Shelter in Place

by Alexander Maksik

  But these are not the lies I want to tell.

  I can’t even remember what his specialty was.

  I was looking for something in him I couldn’t have described then.

  It was some new version. A version we couldn’t harm.

  He was a stodgy speaker. The lecture hall had no charge. There were no questions at the end. I followed him to a meeting and then later back to his office where he left the door open. I waited down the hall. Students stopped by. He was friendly and patient. There was warmth in his voice. They seemed to like him. When the hour was over, we went to a café at the student union building where he ate lunch with two men and a woman. I assumed they were professors. I was too far away to listen. He smiled a lot and when he spoke, the others leaned forward. They laughed. He removed his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. Although his hair had fallen across his forehead, he left it alone.

  I wasn’t following orders. No one knew I was there. I hadn’t been sent.

  It’s that I wanted to see him in some other realm, with some other quality.

  Or I wanted some further confirmation of his cruelty.

  I was there looking for one thing or another.

  Make him a man, or make him an object.

  But more the former. I was looking for evidence. More than anything I wanted to come home and show it to her. Say, “Look at what else he does, Tess.”

  Tess, in our living room a few nights before, pacing before the fire addressing her troops.

  Look, I wanted to say, see? He is this thing too. He is also this other thing.

  After lunch I followed him to the library steps where he sat and smoked a cigarette. He tilted his face to the sun and closed his eyes for a moment.

  Look, he is contemplative. Look, this is a man with an inner life.

  I followed him inside the library, and into a lighted theater where he took a seat and began to write on a legal pad. A woman on her way down the aisle touched his shoulder. He looked up and smiled. The seats began to fill. A man walked to the front, made an introduction I cannot recall, and then left the stage. The lights went dark and a film began to play. I left, bought a cup of coffee on the quad, and took it to a bench.

  What had I discovered? What evidence could I bring before the court? To my superior? Sam Young liked a cigarette in the sun, was kind to his students, attended meetings, made his friends laugh, allowed his hair to fall out of place, saw films.

  Seemed generally liked.

  Was generally alive.

  What I’d come to find was what I found.

  So I sat with it feeling, if not hopeful, then encouraged. It was hope without dimension, but I let it carry me for a while. Along with the coffee and the sunshine and the safety of that place.

  I believed, or pretended to believe, that I might change our course. That this new information might have some kind of significance.

  And then there was Marcy Harper standing in front of me.

  “Mr. March,” she said.

  There was none of the coldness I’d remembered. Instead she smiled—warm and mocking. I was surprised by it, by her manner, by the easiness of our banter, by our affected formality.

  “Ms. Harper.”

  “Back to campus, I see.”

  I nodded. “I like it,” I said. “Closest thing we have to a park.”

  She sat next to me on the bench.

  “How’s your mother?”

  “I’m never sure how to answer that question, Marcy.”

  “She’s stopped writing to us, you know.”

  “I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. She won’t see me anymore.”

  “Did you visit her often?”

  “Twice. Once alone, once with a few others.”

  “What was she like with you?”

  “She was smart,” she said, nodding to herself, “and fiery and tough, too. Full of advice, full of ideas.”

  “What kind of ideas?”

  “Things we might do here. Ways to protest, ways to fight.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, nothing revolutionary, really. Letters and marches. That kind of thing. Mostly it was just her enthusiasm, her encouragement.”

  “What about violence?”

  “No, never.”

  My mother knew how to choose her generals.

  “I see. Well, you can always try again,” I said. “She changes.”

  “Maybe I will. Maybe you’ll mention it to her.”

  I laughed.

  “What?”

  “Now you want my help.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “No. Don’t be. I was a prick.”

  “You were fine. Sometimes I lose my humor. It must be difficult for you.”

  I shrugged. “So what’s next in the campus rebellion?”

  “You really care?”

  I nodded.

  “A woman was raped in the basement of the Beta house two weeks ago. Remains under investigation. No one has been arrested. Saturday we’re going to gather out front.”

  “Maybe I’ll see if I can convince Tess to come.”

  She shook her head and laughed. “You’re going to come stand in front of a frat house with a bunch of college girls on a Saturday night?”

  “It’s either that or set it on fire.”

  She laughed. “Which do you think Anne-Marie March would prefer?”

  “The fire,” I said. “The fire, of course.”

  There was a surprising ease between us. She had a term for what they were planning, some academic jargon, the kind of thing Tess abhorred: aggressive silence, violent passivity, accusatory presence, et cetera. I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. The thing is that when Marcy left I felt that sad hope of mine bolstered. I stood on the steps of the library with the belief (or some thin version of belief) that there was an alternative and when Sam Young came past me down the steps, I followed him to his car.

  Now I felt a sense of affection for this man, about whom I knew so little. This man I’d spent all day inventing. Affection as I drove behind him, tailing, counting five seconds between telephone poles, slowing to twenty on Water, feeling, by the time he disappeared onto Vista, a strange illogical love for the man I’d created.

