Shadows Burned In (10 page)

bong

David almost peed himself as the clock struck the hour.

(how long has he been gone, boy)

bong

(how long will he
be
gone, boy)

He stared desperately around.
Clean up the floor, idiot.
See if you can do
that
right!

bong

David was desperate now, forgetting all about the
punishment, all his thought bent on cleaning up the flour. He tiptoed through
the mess and into the kitchen to get the broom and dustpan.

bong

As he walked back to the scene of the crime, David gasped.
There was a short patch of carpet between the entryway and the kitchen, and
he’d just tracked flour across it. The dirt-brown carpet was now bespeckled
with white flecks.
Oh my God, oh my God—idiot!

bong

“First the floor,” he said to himself.

He went to the broken white semicircle and began sweeping it
back into the pattern his father had made. The silence returned and he looked
at the clock. It was five
P.M.
He had ten minutes at most to clean all
this up. The store wasn’t that far away.

He brushed off his pant leg, then swept the flour into a
little pile and scooped it into the dustpan with the broom. Then he resumed
reconstructing the barrier his father had made. He was careful not to make it
quite so wide, else he’d never be able to get back inside it. He hoped the old
man wouldn’t notice.

Once he’d cleaned up the mess on the floor, he went to the
coat closet, got out the vacuum cleaner, and went to work on the carpet. David
tried to work fast, because with the vacuum cleaner running, he wouldn’t hear
if his father returned.
Maybe a little
too
spotless
, he thought,
looking at the clean patch he’d just made. It seemed just the slightest bit
cleaner than the surrounding carpet.
Maybe he won’t notice
, David hoped
again.

He put the vacuum cleaner up and returned the broom and
dustpan to the kitchen after rinsing both off in the sink.

ding-ding-ding-dong . . . ding-ding-dong-ding

The clock chimed the half hour.

(better hurry, boy)

David slipped it into overdrive, returning to the entryway and
staring at the flour prison. He was free. He was out.
Escaped
. And here
he was putting himself back in again, of his own free will.

Idiot
.

He stared at the flour and thought his father, if he was
lucky, would’ve started drinking the beer before he got back. If he’d had
enough of it, David knew from experience, chances were he’d forget ever having
punished the boy. On the other hand, there was all this flour here in a
semicircle.

thrrrruuummmmmmmmmm

The distant, grinding mechanical sound startled the boy out
of his options. The garage door was rising.

His father was home.

tick

He stood for a moment more, reveling in the defiant thought
of his father coming in and finding him outside the flour prison. He would take
great pride in how upset, startled, and thrown for a loop his father would be
to find the punishment abandoned. Right before David suffered retribution for
his revolution.

tock

There was a pause from outside, then the thrumming started
again as the garage door descended.

David carefully lifted his leg over the flour wall to climb
back in again.

tick

His heart beat faster as he heard the back door open.

tock

He stood in the semicircle now, staring straight at the
wall. Carefully he began to lower himself to the floor. His legs, as if they
knew what was coming, tried to slow him down.

ticktock

His father was unloading the beer into the fridge. He didn’t
bother to take the cans out of their twelve-pack cartons. He just slid them
onto the wire shelves.

David put one knee down, then the other, wincing. He heard
the fridge door close and two shoes being kicked off two feet.

Knees still hurting from the last time, he sat straight up,
facing the wall.

slap – slap – slap

So close to freedom. Tasted it. Walked it
.

“David,” said his father.

He closed his eyes.
I won’t cry, I won’t cry, I
won’t.

“You gonna mow the grass next time I tell you?”

David bit his lip and clenched his eyes shut, trying to
squeeze the tears away.

“Y-yes, sir.”

His father said, “Then you can get up.” He heard the old man
turn away.

David breathed deeply once and lifted himself up. He was
determined not to disturb the flour when he did it. It was a test. To prove to himself
that he could do it.

What, up again?
his legs screamed at him.
Can’t
you make up your mind?

But he stood up slowly, using the wall for balance, and not
a bit of flour was moved. He smiled inwardly. A tiny victory.

His father poked his head back around the kitchen door. “Oh,
and get the broom and dustpan and clean that shit up.”

Chapter 9

While his father snored an evening away in his chair
watching
60 Minutes
, David spent Sunday night stretching out his
freedom. Sunday nights were always bittersweet for the boy. Even after he went
to bed, he’d try to hold his eyes open as long as he could, savoring every
moment before the school week began again.

Tonight he lay in bed, thinking about Halloween on
Wednesday. He and Theron Taylor wanted to do something
really
special.
No treats for this one.
Tricks only
, he thought.
That’s all we want
on Halloween.
A trick to end all tricks. But so far they hadn’t decided
what to do.

David stared up at the fan blades cutting blurry slices from
the ceiling above him. It was nice and cool now. Fall blew into Texas like a
sudden rain soaking a parched field. Chapped lips were soothed. Foreheads were
dried. People came out of their houses again for the pure pleasure of standing
outside and commenting on the cool.

