The Morels (33 page)

What combination is she on, Doc wonders, and would she give him the recipe?

If those first years at the house were a celebration directed outward, out into the street, a giving away, now is a time to turn inward again, for each to seek out his or her own pleasure—the time has come to take back. And whereas the ethos of life had been toward excellence and beauty, now it’s the opposite. It’s all revel, without the art, without the life. The drugs do away with any inhibitions, as well as the notion of coupling. It is every man for himself now. There are no more experts. It’s an unwinding of sorts. The only thing to do is fuck.

“That was a crazy time,” Cynthia said wistfully. “Crazy.”

I asked, “What about Arthur?”

Doc said, “What about him? He was a big boy by then. If he lived in India, he would have been married off. If he were a Jew, he would have already been a man. Thirteen, fourteen. Almost the same age as Cyn when I first banged her.”

Cynthia said, “Anyway, he kept to himself mostly. He was in his room practicing or out at the library or at a lesson or up at that music school.”

I tried pressing here; what activities had Arthur seen, exactly? What might he have participated in, in the Permission Room, and with whom? At what age? But their answers were elusive. Later, I could see that this was a mistake, pressing the issue. It pretty much put an end to the interview. Cynthia excused herself to “piddle,” and Doc, taking out the flat marble pipe from his pants pocket along with a Bic lighter, sparked up a waft of pot smoke that he kept in his chest along with anything else he might have been willing to say that day.

The Morels talked for six straight hours. Dave had to make a run up to Tower Records to pick up more DV cassettes after a frantic bit of whispering with Suriyaarachchi; we hadn’t planned for this kind of outpouring. And, despite my failure at the end, Cynthia had come back into the main room as we were packing up and invited us to stay and continue filming—she was planning to design some more jewelry and thought we might be interested in filming her make it. Maybe stay for dinner.

We departed the carriage house after promising to return on Sunday, and, when safely around the corner, we were free to hug one another, to giggle at our good fortune. The Morels had proved to be a gold mine. Suriyaarachchi carried the cassettes in a special bag that he clutched now with both hands to his chest.

“So they’re not married,” Suriyaarachchi said.

“They don’t sleep together. Did you see the other bed?”

“I thought that was for guests.”

“It’s where he sleeps. She’s up in the bunk.”

“Your man Arthur,” Dave said, “had one strange kind of childhood.”

We passed an Indian restaurant on Broome Street that met the description of the one that Doc had recommended earlier. The place was empty. Several waiters were gathered around a table in the back, wiping down menus. We sat down by the window and ordered samosas and three servings of
palak paneer
.

After hearing about the last days of the carriage house, I had to wonder at Arthur’s sexual inexperience. From what he’d shared with me, and what I gleaned from his book, there had only been that one early encounter with another boy his own age. How was that possible? From the way Cynthia told it, he would have been tripping over writhing orgies on his way to the bathroom every morning. I pictured myself at the age of fifteen, with a perpetual erection, living in that household, with my pick of willing participants and no prohibition whatsoever from my parents. It would
have been nonstop fucking, I would have gone insane from fucking. And, I would have thought, growing up in a household like that, Arthur would have been less shy, more at ease with himself in social settings. Another thing that didn’t add up.

“Sunday will be about pickup shots,” Suriyaarachchi said. “And cutaways. We need lots of cutaways. See if we can’t get our hands on old photos or artwork. Signs, anything we can do that Ken Burns slow pan-zoom with. And we’ll need all sorts of footage of that basement.”

“We’re going to need light. The gain in the shadows will be bad.”

“If you bring light down there, it’s not going to look like a creepy basement anymore.”

“As long as we get the ratio right, we can do what we want.”

The two of them argued for a while about this until our food came, and then we lost ourselves to our appetites, piling our plates high with pea-studded steaming rice and torn flaps of naan, ladling the stew from the round copper bowls. There was plenty to go around, and by the end I felt stuffed and a little guilty at my indulgence.

E
VENTS DEVELOPED FAIRLY QUICKLY AFTER
this. I was present for very little of it and only put the pieces together through interviews, generously granted to us by Penelope, the Wrights, and law enforcement many months later, after it was all over.

Two officers from Fairfax County responded to the call from the Wrights’ residence in Annandale. Report of an unauthorized person trying to gain entry. The unauthorized person was the Wrights’ son-in-law. Officer Colonna waited outside with the suspect while Officer Fields spoke with the owners of the house.

There had been a domestic dispute between their daughter and her husband, the suspect. All parties were vague as to what had transpired.

Violence? No.

The father and property’s deed holder, Frank Wright, had a pending civil suit against his son-in-law. Defamation. That man out there is a monster. He molested my grandson and wrote about it, just to smear our noses in his awful deed. He’s lucky I’m a Christian and obey my Commandments or I would have blown his head off! Mrs. Wright sat by her husband’s side and stroked his hand.

The officer asked to see the permit for the weapon and the weapon itself—he did this less out of protocol and more as a way
of keeping them focused, of calming them all down. Officer Fields asked to speak with their daughter and her boy, who seemed to corroborate Mr. Wright’s claim. The events that the boy described had taken place when the boy was eight, in their place of residence at the time, in Queens, New York. The boy was now eleven.

Officer Fields finished taking statements, checked the permit against the serial number on the firearm. Mr. Wright wanted to file a restraining order against his son-in-law. He has no right to be on our property!

