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Dawn

Jon Wesick

    Dawn Cantwell scribbled the answer to the last of her trig problems and stashed the textbook in her backpack before stripping the dirty sheets from her bed. She turned and found a German shepherd with a graying muzzle lying atop the clean sheets.
    “Move, Wilson. Chris will be here in fifteen minutes.” She shooed the dog out of her bedroom and closed the door behind him.
    Once finished with the bed she peeled off her shirt and stood in front of her underwear drawer trying to decide what would look best. She held a peach-colored bra to her chest and looked in the mirror. Was her stomach too big? Why waste time? They only had a little more than an hour before her mom got home from work. Dawn unhooked the blue bra she was wearing, tossed it in the hamper, and put on a loose top that would give her boyfriend easy access.
    Downstairs she sat on the couch with an iced tea in front of her and stroked Wilson behind the ear while waiting for her wrestler to arrive. His skin would be all warm from practice and her fingers would stroke his belly and stray to the mystery between his legs, before he took her to bed. Her friend Sophie teased her about her dumb, jock boyfriend but there’s no such thing as a stupid athlete. Chris just didn’t do well in academics. Dawn didn’t know what would happen when she went off to college but at least they’d have their senior year together. She planned to make the most of it.
    The doorbell rang. Wilson gave a perfunctory woof and struggled to his feet while wagging his tail. Dawn answered the door and planted an open-mouthed kiss on Chris’s mouth before he could even say hello. They went inside and sat on the couch.
    “So how was practice?” Dawn sat close so she could feel the warmth of his leg against hers.
    “Tough. Every time someone took us down, coach made us run laps. He says we’re all going to be running laps if we don’t beat Naperville, Friday.” Chris inched away. “Got any soda?”
    “Sure.” Dawn retrieved a can from the refrigerator and sat with her back against Chris’s side.
    Normally, it would have taken him about thirty seconds to be fondling her breasts but this time he was stiff as a statue.
    “You seem tense.” Dawn worked her fingertips into his shoulders. When she trailed a hand down his chest to his belly, he flinched. “Is something wrong?”
    “Just got my mind on the meet, I guess.”
    “You sure?”
    Chris glanced at the door.
    “Chris, I’m a big girl. If there’s someone else, you can tell me.”
    “It’s just...” He looked away. “It’s just that I don’t think we should be doing this.”
    “Chris, look at me.” She took his hand. “Nothing’s going to happen. I’m on the pill and we use condoms just to be sure.”
    “Condoms fail.” Chris reached down to pet the dog. “Maybe we should wait until marriage.”
    “Chris, I’m not sure even want to get married. Anyway I have to wait until I finish veterinary school.”
    “It’s always veterinary school,” he shouted. “You think you’re so much better than me because you’re going to a good college?”
    Dawn stared. Who was this imposter who had taken the place of the boy she loved?
    “I’d better go.” Chris hid his face from her as he dashed for the door.
    She heard the motor start and his car drive away.
    “Oh, Wilson.” Dawn bent down and hugged the dog.

