Gods of Aberdeen

by Micah Nathan

  “Now that I think of it,” I said, staring at Officer Bellis calmly, “he had been uncharacteristically short-tempered. And he did give me his favorite pair of pants, about a month ago.”

  “His pants?”

  “Yes…they were English hunting pants. He had them custom-made in London. Brown wool. He loved them.”

  Officer Bellis nodded and wrote on his clipboard. “Why do you think he gave them to you? Did you express interest in them?”

  “No,” I said. “I never asked Dan for anything.”

  Officer Bellis continued to write. “Where are they now, these pants?”

  “I’m wearing them.”

  “I see.” Officer Bellis rubbed his eyes under his glasses and scanned the clipboard sheet.

  “Where was he found?” I said.

  “In the Quinnipiac.” Officer Inman hooked his thumbs into his front pockets. “Near Yale…Some student was walking his dog. Saddest thing, you know. No kid should have to see something like that.” Officer Bellis shook his head and set down the clipboard. “I’m really very sorry, son,” Officer Inman said. “No one wanted it to end like this.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Who?” said Officer Bellis. “The kid who found the body?”

  “No. Dan. What did he look like?”

  Officer Bellis looked quickly to Officer Inman.

  “Son, have you ever seen a dead body before?” Officer Inman said.

  “Yes. My mother’s.”

  Uncomfortable silence. Officer Bellis coughed into his fist and stood up, and then pointed away as if he had somewhere important to go.

  “I’ll say this,” Officer Inman intoned with a serious frown, “your friend Daniel looked at peace.” He clapped his huge hand on my shoulder and squeezed, lightly. “God rest his soul.”

  I am impervious, I thought. Nothing can penetrate my shell. And I covered my face with my hands, thinking I was going to cry, but nothing came out.

  I went from the police station directly to Edna’s, taking a cab even though it was within walking distance (it was drizzling when I first got to the station, and by the end of my short interview the rain was almost falling sideways, driven by the wind). There I spent three hours drinking iced tea and eating turkey club sandwiches. I sat at the counter, on a stool, with my head lowered. A small television perched on a rickety shelf above the wash basin first showed reruns. (There was a show about a rich white guy who adopted two black children, and then a dark series about the New York homicide department. I hated the first show and was engrossed in the second; something about its violence and rapid resolution of problems gave me comfort.) Then a movie of the week started, with Richard Chamberlain as an archaeologist on the trail of a missing gold artifact. It was an awful film, made worse by the running commentary of a fat, bearded man seated a few stools down from me, who, during every action scene (which always seemed to involve Richard Chamberlain punching out natives), mumbled to himself how the natives were getting what they rightly deserved.

  Finally the eleven o’clock news came on. Channel 4 news, with Ted Wright and Patricia Cullen. The lead story was, of course, the discovery of Dan’s body.

  “Hey Lucy,” one of the patrons shouted from the other end of the counter. “Turn it up.”

  “I’m sick of this shit,” said the fat man. “Try the other channels.”

  Lucy waved her hand dismissively, turned up the volume, and stood back, arms crossed across her chest, her tired expression saying This better be good.

  “The week-long search is finally over, but the questions have just begun in the death of Aberdeen student Daniel Higgins”—Ted Wright looked into the camera with gleeful seriousness—“whose body was found today in the Quinnipiac River, just outside of New Haven. Police and school officials have refused to comment—”

  “What else is new,” one of the guys sitting in the back tables shouted out.

  “—but an anonymous source close to Channel 4 news says that at this time, police have not ruled out any cause of death.”

  I put down my sandwich.

  Ted Wright turned a page in the shuffle of papers laid out before him, and then looked up with a start, as if unaware the camera was still on. “Patricia Cullen was at the scene”—he shifted in his seat and quickly looked off to the side—“soon after the Yale student made his gruesome discovery.” The shot lingered a moment longer, Ted Wright blinking uncomfortably, and cut to Patricia, a brunette, counterpart to Cynthia Andrews (Patricia had more of a girl-next-door look, with her small, pug nose and freckles and large, brown eyes). She wore a dark suit, skirt just above her knee, and she walked awkwardly through a muddy patch by the river as she talked into a microphone. Grim-faced police stood in the background, atop a snowy bank, looking down at the river, yellow POLICE tape flapping in the wind.

