The Poison Tree (13 page)

Then, she laughed. Hysterically. And then … silence.

I pounded on the door. “Mom, don't!”

I had to do something. Anything. So I flung myself on the floor as noisily as I could, and then yelled “Unless you come out of there right now, I'll kill myself! I'm going to do it, Mom! I swear!”

I would be “dead” when she came out, unless, of course, she was already dead behind her locked door. In that case, Uncle Lee would have to figure out what to do with both corpses.

For ten minutes, I lay there on the floor, eyes closed, waiting. Then slowly, her door opened. After a minute, she nudged me with the fuzzy toe of one pink slipper. I opened one eye. Her face was still red, but her eyes were less wild.

“Do you have any idea what you did?” she said as she stood over me.

“No, how could I?”

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when once we practice to deceive!”

“I was just trying to clean the house—”

“Liar!” she yelled with a freshly polished forefinger stretched in my
direction, but the crazed heat had gone out of her. In its place was a terrible resignation. “You deliberately threw away the crystals for the antique chandelier Papa gave me; that's what you did. It was a wedding gift from Gramps,” she added sadly.

“I thought it was just a heap of broken glass.”

“Why would any sane person save a bucket of broken glass?” she asked without irony. “Everyone is against me. First your father. Now you. I can't go on. Death! Death alone has the power to save me from this hell.”

“Mom, listen, I'll go downstairs right now to the basement. Maybe I can salvage some of the pieces from the incinerator, maybe.…” I trailed off, lamely. “I was only trying to help.”

“He was only trying to help,” she repeated, sarcasm dripping. Then she turned and walked back into her bedroom and locked the door.

I ran downstairs and got the key to the boiler room from the super, but of course, there was nothing to salvage. By the time I got back, Bobby had returned home in a state of euphoria from his morning with Uncle Lee. He wore a shiny black top hat and clutched a magic wand. Uncle Lee had taken him to our old magic shop.

“Look, Mom,” he sang at the top of his lungs. “Look, what I can do.” Lee and Bobby's return drew her back out of her room, and she even managed a weak smile as he tore up a piece of newspaper and made it reappear.

“So Mom, what do you think?” he said. Uncle Lee smiled, gently tapping on his front teeth.

She burst into tears.

“What is it, Mom? What is it?” Bobby asked. She told him what I had done, but instead of commiserating, Bobby's moon face broke out in a smile.

“That's easy, Mom—watch, I can bring it back!” He placed the empty yellow bucket upside down, tapped his new wand against the plastic, and shouted, “Alakazaam, please and thank you!” three times in a row, while Lee beamed with pride.

After I destroyed her antique crystal chandelier, my mother plunged into a deep depression. She had never shown an interest in housekeeping, and
wondered how she could be expected to keep house with only one maid. Now there were none. In Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, the Lerners apparently had several maids. Her parents had spoiled her, and she was given every luxury. She was the baby sister of two much older brothers, and learned to drive, shoot a pistol, and even pilot a plane while still in her teens. But all this was in the distant past now. None of it mattered anymore.

“What's the whole life for?” Mom sighed to no one in particular. She even grew estranged from her mother and Uncle Lee who were paying our rent during this time, since my father refused to pay alimony. As far as I could tell, my mother felt abandoned by her own mother because those few people in her circle who had been left by their husbands were always sent on long cruises to the Bahamas to recover their spirits. Gramsie's idea of restoring her daughter's equilibrium was matzo ball soup and kasha.

I began losing things and walked around with my head down and shoes untied. By the time midterms came around, I received an F in three subjects, and Ds in the other two. Mom's response to my failures was curious. She never suggested the root cause of my poor performance might be my lack of studying, or even the state of the apartment, or that their failed marriage had upset me. No, she felt the source of my difficulties was directly related to the size and weight of my maroon and white Horace Mann book bag.

“Look at him, how thin he is—he can't possibly schlep all those books without stooping. Look—he's turning into a cripple!” This, she invariably addressed, not to me, but to the book bag itself. When the book bag offered no satisfactory explanation, Mom threw herself into action. I was told to order duplicates of all my heavy textbooks, and charge them to my father at the bookstore. That way I could keep a duplicate set in my locker at school and not have to carry them all home every day and end up a cripple.

