I peered over the cliff edge and saw Mr. White’s slumped body thrashed by the waves on the rocks.

That afternoon it was as if I were looking at life through a rolled-up newspaper. I had drained the remaining dregs of innocence from my heart. I had put a man in the ground, or at least aided his descent, and I loathed myself into the future and beyond. Well, why shouldn’t I? You shouldn’t forgive all your trespasses. You can’t always go too easy on yourself. In fact, in some circumstances, forgiving yourself is unforgivable.

I was sitting behind the gym with my head in my hands when a school prefect, a sort of benign Hitler youth, came up and told me the principal wanted to see me. Well, that’s that, I thought. I walked to the principal’s office and found that his pliable face had been shaped into a picture of weariness.

“Mr. Silver,” I said.

“I understand you were a friend of Brett’s.”

“That’s right.”

“I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind reading a psalm at Mr. White’s funeral.”

Me? The murderer reading a psalm at the funeral of his victim? As the principal went on telling me about my role in the funeral proceedings, I wondered if this weren’t some sort of clever punishment, because I felt transparent sitting there, maybe even more see-through than that- I felt like the site of an archaeological dig, my old clay pot thoughts revealing all about the civilization that had ruled there in its ignorant and doomed way.

I said that I would be honored to read a psalm at the funeral.

What else was I going to say?

That night I read it over. It had everything you’d expect in a psalm: heavy-handedness, hit-you-over-the-head metaphors, and Old World symbolism. I tore it out of the Bible thinking: I’m not lending my voice to this oppressive nonsense. Instead I chose a passage from one of Dad’s favorite books, one he’d horrified me with a couple of years earlier, one that had seared my brain. It was a passage by James Thomson from his book of poetry, The City of Dreadful Night.

The morning of the funeral, I was called again to the principal’s office. I went thinking he wanted to go over the running order of the event. I was surprised to see the Towering Inferno waiting outside his office, leaning against the wall. So we’d been fingered for the crime after all. It’s just as well, I thought.

“We’re fucked,” she said.

“We deserve it,” I said back.

“I know. Who’d have thought he’d react so badly?”

“No talking,” Mr. Silver snapped as he opened the door and beckoned us in. The Towering Inferno flinched as though slapped, and I wondered at what age she had discovered she possessed the power to convince men to throw hats out of trains. If I asked her now, would she remember the day? The moment? The event? What I wouldn’t give to exchange the tale of her strength for the saga of my weakness.

In the office there was a skinny middle-aged woman sitting with her hands in her lap, her narrow eyes closing a quarter of an inch with every step I took into the room.

“Well, you two,” the principal said, “what do you have to say for yourselves?”

“She didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said. “It was me.”

“Is that true?” he asked the Inferno.

She nodded guiltily.

“That’s not true,” the woman said, pointing at me. “He did it, but she was ordering him around.”

I took offense at that, because it was true. I stood up and placed my hands on the principal’s desk. “Sir, just take one second and look at the girl you are accusing. Are you looking at her?” He was looking at her. “She’s a victim of her own beauty. Because why? Because beauty is power. And as we learned in history class, power corrupts. Therefore, absolute beauty corrupts absolutely.”

The Towering Inferno stared at me. Mr. Silver cleared his throat.

“Well, Jasper, it’s unforgivable what you’ve done.”

“I agree. And you don’t have to suspend me, because I’m quitting this place.” He bit his lip. “You still want me to read at the funeral?”

“I think you should,” he said, in a cold, serious voice.

Damn. I knew he was going to say that.

The funeral was more or less a repeat of Brett’s: everyone standing there as if dignity mattered, the polished smile of the priest making your eyes squint, the sight of the coffin closing in on you. The Towering Inferno was staring at me, though I didn’t want to be stared at just then. I wanted to be alone with my guilt. Despite myself, I looked at her, the Angel of Death with great legs. Without even knowing it, she was the central figure in demolishing a family.

I peered over the cold body of Mr. White and silently pleaded: Forgive me for throwing your hat out of the train! I didn’t know your head was still inside! Forgive me! Forgive me for throwing you out of a moving train!

The priest nodded at me, the nod of a man tight with Omniscience.

I got up to read.

They were all expecting the psalm. Instead, this is what I read:

“Who is the most wretched in this dolorous place?

I think myself; yet I would rather be

My miserable self than He, than He

Who formed such creatures to his own disgrace.

“The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou

From whom it had its being, God and Lord!

Creator of all woe and sin! Abhorred,

Malignant and implacable! I vow

“That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled,

For all the temples to Thy glory built,

Would I assume the ignominious guilt

Of having made such men in such a world.”

I finished and looked up. The priest was gnashing his teeth just as it’s described in his favorite book.

IV

After returning home from Sizzler, I stood alone in the labyrinth, staring at the moon, which looked to be just an empty wreck of a rock, burned out, as if God had done it for the insurance.

“I’m worried,” Dad said, coming up behind me.

“What about?”

“My son’s future.”

“I’m not.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Go overseas.”

“You don’t have any money.”

“I know I don’t have any money. I know what an empty pocket feels like. I’ll make some.”

“How?”

“I’ll get a job.”

“What kind of job? You don’t have any skills.”

“Then I’ll get an unskilled job.”

“What kind of unskilled job? You don’t have any experience.”

“I’ll get some.”

“How? You need experience to get a job.”

“I’ll find something.”

“Who’ll employ you? No one likes a quitter.”

“That’s not true.”

“OK, then. Who likes a quitter?”

“Other quitters.”

Dad left me with a melodramatic sigh that trailed after him like a smell. I don’t know how long I stood in the cold trying to see past the veil covering my future. Should I be a baker of a male stripper? A philanthropist or a roadie? A criminal mastermind or a dermatologist? It was no joke. I was caught in a brainstorm, and ideas were clamoring for prime position. Television presenter! Auctioneer! Private investigator! Car salesman! Train conductor! They arrived without invitation, made their presentation, then made way for the others. Some of the more persistent ideas tried to sneak back in. Train conductor! Television presenter on a train! Car salesman! Train salesman!

I spent the next day staring into empty space. I get a lot of joy out of air, and if sunlight hits the floating specks of dust so you see the whirling dance of atoms, so much the better. During the day Dad breezed in and out of my room and clicked his tongue, which in our family means “You’re an idiot.” In the afternoon he came back in with a loaded grin. He had a brilliant idea and couldn’t wait to tell me about it. It had suddenly occurred to him to throw me out of the house, and what did I think of his brainwave? I told him I was concerned about him eating all his meals alone, because the clinking of cutlery on a plate echoing through an empty house is one of the top five depressing noises of all time.