Wait Until Twilight (14 page)

“Give me fifteen minutes,” she says.

“Remember…park at the front doors,” I say.

I clean my cuts in the bathroom and rewrap the socks around real tight. I stay in the back until it’s time and then go wait just inside the doors, keeping a sharp lookout for Daryl and his white Charger. When Melody pulls up, I run to her car, pulling out the knife before I sit down so as to not cut off a butt cheek.

“Jesus, what is that about?” she yells.

“Ah, I just bought it.”

“You just bought it? Just like that. No bag or anything, just in your pants.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

She drives out of the parking lot with an eye on the knife. “What’s up with those socks on your arm? Is that blood? Oh my God!”

“Calm down! It was an accident. I didn’t know how sharp it was.”

“Let me see.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Do we need to go to the hospital?”

“No! No hospital. I’m telling you, I’m fine…now…”

“What do you need a knife like that for, anyway? That’s like the biggest knife I’ve ever seen.”

“Could you just get me home?”

“Okay, okay.”

She takes us on the bypass, cutting through the edge of town toward my house. I’m too busy trying to blot out what just happened to pay attention to Melody. But I stop my racing mind and say, “Thanks for picking me up like this.”

“What’s going on, Samuel?”

“It’s nothing.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay. But I want you to know, you can tell me anything, Samuel, whether it’s about school or family, anything.”

“School’s fine.”

“What about your family? Your dad? Jim?”

“What about them?”

“I don’t know, Samuel. I’m just saying maybe it can be hard at times with your mom gone.”

“My mom? It’s been a year, Melody. One fucking year. We’ve all got to move on, and I have. Maybe you should, too.”

She doesn’t even pull into my driveway, just stops in the road in front of my house.

“I’m sorry, Samuel. I won’t bring up your mother again.”

“I’m sorry. There’s other stuff going on. I shouldn’t have said what I did. Don’t get too angry with me.”

“I’m not angry.”

“You look angry.”

She takes a deep breath; her long lashes close and her face changes. The stern face turns into a smile, a smile so loving and disappointed I prefer the frown. “Out,” she says. I get out and watch her drive away. I deserved her anger; that’s what I think. But there’s nothing she can do for me. She wouldn’t understand. Hell, even I don’t. It’s too damn dark. Too evil. After she’s gone I get my bike and go back out to Underwood as fast as I can. Thank God the Charger isn’t there. I throw my bike in my Tempo and get the hell out of there.

FIRST THING I DO IS
slip the knife under my mattress. Then, after a hot shower, I clean up my cuts with rubbing alcohol and Band-Aids. I make sure to put on a long-sleeve shirt before holing up in my room watching my black-and-white television all Friday night and Saturday. Among all the boob-tube fodder I catch a few episodes of
The Three Stooges
during a rain delay for a baseball game. I can’t believe I never noticed how violent it is. Those three guys beat the crap out of each other. Especially Moe. The eye gouging, head bonking, hair pulling he does to Larry and Curly is ridiculous. When my dad comes in, I pretend to be studying. Saturday night rolls around, and it feels like a normal state of life is getting harder and harder to get back to, and I start to wondering, How much would it take to be lost from it all forever? To shake that awful mood, I go up on the roof to look at the stars and at my dad tinkering on his project some more. He’s digging a small trench out to a spot in the yard where there’s a shallow hole in the ground the width of a car tire. I’m thinking some kind of fountain, but I’m still not really sure. All I know is watching him slowly working and occasionally rubbing his chin in thought makes me feel a little better.

I
GET UP EXTRA EARLY ON TUESDAY
because it’s the morning when students apply for their lockers, parking spaces, and new identification cards for the next year. It’s first come, first serve, starting with the juniors on down to the subfreshmen. The juniors had their chance the previous week. Now it’s the sophomores’ turn for the next two mornings.

