Just a dumb fuck

Beware of the wolf

We drove to the Allegheny Heights Country Club in a rental car that my dad had for the weekend, a Volkswagen Jetta, the kind of car we could have back home. It’s not a patch on a Mustang or a Bronco. We actually have a Ford Focus back home. We could afford something better but most of the time dad is overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan and so mum gets to choose what car we have, so we usually end up with little cars. Women aren’t into cars. They just like small cars that are easy to park. Dad has opinions on women drivers.

When I can have a car I want something like a Mustang or a Bronco but we don’t have those in England. I don’t think American kids realise how lucky they are. They can get old, classy cars dirt cheap. Well, I suppose the ‘cheap’ doesn’t matter much to the guys at college. They can have whatever they want. Like Nathan got a brand new Mustang from his dad as soon as he got his full licence. And petrol here is so cheap! Well, ‘gas’. Petrol isn’t a bloody gas! Honestly, most Americans are complete fuckwits. Don’t they understand physics and the states of matter?

Shane got to sit up front with dad. I made the mistake of walking round to the wrong side of the car after we’d chucked our bags in the boot and dad just looked at me as I opened the driver’s door by mistake and said, “In your dreams, Boots.” He’s using my new nickname now, which is dead nice. Shane was already opening the back door but dad said to him to get up in the front and help him navigate so I got relegated to the back seats. I made Shane set his seat as far forward as possible in revenge though to give me plenty of leg room. I’m taller than him.

The country club is a dead posh place. It’s a big wooden hotel type complex just outside the rich end of Pittsburgh, overlooking the river and surrounded by forests. Maybe the Americans haven’t invented bricks yet. We’ve only had them in England since about 1300.  It has a golf course that was used for the US Masters’ competition back in the 1950s and there’s a waiting list to join it. Dad got a weekend here because the base commander where he is attached is a member and pulled in a favour to get dad a room for the weekend when he learned he was visiting me at the college. It pays to have friends in high places.  

We arrived in the club’s reception at about half six and dad booked us in. He’d originally asked for a twin room for me and him to share, but after I asked if Shane could come too he’d emailed to ask for two rooms instead, one for him and one for me and Shane. The desk was being manned by a pretty girl a couple of years older than me, maybe about Kyle’s age, and she liked mine and dad’s accents right away. She looked at her screen and said that there weren’t any spare rooms available in the main hotel for me and Shane to have one to ourselves. Dad’s original booking was for a family room with two king size beds, and Shane gave the girl his best smile and said, “I don’t mind, me and Craig can sleep together, we’ve done before.”

Bloody hell, Shane, don’t go saying things like that! She might think we’re like Kyle! Dad and the girl on reception were both smiling but I could feel my face burning up. I glared at Shane and he seemed to twig that I wasn’t happy about the idea she might think we were bum chums, so he said, ”It was only because his bed was wet.”

Freekin’ hell, Shane, that’s worse! Just shut the fuck up! You’re not helping here…

“We do have a lakeside cabin free,” said the girl, “I can do you a special deal as a serviceman and let you have that for the same rate as a standard room. It has just one king size bed but the sofa converts to a bed too.”

“Boys?” dad said, looking at us. “A cabin on your own or sharing with me?”

Ten minutes later me and Shane were exploring our cabin. It’s like a frontier cabin you see on the films, made of logs. The club has ten of them, spaced around an artificial lake. They all have a kind of balcony area, a ‘deck’ as the septics call it, looking out over the lake, complete with a barbeque oven thingy. The Americans treat their soldiers well, way better than back home in the UK. They didn’t charge dad any extra for it.

Shane and I changed for dinner and headed over to the main complex to meet dad. Actually, we didn’t need to change, we both already had shirts, ties and jackets on so it was just a case of unpacking our bags, splashing our faces and walking from the cabin to the main complex and finding the dining room. Dad had changed out of his suit into a jacket and so looked just as relaxed as we did. Sandhurst casual.

