Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin

“Symbolism you were eager to explain. And did you talk about horses to Kevin?”

“Of course, the play—”

“Did you talk about stallions, Miss Pagorski.”

“Well, we did discuss what made them such common symbols of virility—”

“And what does make them ‘virile’?”

“Well, they’re muscular and very beautiful and powerful, sleek—”

“Just like teenage boys,” Strickland noted sardonically. “Did you ever draw attention to a horse’s penis. To its size?”

“Maybe; how could you ignore it? But I never said—”

“Some people can’t ignore it, apparently.”

“You don’t understand! These are young people and they’re easily bored. I have to do something to get them excited!”

Strickland just let that one sit there for a beat. “Yes, well,” he said. “You seem to have succeeded there.”

Deathly pale, Pagorski turned to our son. “What did I ever do to you?”

“That’s just what we’re trying to find out,” Strickland intervened. “But we’ve got more testimony to get through, and you’ll have opportunity to respond. Leonard Pugh?”

Lenny murmured to Kevin before sauntering to the center chair. Surely at any moment one of the boys would start writhing in agony because Goody Pagorski was smiting them with evil spirits.

“Now Leonard, you, too, met with your drama teacher after school?”

“Yeah, she seemed real hot to have a conference ,” said Lenny, with his poo-making smile. His nose stud was infected again, the left nostril red and puffy. He’d recently gotten a fade, which was neo-Nazi short with the letter Z shaved into one side. When I’d asked him what the Z stood for, he’d said, Whatever , which I’d been forced to point out began with a W.

“Can you tell us what happened?”

“It was just like Kevin said. I thought we was just gonna practice and shit. And I come in the room and she like, shuts the door? She’s wearing this really short skirt, you know, you can almost see her cheeks.” Lenny mugged a bit.

“And did you practice your work for class?” asked Strickland, though coaching proved quite unnecessary. More, detail proved Lenny’s strong suit.

“We sure practiced something!” said Lenny. “She said, ‘I’ve been watching you in the back row, when I’m sitting at my desk? And some afternoons I get so wet I have to do myself in class!’”

Strickland looked a little queasy. “Did Miss Pagorski do anything that you thought was inappropriate?”

“Well then she like, sits on the edge of her desk? With her legs spread wide open. So I go up to the desk, and I can see she’s not wearing panties . It’s like, this, wide open beaver, you know? All red and hairy, and it’s just, you know, dripping —”

“Leonard, let’s just get the facts—.” Strickland was massaging his forehead. Meanwhile, chalk-stripe was twisting his tie; the redhead had her face in her hands.

“So she says, ‘You want some? ’Cause I look at that bulge in your pants, and I can’t keep my hands off my pussy—’”

“Could you please watch your language—!” said Strickland, making desperate slashing motions at the stenographer.

“—So if you don’t do me right now, I’m gonna shove this eraser in my hole and bring myself off!’”

“Leonard, that’s enough—”

“Girls around here are pretty tight with it, so I wasn’t about to pass on free pussy. So I did her, right on the desk, and you shoulda heard her begging to let her suck it—”

“Leonard, take your seat right now.”

Well, wasn’t it awkward. Lenny shambled back to his chair, and Strickland announced that the board had heard enough for one night, and he thanked everyone for coming. He repeated his admonition that we not spread rumors until a decision had been made. We would be notified if any action would be taken on this case.

After the three of us had climbed into your 4x4 in silence, you finally said to Kevin, “You know, that friend of yours made you look like a liar.”

“Moron,” Kevin grumbled. “I should never have told him about what happened with Pagorski. He copies me in everything. I guess I just needed to tell somebody.”

“Why didn’t you come straight to me?” you asked.

“It was gross!” he said, bunched in the back seat. “That whole thing back there was totally embarrassing. I should never have told anybody. You shouldn’ta made me do that.”

“On the contrary .” You twisted around the headrest. “Kevin, if you have a teacher whose behavior is out of bounds, I want to know about it, and I want the school to know about it. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Except possibly your choice of friends. Lenny is something of a fabulist. Little distance might be in order there, sport.”

“Yeah,” said Kevin. “Like to China .”

I don’t think I said a word the whole drive back. When we got home I left it to you to thank Robert for getting Celia, amazingly, to go to sleep without a forty-five-minute tucking-in from her mother. I was reluctant to open my mouth even a little bit, much as one might hesitate to put even a very small hole in an inflated balloon.

“Kev, Triskets?” you offered when Robert had left. “Sodium City, man.”

“Nah. I’m going to my room. I’ll come out when I can show my face again. Like in about fifty years.” He moped off. Unlike the stagy melancholy of the weeks to come, he seemed truly glum. He seemed to be suffering the lingering sense of injustice that would attend a tennis player who had valiantly distinguished himself in a game of doubles but whose partner had muffed it, so they lost the match.

You busied yourself putting stray dishes in the washer. Every piece of silverware seemed to make an extraordinary amount of noise.

“Glass of wine?”

I shook my head. You looked over sharply; I would always have a glass or two before bed, and it had been a stressful evening. But it would turn to vinegar on my tongue. And I still couldn’t open my mouth. I knew we had been here before. Yet I finally apprehended that we couldn’t keep visiting this place—or rather, these places; that is, we could not indefinitely occupy parallel universes of such diametrical characters without eventually inhabiting different places in the most down to earth, literal sense.

That’s all it took, my turning down a glass of wine, which you interpreted as hostile. In defiance of our set roles—I was the family booze hound—you grabbed yourself a beer.

“It didn’t seem advisable ,” you began after a vengeful swig, “to apologize to that Pagorski woman after the hearing. That could help the defense if this ends up in court.”

“It won’t end up in court,” I said. “We won’t press charges.”

“Well, I’d prefer not to put Kevin through that myself. But if the school board allows that perv to keep teaching—”

“This cannot continue.”

Even I was not quite sure what I meant, though I felt it forcefully. You waited for me to elucidate.

“It’s gone too far,” I said.

“What’s gone too far, Eva? Cut to the chase.”

I licked my lips. “It used to have mostly to do with us. My wall of maps. Then later, it was little things—eczema. But it’s bigger now—Celia’s eye; a teacher’s career. I can’t keep looking the other way. Not even for you.”

“If that lady’s career is on the line, she has only herself to blame.”

“I think we should consider sending him to boarding school. Somewhere strict, old-fashioned. I never thought I’d say this, but maybe even a military academy.”

“Whoa! Our son has been sexually abused, and your answer is to banish him to boot camp? Jesus, if some creep were interfering with Celia you’d be down at the police station right now, filling out forms! You’d be on the phone to the New York Times and ten victim-support groups, and never mind a school in Annapolis—you’d never let her leave your lap!”