The Grounding of Group 6 Read online

  Copyright:© 2011 by: Julian F. Thompson

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-4663-6043-7

  ISBN-13: 9781466360433

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61916-301-0

  www.julianthompson.net

  For Polly,

  best and most of all

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Julian P. Thompson

  1

  The people in their group, Group 6, were all sixteen, all five of them, and none of them was fat. Coke and Sully both were boys; Sara, Marigold, and Ludi all were girls. Nat Rittenhouse was twenty-two, the leader of the Group, and meant to be a teacher. Even if he looked more like Sir Galahad after praying with his sword in the chapel all night, as Ludi thought.

  The lack of flab should not be too surprising. The sort of folks who could afford the Coldbrook Country School were (a) not often known as “folks” and (b) fanatic anti-fats. Anxiety, depression, even drugs were more acceptable; at least they were contemporary, now, the “fleurs du mal du siècle,” as Sully’s mother put it once, while sipping kir and “rapping” with McCorker. But teenaged fat offended them. It was even more annoying than overhearing your child refer to “my lifestyle.”

  Coke told Sully all about it, once they got to know each other better.

  “It gets them in the image, if their kids are fat,” he said. “Same as this one time my father had to rent a car at Cincinnati airport, I’m pretty sure it was, and all they had was some great, fat, four-door American monstrosity, painted powder-blue on navy, or something like that. It really freaked him out. Like going to a movie with the cleaning woman would. Suppose somebody saw him, and thought that it was his?”

  Sully nodded, looked away. When he was younger, his mother paid Porfirio, the doorman weekday nights, to take him to the Jets’ home games on Sunday afternoons. “Arriba, Tawd,” the little mustached man would cry. And pointing way down-field at Wesley Walker: “Miray! Miray! Miray!” The doorman had no business watching football if he couldn’t root in English, Sully thought. Sometimes he’d try to start a conversation with the person on his other side.

  “You know, it isn’t just that parents want their kids to look like names of cars, like Jaguar, Cutlass, Wraith, like that,” said Coke. “They like it if you act like one, as well. You know what I mean? Quick and clean and quiet? Economical and start right up?” He often spoke a little laughing sound between his sentences. “And easy to park, heh-heh. And, yeah, no breakdowns. Trouble-free.” He paused, and wrapped a strand of long black hair around his forefinger, and sighed. “If there ever was one thing my parents really liked me for—I did say ‘if,’ remember—it’s probably that I’m not fat.”

  He certainly was not: six-one, one sixty-two were his dimensions. He had a pointy chin and nose and slightly slanted eyes. He didn’t much mind looking like a fox in those respects, but being almost whiskerless depressed him. “Damn lazy little follicles,” he’d say, pulling at the longest one of maybe twelve black hairs that sprouted here and there upon his cheeks and chin and throat. “Let’s get those little protein-rich behinds in gear,” he’d say. And Marigold would laugh and ask him if his mother ever had an Abenaki chauffeur.

  The five of them were made a group—Group 6—by chance, or whim, as far as they could tell. The new kids all had rendezvoused outside the Plaza the first day of September, at high noon. There was a bus to get on there, to take them on a ride some seven hours long, no stops. Nat Rittenhouse stood outside the bus and checked their names off on a clipboard; the clipboard had the number of your group beside your name. Before she’d gotten on the bus, Marigold had pointed to the name, E________R________, she’d gotten from her parents, and said to Nat she didn’t use it anymore. “Um, well, what do we call you, then?” he asked, and she said “Marigold,” and so he crossed that old name out and wrote in Marigold above it. He didn’t give her any knowing smiles, or funny looks, or arguments—not even a “Marigold what?” Most peculiar for a teacher, Marigold decided. And then, when three names on his clipboard never did show up at all, he’d only shrugged and told the driver, “Roll em …” instead of acting really pissed, the way a teacher would.

