Signs of Life Read online

  Jeremy stood there, caught up in his little epiphany. Brent was dead. Jeremy had a new life now, a new normal, not one that he’d asked for or would have wanted, but it was the only one he had and it was time to play the hand he’d been dealt. He firmed his lips with resolve. Starting today things were going to be different.

  Thank you, Kai, he said silently. Thank you for being just what I needed tonight.

  Chapter 4

  “DA FUCK is this shit?” The teenager looked belligerently at Kai as he held his quiz up over his head.

  “I told you, Terrell,” Kai said with studied patience. “It’s not going to be graded. It’s just a tool for me to see where you are right now, what you might have forgotten over the summer, and what areas I might need to focus on as we get started with the year.”

  “Well, fuck that. If it’s just for you and not for no grade, I ain’t doin’ it.”

  Kai knew he was posturing, challenging Kai’s classroom management, trying to see what he could and couldn’t get away with. The problem was typical classroom management techniques wouldn’t work with students like this, students who hated and had no respect for authority, who just had their butts in a seat to keep their probation officers off their backs so they could stay out of juvie. The best tactic was not to engage, and try to do the best he could for the kids who were here and actually wanted to learn.

  So he leaned back against his desk in a relaxed manner, crossing his arms and his ankles, a picture of unconcern.

  “If that’s your choice, Terrell, I’d just ask that you sit quietly and respect the other students that may want to do it.”

  Terrell made a show out of crumpling up his paper and shoving it aside, crossing his arms mutinously. A couple of other kids followed his lead and did the same thing, drawing the line in the sand, just as Kai expected. Part of the reason he did this little exercise at the beginning of each year was for this very thing: he wanted to see who followed the herd and who was self-confident enough to buck the trend.

  After a few minutes of observation, he had his classroom mentally divided into three groups: Terrell and his followers; the ones who might want to do the work if they weren’t afraid of not fitting in with Terrell and his followers; and the ones who determinedly turned their backs on those other two groups and put pencil to paper. There weren’t all that many of the last, but Kai would take it and run with it. He was a firm believer that education was power, and it had saved him, so he would do what he could for those who would let him.

  “Mr. Daniels?” a tentative voice asked.

  “Yes, Missy,” he said, smiling reassuringly.

  “Can you go over what the least common denominator is again? I forgot.”

  So it went, Kai considering the class a success since Terrell and his cronies pulled out their phones and spent the rest of class time in relative quiet, allowing him to teach the kids who wanted to learn. Two other periods followed, pretty much repeats of the first, and then a quick half hour for lunch before his science blocks started.

  He flopped down onto a couch in the teachers’ lounge and took a huge bite of his PB&J on wheat, washing it down with a few slugs of cold water.

  “Hey, Kai,” said a woman as she rummaged in the freezer and then popped her frozen meal in the microwave.

  “How’s it going, Trish?” he mumbled around another bite of his sandwich.

  “Can’t complain, only had one desk get thrown all morning.” She grinned ruefully at Kai.

  “You okay?” he asked with concern. Trish taught classes with the emotionally disturbed kids, and outbursts and throwing desks were all part of her day.

  “Yeah,” she said, picking at the label on her bottle of juice as she waited for her lasagna to cook. “Santo took care of it pretty quickly.” Santo was one of three burly security guards employed at the school, and Trish’s classroom was closest to their office; she or her teaching assistant could alert them with the touch of a button mounted underneath the lip of her desk.

  “Other than that it was okay. Looks like I have a pretty good group.”

  Unlike Kai’s homeroom students, who moved from classroom to classroom for each instructional block with the various different teachers, Trish’s students stayed in one room all day, and the different teachers came to them in order to provide more structure and stability, establish a routine. Kai was scheduled to start his math and science rotation with them during second quarter, so he’d be working with them eventually.

  “What about the desk thrower? What’s his story?”

