The Banks of Certain Rivers (31 page)

He doesn’t answer.

I go to the kitchen. I bring the chair back to its feet, take a broom
from the closet and sweep up the glass in the hall. I pick up the
frames and put them in a stack on my desk. I bring the reading lamp
back to a standing position and straighten the shade. And I return to
Christopher’s door.

“Chris, I’ll be right out here. If you need to talk.”

There’s no reply. I lean my back to the wall, and slide myself
down to a seat on the floor. For a very long time I stay there.

Chris does not emerge
from his room for the rest of the evening. I listen as I sit on the
floor, for the shuffling sounds, the bangs and thumps, the occasional
evidence of respiration. I give up on saying anything to him; he
won’t answer. And I finally give up on waiting.

Dinner does not bring him out, so I pour myself a half-glass of
whiskey over ice and eat alone. My brother on TV does not bring him
out either. He’s upset, I get it. My glass remains half-filled;
sometimes replenished by ice, and other times by spirit.

Alan was right, like he is about everything: I should have told him
sooner.

I go outside to take a stroll around the field, the short glass
clinking at my side through the dusk. The grass is wet, and my shoes
and the lower legs of my jeans are soon soaked. I don’t really
care. When I’m as far as I could possibly be from the house my
phone rings in my pocket. I fumble as I draw it from my pants,
thinking, hoping it might be Chris, but it’s just Peggy Mackie.

“Neil, how are you holding up?”

“You know, this video thing seems relatively minor now, to tell
the truth.”

“Good, good,” she says, completely missing the point. How
would she know? “So, do you want the good news or the bad news
first?”

“Let’s get the bad news out of the way. I’m ready
for anything.”

“Bad news is, the board will probably recommend that your
teaching contract be terminated Tuesday night.”

“Oh, great,” I say. “How about that.” It’s
not like I didn’t think it was coming; the revelation seems
almost anticlimactic.

“Now,” Peggy goes on, “that’s just their
recommendation to admin. We’ll be expected to follow it, but
your lawyer will probably want to contest the terms, and the
Teachers’ Union representative will certainly contest the
terms. Can you bring your lawyer Tuesday?”

“Uh, sure, I’ll get right on that.”

“Good. Has the union guy called? He claims he has your number.”

“Union guy? No union guy has called.”

“Typical. He’ll call.”

“So what is the good news?”

“First part of the good news is there’s precedent in the
state for you being terminated with a year of your salary and
benefits, and probably some sort of severance. With that to go on,
we’ll tack it onto the board’s recommendation.”

“No shit?” I say. In light of everything else, this
really is pretty good news.

“No shit. I’m pulling for you to get the best deal here,
okay? And you did not hear me say that, ever. If it were up to
Gracie, she’d find a reason to have everyone at your pay grade
fired. Now, the other part of the good news, maybe the best news,
Pete Tran is going to bring two kids in tomorrow for questioning.”

“How is that good?”

“He thinks they were involved in the whole Cody Tate thing, and
some of the stories aren’t lining up. He thinks if he can get
them out of school for a day, maybe he can trip them up. I told him
they’re texting each other twenty-four-seven and it probably
wouldn’t make any difference, but he seemed to think it would.
Maybe he’s just trying to scare them into slipping up.”

“So again, how exactly is this good?”

“If he’s got reason to think something weird is going on,
and his computer guy seems to be leaning that way, maybe we can ask
the board to wait on a decision. Or get better terms for you. We’ve
been taking a beating on this in the media for sure. Every time
something’s on the news about it, Gracie calls me in a rage.
She’s got the rest of the board worked up about it too.”

“I thought you were done with the bad news part?”

“Just hang in there,” she tells me. “Wait. One more
good thing, but not so related. The Masterson pictures.”

“Yeah?”

“Both were fake. The kid just got them from a porn site and
cropped them down so you couldn’t see faces, then told his
friends they were of his ex when he sent them around. He’s
still in big trouble, but it’s a different kind of big
trouble.”

“God, you almost would want to kick the shit out of a kid for
doing something like that.”

