Everybody’s Out There

by Robert M. Marchese

  Matt’s hair looks like someone tried to blow his head off with an industrial fan, and the sweat on Adam’s shirt has soaked it to a new, darker shade of black. They’re both out of breath.

  “Can we talk to you?” asks Matt.

  I invite them into my place and give them each a towel and a glass of ice water. As I look at them now out of the glare of sunlight, it’s plain to see their expressions. They each have the look of a man who’s come back from a long vacation to find his estate in disarray. There’s a lean, hard focus in their eyes, and a worry on their lips I haven’t seen on either of them. They remind me that they were working for Austin, helping him move into his condo.

  “So we’re unloading stuff off the truck he’s rented,” Adam explains. “A shitload of boxes, and some furniture - a little sofa, a desk, and a small kitchen table with a couple of chairs. We’re not talking about big pieces here.”

  The boys tell me how Austin was obnoxious. He teased Adam about his weight and Matt about his harmonica breaks. Plus, he frequently changed his mind as to where he wanted this or that.

  “We must’ve moved certain boxes three or four times to different rooms,” says Matt. “And we’re not talking about lightweight boxes, either.”

  He really put them to work. They’re earning every cent of that miserable fifty dollars he’s promised. As soon as the boys take a moment to rest or drink or blow a melody, Austin is in their faces, calling them pussies, saying how he should’ve hired some of the public school kids.

  “His dickishness is baffling,” says Adam.

  “He acts like he knows us,” adds Matt. “Like he’s some beloved uncle or something.”

  So there’s little time for the boys’ true purpose in being there. Besides, the dumpster is locked, a minor problem with which the boys have contended before.

  “But it’s not like we even had time to put much of a plan together,” says Adam, “let alone execute one.”

  By the time the truck is cleared out, Austin announces that he wants to go back to his father’s house and load up an armoire. The boys, who have pretty much cut their losses, agree to go. At least they’ll get to check out J.R. III’s waterfront palace.

  “Who says size doesn’t count?” says Matt, shaking his head. “The guy lives like a rock star.”

  The real attraction, though, wasn’t the house; it was the twenty yard dumpster out in front of the house. Austin told the boys he’d been using it for days prior to moving out. An act of subterfuge was needed.

  “Some people are cool with you going through their shit,” says Matt, “and others, not so much. He seemed like the kind of dude who definitely wouldn’t be having it.”

  After moving the armoire into the truck, Matt asked for a drink. When Austin escorted him into the house, Adam would go to work.

  “He’s smaller than me,” says Adam, pointing at Matt, “but I’m faster.”

  “True,” adds Matt.

  The boys decided Matt could blow into his harp to warn of Austin’s return. The plan works. Matt even coaxes a house tour out of Austin. Adam has plenty of time. But nothing strikes him.

  “It’s a lot of old clothes and books,” says Adam. “Some furniture, too - a beat up leather recliner, a foot stool, stuff I could never take with me without him seeing.”

  Knowing he’s on borrowed time, Adam starts his ascent up and out of the dumpster. It’s when he’s balanced on the ledge of the thing that he sees, half buried in a mass of garbage, a thin spiral notebook with its creased red cover flipped open, revealing a six word sentence written on its first page, over and over, from top to bottom, in neat, careful rows. Easing himself back inside the dumpster, Adam fishes the notebook out; he turns the page only to see the sentence written on the next one, and the next, and the next. He screws up his eyes while standing up to his waist in junk, double and triple checking whether he’s actually face-to-face with what resembles a sort of demented grade school exercise.

  Adam stashes the notebook down his pants and waits for Matt’s harp to blow. Austin then drives them all back to the condo, where the boys help with the armoire before heading back to the school on foot to see me.

  “You’ve got the thing?” I ask.

  Matt lifts up his shirt and produces the notebook. As he hands it to me, he wears a stoic expression that betrays an almost relieved gaiety that he for once is exempt from any trouble or scrutiny. Both boys look on as I open it to its first page.

  “Lovely,” I muse to myself.

  “There’s more,” said Adam. “Thumb through it.”

  There must be close to twenty pages, front and back, with the same blunt six word sentence written over and over and over. My mind suddenly flashes back to Austin’s odd predilection back in high school. The epithet “Repeat Offender” proved more fitting than anyone could’ve known back then.

  I’m on the verge of asking the boys why they chose to confide in me. Instead, I tell them I’d like to hold onto the notebook.

  “Keep it,” Adam says. “Publish it. Put it online. Do whatever you want with it as long as it fucks this guy over.”

  “Do you remember what condo unit he moved into?” I ask.

  “Of course,” says Adam. “Why? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you want us to go with you?” Matt asks.

  The heartfeltness of this gesture makes me blush a little. I immediately consider whether I’d be friends with these boys if I was their age. They are smart and interesting and likeable. Yet I know that I probably would’ve misjudged them before shunning them completely. The shame I feel over this causes me to put my hand on Matt’s shoulder and politely decline his noble offer. He doesn’t wince. Or show the slightest sign of discomfort. He simply stands there, looking up at me, his posture impeccable, his eyes bright and unblinking, and without knowing it, and certainly without any fault of his own, lays the biggest guilt trip at my feet.

