The Red Handle

No one was supposed to pull the red handle on the bus window: not unless there were a fire or some other dire emergency. Its mysteries beckoned like sirens, singing him secrets on his way to school. Lance ached for its smooth, cold touch, filling in the creases of his hand like a bar of the jungle gym. Suppose he should just let his palm rest there when a jolt from the road would cause him to move it—what then?
"Why do you always look at that thing?" Ashley asked Lance in a squeaky voice. Her shoulder-length brown hair petted his face with the jangles of the bus.
"I'm curious."
Lance might have had more friends if he ever spoke to anyone. No one spoke to him either. He carried himself with a silent intensity behind piercing green eyes; he seemed much older than his eight years suggested, and it intimidated his peers.
Ashley spoke to him. She was afraid of nothing and demure for no one. "Who cares? It's just a stupid handle. Stop looking at it like that!" Brown eyes squinted at Lance from behind thick, round glasses.
"Don't you ever wonder what would happen if it were pulled?"
"Probably sirens go off like, 'weeoo,' and then everyone gets off the bus and then you get in trouble like you deserve."
"How would that help if there were a fire? You don't need a handle to warn everyone. Something special must happen. And I want to know what."
"So pull it then! Geez you're weird. I don't even know why I sit next to you all the time. Anthony is much cuter."
"Yeah right. I saw Anthony eat his own boogers once."
"Nah-ah! You lie! He would never do that."
"I tell you I saw it. His fingers just went in like this. And then mmmm . . . into his mouth." Lance pantomimed the appropriate gestures for Ashley and then rubbed his tummy afterwards.

***

Mrs. Stapleton made careful arrangements to separate Ashley and Lance in class. It was only the first few weeks of school and they already had a reputation. According to Mrs. Stapleton, "Their behavior did not befit a proper learning environment." Lance was unperturbed by his teacher's attempts to thwart him. He saw them as challenges—opportunities to outwit the adults, his mortal enemies. Ashley responded with anger as usual.
"It isn't fair Mrs. Stapleton! Josh and Brett were talking yesterday and you didn't move them."
"I did not hear Josh or Brett yesterday. If I did, be sure that I would have moved them as well. Perhaps you should take a cue from them and speak quieter."
Ashley's face showed her frustration, but wisdom implored her to hold her tongue. Lance knew that for her, "quieter" was an impossibility. She would be quiet when she was dead. Until then, Lance set about devising ways for them to communicate despite Mrs. Stapleton's efforts.
Mrs. Stapleton was a shrewd woman stuck right in the middle of old and not so young. Her sandy blonde hair blended well with the gray. Her age was visible in the face and eyes; but her eyes were intelligent—an effect amplified by her thin-framed glasses. Her attention was always absorbed in her teaching, so at first it was easier to get away with mischief than Lance expected.
The first week of their separation, they passed notes; but a treasonous act from Heather taught them not to trust their peers. Next, Lance took to writing messages on the inside of his desk lid. When he lifted it up Ashley could see it if she were looking, provided she were also behind him. The key was to write the messages slower than the eye could see. Adults are like predators with vision based on movement, he reasoned. The less he moved, the greater the chance he could avoid capture.
It was difficult to write upside down, but Lance improved much in a couple of weeks. Comfort catches more prey than any delicate trap however; once complacency grew on Lance, Mrs. Stapleton discovered the desk messages. In one of her random trips to the back of the room to fetch the globe, she noticed his desk lid up with the sloppy message,"meeting by the swing set, watch out for mrs stupidton."
But she could not deter him. After a stern rebuke, he turned to cryptography. He began writing the messages in a code designed to look like nonsensical scribbles. He tried to get Ashley to learn it but she was too lazy. It didn't matter though; knowledge of his own elusiveness was good enough.
The other children thought that Lance was strange—spending all his time finding creative ways to break Mrs. Stapleton's rules. But it gave him something to do. While useless knowledge trickled over the other children like water from the hand-washing sink, Lance exercised his head. His games brought an abrupt end to the monotony of arithmetic and spelling—subjects that couldn't strike a fire in his mind for all the kindling in a dry forest.
"I think I know a way I can pull the handle and not get caught," Lance told Ashley after school on their walk home.
"You and your stupid handle,"she said.
"Just listen and tell me if you think it will work." He adjusted his backpack higher on his shoulders. "I'll make a string with a loop on it and carry it with me on the bus. Then I'll slip it around the handle and pull it when the bus hits a bump or something. That'll make it seem like an accident."
"Won't it seem suspicious that you brought a string with a loop on the bus with you?" Ashley walked now with her head pointed toward the ground. She skipped over cracks in the sidewalk as they came her way.
"I can tell them it's for a science project."
"What kind of science project would have a piece of string with a loop?"
"I don't know. What's it matter?"
"Duh. If you're going to lie, you might as well know what you're lying about."
Lance stopped walking and looked at her. "Well, I think it will work."
Ashley swirled her head around, whipping her hair, a few strands left to obscure her face. "So do it then. What do you need my permission for?"
They continued walking together until Ashley's house came up. They said their goodbyes and see you tomorrows, and Lance went on his way. Once at home, he spent the rest of the day scheming. He asked his mother for string, yarn, and other bits of fabric. She did not ask her son why he needed such trinkets. He was always concocting and his answer was always, "Just playing Momma." His father was not as amused.
"Why don't you find out what he's doing up there? I don't want him burning the house down."
"He's just playing, honey. Don't be so hard on him."
He tried different knots in different places. He tried yarn. He tried winding many pieces of string into one thicker piece to increase its strength. And he practiced pulling all of them with his door knob.

