The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin (5 page)

Dad had looked away, all nervous. “Why?” I repeated. “Why?”

“Just tell him, Ken,” my mother said.

“I … like … sound,” my father had said.

Oh.

After a second I realized he meant “I like
the
sound,” and that he wasn’t rubbing in loving the entire concept of sound for no reason. Still, why would I get mad at that? I don’t care that he likes the sound of his gravel driveway. That’s great. He should like
something
. He never gets me. He never gets what might make me crazy and what is no big whoop. This might be partly my fault. But screw him anyway. What does he know about Dummy Halpin? Why does he let Mom bully him? Bully both of us?

I cross the yard, avoiding the apparently mellifluous gravel, staying in the grass. I doubt he’d appreciate the sound of his son sneaking out at two in the morning.

I don’t get spooked by noises, don’t care about creaky doors, can’t be startled by hissing cats lurking in the shadows. There are ways that what makes you different makes you stronger, I think, quoting some half-remembered Arrowhead counselor. I will use what makes me different to be a better deviant!

Not that I am doing anything criminal. Just walking. Just walking alone with my thoughts. Will Halpin is a lonely hunter.
And I know that Mom worries about me, wants to protect me, et crapera. For my whole life, she was always afraid something bad was going to happen to me, which was funny, because it already did and there was nothing anyone could have done about it. Knowing that there were others makes it clear it’s just a genetic fluke in our family line. It skips some generations, hits others a little, and hammers others hard. I was born with “problems with my ears” that got worse over time until there was no more getting worse to be done.

But why couldn’t they tell me about Dummy Halpin? I imagine the scores of reactions during tomorrow’s history class. “Check out the freak, descendant of dead, deaf Dummy. …”

I walk faster, trying to shake Dummy out of my head. Then I start running. Just a little jog, not too fast. It’s been a long time since I ran, and in a minute or two, my chest and legs are sending queries to my brain. “What the hell are you doing? We don’t run.” But the pain feels useful. It makes it hard to concentrate on anything else. I stay on the sidewalks, of course, just like when I was a kid. Mom
always
insisted on sidewalks only. Safe for those unable to sense cars. God, they were always trying to keep me safe, safe, safe. I make the wide turn, run defiantly not on the sidewalk but smack-dab in the middle of the street. Feels good.

I round the corner back onto my street and start sprinting toward home, sweating and swearing the whole way. And then I see it, a block from my house, like a recurring nightmare that never goes away. That sign. I remember when I was little and I finally realized that I was the only one who had such a sign. I
really used to think that everyone had one:
REDHEADED CHILD AREA, TALL CHILD AREA, LEFT-HANDED CHILD AREA, MY DAD’S A JERK CHILD AREA
.

I am charging directly at the sign. I run and throw my considerable heft against the metal post. This hurts like hell, but to my surprise, it sways like a tree in a gale-force wind. I back up and survey the damage.

I sign something appropriately nasty at the sign. Then I take a few steps back and charge a second time, and the post snaps clean in two! I stare dazed at a rusty streak on my white T-shirt. I wish it was blood, wish I had punctured my damn skin. I look at my vanquished foe lying broken like a corpse on the battlefield. And I feel pretty damn fine about it.

Suddenly I look around. In my might and fury, I had forgotten that any one of several neighbors could be roused. No lights flicker on, and though my heart beats the palpitations of the paranoid, I think I am undetected.

The sign has snapped near the bottom, leaving just a one-foot rod sticking out of the earth and a lengthy piece of post still affixed to the sign. I want it. But how will I get it in my little window? What will I do with it? The only tools I have are my bare hands. These, and my hate, make me strong. I grab the sign like a throat. I stomp on the post and begin shaking it, bending it slowly at first and then wildly, quickly, until the metal becomes hot from the force. With each turn, it becomes looser and softer and easier until—boom—it pops off from the post like an old dandelion flicked by a careless thumb.

My trophy.

I pick up the metal sign and happily begin to carry it home, as proud as King Arthur brandishing Excalibur. After a few steps, my leg hurts and my shoulder throbs from being used as a battering ram. But I still feel great. I crawl back in the window, carefully placing the DEAF CHILD AREA sign behind me, then stash it under the bed once I’m all in. Sleep comes quickly.

