He doesn’t actually make books,” John whispered. “They bind books together, staple magazines . . . ”
“Actually,” Foster said, “hardly anybody uses staples anymore.”
They both spun around, more than a little surprised, and saw Foster come out of the wall. A section of panel in the nearby hallway closed behind him silently, leaving no trace of its existence behind. Harrington wasn’t a small man. The balcony he’d been standing on only moments before seemed too far away for him to cover so much distance and John observed that he didn’t even seem to be out of breath.
“You must be Mark,” he smiled, shaking Mark’s hand. “I’ve heard good things about you.”
As he led them down the long hall he had just appeared from and deeper into the house, John couldn’t help but wonder whether he was just being polite or had their really been some talk about his son?
The house was impossibly larger than it had seemed from the outside. Their footsteps echoed around them as Foster briefly pointed out the rooms as they passed by them. “Got a sixteen seat movie theatre in there, digital surround, bass boxes under your ass,” then, to Mark specifically, “You watch Star Wars in there and you’ll have to change your shorts after.” A little farther along the hall, “Games room, arcade, karaoke . . . ”
They passed by a study walled with leather bound books and built in cabinets, a large desk and leather sitting chairs before a fireplace. At the end of the hall, the kitchen opened up to the right. Copper pots and pans hung over a big island in the center of the room, equipped with its own sink. A massive walk in fridge and matching freezer were finished off in stainless steel giving the space a modern, almost futuristic, feeling.
Directly in front of them, dominating that end of the house, the living room was easily three times the size of the kitchen and was well furnished and meticulously decorated. Sizing up the room at glance, John couldn’t help but observe that this room alone was easily the size of his entire house, and was probably comparable in cost. A bay window the size of a billboard faced out over the area of the swimming pool and the expansive back yard that extended as far as the eye could see. An entertainment system with a flat screen television that was one hundred inches if it was one sat beside a massive sound system which seemed out of place among the old world furnishings and artwork which, Foster explained, were purchased by the two ‘gentlemen’ that had renovated Ratcliff’s movie theatre.
“I wouldn’t take a shower at the gym with either of them, but they sure can decorate.” Harrington said, throwing his head back in laughter. John watched Mark roll his eyes at the remark and was praying he wouldn’t point out the obvious; when was the last time he saw the inside of a gym?
Harrington was a good host, offering them both soft drinks and hors d’oeuvres while he shuttled back and forth between the living room and the kitchen where he was preparing dinner. He went out of his way to include Mark in every topic and apologized repeatedly to them both for his son’s tardiness.
“I’d have him take you on a tour of the house, if he was here. Sometimes I think he forgets that I’m his boss and I know his schedule, he should have been home an hour ago. But hey . . . kids, what can you do?”
John found himself laughing, something he hadn’t done much of in a long time and as the night progressed he warmed to their host. To his surprise, Foster Harrington wasn’t anything like what one would expect from the owner of that house. Despite being highly educated, not to mention wealthy, his general attitude towards life was unmistakably blue collar all the way. He seemed the kind of man that might have a massive collection of vintage wine collecting dust in the basement, but preferred beer out of a can. He had a sharp wit and seemed competent enough to converse intelligently about any topic you could throw at him.
When dinner was ready, Foster invited them to eat at the kitchen breakfast bar rather than the big dining room with the forty-foot long table. “I almost never eat in there,” he admitted. “The problem with a house this size is that you have to put something in it. I wish somebody had told me that before I decided to build a twenty-five-room house. Do you have any idea how much a dozen bedrooms sets cost? Mattresses, box springs, end tables, dressers . . . ”
“Excuse me, Mr. Harrington,” Mark said with a little sarcasm that only a parent could detect. “If it’s just you and your son, then what do you need all this stuff for?”
John shot Mark a look that he hoped would come across, but their host didn’t bat an eye. “Well Mark,” Harrington explained patiently, “I was poor growing up and my father always dreamed of having a big place like this. So as my business grew, I wanted to do for my son what my dad wished he could have done for me. Plus, I do an awful lot of entertaining. I have business concerns spread out all over Canada and several other countries, and it makes me feel good to fill this house with happy souls. I just wish my wife were alive to see it.”
Harrington cocked his head at the sound of footsteps echoing from the hall, “Speaking of family . . . ”
Taylor Harrington was a strapping young man approaching his late teens, no more than a couple of years older than Mark. He was tall, handsome enough to be a model, and carried himself with the confidence of someone beyond the boy’s years. Mark seemed to bolt upright when the boy walked into the kitchen, almost as if a celebrity had arrived and it made John think the two had met before. Mark had never mentioned meeting anyone other than Kyle and the group that had chased him in the woods, of course, that would have required his son to speak to him.
“Don’t be rude Taylor, say hello,” Foster said, visibly annoyed by his son’s lateness.
“Hello,” he replied blandly, preparing a plate, seemingly without a care.
“Is it me or did I not tell you we were having guests for dinner tonight?” he said, going back to his grilled chicken.
“It must be you,” Taylor said indifferently.
