“Dad?”
“Can’t stop.”
“What are you doing?”
His head pops from behind the wall of books. “I finally have them all.”
“Them?”
“Books! Can’t you see?” He disappears again.
“Dad, I need you to stop for just a minute. Something happened today—”
“Of course it did!” His words are as rushed and frantic as his handwriting. “Something happens every day. Then people get involved. Twisting. Manipulating. Interpretations. Lies.” He holds up a book and shakes it. “Let the fire eat the lies! Paper. Lies. Fire.” He keeps talking, muttering, his words jumbled.
Two years ago he had wild accusations of conspiracies and the manipulation of history. That was the last time I heard anything about the topic, or the book he was supposedly writing.
“Where did all these books come from?” I ask.
“Here and there. Library. Bookstore. Offices. Dorm rooms.” He stops restacking one pile into two and cocks his head. “Hear that?”
“What? I don’t hear anything.”
“They’re hiding them.” He stops and taps his finger against his lips as he scans the stacks. “I have to start with the most inflammatory. Now. Before they find out.”
His skittering gaze settles on one pile. He rummages in a mound of papers, magazines, and a couple of empty bourbon bottles on the floor and picks up a canvas duffel bag stamped with the college logo and marked as property of the athletic department. Then he begins to shove books into it. “I’ll burn these first. Yes. That’s the right plan. These and then . . .” His eyes sweep the room, but his hands keep putting books in the bag. “Those. Trips. Lots of trips. Fire’s big enough.”
I fall to my knees next to him and grab his wrists. “Dad! Stop. Please stop for just a second.”
His gaze settles on my face, and I see a change in his eyes.
“You’re going to lose your job if you do this.” Does he think he can just run back and forth between here and the bonfire, tossing on a bag full of books without anyone stopping him? But I don’t ask the question. “We can lock them in here. No one will get them tonight.”
He sits back on his haunches. “I’m doing this for the school! We’ll lead the charge to the new day. They’ll build a monument to me.” He pulls his wrists free; his fingers flutter at his temples. “So much in my head. Noise. A tornado. I can’t keep it straight. Help me. Please help me.”
The pain in his eyes scares me more than Chief Collie did. I put my hands on his cheeks. “It’s okay, Daddy. Let me take you home. We’ll take care of the books tomorrow.” I’m not sure how, but at least he won’t be burning them tonight.
His gaze sharpens with shock. “You’re with them!” He jerks back as if I’d hit him. A tall stack of books falls into another, making an avalanche of noise as they hit the floor.
Dad scrabbles across the floor, grabbing books, furiously restacking.
“Wait!” I scramble for something to stall him. “Let’s call Griff.” I move toward the phone. “With all these books, you’ll never get them all burned tonight. Griff and I will help.”
“Good idea. I’ll just take this bag down.”
“No!”
He stops, but that look of suspicion is back.
“We don’t want anyone to know what we’re doing until we can get the job done quickly,” I say. “We can’t risk someone stopping us.”
“Right. Okay. I’ll go get more bags.” He drops the one he’s dragging and hurries past me.
I find the phone buried on Dad’s desk and call home. Walden answers and tells me that Griff isn’t home. Margo’s not there, either. I tell him to have Griff call Dad’s office as soon as he gets home.
Next, I call Gran. Thank God she answers.
* * *
To keep myself from losing my mind while I wait for Gran, I start sorting the books with a library stamp from those without. Inside one book I find a receipt from the college bookstore for $754.63. How will we pay it when the last electric bill had FINAL NOTICE stamped on it?
I poke around trying to find the bookstore copies, hoping we can return them. Maybe we can just dump the rest in the quad in the middle of the night and everyone will assume it’s a fraternity prank. I’m trying to figure out how to tell which ones are new and which have been pinched from dorm rooms and common areas, when there’s a tap on the door.
“Tallulah. It’s me.” Gran’s voice is calm, sure. The sound of it settles my racing heart.
I open the door.
“Good gracious! What happened to you?” Her hands go to my shoulders as she looks me over.
