by Ian Woollen
“Oh, my God,” Mary sighed, “that explains a lot.”
“About what?” Robbie said.
“About your grandmother.”
“What do you mean?” Robbie asked, bravely stepping into an adult conversation.
“Her stoicism,” Mary said.
“S-T-O-I-C,” Ward spelled for Robbie, “It’s a good ‘S’ word to know.”
Robbie said, “Is that why you sometimes call her a ‘stick in the mud’?”
“I’m never going to call her that again,” Mary said.
Mary’s emotional tone reminded Robbie of her reaction on the night of the basketball players’ party. It nudged him toward recognition that his parents had earlier lives about which he knew very little and that his kid’s eye view of them was largely guesswork.
The next day, Robbie asked, “Do people die of chicken pox?”
Ward quickly assured him, “No, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“Both you and Mom, it turns out, had a sibling who died. Does that make it more likely that something bad will happen to Duncan or me or Anthony?”
Ward reached for Robbie’s guitar on the bed. This question unsettled him. As much as he wanted to offer a quick reassurance, he sensed this was important to Robbie, that the boy didn’t want the easy answer.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so,” Ward shrugged and strummed a dissonant chord.
Robbie grabbed the instrument away from his father. He picked out a few chords, while a fogbank slowly consumed the cove outside. He dozed and pondered whether, if he was the brother fated for an early end, should he be buried on Great Tusk or next to his father’s infant sister in Indianapolis or next to the hundred other people who Geneva had chosen to die instead of her parents.
The fog crept toward the house. “Tell me about Gonga’s death,” Robbie said.
Ward woke from a sitting nap. “Do you remember him?” he asked.
“A little,” Robbie said. “Both Duncan and I remember him pushing us on the swing set.”
“He had a heart attack.”
“Yeah, I mean, what happened?” Robbie said.
Ward stood up and sidled over to the window. “Can’t even see the tree,” he said.
“What happened, Dad?”
“It was a second, follow-up heart attack that killed him,” Ward explained. “The first hit him on the golf course in the afternoon. He grabbed his chest and slumped over. I rushed him to the hospital and it looked like he would survive. But he refused to have a catheter and later that night he got up to go to the bathroom and that’s when the second one hit.”
“What’s a catheter?”
“A tube attached to his you-know-what to pee—without having to get out of bed,” Ward explained. “Gonga was just a little too old-fashioned. His opinion was, ‘I’ll get up to pee if I damn well want to.’ He didn’t want the nurse to put it on him.”
“If only he’d had a cuter nurse,” Robbie joked. Another brave step into adult conversation.
It took a moment for this joke to register. Yes, the old man would have liked it, Ward thought. He snorted a strange, hyena-like laugh, fueled by a mix of surprise and nostalgia. The noise was contagious. Robbie joined in and slapped the back of his guitar.
Mary and Anthony came running upstairs from the kitchen. Anthony, attired as always in a Rokeby sweatshirt, called, “What’s wrong?”
“What are you doing home?” Robbie asked.
“Too much fog for sailing today,” Anthony said.
“Is everything okay? We heard a noise,” Mary asked.
Ward, catching his breath, replied, “Yes, yes. I was just realizing that I’m overdue for a talk with Robbie about the birds and bees.”
Anthony said, “You didn’t have that talk with me. All you did was give me a book.”
“I’m sorry,” Ward said. “It was probably the same book Gonga gave me.”
“Is that why you never bring home any girlfriends?” Robbie teased Anthony.
“Shut up,” Anthony said, reddening. He struck back with, “You’re just mad that Duncan is out there in the woods with Geneva, probably making out.”
Mary intervened. “Now, stop, please. Everybody goes at their own pace with this.”
“I’m going to breathe chicken pox on you,” Robbie threatened Anthony, who raised his middle finger at Robbie and quickly backed out of the room.
“Well, I guess I shouldn’t have brought that up,” Ward said.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Robbie offered. “Duncan and I know it all already. Except, actually, there is one thing that we have been wondering about …. ”
“What would that be?” Mary said, relieved that Robbie trusted them enough to ask.
“Bra straps.”
