Everybody’s Out There

by Robert M. Marchese

  All these years later, all that’s changed about Roarick’s visits is that he now brings his son, Austin. They stop by one evening during dinner. Ryan mentions that he’s heard Roarick is uneasy about the murder on his property, and it’s this that has prompted his presence. The boys in the Homer House, as well as many of the other students, study the two men as they approach Rollie, who sits at his table with admins and therapists.

  Roarick appears larger than I remember him. Meticulously dressed in a maroon short-sleeved polo shirt tucked into pressed khaki pants, his body appears fit, proportioned, and powerful. His hair, obviously dyed black, is neatly parted along one side, and he has a clean shaven face that is reddened at his cheekbones. His son, dutifully at his side, wheels his head around as he scans the dining hall like some nervous bird; he has the appearance of a younger brother rather than a child. Probably thirty pounds overweight, Austin, who is several inches shorter than his father, is already mostly gray. His face, unlike that of J.R. III, who could be described as handsome, is squarish without looking the least bit chiseled. And though his style is similar to his father’s - black polo shirt tucked into brown pants - he doesn’t pull off the wealthy weekend golfer look he’s clearly going for. He’s clumsy, weathered, and seems to be stained with a look of omnipresent fatigue. My own memory of him is so slight that seeing him now barely registers.

  His name, though, has come up a few times over the years. Rollie, usually in a sardonic tone, would talk about him like he was little more than a nuisance.

  “You remember him, don’t you?” my father would ask. “You two went to school together for a bit. He was a fucking weirdo even then, from what I recall.”

  Austin, according to the Old Man, had been trying to extricate himself for years from his father’s business affairs - though he was hardly an integral part to begin with. He had tried his hand, and failed, at a host of his own ventures. An online jewelry exchange. Firecrackers at wholesale prices. Refurbished patio furniture. Pool supply delivery. Each enterprise put him further in debt - for which J.R. III openly refused to pay - and thus helped cement his position as nothing more than overseer of his father’s many accomplishments.

  Among the students, Austin is known simply as a cheapskate. He will hire out kids to do odd jobs and pay them insultingly low wages. Given the difficulty in earning an honest buck, they always accept the work. Fifty dollars for spending countless hours creating a website. Twenty dollars for designing business logos. Five or ten dollars for lugging this or that or washing his car or even deejaying a private party for a few hours.

  Noah, sitting next to me, and focused on Austin, gives an apt description:

  “He looks like a cartoon criminal.”

  The other boys agree. They then try to top it with further comparisons. Most are crude. I notice that Nick is the only one who doesn’t participate. Staring at his half-eaten cheeseburger in front of him, he wears a fixed look in his eyes, like he expects to soon be on the threshold of some fantastic discovery. I also take notice of my father, who’s looking in my direction and pointing. Austin nods before walking towards me, a dangerous looking, off-centered smile transforming him into some petty outlaw. I watch him approach. He extends his hand and introduces himself as J.R. III’s son. The hand, curled downward into a slight claw, all open fingers, hangs there in front of poor Albert’s face, suspended and aimless. It takes me a moment to register that he’s looking at and speaking to me. I pardon myself and finally shake his hand.

  “We went to school together,” he said, a trace of pride in his ability to speak the truth. “Like a hundred years ago. You’re Gray.”

  I tell him I remember him well. Probably flattered by the lie, he begins to ramble at breakneck speed. He reminisces about people from the past - I am familiar with only one girl’s name he mentions - parties he could recall, and popular gathering spots back then.

  “That was a hundred years ago, wasn’t it?” he said.

  “Feels like it.”

  “And look at us now, Gray. Both working in the family business. Working for the greater good. For nuestros padres.”

  This Spanish affectation clearly pleases him; he takes a step back with what seems like a transitory and minute burst of inspiration, rights himself a little, and steps forward again. I’m too embarrassed to do anything but offer a convivial gesture. So I introduce him to Ryan. As they shake hands, I quickly realize the distraction will be too short, so I introduce him to all the boys in the Homer House.

  Austin’s face changes as he stares down at the boys. As does his tone. They both seem to now bear a different type of confidence than what he’s exuded with me. It’s looser and bolder. His eyes, as he scans the table, offer a distrustful look that shows not even a pretense of what should be tacit sensitivity towards young people who are clearly troubled. And his voice, which suddenly becomes hollow and quietly fierce, condescends as it says, “Evening, boys.” He seems to forget that this greeting is being supervised by me and Ryan.

  “Not too hungry?” he said, focusing on Nick, who’s playing with his food.

  Nick, avoiding any eye contact with Austin, forces a grin.

  “I don’t blame you,” Austin said, lowering his voice and leaning in towards the table. “Who knows what goes on back there in that kitchen? When I was a kid, I used to hear crazy stories about this place. I’m sure Gray here can vouch for that.”

  He looks back and forth between me and Nick.

  “I remember hearing about the critters they used to find. Big old bastards, too. Old Rollie wasn’t too into maintaining shit back then, huh?”