  . . .

  It never seemed as humid as when I arrive at Austin’s place. The sun has sworn off the cool frost of the moon and is battling to blaze the sky into a great lake of ash. I’m already sweating by the time I reach his front door. His unit, like the rest of them, is plain to look at. Its weathered clapboard needs a fresh coat of stain, and the grounds can use a feminine touch. It’s quiet. Besides some distant chatter from a young couple walking their black dachshund a few units away, the only sound I hear is that of my own breathing. It’s fast, motorized breathing, running only on adrenaline.

  The notebook is in an old orange backpack I found left behind in a closet in my apartment. I knock loudly on the door. No approaching footsteps. No signs of life. But I can sense a certain kind of energy from within. The kind that’s poised and may be released at just the right moment with just the right momentum. Maybe it’s the heat that makes me feel this way, or maybe it’s the quiet.

  Austin opens the door and greets me with what seems like terminal suspicion. His face is drawn and the whites of his eyes are bloodshot. This all takes a moment to wear off, and before I can say a word, he’s turned himself into a convivial host with his hand outstretched towards me and a glint in his expression.

  “Are you looking for some work now? Because your boys took my last dollar.”

  Feeling the absence of a smile on my face, I shake his hand. He studies me for a moment before looking over my head towards the parking spaces in front of his unit. I’m struck by the urge to say something non-confrontational, so I ask about Matt and Adam. He invites me inside his place. I accept the offer and find myself standing in his tiny foyer, which is really no more than a dozen cream-colored ceramic tiles. A few short feet away is a maroon carpeted staircase. On the
landing are enough boxes to make it nearly impossible to turn and negotiate the rest of the stairs. The former resident must’ve been a smoker because the place has a stale, rotten stink to it, like all the air within it has been wrung out by large, filthy hands.

  “They’re a couple of pissers, those kids. Not great workers - especially the fat one - but they’re amusing as hell to listen to. I swear they have their own language.”

  “They’re good with their hands. Putting things together. Taking them apart. Figuring them out.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “All kinds.”

  “Example?”

  “They installed an old jukebox in the dining hall. And they’ve been working on Rollie’s Winnebago.”

  “Pretty good.”

  “It’s an important set of skills. Don’t you think?”

  “What?”

  “Putting things together. Taking them apart. Figuring them out.”

  “I think it probably is.”

  “It was never my strength. I think at one point I thought it was. But it’s not.”

  Austin leans into the wall and crosses his feet and hands. I notice there are no lights on. The place is dusky. Yet I can see him clearly. There’s now something rigid in his face. A tautness. Like his muscles are working hard to hold back a slideshow of expressions that’ll give away every emotion he’s ever felt.

  “But I think I’m getting better at it. Actually, I think I’ve gotten better at it since I’ve been working for my father. What are you good at, Austin? Any special skills?”

  “This is the most I’ve ever heard you talk.”

  “I guess I have a few things to say.”

  “You didn’t come over here to talk about your father. Or about those two pissants. Did you?”

  “I think it was you who said we’d talk in the future. Well, here we are.”

  “What do you want?”

  He takes the time to force a nasty grin after he says this.

  “I want to know what you want. We can start there and see where it takes us.”

  It’s out now - the closest I can come to any type of accusation, ambiguously disguised as meaningless repartee. I can tell he’s intrigued. He has the look of a man on the verge of exploring a foxhole. We stare at one another. There’s a brightness in him that I believe I’ve missed in our previous encounters. It seems to live in his skull and get parceled out through his eyes and mouth, just a bit here and there, enough to satisfy social situations, but not enough to dispel whatever darkness he could claim.

  “What makes you think I want anything?”

  “Everybody wants something,” I said.

  “That’s true.”

  “What were you doing in my dorm that day?”

  “In your dorm?”

  “Do you want to argue over semantics?”

  He smiles a broad, arrogant smile.

  “I don’t want to argue over anything.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me?”

  He straightens himself out and leans in to take a good long look at me.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned. It’s happened, hasn’t it? As much as I thought it wouldn’t happen, it’s happened. You’ve been indoctrinated. You’re one of them.”

  “We’re not talking about a cult, Austin. There’re no factions here. And if there ever were, you and I were never on the same side. Do you understand that?”

  My stomach suddenly bottoms out. I have mixed feelings about having insulted him. Who knows this man? He’s certainly not the simpleton I’d once pegged him as. But pulling back now will be devastating. We’re already in his pathetic kingdom; I sure as hell don’t need to give him the power by putting my mettle on the guillotine.

  “What if I told you I know what you were doing in my dorm that day? That I know you left a little something behind. A little something my boys found. Would you still want to focus on semantics and factions and all of that?”

  Sighing, he turns his back on me and begins to walk around, sidestepping boxes and pictures and rolled up rugs on the floor.

