A Little White Lie
By David Gamble
“No, Lowell, I can’t take it.”
“Aw, c’mon Emily, I bought it for you, please.”
“You can’t just buy me stuff and expect me to take it, Lowell.” Her voice was low but insistent like Ms. Minsky scolding a late student.
“Why not? I saved up. Let me put it on you, please.”
“Lowell, don’t do that. I don’t want to wear it.”
I could hear the voice even through the thick hedge at the edge of the school yard. Emily had been waiting on the bench for me in the nipping air of the darkening evening. I should have broken it up right away, and I guess the whole mess was my fault ‘cause I didn’t stop it sooner. I wanted to know what kind of a jerk he really was.
“I can’t take it.” Her voice became insistent. I heard a rustle of motion. “No, don’t do that.”
“Don’t leave, Emily. Just try it on. It will look good with your light hair.”
“I have a ton of scarves. Please don’t feel bad, Lowell, but I have a boyfriend so I can’t….”
“No one has to know,” his voice pleaded.
She shrieked. “What? We’ll have secrets? Go away, Lowell.” At that point, I heard scraping on gravel as Emily careened around the hedge and smashed into me. I caught her. A foot from mine, her red face was framed by her black toque. “Oh, Roy! What took you so long?” She was panting.
Immediately, Lowell appeared at the opening in the shrubbery. He stood bundled in a grey, quilted ski jacket against the November air, blue cords too long and a long woolen, lime green scarf wrapped once around his neck. He pushed his long, dishevelled hair away from his face.
He snorted phlegm. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Meeting my girlfriend, Lowell.” My voice got stronger. “And what do you think you were doing?”
Emily stepped sideways and strode quickly toward the school.
“None of your business, Roy.” His dark shape pushed past me. A low voice called, “Emily, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I gotta ‘splain why….” He sped up.
Emily raced across the parking area approaching the steps.
By that time, I was in motion, Lowell was several yards ahead of me trailing the rejected gift. I was faster. Within one arm’s length by the first parked car, I reached out to grab him, but managed to grasp the trailing scarf. As my fingers tightened around it, I yanked with everything my muscles could muster.
“Bastard,” I yelled at him.
Lowell leaned to one side, stumbling and running at the same time, but spinning his arms at both sides like confused weather vane. He shrieked in panic. I saw Emily stop and turn on the steps twenty feet away.
Thump, he went shoulder first into Ms. Minsky’s rusty Volkswagen Beetle. I don’t know if the dent on the hood was already there, but he made a hell of a noise. He rolled on the ground with long ‘ooohhhs’ streaming from him. He was grabbing at his shoulder just rolling back and forth with a look on his face that was just bloody surreal, like tortured. Just for a moment, I had a bad thought. I gloated. It had served him right, but his moans snapped me out of it. Anyone has to feel bad for an animal in pain.
Emily jumped to my side. “Help him up! Help me pull him, Roy.”
We both leaned over while I grabbed his arm on the side that wasn’t hurt, and Emily moved in behind him to push from his back.
Lowell shrieked. “Don’t touch me! Owww!” He started to wriggle to a sitting position as we both pulled back. His left shoulder looked really funny in his jacket. Oh, shit, I’d seen that last year when Todd Runge had been tackled in a playoff game. It was dislocated.
“Emily, go get someone.”
Looking sideways, I saw help had arrived, for Mr. Bronstein, our vice-principal, was standing between Emily and me. He knelt to the sobbing, motionless victim. “Easy, Lowell, that’s right, stay still.”
Lowell whimpered. I admit I was scared. He lay back down.
“Emily,” he commanded, “get into the school, call 911. It looks like a bad shoulder. It’s out of its socket.”
She gasped. “Oh, shit. Yes, sir.” She ran.
“Help me get him up and into the office.” I reached lower beside Bronstein.
“Don’t touch me, fucker,” Lowell screamed at me; “it’s your fault.” He half rose. Tears streamed down the contracted, distorted muscles of his scarlet face. “Oh, shit,” he yelled.
“OK, Lowell,” Mr. Bronstein said, “just lie here until the ambulance comes.” Lowell settled back down as Mr. Bronstein eased him to lie flat.
