Four Years from Home

by Larry Enright

  I had considered a job with the post office at one time. The regular hours, good benefits, and little work were enticing. The uniforms were a plus, too. I forget why I had abandoned that career path. It might have been when I was voted most likely to go postal by my fellow classmates, or maybe it was when I was handed that big pile of money by the game design company and told to steal what already belonged to me. More likely, I had just thrown it in the same discard pile as policeman, fireman, and astronaut when I realized that dying of boredom belonged in the same category as getting shot to death, burnt to a crisp, or incinerated by cosmic rays.

  A white-haired old man was struggling with the door, trying to get in. Under his brown overcoat he wore a gray flannel suit. For such a small place, Gambier had more than its share of old timers. I pretended not to notice him, calculating instead the distance from Mount Vernon to Gambier, the road conditions, and the time it would take find a phone and call an ambulance when he had a heart attack. He would be dead before they got there, so there was no point in doing anything. Besides, he was probably one of them.

  The epic battle ended in his victory and he entered the building. Apparently, there was still some fight left in the old geezer. I continued to pretend to read Harry’s report card, watching him walk slowly to his box, every step seemingly painful to him. Even turning the key and opening his box was an effort. Stubborn old coot — his palsied hands shook while he tried to read a letter. It was time to go. There was only so much old age I could take at a time. He cut one, a really loud one. I couldn’t stifle my laugh even if I had wanted to.

  He looked up from his reading and smiled at me, his oversized cataract glasses magnifying his eyes to bug size. Was there anything on him that wasn’t broken? “Someday the ravages of time will catch up to you, too, and you might remember this moment with something less than fondness.”

  Apparently, his mind was all that was left still in working order. “Poetic justice, huh?”

  “Some folks call it that.” He was staring at me, trying to remember something.

  The old goat looked awfully familiar to me, too. “Do I know you?”

  Had Harry been that unobservant, I would have pounded him. I knew I had seen this old guy before. My mouth must have been set to auto-pilot. I blurted out, “Friends are not sent in order of our choosing, they come unsuited like the gifts of God. John Crowe Ransom.”

  He just stared at me, his weird bug eyes narrowing.

  “John Crowe Ransom? That’s you. You wrote that, right?” I was staring at the Pirate himself, Captain Blackbeard Ransom, the man who had a building named after him. I’d skimmed one of his books of poetry in the Alumni House. He didn’t look much like a pirate in person.

  The light bulb lit up over his head and he nodded and smiled. “Yes, I wrote that one; “Friendship” it is called. It has been a long time since I’ve heard those words spoken. And you are?”

  His poetry stunk, but I was headed down the path of inevitability. What I was saying and doing was out of my control. I hated that feeling. “Ryan. Pleased to meet you. Look, I’m sorry. I really meant no offense. It’s just one of those things.”

  “I thought I recognized you from your photo. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Your apology is accepted.”

  My photo? The police at work undoubtedly. Ransom’s hands were shaking and his lower lip quivering. Whatever was affecting him must have been a fairly constant thing, a palsy that was probably getting worse with age. My opinion of old age wasn’t much different from my opinion of poetry. I would never grow old — I had decided that a long time ago.

  He continued, “But… It is accepted only on the condition that you agree to join me this evening for dinner at my house. Six thirty shall we say? You may bring a guest if you like. Here…” He tore his address off an envelope and handed it to me, “Six thirty then, Mr. Ryan?”

  “Deal, captain,” I replied and shook his shaking hand. It seemed cold and frail, as if death were trying to get in and he was straining valiantly to hold back its tremendous weight. I liked this old buzzard. He was a mess. And though obviously unable to do anything to anybody physically, his presence and his keen mind commanded immediate respect. I took copious notes on this for, despite my recently enacted law that I was never to grow old, someday I just might be there myself and would need to be able to bully the weaklings about without actually beating them up. But where’s the fun in that?

  I tucked Ransom’s address into my wallet and began the short walk back to the Art Department. I was annoyed that the police must have been showing Harry’s photo around and asking questions, but I guess it was their job. Obviously, Ransom was intrigued by it all and wanted to pump me for information. Maybe he wrote mystery poems, too, or detective poems and was looking for some good material. Roses are red, violets are blue, I don’t know where Harry went. Do you? I would pump him at dinner for information on what the police knew. And then I would figure out how to restore the good name that those damn college businessmen had taken from him and plastered on the wall of a stupid building.

  “The evidence against the College of Stuffed Shirts and Businessmen is overwhelming, your honor. They have taken the famous pirate John Crowsnest Ransom prisoner and debased and defamed him by stripping him of his glorious deeds of derring-do on the high seas, erasing them from history books and replacing them with — I shudder to say — poetry. They have dressed him in a suit and hung him on a wall with businessmen, and they have allowed this mighty sailor to languish in the prison of old age. These are capital offenses, your honor, and we demand the death penalty.”

  “I object, milord. We were only doing what was best for the school. Our endowment was low and enrollment declining. We needed Mr. Ransom’s name.”

  “Captain Ransom, Mr. Stuffed Shirt. Please address the Captain with his proper title. It is a matter of respect to him and this court.”

