INTO IT (a novel) Chapters 9-10
Chapter 9: John
I can be mean, too, said a fattie liberal in a viral clip. A Red-Stater had bumped into his rolling suitcase at an airport, and, a few days later, infamous enough to be on the news, the cell phone video of their brawl led the liberal to record his own from the hospital, promising to press charges, paralyzed now from the sternum down.
It’s always from something down. It’s always about falling.
Under the sternum lies the diaphragm. You can be mindful while hiding under a conference chair, a subway bench, or inside a dark closet. Even then, you can pay close attention to your breathing and do your practice. It slows the bleeding, too.
Adam poured the mice into the cardboard box. He said beautiful when Unlucky killed a mouse. Then to the mall, to people’s stares ray-gunning through me. To the mall, then, the palace of sick.
First we went to the Dwayne’s hunting section. For Adam, it had always been the handguns. He talked to the old guy behind the counter about some new pistol just coming out, a new sensation in shooting.
Dwayne’s shoppers turned from what they were evaluating, inspecting, deciding whether to buy, to peer at me with suspicion. I know God never would isolate someone so thoroughly without giving at least a warning or a challenge first. This too shall pass, God would say, as He takes everything from you.
No one but you can truly know what’s going on inside there, a doctor once told me as he tapped my forehead with his finger. No one but you.
I can be mean, too.
Chapter 10: Adam
In English class, I watch the back of Meredith’s head. She rocks from side to side in her chair, anxious for her turn to speak. Her hair sways. When Mr. Lardner finishes explaining the assignment, she says it.
“I think we should start a group to help people who show the warning signs.”
Drano explodes in my chest and drizzles down my arms and legs. My palms break out in pinpricks of sweat. My heart shudders. I am exposed, as though everyone in the room is about to look at me. I know they are not, but I still feel their will to do it. I haven’t registered on their radar in so long, but now’s the time. My sickness is about to be pointed out, and I’m too freaked to enjoy it. Fat fattykins is about to have a heart attack.
“Don’t you think it’s a little presumptuous to think one can see whether someone is displaying the warning signs, whatever those might be?” Mr. Lardner asks Meredith.
“No,” Meredith says, knowing what presumptuous means in this school of idiots. “Doing anything else is ignoring the issue.”
“How will you know who needs your help?” Mr. Lardner says.
“I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it.”
I guess Meredith already has John in mind, with his sick T-shirts and the way he walks through the hall looking at people like they’re nothing. I’m the one who’s capable of anything. I’d like to tell Meredith about the experiment with the mice, but I know I’d lose it long before I got the nerve to open my mouth. The Drano acts up again at the thought of talking to her, slides down the inside of my arms, my wrists, my left one worse than my right. Sweat glitters my hairline. A pressure to say something builds. I might feel less like I’m dying if I let it out.
I say, “Who do you think it is?”
All heads turn to me. I can’t process the fact that I had said anything.
“I don’t know,” says Meredith. “Do you have any suggestions?”
I’m bleeding internally. Words sink. My shirt sticks to my back with sweat. I want to say, This is me. Haven’t you seen me in the hallways? Sweat rolls in two streams down each side of my face.
“Obviously, John Teller,” says Amber.
She leans back in her chair, satisfied and relieved. It has been a big moment for her, naming the name.
“Woah. Let’s not get into labeling people,” Mr. Lardner says. “Right now. Okay? I want an expository essay about our discussion today. Tell me what you think about the shootings, what you think the individuals might have needed to keep them from killing. I want reasons why they did what they did. I want to see empathy, which is different than sympathy, in your analysis of what motivated these two people to do what they did, and I want to see you trying to find solutions. I’ll give you some real time to work on this. Special due date in six weeks.”
Then Mr. Lardner sees me.
“Are you all right, Adam?” he says.
“I’m sick,” I say.
“Go ahead,” he says.
Meredith will pick John. John’s the one they want. They want their freak.
I head for the boys’ room. It looks empty. I kick the stalls and yell, fuck, fuck, motherfucker. I turn the hot water taps up to full blast, then yell and karate-kick the urinal handles until water spills across the floor.
A kid dashes out of a shit stall. He’s smaller than me and taken by surprise, an easy target. Motherfucking Tyler Max. I consider hitting him, the sinister kid who reported on John. As he jumps toward the door, I throw out my right fist and hit the bone above his right eye. My knuckles pop and my fist glances off his face. Tyler goes down hard on his ass but immediately stands, gets the door open and runs outside, bleeding from the eye.
The hall is empty. There could have been spots from Tyler’s blood dripped onto the floor, but the school’s linoleum is designed to hide blood and vomit.
Outside the flooded boys’ room, the Varsity football coach, Grady, walks up to me.
“Was that you?” he says, pointing in the direction I assumed Tyler had run.
“On the average, it’s me,” I say.
“Lincoln needs a heavy linesman who thinks that way,” Grady says.