by Rachel Simon
It was great for a long time. Clarence and Smokes had no one looking over their shoulders. They could come and go as they pleased, say and do what they wanted, make up new rules every day if they were so inclined. They could drink to their hearts’ content, and they did. Clarence didn’t actually like drinking all that much or chewing tobacco, but he liked being with Smokes, who polished off whatever Clarence didn’t finish. Smokes also had a swagger Clarence envied and a way of glaring at staff that unnerved them. Sometimes he did it because they’d crossed him, sometimes just because he could.
“Doing things so others would fear you,” Clarence said to Kate, still looking at his shoes, “it felt good. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s true.”
“You never did anything to me,” Kate said.
“You steered clear of us.”
She wanted to tell him she’d worked hard at avoiding them and that many times, after she’d seen them demean a staff person or suspected them of walloping a resident, she’d wanted to confront them. Yet she’d held her tongue, and she often went home in despair over how little she could do if she wanted to keep her job. “Your friend’s dogs frightened me,” she said.
“And not just you.” He took another breath. “Smokes didn’t spare me, either. He used to call me a… he’d say I acted like a girl. He’d call me names and then get his dogs to lunge at me, holding their chains just at the point where they’d get choked back inches before they sank in their teeth. If I flinched, he’d say he’d had his proof and was going to tell the world. It wasn’t like I had some girlfriend and could point to her and say, ‘See? You’re wrong.’ So I learned to stand there with the teeth coming at me.”
A dread had taken root inside Kate. He wasn’t going to say—
“I still don’t understand why you’re telling this to me.”
“Because…” He rubbed his eyes, then looked back. “Because you cared about her.”
“Who?”
“The one we called No-No.”
“Lynnie.”
“I’d forgotten her name.”
“You came here to find out her name?” Kate stood up. “Then I am walking out of here, because you’re right. I cared about her, and I still do.” She spun around and stepped away.
“Wait.”
She stopped but didn’t turn.
“I haven’t come to find her. I don’t want to make her life any worse than I already did.”
Kate stayed right where she was. She could see Irwin watching her through the glass.
“That’s why I’m here,” Clarence went on hastily. “She couldn’t talk, so you never knew. I’ve been carrying it around all this time, and I need to say it.”
Kate hesitated. Lynnie had never said what happened, even when she’d regained the ability to speak. She’d given Kate the impression that it was the result of a rampage during a night of chaos. A night no one had ever understood.
Kate turned back but remained standing.
One day, he said, Uncle Luke called him and Smokes into his office and told them he expected to run for governor in a few years, or maybe senator. He said it in a way that only drove home how different he and Smokes were—the one brother who’d gone to medical school, the other who’d made nothing of his life. Smokes could tag along if his plans worked out, Uncle Luke said; they could probably find room for him. “It will pain me, of course,” Uncle Luke told him, smoking his cigarette. “Though you’d be in the gutter if it weren’t for me.”
Smokes was incensed by the time they left the office. They went back to the staff cottages and drank for hours, coming up with one thing after another that would ruin Luke’s plans. By the time they were ready for the night shift, Smokes was completely in a lather.
The first thing they did was round up the most aggressive boys in their cottage by banging on their iron beds, hauling them out, shouting they were playing a game. They armed the boys with clubs and sticks and told them to see how much they could break, and if they didn’t do their part, well, who knew how the dogs would react. The boys went at it, smashing their own windows, beating on one another. Smokes threw open their cottage door and egged them on, and they went streaming outside, shouting, clubbing every tree and lamppost they passed, until Smokes suddenly decided, when they reached A-3, to let them in. The staff watched as Smokes and Clarence and the dogs and a gang of boys poured inside. They’d had their cars keyed before, they weren’t going to interfere. But the noise must have alerted the residents, because as the mob entered the dayroom, many of the residents tried to hide under beds or in the bathroom. The boys mostly got caught up in the dayroom, throwing furniture around, having a grand time, and in the pandemonium Smokes saw Lynnie run into a storage closet. He knew Clarence had a gripe with her—she was a biter, she’d left a scar on Clarence’s hand, and she was by far the best-looking resident. So when Smokes smirked and said, “Hold the dogs,” and reached for the closet door, Clarence didn’t object. He’d looked the other way when Smokes had “copped a feel” with other female residents or told some of the low grade boys to do lewd things to the others. After all, Clarence had to prove his manliness—and what were any of them to him? So he just watched when Smokes hauled the door open and Clarence caught a glimpse of her, backing into the darkened room. Then the door closed. And although he heard her cry out, it was only, “No no no no!” until her voice was muffled. That’ll teach her not to bite, Clarence thought over the din of the barking, the girls screaming, the boys cracking chairs. The mayhem was so complete, a rat sprinted out of the bathroom. That was when Smokes emerged from the closet, zipping his pants. He took a look at the animal, seized it, and threw it at the dogs, who tore it to pieces. Then he turned back to the closet and said, “And that’ll be you if you tell.”
