At Belltown Grammar, three yellow and black buses are lined up in the lot. Manufacturers must make them look antiquated on purpose. In forty years, they’ve barely changed. Is that why they stir such strong feelings and pop up in so many coffee commercials? This afternoon, they seem sinister in their indifference.
Lost in thought, I don’t notice Noah until he opens the front door.
“How was practice, Dad? Bring Augusta to its knees?”
“Actually, I just hit balls.”
“Really?”
Now he’s the one worried about me.
35
THE NEXT MORNING IS worse, because like Jerzy, I know it’s going to happen again.
I had hoped to reach the bus stop sooner, but Louie doesn’t take well to being hustled, and by the time the turrets loom, the school bus has made the turn onto Parade Hill Road. Like yesterday, Jerzy is conspicuous for his height, isolation, and attire, which bears little relation to the season or decade. Despite the twenty degrees, he wears a too-small blazer over a white shirt, and his signature green cap. In their dark parkas, his tormentors are easy to spot as well. For the moment, they ignore Jerzy, but even from across the street, I can tell that the reason they’re hanging back is to instill dread, which for characters like these is half the fun.
The leader and his backup muscle don’t sidle over until the bus is a hundred feet away, and this time Jerzy ends up on his knees on the curb and his books end up in a puddle. Once again, Louie and I are too late, and when we cross the street the bus doors are closing. After it pulls away, I notice a man in a wool tweed suit.
“One of your children on the bus?”
“Two,” he says.
“Did you see what those kids did to their classmate?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say something? I know Jerzy. He’s a great kid.”
“That’s not what I hear from my daughters. You know those kids from Roxbury Farms are troublemakers. He probably asked for it.”
Roxbury Farms, a tiny complex of garden apartments, went up at the edge of the neighborhood four years ago. It provides exactly seventeen units of low-income housing, although based on the hysteria at the planning and zoning meetings, you would have thought the town had buried asbestos in our backyard.
“Maybe you should find another place to live,” I suggest.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re an asshole.”
I would have thought that someone who dresses (did I mention the pocket square?) and behaves like my neighbor would be accustomed to being called an asshole, and through time and repetition, it would have lost the power to offend. Apparently not. His cheeks flush and he throws a wild right hook, which I see coming from a block away. My response is less telegraphed, at least by comparison. It knocks his wind out and doubles him over, and it takes all my restraint not to slip the leather bag off his shoulder into a puddle.
“Whatsa matter?” I ask. “Don’t you have cable?”
36
“I SAW THESE KIDS roughing up Jerzy while he was waiting for the bus,” I explain. “Jerzy’s the boy who shoveled our driveway. It happened two days in a row. The second time, Louie and I crossed the street. The bus was already on its way, but there was a parent standing there who had witnessed the whole thing and did nothing. In fact, he seemed to approve. He looked like the classic investment wanker—wing tips, horn-rimmed glasses, three-piece suit.”
“I really don’t need a description of his wardrobe,” says Sarah.
“He also had a pocket square.”
“Travis.”
“Okay. I asked him why he just stood there and didn’t say anything. He responded by taking a swing at me and I defended myself. This has absolutely nothing to do with the incident in Honolulu.”
“He tried to hit you for asking him a question? That seems unlikely. Are you sure that’s all you said?”
This second interrogation is conducted in the front seat of Sarah’s Jeep outside the headquarters of the Winnetka Police Department. The first, handled by two of Winnetka’s finest, was less intense. Louie sits in the ample space between us.
“I may also have called him an asshole.”
Although the car is parked, Sarah lays her hands on the steering wheel and drops her head. Her hands, which have delivered hundreds of Winnetkans, are as beautiful as they are skilled, and I fell in love with them approximately ten minutes before the rest of her.
“Travis, are you having a midlife crisis?”
“It’s about time, don’t you think?”
She twists in the driver’s seat and stares at me, as if forming her own diagnosis, and I convince myself that there’s an inkling of a smile in her pale green eyes.
“So what are you going to do about Jerzy?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t do anything for him, this is all macho nonsense.”
Sarah’s smile, if that’s what it is, is subtler than the Mona Lisa’s, but there’s no ambiguity in Louie’s eyes. To Louie, there is no such thing as macho nonsense. To him, everything else is nonsense, with the notable exception of food, and since my altercation this morning, I’m convinced he’s been beaming at me with newfound respect.
My arrest and release make the afternoon paper and are picked up by the wires, and that evening I get calls from both Earl and Stump. Like Sarah, they suspect that I’ve gone completely off the rails and they don’t seem any more reassured by my version of events. The other call, the one from Ponte Vedra, Florida, informing me that my suspension has been extended for the remainder of the year, doesn’t come till 11 p.m.
At least I don’t have to write that letter.
37
THE NEXT MORNING, I put on my most presentable blazer and one of my few pairs of shoes that don’t have spikes sticking out the bottom and drive to New Trier Township High School. Since Elizabeth graduated a decade ago, I’ve only been back to vote. In fact, pulling a lever in a high school gym every four years is the sum of my input as an American citizen, and that makes coming here to this well-lit administrative office on behalf of a student I barely know all the more unsettling.
