The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories (6 page)

O
n Holocaust Remembrance Day all the classes were taken to the school hall. A makeshift stage had been put up and on the wall behind it they had stuck up sheets of black cartridge paper with the names of concentration camps and pictures of barbed-wire fences. As we filed in, Sivan asked me to keep her a seat so I grabbed two. She sat down next to me and it was a little crowded on the bench. I put my elbow on my knee and the back of my hand brushed her jeans. It was thin and nice to the touch and I felt as if I touched her body.

“Where's Sharon?” I asked. “I haven't seen him today.” My voice was a little shaky.

“He's doing the naval commando tests,” replied Sivan proudly. “He's already passed almost all the stages, he just has another interview to do.”

At the other side of the hall I saw Gilead coming toward us down the aisle. Sivan went on. “Did you hear that he's going to get the outstanding student award at the end-of-year party? The principal has already announced it.”

“Sivan,” called Gilead who came up to us, “what are you doing here? These benches are uncomfortable. Come on, I kept you a place at the back.”

“Okay,” replied Sivan, giving me an apologetic smile and getting up. “It's really crowded here.”

She went to sit with Gilead at the back. Gilead was Sharon's best friend; they played together on the school basketball team. I looked at the stage and breathed deeply, my hand still sweating. Some of the ninth graders got up onto the stage and the ceremony began.

When all the students had declaimed the usual texts, an oldish man in a maroon sweater came onto the stage and told us about Auschwitz. He was the father of one of the students. He didn't speak long, just fifteen minutes or so. Afterward we went back to our classrooms. As we went outside I saw Sholem, our janitor, sitting on the steps by the nurse's room, crying.

“Hey, Sholem, what's wrong?” I asked.

“That man in the hall,” he said, “I know him, I also was in the
Sonderkommando
.”

“You were in the commandos? When?” I asked. I couldn't picture our skinny old Sholem in any kind of commando unit, but you never know.

Sholem wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and
stood up. “Never mind,” he said. “Go, go back to class. It doesn't matter.”

I went down to the shopping center in the afternoon. At the falafel stall I met Aviv and Tsuri. “You heard?” said Tsuri, with his mouth full of falafel. “Sharon passed the interview today, then he'll have one little orientation course and he's in the naval commandos. You know what it means? They're hand-picked . . .”

Aviv began cursing, his pita split open and all the tehina and salad juice were dripping over his hands. “We met him just now on the basketball court. Gilead and him were celebrating, with beer and everything.”

Tsuri giggled and choked and bits of tomato and pita flew out of his mouth. “You should have seen them joy-riding on Sholem's bike, like little kids. Sharon was thrilled to bits he'd passed the interview. My brother said it's at the interview that most guys drop out.”

I walked over to the school but there was no one there. Sholem's bike, which was always chained to the rail by the nurse's room, had gone. On the steps there was a loose chain and a lock. When I got to school the next morning the bike still wasn't there. I waited for everyone to go into class and then I went to tell the principal. He told me I'd done the right thing, that no one would know about our talk, and asked the secretary to give me a late pass. Nothing happened that day or the day after, but on Thursday the principal came into our classroom with a uniformed cop and asked Sharon and Gilead to step outside.

The police didn't do anything to them, just cautioned
them. They couldn't give back the bike because they just dumped it somewhere, but Sharon's father came to school specially and brought Sholem a new mountain bike. At first, Sholem didn't want to accept it. “Walking is healthier,” he said to Sharon's dad. But Sharon's dad insisted and in the end Sholem took the bike. It was funny seeing Sholem riding a mountain bike, and I knew that the principal had been right and I'd done the right thing. No one suspected that I'd told on them, at least that's what I thought at the time. The next two days passed as usual, but on Monday when I came to school, Sivan was waiting for me in the yard. “Listen, Eli,” she said, “Sharon found out it was you who snitched about the bike. You've got to get out of here before he and Gilead get hold of you.”

I tried to hide my fear, I didn't want Sivan to see it.

“Quick, run away,” she said.

I started to walk away.

“No, not through there,” she said, pulling my arm. The touch of her hand was cool and pleasant. “They'll come through the gate, so you'd better go through the hole in the fence behind the sheds.”

I was glad that Sivan cared so much for me, even more than I was scared.

Sharon was waiting for me behind the sheds. “Don't even think about it,” he said, “you haven't got a chance.”

I turned around. Gilead was standing behind me.

“I always knew you were a worm,” said Sharon, “but I never thought you were a rat.”

“Why did you snitch on us, you piece of shit?” said
Gilead, giving me a hard shove. I stumbled into Sharon and he pushed me away.

“I'll tell you why he snitched,” said Sharon, “because our Eli is jealous as hell. He looks at me and sees that I'm a better student than him, a better athlete, and I've got a girlfriend who's the prettiest girl in the school, while he's still a poor virgin, and it eats him up.”

Sharon took off his leather jacket and handed it to Gilead. “Okay, Eli, you did it, you screwed me,” he said, unfastening the strap of his diver's watch and putting it into his pocket. “My dad thinks I'm a thief, the police almost charged me. I won't get the outstanding student award. Are you happy now?”

