Everybody’s Out There

by Robert M. Marchese

  We found out that the property - over a dozen prime acres of level farmland - was owned and in the process of being developed by two brothers from Pennsylvania. The brothers, Abe and Caleb Cadman, probably in their early forties, had inherited the land from their grandfather years earlier; they had resisted selling for sentimental reasons, and resisted building for logistical ones - the main one being, simply, they lived in Pennsylvania. They owned a construction company out of Harrisburg, PA, and specialized in middle-of-the-road single family homes. After finishing some projects on the east coast, they decided it was doable to go west for a while and make something of their farmland.

  They both flirted with Laura when we all met in their trailer, which was situated on the periphery of the building site. It was cramped and humid with beach chairs and a broken AC unit. The brothers called her Princess and told her they’d love to build her the palace they knew she deserved. They stared at her chest and complimented her smile; one of the brothers stroked her wrist when he handed her a pen to sign the contracts.

  I didn’t mind any of this as much as I did their heavy musk-scented cologne, which was stifling in such an enclosed space. They were characters, though, ready to pounce on one another for interrupting or quoting an erroneous price for an extra window in the living room or granite countertops in the guest bath. One of them - I think it was Abe - even smacked the other in the back of the head with a binder filled with carpet swatches after he inadvertently revealed how much they stood to profit from the entire development.

  It’s true that they were hardly the professionals we envisioned working with, but they laid out an attractive offer and set an affordable price for a hell of a lot of house. So we were stuck with them for one year. That’s how long they said they’d need to build our home. One year. This seemed reasonable.

  I’m not sure what couples do in mental preparation for starting a family. They may have discussions about value systems and finances and whether it’ll be a Lucy or a Logan and who each might look like and act like and would do to Mommy’s and Daddy’s social life and sleep habits. Or they could read manuals and articles and books on childbirth and potty training. They might babysit for friends to ensure their decision is steeped in true, wise hearts. Hell, they may even consult their priest or therapist for advice - as though anybody, even the most sound-minded, can say for sure what lies ahead. Laura and I did none of this. We knew from the beginning that we wanted a family. Being that I was an only child, I was intent on having several children. Up to three or four. Laura wanted the same. We avoided seeking advice or reading books or even discussing it much with one another. Maybe that sounds haphazard. Maybe we sound like we were daunted by adult matters, so we evaded them completely. But it never felt that way. The whole thing had a spontaneity to it; in a way it seemed even holy.

  When I was a teenager, I slept in an abandoned church a few towns north of Old Brookview. It was to be torn down that summer, so a few of us grabbed some candles and cheap beer and found a way in near the rear entrance and stayed overnight. And though I wasn’t the least bit pious, I recall waking up in the night, silently staring at the cavernous church ceiling, and feeling, probably for the first time in my young life, the true spirit of something sacred beaming down from those splintered rafters. Not necessarily religious, but spiritual. And that’s how it felt with Laura. Like there was the presence of something beautiful and watchful, something that required no belabored introspection. It was just there, and it seemed all around us.

  “I’m not going to renew my birth control,” Laura said to me during one of our Sunday morning walks. “Okay?”

  We were married for just two years before any earnest attempts at having a child. We gladly christened every square foot of the Knowles’ townhouse, proclaiming that each effort would be the one we’d frame in our minds as the moment of conception. But it wasn’t that easy. It simply wasn’t happening. Yet we avoided discussions and subtle accusations; we also stayed away from fertility pundits. This suited me just fine. I can’t imagine anything more debasing than being asked to ejaculate into a vial so your semen can be scrutinized by experts whose job becomes making you feel like you’re not failing your wife.

  We tried to conceive right through the construction of the Grove Garden house, which ended up taking nearly two years. There was a glitch in the Cadman’s original plan, which was to build half a dozen homes, some spec houses and some custom. After the first month, when the clearing of the lots had wrapped, the brothers were given an ultimatum by their crew: more money or else they’d strike. The brothers, one could immediately tell, would sooner cease with their licentious behavior than acquiesce to any type of threats, especially ones involving their business, in which they did seem to take pride. Abe and Caleb held their ground, losing their workers in the process. Rather than hire a new crew, the brothers opted to do the work themselves. All of it. There was no doubt that they were quite capable - so they assured us - but the simple fact remained: six houses of considerable size and detail, two men, a promise of one year. It was ridiculous.

  “This way, we can personally oversee every detail of the Princess’s castle,” they told us.

  We had nothing to lose. We weren’t in a hurry to move, so we agreed to the arrangement. The truth is that we were more intent on starting a family than picking out flooring and fixtures. Besides, we thought it would be entertaining to see how the matter played out: six houses, two men, one year. What could possibly go wrong?

