In the middle of the night, I heard a long screech outside like a fingernail digging into a chalkboard. I glanced at the alarm clock, 4:37. My wife Julie was asleep under a mound of blankets. I stumbled to the window and thought I saw Tom, one of my honors students at Revere High, tearing down the middle of the street, his army jacket a flash of green under the streetlight.
Down the side of our black Nissan in the driveway, I could see a scratch like jagged lightning from the headlight to the gas tank. Some idiot had just keyed our car, and I felt blood drain from my face. I sat down on the bed to steady myself.
It couldn’t be Tom. Graduation was today. In a few hours, I would be shaking his hand on stage in front of the whole school. A couple weeks ago, after American History, he had pulled up a chair so I could go over his final paper on the Harpers Ferry Raid. His thesis focused on why it was doomed from the start. Tom was clever, whip-smart, an original thinker. He was the bright spot in my classes, who could crack everyone up with a well-placed sarcasm. It had to be someone else.
Light was beginning to filter through the maples on the front lawn. I had been careful not to wake Julie as I padded downstairs to start coffee.
In the driveway I traced the rough scratch with my fingers. I came around to the front of the Nissan and saw a torn piece of notebook paper tucked under the wiper. I gingerly slid it out.
“What makes you think I care about your stupid fucking class? I am so bored out of my mind I would kill myself if I ever have to listen to one more of your bullshit stories. You are not funny you are pathetic and I feel sorry for your ugly wife because she has to put up with you. It’s a good thing you don’t have any kids to torture. The other morons only laugh at your lame jokes because they feel sorry for you in your ridiculous old-man sweater. You should die and put everyone out of their misery. I am not your fucking pet to show off.”
I crumpled the note in my fist and took a deep breath, like I’d been gut punched. It was Tom’s handwriting.
“You have to tell the Dean and call the cops,” said Julie. She opened the fridge and took out some turkey slices. “I mean, what the fuck.” Her voice was shaky.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to escalate things.” The note lay flattened on the kitchen table in front of me like evidence. I felt numb, still trying to absorb everything.
On the counter she threw together a sandwich for her lunch. “Well, somebody has to do something. What about his mom or dad?”
“Just a mom, and she’s out of the picture. Oxy, I think. He’s never said much. He’s crashing with a friend while he finishes senior year.”
Julie grabbed her coffee thermos and glanced out the back door. “I can’t drive that to the hospital. It’s embarrassing. People will ask too many questions.”
“Take an Uber. The car can stay where it is for now. I’ll walk in, it’s not that far.”
“Ok.” She pulled out her iPhone and glared at it, swiping the screen. “But do something, you have to. Promise.”
I gave her a tight smile.
A yellow school bus swooshed past. The street was bright and clear, only a couple cars waiting at the light. A dad jogged past with a black Lab on a leash.
I paused at the corner. “This is so hurtful,” I texted to Tom. “I don’t understand. I am your biggest fan.”
I slid the volume on the iPhone all the way up, so I would hear it ping. I kept it cradled in my right hand as I crossed the street.
Everything seemed so normal. Kids getting bundled into SUV’s. The rumble of the Orange Line a few blocks away. A plane streaked across the crisp blue sky, and above the trees I could still see the thumbprint of moon.
I ached. Part of me didn’t want Tom to answer, I was afraid of what he might say. But I desperately wanted to make contact, to look him in the eye and ask him what’s going on. This was so unlike him. What could make him lash out like that?
I imagined what graduation would be like in the gym this morning. It would be hot under the floodlights with folding chairs jammed together on the parquet floor. Some popular songs would be bouncing out of the loudspeakers.
I’d find my seat on the dais under the Home basketball hoop and try to get comfortable on a rickety chair. Spread out in front of me would be the dark mass of black gowns and caps in the front rows and behind them the colorful mess of dressed up moms and dads trying to hold onto little brothers and sisters, with a flank of strollers parked in back.
More than anything, I wanted Tom to be there in that crowd. I’d worked so hard with him to get to this point. Why would he throw this bomb?
Horns beeped up ahead, and I found myself in the high school lot. It was packed. Car doors slammed amidst excited cries and whoops of laughter.
“Hey, Mr. B!” somebody called, and I managed to wave back.
I looked down at my phone. Nothing.
“Have you seen Tom?” I asked Fran in the front office.
She was busy xeroxing extra programs, stacked on the table beside her.
“He tried to pick up a cap and gown, but he hasn’t paid the fee. I offered to help out, but he snorted and ran off.”
I looked down the hallway, the shiny expanse of waxed floor and classroom doors hanging open.
A third of the way into the ceremony, as names starting with H echoed out, I saw Tom’s lanky frame appear in the Exit door at the back of the gym, his dark silhouette haloed by June sunlight. I couldn’t hear or see anything else, as if an explosion had half-blinded and deafened me. His shadowy form burned into my retina like an afterimage.
I imagined him making eye contact with me, wanting to apologize. I know he’d mumble Sorry and look down. But there were too many people, too much pressure. The gym’s stale heat was pushing down on us. He looked lost behind the rows of heads.
The last time I saw him he was suspended there in the doorway like a swimmer in a dazzle of sunlit reflections, unable to break the surface.
