She was close, so close, then replaced.
Here, at 18 Archer Street, there were five of us who remained.
We were the Dunbar boys, we lived on.
Each in ways of our own.
Clay, of course, was the quiet one, but not before he was the strange one—the one who ran the racing quarter, and the boy you’d find on the roof. What a mistake to take him up there that day—he turned it forcefully straight into habit. As for his running the suburbs, we knew he would always come back now, to sit with the tiles and the view.
When I asked if I might run with him, he’d shrugged and we soon became:
It was training, it was escaping.
It was perfect pain and happiness.
* * *
—
First, in between, there was Rory.
His goal was expulsion from school; he’d wanted to leave since kindergarten, and would take the opportunity. He made it clear I wasn’t his guardian, or parent by hostile takeover. He was frank and undeniable:
Vandalism. Constant truancy.
Telling teachers where to stick their assignments.
Alcohol on school grounds.
(“It’s just a beer, I don’t see what you’re all so upset about!”)
Of course, the only good thing to come of it was my meeting Claudia Kirkby; the first time he was suspended.
I remember knocking on her door, and going in, and the essays strewn on the desk. It was something on Great Expectations, and the top one got four out of twenty.
“Jesus, that isn’t Rory’s, is it?”
She made an attempt to tidy them. “No, Rory actually got one out of twenty—and that was for handing in paper. What he wrote was totally worthless.”
But we weren’t here for the essay.
“Suspended?” I asked.
“Suspended.”
She was candid but very friendly; it amazed me that she spoke with humor. Suspension was no laughing matter, but there was something in the tone of her. I think she was reassuring me. There were twelfth graders in this place who looked older than her, which made me strangely happy; if I’d stayed till the end myself, I’d have finished the previous year. Somehow that felt important.
Soon she got down to business, though.
“So, you’re okay with the suspension?”
I nodded.
“And your—”
I could tell she was about to say father. I hadn’t notified the school yet that he’d left us; they would find that out in due course.
“He’s away at the moment—and besides, I think I can cover it.”