The Blue Hour

by Richard Teleky

  “…when the other party does not remain the same.”

  My head kept churning. What would Ari think about a change in political values? Yet I hesitate to use the word political here, as if I’d been having reasonable debates with the Antons. All sides to an argument aren’t equal, some are better than others. Aristotle, at least, understood the word better – you might say he thrived on it.

  Before I left Nick and Hedy, we’d finally had our tea, as she insisted. “I’ve been thinking,” she’d said, setting a tray of hot mugs on the coffee table. She almost knocked over the vase of tulips and I held my breath for her. “If you’re really willing to pack Guy’s things, it would be a great help.”

  “If you’re sure?” Nick asked. “It’s an imposition.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s the least I can do. I remember Guy’s place – I told you he showed me around. It won’t take more than a morning.”

  Hedy poured milk in all of our mugs and handed one to Nick. I didn’t remind her that I liked my tea clear.

  “When did you start sculpting badgers? The one on Guy’s mantel was great.”

  A safe topic, badgers. Though aren’t they one of the few animals who kill not only for food but also for pleasure?

  “You liked it?” Her eyes widened.

  “Very much.”

  “Then you should keep it. Please, take it with you.”

  “Oh, Hedy, no. You made it for Guy.”

  “I couldn’t face having it here. It’s yours now. That way you’ll always remember Guy.”

  Thinking back over my evening, I readjusted my pillow, tossed about, and stared at the alarm clock as its digital numbers flipped by. They kept to their proper order, but I imagined the numbers jumping randomly, from 11:30 to 11:17 to 12:05 – a clock where time was as unpredictable as life. Since Guy’s death, Hedy said, she had to force herself to get out of bed every morning, daylight no longer an ally.

  Annoyed with myself, I went to open a window, hoping fresh air might help. The street outside was perfectly still. I leaned against the sill and enjoyed the dark quiet night. How, I wondered, had Aristotle answered his question about the responsibilities of friendship? So much depended on what one meant by the phrase “a good man.” Could a good person, for instance, hold obnoxious views? Probably not. And if those views were set in stone, what then?

  I returned to bed, sitting on its edge, and switched on the night-table lamp. Ari was waiting patiently, so I read his answer: “Surely it is impossible, since not everything can be loved, but only what is good.” The rest of the paragraph appeared to be an elaboration of that position. I set the book aside again.

  Hedy’s image remained, unshakeable, before my eyes. When she’d handed me the key to Guy’s house, she’d paused for a moment before saying, “There’s just one thing…”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t ask Sheila to help you. I don’t want her snooping through my son’s things.”

  11

  Tuesday, May 8

  The final weeks of the academic year hint at the beginning of summer in the library. Meetings about fund raising, visits to alumni donors, and writing a conference paper, such tasks were ahead, along with the annual budget talk. Overnight, it seemed, fewer students remained in the stacks until closing hours. So far this spring I’d seen only three of them asleep in study carrels.

  My office, a utilitarian spot, is impersonal: no private photographs or mementos. One predecessor left behind a large framed brass rubbing of a medieval knight, and I kept it in place because the image suits my job as a protector of old papers. I’ve even joked to an occasional visitor that he’s my double. I was looking through some book orders when a sharp knock on my half-open door caught my ear. Neil Breuler stood there in his security-guard jacket. “Can I talk to you?” he asked.

  Since Neil had never come to my office before, his presence surprised me.

  “Sure, come in. Has something happened? The library’s been pretty quiet today. Are there more swastikas?” I hoped February’s ugliness wasn’t returning.

  “I’m on my lunch hour,” he began, without moving, as if to reassure me that he wasn’t wasting the college’s time. “It’s about your friend’s son.”

  “You can shut the door,” I suggested.

  “I’ve been pretty worried. But I don’t like to talk about it with Theo. You know how depressed he gets, and that only makes things harder. He doesn’t know I’m here to see you, I didn’t tell him.” Neil headed to a chair. “If the police are checking alibis, that must mean there’s a crime.”

