Everybody’s Out There

by Robert M. Marchese

  “Gray,” he said after a few false starts, “This is a hell of a thing we’ve got here. It’s the stuff of a Hollywood movie, I guess you could say. And maybe someday it’ll actually make one hell of a story. But I don’t think it’s the ending you’re looking for.”

  Grumbling over his analogy, I told him I wanted to speak with Laura. He sighed. I started to move past him and he stopped me with his hand on my chest.

  “For now, I’m the best you’re going to get. Not what you expected, I realize, but that’s how it is. What can I say?”

  Then he moved his hand from my chest to my shoulder, which he gave a slight embrace.

  “That being said,” he added, “I think we should talk.”

  Chapter 17

  Adam and Matt select a song from the jukebox - the Faces’ “Ooh La La” - and explain to the rest of the writing group why they have dumpster diving on their minds. After Dimitri Ames’ arrest, the boys came forward to the authorities with information about the blank checks they’d found in his garbage. They even kept a few, which they turned over during their interview with the cop who visited them a day earlier. They admitted how it had been tempting to test their own luck by going downtown to pass a few of them.

  “Make out a few for cash,” said Adam, “and keep your fingers crossed. Problem is it’s too damn easy to get away with. Which is what leads to doing it again and again. Which is what leads to getting caught. Which is how dumbfuck got caught.”

  “Fucking conman,” said Meredith, “and thief.”

  “Let’s not forget rapist,” said Kay.

  “He’s not really a rapist,” said Dorian.

  An argument ensues over whether it’s fair to call Ames a rapist, given that what happened between him and Lindsay was consensual. Matt interrupts by saying it hardly matters. Meredith’s initial point, he emphasizes, is that Ames is a petty criminal, not a murderer. And this, Matt says with reserve, is unsettling. The group agrees how they were convinced of Ames’ guilt over the crime. According to Rollie, Ames, who was formally interrogated about Nicole D’Ambrosio’s murder once taken into custody, had a successful alibi. During the window of time in which the murder could’ve occurred, Ames was at the Red Roof Inn in Milford with Lindsay; the girl snuck out of her dorm and met him on the interstate behind the campus. And though he checked in under an alias, the security cameras confirmed that it was in fact Ames. With obvious disappointment in his voice, the Old Man tells the staff that Ames is no longer a suspect. Word of this spreads quickly.

  Matt announces to the group how he’s okay. Lindsay, he adds, wrecked him, it’s true, but he’s grateful for it. Without her, he says, he’d have no muse for heartache.

  “At least this way,” he tells the group, “I’ve got some credibility.”

  “You’ve got credibility crawling out of your ass,” says Adam.

  The boys are excited about an upcoming gig to help Austin Roarick move into his new condo. Roarick, who might as well be banned from the school after the Homer House incident, has hired them for a few hours. Yet the boys have no intention of telling him the real reason for their service. It has nothing to do with the meager fifty dollars he’s offered for them to split. Nor does it have to do with boredom or campus politics or any of that. It’s the dumpster diving. The boys, whose didacticism on this topic is oddly charming, even poetic, are looking forward to getting a little dirty. Someone has recently moved out, they explain, and Roarick will be moving in.

  “We’re bound to get our hands on something,” says Adam. “And if there’s no treasure to be found, we’ll just steal some of his shit; he’s only the son of a powerhouse.”

  “Speaking of sons of powerhouses,” said Meredith, looking at me with faux sternness, “when will you let us read some of your stuff? This is a writers group, isn’t it? And you are a writer, aren’t you?”

  Both questions have easy answers, but I don’t respond. I find that I’m focused on the school’s mission statement hanging at the far end of the dining hall; I’m tempted to point out that this, in a way, is in fact a writing sample of mine.

  . . .

