by Tim O'Mara
I turned to see a kid—fifteen, maybe?—on the other side of the wall. He was wearing a white baseball cap over his long, brown hair. Around his neck hung a pair of binoculars, and he was holding a walkie-talkie in his right hand. Edgar’s bird-watcher. He adjusted his eyeglasses and gave me a good look-over.
“How did you get Robin’s walkie-talkie?” he asked.
“Who?” I asked.
“The walkie-talkie.” He pointed at it. “How did you get that? I gave that to Robin. You are not supposed to have that.”
“I don’t know any Robin,” I said. “I got this”—I held up the radio—“from Douglas Lee’s mother. Do you know Dougie?”
The kid took off his hat, looked up, and scratched his head, emphasizing how hard he was thinking about my question. “I do not know Dougie,” he said. “I know Robin, and that is his walkie-talkie. How did you get it?”
I stepped closer to the wall, and the kid took two steps back, almost slipping on the snowy dirt. He grabbed onto a tree, frightened. I held up my hand, signaling I’d stop moving toward him. I was starting to sense something else about this kid.
“It’s okay,” I said and watched as the kid squinted at me from behind his glasses. “I’m a friend of Dougie’s—Douglas Lee? I used to be his teacher.” I took a breath. “He goes to … he went to school right down the block. Upper West Academy.” I pointed behind me. “He was killed last week.”
The kid squinted harder and put his whole body behind the tree. “I go to Upper West Academy, and I do not know Dougie. I know Robin, and you have his radio.” He shook the tree. “Why do you have Robin’s radio?” he asked loudly. “Where is Robin?”
I took the walkie-talkie and clipped it on my belt under my jacket. Some of the passersby stopped and looked at me. I smiled that everything was okay, and they smiled back. I doubted they spoke English, which was good. I turned back to the kid.
“What’s your name?” I asked. “Mine’s Raymond. Raymond Donne.”
“You do not need to know my name, Raymond Donne,” he said, his voice getting higher. “Why do you want to know my name?”
“When you’re having a conversation, it’s polite to know the name of the person you’re talking with.”
“We are not having a conversation, Raymond Donne. I asked you a question, and you have not answered. Why do you have Robin’s radio?”
This could go on all day.
I waited a few seconds before speaking again. “You go to Upper West?”
“Yes,” he said. “But I should not have told you that.”
“And you don’t know Douglas Lee? Dougie?”
“I told you I do not.”
“Well,” I said, “the walkie-talkie I have belonged—” A thought came to me. “What does Robin look like?”
The kid thought about that and moved from behind the tree. “Why do you want to know what Robin looks like? You should know. You have his walkie-talkie.”
“I think, maybe, the kid you’re calling Robin is the one I’m calling Dougie.” I waited as he considered that. “Tell me what Robin looks like.”
He squeezed his eyes completely shut. “He is African–American. Black. He is taller than I am by five inches. He was just starting to grow a mustache, and he is my best friend at the school, and that is his radio.” He opened his eyes again. “What does Dougie look like, Raymond Donne?”
I nodded. “Pretty much like Robin, I’m afraid.”
“Why does that make you af—?” He stopped himself. “Oh. You said…” He looked up into the trees and held his breath. When he let it out, he said, “The school told us one of the students had been killed last weekend. That was the name they used, but I did not know Douglas Lee. I know Robin.” He closed his eyes again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I think Robin was Dougie.”
“And he is dead?”
“Yeah.”
He stepped out from behind the tree and turned off his walkie-talkie. Then he removed his baseball cap and placed it over his heart. “I am not sure why people do this,” he said looking at me.
“Me, neither,” I answered. “Are you okay?”
“No,” he said. “I am not okay. You just told me my best friend at school is dead. I thought he was out sick. Why would I be okay?”
“You wouldn’t be,” I admitted. “It’s just another thing people say in a situation like this, I guess.”
He took a step toward me and the wall that separated us. “Have you had a lot of situations like this, Raymond Donne?”
I nodded again. “Too many, I’m afraid.”
He clipped his radio to his belt, came all the way to the wall, and put his hands on the stones. “You seem to be afraid a lot. Do you know that?”
I had to choose my words very carefully around this kid. “I’m not, really,” I explained. “I guess it’s just something I say too much.” I took a step closer to the kid. “What is your name, by the way?”
“Elliot,” he said, trusting me a bit more. “Elliot Henry Finch.”
I stuck out my hand. “Raymond Donne. Raymond.”
He looked at my hand. “I do not shake hands with people,” he said matter-of-factly. “And you have already told me your name.”
I dropped my hand. “I guess I did.” Something occurred to me. “Are you involved with Finch’s Landing? I saw a card in Dougie’s desk.”
For the first time since we met five minutes ago, Elliot Henry Finch smiled. “That is me,” he said proudly. “It is a website I started. I took the name from my last name and also To Kill a Mockingbird. Have you read it?”
“A couple of times,” I said.
