Disposable Teens, chapter 6
Chapter five
In his apartment that night, Ben frequently found himself pausing in the middle of mundane chores, unable to remember when he’d started polishing his shoes or cooking dinner. Instead of concentrating on the simmering pan, he thought of Stephanie, dark circles under her eyes, tobacco-smell clinging to her clothes. Wondered what might have happened to send her careening off the path she had been carefully treading until now.
More often, though, he thought of Ray. No doubt Ray was thinking of her too, of the signs he might have missed and what he could have said to her parents if he’d spotted them. Perhaps he would spend a sleepless night thinking about what to tell his students the following day.
Ben wondered if Ray would arrive at school tetchy and irritable, snapping at everyone, or if he’d be quiet and distant, as distracted as Ben was now. He tried asking Diefenbaker’s opinion, but the wolf had never met Ray and found the whole conversation thoroughly uninteresting. So Ben thought of things to say that would ease Ray’s mind or keep him from directing his anger at the wrong people, and searched his memory for experience of similar situations, or useful analogies that might help Ray.
He thought about Ray until he drifted off to sleep, well after midnight, and thought about him still as he prepared for school on Wednesday morning.
At school, he ploughed through the routine of paperwork and memos and returns and overdue notices, for once grateful that the monotony allowed him to work on autopilot while his brain worried over Stephanie and Ray and when he might see either of them again. Occasionally, when the chatter in the library grew loud enough to intrude on his thoughts, he caught whispers of rumours about Stephanie; she had been hospitalised in a fight, she had been suspended for taking drugs on campus again, she had taken a cocktail of illicit substances and was “seriously freaking out in, like, some mental institution or something.” There was no official word from any of the teachers who drifted in and out of the library, too engrossed in their own work as usual to pass the time of day.
Ben was in the middle of processing the lunchtime returns when Ray finally appeared. As Ben had feared, his appearance indicated a lack of sleep, and his voice was uncharacteristically hushed as he spoke to Ben over the counter.
“I just got another call,” he told Ben without preamble. “She’s still unconscious, but they said she’s stabilised at least. So better, but not outta the woods yet.”
“Let’s hope she continues to improve,” Ben offered, hoping Ray would understand the sympathy he was trying to convey. He wanted to put a hand on Ray’s shoulder, but he was still seated at his desk and Ray was on the other side of the counter.
Ray glanced around the library, seemingly unsure what to say next. Ben could find nothing else to say or do that might possibly make Ray feel better.
“Come for dinner tonight?” Ray was looking at the counter-top, not at him.
He shouldn’t really leave Diefenbaker alone in the apartment, he knew. But the wolf had been walked that morning, and if he explained it when he returned then surely Dief would understand.
“Of course.” Ray acknowledged his answer with a tight-lipped smile.
“I’ve got a meeting after school. If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll come meet you afterwards. About five.”
Ben filled the time between the last period of the day and five o’clock by tidying and re-tidying the shelves, rearranging the displays of new novels and sorting through his in-tray. Although he wouldn't have admitted it out loud in the wake of Ray's troubled mood, he was eager to spend time with him outside of school and their regular Friday nights. Those outings had been part of Ben's Chicago education. This unscheduled and unsolicited invitation was, to Ben, an indication of a true friendship. Ray wanted his company in a time of need. After so many months alone in a strange place, could he be blamed for feeling just the slightest bit happy at that thought?
A very beleaguered Ray Vecchio appeared in the library at fifteen minutes past five, grumbling about an argumentative school board representative with nothing better to do than waste people’s valuable time. Ben let him vent until he ran out of steam before gathering his things so they could make their way out to the parking lot.
Outside, it was cool, but not uncomfortably so. The sweet promise of spring hung in the air, even in the middle of the city, in the pleasant breeze and the way the evenings were steadily growing lighter. Ben was learning to spot the cycle of the seasons even here, cataloguing the subtle signs that winter was coming to a close.
