From the Depths – Novella Three - 5. Chapter 5: Ash Wednesday, Chapter 6: A Changed World & Chapter 7: Return of the Lunch Lady

Chapter 5: Ash Wednesday

I walked into class as usual, and there was a lingering excitement in the air.

"Morning Miss Skalicky," I sang walking towards her desk. She looked up, yet seemed oddly stricken.

"Morning, Simon."

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I'm fine." She was untruthful, but what could I do? If a person wants to hide something, you can't force them to open up.

Most of the boys – as usual – were by the flagpole. I thought the guarded looks they cast my way were suspicious, but I turned my heels and ignored them.

I went to the back of the room. Dustin was not at his desk.

I put my stuff in my locker, and shrugged off my coat. Gina and Jodie came up to me as bubbly as a summer field.

Jodie bounded on her heels and grabbed my hands. "Thanks for all your help with the booth."

"Yeah," Gina added. "We made just under ten dollars!"

"Whoa…" I said.

"I know, right!" Jodie dropped hold of my hands and twirled.

"Hey," I asked. "Where's Dustin?"

The girls shrugged and said in unison, "Dunno."

˚˚˚˚˚

With this Mass, Lent and a time of sorrow officially began. Father Strathmore used his thumb and smudged my forehead. His finger made a frictive cross, right between my eyes, and above my nose.

"Remember you are dust, and to dust will return," he told me, and his black-framed glasses glinted a bit in the candlelight.

Folding my hands and moving back to the pew, I fancied that I could feel it up there; feel it be the substitute for wearing sackcloth and smearing my whole form with the ashes of the dead.

So far everything had been normal. Sister Jodie had slung her rainbow-colored guitar strap over her shoulder and accompanied us on the hymns we sung every year on Ash Wednesday.

Sitting there, the smell of the acrid and burned earth slowly seeped into my mind. It was a dry smell, and it seemed to come from our collective bodies gathered close in the grace of this holy space.

Father Strathmore stood. He motioned for us to sit.

At the lectern, he inhaled audibly, and the microphone sent that grief-laden shudder to every corner of the church; no doubt into ever heart as well.

"No one," he started. "Ever wants to be the one to deliver bad news, but here has been an accident. Last night outside of town, their car veered off the road…" He paused. "Um. Last night, Krissy Erza and Paxton Day were killed. The, the, police tell us the impact was instantaneous and they did not suffer."

There was stilled disbelief.

"As you know," our priest continued. "Paxton worked for Saint Lazarus School as custodian, and he and Miss Erza were planning to wed. All our thoughts go out to the families, in this time of need, and I ask you to keep them in your prayers. Paxton's mother from the school cafeteria… and…" He needed to pause again. "Um. His cousins Nino and Dustin Day will be out of school for the next week or so. Our prayers will be with them. Please kneel."

After we had, he continued.

"As we take a moment to try and accept our loss, Sister Jodie has prepared something."

Sister Jodie re-shouldered her guitar as father Strathmore went and kneeled at the high altar with his back to us.

Our school principal said softly in the microphone, "Psalm One Hundred Thirty."

She struck a somber chord, and I folded my hands. My grip increased as I listened to the words that our Hippie nun sang in her pretty harmonies.

"From the depths, O Lord, I cry to you:

'Lord, oh Lord – hear my voice.'

Let your ears, Lord God, be attentive."

"More eager than sentinels wait for the dawn

Let his people seek out the Lord,

For he is the source of every kindness,

And abounds with our redemption."

"For if you, O Lord, count injustice:

'Lord, oh Lord – who will stand?'

But with you, Lord God, there's forgiveness."

"More eager than guardians wait for the dawn

Let his people seek out the Lord,

For he is the source of every kindness,

And abounds with our redemption."

"I trust you, oh Lord, and feel my soul

Trusts your word more eagerly

Than those watchmen looking for dawn's light."

I leaned my hairline down onto my folded hands. I felt like the ash smudge was burning me alive.

˚˚˚˚˚

In the activities room after lunch, the mood was sad as we waited in silence for Sister Jodie to arrive and begin Religion class.

Stevie and I sat next to each other. It seemed like Stevie had something important on his mind; he kept glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening.

He told me bluntly, "Dustin is a bad influence on you."

"What..?" I was amazed.

"Yeah," Stevie's tone grew concerned. "You are being led by him to do stuff…that you shouldn't. You had better cut him loose before it's too late."

As I was trying to puzzle this out, Stevie added a threat. "It's either be an outcast with the likes of him, or stay connected with the rest of the boys of your class."

I stammered, "I don't know what the problem is…"

But Sister Jodie arrived and started talking. Whatever she was saying – about active sin versus passive culpability – all I could do was have 'the problem' spelled out to me in my own mind. Jodie's fortune telling; she and Gina talking about the sweaty love scene from Midnight Express; Klay's suggestion that me and Dustin were boyfriends – I was aghast. What were they all thinking?!

So yesterday, the Carnival kiss was not only a bad thing, but potentially a very bad thing. Perhaps I considered that more than just friendship and outcast status was at stake – but so too was the very thing Sister Jodie was talking about.