Dinner was pretty good, the food almost as good as we get at college. I can’t criticise the college food, it’s bloody good, but given how much dad pays for my fees I ought to be eating like a king. The only issue was when dad ordered wine for us. He asked for a bottle of white wine to accompany our dinner, just a Chilean Chardonnay to go with our fish, but the waiter only brought one glass and when dad asked for two more glasses the waiter said me and Shane could only have soft drinks, even though dad was present and happy for us to have a glass of wine.

Americans are dead anal about minors drinking alcohol. Nobody can touch the stuff until they are twenty-one. Maybe they think even sniffing a molecule of alcohol will turn a kid into Bonnie or Clyde. Public Enemy number one ‘r us’ kids. I pointed out that American drink laws are just plain stupid of course: if kids can have fast cars like Mustangs at sixteen and guns too from eighteen you just end up with sober bank robbers that can shoot straight and out run the police.

Dad was amused by my argument but ordered lemonades for me and Shane anyway, saying “If that’s the law then we have to obey it.” We did too, right up to the point where my glass was empty of lemonade and dad poured just an inch or two of wine in it when the waiter wasn’t looking. He offered Shane some wine too but Shane said he’d stick with lemonade.

Over dinner dad asked loads of questions about what I’d been doing at school since I got there, though I got the impression he already knew quite a lot. He’d probably interrogated Shane during the day, and in any case I’d told him stuff in the first few weeks until I sent my Nokia for a swim. After that dad couldn’t call me of course, until I started missing our Sunday night chats and borrowed a phobile from one of the guys occasionally to call him.

Once we’d finished eating we moved from the dining room to one of the lounge areas, grabbed some leather seats in an alcove, and carried on talking. Dad ordered a glass of whisky but I didn’t get one, just another lemonade. Back home he probably would have let me have a small glass of whisky too, with plenty of water in it though, or some ginger ale. Ginger ale is better, it looks more like whisky and it also takes the harshness away so I don’t have to struggle not to cough. The first time dad gave me some whisky, about a year ago, he gave it to me neat and I drank it down in one gulp, just like you see cowboys do, to try and impress him. Dad then spent the next five minutes laughing as I coughed and choked and had to go and get some milk from the fridge to try and put the fires out.

After about ten minutes Shane asked if he could be excused as he’d remembered he had something to do, and left me alone with dad. Shane didn’t really have anything special to do, he’s just very smart and tactful with it. Dad leaned a little closer to me as Shane strolled away, looked over at him and said, ”Shane’s a remarkable guy, Craig, make sure you keep him as a friend. Be there when he needs a friend too. There’s not many could come through what he’s been through so well. He’ll always have your back if you treat him right.”

I know that, Shane is pretty much my best mate at college, him and Travis. We get along well, we’re always there for each other. The other guys in the dorm are good too, but it’s always Shane and Travis that I look to first. So does Nat. He’s called us ‘The Three Musketeers’ a few times and always assumes that if one of us is up to something, then so are the other two. Not much gets past him. I was curious though. What did dad mean when he said that about ‘what Shane’s come through’?

Before I could ask anything, dad was continuing talking, first about my academic achievements at school, and then the sports too. Well my studies have always been good, but at Allegheny they really do have some great teachers who can make subjects interesting, even the ones that I don’t normally care for like history. Maybe it’s just that they pay well, and get good teachers, or maybe it’s because the teachers are allowed just to teach and be enthusiastic about their subject because they don’t have to manage us kids too. All the discipline and that sort of stuff is taken care of through the military side of things, so the teachers can just get on and concentrate on helping us learn. We help each other too, but again that’s part of the military ethos. Always help your mate. Even with simple harmonic motion equations and binomial expansions.

“There are some ambitious people here too,” dad was saying. “There’s nothing wrong in that of itself, but be wary around them. Make sure you don’t get steamrollered if they think you’re in their way. Guys like that Captain Davis for instance.”

“But dad,” I said, leaping to Jackson’s defence, “Jackson’s just a pussycat, his bark is far worse than his bite!”

Okay, so I know cats don’t bark, but you get what I mean. Jackson does get a bad rap occasionally. I should know, I misjudged him at the start. Well, he misjudged me too, but we’re over that now. He was only going on the rumours about me, just like everybody else. And the way he’s treated Kyle, that’s not steamrollering anybody! He didn’t have to do that. Nobody expected him to give Kyle the Sword of Honour. It’s never happened before in over a hundred years of the college. That’s practically forever in American years.

