“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t have an answer for you.”
He got agitated and more animated. He took his wire-rimmed spectacles off and set them gently on the table. With his elbows on his desktop, he clapped his hands in front of him and touched his fingertips to his lips.
“Look, Augustine, I know these boys are your friends but . . .”
“Actually sir, that’s not true at all.”
“… but please look at it from my point of view,” he interrupted. “I am trying to understand why two young men who share a small dormitory have each produced the same version of a very important document. I need to know the truth.”
I still wasn’t going to rat anyone out but it was getting to a point where I had to say something. My best choice was to help Ben.
“Ben is a smart kid,” I finally said. “Ben has always been a smart kid. I went to high school with him. Actually, he won some sort of writing award our senior year.”
“What about your friend Duncan? Has he always been a smart kid, as you say?”
The Dean caught on quickly. I was no rat but I had no problem giving him directions.
“Well sir, I’m not sure. I’ve never read any of his past papers. I’m sure if you looked at his previous work yourself you’d be able to tell me if Duncan has always been a smart kid.”
Realization and relief washed over the Dean’s face. He stuck his glasses back on his face.
“I see,” he said. He stood up with surprising quickness and agility. He gestured for me to do the same and strolled out from behind his large oak desk.
“Mr. Shaw, thank you for coming in here today,” he said and extended his hand. I gripped his yellowing fingers and shook. “I appreciate you taking the time.”
“I don’t think I gave you much help though, sir.”
He gave a slight wink. It was like a hand closing around the black pebble.
“No, no you were right not to tattle on your friends. But again, thank you. After our discussion I am back on the road to truth. I have a clear map that should lead me to it, as was the goal from the start, right? If you ever need anything just give my receptionist Mary a call.”
“Thank you, sir. Have a nice afternoon.”
He led me to the big double oak doors and just before he pulled them open he said, “Best of luck with the semester, Mr. Shaw. And please don’t start any fires.” He gave me another half-wink.
Just outside Ben and Duncan sat on the same bench I had sat on thirty minutes earlier. Neither one looked up but Duncan’s posture screamed timid and terrified. He heard the Midland myths from several friends. Ben, on the other hand, was blatantly furious. They sat on opposite ends of the bench.
“Mary,” the Dean yelled from inside his office, “Could you call young Duncan’s professor and get copies of all his essays from last semester? Have them sent over immediately. In the meantime send Duncan in here.”
Dean Midland’s drawl squeezed the life out of the name. There was no escape there.
Duncan and Ben both looked up and saw me exiting. All our eyes met. My only reaction was a shoulder shrug and confused look. It had an opposite effect on each. Ben’s angry exterior seemed calmed by my inclusion in the incident. Duncan’s face instantly screwed up with rage, mingled alongside the terror.
Duncan started to get up, staring in my direction. I stopped at the other end of the bench. But before anything materialized the young receptionist cut between us and grabbed him.
“Right this way, the Dean is waiting for you,” she said.
Duncan looked back over his shoulder.
“You better not have fucked me,” he said bitterly.
“Excuse me, young man!” Mary squeaked. “That is no way to talk in the Dean’s office!”
“And no way to talk in front of a lady,” the Dean hissed from the doorway.
His reprimand continued as he closed the large doors and the three disappeared into his office.
Ben and I were alone for a few minutes. He asked me what the hell was going on.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “They know you’re a smart kid and as soon as they get Duncan’s old papers, they’ll know he’s not.”
“Be honest with me, did you know he was stealing my shit?”
“I’m not going to rat anybody out, Ben. You know me. But anything I might have had a hunch on, I wasn’t going to say until I was sure.”
“What the hell, Shaw. If you knew you should’ve told me. I could’ve stopped it then.”
“Come on, Ben. You would have killed him. Really, he would at least be in traction right now and you’d be the one in trouble.”
Ben knew I was right. He looked back at the floor.
A student with a thick manila folder burst into the outer receptionist area huffing and out of breath. He looked around for direction.
“I have some files for Dean Midland from Professor Gilmore.”
The large wooden doors opened a crack and Mary slid out.
“I’ll take those, thank you,” she said. Before she went back into the Dean’s office she looked back at Ben and smiled an encouraging smile.
I told Ben I’d wait for him back in the room and we’d go grab some lunch.
The Dean must have decided Duncan’s guilt before I was even back to our room because Ben arrived about thirty minutes after me. Ben was given an A for the class and the express apologies of the Dean and his staff.
But he wasn’t happy.
“They didn’t expel him,” Ben said immediately when he came into the room. “That little weasel copied my work, verbatim, and they let him stay here.”
I was as shocked as Ben. The school had a very clear zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism. I definitely didn’t expect Dean Midland to loosen his grip on Duncan.
Ben didn’t even wait for me to inquire.
“Obviously he fails the class and he’s going to get incompletes for every one of his other classes until they can investigate whether or not he cheated in them too.”
“So it’s like he was never here last semester.”
“Exactly. So the Dean said something like well since he was never here, we won’t throw him out. He’ll start all over again this semester and if there is any inkling of treachery, he’s gone for good. Plus he’s gotta do some kind of community service thing.”
