Brock Clarke - The Happiest People in the World

In this way, the thought solidified in Matty’s mind, became a fact: Henry was a spy. And then it was joined by another fact: Locs was not coming back; Locs was never coming back. Matty now knew that to be true, and therefore he resolved to put an end to all this and finally come clean about Henry to Ellen, but to do so carefully, in a way that would reveal Henry’s true self but would somehow not incriminate Matty himself in the process.

“A spy, ” Matty finally said, in a tone that was intended to let Kurt think that Matty really was starting to see things from his son’s point of view.

“The minute I said it out loud, I knew it was true,” Kurt said. “It was my come-to-Caesar moment.”

Matty had heard this kind of thing from so many students during his time at Broomeville Junior-Senior High. A kid heard some adult say something, and tried to act as though it was something the kid himself said all the time, and then mangled the saying, thereby making himself sound even more like a kid. It was pretty cute, but you could not tell the kid that, and you could not correct his mistake, either. At least not if you were the kid’s father. At least not if you were Matty. As a divorced father trying to convince his son that he loved him more than anything in the world, Matty could not afford to correct Kurt’s innocent mistake. He had to just let it slide. And yet, as a principal, as an educator, could Matty just let something like that slide?

“You mean ‘come to Jesus,’ ” Matty said.

“Huh?”

“You mean, ‘It was my come-to-Jesus moment,’ ” Matty said, and then he smiled in a way that was meant to communicate, But hey, buddy, I like your saying, too, and anyway, don’t let my setting you straight ruin our father-son time together. But too late: Matty watched the look on his son’s face go from embarrassment to resentment to defiance, and could tell that Matty’s setting Kurt straight had ruined their father-son time together.

“I don’t believe in Jesus,” Kurt said.

“But you do believe in Caesar?” Matty said.

After that, they didn’t say anything. The wall clock ticked loudly in the way of school clocks. It was getting late. Matty needed to get down to the bar to address the troops, give the toast, buy the drinks. He could picture everyone waiting for him: Dr. Vernon; his brother, Lawrence. Henry, Ellen. Matty was kind of dreading it. He’d even considered skipping the whole thing. But now, he was reconsidering. At the very least he’d ask Henry about this mysterious stranger. Who knew? Maybe the mysterious stranger would be there, too. “I promise I’ll look into it,” he told Kurt.

“Sure, OK,” Kurt said, getting up, obviously not believing his father would look into it.

“I mean it,” Matty said.

“Sure, OK,” Kurt said, again. He had turned his back on his father and was now walking out the door.

“You can trust me, Kurt,” Matty said. He could hear how lame that sounded. But maybe Kurt had heard it differently. Because Kurt turned and looked at Matty like he really wanted to believe it.

“OK,” Kurt finally said.

“Good,” Matty said. “I promise I’ll figure out what’s going on here. But I could use your help.”

“What kind of help?”

“I don’t know,” Matty said. Because really he had no idea. He searched for the vaguest phrase, the one most easily reached for, then reached for it. “Just keep your eyes open.” More lameness. But Kurt nodded seriously. “I can do that,” he said.

Wednesday, October 6, 2011, 11:49 p.m.

From: undisclosed sender

To: undisclosed recipient

Subject: Re: Broomeville

“Is this the nature of plans?” You’re pretty philosophical for a terrorist-arsonist-murderer.

I hope you know what you’re doing.

Henry entered the Lumber Lodge just before six o’clock. He’d been walking around town — west along the river, south on the logging roads through the quasi national forest, north on the old canal that was now a walking path, then finally east, back to town, walking in only barely lit darkness through the neighborhood adjacent to the railroad tracks where the poor people lived, the neighborhood that, for some reason, was called the Flats, even though the whole town was flat — walking for almost three hours, trying to figure out how he was going to tell Ellen the truth about himself. No matter how he conceived of the plan, it began with his saying, My real name is Jens Baedrup, and it ended with Ellen saying, You lied to me. Now go away forever. He had made himself so exhausted with his lack of options and his future grief that he didn’t think he could go on contemplating them without seeing Ellen first. This, Henry thought, is how you know when you’re in love: when you’re so worn out thinking about the woman you love leaving you that you need to be in the restorative presence of the woman you love before you start thinking again about her leaving you.

When Henry walked into the Lumber Lodge, it was full. Normally when the bar was full, it was a chaos of spilled drinks and yelling and darts and someone playing music on the jukebox and someone complaining about the music playing on the jukebox and people cursing at each other as though they were in a cursing competition — in general the noise of people who might have done some real damage to each other and the bar had they been just a little bit younger. But there was none of that now. There were forty or so people in the place. Most of them were Henry’s colleagues from school. There were Matty and his brother, Lawrence. There were Dr. Vernon and Grace, his wife. There were Ms. Andrews, the English teacher, and Ron Ferraro, who taught music and band. There was even the janitor sitting across the bar from Ellen, that strange Ronald Crimmins with his strange hand and his dead sister, Ronald who was clearly watching Henry, watching Henry, watching him, always watching him, so obviously spying on him that Henry wondered whether he actually was a spy. Had Locs put Ronald in charge of keeping Henry safe? Henry had wondered many times over the past two years. In a few seconds he would no longer wonder that. But anyway, Henry saw that Ronald was watching him now and so was Ellen; she waved him over. He walked slowly toward them, and as he did, Henry felt a prickling around his collar; he had the distinct feeling that they had just been talking about him.

“Henry, we were just talking about you!” she said. Her eyes were wide, like she was trying to tell him something. But what? On the one hand, it might be: I am so happy to see you. Or, on the other: I can’t believe I used to be so happy to see you. “Where’ve you been?”

“I took a walk.”

“With your friend?” Ronald said.

“My friend.”

“Ronald said he saw someone walk out of your office today.”

“A stranger,” Ronald said. “And actually, he didn’t walk. He ran.”

The two of them waited for Henry to say something, and when he didn’t, Ellen said, “I was wondering who he was. Was he someone you invited to the wedding?” They’d agreed to keep the wedding small, but still Ellen couldn’t quite believe how small Henry was keeping his side of the wedding. He hadn’t invited anyone. His parents were dead; he had no siblings. There was no one from his previous life that he cared more about than the people in the present, no one from his past that he wanted at the wedding. That was what he told her. It was all true enough.

“No,” Henry said.

“See, I didn’t think so,” Ronald said. “He didn’t seem like a guy who was about to raise a toast to the happy couple.” But Ronald did seem happy, and so did Matty: he was sitting at a table with his brother, Lawrence, watching Henry with great interest, his eyes smiling as he took a sip of his beer. Matty worried Henry even more than Ronald. As an ex-husband of his future wife who also knew something — Henry didn’t know exactly what — about Henry’s past, Matty was uniquely qualified to do great harm. I’m watching you, Matty’s eyes seemed to say, but pretty soon I’m going to do more than just watch you.