Hold Fast (11 page)

I almost bawled.

Almost, I said, almost.

What was pounding at me the whole time was that maybe Kentson really was dead. If he was dead, then I'd crack up. I really would. I could feel it.

But he couldn't be dead. He was just knocked out. He had to be.

And then it came back to me again. About the other accident and everything. After four months I thought it couldn't come back at me that bad anymore. But all that was inside me was tortured sick with it again. Making me want to curl up in a hole somewhere and be forgot about.

I was just a stupid fool to be fighting against it. I should be giving up and just do as I'm told. Quit trying to be the know-it-all. Learn to be one of them.

Good thing I got so cold. Good thing I ran off with no coat on and after a while I was shivering and freezing to death. Other than the cold, I don't know what could a brought me back to my right mind.

Kentson wasn't dead. But he was in the hospital with a concussion. I talked to someone on the way back who
told me that. I knew he couldn't be dead. It would a had to be some bang on the head for him to be dead.

It was bad enough that he was in the hospital. And it was all because of me that he was there. A little fight means nothing. But to send someone to the hospital, that's something else. And I knew they'd be saying it like, “He must be crazy. Sure he hit him that hard that they had to take him to the hospital. He almost killed him, I wouldn't doubt.” That's what they'd be saying about me.

I made up my mind to go right back to the school. I knew there'd have to come a time when I would face the principal anyway, so it was just as well to get it over with.

I made my way down through the corridors towards his office. I tried not to look at anyone. The corridors was packed with students waiting to go into class. I picked a lousy time, just before the bell was to go for the first period in the afternoon. I kept looking straight ahead. I didn't so much as say hello to Gerard when he called out to me.

“Sellers is looking for you,” he said. I didn't need anyone to tell me that.

I turned in and around the corner to his office, I stopped by the sign telling me it was the reception desk. A secretary was typing inside. She didn't notice me there. I could see that the door to his office was part way open, so I walked around the desk and on in towards it.

I walked right into the middle of a conversation Sellers was having with a cop. Both of them turned their heads and stared at me.

“I guess you wants to see me, Mr. Sellers,” I said quietly.

“I do?”

He didn't even know who I was.

“I'm the fellow who was in the fight with Lewis Kentson.”

“You are?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Officer, this is the boy we've been discussing.”

Cripes, he got the cops in on it too. First when I seen the cop it never came to me that I was the reason he was there.

I never had any dealings with Sellers before. I seen him around enough to know who he was. That was about it. You don't get to know the principal in a big school like that. Not like in the school home. Unless you gets sent to his office. Then you gets to know him quick enough. I didn't think he could a been real hard on students though, because I never heard any of the boys say that he was.

Lots of fellows would a been scared outa their minds if they was put in the situation I was in. Having to face a cop and the principal like that after what happened. I'll admit that I was far from calm about it all. But I did have enough sense in me to keep a clear head. I was going to get what I had to say to come out right.

As long as Sellers was fair about it. Some principals would jump down your throat right away without even listening to your side of the story. Some would figure they should get raving mad just to scare the hell outa you so you'd never do it again. I was willing to be honest about the whole thing. I'd tell them the way it happened if they'd just listen.

I didn't know if he was putting on a big act for the cop or if that was the way he went about things all the time, but first what he done was ask me to please sit down. He didn't tell me, he asked me in a quiet voice to please sit down. Then he got up and closed his office door.

He sat down again behind his desk in his swivel chair. The cop was across from the desk on one side and I was on the other.

He looked at me. “Now, Michael, before I say anything to you, I want you to tell us in your own words exactly what happened. Nobody'll interrupt you until you're finished.”

He leaned back in the chair away from the desk and folded his arms. He stared at me, then nodded for me to start.

God, I thought, this is better than I expected. I'll have all the chance in the world to say what I wants. I was a little bit shaky first. Starting off and all, especially where it was the bit about Brenda and why they was teasing me. I tried to make it sound important, how teasing can get under your skin. People when they gets older don't realize that. They don't have it done to them anymore. And then I told them how the fight started. I didn't try to lie. I told them I punched Kentson for what he said. I didn't know he was going to hurt himself, I really didn't.

They listened. They didn't say a word the whole time, like he promised. All Sellers done was stare at me with his arms folded across his chest. His expression never changed once. A couple of times the cop wrote something down in his notebook.

When I finished, Sellers asked me if I had any more to say.

“No, sir.” I was polite all the way through. I wasn't one bit saucy to him.

“You realize, of course, that Lewis is in the hospital,” Sellers said, his arms still folded.

“Yes, sir, I believe he has a small concussion, sir.”

“Not very small, Michael. He'll be in the hospital for a week or more.”

He waited. “Do you have anything more to add about that?”

“No sir…I mean, I didn't think he was going to hurt himself like he done, sir. It was an accident.”

“If it was such an accident, Michael, what was the reason you ran way?”

I wasn't expecting that. And he said it so fast that it threw my thinking right off.

“I was scared.”

“Scared? Why should you be scared if it was an accident? You said it was an accident, didn't you?”

Shit, now he's started, I thought to myself. Yes, you knows I said it was a friggin accident. I said that to myself too. I started to swear in my own mind.

“I was scared his buddies might turn on me, sir.” Now I was beginning to lie.

“A brave fellow like you? Someone who didn't mind starting a fight with the three fellows all there?”

He was making a move to pick me apart. I might a known the way he was first off was too good to be true. He was coming on with this big smart-aleck voice. That got on my bloody nerves.

