The Tutor

by Peter Abrahams

  Ruby heard voices from down in the front hall. Mom, Dad, and another she didn’t know at first, then recognized: Julian. She couldn’t very well go down there and admit to nightmares, probably couldn’t have even had it been just Mom and Dad. She was eleven, after all. So what would be a good cover story—thirsty, too hot, too cold, sore throat, couldn’t get to sleep? Childish, one and all.

  Ruby went the other way, to Adam’s room. It had worked before. An obvious fact, and therefore deceptive, according to Holmes. She got into the bed, pulled up the covers. It was working again—no matter what Holmes said—she felt that right away; but she threw in the cave for added safety.

  When was the last time she’d had three drinks in an evening? Linda couldn’t remember. Not even in college, where sometimes a single drink had given her a headache. Not tonight. She felt great, expansive; partly because of the drinks, but more because of some new excitement that was in the air, probably having to do with the good news from Skyway.

  Maybe now. She glanced at the bedside clock. Fifteen minutes to one: Brandon not yet overdue. Maybe now was the moment to get past Tom, Adam, the whirlpool. Her mind made a connection between her whirlpool and the one in Julian’s glass. She sensed some hope for her in that connection, some promise that she would be all right, that she and Scott would be all right. Perhaps the lesson was to gaze into the whirlpool, as Julian had done, rather than avert the eyes, as she had for so long. The heat generated in the master bedroom warms the whole house: she wondered what Julian would think of that idea, felt herself growing hot.

  “Kind of a fun evening, huh?” said Scott, lying beside her.

  “Yes.” He had a right to talk in bed without turning her off, a right to say anything he wanted.

  “Remind me to call Tom first thing in the morning.”

  But did it have to be that? Why not, if looking directly in the whirlpool was the only way? “Are you going into work?” she said.

  “Nope. It’s about tennis.”

  Perhaps he wasn’t in the mood. She put her hand on his thigh.

  “Hey,” said Scott. “You should get blitzed more often.”

  “Am I blitzed?”

  “No, no, I was just using a bit of whatchamacallit, that word for exaggerating on purpose.”

  Linda couldn’t think of it either. She could ask Julian on Wednesday. She took a deep breath. “Maybe I am blitzed,” she said. “I know I haven’t been what you want in bed.”

  She felt him go rigid, all but the part that should have been, which would be just goddamn perfect. Then he surprised her. “I understand,” he said. “It’s all since Adam.”

  What more did she want, even if he didn’t really understand? The image that always waited in a tiny corner of her mind expanded now: a whirlpool bubbling out from between her legs, frothing with leukemia. She tried to squash the image back down, pulled Scott on top of her, wrapped her legs, legs that didn’t want to stay together tonight, around his back.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  And if she ended up having to fake it, as she’d had to the last time and the infrequent times before that going back so long, she would make it a performance he wouldn’t forget. She would generate fake heat that neither Scott nor anyone else could ever tell from the real thing.

  “Do anything you want to me,” she said.

  “Really?”

  The phone rang. They both jumped at the sound and Scott went soft, just inside the entrance to her, like that. He picked up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  She checked the bedside clock. Ten after one. Not again, God. I couldn’t bear it.

  “Okay,” Scott said, and hung up.

  “What? What?”

  “Brandon got busted for underage drinking—some party in the woods. They’ve got him locked up at the station.”

  Linda started crying. Scott rose and got dressed.

  16

  “Scott Gardner,” said Scott to the sergeant behind the counter. “I believe you’ve got my son Brandon.”

  “That we do, Scott,” said the sergeant.

  Scott would have expected Mr. Gardner, looked at the sergeant more closely, saw it was a guy who’d been a year or two behind him at West Mill High, had played on the same football team; something D’Amario, a guy he remembered not liking.

  “Hey, how’re you doing?” said Scott.

  “No complaints. Got the insurance agency now?”

  “Yup. What’s the story?”

  “Underage boozing in the town woods. On the noisy side, evidently, and we got a call from some concerned citizen.”

  “Name of Stromboli, by any chance?”

  “We don’t give out information like that. Anyways, we sent some cars down the old cart path, rounded up the ones too pissed or slow to get away. No one under eighteen was actually arrested—we don’t do that if there’s no other factors.”

  “So he’s not in a cell?”

  The sergeant paused for a moment. Scott realized he must have alcohol on his own breath, now detected. “They’re in the lunchroom. I’ll have your boy sent up.” The sergeant reached for his phone, but before he could speak, an angry man in a long leather coat hurried up, bumping against the counter.

  “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer first thing Monday morning,” he said. “My son would never touch a drop of alcohol.”

  Sergeant D’Amario said nothing. That made the man angrier. “Who do you think organized the DARE bottle drive?” he said, raising his voice some more.

  “Why don’t we go on back?” said the sergeant. “Might as well come too, Scott.”

