The Banks of Certain Rivers (25 page)

“No, come on, here, I paused it. You talking about your video?
Your fifteen minutes of fame? God, you look like shit. You haven’t
been sleeping, I can tell.”

“No, I haven’t. Not really. And how did you find out
about it already?”

Alan shrugs.

“I’m getting weird emails,” I say.

“Sure you are. Hate mail. Your contact info is on the school’s
website. And some people are awfully worked up about this video.”

“Do you think it’s real?”

“I think….” He taps his chin with his fingertips.
“It is of questionable reliability.” He minimizes the
flying program and brings up a browser. The YouTube page with my
video is already loaded, and he starts the thing playing full-screen.
“Okay. Let’s see. There’s something about the kid
that seems odd to me. And there’s something about you. I’ve
watched this over and over, and it doesn’t smell right to me.
I’m a fellow who notices things, as you probably know. Would
you agree with me on that?”

“You do notice things,” I say. “Your powers of
observation may in fact border on the supernatural.”

“I appreciate you saying that.” Alan pauses the video
just at the point where I’m grabbing Cody Tate. “Now look
here. What is it about this boy that strikes me as peculiar? I
honestly can’t put my finger on it. Yet. But your face. Look at
it. It’s the face of a psychopath.”

“Uh….”

“No, what I’m saying here is that you are most certainly
not
a psychopath in the real world. I’ve seen you at
your worst, and it was certainly nothing like this. In addition to
never once seeing a tendency toward this sort of aggression in you, I
have never seen this look of calm, detached determination on your
face.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“What I’m getting at is that I believe, in these frames,
some pixels have been rearranged. There’s been some digital
manipulation of your image. To make you look crazy. As I think about
this, it’s not the action of you throwing the boy that makes
this video unsettling, it’s the expression on your face. It’s
beyond unsetting, Neil. It’s sinister. It’s troubling.”

“It is!” I say. “Seriously, I think you just put
your finger on why I’m so bothered by it.”

“But the level of sophistication, that should bother you too.
The level of work.”

“I don’t know, I’ve seen the kids in Steiner’s
digital media class do some pretty incredible stuff.”

“This Steiner, he’s a teacher?”

“She’s a teacher. A very good one.”

“Maybe you should talk to her. About any of her students who
might—”

“I’m not supposed to talk to anyone there,” I say.
“And they’re not supposed to talk to me. But Chris and
his friends want to go all Hardy Boys on this, so maybe they could
talk to her.”

“Find out who she thinks could pull something like this off. In
the meantime, I’m going to download a copy of this thing and
take a peek at it in some video editing software. Where I can blow it
up and see it frame by frame. Oh, and a question for you.”

“What?”

“You didn’t really do that to that kid, did you?”

“God, no.”

“Good. I didn’t think so.”

“I mean, what the hell? Here’s this thing that I’m
fairly certain did not happen, but pretty much everyone thinks it
did, and now I have to prove it didn’t happen.”

“What the hell,” Alan says, nodding sagely. “Welcome
to my life, Neil.”

“Jesus,” I say, and let out a long sigh.

“You haven’t told Chris about Lauren yet, have you?”

I shake my head, and Alan rises to his feet and grabs me by the
shoulders. “You need to do this. Not telling isn’t fair
to Chris, or Lauren.”

“But this video thing—”

“This video thing is going to blow over. Your family doesn’t
go away, though. Here’s what you are going to do. Get some
sleep tonight, some good sleep, and tell Chris tomorrow after school.
He can stew about it over the weekend, maybe he’ll be a little
pissed, and he’ll be over it by Monday. You got it?” I
nod. “He’ll do his basketball thing, and we’ll all
still have dinner Saturday night. Now, I told you I can get something
from Kris to help you sleep—”

“I don’t know,” I say, rising from the chair. Alan
claps his hand on my shoulder and gives me one more brotherly shake.

“It’s there if you need it. So, tomorrow, right? I’m
letting you off the hook for one more day.”

“Okay.”

Alan pats me on the back, and I leave his study to run into Kristin
at the front door just as she’s getting home. She drops the bag
she’s carrying to the floor and gives me a hug.