I wanted to tell him it wasn't that, it was because of Sholem, who was also in a commando unit, because he cried like a baby on Holocaust Day. Instead I said, “It's not that at all . . . You shouldn't have stolen his bike, it didn't make sense. You have no honor.” My voice shook as I spoke.

“You hear that, Gilead, this whining rat is telling us about honor. Honor is not snitching on your friends, you shit,” he said, balling his fist. “Now Gilead and me are going to teach you all about honor the hard way.”

I wanted to get away from there, to run, raise my hands to protect my face, but the fear paralyzed me. Then suddenly, out of nowhere came the sound of the siren. I'd completely forgotten that it was Remembrance Day for the Fallen. Sharon and Gilead came to attention. I looked at them standing there like shop window dolls and suddenly
all my fear went away. Gilead, standing rigidly to attention, eyes closed, holding Sharon's jacket, looked like an oversized coat hanger. And Sharon, with his murderous look and clenched fists suddenly looked like a small boy imitating a pose he'd seen in an action movie. I walked to the hole in the fence and walked through slowly and quietly, while behind me I heard Sharon hiss, “We're still going to fuck you.” But he didn't budge. I went on walking home through the streets with all the frozen people looking like wax dummies, the sound of the siren surrounding me with an invisible shield.

T
here was a thick envelope waiting in my mailbox. I opened it and counted the dough. It was all there. So was the note with the name of the mark, a passport picture, and the place where I could find him. I cursed. Don't know why. I'm a pro and a pro isn't supposed to do that, but it just came out. No, I didn't have to read the name, I recognized the guy in the picture. Grace. Patrick Grace. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. A good man. The only good man I'd ever known. When it came to good men, there was probably nobody in the world that could match him.

I'd met Patrick Grace only once. It was at the orphanage in Atlanta. Like animals they treated us there. All year long, we wallowed in filth, they hardly fed us, and if anyone so much as opened his mouth, they let us have it with a belt.
Lots of times they'd give you the belt without bothering to open the buckle. When Grace arrived, they made sure to get us cleaned up—us and that shit hole they called an orphanage. Before he came in, the director gave us a briefing: Anyone who blabbered would be in for it later. We'd all had our share of his medicine, enough to know he meant business. When Grace entered our rooms, we were silent as mice. He tried talking with us, but we didn't really answer. Each boy got his present, said thank you, and hurried back into bed. I got a dartboard. When I said thank you, he reached for my face. I cringed. Thought he was going to hit me. Grace ran his hand over my hair, gently, and without a word he lifted my shirt. In those days I used to shoot off my mouth a lot. Grace could figure that out by the look of my back. He didn't say anything at first. Then he said the name of Jesus a few times. Finally, he let go of my shirt and hugged me. While he was hugging me, he promised that nobody would ever hit me again. Needless to say, I didn't believe him. People don't just act nice to you for no good reason. I figured it had to be some kind of a trick; he'd be slipping off his belt any minute, and letting me have it. The whole time he was hugging me, I just wanted him to go. He went, and that same evening we got a new director and a whole new staff. From that time on, nobody ever hit me again, except that nigger I wiped out in Jacksonville. Did that one pro bono. Since then, nobody's lifted a finger on me.

I never saw Patrick Grace again. But I read about him in the papers a lot. About all the people he'd helped, all the
good things he did. He was a good man. I guess there was no finer man anywhere. The only man I owed a favor on the whole face of this ugly planet. And in two hours I'm supposed to be meeting him. In two hours I'm supposed to be putting a bullet through his head.

I'm thirty-one. I've had twenty-nine contracts since I got started. Twenty-six of them I completed in one go. I never try to understand the people I kill. Never try to understand why. Business is business, and like I said, I'm a pro. I've got a good reputation, and in a profession like mine a good reputation is all that counts. You don't exactly place an ad in the paper or offer special rates to people with the right credit card. The only thing that keeps you in business is that people know they can count on you to get the job done. That's why I've made it a policy never to back out on a contract. Anyone who checks my record will find nothing but satisfied customers. Satisfied customers and stiffs.

I rented a room facing the street, right opposite the café. Told the owner that the rest of my belongings would be arriving on Monday, and paid two months' rent up front. There was half an hour to kill till the time I figured he'd get there. I assembled the gun and zeroed in the infra-red sight. Only twenty-six minutes left. I lit a cigarette. I was trying not to think about anything. Finished the cigarette, and flicked what was left of it into the corner of the room. Who'd want to kill a person like that? Only an animal or a complete wacko. I know Grace. He hugged me when I was just a kid. But business is business. Once you
let your feelings in, you're through. The carpet in the corner began to smolder. I got up off the bed and stepped on the butt. Another eighteen minutes. Another eighteen minutes, and it would be over. I tried thinking about football, about Dan Marino, about a hooker on Forty-Second Street who gives me head in the front seat of the car. I tried not to think about anything.

