The Chocolate War (11 page)

THE NEXT MORNING Jerry found out how a hangover must feel. His eyes burned with fire, fueled by lack of sleep. His head throbbed with shooting pains. His stomach was sensitive to the slightest movement and the lurching of the bus caused strange reactions in his body. It reminded him of when he was a kid and got carsick sometimes on trips to the beach with his parents so that they’d have to stop the car by the side of the road while Jerry either vomited or waited for the storm in his stomach to subside. What added to his troubles this morning was the possibility of a test in geography and he hadn’t studied at all last night so wrapped up had he been in the chocolate sale and what had happened in Leon’s class. Now, he was paying the penalty for too little sleep and no study—trying to read a lousy geography lesson on a lumbering lurching bus, the morning light dazzling on the white page.

Somebody slipped into the seat beside him.

“Hey, Renault, you got guts, know that?”

Jerry looked up, blinded momentarily as his eyes shifted from the page to the face of the kid who’d spoken to him. He knew him vaguely from school—a junior, maybe. Lighting a cigarette the way all the smokers did despite the “No Smoking” signs, the kid shook his head. “Boy, you really let Leon that bastard have it. Beautiful.” He blew out smoke. Jerry’s eyes stung.

“Oh,” he said, feeling stupid. And surprised. Funny, all this time he had thought of the situation as a private battle between Brother Leon and himself, as if the two of them were alone on the planet. Now, he realized that it had gone beyond that.

“I’m so sick of selling the frigging chocolates,” the kid said. He had a terrible case of acne, his face like a relief map. And his fingers were stained with nicotine. “I’ve been at Trinity two years—I transferred from Monument High when I was a freshman—and Christ I’m getting tired of selling stuff.” He tried to blow a smoke ring but failed. Worse than that—the smoke blew back in Jerry’s face, stinging his eyes. “If it isn’t chocolates, it’s Christmas cards. If it isn’t Christmas cards, it’s soap. If it isn’t soap, it’s calendars. But you know what?”

“What?” Jerry asked, wanting to get back to his geography.

“I never thought of just saying no. Like you did.”

“I’ve got some studying to do,” Jerry said, not knowing what to say, really.

“Boy, you’re cool, know that?” the kid said admiringly.

Jerry blushed with pleasure despite himself. Who didn’t want to be admired? And yet he felt guilty, knowing that he was accepting the kid’s admiration under false pretenses, that he wasn’t cool at all, not at all. His head pounded and his stomach moved menacingly and he realized he had to face Brother Leon and the roll call again this morning. And all the mornings to come.

The Goober was waiting for him at the school’s entrance, standing tense and troubled among the other fellows waiting for school to start, like prisoners resigned to execution, taking their final drags from cigarettes before the bells began to ring. The Goober motioned Jerry aside. Jerry followed him guiltily. He realized that Goober wasn’t the cheerful happy-go-lucky kid he’d known when school first started. What had happened? He’d been so wrapped up in his own concerns that he hadn’t bothered about Goob.

“Jeez, Jerry, what did you do it for?” Goober asked, drawing him away from the others.

“Do what?”

But he knew what Goober meant.

“The chocolates.”

“I don’t know, Goob,” Jerry said. It was no use
faking out Goober the way he had faked out that kid on the bus. “That’s the truth—I don’t know.”

“You’re asking for trouble, Jerry. Brother Leon spells trouble.”

“Look, Goob,” Jerry said, wanting to reassure his friend, wanting to wipe that look of concern from his face. “It’s not the end of the world. Four hundred kids in this school are going to sell chocolates. What does it matter if I don’t?”

“It’s not that simple, Jerry. Brother Leon won’t let you get away with it.”

The warning bell sounded. Cigarettes were flipped into the gutter or mashed into the sand-filled receptacle near the door. Last drags were inhaled lingeringly. Guys who’d been sitting in cars listening to rock on the radio switched them off and slammed the doors behind them.

“Nice going, kid,” somebody said, hurrying by, the pat on the ass Trinity’s traditional gesture of friendship. Jerry didn’t see who it was.

“Keep it up, Jerry.” This, a corner-of-the-mouth whisper from Adamo who hated Leon with a vengeance.

“See how the word is spreading?” Goober hissed. “What’s more important—football and your marks or the lousy chocolate sale?”

