The Crazy School (11 page)

“I pulled out. I guess it wasn’t soon enough.”

“Mooney, pulling out doesn’t
work,
” I whispered. “There is no ‘soon enough.’ Didn’t they teach you that in sex ed?”

He didn’t say anything.

Of course they didn’t teach him that in sex ed, Madeline, because
there wasn’t any sex ed at the hospitals they’d both been in before this
place, and there sure as shit wasn’t any here.

“Fay keeps saying it’s her fault,” he said. “How can I make her understand that it’s mine?”

“First of all, you guys have to stop thinking of it as
fault,
” I said. “I mean, we’re all programmed to reproduce, you know?

The decks are stacked in that direction. Believe me, I’ve done some really stupid shit—”

“I don’t just mean that,” he said. “It’s everything else, too.

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Like how I freaked out and punched the window . . . I scared her. Fay only cuts herself when she’s scared.”

He poked at the math book again. “If I’d been able to keep it together, she wouldn’t have done that. And we wouldn’t be down here.”

“You guys love each other, Mooney. You’re both scared.”

“You know they upped her meds after this morning? Tranqued her until it’s like she’s not even in her body anymore.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“I just hope they let her celebrate her birthday. She needs something good to happen.”

“Will they do that on the Farm?”

“Usually, you get a cake when you turn eighteen. Probably so they can sucker you into staying.”

“I’ll talk to Dhumavati about it,” I said. “I promise.”

“Listen, can you give her my hat before those two come back out of the kitchen? I don’t want to get busted.”

“If you start your homework, okay? Let’s get you out of this place as soon as possible.”

He took the paperback from me after I bent its spine wide at the page he’d dog-eared last.

I grabbed his hat and stood up.

“Tell her everything will be okay,” he said. “Tell her she has to remember I love her to pieces. That’s what the necklace is for.”

When I told her, Fay didn’t open her eyes, didn’t stop humming—just raised her right hand to touch the silver moon at her throat.

The motion made her shirt cuff slip, revealing a glimpse of the tape-anchored white gauze around her wrist. She pinched 9 6

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the sleeve’s fabric and twitched it back up exactly enough to cover the bandage.

A practiced gesture. She didn’t even have to lift her cheek from the window to look.

There was no dressing on her left wrist. I wondered if Dhumavati’s interpretation took into account the fact that Fay had damaged herself on the same side that Mooney had.

I stayed crouched beside her, watching her breath fog the glass. “Anything you want me to tell Mooney?”

She pressed her fi ngertip against a point of the crescent charm. “Tell him I’ll never take this off.”

I did, and Mooney looked so happy I thought he was going to cry.

“You’ll get through this,” I said. “Both of you.”

He squirmed again, tensing his jaw to tamp down the advent of tears.

“First I have to get through tomorrow morning,” he said. “I can’t chop wood so they’ve got me on rat duty.”

“Rat duty?”

“Tons of them in this place, gnawing on the walls all night.”

“Nasty,” I said.

“I have to help spread poison around at lights-out. Then I get to wake up early and scrape up the suckers that ate it.”

I looked at his bandage. “One-handed?”

“There’s this scoop thing. Opens up when you step on it, then you kick the bodies in.”

“Pretend they’re Santangelo,” I said.

“Or maybe Pete.”

“Aw, come on, the guy seems pretty decent.”

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“Guess ol’ Wiesner called it right, then.”

“Called what right?”

“How Pete’s got you all over weak and swoony for those blond curls,” Mooney said.

“Wiesner’s an idiot.”

“Poor boy’s jealous.” Mooney popped a cheek with the tip of his tongue, grinning.

“Oh,
great
.”

“Still and all, you might wanna watch out for Goldilocks,”

he said. “Word is, him and Santangelo are all buddy-buddy—

like from back in college and shit.”

“No way they’re the same age,” I said. “College?”

The kitchen door started swinging outward.

