The Illumination

into the distance. He could see thousands of Chucks inside the long tunnel. Every time he moved sideways, so did all the others. He nodded so that the barber could trim his neck. The other Chucks nodded, too, at exactly the same time. He shook the hair from his gown—so did they. He stretched his arms out like wings—so did they. The barber told Chuck, “No more squirming around, young man. You don’t want me lopping off one of your ears.”

Chuck pictured his ear hitting the floor like heavy fruit.

The barber paused and said, “Whoa there, no crying now.” He gave Chuck a reassuring little pat on the shoulder. “You have my word, your ears are safe with me.”

Slowly and carefully, he clipped the hair behind Chuck’s ears. His scissoring hand glowed white from every joint and muscle. Chuck stopped sniffling as he watched it open and close. It was like looking at an X-ray of a hand. Behind him a skeleton was sawing and fluttering its fingers. It was making chopping gestures—a strange dance of bones. And then, before Chuck knew it, his haircut was finished.

The barber cleaned his neck, dusting it with baby powder. He unsnapped Chuck’s gown, and hair sprinkled to the floor. Chuck’s chair sank onto its pole with a hissing noise. He got up and followed his mom to the counter. Not until then did he catch sight of Todd Rosenthal. The other barber was shaving his hair down to bristles. He was saying words like head lice and nasty buggers. He lectured Todd’s parents: his mom and his real dad. “Really it’s gotta be your best option with these things.” He mowed a stripe in Todd’s hair with the clippers. “You can comb or you can cut is about it. I had one guy tried to drown them with gasoline. Now that works, but you’d better not light any matches. You’ll have yourself a bonfire is what you’ll have yourself. No, when the lice get this bad, it’s shaving time.”

A thousand Todd Rosenthals glared at Chuck from the mirror. “Say one word and you’re dead,” they mouthed to him.

On Monday, at school, Todd came in wearing a hat. Ms. Mount told him he would have to remove it. He handed her a note, and she read it silently. She nodded okay, he had permission to wear his hat. Todd kicked Chuck’s chair as he walked to his desk. Then he sat by the window, which rippled with rain. A car slid past, and the water separated its headlights. The red dots of its brakes shone from the glass. Then they vanished, and the rain was just rain again. Todd gripped his cap by the edges, tugging it down. Chuck noticed how snugly it fit, but didn’t say anything.

Everyone began trading whispers—everyone but Chuck, that is. One by one they turned to peek at Todd Rosenthal. They all spent the morning wondering the exact same thing. Why in the world was he wearing that stupid thing? What was he hiding that he refused to show them? Someone wrote Todd a note during the American history lesson. Chuck glanced at it before passing it to Nathan Chowdhury. It read, “Do you have cancer (check yes or no)?”

Todd returned it with an extra box checked SCREW YOU. He sat high in his seat like a long-necked bird. He stared straight ahead at the writing on the chalkboard.

At lunch, Matthew Berry revealed the answer to the mystery. He crossed behind Todd Rosenthal and flipped his cap loose. A field of tiny lice marks shone from Todd’s scalp. They looked like stars on the dome of a planetarium. A party noise rose up from the fifth grade table. The lunchroom became loud with the overlapping bubbles of conversations.

“Did you see I think spots yeah must be bugs.”

And, “Man can you totally Todd-Rosenthal-believe head lice.”

And, “Hat-on-comb gag me contagious is this kindergarten?”

Matthew Berry gave a shudder and said, “Dude, that’s nasty.” Todd middle-fingered him, jamming his hat back on his head. He saw Chuck watching him quietly from a faraway seat. “What the hell are you looking at, Chuckles?” he growled. “You’ve got maybe three seconds to wipe that face off—”

The lunch monitor shouted, “Fifth grade table, quiet down immediately!”

There was a brief silence before the whispering began again. Todd Rosenthal filled eight minutes flicking French fries at Chuck. The fries blossomed with light as they broke into pieces. Food fights were against the rules, but Todd didn’t care. When the bell rang, everyone filed back to the classroom.

