S'wanee: A Paranoid Thriller (22 page)

“Yeah, that happens every year,” Ross explained as gloved groundskeepers paired up to hoist dead Canada geese from Abbo’s Alley onto the maintenance truck flatbed. “Some are too old to migrate south, and they know it. Not a bad final resting place, I guess.” The truck showed up three days in a row.

Cody had seen the arching mother deer and her growing fawns many mornings on his run down Tennessee Avenue. One day, in the shallow woods right off the road, the two fawns struggled to stay standing, as if just learning to walk again. The mother kept close and eyed Cody guardedly. Days later, the mother eyed him from the woods alone. It had now been weeks since Cody had seen any deer at all.

Cody’s biology professor explained Mother Nature could be aggressively Darwinian at times.

•   •   •

The campus cleared out for a three-day weekend after midterms, but the Widow made Cody stay and work. “We have new books to process,” she warbled. “Do you know the Dewey decimal system, Cody?”

After three days alone, Cody was happy when Purple Haze snapped back to life.

“You missed a fucking blast, paleface,” Banjo said when he returned from Dollywood with Elliott. They had more lenient bosses and had hitched a ride with some upperclass Wellingtons. “Banjo got us kicked out,” Elliott said. “He was drunk and kept grabbing Dolly’s tits.” “She was
cardboard
,” Banjo insisted, showing off the photo on his phone. “Uptight hillbillies. They wanted to lynch me.” He punctuated his outrage with a vibrating belch. They both took their knapsacks down to the laundry basement.

“How was shore leave?” Huger asked Emerson, and Sin said, “I got three A’s and a B plus,” when Buzz pried about her midterms, shaking his head at his own report.

“Please keep the back doors closed!” Pearl yelled through the log cabin. “Some critter got into the kitchen trash last night. Yuck!”

“Your grades are stable, adequate, but a bit worrying.” Dean Apperson reviewed in his Cravens Hall living room over an afternoon sherry. “I think you can hunker down and apply yourself a bit more. Don’t you, Cody?” “Try not to beat yourself up, Tiger,” Ross sympathized later over Cody’s straight B’s. “Midterms are always a cold bucket of water. They try to scare you.” But Cody knew better than anyone that his grades had him on the knife’s edge of scholarship eligibility.

“Houston, honey, do you still have my kitchen timer?” Pearl asked that night, and Houston, her roots freshly blond, said, “Sorry I forgot to return it, Pearl.” “Oh, how I
envy
hair like yours,” Pearl gushed.

“You sure it’s not a false alarm?” Sin asked Skit as Cody neared the front living room. “I’m never late,” Skit said, and then she added, “I’m as fertile as the Mississippi.” They both looked up when he walked in on them. “I’ll go study in the den,” he said, retrieving his iPad, and Skit said, “Thanks, bud.” “It’s such a fucking drag,” she murmured as he went down the hall.

“She swore she was cool,” Paxton stressed to Huger around the fire pit. “She swore she was all set.”

“We’re doing a Sonic run,” Bishop said to Ross on his way out with Emerson later. “Can we borrow your wheels? You want a burger or Coney or anything?”

“Archer, is this your mess in the microwave again?” Pearl yelled from the kitchen. “Good
Lord
!”

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Ross remarked randomly at dinner one night, and Cody said, “I don’t really,” feeling the pull and wanting one.

“They’re showing
The Other
at McClurg tonight.” Sin canvassed for takers. “Not the Nicole Kidman, but the 1972 freaker. They have an original print!”

“Has anyone seen my big chopping knife?” Pearl called through the log cabin. “It’s a Wusthof. I got a nickel for anyone who finds my big chopping knife!”

•   •   •

Skit disappeared next.

“A personal leave, I think,” Pearl explained gingerly. “Or so I was told.” “A personal
abortion
, I think,” Banjo clarified later. “Or so
I
was told.” He had early on nicknamed her “Sloppy Skit.”

“S’wanee doesn’t perform those,” Houston said one late study night. “She probably went back home for it.” “Guys, guys.” Ross tamped down the rumor mill. “Can we just be chill about it? Geezus.”

Cody had already guessed. Skit had gone on the warpath one night at the Lodge, hurling insults and unveiled threats at Paxton. It was a particularly rowdy night, and Skit was as wasted as any of them. “So what do I do now?” she yelled at the evasive Paxton. “We going
Dutch
at least?” When she threw her beer at him, dousing Cody in the collateral damage, two Kilts diplomatically ushered her out. “Fuck you! I’m fucking outta here!” she screamed hoarsely.

