The Banks of Certain Rivers

by Harrison, Jon

  “What happened?”

  “What did I just do?”

  Eventually it subsided. The summer after his almost-fight with Steve Dinks he got beyond his brooding anger and was back to something like his old self. Chris was Chris, older, physically bigger, and with an unfairly earned comprehension of sorrow and loss. And an understanding too that time can be misplaced, rage can cause blank spaces or ellipses in our own personal timelines that only those who were around to see can document for us. Those missing spaces in his memory frightened him, terrified him, and he got himself together to avoid ever having to feel that terror again.

  At the time, to be honest, I couldn’t relate. At all. I’d comfort him, for sure, saying things like: “Everything’s okay, Chris, I understand.”

  I understand, I’d say, but I didn’t at all.

  Now, confronted by my own impossible ellipsis, my own lost time, I finally understand. Confronted by that same terror, I can only ask myself:

  What happened?

  “Mr. Kazenzakis?”

  I open my eyes to see Nurse Irina standing over me, the light behind her forming a halo through her bleached-white hair.

  “You spoke out loud,” she says. “In your sleep. You are having dreams, I think.”

  “I….” I blink and glance around the room. “I must have dozed off,” I say. I’m still clutching Wendy’s hand.

  I make it back home just past three. A drizzle started as I left Wendy’s place, and now, shivering in my kitchen, I’m soaked and cold with flecks of sandy mud splattered up my shins. I heat a mug of water in the microwave for tea and peer out the window. Lauren’s car is still there. I drop a green tea bag into the mug and take it to my bathroom, leaving it on the edge of the tub while I take a very long, very hot shower. My hands are against the tile wall while the water drums on my head, and I wonder:

  Did I do it? Or did I not?

  Am I completely crazy, or is someone screwing with me?

  In either case, will I keep my job?

  I run the shower until the water turns tepid and I have to shut it off, and I take my robe from the hook on the door and go to the guest room. I almost watch the video again, but I stop myself. What purpose will this serve, other than twisting me into an even tighter emotional knot? I check my email, and there are more messages in my school account, hundreds more. Some of the subjects and email addresses are gibberish, letters picked at random, and others have cryptic words. I find one from a Port Manitou student account with a subject of OUCH and click it open. I immediately wish I hadn’t; it’s a picture of a bloody body in a crumpled car against a tree. “Jesus Christ,” I sputter, closing the thing as fast as I can. Who is sending me this? I’ll mention it to Peggy when she calls—if she calls—as promised with an update. I’d like to think she’s looking out for me. And just as this thought is passing through my head, my cell rings from back in my bedroom where it’s still in my pants pocket. I fish it out and see the name on the display reads: ‘Hammil the Mammal.’

  “Kevin, what’s up?”

  “Coach.”

  “Did you see the video?”

  “Yes I saw it. Was it real? Please tell me it’s not real. That had to be right after I left Friday.”

  I sigh. “Jesus, Kevin, you know I couldn’t have done that, right?”

  “They sent out an email saying we shouldn’t talk to you.”

  “What the hell are you doing talking to me, then?”

  “They asked us to tell them anything we might know about what happened last Friday. Do you want me to say anything?”

  “The only think I want you to say is the truth, all right? You tell them exactly what happened, the way you remember it.”

  Kevin pauses. “I don’t think you did it. The girls don’t think you did it either. They’re pretty upset about the whole thing.”

  “Are you still having practice?”

  “We cancelled today, but Cassie and Amy went ahead and said we’re meeting up tomorrow. What should I have them do, Coach?”

  “Take them through Old Town to the river, then along the bike path back to school. Don’t tell any of them you talked to me, okay? Don’t get yourself in a mess too.”

  “The kids in my classes can’t decide what they think about it. They go back and forth. The freshmen and sophomores…I just can’t….”

  “Don’t get too worked up about it. Take the girls out tomorrow, give Cassie some room to lead. Keep her in line, though. Don’t let her get too pushy with the younger athletes. And don’t tell anyone you called me!”

  “All right, Coach. We’ll talk soon.”

  I could linger here on my bed and forget about everything, but now I’m ready to tell Lauren what happened, so I find some jeans and a sweatshirt and throw them on. When I go to the kitchen window, though, I see her car is gone, and the rain is coming harder. The world outside is gray, and more leaves seem to be on the ground.

  I’ll call Lauren tonight, I guess, but this seems like the sort of thing that should be explained in person. As I consider what I’ll say to her, Cassie Jennings’ Subaru comes up my drive. Behind the sluggish back and forth of the wiper blades I see Cassie and Amy Vandekemp up front with some unrecognizable silhouettes behind them; the car moves close to the house where I can’t see from this angle and the grumble of the engine stops. Footsteps on my front porch and my doorbell rings. A knock, and a knock again.

  I’d be happy to see them. My spirits would be lifted. Just hearing their chattering, muffled voices out front is uplifting enough.

  I keep still, and don’t move toward the door. A last knock comes, their footsteps file away, the car coughs to life and they roll off down the drive.

  It would have been nice to chat with them, but they don’t need to get themselves involved.

