Verse (9 page)

Chapter 38

School ends and I don’t want to go outside and deal with the crowd. So I find an isolated corner in a hallway, sit on the grimy carpet, lean against the wall, and work on my homework.

I study Calculus, then English, then for the History test on the Battle of Stalingrad.

A door opens and I look up.

Sydney’s walking down the hall, away from me. I forgot he’d be here, he must be waiting for his dad.

Oh man.

I need to talk to him.

I stuff my notebook in my bag, get up and sling it over my shoulder and run after him, the bag bouncing.

“Sydney!” I yell.

He keeps walking, out the door.

“Sydney!”

I push through the door.

He’s the only one out there, thank God.

He’s pulling a cigarette out, and I say, “Hey,” and touch his shoulder.

He whirls, pushing me back, “Don’t fucking touch me.”

“Hey, come on—”

“What?”

“Look—”

“Don’t—”

I say, “I’m sorry.”

“Leave me alone.” He puts the cigarette in his mouth and digs for his lighter.

I say, “What can I say?”

“Nothing. What do you think? You say you’re sorry, I say I’m sorry, and then we’re just gonna be friends again?”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

He says, “You know what I did? What I told them?”

I say, “I lied too. I lied first.”

“You were lying the whole time.”

“No, I mean, I thought I was— I mean, I wasn’t lying, but I was wrong. So I misled you guys.”

“So why’d you do it?”

“I don’t know.” Because— “I was lonely.”

“Pathetic.”

I look away.

He says, “And what? Now you’re not lonely anymore?”

“I guess not.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” Faye. Damn. Faye. “I have to go.”

“Fine. Good.”

I turn and leave.

I get to the corner and glance back.

He’s still standing outside the school alone.

I turn the corner and go.

Chapter 39

I knock on Faye’s door and her mom opens it.

I say, “Is Faye here?”

She nods and lets me inside, saying, “Are you one of Faye’s friends from school? I know she hasn’t been to school for a few days, she wasn’t feeling well.”

“Yeah, I just wanted to see how she’s doing.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet, I’ll go get her,” and she heads back to Faye’s room.

Faye comes out and says, “Let’s go on the porch.”

I say, “Don’t you wanna go somewhere private, like up to your room or something?”

“No, let’s go to the porch.”

We go outside and she shuts the door and leans on it.

I say, “How are you?”

“What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t come to school, I wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?

“Can we talk inside please? In private?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

I look around. Nobody’s around, I guess no one’s listening. “Listen. I came to you I few days ago because I realized I wasn’t the messiah.”

“Erwin told me you said that, why?”

“Because it’s true. But maybe I didn’t fully believe I wasn’t the messiah, so when we… when we had sex, that was when it was really true. I truly couldn’t be the messiah. Because having sex, for me that was something I couldn’t do. I thought it was literally impossible. I mean, I thought there’d be like an earthquake or an eclipse or something. But it didn’t even matter.”

“It didn’t matter?”

“I don’t mean it like that. I just— Just that the world continued. It didn’t matter to anybody but me. I mean us. But the world didn’t end, everything just continued like normal. But of course it matters. It’s all I think about.”

“Me too.”

“And I’m just so ashamed.”

“You’re ashamed? Why are you ashamed?”

“Because I failed.”

“Failed at what? At being good in bed? It was your first time. Mine too.”

“No, I mean… No. I failed at being the messiah. Or maybe I never was the messiah. I don’t know. But I thought it would be something, like Satan would come out of the Earth and say he’d won. Or the heavens would open up and God would curse me or strike me with lightning. But nothing happened except…”

“That’s why you ran out? Because you thought it meant you failed?”

“Yeah. What did you think?”

“I don’t know, I thought I did something wrong. Like I… Because I didn’t know what I was doing. But I guess I did do something wrong. I’m like the Whore of Babylon or something.”

“No, that’s not true. It was my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I came to you.”

She says, “But I came on to you first.”

“Look it was just a mistake, it doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t get it, Manuel. I didn’t think it was a mistake.”

“You didn’t?”