  “Not necessarily. They’re looking for leads and probably don’t have any. But they have to investigate somehow.”

  “Have you heard anything from your friends?”

  “Nothing. They’re wondering too. But charges haven’t been laid, or we’d have read about that.”

  Neil slumped, expressionless. Sleekly modern, the chair wasn’t particularly comfortable.

  “When the police questioned you, why did they keep you so long?”

  “I waited a couple hours before anyone even spoke to me, and then the detective disappeared, I think he went to lunch. They drag things out. Then they kept asking if I had any idea why someone would harm Guy, or who might have a reason.”

  “When did you see Guy last? It wasn’t that night on the common.”

  “Not exactly.” He looked embarrassed. “We went back to his place that night. I knew I shouldn’t have, but, hell, sometimes I don’t think right. My ex calls me a ‘total washout,’ that’s what she says. And in front of our kids. Anyway, I’d decided not to see Guy again but he convinced me to go home with him. Maybe he thought he could talk me out of it. That was the last time we were together. But on Saturday afternoon I drove to his place to say it was over, we couldn’t see each other anymore. I figured he got the wrong impression after Thursday – he’d left several messages on my cell. Thursday was a mistake.”

  “So you were there on Saturday afternoon. Look, I don’t mean to sound like a cop.”

  Neil bent forward, hands resting on his knees. Light from the sun-filled window behind him caused his features to blur and darken. Inertia seemed to have overtaken him. Of course he had no reason to trust me.

  “About four. I rang the bell several times but he didn’t answer. He wasn’t expecting me, I didn’t call first, it was sort of spur of the moment, you know. The place was locked up, like he wasn’t around.”

  “He may have already fallen. Did you tell the police about Saturday?”

  “I had to. What with those neighbors watching every move on the street.”

  Yes, the neighbors. In a small town like Oberlin people know each other’s business even when they don’t know each other. “But you didn’t mention this when we had dinner.”

  “Not in front of Theo. It would’ve upset him.”

  We were all protecting Theo from himself.

  “And there’s another thing. I don’t like to bring it up, maybe it’ll sound crazy, but one night at Guy’s I was looking out the front window and I swore I saw Theo’s car driving by.”

  This I hadn’t expected. “All black cars look pretty much the same in the dark.”

  “Not if you know cars,” he replied.

  We stared at each other for a moment. “Well, I suppose you couldn’t ask him about it,” I conceded.

  “Hell, no.”

  “It might have been your imagination.”

  “That’s what I told myself. But I think he’s looked through stuff in my room, too. You won’t mention any of this to him?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m just spooked by everything.”

  “But you had no motive to harm Guy, did you?”

  “Hardly,” he said. His voice had suddenly deepened.

  “I’m sorry, Neil, I’m not accusing you of anything.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have come here. What motive…”

  “Well, if he was a threat to your divorce. The o
ther night you said he could make trouble. The police might have thought Guy was going to speak to your wife…”

  “I worried about that myself,” he interrupted. “But Guy didn’t threaten me, he never said anything like that. His feelings were pretty bottled up. Yet people believe what they want to, and they’ll always believe the worst. I wasn’t Guy’s first, you know,” he said defensively.

  “I don’t know very much about Guy or his life.”

  “Neither do I. We met at the gym. Over in Amherst. Where my family lives.”

  A ten-mile drive from Oberlin, Amherst has a population similar to ours, but the town is more spread out, and with more retail shopping.

  “It’s a new gym, and pretty clean,” he continued. “I don’t like to discuss things like this in front of Theo, he’s kind of possessive. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. He’s curious yet I don’t think he likes hearing…”

  “I know what you mean. But what about Guy?”

  “Before we met he had a fling with someone else from the gym. Older and married, like me. Guy likes them married, though he wouldn’t admit it.”

  “He told you this?”

