“Didn’t want what?” Dan asked.
Dan had no idea why Horse was there; the old teacher had not bothered to even offer his hastily contrived excuse, but instead confronted Dan with his theory. It was hard to see, black silhouette against the darkness of the trees. Only the snow offered a slight contrast, but little. The evening was overcast. He looked down at the rickety bag in Horse’s hand.
“For me?”
Horse remembered his ruse.
“He left these,” he grumbled, but did not offer them.
The bag dangled from his hand.
“Is that all?” Dan asked, wanting to close the door.
“You didn’t want it,” Horse said again.
“Want what?” Horse had Dan pegged as a hot head. He wasn’t wrong. Standing in the doorway, the father gave off the energy that came from being rubbed the wrong way. Taking a breath, he closed his eyes and waited.
“Peter.”
Horse stared directly at Dan, trying to read his response. With the father’s eyes closed, he couldn’t tell a thing.
But Dan was trying to surpress a headache that had grown through the day. Now, with Horse standing on his stoop, his internal and external worlds were crashing together in an explosive way. Certainly the old teacher could predict this, but in the darkness he was unsure; he did not he needed to continue to push.
“Of course I did.” Dan opened his eyes and looked away.
Then he got angry.
“What right do you have…”
“None.”
Dan wasn’t in the mood to be agreed with.
He swung.
Connecting with Horse’s jaw, the old teacher fell off the stoop and into the shoveled path, slamming his head back. Horse was unsure if it was a rock from the walk or just hard soil, as a layer of ice covered everything. He thought about this, eyes closed, and then heard a slight puff as the bag of clothes landed in the snow forty feet away. When he opened his eyes Dan was gone, the door shut. Only a single light was on in the house, and Horse wondered if Peter was home.
Lying there, he decided not to move for a while.
The light freezing rainfell against his face.
‘Soon, the snow will be gone,’ Horse thought. Then, we’ll see.
CHAPTER 15
“What have I done now?” Horse asked Trooper Danielson.
Coming in with a cup of Green Mountain coffee, he looked at the trooper and let his body go limp for dramatic effect. You got me. No longer dragging Peter to school each morning, Horse’s rhythm was off and he had forgotten (again) to set the coffee maker. On the way to school he stopped at a gas station and filled up his dirty aluminum travel mug with coffee. Unusually late, he was stuck in unusually stop-and-go pokey traffic—idiots, he thought—that made drinking and driving difficult. Arriving at his classroom door with an armload of paint cans, he had yet to take a sip.
Only to find Trooper Danielson was waiting for him.
“Can I ask you where you were last night?”
“Home.” With a nod of his head towards his right shoulder, Horse motioned for Danielson to take the paint cans and coffee that filled his two hands. Hands free, he dug into his coat pocket for the classroom door keys. “Alone.” He fumbled for the right key, then fished it right and left until a soft click filled the empty hallway. “I’m sure you get that a lot.”
“Can I ask you what you were doing?” The trooper followed him in.
Horse swung the strap of his leather satchel over his head and dropped it into his desk chair with a whomp. Taking the coffee, he motioned for Danielson to drop the cans where he stood.
“I was drunk.”
Gently, the trooper placed the paint cans on the floor. He looked Horse over; his was the body of someone who had drunk the night before: tired. To the young trooper, the man looked old. Not just older, but old.
And then he noticed the black eye.
“That’s quite a bruise,” he said, pointing.
“Yeah.”
“Who did it?” Danielson paused. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Ran into a door.”
“Does the door have a name?”
“No that I’d care to share.”
“Was there any of this drinking involved?”
“No.” Horse took a sip of coffee, taking in the smell more than anything. “I start in a chair and pass out in same chair.”
Danielson said nothing to this. His mind flipped through what he knew of the man who had taught him years prior, and of the file on Peter Johnson that he had read that morning.
A hard luck case.
‘Both,’ he thought.
That file sat on the passenger seat of his cruiser, parked in the visitor’s space out front. For whatever brave face Horse put on, he knew the boy moving out affected him.
“Someone broke into Laporte Contracting last night,” the trooper said.
“As I said, I was drunk.”
“People have committed breaking and entering while intoxicated.”
“I don’t multitask well.”
Danielson nodded, believing him. He wondered if the old man had lost a step since his days in the classroom.
For his part, Horse look off his coat quickly.
He was late.
He felt late.
Rushed.
He glanced at the clock and gauged six minutes until the first student stumbled into the room from the bus.
“Not me.” He hung up his coat on a hook in the corner. “Why would it be me?”
“Laporte said you had given him a late night visit a week ago.”
“He also said he wouldn’t report it.”
Horse lifted his bag from his chair and dropped it on his desk with a thump.
“He didn’t. Not exactly. With this break-in, his secretary called us. When she came in, the place was a mess and some of their property was missing. Without a police report the insurance folks won’t do anything.”
“See,” Horse said, unlatching his bag, “it can’t be me. I have enough stuff already.”
