The Devil's Deep

by Michael Wallace

  “You mean calling the cops?”

  “The cops, the insinuation, the threats. I don’t care if you pull your brother. Administration might, but it doesn’t matter to me. Don’t get me wrong, I like Eric. But frankly, he leaves, less work for me. But if you’re leaving him at Riverwood, you’ve got to get over it.” She chewed at her lower lip, expression thoughtful. “Maybe a couple of weeks as an HT will show you how the world works.”

  “I can handle it.”

  She said nothing for a long moment, then nodded. “Fine, you’re hired. Not that I have any choice. What I need is an official application.” He started to fill it out on the edge of her desk.

  Rebecca leaned back in her chair. When he glanced up, he saw a smile on her face. “Looking on the bright side, this is going to be fun to watch. Why do I think you’re going to learn a few things?”

  “We’ll see,” Wes said. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “We’ll see about that, too.”

  Nevertheless, he had second thoughts by the time he finished the application. He hadn’t told his mother yet. She’d been excited about the connections he’d make at Brigham and Women’s and how it would look on his résumé. A little better than HT at Riverwood, followed on the page by laborer at a gravel pit.

  Rebecca barely glanced at the application when he handed it back. “You’ll start tomorrow morning.”

  His mother was going to flip out. She thought he was going back to Massachusetts tonight. She’d already loaded his clean laundry in the car and a box of food and toiletries.

  “You look just like Eric, you know,” Rebecca said as she led him to the door.

  “You don’t know how many times I’ve heard that.”

  “Kind of spooky, actually. Just like him, but there’s that spark that he doesn’t have. The IQ gleam, I guess.”

  “It’s the only difference between us.” And wasn’t that true? About three minutes in the womb was all that separated them. Three minutes where Wesley was in the air, drawing great big breaths into his lungs and screaming them back out, while Eric was still inside, wrapped in his umbilical cord, turning blue.

  #

  Wes found his mother at home, sitting on the couch with the latest issue of RN Magazine. She glanced up as he pulled up a chair, then frowned as she studied his expression. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, just wanted to tell you I talked to someone at Riverwood and I’ve got a handle on this thing with Eric. They’re going to let me observe for awhile.”

  She closed her nursing magazine and put it on the table. “They don’t have to let you do anything. You’re family, you can visit any time you want.”

  “Not like this. I’m going to be working at Riverwood. Habilitation therapist. I’ll be right among the ground troops, should get to the bottom of this.”

  “They gave you a job? And you’re going to do this from Massachusetts, how, exactly? Drive up every weekend? When will you study?”

  “The job is full-time. It’s my replacement for the Brigham and Women’s gig. I’ve already talked to Dr. Sizemore,” he added hurriedly.

  Her look changed from skepticism to outright exasperation. “Please tell me you’re not serious. Brigham and Women’s is huge. Think of how much you’ll learn, working in the legal department. Not to mention all the contacts.”

  “Mom, please. Listen.”

  “I don’t get it. Are you doing all this on a whim? Haven’t you learned anything from Dad?”

  She meant this in the negative sense, of course. Wes’s father had been a theater arts major at Cornell when she’d met him. Not the most practical major, and if Mom had listened to her father or brother she would have run in the other direction. Ellen Carter came from the Burlington Carters who owned Northrock, and they were practical people, civil engineers and accountants, who had grown rich on cement, gravel, and road base.

  Jim Pilson, on the other hand, was the classic underachiever. Bright, but scattered. When Mom had met him, he’d turned his dorm into a workshop to make armor for a Renaissance fair.

  Jim Pilson had taken forever to get his degree, then worked on a couple of PBS documentaries, before designing sets for a pair of failed off-Broadway productions. He’d tried his hand at running an independent record label, then started an underground newspaper, followed by and even shorter-lived radio station specializing in German Electronic Pop. Mom had sold most of her Northrock stock to her brothers to pay for these schemes. And after Wes and Eric came, Eric with huge medical bills tied to his retardation, their financial situation had grown even more precarious.

