Stepping Up to the Plate

Chapter 3-4

The city bus didn’t run as far down Washington Street as the high school—it turned at the library instead, leaving Stacy three long blocks and the length of the soccer field to go. The morning air was already humid, and the faint breeze that played among the treetops would dip down now and again to tug at Stacy’s baseball cap, but there was still a sheen of fresh sweat along his brow by the time he reached the school. A familiar feeling of dread settled into the pit of his stomach that made him feel like a snake kept behind glass at the zoo, crazed from the constant tap tap tapping of too many hands on his walls.

The high school looked the same as it had four years ago, timeless, unchanging, a constant reminder of the hell he went through as a student there. The building itself was set back from the street, and a circular drive cut through a manicured lawn that seemed too green, like overripe fruit. When classes were in and the final bell rang, the students would rush outside to find the drive filled with cars and vans, parents picking up their kids. The teacher parking lot was on one side of the school, with a separate entrance so those leaving early wouldn’t get bogged down in the traffic.

A larger lot was behind the school, this one specifically for student parking—that’s also where the buses loaded up. Stacy used to ride the bus, even as a sophomore, because he didn’t drive then and he had no friends who did. Or rather, none who were still in school. Once or twice if he stayed the night with Ange or Lamar, he got dropped off in the morning before his first class, but that wasn’t often. After a night out with the guys, he tended to skip classes the next day. It had been too much trouble to untangle himself from the warm knot of bodies and blankets to stumble out of bed.

Thinking of that now brought a faint, almost embarrassed, smile to his face, because what had ever happened to that? Late mornings lingering between the sheets, sometimes still pleasantly drunk, his entire body worn out and loose like sock pulled off at the end of the day. Lamar on one side of him, Ange on the other, the distant sounds of Colin rooting through the kitchen cabinets in search of food.

Odd how things had changed between the four of them. Living with Lamar twenty-four seven wore the magic off the moments they used to spend together. Colin hardly came by much in the evenings any more because he couldn’t drag his fat ass out of bed in the mornings for work, and one weekend a month he was on call and didn’t want to go anywhere just in case someone’s cable went out. The only one Stacy couldn’t complain about was Ange, who still retained some small aura of allure that hadn’t rubbed clean. He suspected it was because they didn’t room together, and what he saw of his friend was stolen and kept hidden to himself. As long as they still slept in separate beds every night, there was something to wake up for in the mornings.

Stacy wondered just how long he’d get up for classes. It’d been four years since he set his alarm clock. Just thinking about it buzzing him awake made him tired of this school s**t all over again, and it hadn’t even started up yet. As he approached the high school his nervousness grew, his palms as damp as his face. He knew exactly what the building would smell like, how it would look, who would be inside. Dirty Harry of course, as he was still the principal. A few teachers Stacy prayed wouldn’t recognize him. God forbid any students he should know—at least it’d been so long that the few kids he knew by sight or those who used to pick on him would no longer be in school.

Or shouldn’t be, and if they were then he guessed there was nothing to fear from running into them, the losers that they were. I’m not looking forward to this, he thought bitterly, stepping off the sidewalk and onto the grass as he angled towards the school. For the record this is a waste of five hundred bucks. He wished his mother had never mentioned Cal’s hateful remarks. While he was at it? He wished she’d never met the man in the first place. Why not? If you’re going to wish for something, might as well make it good.

Along the front of the building, there were three entrances—the main doors in the center where the drive circled closest to the school, which visitors and parents and students who were running late used because it opened onto the principal’s office. The receptionist inside watched those doors like a hawk, swooping down on anyone who entered while classes were in session. Stacy sure as hell wasn’t going through there.

On the far side of the school, over near the bus drop-off, was a nondescript door painted the same beaten shade of white as the rest of the building. That led to the hall by the auditorium, sort of like a backstage door, though the band students used it, as well. Stacy has before, too, because the detention room was along that hall. When he had to stay after for whatever reason—fighting mostly, or talking back to the teacher, once for saying “f*****g s**t” as he kicked his damn locker, which wouldn’t open, and he didn’t see the science teacher passing behind him at the time—he’d leave through that door. After classes were out he didn’t want to be seen lingering in the halls. It would’ve invited more trouble, and he already had enough without going to look for more.

The third door was just outside the cafeteria and usually kept open for the students to use, those who had classes in the Vo-Tech building across the street. A cardboard placard ahead sat just off the sidewalk, an arrow pointing through the open door. learn while you earn, the sign read, with a graduation cap and diploma drawn at the end of the phrase like a period. Stacy thought it was a stupid name for the program. Earn what? His GED he supposed…but his mother was still out five hundred dollars and Lamar was right, he could use that money on something else instead of a damn piece of paper with his name on it to show how smart he was, or wasn’t. He could use it for the rent, for starters.

As he passed the cafeteria windows, memories flooded back. Sitting by himself during lunch, Rick and his jock friends laughing nearby, talking loud enough for Stacy to overhear. Talking about him. A leg thrown out when he walked by their table so he would trip. One of them cutting in the lunch line ahead of him, then another, then the whole goddamn team while Stacy’s hands fisted at his sides, his nails biting into his palms hard enough to draw blood. A scuffle once at the trash cans, when Rick elbowed him in passing and Stacy kicked back on reflex, dropping the other boy to the ground. The haunting chant of “Fight! Fight!” ringing in his ears even as teachers hurried to break things up.

Tied to the door handle now were a bunch of balloons, the word welcome! written across each one. With his hands in his pockets, Stacy fingered his house keys and wondered how many of those he could pop before someone stopped him. He hesitated in the doorway, considering his options. I don’t want to do this, he thought. Hopefully that was written across his face, in his scowl, his cap over his eyes, his simmering stare. He wasn’t going to enjoy this, he knew it, and he already suspected he wouldn’t learn s**t. Just give me the diploma now, and no one gets hurt. Didn’t the y have night classes for this sort of thing? Or a GED for Dummies book he could read, and just skip this part of it?