***

"Guess what happened at school today Mommy?" said Ashley when she walked into her house.
"What's that, sweetie?" Pauline sat in the living room watching TV. Her feet were propped up with cotton balls between her toes.
"Well, first I sat next to Lance again,"Ashley said as she put her bag down on the kitchen table." But Mrs. Stapleton moved us like always. Then we did some math. We learned to borrow which means you take the number after the one you're using and then you subtract. Or something—I forget. Then Mrs. Stapleton made me spell the word 'circular.' I think I did it okay. But Lance walked me home. We are going to get married some day."
"Is that so?" Pauline said as she blew on her toes, too quiet to hear. "Does Lance know of your plans?" Pauline smiled at her child's precociousness.
"I don't know. He never talks about his feelings—a typical man," Ashley rolled her eyes.
"I'm sure he doesn't. But don't let that fool you. Men have more feelings than you think." Pauline beamed at her daughter, but memory yanked at the corners of her mouth.
"He will take care of me. Like poppa used to. Remember momma? The way poppa used to tell me stories at night. And sometimes he would get on his knees and walk around like a great big bear. And he would chase me around the house. Remember momma?"
"Yes, I remember. Why don't you go play outside for a while?" Pauline's smile became a physical strain—an Olympian feat for which there were no medals.
"Okay. First I think I'll go write in my journal. Teacher says it's good to write stuff you think in a journal." Ashley scampered off to her room. Pauline turned the volume on the TV up and put her hand to her face to hide her eyes as she wept.

***

The next day, Lance was ready and anxious. He decided he had better pull the handle on the way home from school; that way, if anything happened, at least he wouldn't have to spend the whole day worrying about it. He barely spoke to Ashley. The little red handle occupied his every thought during class.
"You've been spacing out today major," said Ashley at recess. She sat on a swing next to him, rocking gently between crests and troughs.
"Today's the day," he said. "I'm going to pull it today."
"Why does it mean so much to you?"
"I don't know. I guess I don't like being told what to do. My Dad's always telling my Mom what to do. I wanna yell at him to stop, but I'm too afraid. Maybe doing things like this will make me stronger."
"Yes. I think I know what you mean. So you can be a big man and take care of me," said Ashley.
Lance stopped swinging, and looked at her. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Yes. I get it now," said Ashley, oblivious to Lance's question. "All this about the handle. It is to prepare you for fatherhood. I think you would be a great father. And I would be a great mother."
Lance became angry. "You don't want me to be your husband," he said. "I'm afraid of everything." He stormed off and left Ashley on the swings alone.
On the bus, Lance used his too-slow-for-eyeballs technique to slip the loop around the handle. Ashley sat a few seats behind him. It was the first time they did not sit together. She was solemn, eyes fixed on him like little laser beams. Lance was nervous, blanketed by silence and concentration. A slight vibrating indicated that the bus was ready to move. He waited. He tried to remain calm, but his breaths kept slipping into his upper chest—shallow and rapid. He looked back at Ashley and then turned away. He hoped she would not notice him. But she stared back, her face a still portrait like that day the photographer just could not make her smile. For the first time since Lance had known her, she did not seem intent on speaking. She looked as though she were about to cry or scream, he could not tell which. Lance awaited the proper bump on the bus ride. It happened sooner than expected. Up went Lance's hand—quick as a rabbit. A dull and grinding buzz pulled Lance and Ashley from their respective reveries. The bus' deceleration pulled them forward and the window swung outward.

