Page 1 of I Will Ruin You

One

Richard

I was steering my students through a discussion on morality and hope in Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, getting bogged down in a debate over whether the reader needed to know what had brought about the apocalyptic conditions depicted in the book, when I happened to glance out the window and see, running across the staff parking lot, a young man wearing a vest that appeared to be loaded with sticks of dynamite.

“I just want to know what caused it,” Eldon Delton had said just moments earlier. He was one of the brightest eleventh-grade kids in the entire school, but definitely a literalist. This English class wasn’t his favorite—his passions were science and computers, and in all likelihood he’d one day be the next Bill Gates—because it was all subjective. There weren’t always right and wrong answers. You couldn’t break the story down into zeros and ones. The same book could be fantastic to one person and a pile of crap to another, and that didn’t sit well with Eldon. He liked absolutes.

He continued. “Did life on earth end because of an asteroid? Was there a nuclear bomb? Vampires? Zombies? He never says.”

“Oh God, Elmo, not zombies,” said Olivia Comber, two aisles over, demonstrating what a huge favor Eldon’s parents did him giving him a name that could be twisted into a puppet’s. “If it was zombies they’d still be running around trying to eat people. They wouldn’t just disappear. And not everything has to be The Walking Dead or The Last of Us.”

“I was only saying, as an example,” Eldon said.

I stepped in, waving the tattered paperback of the novel in my hand. The book wasn’t part of the official curriculum. Most everything board-approved was out-of-date or so stripped of anything contentious that you couldn’t engage the kids. If I could get away with the late McCarthy’s The Road, I’d move on to Toni Morrison. I’d gathered up as many weathered copies from used bookshops as I could find. Some of the kids read online editions they’d either bought, or borrowed through the library.

I said, “I get Eldon’s point. When they made this into a movie, they provided an explanation, and we can debate whether that was necessary. But I don’t think McCarthy believed it mattered why it happened. What mattered was that it did. He wanted to explore what happens after, to explore what limits people would go to in order to survive when civilization collapses.”

“Like eating people,” said Andrew, who visibly shuddered. “That part really freaked me out. The cannibals. And that scene with the baby.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be such a wuss,” Eldon said.

“Hey,” I said sharply, giving him a look. Everyone was supposed to be able to express their feelings in this class without being judged. And Andrew Kanin could be a convenient target.

He was on the small side for a fifteen-year-old. I kept hoping he’d hit a growth spurt that would make him less of a potential target for bullies, or even smart-asses like Eldon. He was sensitive, bright, and several years of homeschooling had left him, at least in my judgment, ill-prepared for social interactions with the other kids, but his math and reading skills were top-notch. Full marks to his mom, who had been his teacher until tough economic times sent her back into the workforce.

“The cannibal stuff is no worse than lots of other things in books and TV,” Eldon said defensively.

“Should McCarthy have left that out?” I asked Andrew.

He considered the question. “No, I’m not saying that. It made me sick to read it, but it’s the thing I most remember, so I guess that means it worked.”

“I think it’s a love story,” said Emma Katzenback, who had, amazingly, decided to look up from her phone for a second. She had it down in her lap where she thought it would somehow escape my notice.

“There’s no love story,” said Eldon, rolling his eyes.

“Not that kind of love story,” she shot back. “It’s a father-son love story.”

“Emma’s on to something,” I said, and it was then that something outside caught my eye.

A man—for a brief moment I thought he was in his mid-teens, but looking at him for a full second persuaded me he was probably as old as twenty—was crossing the parking lot, running between geography teacher Nancy Holcomb’s green Hyundai and the three-year-old Lexus SUV that belonged to our principal, Trent Wakely.

He was decked out in camo pants, unlaced combat boots, and an olive-green vest with multiple pockets. Tucked into them, vertically, were items that looked like thick cigars, but cigars weren’t generally flat red in color. I was certainly no demolitions expert, but I’d seen enough movies and TV shows to know what dynamite looked like.

The man was striding toward the school’s west end, but only one arm was moving back and forth. His right hand was held close to his body, in a fist, as though he had it wrapped around something.

The first thing I thought of was the set of double doors our visitor was probably headed for. They often did not latch properly. Students, and even some staff, were known to prop them open with a brown rubber doorstop or wood shim so they could sneak outside for a smoke and still be able to get back into the building.

None of my students had looked out the window and noticed him. Barely two seconds had gone by since I’d responded to Emma’s comment.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Marian Gilchrist, who always took a seat right at the front of the class, not so much because she was particularly studious, but because she wore glasses thicker than hockey rink ice.

I said, as calmly as I could, but unable to keep the edge out of my voice, “I’m going to the office. Eldon, close the shades. Marian, you lock the door behind me, block it with as many desks as you can.”

The kids blinked, glanced at each other. A couple of them were forming questions.

“What’s going—”

“Why—”

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