The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

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The pale man and his entourage moved on down the hall. After about fifteen feet a corridor went to the right. It was even darker in this smaller hallway. A door stood at the end of its recession and it too had a window. But it was a large prism and its crushed appearance bent light so as to make it impossible to look through it and see anything with any clarity. But it was not necessary to look through it to know what sort of room it was because its function was declared in large calligraphic letters across the glass. OFFICE it simply read.

The main hall had four lights at exact intervals down its length. Actually the four circular electrical devices affixed to the ceiling of the hall had an equal number of bulb attachments for the 75-watt bulbs they held, and covering each one was a large round white globe. But the hall leading to the office had no light fixture. It was like the last few feet to the death house that a doomed man would tread to his fatal appointment. At least that is what Max was reminded of upon seeing it.

He thought that perhaps that was the atmosphere the school wished to impress upon any poor student who'd ever been sent or summoned to the office, a feeling of impending gloom and doom. That is how Max felt anyway, that he was doomed in this place.

This was the first time Max had ever entered into an integrated school in North Carolina. When he attended school in this state it was still segregated although Brown vs. Board of Education in Little Rock, Arkansas had essentially outlawed segregated schools throughout the nation in 1954. Yet integration had been slow to come to the entire south and Max had graduated from a local all black high school in 1965 having never shared a classroom with any white children.

They went to the door and tried the knob. It was locked and so they re-entered the main hall instead of forcing the door open. They then went down the hall to the front of the building passing various rooms on the way as well as the large auditorium. When looking inside this latter enclosure they could see numerous metal chairs lined up in flanks before a stage that held a dais and was draped by a large dark purple curtain. 

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 They could also see the coal pile beyond the high windows of the auditorium like black hills encroaching upon the building. And peaking just above the horizon of the coal they could see the boiler room.

Once they were at the front of the building they passed through the double doors there that led into the vestibule that in turn opened onto the portico of the building. To their right was a door that led into the front stairwell. They entered it and saw to the left, several feet in front of the first step of the stairs was what appeared to be the boys restroom. This fact was confirmed by the word BOYS that was printed in bold letters on its swinging door.

They mounted the steps and went up the two flights of stairs to the second floor. At the top they saw a broad screened in opening to their left before the double doors that opened onto the second floor hallway and which also looked out upon the likewise tiled roof of the vaulted entrance of the structure. The light of day streamed in on them as they moved into this space. Clay felt the pain of it and turning to the pale man he could see too his own negative reaction. Max also noticed how the bright light pained them.

They went through the double doors into the hallway. It was brighter in here than on the first floor because of the light the openings at either end of the hall allowed into these confines. The acoustics were also different from below and the sound of those with shod feet upon the floor resounded so as to give the impression of noise in a hollow drum.

Only two classes were conducted on this floor of the building and they were the 7th and 8th grades. Another difference was that none of the doors they noticed had windows as those on the first floor as if these two classes required greater privacy than the younger students on the first floor.