One Mississippi Page 9

  The bell rang, thank you bell.

  “Call me if you hear anything else,” I said. I hurried into homeroom.

  Tim’s desk was right next to mine. It was still empty when Miss Anderson called roll.

  “Cousins,” she said, and was met by silence. “Tim Cousins?” She made a mark and went on with the roll.

  Chicken! Deserter! Playing hooky to keep from showing his face! I doodled an elaborate maze on the back of my notebook. Didn’t Tim know how guilty it looked for him to cut school, the Monday after what happened on Saturday night?

  The loudspeaker squealed. Although Mr. Hamm had been principal at Minor since dinosaurs roamed the earth, he was still learning to use the PA system. He warmed up with a couple puffs of air, then set the speaker buzzing with his rotund syllables. “Good morning, boys and girls, few announcements here, first to say we’re all just real sorry to hear about the accident this weekend. I know we’ll all say a special prayer for the speedy recovery of Arlene Beecham.”

  Arlene?

  A hum of static. Click click went the microphone key. “Scuse me,” Mr. Hamm said, above the background whisper of the office secretary, Miss Pitts. “I seem to have misspoke. Arnita is her name, of course. We all know her, she’s the daughter of Mr. Beecham, our — maintenance engineer, and she’s a real special girl. So anyway let’s send a kind thought to her family, if we can. Sergeant Magill of the sheriff’s department is handling the case, and I’m sure they’ll find whoever injured the girl. Next, we’ve had a problem with people leaving their sweaty gym clothes all over the locker room, so from now on we’ll have a new policy. . . .”

  That was it? That was all he had to say? If I got run over and almost killed, I would want Mr. Hamm to say a few more words about me before moving on to the sweaty gym clothes.

  The bell rang. I shuffled into the noisy jam of slamming lockers. In high school it’s all about how you walk down the hall — whether you stroll through the flow or dart along the edges, whether you hold the stack of books on your hip with one hand (guys) or press them two-handed to your chest (sissies and girls). Notes are scribbled and passed, rumors fanned and blown down the hall. This morning, the word in the air was Arnita.

  I kept my head down, books propped on my hip, and plowed straight down the middle.

  The bell shrilled, draining all this excitement into the classrooms, where it was swiftly killed off. Eight-thirty algebra, first class of the day. When she wasn’t crowning the Prom Queen, Mrs. Passworth could be found at her overhead projector, beaming a square of light onto a pull-down screen at the blackboard. She sat in the upward-thrown glare of the projector, lit up like the Bride of Frankenstein, drawing spidery equations on the acetate sheet with a wax pencil. The shadow of her hand swooped and fluttered batlike around the screen.

  “Today we’re going to learn something new,” she said. “Who can tell me how to determine if a number is natural, integer, rational, irrational, or real?”

  No one volunteered. We slumped in our seats. Dutifully I copied the squiggles and numbers into my notebook, but all I could think was Arnita — what would she remember when she woke up? What if she didn’t wake up? How does it feel in a coma — is it a massive wave of confusion, like algebra, or is it like being asleep, or lost in another world? Was her family gathered around her bed? A bouncing green dot keeping track of her heart?

  “Can anyone tell me why we need to reverse the relative positions of these two factors?” said Mrs. Passworth. No one breathed, for fear she might call on them. At first algebra had appeared to be just a complicated form of arithmetic, dense but eventually understandable. After Christmas, though, Mrs. Passworth had wandered off into a fantasy world of linear relations and functions, polynomials and radical expressions. For weeks now, none of us had known what the hell she was talking about.

  Normally Tim and I spent this period passing hilarious notes across the aisle. All our teachers were laughable in some way, but Passworth’s starchy exactitude, her prim posture at the projector, the upward sweep of her beehive, combined to give us a full fifty-five minutes of fun every day. She wore a plain white blouse and no-nonsense gray skirt, and so much mascara that you wondered how she could keep her eyes open.

  “Class,” she said, “class. We’re not focusing. We need to focus our minds, or we’ll never catch on! These are important concepts!”

