Three dozen masked combatants wielded their weapons where swimmers had once swum laps, filling the pool with a boring multitude of look-alike superheroes, the antithesis of Zorro in his flowing black cape and sword that actually had a sharp tip. Mr. O’Leary conducted the practice from the shallow end, the room’s acoustics magnifying the shrill clinks of metal on metal. But once sparring commenced, he lowered his mask and joined the fray, quickly becoming lost in the action.
Anderson, an upperclassman who looked suspiciously out-of-shape but was rumored to be a lethal fencer, guided me through a series of rigorous stretches and bodyweight exercises. I was disappointed when informed I wouldn’t so much as touch a foil until the second week of practice. Anderson’s attention often returned to the combatants below while stretching at the pool’s perimeter. I was just as distracted, as the pull toward dueling was stronger than the preparation for it. By the end of practice, I never wanted to assume the en garde position again. As the team picked up the mats and surged toward the shallow end, Mr. O’Leary removed his mask and called up to me:
“Up the foil, up the epee, up the saber. Up the irons!”
* * * * *
The first time I heard of “the Headliners,” I was standing in line waiting for Rosa to slop more scrambled eggs onto my plate.
“Look, the Headliners are at it again,” someone commented to his friend. “You know they’re getting special treatment if they have time to read the paper.”
It didn’t occur to me that I was one of the Headliners until I took my seat beside Chris, Roland and Derek, the headlines spread across the table. I decided to wait until lunch to bring it up. We were seated at the same table, the only difference being that the newspapers were gone, and eggs and cereal had been replaced with a chunky, lukewarm bowl of spiceless chili.
“Have you heard what they’re calling us?”
“Hmmm?” Roland muttered.
“The Headliners. I overheard someone at breakfast.”
“You got to admit it’s got a ring to it,” Derek said, smashing a fistful of crackers and dropping them into his chili.
“You know about this?”
“I was there when Hayes came up with it. Think about it—it fits. It’s like we’re in a band or something headlining a world tour.” He shook his head spastically. “Comin’ at’cha live!”
“How does it fit?”
“Remember yesterday morning? All our fathers were in the paper. On the same day. Coincidence? I think not. Besides, you know how nicknames are around here.”
“Nicknames are one thing, but everyone thinks we’re getting special treatment. They think the only reason we’re here is because of our fathers.”
“Get used to it, Jake,” Chris said. “It’ll follow you everywhere you go. You really think with my D-minus GPA and five expulsions, that anyone in their right mind would let me in here?”
“Six,” Roland said, blowing on his chili.
“What?”
“Six expulsions.”
“Six? You sure?”
Roland nodded. “You’re forgetting Wheaton. You always forget Wheaton.”
Chris shrugged. “Who’s counting?” He pushed his lunch tray away and looked over his shoulder. “Okay, here we go. Follow me, young Jake. Revenge is sweet.”
“I’m still eating.”
“That chili can’t get much colder,” Chris said, getting up. “Come on.”
I followed him across the cafeteria to the mailroom. Earlier that morning, instead of issuing his standard reply of “Musty, from Brooklyn,” when handing me Grandpa’s letter, Chet had said: “When ya gonna get yawself a gurl, three-seventy-five? Yaw a good lookin’ lad.” Apparently I had gone too many weeks without a perfumed letter.
“Three-ninety-faw!” I heard Chet say now, his heavy face alarmed. Loosy-Goosy stood at the front of the line, looking victimized in his neck brace. “My Gawd! What happened to ya? Yaw collecting casts like they was going out of style.”
“Just the mail, Chet,” Loosy-Goosy said.
Chet obediently slid to the back of the mailroom, returning with a heart-shaped envelope. “Oh my, three-ninety-faw,” he said, flashing Loosy-Goosy a knowing smile. “And it’s not even Valentine’s Day. That purty gurl of yaws in Maine sure knows how to make ya feel better.” But when he passed the bright red envelope beneath his nose, his eyes widened. “Why, three-ninety-faw, this smells like a man!”
