Rage

race choir, to paraphrase Dylan. Take offyour mask, Ted, and sit down with the rest of us regular guys.

Ted was still staring at me, and I knew well enough that he was unbroken. Only, next time he might not be so direct. Maybe next time he would try me on the flank.

Maybe it’s just mob spirit. Jump on the individual.

But I didn’t believe that then, and I don’t believe it now, although it would explain much. No, the subtle shift from Ted’s end of the seesaw to mine could not be dismissed as some mass grunt of emotion. A mob always wipes out the strange one, the sport, the mutant. That was me, not Ted. Ted was the exact opposite of those things. He was a boy you would have been proud to have down in the rumpus room with your daughter. No, it was in Ted, not in them. It had to be in Ted. I began to feel strange tentacles of excitement in my belly-the way a butterfly collector must feel when he thinks he has just seen a new species fluttering in yon bushes.

“I know why Ted quit football,” a voice said slyly. I looked around. It was Pig Pen. Ted had fairly jumped at the sound of his voice. He was beginning to look a wee bit haggard.

“Do tell,” I said.

“If you open your mouth, I’ll kill you,” Ted said deliberately. He turned his grin on Pig Pen.

Pig Pen blinked in a terrified way and licked his lips. He was torn. It was probably the first time in his life that he’d had the ax, and now he didn’t know if he dared to grind it. Of course, almost anyone in the room could have told you how he came by any information he had; Mrs. Dano spent her life attending bazaars, rummage sales, church and school suppers, and Mrs. Dano had the longest, shrewdest nose in Gates Falls. I also suspected she held the record for party-line listening in. She could latch on to anyone’s dirty laundry before you could say have- you-heard-the-latest-about-Sam-Delacorte.

“I…” Pig Pen began, and turned away from Ted as he made an impotent clutching gesture with his hands.

“Go on and tell,” Sylvia Ragan said suddenly. “Don’t let Golden Boy scare you, hon.”

Pig Pen gave her a quivering smile and then blurted out: “Mrs. Jones is an alcoholic. She had to go someplace and dry out. Ted had to help with his family.”

Silence for a second.

“I’m going to kill you, Pig Pen,” Ted said, getting up. His face was dead pale.

“Now, that’s not nice,” I said. “You said so yourself. Sit down.”

Ted glared at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to break and charge at me. If he had, I would have killed him. Maybe he could see it on my face. He sat back down.

“So,” I said. “The skeleton has boogied right out of the closet. Where’s she drying out, Ted?”

“Shut up,” he said thickly. Some of his hair had fallen across his forehead. It looked greasy. It was the first time it had ever looked that way to me.

“Oh, she’s back now,” Pig Pen said, and offered Ted a forgiving smile.

“You said you’d kill Pig Pen,” I said thoughtfully.

“I will kill him,” Ted muttered. His eyes were red and baleful.

“Then you can blame it on your parents,” I said, smiling. “Won’t that be a relief?”

Ted was gripping the edge of his desk tightly. Things weren’t going to his liking at all. Harmon Jackson was smiling nastily. Maybe he had an old grudge against Ted.

“Your father drive her to it?” I asked kindly. “How’d it happen? Home late all the time? Supper burned and all that? Nipping on the cooking sherry a little at first? Hi- ho.”

“I’ll kill you.” he moaned.

I was needling him-needling the shit out of him-and no one was telling me to stop. It was incredible. They were all watching Ted with a glassy kind of interest, as if they had expected all along that there were a few maggots under there.

“Must be tough, being married to a big-time bank officer,” I said. “Look at it that way. She probably didn’t realize she was belting down the hard stuff so heavy. It can creep up on you, look at it that way. It can get on top of you. And it’s not your fault, is it? Hi-ho.”

“Shut up!” he screamed at me.

“There it was, right under your nose, but it just got out of control, am I right? Kind of disgusting, wasn’t it? Did she really go to pot, Ted? Tell us. Get rid of it. Kind of just slopping around the house, was she?”

“Shut up! Shut up!”