  “Mrs. Passworth,” Sandie Williams said, “I just don’t get it. Why did you put that thing under that other thing?”

  “What thing, Sandie?”

  “The thing with the V on it. You know, the little checkmarky thing that goes across. Why did you move it down there?”

  Mrs. Passworth snapped off the projector. The room fell into darkness, a hush. “My God, this is hopeless,” she said in a quiet, dangerous voice. “Do you people know or even care that I have a master’s degree? Do you realize I could be teaching on the college level instead of to a bunch of —” She left unsaid what we were. She stood abruptly and walked to the front of the room. “I don’t know why I even try. I sit there and explain it all perfectly clearly to you, and you’re not even listening!”

  I shifted in my seat. Sandie Williams looked ready to cry. Passworth was just getting started. She marched back and forth railing about how, if you don’t know the names of the basic building blocks, how do you ever expect to learn the blah blah blah, year after year teaching these rooms full of small-town dullards without the least imagination, on and on for long minutes until it got a little weird, trapped in that dim room with her saying, “Doesn’t anyone care about anything? I can’t take much more of this. I tell you, I can’t!”

  It seemed to me that we were no more stupid than on any other day. But Mrs. Passworth had become suddenly unable to tune out our stupidity. We had no hope of understanding what she was trying to teach us, and it was really getting to her.

  Jimmy Yelverton spoke up: “Miz Passworth?”

  “What?!”

  “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  She flung the laminated pass at him. Jimmy picked it up from the floor and ambled out.

  Mrs. Passworth burst into tears.

  We all looked at each other. You don’t often see a non-substitute teacher break down and cry.

  She went to her desk, turned her chair to the wall, and made little mewling sounds. When at last she turned to face us, her eyes were all smudged. “Y’all will just have to excuse me,” she sniffed. “Things have been very strange lately.”

  “We’ll try harder, Miz Passworth.” Mindy Maples was a cheerleader in every sense of the word.

  “No, it’s not you. You’re children. What do you know? You can’t help it if you’re ignorant — no, and it’s not just this terrible thing with the Beecham girl. Let’s face it, it’s me.”

  “Ma’am?” Mindy cocked her head to one side.

  “There are lights, you know, in the nighttime. Very bright lights around my house,” Mrs. Passworth said.

  “Do you think you’re having a nervous breakdown?” asked Mindy. A couple of boys tittered but the rest of the class sat dead quiet. This was no joke. Mrs. Passworth was rumored to have spent time in an actual loony bin, some years back.

  “No, Mindy, I don’t think I am,” she said, “but thank you for asking. I’ve been under a lot of pressure but so what? We’re all under pressure.” She folded her hands on the desk. “Labor Day weekend, I decided I would make myself a little barbecue, you know, it being the holiday, and there I was thinking, Oh how sad, all alone on Labor Day, cooking up my little hamburger patty in the backyard, when all of a sudden — let me stop here and ask, has anybody in this class ever been attacked by a blue jay?”

  To judge from the stillness in the room, no one had.

  “Well you see there, how unusual it is. How astonished I was when the first one came down from a tree and struck me on the head. Right here.” She touched her brunette pouf. “And then another one. And a third. Three separate blue jays came from out of nowhere to at
tack me.”

  “Like in that movie,” said Kevin Donohue.

  “The Birds,” I offered.

  “Exactly,” said Mrs. Passworth. “I had to leave my patty on the grill and run for cover! It wasn’t like I was disturbing them — I was minding my own business! Can anybody think of a reason why three blue jays would suddenly decide to attack an innocent person?”

  “Maybe they wanted your burger,” said Kevin Mayhew.

  Our laughter exploded down the hall and died away. Every eye went to the clock: eighteen minutes to go and the second hand crawling so painfully slow.

  “Miz Passworth?” That was Beverly DeShields, a plump Christian girl, a total brainiac. “Is any of this gonna be on the test?”

  “No, Beverly. None of it.”

  “Cause I had a question about last night’s homework. The binomials?”

  “Save it, Beverly,” she snapped. “I am done for one day. Class dismissed.”