***

    “The nerve of that jerk!” Sophie’s bracelets jangled against the steering wheel as she turned her Honda into the Southwest High School parking lot. With her tinted hair, pierced eyebrow, and the way she swaggered when she walked, Sophie was as intimidating as any guy but she had a heart of pure kindness. “Are you okay?”
    “I didn’t sleep much,” Dawn said.
    “You’re better off without him.” Sophie reached into her purse and took out a jar. “You ought to put some makeup under your eyes.”
    Dawn sighed and looked out the window at the freshmen getting off the school bus. Sophie was a loyal friend but sometimes she just didn’t get it.
    “What the hell?” Sophie pointed to a pale man in a hooded robe, who was getting out of a limousine. “We’re hiring space aliens now?”
    Hoping to avoid bumping into Chris, Dawn rushed to her locker once inside but it was no good. As she was dialing the combination Chris and Ronnie Evans came down the hall. Both wore silver, heart-shaped pendants. From their banter it was obvious Chris wasn’t suffering. Glad it was so easy for him.
    “Oh look! They’re going steady.” Sophie stuck her tongue out at them after they passed.
    Fortunately for Dawn, her fist class was Biology. Mrs. Harper’s lecture on invertebrates kept her attention despite her lack of sleep. After an hour the bell rang and Principal Douglas’s voice came on the intercom.
    “All students report to the gymnasium for a special assembly.”
    “What’s this about?” Dawn asked Ginny Castro, who sat in front of her.
    “It’s the Silver Heart Club.”
    “The what?”
    “I don’t know. Something started by this minister from Alabama.”
    Dawn followed the others into the gym and took a seat on the bleachers next to Sophie. It was late September and the temperature was still in the upper eighties but the air conditioning had been turned off the previous week. Most of the time it was bearable but with so many bodies crammed into the space it was stifling. Everyone fanned themselves with notebooks and sheets of paper.
    “I’d like to welcome Mr. Kurt Vogel from ASEP who’s going to talk to you about a very important subject.” Principal Douglas shook hands with a man in a Hawaiian shirt and handed him the microphone.
    With his pale skin, glacial eyes, and blonde hair Vogel looked like an albino. While everyone else wilted in the heat, he seemed unaffected. His hair stayed neatly combed and his clothes pressed.
    “Thanks, Principal Douglas.” Vogel moved to within a few feet of the first row. “I’d like to start by asking you all a question. Who here is interested in sex?”
    The crowd grew silent as Vogel paced back and forth.
    “Come on, who’s interested in sex?”
    Jimmy Doyle, a football lineman, raised a tentative hand.
    “Ah, an honest man.” Vogel raised his hand too and motioned for everyone to join him. “Nothing to be ashamed about. We’re all interested in sex. Sex is a beautiful thing just like fire is a beautiful thing when it’s used properly. Ever see a burn victim?”
    A picture of wiry hair and purple pustules appeared on the screen behind him. Dawn stared at it for thirty seconds before realizing about the time Sophie began to giggle it was a diseased penis.
    “Jesus!” Dawn looked at her feet. It was bad enough that her boyfriend had broken up with her but did the school have to make her feel like a dirty whore, too?
    “Genital warts. One in four teenagers has them.” Vogel pointed to the crowd. “Who can tell me some other risks of premarital sex?”
    “Getting knocked up.”
    “AIDS.”
    “You can take precautions,” Sophie said.
    “Let me ask you this, miss,” Vogel said. “Suppose you had a chance to ride a roller coaster, a really great roller coaster, but there was a one in four chance it would go off the rails and leave you in a wheelchair. Would you do it?”
    “I guess not.”
    “Nuff said.”
    Vogel showed videos of “nice girls” turning down horny guys. It seemed like something from the 1940s or the 1890s but Dawn didn’t feel like objecting. She just wanted out. After an hour Vogel wrapped it up.
    “The only way to protect yourself is to remain pure until marriage. For those of you who take the chastity pledge, I have a special gift.” He held up a pendant. “It’s a silver heart that symbolizes that you respect yourself enough not to throw you love away cheaply.”
    More students lined up than Dawn would have expected and Chris was at the table handing the pendants out.

***

    The very atmosphere at Southwest High seemed to change. The local chapter of the Silver Heart Club met after school; its members frequently getting out of class early. Girls and guys kissing in the halls no longer received smiles and nods. Now they received mockery and dirty looks from the self-appointed guardians of morality. Someone even scrawled “slut” in Sophie’s locker.
    Dawn avoided it by concentrating on her studies and spending her spare time volunteering at the animal shelter but trouble rang her doorbell one Saturday morning. It came in the form of a middle-aged man with blue eyes in a rumpled, khaki sports jacket.
    “Hi, you must be Dawn.” He held up a badge. “I’m Detective Ray Allen from the Culver Police Department. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
    “Mom!” Dawn yelled into the hallway. “The police are here!”
    Judy Cantwell, her short hair still wet from the shower, came down the stairs in her bathrobe.
    “What’s all this about?” Dawn’s mother, an ER nurse, had little patience with double talk.
    “How do you do, ma’am?” The detective showed his badge again. “There was an incident at the high school last night and I’m wondering if your daughter can give me some background information.”
    “She’s not in trouble. Is she?”
    “Not even remotely.”
    Detective Allen entered and took a seat across from Dawn and her mother who sat side by side on the couch.
    “Do you know Chris Mooney?” He scratched Wilson behind the ear.
    “He used to be my boyfriend.” Dawn motioned for the dog to came and sit by her feet.
    “Had he been acting funny lately, as if,” Detective Allen sat forward, “he’d been taking drugs?”
    “We broke up a few...”
    “What’s this about?” Judy interrupted.
    “He collapsed at wrestling practice.” The detective sighed. “The paramedics did all they could but...”
    “You mean Chris is dead?” Dawn’s mouth fell open.
    Judy put an arm around her shoulder.
    “I’m sorry.” The detective offered his handkerchief. “The medical examiner said Chris was suffering from some kind of anemia and that he found punctures marks in his wrist. Could he have been injecting something? Maybe steroids?”
    “No.” Dawn wiped her eyes. “Chris would never have done anything like that.”
    “All right.” The detective stood and placed his card on the coffee table. “If you can think of anything else, please let me know. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

