Chapter Two – The Assignment

“Did ya get the Bible?” I called to Ryan when he finally left Principal Harper’s office. I had been waiting in the dreary hallway outside the office door, trying to find images in the texture of the sickly, mint-green walls for nearly half an hour. This had been one of the longer lectures Ryan had gotten.

“Nah, man, it’s way worse.”

I stared at him quizzically, waiting for him to go on. He scowled at the closed door and headed toward the exit at a near run. Nothing ever got under Ryan’s skin, and I couldn’t imagine what Principal Harper had said to put him in this mood.

“Well,” I ventured, “what did he say?”

“The normal – you oughta learn to respect the Good Lord, Ryan. and Jesus died for you, and you need to appreciate that. and Even someone with your upbringin’ should know that one of the great commandments is ‘thou shalt not kill.’”

“Hey, that’s a new one!” I smiled, hoping to break him of his mood, but he just glowered at me, pushing the smile off my lips.

“That man is really somethin’. I’d like to -” he stopped, balled his hands into fists at his side, and screamed out into the open air. “Well, I’d just like to is all.”

Wow. I had never in my life seen Ryan like this. “He’s always been like this, man. Don’t let it get to ya. Really, it couldn’t have been that bad; he didn’t give you another copy of the NT. Unless you already have all his spare copies.”

“Oh, he still has a plenty. I’ll probably get a new copy by tomorrow. But this time it’s way worse than the Bible.”

I expected him to go on, but he didn’t; instead he kept walking toward his truck, his own personal storm cloud keeping him company. So I prodded, “Well, what is it?”

“An essay. That bastard is making me write another essay on top of all the stuff Mrs. Childs is givin’ us.”

Nothing got to Ryan like extra schoolwork. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t even go to school; he would spend his days behind his drumset, practicing to be the next great Rock God. As it were, he was old enough to legally quit school, but Ryan’s mama might be the scariest woman under the son. You didn’t want to ever cross her – once when we were seven, we picked her corn stalks bald before it was time. To this day, I can’t walk past her garden without cringing. To her dropping out of school is the worst kind of evil. It was the only thing keeping Ryan going to class every day and doing his homework every night.

“Lemme guess,” I said, “he wants you to write about how Dostoevsky’s relationship with God influenced the book. Or about how Raskolnikov carrying the cross through the town square was symbolic of Christ carrying his cross to Calvary. Am I right?”

“Wrong.” He sighed. “He wants me to write an essay about how I would be able to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Murder someone. He says that if I think a guy can kill another guy without feelin’ guilty, I oughta be able to put that on paper. So now I gotta write an essay about it – complete with sources. I ain’t gonna read Nietzsche. I don’t care if my grade does depend on it. Fuckin’ Savannah.”

Things must be really bad to get Ryan cussing. Cussing was almost as bad as dropping out of school as far as his mama was concerned, and I am pretty sure I saw him look over his shoulder, checking to make sure she couldn’t hear him when he said it.

I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry man. She’s a bitch – everyone knows it. If it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t a had to go to Harper at all.”

We reached his truck and he threw his books unceremoniously into the bed. “It’s worse. I was in there, doin’ my normal repentance act, makin’ him think I was sorry for what I said. He was reachin’ behind him to get me another copy of the NT when Savannah burst into the room and started goin’ on about how if I thought I could kill a guy I should prove it and that the Good Lord would prove me wrong in the end and blah, blah, blah. It’s like a light went on in Harper’s mind. That bitch gave him the idea.”

“And he gave you the essay. That sucks, man” I said again, since I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

If he hadn’t hated Savannah before, there was no doubt Ryan hated her now. “I’ll prove it to her, alright,” he muttered under his breath, “and I won’t feel guilty at all.”