I looked around. A few late stragglers were watching this mess from the steps; some moved closer to see in the freezing, grey light. It was almost dark, for I had done a leg work-out after school, and Emily had had one of her United Nations meetings, so after five the place was almost empty. The small crowd focused on Lowell and me and the VP.
Though it was the wrong time to feel self-conscious, I did. I had yanked that goddamn scarf. I had yanked it hard enough to make him lose balance. I’d be damned if he would reach Emily; there was no way after he weirded us out at the Hallowe’en dance bugging Emily for slow dances. He even had left a couple of notes at her locker. “Could I text you? What is your number?” She was getting the icks. I had protected her once, and I, damn well, wasn’t going to let him make a pain of himself again. But, Jeez, I didn’t want this, for him or for me.
His words blocked out the howl of the wind through the stark canopy of leafless maple trees, but the five-degree chill of the fall was seeping into my coat. Under heavy clouds, the temperature was dropping fast, so I pulled my zipper up tight, and stuffed my bare hands into my pockets. Yet, he was still on the ground. And he was sobbing, “You pulled me, you pulled me, you pulled me down,” over and over again. Bronstein looked up. I knew it had registered. The only sound was his moaning when he stopped his screaming at me.
I stood watching, useless. “What should I do, sir?”
“We can’t move him. Go into the office and above the coatrack in the entrance there is a shelf with four blankets. Bring them, fast, Garwood.” He’d never used my last name like that before. I ran in, grabbed the blankets, passing Emily leaving the office. I stopped her.
Reaching up, I grabbed two grey blankets and gave her two. We raced outside to see the EMS truck, sirens and lights blaring pull into the drive.
In three minutes, Mr. Bronstein, Emily and I were standing in the soft gloom chilled by a biting autumn wind. The absence of moaning, sobbing and sirens settled in.
“You OK, Emily?” I asked reaching sideways for her hand.
She pulled away. “Yah, Roy, I’m fine. You?”
“I guess.”
Bronstein said, “Gee, gang, that’s really nice to hear. But something tells me you two aren’t the ones I’m worried about.” He looked from me to Emily and back to me. He did it again.
“Yes, sir,” we said.
“Phone your parents. You’ll be in my office. Now.” He walked straight into the building.
We both pulled out our cells and called. It took a minute, both making a lame excuse. We’d be a bit late.
We both agreed on the way in that Lowell was running after Emily when he slipped on rotting leaves and fell into the VW. It was just like him to imagine that I pulled him. And Emily would say he had a crush and was jealous of me. That was true. That would do it; that would fit him. Lowell was known for making stuff up, like the time he defaced some dance posters and was seen, but lied. Shit, we were joining him as fibbers, but Bronstein was such a hard ass when it came to kids getting in shit, I didn’t want to give my father more excuses to give me another bloody lecture about ‘responsibility’ and didn’t think of others enough and blah, blah, blah. Emily was in the clear.
“Protection of the victim virgin or something. I will be a writer someday,” I said as we walked into the office. This was bullshit, and I actually laughed ‘cause I just wanted to get home for the weekend. American Gods was on again tonight, and no way would I miss Ricky Whittle, amazing guy, although I didn’t give a hoot about celebrity junk.
She didn’t like my humour. “He’s bloody icky, but I can take care of myself, Roy,” Emily said as we knocked on the vice-principal’s door. She could too, tough girl that’s why I liked her. Yet, I had to feel bad about Lowell, but I couldn’t help thinking he was the one responsible, like Romeo was for his own death. Circumstances plus bad choice. Maybe that was me too.
Mr. Sheldon Bronstein had us sit in the two wooden chairs opposite his scarred, oak desk. I had to act nonchalantly like I had done nothing wrong, so I leaned back, put my right ankle on my left knee and rested my head on my hand with my elbow on the arm of the chair.
Emily perched, gripping the arms of her chair. I don’t know why she was so nervous, ‘cause I had done it.
Bronstein picked up his glasses, put them on half way down his nose, pulled out a pad, grabbed his pen in his left hand and poised himself ready to write. He looked at me, looked at Emily, and then sort of inspected me slowly, almost like a sergeant would with cadets. It was weird.
“Sit up, Garwood,” he bellowed.
I jumped up and sat like Emily. Shit, he was pissed off.
