The Banks of Certain Rivers

by Harrison, Jon

  Alan was right, like he is about everything: I should have told him sooner.

  I go outside to take a stroll around the field, the short glass clinking at my side through the dusk. The grass is wet, and my shoes and the lower legs of my jeans are soon soaked. I don’t really care. When I’m as far as I could possibly be from the house my phone rings in my pocket. I fumble as I draw it from my pants, thinking, hoping it might be Chris, but it’s just Peggy Mackie.

  “Neil, how are you holding up?”

  “You know, this video thing seems relatively minor now, to tell the truth.”

  “Good, good,” she says, completely missing the point. How would she know? “So, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

  “Let’s get the bad news out of the way. I’m ready for anything.”

  “Bad news is, the board will probably recommend that your teaching contract be terminated Tuesday night.”

  “Oh, great,” I say. “How about that.” It’s not like I didn’t think it was coming; the revelation seems almost anticlimactic.

  “Now,” Peggy goes on, “that’s just their recommendation to admin. We’ll be expected to follow it, but your lawyer will probably want to contest the terms, and the Teachers’ Union representative will certainly contest the terms. Can you bring your lawyer Tuesday?”

  “Uh, sure, I’ll get right on that.”

  “Good. Has the union guy called? He claims he has your number.”

  “Union guy? No union guy has called.”

  “Typical. He’ll call.”

  “So what is the good news?”

  “First part of the good news is there’s precedent in the state for you being terminated with a year of your salary and benefits, and probably some sort of severance. With that to go on, we’ll tack it onto the board’s recommendation.”

  “No shit?” I say. In light of everything else, this really is pretty good news.

  “No shit. I’m pulling for you to get the best deal here, okay? And you did not hear me say that, ever. If it were up to Gracie, she’d find a reason to have everyone at your pay grade fired. Now, the other part of the good news, maybe the best news, Pete Tran is going to bring two kids in tomorrow for questioning.”

  “How is that good?”

  “He thinks they were involved in the whole Cody Tate thing, and some of the stories aren’t lining up. He thinks if he can get them out of school for a day, maybe he can trip them up. I told him they’re texting each other twenty-four-seven and it probably wouldn’t make any difference, but he seemed to think it would. Maybe he’s just trying to scare them into slipping up.”

  “So again, how exactly is this good?”

  “If he’s got reason to think something weird is going on, and his computer guy seems to be leaning that way, maybe we can ask the board to wait on a decision. Or get better terms for you. We’ve been taking a beating on this in the media for sure. Every time something’s on the news about it, Gracie calls me in a rage. She’s got the rest of the board worked up about it too.”

  “I thought you were done with the bad news part?”

  “Just hang in there,” she tells me. “Wait. One more good thing, but not so related. The Masterson pictures.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Both were fake. The kid just got them from a porn site and cropped them down so you couldn’t see faces, then told his friends they were of his ex when he sent them around. He’s still in big trouble, but it’s a different kind of big trouble.”

  “God, you almost would want to kick the shit out of a kid for doing something like that.”

  “You did not just say that, Neil. I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “Right,” I say. “Thanks for everything, Peggy.”

  We hang up and I go back inside; there’s evidence in the form of a plate by the sink that Chris ventured out of his room for something to eat. I refill my glass and return to his door.

  “Chris, come on. Can we talk?”

  Nothing. Complete silence. I’m tempted to get a thin screwdriver to unlock the door, but we made a deal a long time ago that I’d respect his space when his door was locked, and I feel like today I’ve burned enough of his trust.

  I go to the kitchen and wash my son’s dinner plate. That’s something. And the potential of a severance package, that’s something too. I have received no call from any union rep, though, and it dawns on me that maybe the number they have is my landline, and that maybe I should plug the thing back in and check my messages in the event that he might call, or has called already. The instant I work the phone’s plug back into the outlet the set rings at full volume, nearly making me jump out of my skin; the name on the ID reads TESHCORP.

  “Is Teshcorp the name of the teacher’s union?” I say upon accepting the call.

  “You are not such a good man, Mr. Neil K.” It’s the robot voice again.

  “Why don’t you just leave me alone,” I say, not very forcefully.

  “I could leave you alone, but the rest of us probably would not. We are so, so many! And our memories are long, Neil K. And our sense of justice is perhaps….”

  “Perhaps what?” I say. I’m speaking softly. I don’t want Christopher to hear, but at the same time, I wish he were out in the room with me. “You’re assuming I did something wrong. How do you know—”

  “We know, Neil K. We have seen the video. We know what it is like at the hand of a bully. Maybe you now can know this thing too. We are everywhere, and we know.” Click. The hair on my arms is standing up as the call goes dead. I hang up the phone, and unplug the phone from the wall once more. Screw it, the union guy can track me down some other way if he needs to talk to me so badly.

  My hands are shaking. Who the fuck is that guy? Is it some student trying to frighten me, or is it something more sinister? If it’s a student, he’s succeeded, at least in the immediate term. I consider for just a moment calling Pete Tran to tell him about what’s going on, but what the hell. I’m fine. I fill my glass once more with whiskey and go around the doors of my house to make sure they’re all locked.

