The Measure(65)

Anthony’s recollections of that particular night were sparse and disjointed and jagged, pieces of shattered glass: He remembered that someone kicked the boy’s dirty sneakers, trying to rouse him. He remembered that someone else vomited on his own brand-new loafers, after realizing what had happened. He remembered the back of the boy’s head, a mop of thick, dark hair, thankfully turned away from Anthony as the boy lay on the floor, inert. He remembered the sharp, stabbing panic, leaving him dizzy and breathless.

But Anthony didn’t remember much of what came after, when a group of the boys’ fathers—Anthony’s included—rushed out to campus in the middle of the night and huddled in the office of the college president for nearly two hours before phoning the local police.

The boy had simply been a party guest, it was decided. The boy drank too much, of his own accord. The cause of death was alcohol poisoning, and the death was ruled an accident.

As fraternity president, Anthony was called upon to provide a public statement, with the help of his family lawyer, mourning the tragic loss of life and offering up his thoughts and prayers. He looked like a true leader, everyone said, someone who would do great things.

And Anthony’s life marched forward.

The shooter’s, apparently, had not.

“But she hasn’t said anything? About her . . . brother?” Anthony asked.

“She’s been totally mute since the arrest. They think she might have some sort of PTSD from killing that doctor.”

“Then let’s keep it that way,” said Anthony. “This story was buried once before.”

After his colleagues left, Anthony downed two glasses of scotch, trying to numb his nerves. He decided not to tell Katherine. She would surely overreact.

The boy could have left at any time, Anthony reminded himself. That’s what the brothers had said back then. They may have told the boy to drink, yelled at him even, and maybe, yes, a few of the more aggressive brothers had poured liquor into the open mouths of the pledges, and perhaps some dull objects (footballs or basketballs, most likely) had been thrown at them, too. But, technically, the door was never locked. The exit always an option.

And now, Anthony realized, there was something else. Something they hadn’t known at the time. The boy was a short-stringer, before there was such a thing. And, that night in the frat house, his string had reached its end. If the alcohol hadn’t killed him, then something else would have, right?

As long as the boy’s string was short—had always been short—then Anthony wasn’t to blame. He couldn’t think of it any other way. He couldn’t entertain the possibility that there was a particular reason the boy’s string was short. Anthony believed in God, of course, but he couldn’t let himself believe that God had seen the future, seen that Anthony and his brothers would coax the boy into their midst, pretend he had a chance, physically and verbally taunt him until he imbibed so much he could barely stand.

And Anthony allowed himself to forget about the boy as the scotch seeped into his bloodstream, his attention span already shrinking, his brain slowing down just a tad. He poured himself one final glass for the night.

In the morning, his life would march forward.





Dear A,




Dear A,

I knew a guy in college who took a job as an investment banker, and he was so worried that he would end up hating the job but sticking around for the money, that he set an alert on his phone to send himself the same message every year on his birthday: “Sit down and ask yourself: Are you happy?”

We haven’t spoken in a few years now, but yesterday was his 30th birthday, and I wonder if he still asked himself the same question. Am I happy?

I think we’re raised to believe that happiness is something we’ve been promised. That we all deserve to be happy. Which is why this really fucked-up thing that’s happening to some of us is so hard to accept. Because we’re supposed to be happy. But then this box arrived at our doorstep, saying that we don’t get the same happy ending as the people we pass on the sidewalk, at the movies, at the grocery store. They get to keep on living, and we don’t, and there’s just no reason why.

And now the government and so many others are only making it worse, agreeing that we deserve less than everyone else. I haven’t even heard from most of my long-string friends in weeks. I think that maybe long-stringers feel a need to disassociate from us, to put us in a different category than themselves, because they were also raised to believe that they deserve happiness. And now they want to enjoy that happiness from a comfortable distance, where they don’t need to feel so guilty about it whenever they look at us. Where our bad luck can’t rub off on them.

Well, that, plus the fact that they’ve been told to be afraid of us. The wild, unhinged short-stringers.

I’m sorry to bombard you with such negative thoughts, but a friend of mine died last month, and sometimes it feels like everything is barreling downhill, and even though I’ve joined a group where I’m encouraged to speak these thoughts aloud, it feels easier, somehow, to write it all down.

—B





Amie




Amie still had the letter from last week. She’d read it over and over a dozen times by now, but she didn’t know what to write back.

She held the paper in her lap, sitting on the couch in the teachers’ lounge, thinking that “B” was right. A chasm had opened between the long and the short, one that only a few people, like Nina and Maura, had somehow managed to bridge.