The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(17)

His mother shook him again, flab jiggling. “And . . .”

“And—and I called him a nigger.”

Mrs. Bateman spun, tugging her son from the office by his arm. Sister Kathleen and Ernie barely had time to remove themselves from her path through the doorway. We heard David Bateman’s wails even after the outer door to the administration office shut. The aftermath felt like the passing of a storm, the room silent and still. Sister Beatrice’s eyes focused on the top of her desk.

Sister Kathleen’s gentle voice broke the silence. “Sam, please show Ernie to the lavatory, and the two of you get cleaned up and return to class, straight away.”

I looked to my mother, who silently nodded her permission. Sister Beatrice cleared her throat as if about to speak, but my mother gave her the same withering look she directed at me if I “acted up” in church. Whatever words Sister Beatrice had been prepared to speak, my mother’s look forced her to swallow them.





18

I stood on my toes to wash my hands at the white porcelain sink. Ernie stood at the sink beside me. The left side of my face remained ruby red. I tugged at tufts of hair stiff with dried Twinkie cream and used water and a brown paper towel to try to scrub the cream out, but I was only partially successful. Pointed strands of hair stuck out from my head. Just what the devil boy needed, horns.

“How’d you learn to run like that?” I asked.

Ernie shrugged. “Where’d you learn to wrestle like that?”

His question left me momentarily confused, not having equated my clinging to David Bateman’s back to wrestling. “I don’t know,” I said.

As we made our way from the bathroom down the corridor toward our classrooms, Ernie asked, “Do you want to be friends?”

I almost didn’t respond, too surprised at the invitation. Quickly recovering I said, “Sure.” I watched Ernie run down the corridor to his classroom. When Ernie pulled open the door, a loud cheer erupted and then just as quickly silenced. I could only imagine that Sister Reagan had squelched the applause. As I approached my classroom, I initially hoped for the same reception. I was, after all, the kid who had beaten up David Bateman. But as I reached the mahogany door, I became filled with a sense of dread—if the other kids had been afraid of me because of the color of my eyes, what were they now to think of me, the whirling dervish who had attacked not just another student but the monster himself? I was certain they would be downright terrified of me, considering me some sort of crazed lunatic or wild animal. I expected them to shriek in horror and recoil at the sight of me. But when I opened the door, no sound greeted me as I stepped through. My days of anonymity might have been over, but not my isolation.





19

My parents did not discuss the incident at dinner, the topic being one my mother would consider “unsettling” to our digestion. Instead they discussed my father’s workday and how business at the pharmacy continued to pick up. As dinner wore on, without discussion of my “escapade,” my feeling of being seated on a live grenade slowly gave way, and I sensed my parents had already spoken of the incident and didn’t care to discuss it again in front of me. While this was much easier on my digestive tract, it did little to assuage my curiosity.

After dinner, we retired to the living room, where my mother began her rosary, my father snapped open his newspaper, and I diligently pretended to be reading the sixth book in the Hardy Boys series, The Shore Road Mystery. When it again became apparent that my parents were not about to discuss the subject of the schoolyard fight in my presence, I announced that I was tired and even faked a yawn. Then I quickly trudged up the stairs and slid beneath my bed to listen through the grate.

“She was going to expel him?” My father’s voice sounded flat and disbelieving. “Looks like you made an enemy for you and for Samuel. She’s looking for any excuse to get even with you for going to that television news reporter.”

“If it wasn’t for that Ernie boy standing up for Samuel, she would have succeeded. Sister Kathleen said they moved from Detroit. The father worked at one of the car factories.”

“Well, he arrived just in time.” I heard the newspaper ruffle. “What about Sam’s other friends? Why didn’t any of them stick up for him?”

My mother softened her tone enough that I had to press my ear closer to the grate. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you this afternoon. I spoke to Sister Kathleen about something she said in the meeting, that Sam had never spoken in class.”

“Not spoken? I was under the impression he never shut up.”

“Not a word,” she said. “And he doesn’t have any friends, except for maybe this Ernie boy.”

“What about all the friends he talks about at dinner, Dillon and Barry?”

“There is no Dillon or Barry in his class.”

“He made them up?”

“And all of his accolades on the playground, apparently.”

“He made them up,” my father said.

My mother’s next words caught in her throat. “Sister Kathleen said he sits alone on the bleachers at recess and lunch until the bell rings.”

“What was her take on the situation?” my father asked.

“Well, she’s certainly sympathetic, but . . .”

“But what?”