by Danny Tobey
The sun was nearly down, the courtroom filled with purple light. The judges were gone. Most of the crowd had gone home.
“Let’s go celebrate,” Daphne said.
“Sure. Hang on a second.”
I walked toward John and Nigel. “Where are you going?” she called after me.
They were still sitting at their table. John was staring at his notes. Nigel looked ahead blankly, like a kid who has just learned his dog died.
“Come on,” I said to them. “We’re going out.”
They looked at me like I was crazy.
“I’m serious. We’re going out. It’s over. We’ve been killing ourselves for a month. Come on. I’m buying.”
“I don’t feel like it,” Nigel said.
“I don’t care. I’m buying us a round of drinks. After that, you can leave if you want. You owe me that much.”
I wasn’t taking no for an answer. Somehow I bullied them into joining us at The Idle Rich. Mostly, I think they were numb. The four of us sat around an oak table with the rapport of funeral directors, until the second round of drinks, when things loosened up a bit.
“Something about this place,” I said. “It’s corrosive, isn’t it? When did we get so serious?”
“You didn’t have fun destroying our case?” Nigel asked. His tone was only halfway bitter, a major improvement over the last hour.
“How did you know that about our witness?” John asked, shaking his head. We hadn’t met each other’s experts before the trial. We hadn’t even known their names. He must have been baffled.
“I know her,” I said. “We met on campus.”
“Lucky her,” Nigel said dryly.
I shook off a sinking feeling in my stomach, changed the subject.
“Seriously, though. Did you guys ever just hang out, act stupid? Or were you always future Supreme Court clerks?”
“John used to be crazy,” Daphne said.
“Bullshit.”
“What are you talking about?” John asked her, making eye contact with us for the first time since the verdict.
“You know, the table story?”
“You are not bringing that up.”
“If you don’t tell it, I will,” Daphne said, grinning.
“Fine. Go ahead.” John leaned back, closed his eyes, and held a bottle to his forehead.
“It’s an Oxford story,” Daphne said. “John and his friends decide they want to start a poker game. So after a few drinks, one of his brilliant friends—who was it, Tom?—suggests that one of the big round tables in the dining hall would make a perfect poker table. You have to imagine it: these are giant wooden tables, maybe seven or eight feet wide. It took five of them to lift it. So after dinner one night, when the dining hall was empty, John and his friends snuck back in and carried out the table. That was their whole plan. Just walk out with it. Rhodes scholars, right?”
“Oh no,” Nigel said, shaking his head. “You stole a table from Oxford?”
“We did,” John said. I saw the hint of a grin.
“They almost made it too. They were halfway across campus, carrying this table in the middle of the quad, when a security guard stopped them.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“That’s the best part,” Daphne said. “As the story goes, everyone’s panicking except John. He looks right at the security guard and says with a straight face, ‘Do you think I want to be carrying this table across campus?’ He says it just right. The guard blinks at him for a few seconds. Then he lets them go!”
Everybody was smiling now, even laughing a little. “Confidence,” John said happily, “the key to life.” He took a drink.
“So you kept the table?”
Daphne laughed.
“They couldn’t get it through the door of their apartment.”
John turned red and looked down. The rest of us cracked up.
“You put it back?”
“Not exactly . . .”
Daphne shook her head.
“They left it on the squash courts.”
I don’t know why, but that’s when I lost it. I laughed so hard I nearly cried. It was like all the stress of the last two months came rushing out.
I felt the thaw come over our small group. It was almost like we were back at Nigel’s dinner party, before everything went to hell with trials and mysterious clubs that can’t be mentioned for some pretentious reason.
“This is what matters,” I said finally. “Right here. Friendship. At the end of the day, none of the other stuff matters.”
Everybody agreed, but nobody looked totally sure.
John and Nigel stumbled toward their homes. Daphne and I hung back. I didn’t know what to say next. Somehow “Your place or mine?” seemed wrong.
“I guess I might see you tomorrow night,” I said. Tomorrow was the eleventh, the night of the second event, according to the cryptic invitation on my bed.
Daphne smiled. “Maybe. Who knows what they have in store for us?” She rubbed my arm. “You were great today. I knew I was right to choose you.”
“You were great too.”
I felt a thrill in my stomach.
She made a big production of yawning and stretching. “Wow, I can’t keep my eyes open.” She leaned in and gave me a brief hug. Then she said good night and walked off, leaving me as confused and deflated as a star witness on the stand, freshly shredded and dismissed.
The next morning I checked my bank account. About a thousand dollars left to get me to the end of the semester and my next loan check. I withdrew eight hundred and bought a new suit.
14
November 11 marked day two of the Indian summer that arrived with the trial. I could almost forget the bitterness of October; the days were now bright and cheerful, warm in the sun, crisp in the shade. I got a haircut and asked for it short. I usually let my hair dry wavy. Today I parted it on the left and combed it straight. I put on my new suit. I looked in the mirror and hardly recognized myself.
Tonight’s invitation had even less information than the first. Just a date and time. No address. No instructions.
