Chapter 12: Hour One Hundred

At seven-oh-two on Tuesday morning I wrote 100 in the total column and initialed it.

The junior class had gathered round the desk to watch.

Nobody had told them what it meant, but they'd seen the face I made and drawn their own conclusions.

"One hundred hours," Frank announced, and held up a donut with a birthday candle stuck in it. "Half a sentence. Half a man."

"Half a man is an improvement," the eleven-year-old said.

Cal laughed, a real one, head back.

The kids cheered, and the candle went out in a wash of powdered sugar.

He took the donut and ate it in two bites.

A sixteen-year-old in the back row, who hadn't smiled at him once in two months, said, "Not bad, old man."

Then he went back to his bag.

I counted that as a victory.

That night I turned the lights off at nine.

Cal was still on the floor, sitting on the ring apron with a towel around his neck, flexing his hands.

Thursday he would drive out to a house on the east side to see a maintenance lead about a card.

He'd told me twice what he planned to say, and I'd told him twice to stop practicing it.

I crossed the room and held out my fist.

He looked at it.

I opened it, and a brass key lay on my palm.

"The side door," I said. "And the bag room, and the office."

"Dee."

"I'm not giving you the till."

"There isn't one."

"But you've been at that door every morning at four fifty-eight for two months, and I'm tired of unlocking it."

"This is a lot to hand a man on a court order."

"It's a key, Cal. It's a piece of metal."

He closed his hand around it.

He sat there holding it, looking at his knuckles, and his eyes were bright.

"I've been given a lot of things," he said.

"Board seats, buildings, a yacht once."

"Nobody ever gave me one that opened a door I was supposed to keep clean."

"Don't make a speech."

"I won't."

"Don't cry either. You did that last week, and I only have so many towels."

He stood up on the apron, and I stood on the floor.

For once we were exactly the same height.

I put my hand on the back of his neck.

"Close the door," I said. "And lock it."

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