  “And what about your civil procedure class?” she asked.

  “Civil procedures will be tricky, I admit. I might be able to switch to pass/fail and then it won’t count on my GPA. I’ll need to talk to Dr. Caliari. If that doesn’t work, maybe he’ll let me drop it.”

  “So you’re dropping out of school.”

  “No,” he insisted. “I’m not. This is school. Four credit hours.”

  “You’ve got this great opportunity. A degree from Harvard Law School is like a magical key. It will open any door.”

  “You’ve been reminding me of that since junior high.”

  “Then why blow it now? One more term and then one more year and you’re done. For good.”

  Maybe it was guilt for the way she’d squandered her own share of the family wealth that she was especially adamant that Wes not blow his education trust fund set up by Grandpa Carter.

  He stood from the chair. “I’m not going to blow anything. Worst case scenario, I’ve got one extra class this fall.”

  He could see what she was thinking. He was overreacting. There was nothing going on with Eric, she was sure of it. For his part, Wes couldn’t figure out how she could be so blind. She visited Riverwood three times a week.

  Or maybe that was it. Maybe she visited so often that the change in Eric had been too gradual. Wes, in school out of state, only saw his brother once a month and at holidays. He knew something was happening.

  “You know me, Mom. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but I’m not going to be happy until I get to the bottom of this.”

  “There is no bottom to this, because there’s nothing going on. Eric is just fine. He had a couple of accidents. It happens.” She shook her head. “You’re like Uncle Davis. A crusader.”

  “You make it sound hopeless, and wrong-headed. Like tilting at windmills.”

  “Well?”

  “But that’s not it at all,” he protested. “It’s not a crusade if there’s something wrong going on. It’s—” He searched for the word. “It’s justice.”

  “Oh, please.” She got up from the couch and went into the kitchen, where she unloaded the dishwasher with her back to him.

  He followed her in. “You can’t see it because you’re totally fixed on other stuff.”

  “Something other than my own sons?” Her voice had taken a hard edge. She turned around and set a stack of clean bowls on the counter a little too hard. “And what would that be, Wesley?”

  He hesitated. “Money.” There, it was out.

  “Money? You have no idea, Wes. No idea. The things I’ve done for this family. Your father…no, I won’t even go there. But for so many years it was all I could do to hold on.”

  “Oh, I’m more than aware of that. Remember the time you sold the computer? Or when I couldn’t swim at nationals because you couldn’t afford to send me to Virginia? Or how about the time—”

  “Just stop, please. Of course I remember. I think about that stuff every day. It kills me, and that’s why you can’t drop out of school. It seems like a good idea, now, but that degree is worth so much. I’m trying to save you from making the same mistake I did.”

  “ For the last time, I’m not dropping out, and there will be other Brigham and Women’s. And this project can be really good, I know it can. And I’ll figure things out with Eric.” She said nothing, just turned back to finishing the dishes, so he added, “M
om?”

  “I heard you.”

  “Can you talk to Dad? And just trust me for a little while?”

  “I don’t know, Wesley. But okay, I’ll talk to Dad.”

  He took that as a yes. Or rather, a step toward yes. When she shut the dishwasher door, he kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom. And I’m sorry.”

  Wes went to his bedroom. Eight years after high school, the room had begun to feel like a shrine to his teenage self. The same books sat on the shelves, his swimming trophies—regularly dusted by his mother—sat on top of the dresser. A framed picture hung on the wall of Wes as a scrawny kid of thirteen in a Speedo with his neck weighed down with eight medals, all gold. Another of Wes shaking the hand of the president when he’d gone to DC with the debate team. His favorite was Wes diving in the Golfo Dulce with a hammerhead shark in the background. God, how awesome was that? And his Uncle Davis, a genius for getting that shot, making it look like the hammerhead was right over his shoulder.