Everyone in line burst out laughing. Loosy-Goosy’s face turned red, as if the neck brace was restricting his breathing. Then he snatched the envelope out of Chet’s hand and stalked off, his chin pointing defiantly in the air.
Chris couldn’t stop laughing.
“You sent him that?”
“Only after dousing it with cologne. After what that little shit did to you, I couldn’t resist.”
“A sprained neck isn’t enough?”
“We’ll have him in a body cast by Christmas.”
ONE YEAR EARLIER
Grandfather was usually reading the newspaper when I arrived, or if it was the first Monday of the month, flipping through the latest National Geographic. But on this occasion he was napping in the recliner, the rise and fall of his snores greeting me as I crossed the porch and entered the house. He didn’t wake until after I had taken my accustomed seat on the couch. He straightened in the chair, picked up the open book in his lap, and began reading, completely unaware that I was in the room.
All was quiet with the exception of a fan (which added more in the way of noise than circulation) and the occasional turning of a page. The only relief from the late summer heat was a small window air conditioner. A series of ancient fans were placed throughout the house to circulate the limited supply of cool air. I gave them a wide berth, as the only protection from their metal blades was a barred safeguard with gaps large enough to squeeze a hand through.
Grandfather’s white hair stood defiant in the lamplight, having survived the years without receding a single inch (though later, while standing beside him, I would discover a bald spot shining like an egg from the protective basket of its nest). I think Grandfather would have preferred he lost his hair, since he could never keep it in any presentable order. Each day it rebelled, crossing this way or that, exerting its own free will, at times standing straight on end.
Gradually, with no particular beginning, I became aware of the most trivial details: the reading lamp that bathed Grandfather’s bowed head in gold; his cloudy-blue eyes moving across the page and then jumping back like the carriage return of a typewriter; the clock ticking from its perch above the unused television. The clock looked frozen in time with its small doors stuck open, the chime bird exposed on its ledge to perpetually signify the passing hour with a singsong reminder it was no longer able to voice. The room emitted a patience as if it had witnessed this same scene a thousand times, with the old man quietly reading and the entire house holding its musty breath and showing no sign of taking another.
“And just how long are we going to sit here without acknowledging one another?” Grandfather asked without lifting his eyes from the book.
“Who, me?”
He looked up. “Is there anyone else in here I should know about?” Then he glanced at the clock. “Running a little late, aren’t you?”
“It’s the first week of school,” I said, loosening my tie. Wearing the Homestead uniform officially marked the end of summer.
“They make you wear that every day, do they?”
“Yes, sir,” I said sullenly.
He flinched at my response. “Jacob, I think we know each other well enough to drop the formalities. This sir business is cumbersome.”
“Sorry, Grandfather.”
“If only respect could be gained as easily as slipping something over one’s shoulders. While we’re speaking of it, this … grandfather business. It’s like your uniform there—it’s too official. Something like … well, something like grandpa, for instance, has a certain ring to it. Family shouldn’t
be so formal with one another. If you’re formal with your family, well, then who would you ever be informal with?”
“Most of my friends call me Jake. No one calls me Jacob.”
“Okay. Well Jake, now that we’re on a first-name basis, I think it’s time I showed you something. Follow me.”
He led me up a narrow staircase to a small room in the rear of the house, its ceiling angled with the slope of the roof. A collection of toy-sized trees was displayed on a folding table, their trunks bent at dramatic angles toward a paned-glass window. The stunted branches ended in clumps of green that were more bristles than leaves, reminding me of the cypress trees I had seen once in California.
“These are my bonsai trees,” Grandpa said.
“Bone-sigh,” I said, trying the word out. “You sure they’re trees?”
Each plant sat in a stoneware pot topped with white river pebbles with moist, black dirt showing through. I half-expected to see miniature squirrels and miniature birds chirping in dime-sized nests.