Which makes it the perfect time for a Halloween trick
,
David thought as he fell asleep.

The boy was still thinking that the next morning in class
when Mrs. McKinley repeated his name again.

“
Well
, Mr. Jackson?”

He started, looking around. The other kids sniggered. Even
Theron. Freddie Martinez hadn’t, though. He didn’t want to attract Mrs.
McKinley’s attention. He didn’t know the answer either.

“I said, how do we make a fraction into a whole number?” Her
attitude made it seem like she half hoped he wouldn’t get the answer right.
Come
on
, it seemed to say.
Please mess up. Let me ridicule you in front of
the
entire class.

David was a deer caught in the headlights. How did he get
here? The last thing he remembered was lying in bed, planning Halloween . . .
and then the monotony of the morning came back to him: waking up suddenly from
some dream he didn’t remember, looking at the clock, realizing he’d fallen
asleep.
Back to jail again
, he’d thought, rising slowly to go to the
bathroom. Monday morning, and time for school. New week, same old routine.

And here he was in first period. Math. They’d just finished
learning how to find a common denominator in fractions, and Mrs. McKinley, the
just-out-of-college teacher and advisor for the Hampshire Junior Varsity
cheerleaders, was asking them the procedure for converting a fraction into a
whole number.

Theron Taylor, David’s best friend, watched Mrs.—or “Miss,”
as the students invariably called her—McKinley pace back and forth in front of
the chalkboard. David, sitting next to him, was totally lost, but Theron had
his mind on something else. Even as Mrs. McKinley repeated her question, he was
planning his strategy.

There. Two more feet
, thought Theron.
That’s all.
Just two more feet
.

“Mr. Jackson, will you kindly stay awake?” she asked,
finally breaking the leaden silence. “I’ll come back to you in a minute with
another question.” Mrs. McKinley sought another draftee, since no volunteer was
forthcoming. Her eyes lit on Theron’s face staring intently up at her.
Good
as any, I guess
, she thought, smiling down at him.

Theron only partly heard her repeat the question to him. She
was beautiful.
Young, blonde, and nice bazongas
, he thought. And almost
right where he wanted her.

“How about you, Mr. Taylor? Any ideas how to make a fraction
into the whole number one?”

Was she talking to him? Had she said something? He didn’t
know, but he
did
know that she was nearly positioned perfectly.

Mrs. McKinley cleared her throat. “Mr. Taylor? Has your
hearing problem returned from yesterday?”

When he failed to answer her, she moved one step closer.

Off went the pencil from his desk, and no, she hadn’t
noticed that he’d knocked it off on purpose. He smiled inwardly as he noticed
that he’d damn near centered the No. 2 on top of the small, almost
imperceptible “X” mark he and Freddie had made on the cheap carpet with the
chalk. They had then rubbed it out, of course, leaving the slightest smudge to
mark the spot.

“Oh . . .” he said. “I’m sorry, Miss McKinley.”

She smirked slightly, sure that this had been one of those
delaying tactics the boys in the class always pulled on her. They’d taught her
all about such tactics in the education courses she’d taken at The University
of Texas. “They all think they can fool you with their little games, Jill,” her
professor with benefits had warned her. “You need to take them by their freshly
grown short hairs and show them who’s boss.” Yes, the boys in this class in
particular were always ready and willing to test her, and she always met the
test with the same resolve.

“Mr. Taylor, answer the question, please.” Her unconscious
smirk of triumph waited as the boy formed his answer. From the corner of her
eye, she noticed David’s right hand finally creep into the air, but Jill
McKinley ignored it.
You’re not going to pull one over on me, little mister.
I’ve been trained by the
best.

“Uh—could you get my pencil for me, Miss McKinley?” asked
Theron.

The smirk grew wider, more hungry, more satisfied. “After
you answer the question, Mr. Taylor.”

He shrugged. Whatever it took. “What was the question
again?”

Now she was getting angry, and her eyes showed it. They
reminded Theron of the way his mother looked when she was about to call his
father to come and thwack him one. He wondered if Mrs. McKinley would also call
him by all three of his names and grab him up by the ear the way his mother
did.

Mrs. McKinley took a deep breath, still ignoring David’s now
fully extended arm. “The question was, Mr. Taylor, how do you make a fraction
into a whole number?”

Theron actually looked pensive for a moment. Nothing like
the promise of what was to come to spur his mathematical prowess, limited as it
might be, into action.

“Um, you multiply it by its inverse, right?”

The class was silent. No one seemed to be breathing. Jill
McKinley paused and placed her right elbow in her left hand, regarding Theron
with an amused stare and stroking her chin with thumb and forefinger. Theron
noticed that her right breast was cupped quite nicely in the crook of her arm,
squeezing it up to make the slightest raised hill peeking out of her blouse.
She stared at him for a moment, a smile creeping across her lips.