The bell rang again. It meant two minutes left to get to your locker and then to your homeroom.

A senior by the name of Benson approached
them. Seniors were trouble for freshmen. It was better to be ignored by them than to be noticed. But Benson was clearly headed in their direction. He was a nut, known for his lack of inhibitions, his complete disregard of the rules.

As he neared Jerry and Goober, he began a Jimmy Cagney imitation, shooting his cuffs and hunching his shoulders. “Hey, there, guy. I wouldn’t … I wouldn’t be in your shoes … I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a thou, boy, a mill …” He punched Jerry playfully on the arm.

“You couldn’t fit those shoes anyway, Benson,” somebody yelled. And Benson danced away, Sammy Davis now, wide grin, feet tapping, body whirling.

Walking up the stairs, Goober said, “Do me a favor, Jerry. Take the chocolates today.”

“I can’t, Goob.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t. I’m committed now.”

“The goddam Vigils,” Goober said.

Jerry had never heard Goober swear before. He’d always been a mild kind of kid, rolling with the punches, loose and carefree, running around the track while the other kids sat uptight during practice sessions.

“It’s not The Vigils, Goob. They’re not in it anymore. It’s me.”

They stopped at Jerry’s locker.

“All right,” Goober said, resigned, knowing it
was useless to pursue the subject any further at the moment. Jerry felt sad suddenly because Goober looked so troubled, like an old man heaped with all the sorrows of the world, his thin face drawn and haggard, his eyes haunted, as if he had awakened from a nightmare he couldn’t forget.

Jerry opened his locker. He had thumbtacked a poster to the back wall of the locker on the first day of school. The poster showed a wide expanse of beach, a sweep of sky with a lone star glittering far away. A man walked on the beach, a small solitary figure in all that immensity. At the bottom of the poster, these words appeared—
Do I dare disturb the universe?
By Eliot, who wrote the Waste Land thing they were studying in English. Jerry wasn’t sure of the poster’s meaning. But it had moved him mysteriously. It was traditional at Trinity for everyone to decorate the interior of his locker with a poster. Jerry chose this one.

He had no time now to ponder the poster any longer. The final bell rang and he had thirty seconds to get to class.

“Adamo?”

“Two.”

“Beauvais?”

“Three.”

It was a different roll call this morning, a new melody, a new tempo, as if Brother Leon were
the conductor and the class the members of a verbal orchestra, but something wrong with the beat, something wrong with the entire proceedings, as if the members of the orchestra were controlling the pace and not the conductor. No sooner would Brother Leon call out a name than the response came immediately, before Leon had time to make a notation in the ledger. It was the kind of spontaneous game that developed in classes without premeditation, everyone falling into a sudden conspiracy. The quickness of the responses kept Brother Leon busy at his desk, head bent, pencil furiously scribbling. Jerry was glad that he wouldn’t have to look into those watery eyes.

“LeBlanc?”

“One.”

“Malloran?”

“Two.”

Names and numbers sizzled in the air and Jerry began to notice something curious about it. All the ones and twos, and an occasional three. But no fives, no tens. And Brother Leon’s head still bent, concentrating on the ledger. And finally—

“Renault.”

It would be so easy, really, to yell “Yes.” To say, “Give me the chocolates to sell, Brother Leon.” So easy to be like the others, not to have to confront
those terrible eyes every morning. Brother Leon finally looked up. The tempo of the roll call had broken.

“No,” Jerry said.

He was swept with sadness, a sadness deep and penetrating, leaving him desolate like someone washed up on a beach, a lone survivor in a world full of strangers.

“AT THIS PERIOD OF HISTORY, man began to learn more about his environment—”

Suddenly, pandemonium reigned. The class exploded in frantic motion. Brother Jacques looked aghast. The boys leaped from their chairs, performed an insane jig, jumping up and down as if to the beat of unheard music, all of this in complete silence—although the sound of their jogging feet was noisy enough—and then sat down again, frozen-faced, as if nothing had happened.

