The Poison Tree

by Henry I. Schvey

  “Does Mom know?” I asked as we hurtled across the Triborough Bridge.

  “Know what?”

  “That you came to school to get me.”

  “Why would she need to know?”

  “Because … she has custody of me.” I figured this was the best way to provoke him into communicating.

  “Go to hell. Since when has her custody meant anything to you?” He knew, I believe, that my anger towards him was matched by my disdain for my mother. I hated both of them for dividing me between them like a piece of meat, and particularly despised my mother’s claim of “custody,” and the suggestion of ownership.

  I was silent for the rest of the ride. We pulled up to LaGuardia Airport, and he told me to get out.

  “Wait for me at the American Airlines commuter desk.”

  Instead of going inside, I stood there dumbstruck. Then, in a state of utter panic, I actually considered running away. If I ran away, he wouldn’t find me. But where would I go? I couldn’t very well reappear at school, and I didn’t want to go back home either and have to explain myself.

  Moments later, the decision about whether or not to flee was rendered moot. “Hey—I thought I told you to wait for me inside. Never mind. C’mon—we’ll miss our flight.”

  “Flight? What flight? What do you mean? Where are we going?” I asked as he preceded me through the glass doors.

  “What do you think happens at an airport? You’ll find out soon enough. Tie your shoes. They won’t allow you on the plane like that.”

  “What do you mean, I’ll ‘find out’? I’ve never even flown before!”

  “Well, then, this’ll be a memorable experience.” His acid smile was hardly reassuring.

  We walked through the terminal until I saw the sign for Commuter Flights. Previously, I had looked forward to my first airplane ride as an adventure. Now I was paralyzed with fear. Boarding a plane for the first time reminded me of the time I went swimming in a lake, when we went to pick out Blackie from a litter of puppies owned by one of Dad’s business associates in Westchester. I was six, and hadn’t yet learned to swim properly. I eased myself into the shallow end of a small pond, imagining I would be able to touch the bottom. But as I waded in, as I had in the swimming pool, I suddenly sank! My mouth filled with water, my arms flapping like a tiny bird. Since neither of my parents swam, I had to be fished out of the pond by my father’s friend. When I emerged, coughing and shivering, I saw Mom crying and Dad laughing. Since then, I’d hated swimming.

  “You sit by the window,” my father said as we boarded the tiny plane.

  “Why do I have to sit there?” I assumed I was being punished for something.

  “Because I can’t hear out of that ear.” I had forgotten about his deafness in one ear, which in turn reminded me of why he wasn’t supposed to swim for fear of losing his hearing altogether. It was why he couldn’t have assisted in my rescue, even had he wanted to.

  “Does Mom know where you’re taking me?”

  Silence.

  “Well, does she?” I asked again.

  “No.”

  “Dad, where are we going? Mom … I insist.” I unbuckled my seat belt as a show of defiance, even though the engines were running.

  “You insist?” he spat. “Put your seat belt back on. We’re about to take off.”

  Instead of sitting back down, to assert my independence, I stood up abruptly. And smashed my head into the cabin ceiling.

  “Why don’t you sit down before you knock yourself out?” he asked drily. Then continuing, “Since you insist on knowing, I guess I’ll have to tell you.”

  “Where then?”

  “Vermont.”

  “Vermont? What’s in Vermont?”

  “Maple syrup, mountains, skiing. Anything else you need to know?”

  “Thanks. I was aware of that.” Against my will, I smiled at his little joke. Why? I was drawn into his game to diminish the scope of his crime. He had kidnapped me from school, was taking me to Vermont without either asking me if I wanted to go or telling my mother or getting her consent, and I was playing along with his banter like a little kid, even though I still had no idea where or why I was going. What the hell is wrong with me?, I thought. I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t smile. Ever again. The pain made my eyes water.

  “So you’re crying now?” he said, with disgust.

  “No. I just …” I dabbed at a tear with my necktie. Now that I had laughed and cried, I knew he would answer me. “Dad, where are we going? Seriously, I want to know.”

  “We’re looking at schools. Boarding schools.”

