In terms of how it started, there were boys and girls in the corridor, and angles of dust and sun. There were uniforms and callings-out, and countless moving bodies. It was beautiful in that off-putting way, how the light came streaking in; those perfect, long-lit beams.
Jimmy Hartnell strode the hallway, freckly, confident, toward me. White-shirted, grey-shorted. The look he wore was pleased. He was perfect schoolish thuggery; his smell the smell of breakfast, his arms all blood and meat.
“Hey,” he said, “isn’t that that Dunbar kid? The one who plays the piano?” He rolled a shoulder, givingly, into me. “What a fucking poofter!”
That kid was made for italics.
* * *
—
It went on like that for weeks, maybe a month, and always a little bit further. The shoulder became an elbow, the elbow a punch in the balls (although not nearly as lethal as old Bread Rolls), which soon became standard favorites—nipple cripples in the boys’ toilets, here and there a headlock; choker holds in the hall.
In so many ways, looking back, it was just the spoils of childhood, to be twisted and rightfully ruled. It’s not unlike that dust in the sun, being tumbled through the room.
But that didn’t mean I enjoyed it.
Or even more, that I wouldn’t react.
For me, like so many in that situation, I didn’t face the problem directly, or at least I didn’t yet. No, that would have been pure stupidity, so I fought back where I could.
In short I blamed Penelope.
I railed against the piano.
* * *
—
Of course, there are problems and there are problems, and my problem now was this:
Next to Penelope, Jimmy Hartnell was a Goddamn softy.
Even if she could never quite tame us at the piano, she always made us practice. She clung to an edge of Europe, or a city, at least, in the East. By then there was even a mantra she had (and by God we had it too):
“You can quit if you want by high school.”
But that didn’t help me now.
We were halfway through first term, which meant most of the year to survive.
* * *
—
My attempts had started lamely:
Going to the toilet midpractice.
Arriving late.
Playing poorly on purpose.
Soon I was outright defying her; not playing certain pieces, and then not playing at all. She had all the patience in the world for those troubled and troublesome Hyperno kids, but they hadn’t prepared her for this.
At first she tried talking to me; she’d say, “What’s gotten into you lately?” and “Come on, Matthew, you’re better than that.”
Of course I told her nothing.