Period 8

.12



“Hey, a*shole, we need to talk.”

Paulie walks toward his car following last period. It’s Friday afternoon and he’s looking forward to a hard swim. He turns to face Arney. “So talk.”

“What was that bullshit on the court the other night?” Arney says.

“I told you before,” Paulie says back, “don’t bring that weak shit into the paint on me.”

“You could have just wrapped me up.”

“You got around me. I wasn’t going to give you a cheap one.”

“It’s rat ball, for chrissake,” Arney says. “And I’ll tell you what, buddy, it felt personal.”

Paulie leans against the Beetle. “You’re right, Arney. It was personal. It was about you and Hannah and all the bullshit you’ve been throwing . . . like since the third grade.”

“You said—”

“I know what I said, and it’s too late to un-say it. But I never would have done that to you. Wouldn’t have even asked. I wouldn’t have done it to Hannah, either. I’ve got too much chivalry to take her out on the court, so you got the lucky draw, okay? Besides, she’s tougher than you, so it was less risky.”

Arney looks down. “You’re right, man. I’m sorry. I’ll stop—”

“F*ck that,” Paulie says. “That genie doesn’t fit back into the bottle. She looks different to me than she did a week ago anyway. I’ll just stay away from you guys.”

“Listen . . .”

“Listen, my ass. I’ve figured you out, Stack. You try shit ’til something works. You asked me about you and Hannah and I said ‘go ahead’ when I meant ‘what the f*ck’ because I figured I screwed Hannah over and I don’t deserve a break. But see, you know that about me, Arney. You knew what I’d say. You also knew what a kick in the gut it would be. So when I finally man up and say the truth, you act surprised. F*ckin’ Alfred E. Stack. What, me an a*shole?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Arney says. “Hannah was the one—”

“You’re doin’ it now, you dick. Hannah’s tough, but she’s not mean, and she knows she could crush me a lot of ways without going after one of my so-called friends. I know you’ve said some shit to her you wouldn’t say to me. She’s hanging out with you and there may be some good feeling of revenge to it, but she didn’t invent this. You’re lucky she and I aren’t talking because she’d figure you out pretty quick and this shit would be over.”

Arney’s hands go up. “Look, man, I’m just trying to find a way to preserve our friendship. We’ve known each other since we were kids. We can’t let some chick—”

“Hannah Murphy’s not ‘some chick.’”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean. Tell you what, go home and write down all the shit you’ve told me in the last few weeks that I might know is a lie. I don’t know it all yet, but it’s getting clearer every day.”

Arney swells up, and his expression turns to stone. “Have it your way, buddy. Maybe this is the day we cut bait. You want to think twice before calling me a liar.”

That’s the Arney I was looking for. “I’m way past thinking twice.”

Arney takes a step forward. He’s not as tall as Paulie and certainly not in as good shape, but he spends hours in the weight room and he could make it interesting.

Paulie doesn’t budge. “You know the one comfort I’ve always had with our ‘friendship’?”

“Enlighten me.”

“That if it ever comes down to it, I’ll just kick your ass. Go for it.”

Arney holds his gaze a long moment and Paulie thinks, This is gonna feel good, but Arney deflates, then turns for his car. He stops and turns back. “Tell you something else, buddy. If I am lying, you want to be real careful of what I’m lying about. You could be bringing a real shit storm down on a lot of people.” He gets into his driver’s seat and slams the door.



“Hey, Logs,” Paulie says as he and Logs unload their gear. “Remember the other day in P-8 when you started to tell us how your whole perspective changed in the late sixties?”

“I remember.”

“Somebody interrupted you. You never finished.”

The sky is gray, the temperature chilly as they pull on their wetsuits.“December ’68,” Logs says. “First moonshot; the one before we actually landed. Apollo Eight, I think. Practice run to see if we could get them up and back.”

“Sixty-eight. Long time ago.”