  “Yeah, well, some of it. But I could see for myself. He was always hanging around this other guy. Maybe I shouldn’t say…” he hesitated.

  “Look, I’m certainly not going to tell Guy’s family. Or Theo.”

  “His name’s Ray Hatchard. He’s a high-school football coach. Married, with three kids. It’s funny, he has three girls and I have two.”

  With the choices Guy made, he never had a chance at feeling good about himself.

  “He even warned me about Guy the first time he saw us talking at the gym.”

  “Warned you?”

  “Yeah, he said Guy was too serious, that’s what I remember. Ray’s bisexual. Like me. I like women, too.”

  “And Guy?”

  “Who knows? I don’t think he did. Whatever went on between them lasted about half a year, Guy told me that. But frankly I wasn’t interested, his talk made me uncomfortable. Guy wanted to be a couple with someone, so I told him he was looking in the wrong place. Maybe this will sound odd but sometimes he reminded me of my girls, the way he talked about having someone special…”

  “Was Guy out at the gym?”

  “No, not like that. It’s a closety place. But things happen.”

  I could imagine. Horny married men bored with their wives, younger men looking for a hookup, a little cash passing between them, or maybe not. “Did you pay him?” I asked.

  “God, no, never. Is that what you think of me?”

  “I’m just trying to see this from every perspective. Isn’t that why you came here?”

  “I’m pretty confused,” he said in a forlorn voice. “I didn’t know where else to go, that’s how confused I am.” He gave me a wounded little-boy smile, and maybe it was genuine.

  “Were there others? Before you and Ray?”

  Neil shrugged. “Something happened when he was in the army. I didn’t ask a lot of questions, you know. An officer came onto Guy, I never got the whole story. I don’t even know how long ago…”

  “Guy enlisted right after high school.”

  “I don’t remember what he said. But he went a long time without any sex, he told me that. I didn’t want to hear about Guy’s past. And I’m not much of a talker.”

  “You’re doing fine,” I said, aware that I was prompting him. So far he didn’t seem to mind.

  “You’re okay, that’s what Theo says. If you’re interested in something he says you’re like a dog with a bone.”

  “Did you tell the police about Ray?”

  “No. Was that wrong?” He kept that crooked smile on his face, a smile made of both shame and defiance.

  “It would have given them another lead.”

  “Shit.” Neil gazed at the floor, avoiding eye contact. “I really blew it.”

  “It probably wouldn’t have made a difference.”

  He raised his head and looked around my office. “It’s nice here. Nice and bright. And that poster’s cool. Is it from a movie?”

  “It’s a brass rubbing. I like it, too.”

  When Neil stood up to leave it was as if he had to submit to his fate. He thrust a hand out towards me and I clasped his, our shake a bond, if not allegiance. I’d given my word to be discreet. “Better get back to work,” he said. “Before they miss me.”

  My afternoon meetings were a distraction from Neil’s visit, yet his words lingered. If he hadn’t been truthful, why bother? I thought of looking up Ray Hatchard’s telephone number, not to call him but just for something to do. Butt out, I told myself. I couldn’t help Neil, couldn’t offer an alibi. And I was only a little closer to understanding Guy. Yet Neil was wrong. There was nothing adolescent about Guy’s desire for love, like a teenage crush. I recalled myself at Guy’s age. The details aren’t important, we’ve all had a first love. The longing and joy and elation, Guy wanted his share. Who could blame him?

  When I got home that night I went straight to the kitchen and took out the leftover lamb curry from the weekend. I never mind eating the same thing several nights in a row, not when I like it. I poured my Scotch, ignoring the bleeping light on my answering machine. Instead, I turned on the radio, bypassing the news for a station that was devoting an hour to Artie Shaw recordings, big band music about as far away from my life as you could get. This was my parents’ music, and I recalled their old 78s. Then my thoughts returned to Guy and Neil. I should have asked if he’d spoken with this Ray fellow after Guy’s death, or what the other hawks at the gym had to say about it. With questions piling up I tried to focus on “Perfidia” while enjoying my drink, but Neil’s visit nagged away.

