Brutal Youth (34 page)

His partner said, “That wouldn’t necessarily be a sin, would it, Sister?”

“No,” she said, and reached out to touch both their faces. “It’s mercy.”

Inside the emergency room, she found the boy’s father and sister again. They wanted to pray some more, but she had other business to discuss with them. If Noah Stein survived, there was something more they could do to make his life a little easier.

*   *   *

Sister Maria found everything she needed in the janitor’s storage room, which Mr. Saducci had left unlocked in all the pandemonium during the flood. That was good. That meant anybody could have gotten ahold of these items, even a student.

In the boys’ bathroom, there was more blood streaking the floor than she expected. Her flashlight didn’t reveal all of it to her at once, which was probably for the best. She might have stopped right then, overwhelmed, but she had made a pledge. It was time to fulfill it.

She positioned the flashlight on the window ledge and hung her coat on a hook inside the third toilet stall, then rolled up the sleeves on her sweater.

The crowbar from the storage room was almost as long as a golf club, and so thick and heavy, she could hardly raise it. She wondered how Saducci would even use it, but it was so rusted and cobwebby, she guessed he didn’t. The nun raised the crowbar high over her head and let gravity do the rest.

The solid steel hook bit into the thick white lip of the sink and shattered it, dropping crumbled pebbles of porcelain like a shattered jaw, gushing a clear drool of water. She turned to the opposite wall and raised the prybar higher this time, turning her face aside as her frail arms pounded the hook against the first urinal, shattering it into ice-white chunks.

She tapped the crowbar against the flush handle a few times, sending a cascade of toilet water across the floor, flooding the bathroom and dissolving the thick trail of blood smeared across the tile, which swirled in a wide, brown galaxy as the brass drain embedded in the floor swallowed it.

Sister Maria closed her eyes and used the blunt end of the hook to crush out the remaining glass in the mirror Stein had punched. That might have been enough, but something in her wouldn’t stop. She hammered dents in the metal stalls around the toilets, cracking away round disks of paint, six decades thick. She caved in the towel dispenser, then swung at the plastic soap dispenser like it was a baseball, popping it in a plume of pink ooze.

When Sister Maria finally stopped, her lungs heaved furiously, her peppery hair hung in her eyes, and sweat beaded on her face and back. She leaned against the crowbar like a cane, flexing the numb fingers on her hands. A soreness clawed at her throat. She didn’t realize she had been screaming.

This was enough. She left the crowbar standing in one of the toilet bowls.
That’s how a vandal would abandon it,
she figured.

In the janitor’s closet, she had also found a box of spray paint—all different colors, though black seemed to be the appropriate one. She pulled the canister out of her peacoat pocket and aimed the flashlight toward the wall with the shattered urinal.

Keep it simple,
she thought.
Use an old standard.

FUCK YOU
, appeared on the green tile in long, dripping lines. She held the nozzle so close to the wall that black droplets bounced back and stained her fingers.

Sister Maria stood back, admiring the block letters. “Fuck … you,” she read aloud. It was the first time in her life she’d ever said those words, and it felt disgusting—bitter in her mouth.

She turned to the opposite wall, with the fractured sink and the smashed-out mirror. She needed something different here. How else would a crazed fifteen-year-old unleash his fury on his school? He would attack the people who had driven him to this, but Sister Maria knew she couldn’t single out any particular students, however much they deserved it. She raised the spray can and said each letter aloud as she wrote: “Ess … Ayy … Eye … Enn…”

Sister Maria stood back to scan the words with her flashlight:
SAINT MICHAELS

Then she spritzed an apostrophe between the
L
and
S.
The kid was supposed to be furious, not a moron.

Now what?
Saint Michael’s … Drop Dead?
Too tame.

It had to sound like a boy, not some fussy old nun. Everyone had to believe the story—a kid with a history of behavior problems had turned violent, trashed a bathroom, cut himself (accidentally) in the process, and was now suspended. The story might have a few little holes, but it would hold together. She just needed it to look legitimate.

