From kindergarten through eighth grade, he’d gone to Kinnakee Grade School; he had more connection with that side of the building than the high school side where he stood now, pieces of its refuse stuck to him.
He thought about opening the door, wandering through the silence on the other side, and then that’s what he was doing. Just saying hi to the old place. Ben heard the door shut behind him, and felt more relaxed. The walls here were lemon yellow, with more decorations outside each classroom. Kinnakee was small enough that each grade was just one class. The high school was different, twice as big because other towns funneled their teens in. But the grade school was always nice and cozy. On the wall, he spotted a smiley felt sunshine, Michelle D., Age 10, written along one side. And here was a drawing of a cat in a vest with buckle shoes—or maybe they were high heels—anyway it was smiling and handing a present to a mouse who was holding a birthday cake. Libby D., Grade 1. He looked but saw nothing from Debby, he wasn’t sure the kid could draw, come to think of it. She tried to help his mom bake cookies one time, breathing loudly and botching the recipe, then eating more of the dough than she cooked. Debby was not the kind of kid who had anything put up on the wall.
All along the hallway were rows of yellow bins where the students were allowed to keep personal items, each kid’s name written on masking tape on their bin. He looked in Libby’s and found a peppermint candy, partially sucked, and a paper clip. Debby’s had a brown lunchsack that stank of baloney; Michelle’s a pack of dried-up markers. He looked in a few others just for kicks, and realized how much more stuff they had. Sixty-four Crayola crayon box sets, battery-operated toy cars and dolls, thick reams of construction paper, key chains and sticker books and bags of candy. Sad. That’s what you get when you have more kids than you can take care of, he thought. It was what Diondra always said when he mentioned tight times at home: Well, your mom shouldn’t have had so many babies then. Diondra was an only child.
Ben started back toward the high school side, and caught himself scanning the fifth grade bins. There she was, the little girl Krissi with the crush on him. She’d written her name in bright green letters and drawn a daisy next to it. Cute. The girl was the definition of cute, like something on a cereal commercial—blond hair, blue eyes, and just well taken care of. Unlike his sisters, her jeans always fit and were clean and ironed; her shirts matched the color of her socks or barrettes or whatever. She didn’t have food-breath like Debby or scrapes all over her hands like Libby. Like all of them. Her fingernails were always painted bright pink, you could tell her mom did them for her. He bet her bin was filled with Strawberry Shortcake dolls and other toys that smelled good.
Even her name was right—Krissi Cates was just a naturally cool name. By high school, she’d be a cheerleader, that long blond hair down her back, and she’d probably forget she ever went crazy over this older boy named Ben. He’d be what then, twenty? Maybe drive in with Diondra from Wichita for a game and she’d look over mid-bounce and see him, break into a big white smile, do a little excited wave, and Diondra would do her hee-haw laugh and say, “Isn’t it enough that half the women in Wichita are in love with you, you gotta pick on poor little high school girls too?”
Ben might never have met Krissi—she was a grade above Michelle—but he got recruited one day at the beginning of the school year. Mrs. Nagel, who always liked him, grabbed Ben to help monitor the after-school art class. Just for the day. Her usual monitor hadn’t shown up. He’d been due back home, but knew his mom couldn’t get pissed at him helping with the little ones—she was always on him to help with the little ones at home—and mixing paint was a hell of a lot more inviting than hauling manure. Krissi was one of his kids, but she didn’t seem that interested in painting. She just moved the stuff around with her brush until her whole paper turned shit brown.
“You know what that looks like,” he’d said.
“Poop,” she said and started laughing.
She was flirty, even for a kid, you could tell she was born cute and just assumed people would like her. Well, he did. They talked between long flatlines of silence.
So where do you live?
Pour, slap, swipe. Dip the brush in the water and repeat.
Near Salina.
And you come all the way out here for school?
They haven’t finished my school yet. Next year, I’ll go near home.
That’s a long drive.
Squeak of a seat, slump of a shoulder.
Yup. I hate it. I have to wait hours after school for my dad to get me.
Well, art’s good.