Black Diamond Fall

by Joseph Olshan

  The group looks shocked by the force of his arrival and confrontation. Nobody answers at first.

  “Look,” Sam persists, “if somebody is going to call me that, then he needs to own up to it.”

  Silence for several moments more and then all the eyes focus on a gray-haired portly man, probably in his mid-forties, slightly taller and admittedly bigger than Sam.

  “You don’t belong here . . .” The man speaks up at last.

  “Here?” Sam repeats. “You mean Vermont?”

  “You know what I mean,” the guy says, bolder now and with characteristic New England flatness. “You belong in jail.”

  “Okay, that’s quite enough,” Sam hears somebody say but not quite loud enough for everybody else to hear. Now some of the other men tamp down the accuser’s rant by telling him, “Come on, Doug. Lay off.”

  “You guys just won’t say how you really feel,” says the man named Doug.

  “You are not bringing us into this!” exclaims the original dissenting voice, much louder now. A wiry older man with clear eyes has just spoken. Turning to Sam with a shrug and a kind, apologetic look, he then says, “I read the paper and I know you’ve been cleared. So I don’t know what this fool is on about. Don’t lump me with him, please.”

  Sam is both surprised and grateful. He says to the man, “I won’t. Thank you, sir.”

  “My name is Ad.” The man stands up and then turns to the man called Doug. “Don’t you say another word. Got that? I will never sit at any table with you again.”

  Ad holds the door for him so that he can hobble outside. He sees the guy who bought the twelve-pack of beer getting into a shiny new black rig and who makes a point of nodding to him.

  “Looks like you did a number on your leg.” Ad is examining Sam’s ankle-to-knee cast.

  As Sam explains about the skiing accident, it occurs to him that the event (reported in the Valley News) probably needs no explanation. Then again, the New York Times is tucked under the man’s arm, so maybe he doesn’t read the Valley News.

  “Thank you for saying that . . . in my defense.” Sam is leaning heavily on his right crutch, trying to stretch away an ache in his lower back, the result of having been on his feet for longer than usual.

  “I should be apologizing to you for being in bad company,” Ad says. “Where I come from in Wisconsin, there are bigots, too, but in the Midwest, people tend to think before they open their mouths.”

  Sam feels quite rattled as he drives south on Interstate 89 to Concord. It occurs to him there probably are very few places in the U.S. where an incident involving a possibly murdered gay student could have happened without rousing some acid reflux of bigotry and suspicion. Still, to be vilified like this in his own town, in a state he grew up in . . . Sam’s parents are both dead, and while he misses them, he’s glad they don’t have to bear the burden that their son has ever been a suspect for murder.

  He misses Luc with an intensity that almost makes it impossible to drive.

  * * *

  Luc said to him one Sunday night, “If something happened to you, I wouldn’t even know it. Who would even tell me?” It was early December and Luc was preparing to drive back to Carleton. Snow was forecast for later in the evening; however, when Sam glanced out the window, it was already flurrying heavily. He suggested that Luc spend the night and leave early in the morning, and Luc argued that, since it was supposed to snow at least six inches, the roads could be more treacherous close to dawn.

  “You’re always worrying about me,” Sam told him, “but here you are about to go out in the beginning of a snowstorm. What happens if that little car of yours doesn’t make it over the Carleton Gap?”

  Luc smiled confidently. “It’ll make it. I’ve never not made it.”

  And then Luc pointed out that if, for example, Sam got into a motorcycle wreck, it could be weeks before he’d hear anything. Sam explained that he’d given Luc’s number to his friend, Lynn, in New York City, and that Lynn’s is the top name on his contact list with doctors and health insurance and even with the alarm company that monitors his house for cold and excessive heat and smoke. “She would let you know. I told her to. Meanwhile, I have nothing, no contact info for you.”

  “I’m twenty-three years old, what’s going to happen to me?” Luc said with the typical self-assurance of someone whose life ahead probably appears like an endless ribbon of dry roadway.