There was a hush in the house. A television in the living room played out an episode of
Law & Order
quietly. Mr. Wright’s statements sounded like outbursts in the relative calm. Everyone else spoke quietly, mirroring Officer Fields, who recently attended a seminar in which he learned to project the emotional calm he was looking to instill in the people he was sworn to serve and protect, something he revealed to Mrs. Wright when she noted his calm demeanor.

Officer Fields told Mr. Wright how to go about filing for a restraining order. Mr. Wright looked for a pen and paper frantically, which Mrs. Wright calmly found and set before Mr. Wright. He began dutifully copying out Officer Fields’s instructions but stopped after a while. It was too complicated. Obtaining documents from this office, filing it with that office, going to court. The shotgun would do for the purposes of restraint.

As Officer Fields was leaving, he told the daughter and her parents that an investigator would be in touch. The three seemed at odds about this: Mr. Wright eager to get the ball rolling, Mrs. Wright and her daughter not so sure.

Are you going to arrest my husband?

At this point, no. We will make sure he leaves you all in peace tonight—but as to the other matter. That’s serious business. We will share what information you’ve provided with PD in your neck of the woods back in New York. They have special investigators to handle cases like yours.

Officer Fields bid them good night and rejoined his partner,
who was chumming with the suspect. Officer Fields put on his best intimidating face and told the suspect to vacate the premises.

The suspect started in about his rights to see his son, and Officer Fields told him that he did not own that house and had no right to enter it without the owner’s permission, and if his wife and son didn’t wish to see him right now, it was their right to stay in a house in which he was not welcome—and if he persisted in loitering, they would issue him a desk-appearance ticket, and he’d have to spend the rest of the week going between the police station and courthouse to deal with it.

Penelope is contacted some days later by phone.
Detective Ramirez
, she writes down on the back of an envelope. He would like to speak with Penelope and Will, to determine whether or not there is merit in pursuing a criminal complaint against her husband.

A week has passed. Penelope has been getting a seven-day earful from her father. It’s having an effect; his rants are beginning to sound like sense. She’s angry now. Furious. At Arthur and at herself. How could she have let this happen? She should fight for the apartment, insist Arthur find a place to stay, but she doesn’t want to negotiate with him. She doesn’t have the strength at the moment, and the truth is she’s not sure she wants to bring her son back there. She calls Rachel, an old high school friend who lives in Brooklyn Heights. Senior year they’d smoke joints on the gym’s roof and gossip about pregnant classmates. As adults, they got together over coffee occasionally to discuss their ailing marriages. Penelope had helped shepherd Rachel through her divorce some months earlier, and Rachel is thrilled now to return the favor—and insists Penelope and Will come stay with her.

Penelope goes to the precinct with Will. The investigators question her about her statement to Officer Fields in Virginia. They want Will to speak with one of their psychologists. Penelope’s not so sure. What if it’s all a mistake? She’s already spoken with a psychologist, and Will has gone back and forth about it.

Has he been known to lie?

No, she says.

Would he have any reason she could think of for making this up?

Because he’s mad at his father.

Detective Ramirez laughs. I can remember being all sorts of mad at my father. Kids fantasize about doing terrible things to their parents. But they don’t actually do them.

Or for the same reason my husband would have for making it up, she says. I don’t know. Statements, psychologists. I just don’t know if this is a good idea. And a trial? I don’t know if I want to put my son through all that. The family through it.

Are you afraid?

Of what?

That if it’s true you’ll be held responsible for letting it happen, presiding over it.

But I’m not responsible.

You’re not? When your husband published his confession, you did nothing.

He said it was a fiction.

And you believed him? You just—took his word for it without asking your own son if it was true?

I didn’t want to confuse him, didn’t want to hurt him!

Who—your son or your husband? Who were you trying to protect? If this goes to trial and your husband’s convicted, you can be tried afterward for negligence—and, if you refuse to cooperate here, obstruction as well.

Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?

I’m laying out your options here.

Do I need a lawyer?

You’re not a suspect, relax. If you cooperate, let us do our jobs, we could make certain guarantees down the line, what avenues we do or don’t pursue if this goes to trial, if your husband is found guilty.

She goes with Will to a room and is joined by a young man—how old is this kid? He asks Will questions. Will answers. There
are toys. They have him sitting at a low table. Paper, Crayola pens. Will tries to use several of the pens, but they’re dry.

You need new pens, Will says.

The psychologist hands Will the pen in his pocket. It’s a fountain pen. Have you ever used one of these before?

It’s heavy, Will says. He hefts it in the tips of his fingers. Can I have it?

It was given to me as a gift, the psychologist says. He explains how a fountain pen works—the inkwell, the split nib. He encourages Will to try it out, to write something. Was this a ploy? Was Will given dry markers on purpose? Penelope has to wonder.

Will writes the words:
copy, cat, tail
, and
tattle
.

Are you worried about tattling, the psychologist asks. Being a tattletale? Will is reluctant to speak. Tattling on your dad?

His name is Art, Will says.

Is that what you call your father: Art?

That’s his name, isn’t it?

Why don’t you tell me a little about him, the psychologist suggests. What is he like? What do you two enjoy doing together?

I’m not going to say
masturbate
, Will says. I know that’s what you’re really asking. Do we like to masturbate together, but I’m not going to say that.

Nobody’s asking you to say anything but what you know to be the truth. The psychologist asks Will if he feels embarrassed, if he might be worried about saying the wrong things in front of his mother.

Will says maybe.