“Laporte didn’t think you would,” Trooper Danielson said. “Still, he didn’t seem too sure at first. And his words never really matched his sentiments.”
Horse took a seat. Then, he took his first sip of coffee. With that, he relaxed.
“I don’t know,” Horse told the trooper. “I was home alone last night. Alone. With some whiskey.”
Again, the trooper looked him up and down. He wanted to warn him about Laporte; that what he didn’t let the police handle he might do himself. Laporte did not care about the rule of law or evidence or even the truth—he was a businessman in a tough business and the old man had given him enough to perhaps pay him a visit.
Instead, he said nothing.
Nothing about Laporte, because he knew Horse knew and didn’t care.
“I don’t doubt it,” Danielson said, just as the first student walked in the door.
“Another parent requesting that you do not become their child’s teacher.”
A day had passed. Wells was sitting in Horse’s chair while the old teacher wrestled with the keys jammed in the classroom door. Coffee in hand, the principal’s feet were up on the teacher’s desk.
“Who?” He asked but didn’t really care.
“Peter Johnson.”
“I don’t even have him. He’s Jones’.”
Finally pulling the keys from the lock, Horse thrust the ring into his coat pocket and made his way to the desk. With his good hand he swiped at Wells’ feet, and missed. Wells nodded to the thermos, set on the edge of the desk next to a clean mug.
“I know. That’s what makes it so ironic. We’ve gotten to the point where parents don’t want their kids in the same school with you.”
Sitting in a student’s plastic chair, Horse exhaled.
Wells looked at his tired face and noticed the shiner around his eye. Horse looked ahead into space, his body stiff. Deciding not to say anything, Wells leaned forward
and passed the thermos to Horse. The old man methodically unscrewed the cap and poured a cup of coffee. Without replacing the cap, he passed it back to Wells.
The smell—Horse loved the smell of coffee. “Coffee has the power to make an awful day simply miserable,” he had told Wells many times. Shamelessly, he told students it made the perfect gift for the holidays—and received quite a bit before break and graduation.
Horse held it now under his nose and breathed.
It was a horrible brew. One of their first times out, Wells let it be known that he had little sense of taste because of poor sinuses. Thrifty at best, cheap at worst, Wells bought coffee because of the price, name or label—you’re the same with wine, Horse noted—and with little concern for taste or aroma. At some point in his young adult life Wells had acquired a coffee grinder, and, as a result, had always bought beans and insisted on grinding them. It was a quirk that Horse accepted, although the beans his friend bought were cheap, always dry and burnt.
“You can buy the beans,” Wells told Horse in response to his complaints.
He never did.
This brew enlivened him.
“What did Johnson say, exactly?” Horse asked. He did not feel insulted, but was curious how his visit was relayed to Wells.
“He said that he was concerned that the time when Peter was a foster child with you would lead to confusion if you continued to teach him.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
Parents always want something.
“He wanted Peter transferred.”
“To another teacher?”
“I guess,” Wells thought, realizing it was a bit of a ridiculous request since he was already with another teacher.
“It sounds like the type of request a parent would make who didn’t know anything about his kid.”
“A lot of parents couldn’t tell you their teacher’s name.”
“Maybe,” Horse said, breathing in his coffee deep. “Or, something less likely.”
CHAPTER 16
The lion is gone. No gatekeeper.
Ms. Binney takes a break.
Hunger.
When Wells looked up from the paperwork regarding nutritional information per student he found a quiet parent leaning against the doorjamb.
“Mr. Tomlinson…” he said, rising from his seat in welcome.
The father did not move.
“I spoke with Horse...”
“Oh,” a nervous waver enters his voice. “We have lawyers...”
“Yes, yes...” Tomlinson dismissed Wells’ concerns. “He told me that. I also spoke with the teacher in the next room...”
“Mr. Jones.”
“I guess... I don’t know. He helped me see a few things.”
“Good.”
“Do you remember Amanda’s mother?”
“Sonja. Yes, I remember her.” Looking around for somewhere to put his hands, Wells wound up with them on top of his paperwork, where they began.
“We used to be friends. All of us. You used to come over... Then...”
Tomlinson’s smile turned to a straight line.
“I remember. I’m sorry I lost touch.”
“No.” Mr. Tomlinson waved his concerns off. “Sonja was your link to our family. College friends. I understand. And, with her gone...”
He looked at the carpet. Wells looked at his hands.
“I only mention it,” Tomlinson said, “because I miss it.”
“We all miss Sonja...”
“No. I miss that.” The father’s voice rose with conviction. “I miss my wife sitting in her chair, and having people over, and you…”
He welled up.
Unsure of what to do—get up, give him a hug… no wise words coming—Wells tightened his mouth into a line and waited.
Finally, “They were good times,” he admitted.
“Yes. They were. But I felt it again with Horse. When he was dealing with Amanda, and we three met practically every day... It was the first time I felt that again. He fixed Amanda. And I have not had a casual friendship since she graduated from this school.”
