The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“That’s like getting laid by Doris Day. You’re a hero, man. Does she have a sister? I’m ready.”

Chapter

3

FOURTH PERIOD, SABER and I had metal shop. The teacher was Mr. Krauser, living proof we’d descended from apes. He had been a tank commander in France and Germany during the war and used to tell stories about how he and his fellow tankers smashed their Shermans through French farmhouses for fun. One of the vandal tanks crashed into a cellar, which Krauser thought was hilarious. He also told us how, as an object lesson for his men, he dragged an elderly German civilian by the collar into the street and occupied his home. Once while drunk at the bowling alley, he borrowed a knife from a student and sawed off a bowler’s necktie.

Saber was the only kid in school who knew how to stick porcupine quills in Krauser and keep the wounds green on a daily basis. Krauser believed it was Saber who’d hung his plunger through the hole in the ceiling, but he couldn’t prove it and was always trying to find another reason to nail Saber to the wall. But Saber never misbehaved in metal shop, whereas other guys did and in serious fashion.

Our school was located close to River Oaks, a tree-shaded paradise filled with palatial homes. But the school district was huge and extended into hard-core blue-collar areas of North Houston and even over to Wayside and Jensen Drive, where some of the roughest kids on earth lived. Metal shop was a natural for the latter. Three guys commandeered the foundry and cast molds in the sandbox and poured aluminum reproductions of brass knuckles they sold for a dollar apiece, the outer edges ground smooth or left ragged and sharp. These were things Krauser had a way of not seeing, just as he didn’t see bullies shoving other kids around. It wasn’t out of fear, either. I think at heart Krauser was one of them. He liked coming up on a spindly kid and squeezing his thumb into the kid’s upper arm, pressing it into the bone, then saying, “Not much meat there.”

That was when Saber would find ways to get even for the victim, like going up to Krauser and saying, “What should I do with this paintbrush, Mr. Krauser? While you were taking a whiz, Kyle Firestone told Jimmy McDougal to put his hands in his pockets and shoved the brush into his mouth. Look, it’s got spit all over it. You want it, or should I wash it in the lavatory?”

This morning was different. Mr. Krauser wasn’t watching Saber; he was looking out the door at a 1941 Ford sprayed with primer that had just pulled up on the shale bib by the baseball diamond. Four guys got out, combing their hair, all of them wearing drapes and needle-nose stomps. They leaned against the fenders and headlights of their car and lit up, even though they were on school property. Krauser rotated his head, then looked over his shoulder. “Come here, Broussard.”

I put down my term project, a gear puller I was polishing on the electric brush, and walked toward him. “Yes, sir?”

Krauser had a broad upper lip and wide-set eyes and a bold stare and long sideburns and black hair growing out of his shirt cuffs. His facial features seemed squeezed together as though he carried an invisible weight on top of his head. As soon as you saw him, you wanted to glance away, at the same time fearing he would know how you felt about him.

“Heard you had an adventure in the Heights.”

“Not me.”

“You know that bunch out there?”

I shook my head, my expression vague.

“You don’t want to mess with them,” he said.

“I don’t want trouble, Mr. Krauser.”

“I bet you don’t.”

“Sir?”

His eyes went up and down my body. “Been working out lately?”

“I have jobs at the neighborhood grocery and the filling station.”

“Not exactly what I had in mind. Tuck your shirt in and come with me.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m going to show you how it’s done. They think you were hunting in their snatch patch. Dumb move, Broussard.”

“How did you know I was in the Heights?”

“Heard about it during homeroom. I’ve seen that bunch before. There’s only one way to deal with them, son. If you’ve got a bad tooth, you pull the bad tooth.”

“I really don’t want to do this, sir.”

“Who said you had a choice?”

I didn’t know what Krauser was up to. He was no friend. Nor did he care about justice. I could hear him breathing and could smell the testosterone that seemed ironed into his clothes. By the time we reached the ball diamond, I was seeing spots before my eyes.

“What are you guys doing here?” Krauser said to them.

The tall guy who had braced me in front of Valerie’s house was combing his hair with both hands as if Krauser weren’t there. He was wearing gray drapes and a black suede belt and a long-sleeved purple rayon shirt. He reminded me of the photographs I had seen of the jazz cornetist Chet Baker: the same hollow cheeks and dark eyes, an expression that was less like aggression than acceptance of death. It was a strange look for a guy who was probably not over nineteen.