Five Days Page 15

  ‘What makes you think that?’ I asked.

  ‘The school should have been informed.’

  ‘Did MIT know the name of Billy’s high school?’

  ‘Of course. They had all his details.’

  ‘But they chose not to inform Bath High that he had been expelled. The very fact that MIT didn’t think it necessary to inform Bath High School of this unfortunate incident—’

  ‘It wasn’t an “incident”. It was an offense.’

  ‘Your son is bipolar . . .’

  ‘That diagnosis came later. And arson is hardly a petty crime.’

  ‘Still, MIT decided the infraction was not so severe as to ruin the future of a hugely gifted young man.’

  ‘I lost around a half-dozen clients. And they all said the same thing – they didn’t want to do business with someone who played fast and loose with the truth.’

  ‘That’s awful and pretty damn judgmental, if you ask me,’ I said.

  ‘You’re being far too kind.’

  ‘Are you saying that because you’re not used to kindness?’

  Silence. Richard closed his eyes for a moment. From the way his lips tightened I could only wonder if I had crossed a forbidden frontier, and if he might just stand up and end our lunch before it had ever really begun.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I heard myself saying.

  Richard opened his eyes.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For prying into something that I had no business—’

  ‘But you’re right.’

  Silence. I chose my next words with prudence.

  ‘How am I right?’

  ‘About me not being used to kindness.’

  Silence. Now we both reached for our drinks. Then:

  ‘I know a thing or two about that as well,’ I said.

  ‘Your husband?’

  I nodded.

  Silence. The waiter broke it, arriving at our booth, all smiles.

  ‘How are you guys doing. Ready for another mary? And just to remind you of our brunch specials—’

  ‘Why don’t you do that in around fifteen minutes?’ Richard said.

  ‘No problem, no rush,’ the waiter said, getting the message.

  ‘Thank you.’ Then, when the waiter was out of earshot, he said:

  ‘So . . . your husband . . .’

  ‘We’ll get to that. Anyway, my point was—’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Dan.’

  ‘And he got laid off at L.L.Bean and starts again in the stockroom on Monday?’

  ‘Good memory.’

  ‘Salesmen remember everything.’

  ‘But outside of the insurance business, you don’t strike me as someone who’s always selling, always trying to close.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because, when I’m selling, I’m playing a role. And outside of that—’

  ‘Aren’t we all playing a role?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s a point of view.’

  ‘But one with a certain veracity to it. I mean, we all construct an identity, don’t we? The problem is, do we like the identity we have made for ourselves?’

  ‘You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?’

  I laughed, and Richard favored me with a sly smile.

  ‘OK – cards on the table,’ I said. ‘I look at my life and frequently wonder how I have ended up with this existence, this identity, this daily role to play.’

  ‘Well, we all do that, don’t we?’

  ‘So what role would you play, if you could?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ he said. ‘I’d be a writer.’

  ‘No doubt, living in a house by the water up in Maine . . . or maybe you do that already.’

  ‘Hardly. We live in town in Bath. And the house, though nice, is pretty modest.’

  ‘So’s mine.’

  ‘Anyway, if I was a writer I would be living here, in Boston. City life and all that.’

  ‘Then why not New York or Paris?’

  ‘I’m a Maine boy – which means Boston is my idea of a city. Small, compact, historic, in the East. And then there’s the Red Sox . . .’

  ‘So you are tribal.’

  ‘Aren’t all Red Sox fans?’

  ‘Most everyone is tribal. Especially when it comes to their own flesh and blood. Look at that woman, Margaret what’s-her-name, who ensured that your son’s incident at MIT went public. Why did she do that? Because her own son wasn’t as talented or gifted as Billy. So she turned tribal and decided to wreak havoc. From where I sit, that’s five times worse than you and your wife saying nothing about Billy’s math camp problem. You were simply trying to protect your son. She was being deliberately malicious – and, in the process, damaging a young man. She ought to be ashamed of herself.’

  ‘Trust me, she isn’t.’

  ‘What happened after CalTech found out about Billy’s problems?’

  ‘The inevitable happened. They withdrew their offer of admission and, with it, the full scholarship. What made this even more terrible was that this transpired while Billy was still missing. Next thing I knew I had reporters on me from all the local and regional papers, even a TV team from the NBC affiliate in Portland, parked outside my house, wanting a statement from me about why I covered up for my son. I’m surprised you weren’t aware of it all, Maine being such a small place.’

  ‘I rarely watch TV. And I tend to get my news from the New York Times online. Dan always says that, for a Maine lifer, I have little interest in local stuff. Maybe because it’s often nothing more than local gossip. Other people’s small-town miseries and tragedies. I’m sure if I asked some of my colleagues at the hospital about the incident they’d remember it all. But, trust me, I’m not going to do that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Did you release a statement to the press?’

