“What happened?” I said.
“Nothing. That’s the thing with teachers, it’s always nothing. Boring. I feel like I’m back in school or something. I can’t believe you have to listen to those people every day. At least I can go home if I want.” He laughed at his joke.
“I don’t listen,” I said.
“You don’t? You listen to me.”
“Well, yeah, of course I do that, Coach.” I smiled because I liked him.
“You fucking better,” he said. We both laughed and he told me to get dressed and he’d drive me to the bat mitzvah.
“What about Michael?”
“He’ll be fine, it’ll take five minutes. It’s over near Gunn, right?”
I went into the bathroom and put on the dress. It was light lavender. It was my sister’s and too big for me in the boobs.
I walked out and Mr. B stood from the couch.
“You look amazing,” he said, and walked over. I said I hated dresses, but he wasn’t listening. When he was near me he put his thick hands on the bottom of my face and tilted his head to the side; he kissed me. His face was close, and I smelled a strong smell, and everything seemed full, and bigger, and his chin was scratchy, and his lips were full of a thickness of feeling; he held his lips on mine for a long time. Then he pulled back, looked into my eyes.
“You shouldn’t smoke so much,” he said. And then he kissed me again. An older person, but still a kiss. His mouth opened and I knew that part; his tongue came through like a little fish and I met it with my tongue. Everything was thick inside my mouth.
“April, you’re the most important person to me.”
“Me? Why?”
“When you get to be my age, there is nothing you appreciate as much as a real person. You’re real.” We kissed one more time, softer, and then I said we should go. We went out toward his purple-blue 4Runner. When I went around the side of the car, I lost sight of him for a moment, and the streetlamps flared in their plastic coverings.
He drove me over to the temple. We listened to Jimi Hendrix and didn’t say anything. Jimi was along the watchtower and the streets were glistening with wet. At the temple Mr. B pulled into the lot and there was a large unexpected bump because the entrance was slanted in a strange way, and we both jerked forward. He turned the car and parked us in a corner where it was dark.
“I really fucking like you, April.”
“I like you too,” I said. We sat there and there was moisture in his eyes, glistening from the dashboard lights.
“When you know life like I do,” he said, “you know that there isn’t much that is good. But I know that you’re good. Really good.” One of the lights in his eyes was red. I said thanks and he kissed me on the cheek and told me I should go. I got out and started walking across the parking lot. Mr. B’s car turned and drove out over the dip and into the road; red taillights into black.
The lot was dark but there was a pulsing glow coming out of the high windows of a building across the lot. Then I could hear music. I took out my pack of Reds and slipped one into my mouth and lit it with my little black lighter. The cigarette was good after kissing Mr. B. I walked toward the building with the glow. I wasn’t good. I was regular, or worse.
Someone called to me. I saw it was Teddy off a ways in the darkness. There was also a person crouched on the ground near him. That was Ivan. Ivan’s face was so pale. I asked what they were doing. I got closer. Ivan was holding a bullet on the ground and was tapping the back of it with a thin hammer. I stood a little away.
“Should you really be doing that?” I said.
“Shut the fuck up, they’re my stepdad’s,” said Ivan.
“I don’t care whose they are,” I said. “Isn’t it bad to have bullets at a synagogue?”
Teddy laughed. “Well, it’s not even fucking working.” He was wearing a black dress shirt and had gel in his hair. He looked nice. He always did. Ivan was always pale and scary. “Why are you so late?” Teddy said.
“I was babysitting,” I said. Ivan kept tapping.
“Oh, well, the party kind of sucks, old people and bad dancing. Want to go across the street to Gunn and drink?” Gunn was the other high school, the one we wouldn’t go to the following year.
“Let me see Shauna first,” I said. I went over to the building with the music and the lights and stood in the doorway. Inside, people were dancing to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” fast and awkward. Some people were laughing. There was a long table along the side of one wall with lots of food and cakes. I had never been to a bat mitzvah. In Phoenix I didn’t know any Jews. I saw Shauna across the room of bodies. She was dancing and laughing with her mom and brother. She had a bunch of makeup on. So much I could hardly see the two scar lines.
I saw other girls from the team but I didn’t want to talk to any of them. They all knew Mr. B.
I walked back into the dark and told Teddy I wanted to go to Gunn.
Ivan picked up his bullets and put them in his pocket. We walked down a hill in the dark and I could hear the bullets clinking in Ivan’s pants.
When we passed the cemetery, Ivan said, “That suicide guy just got buried there.”
“How do you know?” I said.
“He did, or what’s left of him,” said Teddy. The kid had stepped in front of a train at the East Meadow crossing.
“My stepdad knew his dad,” said Ivan. “Said he was a prick, probably why the kid killed himself.”
We walked across Arastadero to Gunn. There was a large electronic billboard on a post. Above the electronic part there was a black part with fancy red lettering that said GUNN and TITANS. The electronic part said, BEAT PALY! GO TITAN FOOTBALL. 10/10, 6 P.M. Paly was going to be our high school the next year.
We walked through campus. The buildings were made of cement, and in the dark the place was like a bunker. We made our way through the shadows to a grassy area. In the center was a huge oak tree that rose above the roofs of the classrooms. There was moonlight all around and it made the top of the tree silver-white. The ground was a little wet but we sat on the big roots, which were dry. We all leaned our backs against the trunk. Teddy had a little bottle of peach schnapps and he passed it around. I asked if they wanted some of the joint I’d been smoking and we passed that around.
“That’s pretty good shit,” said Ivan.
“What do you think about that suicide?” I said.
“I think the parents made him do it,” said Teddy.
“He was Asian,” said Ivan. He was on the other side of Teddy and I couldn’t see him.
“What does that mean?” I said.
“That they worked his ass like crazy and pressured the shit out of him.”
“Do you think it hurt?” I said.
“For a second,” said Teddy. “But if it’s all going to be over anyway, then why does it matter? Pain only matters if it’s prolonged.” Ivan was sucking long on the joint, then he said, “If I was going to kill myself, I wouldn’t waste it. I would do a bunch of crazy shit first. Maybe kill some people I didn’t like and take ’em with me.”
We all thought about that. Then I said, “Wouldn’t it be better to do a bunch of crazy good things before you died instead of killing people?”
“Like what?” said Teddy.
“I don’t know. Give your life to save a bunch of kids or something.”
“But that’s what you’re supposed to do every day, not if you’re suicidal,” he said. “If you’re suicidal you’re probably only thinking of yourself.”
I drank the syrupy alcohol.
“I try to be good,” I said.
“Me too,” said Teddy.
“Fuck good people,” said Ivan, and we laughed.