When the World Changed

When the World Changed, Part 20

That afternoon, after classes ended, was the longest and dreariest of Brady's life. The clouds lowered on the campus, not raining, but emitting a constant chilly mist that seemed to seep into everything, inside or out. Mr. Glendon, though happy to see him appear at practice, firmly sent him away. "You don't need to aggravate anything, Conover. Go take it easy for a few days." The walk back to the campus, alone and in street clothes, across the wide fields, hearing the muffled noises of the various tram practices around him, was like a death march.

He threw himself onto his bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to sort out his thoughts. The movement hurt, but he didn't care. He turned Doug's "Love you, man" over and over in his head. It couldn't mean he loved him, not like Brady knew he loved Doug. Could it? It was just another general expression of their friendship (wasn't it?) - a friendship that, though precious to Brady beyond words, was also agonizingly incomplete. He didn't want to be Doug's friend. Not just his friend, anyway. He wanted to be his lover, his other half, his companion, his completion, his life, his dog, his everything. The gap between what Doug felt and what Brady felt was yawning wider every day, and Brady's sense of loss and hopelessness grew with it.

His fears of the DC hearing bubbled amid these thoughts. Mr. McShane was going to be there? What ugly crap would he pull? Threaten to sue the school, or withdraw some big gift that might make the whole place go under? As much as he understood that David had been forced, and probably not easily or without really suffering serious pain, to give Stud Douggie the pictures, he wished that David had held out. I mean I would have, he thought - I think, anyway. He wondered how awful it would have been if Douggie had gone through with it and put it in him - the pain, the shame, the horrible bleeding he'd seen that David had suffered. A dark corner of his soul wondered if he would have liked it, in some way, and that notion shamed him even more. After all, I am a faggot, that's for sure. That's my fate, to be violated and humiliated like that by some nasty ugly guy in some filthy place like the meat trucks where Bill had been assaulted.

That turned him to consider Fieldstone. Why was he coming on to him? Did he really want to fool around with him? Did he want Bill to do it? Could he afford to reject him - for his own sake, for David's? And how could he have his feelings for Doug if he was humping Fieldstone's leg in an empty classroom? God, I'm so fucking sick . . .

David was stronger. He had recognized this subconsciously for a while, but now he saw it clearly. He could handle it all - assholes like the McShanes, being a faggot, the day to day crap at school, his parents being messed up (in what way Brady couldn't quite understand, but the fact was clear enough). Not to mention what had just happened to him. He could never be as strong as David, he knew. He was weak, and scared of the world, not to mention of himself. A total loser. He pressed the hells of his hands into his eyes and drifted miserably off.

He woke to hear David sniffling. He was on his side, facing the wall and away from the rest of the room. David was crying, that was for sure, but there was something else in the room that kept him from turning to face his roommate. He listened, keeping very still.

After several seconds, he heard, "It's all right, David, you didn't do anything wrong. You're a victim in all this. None of this is your fault." David's father's voice

A loud sniffle. "You think that helps? I got, I got hurt, Dad - "

"David, you were raped. There's no other word for it. I'm sorry, but we both need to face that squarely."

"Why the fuck do I always have to face this shit squarely?" David wailed, and he cried again for a couple of minutes. "I don't wanna be like this, Daddy, I don't. I want to be, like, happy, and have fun, and friends -"

"Sounds to me like you have some good friends now." Brady heard Mr. Tanner's jacket crinkle softly as he gestured with one arm.

David sighed. "Brady. He's so sweet, and he cares a lot. He's so dumb about it all, though, and he's got his own crap to deal with."

"We all have our own crap to deal with," his father answered. "You think you're unique in that? Or Brady, for that matter?"

"Ssshh, don't wake him up," David scolded. "I don't wanna run from this, Dad, I really don't. But staying here - I dunno if I can face it all, day after day."

"Your friends covered pretty well for you, it sounds like."

"Yeah, and how long do you think a bullshit story like that'll hold up? I mean c'mon, Dad, it's nuts. Me beating up Stud Douggie? I'm lucky I still have any teeth."

"You better, we spent a lot on those braces."

David snorted. "Will you stop trying to make this all seem like it's OK and not serious?"

