The Lay of the Land (21 page)

D
e Tocqueville Academy is a day school only. Even the Arab and Sri Lankan kids have well-heeled host families and good places to go—the Vineyard, the Eastern Shore—for holidays. A couple of dim fluorescent lights are left burning in the Admin Mansion, just like at the seminary, and down toward the classroom modules, past the postmodern ecumenical chapel, toward the glass-exterior athletic installation, a scattering of yellow lights prickles through the oaks and copper beeches as the day is ending. I’m confident I’m being observed on a bank of TV screens from some warm security bunker close by, the watchful crew standing around with coffee mugs, studying me, a “person of interest, doing what, we don’t know,” my name already jittering through the FBI computer at Quantico.
Am I wanted? Was I wanted? Should I be?
I’m surprised Ann can stand it here, that the practical-bone, non-joiner Michigan girl in her can put up with all this supervised, pseudo-communal, faux-humanistic, all-pull-together atmosphere that infests these private school faculties like mustard gas—everyone burnishing his eccentricities smooth so as to offend no one, yet remaining coiled like rattlers, ready to “become difficult” and “have problems” with colleagues whose eccentricities aren’t burnished the same way. You think it’s the psychotic parents and the hostile, under-medicated kids who drive you crazy. But no. It’s always your colleagues—I know this from a year’s teaching at a small New England college back in the day. It’s the Marcis and the Jasons, the exotic
Ber
-nards and the brawny Ludmillas, over for the Fulbright year from Latvia, who send you screaming off into the trees to join the endangered species hiding there. In-depth communication with smaller and smaller like-minded groups is the disease of the suburbs. And De Tocqueville’s where it thrives.

Ann has given me directions to the indoor driving range where we’re to meet. Footlights lead around the old plutocrats’ hunting lodge, down a paved, winding trail under dripping trees, past brown-shingled, clerestoried class buildings, each with a low rustic sign out front:
SCIENCE. MATH. SOCIAL STUDIES. FILM. LITERATURE. GENDER.
Ahead, at a point farther into the woods—I see my breath in the cedar-scented air—I can make out a high lighted window. Below is a glass double door kept open just for me with a fat swatch of weather carpet. This I head for, my jaw tightening like a spring, my neck sweating, my hands fidgety. I don’t feel at all vigorous, and vigorous is how I always want to feel when I present myself to Ann. I also don’t feel at ease in my clothes. I’ve always been a dedicated solid-South, chinos, cotton shirt, cotton socks ’n loafers wearer—the same suiting I packed in my steamer trunk when I came up from Mississippi to Ann Arbor in ’63, and that’s done the job well enough through all life’s permutations. It’s not, in fact, unusual attire for Haddam, which again has its claque of similarly suited crypto-southerners—old remittance men who trace back to rich Virginia second sons of the nineteenth century and who arrived to seminary study bringing along their colored servants (which is why there was once a stable Negro population in the Wallace Hill section—now gentrified to smithereens). To this day, a seersucker suit, a zesty bow tie, white bucks and pastel hosiery are considered acceptable dress-up (post–Memorial Day) at all Haddam lawn parties.

Nowadays, though, and for no reason I understand, what I find myself wearing seems to matter less than it used to. Since August, I no longer look in mirrors or glance into storefront windows, for fear, I guess, I’ll glimpse a worrisome shoulder slump that wasn’t there before, or an unexplained limp, or my chin hung at a haggard angle on my neck stem. We’re best on our guard against becoming the strange people we used to contrast ourselves favorably to: those who’ve lost the life force, lost the essential core vigor to keep up appearances, suffered the slippage you don’t know has slipped until it’s all over. I definitely don’t want to find myself turning up at a closing wearing copper-colored Sansabelts, a purple-and-green-striped Ban-Lon, huaraches with black socks and sporting a yawing, slack-jaw look of “whatever.” Lost, in other words, and not remembering why or when.

In the present moment, it’s my tan barracuda jacket I’m uneasy about. I bought it at a summer’s-end sale from the New Hampshire catalog outfit I usually buy from, thinking it’d be nice to own something I’d never owned before—a wrong-headed impulse, since I now feel like some rube showing up to take flying lessons. Plus, there’re the green-and-blue argyles and fake suede, Hush Puppy-like crepe-soled tie-ups I bought in Flint, Michigan, on a one-day trip in October. They were on sale in a shoe-store clearance where odd shoes in odd sizes were lined up on the sidewalk, and I felt like a fool not to find
something,
even if I never wore it. Which I now have. I don’t know what Ann will think, having gotten used to seeing me the old way during years of divorced life. If I could, I’d ditch the jacket out here in the yew shrubs, except I’d freeze and catch cold—the BBs having done a job on my immune department. So, uneasiness or not, I’m consigned to present myself to Ann just as I am.