  The sergeant led Scott and the angry man down a corridor past empty offices and into the lunchroom. The lunchroom had a row of vending machines lining one wall and about a dozen cheap tables with fixed benches. A cop sat at one of the tables, doing her nails. In the opposite corner of the room, as far from her as possible, sat Brandon, looking not too bad. At a table in the center sat the only other person in the room, a kid bowed over a plastic trash can, one of those big family-size ones. He made a gagging sound and puked up an enormous load of yellow liquid with orange bits in it; must have had pizza for dinner, Scott thought—he could remember back.

  The sergeant turned to the angry man. “Which one’s yours?”

  D’Amario gave the boys a little talk in front of their fathers, no one getting too close to the kid with the barrel. The town had a zero tolerance policy for underage drinking and that was that. Since neither of them had been in trouble before, he was letting them go with a warning.

  “But next time, if you’re dumb enough to have a next time, means arrest and charges, the whole”—turning to the angry man’s kid—“enchilada.” Scott didn’t remember D’Amario being this funny; one of them must have changed.

  “And I don’t know if either of you’s involved in sports up at the high school,” the sergeant added; the other boy was wearing a vomit-streaked sweater, but Brandon was in his varsity jacket. “The AD has a strict zero tolerance policy, too. Caught drinking once and you’re off the team for the season. Twice and it’s forever.”

  The tennis thread, strengthening Brandon’s potential application to some D III school, if not Amherst then Union maybe or Hamilton, for Christ’s sake—was that going to unravel, too? “Is he going to find out?” Scott said.

  “The AD’s a her, Scott—things have changed since we were banging heads,” said D’Amario. “But there’s no communication of that kind between her and the department.” He looked at Brandon and added, “Not yet.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant,” Scott said. The angry man didn’t say anything. His mouth was still hanging open. His son rose to his feet, white-faced and shaky. “Let’s go, Brandon,” Scott said. Brandon got up, not shaky, but not quite steady either. He didn’t meet Scott’s eye, which was disappointing, and he had a defiant hunch to his shoulders, which was a piss-off. Scott fought off the temptation to yank him by the sleeve. They walked toward the do
or.

  “One other thing,” said D’Amario. “Either of you boys know a kid named David Brickham?”

  Brandon and the white-faced boy shook their heads.

  “Calls himself Dewey,” said the sergeant.

  The boys shook their heads again. D’Amario’s eyes were on Scott and caught him glaring at Brandon. Scott looked away, too late.

  “Hasta la vista,” said Sergeant D’Amario.

  Brandon didn’t say a word, not walking across the parking lot, not getting in the car. His door thumped shut. There was defiance in that thump.

  “Buckle your goddamn seatbelt,” Scott said. He heard fumbling, then a click. Scott started the car, drove out of the lot. “How drunk are you?”

  No answer.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “I’m not fucking drunk.”

  “You watch that goddamn fucking mouth,” Scott said. He hadn’t really been all that angry inside the station. Now he was furious, although he didn’t know why. “And what did you mean by saying you didn’t know Dewey? Of course you know Dewey.”

  “So?”

  “So? What kind of answer is—”

  “Watch out, Dad.”

  He’d crossed the center line and headlights were coming the other way. Scott swerved back into his lane. They drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Linda was standing in the kitchen when they came in, robe over her nightie, arms crossed. She gave Brandon a cold look; a cold look, but her eyes were red. “Well, Brandon?”

  “Well what?”

  “You’re slurring your words.”

  “So are you.”

  “Don’t talk to your mother like that,” Scott said. He saw that Brandon’s hands were balled into fists, then realized that his were too.

  “Can’t you see where this is headed, Brandon?” Linda said. “F’s in school, cutting class, getting arrested?”

  “The electric chair,” Brandon said. He swayed back and forth a little.

  Linda turned to Scott. “Couldn’t you have talked some sense into him on the way home?”

  Completely unexpected. “Wait a minute,” Scott said.

  “You guys talk sense,” Brandon said. “Charlie Manson’s hitting the sack.”

  “Come back here this instant,” Linda said. Scott said nothing. Brandon didn’t come back. They heard his feet, heavy on the stairs.

  “What was that about talking sense to him on the way home?”

  “He’s floundering, Scott.”

  “That’s not what I asked.” A green light shone on the phone, indicating one of the lines was in use. Scott grabbed the receiver, heard a girl say, “. . . assholes,” and Brandon grunt in response. “Get off the goddamn phone,” he said, and slammed it down.

  “Is that better?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m worried, that’s all. What are we going to do?”

  “He’s not getting his driver’s license until he cleans up his act, that’s for sure,” Scott said, recalling his own father’s ultimate weapon.

  Linda nodded. “But we have to do something positive, too.”

  “Positive?”

  “What about boarding school? It doesn’t have to be Andover.”

  Their eyes met, and Scott knew they were sharing a thought: Andover wouldn’t look at him. And though there were other boarding schools that would, how could they afford it? They hadn’t even finished paying for the renovations. Scott didn’t say that, though. He said: “I’m not sure how positive that is. What’s the point of having kids if you send them away?”

  Her eyes fell. She dabbed at them, just once and lightly. She wasn’t a crier, which was why her reaction to the call from the station was a bit surprising. He wasn’t a crier either: they were all cried out after Adam.

  “Why not just flat out say I’m a bad mother?”

