The Right Thing to Do
9:08 AM
“You did?” says Coach Dempster without looking up from his desk in the coaches’ pit. “Saw the whole thing, did you?”
“Yes. It wasn’t a fair fight. It wasn’t even a fight.” Dempster still hasn’t bothered to look at you and you’re beginning to wonder why you are even standing here, as if you’re the one who needs something from him. “He got hit from behind before he could stand up.”
“Did he now?”
Okay, fuck you, Dumpster, you want to say. I’m out of here. But just as you turn to leave, Coach Brooks, in his matching blue shirt and shorts, bursts through the locker room door.
“Mike,” he says, and pauses to catch his breath. “You better get ahold of someone in the office, tell them to call an ambulance. This kid’s leg is broken something fierce.”
Dempster spins around in his chair. “No shit, really?”
Brooks notices you. “Son, whatever it is you need, now’s not a good time.”
“Kid says he saw it all,” says Dempster, the phone to his ear.
“You a witness to this, son?”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“No,” you say, “but I can describe them.”
“Them?” He looks at you a moment longer before turning to Dempster. “Okay, and send this one to Rob’s office. He’s gonna want to talk to him.” Then he disappears through the door to the locker room.
“You heard the man,” says Dempster.
“Rob? Who’s Rob?” you ask.
“Mr. Granger to you,” he says. “The principal.”
On the way to Granger’s office you have time to think of all the reasons this is a bad idea. You didn’t even like the guy. In fact, you hated him. He terrorized you for no reason and made you feel gutless and weak. You actually fanaticized doing exactly what that preppie little hit-man just did. Think about it, you tell yourself. Think about how this is going to end, you idiot. Whoever those guys are, whatever their motives, you don’t need them as your enemies.
The image of Slick’s bloodied face alone should be enough to send you scurrying in the opposite direction of the principal’s office, but the memory of those percussive, thump-splat fists hammering into his face, his cry of helpless fury, his blood pooling on the floor, do just the opposite. He may have been a bully, you tell yourself, but he was your bully. You didn’t need anyone else’s help dealing with him … not that you’d asked.
I few minutes later, you find yourself sitting across from the principal. He is seated at his desk, reading from a pad of yellow notebook paper. His bald head shines brightly in the light of the florescent tubes above, with what’s left of his hair ringing the back of his skull like a furry horseshoe. The shelf behind him is filled with framed photos, trophies, and a few lopsided ceramic vases. Larger trophies crowd the top of the shelf, some nearly touch the ceiling. “Matthew, is it?” he asks without looking up. “You’re a Van Der Boot?”
“Yes sir.” You’ve seen him around school before, plenty of times, but this is the first he’s ever spoken directly to you.
“So, this Frankie,” he says. “He a friend of yours?”
“Who?”
“Frankie, Frankie Mata. That is his name isn’t it?”
“Oh, I guess, yeah, Mata. That sounds familiar.”
“Coach Dempster says you know the guy that hit him.”
“No,” you say. “I don’t.”
He looks up at you for what feels like the first time since you walked in. “Then why are you here?”
“I saw it,” you say. “I saw what happened.”
He exhales abruptly through his nose. “Well, that may be, son, but what good is it to me if you can’t give me names?”
“I can describe them.”
He frowns. “Describe them,” he repeats, as if the idea should offend him. “What do I look like, one of those police sketch artists?”
What the hell? you think. This guy’s worse than Coach Dempster. You can almost hear Eric laughing at you. Just fuckin’ leave, dude. “Well, do you have last year’s yearbook?” you ask. “If they go here they should be in there.”
He spins in his chair to look at the shelf behind him, then reaching out, he pulls one of the books free and turns back to you. “Here,” he says, handing you last year’s annual. “Knock yourself out.”
You take the book and open it on your lap. Paging past the graduate section, you begin with the juniors, this year’s seniors. If the two you saw are brothers, even cousins, chances are they are close to each other on the page. You make it to the z’s, Zavala, Zepeda, nothing. Onto the sophomores. Two pages in, you find them, Salvador and Rodrigo Guzman. You hand the book back to Principal Granger, “There,” you say, pointing at the side-by-side photos. “That’s them. I’m sure of it.”
“Them?” he asks, staring at the page a moment. “Both of them?”
You tap Rodrigo’s face with your finger. “Well, that one did the punching.”
“Humph,” is all he says before setting the book aside. “If you’re that sure, then I guess I’ll take your word for it.”
You sit back, ready to make your statement, give the gory details.
He looks up at you, as if surprised you are still there. “Thank you for your cooperation, Van Der Boot. You can go back to class now.”
“Oh.” You stand up. “Okay.”
“And I should remind you, son,” he says, just as you turn to leave. “Do not discuss this with anyone, understand?”
“Yes sir.”
Off in the distance a siren begins to wail.
“No one. This is an on-going investigation and if you’re smart, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
Outside his office, the secretary hands you a pass back to class and you hurry out the door and into the fresh air just in time to see the ambulance pull in and head for the boy’s gym. As you walk around the front of the school, movement in the parking lot catches your eye and you turn to see a dark brown sports car with tinted windows creeping between the rows of cars. It slowly exits through the gate and out onto the street. You don’t understand why, but something in you wishes very badly you were in it.
CHOOSE:
(A) Go to class.
(B) Check on your bully.
THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.