  He also didn’t look like any teacher Marigold had ever seen before. His head—with long, long, long blond hair and blond goatee and vaguely hazel eyes—was strictly Rolling Stone material, she thought; the rest of him was out of Standing Timber, or whatever lumberjacks and other backwoods bumpkins read. He was about her father’s height—six feet—but put together differently: with stronger-looking, more elastic stuff, and a much better sense of proportion. His clothing made her think of words like “galluses” and “brogans,” words she kind of liked but wouldn’t bet a fortune that she knew the meanings of.

  Coldbrook—seven hours later—was the last place on a gravel road that wandered on and on, and up and down, for maybe fifteen miles. There weren’t many houses on the road, and some of what there were were mobile homes; a few of them had barns nearby, and pastures, which held cows. Most of the houses had several cars outside them, one or two with their hoods up.

  The Coldbrook Country School, however, had a split-rail fence, and half a dozen dwelling houses sheathed by narrow clapboards, white, and wooden shutters, gray, and roofed by cedar shingles, natural. There were also sheds and barns, both red and white, and black-topped walks, and one huge, level field that still was green. There wasn’t any sign. Whatever’s at the end of a dead-end road can get away without one, oftentimes. “Well, I guess this must be it,” is what the people reaching it will almost always say. And so, in this case, it would be: the Cold-brook Country School. One other place that you could usually find it was in the back of the New York Times Magazine. It had a heading to itself: “Schools, Co-Ed, Innovative-Alternative.” The write-up in the ad was very promising.

  The way it worked at Coldbrook was that new kids got to school before the others did and then went hiking out in groups. Each one had a teacher for a leader. They’d camp and roam around the hills and hollows for a certain time, and start to “get acquainted with the school’s unique philosophy.” Orientation, this was called, and “vital to one’s function at the school.” Apparently, the school believed that “each and every new experience must start at a Beginning.” Quotations from the catalogue.

  So, when that busload got to Coldbrook, they didn’t get assigned to rooms or roommates. Instead, Nat told them all the number of their group again. First thing off the bus, they went into a dining hall, where there was soup and sandwich stuff, and after that they trooped on over to a barnlike place, the school’s all-purpose room, where there were cots that they could sleep on in their sleeping bags. Groups would be embarking in the morning, they were told: reveille at six A.M.

  Because it was the sort of school it was, Coldbrook seemed to make the kids apply to go to it, instead of being sent there by their parents—though fees were payable by anybody’s check, or cash, or many major credit cards. (Or, if a customer insisted, in lots of other currencies, like real estate, or vintage wines, or paintings, jewelry, rare books, and glass.)

  The first page of the Coldbrook application asked the kid to print his name, or hers, address, and date of birth. And parents’ names, or guardian’s, and siblings’ names and ages. Also, other schools attended, subjects taken, interests/hobbies, and activities. That page was colored tan and was printed on 100% recycled paper.

&nbs
p; The second page was olive green, a nice light shade of olive. On top it said:

  Please write your name in full, again, including any nicknames you may have. Underline the name you like the most.

  Below that was a line:___________that stretched across the page.

  Then it said:

  Please tell us anything about yourself you want to, including why you chose to come to Coldbrook. If you really don’t want to write anything, don’t.

  The rest of the page was blank.

  Here are the ways that each of the five student members of Group 6 dealt with page 2 (olive green) of the Coldbrook application.

  On the name line, with a fine-point Bic, Coke wrote, or, rather, printed:

  Coleman “Coke” DeCoursey

  His answer to the second part was in even smaller print:

  I guess I’m pretty much your average misfit malcontent (genus suburbianis). My father thinks I’m smart and also wise; I’d say that he’s half right, as usual. When I was little I liked school a lot. They seemed to teach the sort of stuff a kid would want to know. But in the last few years it’s gotten more and more irrevelant, so mostly I tuned out, sometimes with a little help from my friends (the Flying Cannabis Brothers and etc). I don’t think that I’m a burnout, but if I was I wouldn’t know it anyway, I don’t guess. Anyway, my old man’s gotten more and more fed up and last year he handed me a big fat book and told me I could choose any school he’d circled on the page he’d turned down, or he’d pick one for me. Well, seeing as I never thought I’d look that great in uniform, I did, and here I am. PS. I’m spending 6 weeks this summer at something called the Institute for Basic Motivation. That was my mother’s idea. But I’ll probably see you regardless.