Mooney snatched up
Caged Bird
before Dhumavati had so much as a toe across the threshold. He looked for all the world like he couldn’t get enough of Maya Angelou’s death-less prose.

I felt his knee nudge mine under the table.

“Might wanna watch out for Wiesner while you’re at it,” he sotto-voced.

Dhumavati was eyeing us, so I poked a fi nger at some random paragraph in his book.

“Who was Joe Louis?” I said, loud enough for her to hear. “A famous boxer. They called him the Brown Bomber.”

“Just keep wearing those big sweaters,” Mooney mumbled.

“Wiesner’d get nasty with a dead goat if he found it alone in the showers.”

Dhumavati looked at Pete. “What’ve we got for time?”

He checked his watch. “Ten after fi ve already.”

“Who’s on night shift?” she asked.

“Gerald and Cammy. Guess they’re running a little late.”

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She smiled at him. “Why don’t you and Madeline go on ahead, start enjoying the weekend? I’ll cover until they get here.”

Mooney coughed into his bandaged hand as I stood up, and I could’ve sworn it sounded like “watch out.”

Dhumavati walked me and Pete to the front door and shooed us outside.

I let him go fi rst, then paused in the doorway, turning back to her. “I hope tomorrow goes okay.”

“Thank you,” she said.

I remembered my promise to Mooney. “I have a favor to ask.”

“Fire away.”

I dropped my voice. “It’s Fay’s birthday on Tuesday. I’m hoping we could bring her a cake?”

“Of course,” she said. “You see? That’s exactly the kind of compassion I’ve been talking about.”

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15

Pete and I started trudging back up toward campus.

“Long day,” he said. “Lulu asked me over for coffee. Want to join us?”

“I’ve gotta get home, but tell her hey for me.”

“I hear she’s got a clandestine stash of caffeinated.”

“High-test,” I said, a little worried that she’d let him in on the secret, given Mooney’s warning.

“Can’t beat that with a stick.” Pete rubbed his hands together, fl ashing me a grin of anticipation. “I’m sick of drinking David’s crappy decaf.”

“Aren’t you fancy with the schmancy, calling him David already,” I said. “How long have you been here, a week?”

“That’s what he asked me to call him when he interviewed me.”

“So how’d you end up at this place?” I asked.

“A friend told me about what David was doing here. He said this might be a good place for me at the moment. I fi gured it was worth a shot.”

“Had you met Santangelo beforehand?”

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“We all went to the same college. David graduated a few years before I showed up there.”

“Only a few? How old
are
you?”

“Okay, maybe he graduated ten years before I got there,” he said. “I don’t really know. And I turned forty last September.”

“You’re fourteen years older than me?”

Pete smiled a little, vain about it. Still, it meant he and Santangelo hadn’t been frat brothers or anything.

I was just starting to feel relieved when he added, “I think David’s doing a remarkable job with these kids, you know?

He’s absolutely amazing.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, fi ghting to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “I fi nd myself
constantly
amazed.”

“His whole thing this morning, calling that guy Tim on his shit? I thought David was just incredible, the way he handled that.”

“Sure,” I said. “Incredible.”

“You and I need to work on Lulu, then. She’s got a lot of doubts.”

“Ya think?”

“I’ve been talking to David about it. He’s hoping I can bring her around.”

“You know,” I said, “I really
could
use a cup of coffee.”

“Did you bring your cigarettes?” he asked. “Lulu told me she always bums them from you, and I’m dying for a smoke.”

I felt a little sick. “You gonna talk to David about that, too?”

He laughed. “Not if you share.”

* * *

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“You sure this guy’s cool?” I asked Lulu after Pete had asked to use her bathroom.

She gave me impatience: crossed arms with a tapping foot.

“Don’t be an idiot, Madeline.”

I tossed the Camels onto her countertop. “Get us busted.

See if I care. But I will seriously hurt you if you tell him about Fay.”

