From the Depths – Novella Three - 3. Chapter 3: Monday Before Lent

Chapter 3: Monday Before Lent

Winter had set in, and not only that – but the bitter cold and bleak winter of February. Soon Lent would begin, but at least we had Carnival at our school to look forward to, and that was tomorrow!

Parents had worked all weekend, and as I walked the transformed gym, my stomach was settled with lunch, and my anticipation for Fat Tuesday sharpened. The place was crazy with green and yellow twisted crêpe paper streamers. These started from the center of the open steel joists above the basketball court, and draped outwards to all corners. There were enough to give the otherwise sweaty place the magic of an Arabian tent.

As I stood at the top of the four steps leading down to the gym floor, I became aware that my mouth was open, so I shut it, manually, for there was a lot of work to do. This year the 6^th grade was hosting the indoor activities, and to my left was the girls' section; to my right, the boys'.

For the girls, the parents had built and partially decorated walk-in attractions, like a haunted house, a funhouse, and a fortune teller's 'Den.'

For the boys, there were games of chance and skill: a ring toss, a bottle slam, and a tilted bullseye where the ball could fall through a hole in the bottom like a spider down a drain.

I had a spring in my step, and took the stairs two steps at a time. I jogged over to my boys by the games. They were all busy. Stevie stopped painting a moment to greet me.

"Hey," he said.

"What can I do?!" I knew I sounded like a puppy, but so be it.

"Dunno," Stevie said. "Ask them." His head gestured to Klay and Dylan at the bottle slam.

I walked over there, watching as Dylan carefully pyramid-stacked some wooden milk bottles. He stepped out of the way. And just as I got to him, Klay drew back a beanbag with both hands, locked lips tight to screw his face into an ugly scowl, and threw the bag with unforgiving menace at the stack. The bottles crashed with the sound of bowling pins and clattered on the floor.

"Nice!" I complimented.

Dylan ran up to me. "Cool! Ain't it?!"

"Way cool!" I felt that puppy dog will to please returning. "What can I do!"

My two classmates looked at each other with shrugged shoulders.

I scanned the gym. "Where's…Dustin?"

Dylan said, curious himself, "I don’t know."

But Klay farted out a sneering chortle.

He said in a mocking singsong to Dylan, "Simon can't stand to be away from his boyfriend for long. Oogh, Oogh, Dustin – " He turned his back to me, and crossed his arms so his hands rubbed his opposite flanks. Dylan started howling with laughter.

Klay, asshole, then went on in a high pitch: "Oh Dustin, Kiss, Kiss, Kiss!" Then, as he rubbed his hands all over his back, and made loud smooching sounds.

The moment he fronted his face back to me, I stung him with, "Suck it Klay. You're such an idiot!"

I turned my attention to the genteel promise of the girls' side of the gym, and started walking.

As I got a third of the way, I felt a sharp noise at the back of my head – it sounded like gravel in my skull. A beanbag fell to my heels. Hand to the sore spot, I whipped around. Klay and Dylan were convulsed in laughter and almost squatting with hands on both knees as if in pain.

I got mad. I knew Klay was mean, but what was Dylan being such a cronie for?

My first instinct was to grab the bag and aim for Klay's repulsive leer. But then, I thought better. I slowly picked up the bag, pretended like I was aiming for them…however, I simply turned with contended self-satisfaction, and continued on my way. I bounced the bag in my happy palm like a trophy. They needed it, and they would have to make nice to get it back.

On the girls' side, the largest attraction was the haunted house. Here a couple of moms were trying to direct the swarm of girls. Some were coming and going to the girls' locker room with costumes – ghosts, and such.

One table was festooned with pink and white streamers, and as I passed it, I saw about a hundred crêpe paper flowers laid out. Some were roses, some were big white fantasy pieces like lotuses, and one side was spread with smaller ones in many colors and on safety pins. The 'prize-winners' could secure them to their tops and wear them proudly the rest of Carnival day.

At the end of this table was the fortune-telling booth; a little one-room 'house' with a curtain draping the entry.

Gina appeared from behind the curtain. She wore a full gypsy outfit, with long skirt, various colored scarves tucked at the waist, and another red one wrapped and tied around her pigtails.

She smiled at me with glinting glasses and came to my elbow. "Madam Jodisia will give you a private reading now, sir."

She tugged me inside.

A bunch of dark-colored sheets formed the ceiling, and tented up to a single dim-watt bulb. This lamp was shaded with a large scarf and gave a magical feel to this space.

Jodie was in costume too, just like Gina's, but with the addition of a headband of dangling yellow coins.

"You girls look great," I told them.

They responded with giggles, and pinching up skirts as they twirled for my full inspection.

Gina took me by the elbow again. "Your first victim – I mean, client – Madam Jodisia." She then pulled me down to whisper, "She needs the practice."

