Outlier: One mistake can destroy everything. (7 page)

Wednesday Morning

Jay pushed his broom lazily across the floor. The kids avoided him like they always do. Nobody spoke to him; nobody noticed him. Just a slowly moving shape down the center of an otherwise crowded hallway. Jay had his earbuds in—something he rarely did. He figured in case Sean came back, he’d see he wasn’t lying about the other day. His plan to get let go was slowly coming together. He wasn’t sure how it would work, but he couldn’t think of any alternative. It had to work. If it didn’t? Well, it had to.

He passed Miss Paimen’s room. Flowers and pictures and stuffed animals had been placed on her desk. The room was vacant. Jay didn’t know how long they were going to keep it that way. Jay stopped and slowly walked inside. The students assumed he was paying his respects, as they all had done over the past few days.

But Jay was thinking of something different, of what had happened Friday night. When he’d gone home, holding her bookmark in his hand, and then fallen asleep on the couch. Although he didn’t remember falling asleep. He usually remembered falling asleep, because it almost always took a long time. But he didn’t even remember thinking he was tired on Friday night. He had started thinking about Miss Paimen and her bookmark, and then he had felt sad.

Or at least, he thought he remembered feeling sad. He was looking at all the pictures on her desk. He started to feel sad again, and started to feel…strange. Like he was there, but he was watching himself. He lost himself. Watching himself looking at the pictures. Staring at her face. Sadness. Regret. The feeling seemed to go on and on. He lost track of time.

“Help! Oh my God, are you OK?” shrieked a girl just outside the classroom. A crowd quickly gathered around another girl who was lying on the floor.

“Give her some room; stand back, STAND BACK!” Mr. Rodriquez shouted, stepping out of his classroom. He leaned down and checked the pulse and breathing of the girl on the ground.

“Somebody call 911!” Several students complied. The ones who weren’t dialing were filming. Soon this would be all over social media. Six minutes later, the paramedics arrived. By then she was awake and groggy.

“Hi there, sweetie; can you tell me your name?” the lead EMT asked. A fortysomething black woman.

“Um…Lucy.”

“OK; great, Lucy. I’m Yvonne. Do you know where you are?” she asked, shining her penlight in both pupils.

“School. What happened?” Lucy asked, surprised at the people standing around her.

“That’s what we’re here to find out, honey. We’re going to take you to the hospital just to get you checked out, OK? I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she said with calming confidence. She looked up at her subordinate and gave an imperceptible signal. He returned with a collapsible gurney. Two minutes later she was being whisked away to the local trauma center.

“Can somebody tell me what happened?” Mr. Rodriquez demanded. Now that she was in safe hands, he was concerned with any needed disciplinary action. The students looked at each other in confusion.

“I was with her,” said Chi, who had first leaned down to check on Lucy. “It was him!” She pointed at Jay, who was still standing frozen in Miss Paimen’s room. Jay’s face suddenly transformed from a vague daze into pure horror.

“No, it wasn’t; I saw the whole thing,” a boy volunteered. “She was just walking down the hallway and collapsed. She fainted or something. That janitor guy wasn’t even near her.”

Jay looked at Mr. Rodriquez with desperate eyes.

“I didn’t even see anything!” Jay explained. “I was just saying goodbye to Miss Paimen.” He began to get defensive. Chi glared at him with a mix of fear and anger.

“OK, OK; everybody calm down. Anybody who actually saw what happened, come with me to the V.P.’s office and we’ll sort this out.” He looked around at the crowd of students and turned to walk to the administration office. Chi, the boy who had spoken up, and two other girls followed him. A few meters down the hall, Mr. Rodriquez stopped and turned.

“Everybody else, get back to class—NOW!”

As he turned back, the crowd slowly dispersed, all quietly chattering in excitement. A few eyed Jay suspiciously.

Jay slowly walked out of the room and continued pushing his broom down the hall, aware of all the eyes upon him. He dared not meet them.

His plan had taken on much more urgency. And much more danger. He no longer wanted to simply escape. He was angry. Very angry. And he wanted them to know it.

He hadn’t done anything. But he would.

Very soon.

Wednesday, 7 p.m.

Jay had finished on time. The police hadn’t come, and nobody had believed her when that stupid girl had blamed him for that other stupid girl passing out. Why did girls get all the attention anyway? He was shuffling down Figueroa Street, hands in his pockets, staring at the ground. It was a warm night, despite being fall. The sun had just set, and the streetlights were on. The few people who were out treated him the same way the kids did at school. No eye contact. No recognition. Just quickly avoided him as he shuffled along.

He stopped, for a reason he didn’t quite understand, and looked to his right. He was standing outside Lappert’s, the local ice cream shop. More girls inside. Stupid girls. All smiling and laughing and having fun. They didn’t care about him. When he was in school, he’d always hear the other kids talking about going there after school. Nobody ever invited him. He’d walk by, but never walk in. He was too scared, and he felt out of place. Like he didn’t belong. Just like now. He was standing outside on the sidewalk, looking in. A few times he thought he saw some of the girls look up, notice him, and then quickly look away. He was sure they were talking about him, laughing about him.
That retarded janitor.

He turned away and walked down the street to the end. Not far. Only about fifty meters. There was a small park overlooking the bay. He found a bench and sat down, hands in his pockets. He turned and looked at the ice cream shop. The lights inside made it stand out on an otherwise quiet street. The barber shop next door was closed early. Further down was a small strip mall with a laundromat and a place that did check cashing.

He looked into the vacant park. Sometimes he saw Hurley here, an older guy who sold pot to college kids. Why did people do drugs? He didn’t know. He thought of those guys last month at the hospital. Or that place that didn’t look like a hospital on the outside, but looked kind of like one on the inside.

