Harrow: Three Novels (Nightmare House, Mischief, The Infinite)

by Douglas Clegg

  “As if anything he touched would turn to gold,” Jim said sadly.

  “Yes. Exactly. He was special, there was no doubt about it. But toward the end, he was involved in something. Some kind of group. It bothered him and he wouldn’t tell me everything. He was getting a little paranoid. Look, this is a lot to hear. You were close to him, I know. He talked about you endlessly, how funny you were, how smart, how you did all these creative things, how you went jogging with him, how you went on his very first date. I felt you were almost competition—but in a good way. And then,” she said, “I found out I was pregnant. And everything accelerated. Including how your dad felt.”

  And then she told the rest, and Jim Hook listened, his knees shaking a little, the Coke tasting like sweet broken glass in his throat, and he didn’t say another word until he rose to leave, an hour later.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said.

  “Look, there’s something I want you to have. I don’t need it. I have other keepsakes.” Ivy went over to a desk up against one of the large windows, and opened the top drawer. She brought something out, cupped in her hand.

  When she handed it to him, he felt cold metal.

  “He gave it to me. But I guess it’s an heirloom. I think you should have it,” she said.

  In his hand, a ring with a reddish-purple gem at its center that seemed to change color in the light. The gem was set in the center of what looked like an oval, with a stem coming from its bottom. For a moment, he thought he’d seen it somewhere—a photo? Or a painting?

  “It’s an Alexandrite. They’re rare. From Russia, I’d guess. It must’ve been your grandmother’s. In daylight, it looks green,” she said, almost wearily. “He told me it stood for eternal life—the shape. It’s called something. He would know what it was. I’ll miss this little ring. It reminds me of him. I know he’d have wanted you to have it.”

  Jim looked into her eyes, and when he saw tears he stepped forward, unthinking, and embraced her.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  As Jim held her, she whispered to him, “Sometimes I think life is just a tragedy that we know is out there in the world avoiding us, and still we hunt it down until it’s our own secret tragedy.”

  When he got back down to the Blue Glass, Lark was using some napkins to wipe up an area where the puppy had peed beside their table, and Jenny nursed her third cappuccino.

  Lark glanced up when she saw him. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, feeling completely exhausted.

  “Good,” Jenny said testily, foam still on her upper lip. “Because I’m wired. If I sit here another ten minutes I’ll be certifiable. And I still need to get Geometry done or I’m screwed tomorrow.”

  Lark and Jim sat in the backseat together, the puppy curling up in Jim’s lap and snoring lightly. The whole trip back, Jenny talked a mile a minute and Jim whispered to Lark that he’d tell her everything soon, but that it was about his brother and it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad at all.

  Jim kissed her goodbye, turned away, heard the Mustang driven by the hyped-up Jenny burn rubber and spit gravel as it took off down the road.

  Jim marched wearily up the drive to the school; it was only ten-thirty. He could get to his room and get at least an hour in on homework, and then crash into blissful sleep, knowing that his family was fairly clean of the charges brought by the Corpses. And if the story of his father and his mythical whore were fake, then maybe, just maybe, the rest of the stories were fake, too. His father had not been seeing some whore. His brother and father were not drunk that night.

  All lies.

  Trey Fricker and the Corpses had made it all up in their dark room interrogation.

  He saw someone sitting up around the rim of the St. George-and-Dragon fountain, and knew before he got there that it was the headmaster, and that this was perhaps some fresh hell awaiting him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Mr. Hook,” Trimalchio said. He wore a heavy tweed overcoat and a bright yellow sweater that made him look sulfurous under the lights. His grin brightened when Jim reached the fountain. “You could’ve avoided me and gone straight to the Trenches.”

  “I figured you’d probably catch me one way or another.”