  With a conspicuous silence hanging over the house, I go to my room to prepare myself for bed, and do my best to purge my head of all thoughts. I stand and look at my still-made bed, and, knowing that sleep will be as hard in coming as it’s been all week I go to my closet and reach for my shoebox. The pill bottle rattles lightly when I test it, and I open it to find only two tablets remaining. One might be enough to get me to sleep, but I want to be certain, so I dump both of them into my hand and bring my palm to my mouth and swallow them with the watery dregs of my drink. The empty glass is as depressing as anything else, so I go to the kitchen for a last refill before slinking back to my spot on the hallway floor.

  “Chris?” I say softly. Nothing.

  I draw up my knees and rest my head against the wall. I repeat my son’s name: two times, three. I say it again, and close my eyes.

  From: xc.coach.kaz@gmail.com

  To:w.kazenzakis@gmail.com

  Sent: September 13, 8:45 pm

  Subject:Lauren Downey

  _____________________________

  I told Chris, and he didn’t take it very well. I haven’t seen him lose control like that in a long, long time.

  Keeping something inside like that for so long can kill you.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I’m surprised when I wake in my bed the next morning, both at the fact that I am fully clothed beneath my covers, and at the fact that it is ten minutes after eleven o’clock. Have I ever slept this late in my entire life? Chris says nothing when I meet him in the kitchen. His lips remain pressed into a thin line, and he won’t meet my eyes. When I stand in the doorway to try to speak with him, he keeps his back to me.

  “Christopher, come on.” No response. He makes himself a sandwich, and I get myself a glass of water to try to clear out the whiskey sludge feeling left in my mouth and the hazy feeling up behind my eyes. Just how much did I drink las
t night?

  “You’re pissed,” I say, trying to find the right words. “Okay. I understand. But this is what’s going on. I’m dealing with all this, and I want you to be with me on it, okay?” Nothing. He silently takes a bite of his sandwich and chews. “What if we do an overnight on Tabby Sunday night, huh?” I ask, catching the smallest flicker in his eye as a response. “Soon as you get back from basketball camp, we’ll get the boat, head out to South Manitou, talk it out. Don’t worry about school on Monday. You can take a day or two off. I need you, Christopher. I need you back on the team.”

  Chris finishes his lunch, drops his plate into the sink, and blows past me to pick up his pack and gym bag on his way out the door.

  “Think about it, Chris!” I call from the doorway. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

  In that flicker in his eye, there was a hint of detente. I’m sure of it.

  I consider a run, but I feel like shit, so I go over to check on Carol. No car is there yet, and when I go in the door I see that Lauren’s name is on the scheduling whiteboard for today beginning at noon. When I see her name there, I almost smile. Maybe, somehow, things will be okay. Just like Alan said, Chris would be mad about it, then he’d get over it. Maybe everything will work out.

  A year’s pay with benefits, plus a severance? That would buy me some time with Leland, for sure. I could fix up the houses to rent out, or maybe even have the beach house remodeled and tell Leland to forget it. And if we have some income from renting Lauren’s condo….

  Maybe things won’t be so bad after all. Maybe.

  Carol is seated upright in her bed, with a copy of Friday’s Bungle spread out over the quilt before her.

  “Neil, what the heck is this business with you in the paper?”

  So much for this refuge.

  “Some kids have played a pretty mean trick, I think. On me.”

  “It says you’re suspended from your job?”

  “I am.”

  “Damn kids,” Carol says.

  “You can say that again.” I pull a chair next to the bed and sit. “Feeling good today?”

  “I’m feeling pretty good. Seems like the mornings can be better. It comes and goes. I can’t even explain what it’s like when it’s not good. I find myself places, Neil, and I don’t even know how I got there. I think I see Dick.”

  “You’ve called me Arthur,” I say.

  “Sure I have. You look just like Art when he was a young man.”

  I consider, just for a second, telling her in this rare moment while she’s clear-headed about me and Lauren, everything about Lauren and me, but I stop myself. I should talk with Lauren first. She should be here too.

  “Did you ever know anyone named Lawler?” I ask instead. “Here in Port Manitou, or somewhere around here?”

  “Oh, gosh, there was...well, Harvey Lawler we knew, from the co-op over to Suttons Bay. A real crack-up, Harvey was. He lost his first wife to...well, I can’t recall the illness now. But his second wife Bess was crack-up too. We had them over for cards here and there. What in the world made you think about Harvey Lawler?”

  “You mentioned that name the other day, it just got me wondering.”

  “I don’t even remember that, Neil. You see what I mean? It used to trouble me. Now I figure, if I worried myself about it, I’d be worrying all the time I was feeling well! I guess you could say I’ve accepted my position in life.”

  “Did Harvey Lawler ever have anything to do with the orchard?”

  “No, no, not that I recall. We always worked with the Manitou co-op. But what a funny man that Harvey Lawler was.”

  “Would Dick ever have sold the orchard? Or any part of it?”

  “Goodness no. Dick would have had himself buried on the orchard if he could have. He looked into it, you know, when the lawyers were drawing up his will. I told him he should just be cremated and we could toss his ashes out around the cherries, but that idea didn’t sit too well with him.”

