The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) (9 page)

“You’re a kid who keeps secrets,” he said. This wasn’t a question.

“I am,” I assured him. My cheek brushing the window, I looked at my reflection in the side-view mirror.
I am,
I assured myself.

“Good,” he replied. “Because everyone around here thinks I’m as dumb as monkey nuts. While you can’t half blame them, that ain’t the whole story.”

“I know.”

“I’ve saved money. Near a thousand dollars at this point.”

“That’s a lot.”

“It’s enough.”

Kyle eased off the pedal, finally, and my heart stepped down a couple of rungs.

“What will you do with it?” I asked.

Kyle wiped his face again, and his fingers left red splotches on his cheek. “There will be a hiking trip. Out to the Adirondacks. March, probably, when there’s still tons of potential for snow but people act like it’s spring already. I’ll pack light. Won’t be prepared. That won’t surprise a single joker. Storm will roll in. My tracks will be covered. They’ll find my pack in some half-baked lean-to. Maybe my boots somewhere. Maybe a bloody bandage. God, I don’t know. Something to make them think I was busted up.”

It was now our fourth loop around the block, and the glare in my window made everything outside look like a Polaroid.

“What are you saying?” I whispered.

“I’m saying that sometimes when it seems like a guy is dead … it’s really a guy is starting over.”

No wink, no smile, nothing. He wasn’t kidding. “Can’t a guy start over without … faking?” I asked. “You know, use his money to move away?”

Snapping and peeling with his teeth, Kyle removed a crescent of thumbnail and spat it on the dashboard. “I don’t need this place trying to track me down,” he said. “People can cry a little, remember the good, and forget the rest. Clean slate. It’s better that way.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“At least one person needs to know. You’re a kid who can keep secrets.” When he said it this time, it felt almost like a threat. He stopped the van right in the spot where he’d picked me up.

“I am,” I assured him.

His hand lunged toward me and I flinched, but he was only opening my door. This wasn’t his first time kicking someone out of his van. “They’re bringing him home this afternoon,” he said.

“Good.”

He rolled his eyes. “Life goes on.”

*   *   *

Why me, why me, why me, why me, why me …

Sitting on the toilet, lid down, in a bathroom stall on the second floor of school, I let the lullaby of fate lull me into a stupor. I didn’t volunteer to carry such secrets, and now that they were put upon me, by two different people no less, I was starting to feel the weight. Where was my loyalty? Did I have a responsibility to tell anyone else about these things?

I looked over at the wall.

What are you looking here for? The joke is in your hand!

It was a classic bit of bathroom graffiti, crafted in blue marker above the flimsy aluminum box that dispensed waxy toilet paper. In my backpack, I kept a black Sharpie, always on reserve for doodling on the covers of my binders. I used it to add my own message to the stall.

Screw you Fiona Loomis!

The moment I dotted the exclamation point, I regretted it, and I ransacked the dispenser for paper to wipe the wet ink away. I got most of it, but there was still a faint specter, so I redeployed the Sharpie until the only evidence was a solid black bar.

I’d like to say I don’t know what compelled me to write such a thing, but I had a pretty good idea. I was angry. A little bit at Kyle, for being so honest. More so at Fiona, for being so obtuse. Mostly at myself.

Stories taunted me. Even ones I didn’t believe dared me to see them through to the end. The idea of Aquavania was absurd, but Fiona’s fear seemed so real. I suspected that the end of her tale would reveal the true source of that fear, and I hated her for roping me in, but I hated myself even more for letting her drag me along. Because the tension—the not knowing—was unbearable.

Why can’t someone spoil the ending for me?
I thought. But from my frustrated question came a strange realization. Perhaps … someone … could.

I scribbled a new message.

In the story of Aquavania there is a Riverman and a girl. Who is the Riverman? Is the girl in danger?

My logic went like this: Every boy in the school frequented that stall. It was the farthest from the door and a veritable gallery of graffiti, so if they weren’t there for bathroom emergencies, then they were there for casual reading or, like me, for alone time, to soothe the ant farm of
why me
’s in their veins. On Fiona’s tape, she said that I had “been chosen … out of many fine and distinguished candidates.” So maybe I wasn’t the first boy she had approached. Maybe some of these other “candidates” were my classmates, and they had heard more of the tale.

