The Chocolate War (5 page)

“Wait a minute,” Brother Leon said. Softly—but heard by everyone. “Nobody moves.”

The students settled in their chairs again.

Brother Leon regarded them pityingly, shaking his head, a sad and dismal smile on his lips. “You poor fools,” he said. “You idiots. Do you know who’s the best one here? The bravest of all?” He placed his hand on Bailey’s shoulder. “Gregory Bailey, that’s who. He denied cheating. He stood up to my accusations. He stood his ground! But you, gentlemen, you sat there and enjoyed yourselves. And those of you who didn’t enjoy yourselves allowed it to happen, allowed me to proceed. You turned this classroom into Nazi Germany for a few moments. Yes, yes, someone finally protested.
Aw, let the kid alone
.” Mimicking the deep voice perfectly. “A feeble protest, too little and too late.” There was scuffling in the corridors, students waiting to enter. Leon ignored the noise. He turned to Bailey, touched the top of his head with the pointer as if he were bestowing knighthood. “You did well, Bailey. I’m proud of you. You passed the biggest test of all—you were true to yourself.” Bailey’s chin was wobbling all
over the place. “Of course you don’t cheat, Bailey,” his voice tender and paternal. He gestured toward the class—he was a great one for gestures. “Your classmates out there. They’re the cheaters. They cheated you today. They’re the ones who doubted you—I never did.”

Leon went to his desk. “Dismissed,” he said, his voice filled with contempt for all of them.

“WHAT’RE YOU DOING, Emile?” Archie asked, amusement in his voice. The amusement was there because it was obvious what Emile Janza was doing—he was siphoning gas from a car, watching it flow into a glass jug.

Emile giggled. He, too, was amused that Archie should have discovered him performing such an act.

“I’m getting my gas for the week,” Emile said.

The car, parked at the far end of the school’s parking lot, belonged to a senior by the name of Carlson.

“What would you do, Emile, if Carlson came along and saw you stealing his gas?” Archie asked, although he knew the answer.

Emile didn’t bother to reply. He grinned knowingly at Archie. Carlson wouldn’t do anything about it at all. He was a thin, mild kid who hated getting involved in messes. Not too many people defied Emile Janza, anyway, whether they were fat or skinny, mild or not. Emile was a
brute which was kind of funny because he didn’t look like a brute. He wasn’t big or overly strong. In fact, he was small for a tackle on the football team. But he was an animal and he didn’t play by the rules. Not if he could help it. His small eyes were imbedded in pale flesh, eyes that seldom smiled despite the giggle and the grin that sometimes flashed across his face, especially when he knew he was reaching people. That’s what Emile Janza called it—reaching people. Like whistling softly in class so that it got on the teacher’s nerves, a barely perceptible whistle that could drive a teacher up the wall. That’s why Emile Janza reversed the usual process. Wise guys usually sat in back. Emile didn’t. He chose seats near the front where he’d be in better position to harass the teacher. Whistling, grunting, belching, tapping his foot, stirring restlessly, sniffling. Hell, if you did that kind of stuff from the back of the room the teacher wouldn’t notice.

But Emile didn’t harass only teachers. He found that the world was full of willing victims, especially kids his own age. He had discovered a truth early in life—in the fourth grade, in fact. Nobody wanted trouble, nobody wanted to make trouble, nobody wanted a showdown. The knowledge was a revelation. It opened doors. You could take a kid’s lunch or even his lunch money and nothing usually happened because most kids wanted peace at any price. Of course, you have to
choose your victims carefully because there were exceptions. Those who protested found that it was easier to let Emile have his way. Who wanted to get hurt? Later, Emile stumbled upon another truth, although it was hard to put into words. He found that people had a fear of being embarrassed or humiliated, of being singled out for special attention. Like in a bus. You could call out to a kid, especially one who blushes easily, and say, “Jeez, you got bad breath, know that? Don’t you ever brush your teeth?” Even if the kid had the sweetest breath in the world. Or, “Did you lay a fart, kid? What a dirty thing to do.” Softly, but loud enough for everybody to hear. Stuff like that—in the cafeteria, during lunch, in study class. But it was better in public places, with strangers nearby, especially girls. That’s when the kids squirmed. As a result, people went around being extra nice to Emile Janza. And Emile basked in that treatment. Emile was not stupid but he was not exactly bright in class. However, he managed to squeak by—no
F
’s, only a couple of
D
’s, all of which satisfied his father whom Emile regarded as stupid and whose major dream was to have his son graduate from a fancy private school like Trinity. His father didn’t know how cruddy the place was.