“You did
not
just say that, Neil. I am going to pretend
I didn’t hear that.”

“Right,” I say. “Thanks for everything, Peggy.”

We hang up and I go back inside; there’s evidence in the form
of a plate by the sink that Chris ventured out of his room for
something to eat. I refill my glass and return to his door.

“Chris, come on. Can we talk?”

Nothing. Complete silence. I’m tempted to get a thin
screwdriver to unlock the door, but we made a deal a long time ago
that I’d respect his space when his door was locked, and I feel
like today I’ve burned enough of his trust.

I go to the kitchen and wash my son’s dinner plate. That’s
something. And the potential of a severance package, that’s
something too. I have received no call from any union rep, though,
and it dawns on me that maybe the number they have is my landline,
and that maybe I should plug the thing back in and check my messages
in the event that he might call, or has called already. The instant I
work the phone’s plug back into the outlet the set rings at
full volume, nearly making me jump out of my skin; the name on the ID
reads TESHCORP.

“Is Teshcorp the name of the teacher’s union?” I
say upon accepting the call.

“You are not such a good man, Mr. Neil K.” It’s the
robot voice again.

“Why don’t you just leave me alone,” I say, not
very forcefully.

“I could leave you alone, but the rest of us probably would
not. We are so, so many! And our memories are long, Neil K. And our
sense of justice is perhaps….”

“Perhaps what?” I say. I’m speaking softly. I don’t
want Christopher to hear, but at the same time, I wish he were out in
the room with me. “You’re assuming I did something wrong.
How do you know—”

“We know, Neil K. We have seen the video. We know what it is
like at the hand of a bully. Maybe you now can know this thing too.
We are everywhere, and we know.”
Click.
The hair on my
arms is standing up as the call goes dead. I hang up the phone, and
unplug the phone from the wall once more. Screw it, the union guy can
track me down some other way if he needs to talk to me so badly.

My hands are shaking.
Who the fuck is that guy?
Is it some
student trying to frighten me, or is it something more sinister? If
it’s a student, he’s succeeded, at least in the immediate
term. I consider for just a moment calling Pete Tran to tell him
about what’s going on, but what the hell. I’m fine. I
fill my glass once more with whiskey and go around the doors of my
house to make sure they’re all locked.

With a conspicuous silence hanging over the house, I go to my room to
prepare myself for bed, and do my best to purge my head of all
thoughts. I stand and look at my still-made bed, and, knowing that
sleep will be as hard in coming as it’s been all week I go to
my closet and reach for my shoebox. The pill bottle rattles lightly
when I test it, and I open it to find only two tablets remaining. One
might be enough to get me to sleep, but I want to be
certain
,
so I dump both of them into my hand and bring my palm to my mouth and
swallow them with the watery dregs of my drink. The empty glass is as
depressing as anything else, so I go to the kitchen for a last refill
before slinking back to my spot on the hallway floor.

“Chris?” I say softly. Nothing.

I draw up my knees and rest my head against the wall. I repeat my
son’s name: two times, three. I say it again, and close my
eyes.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: September 13, 8:45 pm

Subject: Lauren Downey

_____________________________

I told Chris, and he didn’t
take it very well. I haven’t seen him lose control like that in
a long, long time.

Keeping something inside like that
for so long can kill you.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I’m surprised when I
wake in my bed
the next morning, both at the fact that I am
fully clothed beneath my covers, and at the fact that it is ten
minutes after eleven o’clock. Have I ever slept this late in my
entire life? Chris says nothing when I meet him in the kitchen. His
lips remain pressed into a thin line, and he won’t meet my
eyes. When I stand in the doorway to try to speak with him, he keeps
his back to me.

“Christopher, come on.” No response. He makes himself a
sandwich, and I get myself a glass of water to try to clear out the
whiskey sludge feeling left in my mouth and the hazy feeling up
behind my eyes. Just how much did I drink last night?

