The Black Hour (28 page)

The hotline operated from a bunker crouched in the basement of the student center. The place had low ceilings, flickering fluorescent lights, pillaged vending machines. Good thing you could order hope by phone.

A frosted-glass door announced I’d arrived at the right place.
Hope Found Here
, it said in script. A rack crammed with pamphlets hung nearby. I stopped and took one. On the cover, a girl sat at a window, her chin on her hand.
The blues—are they something serious?
the headline read.
Talk to someone you can trust.
The same sort of business inside, and on the back, a photo of Phillip listening to a student, his hands clasped as though he were holding himself back from hugging someone. Something about his expression cut through the fog until I had the first coherent thought I’d had in a while.

Truly, the guy could benefit from dialing it down a notch or two.

I tucked the brochure into my bag and went to the door. It was locked.

I gave the door a few good tugs, rattling it in its frame. A clock over the door said it was ten on the dot. I gave one more yank, and then the door swung open and a student wearing a Rothbert ball cap stuck his head out.

“Can I help you?”

“Here to see Win Harlan.”

“He’s not here yet, but I can talk to you.”

The playbook lay open before us. Offer to help at every stage. Don’t let the troubled person walk away from you. “I’m—sitting in,” I said. “To volunteer. Maybe.”

The guy gave me a long look. “We took bets on who was out here.” He gestured toward a small sign I hadn’t paid any attention to.
Locked 24 hours. Ring doorbell.
The sign hung over a doorbell. “Can’t really let you go for long, though, can we? Considering.”

“I didn’t see the bell.”

“Yeah. That’s when we worry most.” He glanced over his shoulder, shrugged. “You can come in and wait, I guess.”

I hadn’t expected much, but inside the Hope Hotline glowed yellow and cheerful, a large room with plenty of empty space, mats on the floor, and beanbag chairs grouped in a circle, like at a preschool. The corners of the room held pairs of puffy chairs. One area had been marked off by hip-height cubicle walls, each cube outfitted with a phone. Against one wall, a coffee station to rival any café.

The girl with pigtails—after a moment, I recalled that her name was Trudie, not Pixie—twirled a stir in a mug and watched us approach. She checked her watch and gave the other student a raised-eyebrow look.

“He’s here for a ride-along with Win.”

“Really? Phillip’s going to love that.” She looked me up and down. “I know you—”

“So what’s the deal with Phillip?” I said.

“Narrow it down,” the kid groaned, throwing himself into a beanbag. “Everything’s a deal with Phillip.”

Trudie shushed him. “We figure, you know, he’s got serious baggage—”

The kid jumped back in, “Like he knew someone who killed themselves or, like, his mom—”

“Let’s not talk about it,” Trudie said. “He could come through any minute.”

The last person I wanted to see, especially if he didn’t allow outsiders hanging around. “This is a pretty good setup you guys have.”

“It’s only fair,” Trudie said. “We’re here forever, and hardly anyone ever calls. You kinda do start to consider suicide after a while.”

“What about the black hour?”

They both squinted at me. “How do you know about that?” the guy said.

“Win has such a big mouth,” Trudie said. “We could get into trouble, so keep anything he told you to yourself.”

“In trouble with who?”

“Phillip hates it when we—well, it’s not like we make fun of the callers. But sometimes—we’re here all hours, OK? You have to talk about something.”

“I do my homework,” the guy said, throwing up his hands. “I’m innocent.”

“You do homework and flirt with the new recruits.”

“Only the female ones,” he said to me.

“What do you say about the callers?” I said. “When you’re here late and Phillip’s gone?”

They exchanged a quick look. “Phillip’s here every night,” Trudie said. “He’s dedicated.”

“He sleeps here sometimes.”

I nudged a beanbag chair with my foot.