  Christopher is gone at his leadership thing, and the night is mostly quiet. Earlier than I need to, maybe, I start some water for pasta and warm up a loaf of bread in the oven to be ready for Chris when he gets home later. Alan texts me three times, and three times I ignore him. Lauren texts me too, writing: “Understand if things are tough, let me know you’re okay?” I drop to the living room chair and call her back because I need to hear her voice. I need to tell her. Thankfully, she’s quick to answer.

  “How did it go?” she asks.

  “Not so well. It’s sort of still going.” It’s not such an untruth, is it?

  “Oh, Neil. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel fine. I haven’t felt sick once. I do think my boobs are bigger. Have you noticed if my boobs are any bigger?”

  I don’t have the first idea how to respond to this levity. So I don’t.

  “I’m just joking around,” Lauren says, reacting to my non-reply. “I’m trying to cheer you up.” Out in the living room, the landline rings.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. My eyes are closed, and I’m rubbing my left temple with my fingertips. “Something else happened today—”

  “Pregnancy can cause increased libido, too,” she adds brightly, cutting me off. The answering machine beeps; there’s no message, just a click after a long silence.

  “Maybe I have noticed that,” I say. “A little.” My landline rings again.

  “Thought so,” she says. “It’s more than just hormones, you know. You have a little to do with that, too.”

  “Lauren, I—” The answering machine picks up, and I cock an ear to listen.

  “Mr. Neil,” a monotone voice says. “I need you to pick up, Mr. Neil.”

  “Do you need to get that?” Lauren asks. I tell her I should, and she says: “Go answer. Everything will be okay.” I hang up, and immediately grab my landline handset.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh, Mr. Neil, you’ve done something very bad, haven’t you?” The voice is choppy, almost robotic, and vaguely accented.

  “Who is this? Are you a real person? Who are you?”

  “Very, very bad. And who am I?
Or who are we? There are many of us. And you’ll be hearing from us, Mr. Neil. All of us!” The call ends with a click. I look at the phone’s display to see the name BALLS, INC. on the display, with a spoofed number of 000-000-0000. I put the phone back in the charger and cross my arms, staring at it. Assholes.

  I keep my arms crossed and stand in a daze. Everything will be okay, she said.

  God, if only that was true.

  From: xc.coach.kaz@gmail.com

  To:w.kazenzakis@gmail.com

  Sent: September 11, 3:40 pm

  Subject: A Thought

  _____________________________

  So, I’ve been thinking about this. If we move your mom into the spare bedroom here, we can rent out the farmhouse. It would probably take me a month to get it in shape to rent (probably even less than a month if I’m not going to be at work), and we’d get maybe a third of what we need to pay for you to stay in Long Term. Or, I could spend a couple months and get everything finished here with the remodel, move in with your mom, and rent our place out for a little more (I think it would go for quite a bit more actually with the view from the deck). Conservatively, I’d guess that would cover about half. I’ve got my savings, and there’s also Christopher’s college money, which would keep you there for at least the next three years (or maybe even longer if he goes somewhere with a scholarship).

  Highest priority is making sure you get to stay there.

  I love you, Wen. Please please please don’t worry about this.

  -N

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  My landline rings again, and this time the name on the ID is not a prank: Kent Hughes, the reporter assigned to covering the school district by our local newspaper, the Manitou Bugle, is calling me. The Bugle does okay, mostly, though I have a theory that declining revenue from classified ads has pushed it into tabloid journalism over the past few years. Most people I know in town refer to the paper as “The Manitou Bungle.”

  If ever there was a tabloid story for our local rag to feast on, mine is it.

  “Kent,” I say plainly when I pick up. “I have no idea why you’re calling.” I’ve known Kent Hughes for a long time; he covers high school sports as part of his beat.

  “Neil—”

  “Wait! I know why you’re calling. We are indeed going to win the state cross country championship this year. Only the Port Manitou girls’ squad, though. Boys will come in seventh or eighth.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “What do you want, Hughes?”

  “This video.”

  “No comment.”

  “You’re in it.”

  “No comment.”

  “Did you do that?”

  I savor a pause, and repeat: “No comment.”

  “Okay, off the record. What the fuck, Neil?”

  “Exactly.”

  “It doesn’t look good. And it doesn’t look like…well, it doesn’t seem like the Coach Kaz I’ve known for a while.”

  “Why don’t you say so in the paper?”

  “That wouldn’t be very objective reporting.”

  I snort at this. “Like the Bungle has ever worried about that before? All right, make it an editorial then.”

  “Seriously,” Kent says, “can you give me anything?”

  “No, I can’t. I will not comment on any of it. That’s your quote. Well, wait, I do have one thing.”

  “Really?”

  “Jennings and Vandekemp are going to deliver an awesome one-two punch at state.”

  “You are messed up, Kaz.”

  The conversation with Hughes makes me feel somewhat better, until it hits me that the story will run in tomorrow’s paper, and that the attention I receive from it will probably be awful. But if I really didn’t do anything to that kid, and the video is fake, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about, right?

