The Chocolate War

  “Poor kid,” Archie said. “Mother’s dead.”

  Again that concern, that compassion in his voice.

  Obie nodded. One more name. Who else?

  “Must be hard on the poor kid.”

  “Right,” Obie agreed, impatient.

  “Know what he needs, Obie?” His voice was soft, dreamy, caressing.

  “What?”

  “Therapy.”

  The terrible word shattered the tenderness in Archie’s voice.

  “Therapy?”

  “Right. Put him down.”

  “For crying out loud, Archie. You saw him out there. He’s just a skinny kid trying to make the Freshman team. Coach’ll grind him up like hamburger. And his mother’s barely cold in the grave. What the hell you putting him on the list for?”

  “Don’t let him fool you, Obie. He’s a tough one. Didn’t you see him get wiped out down there and still get to his feet? Tough. And stubborn.

  He should have stayed down on that turf, Obie. That would have been the smart thing to do. Besides, he probably needs something to keep his mind off his poor dead mother.”

  “You’re a bastard, Archie. I said it before and I’ll say it again.”

  “Put him down.” Ice in the voice, cold as polar regions.

  Obie wrote down the name. Hell, it wasn’t his funeral. “Assignment?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “You’ve only got till four,” Obie reminded.

  “The assignment must fit the kid. That’s the beauty of it, Obie.”

  Obie waited a minute or two and couldn’t resist asking, “You running out of ideas, Archie?” The great Archie Costello running dry? The possibility was staggering to contemplate.

  “Just being artistic, Obie. It’s an art, you know. Take a kid like this Renault. Special circumstances.” He fell silent. “Put him down for the chocolates.”

  Obie wrote down: Renault—Chocolates. Archie would never run dry. The chocolates, for instance, were good for a dozen assignments.

  Obie looked down at the field where the guys were skirmishing in the shadow of the goal posts. Sadness seized him. I should have gone out for football, he thought. He had wanted to—he’d been hot stuff with Pop Warner at St. Joe’s. Instead, he had ended up as Secretary of The Vigils. Cool. But, hell, he couldn’t even tell his parents about it.

  “Know what, Archie?”

  “What?”

  “Life is sad, sometimes.”

  That was one of the great things about Archie, you could say things like that.

  “Life is shit,” Archie said.

  The shadows of the goal posts definitely resembled a network of crosses, empty crucifixes. That’s enough symbolism for one day, Obie told himself. If he hurried he could make the four o’clock bus to work.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  THE GIRL was heart-wrenchingly, impossibly beautiful. Desire weakened his stomach. A waterfall of blond hair splashed on her bare shoulders. He studied the photograph surreptitiously and then closed the magazine and put it back where it belonged, on the top shelf. He glanced around to see if he’d been observed. The store owner positively prohibited the reading of magazines and a sign said NO BUY NO READ. But the owner was busy at the far end of the place.

  Why did he always feel so guilty whenever he looked at Playboy and the other magazines? A lot of guys bought them, passed them around at school, hid them in the covers of notebooks, even resold them. He sometimes saw copies scattered casually on coffee tables in the homes of his friends. He had once bought a girlie magazine, paying for it with trembling fingers—a dollar and a quarter, his finances shot down in flames until his next allowance. And he didn’t know what to do with the damn thing once it was in his possession. Sneaking it home on the bus, hiding it in the bottom drawer of his room, he was terrified of discovery. Finally, tired of smuggling it into the bathroom for swift perusals, and weary of his deceit, and haunted by the fear that his mother would find the magazine, Jerry had sneaked it out of the house and dropped it into a catchbasin. He listened to it splash dismally below, bidding a wistful farewell to the squandered buck and a quarter. A longing filled him. Would a girl ever love him? The one devastating sorrow he carried within him was the fear that he would die before holding a girl’s breast in his hand.