  Dan Hart has again become the talk of the campus. And it’s not his beguiling charm or sexual exploits that are being discussed. It’s his unwillingness to get out of bed. For two days, Dan is holed up in his room, quietly refusing to leave his top bunk. His dorm staff can only do so much, so the boy’s therapist, as well as the Old Man, are brought in on the matter. Nothing works. He can’t be roused with humor or bribery or threats. He’s apparently showing no signs of aggression. He’s simply depressed. His first few meals are withheld as a means of leverage. At the twelve hour mark, though, his dinner is brought to him by one of his dorm mates. Most of the meal - fettuccine alfredo, green beans, and a brownie - is left untouched. I overhear a few of his peers mention how it must be serious since Dan isn’t even playing his guitar. And if he’s truly abandoned the instrument, then this standoff might very well be for real.

  It’s impossible to fault the kid. His malaise appears well-timed. And though no one’s certain whether this bed-in is some sort of statement - he’s barely speaking, other than to say how tired he is - it’s nevertheless regarded as sensible recourse to the constant oil spill of bad news. Stay in bed. Smooth the pillow. Find solace and warmth under soft cotton covers. Others eventually follow suit. It starts with two girls in the Minnie House, then one more in the Helen House, then a group of boys in the Miles House. And thus a movement is spawned. Students from nearly every dorm stage a revolt, refusing to rise from their bunks and attend meals, classes, therapy, activities. Most are too fickle and relent after as little as an hour. Some hold out longer, lasting until lunch or until classes have ended for the day. Others manage to chalk up a full day, lying there in their pacific glory, sleeping, starving themselves, taking one for the team, somehow communing with Dan Hart, Hundred Acre School’s de facto insurgent.

  The Homer House is no exception. A few of the boys instigate their own movement. Andrew, Cliff, and Dustin take hold of their new cause with fiery grit. Ryan offers to deal with it, so I’m free from having to extemporize some plagiaristic pep talk on why greeting the new day in the face of all this summer’s strife is oh so important. As this is happening, J.J. finds me on my front porch and asks if we can talk. He has news about the ring.

  “What ring?”

  “The one you and Ryan have pinned up on your bulletin boards,” he says coarsely. “The picture.”

  It comes back to me. Nicole D’Ambrosio’s Tiffany’s ring. The one with the Roman numerals circling the band. J.J. says he and the others know it must have something to do with Nick; this became evident, he tells me, the day the Old Man rounded them up one by one and asked if they knew of the ring’s whereabouts.

  “You found it?”

  “Noah and Cliff did. But a bunch of us were there.”

  It was discovered in Nick’s mattress, he explains, hidden inside a thin slit made towards the bottom of the bed. Recalling my search of the kid’s things, I’m positive I looked there, recognizing it as one of the more obvious hiding spots for contraband.

  “Where is it?”

  “That’s the thing,” he said, infusing his tone with a sort of languid importance, “Noah took it; he claimed to be the one to really find it, so he gave it to Alexis Peterson. I guess they’re a thing.”

  I know Alexis Peterson. She’s a short haired, serious looking girl with olive skin and a large diamond stud in her nose. She’s a frequent visitor at the Homer House.

  “She has the ring?” I said, taking out my phone and calling the Old Man.

  “She did the last time I saw her,” he said.

  “When was that?”

  “Tonight. At d
inner.”

  The Old Man picks up on the second ring. He’s on campus, walking with Nussbaum. Incredulous over my news, he reminds me of the search I did in Nick’s room.

  “I know.”

  “Then how do you explain this?”

  “I looked in his bed. I know I did.”

  He says I must’ve done a half-assed job. Assuring him I did not, and reminding him that the police carefully surveyed my search, I encourage him to track down this Alexis girl. He pauses for a moment; I can hear him give the girl’s name and dorm info to Nussbaum. I can’t tell if what he says next is to me or Nussbaum, but it happens to be the same question I’m also considering:

  “Is it possible someone planted that goddamn ring there?”

  . . .

