and an angelic expression looking heavenward. And it had Arnold Schwarzenegger muscles, shoulder pads, a baseball cap on backward. With one hand it was leaning on a baseball bat, with the other it was grabbing its crotch.

It was a dead ringer for Brother Jackson.

There was a lot of energy let out in that room then. Probably more than that library had seen in a hundred years put together. You could get close to the Jackson piñata only if you were willing to risk getting your own dome cracked. A risk almost everyone was willing to take.

Me, I felt no need. With every hard whack across one of Jackson’s vital parts, I felt a warm central surge—like swallowing a cocoa-soaked Chips Ahoy without having to chew it. So I watched.

“You liked the book,” Brother Percy said, sneaking up beside me.

I looked at him suspiciously, then let myself smile. “Is that okay, just to sit and watch, to look at people and think? I mean, is that an okay way to be?”

“Does it feel okay?” he asked.

I turned to watch the piñata beating, got another little thrill from it. “It does. It feels okay.”

“Then it probably is,” he said.

Then Eugene did it—he ripped that Jackson right in half with a chop. Out of him fell art supplies—watercolors, tubes of acrylic paint, small sketch pads, brushes, bricks of modeling clay.

“Thank you, Brother Jackson, mother of art,” Brother Fox called out.

“Wouldn’t it kill him?” Brother Percy responded.

“Let’s hope so,” said Brother Clarke.

There was no wild scrambling like if there was candy in the piñata. Everybody could pretty much tell what belonged to him. Brother Percy went to the pile and dug a couple of things out—a pocket-size notebook, and one of those Space Pens the astronauts took to the moon that you can write with upside down or under water. I figured it was like one of those general all-purpose presents that you keep under the Christmas tree for unexpected guests, say, like candy or a black scarf, that could work for anyone. But he gave them to
me
.

“And you can keep
Winesburg
,” he said. “It’s not really the library’s. I planted it.”

I walked back to Mikie’s Cluster with him when it was all over.

“That was almost as good as a party
with
girls.” He laughed.

I shook my head at it all. “Weird, isn’t it? I told you they were weird. I don’t know, Mike, I don’t know what my slot is, or what it’s going to be, or if I’m ever going to find a slot. But I figure I could hang out with these guys while I’m waiting.”

He grinned as I left him at his door. “I bet you could,” he said.

It was automatic when I woke up. I knew it was my last time and I wanted that run through the woods. My eyes were not even all the way open when I pulled my running stuff on.

I checked before I left, and Frankie was not home yet. His bed was still empty.

Then I turned to go out and there he was in the doorway. He leaned on the doorframe because he couldn’t stand too well. His pressed shirt was gone, his pleated shorts were gone. All he was wearing were his gray Calvin Klein boxer briefs he was always so proud to flash for everyone. He didn’t move—he didn’t speak. He had dusty dirt and scuff marks all over his arms, legs, and belly. His perfect pretty face was drained and shellacked with tears. He was crying. He wasn’t making a sound, but it was pouring out of him.

There are some things a guy just should never have to see.

I was standing in the narrow corridor between the front door and the bathroom. Frankie waved at me, a brushing motion telling me to get out of the way. I stepped aside. Stumbling, knees buckling and then locking, he wobbled his way along, brushing past me. I didn’t turn until he was by me. His back was covered with scratches.

I didn’t say anything, but he rasped at me to just shut up anyway. Then, as he passed Thor’s bed, he fell down, like sombody’d clubbed him.

I ran to him, started helping him up.

“Don’t tell Mikie,” Frankie sobbed. “Don’t tell Mikie. Elvin, don’t tell Mikie.”

Thor sat up.

“No,” Frankie said to him. “No, please. Just ignore us.”

Thor started getting up. He looked sad. But he didn’t look surprised.

“Please, Thor,” I whispered.

He hesitated. “You can handle it?”

“What a question,” I thought. No, I cannot.

“I can handle it,” I said. “Go back to bed, Thor.”

“If you can’t, Elvin, I’m gonna have to get involved,” he said. “I should help anyway...”

“No,” Frankie said, more desperately now. His voice rose, so I covered his mouth with my hand.

“You want anybody else up for this?” I asked Frankie. He shook his head no.

I waved Thor off, and he settled back into his bed.

“Frankie’s lucky,” Thor said. “When it happened to Obie, he didn’t have any good friends to take care of him.”

I pulled Frankie’s underwear off and shoved him into the shower.

“Don’t tell Mikie,” Frank pleaded. “Don’t tell Mikie.”

“I’ll do better than that,” I said. “I’m not going to tell
myself
.” I tried to hold him up and get some soap on him at the same time. I had never tried to wash another person before in my life, so it was awkward. I tried at first not to look at him as I did it, but I realized how stupid that was, so I just did it. I felt him trembling. Though it may have been me.

“I did it, El,” he said when he finally had it together enough to stand and lather himself. I toweled myself off. “I’m made. They couldn’t break me, and now I’m made. I’m king. I’m guaranteed. It’s like in the Mafia. Once you’re made, you’re in for good. You’re picked. I made it, El.”

“You’re a man, Franko,” I said, as convincingly as I could.

“Ya, El. Only now I’m a man’s man.”

He tried to laugh at his own joke, but as he did, he almost passed out. I reached in and caught him. Got myself all soaked again.

“Don’t tell Mikie,” he said. “Elvin, I don’t want you to tell Mikie.”

I shut off the water, dried him, wrapped him in a towel, and wrestled his broken grown-man’s body to his bed. He was out before he even got there.

I promised him anyway that I wouldn’t tell.