“I wanted to do it—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“—because I love you, Manuel.”

“Oh.”

“That’s why I never did it with Erwin. That’s why I wanted it to be you. Didn’t you know I love you? Why else did you think I wanted to do it?”

“I didn’t think anybody loved me.”

“We all love you.”

I say, “I’m sorry.”

“And I don’t get how us making love means you aren’t the messiah. When you love somebody, it’s a good thing.”

“I’m supposed to be pure.”

“You are pure.”

I say, “No, I’m not. I’m not at all.”

“Because of me.”

“No, because I’m just a regular person. No, a terrible person. Everything I do is wrong. I screw up everything.”

“That’s not true.”

“Look at the way I treated you. I screwed that up.”

“But I understand now. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.”

“It is if— Just tell me one thing. Do you love me? Do you love me back?”

“Faye…”

“Yes or no?”

I shift my feet. “No, not like that.”

“You should probably go.”

“Faye…”

“What? What do you want from me?”

“I want…” to have sex with you again. And for it never to have happened. “I don’t know.”

She goes inside and shuts the door.

Chapter 40

Mrs. Lee tells me to go see Pierson when I arrive at her class, so I do.

I take a seat in front of his desk and he says, “I was hoping this was going to blow over. But it’s not. I’ve been getting calls all morning. From everyone. Parents. Reporters. Government officials. Cranks. People who I don’t even know why they’re calling.”

“Okay,” I say.

“How are you, Manuel?”

“Fine. Good,” I say. Good? That’s weird… I feel better than I can remember… ever feeling?

“What?” he says.

“Nothing.”

“There’s going to be a PTA meeting tonight to talk about this. You need to be there with your mom. I’ve already called her.”

“Okay.”

“I hope you’ll cooperate with us in trying to calm down the situation.”

I sigh and shrug. “I don’t know what I can do. But I’ll do what I can.”

“Good. I’d like you take the rest of the day off and go home.”

“You’re suspending me?”

“No. You’re not in trouble. I’d like to avoid things getting out of hand, more than they already have. This isn’t a punishment, it’s just a safety precaution. I’m going to have Wallace drive you home.”

He takes me to the security guard out in the hall, who escorts me to the entrance.

Outside, there are even more news vans and a bigger crowd of people with signs. One of them says

Manuel Christ

and I laugh.

Wallace says, “God damn,” and we go outside.

One of the protesters realizes who I am and starts yelling and everyone starts coming for me, camera crews following behind.

When they reach us, Wallace yells, “Stand back! Stand back! Stand back!”

He keeps them off me, but they follow us into the parking lot to his car. We get in and drive off, leaving them all behind.

I hope I didn’t look too bad in that footage.

Chapter 41

Mom and I drive downtown.

I stare out the window at the other cars we pass, and the billboards behind them, and the city behind those. The radio is off and the only sounds are the motor and the road. Mom’s not talking, thank God.

We arrive along with a large crowd. I keep my head down. There are no news crews outside.

They’re in the auditorium where the five thousand seats are filling up. Three long tables have been set up on the stage, end to end, with microphones and chairs.

People notice me as we walk toward the stage, pointing at me and some calling out to me.

Garrett, Kyle, Lewis, and all the rest are sitting up front looking at me. But not Erwin or Sydney or Faye.

There are three news crews. Two locals, but also CNN.

International news.

I spot Iris in the middle. With her parents, I guess.

Washington approaches as we’re climbing the stairs and he says to me, “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

I nod and follow him backstage, into the prop room.

He says, “I’ve asked them and they’ve agreed to not mention the accusations made against you.”

I say, “Thank you.”

“Fortunately the public still hasn’t been made aware of them. It’s giving the school board a bit of a black eye, since it seems like we’re censoring without real cause, but we all agree it’s for the best. Nobody wants a witch hunt against one of our students.”

“Thank you.”

“So maybe you can return the favor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Go out there and tell them it all gotten blown out of proportion. That you don’t want a fight and nobody was censoring you and it was just a big deal made out of nothing.”

I grit my jaw. “Why should I do that?”

