The Domino Effect (15 page)

“That’s it?”

“What more would you have me do?”

“Make those guys come down here and clean this up.”

“What guys?” he asked.

I didn’t even answer. Just looked at him.

“I think we can chalk this up as a prank, young man. An anonymous prank.”

Flipping rooms could be called a tradition at Hamden, and it was kind of normal for a new underclassman to have their room turned upside down. But not a fourth-year student — new or not — and definitely not like this. I thought of Chester’s threat that Brenda had overheard:
by any means necessary.

“Really? A prank?” I asked Mr. Wright without patience or respect. “With body fluids and busted property? Oh, yeah, that’s a good one. They got us good, those... those rascals.”

“Daniel...” Mr. Wright sighed, but I cut him off.

“Danny, alright?” I said. “I go by Danny.”

He must have known I had him, because he didn’t even flinch at my tone. “I know this is upsetting, but I have absolutely no means of figuring this out, especially since we were away when the incident occurred.”

The wrestling team wasn’t away. Winter season sports started the first day back, and the wrestlers spent the holiday here, at school, practicing to the last minute, and probably jerking off in a circle and eating the hearts of small animals. I reminded Mr. Wright of this.

“Well, what would you have me do?” he asked. “Put them under bright lights for an investigation? Inject them with truth serum?”

“How about a spelling bee?” I suggested, pointing to the window. “That would do it.”

Mr. Wright laughed out loud, then looked at the window and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Daniel. Danny. I really am, but I just don’t know what to do. I’m afraid if I call more attention to the matter, it will just make things worse. Perhaps if we just treat this as a routine prank, a small fire that we suffocate with silence, there will be no opportunity, no oxygen, for the flames to expand.”

He seemed pleased with his metaphor, but I was starting to think that math teachers might be better than these literary-types at dealing with dorms and the things that happen between kids. The eggheads could put all the numbers together, in every possible way, and know, without a doubt, that things didn’t add up. I had no faith in Mr. Wright figuring it out.

“Whatever you say,” I said to him.

He left me alone with our mess.

I worked like a lunatic. After a few hours, the window sparkled and our clothes had been returned to the closet. The desks sat right-side-up, and the books and papers were back where they belonged. I did the best I could, but by the time Terence showed up, it still seemed that something had gone wrong in our room.

“The hell happened?” he asked. He stood in the doorway, his shoulder bag hanging toward the floor.

“Welcome to Hamden Academy,” I said, trying to make it sound like a formality.

“What?”

“You’re not a real student here until you get your room flipped — it’s a tradition.”

Terence walked inside and put his bag down on the bed spring.

“You’re not new,” he said, looking at the bare walls. Smart kid. No wonder Brown was after him.

“Yeah, well, they must have gotten carried away,” I shrugged. My face reddened with shame at my crappy lie.

“Where’s the beds?” he asked.

“Ah, we might have to wait until morning for those.”

“No, I mean where are the old ones?”

“Oh, they got covered in shaving cream,” I said. “I asked them to take them away and get us new ones.” I had actually dragged them, reeking of piss, down to the laundry room.

“Shaving cream, huh?” he asked.

“Yep.”

Terence looked at the toiletry bag that rested on the ledge next to his bed. It had been untouched. The only untouched thing in the room. Or so it seemed.

“Ah, was your toothbrush in there?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, picking up the bag.

“You might want to give it a whiff.”

He unzipped the bag, took out the toothbrush and held it to his nose. His head jerked back from the smell. He looked sickened.

I walked over with the trash can and he dumped the bag, toothbrush and all, into the bin. “I’m telling you, it happens to everyone. No big deal.”

I dumped my whole toiletry bag, too, even though it had been with me all weekend. He stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.

“Someone stuck my toothbrush up they ass, and you’re telling me it’s no big deal?”

“What can I say? It’s a tradition.”

“Well that’s a messed up tradition right there,” he said. “Someone ought to have their ass whooped over that.”

He began to unpack. I could tell by the shake of his head that he knew, inside the closet, his clothes were out of order. He looked around the room, wondering what else had been done. He sucked his teeth and made that sound he was so crazy about. No horses came.

I knew that feeling he was fighting, wondering about an enemy that couldn’t be seen. An enemy who does to your things what they wish they could do to you. The thought of their hands on your stuff makes you sick, them being in your space when you’re not there. Back in Queens, at the big high school, I hated what those pricks did to my locker more than what they did to me. At least I saw their faces when they kicked me around, but I never knew who was scratching messages on my locker or even spitting on me through the crowd. Once, inside my locker, a dead rat was stuffed in my jacket pocket. I had to throw that coat out.

The worst part about this kind of thing is that you don’t know who “they” are. And the unknown makes you afraid. It gives you the creeps and makes you think everyone’s in on it. You trust no one. You shut down to be safe. Crawl inside. I didn’t want to see that happen to Terence. Or to me. Not again.

