The Night In Question by Tobias Wolff Read Free Book Online Page A

away with something. Light and easy. The feeling lasted through most of the drive home, and then it broke; by the time Wiley reached his apartment he was weak and cold, seized by feverish trembling.
    He went straight to the bathroom and turned on the light. His lower lip was cut and bleeding, purplish in color, puffed up like a sausage. He had another cut over his left eyebrow, the skin above it scraped raw all the way to his hairline. His chin was bloody and flecked with dirt. He could see a bruise beginning on his cheekbone. My God, he thought, looking at himself. He felt great tenderness for the person behind this lurid mask, as if it were not his face at all, but the face of a beaten child. He touched the hurt places. The raw skin clung to his fingertips.
    Wiley took a long bath and tried to sleep, but whenever he closed his eyes he felt a malign presence in the room. In spite of the bath he still felt cold. He got up and looked at himself in the mirror again, hoping to find some change for the better. He inspected his face, then brewed a pot of coffee and spent the rest of the night at the kitchen table, staring blindly at a book and finally sleeping, slumped sideways in the chair, chin on his chest.
    When the alarm went off Wiley roused himself and got ready for school. He couldn’t think of any reason not to go except embarrassment; and since other teachers would have to cover his classes during their free time, this did not seem a very good reason. But he gave no thought to the effect of his appearance. When the first students saw him in the hallway and started quizzing him, he had no answers ready. One boy asked if he’d been mugged.
    Wiley nodded, thinking that was basically true.
    “Must have been a whole shitload of them.”
    “Well, not that many,” Wiley said, and walked on. He went straight to his classroom instead of stopping off in the teachers’ lounge, but he hadn’t been at his desk five minutes before the principal came in.
    “Mr. Wiley,” he said, “let’s have a look at you.” He walked up close and peered at Wiley’s face. Students were filing in behind him, trying not to stare at Wiley as they took their seats. “What exactly happened?” the principal asked.
    “I got mugged.”
    “Have you seen a doctor?”
    “Not yet.”
    “You should. That’s a prize set of bruises you’ve got there. Very nasty. Call the police?”
    “No. I’m still in sort of a daze.” Wiley said this in a low voice so the students wouldn’t hear him.
    Wiley’s friend Mac stuck his head in the doorway, nodding coolly at the principal. “You okay?” he said to Wiley.
    “I guess.”
    “I heard there were eight of them. Is that right, eight?”
    “No.” Wiley tried to smile but his face wouldn’t let him. “Just two,” he said. He couldn’t admit to one, not with all this damage.
    “Two’s enough,” Mac said.
    The principal said, “Just let me know if you want to go home. Seriously, now, Mr. Wiley—no heroics. I’m touched that you came in at all.” He stopped at the door on his way out and turned to the students. “Be warned, ladies and gentlemen. What happened to Mr. Wiley is going to happen to your children. It will be a common occurrence. That’s the kind of world they’re going to live in if you don’t do something to change it.” He let his eyes pass slowly around the room the way he did at school assemblies. “The choice is yours,” he said.
    Mac applauded silently behind him.
    After Mac and the principal left, two boys got up and pretended to attack each other with kicks and chops, crying
Hai! Hai! Hai!
One of them drove the other to the back of the classroom, where he crashed to the floor and sprawled with his arms and legs twitching. Then the bell rang and they both went back to their desks.
    This was a senior honors class. The students had been reading “Benito Cereno,” one of Wiley’s favorite stories, but he had trouble getting a discussion started because of the way