  We bounded out of our desks. By lunchtime, the whole school knew Mrs. Passworth had flipped out in first period and gone home. Mr. Hamm took over her classes and showed filmstrips of the national parks. I couldn’t wait to tell Tim — chicken bastard that he was, hiding at home.

  I went to the pay phone in the courtyard. Tim let it ring twelve times before picking up. “’Lo.”

  “What the hell are you doing at home?” I said.

  “I’m sick.”

  “Oh yeah, I’ll bet. Don’t you think it looks a little strange, you going AWOL today of all days?”

  “Yes, Mother. Quit worrying. Everything’s fine. What’s the news?”

  “Apparently, that person is still in intensive care.” Other kids were filtering past from the cafeteria. “Look, I can’t talk here. I’m coming over to your house after band. You better be there.”

  “I will. Jeez. Calm down, Skippy. Everything’s fine. Okay?”

  I let out a breath. “Okay.”

  “Stop worrying, you’ll give yourself a heart attack.”

  “I thought I would have one in algebra this morning,” I said. “You won’t believe what she did.”

  “What?”

  “No. I’m not telling. You don’t deserve to hear, you stay-at-home traitor!”

  “Fine. Be that way. I’ll see you after school. Later —”

  “Gator.” I hung up first.

  Dropped in another fifteen cents and called Mom to tell her I’d be home late.

  “Honey, remember Daddy’s coming home tomorrow. You’ve still got to finish the grass.”

  “I’ll get up early and cut it.”

  “That’s what you always say. You be sweet at Miz Cousins’s house, you hear?”

  Be sweet. What would Mom say if she knew the truth of what we’d done? She would march me straight to the cops to confess the whole thing. If Tim wouldn’t go with me, I’d still have to tell the whole story. Including him. That’s what Mom would say.

  It would be big trouble, oh yes, the worst of my life, but in time you could get beyond trouble. Even trouble that bad. Trying to hang on to a secret like this, on the other hand, was the kind of mistake that could mess up the rest of your life.

  Tim was not my master. He was not in charge of me. I would tell him straight out — either he went with me to the police or I’d go alone. He wouldn’t like it, but that’s how it was going to be. Take it or leave it.

  Once I made up my mind, I felt better. Anxious but better. I saw a glimmer of possibility in the darkness.

  “TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT,” I said. “I am not going into my senior year with this thing hanging over my head.”

  “I understand how you feel,” he said. We sat cross-legged in his mystic cave of a room, with its thick maroon shag, the lava lamp, the twirly lantern scattering silvery light across the bed. Tim’s art-class drawings covered the walls. He specialized in elaborate renderings of fairy-tale castles, fortresses, ruined temples, a few tiny people here and there on the ramparts.

  “We’ll go to the police together,” I said. “Right now. Before we lose our nerve.”

  “That’s a really noble impulse, Dogwood. Do you think Red Martin would do the same for you? If the situation were reversed?”

  “I don’t care what Red would do. This is what we have to do.”

  “I just want you to think through the logic of what you’re proposing.”

  “It’s really simple, Tim. We tell the truth. We don’t have to hide anymore, or cut school to sit around wondering when we’ll get caught.”

  He propped up on his elbows, studying me. “They charged Red with drunk driving, right? Not with hurting Arnita, or anything to do with her. Think about it. He was drunk. He was driving. He got busted. Case closed. How is that our fault?”

  “Everyone in school thinks he’s the one who ran her over.”

  “Who cares? The police must not think that, they haven’t charged him with it. So your big confession won’t change a thing for Red — or for Arnita.”

  “But Tim. It’s just not right.”

  He jumped up to pace the floor. “Look. If I thought the cops would believe us? I might go along with you. But Skippy, why should they? If we tell, we end up doing a few months each in the juvy home. Where, you know, we will get fucked, because that’s what they do to the new boys out there. If I ever get out, my father won’t let me back in the house. I won’t get to go to college. I’ll end up working in some auto parts store. All because you had this bizarre urge to help Red Martin.” He put his head down and kept talking. “Meanwhile Arnita still got hurt, Red still got his DWI, and we’ve got a felony record for the rest of our lives.”

