Robert Cormier - Beyond the Chocolate War

Trinity's dress code was not overly strict. It required students to wear shirts, ties, jackets, and trousers" of no particular color. Banned were sneakers (except during gym classes), boots, and jeans. The most popular footwear on Trinity's campus were loafers and buckled shoes.

Think positively, Obie told himself as he dressed for school, having trouble as usual knotting his tie so that the two ends came out even. He could not allow himself to be pessimistic. With pessimism would come utter futility and desperation. And, finally, defeat. He couldn't let that happen. He felt that his entire life was in danger of collapsing, and he couldn't just stand there and let it happen.

Somewhere, right this minute, some guy in his own home was probably putting on that damaged shoe just as Obie was slipping into his own loafers.

Obie inspected his reflection in the mirror. He looked terrible. Bloodshot eyes. Yellow flecks in the corners of his eyes that always showed up when he was tired. A new colony of acne on his chin. Hair lusterless, like dried grass. As if his body — even his hair , for crying out loud — was giving up, giving in. Something that must not happen, that he couldn't let happen.

He felt like bawling, saw the corners of his mouth drooping. Time for a pep talk, Obie. You've got a clue. Follow it up. Find the shoe and find the kid. Then go on from there. It was better than doing nothing, better than just waiting for Laurie to get back and having nothing to offer her when she did return.

He had mapped out his strategy on awakening. Had decided not to drive his car to school but to take the bus. This would give him access to the other students, on the sidewalks, in the bus, as he searched for the loafer. He hated the thought of riding the bus — have I become that much of a snob? — but knew that the search was more important than driving to school. He would have to mingle with the mob, eyes sharp and probing.

He hurried out of the house, but his steps were those of an old man, legs heavy, feet dragging as if in winter boots. At the bus stop down the street, he stood apart from a cluster of waiting students. They were frisky and impatient in the morning air, stamping their feet, hitting each other with elbows, hips. Obie's eyes went to their shoes. Three lads wore faded, beat-up sneakers: Monument High kids, no dress code at MHS. Some other pairs of shoes; two pairs of loafers, black and brown, with buckles intact; high black boots; two pairs of laced shoes.

Obie felt like a derelict walking through life with head down, searching for lost coins, cigarette butts, whatever bums look for on the ground.

In the next few hours — on the bus, in the school yard, in the classrooms, in the corridors — Obie encountered a bewildering jungle of footwear, an eye-boggling array of shoes of all shades and styles and conditions. Clean shoes, scuffed shoes, mud-encrusted shoes. Brown, black, mottled gray. Buckles of all kinds. Fancy, plain, brass, silver. Silver? No, not silver but a silvery kind of dull metal. You could tell that the school year was drawing to a close. No shoes sparkling with newness, no fresh articles of clothing. Instead, faded shirts, limp ties, threadbare trousers thin at the seat. Scuffed shoes that no polish could revitalize. Occasionally he spotted a loafer with a buckle that was broken or missing or askew, and a pulse would beat in his throat, but he looked in vain for the slash across the instep. False alarm. A day filled with false alarms, frustration, weariness.

Waiting for the bus after classes were over for the day, hoping that Archie or any of his own friends would not spot him standing alone, he realized again the impossibility of his search. How could he hope to check every pair of shoes in the entire city? Suppose the attackers had come from out of town?

His shoulders sagged; his chin dropped to his chest.

Tears of frustration gathered in the corners of his eyes. He turned away in shame, not wanting the other guys to see him this way. He left the bus stop, wanted to be alone. The search, he knew, was futile. Not only the search but his entire life as well. Futile, empty, without any meaning at all.

What Archie liked about Morton was that she was both smart and dumb. But, before that, beautiful. Long and slender and blond. Compliant. Bending like the willow, as the song went. And so Archie usually came to Morton, his favorite of all the girls at Miss Jerome's, and she never failed him.

He told her everything. And nothing. She listened. But more than listened. She was attuned to his moods and his needs, needs he did not admit to anyone else, and her touch was deft and expert. He could also talk to her. Up to a point, of course. Ordinarily, he talked to her in riddles, and somehow she understood. Not the riddles, but the necessity for him to talk in riddles. Morton was fine. She sometimes got on his nerves, but most of the time she was just fine.

Like now, in his car, hushed in the darkness, Morton and her willingness to please and her knowing ways, and Archie relaxed, drifting, giving himself over to the pleasures of her touch.

"Do you like that, Archie?" Morton asked, her tone indicating that she already knew the answer.

Archie murmured indistinctly, no need for words, his reactions to her ministrations easily decipherable.

"You haven't been around for a while," Morton said, breathing the words into his ear, her breath warm.

"Busy," he said, touching her hair, caressing her cheek. He inhaled the subtle cologne she wore, a hint of lilac, but would have preferred a. complete absence of scent.

"How busy?" Morton asked. Keeping busy herself, letting Archie know what came first.

He wondered what he could or should tell her, missing Obie, missing the way he could bounce ideas off Obie, gauging his future actions by Obie's reactions. Obie was the only person who knew how Archie's mind worked, had seen him come up with dozens of assignments, pulling the rabbit out of the hat at the last moment, walking the high wire, taking the risks, and never failing. Meanwhile, he had Morton. She gave him what Obie could never give him and he responded now to her touch. And to her question.

"There's this guy on the campus," Archie said, relieved to be talking about Carter, his thoughts always clearer when he verbalized them. "Football hero. Macho man. Lots of trophies. Tall, dark, and handsome. ."

"Can I meet him?" Morton asked throatily. She was least sexy when she tried to be sexy, and Archie ignored the question, recognizing Morton's automatic response for what it was: automatic.

"This guy has a sense of honor, too. A social conscience," Archie said, thinking of the letter Brother Leon had waved in his face. "Respects his elders, the authorities. Willing to risk a lot to stick by his principles." His voice as dry as wood crackling in the cold.

"Sounds like the last perfect guy left in America," Morton said.

"That's where you're wrong, Morton," Archie said. "Nobody's perfect." Remembering Carter's shaky voice on the telephone.

"Jill," she said. "People call me Jill. Only teachers call me Morton. And then it's Mizz Morton."

"Okay, Jill," he said, giving her name such a, twist of his tongue that she should be glad to be called Morton again. "But back to the point. And the point is nobody's perfect. There's always a flaw. A secret. Something rotten. Everybody has something to cover up. The nice man next door is probably a child molester. The choir singer a rapist. Look at all the unsolved murders. Which means the man standing in line next to you could be a murderer. Nobody's innocent."

She withdrew her hand. "God, Archie, you're really something, know that? You always make a person feel like a piece of shit. . "

"Don't blame me," he said, surprised at her reaction. "Blame human nature. I didn't make the world."