  “What?”

  The propellers revved up to full speed and the plane lurched forward like a clumsy dog. A few seconds later, we were rumbling down the runway; I looked out the window. We were airborne, drifting unsteadily over houses and factories and baseball diamonds.

  “You heard me, didn’t you?” my father said, but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I was choked with fear. Besides, I needed to concentrate, thinking that in doing so, I could keep this ridiculous machine airborne. I waited, clutching the sleeve of my father’s houndstooth sports jacket until I felt confident that the pilot could continue his ascent without my help.

  “Wh—why are we looking at schools in Vermont?”

  “Number one—you’re flunking out of Horace Mann. And two, you need to get away from your mother, or she’ll ruin you. You want to turn out like Scrambled Eggs?” We were still ascending, but I knew in my heart that this trip would end badly for me.

  “And what about you? What do you want to turn me into?” I blurted this out, not knowing why, but somehow trying to assert myself against the inevitable. If I was going down, at least I needed to have him take some responsibility for my failure. I surprised myself with the question, and he turned his head away, muttering, “Maybe you need to get away from me, too, I don’t know.…” It was an extremely rare moment of candor from my father. I looked out the window, wondering how we could stay aloft against every law of gravity? And really, I didn’t want to reflect on anything else.

  The plane banked a turn and flew out over the Long Island Sound; I stretched my hand out nervously and tugged at my father’s sleeve for support. I kept it there. It was a gesture I both regretted and needed. Even so, there was no sign my touch affected him either way.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” I asked, finally removing my hand.

  “Would you have come with me to Vermont if I had said, ‘pretty please’? Well, would you?” He smiled, and we bounced from side to side, forcing my elbow to brush against his arm.

  “No. I guess not.”

  “Your mother and I will be officially divorced soon.”

  His words shocked me. I had known it was coming, of course, but hearing him say it out loud was still a shock. I turned away from him and stared out the window. My eyes burned.

  After a few minutes, my father continued. “I couldn’t stand living in filth any longer, and you shouldn’t want to, either. As for your brother … he belongs with the Lerners.” Bobby was nine and had adamantly refused to see him. He accompanied our mother night and day, and believed her narrative (“Your father hasn’t abandoned me; he’s abandoned you”) completely. This allegiance confirmed to Dad that he belonged with my mother’s side of the family.

  I, on the other hand, refused to take sides: I disliked both of my parents in equal measure. But, the previous month, I decided I ought to see my father on weekends. For the past few months, he had been trying to reach out to me, and I actually felt sorry for him. I had no idea why, anymore than I understood why I laughed at his feeble attempts to get me to laugh. When he called, my mother picked up the other phone to listen in. As soon as she heard his voice on the other end of the line, she screamed that I needed to get off and slammed down the receiver. When he drove over to our apartment to pick me up, she refused to allow me to go. These visits were invariably accompanied by screaming matches, with George the doorman
as hapless referee. While I did pity my mother, who was drinking and losing her bearings in our dark apartment filled with the detritus of their life together, I also felt sorry for my father. For some reason, his violent aggression was even more sympathetic to me than my mother’s self-pity. I still don’t know why.

  As we descended, I was jerked from my reverie by the absolute certainty we were going to crash into one of the mountains. The one thing that gave me a measure of confidence in our survival was my father’s calm presence: solid, masculine, and unafraid. I slipped my hand into his. Again, he had no reaction.

  “We have an interview with the headmaster in an hour,” he said. “When we land, comb your hair, straighten your tie, and for Christ’s sake, use your handkerchief. You look like you’ve been crying the whole flight. Jesus Christ!”

  I didn’t end up transferring. Because of my failing grades at Horace Mann, neither school would accept me unless I agreed to repeat my junior year. On the cab ride back to the airport, we hardly spoke. My father looked morose, as if his entire plan to get me away from Mom had failed. Then he asked what I thought. My response was to think of my mother, and how she would feel if her Quiz Kid son, her gifted genius who was toilet trained at six months and skipped first grade—was going to be held back. It would destroy her. I didn’t say this; I simply shook my head at my father’s silent queries. My father, who usually communicated through angry outbursts or blows, this time, for some reason, showed restraint. It was one of the few times I can remember that he didn’t lose his temper. And as he dropped me back home at my mother’s apartment, we both knew that his plans to send me to boarding school would not come to pass; that I wouldn’t be leaving Horace Mann after all.

