Psychopath (7 page)

But six weeks later, Billy was in trouble again.  He’d had another fight, this one with two friends of the first boy he’d tangled with.  Billy got the better of both of them.  One went home with a hairline fracture of his jaw.  The other needed six stitches to close a gash in his scalp.  Still, it had been two against one, and it was still football season, so Dean Walsh didn’t seem terribly concerned.  Another month of probation.  Another month of community service.

Clevenger himself had been much more worried.  Because he knew Billy’s past in greater detail than Dean Walsh did.  He knew that Billy’s having stopped himself at inflicting a bloody nose or a fractured jaw was due as much to luck as self-control.  Maybe his opponents had said "uncle" soon enough and loud enough.  Maybe they had been smart enough to run away.  Or maybe Billy half-liked the three of them despite the fact they were getting in his face.  Because there had been other times in Billy’s young life — during the years he’d split his time between a Manhattan penthouse and a Nantucket oceanfront estate — when he hadn’t been able to control himself at all, not until some bully was lying motionless, with a cracked skull and vacant stare, barely breathing.

Clevenger knew that Billy’s violence, taken together with his repeated Youth Services arrests for breaking and entering and destruction of property, had once made him look very much like a garden variety sociopath.

Most ominous of all, Clevenger knew that Billy was a victim of severe and sustained childhood abuse — savage beatings at his billionaire father’s hand, beatings that had left scars across his back and deeper ones across his psyche.  And that kind of abuse can short-circuit a person’s capacity to gauge the suffering of others.  Sometimes, forever.

Clevenger and Billy had been living together just over a year, sharing a 1,900-square-foot Chelsea loft in a converted factory.  And as tough as the adjustment had been for Billy, it had been tougher for Clevenger.

At least Billy wasn’t being beaten anymore, wasn’t being viciously ridden by a billionaire intent on remaking him in his own twisted image.  At seventeen, he could finally start being himself, a little bit at a time.

Clevenger, on the other hand, had had to rein himself in — at least the parts of himself that seemed incompatible with fathering an adolescent.  That meant keeping himself sober, keeping himself away from the track, keeping the door to the loft from reverting into the revolving door for women that it had been as long as Clevenger could remember.  It meant freeing himself from all the soothing addictions that had kept his own emotional pain at bay.  And that had not been easy.  It still wasn’t.  North Anderson was right about that much.

Of course, nobody had said it would be easy.  The Department of Social Services had initially fought Clevenger’s bid to adopt Billy, citing their concerns not only about Clevenger being a single parent, not only about the dangers inherent in his line of work, but also about his underlying motivation.  Clevenger had lost an adolescent patient named Billy Fisk to suicide several years before, and his contacts at Social Services worried he might be trying to raise the dead, to pay a penance, not simply do a good deed.

What the Department of Social Services didn’t understand, what the Dean of Student Affairs couldn’t understand, was that Clevenger was indeed performing a resurrection — not of the boy who had suicided, but of the parts of himself and Billy Bishop that had nearly been snuffed out by their brutal fathers.  Such was the Herculean task he had undertaken:  to heal the boy and heal the boy inside himself at the same time.  He needed to get better — and fast — in order to get Billy better.

One of Dean Walsh’s secretaries, a middle-aged woman dressed in a navy blue wool suit, wearing a choker of pearls, approached Clevenger in the waiting area.  "The dean will see you now," she said, with a smile that really wasn’t a smile at all, more of an amiable grimace.

Clevenger followed her past two other secretaries, to the open door of the dean’s office.

Walsh glanced up from the papers he was signing, signed a few more sheets, then stood behind his desk and extended his hand.  He was an anxious man near sixty, in a blue-and-white pinstriped shirt with three-button cuffs.  His hair looked unnaturally full and unnaturally black for his age, enough to make Clevenger wonder whether it might be some sort of newfangled toupee or weave.  "I’m glad you could make it on short notice," he said, shaking Clevenger’s hand.  "And without my having gone into great detail.  Please, have a seat."

Clevenger sat in the wooden chair Walsh had indicated, pressing his back against the gold-leaf emblem of Auden Prep — Atlas hoisting a fountain pen overhead.

