his way to the train station in Haverford. Unfortunately, my father was catching a 7:00 A.M. train into Philly, and school did not begin until 8:30. That left me alone on the campus wearing a coat and tie. There was no one else around.
The door to the middle school was open, though, and I knew my way around from having attended summer school there in the summer of 1970. I’d sat in the huge study hall doing hundreds of math problems, one after the other, as sweat trickled down the sides of my face. There were shades on the windows that were raised or lowered by small ropes. Each one was tied in a noose.
In that study hall I’d sat next to a young man named Zero. Eighteen years later, he would be the best man at my wedding. But I didn’t know that then.
Now I walked through the middle school. None of the lights were on. I made my way to my homeroom, where the master’s name was written on the board in chalk: MR. PARSONS. There was a diagram of the desks in the room and our last names written in each one. I found the desk indicated by the name BOYLAN.
In Irish, Boylan means “Oath Breaker.” Or, to put it more succinctly, “Liar.” It’s a good name for a literary memoirist, actually. In Irish you spell my name O Baoigheallain. My people had been kings in County Monaghan in the twelfth century but had been wiped out by the McMahons, the bastards. Now I, the descendant of kings, walked through a deserted junior high with a little briefcase.
I sat there at my desk in the empty classroom in the empty building and looked at my watch. It was 7:15 A.M. On the board was also written the titles of the books we would be reading during the coming term: The Yearling. Prester John. The Story of a Bad Boy. The Moonstone. Johnny Tremain.
After a while I got up and wandered around the rest of the middle school building. I went downstairs to find my locker, which was located in a dark, cement room. I couldn’t find the light switch. I wandered down a long corridor of ancient lockers until I found mine. There was nothing inside.
Lloyd Goodyear and the other boys and girls I’d known since kindergarten were now starting their semester at Marple Newtown Junior High. Back in elementary school, I’d been the class clown, a regular Don Rickles. Because I did well in school, this was generally tolerated. But in my sixth-grade year, everything went south. “You are struggling,” said my father. “You never struggled before.”
One day at school all the girls had been taken off to a special assembly. The boys weren’t allowed in. When they came back to join us, they seemed angry.
“What’s bothering you?” my father had asked me. I didn’t know what to tell him.
The door to the locker room opened and closed, and I heard someone enter the dark space. There was also the sound of something heavy dragging against the floor. For reasons I cannot explain, I made the decision not to let this stranger know I was there. It was easy enough to hide at the end of the long row of rusted green lockers in the lightless space. Now there was a noise like plap, followed by a wet dragging sound. Then another plap.
A human voice hummed softly to itself, slightly off tune. Plap. “I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river, in my soul.” Plap.
The voice sounded as if it belonged to a very old man. There was something gurgling in his throat as he sang. I saw a shadow play against the far wall. I could tell that he was moving away from where I lay hidden. Slowly I edged down the line of old lockers. The door was not far.
I reached out for the handle. Something went plap. Water sprayed onto my gray flannel trousers and I turned.
There stood a black man about sixty. His face was completely distorted by some sort of growth or cyst. It bloomed from the side of his face like a head of broccoli. In one hand he held a mop.
The man and I looked at each other and screamed.
I pushed through the door out into the hallway and ran toward the stairs. When I reached the top I paused, out of breath. I looked back. I was not being pursued.