I knew that this was only done, in part, out of her concern for my health, but actually was borne, in fact, out of her total sense of helplessness. When my father left, the judge refused a definitive ruling on alimony, insisting only that my father pay my tuition and all other school-related expenses, including books. By asking me to buy duplicate books, my mother was attempting to hit my father where it hurt most: in his wallet. So, I dutifully ordered duplicates of all my books even though I seldom opened the ones I had.

One chilly day as I rode the subway up to school, it occurred to me I
hadn't done my homework—again. My English teacher, Mr. Ling, felt that a detailed knowledge of grammar superseded the study of literature. Glancing over the day's assignment, I knew it was hopeless. It would be easier to start devising another illness for Uncle Lee rather than to start diagramming sentences on the subway up to 242nd Street. I was no longer certain which classes I had already used Lee's congestive heart failure as an excuse for not turning in work, so I decided to abandon the whole family of cardiac illness in favor of gastrointestinal distress. It seemed plausible for a middle-aged man, who lived with his mother and gobbled Ex-Lax like candy, would suffer from something bowel related.

Late to class yet again, I feared Mr. Ling's wrath and sarcasm would be directed at me. However, to my surprise, he didn't even notice me as I slumped into my seat. Instead, he was screaming at the top of his lungs; his anger directed at someone whom he believed had deliberately trampled his flower beds. Mr. Ling was not only our English teacher, he was also the school's head gardener. Normally serene, the veins in his neck and forehead distended into thick cords, which, combined with my own guilt for being late and not having my homework done, terrified me.

Each bang of Mr. Ling's fist on the green metal desk decorated with a small bud vase and single stem made my teeth rattle. The class listened with apparent concern, but as soon as Mr. Ling turned away, I realized that everyone was in fact pleased and full of boundless admiration for the perpetrator—whoever it might be. I cast a glance at Ephraim across the aisle, nodding with metronomic regularity at Mr. Ling, while his left thumb and forefinger were simultaneously inserted deep in his nose. When I was sure Mr. Ling wasn't looking, I nudged Ephraim's less-engaged right hand, raising my eyebrows to ask if he knew who had done the deed. Words were not exchanged, of course, but his mouthed response was all too clear: Hirsch.

“This is an outrage which I tell you has moved me to tears,” Mr. Ling cried. “Yes, boys, tears—and I'm not ashamed to admit that! But they are tears of sorrow as well as rage.” He shut his eyes for a moment of meditation before continuing. “I am certain that someone in this room knows who committed this atrocity—yes, boys, atrocity! And I do not use the term cavalierly. Why? To murder a tender plant in its bed is for me tantamount to maiming or killing an innocent child. How could one of you, born into
supposedly good families, families of wealth and privilege, be guilty of such horror? How could anyone with all your advantages—how could you choose to commit such a desecration?” Mr. Ling said this to us all, yet it seemed as though he was pointing at me for not doing my homework. I couldn't help myself, and guiltily squirmed lower in my seat.

I glanced over to where Hirsch sat, a tall, pimply boy whose sunken cheeks and striped tie gave him the look of a freshly paroled criminal at sixteen. Last term we'd read
Julius Caesar
, and it was clear to everyone in the class that Hirsch was born to play the role of Cassius of the “lean and hungry look.” Yet here was the perpetrator, smiling angelically, while I was innocent, yet trembling before Mr. Ling's rage. I looked more closely, and saw his pockmarked face beam up at the teacher in ecstasy. Not Cassius, but St. Theresa of Avila had taken possession of his soul.

“I'll say no more about this, boys,” Mr. Ling said, pausing just long enough to catch his breath and continue, “but I want you to know that I shall never forget this feeling of loss in my breast; nor shall I rest until this criminal is apprehended.”

There was a moment of silence; then a hand shot up. It was Hirsch's!

“Yes, Mr. Hirsch?”

“Should any of us manage to identify the culprit, will we be able to reveal his identity anonymously?”

The class collectively held their breath at the boldness of his ploy. The audacity!