  Out at the bus stop, Jerry leaned against a telephone pole, body weary, echoing the assault of the football practices. For three days his body had absorbed punishment. But he was still on the roster, luckily. Idly, he watched the people on the Common across the street. He saw them every day. They were now part of the scenery like the Civil War Cannon and the World War Monuments, the flagpole. Hippies. Flower Children. Street People. Drifters. Drop-Outs. Everybody had a different name for them. They came out in the spring and stayed until October, hanging around, calling taunts to passersby occasionally but most of the time quiet, languid and peaceful. He was fascinated by them and sometimes envied their old clothes, their sloppiness, the way they didn’t seem to give a damn about anything. Trinity was one of the last schools to retain a dress code—shirt and tie. He watched a cloud of smoke swirl around a girl in a floppy hat. Grass? He didn’t know. A lot of things he didn’t know.

  Absorbed in his thoughts, he didn’t notice that one of the street people had detached himself from the others and was crossing the street, dodging cars deftly.

  “Hey, man.”

  Startled, Jerry realized the guy was addressing him. “Me?”

  The fellow stood in the street, on the other side of a green Volkswagen, his chest resting on the car’s roof. “Yes, you.” He was about nineteen, long black hair brushing his shoulders, a curling mustache, like a limp black snake draped on his upper lip, the ends dangling near his chin. “You been staring at us, man, like every day. Standing here and staring.”

  They really say man, Jerry thought. He didn’t think anybody said man any more except as a joke. But this guy wasn’t joking.

  “Hey, man, you think we’re in a zoo? That why you stare?”

  “No. Look, I don’t stare.” But he did stare, every day.

  “Yes, you do, man. You stand here and look at us. With your homework books and your nice shirt and your blue-and-white tie.”

  Jerry looked around uneasily. He confronted only strangers, nobody from school.

  “We’re not sub-humans, man.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “But you look it.”

  “Look,” Jerry said, “I’ve got to get my bus.” Which was ridiculous, of course, because the bus wasn’t in sight.

  “You know who’s sub-human, man? You. You are. Going to school every day. And back home on the bus. And do your homework.” The guy’s voice was contemptuous. “Square boy. Middle-aged at fourteen, fifteen. Already caught in a routine. Wow.”

  A hiss and the stench of exhaust announced the arrival of the bus. Jerry swung away from the guy.

  “Go get your bus, square boy,” he called. “Don’t miss the bus, boy. You’re missing a lot of things in the world, better not miss that bus.”

  Jerry walked to the bus like a sleepwalker. He hated confrontations. His heart hammered. He climbed aboard, dropped his token in the coin box and lurched to his seat as the bus moved away from the curb.

  He sat down, breathed deeply, closed his eyes.

  Go get your bus, square boy.

  He opened his eyes and slitted them against the invasion of the sun through the window.

  You’re missing a lot of things in the world, better not miss that bus.

  A big put-on, of course. That was their specialty, people like that. Putting people on. Nothing else to do with their lives, piddling away their lives.

  And yet …

  Yet, what?

  He didn’t know. He thought of his life—going to school and coming home. Even though his tie was loose, dangling on his shirt, he yanked it off. He looked up at the advertising placards above the windows, wanting to turn his thoughts away from the
confrontation.

  Why? someone had scrawled in a blank space no advertiser had rented.

  Why not? someone else had slashed in answer.

  Jerry closed his eyes, exhausted suddenly, and it seemed like too much of an effort even to think.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  “HOW MANY BOXES?”

  “Twenty thousand.”

  Archie whistled in astonishment. He usually didn’t blow his cool that easily, particularly with someone like Brother Leon. But the image of twenty thousand boxes of chocolates being delivered here to Trinity was ridiculous. Then he saw the mustache of moistness on Brother Leon’s upper lip, the watery eyes and the dampness on his forehead. Something clicked. This wasn’t the calm and deadly Leon who could hold a class in the palm of his hand. This was someone riddled with cracks and crevices. Archie became absolutely still, afraid that the rapid beating of his heart might betray his sudden knowledge, the proof of what he’d always suspected, not only of Brother Leon but most grownups, most adults: they were vulnerable, running scared, open to invasion.

