Wild Card

on the stoop and drank it while watching his brothers hash it out. Ten minutes later, they stopped out of sheer exhaustion. Their clothes were ruined, and Josh’s nose was a bloody mess.

“Promise you won’t say her name again,” Izzie said.

“Betty, Betty, Betty!” Josh said.

Then they started fighting again.

Chapter 15

The principal of Gerry’s high school was a smooth-talking guy named Dick Henry. Lois was active in the PTA, and knew Dick well enough to address him by his first name. It was the first time they’d been called to Dick’s office, and Lois had asked her husband to keep his mouth shut during their meeting. Valentine had reluctantly agreed.

They sat around a square table, with Dick springing for coffee from the school cafeteria. Back when Dick was an art teacher, he’d sported a goatee, worn his hair on his shoulders, and spouted a lot of counter-culture nonsense. All of that had flown out the window the day he’d made principal. Now he was clean-shaven and blow- dried his hair.

“Is Gerry here?” Dick asked.

“He’s waiting outside in the car,” Lois said.

“Good. This is a serious thing these boys have going on.”

“How serious?” Valentine asked, drawing his wife’s glare.

Dick took a brown paper bag from his desk, and placed its contents onto the table. A deck of playing cards and six dice spilled out. “Gerry and two boys in the ninth grade are running a gambling ring. The other two have a history of problems. It appears they talked your son into joining their gang.”

“Can I examine these?” Valentine asked.

“By all means,” the principal said.

Valentine removed the cards from their case. The backs had a busy design, and he held the deck in his right hand, and riffled off the edge with his thumb. Little fluttering birds appeared on the backs of the cards. Bill Higgins had taught him this trick. It was the easiest way to tell if a deck had been marked.

Next he examined the dice. His eyes had gotten used to staring at casino dice, and he could tell these were not clean. The spots on three sides — the one, three and five — were drilled extra wide and filled with metallic paint. They were loaded, and would favor certain combinations more than others when thrown. My son the cheater, he thought.

“Mind if I keep these?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Dick said.

“What about the pot,” Lois said.

“It doesn’t appear Gerry’s involved with that,” Dick said. “It was a scam.”

“A scam? What do you mean?”

Dick took a second paper bag off the desk. From it, he removed a plastic bag filled with a green leafy substance. Dick dropped it on the table dramatically, then gave the worried parents a hard, no-nonsense stare.

“It’s oregano,” he said.

Lois wrinkled her face. She had never experimented with drugs, and looked to her husband for clarification. Valentine said, “And the ninth-graders were selling it as pot.”

“Yes. Ten dollars a bag.”

“But oregano is an herb,” Lois said. “Wouldn’t the kids they sold it to be able to tell the difference?”

“This oregano smells like pot. We think the older boys mixed it with a little bit of pot, so it smells like the real stuff.”

“But it isn’t?”

“No, it’s not.”

Valentine saw the tension melt from his wife’s face. Lying in bed the night before, she’d worried incessantly over the notion that Gerry had broken the law. This new revelation was bad, but it wasn’t as bad. She could live with this, and so could he.

“Gerry will be suspended for one week, the other boys for two,” Dick said. “I want all three boys to pay restitution to the boys they cheated, and the students they sold oregano to. And, I would suggest that your family get some counseling.”

“What kind of counseling?” Lois said stiffly.

“With a psychologist. Gerry has two different faces. The one he wears at home, and the one he wears at school. You need to get to know your son better.”

Valentine nearly told Dick Henry to mind his own business. Doing stupid things was part of growing up, and didn’t mean the whole family was falling apart. Only Lois was giving him the evil eye, and he kept his mouth clamped shut.

Dick handed the distressed parents a business card. It was for a local psychologist who specialized in adolescent behavior and family problems.

“This is who the school uses,” Dick said. “He’s expensive but good.”