“In a land far away,” Logs says. “We’d never seen Earth from a distance. We had drawings, maps, all that, but no one had actually seen us from out there. Those guys were watching Earth rise. Or set, I don’t know which. It was bigger than the imagination of the entire species.

“I remember thinking, that’s a God’s-eye view. God doesn’t see the shit that’s going on, He just sees this thing He gave us to live on, and it’s beautiful from that far out. He wouldn’t even know how badly we messed it up until it was too late; until it turned brown.”

It’s hard to imagine. Paulie has seen deep space pictures all his life.

“It was something. I mean, now we have the Hubble so we not only see great distances, but back in time. But that first look . . . why you asking?”

“Aw, you know, just like to see an old guy go back.”

“Don’t mess with me, grasshopper. They’ll find you at the bottom of the lake.”

“I like that perspective,” Paulie says. “You look at someone and you see the crust, just what the light hits. Kinda the same thing.”

“What’s driving this?”

“I went over to the Wellses place the other day.”

“Whoa.”

“No shit, whoa,” Paulie says. “Man, Mr. Logs, old man Wells has her vigilant as a prairie dog in a pack of coyotes. You look at him, you don’t see it. Watch her around him though, and there’s no doubt. She could be telling you who really killed President Kennedy and from two feet away look like she’s asking about the weather. Always gauging what might set him off. Mary Wells is not who we see.”

Logs is almost into his wetsuit. “Tell me that you are not exploring this romantically.”

Paulie pulls up his back zipper, reaches into the Beetle for his goggles. He stops. “Logs, is there any way for men and women, or boys and girls, to do anything that doesn’t turn sexual?”

“I suppose,” Logs says, “if a man and a woman drive into an intersection, both talking to their sweethearts on cell phones, paying no attention to where they’re going, and crash into each other, that possibly isn’t sexual. If either one gets out of their car, it’s sexual.”

“Got it.”

“So, about Mary.”

“I’m not getting out of the car.” Paulie smiles.

“Do you know the term rebound, as it’s not applied in the game of basketball?”

“Yessir, I do.”

“And do you remember saying that whole encounter with her was strange?”

“I have almost total recall, Sensei.”

Logs says, “Prove it.”

“Relax. It isn’t like that.”

“You do not want Victor Wells catching you with her,” Logs says.

“I know that, believe me.” Paulie stops a second. “You don’t think there’s something going on between him and her.”

“You mean something inappropriate.”

“Hell,” Paulie says, “what’s happened in the last three weeks that’s appropriate? I mean, like, sexual.”

“I do not think about things like that if I can help it,” Logs says. “It’s easy to get suspicious but real dangerous to project. I’ve learned to respond only to hard evidence, and there isn’t any, Paulie, unless you know something you’re not telling me.”

“I don’t, but I have cable. He treats her like property, man. Look, you’ve been teaching forty-plus years, so you probably see all this from the moon, right? I mean, I get that you’d have to say to me or anyone else that you don’t think something, but your experience has to make you consider a lot of things.”

“Let me just say this. I have no idea what goes on in the Wells household. What I do know is if you’re going to accuse someone like Victor Wells of jaywalking, you’re already at a disadvantage. A guy with a house like his has at least three lawyers with houses just as big. So, if you want to hang out with Mary Wells, you do it like a recent graduate of etiquette school. You don’t honk when you pick her up, you act the perfect gentleman and you keep her out of trouble with him. If something happens that makes you suspicious, I’ll be here.”

“Thanks,” Paulie says. “You want to be real careful around her dad. At least I do. And I am not getting physical.”

Logs rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why you don’t stay far away, my friend. You’re going to do what you do, but just know, control freaks always make me nervous. I don’t think he’s dangerous, but as long as he has a grip on her, he can sure make her life miserable, and yours by association.” Logs walks to the end of the dock, then turns around. “You know, Paulie, every time you see somebody wounded or in some kind of trouble, you think you have to do something about it. I’ve always admired that about you. But sometimes there’s nothing you can do, and sometimes you can make it worse. Just a thought.” He pulls his goggles down. “Now let’s get wet.”