“I’ll tell you later. Right now we have to find Dad. He should have been back thirty minutes ago.”
Gran’s eyes take in the room. She seems to be sizing it up with a sense of relief. “Just this nonsense with the books, then?”
Just? I nod. “At least as far as I know. He’s been”—I hesitate, feeling disloyal to Dad—“frenetic, for a couple of weeks. Not sleeping, either.”
“Your poor father has been working too hard. Carrying too large a burden.” She sounds like it’s as simple as needing a vacation. But the semester has barely started.
With her head shaking and her hands sorting through the piles of papers on Dad’s desk, she says, “The stress of being overlooked for department head . . .” She stills, after opening a folded sheet of paper with a dark stain covering one corner. She looks up.
Now I see some panic.
“Go find your father.” Her mouth is tight.
“What did you find?”
“Nothing. You said he went to the athletic department?” There is a note of hope in her voice.
“Yes.”
“I’ll wait here in case he comes back.” She motions for me to go. “Hurry now.”
I’m at the door when she calls, “Tallulah.”
I turn around.
“If he gives you trouble—about coming back with you—just . . . just get him to stay where he is and come fetch me. Don’t push. Don’t make a fuss.”
The uncharacteristically wary tone in Gran’s voice reverberates in my head as I trot down the stairs and out into the smoky-smelling night.
17
The only light in the darkened gymnasium comes from the trophy case. Dad is slumped on the floor with his back against the block wall, his stillness more alarming than his previous agitation.
“Dad?” I drop to my knees beside him. It’s not until I register he’s breathing that I realize I was afraid he was not. “Daddy?”
He draws his knees up and grasps the sides of his head as if he’s in pain.
He’s having a stroke. Finally blew out an artery in his brain.
A frantic rush of whispers comes from his lips. Dates. Names. Something that sounds like “losing the thread.”
I cast a useless look around for help. The place is deserted.
Lobby pay phones. Call the operator for an ambulance. But Gran said . . .
“Almost had it . . . unraveling.”
“What’s unraveling?” I ask.
His head jerks up, eyes wide with fury. He yells so loudly I fall back on my heels. “I’m unraveling!” He hits his chest with a fist. “Me!”
He fists both hands in his hair, pulling his head from side to side. A groan rumbles around in the depths of his throat. Then he pushes himself to his feet sluggishly.
“Are you in pain?”
“Leave me alone!” The three words are a lion’s roar. “You don’t know anything.” He disappears into the men’s locker room.
I follow him, curling my nose against the smell of dirty socks and sweaty boys. The locker room is cast in gray gloom, dimly lit through the big windows to the coach’s office, where a desk lamp has been left on. As I pass the office, I try the knob. But the phone stays out of reach behind a locked door.
I hear a metal wastebasket tumble and roll, echoing against the locker banks. A string of expletives, also echoing. I move for
ward but don’t call out, for fear of setting him off.
Dad falls silent. All I can hear is that rocking trash can.
I move toward the sound and find him sitting on a bench with his head cradled in his hands. I sit next to him and put a hand on his back. He shrugs me off.
“Gran’s waiting at your office,” I whisper softly.
“Stop whispering! I can’t stand it!”
“Okay. Sorry.” My voice is small, but I manage something stronger than a whisper.
He turns to me, his eyes reflecting the meager light. He looks like a man who’s been waging war. His voice is defeated when he says, “Something is wrong with me. Really, really wrong.”
Hearing him admit what I’ve secretly feared causes the world to drop from beneath me. He isn’t just moody, but broken. And there truly is no hand on the rudder of our family.
I open my mouth to comfort, to reassure. But instead, a strangled noise of despair comes out. I snap my mouth closed, diminishing but not extinguishing the sound. I have never seen the pendulum swing from too much Daddy to too little Daddy so abruptly. And I have never been so afraid.
“So tired.” It’s as much moan as declaration. “The vortex—my mind—is killing me.” These last words are small and drawn out. And I wish I hadn’t heard them.