“Me, too,” he said. “Thirteen times, to be exact.”
This kid was nothing if not exact. Then why …
“Why did you call Dougie ‘Robin’?”
He shook his head and lifted the binoculars that were hanging around his neck. “I am into birds, Raymond.” He didn’t add “duh,” but he might as well have.
“I can see that,” I said. “But why ‘Robin’?”
He climbed on top of the stone wall and threw his legs over the side. As he sat there, I got a much better view of his eyes behind the glasses. They were moving from side to side, up and down, like he didn’t want to miss anything. They settled down before he spoke again.
“Robins,” he explained, “are a generalist species. Turdus migratorius.” He chuckled to himself on the last part.
“I understood the word ‘robins.’”
“They can survive in almost any habitat. Turdus is Latin for thrush.” He barely controlled himself this time. “But the name makes me laugh.” Then he got serious again, somber almost. “I called him Robin, and he called me Finch. Because of my last name and other obvious reasons. I do not usually like the names parents give to their kids, so I give them new ones. Names that fit. Especially my friends.”
I thought of the way Dougie had handled himself in Williamsburg and how his mother told me he was fitting in here at the Upper West Side private school. Elliot was spot-on. Dougie was a generalist.
“What’s the website?” I asked.
“Finch’s Landing,” he said with obvious pride, “is a website exclusively devoted to the social needs of exceptional children in the private school setting.” He’d given this pitch before. “We have thirty-one members as of this morning.”
Exceptional: one of the many politically correct euphemisms for kids with special needs. Dougie had a reading disability. It wasn’t crippling, but it did slow him down when acquiring and processing new information. It was apparently enough to get him into his new school. I must have been looking a bit too long at Elliot without speaking, because he gave me a look and said, “I am an Aspy.”
“Excuse me?”
“An Aspy,” he repeated. “I have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. Are you familiar with the diagnosis? You should be. You are a teacher, right?”
“Right. And yes, I am familiar with Asperger’s.” I thou
ght of Edgar. “I have a friend who has many of the characteristics.”
“Is he highly intelligent?” Elliot asked.
“Very much so.”
“Does he have few friends and trouble reading social cues?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is he now a successful adult in a field a lot of ‘normal people’ might not be drawn to due to its lack of human interaction and its technical requirements?”
I laughed. “Have you met my friend Edgar?”
He gave me a serious look. “Not that I remember.”
Kids with Asperger’s don’t always get the joke. “Did Dougie have a lot of friends at the school?”
“Yes, he did. As I said, he was a generalist. He fit in with every group at school.”
That’s going to make Murcer’s job harder, I thought. There’d be fewer kids to interview if Dougie hadn’t been so damned popular.
“Did you hear,” Elliot said, “about our student who was killed a few days ago while skateboarding?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“On Riverside Drive,” he said, pointing west. “He was going down a hilly street and skated directly into a city bus.”
“Shit,” I said. “He went to your school?”
“Yes. I did not know him well, but he was a friend of Rob—of Douglas. He was obviously quite upset about Douglas.” He paused for a bit. “I miss Douglas. We used to talk a lot about bird-watching.”
“What else did you and Dougie talk about?” I asked.
“You sound like a police detective, Mr. Donne.”
“I get that a lot.”
“Why do you want to know what else Douglas and I talked about?”
I took a chance and moved a few steps closer to Elliot. If he was still afraid of me, he was hiding it well.
“The police are saying Dougie’s death was gang-related and—”
“Then the police are stupid,” he blurted out. “He did not belong to a gang.”
“I promised his mother I’d ask some questions and see what I could find out.”
He leaned forward and squinted at me. “You sound like a detective again.”
“I used to be a cop, Elliot. Many years ago. That’s the reason Dougie’s mom asked me for help.”
“And now you are a teacher.” He continued his squinting. “You … are a raven, Mr. Donne. Do you know much about ravens?”
“They’re like big crows, right?”
“Hardly, but most people do make that same connection. Ravens are of the family Cordivae and among the smartest of birds.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Ravens are also symbols of mystery and death. As a teacher, you have most likely read Poe’s poem.”
“Once a year,” I replied. “At Halloween.”
He gave me a disappointed look. “Ravens also take pleasure in bothering other birds for no other reason than their own amusement. Does that sound like you?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“I am asking you, Mr. Donne.”
“I do not believe I do that, no.”
Elliot smiled. “Of course you would say that. Would you like an example of how intelligent ravens can be?”
“I’d love one.”
He cleared his throat as if he were about to present a report to his science class. “Ravens are scavengers mostly. They will hunt when necessary, but they prefer to find their food ready to eat. Ravens have been known to come across a large, dead animal—let us say a deer. Unable to get at the good parts, they will proceed to make enough noise to attract other carnivores—those with sharp teeth and the ability to get at the flesh of the deer—and let those animals rip off the outer layer, exposing the meat of the animal. They then wait patiently until the carnivore is satisfied and leaves, so they can enjoy whatever remains.”