***

    Silver hearts were prominent at Chris’s funeral as was Kurt Vogel who sat wearing sunglasses in the front row. With so many of Chris’s new friends packing the chapel, Dawn and Sophie had to sit in back. At her age she hadn’t seen a lot of funerals but she assumed the eulogy was pretty standard. When the minister concluded and opened the service for mourners to speak, Vogel was the first at the microphone.
    “Thank you, Pastor Ricks. I didn’t know Chris Mooney as long as some of you but I’d like to think I knew him well.”
    Dawn clenched her fists. Who the hell did he think he was? The funeral was supposed to be about Chris and the people who loved him. Sophie’s restraining arm touched her shoulder.
    “As a man of the cloth myself.” Vogel glanced at the minister. “I can say that you get very close to someone when you’re helping them overcome Satan. I’m happy to tell you that in his short life Chris banished sin from his heart. Who among us can hope for a greater victory?”
    Chris’s friends from the Silver Heart Club got up and talked about what an inspiration he was. The whole spectacle of these pale teenage believers felt so alien to Dawn that she didn’t have the nerve to speak but she couldn’t leave without offering her condolences to Chris’s mother. She asked her Sophie to wait and joined the line to the family. Mrs. Mooney sat in a pew next to her daughter Kim, her stepson Ryan, and their nine-month-old baby. As Dawn was looking at the child, she felt a sick feeling as if something slimy were crawling down her spine. It was Vogel who’d stepped in line behind her.
    Fortunately, the woman in front finished allowing Dawn to step forward and escape Vogel’s presence.
    “Mrs. Mooney, I’m so sorry about Chris.”
    “I know, honey. How are you holding up?” She took Dawn’s hand. “You were a good friend to him.”
    Then something strange happened. When the baby in Kim’s arms cried and reached his tiny hands for her breast, Vogel began sneezing. Holding a handkerchief over his face he practically ran out the door.

    “How did it go?” Sophie asked when Dawn met her outside.
    “Mrs. Mooney was cool. Hope she’ll be okay.”
    They began walking down the steps.
    “Dawn, wait up!”
    Ronnie Evans caught up with them. The wrestler looked out of place in a dark suit and white shirt with a collar that was obviously too tight for his bull neck. His skin seemed clammy and he had dark rings under his eyes.
    “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about Chris.” Ronnie struggled to catch his breath even though he’d only run a few paces. “We uh, oh shit. I was the guy wrestling with him when he passed out. I didn’t know, I...” He looked away until he could compose himself. “Look, we’re having a memorial at Monday’s Silver Heart meeting. It’d mean a lot to me if you’d...”
    “We’ll be there,” Sophie said.

