A. Homes - Music for Torching

"Whatever," the messenger says. "I'll take it back. No skin off my dick."

"That's right. You'll take it back," Paul says, storming back into his office.

He sits at his desk. He cannot call Mrs. Apple, he cannot call Henry. He cannot go out for lunch; he is afraid she is out there, still waiting.

"I'm going to grab a sandwich," his secretary says. "Can I bring you anything?"

"Some soup would be good," Paul says. "Some crackers and a bottle of water."

"The prison diet. How about a bowl of gruel?" she teases.

He gives her a twenty. "My treat," he says.

Later, when the call comes, he will think it is the date, he will think it is a game she's playing-impersonating the school secretary.

"Okay, very funny," he'll say. "I'm hanging up now. Don't call back again. This is a place of business. This is not a joke."

And the phone will ring again immediately.

"This is an emergency, Mr. Weiss. I'm calling about your son Samuel."

"Enough is enough. Not funny."

"Mr. Weiss, there is a situation here at the school. The principal is on the phone with your wife now; the police have been called."

"What?" Paul will say, sobering.

"This is an emergency, Mr. Weiss. You are needed here at the school. We hope to have the situation under control shortly, but it would help to have both of you here."

"It's Monday afternoon, I'm in the city, at work. It'll take forty- five minutes, minimum."

"Mr. Weiss, never in my thirty years as school secretary have I had to make a call like this, and never in my imagination, if I had to make such a call, would it have gone this way. I'm telling you something is wrong. Get in a cab!" she says, and hangs up.

Paul calls Elaine-the line is busy.

He washes out his paintbrush, puts on his jacket, and dials again. The machine picks up; he hears the sound of his own voice. Everything has fallen out of order. "Are you in there? Elaine? Pick up," he says. "Pick up, pick up," he says, his voice increasingly panicked. "They called from Sammy's school. Did they call you, too? Elaine? Where are you? I'm getting in a cab. I'm on my way. I'll meet you there."

In the elevator, going down, he worries that she is still out there, waiting. The coast is clear; he is out the door and into a

cab. He is on his way as fast as he can, his chest squeezing, chemicals coursing through.

"Hurry," Paul tells the driver.

It is not an accident. If there had been an accident, they would have said so. If Sammy had had an asthma attack, they would have told him. Accidents and asthma don't require the police. The school secretary was so strange, so cryptic and insistent. It makes no sense. It must be something Sammy said or did. He must have insulted a teacher, stolen something, or pulled a fire alarm.

Suddenly, it occurs to Paul that it's not Sammy at all; it's Elaine and Paul. It's a setup. A sting. The police have been called-"it would help to have both of you here," the secretary said.

Show-and-tell. Smokey Bear. Fire prevention. The fire department must have paid a visit to the school. They must have given a lecture on not playing with matches. And Sammy must have spilled the beans. He must have told them the story about his mother sitting in the yard saying she couldn't do it anymore, his father coming home and finding nothing to eat. He must have told them how his father squirted the stuff against the house and how his mother kicked over the grill and how they all went out to dinner and ate steak and ice cream and how his father said, "Fuck the fat." He probably told them about driving home, seeing the fire engines blocking the street, then going to the motel, and how he woke up in the middle of the night not sure where he was and how his parents were in the bathroom talking. And then he must have told them how they drove home in the dark, how they slept in the car-how they lied.

Paul never thought Sammy would be the one, but that explains it, that explains it all. "It would help to have you both here.. The police have been called." The less they tell you, the worse it is.

Busted, framed, hung out to dry. They're going to arrest them-Paul and Elaine.

He wishes to hell he'd never given the cell phone back to Henry. He wonders if you're allowed to make calls from the back of a police cruiser. He wonders if you're really allowed only one call from the station after they arrest you. If you are, he would call Tom again. Not Henry, George, or Ted. Tom. Tom was so nice, so calm, so good about things the other night. He makes a deal with himself: As soon as he can, he will call Tom, and everything will be all right.

Will they handcuff him? Will people see them being taken away? Will it be thoroughly humiliating?

"Bet you don't take many people all the way out here." To distract himself, he makes conversation with the driver.

"More than you'd think," the cabdriver says. "I'm taking you, aren't I?" he adds, as if to prove Paul is just another sucker.

"You're taking me to my son's school," Paul says, as though there's a difference. "It's an emergency."

Paul plays a guessing game-how much will it cost, more or less than a hundred? He takes out his wallet and checks his cash supply. Will he need more? Will he have to stop? Later, Paul will think about the ways he wasted time, the things he ignored. Later, he will feel bad about everything. He will think it's all his fault.

"Hot for the beginning of June," Paul says.

"This is nothing," the driver says. "Just wait a couple of weeks, you'll be wishing we were back in January."

Paul rolls the windows down as far as they'll go. He looks straight ahead. He can't see through the Plexiglas divider. He is woozy, carsick. It will be over soon.

"People always want what they don't have," the driver says. "Why is that? Why aren't they ever satisfied? Human nature?"

Elaine is already gone.

The phone rang, an interruption. She stood over it, waiting to see if it was something she had to respond to. Incoming calls were almost always about other people's needs, rarely about what someone can give, mostly about things that can be taken.

She checked her watch-just after one.

"Mrs. Weiss, it's the Webster Avenue Elementary School. We're having some difficulty this afternoon. We need you to come down to the school." A bell rings in the background.

The school office-forgotten lunch money, an unsigned form, head lice.

"The principal asked me to call. She asked me to stress the urgency of the situation."

Elaine pictures Sammy gasping for air, powerless, terrified. She remembers him as a toddler, looking at her as if to ask, Why is this happening? "Fix it," he used to say. "Fix it." Halfway through the message, she can't stand it anymore; she picks up the phone. "Do you have his puffer?"

"Mrs. Weiss?"

"Yes."

"Did you get the message?"

"I just picked up," she says.

"One moment. I'll put the principal on."

"Do you have his medication?" Elaine implores. "Is he breathing?"

"It's not the asthma," the principal says, taking the phone. "He's having a problem with another student. They're in the cloakroom and won't come out."

Elaine is relieved-he's breathing.

"There's some question as to who's holding who and if they're armed."

"Armed?" "The police have been notified. My secretary has called your husband-he's en route."

"I don't understand," Elaine says. "Where is Sammy?"

"He's in the cloakroom," the principal says. "Please hurry."

The day twists, it turns, it starts in one place and ends in another. Elaine is moving backward and forward simultaneously. This is something Elaine can't control. She doesn't get to choose, to say yes or no.

She calls Paul; she gets his voice mail. "Are you there? Are you hiding at your desk? Are you out for lunch? Are you having an affair?" She stops and starts again. "We got a strange call. Something is happening to Sammy."