I stopped answering his questions cause they was getting me all confused. Then I realized that it only made matters worse. Like by that he had proved his point.

“Young man…” he started again.

Oh, frig no, here it comes now for sure. He was getting into the “young man” shit with me.

“…this is the second time you've been caught fighting inside the school building. Mr. Bartlett, your English teacher, tells me he saw you fighting with Lewis once before, only the second day after school opened this year.”

“But that…” I interrupted.

“Let me finish, please. He says that he saw you fighting. Another teacher supported him in what he said. Now, I must be truthful, other than that incident we have not had any problems with you this year. In fact, several of the teachers have commented to me that you show good interest in your school work.

“But — and this is a very big but — what has happened today is a very serious matter. We are not talking about a little argument in the corridor. We are not even talking about one boy giving another boy a few bruises. What we are talking about is someone being hurt so badly that he has to be admitted to the hospital with a concussion. I hope you realize how serious this is. This could have put you in a court of law. Fortunately for you, the boy's parents do not want to press charges. But that still does not excuse you from what happened.”

“Sir…” I tried to break in. He was making me out to be some kind of criminal. I didn't try to hurt Kentson, I told him that enough times.

“Please let me finish. You had your chance to say what you wanted. Isn't that right?”

I didn't answer him.

“Now, as far as the school is concerned, we must take steps to see that this type of incident does not happen again. We cannot have these things going on inside the school building.

“You say it was an accident. It may be possible that it was, but that remains to be proven. Two facts, however, are very clear to me, as they must be to you. You were fighting on school property and someone was seriously hurt because of your actions. I have no choice but to take measures to see that such a thing is not repeated.

“Stand up, please.”

He waited till I did.

“Starting this afternoon, you are expelled from this school for a period of two weeks. You are not to return to classes until after that time. If there is any further trouble with you when you do return, then I may have to recommend to your parents that you be removed permanently from this school. You may leave now. You are excused.”

Like someone hit in the head and knocked senseless, I turned and went out slowly through the office door. It was so much of a shock that I didn't know what else I could be doing.

I was out in the corridor and halfway to my locker before it came to me that I should never a been out there, that I should still be inside his office, telling him that he was all wrong. There was no reason to be kicking me outa school. I didn't do anything!

I turned around and started to go back. I went straight
to the office door again and opened it. I broke in on them talking like I done before.

Sellers looked at me, waited to hear me say something. He had his bloody arms folded again. I stood there. I could hardly get it out. Cripes, there I was again, trying to push words out of my mouth.

“Sir,” I said when I finally got started, “you needs to read your stupid records. You couldn't recommend a lousy thing to my parents. Both of them are dead.”

I turned around then and walked through the door again, hauling it closed when I did. All I kept thinking once I got outside was why the hell did I say “sir.” It shouldn't a been “sir” atall.

I moved like a friggin zombie past the few people that was in the corridor. I got to my locker, opened it, and pulled out every last thing that was in there. I don't know why I cleared it all out. The same as if it was the end of the year or something. I slammed it shut, empty. And in a few minutes I was back on the street again. This time walking with a stupid armload of books.

When it finally settled into my head what had happened, all I kept thinking was holy dyin, holy dyin, like I'd never get over the shock.

I wasn't feeling mad anymore. I was too stunned to be mad. Being kicked outa school mightn't sound like much to some people. Some fellows would a laughed in his face and been happy as hell to get some holidays. But nothing like that had ever happened to me before. In Marten I got along with the principal the best kind. Never once was I ever in any trouble like that at school.

I wasn't mad. I wasn't scared. I don't know what the frig I was. All mixed up again, I guess, all mixed up in the head. I walked around with all those stupid books in my arms for two hours. Two hours. Because I didn't want to go to the house and explain it to Aunt Ellen. I wasn't scared to. I just didn't much like the idea of trying to explain something like that with just us in the house at two o'clock in the afternoon. She'd probably be making something in the kitchen. I didn't want to have to go in the house and try to explain it all to her while she was in the kitchen baking and her hands all full of flour or something. Cripes, wasn't that dumb. How stupid. But I didn't want to have to explain things while she was there all busy at something else.

I went to the hospital. I walked all the way across to the other side of the city to the hospital. Almost didn't go in the door. Because if there's anything I can't stand, it's hospitals. When I did go in, I went straight to the information desk and piled up this stupid stack of school books. The girl looked at me like I was nuts. I told her I wanted to find out how Kentson was. Only I said Lewis Kentson.

That would be on the fourth floor and would I like to go up? No, I only wanted to find out how he was. I have all these stupid books to carry around, you see.

She rang up to the fourth floor. The nurse told her that he had improved a lot in the last hour. That's what she said to me. And I said that's all I wanted to know. And thank you. I have to go on with all these books now. Thank you.

She looked at me and laughed. She didn't look at me
with some weird expression and shake her head like you might expect. She looked at me and laughed.

I walked all the way back across the city to the beginning of the street where the house was. It was still too early to go in. I made a detour down another street and out around until I came to Kelly's drugstore. What I done was plank all the books on top of the mailbox and stayed there leaning against it. My arms ached. I never went inside the drugstore at all. I leaned up against the mailbox for a while, and then I took my history book from the top of the pile and sat down on the sidewalk with it. I sat there by the lousy mailbox with the history book and started to look through it. Do you believe that? I wasn't mad or nervous or scared. I was just sitting there by the mailbox with my stupid history book open in front of me.

Ihad a good idea before I even went into the house what was in store for me there. There mightn't be much before the old man came home. But then watch out.