“Hey, hoops start tomorrow, right?” I said. I lounged across my box spring like it was the most comfortable mattress in the world.

“Yeah,” he said, a flash of light in his eyes.

“You want to borrow my lucky shorts?”

“Hell, no!” he said, breaking into a smile.

He let the smile linger. He dug some framed pictures out of his duffel bag and positioned them on his bedside shelf and desk. He tacked a Houston Rockets poster on the wall.

“So, you guys going to be any good or what?” I asked.

“First scrimmage is soon enough,” he said. “You can see for yourself.”

Chapter 9

T
he gym rocked during the home opener of the basketball season. It was just a scrimmage, against a nearby prep school from over the Pennsylvania border, but our side of the bleachers was jammed with people yelling and stomping on the retractable stands. Last year, the only noise at our home games was the chirping of sneakers on the hardwood floor. Brenda, Sammie, and I climbed the stands and joined up with a group of kids from our class.

“Hey, where were you guys last year?” I called a few rows down to Meeks.

“No offense, White Shadow,” he yelled over the cheer of another basket, “but you guys didn’t have T-Money!”

Rice had been blabbing to everyone about Terence’s practice performances. I had heard him, over and over, saying that Terence’s game was “phat,” “stupid,”
and
“dope.” All good things on his
fagakada
planet. I couldn’t help thinking, looking around at all those people cheering and carrying on, that some of this had to do with the fact that Terence was still the mysterious guy who had stood up to the wrestlers. Then I saw a few blue jackets sitting at the end of the bleachers, down from our team’s bench. I’d never seen any wrestler at another game. Ever. They weren’t cheering or anything, just staring at Terence.

He looked pretty sharp in his white uniform with blue trim. He crouched and hounded some poor kid trying to advance the ball past half-court. When the guy tried to spin away, Terence poked the ball free and was on his way down court.

“Here we go again!” Meeks jumped up and called as Terence swooped to the hoop and finger-rolled the ball over the rim. The room roared. Terence got right back on his mark and swarmed all over him again. The other team’s coach called time out.

Our team flopped to the sideline like a pack of puppies. Terence didn’t seem all that happy, though, and he covered his head in a towel while resting on the bench.

After the break, the teams went back at it for a few minutes until the halftime buzzer went off. Our guys stormed the locker room, and I noticed, even with all the commotion, that Rice found the time to hang a sweaty towel over Chester’s head. He stood and fired it back, but Rice kept running, wagging a finger in the air. The floor was empty, but the gym was still alive.

“He’s really good,” Brenda said, tightening her fingers around mine.

“Yeah, but he’s got, like, eight inches on that kid.”

“He should have stayed in Short Hills, then!” Meeks yelled.

“Isn’t that where you’re from?” someone asked him.

“Damn skippy!” he roared. “I think I know that pud!”

Super. People went on and on about our team. No one noticed when the wrestlers got up and left.

Right after halftime, we had a 30-point lead or something, but Terence still played like the other guys might make a comeback. All that mauling of the opponent’s point guard got Terence his fifth foul and a seat on the end of our bench. He’s lucky someone didn’t file for a restraining order. He sat there on the end of the bench with a towel over his head. I’d seen enough.

Outside, nothing moved in the grip of December. The air, with no scent, stung my nose and ears and neck. The tree limbs were like gray snakes under the low sky. The cloud cover wouldn’t break until March, at the earliest. We walked up the path, past the shack and toward Brenda’s dorm.

“Well, what did you think about your roommate?” Brenda gushed. “Wasn’t he amazing?”

She had her arm clutched around my mine, hugging me so close our breath mixed. I could feel the excitement in her step. It was hard to keep balanced.

“Yeah, he was great,” I said. “The whole team looked good.”

“Wishing you still played?” Brenda asked, nudging into me.

“Nah,” I said. “It’s a better view from the stands. Plus, I got to leave early.”

“Why did we leave? It was so much fun in there, all those people cheering. It was like being at a college or a big high school somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Something didn’t seem right. I mean, it was just a scrimmage, but it seemed like more than that. You know?”

“No.”

“Never mind,” I said, not wanting to get her started with the drama of our dorm. I’d gotten the mattresses downstairs without notice, and hadn’t mentioned the flipping to anyone. Terence, of course, could be counted on for silence, though he seemed a little tense, like every time he walked in the room he expected a mess. I knew how he felt.

Brenda and I cut across the meadow, the stiff grass shifting under our feet.

“Are you free at all during the break?” she asked.

“Um, yeah,” I said. “I’m wide open.”

“Good, because I was thinking maybe you could come up for New Year’s.”

I stopped in the middle of the meadow and took her elbow in my hand.