“A fair question, Mr. Hirsch. I understand the consequences of being considered a ‘snitch' toward one's classmates, and I want you to know, that, despite my personal antipathy in the matter—which would incline me to have said individual ‘unseamed from the nave to th' chops.' Ah, good, I see at least a few of you boys recall that deliciously memorable phrase from The Scottish Play. I do intend to act with discretion, as will Headmaster Gratwick. So, Mr. Hirsch, you may deliver the name of that detestable coward in confidence without fear that your identity will ever be revealed.”

“Thank you, sir,” Hirsch said with perfect equanimity. “Thank you very much, sir.”

The class watched Hirsch's performance with reverence. Despite his pimply complexion, he wore the mask of purity to perfection; so confident
was he in his parents' wealth and his own unassailable privilege at this elite preparatory school. By asking so brazen a question, he had eliminated himself from suspicion, and intimated that he might be prepared to deliver up someone else's name—an act of terrifying audacity at which we (petty criminals who thought mightily of ourselves for sneaking into the school cafeteria on a Sunday to steal ice cream sandwiches) could only gape with wonder.

Mr. Ling paused, and again I began to dread his request to turn in our homework.

However, he had another surprise in store for us. “I trust you all understand why, as school gardener, this pains me so much. Now, I must tell you that there is another matter that concerns me, and it is even more serious than the trampling of the flowerbeds outside Tillinghast Hall.” He paused slightly and said, “I want you boys to take out your
Norton Readers
, please.” This last was said with a frozen smile, which made my blood run cold.

“It has come to my attention by sheer chance that a few of you boys here at the Horace Mann School for Boys have apparently found it amusing to decorate—I should rather say, desecrate, your textbooks with Nazi swastikas. I want you to know that such action will not be tolerated—ever. Don't sit there gape-mouthed. Take out your
Nortons
… immediately!”

The classroom filled with the sound of book bags unzipping and pages turning. Mr. Ling stalked slowly up and down the aisles, searching book after book, but to no avail. As he came down my aisle, however, I began to sweat. Not only had I not done the sentence diagramming, but I realized that I had left my own battered, second-hand Norton at home, and had instead grabbed my spare copy—still in its manufacturer's shrink-wrapping from the bookstore—and taken it to class. Mr. Ling was now one aisle over from me and tripped over someone's book bag, nearly falling.

“Assassin!” he shouted at the boy who'd carelessly placed the bag in the aisle, before continuing his search for incriminating evidence. As Mr. Ling glanced over my shoulder, he seized my textbook. When he held it up above his head to display it to the class, light gleamed off its cellophane wrapper. I mumbled, “I've only just bought it, sir.” A comment which not only failed to mollify, but produced a contemptuous snort since we were well past the midway point in the term.

Mr. Ling's fury at the desecration of his flowerbeds was now topped
by his outrage toward “a pupil who has the temerity to come to class—not merely with his homework unprepared, but his textbook unwrapped!” At this point, the class's relief from Mr. Ling's menace found its outlet in laughter.

“Boys, it was doubtless my fault,” he said acidly. “Why, you ask? Well, I never included instructions informing you how vital it was to actually unwrap your books before reading them! How could Henry then possibly be faulted for not opening his
Norton
when he was never specifically instructed to remove it from its cellophane? Henry, for your benefit we will in the future include a pair of scissors in your list of required school supplies.” I was frostily told to remove myself to the hallway and use the momentary solitude to “crack open your textbook for the first time, and contemplate perhaps the most brazen act of negligence I have ever witnessed in the storied history of this school.”

As Mr. Ling's hostility reached a crescendo of sarcasm, I was simply waved out into the hall. But as I began to leave, he stopped me with a final invective: “Wait! We do not want you to leave until we have actually seen you remove your text from its virgin sheath.” At the words “virgin sheath,” a new storm of hilarity broke forth, and badly shaken, I fled into the hallway.

I limped out into the hall, and a tingle crept over my shoulder blades. I had the distinct sensation that my father was watching this latest installment of my perpetual disgrace. That was, of course, impossible. My father was at work at Merrill Lynch down at One Liberty Plaza on Wall Street. I was here at 246th Street in the Bronx. Yet, nonetheless, I felt his presence.