As they strolled towards Ray’s car, Ben heard the distant chatter of young voices; the familiar groups of students and young adults lingering around the gates and on the street beyond. Ray’s car was one of only half a dozen still in the lot. He recognised the principal’s car, the light-blue convertible that belonged to the Head of the History Department and the dented green Ford owned by one of the office staff. Almost everyone else had made a dash for it before four o’clock. They started work early enough and few stayed late unless they ran after-school activities.
Ray was busy loading his briefcase and a stack of folders into the trunk when Ben saw a group of young men move off the street and huddle together in the shelter of the perimeter wall. Struck by the oddity of it, he watched without trying to stare, wishing he were close enough to make out just one the voices.
“Benny?” Ray was already seated in the car, door closed and seatbelt on. He leaned over and looked up through Ben’s open door. Ben didn’t answer, but when he climbed into the passenger seat he held his door open a little, still watching them. “Something wrong?”
“It’s probably nothing.” He pulled the car door closed.
“Okay.” Ray hesitated a moment longer, the key still in his hand. “You sure?”
“Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.”
“Okay.” Finally Ray put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car rolled slowly out of the parking lot. As they passed through the main gates, Ben studied the group as discretely as he could.
“Ray,” he began once they were out on to the road.
“Yeah, Benny?”
“Did you recognise any of those young men we just passed?” He glanced in the wing mirror, but they were out of sight already.
“Couple of seniors, few too old to be students any more.” Ray, too, glanced in the rear view mirror. “You think they’re up to something?”
Ben drew a deep breath, wondering if it was really worth mentioning.
“Did you happen to notice the one with the leather coat and the red hair and goatee?”
“Maybe,” Ray offered as they turned a corner.
“You didn’t recognise him?”
“I barely saw any of them. What’re you getting at?”
Ben turned a little in his seat to face Ray, as much as his seatbelt would allow.
“He didn’t have the facial hair then, but I’ve seen him before. We both have.” Ray cast a sideways glance, inviting him to explain. “The day we took your class to the library, that young man was with Hayley and Stephanie when we found them in the bar.”
This time Ray took his eyes fully off the road for a few seconds to look at him.
“You got a point somewhere in all of this?”
“Ray, that young man handed a small package to one of the other boys he was with, while we were in the parking lot.”
“So?”
“So, immediately afterwards the other boy gave him money.”
They turned another corner. Once the car was straight again, Ray took his attention off the road once more.
“Benny, are you trying to tell me he’s a drug dealer?” The car swerved around a pedestrian who hadn’t crossed quickly enough for Ray’s liking.
“Well, I’m sure there are many possible explanations for what I saw. The contents of the bag could have been simply herbs for cooking, for instance.”
“You saw him selling drugs.” Beside him, Ray sighed. “Okay, what do you wanna do? You wanna report this? You think you got a good enough look at him to go to the police? Or you wanna tell the principal someone’s dealing on school grounds?”
“Well, that as well, Ray, but I can’t help thinking that if this young man does deal in illicit substances, and if he does know Stephanie as I first suspected he might when we saw him in the bar, and if Stephanie is hospitalised due to imbibing illegal drugs that were tainted somehow, then one can’t help wondering if there is a connection in all of this.”
Ray took one hand off the wheel to gesture at Ben.
“Look, no offence, but I don’t think you should be playing detective here, okay? You report it to the principal, take it to the cops if you really want to, but that’s it. You got no evidence of anything else.”
Turning his head as much as he safely could while driving, Ray fixed him with a warning glance.
“Okay.”
They arrived to find the Vecchio household in its usual state of friendly chaos. Ray’s nephews whirled past them in the hallway in the middle of an argument about who had stolen whose GI Joe, and the smell of food wafted through from the kitchen.
“Benton,” Mrs Vecchio cooed when she saw him. “I’m so glad you’re here. It does me good to see my son spending time with friends. Really, he’s been so miserable lately I was beginning to worry about him.”
Smiling, Ben told her she didn’t need to worry, that he was happy to look out for Ray. She beamed at him, then kissed her son and told him he should be grateful to have a friend like Benton.