“Drunk in front of Dialing for Dollars? Seeing bugs in the corners? Or was she quiet about it? Did she see bugs? Did she? Did she go bugs?”

“Yeah, it was disgusting!” He brayed at me suddenly, through a mouthful of spit. “Almost as disgusting as you! Killer! Killer!”

“Did you write her?” I asked softly.

“Why would I write her?” he asked wildly. “Why should I write her? She copped out.”

“And you couldn’t play football.”

Ted Jones said clearly, “Drunk bitch.”

Carol Granger gasped, and the spell was broken. Ted’s eyes seemed to clear a little. The red light went out of them, and he realized what he had said.

“I’ll get you for this, Charlie,” he said quietly.

“You might. You might get your chance.” I smiled. “A drunken old bitch of a mother. That surely is disgusting, Ted.”

Ted sat silently, stating at me.

It was over, then. We could turn our attention to other things-at least, for the moment. I had a feeling we might be getting back to Ted. Or that he would get back to me.

People moved around restlessly outside.

The clock buzzed.

No one said anything for a long time, or what seemed like a long time. There was a lot to think about now.

CHAPTER 18

Sylvia Ragan finally broke the silence. She threw back her head and laughed long, hard, and loud. Several people, including me, jumped. Ted Jones didn’t. He was still on his own trip. “You know what I’d like to do after this is over?” she asked.

“What?” Pig Pen asked. He looked surprised that he had spoken up again. Sandra Cross was looking at me gravely. She had her ankles crossed the way pretty girls do when they want to foil boys who want to look up their dresses.

“I’d like to get this in a detective magazine. ’sixty Minutes of Terror with the Placerville Maniac.' I’d get somebody who writes good to do it. Joe McKennedy or Phil Franks… or maybe you, Charlie. How’s that bite your banana?” She guffawed, and Pig Pen joined in tentatively. I think he was fascinated by Sylvia’s fearlessness. Or maybe it was only her blatant sexuality. She sure didn’t have her ankles crossed.

Out on the lawn, two more trooper cars had arrived. The firemen were leaving; the fire alarm had cut out a few minutes ago. Abruptly Mr. Grace disengaged himself from the crowd and started toward the main doors. A light breeze flapped the bottom of his sport coat.

“More company,” Corky Herald said.

I got up, went over to the intercom, and switched it back onto TALK-LISTEN. Then I sat down again, sweating a little. Mr. Don-God-Give-Us-Grace was on his way. And he was no lightweight.

A few seconds later there was that hollow chink! that means the line is open. Mr. Grace said, “Charlie?” His voice was very calm, very rich, very certain.

“How are you, skinner?” I asked.

“Fine, thanks, Charlie. How are you?”

“Keeping my thumb on it,” I said agreeably.

Snickers from some of the boys.

“Charlie, we’ve talked about getting help for you before this. Now, you’ve committed a pretty antisocial act, wouldn’t you agree?”

“By whose standards?”

“Society’s standards, Charlie. First Mr. Carlson, now this. Will you let us help you?”

I almost asked him if my co-students weren’t a part of society, because no one down here seemed too worked up about Mrs. Underwood. But I couldn’t do that. It would have transgressed a set of rules that I was just beginning to grasp.

“How does Ah do it?” I bawled. “Ah already tole dat dere Mr. Denber how sorry Ah is for hittin’ dat girl wit dat Loosyville Sluggah. Ali wants mah poor paid shrunk! Ali wants mah soul saved an’ made white as snow! How does Ah do it, Rev’rund?”

Pat Fitzgerald, who was nearly as black as the ace of spades, laughed and shook his head.

“Charlie, Charlie,” Mr. Grace said, as if very sad. “Only you can save your soul now.”

I didn’t like that. I stopped shouting and put my hand on the pistol, as if for courage. I didn’t like it at all. He had a way of slipping it to you. I’d seen him a lot since I bopped Mr. Carlson with the pipe wrench. He could really slip it in.

“Mr. Grace?”

“What, Charlie?”

“Did Tom tell the police what I said?”

“Don’t you mean ’mr. Denver?”

“Whatever. Did he…?”

“Yes, he relayed your message.”