That’s why I like Lemry’s Contemporary American Thought class, which we call CAT for short. Lemry makes it safe to give any idea consideration, and she is ferocious in protecting the sensibilities of anyone willing to take a risk. You can celebrate or slam any idea you want, but you can’t slam people. It’s the most important class I have, and I’m glad both my friends and enemies are signed up.
Ellerby is there, and so is Mark Brittain.
And so is Jody Mueller.
I almost bowl Brittain over beating the bell into CAT. He’s standing just inside the doorway talking with his girlfriend—who should be mine but doesn’t know it—Jody Mueller, the classiest-looking girl in our school and maybe the Milky Way.
“Hey, Mobe, take it easy.” Brittain acts as if he likes me, but after Ellerby, I would be the first on his secret ballot for candidates to be buried in a shallow grave with a small air pipe pushing up into a bus garage.
I say, “Sorry.” I’m not, but until Jody understands that beauty is only skin deep, I want to appear civil in her eyes.
Brittain puts out his hand. “You guys sure got me the other day.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“At workout. It was a good move.”
I smile and raise my eyebrows. It was a good move. I turn for my seat as the bell rings, but Mark catches me softly by the shoulder. “Could I ask you something?” Jody stands silently beside him.
“Sure.”
“Why did you guys do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Ellerby must really hate me. I hit ninety-seven repeats with you, and you sucked me into losing out on the last three. I can’t imagine ever doing that to either of you.”
I can. My stare drifts to Jody. I’m guessing she believes Brittain was victimized by a couple of insensitive pagan mermen.
“We were just being ornery,” I say slowly, hoping to avoid alienating my future wife, “but you were on a free ride. I’d set the pace and you’d hang in. Ellerby would set the pace and you’d hang in. You never set the pace.”
“All you’d have had to do was ask,” he says. Then, “It wasn’t a very Christian thing to do, that’s all.”
You don’t get very far into a conversation with Mark Brittain without hearing that word. It irritates me because what he really means is, “You’re wrong and I’m right and God knows it.” I want to tell him I’m not a Christian, but that won’t likely put me in better standing with Jody, who goes to Mark’s church, so I just look away.
“You could be a little more compassionate, Calhoune. You know, you guys run around in that car, making fun of important things and blaspheming, and you don’t have much consideration for the people you may hurt.”
I’m caught. I mean, I can’t take a guy seriously when he’s using words like “blaspheming,” but I’m over a barrel if I don’t want to look like the worst kind of heretic in front of Jody. What I’d like to do is make Brittain horizontal, but that would only put me another rung lower on Jacob’s ladder in Jody’s eyes. It’s a close call, though. I’m pretty embarrassed, and if Brittain says much more I might at least have to do verbal surgery on him.
Brittain looks wounded; my portrait as an ogre is complete. I make a note that he will not finish ahead of me on even one repeat today in workout. He and Jody walk off to their seats as I tell her, “Nice blouse.” Great moves, Mobe.
“Park it,” Lemry says, scanning her attendance book. She moves to the front of her desk, hoisting herself up. “At the end of last class I asked each of you to be ready with a subject for your class presentation—something that addresses a contemporary social or psychological or spiritual dilemma. I asked that it be something with particular meaning to your life. Now. Today. I gave you possibilities such as war, world hunger, abortion, the homeless, children’s rights, spiritual beliefs, political ideologies, et cetera. All I require is that you be willing to look at your subject from a personal perspective, that is, how the dilemma affects you.” She glances quickly around the room. “Anybody want to step up and save those who didn’t believe I meant what I said?”
Ellerby’s hand shoots up. That’s a surprise. “To the rescue,” he says. “I want to talk about religion.”
“As long as you don’t try to lead us in prayer. It’s against the law.”
“Rest assured,” Ellerby says, “I won’t lead us in prayer. I’ll leave that to Brittain.”
“And no personal remarks,” Lemry warns.
Ellerby nods assent. “I brought a tape,” he says. “I want to play it.”
Lemry has audio and video equipment available because she has encouraged us to bring in outside stimuli to promote discussion.