Paulie stands on the porch of the Wells mansion, hair still wet, once again face-to-face with Victor Wells. “Is Mary home?”

Wells takes a deep breath. “Is she expecting you?”

“I would guess not,” Paulie says.

“More of your project?” His tone tells Paulie he didn’t buy the story last time, or he’s discovered some hole in it. Or he has Mary chained down in the basement after burning the truth out of her with lighted cigarettes.

“No, sir,” Paulie says. “This is more . . . social.”

Wells stiffens. “That’s not something we’re doing these days.”

Paulie smiles. “I wasn’t thinking of going anywhere with you. Mary.”

Wells stares.

“That was a joke.”

“Son, you seem like an okay kid, as kids go. But you are barking up the wrong tree if you’re thinking about starting something with my daughter. She’s had some problems, as I’m sure you’re aware, and we’re focusing on straightening things out and getting on with life, which means college and preparation for college. That’s a full plate right now.”

Paulie takes a deep breath; he’s rehearsed this. “Look, sir, with all due respect, I’m not trying to start something. I was thinking of, like, ice cream or coffee.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

“Mr. Wells, do you know you’re famous?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re famous.”

“Probably I am,” Wells says with a grimace. “I certainly made a splash the past couple of weeks in the media, jumping the gun on Mary’s ‘disappearance.’” He looks to the side.

“That’s not why you’re famous.”

Wells’ irritation is evident. “Okay, then why am I famous?”

“You’re like a legend,” Paulie says, “and not in a good way. I mean, you wanna know how kids talk about somebody who’s always in control? You’re, like, a teenager’s idea of a monster.”

Paulie notices the muscle at the top of Wells’s jaw turn into a small marble.

“Did you come here just to flatter me?” Wells says.

“I came with an offer,” Paulie says. “Look, I’m an almost-eighteen-year-old kid who doesn’t drink or smoke or take drugs. I have a B average, give or take a minus or two, and I am headed to the U next year. My grade average indicates I’m something of an underachiever, but I test well. I just got dumped by a girl I was on my a— I was over the top for and I’m not about to get into more mess. I have a father who plays around and that hacks me off, and a mother who allows it, which hacks me off even more. I take care of my body and I tell the truth whenever I can. I’m totally aware that if I spend any time with your daughter, you’ll check all that out and if I’m lying, you’ll know it before I come around again.”

“You tell the truth whenever you can?”

“Yeah, like with important things. Like, I wouldn’t tell you how dorky it looks to wear dark nylon socks with those shorts.” He nods toward Wells’s feet.

Wells follows Paulie’s gaze and for the first time in the conversation, smiles.

“So your daughter would be relatively safe and you’d buy some good will with kids at school, which probably doesn’t matter to you one way or the other.”

“Relatively safe.”

“We’re teenagers, Mr. Wells. We live in risky times.”

Wells stares at Paulie. “You are one ballsy young man.”

“You almost have to be these days,” Paulie says.

Wells turns and the door closes. Paulie shuts his eyes as he hears him call to his daughter. “Mary, you have a visitor.”

Paulie touches the soaked shirt under his arm.



“You called my father a dork?” Mary is amazed; just a little too scared to think it’s funny, but close.

“Technically I didn’t call him that. I said the socks were dorky. He may have extrapolated from that.” Paulie is smiling, feeling triumphant. “He got even, though,” Paulie says.

“How?”

“He gave me one of those looks.”

“Yeah,” Mary says, “he can do that. At least you got to his sense of humor.”

“So, you’re on furlough. What do you want to do?”

“He didn’t give us a lot of time. Jeez, a ten thirty curfew on a Friday night. What other seventeen-year-old girl has that?”

“Probably the YFC girls,” Paulie says, “but most of theirs are probably self-imposed.”