“What about bra straps?” Mary asked, carefully.
“Undoing them.”
“You’ve had some problems with that?” Ward inquired.
“Yes, no, what I mean is, we want to be prepared.”
Ward and Mary scratched their foreheads. Ward finally said, “Keep practicing your guitar. Your left hand especially. Chords that bring your forefinger and thumb close together on the frets.”
For the remainder of his convalescence, Robbie played a lot of guitar.
Chapter 33
Busted
Duncan and Geneva were not allowed to visit the quarantine room. They informed Robbie via scribbled notes of their exploits with the illegal campers. Duncan marked the notes, ‘Top Secret.’ They coordinated daily with Ranger Amos. Wearing his official hat, Amos met the morning ferry. He delivered a rules-and-regulations speech and handed out trail maps to the registered campers and the day hikers. From the upper parking area Duncan and Geneva watched for day-trippers with suspiciously large packs. Because the ferry did not carry cars, the Great Tusk community believed itself protected from tourism’s excesses.
The day hikers usually set off on one of the orange-blazed, cross-island routes with trailheads near the town landing. Geneva and Duncan used a compass and an old map, a gift from Clyde that dated from before the park roads existed, when each family cut their own path over Bowditch Mountain to reach the pond. The junior rangers paralleled any suspicious day-trippers without having to follow along behind. They prided themselves on silent Indian-style walking. They could hear the bushwhacking off the main trail and the partying. Often the illegal hikers sought campsites on the rocky bluffs above Long Pond, which offered a water source and a view across the bay to Blue Hill.
Duncan and Geneva received strict orders not to confront the campers by themselves. To avoid any trouble, Ranger Amos insisted they mark the campsite on a park map and turn it over to him. Depending on whether the site was technically within park property, Amos might have to turn it over to the town constable. Geneva struggled with this rule. Despite her characteristic serenity, when it came to judicial matters, she exhibited a strong critical streak. Several times Duncan intervened to protect her from irate campers who did not appreciate being busted by a mouthy teen in pigtails.
As Duncan and Geneva’s knowledge of the island’s geography deepened, they spent more of their free time lolling in isolated blueberry patches up in the hills. They enjoyed their first sips of cheap wine recovered from hastily abandoned campsites. Duncan discovered that, contrary to expectations, he could be a perfect gentleman when tipsy. And that Geneva’s philosophical discussions could actually be fun. They talked about the moon landing. They speculated on time travel. Geneva wanted to go back two hundred years, to when the island was inhabited by Indians. Duncan preferred to go forward to the colonization of Mars.
Ranger Amos, overloaded with duties at the official campground, greatly appreciated Duncan and Geneva’s efforts. As did all the old-timers, because of their fear of forest fires. Toward the end of the summer, Ranger Amos rewarded Duncan and Geneva with junior ranger uniforms, complete with hats.
Duncan wore his uniform proudly. Eager to show it off to Robbie, he and Geneva st
ood outside the sickroom window in full dress and tossed up pebbles to get his attention. When Robbie’s splotchy face appeared, they stood arm-in-arm and danced a high-kick. Robbie stared and waved weakly. Mary and Ward scurried outside to shoo them off.
“He needs to rest,” Ward said.
“He doesn’t feel much better today,” Mary said.
“Oh, he’s just jealous. He’ll be okay,” Duncan assured her. “Hey, Robbie, check this out!” Duncan yelled, throwing his hat like a Frisbee.
“Your brother announced this morning that he wants to be called ‘Rob’ from now on,” Ward said.
“He doesn’t look very good,” Geneva said.
“Why don’t you two go swimming or something,” Mary suggested.
Duncan, to rub it in, yelled, “We’ll be at the pond, Robbie!”
Back inside the kitchen sipping their mid-morning coffee, Mary and Ward watched the junior rangers wander down the meadow path.
“Poor Robbie,” Mary sighed. “That must have hurt.”
“Rob,” Ward corrected her. He added, “Yes, but, in a way, his distance from his brother this summer may solve our problem about when to send Duncan away to Rokeby.”