  BALLS, INC. rings in again on my home phone, and I do not answer. I’m turning down the volume on the answering machine just as Chris comes in through the front door, and the sound of the latch makes me jump. I didn’t even hear his car in the drive. He drops his backpack and gym bag with a whump in the entryway before joining me in the kitchen where he starts to make a peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich. On the stove, the lid on our big pot rattles over rapidly boiling water.

  “Hey, Dad,” he says with complete nonchalance as he rummages through our pantry.

  “Hey?”

  “Rough day, huh?”

  “You could say that.”

  My son shakes his head. “That video is so bogus. Don’t even worry about it. It’s total crap. We were watching it in history.”

  “Well, I am kind of worrying about it now, to tell you the truth.”

  “Dad, it’s so fake!”

  “There are some people who aren’t so sure, Chris.”

  “It was weak that they sent you home. Boys’ and girls’ cross country were talking about doing a sit-in in the halls tomorrow—”

  “No, no, no,” I say, grabbing his arm and turning him so he’s facing me. “No way. Absolutely not. You have to tell them they can’t.”

  “Why not? It’s bogus what they did.”

  “A disruption at school is not going to make anything easier for me, okay?”

  “I can’t tell them what to do.”

  “If it happens, you’re not joining in.”

  “Why not?”

  “Seriously? Chris? I am most likely going to be fired, okay? This looks really bad. I’m the one who has to prove it didn’t happen, not the other way around.”

  “You’re not going to get fired. No way.”

  “Christopher.”

  “All right, Dad, how about this then. I was watching it with Greg and Sparks, and they were trying to figure out who posted it by looking at some stuff on the YouTube account. Greg thinks he knows who put it up.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I can’t remember the kid’s name. Let me text Sparks—”

  “Hold up,” I say. “Will you promise me something?”

  “Sure. Anything. What’s up?”

  “If you guys find anything out…wait, let me say something first. Greg is really good with computers, right?” Chris nods. “If you guys want to look into it, great. But I don’t want you or Greg or Sparks doing anything shady or illegal, okay? No hacking.”

  “You’d call it cracking in this case, Dad.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever you call it, don’t do anything sketchy. If you find something out, let Mrs. Mackie know about it. Have Sparks or Greg tell him, not you. I don’t want it to look like you’re getting too involved with it. Because if I get sued, my position could be weakened by—”

  “Why would you get sued?”

  “Chris?” I look at him, and suddenly it’s apparent to me that he might not realize the seriousness of the situation at all. “Okay, if you look at the video, it looks like an unprovoked assault. By me, an adult in a position of trust, on a minor child. That’s a pretty big deal.”

  Chris stares at me, furrowing his eyebrows as he processes what I’ve just told him. The doorbell rings, and it startles both of us. Chris looks out the window, and what he reports makes my skin go cold.

  “Two police cars, Dad.”

  “Oh,” I say weakly. “Oh, jeez.” I go to the door, and waiting there is Peter Tran, a former student of mine now all grown up and in a uniform, along with another cop I recognize from seeing around the school in the Just-Say-No-to-Drugs-mobile.

  “Officer Pete,” I say, and I nod hello to the other one. “Come on in, guys.”

  “Hello, Mr. K.” Peter says. “Hey, Chris!” My son is peeking out from the kitchen, seemingly transformed back into a little boy by the presence of uniformed authority in our home. I offer the cops a seat in my living room and try not to shake as they remain standing; it has dawned on me that there’s a possibility I could be leaving my house in cuffs.

  “This is Rick Coombs, our school resource officer—”

  “I’ve seen yo
u on campus,” I say, and Officer Coombs smiles stiffly beneath his mustache and nods. He’s holding a pen and notepad, and in the leather pouch on his belt on the side opposite his holster I can see a shiny pair of handcuffs.

  “I’m guessing you know why we’re here,” Pete says.

  “Probably not to investigate all these prank phone calls I’m getting lately,” I say. They glance at each other, expressions unchanging, and I wonder, for a moment, what Chris would do if they take me with them. He’d be fine here alone, I know, but would these guys be okay with that? Maybe I could send him over to Alan and Kristin’s house, with a message for Al to come bail me out.

  Pete clears his throat. “Can you tell us what happened last Friday?”

  I recite the story, as best I remember it, from practice that afternoon to my ride home. Rick Coombs takes notes while I speak. I tell them how I didn’t recognize any of the kids, how they seemed nervous about being in trouble, how they all seemed to vanish after I got hit.

  “I was a mess,” I say, angling my face up to the light and pointing to my lip. “There was blood all over my shirt. I can show you the shirt if you want.”

  “Maybe later,” Pete says. “Why didn’t you report the fight to anyone?”

  I think about this. “At the time it seemed pretty insignificant.”

  “Getting hit in the face was insignificant?”

  “I mean, I guess I would have said something about it. But I had some other things come up this week.”

  “What’s your history with Cody Tate?”

  “I’d never interacted with him until I broke up that fight, and I didn’t even know it was him until I was told this morning,” I say, and Pete Tran and the other cop look at each other. “I’d never heard his name until a few days ago.”