Rook & Tooth and Claw Read online

  He clapped his hand against his cheek, shocked. Umber Jones was glaring at him with his amber-coloured teeth clenched in a grotesque snarl. “I told you not to tell them but you told them, didn’t you? You disobeyed me!”

  The classroom was suddenly silent. All of the students stared at Jim wide-eyed. Blood ran down between his fingers and dripped off his elbow. “I didn’t tell them anything,” he said. “They were sensitive enough and intelligent enough to work it out for themselves.”

  Umber Jones seemed to rise and swell, so that he was nearly seven feet tall. His suit was black, with a black buttoned-up vest which Jim could clearly see, yet there was a shadowy transparency about it. He could faintly distinguish the faces of some of his students through it, Ricky and Beattie and Sherma Feldstein.

  Umber Jones said, “Now they know about me, maybe they need a little lesson on what will happen if they talk about me to anybody else.”

  “Don’t you touch them, not one of them!” Jim retorted.

  “And who’s going to stop me?”

  “Listen, I’ll do anything you want! You want me to go back and talk to Chill? Fine, I’ll do it. But just don’t touch my students!”

  “You’ll do anything I want, whether I touch them or not. You’re my friend, Mr Rook, remember?”

  Jim jumped up, knocking his chair over, and made a grab for Umber Jones’ arm. His hand passed through it as if it were smoke. Umber Jones swished his hand down and cut Jim’s left sleeve open. Then he swished it sideways, nicking the tip of Jim’s nose. If he hadn’t dodged his head back in time, Umber Jones would have sliced his entire nostril open.

  All that his class could see was Jim dancing and whirling on his own, his sleeve ripped open and blood flying in all directions. Muffy began to scream, and then Jim staggered against Jane Firman’s desk and she began to scream too. The boys shouted in alarm. “Hold him! Somebody hold him! Go get Mr Wallechinsky! Don’t let him fall!”

  But Tee Jay suddenly stood up and shouted, “No! You hear me? Don’t call nobody! Shut the hell up and stay where you are!”

  There was a sudden hush, all except for Muffy, who kept up a monotonous self-pitying sniff. Umber Jones stepped away from Jim, holding his blade up high, his eyes almost crimson with cruelty. Jim pulled a bunch of Kleenex out of the box on his desk and pressed them against his cheek. He felt shocked and hurt but worst of all, he felt that he was weak. He was supposed to protect his students, but he couldn’t.

  Tee Jay said, “You listen to me good. You’re all going to walk out of here today and you’re not going to say one word about what you saw. Because the man in black that Mr Rook here was talking about, he’s real, even if you can’t see him for yourselves. I seen him. I seen him that day when Elvin died and I can see him now, as plain as day.”

  He stood in the centre of the class, looking at every one of them. “Maybe you didn’t believe in him before, but take a look at those cuts on Mr Rook’s cheek and tell me where they come from. If you don’t want that to happen to you, keep your mouth shut and you don’t say nothing to nobody. And if you need any further persuading, go to the funeral home and ask to take a look at Elvin.”

  “So who is this man in black?” Russell Gloach challenged him.

  “He’s like a ghost, that’s all.”

  “A ghost?” said Ray. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “Well, he’s more like a spirit. He isn’t dead … he’s just walking around outside of his body.”

  “How come you know so much about him?” asked Sue-Robin.

  “He’s the spirit of somebody I know. That’s why he’s here.”

  “Can’t you tell him to leave us alone?” said Jane, miserably. Her eyes were filled with tears and she was deeply distressed.

  Tee Jay emphatically shook his head. “This spirit isn’t the kind of spirit you can give any kind of orders to. You want to live a long, peaceful life? You give this spirit respect, and you give him plenty of space. You understand that?”

  Jim came forward. He didn’t look at Tee Jay, but he said, “Tee Jay’s right, everybody. It’s in your own interest if you don’t tell anybody what happened here today. Even your family, or your closest friend.”

  “But what can we do about it, this spirit?” asked Beattie, looking nervously around the classroom. “Can’t we do what they did in that movie when the girl’s head went round and round?”

