Everybody’s Out There

by Robert M. Marchese

  The effortlessness of the exchange tricked me, for just a moment, into believing that things were peaceful between us. And perhaps they were. But it was peace without honor. It was the kind with long, uneasy silences that might at any moment produce a sudden declaration of war. I knew for certain that if my wife could’ve caused her own disappearance, a bold and permanent one, that she would’ve in the blink of an eye.

  New Year’s Eve found me pulling a disappearing act of my own. I went into the city late in the afternoon and ate at a dirty Thai joint with peeling wallpaper and books of matches used to steady the tables. Then I went to a forgettable movie, through which I fell asleep, and finally some shopping where I picked up some overpriced shirts I didn’t need. When I arrived back home, it was close to 9:00 p.m. Laura was gone, but had left a foyer light on for me. As for Glenn’s house, it was an imposing black mass of darkness.

  My plan was to lie in bed and watch TV before drifting off to sleep. Clad in my pajamas and ready to turn in for the night, I noticed a liter of liquor on the bureau by the window. It was a sight so out of place in my bedroom that I had to walk over to it and hold it just to convince myself that it wasn’t an oversized bottle of perfume. It was whiskey. The bottle was a little more than halfway full. And two empty glasses were pushed to the rear of the bureau. They were adjacent to Laura’s journal I hadn’t seen in months. I sat at the foot of the bed and flipped through its pages. Laura’s letters to our unborn daughter. Poetic and personal, the letters were so uplifted with that rare, singular quality of late-night earthy candor, that you’re not even sure you recognize it at first. One entry was a whimsical rhyming couplet poem about the kicking sensation she had felt in her belly. One was about deciding on a name. One was a list of twelve reasons why Laura had already fallen in love with the baby. They each started with “because.” The first and last one read the same: Because you’re doing a remarkable thing: You’re making us a family.

  Pictures Laura had taken of herself when she was pregnant were tucked into a pocket in the rear of the journal. With her eyes averted just slightly from the camera, and her expression demure in all of them, the photos seemed to capture a spirit that was now entirely alien to our lives. Putting the book back on the bureau, I inspected the two empty glasses. They each had smudges around the rim, as well as a few droplets of whiskey that were so slight they were almost clear. I suddenly found myself wondering how and when my bedroom had been turned into a den of alcoholic sentimentality. The thought hadn’t yet achieved the gravity it needed to be truly brutal. It was simply bewildering. Like seeing the creases of unanticipated anguish transform the once pleasant face of a loved one. It’s an eventual race towards personal dread.

  Then I began studying our king-size bed in the middle of the room. It didn’t look the same to me. After a moment, I realized what was different. It was the pale blue comforter, which was usually so taut that it resembled a flawless patch of sky. It now lay across the bed in a loose and somewhat wavy fashion. It had to have been disturbed sometime during the day, I thought. Or maybe I sat on the bed at some point. I couldn’t remember. I tried, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember.

  Chapter 15

  I wasn’t there, but I heard it got nasty between the Old Man and Eileen Russo. She made the four hour drive alone from Montpelier to find that her son was in fact missing, the local police not terribly sympathetic - they did initiate an “attempt to locate” - and a HAS campus not necessarily in mourning. Words were exchanged outside Rollie’s office as students were passing to their next class. Sandra was nearby. She reported that Mrs. Russo was nose-to-nose with my father, shouting that he was a “second-rate overseer” as well as an “asshole.” Rollie, according to Sandra, didn’t budge, but told her to “please lower her voice.” The confrontation ended when the Old Man turned his back on the woman and walked away.

  I believed my father when he told me he was apologetic to Eileen. He said it didn’t take long for her to find an opening in his vulnerability, wedge her way inside, and trounce on him with the weight of all her grief. He said he thought her grief wasn’t even about Nick’s disappearance. He seemed to think it was just about Nick, period.