  ‘I had my lawyer do it. A short statement saying that, as Billy was still missing – and we were genuinely fearful about whether or not he was still alive – we asked to be left in peace “during this very difficult time” and all that. To Dwight Petrie’s credit he came out on our side, declaring that since MIT had decided it was a private matter, he felt we were right to say nothing to the school – and he was appalled that “some very bad citizen felt it necessary to inflict more damage on a clearly troubled young man by leaking it to the press”. Dwight also made it clear that we had been friends for forty years – and under the circumstances he would have done what I had done. But the terrible fact was, Billy’s chances of getting into any college were null and void. And all thanks to the maliciousness of one little woman.

  ‘Meanwhile, the trail had gone cold in the search for Billy. Those eight days . . . they were beyond terrible.’

  ‘And how did your wife take it?’

  ‘She did what she often does when things get on top of her – she voted with her feet. Went to stay with her sister in Auburn. Called me once a day for an update. Otherwise she was elsewhere.’

  ‘And it didn’t get to you?’

  Silence. His eyes snapped shut again for a moment – something I noticed that frequently happened whenever the conversation strayed into difficult territory. Yet he never tried to dodge the tough stuff. Instead, opening his eyes again he said:

  ‘I thought I would go out of my mind.’

  ‘Was there any specific reason why he’d vanished?’

  ‘His girlfriend told him it was over between them. Just like that. Out of the blue. I only found this out around seventy-two hours after Billy went missing. Early one morning – it must have been around six – someone started banging loudly on my front door. I staggered downstairs and found Billy’s girlfriend, Mary, standing there, tears running down her face. Once inside my kitchen, the whole story came out – how Billy had become over the past few months so remote, so difficult and unsettling, that she finally had no choice but to tell him that it was over. As she filled me in on all this, I felt a desperate sense of shame, especially when she asked me: “Did you notice him acting
stranger than usual?” The truth was, I hadn’t noticed anything different about him, yet here was my son coming undone due to this break-up with the first woman who had ever loved him.’

  As if reading my thoughts – or maybe the expression on my face told all – he looked at me and said:

  ‘That’s right. Billy never knew much in the way of maternal love. But in Muriel’s defense, I suppose she did her best.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘No.’

  He met my gaze straight on as he said that – and I felt the strangest shudder run through me. Because from the way he was meeting my gaze I felt what he felt: that this was a moment of shared complicity. And a silent frontier had just been traversed.

  ‘So where did they finally find Billy?’ I asked.

  ‘Way up north in the County,’ Richard said, using the Maine verbal shorthand for Aroostook County: the most isolated, underpopulated, and largely unexplored corner of the state, defined by its vast forests and intricate network of logging roads that never appeared on any official map of the state.

  ‘How bad a shape was he in?’

  ‘Very bad. He told the state trooper who found him that he’d driven up to Presque Isle, went into a Walmart there, bought a garden hose and some thick electrical tape, and was planning to drive deep into the woods, tape the hose to the exhaust pipe, feed it in through the car window, use the tape to mask the crack in the window, then turn on the engine and leave this life.

  ‘But he also bought a week’s worth of food at the same time and a sleeping bag and a portable stove. So I can’t help but think that part of him still wanted to live. Then, once he had all these supplies, he started driving deep into the woods, crossing eventually onto those logging roads that are off-limits to anyone not working for one of those big paper companies up there. He drove and drove and drove until the car hit a ditch on one of those unpaved tracks. It broke an axle. There he was, in late April, snow still on the ground up there, the temperatures still well below freezing after dark, stranded in real wilderness. He had all the equipment necessary to take his life. But instead he simply lived in his car. Keeping the heater on at night until his gas finally ran out. Using the woods as a toilet. Eating meals made on the portable stove. All alone in the forest. And – as he told me some months afterwards – happy for the first time in his life. “Because I didn’t have to confront the fact that I was this freak of nature who couldn’t fit in anywhere. And because being alone is, Dad, the best place for me.” His exact words.

  ‘Then he got lucky. A logger came upon him at dawn. At this point, Billy had completely run out of food, and besides being starved and suffering from exposure, he was also delirious. He had locked all the car doors, and wouldn’t open them when the logger kept slamming his fist against the window, trying to get Billy to allow himself to be rescued. But Billy was so out of it that he refused to open the door. That’s when the logger drove off and returned around four hours later – that’s how isolated the spot was – with the state police. Again they tried to convince Billy to open the door and let them help him. This time, seeing the men in uniform, he became irrational. Refused to unlock the door. Started screaming abuse at the officers. When they finally had to jimmy open the door with a crowbar, he turned violent. So violent that they had to subdue him. After they’d handcuffed him, he still went crazy in the back of the squad car, and they drove him to the nearest doctor, who administered such a strong tranquilizer that Billy was under for over twenty-four hours.

