The Chocolate War: Chapters 25–39

“Hell, no,” Obie responded, knowing what Archie wanted and giving it to him but resentful as well, feeling like a stooge, as if Archie was the ventriloquist and Obie the dummy.

He was still buoyant when he arrived home, otherwise, he wouldn’t have had the courage to call all those Barretts and to actually talk to the girl.

He went into the kitchen, suddenly ravenous, and dumped some ice cream from the freezer into a dish.

As Rollo lifted his hands to his face in tardy defense, Carter’s fist sank sickeningly into his stomach.

It had placed Archie at a disadvantage for the first time as assigner because Rollo had only been the curtain raiser, a bit of amusement Obie had arranged to enliven the proceedings.

The brothers would close us down in no time and the kids would really start sabotaging if we started hurting people.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re on probation until the last chocolate’s sold.”

The night, the darkness outside, the apartment riddled with lamplight shadows seemed more menacing.

They rummaged desks, pried lockers open, sifted through books on a perennial search for loot—money, pot, books, watches, clothing—anything.

It was such a senseless, childish act of vandalism that Jerry was more awed than angered.

The watercolor which was a major project had taken a week of painstaking work, simply because Jerry was not at his best in free art.

He was a fastidious, precise man who ordinarily taught math but had been filling in for the regular art teacher.

To use a cliche, Renault, we are locked on the horns of a dilemma.

The usual corridor pandemonium surrounded him, slammed locker doors, wild yells and whistles, pounding feet as the guys hurried to the afterschool activities, football, boxing, debating.

Brian had witnessed the feverish activity and how the chocolates had suddenly become a vogue, a fad, the way hula hoops had caught on when they were kids in the first or second grade, the way demonstrations had been the big thing a few years ago.

Before the afternoon had ended, the sale of four hundred and seventy-five boxes had been received—cold, cold cash—as the teams returned to school with horns blowing, high with the hilarity of success.

Only five thousand to go—or four thousand, nine hundred and ninety to be exact, as Brother Leon pointed out in that fussy meticulous way of his.

And now the whole thing evaporated and he found himself sinking back in the shadows, as if he could shrivel into invisibility.

But he knew his days at Trinity would be numbered if he walked into that group of jubilant guys and told them to erase the fifty beside his name.

Mocking, goading, cajoling and looking for trouble.

More paranoia, he chided himself, trudging along the pathway that led from the football field to the gym.

A dozen fists pummeled his body, fingernails tore at his cheek and a finger clawed at his eye.

He shuffled to the back of the bus, grateful that it wasn’t one of the crowded school buses but a maverick bus that appeared at odd hours.

They wanted to think that he was incapacitated, injured, unable to make it to the phone.

Jerry lifted himself from the bed, surprised at his mobility, and made his way through the living room to the phone.

“Jerree . . .”
“Come out and play, Jerry . . .”
A parody of those long ago childhood pleadings.

The harassment had taken a toll on his father’s face, his hair disheveled, purple crescents under his eyes.

It was as if he were the carrier of a terrible disease and nobody wanted to become contaminated.

The desecrated poster had been removed and the wall scrubbed clean.

Leon’s rancid breath—didn’t he ever eat anything else but bacon, for crissakes—filled the air as he stood beside Brian looking over the tabulations.

He stood near the improvised stage that Carter and The Vigils had erected that afternoon under Archie’s direction—an old boxing ring resurrected from the bowels of the bleachers and restored to its former use except for the absence of ropes.

Pretend you’re a spotlight, Obie told himself, a spotlight sweeping the place, stopping here and there, and lingering at other places, picking up the highlights of the thing, this momentous occasion.

For a few moments while Archie’s voice whispered enticingly of sweet revenge, suggesting the fight as a way of ending it all, Jerry had actually believed it was possible, possible to beat Janza and the school and even Archie.

In the garish stadium light, the box was revealed as worn and threadbare, a small wooden container that might have been a discarded jewelry box.

The school also reminded him of his own betrayals and defections.

The pain in his neck was excruciating—his head had snapped back from the impact of Janza’s fist.

He had never struck anyone like that before, in fury, premeditated, and he’d enjoyed catapulting all his power toward the target, the release of all his frustrations, hitting back at last, lashing out, getting revenge finally, revenge not only against Janza but all that he represented.

He drew back his arm, pausing a moment, seeking true aim, wanting to come up with the final devastating blow.

Janza staggered backward, surprise and pain rampant on his face.

Triumphantly, he watched Janza floundering on weak, wobbly knees.