“For chrissake.” Lulu rolled her eyes and handed me a mug of coffee.

“I’m not kidding,” I said. “He’s been chatting you up with Santangelo, promising to bring you into the fold.”

“And I think we can keep him
out
of it,” she said. “He’s a decent guy. We can’t let him end up bald in some airport with a fi stful of carnations.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Madeline, you know you wouldn’t wish that on a fucking dog.”

“Depends on the fucking dog,” I said.

“He’s one of
us
.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” she said. “You have to trust me.”

“But can I trust
him,
Lulu? We barely know this guy.”

“Worst-case scenario, we’ve got dirt on him already. Coffee and smoking.”

“Yeah, that’s putting my mind at ease.”

“When you fi nd out what happened to him . . . why he ended up here . . .”

“I have to go home.”

“Give me fi fteen more minutes. You’ll know I’m right.”

“Come for dinner Sunday,” I said. “Tell me then.”

“I’ll bring Pete.”

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“Why?”

“You are going to feel like such an asshole when you realize how wrong you are about him.”

“Jesus,” I said, “I hope so.”

He came back out of the bathroom and shook a Camel from my pack.

“Madeline’s gotta take off,” said Lulu, “but we’re both invited to dinner at her house Sunday night.”

“Sounds great,” he said, holding a fl ame to his cigarette and squinting against the smoke. “What can we bring?”

A signed-in-blood loyalty oath?

“We’ve got it covered,” I said. “How ’bout seven o’clock?”

And when you both wake up scalped at LaGuardia, don’t come
crying to me.

Dean greeted me with a hug and a cold beer back home. I clinked my bottle against his and drank off a third of it.

“Hard day, Bunny?”

“Complicated,” I said. “How about you?”

He didn’t answer that, just said, “You look exhausted.”

“Pretty much.”

“That place is going to suck you dry.”

“Already has,” I said.

He walked me toward the sofa, depositing my beer on the brown oval surface of our butler’s-tray table. “Take off your coat and stay awhile.”

“Listen,” I said. “Something came up today about work.”

“For me, too,” he said, grinning.

“Good news?”

“That temp place called back. They have a gig for me. I don’t even have to piss in a cup.”

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“That is so
great
!” I said.

He shrugged. “It’s just a few weeks—something with computers up at GE. Most of the place is shut down, but even so, they said it might lead to more work.”

I jumped up to hug him. “I’m so damn happy for you.”

He kissed the top of my head. “So what’s your news?”

I pulled free of our clinch. “That will defi nitely require more beer.”

“Please tell me you quit.”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“So what happened?”

“I think maybe you should sit down.”

“Just tell me.”

“Well, fi rst off, I got a raise,” I said.

He decided to sit down after all. “And?”

“And they want me to be dean of students after Christmas.”

“Holy shit,” he said. “I should’ve bought a keg.”

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Part II

“Your life is in some bizarre state when priests are throwing
abuse at you on the street.”

—
Ken Bruen

The Magdalen Martyrs

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16

Late Sunday afternoon, Dean and I parked outside the Big Y.

“The Existential Grocery Store,” he said. “What’s for dinner?”

I grabbed a cart. “Bustelo and Nothingness.”

“I could go for some Ham-Burger Hesse, but I’m a little tired of that Ramen de Beauvoir,” he said.

I bagged a couple of heads of butter lettuce and threw them into the cart’s kiddie-seat basket. Right then this fat cockroach scuttled behind the Frito-Lay endcap.

“Kafka-Roni, the Sad-and-Dismal Treat . . .” said Dean.

“Dude, seriously, I need to fi gure out what the hell we’re cooking for Lulu and Pete.”

“How about a little coq au vin? Maybe with couscous?”

“Perfect,” I said, heading for the poultry section.

“On the way home, can you drop me at the Shop-n-Rob?”

“For what?” I asked.

“I’m out of rolling papers.”

“Dean, they’re showing up in twenty minutes.”

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