Kate stood above Clarence, her fist in front of her mouth. She lowered her hand. “How could you live with yourself after that?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing I can say that would make any sense.”
“Try me.”
“I told myself she deserved it.”
Kate felt herself become nauseated. “You’re really disgusting.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I could blame my drinking, or how common it was for the residents to get taken advantage of. I could blame my need to be liked by my… friend—”
“Friend.”
“I don’t want to make excuses. It’s indefensible.”
“Why didn’t you come forward right then?”
“How could I? Everything I knew was right there. To say anything would mean losing my whole life.”
“And it didn’t bother you to know that had happened?”
“I’d like to say it did. The person I am now would be tormented immediately and wouldn’t care about a job, a friend, anything. Wouldn’t have even been part of it.”
“So you just let it go?”
“For a long time.”
“No pangs of conscience at all?”
“Sadly, no.”
“Not even when she ran off with Number Forty-two?”
He sighed and shook his head.
“How could you not?” Kate said, almost screaming.
“It was a breakout. They didn’t happen much, but… no, it didn’t get me thinking.”
“It didn’t.”
“Please, Kate.”
“Why do you think she broke out?”
“She’d found someone who could get her over the wall. I mean, I guess I realized she must have been scared—”
“You thought she left because she was scared?”
“Well… yeah.”
“You didn’t consider any other reason?”
He stared at her. “What are you suggesting?”
“Why were those pages missing in her file?”
“You went to her file?”
“Of course I did. You might have broken the rules for fun and games, but some of us had better reasons. And the pages from that whole episode—her breakout and her return—w
ere gone. Did you take them?”
He lifted his head and nodded.
“Why?”
“Because if there was any record that we lost a resident—”
“Lost? You found Lynnie. You brought her back.”
“Right. But we lost Forty-two that night.”
“Why didn’t you take his file?”
“I did.”
She hadn’t known that. She’d never thought to look for his file. Only Lynnie’s.
“You took his file?”
“That’s correct.”
“I can’t believe it. So there’s no record he even existed?”
“Look, if it had come out that we’d let a resident escape and never found him, there was no way Luke would have kept his current job. We didn’t want him to get more of a swelled head than he already had, and our night of chaos did make him hold off on his political ambitions. But by the time Forty-two disappeared, we’d realized that if Luke went down as the head of the School, things would be ruined for us, too.”
“And what did you do with Forty-two’s file?”
“I held on to it while I tried to find him.”
“Find him?”
“Is that so strange?”
“What did you do to find him?”
“From Lynnie’s file I got the old lady’s name. I wanted her to tell me where he was, but by the time I went out to her farm, she’d disappeared. Then I thought he might have holed up in her barn or woods or something, only I couldn’t find him. I realized the place was being overseen by some kid from town, so I tried to get something out of him. The Hansberry boy, lived in the pharmacy with his parents. Got nothing.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well’s Bottom was a small place back then. Once Luke found out the old lady was selling her place, and the Hansberry boy was looking after it, he asked the postmaster to let him know if any letters sent to the Hansberrys were from her.”
“You spied on the mail?”
“Not me. It was bigger than me then. Luke was doing it. He even sent that driver of his, Edgar, to go to any return addresses.”
“All this to find Forty-two?”
“It just seemed odd, the old lady disappearing the morning after Forty-two slipped away from us. We thought he might have abducted her.”
“You know he wouldn’t have done that.”
“Or she was protecting him. Either way, they were linked somehow, so finding her meant finding him.”
“And”—she worked hard to make her voice sound sincere—“did you?”
“The one time Edgar got close, at some hotel in New York, she got away.”
“And then?”
“And then there weren’t any more return addresses from her. We gave up.”
“What do you think happened?”
“To Forty-two?”
She nodded.
“I think about it a lot. Probably froze to death in the woods that winter.”
“That’s what you think?”
“I’ve had lots of thoughts since I got sober and can look at things with a clear eye. I don’t know what happened to him. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.”
“He didn’t deserve what happened to him. He was a wonderful man.” She shook her head, thinking of how she’d arrange the secret meetings with Lynnie in her office. “He liked Lynnie. He gave her bouquets of feathers.”