“I just told you…”

“But you’re not really doing that for my sake, are you? If they knew who was making the accusations, and you know they’re false, and once they find that out, I’m not gonna be the one who’s gonna have his life ruined, am I?”

“How dare you! You wouldn’t—”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.”

I leave the prop room and head for the stage.

I take a seat next to Mom. Also on the stage are Pierson, Yang, and a few other people from the PTA and the school board. Washington comes out and sits next to Pierson.

“May I have your attention please?” Washington says into his microphone. A few more pleas and the crowd quiets down to a murmur. He begins, “First of all, I want to lay a few ground rules. This forum was arranged to address certain issues that people have been worrying about. Whatever your opinion on our school’s policy or our students’ beliefs, this is not to be a stage for people to attack any of our students.”

Pierson leans forward and says, “Thank you, Louis. I’d like to make it clear that we as the faculty are not here to pass judgment on our students’ beliefs. We are merely trying to do what is in the best interest of our students’ education and personal well-beings—”

A man in the crowd yells out, “The first amendment!” and a few people cheer.

Pierson says, “Please let me finish—” but he’s drowned out by a huge swell of noise.

“Blasphemy!”

“Free speech!”

“Cult!”

“Please!” Pierson yells into the microphone, causing distortion and making it screech with feedback. “Please settle down!”

The noise subsides a bit and Washington says, “This is a complicated situation. There are no villains here. These are children we’re dealing with.”

Pierson, shuffling notes, says, “The first amendment says, and I quote,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or

and so on and so forth. Now there are two aspects of this that apply, the separation of church and state and the freedom of speech. Of course none of us believe in censorship here at Grant, and we would never dream of censoring our students. What we simply tried to do was to get our students to move their religious activities to the weekend or after school. Because this is a government facility and religion is not to be taught here. But we are not censoring anybody.”

Washington says, “This situation will be resolved according to the rules of school. Our hope is that we can find a peaceful and equitable solution.”

Pierson talks about school policy and how they’d like everyone to give the school board time to come to a decision about things. Finally he says, “Now, we’d like to open it up to questions. And I must remind you all to please act in a calm and reasonable manner.”

A microphone has been set up in one of the aisles and people have lined up behind it for their chance to speak.

The first guy, a middle-aged, heavy-set man, steps up to the microphone. “Hello, my name is Mike Leonard. I have two daughters who go to this school, Anne and Patricia. I was really surprised when I first heard about this craziness. I was just sitting at home reading the morning paper when I realized the story about this nutjob kid was at my daughter’s high school! What I want to know is, how did this get to this insanity? This is exactly the sort of thing I don’t want my children dealing with at school. I expect this sort of thing in some small town or in the South but not here!”

“Thank you for your comments,” Washington says.

“But how did it get to this point?” he says.

One of the teachers on stage, a guy in his early thirties, says, “Like Principal Pierson said, we are not here to censor our students. Quite the opposite. We want them to express themselves. Nobody expected it to get to this point. But we can’t stop the students from talking about what they want to, nor would we want to stop them from talking.”

“Talking!” the man says. “They were doing more than—”

“I’m sorry,” Washington cuts in. “One question per person.”

The woman behind him in line begins arguing with him, but I can’t hear what they’re saying because they’re away from the microphone. Finally, she shoves him aside and steps up to the microphone and says, “How was this blasphemy allowed to go on for so long?” and there’s cheers from the crowd then boos and then more cheers.

The guy is still trying to pull the microphone away from her as Washington says, “It’s not our job to decide what is and isn’t blasphemy.”

She says, “But—”

Washington says, “One question per person, please. Please give the microphone to the next person in line.”

She angrily hands the microphone over to the next guy, still fighting off the first guy. He takes it and says, “As far as I can tell, all you’ve done is made the situation worse and worse. How are you going to resolve this?”

Washington says, “The school board is working on a new set of guidelines regarding religious conduct within the school…”

I raise my hand.

Washington turns and says, “Yes?”

The crowd hushes.

I pull my microphone free and I stand up.

I say, “I am—”

There’s a gunshot and it all goes da—