˚˚˚˚˚

A week later, Dustin returned to school. All the kids gathered around him offering condolences. I stayed at my desk; I wished that the day was over, or that Miss Skalicky would start so silence was required.

Dustin sidestepped out of the attention of his oppressive well-wishers, and went to his locker.

A minute later, he sat at his desk next to mine with eager glances.

He whispered, "Hey buddy, how are you?"

"Fine." I had to face him. "I'm sorry about Pax – real sorry."

"I know you are, Simon. It's okay."

I returned my attention to the classroom clock and to Miss Skalicky.

"Hey..." Dustin leaned over and patted my elbow. "You heard the one about Helen Keller's favorite color?"

"Yes." I said as coldly as I could. "It's corduroy."

The bell rang; Miss Skalicky started class; and the waves of confusion and stomach-sinking doubt coming from the desk next to me made me feel sea sick, and made me want to cry. But, I didn't.

˚˚˚˚˚

I picked up my half-pint of milk. I turned to see Dustin and Nino at their normal table. I walked over and took a seat at one reserved for me between Stevie and Klay.

I tried to eat and not feel Dustin's confusion.

˚˚˚˚˚

After lunch, I lingered around the paved play yard, then went towards the creek.

Dustin was there, sitting, waiting. I slowly walked by, then ran to play dodge ball with the boys.

˚˚˚˚˚

At merciful last the day was over. I was two blocks from school walking home with a headache.

I heard two pair of sneakers screeching on the sidewalk behind me.

I heard Dustin yell, "Simon! Wait up."

I stopped, but did not watch them coming. Suddenly Dustin ran in front of me. He had both book bags over his shoulder, and he was flush from the jog. In a moment Nino was standing at his side.

Dustin pleaded with me: "Simon – tell me what is wrong."

"Nothing is wrong. It's just – things have changed, and they can't be the same again…"

"What things?!"

"I can't tell you. Just things, and we can't be friends anymore. Ok? I'm sorry."

I shouldered past him, knowing Dustin was devastated. I couldn't look, but at least I knew in my mind's eye that Dustin had Nino to hold on to.

Chapter 6: A Changed World

Two weeks later, and it was Good Friday. Before class started I was hanging out by the flag and the windows. The rest of the boys however, were around my desk. As I heard their shrill taunts, I just kept looking at the seesaws. Soon maybe it would be warm enough to ride them.

But in the reflection of our room's unforgiving fluorescent lights, I could still see Dustin. He was sitting at his desk. These few weeks had seen a marked decline in his appearance. His clothes were haphazard, his hair was long and disheveled, and his hands grew worse with injuries from the farm, and he barely cleaned the soil from under his nails anymore.

"You're gonna flunk out, and have to repeat this grade again," Dylan sang out manically.

"Flunky loser!" Klay spat in his face, making me blink – maybe I should do something.

Suddenly Jodie's reflection was standing next to me.

"Hey," I said. She was wearing a high lace collar, with her hair up in a loose bun, and she looked totally beautiful.

"Hey," she clipped rather coldly. "I just want to tell you – I don’t want to hang out with you anymore."

"Why?!"

"That's what you need to ask yourself about Dustin."

I got mad. "We're not boyfriends!"

"I know. You're not any kind of friend."

˚˚˚˚˚

At morning recess, I wandered around aimlessly. I hugged my navy coat tight to me and tried not to shiver.

I passed by Gina and Jodie. I caught them saying "Mrs. Day and her husband have put their house on the market. They are going to move away from Judas Tree – too many memories."

I skirted the edge of the basketball court, pretending the crack was a tightrope. Holding my hands out for balance, I walked along and saw I was approaching Nino.

He was standing there watching me. He was evidently chilled too, because he hugged his light blue corduroy coat tight to his body from the hand pockets in front.

As I got to him, I saw that his sneaker was untied. So I knelt to do it up for him.

Just as I touched his laces, two little hands slapped me hard in the front of my shoulders. His blow sent me back reeling to land flat on my backside.

I turned stunned eyes up to him. He shouted at the top of his lungs, "No!" Most of the kids around us stopped what they were doing and watched us.

I got up, Nino ran to Dustin. He grabbed onto the sheepskin fleece of Dustin's coat and pointed accusing fingers at me.

Dustin patted his little brother's back, and led him away; away at least out of sight of me.

'Maybe there are too many memories,' I thought. 'Too many memories in Judas Tree.'

Chapter 7: Return of the Lunch Lady

"She's back," was whispered up and down the lunch line. I could smell the peach cobbler, but I did not look forward to it in anticipation.

The line inched forward, then I could see Mrs. Day.

She looked beleaguered; tired and threadbare. I stood before her on the other side of the sneeze guard.

"I know you like this," she said softly to me. But my eyes got caught on her diamond ring – then I held her gaze frankly. A gasp escaped her throat, and she stopped; she really looked like she was going to have a breakdown.

I went and sat with the boys of the 6^th grade class, but I felt more alone than ever. Mrs. Day's reaction was almost as if she could read my thoughts. Because, seeing that ring opened up a question I thought had closed – 'healed,' as they say – and somehow my sympathy was no comfort; not to me, and not to Paxton's mom.

