Here So Far Away(68)

Dad wouldn’t let me stay home the first day after my suspension, so I was slathered in foundation that I’d pinched from my mother. (Colors that match my Irish paleosity hadn’t been invented yet.) I wore a turtleneck to cover the place where the foundation and my skin parted ways. I could feel the makeup sliding south as I climbed the school steps and pooling in the collar of the formerly tight sweater that no longer hugged my frame.

Matthew hopped out of Abe, couldn’t get away fast enough, leaving me to slouch inside on my own. Double takes, a snicker or two. The only person who approached me was Shelley-with-an-E. She put her hand on my shoulder, squinted at my face, then just sort of backed away.

I searched for Bill in the hallway, but locked eyes with Joshua instead. I’d punched his girlfriend and he’d bought me a birthday gift. What did I owe him: thank you, sorry, or you’re welcome? I decided to lead with thank you, but before I could get all the words out, he fled like an impala that’s spotted a lion in the grass.

So things were off to a good start.

During homeroom I had to go to the principal’s office for my official smackdown. There was a little speech to give, which Mr. Humphreys had basically written for me.

“Violence,” I began, “is not the solution—”

“I’m sorry about your face,” Christina said.

“You’re sorry about . . . my face?”

The area under her eye still had a large greenish-brown bruise that must have been pretty gruesome two weeks earlier. Unlike me, she hadn’t tried to cover it up with makeup. I looked over at Mr. Humphreys, assuming he’d put her up to it, but he was as taken aback as I was. He gave me a go-on nod.

“I’m sorry too,” I said. “Violence is not the solution to our problems and also not in the spirit of our school motto, ‘Courteousness, Cooperation and Consideration For All.’”

Christina seemed rattled, staring down at her hands. For a second I thought maybe Joshua had dumped her. Hopefully not for me. Again. But then she met my eyes and had a look I’d never seen before on her ferrety face. She felt sorry for me.

What did she know?

“Matthew said . . .”

Matthew!

“He said . . .”

Something told me that I should act like I knew what she was trying to say, so I sat back in my chair and knitted my eyebrows together and swallowed a sour taste that was rising in my throat.

“What about Matthew?” Mr. Humphreys said.

“Nothing. I don’t want to cause any more trouble.”

“Good. So now you two can put this behind you. Christina, you’re excused. George, I need you to sign this pledge form. The PTA believes students are less likely to re-offend if they promise not to.”

The pledge was printed in a scroll font on top of a picture of a sunset. “‘I pledge to be honest and always true. To treat each day as bright and new. To honor my teachers and my classmates too . . .’ I feel less violent already,” I said as Christina fled the office.

Mr. Humphreys handed me a pen. “I feel the opposite.”

I tried to keep my head down in Modern World Problems, but could feel eyes on me. Maybe Nat’s. Maybe Lisa’s. I instinctively glanced up when Doug dropped his books onto the desk in front of mine, and I think he started laughing before his brain had computed what was so funny. Hey, it’s nice to make a person’s life in one nanosecond. Because while everyone else saw some kind of mysterious accident, all Doug took in was my half-cracked attempt to cover it up. I’m not sure he noticed the sharp look from Mr. Gifford, just got up, tipped his hat to me, and marched himself out of the classroom, still laughing.

Mr. Gifford seemed to feel the same as me: like the day had already defeated him. He popped a tape into the VCR and babysat us with news reports about the Bombay Riots, leaning back in his chair with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. I slid down in my seat and cupped my hands around my temples, as though cutting off my peripheral vision could shut out the buzzing worry about what it was that my baby brother and the person who had told everyone about the East Riverview guys knew—basically asking the good people of India to distract me with their immense suffering.

I’d watched a lot of horror movies, no problem, so it wasn’t the blood. Or the bodies lying in the streets, the shouting or the sirens. It was a woman in the corner of the screen, squatting, her hands reaching up in despair to God, one of her thin arms bent at an unnatural angle. What was her story? What had she lost?

I dreamt. About what, I can’t remember now. Something curious. Violent. Then whoever was sitting behind me kicked the bottom of my seat and I was back in the classroom but somehow also still in the dream. It pulled on me like a bath of molasses, and I couldn’t climb all the way out.

Slowly, faces appeared, gawking at me with huge grins. You’d think they were witnessing a Christmas miracle: Thank you, Jesus, for bestowing this spectacle upon us, we surely do believe. And it could have been Christmas, for all I knew. I couldn’t have told you my own name.

“Wake UP,” said Mr. Gifford, I suspect not for the first time.

“I . . .”

I retched. More specifically, I belch-retched in front of the entire class, and now scenery was flying by—desks and classroom walls and lockers and posters and mirrors and stalls—and then I was staring into a toilet bowl where bobbed a tidy wad of paper in a bath of very yellow pee. I retched again, brought up bile, and broke into a cold sweat.