The 'Cousins'

Part Thirty-One: Enter the Principal.

  He could not bring himself to sell the house and move away from its memories after his wife had passed away. It was already four years since she had gone; a victim of that filthy disease, breast cancer.  His body jerked in protest at the painful distaste of that memory. A small amount of cocoa slopped into the saucer of his cup. He watched as the  viscous liquid slowly flowed around the base of the cup like a slithering worm until both ends joined to form a bright, chocolate ring between the cup and its saucer. 

  He lived here with his memories of happier days when he had shared the house with Ellie and they had built their lives together around its walls and hedges. They were a close couple that did not develop a wide circle of family friends.  They had all they needed at home, with each other for company. ‘Perhaps it’s because we never had any children,’ he mused wistfully. He would have liked a son or daughter, but now had several hundred students in his charge that he looked on as his daytime children.

  Mrs. Witterer had lost her husband only weeks before Armstrong had lost Ellie. Her husband, who  had worked as a delivery driver for Fawley Grain and Feed was tragically killed in a road accident. The loss of her husband was bad enough, but she had lost her home as well. They had lived in a house that went with the job and she had to move out when Mitt Fawley needed the house for the driver he had hired to replace her husband.  It had been Sherriff Flik Donovan that had got them together. It was so obvious a solution and she had seized on the opportunity. Armstrong took some persuading to have another woman in his wife’s house, but had been persuaded to take her on as his housekeeper in return for her board and lodging. The system  had worked well and they each lived their own lives in the house coming together only for meals and the occasional moments of shared relaxation. He munched his second biscuit as he reflected on the arrangement, but it was the sudden, alien ringing of the telephone on his desk with its demand for immediate attention that snapped him sharply from his reverie.

  ‘Armstrong, what is it” He said into the mouthpiece making no attempt to conceal his irritation. There was a lengthy pause during which Armstrong was about to hurl the instrument back into its rest and hang up when he heard a squeaking, gravelly voice say , ‘Don’t hang up. You’ll want to hear this. It’s bigger’n you and it’s about to blow.’

  ‘Who is this? Is this some sort of prank…’? Armstrong shouted into the mouthpiece but the voice cut him off.

  ‘It don’t matter who I am. It’s what I just found out that you need to hear.’

  ‘I’m not listening to any rubbish. Get off my line..’ The voice cut across him and stopped him short.

  ‘Jess White in the junior school is working the Melody Inn as a boy prostitute.’

  ‘What ... What ... what are you saying.’ The Principal gasped; his voice now soft with horror and trembling, ‘You’re making this up!  That boy…’ 

  The voice cut him off again.

  ‘Don’t take my word for it. Phone Wes Chandler at the Melody. He saw ‘em at it. You better do something. It’s gonna be all over town tomorrow.’

  ‘What?  ... Why.?  … Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘I’m a well wisher and I want what’s right for the town and the Community College and I don’t want folks thinking it’s a cover for prostitution.’

  The dial tone sounded in Armstrong’s ear before he could speak in reply. The caller had rang off.  The Principal flopped into his chair feeling weak with shock.  In his head he heard again the shocking words of Mr. Marks’s report when he had seen him earlier. ‘ I believe Jesse White is having an homosexual affair with an English visitor.’

  Armstrong wiped his hand across his brow, it felt cold and clammy. His hand spread across his chest and felt his racing heartbeat, then moved lower to rub around his stomach in an attempt to remove the heavy lump of apprehension sitting there.

  ‘My God, this is awful, what do I do?  What do I do for the best, for the school, for the boy, for me?  Oh My God.’ His brain seemed incapable of delivering an answer, numbed with the shock of this revelation. He had to do something and he sat slumped in his chair to think this through with all thoughts of stamp collecting consigned to another night.

  On the south end of the town, in the Truck Stop parking lot, Felix unwrapped the handkerchief from his cell phone and put both back into his pocket. He sat looking up into the night sky through his opened sun roof and shrieked with laughter, the evil sound rebounded around the inside of the Buick while he gleefully smashed the wheel with the palms of his hands in his excitement. For the first time today he felt really good. He flicked a cigarette from a pack of Camel’s, lit up and got out of his car to walk slowly across the lot and finish his cigarette on the steps to the entrance to the restaurant.  He drew deeply before he flicked the butt away and stood watching it fly through the air in a twisting red parabola until it landed and ceased to glow.  He emitted a single spasm of triumphant laughter and grunted. ‘Wes Chandler, I owe you big time!’

  He climbed the remaining steps, pushed open the door with an exaggerated aggression, entered the restaurant and swaggered across to his regular table in the corner where he could watch and mark the comings and goings of the town and its visitors and the remainder of the day go by.