“Let her go,” Ross said when Buzz offered to go after her. “Let her walk it off. She’ll be okay.” Houston added, “It just sucks.” “The chick’s fucking crazy,” a dripping Paxton huffed.

By the next morning, as Cody walked through Burwell Garden on the way to class, he agreed with Paxton: Skit was overreacting. Cody had known girls in high school in the same situation, and none had gone that berserk or quit school. Skit was fun and rowdy, but also a prima donna, he decided, as workers scrubbed and sanitized the drained goldfish-genocide fountain with filthy rags soaked in red algae.

But on the night of Skit’s outburst and exodus, Cody, beer-wet and drunker than he’d been in a while, curled up on a Lodge back-room sofa under a scratchy plaid throw, his orange backpack as pillow. He’d stumble home when the drama had passed.

•   •   •

A violent thunderstorm knocked out campus power one Sunday night. It was fantastic.

“Flashlights? Candles?” Pearl offered, passing them around the roaring fireplace. “Just be careful, please.”

“Banjo, stop goosing me!” Sin yelled as they shared a candle down to the laundry basement. “Ruh-roh!” Banjo guffawed. “Watch out for the karate chop!” “Just shut up and
smile
so I can see the stairs!”

Cody took a candle to his room to study in silence. Salinger and Robespierre and Milton Friedman danced in his head as he resolved to course-correct his middling midterm grades. His latest econ problem set had the perfunctory Talking Heads bonus question, and Cody mined every last point he could get.
“Qu’est que c’est”
rang a bell; he could hear it in his head but couldn’t pinpoint the song, and when he went to Google it on his iPad, he realized the campus Internet was down along with the power.

He switched to his laptop and plugged in the Troller, which he hadn’t needed yet because the S’wanee network was so strong. Sure enough, the trusty Troller located another network named “DARPA,” and the yellow wave was steady. As his password-hacking software struggled to tap in, Cody scrolled back to where he’d seen that name before—one of the white coats at the Ross/Puck show at Spencer Hall a few weeks ago. Probably one of the many academic departments at S’wanee, either immune to the power outage or, more likely, blessed with its own electric generator. They wouldn’t mind—or know—if he piggybacked on them. After all, it was just for homework.

His hacking software suddenly flashed “Forbidden Attempt” and closed itself out, as if DARPA had scared it off. The Talking Heads title would have to wait, even as Cody hummed the tune.

“Cody?” Pearl called up the stairs. “We’re popping corn over the fire, pioneer-style. Take a break and come get yourself some!”

“This is a fog storm,” Ross was telling the captive Hazers by the fire as Cody went down. “What’s a fog storm?” Emerson asked, and Ross said, “Just wait.”

•   •   •

Cody had never seen anything like the S’wanee fog. Nobody had.

It rolled in early the next morning as the storm passed. It billowed over the Cumberland Plateau and followed Cody back on his run from Morgan’s Steep. It weaved through the trees of Manigault Park and descended upon Abbo’s Alley and by noon had obstructed the Domain with near whiteout conditions, as it had done for thousands of years.

“Better than snow!” Banjo cheered, and freshmen soon learned to wear raincoats and slickers as they navigated through the wet, white cotton candy. It shrouded and transformed the campus, and the flashlight basket by the front door was soon empty.

“Technically, it’s not really fog,” Ross explained. “It’s a cloud.”

“It made me cry,” Sin said at dinner one night. “Seriously, I was walking through it, and I couldn’t see. I was so overwhelmed by the beauty and power of it, I sat down and cried.” Then she laughed at herself. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” But by the second week of constant foggy gloom, Sin asked, “How long does it last?”

“It’s bumming me out,” Bishop said, and Elliott bought a tiny, battery-powered plastic fan from the Klondyke to clear a path as he moved around. Cody could barely see the Shapard Tower beacon from his room at night.

“It’s spooky,” Houston complained. “And it frizzes my hair.” “I’m over this,” Paxton declared as the fog sat, owning the campus, on the fourth week.

“I love it,” Beth purred when she located Cody on his way to work. She grabbed him in Burwell Garden and kissed him deep, and they met there every afternoon, in the privacy of the fog.

“You’re sorta crazy; you know that?” Cody said, always on time.

“Yeah, I sorta am,” she agreed, close in his ear. “Relax. Nobody can see us.”