He turned to Emily and smiled a bit. “Now, Ms. Rioux, tell me how this injury happened.”
She did, in a quiet slow voice, totally composed like on a witness stand. When she got to the part about Lowell’s shoulder sticking out, I thought her voice choked. Jesus, Emily was always finding birds with broken wings.
“Emily,” I interrupted, “he’ll be OK.”
“Garwood,” the VP growled, “wait your turn, you’ll get it!” I snapped to attention. I was getting edgy ‘cause this man could be murder if he didn’t like you.
She finished, leaving out the icky notes and the dance creepiness. She just painted him as really ordinary and someone she didn’t know all that well. I couldn’t figure out why.
“Thanks, Ms. Rioux. Now, you.”
I explained that I thought he was chasing Emily, and ‘cause I found him kinda creepy, I ran after him. I was scared for her until he slipped on the rotten leaves. There, that did it. I didn’t go on too long. Boy, this was one school office I wanted go get out of. I had tons of respect for this guy, but now he was acting in a way I hadn’t seen before. He had sat through this hardly breathing, squinting his eyes, holding a pencil straight at me and looking out over his glasses as if I were a specimen in bio. I finished and readjusted in my seat.
“Zat all?” God, he actually snarled.
I wracked my brain. I figured it would help to be the knight in shiny armour so I told him it was ‘cause Emily was running and I didn’t trust Lowell for Emily. Big mistake.
“You’re a hero?”
I sucked in my breath. “Oh no, sir, I was just afraid for Emily. You know girls have to put up with so much and I didn’t want Emily to be another MeToo right here at Tommy Douglas, sir.” Right, pull on the women’s stuff and school pride.
“Now, why didn’t you think of that, Emily? Does he annoy you?”
“He can be a bit annoying, but because he’s in the hospital, I’m just more worried about how he’s hurt. I guess I’m thinking about that. But I’ve never thought he would be dangerous.” She glanced my way and looked back to Bronstein.
“Has he ever touched you inappropriately, Emily?”
“No, sir, never. He just hangs around a bit. That’s all.” She looked straight at me, I think so I wouldn’t add the notes on the locker.
“Emily, would you wait for Roy in the outer office?”
“Yes, sir,” she blurted and fled.
Bronstein threw his glasses and pen on the desk. “Run it by me again.”
I didn’t know why the fuck I was still here; Emily had said it all. I was getting edgy and a little pissed off, like this wasn’t fair. Worst of it, I had no idea what he was driving at, but there was something going on in his head. So I did, this time with the notes on the locker. That, I thought, would do it. C’mon, Bronstein, get this over with. American Gods was starting right after dinner.
He leaned far back in his chair and folded his arms, in kinda that administrator-playing-God pose. “First, Garwood,” he said emphasising my last name again, “you obviously had reason to be the jealous boyfriend no matter how unlikely it would be for Emily to dump you for him. I get that. And second, I work late, I hope you appreciate.” He pointed to the clock: 5:45. “Hannah, my wife, was coming to pick me so, fella, I was standing at the window looking out for her.”
Then his voice raised; he yelled, blasted at me. “Because the city engineers had, in their infinite wisdom, the good sense to put the street light close, I saw everything.” He slammed the flat of his hand on the desk with a loud ‘bang’. With his face red, he added as he leaned in, “What do you think of that?”
I thought I was going to piss my pants. I couldn’t look at him. “I dunno, sir.”
“Is there anything you left out?”
I kept my eyes down. “Yes,” and added quickly, “Sir.” We were both role playing; there was nothing real here.
“Louder, and explain.”
I kept my eyes down again, sucked air in and let it out. “I was afraid he’d catch Emily, so I grabbed onto the scarf and stopped him.”
“Oh, I think there was a little more active participation than that. Look at me.”
I did as I was told. “I pulled on the scarf to slow him.”
“Mr. Garwood, you are a master of understatement, aren’t you?”
Hell, I thought I was in a goddam confessional with Father Cooper. “I pulled pretty hard.”
“You don’t work out for nothing, do you? You never know when those muscles will come in handy.” Weird, he chuckled. I have no idea why. Maybe, because he had some fantasy of being Sherlock Holmes or something. “You yanked that scarf with every fibre in your body. Slippery leaves, bullshit.” He put his glasses back on part way down his nose and inspected me over them.