Behind the front desk is a human roadblock, whose placard reads: LAURA SKELLCHOCK.
“Laura, good morning. My name is Travis McKinley. I need to talk to someone about a student who’s being bullied.”
“That’s Reece Halsey, our assistant dean. She’s out of the office till Friday.”
“Can’t I talk to someone else?”
“I’m afraid she’s the one you need to talk to.”
“It can’t wait that long, Laura. The kid is getting beat up every morning. He could be dead by then.”
“How do you know him?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t, and that’s all the more reason why you should take me seriously.”
“I am taking you seriously, Mr. McKinley.”
“The only thing I know about him is that he shoveled my driveway and he did a good job and he’s a nice kid and he was nice to my son. But even if he did a lousy job on the driveway and was a snotty kid and was mean to my son, he still shouldn’t get beat up every morning.”
Skellchock responds to this last rhetorical flourish with an eye roll.
“Isn’t there a way I can get in touch with his parents? The student’s name is Jerzy Solarski. I could also help identify the kids who are involved. The incidents occurred at the bus stop at Downing and Parade. Less than a dozen students get picked up there. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out who they are.”
The way Skellchock’s smile congeals tells me there’s something impatient in my tone. The shadow that falls across her eyes bears a frightening resemblance to the one I saw at the Department of Motor Vehicles when someone was insane enough to ask why the line was moving so slowly.
“Aren’t you the person who got into the fight with one of our parents?”
“That was unfortunate, but there were no charges.”
“That was also unfortunate.”
“Sounds like you’re the bully, Mr. McKinley.” Then, as suddenly as it arrived, the shadow lifts and her smile softens. “Mr. McKinley, as I’m sure you can appreciate, we can’t share information about our students to every nut job who waltzes in here. What I can do is pass your number to Jerzy’s parents. If they want to reach out, they will.”
“I appreciate that, Laura. Truly.”
“My husband’s a golfer,” she explains.
38
SARAH CAN’T BE THAT mad at me, because that night, she roasts another chicken. Later, as I’m gratefully washing the dishes, I get a call from a woman with a strong Eastern European accent. “This is Rodica Solarski,” she says. “Thanks so much for coming to the school today. I can’t talk now because I’m at work, but if it’s not too late, I could call again during my break.”
Instead, I offer to come to her, and an hour later, I retrace my old commute into downtown Chicago. It’s been a year and change since Leo Burnett let me go, and much longer since I’ve visited midtown at night. After hours, the district exudes the bristling vigilance of a military installation. Even emptied of workers, it throbs like an enormous machine that never gets switched off.
Rodica’s address isn’t far from my longtime employer’s, and out of morbid curiosity, I walk past the darkened entrance, setting loose the bad old feelings. Three blocks south, still regretting the detour, I enter a massive tower that takes up the entire west side of the block and, escorted by the night guard, ride a chrome-filled elevator high above an inner atrium. “Rodica’s the only one on the floor,” says the guard.
I slip him a twenty, and he buzzes me through the frosted glass doors. Then I follow the corridor that divides the executive offices and conference rooms that look out over the atrium from the green expanse of shoulder-high cubicles. Parked in front of an open office is a cart laden with cleaning supplies, and in the doorway, a surprisingly delicate woman in her early forties. I hand Rodica the coffee I picked up at the corner and follow her into one of the conference rooms, where we sit at a mahogany table.
“The meeting is called to order,” says Rodica, and peels the wax paper off a sandwich brought from home.
“Did Jerzy mention he shoveled my driveway?”
“No. Don’t be offended. He rarely talks to me at all.”
“We didn’t talk much either, but his wit made an impression.”
“I think the American term is wiseass,” says Rodica. Her pale face is framed by jet-black hair cut to her shoulders. Like Jerzy’s, her accented English is fluent and precise.
“So did the generous way he treated my five-year-old. That’s why I was so disturbed by what I saw at the bus stop. Why do you think they target him, Rodica?”
Rodica shrugs, as if the answer hardly matters. “Because he’s too big to be invisible and too soft to fight back,” she says. “Because he has an accent and bad skin, and because he’s really sweet.…”
The mention of her son’s kindness causes Rodica’s face to crumple. To gather herself, she pries the cap off her coffee and takes a long gulp. “Maybe it’s my fault. It was my idea to come here from Bucharest, five years ago—me, Jerzy, and his older sister, Beata. Ironically, I came for the schools. For Jerzy, it’s been disastrous from the start, and with Beata graduated, it’s much worse. When his sister was here, he at least had someone to sit with at lunch, and she wasn’t afraid to confront people.”
“Have you spoken to anyone at the school?”
“A waste of time, or, as you Americans like to say—a waste of breath. No one is willing to lift a finger to protect my son. Now his grades have slipped and he’s stopped talking. My biggest fear is that he’ll do something to harm himself. To be honest, Mr. McKinley, I’m terrified.”
