The hall to his office reeks. His smell happens way before he happens. Wyatt White, Mr. Head Honcho and his damn pipe.
“Mr. Song, thank you for joining us,” Wyatt White says. Big voice. Puts his pipe in a tray on his big mahogany desk. The leather armchair gives Donny Zurkus a stage facing the headmaster. King of the Bullies Zurkus.
“I’m glad you asked.” I can do polite. I can do rude better.
“Mr. Zurkus was telling us about his English experiment, weren’t you, Donny?”
“Yes, sir,” Donny says. Mr. Bully transforms into Mr. Goodness, smiling deferentially, maintaining eye contact. Gag me.
“Go on.”
Facing Wyatt White, two leather wingback chairs. The kind with studs down the arms, the kind I see only in school administration offices. Persian rug. Dark built-in bookcases. Pressure in this office builds at an exponential rate.
“Yeah, so consequently,” Donny says, “we figured there’s no way someone could die by pouring something in his ear, you know? Unless it was acid or something. But that’s not what Shakespeare said.”
Wyatt nodded. His elbows on his desk, his hands together, big fingers touching each other.
“Just curious about the reality of it,” Donny says. Like this is a good thing. Like Wyatt White might reward him. There is no end to the shallowness of youth.
“Give me a break,” I say. Donny and Wyatt are vectors at forty-five degree angles from me. Connect the three bodies, and you have isosceles. The arrows are pointing toward me. Wyatt’s eyes are packed with nothing, and Donny’s are packed with shit. Layers of shit compressed in his dark eyes. Too many times Donny has gotten away with his big-man antics, Mr. Muscle Mean, because teachers are afraid of his donor dad, the big money the big man brings. Too much. Bad-Boy Zurkus has done too much.
“Mr. Song,” Wyatt says, “let the boy explain.” Wyatt’s neck is red. Back to my corner. Maybe he’s playing Donny. Back, back away from the bully, everyone entitled to fairness, a hearing. My eye.
In five years at St. Timothy’s I’ve never seen a student more raw. Kyle, Mr. Embryo.
One hundred yards beyond the windows behind Mr. Headmaster-with-Oral-Fixation is the lake. Practice time. Carla. Perfect sport for her. Not much drag on a rowing shell, almost all that work converted to uniform motion, balanced energy.
In five years at St. Timothy’s, I’ve spent three years bumping into Carla after crew practice. Not since the couch. Folded a dinosaur for her after that night, but never heard back. No looks at dinner. No letters. What happened with touch caused an equal and opposite reaction: no contact. Sometimes I see her in the dining hall, and her shape, the muscle of her, is more a visceral recognition than cognitive. I sweat. Mr. Obvious. But no one notices, and now that I’m Mr. Indiscretion, I walk away. Damn the body. Praise the mind.
“You know, Kyle said we could. He volunteered. Absolutely, he asked us to let him play the king.” Donny looks at Wyatt, looks at me, looks back at Wyatt. Donny likes this idea. He’s practically wagging. King of the Lapdogs. “We didn’t hurt him. We did what he wanted.” I about clock him.
“So, Donny,” Wyatt says, “it is your contention that young Kyle wanted to have molten wax poured into his ear while pinned to the lab table?” Wyatt presses his hands flat together, palms touching, brushing his index fingers to his chin. Surprising he doesn’t put his fingers in his mouth.
“Yes, sir,” Donny says.
“And is it your contention that you were trying to apply literature to everyday reality?”
“Exactly,” Donny says. He presses the knot of his tie, smooths the tie flat against his chest.
“Oh, please,” I say. “This kid has had it in for Kyle since day one. I’ve seen it in the halls. I’ve seen it in the dorm. Other kids have told me.”
“We can’t rely on what other students tell us, Mr. Song,” Wyatt says. He picks up the damn pipe, puts it in his teeth, keeps speaking while he puts his hands on matches. Sulfur. Flame. Sucks in the flame to the pipe. Sweet, fruity, Virginian tobacco. Makes me sick.
“Look, Mr. White, if you had seen Donny with the blow torch, if you had seen Kyle after I got the boys off him, you would know that there was nothing consensual or academic.” Kyle, the mouse of him, wild, pinned to the table, pushes me, like forces opposed, the repulsion of like negatives in the room in their isosceles. Negative Zurkus + Negative White = Anger in Me. All body.
“All right,” Wyatt says. “Mr. Zurkus, you can leave.”
“But Mr. White,” Donny says. He is not wagging any more. Both of our vectors are pointing at Wyatt White.
“We’ll speak later, after I discuss this matter with your father.”
Donny’s eyebrows are rockets. Mr. Surprise. Mr. Shit-Will-Hit-the-Fan Zurkus. He-Whose-Daddy-Is-American-Textile.
“But why?” Donny says. He’s leaning way at the edge of the wingback chair, his one leg bouncing from the ball of the foot.
“Because this offense may call for suspension. St. Timothy’s will not tolerate bullies,” Wyatt says. He takes the pipe from his mouth and sets it in a huge ashtray. His neck is sweating and red. “Now, dismissed.” Mr. Head Honcho doing the right thing. And Mr. Union Textile may want my head on a platter. Big donor, old man Zurkus.
Donny gets up from the chair. He faces Wyatt’s desk and doesn’t move. He stands there. His arms are straight down, parallel vectors. He looks in the direction of the vectors. For a moment he looks like a sail, like something shapeless. Maybe he is a boy trying on wind. Maybe he is a boy too scared of his own shape. I’m sure there is little substance to the boy. Then he raises his head so that his eyes look at me from under his brows, and he smiles a little. He turns and walks out the office door.
“That’s not the last we will hear from that young man,” Wyatt says.