At the end of the winding asphalt path (it’s only 4:00 p.m. but as good as dark), the Athletic Module is a state-of-the-art facility with lots of gigantic windows facing the woods, floating stairways and miles of corridors with exposed brightly-painted pipes and ductwork to give the impression the place had once been a power plant or a steel mill. It was designed by a Japanese architect from Australia, and according to the
Packet,
the Tocquies all refer to it as “Down Under,” though the actual name is the Chip and Twinkle Halloran Athletic and Holistic Health Conference Center, since Chip and Twinkle paid for it.

Dim ceiling lights reflect off the long, echoing, buffed corridor floor when I step in where it’s warm. Dank swimming pool water, sour towels, new athletic gear and sweat make the hot air stifling. I hear the consoling sound of a lone basketball being casually dribbled on a gym floor that’s out of sight. No one’s in the dark glassed-in events office. The turnstile is disengaged to let anyone pass. The indoor driving range is supposedly down the corridor, then right, then right again. I can’t, though, resist a peek at the “Announcements” case by the events window. I regularly check all such notice boards in Sea-Clift—by the shopping carts at Angelico’s, above the bait tank at Ocean-Gold Marina—standing arms folded, studying the cards for kittens lost, dinette sets to sell, collections of Ezio Pinza ’78s, boats with trailers, boats without, descriptions of oldsters wandered off, the regular appeal for the young motorcycle victim in the ICU. Even Purple Hearts are for sale. You can eavesdrop on the spirit of a place from these messages, sense its inner shifts and seismic fidgets—important in my line of work, and more accurate than what the Chamber of Commerce will tell you. Real life writ small is here, etched with our wishes, losses and dismays. I occasionally pluck off a “For Sale by Owner” note and leave it on Mike’s desk for follow-up—which usually comes to nothing. Though it might. I once saw the name of an old Sigma Chi brother on a notice board on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, where I’d gone to a realtors’ meeting. Seems my onetime bro Rod Cabrero had been last seen there, and family members in Bad Axe were worried and wanted him to know he was loved—no residual bad feelings about the missing checks and stock options. Another time up in Rumson, right here in the Garden State, I saw a notice for a “large Airedale” found wandering the beach, wearing a tag that said “Angus,” and instantly recognized it as the lost, lamented family treasure of the Bensfields on Merlot Court in Sea-Clift—a house I’d sold them less than a year before. I was able to effect the rescue and will get the listing again when they’re ready to sell. Just like the home-for-sale snapshots we put in our office window, these message boards all say “there’s a chance, there’s hope,” even if that chance and that hope are a thousand-to-one against.

Here, the
“Noticias del Escuela”
board is none too upbeat. “Have you been raped, fondled, harassed, or believe yourself to be, by a De Tocqueville faculty member, staff or security person? THERE’S HELP. Call [a phone number’s supplied].” Another insists, “You don’t have to be a minority to suffer a hate crime.” (Another number offered.) A third simply says, “You can grieve.” (No number is given, but a name, Megan, is in quotes.) There’s also a schedule for blood testing (hepatitis C, AIDS, thyroid deficiency). A typed note is posted here from Ann about the Lady Linkster tryouts and team meeting. Another one says, “Fuck Bush,” with the inflaming verb x-ed over. And one, in red, simply says, “Don’t keep it to yourself, whatever it is. Culturally, we are all orphans.” De Tocqueville seems not only funless but careworn and fatigued, where any time you’re not studying, you’d better be worrying or dodging unwanted experiences. I’m glad Paul didn’t get in, which isn’t to say I’m thrilled with how things have gone.