  “Aw, it was basically just first-week jitters, Kai. I really think that once we work out our routine and settle into it, he’ll be fine.”

  Kai really admired Trish. Not a whole lot fazed her.

  The microwave dinged, and Trish sat down at the small table with her lasagna, picking at it and blowing on each bite before gingerly eating it.

  “How’s your day been?” she asked.

  “Typical,” Kai answered, finishing his sandwich and throwing his balled-up plastic baggie in the trash. “Narcissistic bully rallies his minions, the rest of the sheeple fall into line. Phones are put into play while the brave few who dare to laugh in the face of danger halfheartedly listen to my chalk-and-talk, maybe do some work if they feel like it. If I’m lucky I’ll get through to one or two of them by the end of the year. At least there hasn’t been any desk throwing, though.”

  Trish laughed quietly at Kai’s description, raising her juice bottle in a silent toast, sharing an understanding smile. They made a few more minutes of small talk about their respective summer breaks before each lapsed into silence, enjoying some peace and quiet before the afternoon session.

  Kai drifted a little, thinking about his summer. He had done a lot of solo hiking and had gone camping with Loren a time or two. There was even another trip to the Portland club, although this time Kai sat at the bar the entire evening, not interested in a random hookup.

  When he finally went back to the seedy hotel room after midnight, he found Loren passed out drunk in bed, their room rifled, Loren’s wallet and cell phone missing. He got Loren up and into the shower, then argued with him over making a police report.

  “I can’t call the fucking police, Kai. I am the police!”

  “You’re not the police here, dumbshit, you’re the victim of a crime. You need to report this.” Kai had watched Loren pace, both hands clutching his hair in agitation.

  “But I can’t risk it, Kai. I can’t risk my department finding out that I was up here. How would I explain that?”

  “You don’t have to explain shit to anyone, Loren! You took a trip up to Portland and you got robbed. End of story.”

  “I can’t risk it,” Loren repeated. “You know I’d have to disclose who I was with, list my movements during the night. If anyone on my squad found out I was at a gay club—”

  Loren didn’t finish his thought, his distress written all over his face. Kai grabbed his hand and pulled him down to sit on the bed next to him.

  “You know your work situation better than I do, man,” Kai said, rubbing Loren’s back soothingly. “If you don’t feel comfortable reporting it, then don’t. Okay?”

  Loren nodded. “I can’t, Kai. It’s not just about me, it’s my dad and brothers—”

  “I know. I get it. I’m not judging you, Loren.”

  Totally subdued, they packed up their stuff and headed back home, not caring if it was the middle of the night. As Kai drove, Loren borrowed his phone to make as many calls as he could, reporting his credit and debit cards stolen. He finally hung up and sighed heavily, then reached over and laced his fingers with Kai’s, resting their joined hands lightly on Kai’s knee.

  “I think we’re done with this shit, don’t you?”

  Kai rubbed his thumb over the back of Loren’s hand, thinking of what had happened, and that led to thoughts of Jeremy and their sordid encounter.

  “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “We are. It’s starting to feel a little path
etic, to be honest.”

  Loren squeezed Kai’s fingers lightly. “I just don’t want to be lonely, you know?”

  Kai knew he wasn’t talking about just sex, but about being able to be himself, not having to hide who he was, if only for a little while.

  He squeezed Loren’s hand back wordlessly.

  Trish scraping her chair back from the table jolted Kai out of his reverie.

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friend,” she misquoted with a wry smile, gathering up her bag and getting ready to head back to class.

  “Be safe, okay?” Kai saluted her with two fingers, then sat up straight. “Hey, Trish, wait a sec.”

  She turned and looked at him expectantly, her arms loaded down.

  “Have you ever had any self-defense classes?” Kai asked. “Just in case of—you know.” He waved his hand vaguely, but he’d heard more than one story of teachers, especially female teachers, being assaulted by their students. Trish knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “A couple of classes a long time ago, you know, jab your thumb in his eye or elbow his gut, that type of thing.”