  Chapter 3

  The mission statement for the Hundred Acre School reads as follows: The intent of the Hundred Acre School is to foster positive, constructive, and healthy development in its students. Our focus is on the student and his or her social and emotional growth and well-being. We are committed to the task of helping each student reach their potential, thus becoming an independent, self-motivated, responsible, and healthy individual. We encourage all students to build lasting, productive relationships with faculty, family, friends, and peers. We also encourage all students to self-assess behaviors, seek help when necessary, help others when appropriate, and respect the educational and therapeutic process. Our aim is steeped in creating a least restrictive environment for students to feel safe, uninhibited, and able to express themselves freely and without limitation.

  I authored this sanctimonious bullshit when I was a sophomore in high school. The Old Man was going through a rigorous state accreditation process at the time, and part of this process involved updating the curriculum, extending the school day, hiring only certified staff, and creating a mission statement.

  “You’re the wordsmith, Gray,” he said. “This kind of stuff should be second nature for you.”

  Then he told me the ground it needed to cover and gave me free rein. Besides an overuse of the word “student(s),” I was happy with how it turned out; not bad for a fifteen-year-old. Still, who could resist the quiet hilarity of the notion that I, Grayson Loveland, known for his apathy towards the HAS, created such a sensitive manifesto?

  The words are embossed in yellow letters on a large tapestry hanging over the piano in the dining hall. If Rollie looks up at any point during his meal, he will behold my prose. As will most anyone whose back is not turned towards it. I can recall eating among the students and watching sets of aimless eyes staring dumbly at the banner as though considering the veracity of its words. And not that I ever would’ve asked, but I did wonder what they thought of them. Moreover, I wondered how they’d have felt if they knew I had written them.

  But now the words are everywhere. They’re on sheets of laminated cardstock, which are pinned to bulletin boards in each of the classrooms and offices. They’re scrawled on the back of t-shirts for sale and on display at the Staff on Duty (SOD) office, a tiny, one windowed room adjacent to the infirmary and dining hall. And they adorn large, see-through stickers, which
are stuck to everything from windows to the backboards of the basketball hoops. Clearly, the Old Man has toyed with the notion of building morale by smearing this jargon everywhere but across the skyline.

  I arrive at the school at a little after 5:00 a.m. After parking in the visitor lot - the Old Man finally had it paved - I roam the campus, which is quietly humming beneath sharp bolts of the early June twilight that stab through the treetops and into the dew covered ground. Breakfast isn’t until 7:00, so the students are still clawing at the precarious rubber walls of their strange dreams. What do these kids dream about, anyway? More meds? More freedom? More cigarettes? More something, no doubt. Or maybe less. How the hell should I know? What I do know is they crave sleep like most of us crave oxygen. Rollie used to get calls in the morning from the dorm staff - he probably still does - explaining how so and so refuses to wake up and come to breakfast. Did you try this? Did you try that? Did you use finesse? Humor? Tact? Leverage? The Old Man would go through a litany of questions before paying a housecall to the stubborn sleeper. Then, nearly minutes before breakfast was over, he’d enter the dining hall, that look of triumph curling his lips into some puckered punctuation mark, and in tow would be a bummed out, somewhat disheveled teenager, who’d skulk over to the food line and extend their empty plate like they were the victim of some petty prank.

  Before noon, this place will be a hotbed for every imaginable teenage catastrophe: breakdowns from those who hate it here; those who say they don’t belong here; those who won’t take their meds; those who tried to trade their meds; those who can’t get along with their classmates or their dorm mates or their therapists or their teachers or their faculty advisors; those who are haunted by severe bouts of depression, anxiety, fear, obstinacy, paranoia, and any conceivable malady in between. So the peacefulness here, at this hour, is something to relish.

  In high school, on the weekends, I used to bring my girlfriend, Erin, to campus. We’d go to a movie or a party and I’d drop her back at her house at exactly 11:00 p.m. Her father was a state cop and strict as hell about her curfew. This didn’t stop us, though, from having a regular after-hours party. We’d wait until around 1:00 a.m. when she’d sneak out of her first floor bedroom window and meet me at the end of her driveway. We’d then make our way to the HAS, where we’d roam the campus, sometimes for hours, bringing some alcoholic concoction and a blanket, which we’d spread out under the stars, either by the baseball diamond or near the maintenance shed. And as we lay there, naked, half drunk, and woozy in our teenage ebullience, we’d surmise the calamities that would befall the school by daybreak. Erin, who had an astute handle on the place - she listened to my tirades on a regular basis - likened such tranquility to the dusky early morning hush that must’ve pervaded Omaha Beach on that fateful June day back in 1944. And though the comparison soon became hackneyed, it nevertheless made us laugh every time.