***

     “Let’s all hold hands.” Ronnie seemed more at home in the Silver Heart meeting than he had at the funeral.
    Dawn and Sophie took the hands of the students next to them forming a big circle around the classroom. No adults were present. The only leader was Ronnie who stood head bowed behind the teacher’s desk.
    “Lord, make us strong enough so that we can live lives of cleanliness and virtue. Give us the wisdom to see that the media culture of instant gratification leads to degradation and perversion, to viewing our young women as objects of pleasure, to AIDS, and to the holocaust of abortion. Amen.”
    Dawn remained quiet while the crowd echoed Ronnie’s amen. She then glanced at Sophie and thought, “I’m so going to kill you for roping me into this.” Maybe it wasn’t too late to snatch some orange juice and a donut from the table by the door and slip out.
    “Please welcome Dawn and Sophie,” Ronnie said. “It’s their first Silver Heart Club meeting.”
    Dawn nodded and smiled. She was stuck for the duration.
    “So what usually happens,” Ronnie said, “is that we split up, guys in one room and girls in the other. Then we talk in an honest and open way about our struggles with temptation.”
    The students helped themselves to snacks and the guys left for another room. Megan Johnson took over as the meeting coordinator. She belonged to all the clubs but never quite made it into the group of popular girls. Even though she’d been a cheerleader for two years, Mandy Esposito and friends had never welcomed her into their clique.
    “Does anybody want to go first?” Megan took a magic marker from the white board and tossed it from hand to hand.
    There were no takers.
    “Okay, guess it’ll have to be me.” Megan stepped around the teacher’s desk so nothing separated her from the group. “Last year I had an abortion.”
    There was no response from the crowd.
    “The father was older than me, a college friend of my brother’s. I was so flattered by him asking me out that I didn’t think to say no when he wanted to have sex. I mean, everybody else was doing it. Right?”
    A few girls giggled.
    “I wish I hadn’t. When I told him I was pregnant, he blew me off. Guys like him only want one thing. Anyway, my parents convinced me to get an abortion and after it was done, I thought it was all over. But now...” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “But now I can’t stop thinking about my baby would have looked like, her tiny little fingers and toes.
    “I’m not going to make that mistake again. No sex until I have a wedding ring on my finger. Of course, we all get tempted like when some guys are playing basketball without their shirts and looking fine. That’s when I pray to God to give me strength. Oh Lord, give me strength!”
    The laughter opened up discussion.
    “Is it all right to masturbate my boyfriend?”
    “Honey, he should do the dirty work himself.”
    Dawn’s face felt hot. What did any of this have to do with her boyfriend, the one who died last week?
    A few girls confessed an attraction to other women.
    “I think you need to take that up with Reverend Vogel,” Megan said. “He can channel the Holy Spirit into you so it chases temptation away.”
    A mousy freshman named Jeannie Conrad raised her hand.
    “What if you didn’t have a choice?”
    “What do you mean?” Megan asked.
    “When I was eleven, my uncle molested me.”
    “Me too,” Sophie murmured. “Me too.”

***

    “Back off, homo!”
    “You’re the homo!” Chuck Dugan pushed Ricky Peters into the lockers.
    Ricky sprang back swinging a big, wild punch that caught Chuck in the jaw. The two went at it until Mr. Ariola broke it up and sent them to the office. There seemed to be more fights lately but that’s not the only thing that was weird. On Friday Dawn went to a dance but there were no guys. Hopping around with a bunch of girlfriends was so fifth-grade that Dawn just went home. The boys got even more juvenile if that was possible. Stuart Davidson put a mouse in Mandy Esposito’s purse and Brian Wilson snapped Marcie Miller’s bra strap. It was like someone had found a circuit breaker labeled puberty in the school’s basement and switched it to OFF. Dawn swore some of her friends got more flat-chested.
    The weirdest thing of all was that Dawn had lost her best friend. With one of those big silver hearts hanging around her neck, Sophie was just too busy attending club meetings and going to Vogel’s house to spend any time with her.
    When Sophie missed a few days of school, Dawn dialed her cell phone. Nothing. She phoned her home and got only the answering machine. Dawn kept trying. At 10:00 PM Sophie’s father answered.
    “I’m sorry to call so late, Mr. Gilbert but I haven’t been able to get in touch with Sophie.”
    “She’s in intensive care.”
    “What? What happened?”
    “It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted. Good night.”
    Dawn sorted through the papers on her desk until she found Detective Allen’s business card and dialed his number. A strange man answered.
    “Halloran.”
    “Is Detective Allen there?”
    “He’s had an accident. May I help you?”
    Something about the man’s voice didn’t sound right.
    “Oh, uh, I’m working on a report about meth addiction for social studies and I wanted to ask the detective to come in and give a presentation to the class.”
    “You need to call public relations at 555-2832.”
    Dawn hung up the phone. Whatever Vogel and his group were up to, she wouldn’t be getting any help from the police.