"I'm not doing anything like that. It's not OK, and it is serious. But it's something in life that happens. Bad things happen. And they're seldom our own fault, or at least entirely our own fault. So what do we do when they do happen - crawl off and hide, or deal with it and move on? David, the whole world's not big enough for you to hide from this. You don't like it, and I know it's awful, and I'd do anything to help you past what's happened. I'd give - I'd give anything. But you have to confront it, address it, and then move on. If you hide from it, you'll just wind up confronting it again - maybe in a month, or a year, or twenty years - and by then it'll be so big and awful a monster there inside your head that you'll never be able to deal with it. I don't want you to accept it as normal or OK, but to face it squarely. Don't let it eat you up, or control you. And if you don't face it now, it'll do all that, and more."

"I've spoken to Leeds, and Storeman, and Mr. Billips -" David snorted again, "Come on, now, you have no idea how upset he is over what happened. It's probably going to get him fired, for one thing, and beyond that he's horrified that something like this could happen at all, much less in his hall. He's tremendously guilty, David. He cried his fair share talking to me earlier this afternoon."

"Billips???"

"Surprised?"

"Well, I mean . . . It's just - I never thought -"

"You think you were the only person traumatized last night? That prefect, Billips, Mr. Frazier - and of course Brady. I have a feeling from what I've heard that Ian McShane is, too."

"Yeah right."

"You'd be surprised, David."

"Ian's just scared that I'll say something about the pictures, and what I saw." He sighed. "Like I can do that. I don't have the Goddam pictures any more. If I say anything about 'em they'll all think I'm nuts or out to just like smear them or something."

David's father sighed. "Just tell the truth, David. Just confront it all, and confront them. You'll do fine, OK?" The sound of them embracing, and of David crying softly again, filled the room.

"They'll say I made it all up, Dad," David was sniffling, his voice muffled. "Without them I can't show any reason why they'd do this to me."

"It'll be all right, David, if that comes up. Just tell the truth."

David sighed. "The truth is so much bullshit right now, Dad."

There was a loud knock, which startled Brady. He jerked upright, causing a sudden flash of pain. He let out a loud grunt and fell back onto his bed, which only caused another stab. He saw David move to answer the door from the corner of his eye, as David's father stepped over to his bed.

"You OK there Brady?"

"Yes, sir," he said through gritted teeth.

"Sorry that woke you."

"Oh, um, it - it's OK, I shouldn't sleep now anyway."

David's father glanced up, with Brady's eyes following. Mr. Billips stood in the doorway, looking extremely uncomfortable. He clasped his hands behind his back, formally. "I, um, I needed to tell David, and Brady, that the DC hearing will take place tonight at 7:30 in Dr. Leeds' office. Mr. Tanner, you of course are also invited." He turned quickly and left at a half trot.

David turned from the door to face Brady. "So, you heard?"

"Yeah." He felt a bit guilty at having eavesdropped, and found it embarrassing to make eye contact with David. "Uh, well Taber, he said it'd be tonight."

"Right. So did Storeman, to me."

Brady tried to roll out of bed without causing himself any more pain. It was a slow and careful process. "Well, I - I guess it's better to get it over with, you know?"

"Right," David said. "Can't wait."

Brady glanced nervously at David, then his father. "I, uh, I suppose I should head out here, give you guys some time and all."

"I'd like you to stay, for a little bit at least, Brady," David's father said with a warm smile. Brady felt comforted by that smile, but also a bit nervous, given what David's father apparently knew about him. "I'd like to hear how you're doing," David's father added, and Brady's trepidation rose.

"Dad, he doesn't need you to play shrink with him. Not now, OK?"

David's father chuckled. "If David had his way, I'd never 'play shrink' with anybody. It embarrasses him a bit, I think." "

"Dad, please - "

"But I just want to tell you, Brady, that I'm very grateful to you for being such a good friend to David. I know you have your own rough patches. That's actually not so unusual at a place like this. It's not easy leaving home at your age and being thrown into all this craziness. And," he paused, a tolerant smile playing about his lips, "I understand you've been trying to sort some things out for yourself."

Brady's cheeks reddened. "I, uh, I - I really wish David hadn't -"

"Don't blame him. Blame me. I can be, well, persistent, when I want to be -" David snorted at this comment, "And I have some experience in helping young people address these sorts of things."

"Jesus, Dad, , . . . " David groaned.

David's father smiled at his son, then turned back to Brady. "Is this making you too uncomfortable?"

"I - well, yeah, sort of. I mean, it - it's private, and all. I don't - I'm really not -"

"No, you're not. I know." Did he? Did he really? "And as for being uncomfortable, is that because you're worried I might tell someone?"

Brady couldn't keep eye contact. "Yes," he whispered. "It's - I, I'm ashamed."

