The Pet

TWO

The next seven days slipped into October on the back of a lost football game in which Brian dropped three sure touchdowns and Tar and Fleet each fumbled once, an article in the weekly newspaper implying that the Ashford South principal was delaying successful contract negotiations by his refusal for political reasons to support the people he led, and a series of grim reports on New York television’s early evening news programs concerning the Howler — since his last victim had died almost two weeks before, the police theorized he had either committed suicide or had left the state, a notion adopted by Don and Jeff with an accompanying shiver of macabre delight.

On Tuesday morning Chris Snowden walked to school only a block ahead of him, and he could not decide whether to try to catch up and hope for a conversation, maybe she’d throw herself into his arms, or hang back and just watch. In the cafeteria he and Jeff scowled at the offering of scorched macaroni and cheese, and decided that Chris was probably into older men these days — college guys, if not their fathers.

Then Don watched Tracey Quintero pick up her tray and carry it to the gap in the wall where a worker was waiting to scrub it down for the next user.

“Hey, Jeff, do you think it’s possible for someone to be in love with two women at the same time?”

“Sure. I think.”

“It has to be possible. I mean, different women have different things to offer a guy, right? And a guy can’t find everything he wants in one woman, right? So he has to find them in different women, right?”

Jeff looked at him sideways. “What?”

“It makes sense, don’t you think?”

“It makes sense if you’re crazy, sure.”

“Well, I’m not crazy, and it makes sense, and I think I’m in love.”

“Lust,” Jeff corrected. “It’s lust.”

“What a pal.”

“Well, hell, Don, that’s nuts, y’know?”

“I thought you agreed.”

“I did too until I heard what you said.”

He poked at the macaroni, stabbed at the cheese crust, and sighed as he opened a carton of milk. As he drank, Chris walked in, alone, saw him, and smiled and walked out again.

“God,” he whispered.

“Maybe she likes you.”

He didn’t dare believe it; he didn’t even know her.

“Or,” said Jeff as he rose to leave, “she knows your old man and wants to polish a few apples, if you know what I mean.”

Don sagged glumly, and Jeff realized his mistake, could do nothing about it, and hurried out. Don watched him go, then rose and followed slowly. Lichter had reminded him about a girl he had gone with as a sophomore. He thought he had found a one-way express ticket to heaven the way she treated him, trotted after him, made him laugh, and taught him the preliminaries of making love. Then, one day at his locker, he had overheard her talking with Brian, giggling and swearing on her mother’s grave that the only reason she saw him was because of his father.

“I am not working one minute more than I have to to get out of here,” she’d said. “And what tightass teacher’s gonna flunk me when I’m messing around with the principal’s kid?”

Several, apparently, after he broke it off that next Friday night. He had confronted her, she had denied it, and he had lost his temper, forgetting one of his parents’ cardinal rules: never yell or threaten because it cheapens you and puts you on the defensive, because a threat made has to be carried out or it’s worthless; if you’re going to threaten, make sure you can do it.

She had laughed at him.

And though she was gone before the end of the year, he felt no satisfaction. All her leaving had proved was that she had been right, and smiles in his direction were seldom the same anymore.

On Wednesday he saw Chris again, and she ignored him.

It should have made him feel better; instead, he felt lousy, especially after his guidance counselor told him how expensive it was going to be to study veterinary medicine. His father was going to have a fit, and his mother might even relent and permit him to get a job to help defray the expenses.

He almost forgot Thursday’s biology test.

“The meeting’s over by now,” Joyce said.

Harry Falcone punched at the pillows behind his back and watched with a lopsided grin as she dressed. “Tell him it ran late.”

“They always run late. He doesn’t believe it, you know.”

Falcone shrugged; he didn’t care.

When she was finished, she turned to look at him, the sheet just barely over his groin, his dark curly hair in matted tangles over his face. Patrician, she thought; put a toga on him and he’d look like a Roman senator about to slice up an emperor.

His smile exposed capped white teeth. “Thinking about seconds?”

She was. She hated herself for it, but she was. She wanted those hands on her rough not gentle, she wanted the weight of him crushing her into the mattress, she wanted the forgetfulness his sex brought — and she wanted to cut his throat for what he was making her do to her family.

“No.”

“Too bad,” he said. “Once the strike starts, it’ll be hard seeing you.”

Gathering her hair so she could tie on the ribbon, Joyce walked out of the room and picked up her coat. A hesitation— did she leave anything behind Norman would notice? — before she opened the apartment door.

“Hey,” he called from the bedroom.

She waited.

“Nice lay, kiddo.”

Bastard, she thought, slamming the door behind her, wincing as she headed for the fire exit and took the stairs shakily.