  Nevertheless, Sam reasoned that if anything were to happen to Luc, he’d probably never find out until months later, or maybe not even at all. Sam doesn’t read the local paper, and even if he contacted Carleton, the college would refuse to give information to a stranger.

  “Then you’d call my parents,” Luc said. “I told you where they live. I told you their number is listed.”

  Not an easy conversation.

  On the spur of the moment, they ended up making love. And in the depths of their hunger for one another, it occurred to Sam that what seemed like a heightened eroticism was rather something more primal. Maybe like life wanting to perpetuate itself in the midst of preoccupation with death.

  And afterward, amid a static silence, watching Luc gathering his clothing strewn around the bedroom, methodically folding what still needed to go in his overnight bag, Sam said, “Why don’t you just tell them? I’m sure you’re imagining worse than it actually will be.”

  Luc turned his pale, penetrating gaze on Sam. “But if I’m not sure about myself, about what I want, why should I tell them?”

  “But you do know what you want, Luc! Come on. You’ve said so.”

  “I want you, yes . . .,” Luc admitted. Then with a short shrug said, “But I also want to get married.”

  Sam grabbed a towel lying on the floor. “You told me you couldn’t and wouldn’t get married.”

  Luc shook his head and glanced down at his overnight bag. “I did . . . I do say that. And then I get confused.”

  A dead-end conversation. Desolate, Sam glanced out the bedroom window. The spot lamps outlined a silver eddy of snow swirling down more heavily than before. “The weather has gotten worse.”

  Luc approached him from behind and fit his chin on Sam’s shoulder, something he always did whenever Sam got upset. “It doesn’t matter because I’m going to stay until tomorrow. And if the roads are really bad, I won’t go back to school.”

  Sam turned around to find Luc grinning widely. In the beginning of their relationship, Luc would never even have wanted to spend the night. But now with the departure postponed until tomorrow, Sam, mired in a sad realization of Luc still being conflicted, was able to rise into the momentary embrace of happiness.

  The snow has begun to fall fairly steadily, and the highway quickly accumulates a white lacquer that is slick with motor oil. Suddenly there is a large animal standing in the middle of the highway and Sam realizes at once it’s a moose. His first thought: Good thing I’m not going fast because of the weather. His second thought: Good thing I broke my left leg instead of my right one. Gut instinct dictates that he must do what he can to avoid the creature. He knows he can’t slam on the brakes; he gives them a few quick frantic taps to decelerate; however, the massive animal has remained stationary. The car begins fishtailing dangerously from side to side. He manages to swerve around the moose and soon is farther down the highway, his frantic breathing calming down, his rocketing heart slowly sloughing off the effects of adrenaline. All at once he feels a sudden flash of heat in the car and, then strongly aware of Luc, of Luc’s smell: fresh laundry soap and slightly sweet sweat. He could swear that some presence has invaded the car with him; maybe it is Luc—from wherever he might be. Could he somehow be asking for Sam’s intervention . . . in order to . . . save his life?

  PART 3

  When some beloved voice that was to you

  Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,

  And sile
nce, against which you dare not cry,

  Aches round you like a strong disease and new—

  What hope? What help? What music will undo

  That silence?

  —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  February 23; Norwich, Vermont; 4 degrees, snow and gusting winds

  The children have always loved macaroni and Vermont cheddar—well into adulthood—and Eleanor, who has cooked hardly anything in weeks, loses herself for a hour or so, making the meal for her daughter’s arrival. The house fills with the smells of melted cheese and organic semolina pasta, and at some point, Janine wanders into the kitchen, smiles weakly at her mother and nods with appreciation.

  But Janine finds herself unable to eat much when they sit down to an early dinner. Giles has taken out a bottle of Chianti from the old wooden card catalog where they store wine, but one look of disdain from his daughter makes him reconsider. Eleanor watches him open the drawer and carefully replace the wine from where he’d prized it. If only she could have the same effect on her husband! But they often say the oldest child can evolve into the parent feared by all.