  And then a spark, perhaps composed of that contrived and desperate affection, ignited those unknowable rockets and I was hovering three inches above my torn seat, eyes well-tuned, and I hit the gas, took a turn, came up fast on him, the gearshift, so supple in my palm, was a weapon, a controller, and I raced forward incapable of error, dropped from fourth to third and that downshift noise made Claire giggle, it was on the road, in my throat and I pulled the Mariners hat down low nearly to my nose, and I was on him, my rusted front bumper two feet away, then one, then inches, and then there were Sam Young’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He accelerated, tried to escape, but there was no losing me. I was expert, I was weightless, I had infinite control and I was going to stop him, Dad. It would be okay. I would save you the heartache. I was going to pull him over even if it meant driving his shitty sedan into a tree. I would change him, fix him, force a confession, take him to jail, break his arms, whatever it took to avoid whatever it was Tess was planning.

  But then he slowed down.

  Those red lights shining in my eyes, refracting in my windshield, exploded the engines.

  And it was gone.

  The dimensionless hope, the flimsy belief.

  I slowed to a creep. The sedan hovered for a moment, and then shot away.

  I stopped and waited next to a hydrant, with the slow flood of tar.

  Now I slunk down and drove along his street.

  I heard the thump and squeak of the trampoline.

  There was Anna flying through the trees, and as I passed she met my eyes. She w
aved from midair. That familiar, expressionless face. I raised my hand out the window and spread my fingers.

  She kept her mouth shut.

  By the time I’d returned home, I had nothing to show, no evidence to provide. Nothing but an invitation to another protest lit by candles, to participate in aggressive silence, violent passivity, accusatory presence, et cetera.

  And what would Tess Wolff say to that?

  I came in and found her sitting on a front windowsill, feet flat against the floor, toenails freshly painted red.

  Or so I remember it: blade of late spring light carving across her ankles.

  Seymour sitting on the couch.

  I poured myself a bourbon from the bottle on the coffee table, touched his glass with mine and sat next to him.

  “How does it go, Joe?”

  I’d forgotten it. This thing Seymour used to say to me. Until now, I’d forgotten it entirely. Gone and then returned. Who knows what else exists in there? All that information resting dormant. Dust on water, flotsam on the surface of a still sea.

  Anyway, that’s what he said.

  That evening, and all through those days.

  “How does it go, Joe?”

  Over that short course of time when we were friends, when we believed so fully in our own intransience, when there was no consideration of separation, no sense of time ever drawing us out into the wider world.

  This tidal past rushes back so rapidly. Comes and goes so often without explanation.

  I loved Seymour asking, “How does it go, Joe?”

  So I tell you this to record it, to mark it down before it’s gone again.

  And I tell you because, simply: I loved Seymour Strout.

  It matters, doesn’t it? I think it must. I think the three of us mattered, in the same way that Tess and I did.

  As units.

  As single pieces in time.

  Or single pieces of time.

  I don’t know if there’s any distinction between time and what exists within it.

  All these loves of mine. Love for my past selves, for my mother, for my father, for Claire, for my vanished Big Sur friends, for Tess, for our Cannon Beach family, for Seymour, for all those dissolved and dissolving, for those waiting within me, caught in some taut mnemonic fold, and for this physical world, I insist they are of significance.

  In all their various weights and surfaces.

  The only constant things within me.

  So:

  “How does it go, Joe?”

  “Went out to Emerson,” I said.

  Tess turned her head from the window.

  “Why?” she asked. Or without the question mark, said as if she knew.

  “I needed a vacation.”

  She looked at me the way she always did lately—with cold suspicion. Always as if she were evaluating me, my promise. There was a fierce tension between us now, which as we drew closer to November, was nearly unremitting.

  “Why were you there, Joe?”

  “I needed some air.”

  She looked back out the window.

  “It’s a nice campus,” Seymour said to the room.

  “I ran into Marcy Harper.” Keeping my eyes on the side of Tess’s face.

  “Who’s that?” Seymour our great objective mediator.

  “Student at Emerson. Tess’s friend,” I said.

  “Not a friend. What did she say?”

  “We talked a long time. Had a cup of coffee together. Apparently my mother won’t see her, doesn’t respond to her letters.”

  Tess smiled at the street.

  “You know about that?”

  She shrugged.

  “There’s a protest Saturday night. She invited me. Invited us.”

  “What’s it for?” Seymour had moved to the floor where he now lay flat on his back.

  “A girl was raped in a frat house.”

  We were all quiet for a long time.

  Then Seymour said, “Fuck it, I’ll go.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Saturday night. She’s pretty, C. Marcy Harper.”

  I said it to provoke Tess, but she didn’t react. Seymour laughed. “In that case I’ll wear a clean shirt. We’ll have to get off work.”

