Chapter 43: The Trolls of Atenamal High
[Cafeteria, Atenamal Regional High, 12:05 PM]
(Oscar sits at a table alone; his salad turns to tough gum in his mouth; he's shrunken in his seat at his round, empty table, surrounded by bustling, loud students)
[Boys' bathroom, Atenamal Regional High, 12:12 PM]
(Oscar crouches in front of the toilet heaving; sweating, flushed and feeling miserable he flushes and swings open the stall door; Jakob is standing in the middle of the bathroom, staring at him; Oscar gives him a look as he walks to the sink and turns on the tap)
[English classroom, Atenamal Regional High, 1:36 PM]
MS OVAL: "Oscar?"
(Oscar looks up slowly from his notebook, face placid)
MS OVAL: "What was I talking about, just now?"
(Oscar takes a while to process what she's saying)
OSCAR: (voice drawling and uninterested) "You were... I don't know."
MS OVAL: "So if you paid attention, you would get your money's worth out of this lesson. We have five terms on the whiteboard. Juxtaposition, allusion, antecedent, indefinite pronoun, and indirect object. Why don't you come up to the board and write the definition for one of these?"
(again, Oscar takes a moment to process; then he stands and walks up to the board; takes marker from Ms Oval; he looks at the options; he writes an 's' at the end of 'indefinite pronoun' and beneath it writes 'murderers')
(the class starts murmuring; Ms Oval is exclaiming something at Oscar but he's walking out of class)
...
[Mr Goering's office, Atenamal Regional High, 3:27 PM]
(Oscar walks into Goering's office; Goering is just packing his satchel)
MR GOERING: (in a rush) "Sorry, Oscar, I've got a meeting to catch."
OSCAR: (standing in the doorway) "Didn't you hear about what happened?"
(...)
(Goering speeds past Oscar and out the door; Oscar follows him out of the office and into the hallways)
OSCAR: "What's wrong with you? The one time you need to do your job and you run away..."
(Oscar follows him out into the parking lot)
OSCAR: "What do you have to run from, Goering?!"
MR GOERING: (turning around in a swish of cardigans and ties) "From failure, Oscar. That's what I have to run from. So if you'd just let me - " (continues speeding to the staff parking lot)
OSCAR: (yelling after him; hopeless and with a flat voice) "I never thought you were weak."
(Goering stops in his tracks; doesn't turn around; continues and starts unlocking his car; Oscar marches over)
OSCAR: "Goering - " (opens and closes his mouth a few times; his voice is small and hopeless) "I don't know what to do."
(...)
(Goering has one knee in the car)
MR GOERING: (snappy) "You need to pull yourself together and remember what I told you, about not letting other peoples' misfortunes bring you down with them." (gets in car, closes door, starts engine)
(Oscar tugs on the handle of the passenger door but it's locked)
OSCAR: "Goering - " (tugs again)
(Goering drives away)
(Oscar sinks to the pavement and puts his forehead in his arms)
...
[Chess club, Atenamal Regional High, 3:42 PM]
OSCAR: (standing above Vlad's desk) "Where are Sal and Alessandra?"
VLAD: (reading a book called 'SO YOU WANT TO HUNT A VAMPIRE? Two-Hundred Tips, Tricks, and Grips on How To Convince Your Friends You're Not Crazy - And Slay A Vampire While Doing It (special Blood Moon edition)') "Look around you, Wanderer. Nobody plays chess here, anyways. They're probably making nerd babies in the catacombs."
OSCAR: "What about Devan and Tomas?"
VLAD: "Compared to you those two are Gods. We don't question where they go when they aren't here - we know that whatever leads them astray is for the betterment of humankind."
(Oscar turns away and shrugs his backpack onto an empty desk by the wall)
GABI: (whisper-shouting from halfway across the room) "You don't have to stay here, you know. Even official members of the chess club have better things to do."
(Oscar ignores her)
(Candace Yen walks over to Oscar's desk and sits down across from him; she empties a chess set out on the table)
CANDACE: "I'll play with you. White or black? - that's probably an insensitive question to ask at this time."
OSCAR: "Black."
CANDACE: "Rookie mistake. White gets first move."
OSCAR: "What a surprise."
CANDACE: (starts setting up the board) "You okay, Oscar? You seem a bit off. Flushed - in the cheeks. You look like you've been crying, as well. You know, I can make this concoction that changes the hormon - "
OSCAR: "I'm fine."
CANDACE: "You sure you don't want it? All I need are over-the-counter anti-depressants, Tylenol, yeast, Elmer's glue, extra-pulpy persimmon juice - "
OSCAR: "Candace, I'm fine."
CANDACE: "Oh, I don't have to add pulp. That part turns a lot of people away. I actually just got this really good strainer from Target..."
(Oscar zones out; Candace makes the first move; he moves a random piece; they play for a little bit)
CANDACE: "And check..." (she lifts up her rook) "mate." (she uses her rook to zealously knock down Oscar's king; the king topples off the desk and bounces across the floor; it stops rolling near Gabi's backpack) "Shit." (Candace walks over to retrieve it)
(Oscar watches Candace bend to pick up the king without really thinking; suddenly something catches his eye; a digital camera is peaking out of Gabi's open backpack)
GABI: (zipping up her bag and standing up) "Fuck this. Have fun wasting time, nerds." (she strides out of the room)
CANDACE: (back at the desk) "Ready for round two?"