It was stupid, and it was the stuff of dreamlike romance— that a man would come along and sweep her off her feet, carry her into the sunset and unheard of ecstasy. She had told herself a thousand times that it was partly Norman’s fault, that his preoccupation with running the school and unofficially running for mayor had somehow left her behind. She was no longer his partner, but a woman expected to remain ten paces back in his shadow.

The catch was, she’d never been able to keep a secret from her husband. Her eyes, too large for deception, betrayed her every night, and she was positive he was taunting her, tormenting her so she would admit it to his face.

And as she drove home, making sure she approached the house from the direction of the building where the meeting was supposed to have been held, she put a hand to her breast and felt the residue of Harry’s touch.

It would be a hell of a lot easier, she thought, if she could just decide if staying with Norman was mere habit, or real love. And if it was the latter, what would Harry do if she broke the affair off?

The temperature slipped just before dawn, and the ground was covered with crackling frost, the first of the season. It ghosted the windshields and sugared the lawns, and as he walked to school he watched his breath puff to clouds. It was a good feeling, and he took long strides to force himself awake. He hadn’t been sleeping long the night before, when something inside reminded him about the exam. He had awakened instantly and sat at his desk until just before sunrise, alternately reading his notes and talking with the galloping horse who had no pity for his error. When his mother came home from the committee meeting, he had gone rigid, expecting a scolding for being up so late, and was surprised when she passed the door without stopping, sounding for all the world as if she were crying.

At the end of the block he turned left, having studiously avoiding staring at Chris’s house. He crossed the street and moved more briskly, keeping his eyes wide, hoping a good strong wind would slap some sense into his foggy brain.

On his left were small houses crowded together on small lots, smothered by trees and azaleas and evergreen shrubs. Two blocks later they were stopped by a high chain link fence almost buried under swarms of ivy that rolled over its top. A large manicured lawn began on the other side, sweeping back and down the slope toward practice fields and the stadium, sweeping ahead of him toward the bulk of the school itself — a building of red brick and greying white marble, two stories in front and three in back, where the land fell away; tall windows, wide tiled corridors, an auditorium that seated over eight hundred, built in the 1930s and never replaced.

Ashford North, on the far side of town, had been constructed in 1959, was brick and white marble, one story with tinted windows, and it looked like a factory.

From the sidewalk Don climbed three steps to a wide concrete plaza that led to a dozen more low steps and the glass front doors. Paths were worn brown over the grass to the side entrances, and there were faces in the classroom windows watching the students hurrying, dawdling, daring the first bell to ring before they stepped inside.

He didn’t wait, though a few called his name; he pushed straight in and swerved left to the banks of multicolored lockers at the end of the hall. A fumbling with the combination lock, and he grabbed the books he needed for his first three classes. A few rushing by greeted him with yells, but he only waved without turning; he was tired, and he didn’t want to talk to anyone until, if he were lucky, he finally woke up.

He didn’t.

He almost fell asleep in trig, actually dozed for a couple of minutes in English, and in German sat with his fingers pulling on either side of his eyes to keep them from closing. None of the teachers noticed. None of his classmates did either.

Just before ten-thirty he passed the glass-walled front office and saw his father standing at the chest-high reception counter with Mr. Falcone. They were speaking softly, heatedly from the way his father slapped a newspaper against his thigh and the way he swiped the side of his hawk’s nose as if he were a boxer; and as he moved on with a worried frown, the biology teacher stormed out of the glass-walled room and nearly collided with him. There was no apology; the man marched on, and Don’s throat went dry. The voice of the corridor buzzed until he had a headache, and he stumbled back to his locker, took out his biology notebook and text, and floated into study hall, where he tried to concentrate on the lessons.

His mother didn’t care about his father anymore.

He flipped open the book and toyed with the transparencies that displayed in garish color the inner workings of a frog.

His father didn’t care about his mother. Once, last night while the room was dark and they had started arguing again after Joyce had returned, he thought he heard Mr. Falcone’s name.

The quick breakfast he had made for himself suddenly curdled and threatened to climb into his throat, making him swallow four times before he knew he wouldn’t throw up. Without realizing it, then, he moaned his relief, and only a muffled giggling behind him gave warning that Mr. Hedley was coming down the aisle.

“Mr. Boyd?”

He looked up into a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. “Yes?”

“Are you having a little do-it-yourself choir practice back here, Mr. Boyd?”

The giggling again, and outright laughter from Tar and Fleet on the other side of the large room.

His face grew warm. “No, sir.”

“Then may I suggest you remain a bit more silent so that the rest of us can get on with our work?”