  On a humid Friday evening, at about 7:30, Nick Russo walks through campus, a plastic grocery bag stuffed full of clothing and personal effects slung over his shoulder, and a cold, defeated gaze torturing his face. Attention has now shifted away from bed-ins and found jewelry. Nick’s reappearance happens upon the HAS campus like some cool, spindly efflorescence. No one is looking for something to occur. No one is waiting for this kind of change. But they accept it. They accept it with what must now be automatic anxiety. It resembles something out of a student film where the actor, a novice whose self-consciousness might be his best asset, is given limited direction, so he accepts carte blanche to play it any way he sees fit.

  Nick moves slowly through the campus. He passes fellow students who are clustered in small groups, gossiping, hacky sacking, skateboarding. They stop and watch him; his forward motion is awkward and stunted. No one approaches or calls out to him. No girls become weepy or euphoric or relieved. He’s viewed from afar, regarded as though he’s some beautiful stranger who might at any moment empty a pocketful of dangerous secrets. The front steps of the pavilion become home to Nick’s burden. When he sits down, it’s with the modesty of an understudy making their debut. He crosses his legs and leaves his bag by his feet. The campus buzzes.

  Nick’s been gone for six days. And now he refuses to speak. Not to Dr. Reynolds, his therapist. Not to Roger, his math teacher, who makes a big showing of welcoming him back. Not to me or Ryan, who conspire over a lie, telling him the Homer House boys have missed him. Not to Rollie, who escorts him into his office, which becomes Nick’s temporary quarters. The Old Man wants him eating and sleeping in there at first, away from the others. Jimbo is assigned to watch him.

  After calling the police and Eileen Russo, the Old Man leaves Nick to himself for the rest of that first night. By the following morning, the kid will be plied with questions. Nick, who seems to shut out the energy around him, no matter how tense or claustrophobic, is unrelenting in his vow of silence. It seems authentic, which raises some eyebrows. He tells no one to fuck off or to leave him alone. He doesn’t reveal that he’s sorry. Or innocent. Or hungry. He merely slouches a little into himself, tilting his head as though his thoughts, whatever they might be, are an abacus, content to add up nothing of consequence. Questions about his absence and sudden return are greeted with blank indifference. Rollie asks Nick about his downtown enterprise. And the ring, which has been confiscated from Alexis. No response to either.

  In all likelihood, Nick’s days at the Hundred Acre School are numbered. My father must be tortured by this. He’ll see it as a personal failing. Expulsions at the HAS are rare. The cops have been investigating Nick’s drug dealing as well as involvement with Nicole D’Ambrosio. At this point, there’s no proof of either, yet they’ll have their turn with the kid. For now, though, they’re allowing Rollie to keep the boy on the school’s premises where he’ll be made to feel safe long enough to drop his guard and explain himself.

  His return rouses kids from their bunks. They want to see for themselves. To them, the name Nick Russo must carry with it some sort of spectral connotation. There’s been so much talk in the time he’s been gone. Imaginative stories and theories. There’s one that had him fleeing to New York City to oversee his drug business. Another had him hitchhiking to Maine to meet up with his deadbeat father, who would try sneaking him over the Canadian border. And there was one that named him Nicole D’Ambrosio’s murderer and had him evade the police long enough to destroy incriminating evidence. It’s this last one, and this last one only, about the D’Ambrosio girl, that everyone seems to entertain with earnestness.

  . . .

  The writers group has morphed into a social club. The kids still show up with their work, but it’s hardly anyone’s focus. A poem or story excerpt might be read aloud, but before any real commentary is offered, talk turns to whatever shining catastrophe burned brightest that day. Dan Hart, still confined to his bed, might’ve held his position as the foremost subject on everyone’s mind - the fourth day of his reclusion is upon us - but his story has been superseded by Nick’s return. The unanswered questions are on everyone’s mind. Where did the kid run off to for six days? What exactly is his involvement with Nicole D’Ambrosio? Is he really a drug dealer? Why did he come back? Why is he refusing to speak? What does he have to hide?

