The Case Against William (4 page)

"Frank,"
his wife said, "tell Rebecca she needs to go shopping."

He
turned to his daughter. "Go shopping."

"No."

He
turned back to his wife. "She doesn't want to go shopping."

"She
needs a new party dress for the fall social," his wife said.

Liz
took her place at the head of the table. They were going to the football game
after dinner, but Liz was dressed as if she would be competing in the evening
gown competition. She sat with perfect posture waiting to be served by Lupe.

"No,
I don't, Mother. Because I'm not going to the fall social."

"Yes,
young lady, you are going."

"Mother,
it's October. Football season. I'm a cheerleader. I play volleyball. I
don't have time for socials."

"Make
time."

Becky
gave Frank a pleading look. He turned his palms up at her mother.

"Liz—"

"She's
going, Frank. And all the girls will be wearing new dresses. Do you want your
daughter to feel embarrassed?"

"Let
me think about that."

"Daddy,
I can't stand the boys at our school," Becky said. "They're all rich
snobs. Why do I have to socialize with them?"

"Good
question." Frank turned back to his wife. "Why does she have to
socialize with rich snobs she doesn't like?"

"The
same reason I have to socialize with rich snobs I don't like."

"So
she'll be written up in the society section?"

Becky
laughed, but Liz did not appreciate his humor. Frank walked over to the sink
and washed up. Lupe stood at the stove and filled plates with enchiladas,
tacos, refried beans, and guacamole. She wore a colorful Mexican peasant dress.

"How's
your boy, Lupe?"

She
was thirty-five, a single mother with a four-year-old boy. He had been born
with a heart defect; fortunately for little Juan, Houston was home to many
renowned heart surgeons and his mother's employer had put her and her
dependents on his health insurance plan.

"He's
fine, Mr. Tucker."

William
grabbed a plate and sat at the table; he attacked the food. He ate like a
horse these days and smelled like one. Puberty will do that to a boy. Frank
took two plates and served his daughter and wife then went back for his plate.
He returned to the table and sat across from the kids. The house had a formal
dining room off the kitchen, but they always ate in the kitchen. It was
comfortable. Informal.

"Did
you wash your hands, William?" he asked.

Through
a mouthful of food: "Why?"

"Hygiene."

"I'm
a football player."

Frank
folded his hands and said, "Prayer."

His
son froze with a taco halfway in his mouth while Frank said the Tucker family
dinner prayer. Then his son resumed his assault on the defenseless taco.
Frank turned to his wife.

"Nancy's
son deployed to Iraq," he said.

Nancy
was his longtime secretary.

"Oh,
that's neat," Liz said.

"I
doubt it."

"I
looked at a house in the nice part of River Oaks today," she said.

"The
nice
part?"

River
Oaks was the richest part of Houston. Old money. New money. Oil money.
Inherited money. But most of all, money.

"I'm
not moving," William said.

"Me
neither," Becky said.

With
his head still bent over his plate and without breaking stride shoveling food
into his mouth, William stuck a fist out to her. She bumped her fist against
his. A fist-bump, a bonding ritual of athletes. Only two years apart, they
seemed more like twins. The same hair, the same eyes, the same features. They
watched out for each other. They had lived their entire lives in this old
house. It was fifty years old with a big yard, the pool, and tall oak trees on
a large lot, room for Rusty to roam and the kids to play. They each had their
own bedroom and bathroom, which kept the peace upstairs. Hers were always
tidy; his looked like a locker room. The house was just under four thousand
square feet, small by River Oaks standards, and Frank could easily afford a
bigger place, but it was four times as big as the house he had grown up in in a
working-class suburb of Houston. And the kids were happy there. But Liz
wanted a bigger house. She always wanted more.

"It's
on Inwood just off the boulevard"—the River Oaks Boulevard—"a block from
the club," she said. "Eight thousand square feet, six bedrooms,
seven baths. And only five million."

She
said it with a straight face.