  Sully filled in the name line thusly:

  Arthur Robey Sullivan, Esq. (Sully, Linus)

  Loni Anderson (joke)

  On the rest of the page he wrote, in ill-formed cursive script that slowly sank across the piece of paper:

  usually one of the smallest in my class. likes: reading, sports, outdoors, mom, apple pie. hates: phonies, liars, New York City!, math, really want to get totally away from New York. like the way Coldbrook lets you make your own decisions (courses etc) and teaches you self-sufficiency.

  Sara typed her form:

  Sara Slayman Winfrey

  And in the other space:

  At this point, I have two major interests in my life: Native American peoples, and all aspects of outdoor living. Eventually, I think I would like to live in a Native American community, probably in some isolated part of Arizona, or possibly the Dakotas. After I graduate, I intend to go on to college, major in Biology, and then study to be a doctor.

  Before I got into that mess at my last school (which I suppose my parents had to tell you about), I was on the Student Council—10th grade president—and captain-elect of the hockey and the swimming teams. I was also on the Honor Roll, legitimately.

  Coldbrook seems like the perfect place to make a fresh start. My father tells me not to count on it, but I still think I can get into a good college and a fine Med School, with Coldbrook’s help.

  Marigold used an orange crayon. The only name she wrote was:

  Marigold

  In the middle of the space she had to tell about herself and why she’d chosen Coldbrook (if she wanted to), she put:

  Moi?

  In the same orange crayon.

  Ludi wrote in dark green ink, in an italic script:

  Louisa Rebecca Locke (“Ludi“)

  And then:

  My best friends always have been chickadees. Perhaps you’ll find that strange, but if you do, I promise you: you don’t know chickadees. When I was four, my mother died. My father was, and is, a pigeon-fancier—possibly she died of that—so in a little while he brought a plump young squab back home, and married her. She cooed at me a lot and ate French toast for breakfast. We never fight… or kiss. I read a lot, and write, and paint—but often not the books I should be reading, and poems instead of paragraphs, and saints instead of still-lifes. I know that I could get good grades, and want to, in a way. But it never has seemed worth it, yet.

  Coldbrook looks so beautiful! I really want to go to it, and I am going to try to fit in and “do a job,” as my father likes to say. You’ll see.

  They slept atop the canvas-covered cots, uneasily, the girls up on the stage at one end of the room, the boys down on the wooden floor with all the lines on it: like blue for badminton and green for volleyball and black for basketball. The cot assigned to Coke was on a foul line, a fact that wasn’t lost on him, for sure.

  At six o’clock, a voice came through some speakers and waked up everyone who hadn’t been already, by morning light or nerves. “All right, good morning, everyone,” it said. “Breakfast coming up in twenty minutes. Please find your group and sit with it; the tables all have numbers on them. Twenty minutes, please.”

  All the members of Group 6 were early; some of them were talkative. Coke did gagging noises, said, “My God, a hearty breakfast,” when he saw the dark grain cereal, and plates of eggs, and slabs of heavy toasted bread with honey. Marigold announced that she’d had only juice and coffee in the mornings—better make that afternoons—since school let out in June. Sara just relaxed and ate. Good nutrition was a thing with her; she even liked the way “nutrition” sounded: sort of wholesome, munchy, down-to-earth. One of the basics, along with sleep and exercise, she thought. Her body was the one creative project in her life so far, the only one that she’d been proud of, anyway. Her mother was quietly pleased that Sara “had such a nice figure”; Sara liked the fact that she was strong and hard and supple: Sully asked her for the butter, and she looked him in the eye as she was passing it, and nodded. He also ate the cereal and also wore wool socks and boots that had been broken in and taken care of. Sara liked the way he looked: his unstyled shaggy haircut, his snub-nosed freckled face, and eager, quick blue eyes. He wasn’t tall, or real sophisticated, or brawny-hairy yet, but she’d seen muscles on his smooth-skinned arms and legs that pleased her, put her at her ease. Sully had a friendly look about him, Sara thought; working with the same small set of facts, Marigold decided he looked “young.”