“Yes, quite certain,” he said. “And if you saw how tall they grow in the wild, you’d be certain of it, too. Their growth is stunted by keeping them potted and trimming their branches.”
“Where do they come from?”
“Japan, mostly. China as well. They perch themselves in rocky crevices way up in the mountains where not much of anything can survive.”
I examined the dwarfed trees more closely, noticing small white flowers and red berries among their leaves.
“They’re quite fussy,” Grandpa said, examining his collection. “Be prepared for high maintenance if you ever own one. A bonsai becomes more than just a plant. Some even consider them a form of living art. That one you’re looking at there is Priscilla. She turned forty-six last month.”
“Years old? Wow. So do they all have names?”
He nodded. “Their name is a reminder that their life is in your hands. They have to be watered a precise amount each day and fed a special fertilizer, not to mention the trimming. Everything has to be just right. And they’ll know if you neglect them.”
“What’s the big one in the back called?”
“This one? That’s Julius. He’s the oldest. He was your Grandma’s favorite. She got me started in all this. He’s a special plant. And a stubborn one. Julius and I are the same age, and I’m beginning to suspect he’s determined to outlive me. It’s become a sort of contest between us.”
We admired the dozen bonsai in silence, their crooked branches casting wiry shadows across the table.
“Like most of us,” Grandpa said, “they’re set in their ways. It’s taken years for their branches to grow to where you see them today. They have to be guided when they are young by wiring their trunks. Then the sunlight takes things from there. For most of them, it would be hard to change their location. The young ones could handle it, but the older ones like Julius here wouldn’t much care for it at all.”
When he looked at me, I already knew what he was going to ask. “Would you like to adopt one?”
With the list of daily chores running through my head, I looked uncertainly at the trees. “I’m not really much of a green thumb. I wouldn’t even know how to take care of one.”
“Well, I could teach you. We can leave your tree here until you get the hang of it. You don’t have to take it home until you’re ready.”
“What about changing locations and all that?”
“Pick one of the younger ones here in front. They should adapt without too much complaining.”
“Okay. How about this one?”
“It’s yours. But you have to name it. Not necessarily right now, but—”
“Seymour,” I blurted out.
“Seymour? And how did you come up with that?”
“Just popped in my head.”
“Very well. Seymour, you have now been adopted.” With a courteous bow to the bonsai, he added, “Meet your new caretaker, Jake—or servant, whichever the case may be.”
Over the course of the following months, Grandpa taught me how to properly care for Seymour. He showed me how to trim his branches using miniature shears. He wielded this instrument as an artist wields his brush, deftly moving it between the small branches to snip a little here, pluck off a piece there, carefully trimming wherever he saw appropriate. Working on the bonsai seemed to have a therapeutic effect on his arthritis, for once he began trimming, his hands moved agilely, almost youthfully about the tiny branches.
“Sometimes I can overdo it,” he confessed one day during the winter. “I meddle too much. I either cut too far back, or trim too often. That’s the mistake of an amateur—to try and do too much. You don’t want to smother them, but it’s human nature to tamper, to try to mold them into a particular image. It’s a mistake made innocently enough, but one that can have disastrous consequences.”
Grandpa would examine each of the bonsai, talking to them like he were tucking his children in for the night. “And how are you this evening, Priscilla? Hmmm?” Outside, the sky had darkened with the occasional snowflake drifting past the window. “How are you handling the cold weather, Cynthia? Staying away from those dreadful drafts, are you?”