Fast steps clicked on the sidewalk behind him, then someone brushed past. “Excuse me,” the lady said, not sparing to look his way. She held her shoulders and head back, blond frizz shook out of her face, and her heels picked out a rapid staccato on the dirty linoleum floor. One of the teachers, he knew that much—she taught French or Latin, something like that. He’d had enough trouble with English class to worry about any other language. At least she hadn’t recognized him. Maybe he’d changed in the past four years, maybe no one would know him anymore. He could start all over again with a clean slate, as if he’d never been here before.

Or maybe not. A long table ran the length of the hall in front of the cafeteria, and seated at the end watching him, waiting for him, was Mrs. Barrett, an algebra teacher he’d had for first period his freshman year. A class he was notoriously late for, a class he hated. She looked exactly the same as she had the last time he saw her, gray hair in an out-of-style cut and held out of her eyes with a pair of reading glasses propped on top of her head. A thin chain framed her face, dangling from the sides of the glasses to disappear beneath the lapels of her bright teal blazer, a shade too young for her.

Red lipstick cracked around the edge of her mouth, giving her lips a star-like shape when she pursed them. “Stacy Evans,” she drawled. “Well I’ll be. I wondered whatever happened to you.”

Yeah, right. As if she cared. He stopped in front of the table, hands still in his pockets. “I left.” He’d speak only when spoken to, and maybe not even then, keeping his words short and clipped to show his contempt of this whole ordeal.

Her lips pulled in tighter, strangling the star, until they threatened to disappear. “And now you’re back. In the program, I assume?” A slight, half-hearted shrug was his only response, but apparently it was enough—she began riffling through a sheaf of papers stacked in front of her, looking for his name. “Stacy Evans,” she muttered to herself, amused. “Stacy Stacy Stacy. Still playing ball?”

With a smirk, he said, “You could say that.” Truth was he hadn’t picked up a baseball in years, years, but she hadn’t specified the type of ball he played with, had she?

Suddenly he wished one of his friends was with him so he could nudge them and grin, share the joke because it sailed effortlessly over her head. But Lamar was probably still in bed, the lazy f**k, and Ange and Colin were at work. And I’m here, Stacy thought. Shoot me now.

“Ah, here we are.” Women like Mrs. Barrett used the royal we. Once in algebra class she called on Stacy to answer a particular problem but he hadn’t done his homework and didn’t know the answer off the top of his head. As the other students snickered, she asked, “Are we having difficulties with the assignment, Mr. Evans?”

The class laughed. With a cutting look Stacy said, “I just didn’t bother to do it but I don’t know your excuse.” Did Mrs. Barrett remember that?

If so, she didn’t mention it. Instead she handed him a few papers with his name type across the top. “Fill these out,” she instructed, ever the teacher. Before he could ask, she handed him a pen as well, then a folder stuffed with more paperwork—was he expected to read this s**t? “This is more information on the program,” she instructed, tapping the folder with the tip of her own pen. “Descriptions of all the trade courses are in there. Read through them and pick one—”

“Trade courses?” Stacy interrupted.

Mrs. Barrett frowned. “I’m not going to go over it for you, Mr. Evans. It’s all in here. Read it.”

Stacy didn’t want to read it—the packet was thick, it would take him all damn day. “I don’t know what you mean by trade courses,” he said, playing dumb. It was a role he liked to fall back on when he could get away with it.

“You do know what this program does, don’t you, Mr. Evans?” Stacy wished she would stop calling him that, Mr. Evans, it sounded pretentious in her voice. When he didn’t respond, Mrs. Barrett sighed. “This is a ten week program. Monday through Friday you will come to the school on time for classes. Before noon you’ll study subjects such as mathematics and grammar and science, things that will be covered on the GED exam. After lunch you’ll take a trade course of your choice, something that interests you. We have computer repair, auto mechanics, woodshop, child care, accounting, web page design, things of that nature. It’s our hope that the skills you learn will help you in the workplace after you’ve earned your degree.”

That royal we again, our hope. Stacy was pretty sure no one gave a s**t whether he learned anything here or not—they already had his money, didn’t they? Mrs. Barrett pointing at the folder. “It’s all in here, son. Go have a seat in the cafeteria and look it over. Fill out the forms and make sure you pick more than one option for the trade courses, in case your first choice is full. I know the web page design class is already almost at its limit and registration has just started.”

The look she gave him said she knew he wouldn’t pick that course, he wasn’t smart enough, and he considered signing up anyway just to spite her, but then he’d be stuck in front of a computer with a roomful of nerds for what’d she say? Sixteen weeks? Jesus. The end of the summer never seemed so far away.

“When you’re done with the forms,” she continued, talking faster now to hurry him along—a line was starting to form behind him, other students waiting to register, “just take everything to one of the counselors. They’re seated around the cafeteria, any one of them can place you in the classes. Just find an empty chair and go to it.”

Stacy looked at the papers in his hands without moving. “In the cafeteria, dear,” Mrs. Barrett said, in a tone that told him to move along. She pointed behind her, just in case he didn’t know where to go. When he moved in that direction she nodded, satisfied. “That’s it. Read the materials, Mr. Evans. I’m sure we have something that will catch your eye.” Before he took another step, her attention shifted to the person behind him, and with an insincere laugh she asked, “Carol Leinbach, is that really you?”

Feeling a little like a card shuffled between a gambler’s hands, Stacy went into the cafeteria to find a seat.