The Boy in the Tunnel

by Gardner Linn

39.

The directions Mr. Delmonico gave Joanie seemed straightforward enough—go down this tunnel, turn right here, go down these stairs, whatever—but in practice, the hidden passages that wound between the already mazelike halls of Wintertree were nearly impossible to follow without a corporeal guide. There were no landmarks in the tunnels, only black doors that opened onto black halls. She could hear occasional footsteps scuffing down the thin carpet of the halls, just on the other side of the tunnel walls, but there was no point in trying to get the attention of these people. They were on the outside of wherever she was now.

“Hey.”

“What’s up.” Voices from the other side of the wall. They were ahead of Joanie. She crawled toward them.

“You go to the thing tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Lame. Fucking ten dollars for a cup.”

“Dude.”

“I know. Didn’t even go in.”

“That sucks. Wasn’t that girl gonna be there?”

“Who?”

“You know.”

“Oh yeah. I don’t know, I think so.”

“Sucks.”

“Whatever.”

Joanie moved on down the tunnel, away from the voices. For only the second time since meeting Drew, she thought of Tim. She wondered what he was doing, and whether he was wondering the same about her. Even though she had seen Tim not twelve hours ago, she thought of him as emblematic of a part of her life that she had left ages ago. So much had changed in so short a time. She imagined Tim as one of the people on the other side of the wall, living his life oblivious to what was happening behind the scenes, behind the walls, in the tunnels that most people never even knew about.

Should you ever find yourself in one of the secret corridors of Wintertree Hall, the most important thing to remember is this: Never make a left turn. You’ll only wind up in a dead end. Stanley Wintertree insisted on the tunnels when he built his namesake hall, but they were intended for DUH staff to gain easy access to all parts of the building, not for students to sneak around in, so they were made as confusing as possible. Every July, all DUH staff attend a week-long training program whose sole purpose is to teach them every detail about the tunnels. You, I gather, have had no such training. You’re not supposed to be in the tunnels, but if you’re reading this, you’ve probably found your way in anyway. So please just remember: no left turns.

The tunnel forked a few yards ahead of Joanie. She couldn’t remember Mr. Delmonico mentioning a fork, or whether he had said anything about a right or left turn here. It was entirely possible that the directions had given her were fake, just part of his game. It’d probably be better if she just found a way out of the tunnels and consulted one of the YOU ARE HERE signs to find the room. She was only even in the tunnels because of that Kirkland guy anyway. Nobody else was looking for her, as far as she knew.

If only she knew how to get out of the tunnels.

***************

The Family Delmonico was serviced by three parking lots. The smallest, at the north end of Wintertree, was reserved for visitors and deliveries. The main lot, on Wintertree’s south side, could hold about 75 percent of the residents’ vehicles at one time, on a first-come, first-park basis. The remaining unlucky quarter had to park in the Rape Lot.

Auxiliary Residence Parking B, as the Rape Lot was officially named, was located along a side street off Milligan, about 150 yards northeast of Sluke. The Rape Lot was called the Rape Lot because that 150-yard walk was along a heavily wooded path, beautiful during the day but dense with shadow at night, the perfect environment for unsavory characters to lurk in.

Kenya remembered hearing, a year ago, one of her neighbors in Mary Rutherford refer to “the Rape Lot,” and she couldn’t believe how blasé this girl had been about what anyone could see was a very real danger; it was not something to joke about. But wearing down defenses and compromising principles is what freshman year is all about. By second semester “Rape Lot” was entrenched in Kenya’s vocabulary, just as pot and ecstasy had entered her bloodstream, despite her staunch refusal at first. We’ll try anything once, or so we rationalize it to ourselves.

And then a girl actually was raped in the Rape Lot.

Kenya couldn’t remember her name. She lived in Mary Rutherford, but Kenya didn’t really know her. Wasn’t really affected. They stopped calling it the Rape Lot for a few weeks, but really, what else are you going to call it? Auxiliary Residence Parking B doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. We have to move on with our lives. It’s what she would have wanted.

The University’s official response to the incident was to install an emergency phone box on the sidewalk halfway between the Rape Lot and Sluke. The institutional reasoning was that if you were attacked on the walk home, you could struggle away in enough time to run to the phone and fumble with the unnecessarily complicated latch on the weatherproof box, and then call Campus Police (not at 911, but at campus extension 2012), who of course tried their best to respond in a timely fashion. By a stroke of luck or perhaps just statistics, the phone had not been used once since its installation.

That streak was about to end, as Kenya stepped up to the bright yellow plastic box, Purple Pages in hand.

*****************

A man can only eat so many Hot Pockets before he starts casting about for other activities to keep himself occupied. Seven, to be precise. Julian had called Dinah and gotten her boyfriend, so that was no help; he had called his prom date and gotten her husband. Strike two. And it turned out that Jenny McEntyre, the girl who had kissed him for the first time during a tornado drill at Stevens Elementary, was dead. A suicide. Drank a vodka-OJ-and-paint thinner cocktail. There was no one else he really wanted to call.

Julian decided to go exploring. He found a length of rope in the closet and tied one end to a leg of the desk, the other to his waist. His breadcrumbs thus secured, he set off into the tunnels.

The rope ran out before Julian reached the end of the first straightaway. He returned to the nonagonal room, found a pen, notepad and tape in the desk. He untied the rope and walked back down the corridor. When he reached the first junction, he drew an arrow on a sheet of the notepaper and taped it to the wall, pointing back at the room. He made a right and continued along the new path, the end of the rope dragging freely behind him.

And so when the phone rang, Julian was already deep in the maze, searching for whatever unknowable minotaur there might be waiting for him.

****************

“We’re just letting her go?”

“If I need her, she’ll find her way back to me. That’s how it works.” Charlie lit a cigarette, in direct violation of the NO SMOKING sign above her head. “The state she’s in, she’s useless anyway. All worked up over this Chet.”

“Hey, he’s my roommate.”

“I didn’t say anything bad about him.”

“Whatever.” The novelty of riding alone on a Black Line bus, in the handicap seats no less, had worn off. Charlie might have this sexy vampire look going on, but she was just no fun to be around. Dick was starting to wonder why he hadn’t stayed in the arcade with Sarah.

“You’re wondering where Chet is too,” Charlie said.

“That’s not what I was wondering.”

“But you do. I recognize the signs.”

“Signs of what?”

Charlie just took a drag off the cigarette and looked out the window. Wintertree, a 3-D checkerboard of black and orange, emerged from behind a copse of trees. “We’re here,” she said to the driver.

The bus pulled to a stop next to the visitor lot, and Dick and Charlie stepped off. I was just here, Dick thought. It’s all just circles.

At a certain point in your tenure at UNWG, probably sophomore year, you will stop feeling a sense of forward progression. Your first year is exciting—everything is new, everyone around you is a potential new friend or lover, every experience a first step toward a possible future. You feel like your life is finally moving toward what it is supposed to be.

By sophomore year you will have lost this feeling. You will no longer view your life as a straight line ascending along an incline, but as a point constantly circling, a sine wave laid on its side, repeating on itself. You go up, you go down, you go around. You return to the beginning every time. You’ve found your friends. Your circle of friends. That’s what we’re talking about here. Pick a major. Too late to change it now. Which girl are you dating this week? Or probably you’re not dating anyone at all. Waiting for your roommate to go home for the weekend so you can masturbate in peace. By now you know you’re not going to join the fencing team or learn to play rugby. Never going to get a bass and join a shitty local band. You’ve made your choices, but you can’t remember ever making them.

This is what adult life is like, so get used to it.

© 2006 Gardner Linn