Flat Water Tuesday (37 page)

“Good for you, dude.”

Connor spat over the side of the bridge, then got up onto the rail and stared into the mist and the river. He spat again and turned, his eyes roving over us. “The river’s high now, it’s deeper.”

Wadsworth looked at him evenly from his side of the bridge. “Get off the railing, Connor,” he said. “Get off now.” And I heard it for sure. The irritation of a mature person dealing with a kid.

Connor looked at him. “C’mon, Wads. I want to make the jump. I’m thinking there’ll never be a better time. We could all do it. A victory leap. We can do anything now.”

Perry looked at Connor evenly, stood up to his full height. Connor was gently swinging himself back and forth over the water, forward and back, supported by the bridge strut. He was humming, a tuneless song that rose and fell in the dark. The rain blew into the bridge. Finally Perry said, simply, “Do it, then. Why don’t you just jump? I am so sick of hearing you talk about it.”

Connor looked at Perry, surprised. “I know I can make it.”

Ruth crouched down on the other end of the bridge, hugging her bare legs. It was cold now, the humid heat not reaching us in here. She said, “Jumbo’s right. I can’t do this today, Connor. I think I’m going to throw up. Just jump. See what you’re made of. Jump or get down and let’s go back.” She hugged her legs harder.

Perry smiled and for Ruth’s benefit said, “He’s just a lot of talk.”

Connor continued to hum, then began whistling just as tunelessly. It echoed in the bridge’s interior and sounded like wind. He looked at me. “And what do you think, Roberto?”

It was infuriating, the way he simply did not give up, or change. Here we were, the five us, having shared that conversion on the water. Performed a miracle. But it was never enough. Not for him. So what I said was, “I don’t care, Connor. None of us do. Do you know what this is? This is a joke that’s been told once too often.”

Connor looked at Wadsworth. “What’ll you give me if I jump?”

Ruth groaned loudly and Wadsworth began stretching for the run back. He shrugged. “What will I
give
you? Seriously? Jump, Connor. We don’t give a shit anymore.”

Connor looked slowly at each of us and his face split into that cocky grin of his. I would later come to think of it as a smile of benediction. Still grinning, he took an easy step backward and plummeted into the rain.

31.

I drove past crisp, green fields ringed by mountains as I approached Fenton. The campus looked serene and sedate, abandoned, as I drove toward it, the chapel protruding above the rest of the buildings. I glanced in the direction of the boathouse but could not make it out yet. I passed the modern field house and the football fields, then the practice fields, and finally arrived at the walled entrance of the school. It had been enlarged since I was here, and also modernized a little bit—the old-fashioned wrought-iron gates replaced with what looked to me like lighter weight, decorative ones that were never closed. The road leading into the school dipped and then found its way upward, and I drove by a few of the year-round ground staff walking along the flagstones beside the administrative buildings. There was a banner stretched over the road between the trees, welcoming back our class and two others, one ten years behind us, one ten years ahead. I pulled into the packed main lot and parked next to a Volvo with a
PROUD FENTON FAMILY
sticker on the back window. I switched off the engine and remained in the car, staring out at the river that was deep blue, almost black, murky and ever shifting. I never thought I would see it again.

I had a program for the day I had downloaded off the Web site. There were a series of presentations in the morning, which I had missed, and a lunch in the dining hall that I had also missed. A slide show and talk were in progress, with a break scheduled in one of the common rooms. I walked through the parking lot and didn’t see anyone at all, then turned toward the labs and made my way up the stairs and through the open front doors where student desks had been pushed together to form a kind of ad-hoc registration area. A woman wearing a bright pink polo shirt and pearls smiled brightly when I approached. A stick-on name tag curved over her right breast: “Hi! I’m Charlotte” and her year of graduation, which was after mine. An alumnae volunteer.

“It’s great to see so many members of your class here,” she noted enthusiastically as I signed in and accepted a registration packet.

“I haven’t been back in a while.”

