by Ian Woollen
Duncan said, “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Come on in!” Anthony said.
Vincent said, “It’s just not the same back in Indy without you guys. And, Anthony, I’ve got a few questions to ask about red mercury explosives.”
“Nice to see you again,” Kathryn said.
Vincent grinned stupidly. Kathryn said, “Come on in out of the rain. Let’s get you into something dry.” Vincent continued grinning at her. Rob took him by the arm and pulled him into the kitchen.
“How did you get here?” Rob asked.
“Hitchhiked.”
“Aren’t you cold?” Kathryn asked.
“No, Vincent never gets cold,” Rob said. “I’ve seen him wear shorts all winter.”
“What about your car sickness?” Duncan asked, “I thought you couldn’t travel farther than fifty miles.”
“Pot,” Vincent said, “it settles my stomach. Anybody want to get high?”
Anthony fetched Vincent a bathrobe and a blanket and directed him to the bathroom. Back in the kitchen, Anthony, Duncan, Kathryn, Rob, and Trip shared a lip-biting, laugh-suppressing snicker.
“Should we report him to the police, or call Rusalka and Ruby or what?” Kathryn whispered.
Duncan said, “When he comes out, you sit him down, talk, make coffee. Meanwhile, we’ll confer.”
In the living room, the shared snicker became a shared chin scratching, a silent acknowledgment that the Wangert brothers had a decision to make. Trip stumbled and sprawled across a couch, maybe trying to break the tension, maybe not quite understanding that the chin-scratching wasn’t about tension. It was about the Wangert brothers briefly discovering the ability to agree on a situation.
“We can’t just kick him out. It would kill him. He thinks we’re his best friends.”
“It’s like trying to figure out how to corral a neighbor’s stray dog.”
Inspired by their recent family-lore conversation, Anthony made a bold suggestion: “Let’s pack Vincent and all of us into my car and drive him home. A historic road trip. Sixteen hours, plus or minus. We can trade off driving. It’s Friday night. We’ll be back by Sunday.”
Everyone got a little high, thanks to the second-hand smoke from Vincent’s anti-nausea medicine, administered every hundred miles. The others made a concerted effort to keep him talking, so he wouldn’t dwell on his return to captivity. Vincent put up very little fuss. In fact, every few miles, he giggled, “Jeez, you guys are so out-a-sight to do this!”
Rob called for a detailed explanation of Dungeons and Dragons. They all sang “A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Kathryn sang an aria in Italian. The focus shifted from Vincent to keeping the driver awake. They stopped for gas and traded seats. Trip, under questioning, revealed an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Daughters of the Confederacy. He shared his aunties’ standard greeting, “How does your mama like your hair?” Which became a refrain for the next hundred miles. Kathryn told stories about the Chapman clan, early health food nuts who championed grass-clippings served on vanilla ice cream. Somewhere in Ohio, Vincent finally got to have his talk with Anthony about rogue bomb recipes. Vincent brought up Edward Teller’s encyclopedia article on the basics of the hydrogen process. He blabbed anti-Communist slogans, expressing a particular virulence for the Vietcong. Breathing heavily, Vincent shared his mastermind computer scheme to trick the government anti-missile radar system into showing an incoming launch, which in turn would trigger a U.S. strike that would wipe out North Vietnam. Duncan, from the backseat, interrupted and insisted that, according to Kip Melton, a former astronaut, the United States’ computer network was totally secure.
Trip teasingly prodded Vincent about his mother, who had just publicly declared herself free of neuroses after coming out with Ruby. “Do y’all ever wonder if she isn’t a little bit crazy?”
Vincent coughed and choked and suddenly relapsed into car sickness. Anthony pulled over. Rob changed the subject to Elbert and reminisced about blowing up birdbaths. Anthony tried to convey sincerely that all the Wangerts thought Rusalka and Ruby were a pretty cool couple.
As they approached Indianapolis, a giddy fatigue took over that masked a renewed concern about Vincent’s reaction to his homecoming.