Rodica’s face crumples again, and now her coffee is finished, so she pushes her hair behind her ears, fits the lid back on the empty cup, and folds the brown paper bag that held her sandwich. “I should get back to work,” she says. “Thanks so much for coming and also for the coffee.” Before I can respond, she pushes herself away from the table, drops the cup into the garbage bag hanging off the end of her cart, and disappears around the corner.
I head in the opposite direction for a couple of steps, then stop and, for a minute or maybe two, stand there frozen by indecision. Then I head back around the corner and find Rodica in another office.
“Sorry to bother you again. How would you feel if I spent a little time with your son?”
“Doing what?”
“I’m a professional golfer, so I thought maybe I could teach him how to play.”
“That sounds wonderful, Mr. McKinley. Golf is all he watches on TV,” she says, but her expression is neutral. “I won’t mention anything to Jerzy for now. You can surprise him.”
On the way to the elevator, I slow to peer into a cubicle very much like the one in which I spent five years. I wonder if Rodica has memorized these snapshots of weddings, babies, graduations, and barbecues.
39
THE BELL IS STILL ringing when Jerzy bursts through a door in the back of the science center and walks with badly concealed haste toward the yellow and black buses lined up on the far side of the parking lot. Although scores of students pour from a dozen buildings, he is as impossible to miss as a giant turtle without a shell. In a sea of affluent preppies, his Eastern European hand-me-downs seem particularly off-kilter, and while Jerzy is certainly uncool, he is also flaunting it. Economic hardship may explain the baggy wool pants and too-small blazer, but not the smiley face T-shirt or Where’s Waldo hat. Despite the obvious drawbacks, he can’t resist drawing attention to his geeky self. As his own mom points out, he’s a wiseass.
If Jerzy hoped to reach the safety of the bus before the Shiny Black Parkas could get a bead on him, it’s too late. They’re already lying in wait between him and the bus door, and from the front seat of Simon’s old pickup, I get my first good look at the brains of the outfit. He’s of medium height and wiry, pale and blond, his long bangs cut straight across his forehead. Instead of any outward sign of malevolence, there’s something unformed and missing in his features, like the overly symmetrical oval of a child’s drawing.
As he waits for Jerzy to get within arm’s length, he slips a hand out of his pocket and forms a fist, and as I hop from my truck, I catch myself doing the same. Be careful. You get in a third fight in a high school parking lot with a bunch of teenagers, Sarah won’t be asking any more questions. She’ll just put you on meds.
“Hey, Jerzy,” asks the leader softly. “Where you headed?”
As at the bus stop, Jerzy’s only resistance is willful denial. He plods ahead as if he doesn’t see or hear a thing.
“Over here, you fat fuck.”
“Dipshit, he’s talking to you.”
By now, I’m directly behind the three, and when Buster Blond pulls back his arm, I step in front of him.
“Excuse me, fellas. Don’t mean to interrupt, but I need a word with my friend.”
For a couple of seconds, the leader stares at me nonplussed, not sure how to react to me or what to do with his fist. When he puts it back in his pocket and steps aside, I guide Jerzy past them to the front seat of Simon’s pickup.
40
“YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING WHY I’m here,” I say.
“Kind of.”
“I came to see if you’d like to hit some golf balls.”
“Wow,” says Jerzy, still digesting his reprieve as his classmates hover nearby. “I guess you really do have a lot of time on your hands.”
“As a matter of fact.”
“I could probably clear my calendar for the afternoon.”
Big Oaks is cold and bleak as Siberia. In every respect, it’s the same dreary interior I had to reimagine as Augusta National just to get myself to show up every day, but based on
Jerzy’s expression you’d think it actually was Augusta. “This place rules,” he says, and his eyes delight in every sorry detail, from the ripped Srixon banner advertising a ball they stopped making two years ago, to the corny clock with golf clubs for arms, to the shuddering ball machine.
Once we pick up the clubs and get settled in my stall, I do a quick inventory of what I have to work with. Jerzy, who is at least 6′3″ and 220 pounds, is a seventeen-year-old man cub. He has big hands, big feet, and a big head, and the kind of natural size and heft that often translates well to golf. (See: Jack Nicklaus, Craig Stadler, Colin Montgomery, and my old nemesis Stump Peters.) Size gives you ballast that roots you to the ground and, once you learn to shift your weight at the right time, natural power.
I pull the 7-iron from my bag and mold his hands around it until they’ve glommed into something cohesive. “You want to hold the club very gently,” I say. “Whatever you think the pressure should be, it’s half that. Okay, now take your hands off and place them back on.…All right, now try it again.…One more time.…That’s excellent. Where you’ve got them now looks really good.”
“Thanks, Mr. McKinley. I need to get a grip.”
“You and me both…and it’s Travis.”
I align his feet, tilt him forward into the proper posture, then share a fundamental concept of a good swing, which is to barely swing at all and instead twist your torso back and forth, with your arms going along for the ride. To provide a sense of how it feels when the chest initiates the move, I have him cross his arms and I place my hands on his shoulder, but before I can turn him halfway back, he winces in pain, and when he covers it with a quick smile, I know it’s from all the punches he’s been taking every morning and afternoon.
Miracle at Augusta Page 7