“Yes sir, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Mr. Boyd.” Hedley turned, Don’s stomach churned again, and he inadvertently managed to make his acidic belch sound like another groan. Hedley reversed himself slowly. A small man, nearly as wide as he was tall, with a dark plastered fringe of red hair and a thick twitching mustache. “Mr. Boyd, perhaps you didn’t hear me.”

He felt perspiration gathering coldly under his arms. They were all watching him now, waiting for him to brave it out the way Tar would, or Brian. But he could only blink and gesture helplessly at his abdomen, pantomiming an upset stomach because the acid was climbing again and he felt his cheeks begin to burn.

Hedley clasped his tiny hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. “Mr. Boyd, this, as you may have learned from your study of American history, is a democratic society. There is no privilege here. None. You will therefore remain silent, or you will remain for detention.”

He nodded glumly.

The giggling stopped immediately as the man headed back for his desk.

Privilege, he thought bitterly; the sonofabitch. Why couldn’t he have gone to Ashford North the way his mother wanted him to? Nobody cared if your mother taught art.

Even if your mother didn’t care for your father.

He clamped a hand over his mouth and tried to resume studying, but the words blurred and the pictures swam like muddied fingerprints, and when he was out in the hall again, the mobs pushed and jostled him like a twig in the current. He didn’t care. He would do well on the test because he enjoyed biology and what it taught him about animals, like in zoology in the afternoon, right after phys ed. But he couldn’t take the pushing, and he didn’t want the shoving, and he almost panicked when he felt his breakfast moving again. With a lurch he stumbled into the nearest boy’s room, found an empty stall, and sat with his head cradled in his palms. Belching. Tasting sour milk. Spitting dryly and wishing he would either throw up and be done with it, or calm down and get on with it.

The bell rang.

He jumped, dropped his books, scooped them up, and ran down the hall. Mr. Falcone was just closing the door.

“Ah, Donald,” he said, “I’m glad you could make it.”

He managed a pained smile and headed for his seat, as in all his other classes as far toward the back as his teachers would permit. Then he dropped his books on the floor and waited as Falcone passed out the test sheet while giving instructions. The young instructor, he saw, was in a casual mood today — no jacket or tie, just sleek pants, with an open shirt under a light sweater. His hair was barely combed, the tight curls damp as if he’d just taken a shower. Face and body of a Mediterranean cast that many of the girls lusted for and some of the boys coveted.

Finally he reached Don’s seat, held out the paper, and wouldn’t release it when Don took hold. Instead, he continued to talk, letting the class know this was probably the most important test of the semester, since it was going to be worth a full third of their final grade; failing this would make the exam in January much too important.

Then he let go, and smiled.

“Do you understand, Mr. Boyd?”

He did, but he didn’t know why he’d been singled out.

Falcone leaned over, pushed the test to the center of the desk, and added quietly, “You’d better be perfect today, Boyd. You’re going to need it.”

It was a full minute before he was able to focus on the questions. Falcone was in front, leaning against the blackboard rail, arms folded at his chest, eyes half-closed. The clock over the door jumped once! Fleet was staring intently at his wrist, Tar was scribbling, Brian was staring out the window at the football field. Don blinked and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he had heard, and refused to believe it was some kind of threat. He couldn’t fail. He knew the work, and he knew the teacher. He checked the first question, answered it almost blindly, answered all the others just as the bell rang.

It couldn’t have been a threat.

The paper went onto a pile on the desk, the books tumbled into his locker, and he grabbed his brown paper lunch bag and left the building by one of the rear exits. Despite the morning frost the sun was warm, and he crossed a broad concrete walk that ended at a six-foot wall in which there were regularly spaced gaps. He picked one, passed through, and was on the top row of the stadium’s seats, the field below, the much lower wooden visitors’ bleachers across the way. The seats were nothing more than steprows of concrete, and it occurred to him suddenly that half the school and its grounds seemed made of the stuff, maybe once white and clean, now grey and brown with use and the pummeling of the weather.

The ham sandwich he had made for himself tasted lousy.

It couldn’t have been a threat.

“If you kill yourself, they’ll never get the blood up.”

He jumped and dropped the sandwich, recovered it gracelessly, and squinted up.

“It seeps in, you know? Right into the cement. They’ll be scrubbing it for days and they’ll hate your guts. It’s a rotten way to get sympathy, take my word for it.”

He smiled and moved over.

Tracey Quintero sat beside him and shook her head. “Are you really that depressed?”

She was dark from hair to skin, her oversize sweater more dazzlingly white as a result, and her pleated skirt somewhat out of style. Her features were more angles than curves, and he thought her nice but not all that pretty, except when she smiled and showed all those teeth. Spanish; and he wondered at times what she would look like in those tight colorful dresses the flamenco dancers wore.