“Emile, you’re a beautiful person,” Archie said as Emile, satisfied with the overflowing glass jug, carefully screwed the cap of the gas tank on.

Emile looked up suspiciously, on guard. He was never sure whether Archie Costello was serious or not. Emile never fooled around with Archie. In fact, Archie was one of the few people in the world Emile respected. Maybe even feared. Archie and The Vigils.

“Did you say beautiful?”

Archie laughed. “I mean, Emile, you’re something special. Who else would siphon gas in the middle of the day? Out in the open like this? Beautiful.”

Emile smiled at Archie, suddenly wistful. He wished he could share with Archie some of the other stuff. But he couldn’t. Somehow, it was too private but often he wanted to tell people about it. How he got a kick out of things. For instance, when he went to the john at school, he seldom flushed the toilet—and got a kick out of picturing the next kid who’d go in and find the mess in the bowl. Crazy. And if you told anybody, it would be hard to explain. Like how he sometimes felt actually horny when he roughhoused a kid or tackled a guy viciously in football and gave him an extra jab when he had him on the ground. How could you tell anybody about that? And yet he felt that Archie would understand. Birds of a feather, that was it. Despite that picture. The picture that haunted his life.

Archie began to walk away.

“Hey, Archie, where’re you going?”

“I don’t want to be an accessory, Emile.”

Emile laughed. “Carlson’s not gonna press charges.”

Archie shook his head in admiration. “Beautiful,” he said.

“Hey, Archie. How about the picture?”

“Yes, Emile. How
about
the picture?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Beautiful,” Archie said, walking away quickly now, wanting to keep Emile Janza sweating about the picture. Actually, Archie hated people like Janza even though he could admire their handiwork. People like Janza were animals. But they came in handy. Janza and the picture—like money in the bank.

Emile Janza watched the departing figure of Archie Costello. Someday, he’d be like Archie—cool, a member of The Vigils. Emile kicked at the rear tire of Carlson’s car. Somehow he was disappointed that Carlson hadn’t caught him siphoning the gas.

THE GOOBER WAS BEAUTIFUL when he ran. His long arms and legs moved flowingly and flawlessly, his body floating as if his feet weren’t touching the ground. When he ran, he forgot about his acne and his awkwardness and the shyness that paralyzed him when a girl looked his way. Even his thoughts became sharper, and things were simple and uncomplicated—he could solve math problems when he ran or memorize football play patterns. Often he rose early in the morning, before anyone else, and poured himself liquid through the sunrise streets, and everything seemed beautiful, everything in its proper orbit, nothing impossible, the entire world attainable.

When he ran, he even loved the pain, the hurt of the running, the burning in his lungs and the spasms that sometimes gripped his calves. He loved it because he knew he could endure the pain, and even go beyond it. He had never pushed himself to the limit but he felt all this
reserve strength inside of him: more than strength actually—determination. And it sang in him as he ran, his heart pumping blood joyfully through his body. He’d gone out for football and there was a good feeling when he caught one of Jerry Renault’s passes and outran everybody for a score. But it was the running he loved. The neighbors would see him waterfalling down High Street, carried by the momentum of his speed, and they’d cry out, “Going for the Olympics, Goob?” Or, “Got your eye on the world record, Goob?” And on he’d run, floating, flowing.

But he wasn’t running now. He was in Brother Eugene’s homeroom and he was terrified. He was fifteen years old and six-one-and-a-half and too old to cry but tears blurred his vision, as if the room was under water. He was ashamed and disgusted with himself but he couldn’t help it. The tears were from frustration as well as terror. And the terror was different from any other kind he’d ever known: the terror of a walking nightmare. Like waking up from a bad dream in which a monster was gaining on you and breathing a sigh of relief as you realized you were safe in your bed and then looking toward the moonlit doorway and seeing the monster stalking toward your bed. And knowing you’d stumbled from one nightmare into another—and how do you find your way back to the real world?

He knew that he was in the real world at this
moment, of course. Everything was real enough. The screwdrivers and the pliers were real. So were the desks and chairs and the blackboards. So was the world outside, a world he had been shut away from since three o’clock this afternoon when he had sneaked into the school. Now the world had changed, had grown blurred with day’s leaving and then purple at dusk and then dark. It was now nine o’clock and The Goober sat on the floor, his head against a desk, angry at his damp cheeks. His eyes stung from strain. The Vigils said he was allowed to put on the small emergency night light each classroom was furnished. A flashlight was forbidden because it might look suspicious to outsiders. The Goober had found the job almost impossible. He had been in the classroom six hours and had only finished two rows of desks and chairs. The screws were stubborn, most of them factory-tight, resisting the twists of the screwdriver.