Boarding school for the younger boys was a sensitive topic. Mary was pushing for a concession from Ward. She felt they just weren’t Rokeby material. Mary worried they had been unfairly seduced while dropping Anthony at the Rokeby campus last fall. They had witnessed a sport, unknown in the Midwest, in which players wearing masks bashed each other with wooden sticks.
“I thought we were at least keeping Duncan home for a year, so he and Rob could go away together,” Mary said.
“We both know Duncan would feel punished by that. As it is now, perhaps neither one would mind spending a year apart,” Ward said.
At the diving rock—a sprawling, pock-marked lava spill that was popularly believed to be an asteroid—Geneva and Duncan sat at the edge, acclimating their ankles and wrists to the water. They cannon-balled into the depths and swam noisily to the off-shore float. The resident seagulls flapped away, leaving residue that had to be scrubbed off before Duncan and Geneva could stretch out on the platform.
Teeth chattering, they talked about the end of summer and the winter apart. Geneva had started high school on the mainland, which meant dark, cold, morning ferry rides. Sometimes she was the only passenger with Captain Buster. Much feared by the summer people for his tobacco-chewing gruffness, Captain Buster’s bark was worse than his bite, Geneva explained.
“Buster says that if you pay a man more than twenty-thousand a year, you ruin him,” she said.
“Oh, not me. I’m going to make a lot more than that,” Duncan boasted.
“Doing what?”
“Don’t know yet,” Duncan said. “I’m going to a boarding school where they play lacrosse and maybe I’ll become a professional lacrosse player.”
Duncan boldly promised that once he started at Rokeby he would come up to visit Geneva during the winter. She told him to bring ice skates. She described the conditions that produced “black ice” on the pond. She positioned herself a little closer to him than usual on the float. Her shivering appeared more pronounced. Duncan made his end-of-summer move. He draped an arm around her shoulder. She rolled closer. The sun pulsed among the clouds. Along the shore, the pond surface glowed with white and yellow water lilies.
A half hour later a faint splashing sound intruded. It came from around the far side of the promontory. It was nothing, really, to warrant notice. Except that people didn’t usually swim over there. Could be illegal campers who climbed down from the bluffs.
“We’d better go check it out,” Geneva said.
“Great. Just when we’re getting warm and dry,” Duncan sighed.
They swam to the rock and changed out of their swimming suits and back into their uniforms. To get from the diving rock to the promontory required bushwhacking. They followed the shoreline, picking their way slowly through the skunk cabbage and the tight, pine forest. The mossy, needle floor helped cushion their footsteps. The thick, low branches scratched at their faces. They took off their shoes for the last twenty yards, aiming for a birch grove just above the inlet.
“It’s Anthony!” Geneva whispered.
“And that kid from the yacht club,” Duncan whispered.
Skinny-dipping was not an uncommon practice during the summer, although usually it took place at night. Two naked youths emerged from the water and stood shaking, dripping in the sun. They picked up their towels and engaged in typical adolescent, rat-tail flicking. Then, as if mimicking Duncan and Geneva on the raft, they plopped down side-by-side on the pebble beach and the other youth draped an arm around Anthony’s shoulder and pulled him into a tight embrace.
“Let’s get out of here,” Duncan hissed.
“What are they doing?” Geneva whispered.
“Come on!” Duncan ordered.
Their hasty departure was not as quiet as their stealthy approach. A crackle of sticks and branches swatting at them. Anthony turned in time to catch a glimpse of Duncan’s hat.
Later that afternoon, at low tide, Anthony came home and summoned Duncan out to the barn. He reminded him that Mom wanted them to dig clams for dinner. “I want to talk to you,” he added, “about the pond.”
“No,” Duncan said.
“Don’t worry,” Anthony said. “I’m not mad. I’m not going to make any death threats, unless of course you and Rob are planning to try to extort money from me.”
Duncan shook his head. “I haven’t talked to him, or anybody.”
“Not Mom and Dad?”
“No, it’s too gross.”
Anthony handed Duncan the clam rake. “I don’t want to make things worse between us, especially since you might be coming to Rokeby next year.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t Robbie and I going together?”
“I heard Mom and Dad talking about starting you early.”