  Some think Eileen should’ve shown up at the HAS earlier. Rollie is among them. He might’ve told her as much. He’s apt to look for signs of neglectfulness in the parents of his students. I think it’s his way of cutting his kids some slack - a plea with himself to gather and store the sympathy he seems to think they’re entitled to. It’s discreet. A sleight of hand, really. Rarely does he offend. Eileen Russo might’ve been an exception to this.

  She chastised the Old Man. Then she went downtown to fill out the proper paperwork at the police station. Next on her agenda was to see Nick’s room. The Old Man escorted her himself, watching in silence in the doorway as she perused her son’s belongings. According to my father, Eileen, as she fingered through clothing and magazines and basketball cards, vacillated between concern and contempt. She prayed aloud that Nick was all right; then she cursed him up and down for running away. She was optimistic one moment, stating how he’d soon return, unharmed and contrite that he’d caused so much worry; then, in a flash, her mood darkened and she swore the boy was a constant burden, and that he may very well have murdered that poor girl, so it’d be best if he never showed his face again. Almost the moment she uttered this, she was close to tears as she retracted it with sobered authority.

  I seemed to have been next on Eileen Russo’s itinerary. She finds me at my place just after dinner. I have the night off, which I spend folding laundry and watching Papillon. It’s raining outside, so I invite her into my kitchen. I can smell liquor and cigarettes on her breath. She tells me I must be Dimitri Ames’ replacement and that she’s heard about what’s happened with him. The pause she takes after saying this suggests she thinks I might gossip and reveal additional details. Instead, I apologize for her son’s disappearance.

  “It was on my watch.”

  “I know it was,” she says, wiping some rain from her forehead.

  Eileen Russo is a slender woman with deep blue eyes. She has nice teeth and an even, full-faced tan, and yet she still wears too much makeup. Probably she was attractive ten years ago. Now, though, she looks like a woman who’s earned her lines worrying about life’s injustices while she babbles herself blind at some dive bar as the local hustlers and whores shoot pool and chase shots and one-up each other’s hard luck stories.

  “What do you do around here in your free time?” she asks, poking her head around the corner to glimpse into the other room.

  I tell her she’s looking at it. Her top, a thin, low-cut summery thing, is wet with rain. It’s sticking to her, and she begins pulling at it. Modesty doesn’t seem to be a priority. After she’s satisfied with her shirt, she asks if I want to have a drink with her at a tavern she’s discovered near her motel. Lying, I tell her I don’t drink. She makes a few sarcastic remarks before poking around my place some more. We end up in the TV room together. Before I can offer her a place to sit, she makes herself comfortable.

  “I appreciate Rollie not turning Nicky’s letter over to the police,” she says. “As well as those pictures. What I don’t appreciate is his implication that my son is a fucking murderer.”

  Eileen explains how she’s reconfirmed for the Old Man that the handwriting on the letter is Nick’s. Then she disparages him, threatening to sue the school for defamation of Nick’s character and for negligence in losing him. When her tirade runs its course, she settles back into her seat and watches the movie.

  “My son is very private,” she says, breaking the silence. “So he doesn’t tell me everything; and God knows I don’t want to know everything. But a parent knows how their child feels about things. All sorts of things. It’s a special power we have. Sometimes it’s the only power we have when all ou
r other powers have been stripped from us - when they grow up or shut you out of their lives.”

  She asks if I have any children of my own.

  “No.”

  “You’re still young,” she says, smiling.

  “It doesn’t feel that way lately.”

  “If you ever do have children, you’ll understand what I mean. Your father knows. He knows for sure.”

  Smiling some more and pulling again at her shirt, Eileen tells me that her son was in love with Nicole D’Ambrosio and that there was no way he would’ve hurt her.

  “I just can’t help but feel like someone owes me,” she says, sighing. “I know how that sounds, but it’s how I feel.”

  There isn’t much for me to say. Probably I’m not taking the time to consider her plight and what she’s entitled to. She makes it a point to ask me. She asks if I think she’s entitled to something. I tell her she is. Pulling at her shirt some more, Eileen asks where my bathroom is before excusing herself.

