A Troublesome Boy (2 page)

“Let's make a few things clear. First, you're not going to have a problem with people in a position of authority here, Mr. Clemson. You are going to be a model of respect for people in a position of authority. You are going to respect your teachers and your fellow students. You are going to be unfailingly polite. You are going to work hard and you are not going to fail any of the subjects you take. This is not a matter for discussion. I hope I'm making myself clear.”

I gave him the stare.

“Am I, Mr. Clemson?”

“Are you what?”

“Making myself clear.”

“I guess so.”

“Let's try that again, Mr. Clemson. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good.” He stood up, headed for the door. “Follow me.”

We left his office, went through the outer office into the hall, past the creepy Jesus.

“I'm going to have Brother Wilbur take you to your dorm. But first I want to show you something.”

At the far end of the hall, near the bottom of a set of stairs, he opened a door.

“Leave your bag on the floor and step inside, Mr. Clemson.”

I dropped my bag and stepped into a cubicle the size of a broom closet. Same puke-green walls as the corridor, same terrazzo floor, single bulb in a wire-mesh cage on the ceiling. In the middle of the room there was a straight-back wooden chair, like the one in his office, facing the door.

“Have a seat, Mr. Clemson.” I looked at him and then at the chair. I sat. “Now, I just want you to understand what I've been talking about. If we have any trouble with you, you'll find yourself in here. This is a time-out room. One of many, I should add. We won't have any problem finding one for you. Any time you step out of line, give anyone any lip, give anyone any trouble at all, you'll find yourself in a room like this and this is what that will feel like.” He flicked off the light and shut the door.

Jeezus.

I just sat there for a moment, too startled to say anything or do anything. A minute. Two minutes.

I stood up and felt the door. No handle. Now what? I knocked on the door.

“All right,” I said. “I get the message. You can let me out.” Silence. I hit the door with the side of my fist. “Let me out of here!” Silence. “What the hell are you doing? Let me out of here.” I banged on the door half a dozen times. Silence. I felt for the chair and sat down.

What in hell?

Ten minutes passed. Maybe fifteen. Then the door opened.

“I'm Brother Wilbur. Father Stewart asked me to show you to your dorm.” Brother Wilbur was a scrawny little guy, wrinkled face, gray brush cut. He was wearing a robe, but a brown one.

“What the fuck was that all about?”

“Watch your tongue, my son.”

“I'm not your son. And I want to know why he locked me in that fucking room.”

“You'll have to ask him. And if you use that language once more, you'll be back in that room and this time it'll be for half an hour. Pick up your bag and follow me.”

For an old guy, Wilbur was in pretty good shape. He was taking the stairs two at a time. Three flights of stairs. I was dragging my ass by the time I got to the top, and he was just standing there waiting for me. Wasn't even breathing hard.

“Seems you could use some time in the gym, Mr. Clemson. And you might want to think about quitting the cigarettes.”

At the top of the stairs there was a landing. On either side of the landing were two stairs leading to double doors. He led me through the doors on the left. “This is the junior dorm.” There were two rows of metal-frame single beds with gray blankets. He walked down the room and pointed to a bed, second from the end on the left.

“This is your bed. You'll make it every morning and it will look exactly like this. No wrinkles. You are issued two sheets, one pillow, one pillowcase, one blanket. Every Friday you'll change your sheets and pillowcase. One of the Brothers will bring a cart with fresh ones. You'll put the old sheets and pillowcase down the laundry chute over there.” He pointed to a little rectangular door in the wall. “And those will be the only things you put down the laundry chute.”

He gave me The Look, as though I was about to empty a wastebasket down there.

“The washrooms are through that doorway.” He led me to the far end of the room. White-tiled walls, white-tiled floor, gray marble partitions dividing the stalls. Urinals the size of little bathtubs.

There was a handyman working on one of the sinks. Big guy with a shiny face. It was the first thing you noticed about him. Kind of a choir-boy look, except he was maybe thirty-five or forty. About the same age as my dad. He had black curly hair that he combed straight back. Looked like he hadn't shaved in a day or so. He was a hefty guy. Not fat, just large. He was wearing a lumberjack shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots. He smiled a lot.

