It was true, about the hidden safe. Any big bills that came in after midnight—when they closed the big safe in the back—went into the hidden safe. And that was behind a panel at the back of the donut case.
Hamilton walked over to the donut case. He caught a whiff of the fresh coffee he made and felt nauseous.
“I’m instructed to tell you that we are on a video alarm system and there are other hidden cameras in the store . . .”
“JUST CAN IT, OKAY? GIVE ME THE MONEY OR I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?”
“Okay,” said Brad. His legs were now shaking uncontrollably. “I just started here, and they just taught me about this one thing. I don’t care if you take their money. Just let me figure this out.”
“MOVE!”
Brad opened the phony back of the donut case and fiddled with the strongbox combination. On his finger was the new class ring he’d picked up the other day.
“YOUR TIME IS RUNNING OUT, MR. HIGH SCHOOL . . .”
Brad was just about to get it open, just about there, when the phone rang. The gunman tightened.
“OKAY, ANSWER IT, QUICK!”
Brad looked up at the gunman. He wasn’t nervous. He was pissed. Pissed at everything. Pissed at life. All he had wanted was a decent senior year. All he wanted. All he wanted was to keep his job, his car . . . but that had been too much to ask. He got fired. He got caught beating off. Bad grades. And this guy! This asshole who waved a gun at him and called him Mr. High School.
Tears welled in Brad Hamilton’s eyes. “You motherfucker,” he said. “Get off my CASE!”
And then, just like it was the most natural thing in the world, Brad Hamilton reached for the hot, steaming coffee he had just made and poured it onto the gunman’s hand.
“AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
The .45 rattled to the floor. The gunman was still looking in horror at his red, swelling hand when Brad snapped up the gun.
The gunman’s accomplice, poised behind the wheel of the black Camaro, spotted the foul-up and screeched out of the parking lot.
“There goes your ride home, mister,” said Brad, gun trained on the 7-Eleven robber. “Look at the big man now! Look at Mr. I-Know-Where-the-Strongbox-Is!”
The gunman managed, in all his pain, to heave a carton of Butterfingers at Brad as he howled around the front of the store. But Brad was on a roll, now.
“Why don’t you just show me where the police alarm is now . . . come on, guy.”
And that was the story of how Brad Hamilton got his old spot back on lunch court. There wasn’t that much time left to enjoy it, but it felt good nonetheless.
Even better was how the local reporters started hanging around, and Janine Wilson from local news, and all the stories started coming out. Even Mr. Hand told him he’d done The American Thing—when your back is against the wall, all you can do is fight. Brad won. And damn if that phone didn’t ring at the Hamiltons’ late one night.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Brad!”
“Yes? Who’s calling?”
“Bradley, this is Dennis Taylor down at the Ridgemont Drive Carl’s. Listen, I hope I’m not bothering you right now.”
“I’m pretty busy,” said Brad.
“Brad, listen, I’m going district here in a couple weeks, and I was wondering if you wanted to come back down here and work with us again. You can have your old fryer back. We’d love to have you here. Everyone wants you back, buddy!”
The nerve. The ultimate nerve of the guy.
“Last time I talked to you,” said Brad, “you wanted me to take a lie-detector test. Now it’s ‘Am I disturbing you?’ ”
“I know what’s eating you, Brad. That incident with the money. Well, that money turned up in the dumpster after you left. I am sorry. I should have called.”
“Yeah, you should have.” Brad paused. “And I probably would have taken your lousy job back if I hadn’t taken a district supervisor job myself—with 7-Eleven.”
The Last Bell
On the last day of school, Mike Damone stood at his locker and cleaned out the last mimeographed sheet crammed into the back corner.
“If this paper could talk,” he said.
Standing next to him was The Rat. “Well, Damone. In the end, it looks like it comes down to just you and me.”
“Looks like it.”
Damone clanged the locker door shut. “A very touching moment,” he said, “I feel like I just ripped my heart out. A whole year I spent in that little box. It’s like a brother to me.”
“You could get the same locker next year.”
“I considered it. It’s a pretty good location. I’ll have to see where my classes are. This is a good sosh area, though. You get a good crowd that comes by.”
The school was all tank tops and t-shirts, red faces and Frisbee discs. You knew it was almost over when people actually saved the last issue of the Reader. For once it wasn’t blowing all over campus.
“Stacy wants you, you know,” said Damone. “You should go for it.”
“No way, man,” said The Rat. “I can’t wait to get my car and head for Flagstaff.”
“She should come to you,” said Damone.
“Says who?”
“Says The Attitude.”
“The Attitude,” said The Rat, “is only good until you meet the right girl.”
“Whatever you say, Rat.”
Students were still signing their annuals, hanging lazily out the windows, and talking with friends. Mr. Bates was playing his ukulele in social studies class. On this day, school was a countdown.
There were many rumors of an elaborate end-of-the-year stunt for the last day. But the fact was, given the chance of staying and pranking or getting out . . . Ridgemont students went.
Across the commons, Damone saw Steve Shasta striding down the hallway in all his glory. Shasta had been selected for a Yale scholarship, their first for soccer. They had pulled him out of class to tell him, and his mom was sitting there in the office and everything. Teachers were giving him investment advice. They had given him the treatment in the local press, too.
Now, Damone wasn’t in the habit of asking a lot of people to sign his annual, but it was Shasta. You couldn’t help but yell something at the guy.
“Hey, Shasta! You hear about the big party on Marine Street?”
Shasta caught a look at who was calling his name. “Yep,” he said.
Mike Damone trotted up with The Rat following behind. “Sign my annual, Shasta.”
“Yeah,” said Shasta, bored.
“Bet you’re happy.”
“Yep.”
Shasta opened Damone’s annual to a soccer shot and signed, right under his picture: “Best wishes, Steve Shasta.”
Damone laughed as if it were a joke. Okay, he felt like saying, now sign it for real. But that was it. Shasta was already a big soccer star. No time for personal messages that might be worth something someday.
“Thanks,” said Damone.
The Rat had to go to class, so Damone sat out on lunch court for a time. Brad Hamilton was sitting out there too, finishing an assignment for Mrs. George’s Project English class. It was the ten-year letter she asked all her seniors to write. The letter was meant for yourself, and Mrs. George was going to mail it back to you (at your parents’ address) in ten years. “Be relaxed,” she’d said. “Be natural. Say exactly what’s on your mind today. This is one paper that will not be corrected for grammar.”
Damone decided to take a walk by the 200 Building, where Mrs. G. taught class. What he found was no real surprise at the end of any semester. It was a full speech class. They were all there on the last day, the last-chance students appearing to get their grades. Damone took a seat by the open door.