  “Yes, milord. Sorry milord. But the fact of the matter is, we needed the good captain’s name to enhance our share equity in the Barron’s College Guide. Our rating would have dropped below the top one hundred and we had been notified that we would be losing the title ‘Harvard of the Midwest’ in favor of, dare I say it, ‘Parsons of the Midwest.’ We needed this boost, milord. And I have the facts and figures to support my claim. We have since turned around our shrinking enrollment by twenty-five percent, attracted ten percent higher degreed faculty, five percent more students of income, and will soon be in the top twenty on the charts.”

  “It’s got a good beat, but can you dance to it?”

  “Milord?”

  “You certainly know your numbers, Mr. Shirt, and I am duly impressed by all the waving around of important papers.”

  “Thank you, milord. I try.”

  “Yes, you are trying. But the fact of the matter is, you have stolen this good man’s name, hung him by the yardarm along with others of lesser ilk, and altered history to your own ends. How do you plead?”

  “Well, guilty, milord, but…”

  “Then there can be only one sentence…”

  Case closed…

  A couple of students walked into the art building ahead of me. I didn’t even bother to try and figure out the odds of there being two classes here at this ungodly hour of the morning, so I followed them to a second floor classroom. One of them, a cute blonde, turned and smiled, “Hey, Harry, you modeling nude for us?” They giggled. “I heard we were working on minimalism today,” she added.

  Rules of the sea — A salvo fired across the bow requires a return shot. “There’s not enough ink in your pen to draw me nude.”

  They laughed and she looked at me coyly. “I don’t think Beth would like that, but then, she isn’t here, is she?” The blond stopped, standing in my way invitingly. “And what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, will it?” I just smiled and brushed past her, taking the steps two at a time.

  Harry, you cad… You had become a lady’s man, a regular tiger, pent up in the cage of an all-boys hig
h school for four years and then released into a jungle where the collegiate women roam wild and free. Who could have imagined it? I decided that this part of the story would be best not told to Mom and Dad. It would break their hearts to see how far down the ladder their favorite son had come. Of course, that would immediately elevate me back to my rightful position, but I was headed in that direction anyway. I was the good son who had dropped everything and come to Kenyon to unravel the mystery of Harry’s death. I was the one who would tell them all what really happened. They were all depending on me. I would be the hero. And I wouldn’t even have to lie, cheat, steal, or hurt anybody. Oh well, everything has a down side, I suppose. But in the end, they did not need to know all the unsavory details. I owed at least that much to Harry… or at least I would not tell them just yet. This part might come in handy someday. I simply cataloged it all and filed it away under future battle plans.

  The classroom looked like an old bedroom, or two old bedrooms with the wall between them knocked down. The windows on the west, north, and south sides let so much natural light into the space that artificial light was unnecessary. Everywhere there wasn’t a window, there were either tables or shelves filled with supplies, paintings, drawings, and, from what I could tell, a lot of junk. The center of the room was half-ringed by easels, facing the one thing that really seemed out of place in all this — a government-issue gray desk with a four by eight model of the college sitting on it. Someone, probably some loser art student who lacked the imagination to do a real art project, had taken a piece of plywood, spray painted it green, and built an exact duplicate in miniature of Kenyon College on it. I picked up the folded index card that was resting in the corner like a placard – “Kenyon College circ. 1972. Harry Ryan.”

  “They haven’t finished the real nameplate, Harry, but don’t worry — it will be done and in place before they move it to Ransom.”

  I looked up and a red-bearded man wearing wire-rim glasses was smiling at me. He wore a smock that was so paint-stained that it was hard to tell its original color, but the embroidered name was still readable. “Thanks, Mr. Fecklan. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  Harry couldn’t possibly have put this model together. He couldn’t even put together a simple Revell P-40, let alone get the decals in the right place. Every time he bought one, it was me who ended up finishing it for him. I remembered the last one I ever made for him. He was laid up in bed and some idiot had given him a Sikorsky as a get-well gift. He whined about that helicopter model every time we were in the hobby shop, and I guess he finally yammered long and loud enough to the right person. But that was like giving a crossword puzzle to your dog. He’ll wag his tail in happiness because he finally has what he wants but in the end will just slobber all over it and ruin it. So after ten minutes and finally giving up, I was recruited by Dad to “help” Harry, that is to say, it was all mine. Not that I didn’t enjoy putting it together. It was a real challenge and I was great at model building. Always have been. When everything was perfect, down to the last detail, Harry thanked me and then proceeded to launch it over the balcony railing because he thought it could fly. It did, actually — straight down, crashing in a terrible crunch of plastic on hardwood. I swore I would never make another model for him again.

  This model wasn’t actually that bad. I was admiring the detail of the trees and bushes outside the Chalmers Library when Mr. Fecklan said to the class, “Okay, folks, let’s get started. We need to get finished on these projects soon. The senior honors library show is fast approaching. They will be moving Mr. Ryan’s work to Ransom Hall this week most likely so we will have more space, but we really to get a move on, so tempus fugit and carpe diem and all that, okay?“

  “Vita Brevis, Ars Eternis,” I added, gesturing to the class. Apparently the Latin II answers I had written on my arm for Brother Patrick’s last Latin test were still intact.