“I am grateful, ma,” he answered, all the while looking at Ben with a strange, peaceful smile.
Ben’s offers to help in the kitchen were loudly refused; he was shooed into the living room along with Ray to talk with Ray’s brother-in-law and keep an eye on the children. Ray quickly directed him to an armchair in the hope that his youngest sister would not try to force herself between them on the couch, but when she appeared Francesca took up a place on the arm, legs crossed to reveal an expanse of thigh that no one else thought appropriate. He listened to her excited chatter politely, seeking out Ray only when he needed to rebuke an invitation to dancing at some club he had heard students talking about.
He ate a wonderful dinner, seated next to Ray and at the opposite end of the table to Francesca, and felt pleased that Ray did indeed appear happier than he had at work. His spirits were buoyed as Ray drove him home afterwards, and it wasn’t until after he’d walked a complaining Dief and settled himself into bed that he wondered once more about the red-haired young man and his possible connection with Stephanie.
Truly, he tried to follow Ray’s advice; he had no proof that the red-haired man had anything at all to do with Stephanie’s hospitalisation. As instructed, he gave a full written report of what he’d witnessed to the principal the following morning. He’d been assured that it would be passed on to the police, but saw no police presence around campus that week. There was still that part of him that itched to investigate himself, but when he saw the group outside school again that afternoon and imagined himself talking to the young man about Stephanie, he was halted by memories of his last investigation. Jumping in blindly had caused too many problems last time. He would not risk anyone else like that again.
On Friday Ray told him over dinner that Stephanie was out of hospital. She returned to school a fortnight later, noticeably distant and unresponsive in class. Ben attempted to make conversation, carefully avoiding any mention of her absence, but she remained vacant. The rest of Ray’s students seemed unsure how to react to her presence too, making Ray’s Tuesday morning class uncomfortably subdued.
That evening, Ben was invited over to the Vecchio house again. They avoided the bedlam of the kitchen and stood talking outside the back door. In a voice barely more than a whisper, Ray confided his worries as best he could.
“It’s seeing the same faces all the time,” he explained. “You can’t distance yourself from people you see every day.” As he sighed, Ben watched the cloud of his breath in the cool night air.
They stood side by side, overlooking the garden where Ray’s nieces had been playing earlier. In the darkness, the discarded toys and tricycles looked lost, the whole scene just a little eerie.
“When you’re a cop, you can’t get involved. Emotionally, I mean. You can be as dedicated as you want, but somehow you learn not to care too much. It stinks, it makes you feel heartless sometimes, but it’s how you cope.” Another deep breath, another cloud dispersing in front of him. “But here… You see the same kids every day, you talk to them, you see how they change and grow and you’re emotionally involved without even realising it. And when one of them ends up in trouble like this… It’s like it’s your family.” His voice was small. “It hurts, Benny. This one hurts.”
Without turning to look at him, Ben carefully laid an arm around Ray’s shoulder. They stood in silence for some minutes.
“The guys I used to work with,” Ray continued, picking up his line of thought as if he’d never stopped, “I saw ’em day in, day out. Hated some of them, or they hated me. But I saw them so much. When you see the same people every day, you know them, you know about their lives. Who’s fighting with their wives, who’s proud of their kids, who’s ready to retire. You start thinking, maybe it’s a good thing ’cause it’s kinda like a family, even if you can’t stand ’em. It’s a routine, it’s familiar.
“This one guy I knew, I went through the Academy with him. Never could stand him.” A mirthless chuckle, oddly loud after Ray’s hushed monologue. “Then after I left the force, I heard he was killed. Working a case and some punk in a bar shot him. I think it tore me to pieces, ’cause I hated him but he’d been around for so long. Desk next to mine, we used to hassle each other every day, and even though I wasn’t working there any more, suddenly he was gone.”
Ray ducked his head and closed his eyes.
“Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t care so much.”
Ben tightened his half-embrace for a moment.
“Don’t say that.”
