Apt Pupil

22

Ed French, aka ‘Pucker’ French, aka Sneaker Pete and The Ked Man, also aka Rubber Ed French, was in the small and lovely seaside town of San Remo for a guidance counsellors’ convention. It was a waste of time if ever there had been one — all guidance counsellors could ever agree on was not to agree on anything — and he grew bored with the papers, seminars, and discussion periods after a single day. Halfway through the second day, he discovered he was also bored with San Remo, and that of the adjectives small, lovely, and seaside, the key adjective was probably small. Gorgeous views and redwood trees aside, San Remo didn’t have a movie theatre or a bowling alley, and Ed hadn’t wanted to go in the place’s only bar — it had a dirt parking lot filled with pick-up trucks, and most of the pick-ups had Reagan stickers on their rusty bumpers and tailgates. He wasn’t afraid of being picked on, but he hadn’t wanted to spend an evening looking at men in cowboy hats and listening to Loretta Lynn on the jukebox.

So here he was on the third day of a convention which stretched out over an incredible four days; here he was in room 217 of the Holiday Inn, his wife and daughter at home, the TV broken, an unpleasant smell hanging around in the bathroom. There was a swimming pool, but his eczema was so bad this summer that he wouldn’t have been caught dead in a bathing suit. From the shins down he looked like a leper. He had an hour before the next workshop (Helping the Vocally Challenged Child — what they meant was doing something for kids who stuttered or who had cleft palates, but we wouldn’t want to come right out and say that, Christ no, someone might lower our salaries), he had eaten lunch at San Remo’s only restaurant, he didn’t feel like a nap, and the TV’s one station was showing a rerun of Bewitched.

So he sat down with the telephone book and began to flip through it aimlessly, hardly aware of what he was doing, wondering distantly if he knew anyone crazy enough about either small, lovely, or seaside to live in San Remo. He supposed this was what all the bored people in all the Holiday Inns all over the world ended up doing — looking for a forgotten friend or relative to call up on the phone. It was that, Bewitched, or the Gideon Bible. And if you did happen to get hold of somebody, what the hell did you say? ‘Frank! How the hell are you? And by the way, which was it — small, lovely, or seaside?’ Sure. Right Give that man a cigar and set him on fire.

Yet, as he lay on the bed flipping through the thin San Remo white pages and half-scanning the columns, it seemed to him that he did know somebody in San Remo. A book salesman? One of Sondra’s nieces or nephews, of which there were marching battalions? A poker buddy from college? The relative of a student? That seemed to ring a bell, but he couldn’t fine it down any more tightly.

He kept thumbing, and found he was sleepy after all. He had almost dozed off when it came to him and he sat up, wide awake again.

Lord Peter!

They were rerunning those Wimsey stories on PBS just lately — Clouds of Witness, Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors. He and Sondra were hooked. A man named Ian Carmichael played Wimsey, and Sondra was nuts for him. So nuts, in fact, that Ed, who didn’t think Carmichael looked like Lord Peter at all, actually became quite irritated.

‘Sandy, the shape of his face is all wrong. And he’s wearing false teeth, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Poo,’ Sondra had replied airily from the couch where she was curled up. ‘You’re just jealous. He’s so handsome.’

‘Daddy’s jealous, Daddy’s jealous,’ little Norma sang, prancing around the living room in her duck pyjamas.

‘You should have been in bed an hour ago,’ Ed told her, gazing at his daughter with a jaundiced eye. ‘And if I keep noticing you’re here, I’ll probably remember that you aren’t there.’

Little Norma was momentarily abashed. Ed turned back to Sondra.

‘I remember back three or four years ago. I had a kid named Todd Bowden, and his grandfather came in for a conference. Now that guy looked like Wimsey. A very old Wimsey, but the shape of his face was right, and—’

‘Wim-zee, Wim-zee, Dim-zee, Jim-zee,’ little Norma sang. ‘ Wim-zee, Dim-zee, doodle-oodle-ooo-doo—’

‘Shh, both of you,’ Sondra said. ‘I think he’s the most beautiful man.’ Irritating woman!