Gina left us. Jodie, I mean, Madam Jodisia, gestured to one of two folding chairs. I sat. In front of me was a coffee table, and a 'crystal ball' that looked suspiciously like the mirrored centerpiece from a birdbath.

Jodie played up her part. She stood before the seer's mystical object and passed open palms over its surface.

"I see…I see…" she strung it out like clothes on a drying line, and in a pitch much lower than her own "…I see…Love in your future."

I let out a chortle. "Realllllly?"

"Yes! The crystal ball does not lie."

She reinstigated the supernatural hand movements. More intense gazing followed, but it seemed she was gazing into my eyes deeper than her own through the reflection of the mirrored ball.

"I see…I see…great potential in your future, if you are up to the challenges. I see…I see…a mistake. A hateful one that you can avoid. And…and…"

She stopped all her motions. She just stared at me in reflection.

"…I see love blooming, if you are strong enough to accept it, and not listen to others."

"Who..?" I stammered.

"Someone you already know."

I squinted my brows in confusion.

She added very quietly, "Just, be good to him…"

Miss Skalicky ripped open the curtain. "Simon!"

I jumped and nearly tipped the table.

"There you are!" my teacher chirped. "Didn't you read the schedule – you're supposed to be helping Dustin make the prizes. He's set up in the activities room. Chop, chop!"

She actually clapped her hands.

˚˚˚˚˚

In the activities room, Dustin and I had side-by-side workstations at two separate tables.

His space was neatly arranged. Before him were colored magic markers with fine tips; while to his left, a few stacks of upside-down Styrofoam cup were lined up. To his right, a large cookie sheet held the finished 'hats,' which were carefully spaced apart. He used the markers to make geometric patterns on the cups – some he incised with black boarders and in-filled with pink and yellow triangles. Others he made with straight-line borders in browns and reds. His finished tray was nearly full.

In front of me sat a dull bucket of hand-sized river rocks. The smooth gray lumps must be outfitted, for next to this bucket was a pail of loose googly eyes, and by its side, a bowl of cut strips of candy-colored monkey fur.

I picked up a rock and glued on a pair of eyes, then with a choice of two paint pens, added a smile. The ball bearing in the pen thumped down as I lined-in a silver or gold curve with two little cheek marks at the sides. Lastly, I had to select a nice toupée, and decide if this rock wanted a Mohawk, a comb-over, or a full-on troll coiffeur.

I set my finished 'pet rocks' on a tray to my right.

The room was chilly, and out the glass door, gray skies threatened snow. Even so, Dustin – as I snuck a peek at his concentration – looked uncomfortable in the plush sweater he wore. It was brown with orange stripes, and it seemed he had outgrown it since last winter.

"Man," I told him. "How I miss all those afternoon swims down at the Kaskaskia."

"Um-hum." Dustin was busy, but he added, "Me too."

"Seems like a million years ago."

"Warm weather will be back."

"But not yet. Even our creek is a slushy mess."

"Yeah, no more frogs."

"Where do you think all those 'chrysalises' are now?" I hoped to impress that I had learned the right way to say it, but he seemed to take it for granted.

"Oh don’t worry, buddy. They're there. Safe and sleeping."

I started a new rock. "Hey, did you hear this one: 'How did the math teacher solve her constipation problem?'"

"Dunno."

I shrugged, as if it were obvious. "'She worked it out with a pencil.'"

Dustin sighed: "Ugh! That's bad."

"You got better?"

"Mmm, how 'bout…you ever hear this one: 'Knock, knock.'"

"'Who's there?'"

"'Boo.'"

"'Boo who?'"

"'Boo Hoo.'"

"'Boo Hoo, who?'"

"'Awww, don’t cry Simon; your joke wasn’t that bad.'"

I turned to him. "Ah haw. That was so funny, I forgot to laugh!"

Anyway, that made him drop a cup, 'cause he couldn't stop laughing – at me, I guess.

And in that laughter, I felt something for him – like what his cousin had said about boys our age staring into the mirror and beginning to admire their own looks – but what I saw in Dustin now was a developing and nameless tenderness in myself. Something was not quite as it had been. I almost felt, as Dustin aped a grin and jostled his torso side-to-side on the cold folding chair, that I was looking at some sort of funhouse mirror. The image I saw was mine; it was recognizable, and yet also wonderful and mysterious because it showed a facet of me to myself that I had never quite seen before.

Paxton quietly entered the room. He came with glances over his shoulder, and pushing his broad broom; he was all smiles for us.

"You guys better keep it down. Miss Skalicky is not someone you want yelling at you – believe me, I know!"

"Hey Pax," Dustin said.

