'You mean you like polka music?'
'I don't, but my wife does. She's over by the bands now.'
When Al finally did talk to Chris about Makinen and Finns in general that night, he got the cryptic remarks, 'I kind'a understand the Red Necks around here. They like Country Music. The punks like Rap. Most kids like Rock. A lot of people like Polka. But I don't understand the Finns. Do you know they like the Tango? Talk to Henry. He's Finn.'
Al was completely lost. Maybe he would eventually understand something tomorrow.
* * * *
It was three in the morning when James woke to the phone ringing. The voice on the line claimed to be Kawalski. The voice said he was fired and not to report to the school. James just hung up and went back to sleep. Kids! When would they stop making crank calls.
* * * *
_A creaking of a door ... hasty steps ... a_ *click* _and then light ... The figure shrouded in darkness quickly turns a card over._
A man with a crown holding a small sceptre in one hand and a cup in the other appears on the card. His throne seems to be floating on water with a fish and ship in the background. The card is upside down.
_The figure switches off the light and bolts to the door. The darkened room settles to silence.
CHAPTER 4: The King of Cups reversed
Joseph Kawalski grew up on the family farm on the North Dakota bank of the Red River. His mother died at his birth. His father, Big Joe, tried to raise him, but he never could understand his son. Big Joe, at times, seemed to understand that his son needed more help to grow up but ... He just couldn't quite figure out the whys and wherefores of raising a child. Little Joe didn't take care of himself after weaning! The orphaned calves and pigs were fine after being weaned off the bottle and to solid food. Why couldn't his son handle his own raising?
Joe inherited his father's size and just enough brains from his mother to make it in school. In grade school, he was at least fifty pounds heavier and a foot taller than his classmates were. Unlike the gentle giants everyone hears about, Joe discovered that he could get anything he wanted from his classmates just by towering over them. He stuffed himself on the best lunches of his classmates. Relaxed in the best seats in the back of the room. His first few weeks in college were a shock to him. There were dozens of bigger and, in some cases, meaner students in the school. He floundered until the fall of his junior year in college. He got a freshman girl drunk and date raped her. His power back was back! That quarter his grade point average went from a 1.9 to a 2.8, after he started to use his size to intimidate selected undergrads to do his homework. His favorite technique was to date rape a girl in a class he was taking and rough her up until she helped him with his homework. In his senior year, he refined his scheme. He would get a girl who had a steady boyfriend to go with him to a quiet corner of the student union to study. There he would drug a can of pop he would buy her with an animal tranquilizer he got from his father's farm. He would then time his rape to correspond to when she started to come out from under the tranquilizer so she would remember the sex act. After showing her Polaroids he had taken of her while she was unconscious, she would be willing to do his class work. He never got caught in either his blackmail or his rapes. After each success, his confidence grew. By the time he graduated, he had raped two dozen young girls and had a grade point average of 3.0.
His skill in intimidation grew when he graduated. Somehow he knew he was small time. He always seemed to know whom he could push and whom to avoid. That was until he met Jefferson William Shermon. He became Shermon's sycophant. He now lived on the scraps that Jefferson gave him and he lived well. At eighty thousand dollars per year, he earned more than ninety percent of the local rural population. He loved lording his wealth over the neighbors with a facade of leased cars, boats and ATV's. He also controlled the lives of hundreds of people, either through their finances or their children. It was a
rare month that he didn't collect something for his due.
Joseph sat in his office for a few minutes with a cup of coffee before he had to walk the rounds of the hallways for the mandatory morning appearance. There was a timid knock on the door that he knew had to be Amy, his secretary. She was old, ugly, and fat. She had come with the job. Shermon refused to let him fire her. Besides, she was so old you could get her to sign any document you needed and she would never know what she had signed. It was a perfect way to protect themselves if there ever was an audit of the school's books.
'Mr. Kawalski, John Penington is in the office. He says that Mr.
Makinen is here. He wants to know who is he suppose to be substituting for?'
'Makinen here?' Anger burned in Kawalski. _The little prick showed up, did he? Well, he will regret it!_ 'Amy, you tell Mr. Penington that Makinen will be leaving. I'll take care of Makinen.'
Kawalski boiled down the hallway to Makinen's room. Staff and students parted before him, recognizing the foul mood. But the curiosity seekers, the ones who stop at an accident hoping to see the blood, were pulled along in his wake.
Bursting through Makinen's door, he growled, 'I fired you last night! What are you doing here?'
James, surprised, tried to figure out what Kawalski was talking about. As Kawalski continued to yell at him, James slowly unraveled the events. Instead of anger, James felt a weariness, but something else burned behind a thin boundary in his mind.
In a soft voice, James said, 'Joe, Joe, Joe ... I know this is hard for you to understand, but you can't fire me. I have something called a contract. You're just a building principal. My contract is with the school district, just like your contract is. I'll do my job and you do whatever it is you do.'
'You God Damn Little Prick! You get out of this school now! I don't give a fuck about your contract! You get your ass out of this building. Now!'
'If that is how you want to play the game, I will leave but with everything I own.'
'You're leaving now!'
But James had already turned his back on Kawalski and started to take down the posters decorating the walls. Screaming, Kawalski reached down. Grabbing James' shoulder, he rolled him around pushing him into the wall. Kawalski's fingers gouged into James' shoulders as he glared into Makinen's face. Something happened! Kawalski didn't see fear in those eyes. The eyes had turned flat, emotionless. James' hands came up through the hold that Kawalski had on him. They pushed against the inside of Kawalski's elbows and circled around the arms. Kawalski's grip on James was gone. His thumbs were bent back. His arms twisted and locked fully extended. Pressure was applied straight up, tendons stretched joints creaked and Kawalski went up on his toes unable to move. The pain was excruciating.
James, his emotionless eyes penetrating Kawalski's mind, whispered, 'I am going to get all my things. You are going to leave.'
James released his hold on Kawalski. Joe collapsed down from his tiptoes, his knees wobbling as the pain subsided. Kawalski stumbled away, rubbing the feeling back into his sore arms. He saw the crowd at the doorway. He hesitated. He wanted to turn around, but he remembered the eyes with no fear and the ease in which his hold was broken. The pain still throbbed though his arms. When he looked up again, the crowd was gone and he lurched through the door.
After Kawalski left, the strength went out of James' legs. On his own wobbly knees, he staggered to his desk. He sat heavily on the old rickety swivel chair with a bad spring and tried to understand what had happened to him. His mind drifted from the amazement of the karate move-that he had only practiced alone-actually working, to the real possibility of losing his job.
He sat in dumb bewilderment until he heard over the loud speakers the voice of Joe Kawalski, 'James Makinen has been suspended from his duties. If any staff or students have had problems with Mr. Makinen, please come to the high school office during first or second periods this morning. Mr. Makinen's classes will meet in the library this morning. Bring study materials.'
Henry Hakanen and Al Gallea had been sitting in the district office waiting to discuss a schedule for interviews with the staff and students about the sexual-assault complaint with Shermon when they heard the announcement echo in from the hallway. They stared at each other in astonishment and said in unison, 'Damn!'