But hadn’t Todd Bowden’s grandfather retired to San Remo? Sure. Todd had been one of the brightest boys in that year’s ninth grade class. Then, all at once, his grades had gone to hell. The old man had come in, told a familiar tale of marital difficulties, and had persuaded Ed to let the situation alone for a while and see if things didn’t straighten themselves out Ed’s view was that the old laissez-faire bit didn’t work -if you told a teenage kid to root, hog, or die, the kid usually died. But the old man had been almost eerily persuasive (it was the resemblance to Wimsey, perhaps), and Ed had agreed to give Todd to the end of the next Flunk Card period. And damned if Todd hadn’t pulled through. The old man must have gone right through the whole family and really kicked some ass, Ed thought. He looked like the type who not only could do it, but who might derive a certain dour pleasure from it. Then, just two days ago, he had seen Todd’s picture in the paper — he had made the Southern Cal All-Stars in baseball. No mean feat when you considered that about five hundred boys were nominated each spring. He supposed he might never have come up with the grandfather’s name if he hadn’t seen the picture.

He flickered through the white pages more purposefully now, ran his finger down a column of fine type, and there it was. BOWDEN, VICTOR S. 403 Ridge Lane. Ed dialled the number and it rang several times at the other end. He was just about to hang up when an old man answered. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Mr Bowden. Ed French. From Santa Donate Junior High.’

‘Yes?’ Politeness, but no more. Certainly no recognition. Well, the old guy was four years further along (weren’t they all!) and things undoubtedly slipped his mind from time to time.

‘Do you remember me, sir?’

‘Should I?’ Bowden’s voice was cautious, and Ed smiled. The old man forgot things but he didn’t want anybody to know if he could help it His own old man had been that way when his hearing started to go.

‘I was your grandson Todd’s guidance counsellor at S.D J.H.S. I called to congratulate you. He sure tore up the pea-patch when he got to high school, didn’t he? And now he’s All-Conference to top it off. Wow!’

‘Todd!’ The old man said, his voice brightening immediately. ‘Yes, he certainly did a fine job, didn’t he? Second in his class! And the girl who was ahead of him took the business courses.’ A sniff of disdain in the old man’s voice. ‘My son called and offered to take me to Todd’s commencement, but I’m in a wheelchair now. I broke my hip last January. I didn’t want to go in a wheelchair. But I have his graduation picture right in the hall, you bet! Todd’s made his parents very proud. And me, of course.’

‘Yes, I guess we got him over the hump,’ Ed said. He was smiling as he said it, but his smile was a trifle puzzled -somehow Todd’s grandfather didn’t sound the same. But it had been a long time ago, of course.

‘Hump? What hump?’

"That little talk we had. When Todd was having problems with his course-work. Back in ninth.’

‘I’m not following you,’ the old man said slowly. ‘I would never presume to speak for Richard’s son. It would cause trouble… ho-ho, you don’t know how much trouble it would cause. You’ve made a mistake, young fellow.’

‘But—’

‘Some sort of mistake. Got me confused with another student and another grandfather, I imagine.’

Ed was moderately thunderstruck. For one of the few times in his life, he could not think of a single thing to say. If there was confusion, it sure wasn’t on his part.

‘Well,’ Bowden said doubtfully, ‘it was nice of you to call, Mr—’

Ed found his tongue. ‘I’m right here in town, Mr Bowden. It’s a convention. Guidance counsellors. I’ll be done around ten tomorrow morning, after the final paper is read. Could I come around to…’ He consulted the phone book again. ‘… to Ridge Lane and see you for a few minutes?’

‘What in the world for?’

‘Just curiosity, I guess. It’s all water over the dam now. But about four years ago, Todd got himself into a real crack with his grades. They were so bad I had to send a letter home with his report-card requesting a conference with a parent, or, ideally, with both of his parents. What I got was his grandfather, a very pleasant man named Victor Bowden.’

‘But I’ve already told you—’

‘Yes. I know. Just the same, I talked to somebody claiming to be Todd’s grandfather. It doesn’t matter much now, I suppose, but seeing is believing. I’d only take a few minutes of your time. It’s all I can take, because I’m expected home by suppertime.’

Time is all I have,’ Bowden said, a bit ruefully. ‘I’ll be here all day. You’re welcome to stop in.’