I sat stone still. It wasn’t a crime to stop Lowell, even if I did want to teach the slimy bastard something. My only defense was an honest one so I picked up my head and looked straight into his eyes past his lenses. “Sir, there was no way I was going to let him get near her; so, I made sure. That’s what happened.”
He just sat in silence looking at me in a kind of old man kind of way. I looked at the clock. 5:47, 5:48.
“Well, finally!” He practically sang it. “Thank you, an honest word. Now just sit there and don’t interrupt me.” He leaned into his writing pad and began. He wrote and wrote and wrote. 5:51. I sat squirming in the cheap, leatherette seat. Finally, he stopped. “There.” 5:52.
“Sir?”
A horn blasted outside his window.
“There’s my good wife. Her, I don’t keep waiting.” He smiled. Jesus, the guy was Jekyll and Hyde, but now he was the nice one. “So, this is what I am compelled to do. I see this from three sides—all three of you. It’s murky, sad, a bit nasty, at least for Lowell the victim because that is what he is, and very, very careless of you. You see, Roy, there was an act that was unnecessarily violent, as I see it. While you didn’t intend injury, I believe, there was negligence.” He stared, I gulped, he continued. “Lowell, the damaged party, has a case of assault.” He raced through his speech like an official in kind of a flat tone like he was being recorded or something.
“So, I will have to talk to him, talk to his parents, talk to my superiors. I am suspending you for two days. That might appease the injured party and his family, I don’t know. If it’s three days, I have to involve the superintendent. I’d prefer to handle this myself, and, believe me, my boy, you do too. Trust me. I’ll be phoning your parents.”
My face filled with heat, but I said nothing. Please, make it after American Gods.
“You can go. I don’t want to see you until Wednesday fifteen minutes before class. You can check the school website for assignments.”
I froze in the chair. That damned, stupid Lowell. I’ll get shit at home. Maybe they’ll take my side with the Emily story. I was going through the possibilities and combinations and reactions and excuses….
“You’re staying for a while?” He looked over his glasses again, then started shuffling the notes he made and waved toward the door. “Look, Roy Garwood,” he said, “I’m personally disappointed and insulted. You lied to me. I thought we had more respect for each other. Please go.”
When we opened the door, Emily was standing close. I knew damn well she had been listening.
As Bronstein slipped past her to grab his coat from the hangar, she spoke, and the fragile, little voice was back. “Sir, I didn’t want to tell you.”
He stopped and turned and furrowed his brow at her. “Tell me?”
She twisted her toque in her hand and stared at the floor. Jesus, this wasn’t Emily; she was overdoing it, but I couldn’t stop her.
“Well, sir, Lowell threw the scarf around my neck and pulled me close. And, and kept saying, ‘Just one little kiss’, over and over again.” I almost blurted something stupid like, ‘I didn’t hear….’ Shit, earlier, she didn’t want to do this. And I knew it was a lie. A big lie.
The vice shoved his arms into the coat so hard, thought it would rip. He yelled again, “Emily, why didn’t you tell me?” Bronstein threw his hands to the ceiling and his car keys hit the cheap acoustic tiles. “Why?” I picked them up.
“It was all bad enough.”
The car horn sounded four times.
“Damn,” he said. “Emily, did you feel assaulted?”
“It was just really awkward, sir. I don’t know want to make this any worse that it is.” She was pleading as she looked up, “I just want to go….”
“This complicates things. This, oh Jesus, I’ll have to make phone calls.”
Her little voice came back. “Sir, he never actually did anything, but he just was a pest. Sir, I’ll handle it.”
No one spoke. The horn sounded.
He said, “What a mess.”
“It’s a Metoo, sir,” I said. Emily was brilliant.
He glared at me. “I don’t need advice.” He looked at her, “See me on Monday, Emily, and, Roy, see me on Wednesday. I’ll have to deal with this with some advice from the—damn, God!—higher-ups. Lord, sexual harassment, I don’t need…”
“I won’t make a big deal, sir.” His shoulders slouched. “I promise, I don’t need everybody in the school talking about me.”
