The River King

by Alice Hoffman

  “Did it ever occur to you,” Eric said now, “that girl of yours might be a spoiled brat?”

  For a man with a doctorate in ancient history to be embroiled in the social lives of adolescents who couldn’t handle the slightest mishap on their own was ridiculous, Betsy had to agree. Oh, how Eric wished he were teaching at a university, where students took care of their own petty problems and the quest for knowledge was the issue at hand. This year the most bothersome member of Eric’s class was that boy August Pierce, who was clearly no student. Gus had been hanging around Eric’s door for several days, obviously wanting something. At last Eric asked if there was a problem, knowing full well that with students such as Gus, there was always a problem, and that most of these difficulties were best left alone.

  When Gus skipped the meeting on the thirteenth of October, there’d been quite a price to pay. When they got hold of him, they dragged him into the lounge and locked the door. Harry McKenna had held a lit cigarette to his arm, a brand to remind him that rules were rules. For days afterward, Gus couldn’t get the odor of his own singed flesh out of his head; he felt as though he were still on fire, even now, beneath his sweater, beneath his coat. He had been shoring up the courage to speak to a houseparent for days. “Could I come in for a minute?” he asked Mr. Herman. “Can I talk to you privately?”

  Of course the answer was no. Inviting students into one’s home bred both familiarity and contempt, not at all in keeping with Haddan’s code of etiquette. Gus Pierce, therefore, had been forced to trot alongside as Eric hurried to the library. The boy coughed and sputtered and began to spin some far-fetched story about his mistreatment. He hated to come to Eric like a tattletale on a playground, and Eric had no choice but to listen as the details spilled out. The sunlight was weak, yet Eric had felt a line of sweat on his forehead. No one on the faculty liked talk such as this; it was anti-Haddan, the sort of inflammatory nonsense that fueled lawsuits and ruined careers.

  In point of fact, the kid claiming to be victimized was over six feet tall, not exactly the size and shape of a victim. When Gus pulled up his shirt Eric did note bruises on his back and ribs and a fresh burn Gus claimed had been recently inflicted, but what did any of this prove? Soccer could easily be the cause of such injuries, as could a wild game of football. More likely, such wounds were self-inflicted, the actions of a student whom many at school had already judged to be unstable. August Pierce was failing several of his classes; only last week there’d been a meeting wherein his teachers and the dean had discussed his wretched performance in class. Frankly, the odds were not in his favor, and several of his teachers did not believe Gus would survive the semester.

  “Maybe you need to take responsibility for your own actions,” Eric said. “If someone’s bothering you, stand up for yourself, man.”

  Eric could tell the boy wasn’t listening.

  “I’m trying to help you here, Gus,” Eric said.

  “Great.” The boy nodded. “Thanks a million.”

  Watching Gus lurch away, Eric felt satisfied that his responsibility toward the boy had been met. Certainly, he did not wish to take up Gus’s case, even if the other fellows were giving him a hard time. In all probability, he deserved whatever bitter ration was dished out to him. He was annoying and exasperating. What had he expected? That his roommates would admire him, that they’d be delighted to have him among them? Eric knew a hierarchy existed at Chalk House, exactly as it had when he himself was in high school, and again when he’d joined a fraternity at college. Well, boys would be boys, wasn’t that the saying? Some were bound to be evil and others bound to be good and the rest would fall somewhere in between, bending one way or another given certain circumstances or friends who led the way.

  Pressure, too, was bound to affect people differently. Dave Linden, for instance, never complained about cleaning the seniors rooms or cheating on their behalf, but he’d begun to stutter. Nathaniel Gibb, on the other hand, found himself suffering from nightmares; one night, he’d awakened to find himself standing at his window, facing the darkened quad below, as if someone with his promise might actually consider leaping from the ledge. Gus’s method of dealing with the Chalk boys’ offensive was to offer passive resistance. Whether they burned him or berated him, he thought only of empty space, how it went on forever and ever, how every human being was nothing more than a speck of dust. He was not in the least surprised to find that Eric Herman wouldn’t help him; rather, he was ashamed of himself to have looked for help in the first place.