  “That’s not necessarily how it would go,” I said.

  “That’s the best it could go. The best possible outcome. You think the cops are going to give you a prize for honesty? Believe me, they won’t.”

  “If you won’t go with me,” I said, “I have to go by myself.”

  “Look Skippy — you want me to admire your principles? Okay, I admire ’em. But don’t ask me to confess to something I didn’t do. I didn’t hurt Arnita. She ran into our car. I never laid a finger on her. And if we happen to be the only two people who know Red had nothing to do with it, I can live with that. Really.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I can.”

  “Fine. Just wait. Don’t do anything now. Let’s see what happens. Maybe she’ll be okay.”

  Tim knew me so well. I didn’t really want to go to the cops. I didn’t want to confess. I came over here so he could talk me out of it. He only had to persuade me a little. I did not want to hear my mother’s voice when I called her from jail.

  “Arnita is gonna nail us,” I said.

  “If that happens, we’ll deal with it,” Tim said. “Now tell me about Passworth. Don’t leave out a single detail.”

  That was my last chance to put everything right. I walked right on by.

  6

  EVERY COUPLE OF DAYS Mr. Hamm read a hopeful report from the hospital: Arnita had moved her toes. She drank from a straw. She recognized her name.

  The Frillinger twins went to the hospital with a group of girls bearing flowers, teddy bears, and balloons. Arnita’s mother intercepted them in the waiting room. “She was kind of standoffish,” Dianne reported. “We’d practiced a song for Arnita, but the mother wouldn’t let us anywhere near her.”

  “What song was it?”

  “‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’” Dianne said.

  “My God, were you trying to kill her? Don’t you know the Carpenters can be fatal?”

  “It’s not a joke, Daniel. It’s so sad. They say she might have permanent brain damage.”

  “She’s gonna be fine,” I said. “Don’t ask me why, but I have this feeling she is.” That was pure wishful thinking, of course. If I kept wishing hard enough, I might help it come true.

  Red Martin came strutting into physics on Thursday sporting a brand-new crew cut and a tight yellow T-shirt that showed off his muscly chest. It was his first time at
school since Prom Night. He was cracking gum, grinning, enjoying the stir he had provoked just by showing up. “Watch out, ladies, steer clear of the jailbird!” he crowed. His buddies laughed. Red faked a pass with his chemistry book, did a graceful linebacker pirouette, and swung into his desk.

  The black kids in back put out a silence so cold you could feel it. Gradually the rest of the room fell quiet. It wasn’t all that smart of Red to come in cutting up, cracking gum, just after Mr. Hamm had read out the latest medical report on Arnita.

  “What?” he said. “What did I do?”

  “Just shut up, Red,” said Emily Pickens, a do-gooder in barrettes and a pink sweater. “You’ve done enough.”

  When Red realized she was speaking for most of the room, the light went out of his smile. This was Red Martin, remember, in his third big year atop the Minor High jock-popularity pyramid, and now suddenly he was the jerk who ran over the Queen of the Prom.

  His face slowly turned the color of meat. “Well hell, people. Y’all got it all wrong. I didn’t hit her.”

  I felt almost sorry for him.

  He whirled on me sharply, as if he had detected it. “What the hell are you looking at, Five Spot?”

  I glanced to both sides. “Me?”

  “You’re the only Five Spot I see. You like my new haircut? I got it so I could look more like you.”

  His buddies snickered. It took a moment for Five Spot to register, then I understood, with a flood of shame, that he meant the five tiny patches on the back of my head where hair stubbornly refused to grow. Mom said with my blond hair no one noticed, but I begged the barber to leave it longer back there.

  I said, “Why’d you really have to cut it, Red? Can’t get rid of those pesky head lice?” It wasn’t the greatest comeback ever, but a few kids gave me a laugh.

  The rest of that day, wherever I went, there was Red. “Hey, Five Spot, how’s it going?” “Five Spot, lookin’ goood.” He and his henchmen called me Five Spot so loudly and often, kids I didn’t even know began saying, “Hey, Five Spot!”