“It’s a song,” Ellerby says. “Everybody’s recording it these days, but this was the first person I ever heard.” He pops in the cassette and passes out a sheet of lyrics, some of which are underlined, along with a color reproduction of the NASA photo of the earth taken from the moon. The song is “From a Distance” by Julie Gold, and it’s sung by a country singer named Nancy Griffith.
Nancy’s nasal twang brings a few guffaws from the heavy metal set, but we settle in on the lyrics, which talk about how “from a distance”—like maybe out in space—the world looks good. The air appears crisp and blue, mountains are capped with a pure, clean, snow frosting, and there’s no scum floating where the ocean meets the shore. From that distance you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, and when that’s true, there’s no reason to fight. You can’t see germs and people dying from diseases; it’s just all one big whole thing that needs to be taken care of by everyone, like a beautiful house and yard. Then, in the last verse, Nancy says that’s where God watches us from: from a distance.
It’s a good song. A great song.
“There’s a stroke of real genius,” Brittain says immediately. “Wouldn’t you just expect some theological prodigy driving a blasphemous Pontiac station wagon to bring us his religious view packaged in a country-western song.”
“If thine enemy offend thee, Reverend Swaggart,” Ellerby says back, “meet him out behind the gym after school.”
Lemry looks around the room in mock exaggeration. “Did anyone hear me say ‘No personal remarks’?” Her eyebrows arc for the sky as she points one index finger at each. “Those are the rules. Don’t make me enforce them at workout.”
I see her point is well taken: Mess up my class and I’ll swim you so hard your arms will drift, unattached, to the bottom of the pool.
Lemry says, “So make your point, Mr. Ellerby.”
“My point is that God created a prototype for a reasonably sturdy carbon unit, gave us a perfectly usable place to live, some excellent advice, as in ‘words to live by’—most of which are misunderstood by the least of my brethren—and stood back to see what we’d do with it.”
I’m surprised. I didn’t know Ellerby had any philosophical considerations. I thought he just drove his Christian Cruiser through the world seeing whose nose he could get up. And how far.
Lemry’s eyes land on me. “Mobe?”
My hands shoot up in surrender. “I give a wide berth to all religious discussions. My plan is to get baptized late in the afternoon of the evening I die, so I don’t have time to sin. A spot in heaven awaits me.”
“Cute,” she says. “And chicken. Jody?”
Shoot. I should have uttered something biblical.
Jody flashes a sideways glance at Mark, saying simply, “I guess I think God takes a closer look than that.”
I could go either way on this. I don’t have a quarrel with Christianity one way or the other. As near as I know, Mom doesn’t have religious beliefs, so I wasn’t brought up with any. I know some Bible stories from going to Sunday School with my friends when I was younger, but mostly they were just good stories. I see where getting religion quick here could work to my advantage with Jody, but I can’t jump ship on my friend Ellerby. Steve has a reputation as a verbal troublemaker, and I would abandon
him in a second for Jody alone, but not for Mark Brittain. So though I can once again see how the Russians and the Americans fought on the same side in WWII, I’m Switzerland. Good-bye, Jody, my love.
“Give us more information, Steve,” Lemry says. “If you’re right, what does it mean?”
“I’m not sure what all it means,” he says. “But I’ll tell you what made me bring it in. The other day when Mobe was trying to figure out whether the world was a good place or a bad place, and he used Sarah Byrnes for an example, I was ready to agree with him. No question, she’s got a rough road to go down. But when I thought about it more, I realized the world is a good place for me, most of the time anyway, and that got me to thinking about fairness. If God is fair, how do you explain me and Sarah Byrnes on the same planet? And if he really rewards piousness and public prayer and all that, like Brittain seems to think, how come he lets me drive my car around without blowing out my tires, and how come he lets me kick Brittain’s butt in the pool?”
