Read Online Garden of Evil by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page B

leave me, so you must have found
    A new way to tell me how you cared.
    A new language of love, called “hit”.
    I am trying so hard to learn it
    My love, my lover.
    But, please, give me time.
    No other language, as you learn it, makes you cry like this.’
    Jim closed the book and looked around. Some of the class were obviously baffled. Some looked completely indifferent, staring up the ceiling or frowning at their fingernails as if they hadn’t really been listening. A few of them, though, appeared to be upset. The pretty African-American girl with the beaded hair who was sitting in front of him had tears sparkling in her long false eyelashes, and was rummaging around in her beaded purse for a tissue.
    Jim dragged his chair around and sat close to her. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘The poem wasn’t meant to make
you
cry. What’s your name, sweetheart?’
    â€˜Jesmeka,’ she told him, dabbing her eyes. ‘Jesmeka Watson. Oh, shoot, there goes my frickin’ eyelash again.’
    Jim waited while she carefully peeled off her upper-left eyelash, and then he said, ‘So, Jesmeka – how did that poem make you feel? If you were to write down something about it, what would you say?’
    â€˜It’s the same as my sister Donisha and this guy she’s living with, exceptin’ Donisha has a little baby boy to take care of, too.’
    â€˜Really?’
    Jesmeka nodded, and sniffed. ‘Every night he comes home and either he’s high or he’s drunk or else he’s both, and he hits her just like the guy in the poem. And she’s always the same, with the split lips and the swelled-up eyes, and I keep telling her, kick the frickin’ loser
out
, girl, or else call the cops on him. But she always says he can’t help it, he’s depressed because he don’t have no job to go to, and him hitting her, that shows at least that he cares about her. She says she loves him and couldn’t bear to lose him – or worse still, if he just ignored her, like she didn’t even exist.’
    Jim laid his hand on top of hers and patted it. ‘I’m sorry, Jesmeka. I hope things work out all right for her. I didn’t mean to distress you like that. If you ever need any help – or your sister does – I’m always here. I know a whole lot of counselors of various kinds and I know a whole lot of cops, too. Tough cops, with nightsticks, who don’t particularly care for men who beat up on women. They call themselves the Nosebreakers.’
    He stood up and dragged his chair back behind his desk. He scanned the classroom for a while, as if he were searching for survivors at sea, and then he pointed to the boy who was sitting directly behind Jesmeka. This boy was white, and skinny, with a dirty-blond pompadour that stuck right up in the air, like a cartoon of somebody who had been scared by a ghost. He was quite good-looking in a starved, James Dean way. He was furiously chewing gum and texting on his iPhone.
    â€˜What’s your name?’ he asked him.
    The boy kept on texting until he realized that the classroom had gone silent and that everybody was staring at him. He looked around and said, ‘What?’
    â€˜I hope that message is of vital national importance,’ said Jim.
    â€˜This message?’
    â€˜
That
message.’
    Jim walked around and picked up the boy’s iPhone. On the screen, he had written: ‘BTD CU 2nite @ Rage AEAP maybe 8 we can do sum 420 then find sum kitty.’
    â€˜I see,’ said Jim, putting the iPhone down. ‘You’re bored to death, are you?’
    The boy pulled a face and said, ‘Doing this medium English stuff, that wasn’t my idea. My old man said I had to, so I didn’t wind up like him.’
    â€˜
Remedial
English,’ Jim corrected him. ‘“Remedial” meaning special teaching for people who can’t tell the difference between angel and angle,