  “I can teach you a couple of moves,” Kai said earnestly, standing up. “A couple of simple moves to incapacitate someone so you can get the hell away and find help.”

  Trish looked dubious. “You mean that ninja shit that you do? I don’t think I could do that. Obviously I’m not that athletic.” Her mouth twisted self-deprecatingly and she waved her hand down her body, indicating the few extra pounds she carried.

  “It would be something anyone could do, moves that are simple but effective. Think about it, Trish. A button on a desk doesn’t do you much good if you’re cornered across the room by someone twice your size.”

  Trish nodded. “I’ll think about it. It’s probably not a bad idea. Thanks, Kai.” She turned and left, and Kai gathered his own things, heading off to class.

  Fifteen minutes later he stood at the front of his afternoon science class, calling off the names on his roster, sighing as he tallied a total of sixteen out of twenty-four present. Most of the faces looking back at him were sullen, disinterested, some outright hostile. At least three of them were over eighteen, adults in a room full of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old kids.

  Kai walked amongst them, passing out his beginning-of-the-year quiz, making his silent assessments.

  “Dunno why da fuck I gotta be here, man,” one of the older students grumbled, snatching his paper from Kai’s hand.

  “You know why, amigo,” Kai said softly. “Probation officer says it’s either school or jail, right?” The kid glared, and Kai raised his voice. “I’ll take attendance again five minutes before class ends, so there won’t be any sneaking out halfway through.” A chorus of groans and muttered “fuck yous” met this pronouncement, and Kai smiled inwardly. He knew all their tricks; he’d perpetrated most if not all of them himself, once upon a time.

  “Okay, you all have fifteen minutes to complete the quiz.”

  He leaned against his desk and watched as the inevitable phones came out, quiz papers ignored, the scratching of pencils as a few kids did the work. So. Very. Fucking. Typical. Suddenly Kai was weary to his soul, weary of the uphill battle, the utter futility.

  “Why do you keep doing it, babe?” Loren asked him once as they sprawled side-by-side in their sleeping bags, the rain dripping from the towering trees above to plink on the roof of their small tent. “I mean, you have a fucking master’s degree. Go teach a lame-ass class at the community college, something you could do with your eyes closed. Collect your paycheck and sleep like a baby every night, man.”

  Kai remembered how he’d chuckled and changed the subject, convinced at the time he was making a difference, no matter how small and insignificant it seemed sometimes. Now as he watched a girl insolently hold his eyes as she tore her quiz paper into microscopic pieces and swept them onto the floor, he wasn’t quite so convinced.

  “Yo, Teach! I’m cold. Turn that off.” Another girl leaned back in her chair, waving her arm and indicating the window AC unit that was blowing merrily into the room.

  “It’s the middle of August, Tanya,” Kai said drily. “If the AC makes you cold, I’d suggest you bring a sweater from now on.”

  Tanya sneered at him, then looked around at the other kids before getting up and sauntering to the AC unit, making a big show of switching it off.

  “Fuck you, bitch! Turn that back on!”

  With another sigh Kai waded into the fray. Twenty minutes and a call to security later, Tanya was ejected and marched off to suspension. By the time Kai calmed the other kids down and regained control of the room, there were all of fifteen instructional minutes left. Once again the kids who might have wanted to actually learn something were highly shortchanged.

  As they filed out, Kai fought with all his strength not to pack up his things and follow them out the front door, never to return. He scrubbed his hands over his face roughly, and when he pulled them away, he was startled to see a girl standing next to his desk.

  “You remember me, Mr. D?” The girl was petite, slender, with light brown skin, hair a riotous mass of curls around her face.

  “Of course I do, Shauna. How’s Dante?” Shauna’s face broke into a smile at the mention of her eleven-month-old son, the reason she had to drop out of Kai’s class midyear the previous school term. She was bright and clever, had been one of his best students, and he was glad to see her back.

