When The Bough Breaks

"Perhaps we should stop for the moment," I suggested. "I can return tomorrow."

"Absolutely not! I'll not be left here in solitary confinement with a poisonous lump lodged in my craw!" He cleared his throat. "I'll be on with it - you sit there and pay close attention."

"All right, Professor."

"Now then, where was I - ah, Jeffrey as a White

Knight. Foolish boy. The enmity between him and Timothy Kruger continued and festered. Jeffrey was ostracized by all the others - Kruger was a campus luminary, socially established. I became Jeffrey's sole source of support. Our conversations changed. No longer were they cerebral exchanges. Now I was conducting psychotherapy on a full - time basis - an activity with which I was most uncomfortable, but I felt I couldn't abandon the boy. I was all he had.

"It culminated in a wrestling match. Both the boys were Greco - Roman wrestlers. They agreed to meet, late at night, in the empty gymnasium, just the two of them for a grudge match. I'm no wrestler myself, for obvious reasons, but I do know that the sport is highly structured, replete with regulations, the criteria for victory clearly drawn. Jeffrey liked it for that reason - he was highly self - disciplined for one so young. He walked into that gym alive and left on a stretcher, neck and spine snapped, alive in only the most vegetative sense of the word. Three days later he died."

"And his death was ruled an accident," I said softly.

"That was the official story. Kruger said the two of them had gotten involved in a complicated series of holds and in the ensuing tangle of torsos, arms and legs, Jeffrey had been injured. And who could dispute it - accidents do occur in wrestling matches. At worst it seemed a case of two immature men behaving in an irresponsible manner. But to those of us who knew Timothy, who understood the depth of the rivalry between them, that was far from a satisfactory explanation. The college was eager to hush it up, the police all too happy to oblige - why go up against the Kruger millions when there are hundreds of poor people committing crimes?

"I attended Jeffrey's funeral - flew to Idaho. Before I left I ran into Timothy on campus. Looking back I see he must have sought me out." Van der Graaf's mouth tightened, the wrinkles deepening as if controlled by some internal drawstring. "He approached me near the Founder's statue. "I hear you're traveling, Professor," he said. "Yes," I replied, "I'm flying to Boise tonight." "To attend the last rites for your young charge?" he asked. There was a look of utter innocence on his face, feigned innocence - he was an actor, for God's sake, he could manipulate his features at will.

" "What's it to you?" I replied. He bent to the ground, picked up a dry oak twig and sporting an arrogant smirk - the same smirk one can see in photographs of Nazi concentration camp guards tormenting their victims - snapped the twig between his fingers, and let it drop to the ground. Then he laughed.

"I've never in my life been so close to commiting murder, Doctor Delaware. Had I been younger, stronger, properly armed, I would have done it. As it was, I simply stood there, for once in my life at a loss for words. "Have a nice trip," he said, and, still smirking, backed away. My heart pounded so, I was assaulted with a spell of dizziness, but fought to maintain my equilibrium. When he was out of eyesight I broke down and sobbed."

A long moment passed between us.

When he appeared sufficiently composed I asked him:

"Does Margaret know about this? About Kruger?"

He nodded.

"I've spoken of it to her. She's my friend."

So the awkward publicist was more spider than fly after all. The insight cheered me for some reason.

"One more thing - the girl. The one they were fighting over. What became of her?"

"What do you expect?" He sneered, some of the old vitriol returning to his voice. "She shunned Kruger - most of the others did. They were afraid of him. She attended Jedson for three more undistinguished years, married an investment banker and moved to Spokane. No doubt she's a proper hausfrau, shuttling the kiddies to school, branching at the club, boffing the delivery boy."

"The spoils of battle," I said.

He shook his head. "Such a waste."

I looked at my watch. I'd been up in the dome for a little over an hour, but it seemed longer. Van der Graaf had unloaded a truckful of sewage during that time, but he was a historian, and that's what they're trained to do. I felt tired and tense, and I longed for fresh air.

"Professor," I said, "I don't know how to thank you."

"Putting the information to good use would be a step in the right direction." The blue eyes shone like twin gaslights. "Snap some twigs of your own."

"I'll do my best." I got up.

"I trust you can see yourself out."

I did.

When I was halfway across the rotunda I heard him cry out: "Remind Maggie of our pizza picnic!"

His words echoed against the smooth, cold stone.

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