  The table is set for three, not four—once again Luc is conspicuously absent.

  With a glance at his empty spot, Janine says, “It’s become more and more of a reality as I’ve been here.”

  “Now you know what . . . well, what we’ve been living with,” her father says.

  “I guess I just figured because, you know, he was at school . . . it wouldn’t be all that much different.”

  “Except, of course, we don’t know when he’s coming home . . . from school,” Eleanor says.

  “Or from anywhere,” Giles mutters.

  “Of course,” Janine says. “Foolish of me to think otherwise. Denial, I suppose.”

  He’ll come home, Eleanor grimly thinks, one way or another. Because they’ll find him eventually. Whether it’s living or dead.

  Janine sighs and puts down her fork, ruminative. Her eyes are the same shape as Luc’s, only not as pale in color. Yes, he did always have a wraith-like look in his eye—could that have been the portent of something? First, the alarming head injury, now the second unfathomable disappearance. Despite herself, Eleanor is reading anything into everything and what she might find faintly reassuring—seeing her son’s gestures, expressions, all genetically linked to her daughter’s gestures and expressions—she also finds disturbing, reminders of his fuller being, extant or not. She can’t imagine how a mother of an only child can go on after losing them. Even before this, when she heard such stories, she would switch off. Because to feel the reality of their pain would be unbearable. Wouldn’t most of these mothers want to, yearn to, die themselves? Wouldn’t they cease to fear death and long for it? To put an end to the unrelenting misery?

  “You all right, Mom?” Janine has reached across the table and has been tightly holding her hand. And Eleanor realizes this is because she’s been crying, emotions all run together, indistinguishable from one another.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  Eleanor glances at Giles, who looks inconsolable; she knows by now that he’s blaming himself for his own failures to reach his son, his casual cruelty, and that her bitter criticism of him has at last wormed its way into his heart. She regrets making him suffer more than he needs to. It’s hard to speak but she manages, “Just gotten used to . . . the fact that it’s Dad and me here. You’re . . . well, proof there’s more to it. And it brings me back to him. To Luc.”

  Janine gently releases her hand and slowly sits back in her chair, the still steaming square of mac and cheese barely touched. “But do eat something, Jan,” Giles coaxes.

  She glances at him with a frown. “I’m not really hungry, Dad.”

  “Make your mother happy.”

  Janine shoots Eleanor a guarded look of questioning.

  “Eat what you want or what you can,” Eleanor amends and Janine delicately consumes a forkful and says with false brightness, “Good as always.”

  When she was a child, Janine often picked at her food whereas Luc would be ravenous, and if he were here now, he would certainly be polishing off every morsel and then heaping his plate with one or two helpings more. Eleanor can’t believe this is happening not to anybody else, but to her. It seems so wrong and obviously so unfair. Can’t I trade this in for something else? She asks the dark façade of Providence when the phone rings. Grabbing the cordless handset that she placed on the floor next to her, Eleanor identifies the caller. “It’s the cop, Jenkins,” she says, glancing at her watch and panicking. “I had a feeling it was going to be tonight. I can’t bear answering it. I can’t bear to hear it.”

  “I’ll take the call,” Giles offers with an unsteady voice.

  Somehow in the midst of her desperation, Eleanor realizes that the last thing she wants is to get the bad news from her husband; she will associate the moment she hears of her son’s fate to her husband’s wretched lips uttering the words. And so she picks up finally, light-headed and breathless.

  Jenkins says immediately, “Good evening, Mrs. Flanders. Glad you’re in.”

  “We’re all here,” she says, glancing at Janine and Giles, needing them to help her face the news.

  “It’s not about Luc,” Jenkins says. And once again a reprieve comes, the instant relief almost narcotic.

  She meets the terrified eyes of her husband and daughter and repeats, “It’s not Luc.”