“Jake, there is one more thing you should know before adopting Seymour,” he told me. “Being a good caretaker requires more than just performing the day-to-day chores. Perhaps most important of all, a bonsai needs to be loved. Without that, it will die. I know, I know, you’re probably thinking I’m just being sentimental, but it’s true. If the feelings of the caretaker aren’t there, the tree won’t survive. Yes, they can grow alone on mountaintops in all that cold and without much soil to speak of, but something changes when they aren’t allowed to grow so strong and so tall. It’s like taming a wild animal. Once they’re raised in captivity, they must be treated differently. Returning them to the wild would be cruel. They are our responsibility now. That’s something you want to keep in mind with young Seymour here. He’ll be especially lonely because he’s used to being around all his friends.” He shrugged away my amused expression. “It’s true. This comes from years of experience. Why, I’ll sometimes tell them stories on cloudy days to cheer them up.”
I had, in fact, witnessed this on more than one occasion. At first I thought the stories were for my benefit, but I couldn’t help notice how Grandpa would frequently lean over the trees as if addressing them. Perhaps the retired schoolteacher had never stopped teaching after all.
“Yes, I suppose they are my students now,” he admitted when I brought this to his attention. “Come to think of it, they’re the best students I’ve ever had. They never talk back!”
“Or get tired of your long-winded lectures.”
His face grew stern, but he couldn’t contain his laughter for long.
That night I took Seymour home, placing him on a windowsill that faced the setting sun. After several weeks under my caretaking, Seymour remained in good health. Even when Father found Seymour in my bedroom—the sight jarring awake a certain painful memory in him—a discovery I would later learn sealed my fate to Raker Island, I didn’t regret adopting the bonsai. In fact, when I departed for Wellington at the end of the summer, I took Seymour with me, knowing the temperamental tree would never survive at home.
CHAPTER 8: THE BEACH
Through no fault of our own, a rift had formed at Wellington. Rumors spread of how the four of us had bragged about our fathers making the headlines. Though we had done nothing more than read the newspaper, we were perceived as flaunting our superiority. And in a school where it was taboo to speak of your family’s successes, the Headliners became more than just another nickname.
Chris welcomed the division, as it provided an outlet for his anger over the upcoming debate. After transitioning from being the governor’s son to just one of the guys, he was now put back in his original role. Chris didn’t seem bothered that the Headliners linked him to his father. Perhaps it was because it created drama on Raker Island, a place where he claimed everyone would die fr
om boredom.
When Chris suggested going down to a beach he had spotted during his arrival in the helicopter, we all agreed to go. So when most of the school was being ferried to Miskapaug to attend Mass at St. Peter’s, we were hiking through the field of waist-high grass behind the school. The compact fronds, heavy with moisture from the previous night’s rain, shifted in the cool breeze passed down through the distant trees. Our shoes and pant legs were covered with burrs by the time we had crossed the field. Just ahead, the tall grass gave way to thickets, vines and weeds. Island birds chirped from nearby; something deep in the woods squawked. Overhead, the sun sat low in the eastern sky, penetrating the trees in slanting rays that lifted the morning grayness.
“You see the trail?” Roland asked from where he sat removing burrs from his socks and shoelaces.
“It’s here,” Chris replied, peering into the woods. “Somewhere.” He dropped the coil of rope he had taken from Max’s supply shed, leaned his shoulder against a tree and waited as Roland pruned himself. The roommates had attempted to reach the beach the weekend before, but were forced to turn back when the cliffs became too steep.
“Beats the hell out of going to church,” Derek said, throwing a rock into the woods where it cracked against a stout limb. The sound was answered by the rap-tap-tap of a woodpecker.
“You missed one, pretty boy,” I said.
Roland looked up. “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful,” he said, running a hand over his short-cropped hair.
We fell in behind Chris. The trees still held moisture from the night before, which brushed onto my clothes, at times trickling down the back of my neck. When Chris tore his way through a network of vines, branches high above shook in response, the leaves trembling wetly, spider webs that had previously been invisible catching beads of fallen water. The trees, mainly poplars and sugar maples, were evenly spaced, but the undergrowth was dense, rising on all sides in clusters of vines barbed with thorns. It soon became evident that there was no trail. Whatever path Chris and Roland had previously made had disappeared.
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