  I finish folding my laundry. Then I sit back and watch Papillion. The famous scene is approaching where Steve McQueen jumps off the cliff. This feat, I remember reading, was performed by the actor without a stunt double. Such balls. Balls of galvanized steel. Balls I wonder if I’ll ever possess. Just as I’m considering my balls, Eileen Russo walks into the room without a stitch of clothing on her body. The first thing she does is draw the blinds, which are opened slightly. The expression on her face seems inquisitive. It’s as though she isn’t entirely sure she’s nude and needs me to confirm it for her. I take a quick glance at the TV - McQueen has just thrown his makeshift raft from the cliff - and then back to Eileen. She has a good body. It’s toned and tanned and completely hairless. Her breasts are larger than I imagined. She walks over and straddles me. Neither of us say a word. Her expression turns meditative. Before I know what I’m doing, I have my arms around her and am pulling her into me. And though I can’t see the TV, I can tell by the film score that McQueen has made the jump.

  . . .

  The phone wakes me up at around 10:00 p.m. Stumbling in the dark, I answer by the fourth ring. It’s Austin Roarick.

  “We probably need to talk,” he says. “Not now. But at some point. Don’t you think?”

  I’m still processing who it is, so I don’t answer him.

  “Maybe you think I owe you an apology,” he says, “and maybe I do. Maybe I was being presumptuous in involving you in that matter the other day.”

  “Okay.”

  “So for that, I apologize.”

  “Fine.”

  “But I know you’d understand if you knew the…the full scope of this thing. You more than anyone. I know how that sounds. We don’t know each other well, but there’s common ground with us.”

  He pauses.

  “You saw how J.R. talked to me.”

  “What were you doing in my dorm?”

  “Not now. We’ll talk. But not now.”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  He pauses again.

  “Lot of things. Business opportunities. The common ground we share. And you, Gray. I want to talk about you, and the look you have when you’re at that place. I know that look. I bet you even have it right now at this exact moment. But you may not even know it. It could be creeping in and taking over. And I might be able to help you stop it.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Austin? Listen—”

  “Not now. We’ll talk.”

  Within a few moments of hanging up, there comes a knocking at my door. So there’s barely time to process the odd nature of the phone call. It takes a moment for me to realize where the knocking is coming from. It’s at my door leading into the dormitory. Quickly, I check on Eileen. She’s still asleep, splayed out on the futon, wearing only her black bra and underwear. After I put on my clothes, I open the door to Ryan, who wastes no time in telling me that my father has just been taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital. He holds up a scrap of paper for me to take. It has the necessary information on it. Barely awake and still adjusting to the light, I yawn and accept the paper. My reaction to what he’s told me probably seems too tame. So I begin to explain how I’m having a lazy night, watching TV and napping. But Ryan, in a brusque tone I’ve never heard from him - even when he speaks to the kids - tells me to get myself together, get rid of my guest, and to make the drive into the city.

  . . .

  The following day brings with it pleasant weather. The sky is clear and the sun is already hot by 8:00 a.m. A thin wafer of moon hangs in the morning sky. Beads of rain from the previous night hover on blades of grass, making them into armless stick figures. The Homer House boys are in typical form during breakfast. Noah and J.J. flick bits of cereal at Albert’s head. Cal announces to everyone that he’s convinced Cliff never washes his hair, and that his bottle of shampoo is probably semen collected from his many notorious bouts with himself. Andrew, cursing daylight and breakfast and the HAS, sits miserably in his chair, his arms folded across his chest in defiance. Ryan ignores all of this. He’s been trying to initiate a conversation with me and get news on the Old Man’s condition. When he finally manages his question, he asks it with the sincerity of a Boy Scout. Christ, he even looks like a Boy Scout. Maybe it’s the bright lights on his still boyish face, or maybe it’s how his eyes widen a little and his forehead rolls back, revealing a concern that’s been toiled over and now at last needs satisfying. I can see a subtle gloom hiding behind his eyes, a gloom that’s real and brought about by devotion to my father. It makes my stomach drop.

