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into text messages.
    “The Bat Phone was quiet until about four this morning,” Bruce said. “Then this semi
     on I-495 by Hopedale runs into an SUV coming back from the Cape.” He used his hands,
     tipping his waffle cone precariously, to mimic a collision that I knew couldn’t have
     had a happy ending. “This little kid, maybe six years old, was asleep on the backseat.
     No seat belt.” Bruce uttered a sad grunt. “We flew the boy and his mother to County
     General. An ambulance took the dad and the semi driver, but…” He shook his head and
     drew a long breath.
    We sat down on one of the curved concrete benches surrounding the fountain. I put
     my head on his shoulder and rubbed his back for a few quiet minutes.
    “Did anyone make it?” I asked.
    “The little boy, Ricky, is badly injured, but he’s going tobe okay. So’s his mother. But the father, who was driving, is gone. And the semi driver
     doesn’t have a scratch on him.” He turned and brushed the concern from my face with
     his hand and a slight, resigned smile. “How about you?” he asked. “How was all the
     pomp and circumstance?”
    “Really?” I asked Bruce, our shorthand for “Do you want me to tell you silly, distracting
     commencement day stories?”
    Outbursts like Kira’s, disputes over petty politics and whatever else was going on
     in the schools or at the mayor’s campaign headquarters, paled in the light of Bruce’s
     Bat Phone duties.
    “Really,” Bruce said. “Tell me some campus gossip.”
    My most upsetting moments today, besides our aborted parties, had come from Elysse
     Hutchins, a student who was unhappy with her final exam grade and wanted me to reconsider.
    I launched into the reasons for my annoyance with Elysse—she’d disputed points I’d
     taken off her exam for not following instructions on a statistics problem. She’d blasted
     me in an email after I explained my reasoning for the grade and declined to change
     it.
    “She’s a transfer student and I’ve given her special attention all semester,” I said.
     I remembered all the times I’d sat in front of the whiteboard with the thin, pixie-haired
     blond, reviewing math methods long after office hours were over. “I’ve gone out of
     my way to make up for any gaps caused by the transfer.”
    “I’m sure you have,” Bruce said, trying hard to pay attention, but not fully engaged.
    I switched topics and brought up the tension over the performance of charter schools
     and the way they’re funded. “Some of the families were accusing Mayor Graves of neglecting
     the charters,” I reported.
    “The charter setup is made for disaster,” Bruce said,coming to life again. “You know what I mean from working at Zeeman, but the problem
     is system-wide. I remember when my niece was in a charter school in Boston. My sister
     was on the board and went nuts trying to keep it together, with more reporting and
     paperwork than teaching going on, and no one seemed to care about discipline or standards.
     It was always a question of ‘Who’s in charge?’ You’ve got a school that is and isn’t
     under supervision of the district and the superintendent of schools.”
    “I wouldn’t want Pat Collins’s job,” I said, remembering the superintendent’s glowering
     visage on the stage today.
    “He goes home to a cushy residence on the Cape, remember. During my pilot-to-the-stars
     days, I picked him up now and then to take him to a meeting here, but I guess now
     he has a home in Henley, also.”
    “It’s hard to say who’s right in all this. It’s probably not all the superintendent’s
     fault. Not the principals’ either,” I said.
    “Nothing works if there’s no clear line of authority.”
    Thus spoke a retired air force man.
    By ten fifteen, according to the old chimes from Franklin Hall, we decided it was
     time to leave. We stood and brushed off particles of dust and leaves deposited by
     the breeze, ready for the walk to Bruce’s