They were quiet a moment more, until Mrs Vecchio called them both in for dinner.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Chapter seven
In his apartment that night, Ben frequently found himself pausing in the middle of mundane chores, unable to remember when he’d started polishing his shoes or cooking dinner. Instead of concentrating on the simmering pan, he thought of Stephanie, dark circles under her eyes, tobacco-smell clinging to her clothes. Wondered what might have happened to send her careening off the path she had been carefully treading until now.
More often, though, he thought of Ray. No doubt Ray was thinking of her too, of the signs he might have missed and what he could have said to her parents if he’d spotted them. Perhaps he would spend a sleepless night thinking about what to tell his students the following day.
Ben wondered if Ray would arrive at school tetchy and irritable, snapping at everyone, or if he’d be quiet and distant, as distracted as Ben was now. He tried asking Diefenbaker’s opinion, but the wolf had never met Ray and found the whole conversation thoroughly uninteresting. So Ben thought of things to say that would ease Ray’s mind or keep him from directing his anger at the wrong people, and searched his memory for experience of similar situations, or useful analogies that might help Ray.
He thought about Ray until he drifted off to sleep, well after midnight, and thought about him still as he prepared for school on Wednesday morning.
At school, he ploughed through the routine of paperwork and memos and returns and overdue notices, for once grateful that the monotony allowed him to work on autopilot while his brain worried over Stephanie and Ray and when he might see either of them again. Occasionally, when the chatter in the library grew loud enough to intrude on his thoughts, he caught whispers of rumours about Stephanie; she had been hospitalised in a fight, she had been suspended for taking drugs on campus again, she had taken a cocktail of illicit substances and was “seriously freaking out in, like, some mental institution or something.” There was no official word from any of the teachers who drifted in and out of the library, too engrossed in their own work as usual to pass the time of day.
Ben was in the middle of processing the lunchtime returns when Ray finally appeared. As Ben had feared, his appearance indicated a lack of sleep, and his voice was uncharacteristically hushed as he spoke to Ben over the counter.
“I just got another call,” he told Ben without preamble. “She’s still unconscious, but they said she’s stabilised at least. So better, but not outta the woods yet.”
“Let’s hope she continues to improve,” Ben offered, hoping Ray would understand the sympathy he was trying to convey. He wanted to put a hand on Ray’s shoulder, but he was still seated at his desk and Ray was on the other side of the counter.
Ray glanced around the library, seemingly unsure what to say next. Ben could find nothing else to say or do that might possibly make Ray feel better.
“Come for dinner tonight?” Ray was looking at the counter-top, not at him.
He shouldn’t really leave Diefenbaker alone in the apartment, he knew. But the wolf had been walked that morning, and if he explained it when he returned then surely Dief would understand.
“Of course.” Ray acknowledged his answer with a tight-lipped smile.
“I’ve got a meeting after school. If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll come meet you afterwards. About five.”
Ben filled the time between the last period of the day and five o’clock by tidying and re-tidying the shelves, rearranging the displays of new novels and sorting through his in-tray. Although he wouldn't have admitted it out loud in the wake of Ray's troubled mood, he was eager to spend time with him outside of school and their regular Friday nights. Those outings had been part of Ben's Chicago education. This unscheduled and unsolicited invitation was, to Ben, an indication of a true friendship. Ray wanted his company in a time of need. After so many months alone in a strange place, could he be blamed for feeling just the slightest bit happy at that thought?
A very beleaguered Ray Vecchio appeared in the library at fifteen minutes past five, grumbling about an argumentative school board representative with nothing better to do than waste people’s valuable time. Ben let him vent until he ran out of steam before gathering his things so they could make their way out to the parking lot.
Outside, it was cool, but not uncomfortably so. The sweet promise of spring hung in the air, even in the middle of the city, in the pleasant breeze and the way the evenings were steadily growing lighter. Ben was learning to spot the cycle of the seasons even here, cataloguing the subtle signs that winter was coming to a close.
