The Happiest People in the World

by Brock Clarke

  “I have missed you,” Matty had told Locs on the phone.

  “That’s the second thing,” she’d said.

  So he’d agreed to hire this guy—whoever he was, whatever kind of trouble he was in—as his guidance counselor. “Is he going to come here by himself?” Matty had asked. He waited for Locs to answer. But she didn’t. She was waiting for Matty to tell her something. Either: Because I want you to bring him. Or: Because I don’t want you to bring him. And before he could ask himself, again, Am I really going to do this? he’d said, “Because I want you to bring him.”

  “Maybe I will,” Locs had said. “But then again, maybe I will not.”

  And then she hung up, leaving Matty with two visions of the future. Both of them gave him a bad feeling.

  “I have a bad feeling,” Matty said.

  “Well, as I was just saying, I had a bad feeling that December in Turku as well,” Lawrence said.

  “Uncle Lawrence!” Kurt yelled, and then he waved at Uncle Lawrence to come over.

  “I’m being paged,” Lawrence said, and he walked over to his nephew. Matty then turned in the opposite direction and thought, Where are they? And a second later, there they were: Ellen and a man walking toward him through the snow. The man looked tall—taller than Matty—and thin; he had gray hair and had lost most of it except for on the sides, but he was one of those tall, fit men who cut their remaining hair very short, and so he looked youthful even though he was not young. Locs had described the guy—Henrik Larsen—as a goofball. But he did not look like a goofball. Matty, on the other hand, was dressed in his ridiculous homemade umpire uniform. The uniform was supposed to be a joke, but now he wondered whether he’d succeeded a little too fully in making it so. He was wearing Kurt’s old soccer shin guards, and the pieces of black plastic barely covered half the length of his shins. He’d also stuffed a pillow into his red sweatshirt for a chest protector. And while his mask was a genuine umpire mask, it was ancient, and several bars had been broken, so that the ones that remained were too far apart to stop anything—a ball, a rock—from reaching his face. He’d dressed like this for the fourteen years he’d umpired this game, but today, for the first time, he felt like a man who was absolutely ill equipped to go into battle.

  Matty shook the guy’s hand when he got close enough, and said, “So you must be my new guidance counselor.”

  The guy didn’t say anything. He just took his hand back, then crossed his arms and frowned. Locs was supposed to have told this Henrik that he was going to be the new Broomeville Junior-Senior High guidance counselor. Did this frowning and arm crossing mean she hadn’t told him? Although she had told Henrik to call him Matthew. What else had she told him? Locs, Locs. He felt her nearby. She might even be sitting in the stands, watching him. He looked at Henrik, making sure he didn’t look anywhere else. “Henry,” Ellen said. “This is Matthew.”

  Henry? thought Matty. “I go by Matty,” he said to Henry.

  “Or Big Red,” Ellen said.

  Matty felt his face turn unhappy. He wondered whether Henry could see it behind the mask. Henry was still frowning; his arms were still crossed. “I went to Cornell,” Matty explained to Henry.

  Henry let his frown disappear. For now. It felt so good, knowing he could and would be able to return to it. Earlier he’d wondered whether there was a difference between Jens and Henry. This was the difference: Jens was always a little out of control, even though he insisted that he was in control, that everything would be just fine. But Henry had a method. And Ellen had given it to him. Henry had known her for only a couple of hours, but already she seemed like the most incredible woman he had ever met. How could Matty have cheated on her (Henry had not asked with whom, and Ellen had not volunteered the information, but he had a hunch it was Locs, because Locs had said, “Matthew doesn’t even know who he is,” and you don’t say something like that about a person unless you’re in love with him), Matty who apparently went to this Cornell? Henry had never heard of it, but the way Matty had said the word—“Cornell”—made it sound like some mystical, faraway place. Timbuktu. Kathmandu. Atlantis. “I went to Cornell,” Matty had said.

  “And when did you get back?” Henry asked.

  Ellen laughed. But Matty did not laugh. He lifted the mask up off his face and seemed to be prepared to say something unpleasant when a woman and a man walked by. The woman was dressed like an Arctic explorer with her fur-lined and hooded anorak. The man was wearing what seemed just to be a lined, checked shirt and a tasseled hat with the word SKI-DOO ringing its perimeter.

