Beyond the Chocolate War

'Why did you want to kill me?'

'Why?' Obie asked, his turn to be surprised now. 'Are you blind, Archie? Don't you see what's been going on at Trinity all this time? What you've done to me? To everybody?'

'What have I done, Obie? You tell me what I've done.'

Obie flung his hand in the air, the gesture encompassing all the rotten things that had occurred under Archie's command, at Archie's direction. The ruined kids, the capsized hopes. Renault last fall and poor Tubs Casper and all the others, including even the faculty. Like Brother Eugene.

'You know what you've done, Archie. I don't need to draw up a list—'

'You blame me for everything, right, Obie? You and Carter and all the others. Archie Costello, the bad guy. The villain. Archie, the bastard. Trinity would be such a beautiful place without Archie Costello. Right, Obie? But it's not me, Obie, it's not me. . '

'Not you?' Obie cried, fury gathering in his throat, his chest, his guts. 'What the hell do you mean, not you? This could have been a beautiful place to be, Archie. A beautiful time for all of us. Christ, who else, if not you?'

'You really want to know who?'

'Okay, who, then?' Impatient with his crap, the old Archie crap.

'It's you, Obie. You and Carter and Bunting and Leon and everybody. But especially you, Obie. Nobody forced you to do anything, buddy. Nobody made you join the Vigils. Nobody twisted your arm to make you secretary of the Vigils. Nobody paid you to keep a notebook with all that crap about the students, all their weaknesses, soft points. The notebook made your job easier, didn't it, Obie? And what was your job? Finding the victims. You found them, Obie. You found Renault and Tubs Casper and Gendreau — the first one, remember, when we were sophomores? — how you loved it all, didn't you, Obie?' Archie flicked a finger against the metal of the car, and the ping was like a verbal exclamation mark. 'Know what, Obie? You could have said no anytime, anytime at all. But you didn't. . ' Archie's voice was filled with contempt, and he pronounced Obie's name as if it were something to be flushed down a toilet.

'Oh, I'm an easy scapegoat, Obie. For you and everybody else at Trinity. Always have been. But you had free choice, buddy. Just like Brother Andrew always says in Religion. Free choice, Obie, and you did the choosing. . '

A sound escaped from Obie's lips, the sound a child might make hearing that his mother and father had been killed in an auto accident on their way home. The sound had death in it. And truth. The terrible truth that Archie was right, of course. He had blamed Archie all along. Had been willing to cut off his head, for crissake.

'Don't feel bad, Obie,' Archie said, the tenderness in his voice again. 'You've just joined the human race. . '

Obie shook his head. 'Not your kind of human race, Archie. Okay, maybe I'm not the good guy anymore. I admit that, I accept it. Maybe I'll confess it at church. But what about you? You just go on and on. What the hell are you?'

'I am Archie Costello,' he said. 'And I'll always be there, Obie. You'll always have me wherever you go and whatever you do. Tomorrow, ten years from now. Know why, Obie? Because I'm you. I'm all the things you hide inside you. That's me—'

'Cut it out,' Obie said. He hated it when Archie began to get fancy, spinning his wheels. 'What you're saying is a lot of crap. I know who you are. And I know who I am.' But do I, he wondered, do I?

He wrenched himself away from Archie although Archie had not been touching him or holding him back. Archie shrugged, opened his car door, movements casual and cool as usual, as he slipped into the seat. Obie could feel Archie's eyes on him as he walked away, those cold intelligent eyes.

'Good-bye, Obie,' he called.

He had never said good-bye before.

Part Four

'I have a confession to make. A confession of guilt,' Brother Leon said, addressing the final assembly of the year at Trinity High School.

'My guilt is my involvement in the recent tragic death of a Trinity student, David Caroni.

'You have heard the rumors, I trust.

'And have read accounts in the newspaper.

'I have called this extraordinary assembly in the last days of the school year to set the record straight because of what Trinity is — a school of both academic and athletic splendor, a place of honor.

'We have many traditions here at Trinity.

'And a search for truth is one of them. We search for truth in our classrooms, in our informal discussions, in our daily lives.

'Thus, we must admit and face the truth about David Caroni.'

Henry Malloran had brought his lunch today because he was tired of cafeteria food. Not tired as in sleepy, exhausted, but tired as in fed up, disgusted. Everything tasted the same in the cafeteria and the taste was rotten. His lunchbag sat on his lap now because Brother Leon had called this meeting before classes began and he hadn't had time to put it in his locker. Henry let Leon's words roll over him. He had been shocked at David Caroni's death even though he had barely known the kid. But death at an early age was shocking, suicide even worse. He wished Brother Leon would shut up about it. What the hell did he know about how a kid felt, anyway?

'The truth is that David Caroni performed that most tragic of acts — the taking of his own life. An act such as this always touches off rumors, conjectures. Even our local newspaper, so supportive of educational endeavors, could not resist bold headlines.

'We must face those headlines as we must face the truth at all times.

' 'Student Kills Self After Attack on Headmaster.'

'Yes, David Caroni took his own life and, yes, he did attack the Headmaster of Trinity.

'Another headline:

' 'Suicide Note Puzzling.'

'We may never know the reason for David Caroni's tragic act. The reason lies somewhere in the note he left behind, a note that was a reflection of his troubled mind. I know that some of you have been asked about the note, his strange mention of a letter or letters. No one seems to know what this poor tortured boy meant.

'His visit to the residence on his final day of life has been a shock, I know, to all of you here at Trinity. And a mystery as well. It is known that troubled persons often turn their anger against those who try to help. Investigators have been thorough in their search for the truth. They have weighed all the evidence. They have interviewed faculty and staff members here at Trinity and the students who knew him best, although it is true that this sensitive boy did not have many close friends.'

Henry Malloran's mother was a great cook, very inventive, and although some of her new concoctions failed — like cucumber soup, for instance — she was never discouraged. Her sandwiches, too, were fancy. Like the two tuna fish salad sandwiches she'd made this morning: tuna fish and Miracle Whip and bits of celery, a dousing of garlic salt, and some herbal kind of stuff, dill or something. Plus an apple for fruit and a tomato, which she said was also a fruit, which Henry hadn't known. And chocolate chip cookies for dessert. He was getting hungry just thinking about it and wondered if he could sneak a cookie as Leon rattled on about the note and everything that had happened, although Leon was probably one of the people who had made David Caroni's life miserable, like he made everything at Trinity miserable. Henry probed around in the bag for the cookies, found them, carefully slid one out of its plastic wrapper, and prepared to slip it into his mouth.

'The verdict of the investigation was: No one at Trinity is implicated in David Caroni's death. His attack upon your Headmaster was declared unprovoked and clearly without motive.

'And yet I am guilty.

'Of ignorance. Ignorance concerning a student in my school who went through his classes troubled and unhappy, in need of attention and care.

'But you, also, are guilty.

'All of you.