And amid our straightforward transaction, out of nowhere, with no preamble, but clearly because she wanted us to know, she confirmed my original deduction: “I tol’ them to leave you alls alone, you know. And they did too, mostly. But they couldn’t leave that one boy, they said. They tol’ me they just couldn’t leave that one boy. And I can’t control them.” She shrugged. “Ain’t nobody can.”
There is no understanding.
Knife in one hand. French horn in the other.
That is how he continued to walk Edgewood for the rest of the semester.
Not quite the same happy, cheerful Midwesterner. Never again.
Now taking that knife, a little bit of the streets of Edgewood, with him everywhere he walked. Just like his French horn.
Don’t mess with Lionel.
Part III
Death or Glory
Innovative Methods
by Alice Mattison
Lighthouse Point Park
A cloud obscured the sun as we rode down the shadowed driveway into the park. The staff ushered the kids off the bus, watching to make sure nobody strayed. Wind blew across Long Island Sound. The kids looked smaller here than inside the residence, though some were almost adults. The jagged line of teenagers moved toward the massive old stone lighthouse above the rocky beach, the restored carousel, and the pavilion with its picnic tables.
We let them hang out on the stony shore before lunch, waving them off the battered wooden fishing pier, which was posted with Danger signs. It was too cold for swimming. The water was gray, its surface broken by wind. Some kids didn’t go near the water, but others tried to see how close they could get without wetting their shoes, and ran back as the water slid forward.
I zipped up my windbreaker and pulled the sleeves over my hands. I’d been working as a clinician at the residence for a little less than a year, and this was my first picnic. I usually saw the kids one at a time for psychological testing and counseling, and some didn’t recognize me here. Maybe I looked different — they certainly did. I hadn’t known that Luis owned a Yankees jacket, that laconic Tiffany had a loud voice and spoke in obscenities.
We distributed lunch in the pavilion. Gulls wheeled and descended. Above the woods beyond the parking lot, two hawks circled.
Next the kids would ride the carousel, and after that, I’d been told, Dr. Frank always offered boat rides. The kids couldn’t learn Frank Gillingshurst’s last name, and by analogy some called me Dr. Jennifer, though I’m an MSW. Dr. Frank had driven his black pickup, with his boat on a trailer, and parked in a lot near the water. A staff member would go along on each boat ride, and others would keep an eye on those waiting on land. Years ago, a fifteen-year-old had run away from the picnic and was picked up by the police after hitchhiking halfway across Connecticut.
As I ate my apple, Dr. Frank strode toward the trash can and opened his big, muscular hand above it, releasing the remains of his lunch. He walked away without looking back; a napkin floated to the ground. He was a well-built white man with thick eyebrows. He was somewhat famous: Frank Gillingshurst, early in his career, had become a leading practitioner of an innovative form of child therapy involving unusual informality between therapist and client, and sometimes bluntness on the part of the therapist. He’d published a book, which I’d read. It made me uncomfortable, though I couldn’t quite say why.
Dr. Frank climbed into his truck. The black pickup with the boat trailer rolled out of the lot, the slim white speedboat large and anomalous on land. The truck descended a sloping gravel road to the boat launch below, then turned and backed slowly toward the water. Dr. Frank got out and did something to the white boat. He returned to the truck, backed up a little farther, then climbed out again. A girl said she needed the bathroom, and I accompanied her. When I returned, Dr. Frank had eased the boat into the water, where it rocked slightly. The anchor, a coffee can filled with concrete, lay on the shore, and the truck was on its way back to the parking lot. So far that day, he had not acknowledged my presence.
Dr. Frank was the only member of our party, resident or staff member, who didn’t ride the carousel. We had full use of it for an hour. Apart from one or two other supervised groups, the park was empty.
I rode a black horse that went up and down. The happy, tinny music was — paradoxically — sad. As a child, I loved and feared carousels. This one exhilarated me, and it made me forget what was going on in my life. Frank stood staring, and each time I circled I saw his gaze, his thick pale eyebrows. When I stepped off the platform, I stumbled.
He looked at me at last. Okay, Jen?
A little dizzy, I said. Your turn.
I’m good, he said. The yearning music started up once more. The horses rose up and plunged down, their graceful legs bent forever, seeming taut with ungratified desire as they circled within the wooden shell, which looked as if a strong wind might blow it down.
We shouldn’t have let him come, Frank said.
Who? I said, though I knew.
Gavin. He hasn’t earned a picnic.
The picnic isn’t something they earn, I said.
Oh, he would have understood. Then he said, Diane overruled me.
Diane was the director, now circling and waving, rising and descending on a white horse with brown spots. She smiled broadly, her big square glasses glittering. Her straightened hair held its shape, and she wore a ruffled blouse under her pantsuit.
I tried to pick Gavin out of the group revolving past me. We didn’t fill much of the carousel, and the kids were lonely figures here and there. Gavin was a stocky, moody, light-skinned boy with a big forehead, now astride a brown horse that didn’t go up and down. I wasn’t his therapist but I knew him — a boy with a serious diagnosis who’d been thrown out of several schools for fighting, a couple of times with a knife. The first time I saw him was at a staff meeting at which Frank explained some of his theories. Then Gavin was invited in, and he spoke in a loud, clear voice about an abusive father, about trouble with the police, about anger he couldn’t control — until now, because Dr. Frank helped him.
Gavin was not one of those who came forward when boat rides were offered. There was a little shoving, as half a dozen vied to be in the first group. The wind had picked up. I managed not to be the assisting adult on any of the rides. Some children wandered off down the beach, throwing rocks into the sea, pretending to throw them at each other. Some circled the locked lighthouse.
Only two kids fit into the boat along with Frank and a staff member, so even though some didn’t go, the rides took time. The motor was loud, and the boat leaned on its side and swung in reckless — or seemingly reckless — arcs through the gray water, beyond which West Haven and the taller buildings of New Haven were visible in the distance under the gray sky. The kids screamed as spray pelted them, and the wake started up curls of foam that broke on the shore with a bit of a crash. The first ride made some waiting kids decide not to try it, but others stepped forward.
So there was some confusion about who had been in the boat and who had not, how many kids had wandered off along the shore with the shift supervisor and her assistant. I was annoyed at how long it all took. I wanted coffee, but the concession stand at some distance along the beach was closed for the season. It started to rain. Diane — her hair now slightly less neat — climbed out of the boat, waved an arm, and called, Okay, enough! Everybody back to the bus!