  It’s been four years since I’ve seen the Hundred Acre School. The Old Man has obviously done some work in that time. The shrubs that lined the face of the dining hall have been torn out and replaced with a rose garden and a couple of wooden benches. Fresh new white siding has been put on two of the girls dorms: the Joni House and the Helen House. Each of the buildings is named after an influential figure in Rollie’s life. There’s the Joni House, named after Joni Mitchell, whom he adores and actually met twice at her art shows in NYC; two of her paintings are hanging behind a plexiglass case in the dorm’s common room. The Old Man named the Helen House after his mother, my grandmother, whom I never met; she died when my father was an undergrad. The largest dorm on campus, the Priscilla House, is named after a now deceased Old Brookview resident, Priscilla Danford, a wealthy widow who donated generous sums of money to the HAS in the 1980s. The Minnie House is named after Rollie’s beloved college professor, Filomena Perucio, a preeminent figure in the annals of Cornell’s faculty, and the woman who inspired him to change his major from philosophy to education. And the Missouri House is named after a quirky, half-mad literary character from Other Voices, Other Rooms, a Truman Capote novel the Old Man rereads every couple of years, claiming its gothic enigmas, forlorn atmosphere, and offbeat characters somehow remind him of the Hundred Acre School.

  The boys dorms, like the girls, were all named in the early 1990s, twenty years after the school was established, and bear their titles after those who, as Rollie puts it, “contributed to the betterment of the HAS in some extraordinary way.” There’s the Miles House, named after the first teacher the Old Man hired when he opened the place in the early 1970s. Miles Katz stayed on, teaching history and coaching girls softball for a decade, establishing a rare precedent; most teachers regard the place as a stepping stone and stay on for no more than a couple of years. There’s the Alan House, named after a local musician, Alan Browne, who volunteered his time several days a week to teaching the kids how to play whatever instrument they owned, or how to set the sophomoric prose of their suicide letter to lovely guitar accompaniment. There’s the Homer House, named after Dr. Homer Wald, a therapist whose charm, wit, and avuncular demeanor ingratiated him to anyone graced by his presence. His death, brought about by an unexpected aneurism - I was a senior in high school at the time of his passing - caused the Old Man to lower the school’s flag to half mast and cancel classes for the rest of that day. There’s the Charles House, named after Charles Burr, HAS’s bellicose principal from 1983-2000. He and Rollie were constantly at odds over this or that, but Burr’s tough-love approach with the students, his unyielding candor with his staff, and his effectiveness as an all around leader, won out and endured the better part of two decades. There’s the Mickey House, named after Mickey Kinnon, HAS’s crotchety, pot-bellied cook, who I know is still banging around his pots and pans, hollering at those who neglect to prep his grill with non-stick spray, and blasting anyone out of his kitchen who attempts to tell him their omelet is runny or their London Broil chewy. Mickey, a war vet who lost three fingers on his left hand, has always had the ability to crack up the Old Man with his colorful stories.

  Other improvements Rollie has made are the new windows in the therapy lounge and main office, both small, aluminum-sided buildings that are adjacent to one another. He’s had the exterior of the gymnasium painted a fresh cream color. A small addition has been added to the maintenance shed. The basketball court has been re-tarred. The Virginia House has been re-roofed. The Old Man has completely refurbished the pavilion, which is HAS’s rec room; it’s replete not only with an enormous flat-screen TV and surround sound, but with a ping-pong, foosball, and pool table.

  Smiling to myself, I recognize the time and money he’s put into the place. He’s on a mission to update and upsize and get more upscale, probably an attempt to justify charging students nearly $100,000 a year. They come from all over, too - not just from the east coast. The Old Man has had kids from Texas and Canada and Florida and North Dakota. One year, he even had a European student all the way from Belgium.

  I poke around a bit, peering in windows, pulling on the occasional door, which I know will be locked. The Old Man keeps a stranglehold on security. He has ever since an incident that befell the Homer House back in the 1990s. It was a morning like any other at the HAS - refusals to get out of bed; petulant fits and freakouts; steadfast commitments to being deep and dolorous, all of which are so routine that you could set your watch to them. The Homer House boys, upon waking, noticed that the windows to their common room were obscured by some dark, smeary blur from top to bottom. It must’ve looked like the end of the world - or like an eclipse had occurred and the sky exploded, its gelatinous shrapnel sticking all over an unsuspecting earth. They informed Reg, their dorm staff, who was no doubt burdened by his efforts to rouse ten or so adolescents into facing the new day. Reg thus ventured outside to discover the source of confusion. It was shit. And it was no mere fling and flee job, either; it was laboriously coated with deft precision.

 
During the week, before school each morning, I’d eat breakfast with my father and the students in the dining hall. The Old Man wanted it this way. My presence, he told me, would be good for the students; they’d be inspired by how together I was. He added that I would somehow become enlightened by sharing in their world, possibly earning some humility along the way. His final reason - and this one I suspected on my own - was so he and I could bond before he embarked on a typical fifteen-hour work day. Of course, none of this ever happened. I ate quickly, usually at Rollie’s table, which he shares with administrators and therapists, mostly with my nose in a book, looking up on occasion, giving terse answers to anyone who tried to engage me in conversation. Meanwhile, the Old Man would circle the dining hall for most of the meal, clutching a bagel and coffee, asking students about the night before or the day ahead.

  On the morning of the incident, I remember hearing the buzz of the kids’ conversations about the foul prank. They didn’t appear to be offended or humiliated; rather, they seemed impressed and bewildered over the amount of effort and excrement used in such a scheme. I recall going to school that day and regarding each one of my peers as a possible suspect.