Shadowland

by Peter Straub

  Thorpe inhaled noisily, ran a palm across his smooth gray hair. He was a furnace of emotions, this Thorpe, and such terrifying performances were standard with him.

  13

  Teachers

  As the first weeks went by, the personalities of our teachers became as fixed as stars and as dependable in their eccentricities as the postures of marble statues. Mr. Thorpe shouted and bullied; Mr. Fitz-Hallan charmed; Mr. Whipple, incapable of inspiring either terror or love, wavered between trying to inspire both and so was despised. Mr. Weatherbee revealed himself to be a natural teacher, and led us in masterful fashion through the first steps of algebra. (Dave Brick surprisingly turned out to be a mathematical whiz, and took to wearing an ostentatious slide rule in a leather holster clipped to his belt.) Thorpe could freeze your stomach and your mind; Fitz-Hallan, whose family was wealthy, turned his salary back to the school, and doing so, earned the privilege of teaching 'what he liked — the Grimms' Household Tales, the Odyssey, Great Expectations and Huckleberry Finn, and E. B. White for style; Whipple was so lazy that he took great chunks of class time to read aloud from the textbook. His only real interest was in sports, where he functioned as Ridpath's assistant.

  Their lives out of the school were unimaginable to us; at dances, we saw wives, but could never truly believe in them. Their houses likewise were mysterious, as if they, like us, had not spouses but parents, and so much homework that their true homes were the old building, the modern addition, and the field house.

  14

  We had just come out of Fitz-Hallan's classroom, and a small number of seniors were leaving a French lesson in the next room. Bobby Hollingsworth had identified most of the older boys to those of us who were new to the school, and I knew most of their names. They began to look purposeful and superior when they noticed us gettmg books from our lockers. They sauntered over as soon as Fitz-Hallan had disappeared into his office. Steve Ridpath positioned himself directly in front of me. I had to look up to see his face. I was dimly aware of a prefect named Terry Peters standing before Del Nightingale, and of another senior named Hollis Wax lifting Dave Brick's beanie off his head. The other three or four seniors glanced at us, smiled at Hollis Wax — he was no taller than Dave Brick — and continued down the hallway.

  'What's my name?' Steve Ridpath said.

  I told him.

  'And what's yours, insect?' I told him my name.

  'Pick up my books.' He was carrying four heavy textbooks and a sheaf of papers under one arm, and let it all fall to the floor. 'Hurry up, jerk. I have a class next period.'

  'Yes, Mr. Ridpath,' I said, and bent over. He was so near that I had to back into my locker to get his books. When I straightened up, he had bent down to stare directly into my face. 'You scummy little turd,' he said. The reason for his nickname was even more apparent than before. Exceptionally skinny, Skeleton Ridpath from a distance looked like a clothed assemblage of sticks; cuffs drowned his wrists, collars swam on his thin neck. Close up, his face was so taut on his skull that the skin shone whitely; a slight flabbiness under the eyes was the only visible loose flesh. Above these gray-white pouches, his eyes were very pale, almost white, like old blue jeans. His eyebrows were only faint tracings of silvery brown. A strong odor of Old Spice hung between us, though his skin appeared too stingy and tight for whiskers: as though it would begrudge them the room. 'You messed up my report,' he said, and shoved a bent sheet of paper under my nose. 'Five push-ups, right now.' —

  'Oh, hell, Steve,' said Hollis Wax. I glanced over and saw that he bad 'braced' Dave Brick, who was now stiffly at attention, his forearms stuck out at right angles before him and piled with Wax's books. 'Shut up. Five. Right now.'

  I stepped around Ridpath and did five push-ups in the corridor.

  'Who was the first headmaster, jerk?' 'B. Thurman Banter.'

  'When did he found the school and what was its name then?'

  'He founded the Lodestar Academy in 1894.' I stood up.

  'You zit,' he hissed at me, his face twisting; then as he turned away, he reached out a simian arm and smacked the back of my head with his fist — just hard enough to hurt. His knuckles felt like needles. The blow did not surprise me: I had seen a witless hatred in his eyes. He swiveled his bony head on his neck and looked at me gleefully. 'Come on. I have to make a class.'

  But we stopped after only a few steps. 'Who's this fat creep, Waxy?'