  Today the group is sparse. There’s Dan’s absence along with Matt’s and Adam’s, who are helping Austin move into his condo. Those present are on the topic of Nick’s relationship with Nicole D’Ambrosio.

  “It’s crazy,” says Dorian. “I can’t picture it, the two of them together.”

  “You didn’t even know the girl,” says Meredith. “How can you possibly judge?”

  “I don’t know Nick, either, but I still can’t picture it. He seems like the exact opposite of who girls like that usually go for.”

  “He’s a thug,” says Booth.

  Kay dares him to say this to Nick’s face.

  “I’ll say it to his face,” says Dorian, “what’s the worst he’ll do? He’s a fucking zombie now anyway. It’s been, what, two or three days? And he hasn’t said a word.”

  “It’s a cool little contest, isn’t it?” says Kay. “Between Dan and Nick, to see who can hold out the longest.”

  “Poor Rollie,” says Marilyn. “He must be ready to lose his mind.”

  My thoughts exactly. The estimates for the building repairs came back at double what he anticipated. And because he has a triple net lease, he’s responsible for the full cost. Not to mention he’s lost five students. His nerves must be frayed, and he’s certainly spread thin, yet he’s holding it all together. Minutes after being grilled by a parent over the phone, the Old Man will sit down in the dining hall with the girls from the Joni House and flatter them with funny stories about their own progress. After meeting with Old Brookview’s unrelenting law enforcement for the third time in a week, he’ll spontaneously announce a pool tournament in the pavilion, offering prizes of gift cards and breakfast in bed. He continues to thank his staff for the job they’re doing. And he puts his hands on their arms when he speaks with them. If the context is right, he’ll quote Carlyle or Camus about strength or will. The love he has for his school has never been in question. But seeing it this way, as a grown man, who now understands at least something about achievement and loss and the grim nature of time, is not easy.

  My father has watched me closely this summer. I’ve felt him searching for signs of recognition. He wants to see how much of me he can put to a song he understands and can later sing to Nussbaum or to himself, and how much of me will remain those stubborn notes caught in a mysterious transition between two dueling harmonies. But I wonder if he knows I’ve been watching him as well. That I’ve looked at him from across the dining hall, from across campus, and pretended we’re absolute strangers one moment and then as close as a father and son can be the next. That I’ve pictured my mother at his side, happy and youthful looking, flirting with him in front of the students, her long, silken fingers playfully grazi
ng his shoulders, her smile wide and real and harvesting all the Old Man’s moments of gladness and grace.

  Sometimes I imagine the Hundred Acre School as the Wild West. I imagine it’s outlaw country, parched, desolate, and with its good guys and bad guys. There are things buried in the earth here, I imagine, some sacred and others evil and profane. And as the students roam the grounds, their hard, rebellious heels digging into land my father wants to call his own, they feel the spirit of these things. And though they choose to not talk about them most of the time, they know and understand them. They understand the sacredness and they understand the evil and profane. It’s Rollie who sometimes guides these steps of theirs. But sometimes he does not. Sometimes he’ll let them walk where they wish to walk. This is not easy for him to do, but he does it. He does it because he knows he must. And they, the students, might even, depending on their mood, the moon, their meds, be grateful.

  The group calls it quits for the day. It’s dull, they decide, without Adam and Matt and Dan.

  “Unless Gray wants to share something he’s written,” said Meredith, feigning a schoolteacher’s demeanor.

  “I thought we were trying to avoid dull,” I tell her.

  Meredith rolls her eyes before leading the group out into the late afternoon sunshine. I’m not far behind. A few Homer House boys greet me as I head back to my place. Two girls are sitting on the Old Man’s front porch as I pass his house. One is braiding the other’s hair. They smile at me. As I move past them, I can see Matt and Adam pacing near the entrance to my apartment. When they see me approach, they stop moving and watch me walk towards them. Adam says something to Matt, but I can’t hear what it is.

  “You boys are apparently the glue,” I tell them from a distance. “We decided it’s too dull without you, so we cashed it in. How flattering is that?”