(without saying a word, Oscar grabs his bag and makes a B-line for the door)
(Oscar follows Gabi from a distance; he follows her down into the abandoned art wing where they'd once had their student council meetings - the catacombs; she enters a through a door; Oscar waits a moment to read the make-shift sign)
DARKROOM FOR COOL KIDS
(THIS ISN'T A BEDROOM! WE HAVE TWO ARTROOMS AND A SUPPLIE CLOSET FOR THAT)
(Oscar opens the door and walks in)
(the room is dark with ominous red lighting; Gabi is taking photos down from pegs on a line - she doesn't see Oscar walk in; Oscar takes the nearest photo to him down from the line; it's a picture of him and Fender kissing over the picnic table a while ago; he scrunches it in his fist and walks forward)
OSCAR: (low voice) "What the fuck is your problem?"
GABI: "Oscar - what the fuck?"
OSCAR: "What the fuck is your problem?" (he looks up and starts tearing down all the photos; there's a photo of Fender doing homework outside, a photo of Oscar accidentally tripping over Jakob's foot; a photo of Oscar and Fender kissing in the park near Fender's house, etc etc etc) "What the hell is your problem!?" (he throws all the pictures on the floor in anger)
GABI: (her eyes have gone wide; she puts her hands up) "It wasn't me - I swear - it wasn't me."
OSCAR: (he's yelling) "Was it the little invisible elf who mans your fucking camera?!" (he yanks the camera out of her backpack and literally throws it across the room; it smashes on a cupboard)
GABI: (screaming at him) "WOAH! Oscar, stop! What's wrong with you!?"
OSCAR: "What's wrong with me?! I'm not the pathetic fucking troll snapping - " (grabs the photo she'd been holding out of her hand - it's a picture taken through Fender's bathroom window - he's naked) " - nude photos of sixteen-year-old boys! I'm not the one - " (shoves her) " - baking dick cakes and making racist banners and spreading extremist propaganda on NammiGram! I'm not the piece of shit - " (shoves her again) " - who spreads lies and turns a whole school against one innocent - fucking - person - "
[Enter Sal]
(Sal's arms wrap around Oscar's waist and lift him up and away from Gabi; Oscar thrashes against Sal; Sal sets him down a few feet away and blocks his hits)
SAL: "What are you doing!"
OSCAR: "IT'S HER! SHE'S THE FUCKING INDEFINITE PRONOUNS! LOOK AT ALL HER FUCKING PICTURES! SHE ISN'T EVEN FINISHED ATTACKING HIM!"
SAL: (looking around) "These are all scraps."
(Oscar turns his head slowly to stare at Sal; Sal takes a step back and puts his hands up)
SAL: "Calm down, Oscar."
GABI: (hysterical) "I wasn't a part of it, I swear!"
SAL: (yelling) "Why the fuck are you lying?!"
GABI: "I didn't want to do it!" (she starts crying) "I only took some of the pictures! But it was a group effort! It wasn't just me! I only develop them down here!"
OSCAR: (his voice is low and scary) "What do you mean, a group effort?"
SAL: "It's the whole chess club. They're all pretty much the Indefinite Pronouns. Candace did the baking. Devan and Tomas did the hacking. Alessandra did most of the photo-taking. Don't blame one person - blame us all as a group."
OSCAR: "And you? What did you do?"
SAL: "I... I helped out, here and there."
OSCAR: (voice even lower) "What the fuck did you do, Sal?"
SAL: "I..." (pauses) "I was editor and head distributor of the newspapers."
OSCAR: "What else?"
SAL: "I took most of the pictures around Fender's house."
OSCAR: (nodding) "So you took the naked picture of him, and you watched me and him fuck in the woods so you can take pictures of us there, too."
SAL: "It wasn't like that - "
OSCAR: (yelling) "And you put them on your laptop, stuck them into newspaper formats, wrote an article, printed them off, intercepted the real issues, and made sure the whole fucking school hated Fender. And let's not forget me, too. Fender's dumb, faggot boy-toy."
SAL: "If you saw our side of it - "
OSCAR: (yelling louder) "You didn't have a side of it, you asshole! You don't deserve a side of it - "
SAL: "I only got involved because I had beef with Abdul! Things just took off from there - "
OSCAR: "LOOK WHERE ABDUL IS! SIX FEET UNDER THE FUCKING GROUND AND STILL CLINGING IN DROPLETS TO MY SHOE! You fucking dipshit - " (he slams Sal against a metal cupboard)
(Sal tackles Oscar to the floor; Oscar wrestles and punches him; they fight; they get to their feet and Sal tries pinning Oscar against the main table; they're knocking over photos and other equipment)
SAL: "STOP! STOP!"
(they're in an awkward position: Oscar on top of Sal, not entirely on the ground but getting there; Sal grabs Oscar by the wrists to prevent him from punching him and puts a knee on Oscar's ribcage; Oscar goes slack and collapses on Sal, crying)
OSCAR: "He's dead. He's dead."
SAL: (pushing Oscar off of him) "Who's dead?"
(Oscar is lying on the floor crying)
GABI: (quietly, from the corner) "Fender, I think. I heard something about a suicide but I wasn't sure it was... him."
OSCAR: (muttering through crying) "I'm gonna fucking kill you..."
(Sal stands up and him and Gabi converge at the door; they're about to leave but Sal tries pulling Oscar to his feet; Oscar thrashes against him)
OSCAR: "Get off of me!"
(Sal drags Oscar to his feet, Oscar is thrashing; then Oscar passes out; Sal catches him)
GABI: "What the fuck happened?"
SAL: "I think he passed out."
GABI: "Just leave him here. He knows how to get out."
SAL: "Don't you think we've done enough, Gabi?"
(Sal picks Oscar up; they leave)