  The man put his finger up to his lips, an annoying gesture that reminded Jim of the teacher he most despised, Mr. Kelleher with his mannerisms. Trimalchio scratched at his chin. He had a five o’clock shadow made worse by the shadows of night. “I was getting some last-minute paperwork done, going over a few things, and I was thinking about you and your situation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trimalchio chuckled. “Yes, sir, no, sir— whenever you boys say it, I can hear the fear. In some ways you remind me of myself when I was here at the academy, Hook. I was a scholarship student, too, and I wanted, more than anything else, to prove to myself and the world that I could get through this school, that I could be the best, that I could stand head and shoulders with the smartest and the richest and be just as they were.”

  Jim felt the pull of gravity; his shoulder seemed to bear a heavy weight; he was tired and knew that bad things were on their way to him like nails to a coffin. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I, sir?”

  “Hear me out, Hook. I worked very hard. Do you know the Rudyard Kipling poem, If?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Here.” Trimalchio patted the edge of the fountain. “Sit down. All right? I’m not going to slice you from nave to chops like Chambers would.”

  Jim sat beside him, and shivered. His sweater wasn’t enough to keep out the chill he was feeling.

  “You should commit this poem to memory. I

  did, when I was here. I believe it. It’s about arriving at manhood. I remember your brother, when he was here. And I see you.” Trimalchio reached over and scruffed up Jim’s hair. Jim didn’t like touchy-feely stuff from teachers. It meant bad things for you when they broke personal space. It meant they had no problem telling you something difficult and mean to your face. He was prepared.

  Trimalchio continued: “And you’re not your brother.”

  Jim hung his head slightly. “I know, sir. I probably never will be.”

  “Your brother,” Trimalchio began, “was a good soldier, by Harrow standards. He got the grades, he balanced the sports with social life, he excelled in ways that were noticeable. I was thinking about all this, tonight, about how you and he and I... what do you believe in, Hook?”

  “Sir?”

  Trimalchio motioned with his hands like they were rolling over each other. “Believe as in what do you in your core believe about school, about learning, about what you go through from boy to man?”

  “I guess ... I don’t know.”

  “Know.”

  “Sir?”

  “Know. Right now, know what it is you believe.”

  “I’m going to be thrown out, aren’t I?” Jim looked at him from the corner of his eyes. Trimalchio was a decent headmaster most of the time, and some of the boys even admired him. But Jim felt like the man was a frustrated something—that he wanted to do something else with his life but had been pulled back into Harrow at some point and could not get out to save his life. He knew that all of his own life was wrapped up in this guy’s hands. Nave to chops, that’s what Old Man Chambers called it when one of the boys was getting punishment. We’re going to slice you from nave to chops for this, Chambers would say.

  And that was what awaited Jim, no matter how nicely Trimalchio put it. You could sweeten up the words, but in the end, it was nave to chops, and you spilled your guts and then the ‘Row had you.

  “You are in violation right now,” Trimalchio said softly. “You aren’t to leave campus, particularly midweek, but particularly now. You know that, don’t you?” Jim nodded.

  Trimalchio brought out his pipe, which was always with him, it seemed. He lit it, and puffed away. The chilly air became laced with some sweet cherry tobacco. “When I was your age, here, I had a really good frien
d. We were practically brothers. Best friends. But I didn’t know what was going on in his mind. Not when I needed to. He killed himself, Hook. Right here on campus. He had been caught stealing something, and he had gone before the Honor Council, and he was getting booted. His parents were going to pick him up the following morning. Instead, he was dead.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

  “It was,” Trimalchio said, and put his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Here’s the thing, Hook. I believed he was innocent of the charges brought against him. I may have been wrong. But I believed this system failed him. This honor code that doesn’t take the inner workings of human beings into consideration.” He paused, and drew his pipe from his mouth, cupping it like a bird in his hand. “Did you cheat?”

  “I...”

  “Don’t answer. I actually don’t care. What I care about is, are you sorry for what happened?”

  “Very.”

  “Good. I assume you were off doing something of importance tonight?”

  “Yes, sir. Extremely.”