Had the faucets off and was fiddling around with a wrench.

“How's it going, Mr. Rozell?”

The guy looked up. “Well, say.” He seemed a little rattled. Wiped his hands on his jeans. “Pretty good. Except I had a little problem.”

“What kind of problem was that?”

“I dropped one of the washers down the drain. Had to open up the drain to get it.” He laughed. Nervous laugh. “Should have it done soon. All I got to figure out now is where all the pieces go.”

Rozell looked normal enough, but sounded a bit dim. How tough was a faucet?

“Well, good luck with that.”

“Thanks, Brother.” Rozell went back to fiddling with the wrench.

Brother Wilbur led me back through the dorm. “Lights out every night at nine o'clock. Wake up at six o'clock.”

“Six?”

“You'll have half an hour to dress and get to chapel.”

“I'm not Catholic.”

“All the more reason to get to chapel.”

“Where do I put my stuff?”

“This way.” He walked back the way we had come — down the steps, across the landing, up the other steps and through that set of doors. “This is the locker room. The showers are at the far end. You've been assigned locker 82.”

“Where is everybody?”

“School doesn't start until Monday. Most of the boys will be arriving on the weekend. The ones who are here are down in the gym. Put your bag in your locker. I'll take you down.”

I shoved my bag in the locker and shut the door.

“Your lock?”

“I don't have one.”

“In that case, bring your bag with you. I wouldn't leave anything unlocked around here.” We headed back down the stairs. This time Brother Wilbur took them on the run, and the gym was back down on the first floor. Christ.

I could hear the echo of voices before we got to the gym. Brother Wilbur opened the door. There were ten or eleven guys in there shooting hoops, screwing around.

Brother Wilbur checked his watch.

“It's seven thirty-five. You'll have twenty-five minutes. Then it's snack at eight, showers at eight-thirty. And as I mentioned, lights out at nine. Enjoy yourself, Mr. Clemson.” He shut the door behind himself.

Cream-colored walls for a change. There were low wooden benches along both sides of the gym, but only one boy sitting. Scrawny little kid with spiky blond hair. Looked like he'd cut it himself, all tufts and divots. He was sitting there like a dink, reading a book. He had black-rimmed glasses and, when I got close enough to see, weird eyes. The most amazing blue I'd ever seen, but the eyes weren't lined up right. The right one looked directly at you but the left one looked over your shoulder, like he was watching someone creep up behind you.

I wasn't sure I wanted to sit beside him, but it seemed mean to sit on another bench since he looked so hopeless already.

I sat on the same bench, but at the far end. I dropped my duffel bag at my feet. He didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. He was watching the kids tossing the ball and chasing each other around the gym.

“Tim,” he said finally. His voice was almost a whisper. I looked in his direction. “Cooper,” he said. “Tim Cooper.” He was looking at me with the one eye. “Hi.”

“Teddy,” I said. “Teddy Clemson.”

“There's your coincidence of the day.”

“What?”

“Our initials.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah.”

“You new here?”

“Yeah.”

“Me, too.”

“What did you do to wind up in a place like this?”

“Break and enters,” he said. “Seven of them.”

“Seven?” You'd never guess it to look at him. Scrawny-ass little kid.

He was looking at the kids playing hoops. “Should've stopped after six, I guess.” He turned to face me. Smirky little dimpled smile. “Live and learn. You?”

“Pissed off my mother's boyfriend.”

“Boyfriends are such a pain in the ass,” he said. He leaned to his right, pulled something out of his left pocket. “My mother had a whole string of them. One worse than the one before. Dunno how she developed such bad taste in men all of a sudden. My old man was all right, even if he did skip out on us. All these other guys were just assholes. Except the one who gave me this.” He was holding a little bone-handled knife. Pushed a button and the blade flipped out. He smiled. “Looks like it might come in handy. Place like this.” He pushed the blade against the bench, put the knife back in his pocket.