On the way to homeroom
, I sleepwalk down the hall, bleary-eyed and unnoticed as always. Suddenly I feel an urgent tap on my left shoulder. The sensation of human contact is so foreign that my first thought honestly is that a bird has mistaken me for a perch. I spin around, ready to fight. It’s no bird. The shoulder toucher is about five foot five and has an unmistakable film of nacho dust around his lips.

I scowl, trying to indicate via facial expression the sentence “Are you trying to give a fat kid a heart attack, Devon Smiley?” I’m pretty sure I do a good job conveying this, but I probably could punch him in the face and it would fail to register.

“I heard about the crime last night,” he says. There are two things about this revelation that shock my sleep-deprived brain. First of all, he said it in perfectly fluent sign language. None of his letter-by-letter torture. The second is obvious
enough. My heart starts to pound, and I feel my face go instantly from china white to deep scarlet.

“What crime?” I ask him, answering his signs with one of my own.

He looks dumbfounded and then repeats, “I heard about the crime last night.” Of course he hadn’t really learned sign language overnight, just one phrase.

“
W-H-A-T
?” I ask him again, in his usual way.

“
M-Y D-A-D T-O-L-D M-E A-B-O-U-T T-H-E S-I-G-N A-T Y-O-U-R H-O-U-S-E
.“

I feel like I might pass out. His father is a cop!

“
P-E-O-P-L-E I-N T-H-I-S T-O-W-N A-R-E J-E-R-K-S
,” he says. I nod in agreement. They sure are. Wait, what? “
W-H-Y W-O-U-L-D S-O-M-E-O-N-E T-E-A-R D-O-W-N Y-O-U-R S-I-G-N
?” he asks.

Before I can answer, he gestures for me to follow. Second bell for first period must have already rung. As we walk to class, he gets excited, remembering something.

“
S-O Y-O-U A-R-E F-A-M-O-U-S
!” Does he really think that having a sign torn down makes me famous? Then he points to the textbook and signs with a big smile, “
W-I-L-L H-A-L-P-I-N!
“ I slap myself on the forehead.

I rumble into my seat in history, and Smiley’s ponytail retreats to his spot in the back. It is weird that the police already heard about the “crime” of the
DEAF CHILD AREA
sign but reassuring to know that they thought it was someone just being a jerk. I set aside that worry for a different one, which was actually an old one (well, a day old anyway). Is everyone in class going to be whispering about Dummy Halpin in the book and
laughing about the fact that they are classmates with a ghost’s relative?

I scan the class, waiting for Arterberry to take center stage. No one seems to be paying me undue attention. Maybe I am like my namesake, just not technically dead? The class chatter, inasmuch as I can gather, is about Pat Chambers.

“Oh my God! Did you hear?” Mindy Spark blurts to a group of people who only seem to be half paying attention. “Pat’s dad was on the news this morning.” Her audience remains steadfastly unimpressed. “The
national
news, you guys.” This raises a few eyebrows, gets a few heads nodding.

Even Chuck Escapone opens his eyes and looks around with a smile—the equivalent of anyone else screaming at the top of their lungs.

“He
is
so cool, you guys!” Mindy adds. “Seriously.”

Pat hasn’t arrived yet—he likes to stroll in a few minutes after the bell every day just because he can—but I know Mindy is saying this for her own eventual benefit. She is clearly lobbying, hoping that he will observe her being well informed about all things Chambers and give her a playing card.

Arterberry finally shows up, looking a little weary, like maybe he too was up all night attacking traffic signs.

“How did you
(something something)
the reading?” he asks. I start to sweat. It is officially time to face the ghost of Dummy Halpin. It is time to watch as my classmates make light of my family history, my deafness, my freakish forerunner. But at that moment, Pat walks through the door. Most eyes are on him. Mindy waves. Leigha gives him a hard-to-read look. What is up
with her eyes? Only Devon acknowledges me, giving me a huge thumbs-up from across the room. Can I crawl under my desk? Hmm … A bit too much of me for that.