The only option, I decided, was to return to 2312 Morland Street. I would get there early, in case I was wrong and had to improvise.
On the way, I wondered who I would see tonight. Would I encounter the elegant Mr. Bones again? Would he show me new items in his crazy-man collection?
Would I see the old man with the red toupee, the retired lawyer who asked all about my grandfather? The one who wondered if I wanted it bad enough? He wouldn’t have to ask that tonight.
The gingerbread house on Morland Street looked the same. I rang the doorbell. A young woman dressed like a soccer mom pulled aside the curtain and looked at me through the window. Two kids chased a ball behind her.
“Yes?”
“Hi. I’m Jeremy Davis. I’m looking for”—I didn’t even know his name—“the gentleman who lives here.”
“I’m sorry, who are you looking for?”
“The man who lives here? He’s about my height? Gray hair?”
“There’s no one like that here.” She picked up one of the kids who was pulling at her pants. She looked at my suit, sized me up. She closed the curtain and opened the door.
“We moved in two weeks ago. Maybe you’re looking for the people who lived here before?”
“You moved in two weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Pretty sure.”
I tried to think.
“Did they leave a forwarding address?”
“No. I never met them. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”
She started to close the door.
“Are you sure I’m not supposed to be here?”
She looked me over.
“Sorry, sweetie. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“All right. Drive safe.”
&nb
sp; It was an odd thing for her to say, considering I walked here. But when I turned around to leave, I saw a car idling across the street. It was a nice car—I’m no good with names, but I was pretty sure it was a Bentley. The windows were tinted. A driver stood by the rear passenger door. He was straight out of another era—long coat, black chauffeur’s cap, leather gloves.
We made eye contact, and he looked away almost instantly, lowering his head and moving to open the door. He stood beside it, holding it open and keeping his eyes down.
I looked around. There was no one else nearby. The street was silent, except for the quiet idling of the car. 2312 was closed again, the soccer mom in another universe behind the drapes.
I walked toward the car. The closer I got, the more the man seemed to lower his gaze.
What the hell, I thought. Why wouldn’t I get in the car? It’s not like they wanted to kill me. Although, my brain offered helpfully, most movie whackings did begin with the obligatory Get in the car. Was I crazy to get in? Was I crazy if I didn’t? Frankly, I didn’t have anywhere else to go. The interior looked nice. Tan leather seats. It appeared empty—was this all for me? One final question: would the driver karate-chop my neck as I tried to enter the car?
I slipped in. He shut the door behind me.
The windows were more than just tinted, it turned out; they were black. I couldn’t see anything. Another amusing feature of this automobile was the absence of door handles on the inside of my doors. The driver sat on the other side of a closed divider. Wherever he was going, I was coming along. All I could do was fix myself a drink at the mobile bar. I sat back and enjoyed the hum of the ride.
By my watch, we stopped an hour and a half later.
The door opened, and I stepped out onto a city block, noisy and bright. A high-rise loomed above me: a gray Art Deco building with flowers and medusas carved into the stone above the first floor of sooty windows. We were in the middle of a long block, and I couldn’t read a street sign in either direction. The driver stood back and nodded toward the building’s doorway. He lowered his head again, and this seemed like my cue to walk like an important man. Do you know who I am? my stride suggested to the indifferent pedestrians passing in both directions. The occasional car enthusiast glanced at my ride.
The doorman waved me in and smiled.
“Mr. Davis?”
“Yes.” He said my name like it meant something.
“Twenty-eighth floor, please. They’re expecting you.”
The elevator actually had an operator. He pulled the door shut and raised the lever. It was a fast ride with no stops. He decelerated to 28 and smiled pleasantly.
“Have a nice evening, sir.”
“You too.”
Was I supposed to tip? After the new suit, I was pretty sure I had less in my bank account than he did. I’d already decided I couldn’t ask my parents for extra money to make it until the spring student loan check. It was bad enough they went into debt to help with my Ivy League tuition. I wasn’t going to ask for more.
It occurred to me that I had no idea which room to go to. But at the end of the hall, I saw a door partly opened, with half of a very striking older woman, probably in her sixties, smiling at me.
Her hair was silver-white, cut midway between professional and sensual, swept back behind long ears. She reached up and pulled a few loose strands back with musician’s fingers, letting the nails trace along her ear. Her face was aristocratic. She wore a white blouse under a gray suit that clung to her slender, tall figure. As I got close, she said, “Please,” and stepped aside to let me in.
• • •
They led me to a plush chair in a sitting room, facing a roomful of women, all in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, all remarkable in their elegance. The woman who met me at the door sat last, in a chair directly across from me. There was a quiet power in the room, like a historical gathering of senators’ wives, or the near future’s assembly of retired senators. The walls were painted bright red, a shade between scarlet and rose. It was a strange, soothing color, almost pulsatile. The lower halves of the walls were paneled with white wood. I was the only man in the room.
A lady in an apron and bonnet entered, carrying teacups on a silver tray.