It was a long shot, but what other shot did I have? My vaguely worded plea was a way to keep Fiona’s secret while possibly discovering if it was a secret worth keeping. I was hoping I could return to the stall tomorrow and see a reply along the lines of,
You’ve been talking to Fiona Loomis, haven’t you? There’s no Riverman. She’s not in danger. She’s messing with you. You’re being tricked.

Being tricked was a happy ending in my book. It meant I could walk away.

*   *   *

I was called to Principal Braugher’s office at the end of the day. Under other circumstances, I might have thought I was being indicted for graffiti, but when I saw the stack of books on her desk, I knew exactly what this was about.

“Mrs. Dwyer regrets not being here to ask you herself,” Braugher said, “but it would be of monumental service if you could bring Charlie his assignments every day until he’s well enough to return.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’d be happy to.”

Next to the books sat a hunk of ceramics that lured me into picking it up. I didn’t ask. I snatched. It was twisted and lumpy, and I wasn’t sure if it was a paperweight or an ashtray or what, but the swirl of the glaze drew me to it. It reminded me of a vortex.

“A gift from my daughter,” Braugher said.

I nodded and stared at the glaze. I had used this stuff in art class before. When applied, it went on white, but when fired in the kiln, it blossomed. I must have been staring at it for too long, because Braugher eventually asked, “Is everything all right, Alistair?”

“Fine. Perfect.” I set the object back on the desk.

“It’s scary, I know. He’ll be okay, though.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I was struck by an urge to cry, to let loose right there in the principal’s office, to confess that I feared for Fiona, for Kyle, for everyone and everything in life, but I swallowed the feeling back down. I was a kid who kept secrets.

“Alistair?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I … You worry, right? About the kids in this school? About them being okay?”

“More than anything. That’s why I do this job.”

Most people liked Principal Braugher. She could be strict, but she could never be accused of not caring. After years on the job, she still showed up in the cafeteria every few days, ordered from the lunch line, and sat among the strays at the long tables. Whenever there was a students-versus-teachers basketball game, she played point guard and dished out assists and words of encouragement. There was even a rumor that she took a salary cut to keep the chess club going after it was removed from the budget. Of course, she never admitted to it, but that only made people suspect it was true.

“I just want everyone to make it through the rest of the year safely,” I told her, grabbing the stack of books. “And next year too.”

Braugher bit her lip and fixed her eyes on mine. “That’s very sweet of you. You do know that you can come talk to me, or one of the counselors, anytime you need to?”

I did know, but I also knew I had made promises. I nodded and I left.

That evening, when I brought the books to Charlie’s house, his mom said the same thing: “That’s very sweet of you.” Only she complemented the words with a hug.

Mrs. Dwyer was a heavy woman, and as she embraced me, I felt the soft terrain of her body. It was comforting, but the longer she held me, the more I thought about something my mom often said:
She doesn’t have control of anything over there.

“How’s he doing?” I asked when Mrs. Dwyer released me from her arms.

“He’s sleeping,” she replied. “But he misses you. Come see him tomorrow?”

“I will,” I said as I climbed onto my bike.

It wasn’t too chilly out, so I pedaled around the block rather than going straight home. The lights were on at Fiona’s house. I hadn’t seen her all day, and I contemplated popping in, but thought better of it. I needed to hear the end of the story. But as maddening as it was, I couldn’t demand answers. Not from Fiona, at least. If she was going to trust me, she needed to reveal things when she was ready.

Sleep that night, when it came, was fitful.

W
EDNESDAY
, O
CTOBER
25

The morning arrived with snow on the ground, almost a foot. A late-October snowfall in Thessaly wasn’t unheard of, but forecasters had only warned of a dusting. The plows certainly weren’t prepared for such an early onslaught.