  “I’m standing near the banks of the Quinnipiac River, in New Haven, where dozens of Yale students go to relax, reflect, or, as in the case of Gregory Forrest, take their dog for a walk. But for Gregory Forrest, this particular walk soon turned into something much different, and something nobody”—she clasped the microphone in both hands—“ever expected.”

  Another cut, this one to a curly-haired, upset-looking college student—Gregory Forrest, according to the caption below his face—talking into a microphone held by someone off-camera. He didn’t look into the camera and instead stared off to the side, eyes narrowed against the wind.

  “I let Theo run free all the time…He likes splashing around in the river, so I didn’t even bother to see what he had until I called him and he wouldn’t come…The first thing I saw was a mess of broken branches jammed against some rocks, then something big caught against the shore…like a bunch of old clothes, and his shoe, you know, covered in frost, and his hair…I thought it was a wig someone had thrown into the river.”

  My appetite was gone. I put down a twenty and left.

  On the way home the rain continued, taxi windshield wipers squeaking rhythmically, car headlights wavering past, distorted and wobbly. It rained all night and through to the next morning, streaking the windows of my room and muffling everything in the quiet shadows of a soft gray sky.

  I remember what it was like after my mother died, the drawing of curtains between my family and the rest of the world. I remember I couldn’t believe how normal everything still seemed, how other people could go about their daily routines when my mother had just died and the world suddenly went flat. Oddly enough, I felt similar emotions not after Dan had died, but after his body was discovered. Self-preservation had held everything back and now the grief burst forth, unabated and almost joyous in the havoc it wrought, hacking away at the emotional struts and supports I’d so meticulously constructed, kicking over the walls and ripping apart the ropes and chains that held my monster at bay.

  The most difficult days of my life were those weeks immediately following the discovery of Dan’s body. I’d thought the hardest part was over, that if I’d gotten through all those previous guilt-soaked days then I’d be okay. But I was totally unprepared and I still don’t know how I got through it, through the funeral and the gathering at Mrs. Higgins’s home, and the return to school and the horrid days leading up to my eventual breakdown. It would be dishonest if I claimed my endurance came from a lucid understanding of what I’d done and what the consequences were—I understood very little, back then—but, for the exception of one particular moment that shone painfully clear and distinct, I was simply an observer, buffeted by the emotions of whomever I was near.

  Everyone had a story to tell—professors, students, even the food service employees and the sleepy-eyed janitors. The most inconsequential of encounters with Dan—a “thank you” after paying for a pumpkin spice muffin, a brief comment in class, a passing nod and smile—had taken on monumental gravity, recounted in solemn tones in the days after his body was found. I watched Dean Richardson’s press conference on the evening news, and he had said, with red eyes and gravelly voice,
that Daniel Higgins was a “vibrant, active member of the Aberdeen community, and his loss is our loss…In his passing a part of us has passed as well.” This was true for us, members of Dr. Cade’s house, but I doubted it translated to the rest of the college.

  I don’t know why I was so sickened by my peers’ reactions to Dan’s death, but it got so bad I contemplated taking a leave of absence and staying in my room at Dr. Cade’s. I couldn’t stand the prayer groups and the crisis hotlines that advertised in flyers pushed under my dorm door, and the posters tacked to every corkboard in every building. “So that this tragedy never happens again,” read one flyer, “Campus Catholic Services (formerly Campus Christian Services) invites you to a special two-hour session at St. Paul’s Church, Wednesday evening at 6 P.M. We encourage all participants to bring a guest.” Aberdeen’s religious groups had split into their separate factions, seeing the tragedy as proof of the increasing need for God. And God was in heavy supply, invoked by the ghost of Father Garringer, perhaps, transforming what had been a staunchly secular environment into a spiritual revival. Even Nicole got in on the act, wearing a sparkling crucifix around her neck encrusted with red and black gems like the centerpiece in some Spanish cathedral.

