* * *
? ? ?
When Woolly followed his brother-in-law into the office, he could tell that a bad situation had just gotten worse. Because despite “Dennis” having made it perfectly clear that he did not like people going into his office when he wasn’t there, here was his telephone stuffed in the desk drawer with the cord hanging out.
—Sit down, “Dennis” said as he returned the phone to its proper spot with a bang.
Then he looked at Woolly for a good long minute, which was something that the people sitting behind desks often seemed to do. Having insisted upon speaking to you without further delay, they sit there for a good long minute without saying a word. But even a good long minute comes to an end.
—I suppose you’re wondering why your sister and I are here?
In fact, Woolly hadn’t thought to wonder that at all. But now that “Dennis” mentioned it, it did seem worthy of wondering, since the two of them were supposed to be spending the night in the city.
Well, it turned out that on Friday afternoon, Kaitlin had received a phone call from a young woman asking if Woolly was at her house. Then earlier today, a young man had appeared on Kaitlin’s doorstep with the very same question. Kaitlin couldn’t understand why people would be asking if Woolly was there, when he was supposed to be completing his sentence in Salina. Naturally enough, she became concerned, so she decided to call her sister. But when she dialed Sarah’s house and Woolly answered, not only had he hung up on her, he apparently had left the phone off the hook, because when Kaitlin kept calling back, all she got was a busy signal. This turn of events left Kaitlin little choice but to track Sarah and “Dennis” down—even though they were dining at the Wilsons.
When Woolly was a boy, punctuation had always struck him as something of an adversary—a hostile force that was committed to his defeat, whether through espionage, or by storming his beaches with overwhelming force. In seventh grade, when he had admitted this to the kind and patient Miss Penny, she explained that Woolly had it upside down. Punctuation, she said, was his ally, not his enemy. All those little marks—the period, the comma, the colon—were there to help him make sure that other people understood what he was trying to say. But apparently “Dennis” was so certain that what he had to say would be understood, he didn’t need any punctuation at all.
—After giving our apologies to our hosts and driving all the way home to Hastings what do we find but a pickup truck blocking the driveway a mess in the kitchen strangers in the dining room drinking our wine and the table linens my God the table linens that your grandmother gave your sister now soiled beyond repair because you have treated them like you treat everything else like you treat everyone else which is to say without the slightest respect
“Dennis” studied Woolly for a moment, as if he were genuinely trying to understand him, trying to take the full measure of the man.
—At the age of fifteen your family sends you to one of the finest schools in the country and you get yourself thrown out for a reason I cant even remember then its off to St Marks where you get kicked out again for burning down a goalpost of all things and when no reputable school is willing to give you a second look your mother convinces St Georges to take you in by invoking the memory of your uncle Wallace who not only excelled there as a student but eventually served on its board of trustees and when you get thrown out of there and find yourself not in front of a disciplinary committee but in front of a judge what does your family do but lie about your age so that you wont be tried as an adult and hire a lawyer from Sullivan and Cromwell no less who convinces the judge to send you to some special reformatory in Kansas where you can grow vegetables for a year but apparently you dont even have the backbone to see that inconvenience through to its conclusion
“Dennis” stopped for the weighty pause.
As Woolly well knew, the weighty pause was an essential part of speaking to someone in private. It was the signal for both the speaker and the listener that what was coming next was of the utmost importance.
—I gather from Sarah that if you return to Salina they will let you complete your sentence in a matter of months so that you can apply to college and go on with your life but the one thing that has become abundantly clear Wallace is that you do not yet value an education and the best way for someone to learn the value of an education is to spend a few years doing a job which doesnt require one so with that in mind tomorrow I will be reaching out to a friend of mine at the stock exchange who is always looking for a few young men to serve as runners and maybe he will have a little more success than the rest of us in teaching you what it means to earn your keep