  “I know that’s a lot of chocolates,” Brother Leon admitted, managing to keep his voice casual, for which Archie admired him. A smart one, Leon, hard to pin down. Even though he was sweating like a madman, his voice remained calm, reasoned. “But we have tradition working in our favor. The chocolate sale is an annual event. The boys have come to expect it. If they can sell ten thousand boxes of chocolates in other years, why not twenty thousand this year? And these are special chocolates, Archie. High profit. A special deal.”

  “How is it special?” Archie asked, pressing his advantage, none of that student-talking-to-teacher crap in his voice. He was here in Leon’s office by special invitation. Let Leon talk to the real Archie, not the kid who sat in his algebra class.

  “Actually, these are Mother’s Day chocolates. We were—that is, I was—able to pick them up at a bargain price. Beautiful boxes, gift boxes, and in perfect condition. They’ve been stored under the best of conditions since last spring. All we have to do is remove the purple ribbons that say Mother and we’re in business. We can sell them for two dollars a box and make a profit of almost a dollar on each one.”

  “But twenty thousand boxes.” Archie performed some quick calculations although he wasn’t a whiz at math. “We’re about four hundred guys in the school. That means everybody’s got to sell fifty boxes. Usually, the guys have a quota of twenty-five boxes each to sell and the price is a dollar.” He sighed. “Now, everything is doubled. That’s a lot of selling for this school, Brother Leon. For any school.”

  “I know that, Archie. But Trinity is special, isn’t it? If I didn’t think the boys of Trinity could do it, do you think I would take a risk? Aren’t we capable of what others aren’t?”

  Bullshit, was what Archie thought.

  “I know what you’re wondering, Archie—why am I burdening you with this problem?”

  Archie, in fact, was wondering why Brother Leon had laid his plans before him. He had never been particularly friendly with Leon or any other Trinity teacher. And Leon was a special breed. On the surface, he was one of those pale, ingratiating kind of men who tiptoed through life on small, quick feet. He looked like a henpecked husband, a pushover, a sucker. He was the Assistant Headmaster of the school but actually served as a flunky for the Head. Like an errand boy. But all this was deceptive. In the classroom, Leon was another person altogether. Smirking, sarcastic. His thin, high voice venomous. He could hold your attention like a cobra. Instead of fangs, he used his teacher’s pointer, flicking out here, there, everywhere. He watched the class like a hawk, suspicious, searching out cheaters or daydreamers, probing for weaknesses in the students and then exploiting those weaknesses. He had never taken on Archie. Not yet.

  “Let me paint you the picture,” Leon said, leaning forward in his chair. “All private schools, Catholic or otherwise, are struggling these days. Many are closing down. Prices are going up and we have only so many sources of income. As you know, Archie, we’re not one of those exclusive boarding schools. And we don’t have any wealthy alumni to draw on. We’re a day school, dedicated to preparing young men from middle class homes for college. There are no rich men’s sons here. Take yourself, for instance. Your father operates an insurance agency. He makes a good salary but he’s hardly wealthy, is he? Take Tommy Desjardins. His father’s a dentist—very well off, they have two cars, a summer home—and that’s about tops for the parents of Trinity boys.” He held up his hand. “I’m not trying to put down the parents.” Archie winced. It irritated him when grownups resorted to student language like put down. “What I’m saying, Archie, is that the parents are mostly in modest circumstances and can’t absorb any more tuition increases. We have to find revenue wherever possible. Football barely pays for itself—we haven’t had a winning season for three years. The interest in boxing has fallen off now that television doesn’t feature boxing anymore …”

  Archie stifled a yawn—so what else was new?

  “I’m putting my cards on the table, Archie, to show you, to impress upon you, how we have to tap every source of income, how even a chocolate sale can be vital and important to us …”

  Silence fell. The school was hushed around them, so hushed that Archie wondered whether the office was soundproof. Classes were over for the day, of course, but that was the time when a lot of other action got started. Particularly Vigil action.