He was right on time. I recognized him from behind by that special bouncy walk of his and the shoulder-length hair. He took a seat at one of the tables outside, in the best-lit spot, so that he was facing me head-on. The angle was perfect. Medium range. I could take this shot blindfolded. The red dot showed on the side of his head, a little too far to the left. I corrected to the right till it was dead center, and held my breath.

Just when I had it all set, an old man wandered by carrying all his earthly possessions in a couple of bags—a typical homeless. The city's full of them. Right outside the café, one of the handles snapped. The bag fell to the ground and all his junk started spilling out. I saw Grace's body stiffen for a second, with a kind of spasm at the corner of his mouth, and right away he got up to help. He kneeled down on the sidewalk, gathering up the newspapers and the empty cans, and putting them back in the bag. The sight stayed fixed on him. His face was mine now. The red spot of the sight was floating on the middle of his forehead like a fluorescent Indian caste mark. That face was mine, and when he smiled at the old man, it glowed. Like the paintings of the saints on church walls.

I stopped looking through the sights, and took a good look at my finger. It was hovering over the trigger guard. Straight out, almost frozen. It wasn't going to go through with it. No point in fooling myself. It simply wasn't going to. I thumbed on the safety, and eased back the bolt. The bullet slid from the chamber.

I headed down toward the café with my gun in its case. It wasn't a gun anymore really, just five harmless parts. I sat down at Grace's table, facing him, and ordered a coffee. He recognized me at once. Last time he saw me, I was an eleven-year-old kid, but he had no trouble remembering. Even remembered my name. I put the envelope with the money on the table, and told him that someone had hired me to kill him. I tried to play it cool, to pretend like I'd never even considered going through with it. Grace smiled and said that he knew. That he was the one who'd sent the money in the envelope, that he wanted to die. I've got to admit his answer caught me off guard. I stammered. Asked why. Did he have some malignant disease? “A disease?” he laughed. “Guess you could say that.” There was that little spasm again at the corner of his mouth, the one I'd seen through the window, and he started to talk: “Ever since I was a kid I've had this disease. The symptoms were clear, but nobody ever tried treating it. I'd give my toys to the other kids. I never lied. I never stole. I was never even tempted to hit back in school fights. I was always sure to turn the other cheek. My compulsive good-heartedness just got worse over the years, but nobody was willing to do anything about it. If, say, I'd been compulsively bad, they'd
have taken me to a shrink or something right away. They'd have tried to stop it. But when you're good? It suits people in our society to keep getting what they need, in return for a shriek of delight and a few compliments. And I just kept getting worse. It's reached the point where I can't even eat without stopping after every bite to find someone who's hungrier to finish my meal. And at night, I can't fall asleep. How can a person even consider sleeping when you live in New York, and sixty feet away from your house people are shivering on a park bench?”

The spasm was back at the corner of his mouth, and his whole body shook. “I can't go on this way, with no sleep, no food, no love. Who has time for love when there's so much misery around? It's a nightmare. Try to see it from my point of view. I never asked to be this way. It's like a dybbuk. Except that instead of a dybbuk, your body is possessed by an angel. Damn it. If it were a devil, someone would have tried to finish me off a long time ago. But this?” Grace gave a short sigh and closed his eyes. “Listen,” he went on. “All this money, take it. Go find yourself a position on some balcony or rooftop, and get it over with. I can't do it on my own, after all. And it gets harder every day. Even just sending you the money, having this conversation.” He mopped his forehead. “It's hard. Very hard on me. I'm not sure I'll have what it takes to do it again. Please, just pick a spot up on one of the rooftops and do it. I'm begging you.” I looked at him. At his tormented face. Like Jesus on the cross, just like Jesus. I didn't say anything. Didn't know what to say. I'm always armed with the right
sentence, whether it's for the Father Confessor, for a hooker in a bar, or for a Federal agent. But with him? With him I was a scared little kid again, at the orphanage, cringing at every unexpected move. And he was a good man, the good man, I'd never be able to waste him. No point even trying. My finger just wouldn't wrap itself around the trigger.

“Sorry, Mr. Grace,” I whispered after a long while. “I just . . .”

“You just can't kill me.” He smiled. “That's OK. You're not the first, you know. Two other guys have returned the envelope before you. I guess it's part of the curse. It's just that you, with the orphanage and all . . .” He shrugged. “And me getting weaker every day. Somehow I'd hoped you could return the favor.”

“Sorry, Mr. Grace,” I whispered. I had tears in my eyes. “I wish I could . . .”

“Don't feel bad.” He said. “I understand. No harm done. Leave it.” He chuckled when he saw me pick up the tab. “Coffee's on me. I insist. It has to be on me, you know. It's like a disease.” I pushed the crumpled bill back in my pocket. Then I thanked him and walked away. After I'd taken a few steps, he called me. I'd forgotten the gun.

I went back to get it, cussing quietly to myself. Felt like a rookie.

Three days later, in Dallas, I shot some senator. It was a tricky one. From two hundred yards away, half a view, side wind. He was dead before he hit the
floor.