  “He fine, Mr. D, thanks for askin’,” she said shyly. “I’m glad I be back in your class this year.”

  “Me too,” Kai said gently. “If you do the work, you shouldn’t have any problem catching up with the credits you missed last year.”

  “I’m gonna finish this time, and graduate. I wanna get a scholarship for nursing school. Ms. Holbrook told me I prob’ly could.”

  “Ms. Holbrook would know, wouldn’t she?” Kai agreed. “She’s not the best guidance counselor here at school for nothing.”

  “She said it would look good on a scholarship application if I did some extra-credit stuff, like helped a teacher or somethin’.”

  Kai grinned at her, and was amused to see her blush. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? I could definitely use a smart assistant in this class.”

  “Can I start helping today? My mama has Dante ’til four, and I could—”

  “I think I have some copying and laminating you could help with. I’ll leave a stack in the office with instructions, so just get to it when you can, okay? And I’ll let Ms. Holbrook know you’re my assistant so she can keep track of your hours for that scholarship app.”

  Shauna’s smile lit up the room, her eyes bright with intelligence and determination, and Kai knew he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  LOUD RAP music broke into Jeremy’s concentration, his steady rhythm faltering. He ground his teeth and cursed under his breath, resisting the urge to childishly shake his fist at the rapidly disappearing car. It was the second time it had happened on this run, the first time when the rattletrap car full of punks was going the other way on the typically quiet backwoods road. Jeremy was sixteen miles into his habitual twenty, and while he wasn’t usually distracted so easily, there was nothing he hated worse than rap music. All the mental peace and quiet he had achieved vanished in an instant as annoyance once again swept through him. He breathed deeply through his nose and out his mouth, letting the soothing rhythm of his feet slapping the pavement calm him. He rolled his neck and loosened the tension in his shoulders, swinging his arms easily by his side.

  After a few minutes, his rhythm steadied once again and he felt the focus, the calm return as the endorphins flooding his body quieted the noise in his head. Today Jeremy had really needed the tranquility his runs brought him, temporary though it was, as the next day he was scheduled to take the Oregon bar exam. It was another step in his coming-back-to-life plan, and already he was feeling the effects of the stress and anxiety.

  It wasn’t like he was worried abo
ut the exam itself, but more simply what it represented. It was tempting to just go back into seclusion from the world at large, keep doing what he’d been doing for the past year, which was long-distance consulting with his two former firms in Florida and California, plus a sprinkling of pro bono work here and there, mostly contract review and brief drafting. He didn’t fool himself that he was any sort of hotshot. Despite his impressively high-priced education, he was relatively inexperienced by legal standards, only five years out of law school by the time Brent died. Jeremy knew full well if he didn’t have the father he did, he’d still be toiling away in some assembly-line law firm and trying to distinguish himself from the ranks of the other newbies.

  Still he did have the high-priced education and impressive grade-point average to go with it, and he found it kept certain doors open for him, especially since he was willing to do the sort of grunt paperwork a lot of lawyers were too busy to do. It kept his mind sharp and his knowledge up-to-date. Plus it was something he could do at home, and it had allowed him to isolate himself and keep his interactions with people to a minimum. That part of it needed to change, and after his epiphany the morning after the gay club, Jeremy was determined to take baby steps toward reclaiming his life, and becoming licensed to practice law in the State of Oregon was one of many such carefully planned steps. And about the only one he was able to bring himself to do so far, even a few months later. One day at a time, shithead, he reminded himself yet again. You’re in a better place than you were six months ago, so cut yourself some fucking slack.

  Jeremy used the small towel tucked into the waistband of his running shorts to wipe the sweat from his eyes, then took a sip of water from the bottle that hung from the belt around his waist. It was mid-August, a hot and humid day, though the towering trees from the national forest provided periodic shade that made the heat tolerable. Still heat and humidity wouldn’t stop Jeremy from running, like rain and sleet didn’t, like bitter cold didn’t.