Ben Lerner - The Topeka School

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For my brother, Matt

Darren pictured shattering the mirror with his metal chair. From TV he knew there might be people behind it in the dark, that they could see him. He believed he felt the pressure of their gazes on his face. In slow motion, a rain of glass, the presences revealed. He paused it, rewound, watched it fall again.

The man with the black mustache kept asking him if he wanted something to drink and finally Darren said hot water. The man left to get the drink and the other man, who didnt have a mustache, asked Darren how he was holding up. Feel free to stretch your legs.

Darren was still. The man with the mustache returned with the steaming brown paper cup and a handful of red straws and little packages: Nescaf, Lipton, Sweetn Low. Pick your poison, he said, but Darren knew that was a joke; they wouldnt poison him. There was a poster on the wall: KNOW YOUR RIGHTS , then fine print he couldnt read. Otherwise there was nothing to stare at while the man without a mustache talked. The lights in the room were like the lights had been at school. Painfully bright on the rare occasions he was called on. (Earth to Darren, Mrs. Greiners voice. Then the familiar laughter of his peers.)

He looked down and saw initials and stars and ciphers scratched into the wood veneer. He traced them with his fingers, keeping his wrists together, as though they were still cuffed. When one of the men asked Darren to look at him, he did. First at his eyes (blue), then at his lips. Which instructed Darren to repeat the story. So he told them again howhed thrown the cue ball at the party, but the other man interrupted him, albeit gently: Darren, we need you to start at the beginning.

Although it burned his mouth a little, he sipped the water twice. People gathered behind the mirror in his mind: his mom, dad, Dr. Jonathan, Mandy. What Darren could not make them understand was that he would never have thrown it except he always had. Long before the freshman called him the customary names, before hed taken it from the corner pocket, felt its weight, the cool and smoothness of the resin, before hed hurled it into the crowded darknessthe cue ball was hanging in the air, rotating slowly. Like the moon, it had been there all his life.

T hey were drifting on her stepfathers boat in the middle of an otherwise empty man-made lake encircled by large tract houses. It was early autumn and they were drinking Southern Comfort from the bottle. Adam was in the front of the boat watching a changeable blue light across the water that was probably a television seen through a window or glass door. He heard the scrape of her lighter, then saw smoke float over him, unravel. For a long time he had been speaking.

When he turned to see what effect his speech had had, she was gone, jeans and sweater in a little pile with the pipe and lighter.

He said her name, suddenly aware of the surrounding quiet, and put his hand in the water, which was cold. Unthinkingly, he lifted her white sweater and smelled the woodsmoke from earlier that evening at Clinton Lake, the synthetic lavender of what he knew to be her shower gel. He said her name again, louder now, then looked around. A few birds skimmed the undisturbed surface of the lake; no, those were bats. When did she dive or step off the boat and how could she have made no splash and what if she was drowned? He yelled now; a dog responded in the distance. From spinning around in search of her, he felt dizzy and sat down. Then he stood again and looked along the edges of the boat; maybe she was just beside it, stifling her laughter, but she wasnt.

He would have to pilot the boat back to the dock, where she must be waiting. (There was a dock for every two or three subdivisions.) He thought he saw a firefly signal slowly from the shore, but it was too late in the year for that. He felt a wave of anger rising and he welcomed it, wanted it to overwhelm his panic. He hoped Amber had dived into the water before his rambling confession of feeling. Hed said theyd stay together once he left Topeka for school, but now he knew they wouldnt; he was eager to demonstrate his indifference as soon as he found her safe on land.

See the outboard motor gleaming in the moonlight. For any of his friends, managing the boat would be easy; all of them, even the other Foundation kids, exhibited a basic Midwestern mechanical competence, could change their oil or clean a gun, whereas he couldnt even drive stick. He located what he assumed was a starter rope, pulled it, nothing happened; he pushed what must have been the throttle to another position and tried again; nothing. He was beginning to wonder if he might have to swimhe wasnt sure how well he swamwhen he saw the key in the ignition; he turned it and the engine started up.

As slowly as possible he motored back to shore. When he approached the land, he turned the engine off, but failed to bring the boat in parallel with the dock; a loud crack when the fiberglass hit the wood, which silenced the nearby bullfrogs; nothing seemed damaged, not that he really looked. He rushed to throw the lines gathered in the boat around the cleats nailed to the dock, quickly improvised some knots, then pulled himself out of the boat; he prayed that no one was watching him from a window. Without taking the keys or her clothes or pipe or bottle, he sprinted up the incline through the wet grass toward her house; if the boat drifted back out on the water, that would be her fault.

The large glass doors facing the lake were always unlocked; he slid one open quietly and went in. Only now did he feel the cold sweat. He could make out her brothers shape on the couch, pillow over his head, sleeping in the glow of the large television; the news was on mute. The room was otherwise dark. He thought of waking him, but instead removed his Timberland boots, which he assumed were muddy, and crept across the room to the white-carpeted stairs; he went up slowly.

Hed stayed over two or three times before when shed told her parents hed had too much to drink; theyd thought hed slept in the guest room; theyd thought, correctly, that hed called home. But the prospect of encountering anyone nowwhen he hadnt even confirmed that she was presenthorrified him. Her mom took sleeping pills, hed seen the oversized prescription bottle, knew she mixed them nightly with her wine; her stepdad had slept through a brawl at a recent party; theyll never wake up, he reassured himself, just dont knock anything over; he was glad to be in his socks.

He reached the first floor and surveyed the dark, expansive living room before he climbed the next flight of stairs to where the bedrooms were. He could almost make out the large generic hunting scene on the far wall: dogs flushing game from the woods beside a lake at sunset. He could see the red light blinking on the panel for the alarm system they thankfully never armed. And a little light collected around the silver edges of the framed family photographs on the mantel: teenagers in sweaters posing on a leaf-strewn lawn, her brother holding a football. Something ticked and settled in the giant kitchen. He went upstairs.