Read School Days for Free Online Page B

I drank.
    â€œMalt does more than Milton can. . . .” I said.
    Pearl had heard me say it before.
    â€œAlways thought Auden said that until some guy corrected me at one of Susan’s parties. He said it was Housman. I was scornful of the poor, dumb, pretentious bastard, but I felt in fairness I should look it up.”
    Pearl’s breathing was steady on the couch. I wasn’t sure she was listening.
    â€œIt was Housman,” I said.
    I drank some scotch. My apartment was thick with silence. The scotch made it seem full of portent.
    â€œI hate when I’m wrong,” I said.
    Pearl took no notice.
    â€œI can’t tell her,” I said.
    Pearl shifted and stuck her feet in the air and leaned themagainst the back of the couch and looked at me upside down for a moment before she closed her eyes again.
    â€œI don’t actually know he’s not innocent,” I said.
    â€œWhy would he lie?”
    â€œMaybe he’s crazy.”
    â€œMaybe he’s simply bad.”
    â€œBad?”
    â€œYou don’t believe in bad, how you going to believe in good?”
    â€œYou metaphysical devil.”
    Pearl’s position as she slept had caused her mouth to fall open and her tongue to loll out the left side of it. I looked at her.
    â€œYeah,” I said. “That’s about where I am.”

12
    I N THE MORNING it was still not raining, and still on the verge of it, when Pearl and I drove out to Dowling to visit Jared Clark’s parents. They lived on some rolling green acreage, in a large, white house with a three-car garage.
    It was cool with the foreboding rain. I left Pearl in the car with the windows partly open and walked to the front door and rang the bell. The woman who answered was only a few soft pounds short of heavy, with a kind of blank, blond prettiness that had probably gotten her cheerleading work in high school.
    â€œMrs. Clark?” I said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m Spenser.”
    â€œOh, yes. Thank you. Please come in.”
    She was wearing a bright orange top and white pants and on her feet an attractive pair of flip-flops with orange straps to match her top, and in the center of each strap an ornamental plastic flower. I followed her into the enormous living room. It had the spontaneity of a furniture showroom, and gleamed with the spotless silence of for-company-only. Her husband was standing by the fireplace at the far end. He went perfectly with the room. He had on a pink polo shirt with a discreet alligator on the chest, pleated olive Dockers, and dark leather sandals. He was a nice-looking guy with sandy hair. His face had the same softness his wife’s did. He walked to me and put out his hand.
    â€œRon Clark,” he said.
    We sat. I had the sense that my butt may have been the first one ever to press against the barrel-backed red armchair I was on.
    I declined coffee, fearing I might spill some. Ron and his wife sat together across from me on a couch. They decided against coffee, too.
    â€œHow can we help,” Ron said.
    Here it was. I didn’t like it, but at least it was quick. We didn’t have to waste time talking about how rainy the summer had been.
    â€œDo you believe he’s guilty?” I said.
    Mrs. Clark began to cry. Her husband put his hand on her thigh and patted it.
    â€œHe’s our only child,” Ron said.
    I waited. Mrs. Clark continued to cry quietly, her head down, staring at her husband’s hand on her thigh.
    â€œSince he was born,” she said quietly, “he had this distance about him.”
    The crying seemed to be tears only. Her voice was clear. Her husband nodded.
    â€œIt was like he was always thinking about something else,” she said.
    â€œMaybe if we’d had other children,” her husband said. “Maybe if he’d had a brother . . .”
    â€œHe was never really a bad boy,” his mother said. “His grades were good. He was never