Richard Bachman - Rage

“Good,” I said when both of them were looking at me. “Now. We have to keep order here. I’m sure you understand that. Without order, what do you have? The jungle. And the best way to keep order is to settle our difficulties in a civilized way.”

“Hear, hear!” Harmon Jackson said.

I got up, went to the blackboard, and took a piece of chalk from the ledge. Then I drew a large circle on the tiled floor, perhaps five feet through the middle. I kept a close eye on Ted Jones while I did it, too. Then I went back to the desk and sat down.

I gestured to the circle. “Please, girls.”

Grace came forward quickly, precious and perfect. Her complexion was smooth and fair.

Irma sat stony.

“Irma,” I said. “Now, Irma. You’ve made accusations, you know.”

Irma looked faintly surprised, as if the idea of accusations had exploded an entirely new train of thought in her mind. She nodded and rose from her seat with one hand cupped demurely over her mouth, as if to stifle a tiny, coquettish giggle. She stepped mincingly up the aisle and into the circle, standing as far away from Grace as was possible, eyes cast demurely down, hands linked together at her waist. She looked ready to sing “Granada” on The Gong Show.

I thought randomly: Her father sells cars, doesn’t he?

“Very good,” I said. “Now, as has been hinted at in church, in school, and even on Howdy Doody, a single step outside the circle means death. Understood?”

They understood that. They all understood it. This is not the same as comprehension, but it was good enough. When you stop to think, the whole idea of comprehension has a faintly archaic taste, like the sound of forgotten tongues or a look into a Victorian camera obscura. We Americans are much higher on simple understanding. It makes it easier to read the billboards when you’re heading into town on the expressway at plus-fifty. To comprehend, the mental jaws have to gape wide enough to make the tendons creak. Understanding, however, can be purchased on every paperback-book rack in America.

“Now,” I said. “I would like a minimum of physical violence here. We already have enough of that to think about. I think your mouths and your open hands will be sufficient, girls. I will be the judge. Accepted?”

They nodded.

I reached into my back pocket and brought out my red bandanna. I had bought it at the Ben Franklin five-and-dime downtown, and a couple of times I had worn it to school knotted around my neck, very continental, but I had gotten tired of the effect and put it to work as a snot rag. Bourgeois to the core, that’s me.

“When I drop it, you go at it. First lick to you, Grace, as you seem to be the defendant.”

Grace nodded brightly. There were roses in her cheeks. That’s what my mother always says about someone who has high color.

Irma Bates just looked demurely at my red bandanna.

“Stop it!” Ted Jones snapped. “You said you weren’t going to hurt anyone, Charlie. Now, stop it!” His eyes looked desperate. “Just stop it!”

For no reason I could fathom, Don Lordi laughed crazily.

“She started it, Ted Jones,” Sylvia Ragan said heatedly. “If some Ethiopian jug-diddler called my mother a whore-”

“Whore, dirty whore,” Irma agreed demurely.

“… I’d claw her fuggin’ eyes out!”

“You’re crazy!” Ted bellowed at her, his face the color of old brick. “We could stop him! If we all got together, we could-”

“Shut up, Ted,” Dick Keene said. “Okay?”

Ted looked around, saw he had neither support nor sympathy, and shut up. His eyes were dark and full of crazy hate. I was glad it was a good long run between his desk and Mrs. Underwood’s. I could shoot him in the foot if I had to.

“Ready, girls?”

Grace Stanner grinned a healthy, gutsy grin. “All ready.”

Irma nodded. She was a big girl, standing with her legs apart and her head slightly lowered. Her hair was a dirty blond color, done in round curls that looked like toilet-paper rolls.

I dropped my bandanna. It was on.

Grace stood thinking about it. I could almost see her realizing how deep it could be, wondering maybe how far in over her head she wanted to get. In that instant I loved her. No… I loved them both.

“You’re a fat, bigmouth bitch,” Grace said, looking Irma in the eye. “You stink. I mean that. Your body stinks. You’re a louse.”

“Good,” I said, when she was done. “Give her a smack.”

Grace hauled off and slapped the side of Irma’s face. It made a flat whapping noise, like one board striking another. Her sweater pulled up above the waistband of her skirt with the swing of her arm.

Corky Herald went “Unhh!” under his breath.

Irma let out a whoofing grunt. Her head snapped back, her face screwed up. She didn’t look demure anymore. There was a large, hectic patch on her left cheek.

Grace threw back her head, drew a sudden knife-breath, and stood ready. Her hair spilled over her shoulders, beautiful and perfect. She waited.

“Irma for the prosecution,” I said. “Go ahead, Irma.”

Irma was breathing heavily. Her eyes were glazed and offended, her mouth horrified. At that moment she looked like no one’s sweet child of morning.

“Whore,” she said finally, apparently deciding to stick with a winner. Her lip lifted, fell, and lifted again, like a dog’s. “Dirty boy-fucking whore.”

I nodded to her.

Irma grinned. She was very big. Her arm, coming around, was like a wall. It rocketed against the side of Grace’s face. The sound was a sharp crack.

“Ow!” someone whined.

Grace didn’t fall over. The whole side of her face went red, but she didn’t fall over. Instead, she smiled at Irma. And Irma flinched. I saw it and could hardly believe it: Dracula had feet of clay, after all.

I snatched a quick look at the audience. They were hung, hypnotized. They weren’t thinking about Mr. Grace or Tom Denver or Charles Everett Decker. They were watching, and maybe what they saw was a little bit of their own souls, flashed at them in a cracked mirror. It was fine. It was like new grass in spring.

“Rebuttal, Grace?” I asked.

Grace’s lips drew back from her tiny ivory teeth. “You never had a date, that’s what’s the matter with you. You’re ugly. You smell bad. And so all you think about is what other people do, and you have to make it all dirty in your mind. You’re a bug.”

I nodded to her.

Grace swung, and Irma shied away. The blow struck her only glancingly, but she began to weep with a sudden, slow hopelessness. “Let me out,” she groaned. “I don’t want to any more, Charlie. Let me out!”

“ Take back what you said about my mother,” Grace said grimly.

“Your mother sucks cocks!” Irma screamed. Her face was twisted; her toilet-roll curls bobbed madly.

“Good,” I said. “Go ahead, Irma.”

But Irma was weeping hysterically. “J-J-Je- Jesusss…” she screamed. Her arms came up and covered her face with terrifying slowness. “God I want to be d-dd-dead…”

“ Say you’re sorry,” Grace said grimly. “Take it back.”

“You suck cocks!” Irma screamed from behind the barricade of her arms.

“Okay,” I said. “Let her have it, Irma. Last chance.”

This time Irma swung from the heels. I saw Grace’s eyes squeeze into slits, saw the muscles of her neck tighten into cords. But the angle of her jaw caught most of the blow and her head shifted only slightly. Still, that whole side of her face was bright red, as if from sunburn.

Irma’s whole body jogged and jiggled with the force of her sobs, which seemed to come from a deep well in her that had never been tapped before.