Lemry says, “Watch it…”
“I had this Sunday School teacher,” Ellerby goes on, “and every time I asked her a tough question—like ‘How come nobody ever caught Jack the Ripper?’ or ‘Why did my big brother get killed when he got straight A’s clear through college and was going into the seminary?’—she’d say the Lord works in strange and mysterious ways that we may not understand.” Ellerby leans forward on his desk now, his intensity as visible as the pulse in his temple. “But I think there’s nothing strange and mysterious about it. I figure if those things were in God’s jurisdiction, he’d do something different about them. But they aren’t. Those are in our jurisdiction.”
I glance over to check Jody’s reaction, but can’t read a thing. Brittain, on the other hand, is having blood pressure difficulty, and explodes. “This is so much BS! People throw out this line of crap for one reason: so they can do whatever they darn well please. It’s a bogus way of not having to be accountable to God.”
Ellerby ignores him—I mean like Brittain isn’t even in the room—and continues. “From a distance,” he says, “my car looks like every other car on the freeway, and Sarah Byrnes looks just like the rest of us. And if she’s going to get help, she’ll get it from herself or she’ll get it from us. Let me tell you why I brought this up. Because the other day when I saw how hard it was for Mobe to go to the hospital to see her, I was embarrassed that I didn’t know her better, that I ever laughed at one joke about her. I was embarrassed that I let some kid go to school with me for twelve years and turned my back on pain that must be unbearable. I was embarrassed that I haven’t found a way to include her somehow the way Mobe has.”
Jesus. I feel tears welling up, and I see them running down Ellerby’s cheeks. Lemry better get a handle on this class before it turns into some kind of therapy group.
“So,” Lemry says quietly, “your subject will be the juxtaposition of man and God in the universe?”
Ellerby shakes his head. “My subject will be shame.”
CHAPTER 6
From across the ward I watch Virgil Byrnes sitting next to Sarah Byrnes on the couch, his eyes burning into the side of her head, teeth clenched so tight it looks like there’s a marble below his jawbone. He’s talking, but his lips barely move. Dressed in his traditional black, angular as a hawk, he cuts a fearsome, dangerous profile. I can’t see her eyes, but Sarah Byrnes’s head moves not one iota, and I’m guessing she’s locked onto her favorite spot. Mr. Byrnes sits back, breathing deep, then momentarily puts his mouth close to her ear and stands to leave.
Virgil Byrnes really is a scary dude. He’s one of those shadowy people you can’t imagine ever having been a kid; the kind of man a dog circles warily, his hackles at attention. Mr. Byrnes doesn’t talk much, but his glare makes Mautz look like Bambi. The most telling thing about him is how afraid he makes Sarah Byrnes. Sarah Byrnes isn’t afraid of much, but your mention of her dad’s name dramatically increases your chances of a black eye and a bloody nose.
I stand against the back desk, trying hard to fade into the background as he moves toward the exit, but he spots me and moves in my direction. His black, broad-brimmed hat rides low over his eyes, and a tattered black cotton sportcoat pulls tight on his broad shoulders. His gray shirt is buttoned to the top, and his dark baggy pants complete the picture of Death, come calling at your door in the middle of a dark, rainy night. That may sound a bit dramatic, but I wanna tell you, Sarah Byrnes’s pappy gives me maximum creeps. “You’re Calhoune,” he says, standing a few feet from me.
“Yes sir.”
He glances back at Sarah Byrnes, then back to me. “She say anything to you?”
“No sir.”
He’s quiet another moment, staring hard at my eyes. I hold his gaze, vowing not to blink or look away, while sweat glands pop open like kernels of popcorn. “You let me know if she does.”
“Yes sir.”
The attendant stands patiently by the open door, keys dangling from her hand, and Mr. Byrnes disappears into the outer hallway.
I think I detect the fleeting shadow of a sneer across Sarah Byrnes’s lip as I slip onto the seat beside her, but I know it must be my imagination, and I can’t help thinking back to what Dale Thornton said that day.
“I think we oughta do a ex-pose on that little rat Elgin Greene,” Dale said, pacing the wooden floor of our attic hideaway. “Little goofball’s got some kinda bad news stink to him. We could chase it down, maybe find out it come from a giant comet turd landin’ in his backyard or somethin’. You know, explodin’ all over his whole family whenever it hit.” Dale had definitely become comfortable with the content, if not the spirit of our biweekly rag.