“Well, you can get a beer in the common area of North Dorm. Do you remember where that is?” She was aggressively friendly in a PR kind of way. She’d have a firm, eager handshake, I thought.

“I remember.”

“Good!” Big smile. Then she looked at me expectantly and I started to walk away.

The smell from the labs had not changed, a smell of students and chemicals and preserved, dead things. It brought back unpleasant memories of standardized tests and dissections. I looked at the next day’s schedule for my reason for being here, and found it. It read, “Chapel Service: 9:00
A.M.
”

I considered going into the common room of North Dorm, thought better of it, and headed for the stairs. I found my assigned room on the first floor, a room that had been occupied by a kid named David Kenner when I’d gone to Fenton. His name had escaped me until I opened the door. Someone had neatly piled clean sheets and cotton blankets on the lower mattress of the bunk bed pushed into the corner of the room. A photocopied schedule identical to the one I had downloaded was on one of the two small desks. I sat down on the lower bunk and felt the springs give in the mattress, and then give some more. I’d wake up sore tomorrow, I could already tell.

It was hot and stuffy in the room and I opened the window. Written in pencil, next to the window, was a list of numbers. Below them, the writer had scrawled in neat, sloping handwriting, “Jill Dopkins Has a Great Ass.” He’d written it there as if to remind himself of the fact.

I had a great view of the river and of the soccer fields. Two kids would make their home here next year. It seemed impossibly small, like a prison cell, but this would be one of the more desirable rooms. The mattress in the bunk above me was rolled up in a ball. I would not have a roommate tonight, I noted with relief.

There was no phone in the room and my cell phone was out of juice, of course, since I hadn’t charged it the night before. I took it out, plugged it in, and left it on the tiny desk. I walked back out into the hallway and looked for a pay phone—every dorm used to have pay phones at the end of the halls—but perhaps they were considered redundant now. I found one installed in a disused closet and crammed into the small, confined area. There was no light switch, so I let the door hang open and called the city. I punched in my credit card number and finally the phone rang in the studio. Carolyn picked up after five rings, and when she did she sounded tired, and annoyed.

“I’m here.”

“Is it like you remember?”

“Smaller. Smellier.”

“Where are you sleeping?”

“They gave me a dorm room.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“It will be fine for one night.” I paused, trying to think of what to say next, wanting her to stay on the line.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything. How is the edit?”

“The sound on one of the interviews is fucked up. But some parts are usable. You have to test that LAV mike, Rob. I think one of the channels isn’t recording.”

An awkward silence again. “Thanks. Thanks for dealing with that.” I paused, then added, “I miss you.”

She waited. “Do you?”

“Yes.” And it was true. I had a strong urge to go and fetch my bag, to just leave the registration pack in the room, get in the car and drive away. “The memorial service is first thing tomorrow. I’ll call you right after before I take off.”

“You don’t have to. But, good. Okay.” There was resignation in her voice. I told her I had to go and she said that’s fine, and hung up. I stayed on the line a few seconds longer, studying the initials hacked into the black metal paint. Someone had written on the door: “1-800-GOD-FOUR.”

*   *   *

The next item on the reunion program was a talk by the headmaster about the importance of a prep school education in the new millennium. I just wasn’t up for it. Instead, I returned to my room, pulled a towel and shaving kit out of my bag and headed for the showers in the boys’ bathroom down the hall. The shower rooms and sinks were surprisingly clean. There were no mold and spit stalactites in evidence anywhere, although the school might have made a special effort for the alumni visit and removed them. I shaved in one of the sinks and when I was finished, I went back to my room half-naked, the towel around my waist, and got dressed. I chose a black shirt and crisp chinos, a canvas belt and boat shoes. I’d play the part. I checked my watch: 4:00
P.M.
Practice time.

