Burning Bright - By Ron Rash Page 0,45
the moon and stars are out. The teacher ain’t some old guy with glasses and a gray beard, like what I figured him to be. He’s got no beard, probably can’t even grow one.
He all of a sudden stops his talking and steps out the door and soon enough he’s coming out of the building and I’m thinking he must have seen me. I hunker in the bushes and get ready to make a run for the truck. I’m thinking if I have to knock him down to get there I’ve got no problem with that.
But he don’t come near the bushes where I am. He heads straight to a white Toyota parked between Lynn’s Chevy and my truck. He roots around the backseat a minute before taking out some books and papers.
He comes back, close enough I can smell whatever it is he splashed on his face that morning. I wonder why he needs to smell so good, who he thinks might like a man who smells like flowers. Back in the classroom he passes the books around. Lynn turns the books’ pages slow and careful, like they would break if she wasn’t prissy with them.
I figure I best go ahead and do what I come to do. I walk across the asphalt to the Chevy. I kneel beside the back left tire, the barlow knife in my fist. I slash it deep and don’t stop cutting till I hear a hiss. I stand up and look around.
Pretty sorry security, I’m thinking. I’ve done what I come for but I don’t close the knife. I kneel beside the white Toyota. I start slashing the tire and for a second it’s like I’m slashing that smooth young face of his. Soon enough that tire looks like it’s been run through a combine.
I get in my truck and drive toward home. I’m shaking but don’t know what I’m afraid of. I turn on the TV when I get back but it’s just something to do while I wait for Lynn to call. Only she don’t. Thirty minutes after her class let out, I still ain’t heard a word. I get a picture in my mind of her out in that parking lot by herself but maybe not as by herself and safe as she thinks what with the security guard snoring away in some office. I’m thinking Lynn might be in trouble, trouble I’d put her in. I get my truck keys and am halfway out the door when headlights freeze me.
Lynn don’t wait for me to ask.
“I’m late because some asshole slashed my tire,” she says.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I say.
“The security guard said he’d put on the spare so I let him. That was easier than you driving five miles.”
Lynn steps past and drops her books on the kitchen table.
“Dr. Palmer had a tire slashed too.”
“Who changed his tire?” I ask.
Lynn looks at me.
“He did.”
“I wouldn’t have reckoned him to have the common sense to.”
“Well, he did,” Lynn says. “Just because somebody’s book-smart doesn’t mean that person can’t do anything else.”
“Where’s Janie?” Lynn asks when she sees the empty bed.
“She took a notion to spend the night with Momma,” I say.
“How’s she going to get to school come morning?” she asks.
“I’ll get her there,” I say.
Lynn sets down her books. They’re piled there in front of her like a big plate of food that’s making her stronger and stronger.
“I don’t reckon they got an idea of who done it?” I ask, trying to sound all casual.
Lynn gives a smile for the first time since she got out of the car.
“They’ll soon enough have a real good idea. The dumb son of a bitch didn’t even realize they have security cameras. They got it all on tape, even his license. The cops will have that guy in twenty-four hours. At least that’s what the security guard said.”
It takes me about two heartbeats to take that in. I feel like somebody just sucker-punched me. I open my mouth, but it takes a while to push some words out.
“I need to tell you something,” I say, whispery as an old sick man.
Lynn doesn’t look up. She’s already stuck herself deep in a book.
“I got three chapters to read, Bobby. Can’t it wait?”
I look at her. I know I’ve lost her, known it for a while. Me getting caught for slashing those tires won’t make it any worse, except maybe at the custody hearing.
“It can wait,” I say.
I go out to the