  I hear the garage door open, and the sounds of someone in the farmhouse kitchen. Carol can’t hear it, but she sees my reaction.

  “Nurse is here, I suppose?” I nod. “Did you happen to see who I’ve got today?”

  “Lauren Downey,” I say.

  “Oh, well then.” Carol gives me a sideways glance. “That Lauren’s a real sweetie, don’t you think?”

  “I….”

  “Come on, Neil. Don’t tell me you’ve never caught one of those looks she gives you from time to time.”

  “No, uh, I really never….”

  “Well, look at you, Mister Bashful. A lady can tell these things, you know. I think you should try to get to know Miss Downey a little better.”

  I cannot believe I’m having this conversation. With my mother-in-law.

  “Maybe I’ll go say hello to her now,” I say.

  “You do that,” Carol says. I think she actually winks at me as she says it.

  Lauren’s unpacking some groceries when I find her in the kitchen.

  “Oh.” she says. “You’re here. Hi. How is Chris?”

  “He was pretty mad about everything last night, and he left for his basketball camp a bit ago without really saying anything. I might try for some dad time with him tomorrow night.”

  “You do dad time,” she says, and she wraps her arms around my waist and buries her face in my shirt so I can’t see her. “I don’t know about this.” She’s sobbing, and her shoulders shake beneath my arms. “I just don’t know if I can do this.”

  “We’ll be okay,” I say, perhaps with desperation. “We will.”

  By saying it, can I simply make it so?

  “You’d better go,” Lauren says. She pulls a worn tissue from her pocket and wipes her eyes. “I need to check on Carol. Call me later.”

  Back home, I clean up the kitchen, deliberately washing and drying Christopher’s plate before putting it away in the cabinet. The bottle of whiskey, nearly empty, sits on the counter by the window; the taste of it still lingering in my mouth seems vile so I pour the last of it down the drain and drop the bottle into the recycling bin beneath the sink.

  Chris. Why did he react this way? He’s a teen boy, I must remind myself, large in size and tendency toward kindness, but not yet an adult. I forget that sometimes. And I’ve really been lucky with him, so lucky, especially knowing as well as I do from school how far things can go wrong in some families.

  He’ll cool down tonight at camp, I know it. He’ll have a chance to work out on the court, burn off some steam, and he’ll come home tomorrow and we can talk about it.

  If anything, I feel relief right now. The greatest burden I’ve felt over the past two years, the burden of secrecy, the burden of hiding something from my son, is gone. Even as everything falls apart, the heaviest of weights has been lifted.

  I go to the spare room and wake up the laptop. YouTube is up; I close it and open my personal email.

  And I type a letter:

  From: xc.coach.kaz@gmail.com

  To:w.kazenzakis@gmail.com

  Sent: September 14, 9:12 am

  Subject:Chris, and Other

  _____________________________

  Dear Wendy,

  Christopher, as I said, did not take the news about Lauren very well. He is angry, with a teen boy’s sort of rage: he shouted and knocked things over last night, and locked himself in his room. He gave me the silent treatment this morning. As unpleasant as it was, though, and as rotten as I’m feeling right now, I feel much better getting it out.

  There’s something I want to tell you. Something, actually, I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. But first, a digression: I notice, in my life, that the greatest organizer of memories, the way I file and assign the events of my existence into some sort of chronological order, is by remembering how old, or what grade, Chris was at the time. It’s odd, because I feel like I’m a constant in these memories, but Chris is always changing, getting bigger and bigger. It’s like a form of archaeology, dating my stories by t
he size of our son.

  You are a constant too, with two distinct states, pre- and post-accident. AM, PM; BC, AD. Wendy Before, and Wendy After.

  Anyway, it was late spring, almost the end of the school year. Chris was in the seventh grade. I attended some conference in downtown Chicago; I don’t even remember what the conference was about, but I do know Christopher was thirteen and it was the springtime. It was, in fact, unusually warm in Chicago, and I got a sunburn on my face and arms when I walked around the city one day because I was so used to it still being winter at home and forgot to put on sunblock.

  I think you remember Anne Vasquez. Maybe she was still Anne Stedman at that point, I don’t recall if she was married yet, or if she was still just engaged. I’m pretty sure she was engaged to be married then. You met her at the conference I took you to in Philadelphia, and maybe at another one after that, and you would certainly remember her for the catty nickname you made up for her, “Anne of the Rack,” because she had a big chest.

  Anne was at that Chicago conference too. Springtime, Chris in seventh grade conference. She and I were friends, you didn’t like that, you never liked that, and it made me sad because I think you would have really liked her if you’d ever had the chance to spend time with her. You rolled your eyes when I told you she was going to be at that last one with us in Wisconsin, and you sarcastically told me to have a nice time with Anne of the Rack.

  So, to continue the story of Chicago, the story I need to tell you: the last night of the conference most of the attendees from districts in Michigan met up to go out for dinner. It was a big table, there was drinking, Anne was sitting next to me. To be honest, as I was drinking, maybe I was glancing at the rack a little bit. I think she noticed, and teased me about it.