Dad listened carefully as I stuck up for Jackson, then took a sip of his whisky and asked, “Cui bono, Craig?”

What’s dad mean, “Who really benefited?” Kyle did of course. It’s virtually guaranteed he will get a place at West Point now. They’d never turn down an Honour Student from Allegheny.

“Davis is a very smart operator,” dad was saying. “From what I have seen, he looks to be a good choice as College Captain. He’s got the academic record, the sporting prowess, the personal qualities too. But I think he’s looking far further ahead than that, further even than West Point. He didn’t need that sword, Craig. If he had taken it, it would just have been one more trophy on his wall. He would have been just one of half a dozen freshman at West Point next year with an Honour Sword from his college, all jostling with each other for another four years to make their mark as the alpha male.”

Dad paused to see if I was l following. I was, just about.

“By giving Lieutenant Masters the sword, he’s made a name for himself, and neutralised Masters at the same time. Every time people look at Masters, they’ll remember that Davis put him where he is. Davis gets to bask in reflected glory from every achievement that Masters makes from now on. He’s bought himself a perfect second-in-command too: Masters will always acknowledge what Davis has done for him, always owe him loyalty. I don’t mean bought in a corrupt sense, Craig, just that he knows what he’s doing. Masters is no longer a threat to him now, he’s a useful asset. Together they could be a great team, an inspirational leader and a loyal, efficient number two to look after the detail and get things done, but Davis has seen to it that Masters will now always be just that second-in-command. It was a tactical master stroke.”

I still wasn’t totally convinced. “Maybe Jackson just gave Kyle the sword because he deserves it. He does deserve it, dad.”

“Possible, but does everybody get what they deserve? Davis may simply be Mr Nice Guy and gave Masters the sword just for that. Do you really think so? Did you listen to his speech? Sure, he praised Masters, but didn’t he also point out how different they were? Who the true leader was? He’s a Senator’s son, Craig, politics run through his blood. He’s good at it too. He’s demonstrated that he’s magnanimous. Let it be seen that he will reward people who support him without actually having to say it. But equally, if he’s that cunning, he won’t hesitate to crush anybody that gets in his way.”

Maybe dad does have a point if you look at it like that. Is that what Jackson’s doing with me? He stomped on me right at the start to put me in my place, then he’s given me some little rewards. Like today. He’s done my chances of getting to the boxing finals a world of good, but he didn’t hesitate to hit me a little harder than he needed to occasionally, just to keep me in my place perhaps? Like that last punch. The one that could have knocked me out. Did he know I’d expect it, rely on me managing to dodge the worst of it and make us both look good, or did he actually intend to put me down on the deck?

“So, what you’re saying dad, is that Jackson is like Alexander?”

Dad nodded. “Yes, I knew you’d get there in the end. And how many battles did Alexander ever lose?”

“None.”

“I’m not saying Davis is a bad guy, Craig, just that he’s smart. Very smart. You need to watch out for people like him. If he’s on your side, then fine, but make sure he is on your side.”

“No problem, dad. Guard my flanks and look out for snipers.”

Dad smiled as I repeated what he’d told me so many times when we had our battles with my toy soldiers in the garden.

“And Davis is just the wolf in wolf’s clothing, son,” he added. ”You need to keep an even closer eye on the sheep.”

Before I could get my head together and go there, because I’m sure that dad had another lesson for me, he finished the last drop of whisky in his glass and said,” Come on now, it’s time to call it a day, I’m guessing you were up all last night polishing and ironing! Go find Shane, don’t let him think you’ve abandoned him whilst you try and sweet talk me into giving you your phone back.”

Dad reached into his jacket pocket, took out my iPhone, passed it to me. “I’ve missed talking to you.”

* * *

When I arrived back at the cabin just as the sun was going down, Shane was sitting on the deck area listening to some music on his phone. I smiled and waved my iPhone. I don’t need to check it to know that dad will have nailed it down tight, I’m definitely not out of the woods yet, but at least we’re getting there. When we get back to college I’ll let Will have a go at opening it up for me, he’ll enjoy the challenge, but to be honest I doubt he’ll be able to achieve much. If Will was as good as dad, he’d be working for the NSA.