Mary smiles. “I know a lot of those girls,” she says. “They believe in what they believe, but that doesn’t always translate into what they do.”

“Justin claims biology trumps everything.”

“Speaking of biology,” Mary says, placing a hand on Paulie’s thigh, “we could go—”

“Not gonna happen.”

“I want to give you something to thank you. . . .”

“Not gonna happen.”

“I want to.”

The picture of taking Mary to the secret room at the strip mall begins immediately to cloud Paulie’s judgment, but the thought of being with Mary in the same place he was with Hannah. . . . “Not gonna happen.”

“I’m not asking you to fall in love with me, Paulie. You’re not with anyone and neither am I. What’s the harm?”

“The harm isn’t anything I would know about until it happens to me,” Paulie says. “Look, I’ve got flash photos of Arney-f*cking-Stack and Hannah going off in my head every hour on the hour, and I’ll tell you the truth, I’m hanging with you partly as a ‘f*ck you’ to them. I’ll probably never know your reasons for needing a trophy boy, so let’s call this a relationship of mutual convenience and try to have some fun.”

Mary’s face flushes. “I just thought . . . .”

Paulie takes a deep breath. “Look, Mary, I don’t want to be mean. It doesn’t look good on me and it doesn’t feel good. But I’m tapped out for being a nice guy right now.”

Mary sits back. “Okay, I get that. So what do we do?”

“You bowl?” he asks.



“He told you to f*ck off? Wow, that doesn’t sound like Paulie.” Arney grips the wheel and pushes back against the seat, pressing down on the accelerator.

“He was pissed,” Hannah says. “No more pissed than I was.”

“Did you tell him how you knew who it was?”

“Not really, I just told him it wasn’t who he thought it was.”

Arney says, “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. I didn’t mean to pour gas on the fire. You and Paulie were great. Half the guys I know wished they had a girlfriend like you.”

“You should have told me. Like I said, the one thing I can’t stand is to be lied to. And leaving stuff out is the same as lying.”

“Lying by omission.”

“Exactly. I don’t care what kind of a cool guy everyone thinks Paulie is, if he can’t be true to his word, I can’t be with him.”

“I know you’re right,” Arney says, “and no matter how cool he is, it isn’t cool to do that to the girl you’re with.” He’s quiet a moment, gazing out the windshield at the countryside moving rapidly past as they speed along the two-lane road miles outside of town. “He’s pretty pissed at me for hanging out with you now.”

“He should have thought about that.”

“Actually I told him that, not quite in those words. Guys who cheat always go with the impulse and then try to fix it. He should know that from watching his old man. Personally, I figured out a long time ago that bell is hard to un-ring.”

“Well, you and I have no strings.”

“Not for you, maybe,” Arney says. “But for me. I’m not like the Bomb, I can’t focus on more than one person. And that’s okay. I get it that we’re not a ‘couple.’ I just value loyalty above all else. I can’t do it any other way.”

“Arney, I’m not getting into anything.”

“Understood,” Arney says. “I know where you stand and I want you to know where I stand.”

A mother quail and several chicks dash onto the road, sense Arney’s car speeding toward them. Hannah tenses, looks at Arney, who doesn’t brake and maybe even accelerates a bit. In the side-view mirror one of the chicks flaps on the pavement while another lies still and squashed.

Hannah stares at him in horror, thinks she sees the hint of a smile cross his lips, but instantly he says, “Damn! I thought they were going the other way! I thought I could speed up and get around them. Oh, God. That was awful!”

Hannah sits back, stunned, not sure what she just witnessed.

“We better go back,” he says. “See if there’s anything I can do.”

“They’re birds, Arney. They’re dead.”

“I can’t believe I missed that,” he says. “They ran out and I thought they’d go back. Jesus, I turned right into them.” He is visibly upset.

Hannah takes a deep breath. “Just drive,” she says finally. “We’ll get over it. Let’s just get to your parents’ cabin and forget it.”