Ed thanked him, said goodbye, and hung up. He sat on the end of the bed, staring thoughtfully at the telephone. After a while he got up and took a pack of Phillies Cheroots from the sport coat hanging on the back of the desk chair. He ought to go; there was a workshop, and if he wasn’t there, he would be missed. He lit his Cheroot with a Holiday Inn match and dropped the burnt stub into a Holiday Inn ashtray. He went to the Holiday Inn window and looked blankly out into the Holiday Inn courtyard.

It doesn’t matter much now, he had told Bowden, but it mattered to him. He wasn’t used to being sold a bill of goods by one of his kids and this unexpected news upset him. Technically he supposed it could still turn out to be a case of an old man’s senility, but Victor Bowden hadn’t sounded as if he was drooling in his beard yet And, damn it, he didn’t sound the same.

Had Todd Bowden jobbed him He decided it could have been done. Theoretically, at least. Especially by a bright boy like Todd. He could have jobbed everyone, not just Ed French. He could have forged his mother or father’s name to the Flunk Cards he had been issued during his bad patch. Lots of kids discovered a latent forging ability when they got Flunk Cards. He could have used ink eradicator on his second and third quarter reports, changing the grades up for his parents and then back down again so that his home room teacher wouldn’t notice anything weird if he or she glanced at his card. The double application of eradicator would be visible to someone who was really looking, but home room teachers carried an average of sixty students each. They were lucky if they could get the entire roll called before the first bell, let alone spot-checking returned cards for tampering.

As for Todd’s final class standing, it would have dipped perhaps no more than three points overall — two bad marking periods out of a total of twelve. His other grades had been lopsidedly good enough to make up most of the difference. And how many parents drop by the school to look at the student records kept by the California Department of Education? Especially the parents of a bright student like Todd Bowden?

Frown lines appeared on Ed French’s normally smooth forehead.

It doesn’t matter much now. That was nothing but the truth. Todd’s high school work had been exemplary; there was no way in the world you could fake a 94 average. The boy was going on to Berkeley, the newspaper article had said, and Ed supposed his folks were damned proud — as they had every right to be. More and more it seemed to Ed that there was a vicious downside to American life, a greased skid of opportunism, cut corners, easy drugs, easy sex, a morality that grew cloudier each year. When your kid got through in standout style, parents had a right to be proud.

It doesn’t matter now… but who was his frigging grandfather?

That kept sticking into him. Who, indeed? Had Todd Bowden gone to the local branch office of the Screen Actors’ Guild and hung a notice on the bulletin board? YOUNG MAN IN GRADES TROUBLE NEEDS OLDER MAN, PREF. 70-80 YRS, TO GIVE BOFFO PERFORMANCE AS GRANDFATHER, WILL PAY UNION SCALE? Uh-uh. No way, Jose. And just what sort of adult would have fallen in with such a crazy conspiracy, and for what reason?

Ed French, aka Pucker, aka Rubber Ed, just didn’t know. And because it didn’t really matter, he stubbed out his Cheroot and went to his workshop. But his attention kept wandering.

The next day he drove over to Ridge Lane and had a long talk with Victor Bowden. They discussed grapes; they discussed the retail grocery business and how the big chain stores were pushing the little guys out; they discussed the hostage situation in Iran (that summer everyone discussed the hostage situation in Iran); they discussed the political climate in southern California. Mr Bowden offered Ed a glass of wine. Ed accepted with pleasure. He felt that he needed a glass of wine, even if it was only 10:40 in the morning. Victor Bowden looked as much like Peter Wimsey as a machine gun looks like a shillelagh. Victor Bowden had no trace of the faint accent Ed remembered, and he was quite fat The man who had purported to be Todd’s grandfather had been whip-thin.

Before leaving, Ed told him: ‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention any of this to Mr or Mrs Bowden. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it… and even if there isn’t, it’s all in the past.’

‘Sometimes,’ Bowden said, holding his glass of wine up to the sun and admiring its rich dark colour, ‘the past don’t rest so easy. Why else do people study history?’

Ed smiled uneasily and said nothing.

‘But don’t you worry. I never meddle in Richard’s affairs. And Todd is a good boy. Salutatorian of his class… he must be a good boy. Am I right?’

‘As rain,’ Ed French said heartily, and then asked for another glass of wine.