Futile Efforts by Tom Piccirilli Page A

hair, which started turning silver a couple of years back.   At first it was a touch distinguishing, but now it scares the shit out of you.   The thatch keeps growing and the damn thing just won't stop.
    D'Angelis glowers.   His sneer is twenty years older but no more refined than it was the last time you saw it.   A part of you very much wants to surge through his little toll gate and smash his face into the Plexiglas windows, but you know he thinks exactly the same thing of you.   Fate would almost be satisfied with some kind of crazed animal struggle between the two of you, but there's something else waiting inside.   You've got to get it, and it has to be now.
    They've given D'Angelis a badge that he's kept polished like he was a real cop.   He probably practices ninja rolls in there, diving in and out of his little both when no one's watching.   You can tell by his eyes that he's never seen his own kid and is terrified of the day when his child will come find him.
    He knows you, of course.   He's been waiting for you, and everyone else like you, to return, and prove to him that you've never become any better than him and everybody like him.   The circle was never very large to begin with and it only becomes smaller.
    You have no plan, but suddenly a lie is on your lips.   You've got to get back to your soul.   "I'm here for the reunion committee."
    Whoever's really on the council should be planning the event and tracking down former classmates, but they aren't.   The ten year never happened and the twenty won't either.   Nobody cared.   Nobody's left.   You see each other on street corners all the time, shielding your eyes and pretending not to recognize one another.
    "What reunion?"
    "'83."
    "Who's the advisor?"
    You don't have any idea, but you think about the teacher least likely to ever participate in that sort of thing.   He was ancient back then but those are the ones that never die.   They just petrify in their seats until they're hard as stone, and then they're used for bricks to build another hallway.
    "Mr. Samuelson."
    "Room 214."
    "Thanks."
    You drive on and park in field two, which was always off limits to students.   A sixteen year old girl–luscious, mystical, with a whirlwind of raven's hair swirling in the breeze–knocks you aside like you're the transparent, middle-aged creature that you are.   You're an affront to her existence and she understands this implicitly.
    A wash of impotent anger fires through you and tension momentarily makes you feel strong and effective.   It lasts for perhaps four steps.   You're on her heels, the hair snapping into your face like a bullwhip.   You almost welcome its painful touch, hoping it will leave scars.
    She wheels and spits.   "The fuck are you?   The fuck are you doing? You fuckin' chasing me?"
    "No."
    "Good."
    "Sure."
    She wears her derision like a tiara.   Another man would've broken her will to him.   Or made a friend.   Or acted paternal and offered sage advice.   She walks to the front doors and you notice that, alongside the ivy growing against the harsh brick face, there's poison sumac in the same place it's always been.
    The school is venomous.   You used to try to stay away from the shrubs, but somehow you still wound up with their yellowish plant oil streaked across the tops of your forearms.   You recall being covered with rashes and having your mother swathe you with ineffective, over-the-counter hydrocortisone creams.   The redness and swelling would soon be followed by blisters and severe itching.   Within a few days the blisters became crusted and scaly.   The girls would grimace and cut a wide path.   Even the lunch ladies would cringe.
    The mauled and mutilated live in the walls.   At least six of your classmates vanished during your high school years.   Some claimed the families moved away, but you can feel those others moving alongside you now, alive but somewhere else.
    They never really got away from the