Ann Dykstra is visible, alone and practicing, when I peer through the tiny door window into the blazing-lit inner sanctum of the indoor driving range (formerly a squash court). She doesn’t know I’m here watching but is aware I
might
be, and so is going extra scrupulously through her ball placement, club-face address, feet alignment, shoulder set, weight distribution and outbound stare toward a nonexistent green. A white catch-net with golf balls scattered around has been established at the squash court’s front wall, and behind it an enlarged color photograph of a distant links course on some coast of Scotland. All this is in preparation for her perfectly grooved, utterly fluid, head-down, knees-bent, murderous swing, the lethal metal-headed driver striking the nubbly ball so violently as to crush it into space dust. “This is how the fucker’s done and always will be. No matter what asshole’s watching or isn’t”—is what I read this daunting display to say in so many words.

She doesn’t glance toward the door, which I’m safe behind in the corridor darkness, but begins placing a second ball onto a pink rubber tee fixed into a carpet of artificial grass, and re-commences the fateful protocol of striking.

I don’t want to go in. To enter will only ruin something that
is
and is perfect, by intruding a clamorous, troublesome, infuriating, chaotic
something else.
I’d forgotten, watching Ann through the peephole like a witness viewing a suspect, how much a perfect golf swing is an airtight defense against all bothersome “others.” Once I knew that, long ago when I wrote sports: That for all athletes—and Ann’s a good one—a perfect stroke protects against things getting over-complicated. I would actually slink away now if I could.

But just as I take an opportunistic look down the corridor with a thought to escape, Ann, I find, is staring at me—my partial, reluctant face obviously visible through the double-thick window. Her lips inside move in speech I can’t hear. I again have an urge to run, become an optical illusion, down the hall, around a corner, be no more. But it’s too late. Way too late for escape.

I push in the heavy, air-sucking door and Ann’s words come into my ears. “…thought you were the security guy, Ramon,” she says, and smiles cheerlessly at my presence. She has her driver in hand like a walking stick and goes back to addressing the new ball as if I
were
Ramon. “I don’t like to be watched when I’m in here. And he watches me.”

“You looked pretty solid.” I’m guessing this is the appropriate compliment.

“How are you?” Ann calmly lays her club face to the ball’s surface without touching it. I’m holding the heavy door open, barely inside. The brightly lit room smells like heated wood products.

“I’m great.” I mean to act vigorous even if I’m not. Ann and I haven’t seen each other in months. A chummy, hygienic phone chat would’ve been as good or better than this. The dense air is already thickening with ifs and what-ifs. “Nice place in here,” I say, and look up and around. A black video camera’s on a tripod to the left, a wooden team bench sits against the white squash court wall. The Scottish links course has been holographed right onto the plaster behind the catch-net. It could just as well be a chamber for a lethal injection.

“It’s okay. They rigged this place up for me.” Ann lightly taps her white ball off its tee, bends to retrieve it. She is turned out just as I’ve seen her all our life, married and apart—golf shorts (pink), white shoes (Reeboks with pink ankleless socks), a white polo with some kind of gold crest (De Tocqueville no doubt), white golf glove, and a pair of red sunglasses stuck in her hair like a country-club divorcée. She now exudes—unlike thirty years ago, when I couldn’t get enough of her—a more muscular, broader-backed, stronger-armed, fuller-breasted, wider-hipped aura of athleticized sexlessness, which is still bluntly carnal but isn’t helped by her blonded hair being cut in a tail-less ducktail a prison matron might wear, and her pale Dutch-heritage skin looking sweat-shiny and paper-thin. The fly of her shorts has inched down from the top button due to ungoverned belly force. I’m sorry to say there’s nothing very appealing about her except that she’s herself and I’m unexpectedly glad to see her. (Clenching has now made my third molar, left side, lower, begin to ache in a way that makes my jaw tighten. I should put in my night guard, which is in my pocket.)

Ann walks in a long, slightly up-on-toes gait over to the pine bench and leans her driver into a rack where other clubs stand. She sits on the pine and begins untying her golf shoes. I’m stationed in the doorway, feeling both reluctance and enthusiasm, longing and uxorious remorse. I don’t know why I’m here. I wish I knew a hilarious golf joke but can only think of one that involves a priapic priest, a genie in a bottle and a punch line she wouldn’t like.

“Somebody blew out the lunch room windows at the hospital,” I say. Not a great conversation starter. Though why did no one at the funeral home mention it? News in Haddam must travel more slowly than ever. Everyone in his own space. Even Lloyd Mangum.

“Why?” Ann looks up from her shoelaces, bent over her thick, shiny knees. Pushing through her polo-shirt back is the wide, no-nonsense imprint of a brawny sports bra.