Michael Griffo - Unwelcome

Lochlan cleared his throat into the microphone to try and get the students to quiet down, but it only resulted in their imitating the doctor by coughing into their fists. Not used to such open defiance and blatant disrespect, Lochlan froze, he forgot about the note, he forgot about Alistair, and all he could think about was Blakeley’s comment. Yes, right at this very moment, he would have preferred to be performing an autopsy on a badly decomposed corpse, preferably one of the students, than trying to form coherent sentences in front of a hostile group of teenagers. To hell with protecting the children, Alistair. I’m the one who needs protection! Which is just what he got and from a very unlikely source.

“All right! Put a bung in it!” Blakeley shouted into the microphone. “Or you’ll all be back here this afternoon to run laps for detention!” Standing to the side of the bleachers, Sister Mary Elizabeth, headmistress of St. Anne’s, backed up Blakeley’s rebuke in the best way she knew how, with silent prayer. The combination worked and after a few moments the coughing stopped. Blakeley cupped his hand over the microphone and told Lochlan, “Now would you mind getting on with it? You’re making my soccer team look like bloody national champs.”

This time Lochlan didn’t look up. He didn’t risk it; he looked down at his notes, pushed all thoughts of angels and evil out of his mind, and read the words he had scribbled down last night. “Alistair Hawksbry was a good man,” he began. “As headmaster he was fair and supportive and he worked tirelessly to make this school one of the best in the country.” Feeling a bit braver, Lochlan looked out into the faces of the students but was again annoyed to see that many of them were talking to each other, laughing. A few were even taking catnaps. Why, you ungrateful good-for-nothings! Don’t you know how hard he worked for you? he wanted to shout, how desperately he wanted to enhance each one of your lives? “He lived and breathed this school and he lived and breathed for every one of you!”

This time when Lochlan’s voice bounced off the gym walls, the students didn’t mock him; they were too stunned by his tone. Michael turned to see if Ronan was as shocked by the doctor’s outburst as he was and he could tell by the way his jaw was clenched, how the little wrinkles had formed between his thick eyebrows, that he too was surprised. But Ronan wasn’t surprised because of what Lochlan said or how he spoke, no, he understood the doctor completely, and that’s what disturbed him. This was all the confirmation he needed, Ronan was certain, the headmaster was dead and the reason the doctor was leading the assembly was because that is what he suspected as well. “And just because he can no longer be with us doesn’t mean he cares for you any less,” he continued. “For as long as this school stands, Alistair Hawksbry will be a memorable part of it!”

The thunderous applause he imagined would follow never came. True, a few kids clapped, but weakly and without enthusiasm, and one kid did shout, “Hawksbry, we hardly knew ya,” but for the most part the gym was silent. Fine, Lochlan thought, if you don’t care about your headmaster, then protect yourselves.

Angrily he gathered his notes, shuffled them into a crumbled pile, and started to leave the podium but abruptly stopped when he heard Blakeley cough loudly into his fist. At first, he thought the gym teacher was mocking his previous attempt to quiet the crowd, but then he realized he was once again trying to help him, remind him of the reason they were having the assembly in the first place, the reason he was at the podium, to introduce Hawksbry’s replacement. Grabbing the side of the lectern tightly, Lochlan barked into the microphone, “Here’s your new headmaster, David Zachary.”

Once again, there was no wild applause after Lochlan spoke, but something did happen. The sun that had been so strong all morning, illuminating St. Sebastian’s Gym with a glow, golden and alive, was suddenly overtaken by the clouds. In its place a gray pall crept into the room, the result of the shadows that fell from the ice-covered windows and sprayed out like cobwebs, splintered and dark, along the gym floor. An eerie calm seemed to descend from the ceiling, cloaking the students, rendering them speechless, and the only sound that could be heard was the click, click, click of footsteps coming from the locker room. With each step the sound was getting closer, and with each step the anticipation was growing. Lochlan surveyed the faces of the kids and his anger grew, now they were attentive, only now were they interested. Gone were the apathetic expressions, the restless body language; in their places were the faces of children eager and hopeful, waiting to see what was walking toward them, what would walk among them.

When Lochlan saw David Zachary enter the gym, he involuntarily clutched Alistair’s note that he had shoved into his jacket pocket. He felt the words throb in his hand as if they were lifting off the page and burning into his palm, as if his friend were using every ounce of strength he had to reach out to him, connect with him from wherever he was. This is the reason I wrote the note; this is why the children need to be protected. The message ripped through Lochlan’s mind like a bullet obliterating every other thought that he had, leaving only one meaning, only one belief, that this man who was walking toward him was dangerous. And before the doctor knew it, the man was standing before him.

The new headmaster was easily five inches taller than Lochlan, but height wasn’t the only reason he seemed to dwarf the doctor, he was a strapping man, maybe thirty-five, maybe forty, but possessing a muscularity that couldn’t be contained beneath the fine woven wool of his navy blue suit. His chest threatened to tear the soft cotton material of his white shirt and his tie—a collection of cream-colored flowers springing from delicate brown branches against a background of sky blue silk, the same color and texture as his eyes—floated, then fell with each breath. David held his chin level and smiled down at the doctor as he reached his hand out to greet him, but Lochlan was reluctant to let go of the note; he felt that if he did, he would lose the connection to Alistair, lose the meaning of what he needed to do. Unfortunately, he had no choice. And when he felt David’s hand engulf his, it was as if he was being enveloped by something completely foreign and yet completely familiar. He felt as excited and defenseless as a child.

“Thank you, Lochlan, for that lovely introduction.” The doctor didn’t think he saw David’s lips move, but he must have; he heard every word he said. His voice was smooth, soft, but compelling, and seemed to float in the air like a breeze that had no beginning and no end. Despite his immediate reaction, despite feeling that Alistair’s words were trying to warn him about this stranger, Lochlan, like every other person in the room, was entranced by David Zachary’s presence.

“He is, like, way hotter than Hawksbry ever was,” Michael sighed. He couldn’t believe he’d just admitted that to Phaedra, but it felt good to express such thoughts, the kind that he usually kept to himself and, anyway, it was the truth. The new headmaster looked like the pictures of those Norse gods he saw in books about classical mythology, fiery and imposing, with close-cropped red hair and a thin beard that didn’t soften but accentuated his sharp cheekbones and square jaw. Phaedra didn’t respond to Michael’s comment, not because she didn’t agree with him, but because she couldn’t take her eyes off the man who now stood in front of the microphone, his two large hands placed on either side of the podium as if resting on the arms of a throne. Gazing out at the crowd, at his subjects, David didn’t say a word, he merely smiled and nodded his head, only slightly, welcoming the students into his world instead of the other way around.