As they strolled towards Ray’s car, Ben heard the distant chatter of young voices; the familiar groups of students and young adults lingering around the gates and on the street beyond. Ray’s car was one of only half a dozen still in the lot. He recognised the principal’s car, the light-blue convertible that belonged to the Head of the History Department and the dented green Ford owned by one of the office staff. Almost everyone else had made a dash for it before four o’clock. They started work early enough and few stayed late unless they ran after-school activities.
Ray was busy loading his briefcase and a stack of folders into the trunk when Ben saw a group of young men move off the street and huddle together in the shelter of the perimeter wall. Struck by the oddity of it, he watched without trying to stare, wishing he were close enough to make out just one the voices.
“Benny?” Ray was already seated in the car, door closed and seatbelt on. He leaned over and looked up through Ben’s open door. Ben didn’t answer, but when he climbed into the passenger seat he held his door open a little, still watching them. “Something wrong?”
“It’s probably nothing.” He pulled the car door closed.
“Okay.” Ray hesitated a moment longer, the key still in his hand. “You sure?”
“Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.”
“Okay.” Finally Ray put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car rolled slowly out of the parking lot. As they passed through the main gates, Ben studied the group as discretely as he could.
“Ray,” he began once they were out on to the road.
“Yeah, Benny?”
“Did you recognise any of those young men we just passed?” He glanced in the wing mirror, but they were out of sight already.
“Couple of seniors, few too old to be students any more.” Ray, too, glanced in the rear view mirror. “You think they’re up to something?”
Ben drew a deep breath, wondering if it was really worth mentioning.
“Did you happen to notice the one with the leather coat and the red hair and goatee?”
“Maybe,” Ray offered as they turned a corner.
“You didn’t recognise him?”
“I barely saw any of them. What’re you getting at?”
Ben turned a little in his seat to face Ray, as much as his seatbelt would allow.
“He didn’t have the facial hair then, but I’ve seen him before. We both have.” Ray cast a sideways glance, inviting him to explain. “The day we took your class to the library, that young man was with Hayley and Stephanie when we found them in the bar.”
This time Ray took his eyes fully off the road for a few seconds to look at him.
“You got a point somewhere in all of this?”
“Ray, that young man handed a small package to one of the other boys he was with, while we were in the parking lot.”
“So?”
“So, immediately afterwards the other boy gave him money.”
They turned another corner. Once the car was straight again, Ray took his attention off the road once more.
“Benny, are you trying to tell me he’s a drug dealer?” The car swerved around a pedestrian who hadn’t crossed quickly enough for Ray’s liking.
“Well, I’m sure there are many possible explanations for what I saw. The contents of the bag could have been simply herbs for cooking, for instance.”
“You saw him selling drugs.” Beside him, Ray sighed. “Okay, what do you wanna do? You wanna report this? You think you got a good enough look at him to go to the police? Or you wanna tell the principal someone’s dealing on school grounds?”
“Well, that as well, Ray, but I can’t help thinking that if this young man does deal in illicit substances, and if he does know Stephanie as I first suspected he might when we saw him in the bar, and if Stephanie is hospitalised due to imbibing illegal drugs that were tainted somehow, then one can’t help wondering if there is a connection in all of this.”
Ray took one hand off the wheel to gesture at Ben.
“Look, no offence, but I don’t think you should be playing detective here, okay? You report it to the principal, take it to the cops if you really want to, but that’s it. You got no evidence of anything else.”
Turning his head as much as he safely could while driving, Ray fixed him with a warning glance.
“Okay.”
They arrived to find the Vecchio household in its usual state of friendly chaos. Ray’s nephews whirled past them in the hallway in the middle of an argument about who had stolen whose GI Joe, and the smell of food wafted through from the kitchen.
“Benton,” Mrs Vecchio cooed when she saw him. “I’m so glad you’re here. It does me good to see my son spending time with friends. Really, he’s been so miserable lately I was beginning to worry about him.”
Smiling, Ben told her she didn’t need to worry, that he was happy to look out for Ray. She beamed at him, then kissed her son and told him he should be grateful to have a friend like Benton.
