Bridge of Sighs

him.
    “I know it’s hard to say,” Dec countered. “If it was easy, would I be asking
you
?”
    “I don’t think they’re any better than we are. They’re at home, though.”
    Dec Lynch snorted derisively. “Home?” he said. “Ten miles upstream, you mean. A fifteen-minute bus ride, assuming both traffic lights are red. Hell, it’s the same damn gene pool. If we were any closer there’d be nothing but harelips on both sides of the ball. Is anybody hurt, is what I’d like you to tell me.”
    “Perry Kozlowski got his bell rung in practice today,” Noonan told him. Which was the truth but not, to quote Mr. Berg, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Rather, it was the answer he preferred, since he himself had met Perry helmet to helmet on the fifty-yard line, their collision leaving the other boy dazed and disoriented. Noonan had taken a handoff and run between the tackles, the secondary opening up in front of him. Had he continued left, he might’ve made it all the way to the end zone, but instead he lowered his head into a surprised Perry, the team’s captain and middle linebacker. Noonan’s own fingers and toes were buzzing for the next hour. Coach took him aside after the play. “What is it with you two?” he wanted to know. Noonan just shrugged, not knowing quite what was between him and Perry, or why he thought it might be fun to pin him to the ground with his knees and pop his zits, one by one. Worse, at the satisfying moment of impact, he’d felt some diminishment in the more important loathing he harbored for his father. Was it possible that a person possessed a finite amount of such a valuable commodity?
    “Terrific,” Dec said. “The one guy on our team who can tackle. I may have to buy a disguise and drive up to Mohawk and watch them practice.” Before heading back upstairs, he stopped at the cooler and grabbed a beer, letting the door swing shut with a soft thud, and Noonan wondered how having Dec Lynch living above Ikey’s represented an improvement over Buddy Nurt. Hadn’t they just replaced one slow leak with another? According to Lucy his uncle paid no rent and took whatever he needed or wanted from the store. On the plus side, he was paid little more than what he needed to cover his weekend carousing, and that was under the table, so he could still collect unemployment.
    “So,” Lucy said, once he’d left, “you going to stick it out with Berg or switch to Summers?”
    “Berg,” Noonan said, with no hesitation. “He may be nuts, but he’s not dull.”
    In fact, the class had been nothing short of exhilarating. When they’d finally gotten around to discussing the four-line poem on the blackboard, Mr. Berg had unfolded it the way the sun opens a flower, patiently, one petal at a time. The class began by agreeing the words made no sense, that something must be missing or wrong with the poem, so they were shocked to hear that in Mr. Berg’s opinion the poem was perfect as it stood. Indeed, he’d gone so far as to suggest there might be something wrong with them.
    “Okay,” Perry challenged him, “then tell us what it means.”
    Grinning, Mr. Berg asked a question instead. “What’s a dream book?” They’d all looked at one another. “Nobody knows what a dream book is?”
    Clearly nobody did, and Noonan was surprised when a voice said, “It’s where you look it up.”
    Everyone had forgotten Three Mock, who, unless there was a ventriloquist in the room, had actually spoken. He sat motionless, as before, still facing the front. To look at him, you wouldn’t have guessed he was wired to any external reality.
    “Thank you, Mr. Mock,” Mr. Berg said, apparently not surprised at all. “Would you be willing to elaborate? It’s where you look
what
up?”
    “What you dreamin’.”
    “So, if I dream of a fish,” Mr. Berg said, “I can look it up in this book?”
    The boy nodded.
    Berg turned back to the rest of the class. “Interesting. How is it that Mr. Mock knows what a dream book is and the rest of you don’t? How could we account for that?”
    “Easy,” Perry said. “You told him before class. To make the rest of us look stupid.”
    “Ah,” Mr. Berg said. “The people-are-up-to-no-good thesis again. Mr. Mock, did I tell you what a dream book was before class?”
    All eyes now on him, Three Mock shook his head almost imperceptibly.
    “Do you believe him, Mr. Kozlowski?”
    “No,” Perry said.
    “How about you, Mr. Lynch?” When Lucy