“In his office,” she said, nodding her head toward the far corner of the room. A built-out portion of the wall nearly hid the door there, but once I’d seen it, I couldn’t believe I’d missed it. Phillip’s secret office in the deeply buried basement hideout of the suicide watch. Where he could do-good or maybe hang out on whatever the university might pay him, medical and dental, in a plush room to meet young girls. I had to hand it to him. He was the one with a nice setup.

Behind me something beeped. We all turned to watch the door open.

“Ahoy, ahoy,” Win said, sliding in like a returned hero. “The captain is back at the helm.”

He stopped short when he saw me. “Too soon?”

I didn’t think I liked Win as much as I’d hoped to. But that wasn’t important. I hadn’t come for any hope. I hadn’t come for any friendship, either.

The other guy said, “Wait. Are you the kid who jumped off Win’s boat?”

“I didn’t jump.” Win did have a big mouth.

Trudie eyed me, revising.

“He’s right,” Win said. “He was bucked.
Ladykiller
didn’t like the look of him.”

They laughed while I struggled over “ladykiller.” And then I remembered: in script, on the back of the boat, my lungs on fire. “I guess you don’t need me for your Night Sail crew, then,” I said.

“Serious as a gunshot, this one,” Win said. “Fine. Let’s get this party started. Only—this is pretty much what we do for the first four hours of the shift. I believe I warned you.”

My eyes shot to Phillip’s office. He was due any minute, and nothing happened for hours. I needed another dose of
be cool
, and fast.

“How about a tour?”

Win swung his arms wide. “This is it. Let’s tour the coffee bar.”

Someone had made a fresh pot. Win poured, and I doctored mine with cream—real cream from the small fridge under the table—and sugar. This was luxury. The Hope Hotline seemed better funded than I would have guessed, but then what university wanted to be caught slighting the psychological services of its students? Especially after a student had offed himself.

“So how often do you get a call from someone who’s really serious?” I said.

“They’re never serious,” the other kid said.

“Aren’t you off-shift now, Zach?” Trudie turned to me. “Once in a while.”

“Never,” Zach said. “Phillip says they—”

“Phillip says, Phillip says,” Win said, staring into his mug. “I guess Phillip won double prizes when he recruited you. Counselor
and
number-one fan.”

“Fine.” Zach grabbed the backpack at his feet and stood, slinging it over his shoulder. “Have a good night
working
.”

“Like you have any better offers,” Win said. He saluted the kid out the door and plopped into a beanbag, holding his mug high and steady. “The fewer encounters with that one, the better. That kid bothers me.”

“They all bother me,” Trudie said.

“Except me, of course,” Win said.

“Especially you.”

“I’m special,” he said. “At last.”

“What does Phillip say? About the students who call?” I said.

Win looked my way. “You’re very
interested
, aren’t you?”

“Well.” I dropped into a beanbag, all knees and elbows, a drop of hot coffee splashing my wrist. I dug deep for Kendall-like remove. “I thought I might volunteer, but you’re not doing much to convince me.”

“First of all, it’s not up to you,” Win said. “If you volunteer, then you get run through with process and paperwork and training until they know you better than you know yourself. It’s hardly something you can be ambivalent about. And then it’s up to Phillip if you get to join, which hours you get, how many calls you can take. If Phillip doesn’t like you, then you’re better off buying a couch and hanging a doctor-is-in sign over it.”

I glanced at the clock over the entrance, calculating my options. “That settles it, then. Because Phillip doesn’t think much of me.”

They both sat up. “What’s his reasoning?” Win said. “I’m still undecided.”

“Maybe I threw him into the lake.”

Win looked toward the clock and sighed. He was a half hour into his all-night shift and, I could tell, regretting he’d asked me along. “What Phillip says about the callers is: the ones who call are the ones who won’t do it. The ones who really want to kill themselves don’t want to be talked out of it. They go for it.”

“How inspiring,” I said. Trudie laughed. “Has anyone gone for the gold recently?”

“An electrical engineering student ran his car into a tree in the quad my freshman year,” Win said. “He meant it. And a kid on the football team OD’d on steroids over winter break two years ago.”