We’re perched on the crest of the roller coaster, poised for a steep fall no matter which way we go. What if I say the wrong thing?
“Help me.” His voice is so thin I almost think I imagined it. But from the way he’s looking at me, I know he spoke.
He’s folding in on himself right in front of my eyes. The shadow is descending.
I stand. “Let’s go find Gran.”
He looks away. “Don’t tell her.”
I help him to his feet. He stops before we exit the locker room and grabs my elbow. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” I won’t need to tell. Gran will be able to see for herself. She’ll know the right thing to do, how to help him.
* * *
When we return to his office, Dad is like a sleepwalker, dully going where prodded, eyes as empty as warehouse windows. I want Gran to be alarmed. I want her to show shock at his behavior, the 180-degree turn that has occurred within ninety minutes. But Gran is matter-of-fact when she says, “I’ll just take him with me tonight. A good night’s sleep. That’s what he needs.”
Can’t she see? She must see!
“You lock up his office, Tallulah. Then go on home.”
“But, Gran—” I stop myself. I promised. I wave my hands to indicate the chaos in the room. “He was so . . . busy. Now . . .”
“He’s burned himself out, poor dear. One can only run so long on fumes.”
Dad’s standing at his window, as still as daybreak, shoulders slumped, looking out on the dark quad.
“But, Gran—”
“Hush now. Your father needs rest. Lock up. We’ll deal with the books later.”
That seems to get Dad’s attention. He turns slowly, his hands buried in his pockets. “The bonfire.” But it’s a vacant statement, apparently spurred by the mention of the books, but not necessarily linked to his desire to burn them. He looks perplexed at even having spoken.
“Come, Drayton.” Gran takes his arm and he moves alongside her with neither purpose nor resistance. “Do as I say, Tallulah. And not a word of this to anyone, you hear?”
I stare at her, looking for a sign that she understands how bad Dad is.
But she just stares back. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They leave the office, Gran talking softly to Dad, as if he’s a confused little boy. I’m wound so tight I’m ready to scream. As I go to get Dad’s keys from his desk, I recall the paper that struck panic in Gran. I poke around, but only find another empty bourbon bottle, the usual class papers, and a doodle pad nearly black with various symbols: a pyramid with an eye in the center and a circle around the apex, a strange fleur-de-lis with a rope wrapped through it like the number 8, a Freemason’s symbol, a British flag, a swastika, a Star of David, the stars and stripes, something that looks a lot like an old-fashioned ship’s wheel, a crescent and star, an Egyptian ankh, a pentagram, the hammer and sickle, and a Christian cross. Signs of power. Signs of belief.
I pick up Dad’s keys and my copy of Wuthering Heights and walk toward the door. Eyeing the stack of boxed baseballs, I wonder what on earth he plans to do with so many of them. Griff doesn’t play anymore, and Walden is about as athletic as I am. Then I see, there on the floor near the baseboard, half hidden behind the stack of boxes, an edge of black satin. I reach down to pick it up.
Ugh. I drop the panties with a burning face and a disgusted shudder, trying to erase the obvious from my mind. I start for the door, then think of someone, maybe even Gran, finding them. I pick them back up between my thumb and forefinger. Thankful for the deserted building, I take them down the hall and drop them in the trash in the ladies’ room.
I’m halfway across the quad before I stop quivering in revulsion and begin thinking again. And I don’t want to think.
So I follow the smell of smoke and the dull echo of a crowd toward the football field. I want to lose myself in the sound and movement and simple reality of normal kids—normal kids celebrating something as common and clockwork as homecoming. I bet none of them even appreciate the predictable sanity of their lives.
Gravitating toward the sound of music, I thread my way through the bodies and the smells of smoke and perfume and beer. Near the tall chain-link fence is an old car with its windows down, doors open. “Mashed Potato Time” is blaring from the radio. I wade in, focused on the beat and the movement of dancing. I begin to move with the music, pretending I’m normal. Pretending I’m happy. Pretending I am free.
