'Is this you again?' A brutal, give-no-quarter voice.
He ignored the question, had become accustomed to ignoring her father's voice.
'Could I talk to Laurie, please?'
'Look, kid, she doesn't want to talk to you.'
'Is she there?' he asked patiently. This was the last try. If she came to the telephone, if he heard her voice again, he would take it as a good omen. It would give him hope. And he could call it all off, wouldn't have to go through with the plan.
He heard an exasperated sigh at the other end of the line and then her father's voice, threatening now: 'Do you know what harassment is, kid? You call here again and you'll be in big trouble.'
The receiver slammed in Obie's ear and he sagged against the wall. Last chance gone. He had his answer now. Knew there was no turning back. Knew what he had to do.
Brother Leon arrived late for the performance. His late entrance was not a surprise. Everybody knew that Leon hated the student skits and sketches. Too often there had been hilarious takeoffs on the faculty and, a few years ago, a devastating burlesque of Brother Leon by a student named Henry Boudreau. Boudreau had minced across the stage, speaking in a prissy voice, wielding an oversized baseball bat the way Leon used his teacher's pointer, as a weapon. The performance had become a legend at Trinity. But funny thing about Boudreau: He had flunked out at the end of the year.
Brian Cochran, watching Brother Leon settle into the seat, looked at him with undisguised dislike. Leon had forced Brian into the role of treasurer at last fall's chocolate sale, meaning that Brian had had to consult with him on a daily basis. Since then Brian had avoided contact with Leon, which was about par, of course, for most students at Trinity. Looking at Leon now, Brian noticed that he was rumpled, hair a bit mussed, seemed distraught, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. Beautiful: Leon worried and apprehensive about something — the skits tonight? Or probably the incident this afternoon. Brian had heard rumors that an unidentified student had fled the residence after robbing the place. Another rumor, also unfounded: a student had attacked Brother Leon, threatened to kill him.
Brian Cochran was not a saint by any means, although he went to communion every Sunday, had served as an altar boy until his sixteenth birthday, knelt and said his prayers every night. He considered himself a good Catholic but admitted that he would have enjoyed seeing Brother Leon under attack by someone with a knife or a gun. He wouldn't wish for Leon to be killed or wounded, but a good scare would be terrific.
Turning his attention to the stage, Brian pondered the presence of the guillotine, acknowledged its ugliness and the threat it represented. He was aware of the wild stories about Ray Bannister accidentally cutting a student's head off down on the Cape. Another rumor, of course. Just like the rumor that Obie and the Vigils had engineered Archie Costello into picking the black marble the other day. After all these years. Which meant Archie would be placing his neck on the block.
Brian searched for Archie, saw him in the seat near the front, surrounded by the Vigil members as usual. He wondered whom he disliked more — hated, really — Brother Leon or Archie Costello. He conjured mental pictures: Leon wounded and gasping for help, the blade descending on Archie's neck.
Shuddering a bit, he tried to escape the images — and wondered whether these were sins he would have to tell the priest the next time he went to confession.
Carter sat next to Archie Costello.
He did not look at Archie at all during the entire program.
And Archie did not look at Carter.
Archie, in fact, did not seem to be looking anywhere. He stared at the stage, but he neither laughed nor groaned nor shook his head like other students as the antics unfolded before him. Some of the skits were downright funny, Carter thought, although Carter did not laugh either. He could recognize the funny part of a skit without having to laugh. Which was funny — strange, that is — in itself, wasn't it?
At first Carter had been uncomfortable sitting silently beside Archie. Carter did not like silences. But when Archie seemed content to sit there, immobile, like a figure in a trance, Carter shrugged and permitted himself silence as well. The other Vigil members took their cues from Archie and Carter, did not make conversation but responded to the crazy stuff on stage. Laughed at the good jokes, and groaned and hissed at the jokes that fell flat, the skits that failed. A lot of the skits failed, probably because this year nobody dared poke fun at the faculty. The skits mostly had to do with student life. And what was funny about homework, lockers with broken locks, the furnace that gave no heat, and all the other inconveniences of life at Trinity? That was not stage stuff. That was real life.
Carter moved only once. He glanced at his watch. Impatient for the show to end, for the entire evening to end. He refused to think of the guillotine, blotted it from his mind as if erasing a piece of music from a tape.
And all the while, Archie sat there, impassive, expressionless, looking as if he could sit there forever, through eternity, although Carter knew that Archie recognized no eternity, neither heaven nor hell.
The moment.
The stage cleared away, the lights subdued except for one spot on the guillotine.
And the hush.
Along with bodies leaning forward in the chairs, knees pressed together, faces thrust upward, eyes bulging slightly, an entire audience caught in one reaction, one pose, as if the students were multiplications of themselves in a hall of mirrors.
Even the faculty seemed to sense that this was a special moment, although Carter realized that they could not know what was going on.
Obie walked to center stage, dressed in a neat dark suit, plaid shirt, plain dark tie, followed by Ray Bannister, also in suit and tie, walking haltingly behind Obie as if maimed in a way, leg wounds. They stood on either side of the guillotine. Obie looked down, squinted, found Carter with his eyes, and nodded.
Carter touched Archie's shoulder but did not look at him.
'It's time,' Carter said. Like a warden in a prison movie.
Archie rose to his feet, twisted away from Carter's hand. Like the condemned prisoner in the same movie.
This time the head of cabbage did not explode into a thousand pieces of raw vegetable as it had in Ray's cellar. Instead, the blade cut through the folds of cabbage precisely, and so swiftly the eye could not catch the movement as the cabbage split into two pieces, one piece remaining on the block and the other bouncing to the floor of the stage, then rolling awkwardly, crazily, drunkenly, to the stage's lip, where it hovered for a moment and then dropped out of sight.
The silence in the assembly hall was awesome as the audience regarded the figures on the stage — Ray standing beside the guillotine, his hand a fraction of an inch away from the button; Obie beside him, slightly hidden from the audience; Archie calm on the other side of the guillotine, looking at the apparatus as if it were the most fascinating piece of merchandise he had ever encountered; plus Carter, bulky and massive, like a bodyguard who didn't quite know whom he was guarding. After that immense silence, the audience drew one big collective breath that seemed to Carter strong enough to suck them all offstage.
Ray bowed, came up again, managed to say '
For some reason the audience began to applaud and whistle, as if someone had scored a touchdown or hit a home run. Ray flushed with pleasure — cripes, he hadn't done anything yet, wait until they saw the real tricks — and bowed again.
Obie prodded him gently, reminding him of the next step, and Ray, frowning, stepped aside, reluctant to share the spotlight.
'And now,' Obie called, 'the
The audience hushed again.
Obie glanced at Carter. And Carter nudged Archie.
Archie ended his contemplation of the guillotine and looked up, beyond the audience somewhere, smiling remotely, as if he found this all very, very amusing but nothing to do with him, really: he was merely lending his body to the affair, as if it were out on loan like a library book.