  “Another thing,” Leon went on. “We’ve kept this quiet but the Head is ill, perhaps seriously so. He’s scheduled to enter the hospital tomorrow. Tests and things. The outlook isn’t good …”

  Archie waited for Leon to get to the point. Was he going to make a ridiculous pitch for the chocolate sale to be a success in honor of the sick Headmaster? “Win one for the Gipper” like some pukey late-night movie?

  “He may be incapacitated for weeks.”

  “That’s rough.” So what?

  “Which means—the school will be in my charge. The school will be my responsibility.”

  The silence again. But this time Archie felt a waiting in the silence. He had a feeling that Leon was about to make his point.

  “I need your help, Archie.”

  “My help?” Archie asked, feigning surprise, trying to keep any trace of mockery out of his voice. He knew now why he was here. Leon didn’t mean Archie’s help—he meant the help of The Vigils. And didn’t dare put in into words. No one was allowed to breathe a word about The Vigils. Officially, The Vigils did not exist. How could a school condone an organization like The Vigils? The school allowed it to function by ignoring it completely, pretending it wasn’t there. But it was there, all right, Archie thought bitterly. It was there because it served a purpose. The Vigils kept things under control. Without The Vigils, Trinity might have been torn apart like other schools had been, by demonstrations, protests, all that crap. Archie was surprised by Leon’s audacity, knowing his connection with The Vigils and bringing him in here this way.

  “But how can I help?” Archie asked, turning the screw, emphasizing the singular of himself and not the plural of The Vigils.

  “By getting behind the sale. As you said, Archie—twenty thousand boxes, that’s a lot of chocolates.”

  “The price is doubled, too,” Archie reminded him, enjoying himself now. “Two dollars a box, instead of one.”

  “But we need that money desperately.”

  “How about the bonus? The school always gives the boys a bonus.”

  “As usual, Archie. A day off from school when every chocolate has been sold.”

  “No free trip this year? Last year we were taken to Boston to a stage show.” Archie didn’t care about the trip but he enjoyed this reverse position—himself asking the questions and Leon squirming, so different from the classroom.

  “I’ll think of something as a substitute,” Leon said.

  Archie let the silence stretch.

  “Can I count on you, Archie?” Leon’s forehead was damp
again.

  Archie decided to plunge. To see how far he could go. “But what can I do? I’m just one guy.”

  “You have influence, Archie.”

  “Influence?” Archie’s voice was coming out loud and clear. He was cool. In command. Let Leon sweat. Archie was sweet and cool. “I’m not a class officer. I’m not a member of the Student Council.” Christ, if only the guys were here to see him. “I don’t even make the Honor Roll …”

  Suddenly, Leon wasn’t sweating anymore. The beads of perspiration still danced on his forehead but he had become stiff and cold. Archie could feel the coldness—more than cold, an icy hate coming across the desk like a deadly ray from some bleak and lethal planet. Have I gone too far, he wondered. I’ve got this guy for algebra, my weakest subject.

  “You know what I mean,” Leon said, his voice like a door slamming.

  Their eyes met, held. A showdown now? At this moment? Would that be the smart thing to do? Archie believed in always doing the smart thing. Not the thing you ached to do, not the impulsive act, but the thing that would pay off later. That’s why he was The Assigner. That’s why The Vigils depended on him. Hell, The Vigils were the school. And he, Archie Costello, was The Vigils. That’s why Leon had called him here, that’s why Leon was practically begging for his help. Archie suddenly had a terrific craving for a Hershey.

  “I know what you mean,” Archie said, postponing the showdown. Leon could be like money in the bank, for future use.

  “You’ll help, then?”

  “I’ll check with them,” Archie said, letting them hang in the air.

  And it hung.

  Leon didn’t pick it up.

  Neither did Archie.

  They looked at each other for a long moment.

  “The Vigils will help,” Archie said, unable to contain himself any longer. He had never been able to use those words—The Vigils—aloud to a teacher, had had to deny the existence of the organization for so long that it was beautiful to use them, to see the surprise on Leon’s pale perspiring face.