“Al told me about the video,” she says. “Why did
they do this? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” I say, then I laugh. “I’m
not really okay.” I pause, thinking maybe I
should
ask
her for something to help me sleep, but I don’t.

“Let us know what we can do,” she says. “Anything
you need, okay?” She gives me a kiss on the cheek, and I trot
back out into the rain.

My phone chirps with
a
call from Peggy Mackie when I’m almost home, and I run up and
duck under Carol’s garage roof to answer it.

“Any news?” I ask. “The police came here this
afternoon.”

“They’ve been getting statements from everyone,”
Peggy says. “You know, I had Pete Tran back when I was teaching
English. Good kid. What did you tell him?”

“I had him too. Great kid. Maybe not so much when he’s in
your house with a pistol and cuffs. But I told him everything, just
like with you.”

“The Tate family is going nuts. Like, out for blood on the
district.”

“Shit,” I sigh.

“Do you have a lawyer lined out?”

“I’m working on that.”

“Stu thinks there’s no way this will go to trial, but I
really think he just wants to reach a quick settlement to get us out
of the way of negative publicity. And he wants our discussions with
the family and their legal team to exclude you, at least as much as
they can. Gracie Adams agrees, and will push the board that way. What
she lacks in support she makes up with intimidation. It’s
pretty obvious she’s taking the side of the family. Stu I think
is pretty eager, which might mean throwing you under the bus.”

“What about the pictures, Peggy? Isn’t this kid going to
get in some kind of trouble for the pictures?”

“I can’t talk to you about the pictures right now, or
what might happen with them. So don’t ask me about it. I’ll
tell you something when I can.”

“Fine,” I say. “Something else. I’ve been
getting…some emails. Bad ones. Harrassing.”

“Everyone is,” she says. “Don’t worry about
it.” My shoulders drop with relief. “But how are you
seeing them? You aren’t even supposed to have access to your
account right now. I’ll say something to Cory.”

“Great. Is anyone questioning whether or not the video is
real?”

“The kids are all sticking to their stories so far. At least
the ones we’ve been able to prove are in the background of the
video. The YouTube accounts were made with fake names, and they used
a proxy server to hide the internet address, so we don’t have
any idea who uploaded them.”

“That sounds kind of advanced. Technically, I mean.”

“Maybe more sophisticated than you’d expect from a
fourteen year-old, but not really. People are looking into it. The
Tate kid is the only one we’re absolutely sure about, and he’s
sticking to his story most of all. He says you threw him down. The
parents have pulled him out of school, and they won’t let us
talk to him without their lawyers present.”

“Lawyers, plural?”

“They’ve got some money.”

“Great,” I say. “That’s just great. Oh, you
know what else is great? Kent Hughes—”

“Yeah, he called me too. I told him no comment, I need to talk
to our lawyer before I can tell you anything on that, blah, blah,
blah. Who knows what Gracie had to say to him, though. Hell, she
probably got lit up on bourbon and sent Hughes an email before he
even needed to call her. She’s not exactly disciplined about
messaging. But, whatever the article ends up saying, don’t get
too bent about it. It’s just the Bungle, right?”

I try to laugh at this. “Just the Bungle.” I try to laugh
again, but it’s not really working. “Keep me posted,
Peggy.”

Chris and I eat
dinner
quietly together when I’m back home. It’s pretty dull
fare: penne pasta, marinara from a jar, salad from a bag and a loaf
of store-bought French bread. In spite of his gourmet proclivities my
son downs two large bowls of the pasta; we’re all about
carbohydrates in the Kazenzakis household.

Later, as I’m getting ready for bed, Chris appears at my
bedroom door, staring at a phone in his palm.

“No luck,” he says without looking up. “Sparks says
they made a new account just to post the video.”

“I heard the same. Don’t worry about it too much, okay? I
think Mrs. Mackie has a good handle on everything.”

“We need to figure this out,” he says. “It’s
like, now I’m kind of mad about the whole thing. Oh, there are
like twenty new messages on the machine—”

“Just leave them,” I say. “Try not to worry about
all this, Chris. Deal with your own stuff. Focus on your schoolwork.
I’ll see you in the morning.”