“Thanks, Shane,” I said, “it was nice of you to leave me and dad to talk. Come on, let’s go inside, it’s starting to turn a little chilly out here”

Shane nodded and stood up. “I think summer’s about over now.”

Once indoors we turned on the heating and Shane’s switched on the sound system by the bedside for some music. He likes Electropop and I like Trance and Techno, so we kind of can listen to the same stuff, but both of us also like jazz and blues and that’s what he found first on an internet radio channel so we left that on. The cabin’s fairly cosy, with a big bed and a pair of sofas, one of which folds out to make a small bed. I guess it’s designed more for a family with a small child. We both looked at it and realised that it was a no go for me, and even Shane would be crushed up on it.

“I don’t mind sharing the bed if you don’t,” I said, “it’s way big enough for both of us.”

“Why, Mr Darcy, I do believe you have lured me here under a stratagem,” chuckled Shane in a very southern belle voice, kind of like mixing up his Jane Austen and Margaret Mitchell and making me laugh too. He might not be brilliant at maths but he knows his literature.

Shane went into the bathroom and got showered first, coming out wearing his pyjamas ready for bed, but jumped onto one of the sofas and switched on the television. It’s Sunday tomorrow and we don’t have to be up early, dad has suggested we have a lie in and meet for breakfast around half eight or even nine, then go for a game of golf. I grabbed my bag and wandered into the bathroom, leaving Shane to try and cast his phone to the tv so we can watch one of the films he has stored in its memory.

I took a really long shower, enjoying the feeling of the hot water blasting into me from the powerful jets and totally relaxing me. With the bathroom being quite small it had captured the scent of Shane’s shower gel, that spicey orange and ginger that always smells so good on him. I used plenty of it on myself too, completely trying to get rid of the lingering chlorine smell from the pool. Chlorine sticks to skin like glue, we covered in it chemistry once at school. Well, it’s hair it sticks to most, reacting with the nitrogen in hair protein to make chloramines or something like that. Maybe there is something to be said for Nathan and Riley and the rest of them shaving their legs and nads before we swim, at least they don’t smell like a gas attack at Ypres for days afterwards.

Eventually I climbed out of the shower, dried off, put my pyjamas on and went back out to Shane. He was curled up on the sofa with a spare blanket from the cupboard over him and a packet of popcorn opened on the table. It was shop bought though, so not as good as Noah’s. Clearly, we were ready for a film. The choice was between “The Autopsy of Jane Doe”, which is a horror film, or “Rogue Warfare”, so I let Shane choose and he decided to go for horror. I climbed alongside him, pulled the blanket over me too and we began to watch the film.

It’s creepy! Kind of like a psychological thriller and horror combined. You just know the people in the film are going to come to a bad end but can’t figure out how until it happens. Definitely one to watch again with all the guys back at the dorm. Maybe not such a good choice in a cabin out by the edge of the lake after dark though. Shane twitched or started several times during the film at the scary bits. Okay, so I might have done too, just once or twice, but that made us both laugh each time and snuggle up closer together.

“Did you use to do this with your mum too when you were little?” I asked as the film got to the end and the credits were rolling. “Just snuggle up tight and feel protected?”

Shane twisted his head round to look at me.

“No.”

I can’t explain it, but he looked really sad. There didn’t seem to be that usual sparkle in his eyes. I just couldn’t believe his mum didn’t snuggle up with him if a film was scary. He just continued to look at me for a while, then seemed to make a decision.

”My mum didn’t really care for me very much.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. First of all because I just couldn’t grasp what he’d just said, what it meant to have a mum who didn’t care, but also I was trying to take in the enormity of what it must mean to him to tell someone that. It was like he hadn’t wanted to say anything, but now he had, he had to keep on talking. And I didn’t know what to say to him.