  ‘When he awoke he found himself in the big state psychiatric hospital in Bangor. Dwight had gotten the call from the state police up in Aroostook County. Great friend that he is, he insisted on driving me up there. When we arrived at the hospital – a big Victorian place, somewhat modernized inside, but still pretty damn formidable and unnerving – Billy was in the secure wing. In an isolated cell. I was able to visit him. He looked so emaciated and rough from all those days freezing in that car. Unwilling to talk to me, though at one point crying wildly when I told him how much I loved him. But when I attempted to comfort him by putting my arms around him he went ballistic, throwing a punch at me – which I fortunately dodged – then hurling himself against a wall before barricading himself in the little bathroom. Four staff members – big, tough guys – came rushing in and ordered me and Dwight out while they subdued my son. Now Dwight – besides being my oldest friend – is also the king of plain talkers. After that incident in Billy’s room he marched me over to the nearest bar, insisted I have a double Jack Daniel’s to settle my nerves, then gave it to me straight: “Your son is in a very bad place – and after what’s happened there’s no way the state is going to let him out onto the street for a very long time.”’

  ‘Where was his mother at this moment?’

  ‘At her sister’s in Auburn, awaiting my call.’

  ‘Why didn’t she accompany you to Bangor?’

  ‘When I told her over the phone what had happened she started to cry like I never heard her cry before. I said that it was probably best for all concerned if I went alone with Dwight up to the psychiatric hospital. She didn’t disagree with me.’

  ‘But she did eventually see him?’

  ‘You don’t think much of her, do you?’

  This comment caught me unawares – especially as its tone was so defensive.

  ‘I am just responding to what you’ve reported to me about her.’

  ‘She’s not that bad.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Even though I’ve painted her as a bad mother?’

  ‘Richard . . . your marriage is your business. And I would never dream of making a value judgment about—’

  ‘I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.’

  ‘That was hardly snapping. Your story is a terrible one.’

  ‘It’s not my story, it’s his story.’

  ‘But you are his father.’

  ‘I know, I know. As you can imagine, life’s never been the same since all this happened. Muriel went to see him with me around a week after that first incident at the psychiatric hospital. We first had a meeting with his psycho-pharmacologist. He told us that he had switched Billy onto Paxil – it’s a form of Prozac – and though it was early days, he seemed to be responding to the new medication. When we saw him that afternoon – it was in very controlled circumstances, with two burly male nurses in attendance, just in case things got out of hand – he seemed really animated and upbeat and happy to see us both. Promising us that he was going to “beat this thing” and would be entering CalTech as planned that autumn. We had both agreed in advance that we’d say nothing to him about the rescinded admissions offer or the fact that his disappearance had been a two-week media event. But poor Muriel almost broke down at that point. When we got back to the car she buried her head in my shoulder and cried for a good ten minutes. Later, on the drive south, her composure regained, she turned to me, all glacial, and said: “That boy’s lost to us now.”

  ‘Of course I didn’t believe that. I told myself: Look at how he’s rebounded since they put him on the new medication. I started scheming of ways to get him into a good college come autumn. I didn’t give up on him.

  ‘Then, forty-eight hours later, there was another call from the state hospital. Billy had gone berserk the previous night. Out of nowhere he’d gotten violent. Punched and bitten one of the guards. Tried to slam his head through a window. Had to be tranquilized and subdued – and was now in their version of solitary confinement. I wanted to run back up to Bangor immediately, but Dwight counseled me to stay put.

  Days went by. The director of the psychiatric hospital then called me. All very concerned. All very mea culpa. It turned out the psycho-pharmacologist had completely misdiagnosed Billy, as it was now clear that he was bipolar. I discovered by asking around, if you put someone who is bipolar on Paxil they light up like a Christmas tree. No wonder the poor boy had those manic episodes.’

  ‘So they switched his medic
ation?’

  ‘Yes – and put him on Lithium. The thing is, because of his attack on the state police officer, and because of his explosions at the hospital, the state decided to press for ongoing incarceration. I asked my lawyer to see if we could make a case against the hospital for misdiagnosis and putting him on the sort of medication that turned him psychotic. The lawyer got me in touch with a criminal attorney down in Portland. The guy charged nearly four hundred dollars an hour. He told me that if I was willing to spend twenty grand, they could mount a case against the state. But he felt the state would win out in the end, as Billy was already violent and unstable before he’d been wrongly put on Paxil. I took out a loan against my house – something Muriel truly objected to – and we mounted the case. And we lost. Even on Lithium, Billy was still showing signs of serious mental disturbance. The state had all the cards. The state was granted the right to lock Billy away in that hospital until such a time as they considered him fit for reintegration into society.’

  Is there any chance of that happening? I felt like asking, though I already knew the answer. Again clearly reading my thoughts Richard said:

  ‘But that will not happen anytime soon. Because in addition to his bipolar diagnosis, he was subsequently classified as a dangerous schizophrenic. And now – now – there’s that phone call from the state hospital an hour ago. For the first time in four months he was allowed back in the common living area that is shared by the other male patients on his ward. A fight broke out and he stabbed someone in the throat with a pencil.’

  ‘Is the man all right?’

  ‘The wound was a superficial one, according to the psychiatric head of the unit where Billy is kept. But this means that my son is back in solitary confinement. And the chances of him being let out again in the foreseeable future . . .’