Good, his father said, lighting one of the eighty Camel cigarettes he smoked each and every day. We understand each other, then. You’re going to have to work your buttsky off, but you can cut it. They never would have sent us this if you couldn’t. He picked up the letter of acceptance from The Piper School and rattled it. There was a kind of savage triumph in the gesture, as if the letter was an animal he had killed in the jungle, an animal he would now skin and eat. So work hard. Make your grades. Make your mother and me proud of you. If you end the year with an A average in your courses. there’s a trip to Disney World in it for you. That’s something to shoot for, right, kiddo? Jake had made his grades—A’s in everything (until the last three weeks, that was). He had, presumably, made his mother and father proud of him, although they were around so little that it was hard to tell. Usually there was nobody around when he came home from school except for Greta Shaw—the housekeeper—and so he ended up showing his A papers to her. After that, they migrated to a dark corner of his room. Sometimes Jake looked through them and wondered if they meant any-thing. He wanted them to, but he had serious doubts. Jake didn’t think he would be going to Disney World this summer, A average or no A average.
He thought the nuthouse was a much better possibility. As he walked in through the double doors of The Piper School at 8:45 on the morning of May 31st, a terrible vision came to him. He saw his father in his office at 70 Rockefeller Plaza, leaning over his desk with a Camel jutting from the corner of his mouth, talking to one of his underlings as blue smoke wreathed his head. All of New York was spread out behind and below his father, its thump and hustle silenced by two layers of Thermopane glass. The fact is, money doesn’t get anyone into Sunnyvale Sanitarium, his father was telling the underling in a tone of grim satisfaction. He reached out and tapped the underling’s forehead. The only thing that gets you into a place like that is when something big-time goes wrong up here in the attic. That’s what happened to the kid. But he’s working his goddam buttsky off. Makes the best f**king baskets in the place, they tell me. And when they let him out—if they ever do—there’s a trip in it for him. A trip to—
“—the way station,” Jake muttered, then touched his forehead with a hand that wanted to tremble. The voices were coming back. The yelling, conflicting voices which were driving him mad.
You’re dead, Jake. You were run over by a car and you’re dead. Don’t be stupid! Look—see that poster? REMEMBER THE CLASS ONE PICNIC, it says. Do you think they have Class Picnics in the afterlife? I don’t know. But I know you were run over by a car. No!
Yes. It happened on May 9th, at 8:25 AM You died less than a minute later. No! No! No!
“John?”
He looked around, badly startled. Mr. Bissette, his French teacher, was standing there, looking a little concerned. Behind him, the rest of the student body was streaming into the Common Room for the morning assembly. There was very little skylarking, and no yelling at all. Presumably these other students, like Jake himself, had been told by their parents how lucky they were to be attending Piper, where money didn’t matter (although tuition was $22,000 a year), only your brains. Presumably many of them had been promised trips this summer if their grades were good enough. Presumably the parents of the lucky trip-winners would even go along in some cases. Presumably— “John, are you okay?” Mr. Bissette asked. “Sure,” Jake said. “Fine. I overslept a little this morning. Not awake yet, I guess.”
Mr. Bissette’s face relaxed and he smiled. “Happens to the best of us.” Not to my dad. The master of The Kill never oversleeps.
“Are you ready for your French final?” Mr. Bissette asked. “Voulez-vous faire
I’examen cet apres-midi?”
“I think so,” Jake said. In truth he didn’t know if he was ready for the exam or not. He couldn’t even remember if he had studied for the French final or not. These days nothing seemed to matter much except for the voices in his head. “I want to tell you again how much I enjoyed having you this year, John. I wanted to tell your folks, too, but they missed Parents’ Night—” “They’re pretty busy,” Jake said.
Mr. Bissette nodded. “Well, I have enjoyed you. I just wanted to say so … and that I’m looking forward to having you back for French II next year.” “Thanks,” Jake said, and wondered what Mr. Bissette would say if he added, But I don’t think I’ll be taking French II next year, unless I can get a correspondence course delivered to my postal box at good old Sunnyvale. Joanne Franks, the school secretary, appeared in the doorway of the Common Room with her small silver-plated bell in her hand. At The Piper School, all bells were rung by hand. Jake supposed that if you were a parent, that was one of its charms. Memories of the Little Red Schoolhouse and all that. He hated it himself. The sound of that bell seemed to go right through his head— I can’t hold on much longer, he thought despairingly. I’m sorry, but I’m losing it. I’m really, really losing it.