one’s own shoelaces … that is the American way, is it not?’
‘Yes, I guess it is,’ Rubber Ed told him after a moment’s thought … and after a quick
glance at the clock, which told him he had another appointment in five minutes. ‘Ill
accept that.’
He stood, and Bowden stood with him. They shook hands again, Rubber Ed being
carefully mindful of the old party’s arthritis.
‘But in all fairness, I ought to tell you that very few students can pull out of an
eighteen-week tailspin in just five weeks of classes. There’s a huge amount of ground to
be made up – a huge amount. I suspect you’ll have to come through on your guarantee, Mr
Bowden.’
Bowden offered his thin, disconcerting smile again. ‘Do you?’ was all he said.
Something had troubled Rubber Ed through the entire interview, and he put his finger
on it during lunch in the cafeteria, more than an hour after ‘Lord Peter’ had left, umbrella
once again neatly tucked under his arm.
He and Todd’s grandfather had talked for fifteen minutes at least, probably closer to
twenty, and Ed didn’t think the old man had once referred to his grandson by name.
Todd pedalled breathlessly up Dussander’s walk and parked his bike on its kickstand.
School had let out only fifteen minutes before. He took the front steps at one jump, used
his doorkey, and hurried down the hall to the sunlit kitchen. His face was a hopeful
landscape of hopeful sunshine and gloomy clouds. He stood in the kitchen doorway for a
moment, his stomach and his vocal cords knotted, watching Dussander as he rocked with
his cupful of bourbon in his lap. He was still dressed in his best, although he had pulled
his tie down two inches and loosened the top button of his shirt He looked at Todd
expressionlessly, his lizard-like eyes at halfmast.
‘Well,’ Todd finally managed.
Dussander left him hanging a moment longer, a moment that seemed at least ten years
long to Todd. Then, deliberately, Dussander set his cup on the table next to his bottle of
Ancient Age and said:
‘The fool believed everything.’
Todd let out his pentup breath in a whooping gust of relief.
Before he could draw another breath in, Dussander added: ‘He wanted your poor,
troubled parents to attend counselling sessions downtown with a friend of his. He was
really quite insistent’
‘Jesus! Did you … what did you … how did you handle it?’
‘I thought quickly,’ Dussander replied. ‘Like the little girl in the Saki story, invention
on short notice is one of my strong points. I promised him your parents would go in for
such counselling if you received one Flunk Card when they are given out the first week of
May.’
The blood fell out of Todd’s face.
‘You did what?’ he nearly screamed. ‘I’ve already flunked two algebra quizzes and a
history test since the marking period started!’ He advanced into the room, his pale face
now growing shiny with breaking sweat. ‘There was a French quiz this afternoon and I
flunked that too … I know I did. All I could think about was that godamned Rubber Ed
and whether or not you were taking care of him. You took care of him, all right,’ he
finished bitterly. ‘Not get one Flunk Card? I’ll probably get five or six.’
‘It was the best I could do without arousing suspicions,’ Dussander said. ‘This French,
fool that he is, is only doing his job. Now you will do yours.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Todd’s face was ugly and thunderous, his voice
truculent
‘You will work. In the next four weeks you will work harder than you have ever
worked in your life. Furthermore, on Monday you will go to each of your instructors and apologize to them for your poor showing thus far. You will -‘
‘It’s impossible,’ Todd said. ‘You don’t get it, man. It’s impossible. I’m at least five weeks behind in science and history. In algebra it’s more like ten.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Dussander said. He poured more bourbon.
‘You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?’ Todd shouted at him. ‘Well, I don’t take
orders from you. The days when you gave orders are long over. Do you get it? He
lowered his voice abruptly. “The most lethal thing you’ve got around the house these days
is a Shell No-Pest Strip. You’re nothing but a broken-down old man who farts rotten eggs
if he eats a taco. I bet you even pee in your bed.’
‘Listen to me, snotnose,’ Dussander said quietly.
Todd’s head jerked angrily around at that.
‘Before today,’ Dussander said carefully, ‘it was possible, just barely possible, that you could have denounced me and come out clean yourself. I don’t believe you would have
been up to the job with your nerves in their present state, but never mind that. It would
have been technically possible. But now things have changed. Today I impersonated your
grandfather, one Victor Bowden. No one can have the slightest doubt that I did it with …
how is the word? … your connivance. If it comes out now, boy, you will look blacker than
ever. And you will have no defence. I took care of that today.’
‘I wish-‘
‘You wish! You wish!’ Dussander roared. ‘Never mind your wishes, your wishes make me sick, your wishes are no more than little piles of dogshit in the gutter! All I want from you is to know if you understand the situation we are in?
‘I understand it,’ Todd muttered. His fists had been tightly clenched while Dussander
shouted at him – he was not used to being shouted at. Now he opened his hands and dully
observed that he had dug bleeding half-moons into his palms. The cuts would have been
worse, he supposed, but in the last four months or so he had taken up biting his nails.
‘Good. Then you will make your sweet apologies, and you will study. In your free
time at school you will study. During your lunch hours you will study. After school you
will come here and study, and on your weekends you will come here and do more of
the same.’
‘Not here,’ Todd said quickly. ‘At home.’
‘No. At home you will dawdle and daydream as you have all along. If you are here I
can stand over you if I have to and watch you. I can protect my own interests in this
matter. I can quiz you. I can listen to your lessons.’
‘If I don’t want to come here, you can’t make me.’
Dussander drank. ‘That is true. Things will then go on as they have. You will fail. This
guidance person, French, will expect me to make good on my promise. When I don’t, he
will call your parents. They will find out that kindly Mr Denker impersonated your
grandfather at your request. They will find out about the altered grades. They -‘
‘Oh, shut up. I’ll come.’
‘You’re already here. Begin with algebra.’
‘No way! It’s Friday afternoon!’
‘You study every afternoon now,’ Dussander said softly. ‘Begin with algebra.’
Todd stared at him — only for a moment before dropping his eyes and fumbling his
algebra text out of his bookbag -and Dussander saw murder in the boy’s eyes. Not
figurative murder; literal murder. It had been years since he had seen that dark, burning,
speculative glance, but one never forgot it. He supposed he would have seen it in his own
eyes if there had been a mirror at hand on the day he had looked at the white and
defenceless nape of the boy’s neck.
/ must protect mysetf, he thought with some amazement. One underestimates at one’s
own risk.
He drank his bourbon and rocked and watched the boy study.
It was nearly five o’clock when Todd biked home. He felt washed out, hot-eyed,
drained, impotently angry. Every time his eyes had wandered from the printed page –
from the maddening, incomprehensible, fucking stupid world of sets, subsets, ordered
pairs, and Cartesian co-ordinates -Dussander’s sharp old man’s voice had spoken.
Otherwise he had remained completely silent … except for the maddening bump of his
slippers on the floor and the squeak of the rocker. He sat there like a vulture waiting for
its prey to expire. Why had he ever gotten into this? How had he gotten into it? This was a mess, a terrible mess. He had picked up some ground this afternoon – some of the set
theory that had stumped him so badly just before the Christmas break had fallen into
place with an almost audible click – but it was impossible to think he could pick up
enough to scrape through next week’s algebra test with even a D.
It was five weeks until the end of the world.
On the corner he saw a bluejay lying on the sidewalk, its beak slowly opening and