***

Principal Cacklar folded his hands and leaned his elbows on his desk. Above his mostly bald head and to the right was a sign that read, "The Principal is Your Pal."
"That stunt you pulled today could have resulted in someone getting hurt," Cacklar said. "You know that don't you?"
Shame washed over Lance. He began sweating. He had not considered that his actions could have caused injury.
He noticed that the principal's office was a place built for fear. Its walls focused it like a magnifying lens. The single desk in the center of the room, filing cabinets and bookshelves on the side walls—all encroached on his lone chair situated in front of the principal's desk. And Cacklar looked stout and strong—the room was just too small for him. Lance did not want to cry, so he didn't speak. He did not want to run, so he didn't move.
"I'm not sure what to do about this," principal Cacklar continued. "You seem like a good kid. But Mrs. Stapleton has told me that you disrupt her class regularly and that you enjoy disobeying her. And now this. What did you think you were doing anyway?"
Lance heard his heart pleading him to open his mouth. To let truth pour from it in great fountains. To explain his need for breaking silly little rules. He was not made like other children. He did not want to go to school or listen to what grown-ups told him about a world he neither created nor asked for. Do your homework, be quiet, eat slower, sit down, and be good were all familiar phrases to him. He was a puppet. The other children did not seem to mind, but Lance felt it with a shiver in every breath.
Instead he said, "I d-did not w-want to hurt anyone!" The canal locks were open now—tears turned his face red and his clothing dark. "I just th-thought . . . I d-did not know what would h-happen. I d-didn't know it was such a b-big deal."
"You didn't know it was such a big deal? Did you know that there are strict regulations against this sort of thing?"
Lance's eloquence failed him as mucus threatened to choke his life away. "I'm s-s-sorry. It w-w-was an a-a-accident."
"Accident? I think not. Your string reveals premeditation. We have a zero-tolerance policy for this sort of tomfoolery. Too many pranks, too many yanked fire alarms. No, I'm afraid I must suspend you for a few days. Give you time to think about what you've done."
Tears and embarrassment prevented Lance from issuing any further lucid audible tones. Cacklar dismissed him before he could regain his composure. When he left, he saw Ashley sitting outside, looking serious while awaiting her turn in Cacklar's office. It was too much to bear. He had gotten Ashley in trouble too, and she could see him crying. He covered his face as he walked out of the school to await his mother's car.
"I did it," Ashley said to Principal Cacklar when she was seated before him. "It was me who pulled the handle, not Lance."
Cacklar furrowed his brow and sighed heavily. "Lance has already confessed."
"He was just covering for me. He didn't want me to get in trouble."
Cacklar eyed Ashley suspiciously for a few moments. Then, with effort, "Well, I don't know who to believe. I'm afraid I'll have to suspend you both. I'll call your parents now, to come pick you up."
When Ashley left his office, Cacklar sighed again and shook his head. "Whoever said this stuff was easy," he murmured to his secret-keeping, fear-focusing walls.
Ashley saw Lance sitting on the steps outside the school with a tear stained, embittered face. Lance did not know how to cry with grace—his tears were fuses, his head a pack of dynamite.
"I didn't mean for you to get in trouble too," Lance said to Ashley, wrapping his arm around his eyes and nose.
She sat down next to him and stared down at the steps. "No. I went in there to get in trouble. I wanted to be suspended too."
"Won't your mother be upset?"
"Yes, but I don't care. She doesn't pay a lot of attention to me. Ever since Dad left anyway. Just watches TV all day. I hate soap operas."
Lance wiped his face with his sleeve and sobbed. "My Mom will kill me. She thinks I'm a good boy. Wait till she finds out I'm not. And then she'll tell my dad, and he will see what a failure I am."
Ashley put her arm around him. "I don't think you're a failure. It took guts to do what you did."
"I can never be your husband," he said. "I'm not good enough."

***

Three days later, Ashley met Lance on the swings during recess. He looked ahead and swayed gloomily.
"Did your Mom or Dad yell at you?" Ashley asked.
"Not a lot, really," said Lance. "How about your Mom?"
Ashley took a seat on the swing next to him. "She was a little upset."
"Ashley," he said. "Promise me something."
"Anything Lance."
"Promise me you will never become an adult. I won't do it if you don't. I'm afraid I'll understand them. I don't want to understand them. I don't want to think like them."
Ashley smiled at Lance. "I can do that," she said.