  I waited for the others to pick an easel and took the only one that remained. The canvas propped on Harry’s easel had paint on it, I will give him that much, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he had been painting. I cocked my head sideways, thinking maybe someone had turned the painting upside down. No, that was not it. Rule number three thousand four hundred twenty seven in The Book of Tom — all ambiguous paintings will require a “this side up” arrow. The earthen tones and swipe of green through the middle looked disturbingly familiar — it was the same as that mess on the outside of the art building. What I was looking at was either the model for, or a miniature of, a larger work. And parents paid good money to send their kids here?

  I stepped back, pretending to look at Harry’s work from a longer perspective, and scoped out the paintings nearby. The cute blond was doing a traditional landscape centered on the dorm at the far south end of campus, Old Kenyon. A pretty good copy but very unimaginative, very uninspired — where was the B-52 dropping the bombs along Middle Path?

  Her friend was doing exactly the same scene but you could hardly tell. Neither had talent to speak of but hers was clearly negative on the scale. Impressionism? Expressionism? Impossible to determine, except to say that her gifts lay elsewhere — assuming she had any.

  On my other side, a hippie type, wearing a tie-dyed shirt and purple sunglasses, had transformed nature into a psychedelic array of block-shaped objects that appeared to be Middle Path and Ransom Hall. I watched his unsteady right hand try to apply Day-Glo orange to a tree. The yellowish stain on his thumb and forefinger was a dead giveaway — this was the view of Kenyon through the eyes of a heavy pot smoker. No, that would never do. I’d be back later to toss his work in the dumpster. I might even poke around in his art box for his stash. I had noticed a bit of poison ivy on a tree in Mrs. Hoople’s backyard that would blend nicely with his weed. Can people drink Calamine lotion?

  Harry also had an art box not much different than the rest. It had a lock, but a quick fingering of the keys in my pocket ruled out a match with the third key. I flipped open the lid and pretended to look for something. If there were any clues in that collection of brushes, pencils, paints, and chalks, they were not jumping out at me. I picked out a worn black crayon and I focused on Harry’s painting. Apparently Fecklan’s class had no guidelines on style; their only commonality was in that all the works were supposed to be landscapes. So what was Harry’s? More to the point, what should I have been adding to the painting?

  “It will fit perfectly with the others, Harry, the perfect conclusion to your ‘Along Middle Path’ series,” Fecklan said from behind me. “If you’re done, put your John Hancock on it and I’ll make sure it gets over to the library today.”

  “The library?” Done? Yeah, it looked pretty well cooked to me.

  He looked at me puzzled. “Your one-man show? Your senior honors project? Hello?”

  “Oh, right. The library. Sorry, not enough caffeine yet.” I was more concerned with how I was going to forge Harry’s signature. I hadn’t done that in years and there was no guarantee that he would sign a work of art the same way as he signed his checks anyway. So I gave it the old college try, pausing for a second to ponder whether that meant that the college was old or the attempt was old. Probably both.

  “You have to sign the pact or the treaty isn’t valid.” I was insistent on that point. Any non-aggression treaty required the non-aggressors to all sign it.

  But then Harry was Harry. “Can’t you sign for me?”

  “Then it wouldn’t mean anything.”

  “But it doesn’t mean anything. I wouldn’t attack you anyway.”

  The rules of Risk are quite clear — winner take all. I needed Harry to agree to not attack me as my armies spread through Asia mopping up Sam. I needed Harry to do more than just say he would not attack me. I needed him to sign the treaty. That way, if he broke it, I could flaunt it in front of the others. In fact, I just might flaunt it anyway. And once Sam was gone… I could hear the others clamoring from the dining room. This negotiation had to end. They might be cheating, and the on
ly one who was allowed to cheat in the Kingdom of Tom was me.

  “I’ll sign for you, but you have to promise me that you will never tell. Promise?”

  “Okay, I promise, if it will make you happy.”

  I smiled as I signed the painting “H. Ryan” just the way I had signed that treaty with Harry. It had made me happy. I had obliterated Sam. But even after Sam was gone and I had numerical superiority and broke the treaty (after all — he never actually signed it), I still could not wipe out Harry’s stronghold in Australia. He led a charmed life. Maybe he really was blessed and destined for sainthood; maybe he did have the “call” like Grandma Ryan had always said. But, if that were true, how could he be dead? Maybe he had died the way all the good saints died — he’s been murdered in some bizarre fashion that the Catholics would term “martyrdom.”

  “Great,” Fecklan smiled, delicately picking up the painting and moving it to his office. I wondered if he had even looked at the signature. He probably didn’t care. He was just another assembly line worker happy to be done with it so he could move on to the next student and get them “finished.” I looked at Psychedelic Bob staring at his painting, lost in his drugged stupor. It would be a service to Professor Fecklan and my distinct pleasure to finish Bob’s art career at Kenyon. I added this footnote below the entry I had already made for him so there would be no doubt of my intentions when the historians discussed my memoirs.