I sat at the keyboard, chin propped in one hand, feeding myself nonstop Lorna Doones with the other, a major writer’s block shrouding me like the stench around Elgin Greene.
Sarah Byrnes lay on the couch, heels planted firmly against the arm, absently drumming her hands on her stomach along with the Kingston Trio, one of whom was runnin’ like a dog through the Everglades. “I’ve told you a thousand times, we don’t pick on guys like Elgin Greene. He’s one of us, only helpless.”
“Ole Greene ain’t helpless. Get downwind from that kid, he’s a powerful mother.” He laughed, nodding. “Yup. I think a ex-pose on Elgin Greene is right what we need.”
“First of all, it’s ex-po-say,” Sarah Byrnes said. “Not ex-pose. Jesus, you could at least learn to say it right. And second, we pick on people who do us dirt. Picture us as good guys, Dale, hard as that may be for you. We’re champions of the underdog. Underdogs call Elgin Greene an underdog. We’re not giving him a hard time and that’s it.”
“So you come up with somethin’,” Dale said. “You’re so damn smart, got your brains all wrapped up in your ugly head by them scars.” Dale was going for the throat; it didn’t take much to wound him. Killing him was something else…. “That’s the only reason you stay so smart. None of it gets out ’cause it’s packed in there so good.”
No half-witted remark about burn scars ever got a rise out of Sarah Byrnes—not since maybe first grade. “Oh, Dale,” she said sarcastically, “you’re just so darn clever. I bet all the girls swoon. Got lots of dates lined up for the weekend?”
“Up yours,” he said. “You really ain’t so damn smart. You think you got everybody fooled about them scars, but you ain’t fooled me. Them scars didn’t come from no pot of spaghetti. No way.”
Sarah Byrnes was off the couch in a second, her teeth clenched like a sprung bear trap. “You better just shut up.”
Dale laughed. “I’ll shut up, okay, but that don’t change the truth.”
I said, “Why do you say stuff like that, Dale? Man, you got to be careful when you go slandering one of us. We’re supposed to save that for the enemy.”
“Ain’t no slander. Just fact. I know it same way Sarah Byrnes knowed how my daddy kicked my ass when he found out about the chew. I seen her with her daddy. She got a shit family, just like me.”
>
The fire in Sarah Byrnes’s eyes blazed. “You’re a Thornton. You wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up behind you and bit your ass and stole your wallet.” She sat back. “You know what? I’m kind of tired of this paper anyway. Maybe we should just quit. We’ve made our point.”
I wanted to leap up and stop her, but I couldn’t let Dale see us disagree without paying dearly after he was gone. We had published eight papers, in the course of which we had detailed each and every year of the sordid past of Mautz’s illegitimate, twin-beaned alien son, including the two years he spent as Elvis’s secret gay lover.
I certainly didn’t want to halt the presses before we completed our four-part exposé, and this confrontation between Sarah Byrnes and Dale Thornton threatened to do just that. Though I was responsible for the word-smithery of about ninety percent of all written material, no way would I have had guts enough to continue without Sarah Byrnes’s fierce resolve. Dale Thornton, I could have done without anytime.
Crispy Pork Rinds slid downhill from that moment. Sarah Byrnes said we needed to move on to other modes of terrorism and that Dale Thornton was as stupid as she had always thought and she didn’t want him around us too much longer or our brain cells might start to melt. We printed only one more edition, in which I doubled up to complete reports on the Mautz family tree.
A few weeks later Dale Thornton was unceremoniously dumped as unassistant editor, and Sarah Byrnes and I began other kinds of tactical assaults on those who wronged us: a box of fish guts planted in a locker here at the beginning of a long weekend, analgesic balm spread lavishly there in someone’s underpants while he was dressed down for PE. By year’s end we had successfully distributed more than twenty hollow gumballs doctored with Tabasco sauce from a hypodermic syringe. All were single acts of vengeance requiring no protection from Dale Thornton. Sarah Byrnes and I were on a roll.