  Jenkins continues, “Detective Kennedy and I are outside your son’s apartment. And we’re watching an altercation between Elizabeth Squires and Charlie Taft.”

  “An altercation,” Eleanor repeats automatically.

  “We’re parked a bit down the street.”

  “Hang on,” Eleanor hears Kennedy say. “Looks like they’re splitting apart now.”

  A few beats of silence and then Jenkins contradicts, “No they’re not.” And then, “Mrs. Flanders, do you happen to know how well Charlie Taft and Elizabeth Squires know each other?”

  “Unfortunately I can’t comment on that. I’ve met Charlie Taft only once. And Elizabeth Squires only twice.” Then something occurs to her. “Wouldn’t this whole ordeal with Luc have brought them closer together?”

  “Possibly,” Jenkins says.

  Janine, in the meantime, has grown agitated, rubbing her hands nervously together. Reaching across the table, she says, “Mom, let me speak to him?” Eleanor reflexively resents her daughter’s involvement in the conversation. But Janine is persistent and trills her fingers impatiently. “Mom, I really need to talk to him.”

  Afraid of what her daughter might say, Eleanor glances helplessly at Giles, who says, “Go ahead, Elle.”

  “I will give it to her!” Eleanor says testily. “But I want to listen to both sides of the conversation. So just hang on.” She hands the phone to Janine and hurries into the hallway, where another cordless handset is standing upright on a small wooden table. Grabbing it, she returns to the kitchen, hits the talk button and says, “Go ahead.”

  Leaning her head to the side and tossing her fine mane of hair away from her ear, Janine says with great composure, “Hello, Mr. Jenkins, I’m Janine, Luc’s sister. Sorry to barge in.”

  “Not a problem,” Jenkins says.

  “I’m on the other extension,” Eleanor announces.

  Janine continues, “I do know Taft and Squires a bit more than my mom.”

  “Okay,” Jenkins says. “Please tell me everything you know.”

  “Taft is a player and Elizabeth used to give Luc grief about it. Like Taft was . . . let’s call it a bad influence on him. And something else: Taft dated somebody I know who now goes to NYU. According to her, he’s sadistic. One of these guys who can find a woman’s weakness and exploit it to his own advantage.”

  “I understand,” Jenkins says. “Wait, so are you sugges
ting they might be having an . . .intimate relationship of some kind? And he—Taft—is somehow exploiting her?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure she has no use for him. And I certainly don’t think they’d bond over Luc’s disappearance.”

  “Well, they are together tonight. And they’re arguing. Like they know one another pretty well.”

  “Well, they’re probably arguing about my brother.”

  “Really? How so?”

  “Maybe Taft somehow came between Luc and Elizabeth.”

  “I see. So what is your take on your brother’s current relationship with Elizabeth Squires?” Jenkins asks her.

  “I don’t have a take. All I know is she’s always been kind of stalkerish.”

  Even though Eleanor has thought the same thing herself, she finds herself once again defending Elizabeth. “But can that really be true?” she interjects.

  Janine looks over at her with stark sadness. “Mom, you don’t know enough about this, I’m sorry.” Eleanor is unable to determine if Janine is commenting on her current understanding of what is going on or her capacity for understanding what is going on.

  Jenkins is saying, “Stalkerish? How so?”

  “Luc told me she went through his things, his drawers, his papers. That one night he woke up and she was reading his diary. She was holding her phone and was going to use the screen light to read it. After that, he just kept the diary hidden. In my opinion, that kind of behavior can drive people away.”

  “This is very helpful, thank you, Janine, ” Jenkins says. “I may want to ask you some follow-up questions.”

  “Anytime.”

  Once the phone call has ended, the two women stare at each other. At last Giles says, “Why didn’t you tell us what Elizabeth did?”

  “That she went through Luc’s shit?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Eleanor chimes in.

  “It’s really not so unusual, Mom,” Janine says sadly. “People in relationships do these sorts of things when they start to question how devoted the other person is.”