  “Hello, Bossman,” she said to Matty. “Hello, Me,” she said to Henry. The woman smelled strongly of alcohol. She might once have had other smells, but the liquor had eradicated them. The man didn’t say anything. He just extended his hand in Henry’s direction and Henry shook it. There was clearly something wrong with the hand—the fingers seemed fused together and hard, so that it was like shaking a closed frozen lobster claw with human skin on it—but Henry shook it anyway, the man looking deeply into his face, seemingly daring Henry to in some way acknowledge the claw. Henry didn’t; he didn’t even need to frown, since the man wasn’t actually saying anything. Finally the man retracted his hand, and he and the woman walked away, past a group of sweatshirted teenagers standing next to a chain-link fence, whispering conspiratorially and not even trying to hide the fact that they were pointing at Henry. It was easy to read their pointing: it said, Who the fuck are you?

  “I fart in your general direction!” someone yelled in what seemed like a French accent. Henry looked in the direction of the voice. It clearly had come from a large man wearing a very colorful short-sleeved shirt who was looking—but as far as Henry could tell, not farting—in Henry’s direction. A woman descended the bleachers behind the man, long braids trailing out of her ski hat. She had a martial look on her face, and sure enough, she struck the man in the arm, then ran back up the stairs. The man rubbed his arm but otherwise seemed unaffected by this sudden violence. Although he did seem cold; he wrapped his arms around himself and yelled in Henry’s and Matty’s direction, “Hey, chief, play ball already!” Henry looked at him. Henry looked at all of them, the whole crowd. And what did he see? What did he not see? He did not see one Muslim in the crowd. He did not see one person who by evidence of their skin color or headgear or dress or anything seemed likely to want to kill him. Henry did not like himself for noticing this. But neither did he like himself being around people who might be trying to kill him. He turned back to Matty, who was busy feeling that crushing combination of shame and defiance known only to people in small towns who are forced to welcome an outsider into that small town. I know this place is awful, was Matty’s feeling, and also: But don’t even think about telling me how awful it is. “I apologize for the freak show,” Matty said.

  “I really think I’m going to like it here,” Henry said.

  “You do?”

  “Yes,” Henry said. “I think everything is going to be just fine.” He allowed himself to say these things one last time, as a way of saying good-bye to Jens, the way Matty’s baseball game was his way of saying good-bye to summer. Then Henry crossed his arms again. Now that he’d started truly being Henry, he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be anyone else. Meanwhile, Matty was looking at him in amazement. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard anyone say “I think everything is going to be just fine” before. And Henry had sounded like he’d meant it, too. Was he talking somehow about Matty and Locs? Matty felt sure Henry was. He glanced at Ellen, who was now talking to Lawrence and Kurt, and then said, “How is everything going to be fine?” Henry didn’t respond to that, except with his frown, which communicated, to Matty, Oh, you know how. Matty did. He’d known it last time, and he knew it this time, too. He just needed someone else to remind him.

  Meanwhile, Lawrence had walked over and was now standing in front of Matty and Henry. Lawrence said several things in a language that Matty didn’t know and that Henry didn’t seem to know,
either: he stood there, arms crossed, frowning. “So you’re from Sweden!” Lawrence said, in English. “Or as you say, Sverige! I’ll never forget the fall I spent in Stavsnä! . . .” And then Lawrence said several more typically Lawrence things. None of which appeared to have any effect on Henry: he was still frowning and crossing his arms. Finally, Lawrence seemed to give up, and said simply: “I’m Lawrence Klock. I teach eleventh- and twelfth-grade history. Welcome to Broomeville.” Introducing himself! Like a real person! This new guidance counselor really was incredible. I know how, Matty thought. I know how everything is going to be just fine. And then he pulled down his mask, strode back toward the snow-covered field, and ordered everyone to play ball.

  19

  Matty had ended up giving Henry a tour. He couldn’t help himself. After the game (the students won; the students won every year; every year, the faculty insisted that they wanted the students to win, that it was important that the students win, that it was important for the students to feel good about themselves; every year, the faculty ended up doing everything they could to win and ended up losing anyway), all Matty had intended to do was walk Henry back to the Lumber Lodge and tell him what to expect tomorrow at school and maybe ask him whether he knew where Locs was, whether she was in Broomeville or somewhere else. But here he was, giving a tour of Broomeville. This was another burden for people from small towns: they couldn’t stop themselves from giving an out-of-towner a tour and then at the end of the tour saying, I know it’s not much, and then daring the out-of-towner to agree.

