Gray shot a glance at Porter. “Besides that he’s a paraplegic, you mean?” he asked, taking a measured sip of his beer.
“He’s not a paraplegic,” I said. They both looked at me. “Double amputee. Lost both his legs in the first Gulf War. He just wears long pants to hide it, tucks the pants into work boots he leaves on the footrests of his wheelchair. Name’s Pelham Greer. He used to work here as a maintenance guy, and then he joined the army. When he was discharged, they gave him his old job back.”
Gray gave a low whistle. Porter looked uncomfortable. “Well, shit,” he said. “Now I feel like a tool.”
I shook my head. “He is a little creepy. Used to scare us when we were students, rolling out from behind buildings, stuff like that. But he’s all right.”
Porter gazed over my shoulder and lowered his voice. “Now there’s a guy who would scare me if I were a student.”
I casually glanced in the direction Porter had indicated. Standing off in the side yard and talking with Dave Heidel, our science department chair, was a tall, heavy man, bald as a cucumber and wearing a white suit and vest with a navy-blue tie. He had a tanned, fleshy face with a wide mouth a bit like a frog’s. “He was at the meeting this morning,” I said. “Associate headmaster. What’s his name, Ron something?”
“Ren Middleton,” Porter said. “School disciplinarian. Travis Simmons’s right-hand guy.”
Ren Middleton looked our way, and although he was too far away to have heard Porter, I felt like he had caught us talking about him. Dave Heidel then turned and gestured toward us, nodding, and Middleton headed in our direction.
“Shit,” Porter muttered.
Ren Middleton walked up. “Porter, Grayden, afternoon,” he said. His voice was Charleston to the bone, deep and heavy over the vowels, falling with a soft thud on the consonants. “Getting along?”
“Yes, sir,” Gray said. Porter nodded politely but said nothing.
“Good,” Middleton said. “I’ve found that nothing gets a man more ready for a hard job than good food and good company.” He rested his gaze on me. “You must be Matthias Glass.”
“Yes, sir.” I offered my hand, which he shook firmly.
“Ren Middleton,” he said. Middleton’s eyes were large and mud colored, and he looked at me the way a jeweler would inspect a diamond. “You were a Jefferson Scholar at Virginia, weren’t you? I also attended the university, though a bit before your time. Travis told me you’d indicated an interest in coaching track and recommended you as my assistant. I coach the varsity team.”
“Sure,” I heard myself say. “Happy to help.”
“And I’d be glad of it,” he said. “Oh,” he added deliberately, “my wife loved your book, sir. Perhaps we could get together sometime to talk about it? I’ve always wondered what it must be like to”—he cast about for a word—“create a novel.” He smiled beneficently.
I could feel my own smile tighten. “I don’t know how much writing I’ll get done this year,” I said. “I suspect I’ll be busy enough with my classes.”
Middleton nodded. “Good man,” he said. “Jumping in with both feet. Exactly what we need here.” Then he turned to Gray and Porter, talking with each of them about their thoughts on the upcoming school year. I stood and watched him. I’ve always been drawn to strong personalities, and Ren Middleton was as regal and charismatic as a Renaissance cardinal. He asked Gray what he thought about the school’s chemistry labs and seemed genuinely curious about whether Gray found them adequate. With Porter he talked UConn basketball and then asked if Porter had read a recent book on Afghanistan. This led to a brief discussion of Western involvement in the Middle and Far East, an obvious source of passion for Porter, who grew animated and gestured with his hands while Ren Middleton nodded soberly and posed an occasional question. Clearly, Middleton knew how to read people and get them to talk about subjects that interested them. I wondered how he had read me.
“I hope you’ll excuse me,” Middleton said, consulting his watch, “but I’m afraid I have to be getting home. My wife is cooking dinner. Good to see you, gentlemen.” Then, in a slightly more confidential register, he said to me, “Matthias, do you have a moment?”
I glanced at Porter and Gray, who were already moving toward the grill, and Porter shot me a look that registered somewhere between sympathy and relief. Following Middleton’s lead, I strolled with him off the patio and across Sam Hodges’s backyard, negotiating a hedge of boxwood to come upon the first tee of the golf course, which lay behind Saint Matthew’s. The boxwood hedge effectively cut us off from the party so that we were alone.
We stopped at the top of the fairway. Wide and straight, it unrolled like a fresh carpet of grass down a gentle slope to the track and the football field. My shirt was beginning to cling to my back again from the oppressive heat. The distant trees hung silently at the edge of the fields.
“I’m sorry to seem mysterious,” Ren Middleton said. “I just wanted a word in private.”
“Sure,” I said.
“You see, it’s been a while since a former student has returned to Blackburne to teach,” he said. “I wanted you to know how much we appreciate it.”
“We?”
“Dr. Simmons and I.” He smiled, his fleshy lips stretched wide across his face. “It’s a singular position. A young man who can truly relate to these students, their troubles, give them guidance.” He bent over and picked up a stained golf ball that had lain to one side of the tee. He rolled it between his thick fingers. “This ball is a perfect example,” he said. “It was neglected, left behind by a careless owner. It was inert, if you want to see it that way.”
He drew back his great arm and, in a smooth, powerful motion, he threw the ball down the length of the fairway. The ball, a white blur, skimmed over the green swath and then bounced twice into the shadows of the receding pine trees at the bottom of the hill.
He turned to me. “That’s what we do here,” he said. “We give boys direction, purpose. We send them into the world as better, stronger men.” He grinned. “We kill their inertness.” The grin dropped from his face, and he peered seriously at me. “I’ll be counting on your help with some of these boys. I’m afraid a few of the fourth formers need a firm hand. And they ought to respond to, well, a younger authority figure, I suppose.” He inclined his head to the left, as if to see whether I followed him.
“I’ll help in any way I can,” I said.