Dad’s gone by the time I head out. It’s still about an hour before school starts, but I know there’ll be a hell of a line to deal with, so I skip the usual cereal and plan on picking up some fast food along the way. The problem starts when my car makes this horrible grinding sound on the road. Telling Melody my car was broken probably jinxed me. I think about turning around, but I’m not too far from the place I know Dad goes to in the morning for breakfast. I decide to try him there. I turn onto Highway 166 and take exit 12, where Ros
coe’s Café is. I can see Dad’s big tan Monte Carlo in the parking lot, and then as I pull in I see him standing there talking with this other guy. That grinding sound from my car gets their attention. The friend waves to my dad and goes to his car.

“When did that start?” Dad asks me after I park.

“Halfway here. I would’ve gone back home, but I thought I might catch you.”

“Here, take my car today.” He gives me his keys. “I’ll stop by Bill’s garage. He can give me a ride to work. Come by the store at five. Okay?”

“Okay.” I get out, and Dad gets in. “Where’d you get that paper?” I ask him.

“Here, take it. I’m finished anyway. You might want to try the sausage biscuit here.”

I go in the café and have a look around. Everyone in there’s black except me. I get a sausage biscuit and coffee before heading off to school in Dad’s car. His Monte Carlo’s so wide, compared to my Tempo, I have trouble maneuvering. It’s like driving a boat and the pickup is weak, but once it gets moving, it’s smooth and heavy. I eat my biscuit along the way. Parking in the school parking lot is a pain, too. I never realized the parking spaces were so narrow. Fortunately, it’s still early, so there aren’t any cars around my space. I have to back out and repark three times to get the spacing right. I hurry to the office.

The line isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, I’m shocked at how short it is. But then I hear, “No breaking, Samuel,” coming from behind me.

“Breaking? Where’s the end of the line?” I ask.

The line actually goes out of the office and spills into the hall, all the way down as far as the eye can see. I start walking toward the end of the line then find myself in front of David.

“How long you been waiting?” I ask.

“Too long. You think you’re gonna break in line?”

“Maybe. Why don’t they just make it in alphabetical order?” I ask.

“What are you talking about? I’d still be in the middle. Mabry with an ‘M.’”

“Ah, that’s right. But at least you’d know where to go.”

“You smell like a sausage biscuit from Roscoe’s,” says Carlita, a tall, pretty black girl who giggles a lot. She’s standing in front of David.

“A sausage biscuit and coffee,” I say, holding up my coffee cup with my newspaper in my armpit. She giggles. Then I realize I might actually get away with breaking in line. It makes me feel like I’m the older guy fooling a bunch of kids. It’s strange, like I’m out of place, like I should be somewhere else, maybe college or maybe at some job. I feel composed and resentful toward all these high school students for bringing me down to their level. They seem stupid and for a minute I hate them. I hate them so much I wish they were gone. This hatred I feel makes me sick to my stomach. Worst of all, I know it’s not really them but me. Standing in that hallway with all those kids in line, I start getting that cold murky feeling. It’s all in my mind. It has to be, because those fluorescent lights are still shining in the hallway, and there’s no reason to feel this way. But I get this image in my head of greasy Daryl with his blue cap running down the hall with that knife in his hand, all in this bluish gloomy light. I know it’s just my imagination, but my heart starts racing.

“Give me some of your coffee, Samuel,” says Carlita, breaking my inner panic.

“You can have the rest,” I say. I give her my cup, and she resumes her conversation with some of her girl buddies. “Listen, let’s do this together,” I say to David. “We can do it faster.”

In the office there’s a machine we have to put our previous school identification card in. From that card the machine spits out two more pictures on a piece of glossy paper. Using a little customized ruler, you have to cut it out with a paper cutter. The two pictures are placed on two different forms: one goes to the school, and the other one is supposed to be placed in your locker with the lock after cleaning it out on the last day of school. I tell David we can split the duties and get it done faster. I’ll do the pictures and the cutting, and he can do the forms. He agrees, and my breaking in line becomes official.