In the kitchen I found Keri parked by the radio, monitoring the scroll of school delays and closings. It was a tortuous ritual, because Thessaly was always near the end of the list and, God forbid, if its name wasn’t announced …

… all Sutton area schools are closed, all Thessaly schools are closed, Willomac is operating on a two-hour delay …

Keri slapped the counter in triumph. “I’m calling Mandy.”

Before she could reach the phone, it rang. I was the closest, so I answered.

“Get over here. Now.” It was Charlie.

*   *   *

There was an addition on the Dwyer house, a sun-drenched room in the back, where I found Charlie on the couch buried under a silk comforter. A menu screen for a video game lit up the TV on the other side of the room. A controller was resting on the cushion of a La-Z-Boy.

“How about that?” Charlie said. “Snow day on a day I don’t even have to go to school. Them’s the breaks.”

I forced a smile. “You’ve been playing video games?”

Charlie looked at me sideways and held up his bandaged hands. “Can a dolphin play video games?”

“Uh…”

“I got flippers now. So you have to play for me.”

A dragon swooped across the TV screen. “I don’t know this game,” I said.

“Brand-new. Kyle bought it for me. Penance.”

“Penance?” My vocabulary was pretty good for a kid, but Charlie’s was usually a few steps ahead of mine.

“Payment for guilt,” he informed me. “Avoid the same debt, Sir Alistair, by grabbing your sword and fighting for me.” He pointed to the video game controller.

I did as asked, and for the next three hours I continued to follow orders, guiding a swordsman through a world of fire-breathing salamanders and phosphorescent blobs. Charlie’s ability to predict what might come next in the game was uncanny, but my coordination left something to be desired. I couldn’t perform at the level expected, and even though Charlie didn’t insult me, I could hear the annoyance in his voice.

Luckily, when it came time for a bathroom break, Charlie didn’t insist that my hands continue on as surrogates. He called upon his mom for assistance, which gave me a chance to pause the game and stretch my legs by doing lunges near the window. Through the glass I watched a bluebird light-footing it across the sugary snow, and beyond the bird, I saw a flash of neon. I stepped closer and I recognized her.

Fiona, decked out in her bright green jacket, was hunched over in a patch of trees past the clubhouse and the border of Charlie’s yard. She had a stick in her hand and was writing something in the snow. We locked eyes, then she tossed the stick aside and tromped away.

“I remembered I gotta go,” I told Charlie when he returned.

“Why? It’s a snow day. You have until dinner, right?”

“I gotta…”
Shovel the driveway … do some homework … clean my room.
There were any number of things I could have told Charlie, but he looked so pathetic with his wrapped hands, his homemade
Captain Catpoop
T-shirt, and his faded striped pajama bottoms. I didn’t have it in me to lie to him, so I simply said, “I gotta go.”

Before he could milk my conscience, I had my jacket in hand and I was heading through the dining room to the door.

“You promised to help me win,” he called after me.

“I will. I’ll help you win. Another time,” I called back as I stepped out into the snow.

When I reached the patch of trees, Fiona was long gone, but a message remained.

LIBRARY. NOW.

*   *   *

It was a two-mile trudge through the snow and slush to the library, but it was a trudge I knew well. The library wasn’t exactly a second home for me, but it was a warm place on a cold day, a haven for my abundant curiosity.

“Hello, Alistair,” the librarian, Ms. Linqvist, said as I kicked my snowy boots on the entrance mat.

“I’m always impressed when you’re open,” I replied.

In her hand she held a plastic toy duck. Turning a knob on its wing, she wound it up and then set it on her desk. It waddled, gears squealing, until it fell off the edge into a tiny trash can. “No school today,” she said. “The party is obviously in the library.”

The library, obviously, was empty, but it actually wasn’t a surprise that it was open. Ms. Linqvist lived next door, and as long as she could shovel the walkway, she made sure the community had comfy seats, good books, and a windup plastic duck for amusement.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said, handing me a sheet of microfiche film. “A young lady thought you might find this fascinating.”

“What’s on it?”

Ms. Linqvist shifted her attention to a stack of returns that she was placing on a shelf cart. “Your guess is as good as mine. Newspapers, I would think.”

“Is the girl still here?”

Ms. Linqvist shrugged and kept on with her work.