SAINT MICHAEL’S
 …

“… Sucks,” she said, and began painting the word, cutting across the mirrors. Kids say that all the time.
This sucks, that sucks, you suck …

Sister Maria raised the paint nozzle once again, but hesitated, hovering in front of the letters. She had already committed to
sucks.
But what sucks? What did that word mean anyway?

The nun thought of the drain, guzzling water, and porcelain chips. That sucked, in the literal sense, but the slang referred to … Funny, she had never thought about it.

Penis,
she thought. Fine, she had unleashed the word in her mind. But
penis
was too clinical. She had never heard an angry student say, “Suck my penis!”

Pecker?
That was good.
Pecker
—she mentally added it to her list of euphemisms, but it felt a little too jaunty.
Wang
or
Ding-dong
seemed too … what? Juvenile?

The nun agonized over this longer than was prudent.

Cock.
That was a good one, right?
Cock.

But no.
A kid might use that word, but she would not. Too lusty.

Cock.
She tried to forget it, but the word kept insinuating itself.

“Dick,” she said, and it fit like a puzzle piece. The nun said a quick mental prayer of thanks. Strange to offer an Our Father for a word like that.

SAINT MICHAEL’S SUCKS DICK
appeared on the wall.

As she finished spraying the downward line on the
K,
Sister Maria’s arm absently let the hand holding the canister fall to her side, her finger still pressing the spray button, which hissed black mist into nothingness until it finally slipped from her shaking hand.

The bathroom door was open, and a shadow stood there, watching her.

Sister Maria’s foot clattered the spray can away as she stumbled backwards, grasping for the flashlight on the windowsill. The whiteness of a face stared at her from the darkness as she spun the light toward it.

The nun leaned back against the radiator, clutching a hand to her thundering heart.
Thank you God, thank you, oh God oh God oh God.

Peter Davidek stepped forward into the dim light, looking ill, his face pale, his hair matted and knotty. The navy blazer hanging over his shoulders seemed too large.

“What the hell are you doing here?” the nun asked, overwhelmed with relief that the person who had discovered her was the one person at St. Mike’s she needed to include in the lie anyway.

Davidek looked at the walls, and the runny black curses sprayed across them.

“I guess I could ask you the same question,” he said.

*   *   *

The homes of Tarentum were just glowing windows hanging in the mist as Sister Maria’s car rolled by in the darkness. Whenever the car passed under the cone of light from a streetlamp, Davidek’s eye kept being drawn to the backseat, where streaks of blood were crusting on the gray upholstery.

“So … he’s alive,” Sister Maria said, hoping for some sign of cheer from the boy. “We should be grateful for that.”

“How bad?”

She didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to upset him. But she didn’t want to lie. “You know what you saw,” she told him.

Each of the boy’s questions seemed to take a long time to arrive. “Will he be okay?”

The nun knew that if she and this boy Davidek were going to fool everyone else, they needed to be honest with each other. So she didn’t answer that one.

“You saved your friend’s life,” Sister Maria said. “But now we need to protect him some more. No one knows about this except us. I’d like to keep it that way.”

Davidek kept his face turned toward the nothingness outside his window. “I bet you would,” he said.

Sister Maria slowed to a stop for a red light at the Tarentum Bridge. To the right was a ramp leading down to where Hannah had taken Davidek for her little trap with the disposable camera. “The mess in the restroom was camouflage,” the nun said. “It will be better for him to be gone from school for that reason, rather than…” She didn’t finish the thought. The light turned green, and they were rolling again. “We all deserve to lose our mistakes. Maybe have a second chance? This will protect him if—”

“If he lives?” Davidek interrupted.

“If he comes back,” the nun said.

Davidek lowered his head. “He’s not coming back. Not to St. Mike’s.”

“That may be true,” Sister Maria agreed. “But he’ll be somewhere. This doesn’t have to follow him.”

“And what about the people who caused this?” Davidek asked. “Mullen and Simms? Smitty?
Lorelei?
You act like you’re doing Stein a favor, but nothing happens to them. They don’t even get to
feel
guilty. You say, ‘Oh, I’m protecting Stein.…’ But you’re protecting
them,
too.”