  Jim looked at Umber Jones but Umber Jones kept his head lowered so that his face was obscured by the brim of his Elmer Gantry hat. “We can’t do anything,” said Jim. The class could sense the defeat in his voice and they quietened down.

  Jim dabbed at his face. It had stopped bleeding, but it still needed cleaning up. He would have gone straight to the infirmary, but he wasn’t going to leave his class alone with Umber Jones.

  “Let’s get back to the poem,” he said. “Tee Jay – you want to return to your seat?”

  Tee Jay gave him a shrug and sprawled back into his chair. Jim returned to his desk, picked up his chair, and sat down in front of his blood-stained poetry book. He glanced up at Umber Jones, but Umber Jones remained where he was, silently smoldering, his face still concealed.

  The class whispered and shuffled their feet, half-bewildered and half-fearful. “Come on,” said Jim. “Let’s get back to the poem. He won’t do you any harm if you do what he says, will he, Tee Jay?”

  “If you say so, Mr Rook.”

  Jim said, “I want you all to think what the poet was trying to explain. I mean – is this real, the floor splitting and the walls melting, or is it an allegory? If so, what kind of an allegory? And what does he mean by ‘certain magic laws’?”

  The class remained silent. They knew that Umber Jones was still there, whether they could see him or not. But after a few moments, Umber Jones took off his hat, and ran his hand through his ash-powdered hair, and looked up at Jim with a sloping smile. “Chill frightened you, didn’t he?” he said, in that sack-dragging voice of his.

  Jim ignored him, but pointed to Greg, over in the corner, and said, “Greg – what did you think he meant by ‘certain magic laws’?”

  Greg squeezed his face into ten different expressions before he managed to say, “Superstitions … you know what I mean? Like spilling salt or walking under a ladder.”

  “That’s very good, Greg. Taboos, that’s what he was talking about. That comes from the Polynesian word ‘tabu’, meaning a sacred or significant object.”

  Umber Jones said, “You should have someone look at your cheek. Nasty cut, that.”

  “Don’t interrupt,” Jim told him, even though he was still shaking. “No matter what you do, these children still deserve their education.”

  They locked eyes for a moment. Then Umber Jones said, “Okay. I’ll send you a messenger.”

  “Not Elvin, please. Let Elvin rest in peace.”

  “Elvin? Elvin doesn’t want to rest in peace. Elvin’s glad to be out and about.”

  Jim couldn’t think what to say. But Umber Jones began to shudder and fade, and in a few moments his smoke had disassembled itself, and blown away, as if he had never been there at all.

  “He’s gone,” said John Ng. “Look at my crystal. It’s clear.”

  “Is he really gone?” asked Rita.

  Jim said, “Yes. I think we can all breathe a little more easy.”

  “But what does he want?” Sherma insisted.

  “Nothing that has to worry you,” Jim told her. “I’m just sorry that you’ve all gotten involved.”

  “Come on, Tee Jay, tell us what he wants,” demanded Russell. “I mean you seem to be such buddies with him.”

  Tee Jay said, “You heard Mr Rook. He doesn’t want nothing that has to bother you. All he wants is space and respect.” He put his fingertip to his lips, in the same way that Umber Jones had done when he looked through the classroom window. “And silence.”

  He turned to Jim and said, “You need to get that cut fixed, Mr Rook. How about I take you down
to the nurse?”

  There was something in his tone of voice that made Jim immediately put down his bloodstained poetry book and say, “All right, Tee Jay. The rest of you … I won’t be too long. Why don’t you write me a poem of your own about your own superstitions … anything that frightens you. Breaking a mirror, treading on the cracks in the sidewalk, the number thirteen …”

  The class looked up at him, still confused and upset. He left his desk and walked up and down the aisles between them, touching their shoulders, squeezing their hands. “Listen,” he said, “something very strange and dangerous has happened here. But so long as we don’t lose our nerve … so long as we all stick together, everything’s going to work out fine.”

  Tee Jay stood up and took hold of his elbow. “Come on, Mr Rook. Let’s get that face seen to.”