  “He’s okay.”

  “What happened?”

  “They’re not sure.”

  “What’d the doctors say?”

  I can tell by his tone, soft and appeasing, that if I’m firm enough with him, the matter will be dropped.

  “That he needs to rest.”

  Excusing myself, I leave my breakfast mostly untouched and head over to my classroom where I make a CLASSES CANCELLED sign that I tape to the door. Whatever the consequences might be for this seems unimportant to me. The students will find something to do. Some, after rejoicing, might break back into their dorms and go to sleep. Others will fish out their cigarettes and retreat to the woods for some morning respite.

  Without a plan or destination, I get in my car and drive. I pass through the center of town and out into some remote neighborhoods I tramped through while growing up. The houses I once knew from parties and old friends bear an unwelcoming look. The maintenance and restoration they’ve endured through the years - the freshly sealed driveways, the bountiful new gardens, the modest additions - show off just enough proud change to make me feel like I’ve missed something by not witnessing their progress.

  It’s hard to know how to feel about Old Brookview. And now, with this summer, it’s even harder. I tell myself I should resent it. Dismiss it. Neglect it. This is too easy. So I challenge myself for brief moments to feel the weight of nostalgia and joy and regret. I feel like I need to finally have a conversation with someone about the responsibility one has for his hometown - and the responsibility it has for him. This is a conversation I’ve never had before, and one I’ve rarely considered through the years. Until now - now, when it suddenly seems like an important conversation to have.

  I find myself pulling into the winding dirt driveway of Saint Stephen’s Cemetery on Horsepond Road, a rural little snippet of road that bends around one of Old Brookview’s newer and more posh developments. It’s been years since I’ve been here. Probably the last time was before I left the Northeast for good. The cemetery lawn is green and trim; beds of sunflowers and stained wooden benches line the narrow drive.

  My mother’s site is easy to f
ind. It lies in the middle of the first row of graves on the northernmost tip of the graveyard. I recall the Old Man, on more than one occasion, bragging about this location. It was perfect, he’d tell me. Her summer view, he would say, was of those big-faced sunflowers. As I walk towards her gravesite, I can see a bouquet resting against the black speckled stone. They’re white lilies. Only somewhat wilted and worn, they look a mere two or three days old. The site is kept clean. Its grass looks healthy and fed. The stone itself is attractive. With its pristine gloss and rounded corners, it stands out among the dull, faded, and forgotten ones.

  It’s easy to imagine my father making regular visits here. He probably gets dressed up in one of his clean collared shirts and fancy ties. He wouldn’t mind getting on his knees to pull up any crabgrass or wipe away leaves and moss that might’ve gathered at the base of the headstone. Then he probably rests the bouquet in an upright position. There might be a list he’s brought with topics to discuss and news to tell. There would be no maudlin pleas or fits of wild temperament. Sure, he may smile over some memory of shared youth and rebellion he’d muse on with restrained fervor, but he’d keep it together. These visits, he’d tell himself, must always be pleasant. They’re all he has left of my mother. So there’d be no room for bouts of mercurial behavior.

  As for me, where my mother is concerned, I don’t ever feel on the verge of some breakdown, or that I’m readying myself for a headfirst dive into a pool of self-pity. I handle it. Which is not to say that I don’t have thoughts about what could’ve been or should’ve been. Here’s one: What kind of son would I have turned out to be if my mother had lived? There’s always a bit of guilt that accompanies this thought. It seems selfish. Like I should be contemplating her memory, or legacy, or the void she left in the world, or in our family, or if there’s an afterlife and whether she’s now a baby or a butterfly, or if there’s a heaven, and if she’s in it, and what her celestial charge might be. Thinking about what type of son I might’ve been always ends up being a fleeting thought. Probably since it’s too painful to think about the son I actually am.