Obie watched the teacher sourly. Brother Jacques was obviously bewildered. Bewildered? Hell, he was on the edge of panic. The ritual had been going on for a week now and it would continue until the cue was heard no more. In the meantime, the class would suddenly erupt into a confusion of waving arms and jogging legs, unsettling poor Brother. Of course, Brother Jacques was easy to unsettle—he was new and young and sensitive, raw meat for Archie. And
he evidently didn’t know what to do about it and so he didn’t do anything, figuring apparently that the thing would run its course and why risk a futile showdown when it was obviously a prank. What else could it be? Funny, Obie thought, how everybody—the kids as well as the teachers—knew these stunts were planned or carried out by The Vigils and yet they still maintained that air of mystery, refusing to acknowledge it all. He wondered why. Obie had been involved in so many Vigil assignments that he’d lost count of them and he was continually amazed at how they got away with it all the time. In fact, he’d been getting tired of the assignments, of playing nursemaid for Archie and his trigger man as well. He was tired of being the fixer, making certain the assignment went off on schedule in order to maintain Archie’s big shot reputation. Like the Room Nineteen assignment when he’d had to creep in there and help the kid Goober take the place apart—all that work so that Archie and The Vigils would look good. Even this particular assignment involved him—if Brother Jacques failed to come up with the cue, then Obie had to find a way to feed it to him.

The cue was the word “environment.” As Archie had said when he announced the assignment, “The world today is concerned with ecology, the environment, our natural resources. We at Trinity also ought to get involved in this environment thing.
You guys,” he said, indicating the fourteen students of Grade Twelve Class II, of whom Obie was a member, “will carry on our environmental campaign. Let’s say Brother Jacques’ U.S. History class—history should be concerned with environment, shouldn’t it? Now, whenever Brother Jacques says the word ‘environment,’ here’s what happens …” And Archie had outlined the instructions.

“Suppose he doesn’t use the word?” someone asked.

Archie looked toward Obie. “Oh, Brother Jacques will use the word. I’m sure somebody—Obie, maybe—will ask a question that will produce the word. Won’t you, Obie?”

Obie had nodded, disguising his disgust. What the hell was Archie involving him in an assignment at this stage of the game for? He was a senior, for crying out loud. He was secretary of the goddam Vigils, for crying out loud. Jesus, how he hated Archie, that bastard.

A new kid, a transfer from Monument High, asked, “What happens when Brother Jacques finds out we’re putting him on? When he finds out that the key word is environment?”

“Then he stops using it,” Archie said. “Which is the point of the whole damn thing. I’m getting sick and tired of all this environment crap—and at least we’ll have one teacher in the frigging school who’ll cross it off his vocabulary list.”

For his part, Obie was getting sick and tired of
Archie, of picking up the pieces behind him, of performing those little services—like Room Nineteen or cueing in Brother Jacques, feeding him a question that could only lead to the word “environment” in the answer. Anyway he was getting fed up with the entire deal. And he was also biding his time, waiting for Archie to overreach himself, to make a mistake. The black box was always there and who could tell when Archie’s luck would run out?

“In any discussion of the environment …”

Here we go again, Obie thought in disgust as he found himself leaping up and down like a madman, jogging his heart out, hating every minute of the damn thing. And his energy was wearing down.

Brother Jacques used the word “environment” five more times in the next fifteen minutes. Obie and the other guys were practically wiped out from all that jumping up and down, weary, out of breath, their legs beginning to ache.

When Brother Jacques used the word a sixth time and a weary battalion of students struggled to their feet to perform their task, Obie saw a small smile play on the lips of the teacher. And he knew immediately what had happened. Archie, that bastard, must have tipped Brother Jacques off, anonymously, of course, to what was going on. And the teacher had turned the tables. It was now the teacher who was in command,
making the guys jump up and down until they almost collapsed in exhaustion.

When they left the classroom, there was Archie leaning against the wall, that smirk of triumph on his face. The other guys didn’t realize what had happened. But Obie did. He gave Archie a look that would shrivel anybody else, but Archie just kept that silly smile on his face.

Obie stalked off, insulted, injured. You bastard, he thought, I owe you for that.

KEVIN CHARTIER HAD GONE to seven houses after school and hadn’t sold a box. Mrs. Connors next to the dry cleaners had told him to come back at the end of the month when her Social Security check came from the government but he didn’t have the heart to tell her that it would probably be too late by then. A dog chased him halfway home. It was like one of those terrible dogs the Nazis used for hunting down concentration camp prisoners who escaped in those old TV pictures. At home, disgusted, he telephoned his best friend, Danny Arcangelo.