  They left the classroom and walked along the corridor. Mr Wallechinsky walked past, his cheek still covered in sticking-plaster, and Jim covered his own face with his hand. “How’s it going, Mr R?” said Mr Wallechinsky, and Jim said, “Great.”

  They rounded the corner at the end of the corridor and Tee Jay stopped. “Mr Rook … I got something to say to you. I know you hate me. I know you think that I helped my Uncle Umber when Elvin got killed, but it wasn’t that way at all.”

  Jim stood with his back against the wall. In the distance, he could hear the persistent squeaking of basketball boots on a polished wood floor. He wasn’t feeling particularly friendly or amenable. His collar was sticky with blood and he was still trembling with shock. But all the same, Tee Jay was looking deadly serious, and much more like he used to be, instead of the furious swearing hoodlum who had beaten up on Elvin in the washroom.

  “All right,” he said. “What way was it?”

  “It started six months ago, when my Uncle Umber turned up at the door without no warning at all. He said he was back from travelling all around Europe and Africa or wherever, and that he wanted to get to know us again. I didn’t remember him. Like I was about two when he first left LA. Mom didn’t seem to like him too much, but he was Dad’s brother after all and what could she do? I thought he was great. He was funny and he was full of these wild stories about voodoo ceremonies and altars made out of human bones, and priestesses who could speak in languages that nobody had ever heard of.

  “He taught me all about it. He showed me. He made me see that voodoo is the one true religion, you know what I mean? And it has to be, because it’s the only religion that’s real. It’s the only religion with evidence for what you believe in.”

  “Well, I’ll give you that,” said Jim, taking his hand away from his face and showing Tee Jay the blood on his fingers.

  Tee Jay said, “I’m sorry about that, Mr Rook. I wouldn’t have had that happen for the world.”

  “And Elvin? What about Elvin? I suppose you wouldn’t have had that happen for the world, either. But Elvin’s dead; or what passes for dead.”

  “That’s why I’m talking to you now, Mr Rook. When Uncle Umber killed Elvin, that was when I first found out just how far he was prepared to go. He said he was going to make Elvin show some respect. I never knew that he was going to kill him. I swear it.”

  “You were there when it happened. Why didn’t you try to stop him?”

  Tee Jay shook his head. “You can’t do nothing to stop him, Mr Rook. He can call on all the strength of Vodun and Baron Samedi and every spirit you never heard of. See – when he lived in Venice in the ‘seventies, he was scratching for a living washing white peoples’ cars and looking for handouts. He promised himself he wasn’t never going to demean himself like that again. He was going to find the real black power. Not the political black power, but the magical black power. And he promised himself that he was going to come back to LA one day and take over everything, and be respected and rich, so that there wasn’t one single white man who would ever be able to pop his fingers at him and call him boy. He wasn’t going to let nobody show disrespect to him or his.”

  “And that’s why he killed Elvin?”

  Tee Jay swallowed and nodded. “Elvin was always laughing about voodoo. I tried to tell him that it was the only religion that a black man could proudly have. But all he did was diss me, on and on. I could take it for myself, but when he started dissing Baron Samedi, that was something else. He said, you going to start biting the heads off of poultry and strutting up and down with your face all white and your high black hat on? That’s when I hit him. I’m sorry I hit him. But he shouldn’t of said that. Not about something I truly believe in.”

  “Then what happened?” Jim asked him. “Your uncle came to college? How did he know you were feeling so upset?”

  “I called him at home, because I was afraid that Dr Ehrlichman was going to can me. He asked me what had happened and I told him. He said he was going to fix it, and of course he did. Or his Smoke did, anyways.”

  Tee Jay took a deep breath and Jim could tell by the thistle in his throat that he was close to tears. “Uncle Umber told me to call Elvin into the boiler-house. I told Elvin I was packing some speed. He walked in and Uncle Umber blew the goofer dust on him and he was paralysed just like he was dead. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. But all the time his eyes were staring at me, like pleading, you know? Uncle Umber said that in Haiti they cut blasphemers one hundred and twelve times, one for each of the loa, to punish them for what they’ve done.”