  And so he let himself be beaten without a struggle; frankly, he did not believe a struggle would succeed. He began to avoid the Haddan campus even more than he had before, spending nearly all his time in town, going so far as to unroll a sleeping bag for the night in the alley behind the pharmacy and the Lucky Day Florist. Sean Byers often met him there in the evenings, for the boys had formed an alliance based on their mutual disdain for their surroundings. They smoked marijuana in the alleyway, breathing in the rank stench of the Dumpster along with the sweet aroma of hemp. Gus was so relieved to be away from Chalk House he didn’t even mind the rats that lived in the alley, silent shadowy creatures that searched the garbage for scraps. From this vantage point, he could see Orion rise out of the east at midnight, making everything in town deliriously bright. The great square of Pegasus hung in the sky, a lantern above him as he huddled in the alley. Whenever Gus smoked pot beneath that awe-some horizon, he felt shimmery and free, but this was only an illusion, and he knew it. He had grown convinced that his only method of escape was to perfect the trick no one had ever managed before. If he tried, it might be possible to succeed where Annie Howe had failed and at last turn the roses red.

  * * *

  IT WAS CUSTOMARY FOR THOSE WHO LIVED IN the big white houses to place lighted jack-o’-lanterns on their front porches on Halloween night as an invitation to children who might otherwise not be allowed past the front gate. The youngest trick-or-treaters set out in the late afternoon, dressed as pirates and princesses, demanding sweets at one house before rushing on through piles of crumbly leaves to the next. The stores in town had bins of free candy inside their doorways, and Selena’s was known to give out free mocha lattes. At the inn, complimentary pumpkin pie was served at dinner, and over at the Millstone, those customers who dressed in plastic masks and clown noses to celebrate the holiday were always the ones who drank so much they needed to be escorted home at the end of the evening.

  In the village of Haddan, Halloween was a night that often spelled trouble. Extra police were on duty, with the usual force of eight officers supplemented by a few local men hired for the evening at an hourly rate. Often the sight of a patrol car parked on the corner of Lovewell and Main was enough of a threat to minimize high jinks and misdemeanors. Still some people were bound to go wild on this night of the year, no matter what the consequences. There were always those who wrapped toilet paper around trees, particularly upsetting to Lois Jeremy, whose Chinese cherry trees were exceedingly fragile, and others who insisted upon egging front doors and passing cars. One year, the front window of Selena’s was smashed in and another year the back door to the florist’s was chopped down with an ax. Pranks such as these could cause more trouble than intended: A shop owner might turn out to have a gun behind his counter, even in Haddan. A car full of teenagers might speed away, taking the turn onto Forest or Pine too quickly, with its occupants winding up in the hospital and the cartons of eggs they’d brought along forgotten and broken to bits.

  There are those who will use any excuse to throw caution to the wind, especially on dark nights when goblins roamed Main Street, their hands sticky with chocolate and sugar. This year there was an east wind, always a bad omen, the fishermen say, and it went to work shaking the last of the leaves from the trees. The night was murky, with a threatening mackerel sky, but that didn’t deter the boys from Chalk House, who had a party in the woods every Halloween. It was an invitation-only affair, with two kegs of beer Teddy Humphrey ha
d agreed to supply for a surcharge of a hundred bucks, with another fifty thrown in for carting the heavy kegs into the woods.

  Carlin Leander had of course been invited. She had become the girl of the moment, the beautiful girl everyone wanted to be near. True, she was maintaining an A average and was thought to be the most talented swimmer on her team, but the most important factor in her sudden rise at the Haddan School was based upon a single fact: She had Harry McKenna. She’d come out of nowhere and won him without trying, infuriating several girls who had been after him for years. Amy Elliot was so envious that she sat at the foot of Carlin’s bed, begging for bits of information. Did Harry close his eyes when he kissed her? Did he whisper at such moments? Did he sigh?

  Amy wasn’t the only girl at St. Anne’s who wished she were in Carlin’s place, and there were those who had taken to copying Carlin, buying the same boots at Hingram’s that she had purchased, quick to forsake their own calfskin boots purchased for three times the price. Maureen Brown had begun swimming laps on weekends and Peggy Anthony now pinned up her hair with silver clips. Only days earlier, Carlin noticed Amy wearing a black T-shirt exactly like one of her own. When the shirt in question was tossed in the laundry basket, Carlin realized it was indeed her own, and that Amy had stolen it from her bureau drawer, a turnabout that gave Carlin the greatest of pleasure, for the coveted item had cost exactly two dollars and ninety-nine cents and was probably the cheapest bit of cloth Amy had ever worn.