  Both lies are so absurd that I find myself waiting for a punchline that never comes. I don’t know which one to respond to first - the critters or my father’s negligence - or even how to respond. So I play it safe:

  “Well, like you said, that was a hundred years ago.”

  “How do you like working for your old man?” he asks.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I’ll be honest with you,” he said, lowering his voice again, but not enough to be discreet, “I’m surprised as hell to find you here. I remember talking to you - hell, we must’ve been sixteen - and you told me your thoughts on this place. Let’s just say your description stuck with me all these years. Probably because I felt the same way.”

  The boys are looking at me, waiting for me to respond. It occurs to me to remind him of his days as the Repeat Offender, the misfit outcast who brazenly shared notebooks full of his perverse poetry. There’s a good chance this wouldn’t even humiliate him; hell, it might inspire him to pull up a chair and spout out more nonsense. So I settle on a compliment:

  “Your memory is impressive.”

  “What can I say?”

  Straightening his posture, he takes a step backwards and runs his hands along his protruding stomach. Attempting levity, he mentions how he’s sort of like my boss because of who he is and who I am and our respective positions. I’m only half listening since I’m focused on Nick, who looks dazed and spent, like he’s just been interrogated by some autocrat.

  “Take care, boys,” Austin says, “Gray. Nick.”

  With this, he turns around and rejoins his father and the Old Man, who are standing by the rear exit. Ignored, he lingers on the periphery of their meeting for a few moments before heading out the door and into the cool, orange evening. Again, Noah creatively articulates the essence of this man:

  “He sucks.”

  No one disagrees.

  . . .

  I run into Dr. Nussbaum in the dining hall during lunch one afternoon. I barely recognize him. He appears to have lost forty or fifty pounds since
I’d last seen him, which is probably shortly after I graduated from college. He’s grown a thick beard, which is graying, and he wears dark framed glasses. He looks the part of a psychiatrist - erudite yet compassionate.

  Nuss has been a therapist at the Hundred Acre School since I was a kid. It’s common for HAS therapists to come and go; most of them have their own private practice in addition to working for Rollie. Nuss never went that route. He devoted himself to the Hundred Acre School. He’s as regular a fixture on the place as the Old Man himself. I can recall my father racking his brain in an effort to memorialize the revered doctor. He was hellbent on naming a part of the campus after him, but as no parts were without a name, he settled on a plaque and honorary dinner.

  As a kid growing up in this environment, my responsibility was to be respectful to those who worked for its cause. As I matured, this became a more labored effort. But for some reason, I always liked Nuss. Rollie would have him over the house for supper on occasion. Maybe he felt bad about Nuss’s wife leaving him. For this reason, I imagine, they were kindred spirits; both were womanless, and bewildered that men like them, bright and ambitious, could be alone. I recall a lot of wine and humor at these dinners; not to mention being badgered with advice by the two - girls, college, my future. And when the Old Man would hint about my taking over the HAS - a prospect we both knew was laughable - Nuss would sober up, right his posture, and speak in an earnest, lucid voice:

  “All you need to do, Gray,” he’d say, affecting a slight pause, “is walk. That’s it. Just walk and you’ll be fine.”

  To this, my father would roll his eyes and tell Nussbaum he was cut off from the wine. This would force the doctor to explain himself:

  “I mean it. If you keep walking, you’re bound to walk into something. Look at Rollie here. You know how he came into this place? I think he literally walked into it. Trust me, Gray.”

  He was certainly succinct. This was a nice contrast to my father’s garrulousness. I respected Nuss. This was forever cemented during one of these dinners when the topic of my upcoming senior prom was brought up. I mentioned how my date would be driving us in her green Ford Taurus, which would not make much of an impression. Thinking about this for a moment, Nuss looked at my father and asked if he could lend me his car, a fully restored, sky blue, 1970 Mercedes convertible. I had seen it a few times at the school, gleaming with pristine antiquity in its Reserved for Therapists Only parking spot. The Old Man told Nuss and I to work it out between the two of us; smiling, he said he wanted no part of it. What we worked out was that I would return the car without so much as a scratch on it and with a full tank of gas.

  With a plate in one hand and a glass in the other, he walks towards me from the serving line. A girl with bleached blonde hair and a pierced lip says hello to him as he passes her. He stops for a moment to tell her something. She smiles at whatever it is and walks past.

  “In the flesh,” he says as he approaches me. “Mr. Grayson Loveland.”

  “I barely recognized you.”

  He nods and tells me he’s discovered exercise.

  “And these crazy things called vegetables,” he adds, holding up his plate, which is made up of a garden salad with a wedge of bread pushed into one corner.

  And, he mentions, he quit smoking.

  “They say the cigarettes keep you trim, but not when you use them as chasers for cheesecake.”

