Breakfast with Neruda

Copyright © 2016 by Laura Moe.

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

Merit Press

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.meritpressbooks.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-9219-5

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9219-5

eISBN 10: 1-4405-9220-9

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9220-1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

Cover design by Frank Rivera.

Cover image © Istockphoto.com/rudchenko.

“Daring Enough to Finish” from
The Glance: Songs of Soul-Meeting
by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, translation copyright © 1999 by Coleman Barks, used with permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Excerpts from
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac, used with permission from Penguin Publishing Group, Penguin Random House LLC.

Excerpt from
The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, translated by Lucia Graves, used with permission from Penguin Publishing Group, Penguin Random House LLC.

The first two lines of “Sonnet XL” and third and fourth lines of “Sonnet XVII” from
100 Love Sonnets/Cien sonetos de amor
by Pablo Neruda, translated by Stephen Tapscott, copyright © Pablo Neruda, 1959, and Fundación Pablo Neruda, copyright © 1986 by The University of Texas Press. By permission of the publisher.

• Title Page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Epilogue
  
• Acknowledgments
  

This book is dedicated to all my former students. Your tales are worthy of being told.

It was
green, the silence; the light was moist; the month of June trembled like a butterfly.

Pablo Neruda

The hallway is dark and abandoned except for the clanging of metal against tile. Earl, the head custodian, fills a giant bucket near the janitor's closet with water. He looks up at me, nods, and keeps filling the pail.

“How come it's so dark in here?” I ask.

“I look better in the dark,” Earl says. He laughs and reveals a gold front tooth. He's a raggedy guy of about sixty who always has a cud of tobacco in his mouth. “Power's still out from the storm.”

“Oh yeah,” I say, nodding, as if I know anything about the power outage. It had stormed like an apocalypse last night, so yeah, it probably knocked the power off. I hold out my hand. “Michael Flynn, reporting for duty.”

“I know who you are.” Earl shuts off the hose and looks me over. “Listen, kid, I know what you did to get stuck here all summer, and I don't put up with any crap,” he says. “We clear on that?”

“Yes, sir,” I respond.

He wheels the bucket into the hallway and I follow. “First thing you're gonna do is start cleaning out the lockers.” He snorts. “Kind of ironic for you.”

My face reddens, and Earl gestures to the end of the hallway. “Start at that end and work your way back. Take a big trashcan with you.” He indicates one of the enormous wheeled tubs next to the elevator. “The first thing you'll find is backpacks. When you get a full one, open it up, and if you don't find any explosives,” he sneers at me, “take the books out and lay them on the floor, along with the bag. Throw out anything else that's junk, like used notebooks, food, or dirty clothes.” Earl reaches for a spray bottle and a wad of rags. “And if you find coats, shoes, or semi-clean clothes, put those on the floor too.”

“What do you do with it all?”

“We donate it to the homeless shelter.”

I nod.

“Anything else that looks valuable, like calculators, toss on the floor too. We'll separate all that out later.”

“Okay.”

He hands me the bottle of cleaner and rags. “After you get all the junk out, spray the inside of the locker and wipe it down.”

I wait for any more instructions. “Get moving, kid.”

I wheel a giant trashcan to the end of the hallway. It's been months since I've been inside the school. It may be the darkened hallways and the lack of students, but I feel like I'm in a whole new universe. I reach out to open the first locker, but it has a lock dangling from its handle. I notice several others do too. “Uh, Earl?” I shout. “This may be a stupid question, but how do I open lockers if they still have locks on them?”

“Oh, hell!” He disappears into the janitor supply room and marches toward me holding bolt cutters. “Hess was supposed to cut these off last week.” He snaps the locks off like they're twigs.

I open the first locker and it's stuffed. “Wow. How can people leave all this crap behind?”

“Beats the hell out of me. You kids have no sense of value anymore. My folks would've hog-tied me and hung me from the rafters if I'd left anything valuable at school.”

Earl grumbles to himself as he walks back to his end of the hall. I pull out a black book bag. It's like lifting an SUV. I open it up and pull out three textbooks, two library books, a hoodie, and a fairly new pair of shoes. I set them on the floor. Inside the zippered pocket are a calculator and an assortment of pens, pencils, packs of gum, and a full can of Dr Pepper. I shove the pens and gum in my back pocket and stuff the Dr Pepper in the leg pocket of my cargo pants. The rest of what's inside I empty into the bin. I place the bag on top of the hoodie and move on to the next locker. I spot Earl at the opposite end, swabbing the floor, whistling. He's been working here since the Pleistocene. A lot of kids think he's a jerk because he's not exactly a warm fuzzy, but I'm grateful he agreed to let me work off my community service here. Better than wearing a neon orange vest, picking up trash along the freeway or painting rest stop outhouses.

