Marvin glanced at the front door. Was there any way, he wondered, to get past this lunatic and run for his safety? “Someone had allegedly taken something from him.”
“Allegedly?”
Marvin saw the trap right away, and reconsidered. “Someone had taken his property,” he said, correcting himself.
“That someone would be a boy named Raymond Carnes, right?”
Marvin’s mind raced ahead to this same scene being played out in the Carnes household.
“That’s okay,” Gravenow said. “I understand your hesitancy to speak of the other boy. Particularly under the circumstances. But to refresh your memory, the Carnes boy had stolen a Saint Christopher’s medal that was given to Jon by his mother before she died. Jon told you this, did he not, the day before yesterday — the day when it was stolen?”
Marvin rolled his head on his shoulders. “His teacher did mention it to me, but when we asked the other party, he denied it ever happened. Without corroborating witnesses, we had no choice but to let the matter drop.”
“So, the thief went free.”
“The alleged thief. What else could we do?”
Gravenow leaned forward in his chair. “Let me tell you what I did,” he said. “I told my son to get the medal back, and beat the shit out of the kid who’d taken it.”
Marvin couldn’t believe that he’d heard correctly. “Then you must be very proud,” he said. “The other boy—”
“A broken nose, two broken teeth, and a sprained wrist,” Gravenow finished for him. Indeed, he was proud. He fairly glowed with pride, in fact. “And after you pulled the parties apart, what did you find in little Raymond’s pocket?”
Marvin rolled his eyes. He’d seen this coming. “The medal,” he said. “But in a civilized society—”
“My son’s medal,” Gravenow clarified. “In the pocket of the boy who claimed he had not taken it.”
“Mr. Gravenow, surely you’re not suggesting that the kind of violence your son delivered can be justified under any circumstance. It was only a thing. An object. Apparently an object of high sentimental value, but no reasonable person hurts someone for the sake of things.”
Gravenow smiled. “Because we live in a civilized society?”
“Exactly.”
“I see.” He turned to his son. “Jon?”
Marvin watched as the boy shifted his position on the sofa and reached behind the cushions to pull something out. When he saw what it was, Marvin thought he might cry.
Gravenow held out his hand, and Jon handed him a fifteen-inch wooden paddle, varnished to a high gloss and emblazoned with the Official Seal of Northern Neck Academy. “This look familiar to you, Headmaster?”
“Please don’t,” Marvin begged.
“Don’t what?” Gravenow said.
“Please.”
Gravenow stood. “Come now, Headmaster. Don’t get all shy on me now. Please don’t what? Hit you?”
Marvin felt tears on his cheeks. It was all he could do not to cower. He’d used that very paddle on Jonathan this afternoon. Fighting could not be tolerated.
“What, you think it would hurt to get hit with this little bit of wood?” Gravenow walked to Marvin’s three-month-old 27-inch television and took out the screen with a golf swing. Something flashed inside the box as the glass shattered. “Whoa, that’s got some heft to it. What do you use it for?”
Gravenow walked past Marvin into the dining room, where he took out the glass of the breakfront with three overhead chopping strokes.
“For God’s sake!” Marvin yelled. “Please stop!”
“They’re only things,” Gravenow mocked. Somehow, he zeroed right in on the china that had once belonged to Marvin’s great grandmother, and he reduced them to shards. “We don’t worry about objects, remember? What do you want me to take out next, Jon?”
The boy looked like he wanted to dissolve into the fabric of the sofa.
Gravenow poked Marvin’s shoulder with the rounded edge of the paddle. “You were going to tell me what you use this for,” he said.
Marvin wanted to hide. He wanted to run. He was in the presence of a madman. Whatever he said, nothing would be understood. “Discipline,” he said. Might as well spit it out and get it over with.
As Marvin tried to avoid his attacker’s eyes, Simon Gravenow kept moving his head so that they could lock gazes. “Do I frighten you, Headmaster?”
Marvin was crying openly now. “Please don’t do this.”
“Listen and answer! Do I frighten you?”
“Yes,” he mumbled.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”
“Yes!” He shouted it.
“But I haven’t even hit you,” Gravenow said. “I’m not even bigger than you. Imagine what it must be like to be a child when someone twice your size beats you with this.” He made a show of holding the paddle like a baseball bat and took a few practice swings.
“We don’t beat the children,” Marvin said through a sob. “The paddle is a tool, not a weapon.”
Gravenow took out the dining room chandelier with a full swing. “And what a fine tool it is. Share the procedure with me, Doctor Applewaite. How exactly do you use this tool?”
Marvin thought he might throw up. He’d never in his life felt so terrified, so helpless. “We paddle the students’ backsides when violations of policy are particularly egregious.”
Gravenow nodded dramatically, as if finally understanding a great discovery. “You paddle their backsides.” He spoke the words as if they tasted like vinegar. “Jon, stand up.”
“Please,” the boy said. “I don’t want to.”
“Now, boy. Show the good doctor the souvenir he left for you.”
Slowly and hesitantly, Jonathan Gravenow turned his back to them. His hands trembled as he lowered his jeans and underpants just far enough to show the purple bruises. Just a quick flash, and then he hiked them up again and retreated back to the sofa, where he began to cry.
“So, tell me, Doc. When does paddling a backside become the kind of violence that can’t be justified under any circumstance?” He leaned on the words that had come from Marvin’s own mouth.
Marvin was shocked. He had no idea he’d hit the boy that hard. Sure, he’d been angry, and the ambulance had just taken the Carnes boy to the hospital, but never in a million years did he think—
His chest exploded in pain as Gravenow landed a full-force swing in the center of his breastbone.
“That, for example,” Gravenow said. “Would you call that a paddling or a beating?”
Marvin struggled to catch his breath. “Please don’t kill me.”
“Tell me how it works, Jon. Where do you have to stand while he beats you?” After a moment of silence: “Answer me, son.”
“At his desk,” the boy said.
“Uh-huh. Well, the dining room table will do. On your feet, Headmaster.”
“Please don’t do this,” Marvin begged.
“Up to you, Doc, I’ll beat your ass with this thing, or your face. Decide now.”
This was so disproportional. Gravenow had it all wrong. This was so much more violent than any punishment meted out in his office.
“Face it is, then,” Gravenow said, and he set up for his swing.
“No!” Marvin yelled. He scrambled to his feet, despite the screaming pain in his chest, and darted to the dining room table. He faced it.
“Is this right, Jon?” Gravenow asked.
“His pants have to be down,” Jonathan mumbled.
“You heard the boy.”
His face burning with humiliation, Marvin undid his belt and pants and let them slide to his ankles. Now the world knew that he wore black Jockey briefs.
“He has to rest his forehead on his hands,” Jonathan instructed, and as Marvin did just that, he heard the boy giggle though his tears.