  The kidnapping brought about a significant change in my relations with both my parents, but it was the opposite of what I might have imagined. I now shared a guilty secret with my father, which brought us closer together. He never once told me not to tell my mother about our trip. But he knew me well, perhaps better than I admitted to myself, and knew I wouldn’t snitch. Besides, I couldn’t make myself tell her about it. I knew she would assume I was an all-too-willing accomplice in my own abduction. Or maybe I simply wanted to avoid revisiting the feelings of shame and humiliation I had felt about being removed from school completely against my will. Oddly, I now felt tied to my father by an invisible thread of mutual transgression. Outlaws. There would always be that special time together, never mentioned even when we were alone. The time he surprised me at school and we flew off to Vermont, just the two of us. Both terrible and wonderful. Almost like Christmas.

  Mr. Herman was five-foot-three, and wore his hair clipped to his scalp in a tight black stubble. His thick, black-framed glasses were perched on his broad, flat nose. Sometimes, he wore dark glasses in the classroom. He wore this same uniform to class every single day—black suit, black tie, white shirt. I had never before seen anyone who looked like this, and to me he cut an imperious, monastic figure. The few times I actually saw him walking in between classes or to the teacher’s lounge, I noticed his walk was spare, angular, and self-possessed; no wasted motion. It seemed strange to actually see him outside the classroom, so I looked away. He belonged in front of a class, seated and in control. His mind knew no limits; he had read everything, traveled everywhere, and knew every conceivable language, from Russian to Italian and Sanskrit. But more than his self-evident brilliance, there was a strange, separateness that was unique among my teachers. This distance was accompanied by a particular habit which I have never witnessed elsewhere. He might be speaking to our class about a poem and suddenly drift off mid-sentence. While he was in one of these trances, the class of fifteen or so boys just sat there, gazing ahead, afraid to utter a sound. He gazed out the window for a minute or two, then continued in mid-sentence without losing a beat or acknowledging his unexplained absence to us.

  Nearly all the teachers at Horace Mann School for Boys cultivated eccentricities at that time, but none was as bizarre as Mr. Herman. We all wore ties and suit jackets to school, and we belonged to a “Form,” like English public schools, rather than to grades. Combs and nail files were mandatory at all times. In this rarified atmosphere, most teachers cultivated odd tics, which would be out of bounds even a decade later when girls were finally admitted, not to mention a later age of political correctness or sexual misconduct. Mr. Reilly threatened to use his blackthorn stick on our bare backsides; Mr. Oliver, a rotund French teacher who channeled Orson Welles’ deep baritone, warned of dire consequences looming above those unable to present their combs and nail files on command; Mr. Wooster actually kicked boys in the shins beneath their desks, and if they tried to evade punishment, would literally chase them around the classroom. We called our teachers “Sir,” and they addressed us formally as Mister.

  Even among this bizarre group of eccentrics, Mr. Herman was set apart. He alone used an ironic, contemptuous tone towards his students, suggesting he was possessed of esoteric knowledge and spiritual illumination that others were simply not privy to. If you listened closely, you might actually be permitted to kneel at the feet of the master, but never soar to his heights. Because he dwelled in some other world so obviously superior to ours, I never saw the other kids mock him the way they did lesser teachers. Who was this man? Where did he come from? No one knew, but at fourteen it seemed to me like a wonderful and exotic place to live.