“Thank you, Beatrice,” the aristocratic woman said. I decided to think of her as Ms. Silver, since actual names seemed to be taboo at these events. Mr. Bones and Ms. Silver. Apparently I was living in a giant game of Clue. She took a cup.
Beatrice held the tray to me.
“Enjoy,” Ms. Silver said.
I nodded, and we both sipped.
“So,” she said finally, “are you comfortable?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Do you have any questions for us?”
They were messing with me. I was sure of it. I decided to maintain some semblance of control by avoiding the one million obvious questions I wanted to ask.
“What color are the walls?”
She looked slightly surprised.
“Amaranth. Like the poem. ‘With these, that never fade, the spirits elect. Bind their resplendent locks.’ John Milton.” She shrugged.
In retrospect, I felt stupid for asking about paint.
I felt all eyes on me. No one else had spoken yet. There were a lot of women in the room, but a fair number of them were shadowed; I could make out only the lines of their long faces.
I started to fidget.
“Relax.” Ms. Silver smiled. “We don’t need to rush.” Was she channeling Barry White? Slow down, baby, take it easy. I thought: if tonight ends with an orgy of eighty-year-olds, I’m out. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
She sipped her tea. I did the same. We sat in silence for a long time and finished our drinks.
I was growing warm, relaxed.
“How do you feel, Jeremy?” she asked pleasantly. Her voice sounded lighter now, breezy.
“Good,” I said. I noticed a pleasant buzzing in my fingers and toes. My voice sounded far away.
“Good,” she said, watching me with a slight smile. She swept her hair again, those long, graceful fingers riding along the curve of her ear.
The room was rotating slowly. I heard the whoosh of my pulse.
I laughed.
“What’s funny, Jeremy?”
It sounded like three people asked me the question at once.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“That’s okay.” She smiled broadly. Her teeth were perfectly white. I liked her so much.
She watched me a little longer. One of the ladies nodded. Ms. Silver leaned back in her chair, draped her slender arms over the armrests, inclined her head.
“Jeremy, we’re friends, right?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling.
“I have a question for you. You will be honest with me, won’t you?” There was a touch of hurt in her voice.
“Of course,” I said.
“I’m wondering, have you ever committed a crime?”
I felt a rush of surprise and anger. I opened my mouth to say no.
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh dear,” she purred. “What did you do?”
“When I was thirteen,” I said, “I stole a pair of shoes from the store.”
“Oh my. And what else?”
“When I was fifteen, my friends and I cut down a stop sign and took it.”
“Hmm. Those aren’t so bad. Why don’t you tell me more?”
I wanted to close my mouth. I couldn’t tell if I did or not. The questions continued. I was sleepy. I drifted in and out of the conversation, but I could hear myself still talking somewhere.
I snapped to when she said, “Jeremy, are you a virgin?” leaning back so her blouse strained against her breasts.
I felt blood rush to my cheeks. I thought No in my head, but my lips formed the word Yes.
Something about my parents, she asked. I nodded off. When I came awake, we were talking about my secrets. Is there something I would be upset about if someo
ne else found out?
Ms. Silver. She was pretty. I kept smiling at her. The other ladies were lost in the shadows. How long had we been here?
“What’s your biggest fear?” she asked casually, arching her eyebrows with polite curiosity, stretching those long thin lips into a mildly interested smile.
I heard myself answer. I was already asleep, which was too bad. I really wanted to hear what I said.
Strange dreams: a Chinese dragon, blue-gold with wobbly eyes. A hand with a door in it. The moon, opening to spill its contents.
I woke up with my face on the floor. It felt rough. I was cold. It hurt to move. My eyes opened slowly. I saw dirt, leaves. My mouth was dry, my throat ached. I coughed dust out of my mouth. I tried to move my arms and legs: fire shot up the tracks of my nerves.
I saw sideways trees, felt wind, nothing else.
My head was clearing. I pulled myself up slowly.
I was wearing only underwear.
I rubbed my eyes, shook off the cobwebs. I could see no buildings, just trees to the horizon, yellow and red leaves. I’m in the woods.
After a while, I tried standing up.
Wobbly, but then better.
Pine needles stung my bare feet.
I tried walking heel to toe. Better.
I started off in no particular direction.
My head cleared as I walked. I remembered vague images from the night before: the soccer mom, the limo, a roomful of women. And now I’d been dumped in the middle of the woods, stripped to my underwear.
I’d heard about things like this, back in Texas, actually. In the old days, before lawsuits got rid of the real hazing, fraternities would sometimes strip their pledges down, blindfold them, and drop them alone in the middle of the woods, with only a hunting knife and a quarter. Or so we told each other in high school, since everybody had a friend with an older brother who swore it was true.
Well, I didn’t have a knife or a quarter. What kind of a budget operation were they running up here?
And then that old, suspicious thought from Mr. Bones’s house popped back into my head. This all seemed too boorish for the V&D. Were they mocking me? Another satire of my roots, like the trailer park bimbo hanging on to Mr. Bones? Or was this just another paranoid chip on my shoulder—too little sleep, too much wacky tea?
