turning to his desk and picking up a stack of paper. — You may go now, Walter.
Walter exits the office like a butler instructed to go scrub the chamber pots, his face and feelings sutured tight as he trudges back down the hallway, slams through the drawers on his office desk, prepares to write his memo, Monday fucking afternoon.
He tries not to dissolve into the 98 percent water he is made of when Joy rushes into his office and grips him in a bosomy hug.
— Oh Walter, she says, as she grips his upper arm, his overflowing waist, — You looked so sad. Like you needed a hug.
— Sometimes it is hard to understand God’s plan, gasps Walter, trying to pull himself away. — We just have to trust He knows what He is doing. The boy’s in a better place now.
He accidentally touches her bra strap through her blouse, yanks his hand back, pulls himself away from Joy. Clumsily pats her on the shoulder. Joy’s crinkled eyes squish out tears.
— I never understand how that’s supposed to make someone feel better, she says in a flannelly voice, her nose bright red.
Walter starts to draft the memo that Joy will slip into all the teachers’ mail slots Tuesday morning. He tries to hunt down the right words for the memo, thumbing through his thesaurus, settling for appropriately vague, consoling words: unfortunately rather than tragically, passed away rather than died, please refrain rather than forbidden. His face to the computer screen in his office, he swallows, his Adam’s apple sliding up his throat, tipping further up into his sinus cavity, cutting off his breath.
They meet Monday night in the front foyer of their house, Walter and Max, when Max finally swings closed and bolts the door behind him. He kicks off his winter boots, the air heavy. Walter puts a hand on each of Max’s shoulders.
— This day, exhales Max.
— I’ll crack you open a beer, Maxie, says Walter. He kisses Max’s temple. The skin sticky.
They eat from the bowls of stew in front of them, Lieutenant Fong perched neatly in Walter’s lap, studying every movement of his spoon from the bowl to the mouth to the bowl. Max inserting spoonfuls of stew into his own mouth as though administering to an assembly line: deposit, chew, swallow, deposit, chew, deposit, swallow.
Walter’s lips slack, Max’s lips tight.
— At least it didn’t happen on school property, says Max, his words clipped and cauterized. — That’s one good thing.
Walter’s ears pop. — What did you just say? Walter’s spoon clattering into his bowl. Lieutenant Fong skitters to the floor from Walter’s lap.
The growing puddle of stew in Walter’s belly sour, coagulated.
— It didn’t happen on school property. It’s technically not a school issue.
— You know what? says Walter, — This stew tastes like diarrhea. It looks like diarrhea too.
— My mother made this stew, snaps Max.
— Lucky she didn’t make it on school property.
Max’s jaw clicking rhythmically, the scrape of his metal spoon on the bottom of the ceramic bowl. Walter tosses his bowl in the sink, grabs the pot from the stove.
— Oh, and by the way, I don’t appreciate the way you talked to me today, says Walter as he scrubs the glutinous remains of the stew from the pot with steel wool, his man-boobs bobbing under his T-shirt. — We have enough facts about how the boy died. What other details do you need?
Max stands up from the table, rattles cups and plates in the dishwasher as he inserts and reinserts them, his elbows jabbing, stabbing the air.
— Do I need to remind you of suicide contagion? says Max, his face swivelling from the dishwasher to Walter, pencil-dot eyes. — Or are you having some kind of neuron seizure? You cannot even begin to conceive of the damage this will do to the school’s reputation, can you?
Walter harrumphs as he slops the dishrag back and forth across the counter, knots up the plastic bag of garbage, the bag sloppy and heavy as he trudges it out the back door. He swings the green garbage bag in an arc into the trashcan, the metal clanging, the bag landing with a tinny squelch. He clumps back into the house, snow squeaking under his feet.
— The students will not find out ahead of Wednesday that there was a death, says Max. — Or any erroneous details about the death, if news management is done correctly. News management is your job. He slams the dishwasher door closed, his elbows folding back to his sides.
Walter sloshes water into the kettle for a cup of instant decaf.
Walter regards Max in his old sweatpants, his oversize T-shirt proclaiming Don’t Mess with Sulu drooping over his ass, Max locking the dishwasher door, stabbing the On button.
— Tell me, says Walter. — What are you feeling? It’s okay to cry.
— One moment please. I can’t hear a word you’re saying with the water on, Max says in that strident principal’s voice that makes Walter want to set his own hair on fire as he double-checks, triple-checks the lights on the dishwasher. — What did you say? asks Max.
— Oh forget it, says Walter, turning to the cupboard for a coffee cup. He stops. His hand rests on the cupboard door.
Something suspended inside him has just dropped. Lieutenant Fong meows.
Max adjusts the single magnet on the fridge, a mini replica of the Starship Monoceros from his favourite television show, Sector Six. He brushes past Walter on his way out of the kitchen and into the TV room because tonight is Monday night and Monday night is Sector Six night even if it’s just mid-season reruns and a boy died today. Max dusty, mouldy, plumped on the couch.
Sunday, Saturday, Thursday, Friday. Last Friday.
Walter should have noticed, should have hooked the dead boy Patrick Furey back from the edge of that cliff. He should have stood at the bottom and let the boy bounce off his belly. Walter never met the parents, he never met the dead boy really except to squirm across the desk from him last Friday as the boy insisted on opening his mouth and confessing his obsessions into Walter’s ears. Patrick Furey was addicted to another boy. I’m in love, he told Walter. Patrick’s voice jumping and squeaking as he creaked forward on the chair opposite Walter, Walter nervously spooning out globs of canned therapy-speak as fast as he could in the direction of the boy, — Is that so? How do you feel about that? Really? Mm-hmm.
Walter noting every papery curl, every ragged edge of the posters pinned to the wall behind the boy’s head: the poster of the Hang In There ginger kitten clinging to a fence, the Black History Month poster trumpeting Inspiration in rainbow colours. Walter still managing to blob out platitudes, a horse shitting in a geometrically perfect line in a parade.
But as the dead boy talked, his problem mushroomed between them, the boy blowing his problem into a giant word balloon that squished them into opposing corners, — He’s in my English class, said the soon-to-be-dead boy. — I really love him. He gave me his grandmother’s necklace. I can’t sleep anymore, Mr. Boyle. This school is an insane asylum. They stole my skateboard. Mr. Applegate says that because it was off school property the school isn’t responsible.
— Insane asylum is a bit harsh, don’t you think? said Walter.
The chair’s hiss as the boy leaned forward, fingers at his chest, fiddling with the heart pendant on the long chain around his neck, his sweater on inside out, his eyes wet and wide. He said, — You know what I mean, right?
The dead boy wearing a girl’s heart-shaped locket around his neck. His fingers tangling in the delicate chain. His heart exposed outside his clothes.
— I don’t know what you mean, said Walter.
— Well