“Tell me about your life of crime.”

He laughed. He slid down a little toward me. “It started out as a kind of joke. Some guys I knew bet I couldn't break into this place while the people were sleeping. One of my mother's boyfriends was good for something. The one who gave me the knife. Taught me how to pick locks and hot-wire cars. I was in and out of the first place in under five minutes, the woman's purse in my hand. Sixty bucks in cash in her wallet.”

“How'd they catch you?”

“Worked the neighborhood once too often. The cops were waiting for me when I came out of the last place. The judge said I could take my pick: six months in juvenile or a year here. Hard to break out of juvie. I'll be out of here by the end of September.”

“How?”

“Walk out the door. Head for the highway.”

“You can take me with you.”

“You're welcome to tag along. I'm going out to B.C. You can live on the beach year round out there. Just spend your time fishing and swimming, eating and drinking. Sitting around a campfire listening to the waves — ‘
. . . and wreaths of smoke/Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!/ . . . . where by his fire/The Hermit sits alone.
' Wordsworth.” He held up
The Selected Poems of William Wordsworth
. From the looks of it — dog-eared cover, dirt smudges on the edges of the pages — he'd been reading the same book since he was six.

“You pansies just going to sit there or you gonna play?” The kid had black hair, major ducktail. He was about six-one, six-two. No shirt, all muscle, sweat and attitude. He was bouncing the basketball in front of us.

“Not interested,” said Cooper.

“Yeah, I'm in.” I turned to Cooper. “Watch my stuff?”

“Anything worth stealing in there?”

“Socks and underwear.”

“I'll check it out.” Same little smile.

It was quarter to eight. The jock's name was Billy Mather. He was in grade eleven. He was on the football team. He was also on the basketball team, as I found out when he started dribbling circles around me. I chased him up one side of the gym and down the other and never did get my hand on the ball.

I was winded ten minutes later when Brother Wilbur reappeared at the door and flicked the lights on and off.

“Let's go, gentlemen.”

My bag was where I'd left it. Cooper had vanished.

I was bringing up the rear and Brother Wilbur was right behind me. At the end of the hall there was a cafeteria.

“Form a line,” said Brother Wilbur. “Three cookies each. One glass of milk.”

Against the far wall was a counter. At the far end there was a tray piled with cookies, straight out of the box. Beside the cookie tray was another tray with plastic glasses and beside that was the milk dispenser. The Brother was a hawk, counting the cookies on each plate.

“Fifteen minutes, gentlemen.” He consulted the clock on the wall.

“Are we allowed to talk?” This was the smart-ass who was walking with Mather at the head of the line.

“Don't try my patience, Mr. Grainger. It's been a long day.”

Guys were choosing tables. Mather and Grainger were at one table with a couple of other guys. The rest were in twos and threes at tables nearby. I chose an empty table at the far side of the room. Brother Wilbur was hovering.

“Is there any place I can buy a lock for my locker?”

Icy stare. “Tuck shop is closed. You can try there tomorrow. Are you always anti-social, Mr. Clemson?”

“Usually.”

“Anti-social boys are problematic. We do not like problematic boys here, Mr. Clemson. Join the boys at that table.” He pointed at the table beside Mather's. I got up and shouldered my bag, took my plate and glass to the next table. Brother Wilbur was right on my heels.

There was Cooper, slouched in the doorway.

Brother Wilbur gave him the eye. “Who are you?”

“Cooper.”

“Do you have a first name, Mr. Cooper?”

“Yeah. How'd you guess?”

Giggles and snorts from a couple of tables.

“Would you mind sharing it with us?”

“Tim.”

“Where have you been, Mr. Cooper.”

“Out having a smoke.”

“Who gave you permission to go outside?”

“No one.”

“You just walked outside by yourself?”

“Yup.”

“Did you mean, Yes, Brother?”

“I guess.”

“We don't do things around here without getting permission, Mr. Cooper. It's against the rules. And when you break the rules, as you have just done, you pay the price. Which in this case will be detention, Mr. Cooper.”