“You’re a good girl, Emily.” Suddenly his voice went quiet. “Emily, are you OK? Do you need to…talk…or see…or I don’t know how you might feel.” He reached out to, I think, just stroke her like a dad would. He glanced a look at me and pulled back. Goddamn, that girl knows what she’s doing. I’ve noticed the male teachers always treat her like she’s all grown up, ‘cause she is. “I do have to report it to others.”
She just shook her head and smiled up at him. “Can we not make it a huge deal, sir?”
“I’ll do my best.” He smiled back and left. Had he been played!
When I stepped outside onto the school steps, the chilly blast of the November air snapped at us as we did our coats up. “Gotta get home,” I said. “But, Emily, how did you think of that? Why did you change your mind? And it wasn’t true.”
“You were in shit, Roy. I heard him. He yelled. Something went bang.” She moved closer. “Lowell will be afraid of the harassment charge.”
“It’ll blow over.”
“You guys, always got the world by the tail.” She grabbed my arm to face her. “It could be seen as assault, Roy, his shoulder. I told him at first, Lowell was no big deal. I had to change that.”
“Yeah,” I laughed, “when are you trying out for the drama club?”
She ignored me. “You gave me the idea. Victim and all that. I had to play the role. He’s got a daughter my age and these old guys always want to be the great father to defenseless young girls.” She looked at the ground. “And now Lowell could be in deep shit. You’ve heard about the Hollywood creeps and Bill Cosby. It’s deep shit now.”
I smiled a bit. “That’s his problem.”
“Sometimes, Roy, I could smack you.” She stepped back and the old street lamp caught the round sheen on her face framed by the black toque as she stared hard up at me. “Lowell has been accused. That’s enough these days. I sacrificed him for you, you jerk.”
I swallowed some spittle. “Gee, thanks, Emily. He was a creep; he had it coming.”
“No, Roy, he didn’t. It was a lie.” She stepped back two paces in the still, soft, cold night and whispered. “And I think I sacrificed something else too.”
I wanted to argue and tell her that it had to be. Just had to be. “Me? An assault charge?”
“You don’t understand, Roy. Anyway, I’m freezing,” she said. “This victim virgin is going to take herself home. Wanna walk me?”
I laughed. She had made a joke; it was a relief. So, I returned the favour. “Well, Emily, you know we can take care of half of that.”
She spun me around so hard, I almost lost my balance. My face didn’t really start to sting until she had taken about ten steps away from me. Christ, that girl is strong. And she was gone.
Gone! Thanks a lot! I got into this mess because of her and now she fucks off. She might have just fuckin relaxed. We were in the clear now. But my legs wouldn’t move; I couldn’t go home, not right now. Not even for my TV program.
With so much shit in my head, I parked my butt down on the cold concrete steps where I had watched the caretakers make patterns in the fallen leaves a few weeks before. They were so neat, even with dead leaves.
Pulling my jacket more tightly around me, I shivered and looked up at the yellow glow of the ancient street lamp that had been the witness of my hideous crime against that potential molester. Well, sort of molester. The wind sighed and wheezed through the stark, maple branches and hushed around the few evergreens. It was a lonely, freaky sound. It was like Hallowe’en was late or something. Like ghosts. The sound made me feel like that as if I had sunk into the steps. I couldn’t move.
It wasn’t like being nice alone, ‘cause being alone can be so good, free of ties and demands and boring people, but this being lonely really was not that. I felt it sitting on the concrete steps with nothing around me, nothing to distract me in that empty cold night.
Looking upwards beside the school, I focused on that single, ageing, street lamp, that yellow witness of my crime, the one that belonged to another time, the only one left on the street that wasn’t some horrible blue neon or something. Most were ugly now; so, that old thing must be one of a kind in this city, sort of forgotten about, standing alone but still working. Weird how something like that can grab you. I guess it had to do with what was going on inside.
She told me once, I just didn’t get it. Get what? “It!” she said more than once. But, Jesus, that slap. It’s like it wasn’t even meant to be physical.
I didn’t usually want to vent my feelings, but even if I did, there was no one I could vent to. Then I had a funny thought like we’re all inert atoms, inert elements, and as much as we bump into each other, we never make a compound, really. Silly fucking head of mine.
This was the weekend for the doghouse.