  He takes a sip of his drink, which looks like fruit punch, and nods at me a few times. Neither of us says anything for a moment. A pudgy and pimply kid from the Miles House begins shouting obscenities at his dorm staff. The other boys at his table are laughing, which further inspires the boy’s outburst. Only a few other students in the dining hall bother to take notice of the one-man show. Most go about their business of socializing, eating, or slumping in their seats. Victor, one of the administrators, a tall, handsome man with a neat blonde goatee and a trim build, rushes over to the table. He and one of the boy’s dorm staff escort the kid out of the building. His entourage boos and hisses.

  “Never a dull moment,” Nuss says, raising his eyebrows.

  “I can see that.”

  Sipping his drink again, Nuss looks me over. After a moment, he tells me to make certain I try to work some sleep into my schedule whenever possible.

  “As often as you can, is all I mean. You know as good as anyone how this place can take its toll.”

  “I do.”

  Taking in a deep breath, I tell Nuss it’s been good seeing him and to have a nice afternoon.

  “I’m always around. So track me down if you need something - while you’re living and teaching here, I mean. Okay?”

  A kind offer, yes, but to hear someone tell me I’m teaching and living at the HAS sounds strange; it actually comes off as glib misinformation.

  “Advice on dealing with the kids - tips, suggestions, whatever. Let me know. That’s why Rollie keeps me around, you know. Because I put his new staff at ease.”

  “Understood.”

  “My offer is not out of deference to Rollie. Or because I’m a friend of the family.”

  The phrase friend of the family sounds funny to me. What family? It’s me and the Old Man.

  “I know.”

  “I’ve known you since you were a boy, Gray. But that’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “Nothing to do with what?”

  “Talking.”

  “Talking about what, exactly?”

  “About whatever you feel the need to talk about - whether it has to do with this place or with anything else that might be on your mind.”

  “Do I look like I have something on my mind?”

  “Yes. You actually do.”

  “Okay.”

  “I guess what I’m saying,” he says, “is to take advantage of having so many therapists around.”

  The Old Man comes to mind as I head to my dorm after lunch. He must’ve confided in the good doctor that his son has endured the hardship of a recent divorce and has crawled back to the east coast, exhausted and heartbroken. But there’s something more he probably would’ve told Nussbaum. Something besides the divorce. The Old Man has a strong sense for any type of suffering. He knows. He knows there’s more to my story. And now Dr. Nussbaum knows.

  The thundering roar of an engine suddenly sounds in the distance. It grows louder while a handful of students gather along the edge of the street as though they’re spectators at a road race. I take a few steps towards them as the vehicle approaches. Its tires screech against the hot pavement as it rounds a corner by the main office. I take a few more steps to get a closer glimpse of the scene. The car, which is a metallic blue SUV, flies by the kids at probably quadruple the 15 mph speed limit, causing them to lurch back a few paces. Several bodies are hanging out of the windows, shouting expletives at the onlookers. The license plate is covered with what looks like a brown paper bag. The words FUCK YOU are written in thick black marker.

  An explosion sounds a moment after the vehicle flies past the crowd. The SLOW SCHOOL ZONE sign suddenly becomes engulfed in flames. Shattered glass sprays around it and falls to the pavement. The passenger in the front has thrown a Molotov cocktail with deft accuracy. The students watch the vehicle speed away. They don’t shout or give chase or search the area for good throwing rocks. One boy walks towards the flaming sign and stares up at it as though the sun itself has fallen from the sky and landed essentially in his backyard. The fire, which looks nearly translucent in the daylight, does an ominous belly dance.

  A young teacher named Angela is running towards those who’ve witnessed the incident. The dining hall door flings open. It’s the Old Man and a few others behind him. They arrive on the scene in a matt
er of seconds. But because I know the matter is being handled - plus, the fire is in no danger of spreading, and no one is hurt - I turn from the crowd and make my way towards the Homer House.

  Chapter 6

  I imagine that only some women are good at being pregnant. Their grace can turn the heads of strangers; their loveliness can inspire private moments of optimism in even the most downhearted. The light they are lucky enough to generate flows freely as they walk and talk and eat and work.

  Laura was one of these women. There was an ease in her movements; a pride in the way she touched things around her; an effortless magnitude she claimed without being the slightest bit aware. If she innately possessed both an inner and outer glow by being pregnant, she also seemed to have a ravenous desire to get the full experience out of carrying our child. And I don’t mean with pregnancy massages or binge eating or frequent demands for the red carpet treatment.

  Laura, always a woman in tune with her sexuality as well as her body, derived an entirely new sensation from herself. Pleased with how she looked, she hired a photographer to capture her blissful state once she began showing. This was in the early stages of her second trimester. The pictures, done in sharp black and white, were tasteful and expressive shots - mostly they were of her holding her bare stomach with a slight and pensive smile. She meant to chronicle the phases of her pregnancy with a few photos every month or so. Her intention, she told me, was to create a pre-pregnancy scrapbook. It was to include not only photos, but her personal thoughts as well. So she bought a bounded, charcoal colored journal in which to write. And she could be found at the roll top desk in the living room, or with a cup of tea at the kitchen table, or lying in our bed with the lamplight dousing the freshly inked pages that were filled with her private motherly musings.