Rotters by Daniel Kraus Page B

time. I yawned and felt unfamiliar patterns ridge my cheek. My homework and books were inside. I would have to go in.
    I hobbled to the front door and entered. My father’s bedroom door was closed. I listened and heard nothing. The bathroom looked too inviting to pass up and I slid inside, closing the door behind me, and scrubbed my face with cold water, hoping to work the indentations from my face. I washed my hands and looked down at them, remembering what I had seen. It had been a woman’s hand. On her third finger had been both an engagement and a wedding ring. She had been married. The hand had belonged to someone’s wife, maybe someone’s mother.
    I grabbed my green backpack and made for the front door. Simultaneous with my opening of it, I heard the opening of my father’s bedroom. I whirled around and there he was, his eyes blazing, his gray hair wilder than ever, the tufts from his chest ruffling his unbuttoned shirt. I braced for attack.
    His expression, however, was pinched and anxious.
He doesn’t want me to turn him in
, I realized, repulsion and anger rising once more. I slammed the door behind me and hustled across the yard. I was beneath the trees in a moment but did not feel secure until I was well on my way down Jackson, new sweat from a new day making strange perfume with the unwashed odors of the night.
    People held their noses in biology. I knew I stank; I half-lidded my eyes and tried to live inside myself. When Gottschalk called me to the front of the room, I stumbled across someone’s book bag and didn’t care when everyone laughed. I stood there, barely conscious, raising my arms when I was told so that Gottschalk could prod my moist pits with his pointer and reiterate the miracle of transpiration. Through the slits of my eyes I watched Celeste Carpenter’s perfectly inexpressive expression; through the barred cage of my eyelashes I saw her look back with all the objectivity of a zoologist.
    I sleepwalked through both classes and lunch until I found myself on my way to the band room for individual instruction. When I got there, Karla, one of our four flutists, was sitting outside the door with earbuds inserted. She saw me, paused her music, and gathered her things.
    “Ted’s out sick,” she said, letting her buds dangle. “You might as well use your time, though.”
    The room was eerily quiet. Two chairs before a music stand gave the impression that Ted had died in the middle of a lesson. I wandered through the space, thankful for the chance to be alone, and eyed one of the chairs, wondering whether if I sat and closed my eyes for twenty minutes, Peyton, our drummer, would bother to wake me up when he arrived. Probably not.
    There was a rattling noise. I turned and saw that Ted’s supply closet was closed. I had never seen it less than agape in a blatant display of its bounty. I moved closer and listened. From within I heard muffled sounds. My sapped brain did not connect them with human activity. I had only the dumb idea that if I sorted through all the stuff in the closet, I might be able to keep myself awake. I opened the door.
    Woody was inside, masticating Tess’s neck, her shirt up around her armpits, his hands kneading her bra. My fellow trumpeter saw me first, and her look was one of annoyance rather than shock. Woody raised his head, his lips separating from her slick neck with a smack, and regarded me with a curious sort of half-grin.
    “Sorry,” I mumbled. Woody’s grin broadened.
    “Go away?” Tess said, her brow cleaving so abruptly her curls bounced.
    “Sorry,” I said again.
    “Shut the door, Crotch,” she commanded. I saw her fingers grab Woody’s hand, which had unconsciously drifted away, and secure it back on top of her breast. The knob was in my hand, my face turned away, the door shut. Muffled noises resumed but I walked away so that I did not have to listen. I watched my reflection split and scatter across the embouchure mirrors. Ted’s closet—I felt