I’ll never get done, he thought. I’ll be here all night and my folks will go crazy and it still won’t be done. He envisioned himself being discovered here tomorrow morning, collapsed in exhaustion, a disgrace to himself and The Vigils and the school. He was hungry and had a headache and felt that everything would be all right if he could only get out of here and run, hurtle himself through the streets, free from the terrible assignment.

A noise from the corridor. That was another thing—it was spooky. All kinds of noises. The walls spoke their own creaky language, the floors crackled, motors hummed somewhere, the humming almost human. Enough to scare a guy to death. He hadn’t been this scared since he was just a kid and woke up in the middle of the night calling for his mother.

Thump
. There—another noise. He looked with dread toward the doorway, not wanting to look but unable to resist the temptation, remembering his old nightmare.

“Hey, Goober,” the whisper came.

“Who’s there?” he whispered back. Relief swept him. He wasn’t alone anymore, someone else was here.

“How’re you doing?”

A figure was advancing toward him on all fours, like an animal. The aspect of the beast—nightmare, after all. He shrank back, his skin hot and prickly, like the onset of hives. He was aware of other figures crawling into the room, knees scraping across the floor. The first figure was now in front of him.

“Need some help?”

The Goober squinted. The kid was masked.

“It’s going slow,” Goober said.

The masked figure grabbed the front of Goober’s shirt and twisted hard, pulling him forward. He could smell pizza on the kid’s breath.
The mask was black, the kind Zorro wore in the movies.

“Listen, Goubert. The assignment is more important than anything else, understand? More important than you, me, or the school. That’s why we’re going to give you some help. To get the thing done right.” The kid’s knuckles dug hard into Goober’s chest. “You tell anybody about this and you’re through at Trinity. Got that?”

Goober gulped and nodded. His throat was dry. He was happy beyond belief. Help had arrived. The impossible had become possible.

The masked figure raised his head. “Okay, fellows, let’s get going.”

One of the other fellows raised his face, also masked, and said, “This is a gas.”

“Shut up and get to work,” the guy who was obviously the leader said.

He also let go of Goober’s shirt and pulled out his own screwdriver.

It took them three hours.

JERRY’S MOTHER HAD DIED in the spring. They had been staying up with her nights—his father and some of his uncles and aunts and Jerry himself—since her return from the hospital. They came and went in shifts that final week, everyone exhausted and mute with sadness. Nothing more could be done for her at the hospital and she was taken home to die. She’d loved her home so much, always had some project underway—wallpapering, painting, refinishing furniture. “Give me twenty workers like her and I’d open a small factory and make a million,” his father used to joke. And then she got sick. And died. Watching her ebb away, seeing her beauty diminish, witnessing the awful alteration of her face and body was too much for Jerry to bear and he sometimes fled her bedroom, ashamed of his weakness, avoiding his father. Jerry wished he could be as strong as his father, always in control, masking his sorrow and grief. When his mother finally died, suddenly, at three-thirty in the afternoon,
slipping off quietly without a murmur, Jerry was overcome with rage, a fiery anger that found him standing at her coffin in silent fury. He was angry at the way the disease had ravaged her. He was angry at his inability to do anything about saving her. His anger was so deep and sharp in him that it drove out sorrow. He wanted to bellow at the world, cry out against her death, topple buildings, split the earth open, tear down trees. And he did nothing except lie awake in the dark, thinking of her body there in the funeral home, not her anymore, but a
thing
suddenly, cold and pale. His father was a stranger during those terrible days, like a sleepwalker going through the motions, like a puppet being maneuvered by invisible strings. Jerry felt hopeless and abandoned, all tight inside. Even at the cemetery, they stood apart from each other, a huge distance between them even though they were side by side. But not touching. And then, at the end of the service, as they turned to leave, Jerry found himself in his father’s arms, his face pressed close to his father’s body, smelling the cigarette tobacco, the faint odor of peppermint mouthwash, that familiar smell that was his father. There in the cemetery, clinging to each other in mutual sorrow and loss, the tears came for both of them. Jerry didn’t know where his own tears began and his father’s left off. They wept without shame, out of a nameless need,
and walked together afterward, arm in arm, toward the waiting car. The fiery knot of anger had come undone, unraveled, and Jerry realized as they drove back from the cemetery that something worse had taken its place—emptiness, a yawning cavity like a hole in his chest.