“Well, Mr. Taylor, as surprised as I am, you seem to have
come up with the correct answer. Now, I’ll be happy to pick up that pencil.”

Mrs. McKinley bent over to pick it up, and in the short
eternity she needed to grasp the pencil, Theron and every other boy in the
class raised themselves at least six inches from their chairs. Theron, who had
the best vantage point—as was only fair, since he’d taken the chance and
dropped the pencil—could see right down the front of her blouse into her
cleavage.
A white-lace bra today
, he thought, hoping beyond hope to
catch a glimpse of that ever-elusive nipple.
Damn
. She rose and, as if
choreographed with her movement upward, the boys all settled back into their
seats. An audible breath, audible at least to the girls—who had all rolled
their eyes in disgust—exhaled across the room.

“Here’s your pencil, Mr. Taylor.”

“Thank you, M-miss McKinley. Thank you
very
much.”

He looked toward the board and the strategically placed
eraser. She hadn’t erased all morning, much to the boys’ collective chagrin.
Before class, Freddie had sneaked in and put one eraser on the floor in front
of the chalkboard. About once a month they pulled this one, else she’d catch on
and—yep!—she’d placed her hands on her hips.

Step one
, thought David.

“Has anyone seen my erasers?” she asked, thinking,
I lose
more erasers in this class than any other
. . .

Freddie said, “Um, there’s one on the floor there, Miss
McKinley.”

“So I see,” she said suspiciously. “Who keeps putting my
erasers on the floor? And I know I have
two
of those things.”

“I don’t know, Miss McKinley,” Freddie said innocently.

“Mm-hmm,” she replied, walking toward the board.

The bell erupted with a loud clanging. Mrs. McKinley bent
over to pick up the eraser.

Fourteen young boys raised themselves six inches in their
chairs. Thirteen young girls rolled their eyes again. Theron’s mouth opened
slightly.

Mrs. McKinley stood back up and turned to face them, saying,
“Tomorrow we start working on both sides of the equals sign, so read up on
chapter five.”

“Yes, Miss McKinley.” More or less in unison, the class
moaned at the prospect of homework. Some of the girls made disgusted clucking
sounds.

“Theron?”

He hadn’t moved from his desk.

“Yes, ma’am?” he asked, sounding shy, even embarrassed.

“You can go, honey. Class is over.”

He was the one student left, and he hadn’t moved from his
chair. Hadn’t stood up, even.

“Yes ma’am, I know,” he said, cheeks a bit crimson. “But I
just thought I’d sit here for a minute. I’m feelin a little . . . tired.”

She regarded him for a minute, then nodded. “Okay. Take your
time.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said sheepishly.

Taking a bite out of a sandwich, David motioned Theron over.
“That was pretty good in class this morning,” he said.

“Yeah,” Theron nodded. “Getting a glance at Miss M’s
bazongas is always good. Getting her to bend over was just icing on the cake!”

David giggled a bit, almost choking on the bologna and
bread. “Man, you’re the best at it too,” he said, trying to chew. It came out,
“Manph, you de besht addit too.” He finished up the mouthful and said, “She
doesn’t suspect nothing.”

Theron smiled, impressed as usual with his own ability to
get Mrs. McKinley to bend over in front of his desk. A stirring in his groin
reminded him of the outcome, so he quickly started thinking about kickball,
math, and helping his father with the car next weekend. That helped.

“I mean,” continued David, “the way you got her to stand on
the
spot
. Dude, you ought to be in the hall of—”

“Yeah-yeah,” said Theron, trying to change the subject.
“What’s going on over there?”

Voices filtered toward them, like a group of kids singing a
song or chanting a rhyme like “London Bridge Is Falling Down.” Soon enough the
words were clear, and one shrill, pleading voice broke the rhythm. Theron and
David smiled. It was turning into a
very
good day.

“Regina, Regina, she’s such a va-jeena,” came the chant.
“She’s so poor she eats day-old farina!”

The chorus could be heard in rounds now, like “Row, Row, Row
Your Boat,” and it carried across the playground. The boys could see them now,
a crowd of about six kids following one. The girl, pinch faced and red haired,
stomped away from the crowd as fast as she could, occasionally turning back and
hurling “Leave me alone! Just leave me
alone
!” at them, as she always
did when they made fun of her. Her corduroy dress looked like it was made of
sackcloth converted by her mother in an effort to dress her conservatively for
school. Trying to be frugal, her mother made all her clothes, every stitch. But
Regina hated her homemade dresses, since they only provided her classmates one
more reason to tease her. The girl stomped away, fists tight, glasses smudged
because she refused to wipe her eyes in front of her tormentors.

“Regina, Regina, she’s such a va-jeena. She’s so poor she
eats day-old farina!”

“Shut
up
!” she screeched.

David and Theron watched her approach. Then they picked up
the chant.

“Regina, Regina, she’s such a va-jeena,” they said again.
“She’s so poor she eats day-old farina!”