Free Swimmer by Graham Masterton Page B

said Jim, and went back to Special Class II.
    The grief was very hard for him to take. Special Class II sat in silence while he gave them the news; then Stella Kopalski started to sob, and Laura Killmeyer too, and even the boys were sitting with their heads bowed and tears dripping on to their
Twentieth-Century American Poets
.
    Jim walked slowly down the aisle between the desks, laying his hand on every shoulder. ‘Dennis was a quiet guy,’ he said. ‘He had his own struggles, but he fought them hard, and he never gave in. His mother, as most of you know, had a drink problem, and she made his life very miserable for most of the time. But Dennis never said a single word against her. He understood that she was sick – and that she was just as much of a victim of her illness as he was.
    â€˜I guess the saddest thing is that Dennis was about to graduate with very good marks, with a chance of finding himself a job doing what he loved the most, which was working with sick and disabled people. And he wasn’t lonely or isolated any longer. He had friends … not just here in Special Class II, but outside of college too. It’s very hard to understand why somebody like Dennis gets taken away from us. We almost blame them for hurting us so much. But let’s try to think of all those moments when he made us laugh, and when he made us feel better, just because he was alive.’
    It was then that Nestor Fawkes stood up, with his poetry book in his hand, and said hesitantly, ‘That poem you gave us to read, Mr Rook … there’s a verse in it I’d like to say out loud, for Dennis.’
    Washington Freeman III groaned, said, ‘
Man
…’ and shook his head, but Jim said, ‘Go ahead, Nestor. It’s an elegy, after all.’
    Nestor cleared his throat.
    â€˜Ah, love has followed them and tears attest
    They stood as slim as grass, they moved like fish
    Into the silent oceans where they rest
    Dark as the squid. Like trees they held their wish
    A season on the leaf, and cannot perish.’
    Nestor could barely manage to finish the last line because his voice was so choked. The sheer sorrow that filled the class was overwhelming, and Jim said, ‘Let’s have a few moments of quiet now, to think about Dennis. But after that, I think we ought to share a few memories, and then we ought to go home. This has been a very sad way to end this year, but I hope you’ll all leave here tomorrow with hope for the future, as well as regrets for the past.’
    He sat at his desk and watched the morning go by. The class talked quietly amongst themselves, and he heard fragments of their conversations. ‘Do you remember the time I’m carrying my lunch tray and Dennis trips me up? Like, corned beef and mashed potato goes flying everywhere, and Dottie gets a broccoli tiara. Like, it was the first antisocial thing he’d ever done in his entire life. And I’m just about to rip his head off. But he’s like, “I’m so sorry, man, I don’t know why I did that.” But the reason he did it was because he didn’t want to be scared of nobody no more.’
    â€˜How about that time he came in dressed like a girl, with a blond wig and high heels and everything, because Ray had called him a faggot?’
    Jim closed his eyes. He was listening to young people who had come to his class only a year ago as children, both emotionally and educationally, and were now capable of analyzing other people’s behavior and their own, and expressing how they felt. He was proud of them all, but right now he could only think that another precious light had winked out, long before morning.
    He was walking across the parking-lot when he was hailed by Lieutenant Harris. It was almost midday and the temperature was up in the high nineties. Lieutenant Harris was carrying his bronze coat over his arm, and his yellow-striped tie was loosened to half-mast. ‘Jim! Talk to