Fell of Dark (9 page)

I feel safe when I take a shower. I don't know why, but the Sawmen, the Guardians, the Protector, the minds, everybody, they all go quiet. My half memories disappear. I stand in the hot water, and I lean against the wall. The tiles are cool. I stand for a long time, sometimes until the heat runs out of the water. I slump against the wall and almost fall asleep standing up. Occasionally, I feel like crying. I wonder if I'll cry harder than I've ever cried. Then nothing comes.

Sometimes, like this morning, I feel like I'm going to throw up. That passes.

My fifth-grade teacher hit me.

I drove him to it.

“Thorn, for the last time, I know you stole the money. I know it, John knows it, the class knows it. Simple as that.” Mr. Holt loosened his tie. The blue tie with a yellow fish, dreaming of itself with legs. “Thorn, are you listening?”

I slouched in my chair and picked at a scab of glue in the palm of my hand. I looked at him: “What?”

“What are you listening to, Thorn, if you're not listening to me?” Holt crossed his arms. “Why am I talking to you when I could be on my way home? It's Friday. It's three fifteen. Why am I here?”

I sighed.

This made Holt furious. What was it? My rudeness and carelessness and boredom? That's what he said. He wanted to slap me. I could tell. I've seen the look a thousand times. Kulthat. Kulthat hit me and hit me and hit me. I remember the narrow fire-eyes.

Holt clenched his teeth and combed his hair with his fingers. Then he smiled. A smile without the smile. “Look,” he said. “I'm sorry, Thorn. I got carried away.”

Silence.

“Thorn,” Holt said, soft as soft can be. “Where's John's money?”

“I don't know. Really, Mr. Holt, I don't know.”

Holt squatted in front of me. He put down his fists like two stones on my desk. “Thorn?”

“I didn't take it,” I said.

What could Holt do? He had no solid proof either way, so he dismissed me. He asked me to close the door.

I watched him through the window.

Mr. Holt sat at his desk with his head in hands. He must've wondered what in the end kept him from hitting me. I'm sure of it. I could hear him thinking:
He can't be allowed to get away with it. One good, hard smack—.

The very next Monday, Holt described an incident between a boy and a barber to my homeroom. “This boy, Jimmy, needed a haircut. The boy, about your age, walked by a barbershop. He asked the barber how much for a haircut, and the barber told him to get lost.”

The class couldn't believe it. “He didn't tell the kid?”

“No,” Holt said.

“That's just wrong,” the class said. “What'd the kid do?”

“What could he do?” Holt said. “He walked away.”

“He walked away?” At this point, the class blew apart into a dozen small discussions.

Holt watched us. I watched Holt.

“Enough,” Holt said. He went to his desk. “We have other things to do.”

My class discussed strategies for dealing with a barber. A rude barber. Holt went through his handouts.

“Mr. Holt?”

Holt answered without looking up: “Yes?”

“That happened to you, didn't it?”

Silence.

“Who said that?”

“You went to the barber,” I said. “Not some kid. Right?”

“No, Thorn.” Holt tried not to explode. He kept on pretending to look over his papers. “Though every one of us has a story like that.”

“A story like what, Mr. Holt?” Not me this time. Candace Ingram. All curls and teeth.

“Like the one I just told.” Holt turned red. “Sometimes strangers are rude to us.”

“Oh,” Candace said. “The way the barber was rude to you?”

“No,” Holt said, but we all knew. His tone of voice and his redness. His eyes swirling like soup. “Now, let's get back to work. And Thorn? See me at the end of the day.”

“Thorn, we've had our run-ins.” Holt leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and locked his fingers on top of his head. “But I thought we came away from those times as friends. I was prepared to forget last Friday because we're friends. Right, Thorn?”

I peeled a Band-Aid off my thumb. With my teeth.

“Right?” Holt looked at the ceiling. “Thorn?”

“What?”

“Why do you do that?” Holt's anger spilled out again. “We're friends, yes?” he said.

I shrugged. “I guess.” I opened the cut on my thumb, and it bled.

Holt watched as I stopped the bleeding with my T-shirt.

“Thorn?” Holt bent forward in his chair. “Do you remember the story I told this morning?”

“Yes.”

“What would you have done with the barber?”

I checked my thumb. “I wouldn't've walked away.”

Holt cleared his throat. “Yes, that's probably true. But what would you have done?”

“Was it you?” I spoke to my bleeding thumb. “I won't tell. I just want to know.”

Holt loosened his green knit tie and unbuttoned his collar. “Did you steal that money from John?”

“Yes,” I lied. Strong. Who knows what happened to the dum-dum's money? “I stole it.”

“You—”

I interrupted him. “So was it you in the story?”

“I swear I'll have you thrown out of this school.”

“Whatever,” I said. “You can't stand up to a man, and you can't stand up to a boy.”

Holt pushed his chair away and walked to the classroom door. He shook as he closed the door.

I knew what was coming. I wanted him to do it.

“It was you. Just say it. It doesn't matter. A rude and stupid barber: so what? Like you said, we all have stories. Just say it.”

“Shut up, Thorn, shut up.”

“Just say it, Mr. Holt.” I stood up. “Just say, ‘The barber was rude to me, and I couldn't do anything about it.' Say it.”

“Thorn.”

“Say it, Mr. Holt. I know it's you. Tell the truth. Say it's you. Say it. Say it, and we can go home.”

The slap, when it came, crumpled me against the desk. I must have cried out. But Holt would've heard only a hum coming from his right hand. A hum surrounded by silence.

We are the Guardians. We speak. Listen to us.

Human beings.

Human beings. All of you. We know your kind.

nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth

no courage no truth

We know your kind. You don't want to think, you don't want to care, you don't want to have mercy, you don't want to show consideration. You want your comfort. You want your protection.

No truth. No courage.

Worthless.

A pigeon followed me. “Go away.” The bird kept coming. “Get away from me.” It went up the front steps of the apartment building, and as I went up in the elevator, I heard it walking up the façade, up the concrete walls, up and up, its talons clicking. Why didn't it fly?

The pigeon found my room. It started pecking a hole through the glass of my window. It stopped only to tell me one thing. “It's no use,” it said. “I'll get to you.” I heard it as if it were on the inside of the glass, not on the outside.

How could a pigeon talk to me? And how could it kill me? Did Kulthat send it out of hell?

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “You can't kill me.”

“Watch me.”

“I'll kill you first.” This seemed like a good idea. “I'll kill you first. I'll kill you first.”

“No you won't.”

I opened the window, and the pigeon swelled up. I grabbed it, and it pecked at my fingers. My knuckles. I got angry.

I crushed it in my hands. Once I saw a bus run over a pigeon, and the bird burst like a paper bag filled with air. POP!

Those hollow bones broke. POP!

This happened with the demon-bird. It popped. Then it disappeared from my hands. I stood at the window. Blood on my face, my shirt, my hands. The pigeon gone, gone like it was never there.