He nods. “Night, Dad.”

Lauren has not called back or sent any texts. I know she’s
busy, and possibly called out or covering for another nurse, so I’m
not too worried about it. It happens. In my bed, I leave Lauren one
last message.

“Hey, I need to talk to you. Call me when you can. I’ll
be up for a little bit.” I pause. “And I love you.”

There. I said it. I lie across my bed with my phone on my chest, but
Lauren does not call back.

Nearly an hour passes and my bedroom is getting too oppressive, so I
search through my closet for my thick pullover so I can go out to the
fire pit. Maybe staring at a conflagration will calm my head. As I’m
looking, though, the shoebox on the upper closet shelf where I keep
my old prescriptions catches my eye; I take it down and rummage
through. Alan
did
offer me something similar, and I really
could use some sleep. I find one of my old Xanax bottles and give it
a shake, and it rattles in reply. I shouldn’t. I know I
shouldn’t. Wasn’t my best friend okay with it, though? I
need rest, badly, so I press off the top and tap one of the pink
pills out into my hand while I work up some spit in my mouth.

The tablet is swallowed. Tonight, maybe I will finally sleep.

Outside in the dusk I pull the tarp from the woodpile and wrestle out
some suitable logs. I toss them over the wet, dead ashes in the stone
ring, prime them with crumpled newspaper, and before long I have
myself a glorious bonfire. I should give Alan a call to let him know,
I’m thinking, because he’s always up for a fire, but my
phone buzzes in my hand with a call from Peggy Mackie just as I’m
taking it out of my pocket.

“What have you got for me?” I ask her, poking a stick
into the fire.

“I didn’t think you’d pick up. I was just going to
leave you a message. Not much new. I’m getting the impression
the family is stonewalling Pete Tran. Pete let something slip to that
effect when I spoke with him after I talked to you, but he
backpedalled when I pressed him on it. He’s also been talking
to someone about the technical side of how the video might have been
made and posted.”

“Tracy Steiner?”

“No. Some cop computer expert. Also, there’s going to be
a special board meeting Tuesday night about all this.”

“A board meeting that I should attend? With legal counsel?”

“I think your presence will be expected, yes. And all I can say
is, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably want a lawyer there.
How are you hanging in?”

“I keep moving, Peggy. I just keep myself moving.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

After we hang up I check my phone for any messages or emails from
Lauren—there’s nothing—and I dial Alan’s
number only to get his voicemail.

“Built a fire,” I say after the beep. “Come on over
if you want.”

Alan calls back in seconds. “Should I bring supplies?” he
asks. “I have a pretty nice bottle of tempranillo downstairs.”

“You can bring supplies.” Should I mention the Xanax? I
only took the smallest dose. I can’t even feel it, really. A
little wine on top will not hurt.

“I’ll be over in a minute.”

Finally, before putting my phone away for good, I call Lauren.
Straight to voicemail again.

“If you get this, and you’re still up, call me,” I
say, trying to sound more alert than I’m beginning to feel.

I slip the phone back into my pocket, and it isn’t long before
Alan, wearing a camping headlamp, rolls up to the fire pit on his
bicycle. He draws a bottle of wine from a folded blanket in the
basket, followed by a pair of travel coffee mugs, both of which he
fills nearly to the top. He hands me one of the mugs, tapping his own
against mine as he takes a seat next to me in the ring of folding
chairs.

We’re mostly quiet as we sip good wine from plastic mugs in the
early night. My mind goes fuzzy and the fire becomes like something I
would see in a dream. I can’t look away from the glowing core
of it, and other than Alan pointing out flight numbers and
destinations of the airliners passing over our heads, not much is
said as we sit and watch the fire die before us.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: September 12, 7:18 am

Subject: rain

_____________________________

It’s been steadily raining for
nearly a day now, and I feel like I can’t wake up. I feel like
I can hardly open my eyes, but I can hear the rain through the roof.
I’d be happier if it was snow, but I’m not quite ready
for winter yet.

But, now that I think about it, I
guess you kind of hated snow sometimes.