Foster’s eyes met John’s and he shook his head in the perpetual helplessness that only another parent can feel. It made John feel a little better to know that even someone as wealthy as Harrington was having the same problems with his offspring that he had. It also made him feel worse because it meant that he couldn’t fool himself into believing that Mark might not be having issues if his mother hadn’t left with her trust fund.
Taylor joined them at the breakfast bar and wolfed down an entire plate of food without another word while his father explained that, in between his studies, his son worked six hours a day as a supervisor in the bindery and used most (if not all) of his money to buy and restore old ‘junkers’, one of which was presently taking up space in the garage. “Maybe you can show Mark what you’re working on, after you clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher.”
Taylor responded by taking his plate, still coated with remnants of pasta sauce and a few errant string beans and dropping it into the sink. “I’ve done enough fucking work for today. Come on Mark, let’s leave the grownups to talk.”
Foster’s face flushed blood red out of his inability to control his teenaged son and John felt his chest tighten, knowing that his very presence only made the situation worse. He was about to give Mark a nod or a look to tell him it was okay for him to leave their guest’s table, to his dismay, he was already half way to the kitchen sink, holding his plate up at shoulder level.
“Mark . . . ” John managed, before the china plate dropped into the sink with a crash. Taylor slapped an arm around Mark’s back, approvingly, before leading him out of the kitchen.
“Sorry about that,” Foster said, clearing his throat as if stifling a small but persistent pain from somewhere.
“Not at all, Mark knows better, we’re guests in your home.”
Foster squinted and forced a smile, waving a massive hand at him. “They’re just being boys I guess. God knows I was no angel at that age. But I tell you, ever since we lost his mother . . . ” He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin before tossing it over his unfinished meal in disgust, unable to
finish his thought.
After a moment of silence, John said, “Mark’s mother left us almost a year ago. Lately, he’s . . . it’s like having a stranger in the house.”
Foster looked up at him, his eyes seeming to mist up. John felt as if he’d said too much. Rising from his stool, he collected the plates and utensils and carried them to the sink.
“Leave those,” Foster said, returning to his usual ‘Aww shucks’ carefree demeanor, “Taylor is right. I have a woman who comes in every morning and she gets mad if there’s no work to do. “Come on,” he said, waving John away from the sink. “I’ll give you the dime tour.”
Eighteen
Mark followed Taylor down a long winding flight of steps into the basement that was quite possibly the coolest room he’d ever seen in his life. There was a bar with built in taps surrounded by stools and a pool table with a glass box light fixture suspended over it. Guitars were hung from the wall, several behind Plexiglas, and a bunch of framed black and white pictures of movie stars from the golden era of Hollywood. An old motorcycle was parked in one corner atop a small platform, surrounded by a bunch of pictures of James Dean including a life-sized standee. Taylor’s bedroom was down there too, at the end of a long hallway, past several open doors which Taylor reached in and pulled shut as they passed them, almost as if he was embarrassed or something. Mark hadn’t seen a single thing in the house to feel embarrassed about. It was just a bunch of small bedrooms, each with a single mattress, a dresser and a nightstand. Mark wondered why someone with twelve bedrooms upstairs would need all these extra beds in the basement.
It also occurred to him that there were couches and chairs everywhere, far more than two people could possibly need. Mr. Harrington had said he knew people from all over the world, apparently he liked to have them all over at the same time. Everything he saw was beautiful and expensive looking. For all the nice homes he’d been in, and he’d seen a few doozies in Rosedale, he couldn’t believe that anyone actually lived like this.
Taylor’s room was equally impressive; easily twice the size of Mark’s new room and painted in dark crimson, the room could only be described as a wet dream. Accented by black leather furniture, a big workout station stood in one corner complete with free weights and one of those home gyms advertised on television that operated on rods and pulleys. A punching bag hung from a chain bolted into the ceiling beside a big poster of the human body with little arrows showing where all a person’s pressure points lay. Mounted over the king-sized bed, an authentic Japanese sword was hung like a piece of art. When Taylor saw him looking at it, he took it down and let him hold it.
“It’s over four hundred years old and I can still cut phone books in half with it,” he boasted. “The man who made it only turned out one sword a year. He set out to make two-hundred of them, thinking he was going to live forever as long as he kept working.”
“How many did he actually make?” Mark asked eagerly.
Gently returning the sword to its cradle, he replied, “Only eighty-five. When he finished his last sword, this sword, he killed himself with it.”
“Can I ask you something?” Mark asked, hesitantly. “How come I never see you at school?”
“I only have to go in a couple of times a week. I get school credit for working at the bindery and do my courses on my own time at home. It’s better than sitting in a classroom all day, I’ll tell you that. I could never sit still like that, I’d go insane.”
He disappeared into a walk in closet. Mark waited patiently outside until Taylor called to him. “You coming or what?”
Mark peered into the closet, at the end of which, a wood panel that popped open at the press of a FOB that Taylor was holding.
“What’s down there?” Mark asked, both nervous and excited.
“My dad’s idea.” Taylor said casually as if everyone had secret passages in their homes. “In case of fire or home invasion, there are hidden passageways on every floor of the house that all lead down here. The tunnel runs all the way out to a panic room buried out in the back yard.”