That afternoon, the rain cleared, and they had recess outside. The sun shone through the limbs of the big magnolias. Chuck looked for a spot where he could play alone. The green foam that carpeted the playground was still damp. He imagined his footsteps leaving dry peanut shapes behind him. Instead, they filled with water, then slowly emptied back out. Chuck stopped by the wooden tower and watched them disappear. He noticed Todd Rosenthal glancing over his shoulder at him. Todd turned and said something to Craig and Oscar Poissant. The two Poissant brothers were sixth-graders—twins, but not identical. The three of them were standing on the steep hillside. Their own footprints were pressed like stitches into the grass.

Chuck was living beneath the slide when they came over. Craig Poissant let his meaty arm rest on Chuck’s shoulder. “We were over there talking and had this crazy idea. We thought it would be fun to kick your ass.”

“Doesn’t that sound like fun to you?” Todd Rosenthal asked. “If it doesn’t, you only have to tell us so.”

“We only beat kids up if they really want it.”

“Yep, we’re nice that way, us three,” Todd Rosenthal said. “So what’s it going to be—ass-kicking or no ass- kicking?”

At first Chuck thought they were kidding around with him. They showed him their teeth, and he showed them his. They were four friends sharing a joke on the playground. Chuck didn’t get the joke, but he almost never did. Then the other Poissant brother, Oscar, said, “Kid’s not talking.”

“No, he doesn’t have a word to say for himself.”

“That must mean he wants us to beat him up.”

“Well, if that’s what he really wants,” Craig Poissant said.

Todd Rosenthal brought his palms out to push Chuck down. He leaned in so that Chuck could smell his breath. Chuck ducked and ran away as fast as he could. He could hear Todd and both the Poissants chasing him. He went tearing through the crowd of kids playing basketball. Some of them stopped and stared, some just kept shooting. Chuck curved away, sprinting behind a row of parked cars. Oscar Poissant dashed around the side to cut him off. Chuck avoided him by sliding between a pair of SUVs. He wriggled under the chunky mirrors and past the bumpers. Before he knew it, he was back on the playground. He crossed in front of the swings, dodging someone’s feet. Then he darted beneath the tower and the monkey bars. Suddenly he came face-to-face with the wooden fence.

He heard the drumbeat of sneakers landing on the foam. He barely had time to turn around before it happened. Todd lunged at him, landing a punch on his stomach. The second hit his neck, and the third his chest. The boards rattled as Todd shoved Chuck against the fence. A hard kick swept his legs out from under him. He found himself lying facedown, Todd squatting on his back. Todd didn’t say anything, just kept punching Chuck, smacking him.

The teachers came running with their strong arms and whistles.

Someone shouted, “Get off of Chuck Carter right this instant!”

Someone else shouted, “All right, break it up, you two!”

Todd Rosenthal’s cap slipped off as the teachers grabbed him. His scalp looked like a firework that had burst open. He said, “There, punk,” and gripped Chuck with his knees. “There it goes, and what do you think of that?”

Then Chuck felt himself losing a hundred pounds of weight. He was too shaken to stand up on his own. A green-shelled bug was crawling toward him, twitching its feelers. Its face was like a face from some other planet. Chuck wondered how long it would remember staring at him.

That afternoon, when he got home, he ached all over. He went to his room and took his clothes off. His bruises shone in the mouth of the bullfrog mirror. There were bunches of them, so sore that they glittered. A bruise below his ear and another on his shoulder. A bruise the size of an apple on his back. A row of small knuckle-shaped bruises above his belly button. Where he didn’t have bruises, he had cuts and scratches. He twisted his neck and listened to the joints pop. He wiggled one of his front teeth with his tongue. Falling down, he had scraped a patch from his chin. There was a crust of dried blood around the edges. The school nurse had put a Scooby-Doo Band-Aid on it. When he peeled it loose, it tugged at his skin. For a few seconds, the light poured out like water. It hurt just a little too much to be beautiful.