  'Brick,' Wax said. Dave Brick was sweating, and his. beanie had been pulled down over his eyes.

  'Brick. Jesus. Look at him.' Ridpath took the fold of skin beneath Brick's chin and twisted it between two long fingers. 'How many books are there in the library, Brick? What's my name, Brick?' He jabbed one of his bony fingers into Brick's cheeks and pressed it hard against the teeth. 'You don't know, do you, fatso?'

  'No, sir,' Brick half-sobbed.

  'Mr. Ridpath. That's my name, dumbo. Remember it, Brick. Brick the Prick. You'd better cut your disgusting Zulu hair, Brick the Prick. There's more grease in it than most guys have in their cars.'.

  Standing beside him with his books, I saw Tom Flanagan and Bobby Hollingsworth coming toward us. They stopped just down the hall.

  'And who's this little greaseball?' Ridpath asked Terry Peters.

  'Nightingale.' Peters smirked.

  'Oh! Nightingale,' Ridpath crooned. 'I should have known. You look like a goddamned little Greek, don't you, Nightingale? Little cardsharp, aren't you, Night­ingale? I'll have to take care of you later, Birdy. That's a good name for you. I heard you chirp.' He seemed very excited. He turned his ghastly face to me again. 'Come on, jerk. Ah, shit. Just give me the books.' He and Peters and Wax ran down the hall in the direction of the old section.

  'I'm afraid it looks like you've got nicknames,' Tom Flanagan said.

  15

  Dave Brick was doomed to carry the obscene name Skeleton Ridpath had given him, but Del Nightingale's was altered for the worse during football practice on the Friday evening of the first week of October. White Del and Morris Fielding and Bob Sherman and I sat on the bench with several others — freshmen and sophomores — our JV team had lost our first game the previous week. Chip Hogan had made our only touchdown. The final score had been 21-7, and Mr. Whipple and Mr. Ridpath had spent the four practices since the game frenziedly pushing us through exercises and play patterns. Sherman and I hated football, and already were looking forward to our junior year, when we could quit it for soccer; Morris Fielding had little aptitude for it, but suffered it gamely and performed as second-string center with a dogged persistence Ridpath admired; Del, who weighed little more than ninety pounds, was entirely hopeless. In the padded uniform which made the rest of us look swollen, Del resembled a mosquito weighted down with sandbags. All of the exercising tired him, and after we had run through tires and done fifty squat-jumps, Del could scarcely make his legs move through the rest of the practice.

  After the squat-jumps, Ridpath lined us up before the tackling dummy. This was a heavy metal frame like a sledge on runners, with the front poles padded to the size of punching bags. We were in two long lines, and in pairs rushed at the padding and tried to move the dummy. Chip Hogan and three or four other boys could make it turn in a circle by themselves. Morris Fielding and I jolted it back a foot or two. When Tom Flanagan and Del hit it, Tom's side moved abruptly and Del's not at all. Both boys fell in the dust.

  'Straighten it out and do it over,' shouted Mr. Rid­path. 'Push it back — we need blocking in the line.'

  Flanagan and Nightingale pulled the cumbersome dummy back where it had been. They rushed the step and a half forward and grunted into the padding. Again Tom's charge pushed it in a jerky sideswiped movement and Del collapsed.

  'What the hell are you, Florence Nightingale?' Rid­path screamed.

  Florence. That absurdly Victorian name: Ridpath laugh­ed at his own invention, and all of us laughed too: Del had been christened. At that moment Whipple appeared, cherubic and red-faced in his satiny coaching jacke
t, and Mr. Ridpath ran across to the field where the varsity team was just now beginning to do calisthenics; but the change of coaches had come too late for Del.

  'Stand on my shoulders, Florence — I'll move it for you,' shouted a muscular, amiable boy named Pete Bayliss. And that sealed the name for Del.

  For the rest of the hour we desultorily ran through plays.

  We shared a locker room with the older boys, and after practice, when the pads and sweatshirts had been put away and we had just returned from the showers, the varsity boys came noisily into that sweat-smelling, echoing place. Skeleton Ridpath was among them, covered in dirt and with a bruise on his left cheek — he played only because his father made him, and in the last quarter of the varsity game which had followed ours, he had committed two fouls.