“No way!” Mark said, laughing in astonishment. “Can I see?”
Taylor snapped the door shut. “I shouldn’t. Foster doesn’t like anyone knowing what he’s got down there, and you might blab.”
“Never!” Mark cried. “Besides, who would I tell?”
“Good point there,” Taylor said thoughtfully. “Okay.”
Mark followed him down the stone passage, measuring at least seven feet high. The bulbs within the lamps flickered slightly giving them the appearance of actual flames although they were actually electric bulbs and they cast eerie shadows down the length of the tunnel in both directions. It looked as if a lot of work had gone into making it look so perfect, just like something out of the movies, and Mark wondered why Taylor’s dad would put so much effort into something that he would only have to use under dire circumstances.
“Follow me,” Taylor said, leading him down the tunnel.
“This is incredible!” Mark said excitedly.
They passed by a series of heavy looking doors with small barred windows on their left. The doors were made of iron with heavy sliding bolts locked by padlocks and almost resembled dungeons. “Storage,” Taylor explained as they passed.
They reached a much larger set of doors that looked just like the big entrance to the house, albeit on a smaller scale. A small electronic touch screen was built into one of the bricks beside the door and looked strange in such a decidedly medieval setting.
“Wow,” Mark exhaled. “It’s like Fort Knox down here.”
“My dad keeps his family jewels in there,” Taylor said without irony. “I’d love to show you what he’s got in there but the fat fuck changed the code on me.”
Mark looked down at the small screen and it appeared to be fairly new. When he touched it, the screen lit up a ten digit numerical keypad.
“If you get the number wrong three times in a row, the alarm goes off and the whole house goes into lockdown. Then, Foster gets an email sent to his phone instantly.”
“Wow,” Mark marveled. “Sounds like he must have something pretty important in there.”
Taylor smiled. “You have no idea.”
A little further down the tunnel they reached an iron ladder mounted in a concrete tube to their right. The rungs led upwards into darkness while the passage before them continued on for as far as Mark could see, changing angle downwards, following the pitch of the vast property he’d seen behind the house.
“How far does it go?” Mark asked.
“A hundred yards or so,” Taylor shrugged. “I’ll show you some other time, let’s go up this way.”
Mark’s heart skipped a beat. In order for Taylor to show him the rest at a later date, he’d have to be invited back. Perhaps he just had been.
At the top of the ladder, they stepped onto a wooden platform that was barely large enough for them both to stand on. Taylor pressed the button on his FOB and the panel opened outwards. White light filled Mark’s eyes, so bright that it took him a moment to realize that they were now inside the garage his father had parked the Jeep in front of. The panel behind them closed flush to the rest of the wall, practically disappearing before Mark’s eyes. An aluminum stepladder and a garden hose were hung from it, completing the illusion and making the passage virtually undetectable.
“That’s amazing!” Mark cried excitedly, then he turned around and found Taylor was already walking away. The four bays closest to them, closest to the house, were occupied by cars, the fifth, (and farthest) bay appeared to be a fully equipped service bay complete with an electric hoist just like the one they had in the school’s auto shop. A car was covered by a heavy tarp poised on the hoist.
“Holy shit,” Mark said, dumbfounded. In his short time taking auto class at the GA, he had found that he actually liked cars and was learning more about them every day. He could recognize many of the higher end sports cars and sedans just by the configuration of their grills
and taillights and could tell that he was looking at over a million dollars of hardware in the first four bays alone.
When they reached the end of the garage, Taylor yanked open one of the many drawers of a long rolling tool chest and produced a package of cigarettes. Without asking, he lit two in his mouth and handed one of them to Mark.
“So what do you think? Hot shit, right?” he asked, dragging thoughtfully, exhaling slowly and watching the smoke drift upwards.
“It’s amazing!” Mark said, sensing a tone of cynicism in the question. “I’ve never seen so much cool stuff in my life.”
“Just a bunch of stuff,” Taylor said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth long enough to spit on the concrete floor before taking another drag. “Funny thing about rich people, when they get rich, they all buy the same shit. This house, the cars, Foster’s business, it’s all bullshit.’’
Mark found himself looking at his feet, not knowing what to say. On one hand, he felt that Taylor should be happy that he wasn’t living in his house, full of dust and other people’s junk, on the other hand he couldn’t help but admire him for acting as if none of it mattered. Most of the kids Mark had known that came from wealthy families acted as if they were above everyone else, not Taylor. It was almost as if they could be holding the same conversation in a doublewide trailer somewhere and it wouldn’t change what he thought or felt, or how he acted.
“I heard about what happened at the dugout today,” Taylor informed him.
Mark felt the crushing humiliation he’d been feeling all day come crashing back in like a rogue wave. He waited for Taylor to mock him, perhaps tell him what he should have done, instead he appeared neutral. He stood there smoking, waiting for Mark say something.
“I never saw them coming,” Mark stammered.
“Of course not,” he laughed sympathetically.
“Before I knew what was happening, Mike and Bob grabbed me. I was lying on the bench and they wouldn’t let me up.”
Rage: The Reckoning Page 17