When our turn comes, we go into the office. I ask David to give me the measurements off the pictures. He says sixty by twenty. I start measuring, but the problem is my hand starts shaking. I try to steady it with my right hand, but it doesn’t help, so I put them both in my pocket.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks.

“Too much coffee,” I say. “I got shaky hands. David, you do this.”

We switch roles: I fill out the forms while David measures and cuts. He tells me his birth date and other essentials, which I write down with a shaky old man’s hand on his form. It takes only about five minutes and we’re both out of there.

Thanks to breaking in line I get to chemistry class early. A few other kids have gotten there before me. I see Melody sitting in the back, and just seeing her makes me feel a little better and my hands feel steady. Instead of sitting up front like I usually do, I sit down beside Melody, who’s busy studying. She looks at me like I’m crazy. I’m sure she’s wondering why I’m sitting beside her like this. I can’t remember the last time we interacted at school. I don’t care. Sitting by her makes me feel better. Normal. Like the shades being lifted at Mrs. Greenan’s house. It makes all the difference
in the world.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Now I am. Did you get a good spot?” I ask, like everything in the world is hunky-dory.

“Yeah, I got a space in the east parking pot.”

“Nice.”

“What are you doing?”

“I got one in the west lot, but it’s pretty close. You’re studying the periodic table again, huh?”

“I mean, what are you doing, sitting beside me talking? You never do that.”

From the back office Mrs. Lane yells, “Melody, remember to study!” in a very sarcastic voice.

“Wow, she’s psychic,” I say.

“Shouldn’t she be encouraging me to study?”

“You’re fine. What’d you get on that last quiz?”

“Ninety.”

“See. I haven’t even cracked my book. Just study the notes and handouts she gives you. All the quiz materials come from that. If you do it that way, you hardly have to even study.” While I’m speaking a little voice comes into my head, saying,
Shit! Why the hell are you so confident?
But I keep talking.

“Are you sure?” she says.

“Yes, I’m sure. Remember what I got on that quiz?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t even open my book.”

She takes out her notes and examines them. I take out my summer reading list, which Mrs. Bickerson gave us the previous week. The last book on the list had shocked the crap out of me. It’s a poet by the name of Florence Cain, who I’ve read before in one of Jim’s college literature books. Her poems are very short but for some reason I
really like them and I don’t even like poetry. But her poems make me think that such things can’t possibly be made up by the human mind. I vaguely remember some lines that go something like:

At least that’s the way I remember it. Chemistry class soon begins. I really don’t like chemistry that much because it includes two extra hours of lab twice a week. But the good thing about the class is that I find it rather easy. Another thing that makes chemistry okay is our teacher, Mrs. Lane. She’s kind of obese, almost two hundred pounds, but it isn’t because she eats a lot. She has glandular problems and whenever she wears short-sleeve shirts I can see all these moles on her arms. Something isn’t right about her physically, but she’s really nice, and all the students get along with her. A lot of it has to do with her age. She’s young, in her mid-twenties, so she can relate to us better than the older teachers. At the end of the day’s class, Mrs. Lane even takes us outside and shows us her new Mazda Miata. It seems funny that such a large lady would get such a small car, but she’s sure happy about it. There’s a fancy bike rack attached to the back bumper. It turns out she did marathon biking. I can’t imagine her riding a bike, but if her obesity is glandular, maybe she’s healthier than she looks. I get the feeling there’s a lot I don’t know about her. As class ends, Melody asks me one more time if I want to talk about something. I tell her no.

AFTER BIOLOGY I GO TO
homeroom. We’re last on the list for lunch that
day, so we’ll have to wait. Mrs. Bickerson must have been in a good mood because she takes the entire class outside to the soccer field. The soccer field is this big depression in the ground on the other side of the school from the football field. Concrete bleachers are carved into the embankment of the depression on the side of the field closest to the school. The other side is just a shallow ditch that runs into the woods. Mrs. Bickerson takes attendance, and then we just hang out for twenty minutes on the bleachers. It’s a little hot, but there’s a nice breeze. I ask Katy, who’s sitting up a bleacher from me, what’s for lunch. She says, “Ahhhh…” And then asks Debbie.