Kathryn squirmed in her seat. “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
Anthony replied, “How about we ponder Kathryn’s question as a Zen kōan?” This prompted Trip to lean over and plant a silly, sloppy kiss on his bearded cheek. The fatigued passengers didn’t know what to make of that kiss. Duncan glared, aghast at this display of his brother’s deviancy.
“What the matter, people? Don’t you have queers in Indiana?” Trip crowed.
Duncan said, “Christ, I thought you’d grown out of that. Please don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
“Why not?” Anthony countered.
“They couldn’t handle it. Mom had a hard enough time getting over the deaths of her parents.”
Trip asked, “You mean, for Anthony to come out as gay would be the same as if he were pronounced dead? That’s about what it was like for me.”
Duncan said, “No, it’s just … they’re already starting to talk about grandchildren.”
Vincent asked, “Is a faggot the same thing as queer?”
Duncan, as a kid, prided himself on being Vincent’s instructor in technical vocabulary. He said, “Yes, but not for women. Women are called ‘dikes’ and ‘lesbos.’ And hey, it’s perfectly okay to be a dike.”
They braked and pulled into the Wangert driveway. Mary, Ward, Rusalka, Ruby, and Kayla hurried out of the house. Vincent jumped out of the car before it came to a full stop. He leapt into the arms of his mother and sister and Ruby.
Chapter 49
Homesick
The subsequent waning of the brotherly confabs because of the tension between Duncan and Anthony was most difficult for Rob. He nursed a case of homesickness. He was ashamed of it, especially because he’d been so adamant about exiting Indy on schedule and not being the brother ‘left behind.’
Homesickness among boarding school students is hardest for those who can’t be retrieved by their parents every weekend. As a psychological condition, it mimics depression, and in a young person extends beyond mood into consternation that physical place exerts such power. In Rob’s case, one specific place was the Wangert patio, the section facing the backyard where his mother sat and read in the Barwa lounger. Rob also frequently returned to a memory of hiding under the enormous pile of coats on his parents’ four-poster bed during parties, with Duncan, Vincent, and Kayla. Their intent was to surprise the guests by jumping out when the guests came upstairs for their coats. But Kayla insisted it would scare people more if their bodies were discovered asleep underneath.
Rob masked his homesick thoughts with monosyllabic grunts and a swaggering gait that appeared typical of a typical teenage male. He spent a lot of time in the school forest, hiding his homesickness from his brothers and his peers.
His brothers had their own personal areas of interest and expertise to occupy them. Duncan had his girlfriend and his set-building and the Computer Club. Anthony had Trip-on-Dirt and his journalism. In his first two years at boarding school, Rob only managed to establish himself as a wannabe jock and musician. He carried either his lacrosse stick or his guitar around like a crutch.
After his time alone on Great Tusk, he arrived at Rokeby with the intention of carving out his own niche. His plan was to become an acolyte of Rokeby’s legendary astronomy teacher, Karl Hessel, also a connoisseur of astrology.
Unlike Crowbar Gus, who made some effort at adapting to each generation of students, Karl Hessel maintained the fixed gestalt of the 19th century all-male gymnasium. He wore robes to lecture. He played the violin in a faculty string quartet. Students suffered through Master Hessel’s dry lectures on the changing gaseous trace amounts in the tail of comets in order to receive an invitation to his famed campouts at the Mount Holmes observatory, where he in
dulged in personal reflections on the ancient art of astrology.
Rob never got the opportunity. Two months after Rob arrived at Rokeby, Master Hessel was forced into retirement. His abrupt departure, mid-semester, was caused by a combination of declining health and a faculty vote in favor of coeducation (Hessel was opposed).
Using plastic angles and his little compass from geometry class, Rob slowly taught himself to draw horoscopes. Finding no resources in the school library, he ordered astrological guides from a copy of the Whole Earth Catalog that was passed around surreptitiously among the school’s long-hairs. Astrology gradually brought Rob some attention, especially from the international students—the Sultan of Benin’s grandson and the kid from Argentina who’d brought his polo pony to school.