“You’re pissed,” I say, trying to find the right
words. “Okay. I understand. But this is what’s going on.
I’m dealing with all this, and I want you to be with me on it,
okay?” Nothing. He silently takes a bite of his sandwich and
chews. “What if we do an overnight on Tabby Sunday night, huh?”
I ask, catching the smallest flicker in his eye as a response. “Soon
as you get back from basketball camp, we’ll get the boat, head
out to South Manitou, talk it out. Don’t worry about school on
Monday. You can take a day or two off. I need you, Christopher. I
need you back on the team.”

Chris finishes his lunch, drops his plate into the sink, and blows
past me to pick up his pack and gym bag on his way out the door.

“Think about it, Chris!” I call from the doorway. “I’ll
see you tomorrow!”

In that flicker in his eye, there was a hint of detente. I’m
sure of it.

I consider a run
, but I
feel like shit, so I go over to check on Carol. No car is there yet,
and when I go in the door I see that Lauren’s name is on the
scheduling whiteboard for today beginning at noon. When I see her
name there, I almost smile. Maybe, somehow, things will be okay. Just
like Alan said, Chris would be mad about it, then he’d get over
it. Maybe everything will work out.

A year’s pay with benefits, plus a severance? That would buy me
some time with Leland, for sure. I could fix up the houses to rent
out, or maybe even have the beach house remodeled and tell Leland to
forget it. And if we have some income from renting Lauren’s
condo….

Maybe things won’t be so bad after all. Maybe.

Carol is seated upright in her bed, with a copy of Friday’s
Bungle spread out over the quilt before her.

“Neil, what the heck is this business with you in the paper?”

So much for this refuge.

“Some kids have played a pretty mean trick, I think. On me.”

“It says you’re suspended from your job?”

“I am.”

“Damn kids,” Carol says.

“You can say that again.” I pull a chair next to the bed
and sit. “Feeling good today?”

“I’m feeling pretty good. Seems like the mornings can be
better. It comes and goes. I can’t even explain what it’s
like when it’s not good. I find myself places, Neil, and I
don’t even know how I got there. I think I see Dick.”

“You’ve called me Arthur,” I say.

“Sure I have. You look just like Art when he was a young man.”

I consider, just for a second, telling her in this rare moment while
she’s clear-headed about me and Lauren, everything about Lauren
and me, but I stop myself. I should talk with Lauren first. She
should be here too.

“Did you ever know anyone named Lawler?” I ask instead.
“Here in Port Manitou, or somewhere around here?”

“Oh, gosh, there was...well, Harvey Lawler we knew, from the
co-op over to Suttons Bay. A real crack-up, Harvey was. He lost his
first wife to...well, I can’t recall the illness now. But his
second wife Bess was crack-up too. We had them over for cards here
and there. What in the world made you think about Harvey Lawler?”

“You mentioned that name the other day, it just got me
wondering.”

“I don’t even remember that, Neil. You see what I mean?
It used to trouble me. Now I figure, if I worried myself about it,
I’d be worrying all the time I was feeling well! I guess you
could say I’ve accepted my position in life.”

“Did Harvey Lawler ever have anything to do with the orchard?”

“No, no, not that I recall. We always worked with the Manitou
co-op. But what a funny man that Harvey Lawler was.”

“Would Dick ever have sold the orchard? Or any part of it?”

“Goodness no. Dick would have had himself buried on the orchard
if he could have. He looked into it, you know, when the lawyers were
drawing up his will. I told him he should just be cremated and we
could toss his ashes out around the cherries, but that idea didn’t
sit too well with him.”

I hear the garage door open, and the sounds of someone in the
farmhouse kitchen. Carol can’t hear it, but she sees my
reaction.

“Nurse is here, I suppose?” I nod. “Did you happen
to see who I’ve got today?”

“Lauren Downey,” I say.

“Oh, well then.” Carol gives me a sideways glance. “That
Lauren’s a real sweetie, don’t you think?”

“I….”

“Come on, Neil. Don’t tell me you’ve never caught
one of those looks she gives you from time to time.”

“No, uh, I really never….”

“Well, look at you, Mister Bashful. A lady can tell these
things, you know. I think you should try to get to know Miss Downey a
little better.”