"Liz,
what would we do with seven toilets and eight thousand square feet?"

"Entertain."

"We
do." He turned to the kids. "You guys entertained?"

They laughed. Rusty barked. Lupe muffled a giggle. Liz gave him
that stern look that used to mean, "No sex tonight." But sex had
ended long before. He had not sought sex from other sources; perhaps he was
too afraid or too lazy or too Catholic. He didn't think she was cheating on
him; that would be too scandalous in Houston high society. Instead of climbing
the social ladder she would become the subject of social gossip. So they now
slept in separate bedrooms; he told the kids his back made him toss and turn
and wake their mother up. William had bought it; but he was only twelve.
Frank suspected that Becky had not; but she went along with it. At fourteen,
she was his deputy, working hard to keep the peace in River Oaks.

Which
was not easy with her mother.

They
had married eighteen years ago. He was twenty-seven and already practicing
with a Houston firm; she was twenty-two and just graduated from UT, a pretty
girl who wanted to be a star. She had planned on parlaying her looks into
local television stardom and then jumping to the networks; it didn't pan out.
At forty, she wanted to be a Houston society dame. Her Plan B. They had grown
apart, as they say. In fact, they had married too young to know themselves and
too soon to know each other. By the time they knew who they were and who they
were not, they already had the kids. Frank had contemplated divorce, often,
but Liz would get custody of the kids. Unless she was an alcoholic or drug
addict, the mother could be dating an NFL team and she'd still get custody. He
would be the every-other-weekend dad. He couldn't bear the thought of that
life. So he stayed for the kids. For himself. He needed to be close to
them. To live with them. To see them every day. To be a part of their lives.

Frank
Tucker was a family man.

The
varsity quarterback threw a wounded duck, a pass that wobbled in the air like a
shot fowl. The defensive back intercepted at the thirty-yard line and returned
the ball for a touchdown. The home crowd groaned.

"A
pick-six," William said.

The
Houston skyline illuminated the night sky to the east and seemed to loom large
over the small stadium. River Oaks occupied the south bank of Buffalo Bayou
just west of downtown. River Oaks was a part of Houston, but it seemed
completely apart. A different world. A two-square-mile island of wealth and
white people surrounded by the two million residents who called the sprawling
627-square-mile city of Houston home. Originally excluding minorities and
Jews, River Oaks' real-estate prices now excluded only those without money.
Fourteen hundred families called River Oaks home. The Tucker family lived in
River Oaks because it was the mother's dream and close to the father's office.
Instead of commuting the congested freeways of Houston an hour each way, Frank
had two more hours each day with the kids.

It
was eight that night, and his daughter stood on the sideline with the other
cheerleaders. His son sat on one side of him and his wife on the other, on the
front row of the small bleachers among other affluent white people whose
children attended the Academy. Since racial integration of the Houston public
schools back in the seventies, it was a given that River Oaks parents would
send their offspring to private schools. Frank sent his children to private
school because his parents could not; he wanted more for his children.

The
River Oaks parents and children in the stands looked like models from a Neiman
Marcus catalog (there were no Nike sweat suits in these stands) and the parking
lot like a Mercedes-Benz showroom (with a few Ferraris and Bentleys thrown in
for variety). The Academy was a small private school in River Oaks teaching
pre-K through high school; tuition cost $40,000 per year, more than public
colleges in Texas. But graduates of the Academy did not go to college at a
public university in Texas; they went to the Ivy League. The Academy had
become a feeder school for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Smith, and Wellesley. A
few went west to Stanford or stayed home at Rice. None went to the University
of Texas or Texas A&M.

"Hi,
William."

Two
preteen girls who looked as if they had stepped out of a fashion shoot strolled
by in front of them. They did not distract William from the game.

"Hey."

They
giggled as girls did. Frank nudged his son's shoulder.

"Already
got the girls' eyes, huh?"

"Girls
are lame, Dad."