The nun’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Would hurting them help your friend?”

Davidek sank in his chair. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt. “Go past Valley High School, then keep on through the intersection toward Parnassus,” he said. When they passed a gas station and a video rental store, Davidek pointed right and she turned down his street.

Every window in his house was aglow. The nun parked at the corner and looked at the dashboard clock. It was 1:53
A.M.
“How will you explain being gone to your parents?” she asked.

“They’ll just want to yell, not ask questions,” he said. “I’ll just tell them I was hanging out with Stein and didn’t call because I didn’t want to come home. That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Peter, can I count on you to tell the story we’ve agreed to?”

Davidek got out of her car and reached back to pick up something he’d left on the seat—a red clip-on tie. “Everybody knows the school is falling apart,” he said. “The last thing you need is a kid trying to kill himself, right?”

The nun leaned forward so he could see her face in the dome light. “If you’re his friend, you’ll keep his secret.”

Davidek closed the door, then turned back and poked his finger against the glass. “Yeah, I’ll keep quiet,” he said. “But just remember—it’s
your
secret.” He looked down at the clip-on in his hands. “Stein wasn’t keeping them anymore.”

THIRTY-FOUR

The priest settled into the cushioned seat at the head of the main library table. Afternoon sunlight filtered in from the basement windows. The chatter in the cavernous room went silent. The entire faculty settled into their seats along the table, listening, every face grim.

“I’ll let Sister Maria explain it,” Father Mercedes said. “She’s the one responsible for it.”

Sister Maria began to speak what everyone already knew from gossip: The Stein boy had gone back into the school during the evacuation and wreaked havoc. Now he was suspended—indefinitely. “It’s a sad turn of events,” the nun said. “But this is for the best.”

The school had been closed for a week, and this was the first faculty meeting since the flood. No one knew whether to be celebratory or serious. Mrs. Arnerelli whispered to Zimmer that they better not extend the school year—she and her husband had already purchased nonrefundable tickets to Vegas for early June.

When Sister Maria finished, Father Mercedes rose from his seat. “You all give out a lot of grades at this school, but now it’s time you were graded yourselves.” He began to pace, slowly, caressing his hand on the back of each chair as he passed. “I’ve spoken with the parish council about a new plan: From now until graduation day, we’re going to fill the school with parish Monitors. These are regular people, concerned citizens—men and women from St. Mike’s who will oversee the behavior problems at this school firsthand. They’re going to spend the rest of the year documenting the problems here. And when it’s done, we’ll find out whether St. Michael the Archangel High School passes—or fails.”

There was general unease and shifting among the faculty. “What happens if the council decides we fail?” asked Miss Marisol, the young, first-year Algebra and Trigonometry teacher.

The priest fixed her with a flat expression. “Well,” he said. “The school closes.”

He stood there awhile and let their panicked chatter build, then shouted over it. “I don’t want to see any surprised faces! You know this. You talk about it privately. Parents confront you and you shrug and say, ‘I know, we’re trying.…’ That’s not good enough any longer. Not for the children you teach. Not for the parishioners who continue paying for your mistakes.”

He continued his slow walk around the table. “Another year will pass where I am asked, time and time again, ‘When will we rebuild the fallen church?’ After all the fund-raisers, all the donations, all the pancake breakfasts and candy sales and solicitations. After so much money is
nearly
raised to begin work on a foundation, I have to tell them, ‘Sorry. We gave what little we had … to fix the
school.
’ But right now, ‘the school’ is synonymous with ‘the embarrassment.’”

The priest flattened his hands on the long table, and his dim reflection in the varnish pressed back against him. “Right now you’re thinking, ‘It’s not
me
.… I do
my
best.… I show up, teach the lessons, grade the homework.…
I
work hard and stay late and sacrifice.…
I
do a good job.’ And maybe you do.” The priest shrugged. “But if you’re not to blame, who is?” He let the question hang there. No one spoke. Most heads around the table were bowed shamefully. Only Bromine kept her face high, eyes locked with Father Mercedes, trying to send him telepathic messages of support.