“Well, that’s sort of harsh. Especially for Duncan, he hates helping people.” I thought the minor joke would make Ben laugh. It didn’t. I couldn’t blame him. Inside I was furious at the Dean for not tossing Duncan to the curb and ridding him from my life for good. Maybe I should have come right out and said I saw him stealing Ben’s work. Maybe the clear evidence would have sounded the death knell.
“What the fuck?” Ben grunted. “I hate that little prick!”
“Forget about it. You got your grade. He got his. He’s out of our room and out of our lives. It’s over,” I said. I knew it probably wasn’t.
Ben relented, grabbed his coat and said, “Yeah, let’s just go get a beer.”
“It’s lunchtime,” I said.
“Like I said, let’s go get a beer.”
Chapter 26
The antics from freshman year faded fast. But in the ensuing three years, Duncan and I played cat and mouse: a dangerous, gossip-fueled game of tag.
After the cheating incident, Duncan blamed his academic woes on me. He refused to accept responsibility for blatantly stealing his roommate’s work. How he thought he’d get away with it all, I never understood. But from that incident forward, the rift I had seen cutting between us ripped open and flooded with bitter resentment. Friendship terminated, rivalry blossomed.
Unfortunately, as a former friend he knew exactly how to hit each of my nerves. Initially, it worked. He prompted me several times to lose my temper in front of others. What friends I didn’t lose to those outbursts were caught up in the series of lies and rumors Duncan spread around our dormitory. The lies were rarely about my family, my friends or me.
&nbs
p; Rather, Duncan spread rumors about other people and attributed their accuracy to me. Suddenly it wasn’t Duncan telling people that Jim in room 306 used Nair on his chest or that Gordie from the rugby team got an STD from sleeping with his roommate’s sister. No, it was Augustine Shaw spreading the juicy tidbits. No matter that Shaw didn’t know Jim from 306 or that Shaw never saw a rugby match. Duncan played to the right people, weak people, who believed an earnest face and serious tone of voice. Most people never really cared what was true and what was false; they just cared who said it. The source was the crux of their reaction.
I talked my way out of several jock beatings. The adamant ones who ignored my innocence plea frequently backed off when Shoddy and Ben appeared at my side. When backup was scarce, I endured some unwarranted pain. Jim in room 306 pushed me through the screen door in the common area. Gordie the rugby player went so far as to kick in our dorm room door, splintering it at the hinge. Thankfully no one was there because Gordie was unnaturally strong.
Eventually, most people got wise to Duncan’s mischief. He simply overplayed his hand. Even Flask started asking him how he knew I was the root of the rumor mill, especially since Duncan and I never talked to each other.
By the time we left freshman year for summer break, I lost any opportunity to form lasting friendships with anyone other than Shoddy and Ben. Nobody thought I was an undying gossip anymore but nobody cared to be my friend either.
Duncan, on the other hand, readily assumed the jester’s role. In our private high school, surrounded by academic-obsessed overachievers, everyone saw him as a pathetic joker. But in college he found his gang of fools. He was their clown king, spreading malice for entertainment value.
For the next three years he embraced the persona. He took swipes at others in any way he could that didn’t involve physical interaction. But I was always his pet project. Augustine Shaw was always the default punch line.
Sophomore year I received a series of prank phone calls. Some I fell for. I was directed to not attend a class because the professor was ill. He wasn’t. Others were much more obviously organized by Duncan. These questioned Lindsey’s virtue and called Lily every insult from whore to wench.
Junior year he took it to the next level, introducing technology to the game. He had a friend working in the Residence Life Office steal my dorm room lock combination. One Friday night he and his friends set up shop in my building’s hallway, cell phone video cameras at the ready. Duncan, wearing a backwards New York Yankees cap, ran down the hallway jumping and smashing a dozen drop ceiling tiles. He then pulled the fire extinguisher from its holder and sprayed it, immediately causing the fire alarm to blare. His accomplices then taped him approaching my door and type in the combination. He waited until some of the other doors in the hallway opened and people emerged. With the fire extinguisher’s contents emptied and floating about, the other emerging people saw only a Duncan’s backside enter my dorm room and slam the door.
I saw the tape during my disciplinary hearing. I admitted it was convincing evidence but Duncan missed one important fact: I hated the New York Yankees. I was a diehard Red Sox fan. Plus, countless people saw me out at the bar that night.
No one ever got in trouble but the broken ceiling tiles and fire extinguisher carried a hefty maintenance fine for our dorm building. Again Duncan succeeded in creating me a long list of enemies.
We carried on an immature animosity for four years. We traded blows. I wasn’t completely innocent but I consistently lagged in creativity and hostility level. I tried to forget him but he never let me.
My college timeline was dotted with incidents of Duncan’s subterfuge. They were a pox on an already plagued four years.
He was there the night Lily died. If he wasn’t she would still be alive. I was sure of that. I couldn’t prove anything, but the nagging suspicion over his involvement crept through me like a disease that never cured.