His
son was handsome with angular features, blue eyes, and curly blond hair that
fell onto his face. But he had not yet reached the age when girls graduated
from lame to alluring. Sports interested him much more than girls. Which was
a good thing at twelve. For the boy and his father.

The
first twelve years of William Tucker's life had been easy for Frank Tucker. It
was more like having a younger brother, teaching William all the manly things
Frank knew—how to throw a baseball and swing a bat, pass and punt a football,
swing a golf club—or rather, pay the club pro to teach him; Frank would never
impose his golf swing on his son—and how to spit watermelon seeds. Frank's
father had taught him how to roof and paint a house, use and repair a
lawnmower, snake and unclog a sewer line, and fix and change a tire; that is,
useful life skills. A man did not pay another man to do work he could do. But
Frank was a lawyer not a plant worker so he hired out that work so he would
have time to teach his son the less useful life skills.

It
had been a fun twelve years with William in his life.

But
Frank knew the next twelve years would be more challenging for father and son.
His son would go through puberty; his body would transform seemingly overnight
from boy to man. But his mind would not. Physical maturity would come soon
and fast; mental maturity would come later and slower. Studies suggest that
the part of a boy's brain that controls judgment does not fully develop until
his mid-twenties. And that gap between mind and body—a body that could
suddenly do what a man could do and a mind that still thought like a boy—could
put his son's future in jeopardy. Throughout the history of man, testosterone
and stupidity had never joined together to produce a good result. Frank
wondered if he could protect his son from himself. He put an arm around his
son's shoulder.

"You
going to get the senator off, Frank?"

The
dad sitting behind them leaned in; his breath evidenced his taste for expensive
wine.

"Gag
order, Sid."

"I
can't believe you're representing a Republican."

Sid
was a rich Democrat—Houston was a Democratic holdout in the state of Texas—but
his children attended this elite private school so they wouldn't have to sit
next to the brown children of poor Democrats in the public schools.

"I'm
representing an innocent person."

"She's
guilty of being a Republican."

The
other team kicked off. The Academy player fumbled the ball. The opponents
recovered and scored on the next play.

"Wow,"
William said. "They're terrible."

The
team was terrible. But the boys were nice. The coaches were nice. The
parents were nice. No one was disappointed in their play because no one
expected them to win.

"We
may not have scored in two years," Sid said from behind, "but ten of
our students aced the SAT this year."

The
apparent purpose of public high schools in Texas was to produce the best
football players in the country. And they did. Division I-A college football
coaches from across America journeyed each fall to Texas to fill their
rosters. They did not stop at the Academy. Athletics at the Academy were
employed to build character and camaraderie among the student body, not to
produce D-I athletes. And they did not. No student in the fifty-year history
of the school had ever won a D-I athletic scholarship. The Academy was a
top-ranked academic school, not a top-ranked athletic school. Consequently,
every season was a losing season. This season was no exception. But the
parents still came to the games, and the cheerleaders still cheered.

 
"Two bits, four bits,
Six bits, a dollar.
All for the Armadillos,
Stand up and holler."

No
one stood. The students were engrossed in their electronic devices, and their
parents in conversation about politics and the stock market. Of course, it was
hard to get fired up for a football team called the Armadillos. But Frank
stood, threw his arms over his head as if to start a wave, and yelled, "Go
'Dillos!" Becky laughed from the sideline then hid her face behind her
pompoms. His wife glanced up at him as if he were insane. But then, she wore
perfume to a football game.

"It's
over on Inwood," she said to the equally perfect mother sitting next to
her. "It's only eight thousand square feet, but we don't want something
too big. Just enough room for a charity event."

Frank
and William were watching the game; she was climbing the social ladder. She
had never been off-stage since her first beauty pageant in high school. She
always looked perfect, sat perfect, stood perfect. Perfect clothes, perfect
posture, perfect makeup, perfect hair. As if she were still competing for a
crown. Perhaps she was.