  I saw Dan’s mom briefly, at the house, during a small gathering Dr. Cade organized. It was a wake, I guess, although more like a quasi-cocktail party, subdued and awkward, despite Dr. Cade’s gracious efforts. I hovered on the edges, out of place among the Aberdeen, Yale, and Harvard professors who’d come to pay their respects but actually spent the hours talking about their various projects. Howie was in his room, presumably finishing off the bottle of Glenfiddich I saw him with earlier, and Art was somewhere else, Ellen’s or campus or wherever. I was sick of him and relieved I hadn’t seen him since the discovery of Dan’s body.

  Mrs. Higgins, from what Howie told me, was inconsolable. Dr. Cade had been with her when the police called and said she needed to come down to the New Haven station and identify the body. There hadn’t been any tears, Howie said, with a tinge of awe. Only silence and purpose. She displayed remarkable poise, Dr. Cade said to Howie. Her grief had turned to catatonia, however, by the time the wake began, and she stared blankly ahead the entire time, seated on the couch, impeccably dressed in a deep gray suit, raven-black hair pulled into a bun, drink in slender hand, receiving guests like some revered oracle. I wanted to talk to her but was too terrified; I’d heard, somewhere, that mothers have psychic connections with their children, and I was convinced she already suspected I had some equivocal role in her son’s death.

  The next day Art’s friend, Charlie Cosman, drove in from MIT, new beagle puppy in tow, and he stayed in Art’s room, sleeping on a makeshift bed while his puppy, Leo, played constantly with Nilus, growling, nipping, and stopping only to urinate on the floor. Howie’s parents sent their condolences and were staying in Chicago until the funeral, which, Howie told me, was going to be held in Boston, with Dan set to be buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery. Dr. Cade spent more time in his office, taking a similar route as I, spending most of the day doing work; the three days following the discovery of Dan’s body were the most productive I’d had the entire semester. Dan’s mother had been whisked away immediately after the wake, and from what I heard she was back in Boston.

  Art and Howie got into an argument the night before we left for Boston. Dr. Cade was at school, where he’d been staying every night until one or two in the morning, working furiously on Dan’s unfinished sections. The house was finally empty and quiet. Gone were the well-wishers and sympathetic visitors, and Charlie had gone back to MIT after Professor Cade told us, as discreetly as possible, that “Daniel’s funeral will most likely be a closed affair.” And in the regained solitude of our existence, whatever unspoken tensions that’d been growing between Art and Howie finally erupted.

  It started with a shout—Art or Howie I couldn’t tell—and then silence, and then a loud crash, like breaking glass. More arguing, followed by thumping and Nilus barking. I bolted from my room, headed downstairs, and stopped halfway. Art was leaning out the front door, his back to me, and Nilus was in the foyer, barking still, hackles raised and tail erect. I heard the roar of an engine and Howie’s Jag zipped down the driveway before squealing onto the road. I looked to the right, into the living room, and saw the source of the crash: the French doors were rent and smashed out, one opened back into the darkness of the study, the other opened into the living room. Glass panels lay bare with jagged borders.

  Art closed the door and turned, surprised, I think, to see me standing there. He wore a tie, off-center, and his face was flushed.

  “What happened,” I said.

  “You heard.”

  “I don’t know what I heard.”

  “Ellen has to make a choice, it’s that simple,” Art said, running his hand through his hair. He wasn’t really talking to me—I think we both realized this. “I know I haven’t been the most attentive of boyfriends…but she must understand that attraction is almost completely based upon proximity. There was a study conducted years ago, in a college dorm, based upon the number of relationships formed between men and women living on the same floor. They found the closer two people lived, the more likely they were to become involved. It’s all proximity, nothing more. Howie ended up spending more time with her, and things progressed.” He smiled bitterly. “Did you know Ellen’s father is a drunk? It’s true. A perfect case for an Electra complex if there ever was one.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, come on. That ingenue routine is getting old.” Art’s expression darkened. “Surely you know about Howie and Ellen.”