Clarence had no response. Kate said, “Is that it?”
“It’s why I came here, yes. I wanted to apologize to someone about it.”
“Why not just go to Lynnie?”
“I… I went to the School the day it closed. I thought of saying something, but I wasn’t sober yet. I wasn’t ready.”
“Why not go now?”
He fumbled, then said, “It’s been so long. I don’t want to confuse her.”
“Why not go to the police?”
“The police?”
“It’s a crime, Clarence. You helped someone commit a crime.”
“It was twenty-five years ago.”
“So you won’t go to the police?”
He looked stricken. “I’m in a new life now. I work for a school system. I help kids who’ve got family problems, substance problems, and try to keep them in school. I’ve got a wife and a kid. Something like this—it could ruin me.”
“You could have kept it to yourself.”
“I have, for a long time. I just—Kate, you don’t know what it’s like, living with the knowledge that you let something like that happen.”
“That’s true.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No, I’m glad to get the full story.”
His face relaxed a bit.
“So is that it?” she asked, feeling her brow grow even more tense.
He nodded and then said, “I do have one more question.”
“So do I.”
“You do?”
“Clarence,” she said, and she looked at him with a level gaze, “I want you to be perfectly straight with me. Don’t you think there was a reason Lynnie ran off just when she did?”
He looked at her with shock. “What are you saying?”
“Count it. Count backwards. She ran off in November.”
His eyes flickered. “No.”
“Clarence”—and she was filled with rage toward him, and guilt over all she had not done, and sorrow for everyone else—“do the math.”
“You can’t be telling me—”
“It’s true.”
“Twenty-five years!”
“That’s right.”
“Where is it? He—she? Where?”
“She.”
“Oh, my God. Where is she? With Forty-two?”
“Forty-two is dead. He drowned that night.”
“Dear Lord.”
“My friends gave him a service, but his body was never found.”
“Then where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I did for a long time. She was with the old lady. Martha. And Martha made sure Eva Hansberry always knew where they were. And for the longest time they were on the run—from you. She stopped putting return addresses on the envelopes, but kept the letters coming until the girl was fourteen.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, Clarence.”
“You don’t know anything more about the child after that?”
“The last I knew, there was a chance she’d be moving to somewhere near Denver. Wherever she ended up, she was given a good life. A better life than her mother’s.”
He was bent over now, as if in pain. His head was in his hands.
Kate felt her whole body shaking and turned again toward the door. Geraldine and Irwin were now standing outside, watching. She’d been here so long, she’d forgotten she was at work. Mr. Todd and Mr. Eskridge had probably played several matches by now. It was well past time for Mrs. Ilana’s stroll through the garden. Kate was twenty-five years late.
“Clarence,” she said, turning back to look down at the top of his bald head, his fingers splayed over his scalp, “you had another question?”
He dropped his hands to his lap. Then he lifted his head. “I don’t need to ask it.”
“I doubt I’ll ever see you again, so you should just ask me now.”
He looked away. She watched his gaze travel back in time, where he no doubt found a person who had once looked like him. Then he blanched and said, “I was going to ask if you hate me.”
Kate looked down at him. “I’m not the person you should be worried about.” She turned and walked away.
Heading back inside the building, Kate stormed past Geraldine and Irwin, holding up her hand so they wouldn’t ask anything. She continued through the doors and down the hall toward the solarium, her body stiff with fury. Poor Lynnie! All this time she’d been living with such a horrific experience! That was why she’d needed to hide the baby. That was why Forty-two had broken her out�
�and died!
Kate reached the sunny room only to find it empty. She looked at her watch. She’d lost track of time; the Westbrook residents had gone back to their dining areas for lunch, and she needed to return to her duties. But possessed by a rage so great she could not move, she peered into the midday light streaming through the windows and asked herself: What should I do now? And in response she felt that familiar push inside: the force she told others was her intuition, but she knew was the will of God. It did not, though, tell her what to do. It told her she needed to confess.
She stumbled back, appalled. She put her hand to her heart, wishing it were not true. Then she lifted her head with a deep cry she’d held in for so many years. She had been part of a world where slapping and spitting and name-calling and restraining and “copping a feel” went on day after day, season after season, resident after resident. Although Kate had never engaged in a single act of cruelty, and although she’d devoted herself to protecting and supporting all the people she served, she’d done nothing to stop what was happening. How many residents besides Lynnie had been assaulted in unspeakable ways? How many people besides Kate had stifled their conscience? How many mouths had stayed shut—for so long—while the least of these suffered immeasurably?