  “You asked me earlier if I had any special skills,” he says, examining a painting of an old woman playing the violin with her eyes closed. “Well, I do. It’s the ability to recognize who in the room has power and who doesn’t - a pretty simple skill, actually.”

  After he brushes some dust from the top of the picture’s frame, he leans it against the wall. Then he takes a few steps back and examines it.

  “But it doesn’t stop there,” he continues, his back to me. “It’s also recognizing how much power the other person has and what they can do with it. And how comfortable they are with it - how it suits them. Not to mention whether they’re an asset or a threat.”

  Turning towards me, Austin laughs a little and says that he considers himself an expert on the matter. He could write a book, he tells me. Give lectures. All of that.

  “Working for a man with, let’s face it, more power than you could ever imagine, will imbue this trait,” he says.

  “And is this skill of yours being put to use right now?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “And?”

  “And what? Do I have my answers?”

  “Well, do you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’m curious.”

  He turns back to the painting of the violinist. A dog barks in the distance. After a few moments, Austin wheels back to face me. He’s not smiling.

  “It’s getting dark in here. The summer is winding down. And it’s getting dark earlier. And I don’t have electricity yet. But even in the oncoming dark, I can see your face perfectly well. You’ve got a new look now when you talk about the HAS. It’s not the one I remember from years ago, or even a few weeks ago. It’s different now. It used to have a certain blankness to it, a kind of robust blankness, as if the hate you felt was too big to fit your face. So you had to ration it or conceal it or something, I don’t know. But now, I don’t know exactly who I’m talking to, so I have to be careful. But I’m asking you to leave here and discontinue whatever path you think you’re on. Go back to babysitting. It’s less interesting, true, but it’s much safer.”

  I don’t know what to address first: the notion of this hatred I supposedly once wore in my face, or the rambling threat just laid at my feet. My brain, in a daring show of virtuosity, tricks me, and goes for neither. It conspires with my mouth and asks him about Nicole D’Ambrosio. Upon mention of her name, he regards me in a new way. There’s a stern thoughtfulness to his expression, like the look a father might have before he reproves his child for behavior that may blight the family name. The composure in his mannerisms - a slight licking of the lips, an occasional knuckle crack, barely audible inhaling - nearly forces an apology out of me. Then I remember what I’m carrying in the orange backpack strapped to my shoulders.

  “Did you know her?” I ask a second time.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “Did you?”

  “Tell me.”

  “You first.”

  “Gray, when you’re powerless, you can’t just make some up on the spot. The stuff’s not forged in a lab. It’s given to you - or you take it.”

  “Is that what you do?” I said, cinching the straps on the backpack. “Do you take it?”

  “It’s not made in a lab,” he said again. “Either you have it or you don’t.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said, swinging the backpack into my hands, “I do have something. And it’s enough for now, enough to put you in touch with some situa
tions no one wants to be a part of.”

  I throw the bag at his feet. He takes a quick, wayward glance down at the thing. Then he laughs a little to himself. After some time, he says he’s a businessman. His eye, he admits, is on the Hundred Acre School. Close to three years ago, a young developer named William Medhurst made J.R. III a reasonable offer on the HAS property, which he thought ideal for what would be Old Brookview’s first gated community. High-end homes with several fireplaces and tray ceilings and bonus rooms the size of fast food restaurants. J.R. III turned down the offer. Medhurst came back with another. J.R. III turned that one down as well. Medhurst’s calls eventually went unanswered. Yet his perseverance did not waver. He got in touch with Austin, who assured the entrepreneur that if he was made a partner in the endeavor he could make things happen. The two then began collaborating on how to buy the property.

  “There’s a whole Shakespearean thing going on with my father and me,” he said. “You’ve been teaching that shit, haven’t you? So you should understand. He’s the one with all the best lines. These wonderful monologues - all this perfect poetry. And it’s all on ambition and reputation and accomplishment. And then there’s me. And I’m fighting for a fucking part. And I’ve been fighting - been fighting for a long time. So when no one was looking, I made up a part for myself. Made up my own lines and stage direction and everything. And I discovered it’s a part I play pretty goddamn well.”

  “And what does this part of yours entail exactly? Does it stop at the Fire Marshall and the Health Inspector? Or does it go beyond that into something desperate and depraved? Something that’ll forever affect this town and its people? And my students? And you and your family? And me and Rollie?”

  The words come straight from my gut; they’re processed there by some new will I feel enter my blood through the oncoming twilight, and they’re forced out in the same cool, natural way a trumpeter might blow a run of notes.

  Austin begins talking excitedly, explaining his new drive to prove himself. He stutters a bit when he speaks. And he veers towards tangents about business ethics as well as my relationship with my father. Through his ramblings, he manages to explain how he initially saw me as a potential ally, someone who disdains the Hundred Acre School as much as he does. He had therefore planned on asking me to make things difficult for Rollie to purchase the school. To perhaps talk him out of it. Or at the very least supply any pertinent financial information on Rollie’s acquisition of the property.