INTO IT (a novel) Chapters 17-18
Chapter 17: John
I wanted to laser into the back of her head. One long, beautiful, anonymous trail into the back of Meredith’s head. I followed Meredith to her classes. With too many students in this space under the fire code, I didn’t worry about setting off stalker alarms, her long hair swinging blondly down her back, her books held at an angle against her narrow hip until she left my line of sight into a classroom.
One morning, Meredith surprised me at my locker.
Hey.
I thought my eyes revealed something. The fear center works with whatever it can get.
There’s a sign painting party this weekend, she said. Then cautiously, so as not to offend me, as if I did not know anything about school events, which I didn’t, she said, The game with Mustang?
McCandless touched her hair and braided a lock.
I’ve been thinking I would reach across the aisle? she said.
I didn’t want to worry about what aisle could mean.
It’s National Make RL Friends Day, Meredith said.
Our—what?
No, the letter R and the letter L. But you pronounce it arle. It’s a safe word. RL stands for real life.
You’re addicted to some game, I said.
A mist of confusion passed between me and Meredith.
RL is committed to how the world is, Meredith said.
Bluebirds from that movie are flying around you, I said. They’re sewing you a new dress, or a new social status, or a new life outcome.
What?
Just kidding. It’s always from something down.
Meredith unslung her backpack from her shoulder. Packed inside, a block of school newspapers.
Have an issue, she said.
She pressed a copy to my chest. The prehistoric savannah grope touch-testing of a potential partner’s form.
I scanned the front page of the newspaper. Above the fold they’d run another Welcome Back piece that could had been written thirty-five years ago, only with the words active shooter neglected. The school’s hiding places, however, have remained the same. Wherever you are when it starts happening.
Did you write anything in this, I said, holding the radioactive thing.
No, but next issue I’m the editor and I’m going to write an editorial.
What about?
The shootings? But I don’t know what I’m going to say yet.
That’ll come to you, I said.
She looked in my eyes for a couple of full, stupid seconds.
Jesus. Narc. Special Agent McCandless.
You’re a better person than you think you are, she said.
How do you know what I think I am?
You focus too much on what it takes, Meredith said. You’re into it, fine. Be that. A lot of people seem to be. I buy it that you are. But you don’t truly have to do it, do you?
Chapter 18: Adam
Members of the football team scatter around me, arrayed in postures of relaxed deflation, spines slung low in their chairs, legs splayed across the desks. It’s Study Hall. They don’t yet know that I’m on the team, so they still hate me. They give me the look that says, I could take you down with a bulldozer and do you a favor.
I fuck around with my Geometry homework, not really doing it. I take out a fresh sheet of paper and draw random boxes and connect them with narrow rectangles, when I run across an idea. I take out a clean sheet and make a box that represents this room, which is the school’s largest other than the junior high cafeteria, then connect it to the hallway. From there it’s easy to outline the rest of the school from memory. My habitual noticing of exits plays into it. I know I’ve gotten them right. I venture into the parking lot with a few strokes. It looks like a shooter’s map of the school. I just need to add where the people I hate are going to be at every hour.
An X by my locker, another by John’s.
The football players and their girls laugh, their books having slipped to the floor. No one has seen my drawing. It feels good and movie-like, and at the same time sad, because I’m not able to show it to them.
After study hall, I meet John at the X of his locker and show him my map.
“What’s this for?”
“Anything,” I say. “It’s a map.”
John takes it from me and looks at it for a while. He points to the box representing the study hall.
“Hit here first. Then hit the English classes. Use the trophy wall as a staging area. Reload, line them up against the wall. Then move.”
“The trophy cases were already smashed,” I say. “We do them on the way in with a couple of grenades.”
A goal without a plan is nothing more than a wish. John puts the paper against his locker door and scribbles on the map. He marks the trophy case hall with the word, grenade.
“Now we could get into trouble for this,” I say.
“This is sick,” John says. “It’s all places in the world I hate on one page. You should color in where everyone sits, so we’ll know where to start.”
The halls bustle with people trying to get in as much free time as they can before the next class. Cliques bunch up in clots and block the main hall. No one looks at us. Meredith must be somewhere talking to a teacher about her excellent grades. She’s the type who stays late, stays after, stays and does the talking teachers so badly crave, shows some interest, and the teachers are interested in her future in return.
“Just kidding,” I say.
“Just kidding,” John says.