"Don't be. And as for my telling anyone else, ever, well, do you know that what you tell a psychiatrist is just as sacred as what you tell a priest or a lawyer? If you tell me something when I'm acting as your psychiatrist, I can't tell anybody. Ever. Not even if they put me in jail. No one else knows the things people tell me. So the solution for you is pretty easy. Just tell me that I'm acting as your psychiatrist, and my lips are sealed." He smiled again.

It all seemed so easy and reasonable, yet Brady held back. The idea of telling anyone everything - what he felt, how he thought - was the scariest thing he could imagine. No one knew any of that. If he told, David's father would realize how sick and fucked up he was. He'd have to tell somebody about it all - Leeds, or his mom -and then Brady knew they'd put him in a nut house or something. He felt like he belonged in one enough already. He didn't need to make it come true.

"You already almost lost it once, son," David's father said quietly. His face now was grave with concern. "I know about the roof." Brady looked up wildly, embarrassed, angry, ashamed, frightened. "You can't bottle it all up. Next time David will sleep sounder, and you'll jump, or fall. Doesn't really make any difference which it turns out to be, does it?" Brady shook his head microscopically. "Please let me help prevent that, OK?"

Brady wanted to bury his face in his hands, to melt into the wall and vanish. He was laid bare, as if before the whole world. "Bray," David said, "you do need it, man. It'll be good for you."

Brady looked at David, blinking rapidly to keep his eyes clear. "But you keep saying how much you hate it." He regretted saying it as soon as he did so - he wondered if David's father would be mad.

Instead, David's father laughed, and David himself grinned. "Yeah, I do, cuz it's my Dad. Fer Chrrissake, I don't wanna tell all this stuff to my dad! Imagine you telling your mom, or your brothers." Brady nodded ; that made sense. "Dad's not a personal relation to you, so it'll actually be better for you. Better than it is for me anyway."

"Is it so bad that I'm concerned with you? About you?" David's father was amused, but clearly a bit put off as well as he looked at his son.

"You're my dad," David answered with a raised voice. "I don't wanna get quizzed by you on what I fantasize about when I jerk off, OK?"

"Do you want me to have one of my friends take the therapist role?"

"No!!!" David shouted. "I don't want it to have anything to do with you, OK? I just wanna be left alone, and if I need to talk to somebody let me do it myself. I do know how to judge if a shrink's good, you know. I got trained at that."

David's father started to answer, but checked himself. "All right we can have this discussion another time." He turned back to Brady. "For now, anyway, Brady: do you want me to listen, to whatever you feel comfortable telling me?"

Putting it that way made it better. He could control what he told and held back. Besides, it'd get the guy to stop bugging him. "OK," Brady said quietly.

David's father leaned back, beaming. "There, see? Not so hard at all. Now I can't tell anybody. Problem solved!"

Another knock at the door startled Brady. He stood quickly, and was met by pain both from his ribs and from his butt here he'd been hit. He wondered idly if he was bleeding again. He opened the door as Mr. Billips started knocking again, resulting in Mr. Billips nearly tumbling into the room.

"Conover," Mr. Billips said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him, "your mother is in my apartment. She wants to see you." He was clearly nervous about this development. Brady felt a rush of fear. "Dean Storeman told her that you'd been hurt at practice, and that there'd been a slight, well, altercation, with another boy. He didn't go into anything more specific, or about any of the, the other things, that have happened." He nodded, cheeks flushed, toward David. "I, I think it's safe to say that the entire School would appreciate some discretion on your part when you talk to her."

"So don't tell about David?" Brady asked, suddenly angry. The bastards, they're going to cover it up.

Mr. Billips seemed to wither under Brady's angry stare. "I - I think it's reasonable to say that David was beaten up, and that you went to defend him. And, and that the faculty intervened before anything happened."

"So about half the truth?" Brady snapped.

"Bray, I don't want to broadcast this, you know?" David interjected. "I mean it's not any different from what kids are saying around here, right?"

Brady dropped his eyes to the floor, deflated. "I guess," he whispered. "Just one more lie to talk about with my shrink, I guess, right?"

David's father smiled ruefully. "Think of it as a defense mechanism, Brady, We all use it."

Brady's mother was pale, standing with her back to the door, staring out the window. She turned when Brady stepped into the room. There was an uncomfortable few seconds of silence.

"Uh, hi, Mom."

He face twisted slightly, and she was embracing him an instant later, her hand stroking his hair. "Oh doll baby, are you all right? What happened to you?"