***

    A week later, Dawn drove to the veterinary clinic after school for her Wednesday volunteer work. It was one of those fall days when dark clouds blot out the sun and the wind carries a cold whiff of winter. She parked in the lot and removed a few textbooks from her backpack before getting out of the car.
    “Hello, Dawn.”
    “Sophie!” Dawn dropped her keys. “Where did you come from?”
    “I’ve been waiting for you.”
    “Are you all right? Your dad said you were in the hospital.”
    “Those doctors are morons.”
    It didn’t look like Sophie had combed her hair in days and her ripped blouse was buttoned crookedly. The silver heart was still there hanging around her neck like a tumor. Her skin had lost its color and there were purple bruises under her eyes.
    “You have no idea what I’ve seen.” Sophie took Dawn’s hand in a grip cold as an autopsy table. “For a few drops of blood I can show it to you.”
    “Sophie!” Dawn puller her wrist away. “You’re scaring me.”
    Just then the clinic door opened and a burly man lugged a pet carrier outside. Sophie’s eyes watered as if she’d been gassed with pepper spray. Wheezing like an asthmatic she ran from the parking lot.
    “Is your friend all right?” The man Dawn now recognized set the pet carrier on the hood of his Ford Explorer.
    “I’m sure she’ll be fine, Mr. Ochoa. How’s Rumbles?”
    “She just had kittens. Want to see?”

***

     Oxytocin! The veterinarian told her the neurotransmitter was called oxytocin. As Dawn scrolled through the Wikipedia article, it all began to make sense. Oxytocin was associated with female sexual arousal and the bonding between mother and infant. Since Vogel had such an aversion to it, he had to push celibacy in order to prey on the students at Southwest High. Dawn began searching the Internet for images. She only had a few days before Friday’s assembly.

***

    Dawn sat next to Ginny Castro in the fourth row of the bleachers and gently set her backpack by her feet. The distance seemed about right. Too close and she’d be surrounded by silver-hearters. Too far and she wouldn’t have any effect.
    Once again the principal welcomed Kurt Vogel. Unlike last time Vogel now wore a navy blue blazer and khaki slacks. In a nod to the teen’s informality he went without a tie.
    “Thank you, Principal Douglas. It’s great to be back at Southwest High.” Vogel paused while the kids in front cheered. “You’ve done a great job since my last visit. Why don’t you give yourselves a big round of applause?”
    Dawn nudged Ginny with her elbow, zipped open her backpack, and lifted out a lop-eared rabbit.
    “How cute!” Ginny reached out to pet him. “What’s his name?”
    “Russell.” Dawn placed the rabbit in Ginny’s lap.
    The girls sitting close turned to look.
    “Hey!” Principal Douglas pointed at Ginny. “Pay attention!”
    “As I was saying.” Vogel sniffed and coughed. “Here’s a video about a couple teenagers who learned the hard way.” He pressed a button on the black, handheld controller.
     Vogel cocked his head as the characteristic sound of Burt Bacharach’s horn came from the speakers. When Jackie DeShannon began singing “What the World Needs Now is Love,” he stabbed the off button with his finger to no effect. Images of kittens, puppies, palm-sized baby hedgehogs, and all kinds of cute animals filled the monitor. A text message said, “Look under your seat,” and a hundred young women found Paddington Bears and Hello Kitty dolls. Principal Douglas grew apoplectic when the images changed to Patrick Swayze, Brigitte Bardot, babies, and breastfeeding mothers.
    “Stop it this instant!” He waved his fist.
    Vogel tried to shield his face from the oxytocin-laden air with a handkerchief but it did no good. He began coughing and staggering.
    “Kurt! Kurt! Are you all right?” Principal Douglas ran to his side.
    Vogel leaned back and howled his fangs now visible in his open mouth. He grabbed the principal by the shoulders, sunk his teeth into his throat, and shook the body to break its neck before running from the gymnasium. Students stared at the blood spurting from Principal Douglas’s neck as the feel-good music played. The interval between spurts grew longer and longer until it ceased when the principal’s heart stopped. Sensing an opportunity to exert authority, the Vice Principal, Mrs. Watkins picked up the microphone.
    “All right students, time for third period class.”

***

    At 3:00 Dawn sat down in the back of the room and took her trig book out of her backpack. Someone had carved, “High school sucks,” in the desk and darkened the letters with blue ink. She’d imagined they’d give her some kind of award for saving the school from the vampire. Even a simple thank you would have been enough but a month of detention just didn’t seem fair especially since the school officials got off without even a rebuke.
    Some parents had been angry with the school board for turning their children over to blood suckers. There had been talk of a recall election until the shock jocks on AM radio came to the board members’ defense. Nothing happened.
    “How you doing?” Jimmy Doyle sat down at the desk next to hers.
    Dawn stole glances at him while pretending interest in sines and cosines. She’d never noticed what soulful eyes he had and the way his hair curled over his ears. Maybe she should get to know him better. With three weeks of detention left, she’d have plenty of time.

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