  And yet there were times when Carlin wondered if she’d outsmarted herself. Harry was her very first love, but, every now and then, she didn’t recognize him. She would spy him across the quad and blink. He might have been any one of the senior boys, waving and calling her name. Carlin was reminded of how lonely her mother often seemed, in spite of a series of boyfriends. Much to her chagrin, Carlin understood that brand of loneliness now, for it was Gus Pierce she missed. His absence pained her; she felt it the way someone might feel a laceration or a broken bone. But what was she to do? Harry had persuaded her it was impossible to befriend Gus. Pierce was doing himself in with his bad attitude. Not a single student would sit next to Gus on those rare instances when he came to class; he stank and muttered to himself, his behavior growing more bizarre by the day. He was best avoided, for who knew where his odd ways would lead him?

  On Harry’s advice, Carlin hadn’t mentioned the Halloween party to Gus, but being at this festive occasion without him felt wrong. She was all dressed up in an outfit she’d borrowed from Miss Davis, having a horrible time, as bored as she was guilt-ridden. A fifth of rum had been added to the punch and one of the kegs had already run dry. Maureen Brown, plastered after two cups of beer, was showing off her orange silk Halloween panties to anyone who wished to partake of the view. As far as Carlin was concerned, the whole lot were nothing more than tiresome drunks, many of them in costume, with plastic vampire teeth and black wigs and white pancake makeup, items that were always on sale at the pharmacy at this time of year.

  A bonfire had been lit, and the sound of crackling wood echoed through the glen. Every shadow belonged to someone Carlin wished to avoid—that awful Christine Percy from the swim team, for one, and that horrible Robbie Shaw, who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. From where Carlin stood, on the dark edges of the party, she could spy Harry, preoccupied with keeping the bonfire alight, hooting with his friends each time a spray of cinders shot into the sky. Harry, too, was drunk and Carlin guessed he wouldn’t miss her if she slipped off for a while. She rid herself of her plastic cup of beer, which was warm anyway, and before anyone noticed, she took off in the direction of the graveyard and what she was sure would be far better company.

  The vintage black dress Carlin had borrowed from Miss Davis was made of old-fashioned chiffon, and the skirt collected burrs that tore into the fabric as she made her way across the meadow. Even here, she could hear the raucous party behind her; the bonfire threw thousands of sparks into the sky. By their foul, smoky light, Carlin could see that Gus was exactly where she expected to find him, stretched out on Dr. Howe’s marker. He gazed up as she approached.

  “Have fun at the orgy?” he called. Aside from the sparks lighting up the sky, the night was pitch dark and Carlin couldn’t make out either his expression or his intent.

  “It’s not exactly an orgy, just a keg of beer and some idiots dancing around a fire.” The air had a bitter scent, like woodbine or damp weeds. It was late; carloads of local teenagers had already cruised down Lovewell Lane, spraying shaving cream on poplar trees and boxwood hedges.

  “Are you sure you’re supposed to be talking to me?” Honesty was painful, and Gus wasn’t much in favor of it, but he’d been seriously hurt. True enough, Carlin had told him from the start that she’d never be his, but the fact she’d chosen Harry cut him deeply. It was as though he were bleeding anew each time he saw them together. “Maybe you’d better run along and play.”

  Carlin went to sit on Hosteous Moore’s grave. “What is wrong with you? I came here to see you and you’re attacking me.”

  “Aren’t you afraid your boyfriend will see us together?” Gus rubbed out his cigarette and embers skittered across Dr. Howe’s headstone into the tall grass, where a hedge of ballerina roses still bloomed weakly. “Bad girl,” Gus chided. “I’m sure you’ll be punished for not doing as you were told.”

