Antrim, Donald - Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World

Sad to say, the comforts of domestic life would have to wait. For when Tom Thompson finally called out, jubilantly, “Guys, we made it, we made it, here’s the road,” I heard also, at my back, another voice, a familiar, boyish whisper rising softly on the breeze that bore salty ocean scents over the tortured land.

“Mr. Robinson.”

It was, in fact, my former pupil Ben Webster. So, he was still out roaming the gloom. I turned back briefly in the direction of the youngster’s voice, but the tyro guerrilla was nowhere to be seen. He’d sounded so close. Clearly Ben had become adept in the techniques of jungle subterfuge. What a fast learner. It made me proud.

I whispered into the trees, “Ben, wait here for me,” then turned and headed out to the road and our cars and a round of hearty farewells to Jerry, Abe, Tom, and Bill. Abe offered again to cart the books back to the library, seeing as he had the van and all. He was quite adamant, he kept at it, “Sure you don’t want me to drop those off? I’ve got the van. I’m going that way anyway. No trouble for me. Really, no trouble. Sure? Sure?” Finally Jerry snapped, “Abe, let Pete take the fucking books.” There was, for a moment, between the two friends, some tension; it was a miniature alpha male, beta male face-off, though in this case with no readily distinguishable beta. Jerry tends to lead the pack, but Abe is of substantial build, he’s physically intimidating, always a factor in these kinds of contests. Watching the two men glare at one another across the roof of Tom’s metallic Mazda, it occurred to me that perhaps Abe’s offer to return the books, his insistence in the matter, was actually cover for a visit — a tryst, even — with Jerry’s wife, Rita, and that, at some level, Jerry knew or suspected his friend’s mantled intent.

Bill stepped up to the Mazda and tamed the beasts by saying, “Hey, guys, come on, let’s go over to Sandpiper’s,” which is the name of a happy hour bar on South Main. It was pretty clear that the man had a problem with alcohol. None of his buddies seemed to notice or be bothered by this. They all answered Bill’s suggestion for continued drinking with hearty cheer: “Yeah, yeah,” “First round’s on me,” “Okay, let’s go for it.” Most likely, Bill’s friends misunderstood his heavy intake as a function of choice and disposition, of personal style rather than compulsion. Poor Bill. And poor Barbara. No wonder she always looked beat. Was she a drinker? Or merely suffering the ravages of marriage to one?

“You guys go ahead.”

One by one the men climbed into their vehicles and fired up engines, destroying the silence of falling night. I watched their ruby taillights grow dim along the narrow road to Main Street. At last the cars disappeared. Quiet returned. It was that eerie time of night when the air becomes calm and the birds settle down and the world seems timeless. I dumped the books in the Toyota, wiped my bleeding hands on my pants, and sauntered back to the woods.

A few feet inside the fringe of trees Ben greeted me. It’s amazing how much a person’s appearance can change in a week. The former A student seemed to have dropped twenty pounds, aged a good twenty years. His bony, unclean face was the face of an urchin, his eyes were fugitive’s eyes. Scrubby adolescent beard tinted jaundiced cheeks black; ripped clothes told of scrambling pursuits through the park’s untended greenery. Ben wore his gun belt low over the hip, in the rakish style of a movie-matinee quick-draw shootist. He smelled bad.

“Hello, Ben.”

“Mr. Robinson,” nodding, beckoning toward the jungle, a discreet, soldierly instruction to follow his wraith figure creeping away, now, without delay, noiselessly creeping over the forest floor blanketed in lichen and deadfall and unidentifiable black shapes that mushed underfoot like things wetly alive. Forward we advanced into the dark heart of the recreational grounds, skirting open areas and the relatively unobstructed pathways beneath the pine stands, blazing a trail instead through untamed tracts. The going was harsh. At one point I made out, on my right, the shadowy unlit facade of the boathouse. We stayed clear of it. According to Ben, Turtle Pond was regularly patrolled by hostile Bensons pedaling recreation-services fiberglass paddleboats. This news saddened me. Meredith and I had spent many pleasant hours lazily steering pink or blue or green paddleboats across the pond’s tranquil waters. Sometimes, far out at pond’s center, beyond sight of either sandy beach or boathouse dock, we’d stop and drop anchor, and Meredith would remove the top of her bathing suit, lie low on her back in the bow of the boat, and sun her beautiful breasts. Oh, love.

“Pay attention, Mr. Robinson.”

We were surrounded by picnic tables and waist-high brick-and-mortar grilling stations.

Ben sniffed the air. “Someone’s been cooking here.”

I smelled nothing. The young Webster led a scavenger hunt of the picnic area. From grill to table to grill we crept. And found, finally, deep within one of the sooty, forlorn pits, fragments of smoldering coal, the scattered remains of embers glowing orange beneath white ash, emitting faint smoky traces. Ben bent down over the grill and nosed at its carbon-encrusted iron crossbars, picked here and there with dirty fingers. He came up with some food, which he put in his mouth.

“Chicken,” he said, going down for more.

I rested at one of the tables. These park expeditions were so exhausting. Partly this was due to the tension that came naturally from trekking mapless through a woodland minefield — in my opinion, one absolutely cannot overestimate the effects of something like this, in terms of emotional stress. And there’s the purely physical fatigue accompanying so much careful walking, which for me involved a lot of involuntary tensing of the calf during step placement (tensing, actually, of the entire foot, leg, hip, back, shoulder, neck, and head areas — in other words, I guess, everywhere, though the calf muscles, and the Achilles tendons in particular, did seem to be the hot suns of that radiant, full-body cramping, aching, throbbing), and, as well, a lot of exaggeratedly high stepping, which burned boatloads of calories in an also involuntary effort to accomplish movement (of whatever kind, in whatever direction) safely above the terrifying surface of the moonlit earth.

Ben was now licking the surface of the grill. Wet sounds and the poor kid’s head bobbing over the charred metal. It was hard to watch.

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure, fine, great,” he said between licks. I took this as pretty clear indication of the alienating effects of malnutrition and exposure to the elements. Obviously Ben was delusional. Still, I had to hand it to him, he was making do, he wasn’t complaining, he was a survivor. He stood upright and wiped his mouth with the greasy back of his hand, adjusted his clothes and said, “There’s something up ahead I want to show you, Mr. Robinson.”

“Lead the way,” I told him, though it was getting late and I very much wanted to go home. I was feeling peckish myself. It was well past the dinner hour. I wanted to get home and let Meredith fix me a nice hot meal. A plate of those fish sticks, maybe, from the bottom of the freezer.

Instead of going home for dinner — the sensible thing to do, what with school scheduled to commence in less than twelve hours, and had I even begun to prepare for classes? — instead of heading on home while the night was still young, I followed Ben out of the deserted picnic grounds, up a barren hillside crowned with a ghostly playground full of weed-choked, run-down jungle gyms, swing sets, seesaws, and slides; then past the playground, down the other side of the hill, and onto the rocky path leading to the Japanese garden, at one time one of the finer attractions of Turtle Pond Park. Yes, the Japanese garden was quite the showplace. With its pebble walkways the color of sand, its trickling, carp-ridden brook running between carefully placed, semiprivate “freeform sculpture” seating areas, its exotic imported shrubs waving waxy leaves and tiny pastel blooms that perfumed the air, the Japanese garden made an ideal setting for leisure meditation or a sunny afternoon siesta. And of course it had been, at one time, a favorite meeting place for lovers.