Devil House(28)

When Gene didn’t answer, his father laughed and went back down the hall to the bedroom, where a radio was turned up too loud. The living room with the television is also Gene’s bedroom; he sleeps on the couch.

“We should just tell my dad to tell Nicky to find us the biggest speakers he can get,” he says now, in the car, wiping his mouth with a handful of napkins. The tacos are gone; he’s slowing down a little. “Big honkin’ cherrywood housing like in that one magazine, remember? I can get money.”

Jesse does not remember that one magazine. There’s a part of him that thinks he should try to steer the conversation someplace else, just in case Gene’s serious one of these days: there was the time he shot at the windows of Cork ’n’ Bottle Liquors with his BB gun. Nothing ever came of it, but it had been frightening, sitting in the passenger seat watching his friend pull the trigger in the dark, the BBs bouncing impotently off the glass, leaving a bunch of little marks. But the greater part of Jesse is too numb to act. It’s how he is.

“I know exactly where I can get money,” Gene says, his gaze out in the oleander that edges the parking lot.



* * *



YOU’RE HAVING LUNCH. There are seven class periods per school day, each teacher carrying a six-class load: you’re expected to take lunch at the same time the students do, after fifth period, and to spend a floating open period either grading papers or holding office hours. Some teachers try to game their schedules to allow them to either sleep in or clock out early, but this year you’ve opted for the long lunch: fifth period’s your off period. You could drive home if you wanted, as long as you kept track of the time—you wear a wristwatch from Japan, a Seiko. Its face glints so brightly in the sun—you could use it to flag down a plane. But then, just as you’re clearing the parking lot, you think: What about fish and chips. Sam’s. Why not?

The drive along the water today is hypnotic in its beauty: the sun, the sea, the brush growing along the roadside blurring green and reddish brown at forty-five miles an hour. It was drives like this that led you to buy the convertible: other teachers tease you about it a little. It’s a Mustang with plenty of wear on it—the newer models all look cooler to the kids, and the older ones won’t be considered collectibles until long after your name’s passed into legend. You bought it used last year; it’s a little like an oversized hat on you. Kids who see you driving do a double-take: Is that Miss Crane? With the top down? You relish these reactions. They keep you feeling young.

Sam’s sits directly on the bay; they have a seal in a tank on their boardwalk, which is a little sad, but the seal himself seems happy enough, and you’d never get to see one close up otherwise. They sell raw fish you can throw to him. Sometimes he snaps it right out of the air. But today you don’t buy him any fish, because he’s lazing on the concrete that abuts the tank; you don’t want to wake him up. He looks so peaceful, as long as you don’t think about the ocean and about how he has to smell sea breeze all day without ever getting to swim in the sea.

You’ve brought the Telegram-Tribune with you, and you do the crossword while you wait for your lunch, gazing out at the bay when you’re stuck for an answer. You finish about half the puzzle waiting, and then the food comes: the breading is a little heavy, but crisp, and the chips are steaming hot. When the waiter asks if you want more water, you ask if they have 7 Up; when he says, “Sure,” you smile like a little kid who’s just learned about Christmas presents: “I’ll have that, then,” you say.

We know about this because the waiter remembered.



* * *



THE DRIVE BACK to school is even better than the drive out—the bay right there outside the driver’s-side window as you leave, the sun just beginning its descent into the western hills. The top down, the smell of the sea. People still pull up roots and move to California on a whim all the time, and days like these are why—to find light like this in the early afternoon, you’d usually have to travel to Crete, or to the South of France, but here in Morro Bay, every time the clouds clear, you feel like you’re drifting through a golden moment that might never end.

The rest of the day drifts by weightlessly. There isn’t much to think about: tying up loose ends with students who are overconcerned about their grades, reviewing basic concepts for final exams. Nothing really new to the students who’ve studied all year, and nothing the ones who are behind will suddenly be able to grasp. You’ll be easy on the ones who’ve tried and come up short; you see their faces as you go over material from two months back, their exaggerated concentration, as if the right attitude now might mitigate the disaster awaiting them when you place the exam booklets on their desks next week. There are some teachers who hold cram sessions at their own houses this time of year—University of Chicago grads, people who’re going to change the world through secondary education; they’re a little much sometimes. One has to keep one’s boundaries pleasantly firm, you think. What if the students just started following teachers home for free tutoring? How would you redraw the line, once you’d let them smudge it? But nobody follows you back to your apartment from school today, because they don’t need to: they’ve already looked up your address in the phone book.

This is something that will make your story harder for later generations to understand. Why is your address right there in the phone book? You’re a teacher; public school teachers have targets painted on their backs. If a student gets mad about his grades, “Better safe than sorry” is the watchword. You never know what these kids will do. Some of them have guns. Didn’t you hear about that one teacher in Massachusetts? Just twenty-four years old.