reverse, and peeled out.
As we raced past the Lyles’ house, I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I let out a loud
Arthur took a hard left at the end of the street. He had circled the quadrangle and was back on the main road before I could finally speak. Babble is more like it: “Hey, well, you know, Arthur… you might have overreacted in there. Just a little bit!”
Arthur snorted. “Overreacted?”
“Yes, maybe. Maybe just a tad.”
“You mean by pissing on his computer?”
“Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I mean.”
“No. No, cuz. Overreacting would be, like, if I had pissed on his head.”
“Oh, well. Okay. Yeah. Since you put it that way.”
I sat back and let the incredible feeling flow over me.
I had done it. Or Arthur had done it, but I had been there, too.
We had now joined Warren and Jimmy, and Ralph, and the Cowley brothers, and every other townie who had ever been disrespected by frat boys and had come up here and had taken care of business.
And I absolutely loved that feeling.
Wendy did not act like she had heard about a townie raid on the frat house across the street, resulting in a score being settled, and her honor being defended, and some personal property being destroyed. I was a little disappointed in that, but only a little. The Wendy thing was over.
There was a change in Wendy’s routine, however. She did not show up for the counseling group after school. Her seat remained empty across the table. Our small group now consisted of Arthur, Lilly, and me—all family, all Blackwater, all townie.
Catherine Lyle ran the group as usual, though. Today’s topic was role models. She began by telling us, “If you have good role models, you’ll do well in life.” Her manicured hand pointed out the window. “So let’s talk about people here in the community, people you know, who serve as good role models.”
We just stared at her, so she said, “Okay. What jobs in the community automatically get your respect?”
We started to get the idea. Kids called out suggestions.
“Police officers.”
“Firefighters.”
“Doctors and nurses.”
“Teachers.”
Chris Collier added, “Student Council presidents.” (I think he was kidding, but maybe not.)
Catherine Lyle nodded. “Good. Good. These are the jobs, and the people, we respect. These are our good role models.”
A high school stoner asked, apparently out of nowhere, “Are all teachers role models?”
Catherine looked at us for an answer. When no one spoke up, she replied, “Well, they
The stoner nodded. He asked, “If a teacher smokes weed, then, what should happen to him?”
Catherine Lyle opened her notebook and picked up her pen. She replied, “I would say he should be fired. If a teacher says one thing and does another—”
Arthur muttered, “Talks the talk but don’t walk the walk.”
“That teacher should certainly not be around children. It’s one thing if you are teaching adults, but not children.”
Ben said, “Anybody who takes one of those jobs, one of those role-model jobs, should have to live up to it. If they don’t, they should get kicked out.”
“Kicked out ain’t enough,” Arthur snarled. “They should get punished. They’re putting themselves up as better than other people, but they’re not.”
Other kids agreed. They started talking about people in their lives, people they looked up to, who had let them down. The conversation went on like that, very seriously, for ten more minutes.
Then, as usual, Catherine Lyle changed topics.
She delivered some news in a perky voice, like Wendy on the morning announcements. “Next Monday, Dr. Richard Lyle will come speak to our group about new trends in substance-abuse treatment. Dr. Lyle—forgive me for bragging—is kind of a big deal. He gets paid thousands of dollars, plus travel expenses, to speak to groups all over the country. He is coming here for free, so let’s really make the most of it.”
Catherine then smiled her perfect smile, clicked her silver pen, and closed her leather notebook. She turned, out of habit, toward Wendy’s seat, and she seemed disappointed to see that it was empty.
I had both Dad and Mom with me at breakfast, so I tried to work in the Christmas-tree idea. I started off conversationally, like I was talking about something else. I told them, “Arthur’s last football game was Friday afternoon.”
Mom replied, “Oh? That’s nice.”
“Yeah, I saw Aunt Robin at the school. She came to watch the game.” I added, “She seems like a nice lady.”
Mom didn’t say anything, but Dad replied, “Sure. She is.”
I heard Lilly coming down the back stairs. I waited until she had entered, selected an apple from a bowl, and started washing it before I continued. “I don’t really remember Uncle Robby. What was he like?”
Dad said, “He was a nice guy.”
Mom added, “He was. But he should never have gotten married so young. And never to Robin.”
Dad turned away, concentrating on his shredded wheat, but he did murmur, “Well, he didn’t have much choice.”
Lilly picked up on that before I did. “What? Aunt Robin was pregnant? With Arthur?”
Mom nodded tightly. “Yes, that’s right. And that was the beginning of the end for Robby. There he was, married to this child bride, who had the same bad habits that he had.”
Mom started to get angry. “Robin didn’t finish high school. She never got her GED. So after Robby died, what did she have? She had no job, no money, and a child to raise.”
Lilly asked, “So how did she do? Was she a good mother?”
Mom backed off. “She tried, I guess. She would take Arthur to football; she would take him to church to hear those Holy Roller preachers.”
“Really? What church was that?”
Mom looked at Dad, so he explained. “Some church in Caldera, in a double-wide. It got condemned along with everything else, so they had to move it. They put the whole thing on a flatbed truck and hauled it away.”
Mom grumbled, “Who would go to church in a place like that? It was unhealthy.”
Lilly winked at me. “Maybe Hungarians,” she suggested. “Or Puerto Ricans. I’ll have to ask John.” She looked at me for a laugh, or at least a smile, but I was way too stressed to react.
Dad said, “It was an evangelical church. It attracted all kinds of people. I think that’s where Robin met Jimmy.”
I responded as evenly as I could, “Jimmy Giles?”
“Right.”
