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By Root 337 0

of the narrow front porch searched the face of the house, throwing their light across its bays and shutters and dormers, riddling it with odd shadows. The harsh floodlights seemed to be there not to illuminate so much as to identify, to mark the Gaskells’ house to passersby as one that had an infamous history, or was slated for imminent destruction. The wet wind blew through the branches of the pair of ancient apple trees in the front yard and filled the air with flowing scarves and snowdrifts of white petals. After a moment, I noticed that in an upstairs window a light was still dimly burning, and as I looked up something passed across the window blind. It was the window of Sara and Walter’s bedroom; they were still awake. I could go in with Q., right now, and tell them about the burden I was carrying around in the trunk of my car.

“See you tomorrow,” said Q., as he negotiated his way out of his safety belt. He worked the handle, and then pushed open the door with the toe of his Wallabee shoe. Wisely and with an air of long experience he took a moment to locate the ground before he tried to stand on it.

“Take it easy, now.” Crabtree slid across the backseat and climbed out of the car before Q. could slam the door on him. He shook Q.’s hand, steadying him a little as he did so, then got in beside me.

“I’m looking forward to your talk tomorrow, Terry.” Q. searched his pockets for a moment, a determined look on his face. His shirt was untucked, and the long thin strands of hair that he combed over his bald scalp were all standing on end, and I saw that in the course of the evening he had somehow managed to lose one of the temple pieces of his eyeglasses. When at last he found the key Sara must have given him, he looked so happy—so pleased with himself—that I had to turn away. I didn’t look back at the house until he was already inside it.

“His old doppelgänger must be feeling pretty good about things right now,” I said as we drove away. Crabtree said nothing. “What?” I asked him. “Come on, buddy. Don’t do this. Talk. What’s the matter?”

“Don’t you know?”

“You’re pissed off at me because I wouldn’t let you mess with poor James Leer.”

“Like it was any of your business.”

“You’re getting greedy, man,” I told him. “Wasn’t Miss Sloviak enough for one night?”

Crabtree repeated his earlier, anatomically impossible request of me. He had nothing further to add.

“Okay, look, I’m sorry,” I said, to no effect. I made a few more halfhearted attempts to apologize, then let it drop, and we drove on in silence. I started thinking all kinds of maudlin thoughts, about things like Doctor Dee’s empty food dish, and his rubber pork chop, and the length of leash chain hanging, forever slack now, from a bent nail in the pantry. Without knowing exactly how, I found myself, ten minutes later, in the service driveway alongside Thaw Hall, putting the car in park.

“Wait here,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where would I go?” said Crabtree.

Yes, it was my lucky night. As I came around the side of the building to the front doors, I saw that the janitor was still at work, getting Thaw Hall ready for tomorrow’s busy schedule of exciting WordFest events. He was a tall, stooped, shaggy-haired white kid, dressed in a blue jumpsuit, dragging a vacuum cleaner back and forth behind him across the carpet of the lobby, with a kind of dazed industriousness, like a paperboy towing a wagon full of newsprint. When I rapped on the glass he seemed to recognize me, and I wondered if he could possibly have been a student of mine.

“Traxler,” he said, as he let me into the hall. “Sam. I had you in my freshman year. Then I dropped out.”

“I hope it wasn’t my fault,” I said.

“It wasn’t,” said Sam Traxler. I hadn’t expected him to take me seriously. I wished I could remember who he was. “Anyway, I’m in this band now. We’re starting to play out a little. We’re starting to make a little cash.”

“Sam,” I said, jerking a thumb toward the doors of the auditorium. “Did you already clean up in there?”

“Yep. Hey, did you lose a knapsack, Professor Tripp?”

He had it