“What about that girl who took all her roommate’s Ritalin?” Trudie said. “Homecoming princess or whatever.”

“Was that last year? Forgot about her.” Win ticked them off on his fingers. “Pills. Pills. Tree. I feel like there’s one missing.”

“Gun,” I said, my voice cutting through the room in a way that made them both stare.

Pills, pills, tree, gun. Listed out that way, I couldn’t decide if one suicide a year was more than Rothbert’s fair share or not as many as we might expect. “One problem with Phillip’s theory, though. I heard Leonard Lehane called here before he shot himself.”

“But he was different,” Trudie said.

I turned to Win. He shrugged, sipped his coffee. “He was more like—a mascot.”

“Do you often adopt callers?”

Trudie smiled. “He was a nice guy. Weird. But nice.”

“It passed the time, talking to him,” Win said.

“You both talked to him?”

“I think we all took a call at one point or another.” Win turned his mug in his hands. “He called—not just a lot. Every night.”

“You don’t know that,” Trudie said.

“Yes, I do.”

Trudie narrowed her eyes.

“Phillip would kill you,” she hissed.

I put my cup aside and fought the beanbag chair to sit up. “What?”

“The call log. Phillip keeps it,” Trudie said. “Nobody gets to see it.”

“How’d you see it, Win?” I said. “Is it here?”

“I had the opportunity once. I took it.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Nothing specific.”

I remembered him swirling his cocktail, Hefner-style. Maybe he was the kind of guy who went after the forbidden for bragging rights alone. But I didn’t think so. “Bullshit.”

He threw back the dregs of his coffee, but we waited. The clock made time audible. “I was curious if faculty ever called, OK?”

“And?” Trudie crouched, ready to pounce.

“I didn’t see any names I knew,” he said, glaring at me until I wasn’t sure if we were still having the same conversation.

A beep, and then the door swung open. Phillip did the smoothest double-take I’d ever seen. “Nathaniel Barber. You stopped by to pay off that beer you owe me.”

Trudie and Win glanced at me and then one another. We all heard it. Phillip didn’t sound like a guy who disliked anyone in present company, and especially not me.

“Win offered to show me around,” I said. “In case I could be of any assistance.”

“You’re recruiting, Win? That’s fantastic. Gunning for student counselor of the month.”

Win shot me another inscrutable look. If I’d been on
Ladykiller
, I would have reached for the railing and held tight.

“We have a training session coming up,” Phillip said. “I’ll put you on the list.”

None of this sounded like the rings of fire Win had suggested I’d have to negotiate. Where was the background check? The knowing me better than I knew myself? “Sounds great.”

“This Saturday.”

“Oh—”

“Something wrong?”

I thought of my dad’s voice when I’d offered to help with the auction. “I’ll work it out.”

“Great,” Phillip said, beaming.

Win stared at his feet, his ears a strange shade of pink, like a bunny. Like James Baker.

“I don’t usually allow ride-alongs,” Phillip said. “But—”

“Why don’t I go then?” I struggled out of the beanbag and to my feet. “I’ll get trained up, and then come back and dig in where I’m needed.” I sounded like an asshole, but Phillip nodded thoughtfully and walked me to the door. “You understand,” he said. “Confidentiality is a big deal for the students who call.”

“Sure,” I said. I’d arrived in the depressing basement hallway again, stuffed full of information. “When they don’t call—”

“That’s the worst.”

I nodded back toward the hotline headquarters. “This all goes to waste.”

Phillip studied me. “That’s not exactly how we see it. When they don’t call, we don’t get a chance to help them. Once you’ve been through that, well—you want to do whatever you can. See you Saturday.”

I took the stairs. Not until I’d reached the top and had turned the landing corner did I hear the beep of a key card and the door open, Phillip going back inside.

The thing I found myself wondering, outside and away from the oppressive dullness of the basement and its polar twin, the over-bright playroom, was Leo, always Leo. It bothered me until I had worked the thought to the surface and turned it into a thesis.