Cody’s mother sent him a check for five hundred dollars.
A little pocket money, kiddo!
she scribbled on a Post-it. Cody’s Tiger Bucks were dwindling, but he knew Marcie couldn’t afford this.
Deposit the chick!
she texted back, ever sloppy on her iPhone.
Live a little, kiddo!
She punctuated it with a mischievous, winky-smiley face, and Cody found his way to the ATM outside the Klondyke.

“The Fog Slog is my favorite time of year,” Dean Apperson declared at the surprisingly boozy Thanksgiving luncheon he hosted at Cravens Hall for select Purple Hazers who had stayed behind. “I’m always sad to see it lift, but at least Christmas comes right on its heels.” Dean Apperson rang a little bell to summon the white-coated servants for the next course and soon launched an enormous conversation about art and literature and philosophy. “More oyster stuffing, Cody?” he offered.

“Dude, a Presidential Citizens Medal!” Paxton pointed to the gold eagle disc dangling from the white and blue ribbon on the wall of the dean’s study. “He’s got an Intelligence Star, too,” Bishop added, carefully holding the leather display box. “I’ve heard about this,” Sin said, picking up a book titled
Less Than Human
from the dean’s study chair. “Dehumanization is a tough topic these days.” “Hey guys, we’re watching the game in the den,” Ross said, herding them out for an afternoon of Thanksgiving football.

Soon, Cody couldn’t remember what S’wanee was like pre-fog. It seemed a permanent fixture, and he adapted, as always, and between classes and study and work and the Wellington nights, the fog became a forgotten backdrop in everyone’s new normal. As long as Beth kept meeting him “in public,” he hoped it never lifted.

There were still parties and movie screenings and study breaks with pizza and buffalo wings. The Lodge still poured Jack Daniel’s, and Cody still passed out here and there (but kept out of the Crow’s Nest—“Fine,” Lucy said, shrugging and moving on to the next one) but usually ended up in his own bed, and late one night, just as the fog was abruptly starting to thin, Bishop and Emerson and Sin and Houston were coming back from the Sonic drive-in when they lost their way and drove off the road into a tree. They were killed instantly.

C
ody wondered if All Saints Chapel was used for anything other than the Signing Ceremony and student memorials.

Today it was full, and Rebel’s Rest was seated up front to mourn their lost friends. Dean Apperson led the ceremony, and the organist played appropriate music, and Cody and Elliott sat on either side of Banjo, buffering him, as he’d been particularly fond of Sin, and his humor was now gone.

Ross had delivered the tragic news at lunch two days before, and S’wanee had sent a mass e-mail canceling the afternoon’s classes. Unlike Vail’s hush-hush suicide, the school fessed up and embraced the catastrophe that rocked the campus.

“What the fuck?” Paxton said, more angry than sad, and Elliott said, “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.”

Banjo was silent the whole day, and more than once, Pearl wrapped him in her hug and said, “I know, baby. It’s so hard, baby,” stroking his head. Even Ross was red-eyed, although he didn’t break down like most of the others, ever the role model. By that first evening, after the initial shock and disbelief had lifted, there was a restless air of rebellion throughout the log cabin. “This is so fucked up,” Banjo said finally, and said nothing more.

At the memorial, a soothing Dean Apperson waxed on about the seven stages of grief and the “providence of God” and “duty” and “greater good,” and Cody found himself staring at the stained-glass window of Rebel’s Rest and mushrooms and terrified students and chaos, and it no longer seemed to depict just a very wild party in the year MCMLXXI. The faces could have easily been Bishop or Emerson or Sin or Houston the instant right before they were killed in their car.

Except none of them had a car, because freshmen weren’t allowed. And although Emerson had borrowed Ross’s car before, he hadn’t this time, because the black Jeep was still parked, safe and sound, in the Rebel’s Rest driveway. Whose car had they crashed into a tree?

Cody caught Ross staring at him staring at the stained-glass window, and he turned back toward the front. He rubbed his right hand nervously, the same way his mother touched her stomach when thinking, except it wasn’t nonsensical since he’d slept on it funny a few nights before and it was still cricked and sore.

He didn’t remember Sin or Houston doing a Sonic run before. He’d never seen them eat junk at all. Sin, in particular, ate like a bird, and Houston usually stuck to salads, although she was less disciplined and had a sweet tooth.

The organ played, and everyone stood to sing a hymn in unison. Cody didn’t know the words.

Cody had seen Bishop and Emerson at the Lodge on the night they died. They’d been drinking beer and shots with the rest of them, certainly too drunk to drive. Sin always went to bed early and would never have gotten into a car—whatever car they borrowed—with a drunk and sloppy driver late at night.