I pushed my mashed potatoes around under their pool of muddy gravy, and felt I could relate to her loss, but that notion instantly confronted me with the stone-cold fact that my loss of Dustin was self-inflicted. It was an act of commission rooted in the Carnival kiss, and peer pressure to distance myself from him for appearance's sake.

˚˚˚˚˚

I was suddenly back at the end of summer, on one of those afternoons Paxton was taking us to the Kaskaskia. I sat in his car, and watched him drum the steering wheel in time to his music. His face was light; his mood happy, and his good spirits were contagious.

We were waiting for his cousins, but he turned down the volume, and rotated in his seat to me. His bare arms – sticking out from his white and black Rolling Stones jersey – formed a sort of protective arc around me; one on the dash above the three round dials, and one on the headrest of my seat.

He told me through a glowing grin, "Dustin really likes you – he told me. You are good for him – I know, because I was like him. I didn’t give a damn; shutdown; callous. I can relate to the kind of hopeless apathy I saw there, but I couldn't pull him out of it; but you did." He paused.

He started in a new tone of conjecture. "You ever wonder why he fusses on Nino as he does?"

"He needs him?" I suggested.

Paxton chucked briefly. "Sort of," then he leaned closer to me and imparted a soft-toned confidence. "It's because their mom ran away. He used to like to laugh and goof off, but then his house got really sad. He felt it from his dad, and he felt it press in from all sides, by those busybody 'well-wishers' – and that's too much for any kid to bear. He stopped being Dustin. He changed. He focused on Nino and wanted his brother to feel 'normal,' even though Dustin could not.

"Thing is, I hadn't seen Dustin let loose in a very long time – then, well – then, he met you! And for whatever reason, the old Dustin, the true Dustin resurfaced. You gave him what none of the rest of us could. Hope."

He leaned back in his seat. His hands naturally went to the wheel like he was driving. He said to the windshield: "It's about being at a crossroads, Simon. By the first day of school my cousin was at that crossroads, and somehow, when he needed it most, you Simon appeared in his life like a ray of sunlight to thaw his frozen heart. Dustin told me he could have almost cried for joy, and if you wanted him to do well in school, then he would – for you.

"I recognize in my cousin the crossroads I was at when I was younger. For me my own onion thread was discovering music. It became my passion, and drives me onwards, that and my girl, have kept me grounded."

He blinked at me, and I never saw a teenage boy cry.

"Hope…" he told me. "Is like the fumes I'm running on. Every day my dreams seem a little bit further away." He stroked his dashboard. "Just my music, and my car, and Krissy – and I'm gonna marry her one day, just as soon as I have the money saved up, I am gonna make her mine."

I tried to comfort. "That's great man, but don’t give up on your dreams."

He blinked like he was just waking up; like he head not really seen me before.

"Do you know why…" he stammered. "Why I'm opening up to you like this?"

I shook my head, getting a little scared.

"You are probably just a little too young to understand, but I can guess what Dustin truly feels for you, although he will not be fully honest with me, but I will tell you – it is something I admire. It is something really beautiful, so I ask you – ok – be good to him. He hasn't had many people in his life to be there for him; to watch over him…"

"He has you!" I reminded him.

He glanced to his ceiling and let out a really quick sigh. His hand came up to his eyes and wiped. He pulled in some snot, and told me, "Everything he says about you is true. You are a good guy, Simon. I can see why he cares about you, and yes – he has me, and now – he has you too."

I didn't know what to say, or what to do, but quietly, he changed and that old Paxton devilish delight lifted the corner of his mouth.

He said nice and slow, "You know, someday, we'll see about getting you behind the wheel of that buffer."

"Really?" My hopes raised mile high.

He looked as if his tears would come back, but his lips smiled at me like I was part of the Day family once and for all. Slowly he drew in a breath and let it out sweetly so I could bathe in it forever.

"Psych."

˚˚˚˚˚

My mashed potatoes remained uneaten. My fork fell in a dull thud.

Yes, Mrs. Day could read my mind, for as I saw the cold-hard glint of that ring, I had to ask all over again in a hollow echo chamber of disbelief and grief – "He's dead?"

Remembering the scene in the car made me sick. Paxton asked me to look after the trust Dustin placed in me because he had received little love in his cousin's life. In that moment, with his teary eyes, it was as if our school's teen janitor already regarded me as part of the Day family. And now, forced to swallow it down instead of my food, it stirred in me to consider that I should buck the pressures on me to conform; conform to what 'others' wanted of me – because of what they 'feared' from others.

In the lunch line, there was only one answer to the silent question I posed to his mother, and it seemed I had forced the dead boy's mom to say it to me. That cruelty of truth linked us, and it was nearly impossible to stand anymore.

For if Pax had not died, he would still be around to look after Dustin, but he is not – so who will do it? I thought my shoulders actually began to ache from the weight of how much guilt this put on them. The only thing worse was allowing myself to consider what Paxton would say to me now – say to me, seeing how I have bowed to peer pressure. And that thought killed me; it felt like I was dishonoring Paxton from beyond the grave, and I guess I was.