She was hugging him so tightly around his chest that it was hurting, but he didn't want to show it. He pulled back, smiling as best he could, and shrugged. "I'm fine. I just got, you know, hit. And it cracked a couple pf ribes. It's not a big deal, I'm gonna be fine." Her face showed no relief. "Do they have to operate, or put you in a cast or anything like that?"

"No, of course not, Mom. It's not even really broken. I -" he tried to remember what Dr. Fishbein had told him "- it's like, the ribs, they move, when you breathe and all, so even a little crack or anything like that can hurt. So I just have these Ace bandage things I wrap myself up in. No big deal." He decided to try a little humor. "David says he's wrapping me up like King Tut when he helps me out."

His mother allowed herself a small smile at that, while reaching gingerly to touch his right side. She felt the bandages. "You didn't get cut?"

"No, Mom, I just got hit. The guy's helmet came in under my arm while I was reaching up. And - and I got mad at him, for doing that. That's all, OK?" He omitted any fuller description of the cheap shot. "It can happen. Trent'll tell you that."

She frowned. "This is the part of you three playing football I hate," she sighed. "The getting hurt."

"It's really not a big deal, Mom."

"Your brothers used to tell me the same thing," she said with another sigh. She stepped back and sat on a desk chair. She made a small show of searching her purse for a Kleenez. "Well, your hall teacher here - Mr. Billips - says you'll be fine, and so did Mr. Leeds."

"Dr. Leeds," Brady corrected her without thinking. Wait, he thought - she spoke to Leeds?

"Doctor. Sorry. He's not a doctor doctor, so it seems a bit silly, doesn't it?"

Brady had never thought about it that way. "I - uh, well, it, it's just, I guess, a term of respect and all. You know. I mean he's Headmaster, right?"

His mother was quietly wiping her nose. "I suppose," she said. "How is David? And how is Doug? It was so nice to have him last weekend."

Jesus, Brady thought, last weekend. An eon ago. "They - they're both fine. David -" he realized he shouldn't be mentioning that David's father was down the hall; it might raise a lot of ugly issues. "David, um, he's OK. Doug is out at practice. In the rain. I bet he's soaked by now." He hoped he could steer things that way. "Was the drive over bad?"

They spoke for several more minutes, each carefully edging around their respective fears. It was the oddest conversation Brady had ever had with her. He was used to being so easy and open when he talked to her, but now secrets upon secrets lurked just behind every comment or casual reference. It felt exhausting. His side began to throb, and his buttocks as well. He was wincing as he spoke, without realizing it.

"Oh, doll baby, I hate to see you hurting like this," she whispered uin a shaky voice. "You must be so tired."

She pegged, he realized. He was drained. "I'm OK, Mom," he mumbled, trying to keep his composure. "I - I'll sleep good tonight - better anyway - and, and it'll be fine. I'll be fine, OK?"

She stood, her eyes shiny but her expression firm. "Boys. I always have to deal with boys." She hugged him gently, her hand straying through his hair, then stepped back. "I have a whole bag of Tastykakes in the car. Do you want to help me bring them in?" Her smile was warm, but Brady knew it was just a fa‡ade.

"Sure," he answered. The fa‡ade was just what he wanted right then. Keep it superficial. "You're making me the most popular guy around!"

David and his father were gone when he got back to his room with the bag of Tastykakes. He set it on his desk, pulled out a package of cream filled cupcakes and sat stiffly , savoring the drools of icing that ran down the sides before biting into the cakes themselves. Only way to eat Tastykakes, he thought. My most hallowed tradition.

It was darkening as he walked alone to dinner. The other guys on the team, he knew, would come straight from the gym after showering. He flopped down onto a huge couch of dark red leather in the foyer,, trying to find a comfortable position, and closed his eyes. The TV in the Fireplace Room toward the back, where Edgar Bevins' plaque hung on a side wall along with the names of all the team captains carved into the wood paneling, was droning on with a newscast. "In the central highlands of South Viet Nam, today, US forces carried out a series of lightning air and ground strikes aimed at disrupting traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail," Walter Cronkite was intoning. "Casualties were said to be light, and official reports estimated that over a thousand Viet Cong had been killed or taken prisoner. General William Westmoreland issued a statement claiming that such operations held the promise of breaking resistance to the South Vietnamese government 'within weeks or months', so long as sufficient pressure could be consistently applied."

Central highlands, Brady thought. Not Hal. He'd down around Tay Ninh, closer to Saigon and the Delta. He mapped the little country in his head, estimating distances. No, no, he's safe from that one. But how safe?

