Let's Get Back to the Party by Zak Salih

Author:Zak Salih
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2021-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

Four

The Little Deaths

Sebastian

Amazing, how students could emerge, ex nihilo, in a school this small. That I could have passed someone countless times in hallways and have no idea he existed. Only now, in the doldrums of early January, the students still moping from a short Winter Break, had I become aware of this student’s existence. Showing up outside my trailer during the Wednesday afternoon meetings, wearing a puffy jacket over a school hoodie with the initials MSS. Keeping his distance, waiting for Arthur to walk across the blacktop toward my trailer so he could point at him and mouth the word Slut.

That’s Trent, Arthur said when I asked him one afternoon if he knew that boy, as if the answer should have been obvious. He lives in my neighborhood. We’re not friends, obviously. I drew the blinds to the trailer’s front window and went back to my desk. Our after-school group was discussing winter prom and plans to march in June’s Capital Pride Parade with students from other district schools. At the end of the meeting, I pulled Arthur aside. Is he bullying you? You can tell me if he is. It’s important I know. Arthur shrugged. He’s annoying, he said. But I can take care of myself. He’s just bitter Raymond’s going to winter prom with me, not him. He thinks because I’m the new kid this year I’m going around stealing everyone’s boyfriends. So he’s gay, too, I said. He’s an idiot, Arthur said. I’m here to help, I said. Oh I’m fine, Arthur said. He left the trailer. I watched him make his way across the basketball courts, face forward, swinging his messenger bag by its straps like a mace.

Over the next two weeks, our AP Art History class wound its way through the Italian Renaissance. The students endured image after image of putti and saints, of chiaroscuro suppers and depositions. There were several Caravaggio paintings. The Calling of Saint Matthew. The Crucifixion of Saint Peter. On a Monday toward the end of January, we discussed The Musicians. The image, transposed from my computer screen onto the whiteboard at the front of the class, was blown up as large as I’d ever seen it. I walked my students through the painting. I told them the central figure, the teary-eyed lute player, was a depiction of Caravaggio’s muse. I told them musicologists had taken time to recreate the sheet music held by the boy with his back to the viewer. And this last figure, I said. I made circles around the cornetto player’s face with my laser pointer. It’s a self-portrait of Caravaggio. I paused, then said, Kind of reminds us of our friend Mr. Ayer over here, doesn’t it? The eyes, the lips? I turned away from the whiteboard to look at Arthur. He stared at me as if he’d just swallowed something unpleasant. He shook his head. No, he said. I don’t see it.

After class, on my way to my car, I saw Arthur standing by the flagpole looking despondent.

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