  “And this was where Dietrik Broome lived,” Matty was saying. They were standing in front of the chalet. The snow was still falling, falling. There was at least a foot of it already on the ground and it was piled high on the roof and the gables, making the house look even more Swiss than usual. Although Broome himself had emigrated from Holland. “He emigrated from Holland, in 1789,” Matty was saying. “No one lives in the house anymore, of course. It’s more of a museum than a house.”

  “May we go in?” Henry asked.

  “It’s open only by appointment.” Matty hoped Henry wouldn’t ask with whom he could make that appointment. Because honestly, Matty had no idea.

  But Henry didn’t ask anything. They kept walking, past the gazebo and monument, which memorialized Broomeville’s war dead, and then they were in front of the Lumber Lodge, which was alive with drunk people. Matty could hear them from where he was standing, even though the bar windows were closed. Ellen had left the game early; she was inside now, tending bar. “Snowstorms make people want to drink,” Ellen liked to say. “As does extreme heat. Not to mention a light drizzle.”

  “So that’s the tour,” Matty said. “I know it’s not much . . .”

  “You haven’t yet told me what a guidance counselor does,” Henry said. He sounded tired. Which made sense, since he’d traveled who knew how far to get there.

  “No one really knows,” Matty said. “Don’t worry. You’ll do just fine.”

  “Just fine,” Henry repeated. And then: “I think I’ll go to bed now.”

  “Fair enough,” Matty said. “See you at school tomorrow.” Then Henry turned and walked toward the Lodge. Matty watched him. The door opened. Matty heard a boozy roar. Then the door closed, and the roar disappeared. Matty looked through the bar windows. His teachers and staff were in there. They always went to the Lumber Lodge after the game. Matty really belonged in there, too. He always made a speech after the game, thanked his troops, bought them drinks. But tonight he ignored that tradition. Matty started to walk. This was one of the ways that he was different from Ellen. Locs, too. Both of them liked to drive, anywhere, always. But Matty liked to walk. He told people it helped him think. It also had the virtue of helping him postpone having to do the thing he was thinking about.

  20

  It was after eight o’clock, and Locs didn’t know what to do. Matthew might be down at the Lumber Lodge. But she couldn’t go into that terrible place, because his wife might be there. He might be at his house or at the baseball game (The first Wednesday in October! she remembered), but she couldn’t go to those places, either, for the same reason. And Matthew wasn’t in his office at school. She knew that because she’d checked. He wasn’t there. He was not anywhere. She didn’t want to risk using her cell phone to call his, because if she used her cell phone, then she could be tracked by her cell phone, and right now she knew the people who might be trying to track her. London, she thought. Crystal. Doc. Capo. Jesus Christ. His ridiculous nickname and his ridiculous clocks to remind him of the whereabouts of the rest of his ridiculous people. But just because they were ridiculous did not mean she wanted them to know where she was. But what exactly do I want? she wondered. What am I doing here? But that was a rhetorical question. She was here because she was lonely; she was here because she loved Matthew. She loved Matthew so much that she couldn’t stop thinking about him, even after he’d dumped her, even after she’d left Broomeville and joined the CIA just so she could put several thousand miles and several large bodies of water between them. She loved Matthew so much that she’d brought that cartoonist thousands of miles under the ludicrous pretense that this was the best place for him to stay hidden, forever. She loved Matthew so much that she’d convinced herself that Capo would somehow not discover that she’d brought Henrik to Broomeville, even though Capo lived in that same fucking town. She loved Matthew so much that she’d convinced herself that if Capo did discover that she’d brought Henrik to Broomeville, then Capo would see the enormity of her love for Matthew and would be so moved by that love that he would forgive her for bringing the person she was supposed to be guarding to Broomeville, without his permission, and not kill her, as he had done to other agents who had gone rogue and done things without his permission. She loved Matthew so much that she’d convinced herself that after Capo had forgiven her for going rogue, he and she and Crystal and Doc and London would look after Henrik together, like a family or something, while she simultaneously started a family of her own with Matthew, even though Matthew already had a family and even though Matthew had already shown a pretty clear resistance to leaving his family for Locs, even though he supposedly loved her so much. “Fuck, fuck,” she said to her rental car, which was a dark blue Chevy Cruze or something ridiculous like that. Everything about the car was slightly wrong, in the way of rental cars. The steering wheel, for instance, was too low. It felt like it was practically in her lap. And she couldn’t find the knob or lever to raise the thing, either. It was an awful car in which to drive aimlessly around the town you hated, hoping to find the man you’d come so far to see.