  I shook my head.

  Art laughed—that laugh of his I hated. All-knowing. Piously self-assured. “No idea, huh?” He mimicked my gesture—shaking his head—and then he smiled wickedly. “It’s so obvious. Almost as obvious as your attraction for her.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Don’t lie on account of me,” he said. “I’ve known all along.”

  I stared at him.

  “She told me,” he said. “She told me how you professed your love for her. And about the letter she found, in your pants. The night Howie tried to kill me.” He laughed again. “Oh, I don’t mind,” Art said, reaching down to pet Nilus. “I know Ellen is a beautiful woman. Besides, you’re no threat.”

  His words stung. I wanted to say something hurtful back to him.

  “She hates you,” I said.

  Art stroked Nilus’s back and left a dewy streak of red. I saw Art’s hand was bleeding, sliced along the fingers. He sighed and straightened up, and looked at his injured hand. Blood pattered on the floor.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” My voice trembled. “Ellen hates you. She thinks I’m a better man than you. She told me so. And I saw her with Howie, last week. At her apartment. They were holding hands.”

  There was blood everywhere—on Nilus’s back, on the floor, along the edge of Art’s shirt cuff. Art cradled his injured hand in his other hand while Nilus began to lick the blood off the floor.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow morning,” Art said. “The funeral service starts at nine. If we get out of here by five we should be in Boston by seven at the latest.”

  It was a scene I remember vividly. Blood all over Art’s left hand, trickles and dribbles along Nilus’s black back, bristly fur tipped with glistening red drops. Blood on the floor in spoked dots, licked into smears by Nilus’s lapping pink tongue, blood across Art’s forehead where he had pushed his hair back. I told Art again how much Ellen hated him, and how everyone knew she’d been cheating on him with Howie, and how much she respected me and how much I cared for her, and even as I said all that Art simply talked over me as if nothing had happened, ruminating about the possibility of traffic during tomorrow’s drive to Boston, and now, when I think back to that evening, it reminds me of the sinking of the Titanic, and how the band kept playing even as the ship creaked and tottered, cello bows against
a starry sky, heedless of the Atlantic’s dark icy waters swirling at their feet.

  Chapter 8

  Boston. Everything dapple-gray and mottled brown, steady rain darkening the sidewalks and streets, steady procession of cars and bowfront row houses settled quietly under a leaden sky. In the back of Howie’s Jag I leaned my head against the window and let the scenery roll past—businessmen and women hurrying under traffic lights, dirty strips of snow lying beneath black leafless trees. Wintry air with a saline tinge. Narrow streets and bricked sidewalks. And everything gray gray gray.

  Art and Howie had made up, or at least called a truce, talking around each other during the car ride. Art was in one of his didactive moods, engaged in a ridiculous debate with Howie about the Donation of Constantine, an 8th-century document designed to increase the power of the Church, and whose authenticity was disproven in the 15th century by Nicholas of Cusa. Art claimed Nicholas had been wrong, on account of his support of the supremacy of church councils over the pope. Howie half-heartedly countered by reminding Art that Nicholas had later reversed his position and claimed the pope was supreme. I spent most of the two-hour trip drifting in and out of sleep.

  We arrived at the Hingham Hotel, an austere brick and stone building crammed between two modernistic office structures. The lobby was small and dark, with ornately carved stairwells and a plaster medallion ceiling. The concierge was working the front desk, his delicate voice lowered in a whisper, and once Art informed him who we were, he greeted us with a kind, plaintive smile, as if he knew the circumstances of our visit.

  “Breakfast is available until ten, or you may choose to have it delivered to your room for no extra fee, gentlemen—”