The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

Carter?”
    “I’m new,” I said, trying to keep from wincing. “Just transferred from Atherton.”
    “Well, sit down and tell me what’s happening at the school. I hear we beat Atherton in football.”
    I followed him into the living room and sat on a couch covered with a patterned design while he sat on an easy chair facing me. Mrs. Erskine went out to the kitchen to get us drinks. We talked about the football team, and he asked me about various people. I knew some of them. He didn’t mention Sylvia, and I didn’t either. He had played football and swum for Carter. Mrs. Erskine returned with our drinks.
    I opened my spiral notebook and pretended to take notes. I asked Sonny about life in the military. He seemed to have survived basic training in good shape. He said the worst thing about it was being confined to base for the first few weeks. The food wasn’t bad and he tried to get near the front of the chow line, eat fast, and go back for seconds. He had gained weight, but he looked hard.

He said he wanted to get into the airborne unit and jump from airplanes. That wouldn’t have been my choice, but he looked serious and I had no doubt that he was. Although he talked readily, I wasn’t sure how to approach the subject I was interested in.
    I asked him a couple of questions about being on the swim team and then said, “Dr. Graves told me that you were a really good swimmer. He said he like to watch you swim.”
    “Yeah. Dr. G was a great athletic supporter. Get it?” He chuckled.
    I got it all right. Especially since that was one of the phrases that got me into trouble at Atherton. I noticed that Sonny called him Dr. G, like Sylvia did. “So you were buddies with him?”
    “I wouldn’t say we were buddies. After all, he was an officer, and I was an enlisted man. And the grunts don’t fraternize with the officers.”
    I decided I’d better get to the point. “I heard a story about Dr. Graves. I heard that he likes to take boys up on the catwalk above the stage and have them sit on his lap.”
    His muscles tensed, and I thought he was going to spring out of his chair at me. He said, “Who the fuck do you think you are? Talking like that about Dr. G. You better get out of here.”
    I thought that was a good idea. I stood up and edged past Sonny as one might edge past a crouching leopard. As I got to the entryway, Mrs. Erskine came into the living room. “Thanks for the coke,” I said to her.
    “Did you get the information you needed?” she asked.
    “I believe I did,” I said. “Thanks for your time, Sonny.” I remembered to grab my jacket before I made a hasty exit into the rain.

    CHAPTER 16
    On Tuesday morning I picked Sylvia up at the usual time. Sonny had deserted her; I wasn’t going to. I tried not to think about what might happen as a result.
    Tuesday marked the one-week anniversary that the freedom fighters, as we called ourselves somewhat ironically, had eaten lunch together. Ironic because we had different definitions of freedom. Except that I had defected the day before. But nobody said anything. Neither Ed nor Barney said that Dr. Graves had talked to him. And I didn’t either.
    As I bit into my salami sandwich that Aunt Dorothy had made for me—I had decided to bring my own lunch for a while, because I had been growing less and less excited about the cafeteria lunches—I prepared to tell the others what I had on my mind, namely that we could do something together in addition to just eating lunch.
    Apart from what Dr. Graves thought, our status at the school was mixed. Sylvia was still being snubbed by the majority of the students. She was going through the motions of being student council president, but she couldn’t generate the support and enthusiasm that she had before. It was a good thing the student council didn’t actually do anything important, as she told us.
    The three of us boys may have suffered some because of our association with her, but it was hard to tell. Barney had always been an individualist. Ed was still editor of the school paper, and his effectiveness didn’t seem to have diminished. And I was still the new kid, with limited acquaintances, so I didn’t have anything to compare to, except Atherton, where I had known many students and been moderately popular.
    I took the last bite of my sandwich, chewed, and swallowed it before I started speaking. “As long as the rest of the world is shunning us in the lunchroom, maybe we can use that to our