  “All right. I’ll overlook this,” Trimalchio said, pressing the pipe back between his lips, nodding. “As I said before, I was looking over your papers earlier this evening. You should be doing better in your classes. You should be enjoying life here more. This incident should never have happened. What I find is the missing ingredient of self-knowledge, Hook. Who are you?

  Do you know? What do you believe? To what tenets of faith do you subscribe? What will best allow you to grow in whatever time you have here?”

  Jim wasn’t sure how to respond. They all sounded like trick questions.

  “All I know. . .” he began. “All I know is I want to make my brother proud of me. For his memory.” He felt embarrassed to say it aloud, as if he’d taken off all his clothes right there, and once and for all told the world that yes, his dick was small, his brain was fried, and his shit stank. That’s what it felt like. He felt his face turn red.

  “That’s all right,” Trimalchio said. “You know, the night my friend died—killed himself here—I thought he was trying to tell me something earlier. Something about Harrow. Not about what he’d been accused of, but something he believed. I’ll never know what it was. He died. It was over.” A wind rushed down through the trees, brushing brown and yellow leaves down into the lights, and sending an arctic chill through them. “It’s nearly November. It’s going to be freezing in a day or two.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trimalchio took a deep breath. “You can’t take back the past and shine it up so it’s all better. You just can’t. Go on to your room. Tell the housemaster or your R.A. or whoever crosses you that you have had my permission to be out tonight. That I am aware of it. I’ll back it up.”

  “But. . . sir? Wouldn’t that be a violation?”

  “Hook?” Trimalchio chuckled. “Good lord, no. I’m giving you permission.”

  Trimalchio looked up to the trees and the flickering starlight. “We’re so small here, Hook. Our concerns. Our divisions. Tonight you’re worried about an Honor Trial, but trust me, regardless of the outcome, those stars will still be there tomorrow night and the night after. And in a few weeks, or a few months, this will seem like indigestion for you, or the memory of a bad dream, or nothing at all. So, promise me, no leaping off buildings or stepping into nooses, all right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. And don’t forget to read the Kipling. Take it to heart. Oh, and Hook, one more thing.”

  “Sir?”

  “Do you think any of the other students are pranksters?”

  Jim wanted to say, “Sir?” again, but it would sound goofy. He shrugged.

  “Pranks. Practical jokes. Like that Crown boy used to do last year. Do you think we have pranksters here?”

  “Maybe. It depends. What kind of pranks?”

  Trimalchio shrugged, looking off in the distance, distracted. “Oh, perhaps email pranks. Phone calls. That sort of thing.”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “All right. Thanks. Goodnight, Hook. Get back to your room now.”

  Jim nodded, feeling a surge of elation that he wasn’t going to get into trouble after all, and began walking across the gravel path toward the Trenches.

  The first thing he did when he got to his room— Mojo on the headphones tapping on his laptop—was to go looking for the finger. It wasn’t there, although a small bloodstain remained in a corner of his dresser.

  “Hey, Mojo,” he said, pulling the headphones off his roommate’s ears. “Did you go through my drawers?”

  “What the fuck?” Mojo said. Then added, “Don’t be absurd.”

  Jim felt blood pump through his system in a way he hadn’t felt before—ever. He felt victorious. “Okay. Look, I need to go out.”

  “Man, Trimalchio and Angstrom both were looking for you before. I think maybe you need to stay put.”

  “It’ll be all right. Just cover for me, okay? I’ve got permission from Trimalchio himself. That’s all anyone needs to know if they come looking for me.”

  “Get up,” Jim whispered in the dark.

  Then he flicked the light up.

  Trey Fricker sat up. “What the—

  “I got what you wanted. What they wanted. Now, I want to know more.” Jim held up Ivy Martin’s ring. “This it?”

  Fricker rolled out of bed, crawling to the nightstand for his cigarettes. He had one lit and in his mouth before he said another word. “Christ, Hook.”