“I guess.”

“Biology that bad?” She had Falcone after lunch, but she wasn’t fishing for answers.

“Yeah. No. I guess not.”

“How’d you do?”

“Okay, I guess.” He bit into the sandwich and tasted grit from its fall. “Harder than usual.”

She nodded, unconcerned, leaning forward to rest her arms on her legs, and they watched two gym classes make an attempt to run around the seven-lane red-stained cinder track that outlined the football field. Laughter drifted toward them, a sharp whistle, and a sudden scent of lilac that confused him for a moment until he turned and sniffed, and knew it was her.

She pointed down to a lanky redhead sweeping effortlessly around the far turn. “Is that why they call him Fleet? Because he’s so fast?”

Making polite conversation, that’s what they call it, he thought; boy, I even have to be made conversation to today.

“Yeah,” he said.

“He should be on track, then, not football,” she said with a slight lisp in her voice.

“Football scholarships are bigger money.”

“Whoa,” she said, staring at him intently. “My goodness, but that sounded bitter.”

He shrugged. “It’s the truth. Fleet needs the scholarship to go to school, and he’ll get it with football. He’s the best wide receiver in the county.”

“I thought Tar was.”

A crumb of bread stuck to his lips, and he sought it with a finger, stared at it, ate it. “Tar’s a running back.” He frowned. “You know that.”

She leaned back, her books huddling against her formless chest. “I forgot.” A glance behind him, up at the school. “Hey, Don?”

“Huh?”

“Do you know what your father’s going to do about the strike?”

He watched Fleet, who waved and blew Tracey a kiss. “I don’t know. I’m not his political advisor.”

Tracey ignored the sarcasm. “I hope he does something. God, I mean, we’re seniors! If our grades are screwed up because of a strike … god!” She traced circles on the back of one of her books. “My father will shoot them all, you know. He will.”

Her father was a policeman. Don believed he would do it.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, honest.”

“Oh. Okay.” A check of her watch. “Bell’s gonna ring soon.”

“You know what I wish?” he said, suddenly not wanting her to leave. “I wish I had the nerve to cut classes just once before I graduate. Just once.”

“Your father would kill you,” she said quickly.

“No kidding.” His grin was mischievous. “But it would be a lotta fun, I bet.”

She studied his face, his eyes, and finally gave him a broad smile. “You haven’t got the nerve. I know you better than that.”

“Right,” he said, mischief gone. “I’m too predictable.”

“Reliable,” she corrected. “You’re reliable, that’s what you are.”

The gym classes began filing off the field, Fleet trailing with an arm around a ponytailed girl.

“Wonderful. They can put that on my tombstone. I’ll sound like somebody’s grandfather’s old watch.”

Her expression soured. “Hey, you are in a mood, aren’t you. Jeez.”

When she stood, he rose with her, dropped his lunch bag, and had to lunge after it to keep the breeze from taking it down the steps. Then he stumbled after her, catching up barely in time to open the heavy glass-and-metal door. She gave him a wink and a mock curtsy and slipped in, and they stood at the landing just as the bell rang. There were footsteps on the iron-tipped stairs, thunder in the halls.

“You want to go to a movie or something tomorrow night?”

She seemed as surprised to hear the question as he was astonished he had asked it. Christ, he thought, Brian’s gonna kill me.

The stairs filled and they were separated, but before she was gone she mouthed an I’ll call you tonight, which was sort of an answer and no answer at all. God, he thought as he headed down for the gym, you are an idiot, Boyd. Boy, are you an idiot.

When he reached the locker room and started changing, Fleet was still there and Tar was just coming in, running a monster comb through incredibly black hair. The gossip dealt primarily with the game with North over Ashford Day weekend, the Howler, and the strike that was going to set them all free until long after Christmas.

“Hey, Donny,” Tar yelled as he laced up his sneakers, “you tell your old man to stop farting around, huh? I need that vacation now!”

“Aw, shit,” said Fleet, racing by naked, his towel over his shoulder, “he don’t care about us poor peons, Tar baby. Don’t you know he’s his daddy’s spy in the ranks? Secret Agent Man of the senior class.”

Though Tar was only teasing, Don’s face tightened. He stood and made his way along the crowded aisle. A handful of the guys tried to kid him about his father and the strike, but he shook them off angrily. He was sick of hearing about it, sick of being labeled a spy — from some of them, seriously— sick of being called Donny Duck, sick of being treated special when they pretended he wasn’t.

He stepped out onto the gym’s polished floor, hands on his hips.

Brian shouted, “Hey Duck, duck!” and a basketball hit him square on the nose.