"As I alluded to," Walsh said, sitting down, "I’m afraid Billy finds himself in trouble again."

"What sort of trouble?" Clevenger asked.

"Drugs," Walsh said, folding his hands on his desk.

"Drugs?"  Since getting Walsh’s call at work, Clevenger had been guessing what Billy might have done.  Another fight had seemed most likely.  Cheating on the geometry test Billy had had that day also seemed possible, as did playing some unwelcome, foolish prank on a teacher or fellow student.  But drugs just hadn’t crossed Clevenger’s mind, maybe because he was always fighting not to think of them.  Maintaining his own sobriety was still a battle he needed to win every single day.

"Marijuana," Dean Walsh said.

"Billy was smoking pot?"

"I wish it were that."  Walsh opened his right-hand desk drawer and pulled out a Ziploc bag with enough marijuana to roll about fifty joints.  He held it aloft between his thumb and forefinger, like a contaminated bird.  Then he dropped it back in his drawer.  "It was found in his locker."

"How did you come to find it there?" Clevenger asked.

"Another student came forward," Walsh said, joining his hands as if in prayer.  "We have a code here at Auden."

"Another student came forward and said..."

"And said, ’Billy Bishop is selling pot.  He keeps it in his locker.’ "

Clevenger let his breath out.  Other kids might be able to fool around with drugs and come away unscathed, but Billy was already fragile psychologically.  Drugs could be really bad news for him, a surprise actor on the stage of his existence, capable of stealing the show and turning it into a tragedy.  "Where’s Billy?" Clevenger asked.

"Cleaning out his locker," Walsh said.  "He’s been expelled."

"I see," Clevenger said.  "Did he have a lot of money on him or something?  I mean, how did you corroborate the report of the other student?"

"The bag was in his locker.  You don’t think he was planning to use all that marijuana himself, do you?" Walsh asked.  He paused to give his rhetorical question more impact.  "Your son is extremely intelligent," he went on.  "Truly gifted intellectually.  No one would debate that.  His character, however, is another matter."

"How did Billy explain himself?" Clevenger asked.

"By denying everything," Walsh said.  "He insisted the drugs were placed in his locker by someone else."

"Is that possible?" Clevenger asked.

Walsh smiled.  "This isn’t a case that would require your good skills, Doctor.  There’s really no forensic work to be done.  What has happened has happened."  He shook his head.  "We did have hope for Billy.  Not just I.  The other deans, as well.  But I think we’ve been very fair."

"And football season is over," Clevenger said.

"Excuse me?" Walsh said.

"You were especially fair during football season," Clevenger said.

Walsh stiffened.  "If you’re referring to Billy’s fisticuffs during the fall," he said, "that event did not rise to the level that this offense does.  This event is a crime.  This time, there is no other boy to share the blame. 
This
is a whole different kettle of fish."  He paused again, looking a little shocked to have offered up such a tired cliché.  "Luckily for Billy," he said, "we have a policy at Auden that possession of an illicit substance does not trigger a call to the authorities.  Selling an illicit substance does.  But no staff member actually witnessed a transaction.  Otherwise, you wouldn’t be picking up Billy here, you would be bailing him out of jail."

Clevenger nodded.  No sense shooting the messenger, even when the messenger was someone as self-impressed as Stouffer Walsh.  "Thank you for that," Clevenger said.  "Just so you know, I’m not angry with anyone but Billy.  If I’ve given you another impression, I apologize."  He stood up. 

Walsh stayed seated.  "As for the appeals process..."

"I didn’t realize there was an appeals process," Clevenger said.

"You could certainly avail yourselves of it," Walsh said, "but I wouldn’t recommend that.  Given the clear facts in this case, it might be seen as, well...  contentious.  In addition, a transcript of the proceedings becomes part of Billy’s academic record.  It would be available to other schools, including the public system.  Better to let the infraction speak for itself and spare any additional negative commentary that might be forthcoming about Billy.  I am certain there would be."

"It doesn’t sound like we’ll be appealing," Clevenger said.  "Thank you."  He turned to go.

"There is one last, rather uncomfortable matter," Walsh said, finally standing.  He placed his palms flat on his desk. 

Could something else have gone wrong?  "What’s that?" Clevenger asked.

