October 19, 1988

11 days remaining

Jim Cunningham leapt onstage, with a grin as big and full of shit as all-outdoors. He grabbed the auditorium mike and opened his mouth into it like a rock star. "Go-o-o-od morning, you Mongrels!"

A few students mumbled back. Cunningham cupped his hands to his ear, leaned into the audience. "Is that all the gusto you can mustah!" he cried, pumping his fist like a lunatic. "I ssssaid... GOOD MORNING!"

More students joined in. "Good morning!"

Jim nodded. "Now that's a tiny bit better. But I can still sense some students out there who are actually Afraid to say good morning!"

The kids bellowed back. "GOOD MORNING!"

On the sidelines, Principal Cole nodded his approval. Donnie sank in his seat, lips sealed shut. Tried to send Jim a telepathic message. I know where you live, asshole. I've got power over you. I've got you by the balls. Who's gonna save you from me? A fucking Life Line exercise?

Jim appeared not to have received the message. "Yeah, that's what I like to hear!" he enthused. "Because entirely too many young men and women today are completely paralysed by their Fears. They surrender their bodies to the temptation and destruction of Drugs, Alcohol, and Premarital Sex." Some kids laughed at this.

"Now, I'm going to tell you a little story today. It's a heartbreakingly sad story about a young man whose life was completely destroyed by these instruments of Fear. A young man, searching for Love in all the wrong places." Jim turned to the projection screen beside him, flourished dramatically. Another badly drawn cartoon character appeared, clearly stoned to the gills. Jim read the caption beside it.

"His name... was Frank."

The auditorium lights go down, then return to their normal level of brightness. But someone's taken all the sound out of the room. Donnie feels like he's underwater... He's not breathing, he's...

"Are you okay?" Gretchen's concerned face.

"...Yeah. My head just kind of hurts."

Jim was inviting students up to the floor mike to discuss 'common indications of Fear-based lifestyles' with him. A girl in Donnie's English class skipped up and said into the mike, "Hi. Like, I sometimes worry that my stepsister eats too much."

"Shut up, Kim!"

"Sweetheart, sweetheart, please," Jim soothed.

The next kid was a tall, gangly jock. "How can I decide what I want to be when I grow up?"

Jim tutted. "That's a hard one."

"What do I do to learn how to fight?" asked a diminutive boy fiercely.

Jim shook his head sadly. "'What can I do to learn how to fight', he says. Son, Violence is a product of Fear! Learn to truly Love yourself."

The kid thought for a moment. "Okay."

"Get yerself up here!" said Jim, pulling him onto the stage with the others. "All right... Anybody else?"

Gretchen started as Donnie left his seat. There was a strange intensity surrounding him today, radiating from him like heat waves off a parking lot in summer. She watched curiously as he addressed Jim Cunningham. "Good morning."

"Good morning!" Jim bellowed.

Donnie fidgeted at his post like a kid in a candy shop, hands jammed in his pockets. He seemed ready to burst into laughter at any moment. Unstable. "Hi, um... How much are they paying you to be here?"

Principal Cole uncrossed his arms.

Jim looked flustered. "Uh... Excuse me?"

Donnie smirked.

"What is your name, son?"

"Gerald."

"Well, Gerald, I think you're Afraid," Jim said seriously, with all the solemnity of a doctor pronouncing his diagnosis.

"Are you telling us this stuff so we can buy your book? Because if you are, that was some of the worst advice I ever heard."

Jim looked around the room, eyes wide. "Do you see how sad this is?" he implored the audience.

Donnie ignored him. "You want your sister to lose weight? Tell her to get off the couch, stop eating Twinkies, and maybe go out for field hockey!"

Gasps from the crowd, most of them members of staff. Students started laughing. Spurred, Donnie blasted forth. "You know what? No one ever knows what they want to be when they grow up. It takes a little while to find that out. Right, Jim?" Jim didn't answer.

"And you..." Donnie turned slowly to the short kid, eyes flashing. The kid looked cornered, pointed at himself. "Yeah, you. Sick of some jerk shoving your head down the toilet? Than maybe you should lift some weights or take a karate lesson." He took his hand out of his pocket and made a fist overhead. "And the next time he tries to do it, you kick him in the balls!"

More gasping, drowned out by laughter from the student body. Even the short kid was smiling. Jim raised the mike, tried to regain control. He chuckled. The condescending little creep chuckled. "Son. Do you see this? This is an Anger Prisoner!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Gretchen spotted the principal heading towards Donnie, goaded on by staff members.

Jim circled the stage, arm extended in Donnie's direction. "A textbook example. Do you see the Fear, people? This boy is scared to death of the Truth!"

To Gretchen's horror, adults in the crowd began nodding their heads. She saw the distrust in their eyes, the pretension, the constructed sympathy. She wanted to shake them by the throats but couldn't move from her seat.

"Son, it breaks my heart to say this, but I believe you are a very Troubled and Confused young man. I believe you are searching for answers in all the wrong places." Principal Cole had gotten his second wind and was now halfway to the mike. But he was too late.

Donnie laughed, and it sounded bitter. "You're right, actually. I am pretty troubled and I'm pretty confused. And I'm afraid. Really really afraid. But I..." He paused, throat suddenly dry. "...I think you're the fucking Antichrist."

Principal Cole's hand closed around Donnie's upper arm. "Let's go."

Students began whistling and cheering, treating Donnie's expulsion from the room like a Royal procession. Applause rang throughout the auditorium. Someone, a teacher, yelled "Get him out of here! Who do you think you are!" but he was drowned out by the voices that surrounded Donnie, lifting him up for just an instant, buoying him like a crowd surfer. The double doors slammed behind them, cutting them off, and he was back on Earth.

He sat in the outer office while Cole phoned his parents. The smirk lingering on his face.

"It's amazing. The man thinks he's telling the truth and everything he says is just a fucking lie! Everything!" Donnie steamed amidst his diatribe, pacing back and forth in front of the broken chimney stack. Gretchen tracked his movements without comment.

"Everyone think he's so rad. He's such a fucking chud. Everything he does-"

Gretchen finally spoke. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Suddenly deflated.

"Sit down," she said, touching his arm. "Calm down." He came over to sit beside her in the Ruins, breathing hard. Hunched over, brooding. She saw his shoulders slump.

"You ever hear of Grandma Death?" he asked from nowhere.

"Who?"

Donnie handed her a slim volume from his backpack. Gretchen examined it. "'The Philosophy of Time Travel'," she read aloud. "What is this?"

"She wrote it. Grandma Death wrote it," Donnie said wearily, running his hands through his hair. About to confess. "I'm... I've been seeing stuff. Like, a lot of really messed up stuff. And there are chapters in that book that describe the stuff I've been seeing. And it can't just be a coincidence. It can't..."

Gretchen stared at him, this boy she had found. Suddenly finding herself unable to understand. She wrapped herself in her arms, inexplicably frightened, forgetting he was there.