  His roommate, Shep Shepard, sat up in bed. Shep was squirrelly and geeky and quiet, and Jim hadn’t really noticed him all that much in the past. But Shep was up in no time, and grabbed his glasses. “Shit, he got it,” Shep said.

  “Shut up,” Fricker said. “Get on the horn and tell them emergency powwow.” He drew something out of the nightstand drawer, and stood up. “Get over here, Hook.”

  “Why?” Jim looked from Fricker to Shep, and then suddenly wished he hadn’t barged in with the ring.

  “I said so. You want in, you want protection, you want it all, you do as I say. Get over here now, Hook.”

  Jim went to him, and Fricker said, “Open your mouth and close your eyes and you will get a big surprise.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Just do it.”

  Jim shut his eyes and opened his mouth. Fricker put some kind of pill on his tongue. Then Fricker handed him a glass of water.

  “Drink it down like a good boy.”

  “What is it?”

  “It ain’t Vitamin C, that’s for fuckin’ sure,” Fricker said. “Swallow it.”

  “Trying to kill me?”

  “No,” Fricker said. “To save you. Don’t worry, Hook. It’s okay. Trust me on this.”

  You’re a damn idiot and you give in to peer pressure too easily, Jim told himself, but took a sip. He opened his eyes, trying to figure out a way to spit the pill out, but it went down his gullet.

  And it wasn’t water he’d been given. It might’ve been vodka or grain alcohol. He couldn’t tell.

  “It’s only a roofie cocktail,” Shep said, covering up the cell phone speaker with his hand.

  “Jesus,” Jim said. “A roofie? What the hell is going on? Are you gonna—what—kill me? Rape me? Torture me?”

  “Yeah, all of the above,” Shep laughed.

  “In your dreams, Hook, in your dreams,” Fricker said.

  “And you,” Jim pointed to Shep, simultaneously dropping the glass. But when the glass shattered on the floor, he didn’t quite hear it, and he felt sick to his stomach.

  Before he realized what was happening, Jim Hook felt the floor give out under him.

  When he woke up, it seemed as if one hundred boys stood over him. They lifted him and took him somewhere very cold.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  He felt a weird pain somewhere around his butt, like someone had stuck a needle in his left cheek—Christ, had they injected him with something? What kind of freaks were they? What the hell were they
doing to him?

  Jim vaguely saw—the words “through a glass darkly” came to mind—the faces above him, but not faces, the demons, that’s what they were—no, they were skulls— no, they were dogs and cats?—what the hell were they? They kept shifting.

  Oh, he figured it out. They were wearing Halloween masks. The cheap kind. Halloween was coming up in a couple of days. The dweebs. What were they trying to prove with cheesy masks? Shep Shepard was one of them. He was a geek. Fricker might be cool, but Shep was not what Jim would’ve guessed was Corpse Society material. At least not with what he’d conjured in his mind, this secret nighttime group of unstoppable force and dastardly deed.

  They might be losers for all he knew.

  Yeah, losers who just gave you a drug which you swallowed like a moron and now you’ll probably wake up dead, only you won’t wake up, and instead you ‘re gonna find yourself gangbanged or headbanged or banged in some disgusting and horrible way, or maybe they’ll just do to you what they did to the senior last year—a bunch of underclassmen kidnapped and left this guy down at St. Cat’s completely naked with profanities scrawled in magic marker all over his back, and fifty cents to call his Mommy.

  That might just be a fate worse than death.

  His vision went in and out of focus, and he felt a curious tugging along his shoulders and legs.

  All right. They’re carrying me. They’re carrying me somewhere. They’re going to do something really awful with me.

  A few furtive whispers; rustling of leaves; someone groaned, and he was sure someone

  said, “Shit, he weighs a ton,” and Jim wondered how the heck they had even moved him beyond the Trenches, for now, he saw the night sky above him, and the shadows of trees.

  He looked mask to mask, trying to see their eyes, trying to see where Trey Fricker and Shep Shepard were in this group, but his eyesight sucked, and the drug they’d given him was making him feel nauseated.