"The matter of Billy’s tuition."

"I believe I’m paid up.  Is there some sort of quit fee?"

"No, no, no.  Nothing like that," Walsh said.  "You are paid in full.  I simply needed to remind you there are no partial refunds following a disciplinary action.  I know it’s awkward even to mention at a time like this, but attempting to resolve all potential financial issues is part of our exit policy."

"Consider them resolved," Clevenger said.

"Very good, then.  Billy should be waiting for you in the reception area.  I do wish the two of you well, Doctor."

"Right.  Thanks, again."

*            *            *

Billy was sitting in the reception area with his head in his hands, his longish, dirty blond hair, all done up in dreadlocks, hanging in front of his eyes.  As Clevenger walked up to him, he could see the muscles of his jaw contracting rhythmically.  "Ready to go?" Clevenger asked him, working to keep his voice steady.  He got no response.  He put a hand on Billy’s broad shoulder.  He could feel the tension in his muscles.  "What do you say we talk about this in the car?"

Billy looked up.  His ice-blue eyes were full of rage, his upper lip trembling.  When he was in the best of moods, his face, though movie-star handsome, still had a menacing quality, something brooding and dark about the combination of his full lips, prominent forehead, and deeply set eyes.  The thin gold ring through his left nostril didn’t help any.  When he was angry, even a little angry, he looked dangerous.  Like he did now.

"You’ve got to be kidding," Clevenger said.  "
You’re
pissed off?  At
yourself
, I hope."

"Fuck this place," Billy said. He stood up and walked out of the reception area.

Clevenger felt half like chasing him and hugging him, half like chasing him and throwing him to the ground.  So he kept himself in check and walked slowly out of the reception area and down the hall toward the exit.  He always seemed to be searching for the perfect alchemy to respond to Billy — how many parts reassurance to how many parts discipline.  It was hard to know whether the broken parts of his character would heal best if rigidly splinted or gently bathed in warm waters.  He wanted to do the right thing by him, to be the right father for him, but it was tough, especially because he’d never been fathered much himself.

Even Billy’s appearance raised the question about how firm to be with him.  His dreadlocks, for one thing.  They had clearly put Billy on the fringe of acceptable style at Auden Prep.  But Clevenger knew that Billy’s personal development had been stunted for years.  So when he had come home with the new look a couple months before, Clevenger had taken it as a sign, albeit sudden, of Billy’s growing sense of self.  And he had simply smiled and told him the truth, "I think it looks cool."

On the nose ring, Clevenger had been no less honest.  "It’s just not my kind of thing," he had said.  "But I’m not the one wearing it."

That was the point, wasn’t it? Billy was searching for an identity.  His.  No one else’s.

The tattoo Billy had gotten across his back was a little more concerning.  It had been inked over the haphazard scars left by his father’s strap.  A blue-black, four-inch skull and crossbones sat between his shoulder blades.  Beneath it, in flowing script, was the title of his favorite Rolling Stones song, "Let It Bleed."

Billy had explained the tattoo was his way of making the scars his own, transforming them into a reminder that he was better off letting his real emotions surface — confronting his pain, instead of burying it.

Who could argue with that?

But maybe, Clevenger thought, he should have argued.  Maybe he should have laid down the law a little more often, even if he erred on the side of overreacting.  Because Billy’s choices for himself were tending more and more toward darkness. 

When he got to the Auden Prep parking lot he found Billy leaning against the front fender of his black Ford F-150 truck.  He walked past him, headed toward the driver’s side door.

"I didn’t do what Walsh said I did," Billy said.

Clevenger stopped with his hand on the door handle.  He shook his head.

"I didn’t do it," Billy said, more emphatically.

Clevenger turned around and saw that Billy was facing him, eyeing him over the hood.  The expression on his face had taken a turn from rage toward outrage.  He looked sincerely insulted by the accusation lodged against him.  But that was part of the problem with Billy.  Growing up with a father who was likely to reward a confession with a beating had made Billy a good liar.  "Get in the car," Clevenger said.  He opened the driver’s side door and climbed inside.

Billy’s jaw muscles started churning again.  He flipped his hair to one side and walked to the passenger door.  He got in, then sat silently, staring straight ahead.