The Loyalty Test

Photo courtesy of  Robert Knapp, Portland, OR

Eleven days before the launch of Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home, I am putting up the last of the excerpts here on the blog. This is the setup to a test that Will eventually fails.

It was a clear cold night, down in the single digits. He shoved his hands deep in his coat pocket and wished he'd never befriended a kid named Hercules. As they walked up to the main building, they kept off the path, walking the long way by the golf course. Suddenly, they heard a long scream, a sound of pain and horror coming from Buhler Hall.

"What the fuck," Will whispered. Hercules paid no attention. He was single-minded. They continued as if they'd heard nothing and then slipped behind the back of the main building. Hercules pointed. There was a dim light on in one window, visible through what must have been a crack in the Venetian blinds.

"See. He always leaves his desk light on."

"That doesn't mean the tests are there."

"Will, man. I need your help."

"This is the only way you can think of to pass the freaking test?"

"You know I can't pass it."

"I think you can."

Hercules turned away in disgust.

"I don't even care if I go to college or not. That's bullshit. It's overhyped. I'll do this on my own. You just keep quiet. Pretend you never knew me. Fucking pussy."

"Hey. I'm not a pussy. You know that."

"Yes, you are. You've got too much to lose. Too much riding on that Yale application."

"I don't give a crap about that."

He spun suddenly. Even in the night Will could see he was angry, angrier than he’d ever seen him.

"Go on. Get the fuck back home. Don't want to mess with your college resume."

"Don't be a shit head."

"Yale’s calling, Will."

"Forget that."

"Bow wow wow. God damn pussy bulldogs."

“Pussy bulldogs?”

Will tried to tackle him but Hercules was too big. He spread his legs and spun him. Will managed to get a headlock to bring him down with him. They were up on the hill, and Will sensed he was falling a long way. Hercules stood up on the hill above him as he got to his knees.

"I'm going to help you, you shit-head."

Hercules laughed and walked away.

The next day Will learned someone in Buhler, a junior, had been taken away sometime in the night. Rumors flew that the kid had been tripping on acid. He finished typing up his Shakespeare essay in the morning during a free period and looked out the window at the snow falling. There was a major snow storm coming, they said. He had the radio on listening to a Top 40 station out of Stockbridge playing Eric Carmen's All by Myself. He hated that song.

He thought about what Hercules had said. It was true that he was applying to Yale and Harvard, for that matter. But he had convinced himself that he didn't care where he ended up in college. He figured he would beat all the status-conscious kids who would shun you if you sat at the wrong table in the cafeteria, kids so caught up with themselves that he didn't even rate a shunning, at the only game in town that seemed to count. That's what he told himself. But somewhere inside there was a niggling doubt about this self-imposed honor code. There was a flaw in the logic somewhere, like the screams of the boy in Buhler Hall reprimanding him for hypocrisy, for not living up to his own standards.

Their Drinking Betrayed Them

Here's another excerpt from the new book, Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home. Less than a month before launch. If you are a reviewer and would like a review copy, get in touch.

Albert showed up with a bottle of rum. They poured some of it into two cans of Coke. Will wandered back inside where the Furrer twins were holding court in their living room. In the quiet conversation, there was a mood of affection he'd never heard before among kids at the school. It astounded him, and he was at a loss as to how to respond. It was a sort of communal leave-taking.

On the drive home with Albert’s father, Will was silent, not wanting to betray his drinking with slurred words or inappropriate language. He got out at the top of the drive.

"Hey," said Albert’s father out the driver’s window.

"Goodnight." Will said, chewing furiously on a stick of gum.

"We’re going to the beach next weekend. You coming?"

"I can't. I'm going to Florida."

“Well, good luck next year. We’re counting on you for great things.”

“Thanks.”

Will walked down the drive, let himself in the unlocked front door. Father called his name. Downstairs, he lay on the living room sofa with the lights turned off. Will sat down in the armchair.

"How was the party?"

"Good."

"You enjoy it?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Why?"

Will could tell that Father had been drinking, and thought it was somehow fitting that their mutual drunkenness made it possible for them to have a conversation in the dark. It was impossible, drunk or sober, for them to talk in the daylight.

"I don't know. It was nice to see people. It was a special moment. I don't know."

"Time flies, son."

"I know."

"But you don't worry. Not you. Do you?"