“You don’t need to do that,” I say.

“Sloppy joes,” Debbie says.

When it’s finally time for lunch and we all go to get in line, I notice some gum stuck on my pants. Luckily it’s really old gum, so it’s already kind of hardened. I wipe it off with some paper without making a mess of it. I have to run up to get a decent space in line and then get squeezed out as kids from the back push forward. Those of us who get squeezed out call out our spot so we don’t lose our place.

“I’m behind Debbie!”

“I’m behind Branden!”

I yell, “I’m behind Katy!” and try to squeeze back in. I joke, “Wow, if this were the end of the world we’d really get the squeeze!”

Katy laughs and says, “Yeah. And you could run away and later tell them how they’re not invited to your barbecue.”

The barbecue is a running joke made up by Will, who one day told everyone I was having a barbecue. If I hadn’t heard about it, there would have been a ton of people showing up at my house on that Sunday afternoon. I had to announce to everyone in our grade that there was no barbecue. Even still to that day occasionally someone asks me how the barbecue went. Mrs. Bickerson is leading us into the cafeteria the back way, through the kitchen. We go through
this large storage area, where high shelves are stocked with boxes and gigantic cans of creamed corn and beans. The janitor and a couple of the coaches are having lunch in there on a foldout table. It looks like a good place to eat lunch.

“Coming in from the back door?” asks Coach Simpson.

“You got to try something different sometimes,” Mrs. Bickerson says. It sounds almost as if she were joking a little. I’ve never heard her even try to joke. Mrs. Bickerson tells us to hurry up and that lunchtime is practically almost over. “No dillydallying,” is how she puts it. The cafeteria is packed, so I go ahead and get the first empty seat I can find beside Will. I put my backpack on the table before getting back in line behind Katy. I’m served a plate of sloppy joes, fries, and beans and sit down. Will grins at me, his mouth full of food, and the only thing I see for a split second are Daryl’s nasty yellow-brown teeth. I suddenly have this ridiculous urge to brush my own teeth. I turn Will’s head with my hand. “Not today, man.” I try to go ahead and eat but it’s too much, so I run to the restroom and rinse my mouth out with water. When I get back to my seat, Will’s sitting in the seat beside mine and my plate’s gone. “Give me my damn plate,” I say in an exasperated tone, knowing he has hidden it. He pulls it out from his lap and puts it in front of me, snickering. “I was expecting to have to ask more than that. Are you tired or something?”

“Yeah, I am.”

REED HAD CALLED AND LEFT
a message during the day. I’d forgotten all about meeting him and his cousin Chip at the traveling fair in the Kmart parking lot. He wants me to come by his house and take him up on his offer to play some basketball. I don’t see why not, so I go over. He lives around the country club and the rest of the rich people
in town. So I go over to his house and shoot some roundball with him and Chip. There’s a hoop set up over his garage. Beside the hoop there’s a sign that reads
MOVE OUT
!

They’re good, better than my friends at Central, but I can keep up. These are guys who go to clinics and basketball camps during the summer, taking their game to the next level. If I want to play varsity, I would have to do the same thing. Not to mention practice until seven or eight every night. It doesn’t seem worth it. We play for a couple of hours and then sit around drinking Gatorade in Reed’s spacious living room. It’s got this vaulted ceiling that goes up about twenty feet.

“Samuel, you wanna come with us later? We’re gonna have some fun,” says Chip.

“What’s the plan?” I ask.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want. I’m not sure if I’m even gonna go,” says Reed.

“Why the hell not?” asks Chip.

“I got Christina to think about,” says Reed.

“What is it?” I ask.

“There’s a girl who’ll do it with all of us.”

“You mean at the same time?”

“No, one at a time. That’s why it’s called a train. But I guess if you wanted…”