I'm surprised to find book bags in lockers since I heard they were banned after my stunt, and it is kind of ironic I am cleaning the lockers I almost blew up. I didn't mean to blow up the building, only my ex-best friend Rick Shraver's car, but in a moment of freakishly bad judgment, I carried enough explosives in my book bag to detonate the whole west wing of Rooster High.

I got off light, though. I had no criminal record, and had never been in much trouble other than a few detentions. And Rick didn't want to press charges since nothing really happened, so they gave me community service. The judge felt I could be “rehabilitated.” I was, however, expelled for the rest of the school year, and I was banned from public school for the rest of the year, so I will be repeating senior year at Rooster High.

It takes all morning to go through the west hallway on the first floor. Hess, the assistant custodian, and another student helper (a.k.a. juvenile delinquent) are working on the second floor. I can hear them clattering and banging above me.

By the time I reach the end of the hallway, I have excavated twenty backpacks, too many books to count, several pieces of jewelry, a pair of glasses, some cash (which I pocket), and an iPod with a charger and earbuds, which I also nab.

I come to a locker I know well, next to what used to be my own. Inside is a leather band jacket. Rick's. I glance down the hall. Earl is clear at the other end. I toss the jacket in the trash, along with the textbooks inside the book bag. Let him have to pay for them. Then I feel kind of guilty and dig it all back out. Rick did kind of half forgive me for trying to incinerate his ride. He didn't want to press charges, but the school did. I set the jacket on the floor, but I keep the Speedway gas card I dug out of one of the pockets.

Earl glances at the mess of stuff on the floor and shakes his head. “You kids act like money grows on trees. You don't know the value of a dollar.”

I'm pretty careful with my money, and I don't tell Earl my home is a 1982 Ford LTD station wagon I call the Blue Whale, and the only reason I go to school here is my last known address is in this district.

At 11:15, Earl says, “It's time for lunch, kid.”

“How long is the lunch break?”

“Half an hour.”

“I guess I'll go home and eat.”

“Suit yourself,” he says. “Be back at 11:45.”

I go out to my car and count the cash I palmed from locker cleanup. A little over eighteen bucks. I pull a plastic grocery bag out from under the passenger-side seat and scrounge for some change. I now have almost twenty-three bucks to last me for the next five days until pay day. If I plan this right I can get some gas, have enough cash left for a drive-thru lunch, and buy a few groceries.

I stop for gas and get the eleven bucks' worth left on Rick's Speedway card and pull into the Wendy's drive-thru to order a single cheeseburger, fries, and water. My two-dollar splurge. I park in the lot to eat. I fiddle with the iPod, but the battery is dead.

I finish eating and lob my crumpled wrappers in the trash bin on the way out, but I save my cup.

Back at school I find Earl in the teachers' lounge. I'd never seen the inside of the teachers' hangout. I half expected it to be dark and comfortable like an actual lounge, but it's a miniature version of the school cafeteria. They have the same gray metal tables and plastic chairs.

Hess is there too, along with a girl I don't know, one of those Black-Haired Girls: natural blondes and brunettes who dye their hair black. On most girls it makes them look like they're dead, but on this chick it kind of works. She has navy blue eyes and pale skin, so the hair is an interesting contrast even though she wears zombie eyeliner. She's thin in a not-quite-starving way. Still, she's not my type.

“Hey kid,” Earl says. “Have a cookie.” A plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies sits on the table.

I never turn down free food. “Thanks.”

“My wife makes them.”

I take a bite and my endorphins go into overdrive. “This is the best cookie I've ever eaten,” I say.

Earl chuckles and slides the plate my way. “Dottie will be glad to hear that. Eat up, kid.”

“She keeps us well fed,” Hess says. He pats his massive belly. “Wait 'til you try her banana cream pie.”

I sit down and take another cookie. I glance at the girl, her long black hair bound in a loose braid halfway down her back. She looks sort of familiar, but I can't quite place her.

“Hey,” she says. She reaches for a cookie.

“This is Shelly,” Hess says to me.” Shelly, meet Michael.”

“The Unabomber.” She bites into the cookie. “Yeah, I've heard about you.”

Who hasn't? The YouTube video of my arrest went viral. “I only murdered and ate six people, not ten,” I say. “The media exaggerates.”