"Worry? About what?"

"Exactly. Even-keeled. That's what I like about you."

It was news to Will that he was admired by Father for any aspect of his personality, and he didn't see himself as even-keeled. He was really a wrack of contradictions and uncertain impulses, needy yet wary of being hurt, self-conscious and immersed always in self-pity, but knowing that there were certain moments such as this night that came like breaks in the cloud, as if God were offering glimpses of the possibility of hopefulness.


Anthony Caplan is a writer, blogger, teacher and homesteader in New Hampshire. He is the author of the novels Birdman, French Pond Road, and the forthcoming Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home, due out at the end of June from Hope Mountain Press. Find out more about him and his work at http://www.anthonycaplanwrites.com. 

There's exactly six weeks until the publication launch of Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home. I'm going to blog one excerpt a week between now and then.

This one takes place when Will's mother takes the kids back home after years of living abroad. She's hooked back up with an old boyfriend and Will is trying to get used to his new situation before going off to camp in Maine, a mysterious location to him.

Mother came and went often with Meehan, looking for work, arranging things, and at night they went to movies and out on "dates". There was a babysitter, a teenage girl from Manhasset. Her name was Kiki, and she had a brother, a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. Will lived out in the front yard and the sidewalk. The openness, no fences, was new and vaguely threatening. Sometimes he found himself wishing there was a mango tree he could climb to get a view of the horizon. There was no mountain in the distance to measure the clouds by. But it was easier here to be a child. They were not hidden behind walls and barbed wire from the dangers of the street. It was like getting a taste of something long promised, a sense of security, of belonging. Will wanted to be strong enough to get to the top of the hill on the lemon-colored Schwinn. He wanted to make friends. What was beyond the hill? The newness of everything was a little frightening.

The day came he was going off to camp. He didn't sleep, happily anticipating this adventure. He had a trunk stuffed with a brand-new wool blanket, new tennis sneakers, a wooden tennis racket, flashlight, bathing suit, towel, toothbrush in a little case and soap in its own container. Mother had sewed nametags into all his clothes, even the towels, cutting them off a roll, an impressive litany of his name repeating in a loop. An eight-week sleep-away camp deep in the heart of the Maine woods. Will imagined the pine needles under bare feet, the life-and-death adrenaline rush of sleeping under the stars. Just as the bicycle was the vehicle of entry into the life of the suburbs, camp in Maine would be his rebirth as a native of primeval forests, the life stream of the mysterious Earth.

They gathered on the Upper East Side. A bus was pulled up on the street. The driver loaded the trunks into the cargo space above the curb. There was a deli three doors down. Mother bought Will a sandwich with a couple slices of pickle in a waxed paper bag for lunch. The knot of boys on the sidewalk said goodbye to their parents. Mother hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

"See you in four weeks," she said.

The excitement level on the bus was high, and snatches of conversation between the returning campers promised an eclectic club of adventurers. The sleek air-conditioned bus was way more comfortable than the steamy sidewalks of the city. Will waved one more time to Mother, and then they were off, rumbling through the Bronx and onto the highway bound for the northern forests.

His traveling companion was George, a phlegmatic dark-skinned boy who seemed to relish good humor and adventure even if he didn't say much. It wasn't long after they'd started that the bus passengers began to break into the deli lunches everyone seemed to have carried on board. In a burst of Dale Carnegie inspiration, Will took his slice of pickle, showed it to George and whipped it over his head, spinning into the seats a few rows behind.

"Food fight. Food fight," instantly reverberated up and down the bus.

George and Will watched with bemusement as lunch items flew through the air. Reluctantly, the adults at the front of the bus walked down the aisle, imposing order, clucking distantly. The bus was a stinking mess for the rest of the journey, but Will savored it as the odor of triumph. Hours later, they pulled off onto a dirt road through thick stands of pine trees and emerged on a roundabout driveway in front of a large, freshly painted barn. It stood on a hill above a small blue lake. A flagpole in front of the barn flew the Stars and Stripes. The sun was high in a cloudless sky. 

Anthony Caplan is a writer, blogger, teacher and homesteader in New Hampshire. He is the author of the novels Birdman, French Pond Road, and the forthcoming Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home, due out at the end of June from Hope Mountain Press. Find out more about him and his work at http://www.anthonycaplanwrites.com.