When Rob attempted to draw more complicated sun-system charts to predict outcomes and events, he failed miserably. The hockey team lost to archrival Kent, 5-1. The Headmaster did not call a holiday in the winter of 1974, as predicted, on Friday, February 8th. This caused several of Rob’s dorm-mates who’d banked on his prediction by not doing their homework to be very pissed and to complain to Duncan about his younger brother’s occult shenanigans.
“What kind of racket are you running?” Duncan cornered him in the gym after lacrosse practice. “Are you taking money for this Age of Aquarius crap?”
“No, it’s not like your computer scheduling scam,” Rob retorted. “It’s just for fun. I don’t put the squeeze on anybody.”
“Man, I deliver,” Duncan said. “People pay me not to have a class before ten a.m. and they don’t have a class before ten. What you’re doing is outright baloney. You don’t actually believe it, do you?”
“I don’t know,” Rob shrugged. “It feels like there might be something to it. Remember when we were little kids, spotting Jesus on the street corners downtown? You always acted like it was just a game. I sort of thought it might be real.”
Duncan shook his head and scoffed, “What is happening to this family? Anthony turns out to be gay, you start doing horoscopes, and Mom announces she wants to be a psychotherapist, which is pretty much the same thing.”
Rob shot back, “Right, what is happening …. And you’re too afraid to visit Great Tusk, because of the way you ditched Geneva for Kathryn!”
Duncan squealed, “How much shit do I have to take for that? You’d think I murdered someone. People move on. People explore life. Meanwhile, you’re still a virgin.”
“Just wait till next year when Rokeby goes coed,” Rob said. “Kathryn will be dragging you around on a short leash, while I’ll have chicks running after me to read their horoscopes.”
This prediction of Rob’s proved correct. He was also right about Kathryn. To be closer to Duncan, she convinced her parents to give up her scholarship at Emma Willard and pay full tuition for her senior year at Rokeby.
Other people’s predictions about the impact of coeducation on Rokeby varied wildly. It was a zoo, and not just because of the hormonal circus among the students. Married faculty members fell for sixteen-year-old skirts too. Think about it. What kind of teenage girl would choose to transfer into a notorious bastion of male privilege in 1975? The answer: girls with balls.
Rob’s reputation as the resident astrologer improved. He grew better at talking the lingo of cosmograms, without constantly flipping through his guides. The girls flocked to his table in the dining hall. The language of astrology, basically a means for discussing the vagaries of human nature, proved invaluable to Rob—often tongue-tied in the presence of young breasts floating freely, as was the custom, under colorful Izod shirts.
Rob’s popularity also rose when his lacrosse skills jelled. He was championed by the cheerleaders as a sensitive jock. The introduction of lighter, plastic shafts and nylon mesh pockets on the stick heads helped Rob’s and Duncan’s abilities. Basic handling maneuvers and shots—the pinch clamp, rake, the worm-burner—felt easier. The Hoosier boys could concentrate on what they knew best: applying their innate basketball moves to lacrosse. The pick-and-roll, backdoor cut, weave, the give-and-go were already second nature to Rob and Duncan. Scoring opportunities in prep school lacrosse often develop from two-on-one isolations. The Wangert brothers, able to intuit each other’s timing a split-second before the defender, developed into an offensive duo. Their specialty was an ‘alley-oop’ version of the egg roll. Rob, running a dodge down the sideline, would whip an elevator pass toward the far pipe that looked too high and wild, until a charging Duncan—in one motion, stick uplifted—soared, caught it, and jammed a bouncer into the cage.
When an opposing team’s coach was quoted in the school newspaper saying, “We’re stewing on how to stop those Wangerts,” Duncan’s biggest booster, Kathryn, mobilized the music and theater nerds to attend Duncan’s games and cheer, “Ooo-sa-sa-sa, ooo-sa-sa-sa, hit ’em in the head with a big kielbasa. Hit ’em with a Wangert stew! Ooo!”
Kathryn’s cheer caught on. She was quoted in the school paper, claiming it was a favorite soccer cheer in her home country of Balenia.
Duncan had grown tired of the Balenia ruse. During an intimate visit to the attic at Swanset, he told her to can it. “It’s stupid, and besides, we could get in trouble for the IDs, if you spread that around too much.”
