'Well,' I said. I tapped the stock of the pistol lightly on the desk blotter. 'This is serious, Carol. Very serious. I think a girl should know why she's a virgin, don't you?'
'Oh.' I nodded helpfully. Several girls were looking at her with interest.
'Because . . . '
Silence. Faintly, the sound of Jerry Kesserling using his whistle to direct traffic.
'Because . . . '
She looked around. Several of them flinched and looked down at their desks. Just then I would have given my house and lot, as the old farmers say, to know just how many virgins we had in here. 'And you don't all have to stare at me! I didn't ask you to stare at me! I'm not going to talk about it! I don't
She looked at me bitterly.
'People tear you down, that's it. They grind you if you let them, just like Pig Pen said. They all want to pull you down to their level and make you dirty. Look at what they are doing to you, Charlie. '
I wasn't sure they had done anything to me just yet, but I kept my mouth shut.
'I was walking along Congress Street in Portland just before Christmas last year. I was with Donna Taylor. We were buying Christmas presents. I'd just bought my sister a scarf in Porteus-Mitchell, and we were talking about it and laughing. Just silly stuff. We were giggling. It was about four o'clock and just starting to get dark. It was snowing. All the colored lights were on, and the shop windows were full of glitter and packages . . . pretty . . . and there was one of those Salvation Army Santa Clauses on the corner by Jones's Book Shop. He was ringing his bell and smiling. I felt good. I felt really good. It was like the Christmas spirit, and all that. I was thinking about getting home and having hot chocolate with whipped cream on top of it. And then this old car drove by, and whoever was driving cranked his window down and yelled, 'Hi, cunt!' '
Anne Lasky jumped. I have to admit that the word did sound awfully funny coming out of Carol Granger's mouth.
'Just like that,' she said bitterly. 'It was all wrecked. Spoiled. Like an apple you thought was good and then bit into a worm hole. 'Hi, cunt.' As if that was all there was, no person, just a huh-h-h . . . ' Her mouth pulled down in a trembling, agonized grimace. 'And that's like being bright, too. They want to stuff things into your head until it's all filled up. It's a different hole, that's all. That's all. '
Sandra Cross's eyes~were half-closed, as if she dreamed. 'You know,' she said. 'I feel funny. I feel . . . '
I wanted to jump up and tell her to keep her mouth shut, tell her not to incriminate herself in this fool's parade, but I couldn't. Repeat, couldn't. If I didn't play by my rules, who would?
'I feel like this is all,' she said.
'Either all brains or all cunt,' Carol said with brittle good humor. 'Doesn't leave room for much else, does it?'
'Sometimes,' Sandra said, 'I feel very empty.'
'I . . . ' Carol began, and then looked at Sandra, startled. 'You do?'
'Sure.' She looked thoughtfully out the broken windows. 'I like to hang out clothes on windy days. Sometimes that's all I feel like. A sheet on the line. You try to get interested in things . . . Politics, the school . . . I was on the Student Council last semester . . . but it's not real, and it's awfully dull. And there aren't a lot of minorities or anything around here to fight for, or . . . well, you know. Important things. And so I let Ted do that to me.'
I looked carefully at Ted, who was looking at Sandra with his face frozen. A great blackness began to drizzle down on me. I felt my throat close.
'It wasn't so hot,' Sandra said. 'I don't know what all the shouting's about. It's . . . ' She looked at me, her eyes widening, but I could hardly see her. But I could see Ted. He was very clear. In fact, he seemed to be lit by a strange golden glow that stood out in the new clotted darkness like a halo, a supernormal aura.
I raised the pistol very carefully in both hands.
For a moment I thought about the inner caves of my body, the living machines that run on and on in the endless dark.
I was going to shoot him, but they shot me first.
Chapter 24
I know what happened now, although I didn't then.
They had the best sharpshooter in the state out there, a state policeman named Daniel Malvern, from Kent's Hill. There was a picture of him in the Lewiston Sun after everything was all over. He was a small man with a crew cut. He looked like an accountant. They had given him a huge Mauser with a telescopic sight. Daniel Malvern took the Mauser to a gravel pit several miles away, test-fired it, and then brought it back and walked down to one of the cruisers parked on the lawn with the rifle stuffed down his pants leg. He rested in the prone position behind the front fender, in deep shadow. He gauged the windage with a wet thumb. Nil. He peered through the telescopic sight. Through the 30X cross-hatched lens, I must have looked as big as a bulldozer. There was not even any window glass to throw a glare, because I had broken it earlier when I fired the pistol to make them stop using the bullhorn. An easy shot. But Dan Malvern took his time. After all, it was probably the most important shot of his life. I was not a clay pigeon; my guts were going to splatter all over the blackboard behind me when the bullet made its mushrooming exit. Crime Does Not Pay. Loony Bites the Dust. And when I half-rose, half-leaned over Mrs. Underwood's desk to put a bullet in Ted Jones, Dan's big chance came. My body half-twisted toward him. He fired his weapon and put the bullet exactly where he had hoped and expected to put it: through my breast pocket, which lay directly over the living machine of my heart.
Where it struck the hard steel of Titus, the Helpful Padlock.