  Wasn’t it the very next dive when Davis had drowned? Just when the Carters seemed to be pulling together, too, thanks, in part, to Uncle Davis.

  He was studying the picture when he heard his mother walk down the hall, then into her room, where she shut the door behind her. She was going to call his dad, all right. She’d interrupt him at the playhouse to rehash the conversation. And no doubt find a way to blame him for Wes dropping out of school.

  Wes couldn’t resist the urge to eavesdrop. After all, the conversation was about him. He stepped quietly into the hall, then into the hall bathroom without turning on the light. There was a second bathroom door that led directly into his parents’ bedroom. The phone in their room was an old one, with a cord, and it hung from the wall just on the other side of that door. He’d learned long ago that someone standing in the bathroom could overhear phone conversations on the other side.

  It was dangerous to overhear other people’s conversations. He’d misheard a snippet once where his father seemed to be casually discussing the fact that his mother had cancer. He’d been eleven, and had cried himself to sleep that night, too ashamed to admit he’d overheard the conversation or in any other way ask for comfort or reassurance. Might have spent weeks worrying if his mother hadn’t brought up the subject with Dad at dinner the next day. Turned out his father had been so casual because it hadn’t been Wes’s mother with cancer, but some coworker of Dad’s at the radio station.

  “Hello? Yes, it’s Ellen. What? No, it’s worse than that. He’s going to be working at Riverwood. Right, he took an actual job.”

  Whoever it was on the other end, it was not Dad. Mom’s tone of voice was wrong. Then who?

  “I know,” she said a moment later. “But what am I going to tell him? The truth?” Another pause. “You don’t think that’s suspicious, after I’ve told him a million times we’re not moving Eric? Anyway, that’s forty-five minutes away. With my job, I’ll never see him.”

  After dropping out of Cornell to follow her husband on one of his wild schemes, Ellen Pilson eventually returned to school when she could no longer stand the poverty. She’d finished nursing school and now worked in Barre at Central Vermont Medical Center. The job had dug them out of debt and allowed them to buy a house. But the hours were long and often included weekends, double shifts, and holidays.

  “No,” his mother said. “Don’t do that. Please.” A pause. “Okay, okay. But he has nothing to do with this. Promise me nobody will hurt my son.”

  What? Did his mother know who was hurting Eric? And she wasn’t doing anything about it? No, he must be mishearing again. Like the supposed cancer.

  “Okay. Yes, I will,” his mother said after another long pause. “Don’t worry. But please, don’t hurt Wes. Please.”

  A moment later, she hung up the phone. Wes should have crept back to his room as soon as he’d heard his mother end the conversation. Instead, he stood in the dark, unable to move. He’d misheard, alright. It wasn’t Eric she was talking about getting hurt. It was himself.

  Chapter Three: A naked woman walked past Wes at 6:10 the next morning.

  He had followed Rebecca Gull through Riverwood’s darkened dining room and into the hallway of the east residential wing, which already stirred with residents. The nude woman carried a bath towel and a Ziplock bag of toiletries. She was an elderly woman with thin, gray hair and sagging skin, breasts, and muscles. She didn’t get far.

  “Maxine,” a woman in blue scrubs called. “You’re supposed to go into the bathroom and then take off your pajamas.”

  Maxine gave a frustrated grunt as her HT took her arm and lead her back to the bedroom, in part because she was now about five feet from the bathroom.

  Becca, as Rebecca Gull told Wes to call her, didn’t seem to notice the nude woman. “The morning shift arrives at 6:00. We need the residents out of bed by 6:05. Team Smile gets sponge baths in the evening—no way to get them ready in time, otherwise—but you’ll still need to work fast to get all of them seated in the dining room by 6:45.”

  “Why so early?” Wes asked.

  “We load the bus at 7:45 to get the higher-functioning residents to their jobs. After they eat, they’ve still got to wash up, get their lunches, put on coats, and line up for the bus.”