“You think Balenia is stupid?” Kathryn asked, tearing up.
“I overheard somebody on stage crew twisting it into ‘bulimia’ and hinting that you were spending too much time in the bathroom.”
“Who? Who said that? Probably Crowbar Gus, that nosy old man,” Kathryn hissed. “I’m not too thin. I need to lose another ten pounds.”
The relationship teetered. It no longer brought them a special status among their peers. Duncan was no longer a stud on campus simply by having a townie girlfriend. And Kathryn, hobbled by her reputation as a townie, could not attract enough queen bee reverence from the incoming female boarders.
She campaigned for a future together at Indiana University with frequent insinuations about his college prospects: “Duncan, your SAT scores are not up to Ivy League standards, and wouldn’t it be embarrassing to be rejected by Yale and have to attend I.U. as a safety school? You should take a different-drummer position. Make Indiana your first choice.”
Kathryn upped the ante by announcing that, with or without him, she would be attending the Indiana University Music School. She changed her repertoire. No more Mozart. Now she sang atonal avant-garde chants, which happened to be the specialty of the composition faculty at I.U.
Kathryn angled for more time alone with Rob. She started calling him “bro.” At first it seemed innocuous enough. She would relate humorous episodes from the girls’ dorm or from the drama club that always ended with, “And bro, then we all cracked up.” That phrase, “and then we all cracked up” held a strong sway with their age group—young adults wading further into life’s angst but still wanting to laugh at everything. It worked with Rob. He’d chuckle and recount some similarly doofus incident from lacrosse practice.
The next wave of interactions occurred during a hike to Mount Holmes. Kathryn asked Rob to show her the observatory. Rob was willing to show anyone the observatory, because the location itself was so striking. They took the path around the lake that climbed up Eagle Bluff and intersected the Appalachian Trail.
“I notice you didn’t ask Duncan to come along,” Rob said.
“No, he’s been an ass lately,” Kathryn said. “He’s busy with Computer Club.”
“He used to like hanging out in the woods,” Rob said.
Kathryn grumbled, “Up in Maine, or so I’ve heard. How come he’s never taken me up there? He blames it on the plumbing, or lack of plumbing. He claims a diva like me couldn’t handle the outhouse.”
“Might be some truth to that.”
Kathryn plunked Rob on the arm. “See, that’s just it. I feel like he’s waiting to give me the big test, the big island test, and then, when I fail it, he can use that as an excuse to break up with me.”
Rob
, coughing, struggled to hide his intuitive agreement. Yeah, that could be exactly what his brother was planning.
“Tell me about Geneva,” Kathryn ventured.
“Who?” Rob said, playing dumb.
Kathryn countered, “You crack me up. After all this time, aren’t we close enough that you can tell me about her? Duncan says you’ve been carrying a torch for this Geneva on the island and that’s why you’ve never had a real girlfriend.”
The path narrowed and curved around one of the enormous, moss-clad boulders plopped down randomly in the New England woods. Rob strode quickly ahead, trying to hide his reaction. His boots kicked at the path, kicking up a long suppressed grudge against Duncan, believing his brother’s treatment of Geneva had spoiled his own chances with her.
Kathryn hoped this brief catharsis would open Rob to her choice of a real girlfriend—the blonde sophomore from Chicago who Kathryn had picked for him because she knew the verses of every Dylan song. More than an eventual island-test, Kathryn feared Duncan’s envy of his brother’s weekly conquests. She thought Duncan was hankering to run through the girls, just like his brother. If Rob was dating someone more permanently, that would reduce Duncan’s jealousy and make him more content with his so-called “regular squeeze.”
They walked separately for a few minutes. A noisy cloud of ravens swirled, settled, swirled again. The observatory came into sight above. After the final ascent, Rob slowed and let her catch up. Kathryn redoubled her cozy-up efforts. She pulled him down into the grass and opened her water bottle.
“Bro, I know Duncan makes fun of your astrology stuff. I’m kind of interested. I was wondering if you could help me learn something about my birth parents.”