I decided to walk over to the Schoolhouse, the humid heat of the New England summer making me break out into an immediate sweat. The dining hall had been modernized and enlarged. The library had grown an extension. There were more, and better, computers, in fact a huge computer center with lines of flat screens. A writing center was attached to the English department now. It was locked. I looked in the narrow window and saw rows of tables. They looked like conference tables, the kind you find in college workshops. The old wooden desks were long gone. The blackboard had been replaced with a whiteboard and I could see an overhead projector in there.

Channing didn’t last much longer after our year. They ran an article about his retirement in the alumni magazine, which my parents continued to receive for years after I had left the school. The article mentioned his contributions to the rowing team and to the English department. He had retired from teaching to pursue his many other, varied interests. The article did not elaborate on what those other interests were. A few years after that, my brother made a rare long-distance call to me in New Guinea, where I had been filming the ghost fleet at the bottom of the Truk Lagoon, to say he’d happened to read that Channing had died and there would be a service at the school for him. He’d faxed me the article, which was entitled
Charles Channing, An Appreciation
, and featured a picture of him at Henley, and another black-and-white, staged shot of him, much younger, teaching. The students in the picture looked interested and engaged with no hint of terror in their faces. The article did not specify how he had died, or if it had been unexpected. There were quotes from a few former students and one from the headmaster praising his commitment and dedication to the great tradition of Fenton rowing.

I walked down the hallway to the stairs and then out of the building onto the impossibly green quad. The doors to the new auditorium were flung open and people were milling out. For a fleeting moment I thought they were students, and then I realized they were, of course, alumni. I stood on the grass verge and braced myself. I tried to recognize faces, sifted through the thinning hair, the loose-fitting sundresses, the strollers and sensible shoes and toddlers and tucked-in polo shirts. America’s executives on a weekend outing.

I waited until I saw her, and I recognized her before she recognized me.

*   *   *

Ruth and Perry stayed with Connor while Wadsworth and I sprinted back to the school, the two of us clicking off three back-to-back six-minute miles in the rain.

We ran to the admissions office, of all places, the first building with a phone, and told them there’d been an accident and we needed to call Mr. Channing at home. The office was quiet and sedate and tastefully decorated to look like the living area of an expensive house. This gave parents the impression that they were sending their kids off to a kind of refined New England resort, not drafting them into a low-level war.

We exploded into this usually serene space and stood there dripping water and mud all over the well-treated wood floor. We were wild-eyed, shaking and incoherent at first. Frantic. The woman behind the reception desk looked at us with what might have been terror or incredulity. Admissions officers didn’t deal with students after the tuition check had been signed—we were invaders. Our commotion brought the head of admissions, Mr. Mantisorri, out from his office with his glasses down his nose and his bow tie askew. He immediately demanded to know what we thought we were doing, and it was Wadsworth who said, “There’s been an accident … an emergency … and we need to call Mr. Channing, right now.” That had been our only plan: Call Channing first. We had no idea what would happen beyond that.

“What on earth has happened?”

The receptionist held up the phone and I realized I had no idea what Channing’s number was. I asked her to look it up. My lips had turned blue and I was trembling violently. While she looked up the number, Mr. Mantisorri came over to us and said, quietly, “We’ll call Mr. Channing. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“A student has drowned, sir,” Wadsworth replied. He was unnaturally composed. “You should call an ambulance. And we have to call Mr. Channing. Please.”

He nodded once to the woman, who dialed the number and held the phone out to both of us. I was the one who took it. Channing came on after four or five rings.

“Channing.”

I opened my mouth but I couldn’t get it out.

“Hello?”

I tried again. I took a breath, a long audible breath, and Wadsworth looked at me quizzically, impatiently, and mouthed, “What?”

“Who is this?”

Finally, “Mr. Channing, Connor fell off the covered bridge and I think he’s dead.” My voice didn’t sound like mine.

The line cracked in the rain. “Carrey? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Yes, Coach, it is.”

“Repeat what you just said.”

I whispered into the receiver. “I think he’s dead. Mr. Channing, I’m pretty sure—”

“Carrey. Listen to me. Listen to me carefully. Where are you?”

“In the admissions office.”

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Connor Payne, where is he?”