  In was then, in the midst of this argument, that Betsy happened to come up the path. She had left the faculty party for a bit of air. It had been a silly event; even the costumes had been disappointing. Dr. Jones’s toga had been fashioned from a bath towel worn over his suit, and Bob Thomas and his wife had come as bride and groom, decked out in their old wedding clothes, outfits that had caused everyone to point to Betsy, calling out You’re next, as if it were the guillotine that awaited her in June rather than a lovely reception in the Willow Room. Betsy had stepped outside on the porch for only a moment, but as soon as she had, the wind seemed to be pushing her forward. She walked briskly, the sound of her breathing filling her head; she was doing her best not to be disappointed in Eric. True, he had made certain she was introduced to everyone, and he’d fetched her a drink, but when it came down to it, he’d seemed a good deal more interested in talking to Dr. Jones than to her. It was the bonfire Betsy spied first, and she thought that perhaps the woods had been set alight. Soon enough, the music and laughter assured her that it was only a party. Probably she should have gone over to break up the fun, but instead she went through the meadow and along the path, not realizing that anyone was there in the cemetery until she was almost upon them. Betsy recognized the boy as a tall, gawky freshman she’d occasionally noticed wandering through town during school hours. The angry girl who was smoking a cigarette was Carlin Leander. So many rules were being broken tonight, Betsy would have had just cause to order that both of these students be suspended immediately, had she been so inclined.

  “I thought you were smarter, Carlin,” she heard the boy say. “But now I see you’re just like all the rest.”

  His words must have stung, for there were tears in Carlin’s eyes. “You’re just jealous because no one wants you at their parties,” Carlin fired back. “No one even wants to talk to you, Gus. They won’t sit next to you because you’re so disgusting.”

  “Is that how you feel, too?” Gus said. “Friend.”

  “Yes, that’s how I feel! I wish I’d never met you!” Carlin cried. “I wish I’d told you to leave me alone when you first started bothering me on the train!”

  Gus stood up, his long arms drooping by his sides. He seemed tipsy, as though he’d been struck with a fist or an arrow. Watching him, Betsy felt a wave of sorrow; so that’s what love was like, she thought, that’s what it did to you.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Carlin quickly recanted. Her words had come in the white heat of pain, twisting themselves into sharp little barbs before she’d had time to be measured or true. “Gus, really, I didn’t mean it.”

  “Oh, yes you did.” Fro
m the look on his face it was clear he could not be convinced otherwise. “You meant every word.”

  The wind from the east was getting stronger, frightening deer mice and meadow voles into hiding, causing sparks from the bonfire to rise even higher into the black sky. Already, the trout in the river had found their way to the coldest pools in Sixth Commandment Pond, and had settled there for the night, in pockets so deep the wind passed right over them.

  Carlin was shivering in her borrowed black dress; she felt frozen inside and out. Gus expected too much, from her and from everyone. “Maybe it would be better if we didn’t talk to each other anymore,” she told him. They had both been wounded now, hurt in the way only people who care can be. “For both our sakes. Maybe we should just take a break.”

  “Right,” Gus said. “I deeply appreciate your concern.”

  He turned then and fled. Even though the gate had been left open, he went over the fence, in too much of a hurry to head for the path. Luckily for Betsy he went through the trees. There was nothing for anyone to do but watch him run, like a scarecrow fleeing his field, crisscrossing in and out of the shadows, his black coat flapping behind him. He carried so much suffering that it radiated out in waves. Sorrow is like that: whenever a person runs, it comes after him; it leaves an endless trail of pain. The night was dark and the woods thick with brambles, but Gus paid no mind. Some people were fated to win and some were meant to lose, and he knew exactly who he was. He was the boy who stumbled over his own big feet, the one whose heart slammed against his rib cage as he ran away into the woods, the one she would never love.

  A miserable night, but it wasn’t over yet, and even a loser such as himself might still win a few rounds. Gus walked with the wind at his back, destroyed and invigorated at the very same time. So Carlin no longer wished to associate with him—in a way, that decision freed him. Now he had nothing whatsoever to lose. The hour was late, and the village had emptied, with most trick-or-treaters already home in bed, dreaming of wicked tricks and of sweets. The bands of unruly teenagers had finished their holiday handiwork, hanging old sneakers on the branches of the elms along Main Street, threading ribbons of toilet paper through the spikes of Mrs. Jeremy’s fence. Candy corn had spilled onto the sidewalks, and whatever the wind didn’t blow away would be greedily devoured by squirrels and wrens before long. Shutters slammed and garbage cans rolled into the gutters. In front of town hall, the statue of the eagle looked more formidable than usual, having been painted black by a gang of local boys who’d then been forced to wash their telltale clothes in the frigid waters of Sixth Commandment Pond as they tried their best to get rid of the evidence, discovering for themselves that some things can never be washed away.