  Tee Jay paused for a long, emotional moment. Then he said, “That’s what he did to Elvin, right in front of me. I was scared, Mr Rook. I was so damned scared. I knew that if I tried to stop him, he would do the same to me. He’ll kill anybody, Mr Rook, if they stand in the way of what he wants to do.”

  Jim said, “Why don’t you leave him, if you’re so damned scared? Why don’t you go back home?”

  Tee Jay looked down at the floor. “He won’t let me.”

  “That’s it? That’s the only reason? He simply won’t let you? Come on, Tee Jay, I know you better than that.”

  “That’s part of the reason. But the other part is … I believe in voodoo, Mr Rook. I really believe in it. It gives you power, and I can feel that power for myself. In my hands. In my mind. I never felt so strong. I never felt so confident. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m somebody important, with a future, you know? I feel like I’ve got a handle on my own destiny.”

  “I see. You’ve got a future, no matter who you hurt?”

  “I didn’t want Elvin to die, Mr Rook. I swear it. It won’t ever happen again.”

  “So what if Chill refuses to give Uncle Umber ninety per cent of his profits? You can swear that you won’t lay a finger on him?”

  “Chill’s a drug-dealer, man. He knows what the risks are.”

  “Oh, sure he does. But that doesn’t give you carte blanche to kill him. That’s a matter for the law.”

  Without looking up, Tee Jay said, “Mr Rook … this isn’t easy. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I respect you, right? You’re just about the only white person I ever met who understands what’s happening inside of my head.”

  But then he raised his eyes and said, “But voodoo … this is such a rush. This is empowerment. This is black people tapping the wells of their own heritage, right? I mean you’re always telling us that we ought to be true to our heritage, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not prejudiced against voodoo,” Jim told him. “I respect voodoo just as much as Roman Catholicism, or Shinto or anything else that anybody wants to believe in. But I don’t respect violence and I don’t respect extortion. Most of all I don’t respect murder. You should go round to see Elvin’s mom and dad and try to tell them how empowered you are, now that you’ve discovered voodoo.”

  Tee Jay said, “We’d better get you to the nurse.”

  “I think I can manage on my own, thank you,” Jim told him. He started to walk toward the medical room, leaving Tee Jay behind.

  Tee Jay watched him for a while, and then called out, “Mr Rook! Please don’
t chill me out, Mr Rook! I’m doing my best here, I swear it!”

  Jim stopped, but didn’t turn around.

  “I promise, Mr Rook, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that nobody else gets hurt.”

  “What if your Uncle Umber decides to kill somebody else? Who are you going to support then? Him, or me?”

  “He’s blood of my blood, Mr Rook. You got to understand that.”

  “Exactly,” said Jim, and limped off toward the medical room.

  The rest of the day was quiet and anti-climactic. While the boys went to the shop for welding and auto repairs, and the rest of the girls were given a talk on home management, Jim gave Jane Firman a one-to-one lesson in word recognition, and then worked with David Littwin on his stammer.

  He liked David. In spite of his speech problems, he was always enthusiastic and co-operative, and he never took offence when he was teased by the rest of the class. Jim had never believed in pretending that his students didn’t have handicaps. Sooner or later they were going to have to face the world outside, and the world outside wasn’t forgiving when it came to bad stammers or thick accents or slowness of thought. Jim wanted to give his students confidence without pretending that their lives were going to be easy and that they were always going to be surrounded by understanding friends and politically-correct teachers. Some day, an impatient employer was going to ask David if there was any danger of getting an answer by Christmas, and David was going to have to deal with it.

  David had improved immensely since he had started in Special Class II, but Jim had no intention of making him feel that people were going to wait for ever while he s-s-s. Struggled to s-s-s. Say what he meant.

  At the end of the day, there was a knock on his classroom door. It was Susan. “Listen,” she said, “when I said we should keep a little distance between us, I didn’t mean three thousand miles, and I didn’t mean forever.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jim said, thrusting a sheaf of essays into his briefcase and snapping it shut. “I’ve been extra-specially busy today.”