  And it was snowing, too, because of course it was, because it always snowed. It was pretty. But there was always something that ruined it. For instance, the insolence of people who, during or after snowstorms, walk in the road instead of on the sidewalk or the shoulder. There was someone in front of her doing just that. He was practically in the middle of the street, too. And it wasn’t even a street; it was Route 356, where you could and wanted to drive fifty-five miles per hour. Yet this bozo was walking pretty much down the center of the road, not anywhere near the shoulder. There was snow in both places: it was calf deep on the shoulder, while it was only shoe high on the road itself. But there was snow, and the cars had to drive on it, and cars were known to sometimes skid on snow, were they not? Was this not common fucking knowledge? Had this guy really weighed his options? Had he examined the two possibilities—getting his shoes and pants a little snowy, a little wet, while walking in relative safety on the side of the road, or keeping his feet somewhat dry while being struck by two thousand pounds of hurtling steel—and chosen the latter? He apparently had. And she knew exactly what this guy was thinking: Oh, I hate it when my pants get all snowy, so I’ll take my chances with the road, the cars will move over, they always move over, they have always moved over. God, she hated these people. One of these days, maybe this day, she really would hit someone, and when that happened, she would get out
of her car and stand over one of these arrogant bozos who had finally gotten his due, and before she would be able to get a word out, he would say, if he wasn’t already dead, I can’t believe you actually hit me.

  She pulled around this guy, but she did not give him a wide berth, just to see what he would do. Sure enough, he gave her a look that said, Hey, what’s your problem, you almost hit me! And only after she’d pulled back into her lane and driven maybe a hundred feet farther did she recognize him as Matthew.

  21

  It was after eight at night when Henry returned to the Lumber Lodge. The tavern was full now—full of big people and the big sounds they made—but he didn’t join them. He was tired. Besides, there’d be time to join them on some other day, at some other hour. Odd: Henry didn’t know them but was already thinking of these Broomevillians as family, family being the group of people you look forward to spending more time with later.

  Anyway, he waved to Ellen as he skirted the barroom, climbed the stairs to room 24. He turned the key and opened the door. The first thing he noticed was that the room, using the expression his students would teach him in the days and weeks and months and years to come, “smelled like ass.” The walls were painted dark yellow, and nailed to those walls were several faded prints of families being transported through the snow by horse-drawn sleighs. The carpet was yellow like the walls, and there were NO SMOKING signs everywhere, even though there were cigarette burn marks and holes in the carpet. The bathroom was visible from the rest of the room; the sink was white, but the porcelain was stained blue under the tap, as though the tap released not water but antifreeze. Henry sat down on the twin bed, which creaked and buckled but did not break. Home, he thought, and then he thought it might be easier to think of room 24 as a home if he turned the lights off. He did that. Then he got into bed, fully clothed, without taking off his contact lenses. Downstairs he could hear the big happy sounds of the big happy people. There was music playing, and the people were shouting to be heard over it, making both the music and the shouting unintelligible. Henry put his hands over his ears, but he could still hear the sounds—of the people and the music, but also of Ellen and Matty and Kurt and his cronies, and of the man on the bus and their singing, and Locs telling him to go to Broomeville, and Ilsa in Aarhus, and his editor in Skagen, and the man who’d burned down Jens’s house, and that strange man at the baseball game (Lawrence was his name), who had started talking to Henry in what was probably Swedish, and the people on the television and in the newspapers and on the Internet, talking about Jens’s cartoon, his death, whether it meant the end of something (civilization, maybe) or the beginning of something, or whether it meant anything at all—all these sounds and voices and faces gathering around Henry, and he thought, If I were still a cartoonist, I would draw a cartoon of a man in bed with his eyes squeezed shut and his hands pressed over his ears surrounded by faces with their mouths open, little sad or happy or angry lines coming out of their mouths. But Henry wasn’t a cartoonist anymore. He was a guidance counselor, and in ten hours he had to get up and find out what it meant to be one.