  The seniors and juniors began throwing their helmets into their lockers, shouting back and forth. Skeleton Ridpath undressed more slowly than the others, and was just untying his pads when most of the other varsity players were already in the shower across the hall. I saw him looking across the room at us, smiling to himself. When he had stripped down to his jockstrap, he stood up, stepped across the bench, and walked halfway over to us.. 'I guess this is a coed school now,' he said, his hands on the bones of his hips.

  'He looks like a graveyard,' Sherman whispered in my ear. Ridpath glanced at us, irritated that he had missed Sherman's comment, but too inflamed by his hostility to be distracted.

  'We take girls now, I guess,' he said, staring at Del Nightingale. Del had tucked his chin down and was wriggling into his trousers.

  'Hey, Florence. Do you know what happens to girls when they're caught in locker rooms? Huh?'

  'Shut up,' Tom Flanagan said.

  Ridpath raised a hand as if to slap Flanagan — he was at least seven feet away. 'You little creep. I'm talking to your date. Is that what you are, Florence? His date?' He stepped forward: he was almost half again as tall as Del, and he looked like an elongated bony white worm. He also looked crazy, caught up in some spiraling private hatred: it was obvious that his remarks were not just casual school insults, and the dozen of us left in the room froze, really unable to imagine what he might force himself to do. For a second he seemed a demented, furious giant.

  His bruised face twisted, and he said, 'Why don't you suck — '

  Tom Flanagan catapulted himself off the bench and rushed toward him.

  Skeleton put out a startled fist and jabbed Tom in the chest. Then saliva flew from his mouth, his face worked in fury and bafflement, and he knocked Tom backward into our bench.

  Bryce Beaver, one of two juniors who would later be expelled for smoking, came in from the shower naked, with a green school towel around his neck. 'Hey, Skel­eton, what the shit are you doing?' he asked, amazed. 'Your old man'll be here in a second.'

  'I hate these little farts,' Skeleton said, his bruised dirty face still a mask of loathing, and turned away. From the back he looked skinned and fragile.

  The outside door opened and clanked shut. Mr. Whippie's voice carried to us, saying, ' . . . work on all the Y plays, get Hogan to find those receivers . . . ' Bryce Beaver shook his head and began toweling his legs.

  Mr. Ridpath and Mr. Whipple came into the locker room, carrying with them a scent of fresh air, which lingered only a moment. I saw Mr. Ridpath struggle to keep his smile as he glanced at his son.

  16

  Two weeks later, when the JV team played the varsity scrubs in a practice game, I saw Tom Flanagan repeatedly bringing down Skeleton Ridpath, bowling him off his feet even when the play was on the other side of the field. The third time it happened, Skeleton waited until Whipple looked away and kicked Tom in the face. On the next play, Tom Flanagan tackled and wrenched him to the ground so savagely that I could hear the noise from the bench,

  'Great play! Great play!' shouted Mr. Ridpath. 'That's spirit!'

  17

  Midnight, Saturday: Two Bedrooms

  In Del's room, the boys lay on their separate beds, talking in the dark. Tim and Valerie Hillman were making too much noise for them to sleep: Tom could hear Tim Hillman shouting Bitch! Bitch! at intervals. Both Hillmans had been drunk at dinner, Tim more so than Valerie. Bud Copeland had served the boys at a table in the kitchen, and clearing up, had said, 'Trouble tonight. You fellas jump into bed early and close up your ears.'

  But that was not possible. Tim's shouts and Valerie's abrupt rejoinders winged through the house.

  'Uncle Cole says Tim drinks so much to make himself into another person,' Del said in the darkness. 'If he's drunk, he's another person. One he'd rather be.'

  'He'd rather be that?'

  'I guess so.'

  'Boy.'

  'Well, Uncle Cole is always right. I mean it. He's never wrong about things. Do you want to know what he says about magic?'

  'Sure.'

  'It's like what he said about Tim. He says a magician must be apart from ordinary life — he has to make himself new, because he has a special project. To do magic, to do great magic, he has to know himself as a piece of the universe.'

  'A piece of the universe?'

  'A little piece that has all the rest of it in it. Everything outside him is also inside him. You see that?'