“My parents weren’t nice people, Boots. It wasn’t that they were bad to me, not at first, just that I was in their way most of the time. They were doing drugs, just small amounts at first, but then more, and then they started dealing too. People started coming to our house. Sometimes there would be fights. Soon there started to be knives put around everywhere in the house in case the wrong people came, then a gun. Most of our stuff got sold to buy drugs. I kept out of it Boots. I tried to be normal. I went to school and pretended it wasn’t happening, but soon I didn’t have many friends. People wouldn’t let their kids play with me. I just stayed out walking around after school, not going home until it went dark and I had nowhere else to go. If I was lucky my parents would be drugged up and there’d be no trouble.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I knew I should say something, but I didn’t know what, so I just sat there next to him, still snuggled up against him, like his mum should have been, and listened. He had a tear in his eye, but he wasn’t really crying. He was just telling me stuff I didn’t want to hear. I was looking at his beautiful face and not understanding how anyone could not like him. He really is the nicest, kindest, most sensitive person I think I’ve ever met.

I listened as he told me how his life had gradually got worse, how in the end he had almost no-one left to talk with, to play with, just be normal with for a few hours or even minutes a day. The only person who seemed to have any time for him was an elderly neighbour that he used to run errands for. That was just like Shane, helping somebody else even when his own world was falling part. She’s given him somewhere warm to stay for a while after school, chatted with him, even fed him. It was hurting me to hear it. How much worse must it have been for him to experience it? I couldn’t understand either how he’d come to be at Allegheny River College. It wasn’t a place that kids like him would end up. It costs a fortune to be here. I can only be here because dad gets a grant from the army towards my fees. It’s still costing dad a lot despite that. I don’t know much about drug addicts apart from what I’ve seen on tv, but I know they don’t send their kids to posh colleges.

I wanted to know more, but I didn’t want to hear it. Shane’s too nice for this. I was still holding him, my arm around him. I couldn’t remember putting it round his shoulder. I must have done it during the film. Now I just pulled him in a little tighter to me.

“How did it end, Shane?”

It was all I could think of asking. I didn’t want to hear any more how bad things had been for him. I just wanted to know how it had got better. Mainly I think for myself. I couldn’t think what to say to him that would feel right. I just couldn’t bear the thought of hearing bad stuff from him. He only deserves good stuff.

Shane was quiet for a moment, like he was trying to pull his head together, to tell me something. I kind of knew it was going to be bad. Things get worse before they get better. Everybody says that. But I shouldn’t have been feeling that I wanted him to just rush on through to the good bit and a happy ending just to make me feel better about it all.

And that’s what he did. Because he’s like that. He knew I wasn’t liking hearing it, and so he cut to the end. Told me how he’d found his parents were going to make one last big deal. How they’d got some heroin and bulked it out with some drain cleaner they got from down in the basement because it was the right kind of colour and size of powder. How they were going to sell it on and make money to buy them their next drugs. How they didn’t seem to care that the label on the tin said it was toxic. How he’d gone to his neighbour and told her, asked her to call the police. Waited with her as the police turned up and arrested his parents. Then they had taken him to Child Protection Services and put him in a home for a few days whilst they tried to locate relatives to look after him. And no close family had stepped up. Nobody wanted to help him. They’d just assumed he couldn’t be helped. That he must be as bad as his parents. And anyway, some of the dealers might come looking for him. No-one wanted to get involved.

Shane had spent several months in a foster home until eventually the Child Protection Services made contact with a distant relative who was just back from overseas and discovered what had happened with Shane’s parents. They had hardly known Shane’s parents, only met them a few times many years previously at family events like weddings or funerals, hadn’t really got on with them, but they knew there was a child. They actually did want to know about Shane. Their son was Kyle.

“That’s how I got here, Boots. They couldn’t look after me because they are always moving around the world. But they arranged for me to come here and be with Kyle. Kyle looks after me.”

Sometimes you don’t need words. I just held him, guided him to the bed, climbed in with him. Held him close. I almost told him something in return. Felt that he needed to know something about me. Wanted to share a secret with him. About what had really happened at the party. But I would really have been telling him to make myself feel better.  That‘s just selfish. He doesn’t need my problems too.

When he fell asleep, I cried. How could anyone not care about Shane?