  Ludi hardly thought how Sully looked at all. She ate a piece of toast, and then another one, with Constant Comment tea. She didn’t like to talk at breakfast, but she smiled at everyone. Ludi had a head of soft black curls; her face was small, and what she called “guh-nomey,” with its round, dark eyes. The little smile she wore meant she was happy and at peace, but other people felt approved by it, as well, and therefore gentled.

  Nat also sat with them. In between the mouthfuls that he took, he looked around the table, focusing on each of them in turn. He told them, sounding shy and careful with his words, that he was also new to Coldbrook Country School, but that he’d spent the summer here, in Coldbrook Country. (“Cool as a mountain stream,” said Marigold.) “Not at the school, you understand, out there.” Nat waved his hand to mean the hills and valleys all around the school. “Just camping—you know—living with Big Momma Nature.” He dropped his eyes and smiled. He didn’t tell the Group he hadn’t spent a penny of the money that they’d paid him, yet. The checks remained tight-folded in his wallet, seven hundred fifty bucks apiece. He’d get the third, for fifteen hundred, after it was over.

  Sara, filling silence when it came, asked him where he’d gone to school, and he said, “Um. Well, UVM,” and she said, “Where?” and he said, “Oh, Vermont.” She nodded, muttered “Good,” wishing he’d said Williams.

  “So what’re you going to teach?” Marigold asked him. She giggled as she said it, which made her feel like an idiot. If she wasn’t really on her guard, she’d break out in that stupid nervous giggle, still; just like a twelve-year-old or something. She might as well hold up a sign, “Beware of teeny-bopper.” Not that the thought of anyone who looked like Nat teaching a class didn’t have a humorous side to it. Going by appearances, he’d have a class in Chain Saw I, she th
ought, and Senior Grateful Dead, and How to Make a Toadstool Taste Like Tenderloin, and maybe, as a lab instructor, Oral Sex. She’d have to write her friend Odetta Neeskens that, when she got back from camping. O.D. would get a chuckle out of that. Her real first name was Wendy.

  “From what I understand,” said Nat, “that may depend on you, at least to some extent.” He cleared his throat and moved some clots of scrambled egg around his plate. “Um. I think that I could teach some literature—American, I guess—and psych. Religion, if anyone was interested. Philosophy, maybe. Oh, and how to use some basic tools, and playing certain instruments, and woodcraft. I guess that gets worked out when we come back. I’m still a little vague on how it’s all negotiated.” Nat laughed, and also seemed to blush. “Everyone says not to worry, so I don’t.”

  Ludi, looking at the blush, did not believe him.

  Sully simply heard the laugh and what Nat said. It sounded good to him. A little vague, but one thing at a time, he thought. Whatever it was, it was a lot better than New York. “When do we head out?” he asked. “And how far is it, where we’re going?”

  “Um. Well, almost any time we’re ready, so I understand,” said Nat. “We’ll have to organize our packs, and then I’m meant to check us out with the Director. Give him—well—our flight plan, sort of.” He nodded briskly to himself, and leaned way forward, lowering his voice, and looking very much like Sully, suddenly. “I’m going to take you to…well, it’s the best, my favorite place I found all summer.” He gave a little chuckle. He had a silly name for it, this place; he wouldn’t tell them that until they’d started. Spring Lake Lodge, he’d christened it. “You’ll see. It’s quite a good ways off. I hope…well, I hope you’re ready for a hike.” He lifted up his eyebrows, and his light eyes went around the table, stopping for an instant on each face. Ludi felt he wanted something from them that he wasn’t getting, something more than their attention, that’s for sure.