I left the rocks and picked up the quarter. Then I picked up all the pieces of the broken E and T and took them to the handicapped bathroom in B-Hall, right outside the gym, and locked the door. Soon some people would see the busted scoreboard and would say that I did it, but they wouldn’t have proof. That usually wouldn’t matter, except since there wouldn’t be any pieces on the floor, Brodsky and them would be looking for the guy who took the pieces. They would think there was a way to prove that I did it by finding the pieces. Because no one would break a scoreboard and then clean up what he broke, they would think. They would think someone would either break the scoreboard and run away fast, or break the scoreboard and take the pieces with him to show them off. Since I’d left no pieces on the floor, they would think the person didn’t run away fast — they would think he took the pieces to show them off. And I was going to throw the pieces away so that if they searched my locker and my bag and my desk and my pockets and did not find the pieces, they would become confused. Because they would think there should be proof since proof was the first thing they thought of and they would think they were smart. But there would be no proof. And they were not that smart. And all my enemies who believed I did it would still believe I did it and would keep looking for proof they would never find. And all my friends who hoped that I did it would ask of my enemies, “Where is your proof?”
I wrapped the pieces of the E and the T in yards of paper towel so they wouldn’t tear the bag and threw the wrapped pieces into the trashcan and covered them over with wads of goozed tissues and saw it was good. That was all the good I saw, though.
I was walking out of the bathroom when I remembered the quarter that lay inside the clockmask. I didn’t think anyone would notice the quarter, especially since they’d be thinking about the scoreboard, but it wasn’t impossible they’d notice the quarter. They’d see the Nevada rock wedged in the mask, and if they got on a ladder to get the rock out, they might notice the quarter. Except for Nakamook, I never showed or told anyone at Aptakisic about pennyguns, but Brodsky knew my history, at least that part of it, and if someone found my pennygun while they were searching for the pieces of the E and the T, they might think it was strange and show it to Brodsky, who might draw conclusions based on the quarter, so I took apart the pennygun and threw the balloon in one hallway garbage can and the sawed-off bottle in another one. The rubberband was thick, though, and wasn’t incriminating, so I didn’t ditch it. I turned it into a sideways 8 and wore it on my wrists like a set of handcuffs. I wedged the hall-pass under the left cuff. My fingers throbbed and soon I couldn’t feel them. I walked toward Jerry, keeping my head down and jerking my body like the warden was shoving me along the white corridor that led to the chair, and I wanted to go as slow as I could because even though I knew that the chair couldn’t kill me, the warden kept shoving and hissing, “Faster!”
I raised my hands to show Jerry the hall-pass.
They can’t kill me, Jerry, but still, I said, I’ll never forgive them for trying.
The Sentinel nodded.
I felt kind of childish. I felt like a dickhead. A weaponless failure playing pretend. I undid the dickhead handcuffs.
Sent: June 9, 2006, 12:49 AM Central-Standard Time
Subject: LAST WORD (pls fwd to any scholar not listed in the CC box)
From: Gurionforever@yahoo.com (me)
To: Gurionforever@yahoo.com
CC: SCHECHTER LIST, NORTHSIDE HEBREW DAY LIST
Scholars:
I know all your parents saw that email, “Important,” that Headmaster Rabbi Kalisch wrote, and it’s only to be expected that after reading that email, they’d forbid you from associating with me, and what I want you to know is that I am not angry at any of you for avoiding me, for not stopping by or writing or calling in these past couple days. There is a difference between avoiding and quitting. Sometimes you have to avoid in order not to quit. I know that. And I know you haven’t quit me. And you would know if I were angry. I would tell you.
For those of you who have reached out to me against your parents’ wishes: Please stop. Although the solace I get from your support is vast, it is nonetheless dwarfed by the sadness that comes over me at the thought of you breaking a commandment for my benefit.
All of you must honor your parents, and although it is true that in certain situations you must disobey them in order to honor them, no such situation has yet arisen, at least not one concerning me, and that is why, after hitting SEND, I will honor your parents by not contacting you until that time when honor demands disobedience.
Til then, remain stealth, gain strength, and protect each other.
Your Friend,
Gurion ben-Judah
3 DAMAGE
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
3rd–4th Period
You were allowed to drink caffeine drinks at Aptakisic, except you couldn’t buy them there if you were a student. The only Coke machine was in the teachers lounge. There was a coffee one, too, and I liked to drink coffee if it was half cream and sugar the way my mom drank it, but Coke made my stomach burn. Still, I enjoyed breaking into the teachers lounge for a Coke on occasion to practice stealth.
I didn’t care about getting any practice right then, and I certainly wasn’t hoping to find any joy, nor was I kidding myself that a teachers-lounge-Coke’s value as a tribute was equivalent to a smashed-apart gym clock’s — though no one else would have broken into the lounge, and no one else except for me ever even had, it would be, yes, my sixth or seventh time, so although it was hard, no one thought it impossible — but if I didn’t do something at least a little hard for June, then…what? The dickhead, beaten feeling wouldn’t go away.
Aptakisic’s passing-periods lasted four minutes, which meant four minutes, tops, to get in and out of the lounge unseen. There was always the possibility of a dawdling teacher, or a teacher who let her class out a couple minutes early and went straight to the lounge, but those things weren’t worth being too concerned about, even though they ticked the clock down; with the right coinage ready, it wouldn’t take more than thirty-five seconds to get the Coke and exit. Even with a balled-up dollar to flatten, I’d gotten in and out of there in under a minute. The thing to be concerned about was getting caught in the doorway.
You had to hide in the doorway so you could stop the lock from clicking when the last teacher in the lounge left. It was the kind of door that automatically locks when it closes, and no one had been able to steal a key yet.
So, for Coke-getting purposes, it was lucky that the teachers lounge was in C-Hall, which had doorways the size of walk-in closets. They were meant to be buffer zones between hall-noise and pedagogy. Like storm-windows that trap cold between the panes, C-Hall doorways were air chambers for trapping sounds. Soundstorm-windows.
Some of the doorways were darker than others. Benji Nakamook and I put the bulbs of most of the darker ones out for a contest we had in my third week at Aptakisic. No one had replaced them, and Nakamook told me a joke about it afterwards. Hector the Janitor goes up to Floyd the Chewer, says, “How many guards does it take to fix a light-bulb?” and the Chewer goes, “Where’s your hall-pass?”