“Was there anything
(something something)
found interesting?” Arterberry asks. I am getting better at reading his lips, but I am beginning to wonder if
he
even did the reading. But then he says, “Anything that relates to our class?” turns toward me, and gives me a wink. “How about
(something something)
, Mr. Carlson?” he asks. Poor D.C. adjusts his glasses and speaks with his eyes down as if reading his notes, even though he is obviously totally making it up as he goes along, saying something like: “The history of coal mining is important to our class because it is an important part of our region of Pennsylvania. Coal is something that was mined for many years, the mining of which was used for many things. In conclusion, coal mining was—”

Arterberry cuts him off with a raised hand and a withering look. I am beginning to feel relieved. Is it only Devon and I who have done the reading? Arterberry then turns and looks straight at me.

“Didn’t any of you
(something)
the reading at all?” He is exasperated, not surprised, and maybe a little sad. I find myself feeling bad for him. I look around the room. Only Devon’s hand is raised. I have no choice but to also raise mine. The rest of the class keeps their arms down, so it looks like we are waving at each other. Then he actually does wave to me.
Hi, Devon!
Arterberry is not amused. He does not want to call on Devon. He clearly wants to call on me but does not know how. I
could
speak. I could say a few words, make the sad bastard happy. But
my voice makes people laugh. Arterberry stares at me and then pretends I said something.

“Thank you, Will,” he says. “I can imagine that it was very interesting to you. The rest of you
(something something)
should know what I mean. Was the miner in the text related to you?” he asks me. I nod my ever-reddening head. “I
(something)
you knew that story?” I shake my head.

“See that, class,” he says, waving the book. “You should try reading; you might learn a thing or two.” Then he explains that “our Will Halpin” is named for a famous coal miner, which is something “anyone could be proud of deep inside.” I feel something deep inside, but I think it’s nausea and maybe … shame?

When I get to
Miss Prefontaine’s room (a little late due to my routine of following Leigha Pennington … but I’m
not really
a stalker), The Dolphin is nowhere to be found. Word has already spread that we have a sub for the day, so plans are no doubt made to make his life miserable. We used to do some classic stuff to the subs at the deaf school, especially the hearing ones. We’d sign outrageous filth with happy smiles or make epic mouth farts when the sub turned around to face the board.

All Travis Bickerstokes and Pat Chambers, the leaders of this classroom, can think of doing is making people switch seats. Pat takes Travis’s chair with a big grin. Marie Stepcoat is absent, so they bully Devon into her chair. Devon, being Devon, clearly doesn’t want to engage in such tomfoolery, but Travis whispers some sort of threat that gets him to reluctantly
play along. He sits there obviously upset about breaking the rules.

The sub enters—a big bruiser of a man with one angry eyebrow and meaty fists clenched tight. He says his name, but I don’t catch it and decide to call him MTG (for Mr. Tough Guy). He looks at the seating chart and takes attendance. When he calls Pat’s name, Travis says, “Here.” Pat loves it. MTG says, “We say, ‘Here, sir,’ son,” which Pats also finds really hysterical.

The rest of the roll proceeds normally until MTG gets to Marie’s seat. He looks at the seating chart, then up again, back and forth. He catches on.

“I take it that you are Marie Stepcoat, little lady,” he says.

Devon nods and smiles a sad smile. MTG flips the lights on and off, a weird move that is presumably supposed to make us calm down. Then he does a quick bit of math and sees that there are only two boys left who haven’t had their name called yet. A big vein throbs in his fat neck.

“Now, I see here that you must be Devon or Will,” he says. He grunts something through gritted teeth that I can’t make out. Devon says his name, quickly adds “sir,” and scampers back to his own seat.

“So you must be Will,” MTG says to me.

I nod.

“We say, ‘Here, sir,’ “ he says again, or something like that. His mouth is a thin and angry fault line over a dangerous earthquake. He is about to blow—a bottle of Diet Coke loaded with Mentos.

I debate my options. They are few and crappy. Maybe just doing some sign language at him would make the point?

“MTG,” I begin, “your lack of cleavage saddens me.” (Might as well have some fun, right?) I do the signs with a serious and respectful look on my face. But, yup, he thinks I am pranking him. That I am a normal kid. Boy, is he wrong.

“Very funny, fella,” he says. “Now you say, ‘Here, sir’!” I can tell that he is screaming and note how the class is starting to stir. Then Devon Smiley comes to my defense.