The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(21)

“How bad was the bike accident?”

“Her father didn’t see it; he came out and found her lying on the sidewalk. He lives at the bottom of a pretty steep hill. He thinks she rode to the top and lost control coming down, that she went over the handlebars and hit her forehead.”

“How long was she in the hospital?”

“Just a couple of hours for observation.”

I reviewed the emergency room and attending physicians’ reports and was surprised at the lack of other significant injuries save for a skinned knee. I also discovered that Daniela did not share her mother’s last name. I realized where I had seen that round face and those blunt features. Daniela had her father’s last name, one with which I was quite familiar, though I had not spoken it in many years.

Bateman.





2





1964


Burlingame, California

Despite his threat of a knuckle sandwich, David Bateman either had the good sense, or had been forewarned, to leave me alone, at least in appearance. During the day Bateman was in the other classroom, and on the playground I had the nuns and lunch ladies close by. But whenever I grew comfortable, or started to believe Bateman had forgotten our encounter and his promise of retribution, he’d surface with a swift reminder, a balled fist silently smacking the palm of his hand to indicate a knuckle sandwich, a menacing sneer, or a sharp elbow as we passed in the corridor. Every day felt as though I was swimming in shark-infested waters, and it was only a matter of time before Bateman struck.

On the playground, I was included in kickball and wall ball only because I was either Ernie’s partner or Ernie would not play unless I was also picked for a team. But Ernie’s influence only went so far. Throughout the year I would hear my classmates inviting one another to each other’s homes after school, having sleepovers, or arranging playtime on the weekend. Invitations were never extended to me. When students had birthdays, they brought invitations and passed them out at recess, a heartless process in which students would assemble expectantly, like soldiers during the war gathering to receive mail from loved ones. Inevitably, several of us would depart empty-handed. It stung at first, but I quickly learned not to get my hopes up, and I avoided the process by playing in the yard with Ernie, who, despite his prowess on the playground—and for reasons I did not yet understand—was also frequently excluded.

Given my classmates’ proclivity to exclude me, I anticipated Valentine’s Day with such dread that when my mother asked me if I wanted to bring valentine cards to school, I told her the teachers didn’t allow us to pass out cards. In truth, I didn’t want to feel the rejection of handing out a card and having it torn up or thrown away. Sister Kathleen had explained the day before that we were to pass out cards in an allotted time just before recess so that we weren’t distracted the remainder of the day. The following day, when Sister Kathleen announced that we had ten minutes to engage in the Hallmark holiday, I stayed seated while my classmates ran to the cloakroom to retrieve their bundles and proceeded to hand them out. It felt like the longest ten minutes of my life. I sat watching the clock, about to bolt out the door when Valerie Johnson appeared at my desk and handed me a white envelope.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Sam,” she said and quickly ran off.

This was an unexpected development. Valerie Johnson had already established herself as the most popular girl in our class. I heard other girls constantly talk about her large house and swimming pool. She’d apparently thrown the best birthday party. As my classmates piled their valentines and the candy inside the envelopes on their desks, I sat up with my emotions soaring and opened my lone card.

Inside I did not find a card. When I turned the envelope upside down, a dead fly fell onto my desk, which caused a chorus of snickering and laughter as Valerie Johnson and her entourage rushed out the door onto the playground.





3

I spent the lunch hour playing a game of kickball. When the first bell rang, a five-minute warning to get to class, I realized I’d neglected a basic necessity. “I have to pee,” I said to Ernie as we approached the steep stairway leading from our play area up to the quad.

“You’re going to be late,” Ernie said.

But I didn’t just have to pee, I really had to pee. So as Ernie and the other students shuffled up the steps, the din of their voices reverberating off the stucco walls, I ducked into the bathroom, fumbling with the button that always felt a size too large for the hole. Stepping to the urinal, I unzipped my fly and prepared to relieve myself when I heard a loud, obnoxious, and all too familiar voice in the corridor, followed by an equally familiar cackle. I froze. David Bateman and his two brutes were, by the sound of it, about to enter. Panicked, I scurried to a toilet stall, managing to get the stall door shut just as I glimpsed the bathroom door fling open and bang hard against the wall.

Since the old-fashioned porcelain toilet had no lid, I balanced a shoe on each side of the rim and rested my bottom on the bowl mounted to the wall. Perched atop the toilet, I took full advantage of my mother’s religious tutelage. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee . . . please don’t let them find me . . . please don’t let them find me . . . blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . . please don’t let them find me . . .”

I peeked out the gap between the stall door and jamb and saw the backsides of the three thugs standing shoulder to shoulder at the urinal trough. I had come to learn that Bateman’s henchmen were second graders, Patrick O’Reilly and Tommy Leftkowitz. Bateman pushed O’Reilly’s shoulder, trying to knock his stream off the mark. Then Bateman spun, rotating like a sprinkler, and peed all over the bathroom, much to his goons’ delight.