  “I’m not saying that,” Scott said; but pretty close. Would things be different with Brandon if she’d stayed at home? But then they wouldn’t have a house as nice as this, there would have been no renovations, not as many trips, lots of other stuff. On the other hand, Linda wasn’t working just for the money. Did that make her a bad mother?

  Their eyes met. She’d followed his thoughts, every one.

  “Can we afford Julian?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “Then maybe he could come more often. He’s a good influence.”

  She was right. They’d found a compromise, a way to go forward, no one getting hurt. “And let’s sign Brandon up for the SAT next time around,” Scott said. “See exactly where we stand.”

  “Good idea.” Linda made a note on a pad she kept in her pocket.

  They went back to bed, lay on their respective sides. Scott waited for something to happen, but all that happened was a lot of fragmenting inside his head. Music leaked in from Brandon’s room, almost too faint to hear.

  negligent is to forsake as

  mendacious is to deceive

  Perhaps, his brain chemistry altered by the consumption of Highland Park—not bad at all, and no doubt Scott would be serving it exclusively for the rest of his life—perhaps the next line would spark to life somewhere deep in the neurons.

  Nothing.

  Julian lit a cigarette, fourth of the day, or first of the next one. He knew very well he’d been exceeding his allotment lately; on the other hand, he was an artist, and artists, the best artists, those who changed the world, were always excessive. The two candles burned on either side, the cigarette glowed in the middle: he was back in his triangle, could sense its pulsing force.

  But nothing.

  Then: an idea. Suppose the next word was nothing. Was that what his brain had been trying to tell him all this time? Julian lowered his Mont Blanc pen to the page and wrote nothing. No following word or phrase came to mind. He read over what he had so far:

  negligent is to forsake as

  mendacious is to deceive

  nothing

  And saw it was good.

  Julian took a deep, satisfied drag from his cigarette and turned to the character sketches, beginning with Scott. He wrote: inferiority complex esp. re Tom; fundamentally lazy; a gambler with no notion of odds; falsely believes himself to be ambitious, but all he wants is more of the same; lack of more of the same is all that makes him unhappy—not a good enough reason, not nearly; IQ 110. Scott was easy. Was there some way to actually see the tennis match? Perhaps not. To do: friendly discussion of investment strategy, esp. options trading; find out more about family insurance firm; does Tom have children?

  Linda: ambitious in real sense, wants to develop her own thwarted expressive potential; developing Brandon—the next best thing; many problems with Scott—explore; lies well (Gabon paper episode); IQ 120. If her career, as she no doubt thought of it, happened to take off—he hoped she’d get the accent right in La Rivière—would she lose some of that tension inside her? Similarly, if disappointment lay ahead, would the tension be ratcheted up to a new level? These were interesting questions, questions the responsible writer must pose. To do: find out much more about Adam; become good friends.

  Adam: Superboy—the paragon under whose boot they lie. Needed: time line—broken leg, leukemia.

  Brandon: normal kid, might actually have grown up to be a happy person in other circumstances; IQ 125. To do: more of the same (get details of party denouement).

  Down to the last civilized inch of his cigarette, Julian stubbed it out, immediately felt hungry. He wished he’d said something nice about the cake before leaving, inducing the inevitable offer to take some home. Not bad at all, the cake.

  Ruby:

  Julian gazed down at the blank sheet with her name at the top, shadows pushed by random expansion and contraction of the candle flames shifting back and forth across the page.

  Ruby:

  He found he couldn’t write a thing about her, not one word. He tried: IQ. And found he had no idea. She was just a silly little girl, much too talkative, who did ridiculous things to h
er hair. Yet there was that business with the fire. He had a disturbing thought: did they have something in common? Impossible. He must be tired.

  Julian laid down his pen, leaving Ruby’s page blank, and read over what he had done. He wasn’t impressed; except for that one phrase, the paragon under whose boot they lie—surely that was prose of the highest possible order? The rest was rather obvious.

  negligent is to forsake as

  mendacious is to deceive

  nothing

  After nothing nothing came. He considered this new form he was inventing, the living epic poem, nature and art blending in real time. Given the natures of the characters involved and the developing plot they were in, it was actually more of a novel in poetic form. Character, situation, fate: all these still more or less obscure. But he knew his subject: middle-class American life. He was perfectly poised to observe it. Observe and so much more, to participate, experiment, control, because the living novel would be a flesh-and-blood form, first of a kind, with an unprecedented tension, exciting and evolving, between the characters and their auteur. Only the auteur mattered in the end, of course, and therefore how perfectly bathetic were the Gardners, unquestioning, homely believers in their own mattering. Perhaps he should change the title from On Two Species, a little dry, to the simple but gravid At Home.

  Yes! He was in the belly of the beast—hackneyed phrase that would never find its way into his own work—or, to alter the anatomical arrangement slightly, he was on the tumescent verge of fucking it up the ass. And it felt great.

  Julian peered through his window to see if any light shone in the upstairs window of the big house. None did. Was there some way that bats could be introduced into Gail’s bedroom as needed? Where did you go for bats? After this bout of creative activity, he was in the mood for and deserved something purely physical.