"In the meantime, official Washington is bracing for what it feared to be a violent protest this weekend, as thousands of demonstrators plan to surround the Pentagon to protest against the war. Radical Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman boasts that they will make the building levitate by the power of their energy,' Cronkite noted with a barely suppressed sneer. "White House sources indicate that the military will be out in full force to suppress any violence of threat to America's military headquarters."

Bill Fieldstone strode from the TV room, muttering angrily under his breath. He saw Brady, immediately brightened, and dropped onto the other end of the couch. His cheeks were red and his hair visibly damp; he'd obviously just come from the gym after cross country practice himself. He had a round button pinned to his lapel, light blue, with a white circle with a vertical line through it, and diagonal lines out from the line in the middle of the circle to the lower edges. Brady tried to make some sense of it. "Is that some, like, semaphore thing?" He tried to avoid eye contact.

Bill glanced down at his lapel and laughed. "No, it's the peace sign. Haven't you seen it before?" Brady shook his head. "It's what the peace movement uses as its symbol, sort of. It actually is from semaphore, though - good catch. Some English guy designed it for a disarmament group over there a few years ago. It's sort of taking hold here now."

Brady nodded. "So you're like against the war and all?"

"Aren't you?" Bill answered in a suddenly challenging tone. "It's a fucking obscenity, Brady. We're killing all these people - not just our own guys, but thousands of people - and for what?"

"Well, I mean, aren't they Commies and stuff?" He really didn't want to have this sort of conversation.

"They're fucking villagers walking behind mule plows, what do they know from Communism?" Bill snorted. "It's their country, Brady, if they want Ho or whoever to lead it, that's not our place to horn in, you know?"

"They wouldn't send the troops over there for no reason," Brady protested, though what that reason might be eluded him. "I mean, my brother's over there now. He's not there for no reason. There - there has to be a reason."

Bill's face softened. "I forgot. Sorry." The idea of Bill Fieldstone apologizing was so extraordinary to Brady that he stared openly at Bill for a moment. His eyes were suddenly soft, deep, and very attractive. The high color of his flushed cheeks, the tilt of his smooth jaw, the otterlike sheen of his wet hair, were entrancing. His red lips opened softly. "I know your brother must be an amazing guy, Brady."

Brady swallowed. "He - he was like fifteen when my dad died. He kept us together. He worked after school till like midnight all the time, and three jobs in the summer." He'd never told anyone at School any of this, not even David. "He'd get mad at things, sometimes, for like no reason - really like breaking things mad. He'd laugh it off a minute later - we all would - but, I was almost scared of him, sometimes. Of him getting mad. I - I hope they don't get him mad, over there. It'd be really scary. "

Bill's hand was soft on the back of his neck. "He's too good a guy to have Johnson and all those assholes use him like this, Brady," he said in a voice so uncharacteristically soft it felt like a caress. "They're using him, and all the other troops, and they're getting good people killed. It's obscene. Your brother can't stop it. He has to obey, do what he's told, all that military shit. But we don't. We can fight for them. For him. We can fight to make it stop. You can fight for your brother." He yanked the pin off his lapel and set it in Brady's hand. "Think about it. Wear it. Fight for your brother, for an end to the war. Fight for peace."

Brady looked at the pin. "Fight for peace? Isn't that kind of, you know, contradictory?"

Bill laughed and stood up, his hand sliding up the back of Brady's head as he did so, the fingers tousling his hair. "You know what I mean. Fight like Dr. King fights. Make them face their own lies. Shame them."

"I'm not ashamed of Hal. I'm proud of him."

"You should be. But you're scared for him, too, right?" Brady had no answer. "So multiply that by how many hundred thousand families that have guys over there too. They're not ashamed either. They just want the troops home, and safe." He leaned down. "We can change the whole world, Brady. All of us, together. If we all speak out together, nobody can stop us. That's what Dr. King says. And the good guys, like Fullbright and Gene McCarthy. You watch, McCarthy's going to go after Johnson, and then we can all speak out." He pointed to the button. "But we have to speak, for real, Conover. Silence is consent." He raised his eyebrows, looked hard a Brady for a moment, then walked off toward the stairs.

Brady sat, holding the button in his hand, for several minutes, until he heard Evan, Alan Black, and Doug's voices coming down the corridor. He stood up (with some struggle - the couch was deep and yielding, and his ability to push upward without hurting was limited). He stuck the button into his jacket pocket as his teammates rounded the corner, damp from the weather and their showers, glowing from the workout they'd just had. They were all beautiful, and none more than Doug. His smile, as he caught sight of Brady, made Brady want to leap for joy, all worries about Hal and the war and stopping it washed away in an instant.