Our teenage janitor stood and leaned his hands and chin on top of the broom pole. His face and the back of his neck were haloed by the thick yellow hoodie he had on under his jumpsuit.

"Those look great, Dustin," he praised.

"Hey, what about my rocks?!"

"Yeah, Simon. Good job, they still look like rocks."

The cousins laughed, and Paxton's thin frame rocked on the axis of the broom like a pogo stick.

"Nah," he added. "They look great too."

Dustin spoke up in tones like it was a secret, "Hey, Paxton – play something for us. Simon, you've never heard him sing."

"Oh yes I have! Caterwauling at 60 miles an hour."

"Man," Dustin was serious. "I mean, really sing." Then he added to Paxton with a more pleading tone: "Come on. No one will know."

Paxton inhaled and stood erect. He propped his broom against the wall and nearly tiptoed to the door. In a second, he leaned out of it with hands locked in the frame, and elbows bent. Then he kicked up the stop and let the door close. He came back to us in an animated thrill: licking his lips, jerking his brows, and cracking knuckles.

He lifted the cover from the keyboard, and sat at the piano like a jock running onto the football field.

As he ticked a light run up the scales, he told us, "Here's one I wrote for my girl, Krissy."

The tempo started and it was slow and deliberate. He hummed with the intro, then began to sing his ballad with a soft intensity that made me want to shiver – shiver from heat, if that's possible.

His voice was a richly mellow baritone, with the raspy bite of a true rock star around its edges. He made love with that voice to the young woman he wanted to be with, always.

"Sometimes, I'm just tired –

At the end my feet drag the ground,

And I'm not inspired –

Question my voice for its own sound."

He changed to a higher key.

"But then I remember who I'm going home to,

And the ride in my car is like flyin' in the air,

'Cause when I get home, I know what you'll do –

You'll wrap arms 'round me; say you’re glad I'm there."

Then he downshifted back to the starting mellowness.

"So kiss me baby –

And melt every mile.

Just for you maybe,

It all seems worthwhile."

He hummed with the bridge, then started the melody again.

"Sometimes, I'm just wired –

Anxious and feeling upside-down,

In my own head mired,

Thinkin' thoughts that are better drowned."

"But then I remember I have you to talk to,

So whatever burden I have I know you'll share,

'Cause with each other, you know what I'll do –

I'll wrap my arms 'round you; say I'm glad you're there."

"So kiss me baby –

And melt every mile.

Just for you maybe,

It all seems worthwhile."

"And if I get fired –

'Cause they don’t want me around,

Then, be reassured,

With your love I won't tumble down."

"Instead, I'll remember who I'm going home to,

And the ride in my car is like sayin' a prayer,

'Cause when I get home, you'll know what to do –

You'll wrap arms 'round me; you'll be my repair."

"So kiss me baby –

And melt every mile.

Just for you maybe,

It all seems worthwhile."

He ended with a simple chord that reverberated around the room. Paxton stood, and asked me simply, "What'd ya think?"

"You'll be famous one day. That's what I think."

A slow-motion smile warmed his expression, his ashen hair suddenly moved in a bashful way.

Paxton's mom came in the door, making a sort of kicking sound, as her hands were full.

"Was that you singing?" she asked, but her intent was on the tray balanced on her arms.

"Was I too loud?" he asked, taking her tray.

"No, son. You sounded perfect."

Paxton made a dismissive sound with his mouth. "Ugh. You're a mom; you're required by law or something to say that."

Mrs. Day laughed: "Believe it if you like. Or, don't."

The tray was set on Dustin's table, and for the first time I got to see the full effect of what he was making.

The Styrofoam cups had shrunk to about half size, and the edges had curled up all the way around, then gone flat.

"This batch baked up real nice. You're doing a good job, Dustin," Mrs. Day said. Then added pointedly to Paxton, "Don’t you have work to do, son?"

He pursed his lips in fake annoyance, roughly gabbed up his broom, and mother and son left the room arm-in-arm, and in good cheer. Meanwhile, Dustin had picked up a finished 'hat,' and used a small ice pick to make two holes in the brim. Raising it, he eyeballed it closely, and slipped in the two metal stays of an elastic band.

He stretched the cord around his chin and let the thing plunk on top of his blond locks like a tiny little top hat.

He tossed out his arms, and modeled it for me. "Well, what do you think?"

I had to stand up and inspect it, using that excuse to pull down his shoulders so I could meet his eyes. The scratchiness of the wool distracted me from the silly hat, and I slipped into the open honesty for me peeking from behind sky-blue windows.

I laughed: "It's crazy."

But, I could not ignore that my interior emotions belied the outward show of glibness. The fabric under my touch made me want to itch a hard-to-reach place in my brain. For somehow, my thoughts about Dustin were suddenly complex, and to my great surprise, tender – very tender.