I nodded, impressed. “They let the wolves do the dirty work.”
“That is one way of putting it,” he said. “Another, more precise way, would be to say that ravens are intelligent enough to understand and accept their limitations. By locating the food source and sharing with other animals, they benefit the whole community.”
I gave it some thought. “I like your way better, Elliot.”
“Call me Finch,” he said. “And I will call you Ray.” He held up his hand as if to stop me from talking. “Before you tell me not to get presumptuous, Ray is short for Raven, as well as the name your parents gave you.”
This kid was good. “Tell me about Finch’s Landing.”
As he considered his response, he again cleared his throat.
“You are,” he began, “aware of the popularity of social networking sites among the students you teach.”
Not sure if that was a question, I just nodded.
“The most popular of these sites are quite attractive to those in my demographic group,” he explained. “Initially. We are seduced by the ability to make ‘friends’ easily and often without much effort. You can understand how those such as myself, Asperger’s kids, would…”—he paused for effect—“… flock to such sites.”
I nodded and smiled this time, enjoying his choice of words.
“After a while,” he went on, “the same social issues arise nonetheless, and those of us who are not your ‘typical,’ ‘normal’ kids feel left out. We may not pick up on social cues very well in face-to-face situations, but online we pick them up better than our non–Asperger’s counterparts.”
“So,” I said, “you still find yourselves on the outside, looking in.”
He gave me an approving look. I was learning.
“Yes. So, I did the only logical thing and created a site for those of us who do not fit in. A site where we do not have to concern ourselves with saying the right thing or with the subtleties and nuances that are so confusing to us in the so-called real world.” He flourished his arms like a magician. “Finch’s Landing.”
“I’m impressed, Finch.”
“Yes. As I said, we have thirty-one members as of today.” He stopped, realizing what he’d just said. “I guess that … we have thirty now. I was counting Douglas.” He swallowed hard and rubbed his eyes. “That is just from three schools on the Upper West Side. All private, all special needs. I plan to expand in the new year.”
“Did Dougie hang out with any of the other members?” I asked.
“In real life?”
“Yes, in real life.”
“I observed him ‘hanging out’ with a few of my members. Boys who go to this school. The student who was killed was one of them. I was not personal friends with them, but they met membership criteria.”
“You didn’t care much for them?” I asked.
“They were part of the popular group,” he said.
I detected what sounded like disappointment in his voice. “Did that bother you?”
He gave that some thought before speaking. “Do you know much about finches, Ray?” he asked, pretending to brush more snow off his shoulders.
“About as much as I know about ravens.”
“The more colorful the male finch,” he explained, “the more mates he attracts.”
“Okay,” I said. “That makes sense.”
“The less colorful males eventually become aware of this difference and make a conscious choice to hang out with their more colorful, more attractive counterparts in the hope they will have more opportunities to mate.”
“Kind of like social networking.”
“Very good,” Finch said. “I started my site in an effort to be more popular.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who cares much about popularity.”
“I do not, in theory. But I was interested in seeing if it would work in practice.”
“Did it?”
“No, Ray. It did not. The only true friend I had on Finch’s Landing was Robin. Douglas. That was enough for me.” He pulled up his jacket sleeve and looked at his watch. “I have to go now.”
“Was Dougie close to any teach
ers here?” I asked.
“My train is coming.” A touch of urgency in his voice. “I have to go now.”
He started off in the direction of the subway. I followed him.
“Finch,” I said, picking up my pace, “was Dougie close to any teachers?”
He looked at his watch again. “Four forty-seven. Yes, he and I both got along well with Mr. Rivera, the computer teacher. He was also our advisor.” He started walking faster. “He might still be at the school. He is in charge of the afterschool computer class. I have to go now.”
“Thanks, Finch,” I called as he flew away toward his train.
*
A group of four boys was coming out the front door of Upper West Academy when I got there a few minutes later. They seemed to be talking about something serious, until they all broke out into laughter. The school seemed to be made up of four brownstones connected to one another. The steps leading to the main entrance had recently been swept clean of the light snow. Behind the boys was a man of about thirty, talking on his cell phone as he looped his computer bag over his shoulder. We caught each other’s eye at the same time.
“Mr. Rivera?” I asked.
He held up his hand in a give-me-a-second gesture and said good-bye to the person on the other end. He slipped his cell inside his jacket. “You a reporter?” he asked. “Or another cop?”
“Another cop?” I asked.
“I spoke with a Detective Murcer a couple of hours ago,” he explained. Good for Dennis, I thought. “I really don’t have much more to say.”
“Actually,” I said, “I’m Raymond Donne, Douglas Lee’s old teacher. From Williamsburg.”
He gave me a long look and then smiled. “Oh, yeah,” he said, offering his hand. “I saw you in the paper over the weekend. Looks like the article got the cops off their asses a bit, huh?”
“Actually,” I said, “Murcer’s a pretty good cop. He’d have made his way up here eventually. The article just sped up the process.”