Duncan pulled on his rubber boots. He reluctantly followed his older brother down to the cove. They tamped at the wet sand, scanning for spit from the air holes.
“Are you really a fag?” Duncan asked.
The harshness of the question hit Anthony in several ways. His dad’s book said this was just an experimental phase. Until now, he had never confronted the question of his sexuality. Also, the harshness in Duncan’s tone punctured Anthony’s hope for an overlap year together at Rokeby. Overhearing his parents’ idea for sending Duncan ahead without Rob, Anthony had latched onto a hope that, in separating the two-headed monster of his younger brothers, he might finally establish a more satisfying connection with at least one of them.
“I don’t know,” Anthony said, “and so what, so what if I am?”
Duncan didn’t have an answer for that, other than a forceful stab of the clam rake into the sand. Anthony applied his shovel elsewhere. Instead of the usual routine—one brother digging and the other brother thrusting a gloved hand down into the fresh pit quickly filling with murky water to grab the elusive mollusks—Duncan and Anthony worked ten yards apart. They dug up a couple dozen and rinsed them off in the surf.
Anthony picked up his shovel and stamped around, looking for more air holes.
Duncan said, “I’m going back. She only wanted enough for starters.”
Anthony shrugged and kept on working till dusk, until he’d turned the entire cove into an expanse of flooded foxholes.
Chapter 32
Dissipation
By 1970 the boarding schools of New England were struggling to come to terms with the Decline of Western Civilization. Long hair and giant stereo-systems had invaded hitherto staid campuses. Five seniors of the Rokeby Class of 1970 were expelled after being caught “dissipating” at a commune in nearby Millerton, New York. “Dissipation” was Headmaster Edmunds’ oft-used term for behaviors unbecoming of a Rokeby Man.
Dr. Edmunds, known popularly as “The Big E,” preached against dissipation in daily chapel, to the snickering amuseme
nt of the students. They admired the Big E for his fervent quaintness, but for most of them, the word ‘dissipation’ had about as much relevance as ‘predestination.’
Rokeby, founded in 1891 as a feeder school for Yale, perched atop a Berkshire foothill overlooking a peaceful lake in the far northwest corner of Connecticut. A short bike ride on dusty back roads took students across the border into Massachusetts. The Appalachian Trial passed close to the campus. Five hundred acres of pre-colonial forest and breath-giving views embraced the Rokeby sanctuary. Winding ruins of mossy stone walls heightened the illusion of timelessness in a place set apart.
As with any group of males forced to live in close quarters, Rokeby students developed a system of hierarchical status measurements. Manipulations of the jacket and tie dress code, for example. It was understood that an inverse relationship existed between the shabbiness of one’s attire and the size of one’s account at the snack bar. The primary exponent in 1970 was a fifth-year senior scion of Beacon Street whose entire wardrobe was covered with a thick layer of dog hair. And not just any dog hair. Irish wolfhound dog hair. Another recent development was the rolling up of blazer sleeves. This gesture broadcast several messages. It cleverly subverted the traditional dress code, showed a rebellious disregard for the care of one’s possessions, and simultaneously made a public display of the grade of silk-lining inside the blazer.
A jangling keychain denoted power. Everybody had a key to their dorm room. Only a chosen few held keys to other locked facilities. In this regard, Anthony Wangert did very well at Rokeby, despite his bookworm reputation. As editor of the newspaper, debate team co-captain, sailing squad crewman, he could open several doors in the main building and at the boathouse. His sizeable keychain, clipped to a belt loop near the front of his trousers, qualified him as a B.M.O.C.
Anthony prized his key to the boathouse. The sail room became his primary refuge. He studied, shared the occasional tryst, and wrote letters home to his maternal grandparents among the musty rows of sail bags and life jackets and replacement gear for the fleet of 19’ Lightnings. The sailing coach, Master Gill, employed Anthony in the races like a blocking fullback. The coach had been slow to appreciate Anthony’s skippering style, which didn’t seem to fit the boy’s cerebral personality. Having learned to sail on large sloops and yawls in the choppy ocean around Great Tusk, Anthony’s touch with the lake boats was akin to bumper cars.