  Mr. Herman was just as fastidious and authoritarian about his dress and behavior as my father, but his style was monochrome black and white, in contrast to my father’s taste for colorful neckwear or flowing pocket handkerchiefs. Instead of trying to obviously control my thoughts, he craved nothing; inscrutable, he seemed to pursue only solitude and enlightenment. His mind was full of poetry, exotic cultures, and cryptic myths; above all, he seemed to live for and be in tune with the great artistic minds of the ages. He showed us long lists of the greatest painters and writers, lists we were advised to copy down and memorize. Genius—that was it! Around Mr. Herman, genius was something palpable, something I felt I could touch. His class offered me what I wanted—an escape into the magical world of literature, art, and music. There were no screaming parents, no awkward little brother; in fact, there was no one I recognized. Instead, I was able to peer into the entrance of a Prospero’s cave where none but the spiritually pure might dwell. One day, if I followed his lead, maybe I would be initiated, be admitted to his sublime monastery of the mind.

  Forced to re-take English after getting a D in Mr. Ling’s class, I found myself in Mr. Herman’s Summer School class amid a group of ten or so weak students who simply needed to somehow pass and move on. I quickly came under his spell, and convinced myself I was different from the others who, Mr. Herman suggested on a daily basis, were merely taking up space and wasting his precious time. He introduced me to Shakespeare and Leonardo, Dostoevsky and Dali, and a host of obscure artists whom he alone seemed to know and admire. These great men were no longer simply names. Now they seemed like fellow travelers; like myself, they were searching for meaning in an obscure world. Perhaps one day, if I dedicated myself, I might even join their pantheon.

  Now when I went back to the Cloisters, where once, in second grade, I bent down and kissed Goodie Schuman’s Luden’s-flavored lips, I submerged myself in the culture of the Middle Ages, imagining the sting of the Crucifixion on my own flesh. I went to the Metropolitan and the Frick museums, to concerts—always alone—but armed with a notebook to scribble down my thoughts, images, ideas. I discovered there might be a place for me, and it had nothing to do with family, friends, grandparents, or anyone else. The door to a strange, exotic cave had been prized open. I began to slowly squeeze myself through its tiny opening.

  Mr. Herman mentored by example, rather than instruction. He showed his obvious contempt for the class. When one boy asked who Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello was, Herman replied solemnly that he was a Portuguese astronaut. The boy copied it down, hoping he would be asked the name on a test. He never
spoke that way to me; if he had, I would have been crushed. So oblivious did he seem to what was going on around him, I wasn’t even sure he knew my name. One day after a particularly inspiring class on early Renaissance art, I dared approach the master. He sat gazing out the window, hands clasped under his chin, unaware of my existence. I stood at attention beside his desk, trembling and biting my nails, realizing he was immersed in one of his trances. Although the bell rang for my next class, I chose to wait. I told myself not to glance at my watch, since even thinking about being late was a betrayal of the wisdom Mr. Herman might conceivably bestow on me if and when he awoke.

  The silence lasted many minutes, until out of weakness and fatigue I rested my palm lightly on the corner of his desk. Still, he continued to gaze imperturbably into the distance while I waited patiently for him to descend from whichever mountain top he was standing upon, hoping sometime before the last subway train departed from 242nd Street, that he might acknowledge my existence. I had apparently chosen a poor time for my pilgrimage. As time passed, I thought how wonderful it would be to dwell in the spiritual palace he inhabited rather than the squalid hut I lived in with my mother and brother. To be present, yet remain absent, to the things of this world. This was what genius was—pure genius.

  “Yeth? What ith it?” (the great man had a slight lisp). My body was slouched, bent over his desk—and I knew the magic moment had come and gone. But I ventured a word.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I … umm … just wanted to tell you how much I am enjoying your class.” There was only silence, but I bravely took things a step further. “I’ve know I’ve done badly in all my other classes … but in yours … I … umm, I would like to do better … I’ve never felt—er, experienced anything like … I just wanted you to know that … in spite of everything … I’m sorry… .”

  “The fool who persists in his folly will become—what?” These magical words wafted up toward me as our eyes met for a split second. I shivered. “Listen closely to me now, Henry.” He continued in a whisper so soft I had to bend my body almost at a forty-five degree angle. He was telling me something, but it was delivered in a kind of secret code, or a riddle like the Sphinx offers the Thebans in Oedipus. Damn it, I thought in a panic, I can’t understand what he’s saying.