"Young stallions!" Brady said in a loud and formal tone, his eye twinkling. "You have arrived!"

Alan, who was the quickest to take up any joke, immediately threw his arms open. "Wounded comrade!!!" he cried. "You live!"

Brady made a show of trying to twist to one side. "You call this shit living?"

"You want shit, we're gonna eat it in a minute," Evan noted. "I saw the menu - they got Congo bars for dessert tonight." A general groan ensued - Congo bars was the boy's name for a bricklike substance with supposed chocolate cake swirls in it that the dining hall staff periodically prepared - "mined," it was popularly said - and served for dessert. The one funny thing Cureton had ever done as a monitor was the time he had taken a Congo bar back to Linsley and used it to drive a small nail into the wall.

Doug fell in beside Brady as they mounted the stairs. "You OK?"

"Yeah. This afternoon - it was weird, with no practice and all. I wish Glendon had let me stay."

Doug shook his head. "You didn't miss much. The weather sucked, we did nothing but conditioning shit. I'd have stayed inside in a second rather than do it."

But I missed you, Brady thought briefly. He managed a smile. "Well, I'll be back soon enough, I guess."

"I hope so. Alan's playing tight end now with you out, and he's really not good at it. He's better at corner."

The idea of someone else playing Brady's position did little to improve his mood. He dropped his head and sunk wordlessly to his table.

Mr. Collquit, who taught public speaking and debate, and also directed the school plays, was the Table master. He was young looking, cartoonishly thin, and prone to fashion errors like the screaming plaid sports jacket he had on this evening. "Mr. Conover," his voice rolled across the table, "glad you could join us tonight. You feeling all right?"

"Yes, sir, thanks you."

"Good. I'm sure you'll be glad to get everything over with tonight."

Brady winced. That was the last subject he wanted to discuss. "Is DC going tonight?" someone at the table asked, and in seconds Brady was being bombarded with questions, advice, tales real and imagined of past disciplinary hearings and the horrors that had occurred. He kept trying to change the subject to no avail. For his part, Mr. Collquit watched Brady with a sorrowful apologetic look. He realized what he'd done.

The questions, and questioners, pursued Brady out of the dining hall after dinner. Brady noticed that David was nowhere to be seen, and worried a bit. Evan, Dunc, Alan, Doug, and Vic Stenkowski formed the now usual ring around Brady to fend off unwanted attention, and they strode back to the dorm in formation.

\

Brady paced his room, worrying. David was still missing. Doug sat silently on Brady's bed, propped back on his elbows, ands watched Brady. "It's at 7:30. You don't think he like ran away, do you?"

Doug shook his head. "He'll be here. Probably got dinner with his dad. He got a decent meal, at least."

A few minutes later, David and his father appeared. David's father now had a thin briefcase in hand. After he was introduced to Doug, he sat at David's desk and smile reassuringly. "You boys all set?"

Brady didn't want to answer directly ,and this acknowledge the situation. "So, um, where were you guys anyway? David's gonna get stung for missing dinner."

"No worries," David's father said calmly. "I checked him out this afternoon with Dean Storeman. We went over to Princeton, to, um, clear up a few details." He glanced at his son, whose cheeks shone brightly. David clearly didn't want this line of conversation to continue. "And we had a nice dinner there, at a great little pizza place I know. Amazing it's still there, too - it opened my sophomore year. That was pretty exotic stuff for us WASP Princeton boys back then, you know - pizza. Living the wild life." He began a long story about his college days, which soon moved seamlessly into another story, and another. The boys listened politely but absently, their own minds elsewhere.

It seemed that no time at all had passed when a brisk rap on the room door startled them all. Mr. Taber smiled thinly . "Time to go, gentlemen." He nodded at David's father. "David,"

"Hello Francis. Good to see you again."

Boys all down the hall peered around half closed doors as they walked in a group to the stairs. David's father put a reassuring hand on Brady's shoulder, but Brady politely shrugged it off. He'd always faced things alone, he wasn't going to start leaning on anyone now. Not for anything. He would handle it himself, and not burden anyone with his private fears. He was angry at having opened himself up to Fieldstone, even in so small a way. He would handle it himself. I just wish, he thought as they strode along the sidewalk toward Leeds' office, that this didn't feel so much like the last mile.