Christopher Hacker - The Morels

When we emerged from the basement, Doc was unboxing our Indian food. He seemed overjoyed at the occasion. “It’s like old times, Cyn. It’s like we’ve got our collective back.”

Cynthia said, “A carriage house reunion!”

We knew there was a chance that Arthur might not return from the arraignment if the judge decided against posting bail, so we took the opportunity to get as much footage of this reunion as we could. We followed them around for the next few days, asking questions, getting them to interact. We set up the camera as we had last time, at the doorway facing in, and set up three chairs. Dave had the idea to bring up Arthur’s boxed things as a tool to get him talking. Doc had found a thick snarl of Christmas tree lights in the basement that he spent an entire morning untangling — checking and replacing bulbs until the whole string was lit — and put it up around the archway. It was a pretty sight, especially when it began to snow.

They sat side by side, coats on, appreciating the general holiday swirl. To a passerby, they would have appeared to be like any ordinary nuclear family: son, shoulders hunched, between two proud parents. It was an illusion I myself indulged as I listened to them tell the rest of their story.

The afternoon following the Spring Concert, a Sunday, Cynthia and Doc receive a visitor at the carriage house, a fellow mother who had been in the audience to witness Arthur’s performance. She is concerned. For many years, she explains, she was employed by the New York City Division of Child Protection as a caseworker, and although she is now in private practice and no longer working for the city, she still feels it her moral obligation to investigate and, if necessary, report her findings.

It is not a good time for a visit. The plumbing in the century-old house is in perpetual disrepair and finally, two weeks prior to the woman’s visit, reached a critical state of failure. A pipe on the second floor has sprung a leak and flooded the floor below. Nothing has been done to address the problem, save cutting off the water supply. After two weeks, the smell of mildew has become unbearable, as has the smell of human waste because, though the toilets no longer flush, visitors to the house continue to use them.

But even were it not a bad time to visit, it wouldn’t have been a good time to visit either. As the concerned former caseworker sits on a couch on the ground floor, two wooden milk crates end to end at her shins forming a makeshift coffee table, she counts fifteen small prescription bottles and a confetti of pills, all in plain view. Men and women stark naked saunter up from the basement and disappear into other parts of the house. From above, a sound presiding over all, the thin strains of a Bach solo partita.

Cynthia is perplexed by the stony manner in which the woman relates what Arthur has done onstage. It was a prank, she says. How brilliant! My son’s like a young Duchamp, painting mustaches on the Mona Lisa , or that other one of his, the urinal, rubbing elbows with the Venus de Milo . Don’t you see? Why are you looking at me like that? Oh this — Cynthia is in a robe that, despite her efforts, keeps falling open to expose her bare breasts. Should have worn a bra. Cynthia laughs.

When Doc had invited her in, the woman asked for a glass of water, and Doc is in the kitchen now, straining cloudy, particle-rich rainwater from a jug through a coffee filter, to little effect. He returns with the glass just as the woman is attempting to rise from the couch. It’s on our list to have fixed, Cynthia says. There’s a lot that needs fixing around here as you can see.

Doc holds out the water, which the woman takes. The three of them watch the delicate swirl of silt settle in the glass. The woman hands back the glass and tells them that she has seen plenty, too much to ignore, and that the next visit they should expect will be from Child Protective Services.

Doc would occasionally receive calls from Benji, who was all grown up and living in Queens. During that first one, he told Doc he was tired of being angry and wanted to have a relationship with his father, despite his father’s unrepentant wretchedness. Doc had been overjoyed to hear from his son and asked after Sarah and Dolores. Sarah was teaching at Rutgers, and Dolores was happily remarried to a man Benji described as “well meaning.” They spent almost two hours during that first phone call reminiscing about happy times, Benji filling him in on what kind of life he had lived without his father around. Benji gave Doc his number, said to ring whenever the urge struck. Doc had been moved and grateful for the call, and yet he never reciprocated. The months would go by, and eventually he would receive another call from Benji. Doc would explain that their phone service was limited to incoming numbers, which was true enough. The phone bill was among the utilities on which they were perpetually delinquent. A flimsy excuse, but Benji accepted it, not seeming to mind the one-sidedness of things.

And so Benji is surprised to receive Doc’s call that Sunday and listens with dismay at their predicament. What can I do, Benji asks. I’m not a lawyer yet, and I’m not in any position, financial or otherwise, to help you fix up your house.

There’s no time for that, Doc says. They could be banging on our doors tomorrow!

Arthur packs a bag, several changes of clothes, and a few books from the carriage house library. The rest he leaves in his “room,” the back half of the top floor, curtained off with a sheet. The ceilings are low, and if he stands on his toes he can press the crown of his head hard against it. The windows are made of a pebbly opaque glass reinforced with wire that forms a diagonal diamond pattern on the panes. They do not open but glow most mornings with a warm light that fills the room. A music stand is planted in the center like a street sign. Mattress in a corner against the wall, above it poster reproductions of Picasso’s Stravinsky and Delacroix’s Paganini. Against the other wall, the old saloon upright. His violin in its case on top of it, along with a clutter of personal effects. He offers a last look but takes nothing with him.

Benji has a room ready, as well as ground rules and a plan of action. You have to go to school, he tells Arthur. That’s rule one. As long as you’re staying with me, you will be a full-time student. Now, where you go is up to you. Joel Braverman High is one option. It’s a short walk, and from the way my father talks, you won’t have to do much to distinguish yourself as a top student. But there are obvious drawbacks, namely getting the shit beat out of you on a daily basis. The other option — he’s been holding two textbook-shaped tomes and now he hands them to Arthur. Prepare for a GED and the SAT and send you to college. From the way my father talks, you wouldn’t have to work too hard to make this happen either. Advantages, obvious: you don’t get the shit beat out of you. Drawbacks, I’m not sure what kind of paperwork maneuvers we’ll have to do to make this happen.

As it turns out, however, option 2 is unmaneuverable, which leaves option 1 as his only choice. And despite the certainty with which Benji described his fate, Arthur manages in his year at the school to avoid coming to any violence whatsoever. He has two things going for him: entering as a senior offers him some status. Also, he is tall, towering over most students and many of the teachers. He attends every one of his classes with relish. He is perplexed by those who would choose to stay in the stairwells and bathrooms instead. Why would anyone want to miss out on this? It’s all so fascinating! He keeps to himself and comes home a roundabout way to avoid running into the few people who might want to do him violence, spending the waning afternoon in his room reading, typing out his assignments on Benji’s IBM Selectric.