  Wes nodded. Eric worked at a place that packaged balsam gliders. Didn’t earn much money, but Wes doubted he produced much, either. More like an opportunity to learn life skills.

  “What about the lower-functioning residents? Like Team Smile?”

  “Team Smile and Team Challenge stay here. They might go for walks in the summer, or a field trip in the winter. Otherwise, you’ll do physical therapy, prop them in front of the television in the lounge—officially, something educational—or let them listen to music. The higher teams come back in the early afternoon. Then it’s dinner prep, dinner, classes, and bed.”

  “Classes?”

  “That’s right. You’re morning shift most days, but your double, you’ll need to teach classes.”

  Many of the higher-functioning residents greeted Becca by name as they saw her. She smiled and patted backs. “Hi, Jilly. Morning, Bradley, how is your shoulder? Oh, that’s too bad. Hey, Carla, I got your new CD player. I’ll bring it by this afternoon.”

  She sidestepped several other distractions until they reached the nurse station, at the junction between the east and west wings. Residents lined up outside the window to get their morning pills before they went to the showers. Some popped the pills in one at a time and washed them down with water. Low-functioning residents took theirs crushed and mixed with applesauce.

  “What’s with all the pills?” Wes asked.

  “Some of it’s psychotropic stuff, but most of the heavy pill takers are elderly. You know, blood pressure, cholesterol, that sort of thing,” she said. “No different from my grandma, I suppose.”

  The men’s bathroom sat opposite the nurse station, next to the Team Smile bedroom. Its door swung open and closed every few seconds. Plenty of nakedness in there, as well. Men shaving, dressing, going into bathroom stalls, brushing teeth, undressing for the showers farther back. Male HTs wheeled in residents in chairs, or helped older men with walkers and bike helmets, or simply poked their head in and called out to higher-functioning residents to move them along.

  One HT came out wearing gloves and holding a washcloth stained brown, which he dumped in the laundry bin outside the door. He saw Wes and gave a nod of greeting to the new guy. “Fun stuff. Hey, Becca, what’s up?” He ducked back inside.

  Wes looked back to see Becca watching for his reaction. He was not shocked by what he saw. A bit overwhelmed, maybe, but he’d grown up with a retarded brother, cleaned up a few messes in his life. He’d get used to it.

  Harder to get used to would be the smell that hung around the bathroom. It was sour sweat, morning breath, urine from old bladders, soap, shaving cream, toothpaste, poop, mouth wash, all mingling with the chemicals that janitorial used to scrub this place down while the residents slept
.

  Wes said, “About the classes. Everyone I’ve seen is an adult. Trying to get their G.E.D. or something?”

  “G.E.D.? That’s funny. No. Riverwood is a private facility, and about two thirds of our residents are paid for out of private funds. Like your brother, right? But a third are state funded. So we’ve got to follow state guidelines. And that means classes.”

  He thought Becca was wrong about Eric. No way his parents could afford to pay for this place. Had to be what, a few thousand a month?

  “Someone with more diplomas than brains came up with this thing called ‘graduated advancement,’” Becca continued. “GA means that residents are progressing from helplessness—say, Team Smile—to complete autonomy, or at least, the semi-autonomy of a group home. And real jobs. Team Smile is working on basic skills like swallowing, walking, eye contact, but some day they’ll be operating fork lifts and reconciling general ledgers.”

  She paused as one low-functioning resident, escaped for the moment from his handler, walked past in a stiff-legged gait. He wore pants, socks, one shoe, and no shirt.

  Becca watched him go, then turned back to Wes. “It’s a long-term project.”

  “Wussy!” a voice cried.

  Wes grinned as his brother hurried down the hall toward him, excitement in his eyes. Eric’s hair was wet and there were damp spots on his shirt where he hadn’t fully dried himself. He smelled of Ivory soap and an excess of deodorant.

  “Hey, Ruk. What’s up?”

  “Whachoo doing?”

  “Gonna be working here for a few weeks. How about that?”

  “Wicked cool. You with Team Progress?”