“It’s hard...” Wells replied, trying to find the words to… He was unsure of what he was trying to do. Prevent a lawsuit? Comfort a friend? No words came.
“Speaking to Mr. Jones, I realized that casual relationships are based on accepting mistakes your friends make.”
“I don’t know if he made a mistake.”
Prevent a lawsuit, Wells decided.
Tomlinson stared at the floor; then, straight at Wells. “I don’t know either. I miss being able to forgive so easily and move on. Loss does that to you, I guess.”
“Man, you were really working them old school today.”
Standing in the doorway, this was Jones’ attempt to reach out to Horse. It was meant to be an entry. In reality, Jones hated Horse because he reminded him of the difference between his own self-perception and the reality. Throughout his life, Jones had been able to justify his failures and mediocrity, but at thirty the excuses had run thin.
He was mediocre.
And just as he had accepted it—accepted the job at Grace Haven and settled into an unspectacular house and a boring Toyota Corolla—he was faced with Horse. At first, it was a friendly competition, with himself being the one who cared—Horse certainly didn’t seem to. Kids seemed to like him. Over time, though, his room became the default location for mediocre students and dull personalities. His students were, without exception, lazy. Their work was serviceable. As Jones exhibited little spark or structure or demands, the students responded in kind.
A professor had once said to him: the students resemble the teacher.
It had become true.
With each passing year, he had tried new things. Desks in circles, alternative projects, and a grab bag of Waldorf-inspired lessons which yielded little but a lot of posters and a huge bill for yarn. There was the Harkness table, but twenty-five were too many seventh graders for a thoughtful discussion. He was unable to completely grasp alternative methods, nor did he have the will to push students in the more traditional ones. His teaching was acceptable.
For the first time in his life, mediocre was unacceptable. This, Jones knew.
“And he is too much of an ass to take the first step in changing it,” Horse had once said to Wells.
Now, Horse looked up at Jones and smiled. “What, reading? I know that might not fit into your open-minded curriculum.”
It was his attempt at being playful.
Jones responded with a friendly laugh.
“No. The keyboarding. I could hear you through the wall. A-S-D-F, A-S-D-F, A-S-D-F... J-K-L-;, J-K-L-;, J-K-L-;...”
“I call it typing.”
“It’s keyboarding. That’s the term they use now.”
“Typing. We use typewriters. It’s an important skill.”
“A skill that they already know. Well, keyboarding, anyway. They’ve been on keyboards since before they came to school. They know it like breathing.”
“Each morning we do fifteen minutes of meditation to start the day, in part because they don’t even know how to breathe correctly. They can peck on a screen, and somewhat on a keyboard. They cannot type.”
“Teaching keyboarding—typing—at this stage of their career is a waste of time. It’s like teaching cursive.”
“If I controlled the third grade, they would learn that, too.”
“It’s worse. Your keyboarding lesson is redundant. Cursive is... obsolete.”
“Yet, it teaches some important skills.”
“Old school. Old skills.”
Feigned smile filled with contempt, Horse replied, “That’s why you’re Teacher of the Year. You have a progressive curriculum.”
“I’m proud of that award, but I can tell you don’t think I deserve it.”
“I subscribe to the Robert Fulghum ‘All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten’ philosophy. So, I’d give it to the kindergarten teachers. Maybe grade one. M
aybe.”
“You don’t think we have anything to contribute?”
“Sure. But I spend most of my day teaching skills missed before they get to me. Hire some good kindergarten teachers and I can teach what I’m supposed to teach.”
“And what is that, in your view?”
To this, Horse paused in thought.
And then changed the subject.
“Have you ever given personal advice to your students?”
“Sure. We talk all the time.”
“That doesn’t worry you?”
“No. I’m like their friend. I believe teaching is a relationship. We talk. That’s what friends do.”
“Who wants to be friends with a thirteen-year-old?”
“Why, aren’t you friends with your students?”
“God, no. A friend is someone you borrow money from. You talk about sex, or sexual problems. I trust you don’t have those conversations.”
“No.” Jones smiled, relaxing a bit. Even in the heat of pedagogical discussion he heard Horse’s attempt at collegial banter. “You know, parents and the like. But do you even know what a friend is?”
“Maybe you’re right. I do borrow money from kids.”
At this, Jones felt genuine surprise, forgetting the banter he had just begun to enjoy.
“You do?”
And Horse was serious.
“I like to see who remembers I owe them something. Or who trusts me. Or who whips out the wad of bills.”
“So you don’t need the cash?”
Horse smiled, but not in a friendly way.
“You’re an idiot. If you don’t call them on their plagiarism, your students will think you’re an idiot, too. Or a sucker.”
“I’m a good teacher.”
“Teacher of the Year!” Horse smiled a smile of irony. “You’re popular.”
“So?”
“There’s a difference.”
“Jealous?”
“No. But there’s a difference.”
Absentee List_An Old Horse Mystery Page 14
