“And please,” Mrs. Dawson added, “tell us about the food. I want to know what a New Yorker eats.”
Even Manuel Paz looked on with a grin as Charlie obliged the teachers’ questions, extolling a New York existence substantially more glamorous than his own. He described a successful young writer, the object of a glut of professional and romantic attentions. Playing the part of hometown hero, Charlie looked upon those women’s heavily blushered, wetly lipsticked faces as if they were some kind of authentic article he had forgotten.
“So what is it you are working on up there now?” asked the pleasantly wrinkled Mrs. Henderson.
“Actually,” Charlie said, “I’m trying to write something about all of this. Oliver. Our town. The whole story.”
The room fell silent as Charlie pushed around a limp white mushroom.
“Wow,” Mrs. Schumacher said after a time. “I don’t know how you could bear to think about it every day. Must be a brave boy.”
Charlie shrugged. “Writing things down, writing it all out, it’s about the only way I can have some sense of control in this world. Though, of course, I know it’s likely an illusion.”
Doyle Dixon looked at him pityingly, pressing his lips together.
“Actually,” Charlie said, “while we’re on the topic, I do have a few questions I’d like to ask.”
Charlie strained to face Manuel Paz, feeling profoundly fraudulent. Big hat, no cattle, an old Texan like Manuel would say. “Really?” Manuel asked. “Like an interview? You gonna make me famous?”
“Hardly. But it’s hard to imagine telling Oliver’s story without you in it. I mean, you are definitely a character in this. An honest-to-goodness Texas Ranger.”
“Har. Can’t argue with that,” Manuel said.
“How does a person even become a Ranger in the first place?”
An awkward moment ensued, Charlie’s biographical question disrupting the chatty flow over Doyle’s table. But Manuel just tipped back in his chair, crossed his boots, striking the atavistic Texan storytelling posture, an old man recalling youthful days by a fire at dusk. “We Rangers like to say it’s a calling, like the priesthood or something, though I’ve come to suspect that we all just watched too many episodes of Gunsmoke as boys.” Manuel then offered a short version of his own story, telling the assembled brunchers how joining the Texas Rangers, the legendary band of dragoons that had kept safe—from invasion, thievery, and the maraudings of bandits—the West Texan expanse, now struck him as a childish, ridiculous dream. “People want drugs,” Manuel said. “The Latinos want a better life in America. I’m just the rule keeper. My job is to enforce the law insisted upon by the hundreds of millions to the north, who couldn’t know the first thing about the truth of life down here on the border. Hardly more than a glorified paper pusher.”
Manuel frowned, his whole bad story written in his face. Over the years, as November fifteenth had become just more waterlogged jetsam deposited by the ghastly tide working its way back and forth across the continent, Manuel’s life had stalled, and not only in his career. Charlie knew, from Ma’s gossip, that his wife had left him long ago.
“You must be more than that,” Charlie offered. “Back when it happened? You were all over the news.”
“The news. Suppose that’s true.” The man grimaced, mined his teeth with a fingernail. “Just over nine and a half years ago, but feels like a lifetime now and also just like yesterday.”
“Preach,” said Mrs. Dawson. “Truth.”
“You know, those poor kids’ parents still show up,” he added. “A few times a year, they still drop by the office, to check in. To howl at me, really, instead of at their own empty rooms. And I just sit there and take it. I get it. It’s like the assassination of JFK, impossible for folks to believe that a tragedy like that could be caused by nothing but one twisted young man. Honestly, it almost made me quit altogether. I used to think that all it took was a good strong mind, a Sherlock-type person, and every answer could be known. But to think that fellows like that exist, that maybe for some things there could be no reason—”
“That’s just it,” said Mrs. Dawson. “No reason! You know, I had that boy in my class?”
“You did?” Charlie asked.
“Sure. So did Mrs. Henderson here.” Mrs. Dawson gestured to her grimly nodding colleague. “And I think your pa taught him, too, right? In his art class.”
“He what?” Charlie slapped at his arm, like he’d been stung.
“Ah.” Mrs. Dawson touched her mouth. “Well, could be that I’m misremembering. Anyway, that was all years before, and how could anyone have known? What was there to say about a boy like that? All mumbly and angry. I, for one, never believed any of that political talk. He wasn’t some freedom fighter. He was just, I don’t know—off.”
“I have to say,” Manuel said, “I’m inclined to agree with you.” When Manuel paused, Charlie could perceive the charged oxygen in the room, Doyle and his former staff hanging on the officer’s words. Manuel put two fingers to his lips, as if sucking at the memory of a cigarette. “But I suppose I’m like all those parents, too, in the end. This thing sometimes still keeps me up at night, honestly. All these questions. Why Hector, why that particular room, why Reg Avalon. Or even, for example, why on earth your poor brother was down there, too. Why, why, why. The detective itch, I like to call it, it only gets worse the more you scratch at it.”
“Reg!” Doyle cried. “I can hardly bear to hear his name, even still. Dear man.”
As Mrs. Henderson rubbed a hand along Doyle’s spine, Charlie felt himself giving up his reporter act. It wasn’t an alleged writer who blurted out his next words; it was just a brother. “I always thought he must have been there for Rebekkah,” Charlie said. “That night. Oliver must have been looking for her. Did you know he used to go see her? A couple of times. A study group or something. And has my ma ever told you about the journal I found?”
“The journal,” Manuel echoed.
“Yeah, that journal where Oliver wrote a whole bunch of these—I’d guess you’d call them love poems. For her.”
Manuel nodded, but in the distant way he looked at Charlie now, Charlie wondered whether this journal’s existence might have been a new fact for Manuel. The Ranger was silent for a moment, considering Charlie, considering the teachers. “These questions,” he said at last, “truth is, there probably is no bottom to them. And sometimes I wonder why the why even matters anymore. But, sure, I’m just like anyone else. More so, even. It’s crazy, I know it, but when I heard about that test in the fancy new machine, and Mrs. Strout working with your brother—well, I don’t got much left to hope upon.”
Mrs. Schumacher’s breathing began to strain. “Do you really think they’ll find a way to let him speak?”
Charlie shrugged. “Miracles can happen.”
“They sure can,” Doyle said. “They already have, sounds like.”
“Yeah, it sounds like,” Charlie said.