  So I picked up my copy of Aristotle, left on the kitchen table, and thumbed through his second essay on friendship. Goodwill, he wrote, may be part of friendship but they’re not the same thing. Ari used the phrase “inactive friendship” for it, which makes sense. I didn’t have to be Neil’s friend, or Guy’s, to extend goodwill. More interesting was the question Aristotle went on to pose: “Why does the happy man need friends?” Since he defines happiness as an activity – the condition of being active – it follows that happiness involves other people, and friends become desirable. Yet he ends with a reminder that the friendship of “bad men” is not only undesirable but “evil” while the friendship of “good men” is in itself “good.” No relativist, Ari, he never had a postmodern emotion. Using his terms, were Neil and Guy good or bad men? At the risk of sounding mid-Victorian, neither of them gave much thought to marriage vows. We’re so used to explaining people psychologically, by some personality disorder – they’re narcissistic or depressive or compulsive or passive aggressive, or just plain crazy – that the question itself seems antique, like a dusty object at Hedy’s booth in the mall. I put down the book for now. I didn’t want to burn the rice.

  Later, after clearing up the kitchen, I listened to my messages. Theo had left two, and his voice sounded eager for a chat. It was just after eight when I reached him.

  “You’re always doing so many things,” he said. “I don’t know how you find the energy.”

  “Multiple vitamins,” I said. “What’s going on, Theo?”

  “Did Neil call you?”

  “No, he didn’t call me.” I hated to break Neil’s confidence. Maybe Ari would consider it goodwill. “Why would you think he’d phone me?”

  The words call and phone were heavy on my tongue. Though I remembered Neil’s idea that Theo had followed him to Guy’s, there was no way of bringing it up without admitting to our visit.

  “Yesterday, after dinner, I went into the kitchen to clean up and Neil was sitting at the table with my address book open in front of him.”

  “And?”

  “To your page.”

  “You mean the one with my number? What did he say?”

  “I pretended not to notice, I just went over to the sink.”

  “But he must have se
en you.”

  “He pushed the book aside like it was in his way. I wasn’t going to accuse him of anything, maybe I’d left the book open.”

  “You can recite my phone number in your sleep, you weren’t looking it up. Are you telling me everything, Theo?”

  “Of course, Chief.”

  “Chief” was Theo’s nickname for me. He used it when he felt irritated or impatient or frightened.

  “What are you worried about?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing. I just worry too much, you know that.”

  12

  Saturday, May 12

  My turn of the key opened the front door to Guy’s house, and a musty smell hit me. The blinds had been shut tight and dust particles swam about in the living room’s closed-in air. I wondered if Guy’s neighbors across the street were watching. By now they might have copied down the number of my car’s license plate. I’d already piled boxes from the library on the front porch, some filled with newspaper and bubble wrap. It was ten o’clock, later than I’d hoped to start.

  First things first: a walk-through to see what needed packing. I remembered the rooms well enough and nothing much had changed – a hand-knit afghan now tossed over the back of Guy’s recliner, the dining-room shelves a little fuller with books. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for but I was looking for something.

  Guy’s bedroom had only the most basic furniture: a maple chest of drawers and matching night table, probably from his childhood, and a new king-size bed. No pictures on the walls, no carpet on the hardwood floors, and on the top of the bureau only a few coins and a key ring. On the bedside table, however, an old leather-bound book. I reached for it and was surprised by a volume of poems by Rumi, with this inscription: “Happy Birthday, Love, Mom and Dad” in Hedy’s flamboyant hand, but no year. There was no lamp on the night table, as if Guy never read in bed. Then I noticed the open closet door. His clothes were neatly lined up, along with his shoes: three pairs of runners and some black loafers. I would bag all the clothes for Goodwill, as Hedy suggested when we spoke last night. Though Neil had slept here with Guy, or spent time on the bed, the room seemed almost monastic.