The radio DJ announces a song for lovers. “Blue Velvet” flows over me. I relish the feeling of anonymity, the primal nature of dancing in a crowd of strangers on a dark and smoky night. The horrors of the day fall behind me as I close my eyes, shift and sway, my arms wrapped tight around my partner, Wuthering Heights.
The music changes again, yanking me from my floating mood. “Do You Love Me” blares. The couples around me make the leap from dreamy to jazzed-up as smoothly as shifting from a walk to a run. Some of them are doing normal Bandstand dances. But others are shimmying and touching and rubbing against one another in a way that makes me think of those panties in Dad’s office.
And then I see one of the shimmying couples is Elizabeth Taylor and Griff! He has a beer bottle in one hand and the other is on her . . . someplace it shouldn’t be.
I barely form a thought before I’m grabbing his arm, pulling him away from Elizabeth’s gyrations.
“I need to talk to you!” Even I’m surprised at the nastiness in my voice. But I’m spinning with a hurricane of my own, one of anger and disgust and self-pity.
“You shouldn’t be here.” He takes a swig from the beer bottle, as if challenging me to say something about it.
I glare at Elizabeth Taylor. Everybody gets a piece of Griff but me. “Neither should you.”
Elizabeth glares back.
I refrain from socking her in the jaw.
“What do you want?” he asks, but not like he really cares. This Griff just wants me to disappear.
“I need to talk to you in private. Something bad’s happened.”
I finally see a spark of concern in his eyes. He turns his back on Elizabeth and walks me toward the chain-link fence. When we stop, he leans close. “Is that a black eye?”
My fingers touch the sore area. “What do you care?” I can’t keep the childish antagonism out of my voice. He was so busy ogling Elizabeth Taylor he didn’t notice it in broad daylight.
His jaw flexes and in his eyes, I see a hint of what I saw when he beat the crap out of Grayson Collie in junior high. I’m ashamed at the flare of satisfaction it gives me.
“Who did that to you?” he asks with a hard edge.
The violence I see in
his face scares me enough that I admit, “It has nothing to do with what happened today. Maisie accidentally caught me with her elbow.”
“Truth?”
There’s my brother. “Truth.”
“So, what happened?”
I nearly tell him about Chief Collie, but it’s obvious the risk of him doing something stupid is too great.
“It’s Dad.” I tell him the whole story, including my astonishment that Gran seemed so blind to it. “We have to figure out how to get all those books back where they belong. Dad’s gone to shadow time, so he’s not going to be any help.”
“His office is locked.” Griff takes a swig of beer and shrugs. “The books can wait until he snaps out of it. No doubt Gran will call the department head and feed him some excuse about Dad being sick. None of this is our problem.”
“How can you say that? What about the huge bill at the bookstore? Dad could lose his job!”
“Not going to happen. He’s tenured. Gran’ll handle it.”
“I don’t think you understand. I’ve never seen him this bad.”
“Stop!” He raises his hands. “Just stop. Stop thinking you can fix everything. You can’t fix anything. They’re fucked-up beyond help. All of them. The sooner you figure that out, the better off you’ll be. Just let it go, Lulie!”
The whip of his anger cuts me to the bone. He’s angry at me! Because I care.
I stare at him, my body quivering. “Fine for you—keeping away with your job and your friends. What about me? And what about Dharma and Walden?” I give him a push. “Go on. Get back to your fun. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
He tosses the beer bottle over the fence, the liquid casting an arc from the neck. Before I can walk away, he grabs my shoulders. “All right. Okay. I’m sorry for being an ass.”
I don’t look at him, but I don’t break free, either. I feel as if I’ve been turned inside out by this day, flayed and stinging.
He sighs. “Go home, Lulie. We can figure it all out tomorrow.”
I grab onto the we. Tomorrow he and I will put our heads together. Together. Us. A team. I nod, still choking on the tears I refuse to let fall.
“Okay.” He releases me. “ ’Night.” He starts to walk away.
The Myth of Perpetual Summer Page 19