Did he use roofies? Was it something worse? What was he hoping to get from it? Why her? Why? Of course, deep down I knew why.
More recently, in my weakest moments—usually laying next to Lindsey trying to recapture some of the love or at least the lust I shared once with Lily—I admitted to myself that I shared the blame equally with Duncan.
That was only part of it. I hated him most because despite my torrid attempts to separate him and her, to eliminate one and elevate the other, to walk in the light and leave the darkness behind—Duncan and Lily became inextricably linked. Their stories were interwoven with me being the focal point; two long ribbons, one the darkest black the other pure white, spun in unhappy ceremony around me, the maypole. Their lives wrapped around my own until they were all I could see, all I could sense. I was caught, tied too tight to feel the outside world and forced to watch my tripping, laughing cohorts stumble through their collegiate celebrations, unable to participate, unable to enjoy.
Most times when I thought about Lily, some form of Duncan appeared. In fact, a pleasant memory of her was always followed by an unsettling one of him. If my mind daydreamed about a dinner Lily and I once had, suddenly Duncan would be the waiter serving the meal. His face lingered in the shadows around the golden visage of Lily emblazoned on my memory. The glow slightly tarnished. He somehow managed to hold down her spirit like an ethereal chain: the weight of him preventing her from ascension. She was an angel and he clipped her wings. Hers was a tilted halo. And I hated him for it above anything else.
Chapter 27
Senior year.
The night before we left for our last spring break.
My friends and I celebrated the onset of our one, last breather before graduation by doing what we did best: getting drunk. Lindsey, Shoddy, Emily and I slammed some tequila shots in a dorm room—it may or may not have been one of ours—and went to Primal.
We were leaving the next day for Key West. Because I would start the drive in the driver’s seat, I planned to drink moderately. Emphasis on planned.
Primal was surprisingly crowded. I had assumed the majority of campus would leave as soon as possible for home or some tropical destination. The school said they locked the doors promptly at 6:00pm the Friday before break. Everyone knew they were full of it and their keys and electronic ID cards would remain useable throughout the weeklong vacation.
Pondering the existence of such a large crowd, I waded through Primal, my head already in a fog and getting foggier with each step deeper into the music and alcohol haze. I barely noticed when I bumped into Ben.
“Hey, what’s up Shaw?” he yelled, straining his voice over the loud music.
I hadn’t seen Ben much since we moved out of our original dorm room. We did our best to stay in touch but it grew increasingly difficult, and increasingly tiresome, to do so once he moved off campus into a one-bedroom apartment, claiming he wanted to spend his senior year in peace.
“How’s it going,” I yelled, attempting to get my voice higher than the speakers. We gave each other the typical college guy hand shake/half-hug. “I thought you were going to Cancun with like, half of campus?”
“Yea, I am,” Ben said. “But we don’t leave until tomorrow morning.”
“So are all these people going too?” I said, sweeping my hand out over the pulsing mass.
“Most of them. Some travel company came to campus a few months ago and sold everyone the same package deal to Mexico. All the flights leave tomorrow. I have the first flight out bright and early.”
“That explains why this place is so packed.”
“Everyone’s getting a head start on Spring Break,” he said.
He raised his plastic cup and waited for me to copy. I tapped the rim of my cup to his and moved my lips in the motion of “cheers” but didn’t say anything and didn’t follow up with a sip.
“Not drinking?” Ben asked.
“Saving it for Florida,” I replied, again reaching for a vocal volume my throat wasn’t prepared to reach. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. Early. I’ve got the first leg of
driving, so . . .”
“Oh that’s right, I forgot you were driving to the Sunshine State. Quite a hike. At least you have Shoddy, though.”
“Yeah, Lindsey and Emily too. Going as far away from this place as you can go, at least on this side of America.”
“Key West? Jesus, are you really driving all the way down there?”
“Every god damn mile until we hit the end of Route 1. Lindsey claims it will actually save us money in the long run, if we split gas money and all that.”
“That’s all well and good, but does she realize how far it is? You literally can’t drive any farther away. The road just ends there.”
“I’m sure she knows that,” I said without hiding my sarcasm.
Ben shrugged.
“Well then I just have one more question for you.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” I said, smiling because I knew what he was about to say.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I had to laugh because the tequila presently worming its way through my head was doing a good job of putting me out of my fucking mind.
“Not yet,” I said, “but ask me that again after twenty-four hours in a confined space with those three.”
Ben’s nod was laced in agreement, and sympathy.
“If I were you,” he said, “I’d be doing anything but staying sober tonight.”
A line of underclassmen pushed between us. We both shuffled backwards and were temporarily separated. We were drinking and chatting in a high-traffic footpath.
As I shuffled back towards Ben, I knocked into someone’s elbow. I knew I probably sloshed their drink but that was part of the package in Primal, a nightly casualty of partaking in a crowded bar.
“So how’s living alone,” I started to say but was cut off by the same elbow I previously nudged, digging into my lower back. I ignored it. Some drunken asshole was trying to get me going.
I tried to restart my conversation with Ben but another vein of traffic slid between us.
Stone Angels Page 20