Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock(20)

He strides through the doors and I realize I must have really pissed him off, because it’s the first time he hasn’t practiced when the auditorium was available during lunchtime. The first time in three school years.

I pick up the check he left behind, sit down in one of those old-ass creaky seats, and ponder what he said about there being people with worse problems than mine. It takes me all of three seconds to conclude that’s such a bullshit thing to say. Like the people in Iran are more important than me because their suffering is supposedly more acute.

Bullshit.

I like thinking all alone in the auditorium even when there is no violin music.

Maybe I never even needed Baback to begin with.

Maybe he’s just like all the rest.

It’s better here when I’m by myself.

Safer.

How do you measure suffering?

I mean, the fact that I live in a democratic country doesn’t guarantee my life will be problem-free.

Far from it.

I understand that I am relatively privileged from a socioeconomical viewpoint, but so was Hamlet—so are a lot of miserable people.

I bet there are people in Iran who are happier than I am—who wish to keep living there regardless of who is in charge politically, while I’m miserable here in this supposedly free country and just want out of this life at any cost.

I wonder if Baback will regret demeaning my suffering when he turns on the news tonight.

I kinda hope he’ll feel responsible somehow—that it will make him so regretful he gets sick.





SIXTEEN


I see Asher Beal in the hallway. I make my hand into the shape of a gun and fire at him as he passes.

I miss twice, but then score a head shot.

“Dead!”

“What’s wrong with you?” he says, shaking his soon-to-be leaky skull.

“Everything!” I yell. “Nothing! You choose!”

People in the hallway are looking at me like I’m crazy—like they wish I would disappear.

Asher Beal just walks away.

“I know where you live!” I yell at him.

Knowing that this will all end tonight, that I will cease to be—that makes this day so much easier. It’s like I’m in a dream, floating through some ethereal world.28

Two presents left to deliver, and then I can open the P-38 and go out on the same day I came in.

Happy birthday to me!

God, I can’t wait.

“Leonard?” Mrs. Shanahan says.

My guidance counselor is wearing a lemon-yellow dress and has her red hair up in a bun today. She has these sky-blue glasses that dangle from her neck on a silver chain in a crazy ironic way, because she is way too young to wear her glasses on a chain. I wonder how she dresses when she’s not in school and I see her as an after-hours punk rocker maybe. She’s younger than most faculty members—Herr Silverman’s age, probably.

“I’m hearing reports that you’ve been acting strangely today. Is that true?” she says to me right in the hallway as tons of kids pass by.

“What? I’m always strange, right? But I’m fine otherwise,” I say, mostly because I don’t want to miss Herr Silverman’s Holocaust class, which is where I’m headed now.

I usually don’t mind going to Mrs. Shanahan’s office because she keeps a jar of lollipops on her desk and I always enjoy a root beer sucker midday, but I have to say good-bye to Herr Silverman before I exit the planet, and I don’t want to miss his class. It’s the one class I actually like. So I decide to put on a show for her.

“What’s going on under that hat?” she asks.

“Just a haircut.”

“Mrs. Giavotella said—”

“I’m not a very good barber, I’m afraid,” I say, smiling and looking into her eyes all Hollywood. I’m a convincing actor when I need to be. “I’d show you my new look right now, but I’m a little self-conscious about it, hence the hat. Can I swing by eighth period? Would be happy to show you then and talk about whatever you’d like.”

She looks into my eyes for a long time, like she’s trying to tell whether I’m bullshitting her.

Deep down she absolutely knows I’m bullshitting her, I’m sure of it. But she has a million problems to solve, hundreds of students who need her help, endless * parents to deal with, mountains of paperwork, meetings in that awful room with the round table and the window air-conditioning unit they run even in winter because the meeting room is directly over the tropically hot boiler room, and so she knows the easiest thing to do is believe me.

She’s fulfilled her obligation, assuaged her conscience by finding me in the hallway and giving me the chance to freak out, and I’ve played my role too, by remaining calm, pretending to be okay, and therefore giving her permission to cross me off her things-to-do list. Now she can move on, and I can too.

Once you understand how adults are controlled by the system, manipulating them is elementary.

“I’ve put aside a few root beer lollipops for you, because I was getting low,” she says, and then smiles back at me.

If only you could solve all of your problems with candy, I think, Mrs. Shanahan would be relevant.

“We’ll talk eighth period, right? Promise you’ll come see me. I always look forward to a visit from Leonard Peacock.”