  'I guess.'

  'Well, if you do, then you can see why I want to be a magician. Science is all head, right? Sports is all body. A magician uses all of himself. Uncle Cole says a magician is in synthesis. Synthesis. He says you're part music and part blood, part thinker and part killer. And if you can find all that in you and control it, then you deserve to be set apart.' 'So it's about control. About power.'

  'Sure it is. It's about being God.'

  Tom knew that Del was waiting for him to respond, but he could not. Though he was not religious and had not entered a church since the previous Christmas, Del's last remark had upset him profoundly.

  Across the room, he could hear Del's smile. 'I saw what you did to Skeleton, you know. You're a killer too.'

  The subject of these last sentences, who was sure that he was a killer, lay like the two younger boys in a bed in a darkened room. What was going through his mind was surprisingly similar — the similarity would certainly have surprised Del Nightingale — to the content of the boys' conversation. Music, not shouts, filled the air about him — a Bo Diddley record. Strong: music so dense and pound­ing that it seemed to push itself into his skin, force itself between himself and the bed and pick his laden body up and make it float.

  . Skeleton knew that he was a piece of the universe, and that the hatred which was the strongest and best part of him ran through the universe like a bar of steel. Skeleton too had seen desert vultures, and violent bands of color in the desert sky; and he had seen the sand far out of town turn purple and red when night came on. Even in his baffled and empty childhood, he had known that such things were in his key, that they struck the same note as the deep well of black feelings within himself. Other people were blinkered, self-deluded rabbits: they looked at the desert and saw what they called 'beauty,' walling themselves off from it. Other people were afraid of the truth in themselves, which was also the truth at the world's heart. Every man was a killer — that was what Skeleton knew. Every, leaf, every grain of sand, had a killer in it. If you touched a tree, you could feel a wave of blackness pumping through it, drawn up from the ground and breathed out through the bark.

  And lately, as he worked more and more on his 'things,' as he varnished images of pain and fear onto his walls, he had come closer and closer to that truth. Skeleton had begun to have new ideas about his 'things,' ideas he could scarcely bear to peep at. They were a unity, they were the unity which was Skeleton Ridpath, but there was something more.

  And lately . . .

  lately . . .

  he had, peeping at his new ideas, seen glimpses of their power. A man was showing him how right he was, and how little he still knew. It was as if the man had stepped off his walls, walked out of the 'things' and lifted his broad-brimmed hat
from his head to show the face of a beast. The man, who was everywhere and nowhere, in his dreams and hovering just out of sight as he prowled from one room to another, was animal, tree, desert, bird . . . he wore a long belted coat, his hat shaded his face — he was what was real. He spoke to Skeleton when Skeleton thought about him: and what he said was: I have come to save your life. He wanted something of poor Skeleton, his will drove out at poor Skeleton, and poor Skeleton would have cut off all the fingers of one hand for him. He had power to make a king's look feeble. He was like the music at the heart of the music, what the musicians would play if they were twelve feet tall and made of thunder, and rain.

  He is me, Skeleton thought. Me. He grinned up in the darkness at a picture of a giant bird.

  18

  'Goose Girl'

  ''There was once an old queen, whose husband had long been dead, and she had a beautiful daughter,'' Mr. Fitz-Hallan read. 'First sentence of the story 'Goose Girl.' What does that tell you the story is going to be about?'

  'The beautiful daughter,' Bobby Hollingsworth said, his arm up in the air.

  'Right. Old queen, dead king, young and beautiful daughter. Shortly to be all alone in the world, we suspect. After all, she's half an orphan already. If this story is typical, soon she's going to be off on some sort of quest — and there it is, in the second sentence. She's sent to marry a prince, far away. What happens to her?'

  'She has a wicked servant who terrorizes her and makes her take her place,' Howie Stern said.

  'Exactly. Remember when we were talking about identity in these stories? Here we are again. The servant girl steals the heroine's identity. The magic talisman, the cloth with three drops of blood, is lost, and the wicked servant gains power over the princess. She takes her clothing and makes, the princess dress in her rags. Clothing can masquerade as identity — it's how we signal who we are. So the servant marries the prince, and the true princess is sent off to work with Conrad, who takes care of the geese. Could this ever really happen?'