“I am grateful, ma,” he answered, all the while looking at Ben with a strange, peaceful smile.
Ben’s offers to help in the kitchen were loudly refused; he was shooed into the living room along with Ray to talk with Ray’s brother-in-law and keep an eye on the children. Ray quickly directed him to an armchair in the hope that his youngest sister would not try to force herself between them on the couch, but when she appeared Francesca took up a place on the arm, legs crossed to reveal an expanse of thigh that no one else thought appropriate. He listened to her excited chatter politely, seeking out Ray only when he needed to rebuke an invitation to dancing at some club he had heard students talking about.
He ate a wonderful dinner, seated next to Ray and at the opposite end of the table to Francesca, and felt pleased that Ray did indeed appear happier than he had at work. His spirits were buoyed as Ray drove him home afterwards, and it wasn’t until after he’d walked a complaining Dief and settled himself into bed that he wondered once more about the red-haired young man and his possible connection with Stephanie.
Truly, he tried to follow Ray’s advice; he had no proof that the red-haired man had anything at all to do with Stephanie’s hospitalisation. As instructed, he gave a full written report of what he’d witnessed to the principal the following morning. He’d been assured that it would be passed on to the police, but saw no police presence around campus that week. There was still that part of him that itched to investigate himself, but when he saw the group outside school again that afternoon and imagined himself talking to the young man about Stephanie, he was halted by memories of his last investigation. Jumping in blindly had caused too many problems last time. He would not risk anyone else like that again.
On Friday Ray told him over dinner that Stephanie was out of hospital. She returned to school a fortnight later, noticeably distant and unresponsive in class. Ben attempted to make conversation, carefully avoiding any mention of her absence, but she remained vacant. The rest of Ray’s students seemed unsure how to react to her presence too, making Ray’s Tuesday morning class uncomfortably subdued.
That evening, Ben was invited over to the Vecchio house again. They avoided the bedlam of the kitchen and stood talking outside the back door. In a voice barely more than a whisper, Ray confided his worries as best he could.
“It’s seeing the same faces all the time,” he explained. “You can’t distance yourself from people you see every day.” As he sighed, Ben watched the cloud of his breath in the cool night air.
They stood side by side, overlooking the garden where Ray’s nieces had been playing earlier. In the darkness, the discarded toys and tricycles looked lost, the whole scene just a little eerie.
“When you’re a cop, you can’t get involved. Emotionally, I mean. You can be as dedicated as you want, but somehow you learn not to care too much. It stinks, it makes you feel heartless sometimes, but it’s how you cope.” Another deep breath, another cloud dispersing in front of him. “But here… You see the same kids every day, you talk to them, you see how they change and grow and you’re emotionally involved without even realising it. And when one of them ends up in trouble like this… It’s like it’s your family.” His voice was small. “It hurts, Benny. This one hurts.”
Without turning to look at him, Ben carefully laid an arm around Ray’s shoulder. They stood in silence for some minutes.
“The guys I used to work with,” Ray continued, picking up his line of thought as if he’d never stopped, “I saw ’em day in, day out. Hated some of them, or they hated me. But I saw them so much. When you see the same people every day, you know them, you know about their lives. Who’s fighting with their wives, who’s proud of their kids, who’s ready to retire. You start thinking, maybe it’s a good thing ’cause it’s kinda like a family, even if you can’t stand ’em. It’s a routine, it’s familiar.
“This one guy I knew, I went through the Academy with him. Never could stand him.” A mirthless chuckle, oddly loud after Ray’s hushed monologue. “Then after I left the force, I heard he was killed. Working a case and some punk in a bar shot him. I think it tore me to pieces, ’cause I hated him but he’d been around for so long. Desk next to mine, we used to hassle each other every day, and even though I wasn’t working there any more, suddenly he was gone.”
Ray ducked his head and closed his eyes.
“Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t care so much.”
Ben tightened his half-embrace for a moment.
“Don’t say that.”
They were quiet a moment more, until Mrs Vecchio called them both in for dinner.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Chapter seven