He had to take the bus to get there. He went there every weekend for four weeks. Each time they gave him 14 pills. And each week they’d ask him all kinds of questions. Easy questions, but lots of them. And they made him watch TV. That was strange. The TV had commercials, but ones he’d never seen before. They seemed a little strange. He didn’t know why.

The pills didn’t do anything. They were supposed to make him relax. They didn’t make him do anything. But they paid him five hundred dollars just for trying them. He was sad when they told him he was finished. They thanked him and paid him. They were nice to him. They kept asking him if he was comfortable, how he felt. Nobody ever asked him that. Maybe they’d let him do the test again. He thought he had that email they sent. Maybe he’d check.

He looked at the ice cream shop again. Angry and alone. He stared at the window, and imagined all those young, pretty girls on the other side laughing at him and making fun of him like when he gave that speech at school. The more he stared at the glass, the angrier he got. Stupid girls. Stupid laughing girls.

The glass seemed to move. Small waves started to vibrate across the surface as if somebody were shaking it. As it moved, the sounds of the girls laughing in his head became louder and more vicious. He imagined them standing in front of him, pointing and laughing. Jay started gritting his teeth, slowly rocking back and forth on the bench.

The glass shattered, sending shards flying inward toward the shop. Jay could hear girls screaming all the way from the park. He stopped.

Shocked. Frozen.

A barely perceptible, knowing smile of realization slowly appeared on his face.

He rose slowly, turned, and walked home.

“You say the injuries are non-life-threatening?” Sean wrote down the information and the location of the hospital.

“And somebody threw a brick at the window. Got it. So we’re looking at anywhere from potential vandalism up to attempted murder based on intention. Got it, Chief.” He clicked off, glad he hadn’t decided to knock back a few G&Ts this evening. He checked his watch. 9:30 p.m. The other officers had taken information, but they needed some follow-up. He didn’t mind this one, as there may have been an actual perp who intended harm. He’d already talked to Greg, the only officer on-scene. So far only broken glass. No object. Still, broken glass can be considered a weapon regardless of how it had broken.

Twenty minutes later he was walking down the hallway of the hospital. The nurse told him the injured girl was in room 514. He knocked on the door, checking his notebook. “Lisa?” he asked loudly as he entered the room.

She looked up at him as he walked in. No parents.

He sat on the chair next to the bed. “You by yourself?” He tried to smile; no big deal.

“Yeah, my mom is on her way; she had to get out of a split shift.” 

He didn’t ask about dad. “So, you want to tell me what happened?” He sat down next to her bed.

“Well, there were three of us: me, Stacey and Becky. Then that guy, the janitor? He was just standing outside the window, like all creepy. We tried to ignore him, and then the glass broke.”
Jay, huh? Maybe this guy was doing something after all.

“Where were you looking when the glass broke?” Eyewitness testimony was always sketchy at best.

She cocked her head, trying to think. “Like I said, after we noticed him staring, we tried to ignore him. I guess I was looking at Stacey or Becky?” She seemed unsure.

“So, did you see him break the glass, or did you hear the glass break?”

“Well, he was there, and then it broke. I don’t know who else it could have been…” she trailed off.

“Did you see anybody else outside, before or after you saw the janitor?”

“No, nobody else.”

“OK. What did the doctors say?” Sean asked, motioning to her bandages. Her left forearm was wrapped, and she had a few small stitches on the left side of her face.

“He said I can go home tomorrow after my mom gets here and signs some papers.”

“Well, that’s not too bad. Say, you have the numbers and addresses of Stacey and Becky? I’m going to need to talk to them too.”

He wrote down their information. If Sean could corroborate that Jay was the only guy they’d seen, that might be enough to bring him in for questioning, but if they were as unsure as she was, he’d have to confess if they were going to move forward with this. He didn’t think that was likely.

As he was about to leave, she stopped him.

“Detective, why did that other guy ask so many questions?”

Other guy?
“I’m sorry, who are you referring to? Did the other officer talk to you?” He thought she may be asking about Greg.

“No, the guy that came here about twenty minutes before you. He said he worked for the government or something?”

Government?
He went back in and sat next to her as before.

“You’re saying somebody from the government came here to speak with you? Do you remember what, uh, branch or department? Did he say?”

She shook her head. “He said, but it was quick; and he showed me this badge, but it was so fast I didn’t really read it. He was wearing a suit, though, and a tie.” Sean suddenly felt self-conscious. He was wearing jeans, a polo shirt and a coat he’d thrown on.

“What kind of questions did he ask?”

“That was the thing; he asked me a lot more questions about that janitor guy. Like if he’d been acting strange around school or anything like that.”

Curious. Sean figured the best way was to just roll with it.

“Yeah, we sometimes work with certain government agencies on cases like this. Schools get government funding so sometimes they’re interested when students are in trouble. Things like that.”

She seemed to brighten up at that. Maybe being at the center of a federal investigation concerned with her safety would make her more popular.

On the way out, he decided to ask the nurse at floor reception.

“Anybody other than me come by here, looking official or anything?” he asked while holding his badge out long enough for him to read all the details.

“Yeah, some guy did come through, not too polite. Just flashed his badge and said ‘Government business’ or something. He seemed to know where he was going so I just let him be.” The reception nurse seemed to be buried in a mountain of paperwork, so Sean let him slide.

“OK, man; thanks. Say, if he comes back, could you give me a call? I’d appreciate it.” Sean left his card on the counter.

“Sure thing, man,” said the reception nurse, not looking up.

Sean was the only one in the elevator on the way down.

“Government man?” he said to himself. “Who the fuck?”