  “Fine by me,” I said.

  “Tess you want to come?” He was up on his elbows.

  “What’s the plan exactly?”

  I told her, “A silent protest. Candles. Wear all black, stand in front of the Beta house.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Aggressive silence,” I said.

  Tess gave us her most disdainful, most mocking laugh.

  “Come on,” Seymour said. He poured himself another drink. “You know, we could do the same thing.” He was getting to his feet now. The giant emerging from sleep. He went to the door with his glass. There with his hand on the knob, he looked down at her. “We could do the same thing. Stand in front of his house each night. Black hoods. Candles in our hands. Pretty good idea, really. Save us the trouble of the other thing. Save us the trouble of prison.”

  I was watching him at the door, seeing all at once, in one fail swoop, that he was just a kid. Maybe some new angle to his face, or a glint of fear. I looked up at him and thought exactly that, He’s just a kid.

  Tess looked up at him then. Said, “We should all go on Saturday night,” as if it had been her idea in the first place. “We go in hoods, we see Marcy Harper and her friends, we light our candles. We stand in aggressive silence. We make sure we’re seen.”

  Seymour looked at her a long moment. “Seen?”

  “Being peaceful, yes,” she said.

  He shook his head, and then went outside onto the porch to smoke a cigarette.

  I liked Seymour’s idea. The three of us out there embarrassing Sam Young. Maybe we’d bring Marcy and her gang. Swarm the bastard’s house night after night until it ended. Until the reporters came. Until the police were forced to respond. Until his wife was safe. And Anna. I liked the idea of it, but we could not do both things.

  It was one or the other, and Tess was moving at breakneck speed.

  90.

  Saturday night the three of us in my truck driving out to Emerson. The close cab. Smell of Seymour sweat, Virginia Slims and lemon oil, coffee and night air tinged with salt. Of us. One unit. One brick of time.

  The Beta house was on Barry, one of four main streets that framed the campus. Here were all the frats on one side, all the sororities on the other. Five and five.

  And who cares what they were called? Can you think of anything less important in the world than distinguishing Beta from Delta? Kappa from Gamma?

  Fuck those people.

  There is a point when fear leaves me, when rage replaces it. And when that rage fuses with the upswing and the clear light, well, then I am deadly and I am invincible. And when that fusion, that concoction, that strange combination meets the end of Seymour Strout’s patience, and is joined to all the wrath of Tess Wolff, then we are an army of rare and secret power.

  We are out of the cab. We are off-kilter, irritable and separate. We have not yet cohered. But it is coming. I can feel it now, here in this house, and there is nothing I cannot see.

  My heart is ahead of you, my whole body.

  I will bring you in soon, I will bring you to me.

  In the present, in the past, in all their respective iterations.

  We are out of the cab.

  We are walking down Barry, Tess ahead of us. Of course. A good full step. There are the houses, Alpha to Omega, or however it went. Five and five. And on the fraternity side, people spilling off their porches onto lawns.

  The sororities had no parties.

  When those women wanted debauchery they crossed the street.

  They said heaven was on one side, hell the oth
er.

  Marcy Harper, dressed all in black, was there in heaven. Surrounded by the others, whose faces I can’t remember. Or what they called themselves. But they were there, maybe ten, maybe fifteen to begin with. Milling around when we arrived. Tess hugging Marcy as if she were an old friend, as if she believed in her methods of war. Marcy tolerating Tess, and then smiling at me, saying, “So nice to see you Mr. March.” And then looking up at Seymour with the kind of nervous reserve his size and ever-changing eyes—dull to sharp, matte to gloss—provoked in people.

  He and I were the only men. We stayed in the shadows, back on the second line. There were maybe thirty of us there. Two rows of fifteen by the time Marcy began distributing the lit candles, got all our hands glowing. Then in our uniforms, in our formations, we became a single entity. We held no signs. We kept our silence. We did nothing but stand and face the Beta House. Tess and Marcy front and center, side by side. We would stay the duration of a single small candle. Two hours. We would hold our ground. Say nothing.

  Then we became a focal point and quickly had the attention of the street—the passersby, the people on the house porch, on the lawn. Rapid shift from invisible to visible. Stage lights thrown. The next hour you can predict. The various responses and insults. Our still black band, a solemn mass amidst the speeding Saturday night. But we stayed where we were. We kept our promises.

  “What are you for?”

  The first phrase I’m sure of. Someone calling from across the street. Some drunken fool on the Beta porch. Poetry by mistake: “What are you for? What are you fuckers for?”

  The night took on a new pressure. I could sense it in Seymour. His body straightening. Tess motionless. And who knows how much time passed?

  That’s the call, which threw the switch.

  “What are you fuckers for?”

  And:

  “Who wants to see the basement?”

  And:

  “Which one of you whores wants a tour?”

  Then:

  “Tour, tour, tour, tour, tour, tour.”

  Then: