Greenhill House

CHAPTER I

Dr. Corwin

A very new and very white Mercedes absorbed the badly potholed roadways linking the little city of structures within the hundred acres of Greenhill House. The Residential Treatment Center—Janet would have put quote signs around Treatment—was a color slide of the New York October landscape early this Monday morning, the sounds and motions of seventy-five children and almost half that number of day staff still fifteen minutes away from breakfast.

Two boys up early, walking parallel rather than together, observed the progress of the white car.

Who’s the pimp? asked Dartanion blandly.

Expressionless, Bobby shook his head. He did not risk open contempt for the question. Dart was a new kid, an unknown.

It’s a shrink.

I ain’t goin’ to no shrink. Dart spat an exclamation point from between his teeth. They walked in silence toward the schoolhouse, kicking at dry leaves in their path. The two African American inner-city kids with torn sneakers and holes in their sweaters, strangely out of place amid grass and trees, moved lightly with the lithe yet undernourished look of street kids. The white car that slowed down to allow the driver to wave a cursory greeting outlined their dark silhouettes.

Dr. Corwin had the good looks of a grade-B movie actor of the sixties—one whom audiences may have been applauding on the day Richard Corwin was born.

Dr. Corwin turned out a smile that was unconnected to himself, one scheduled to be extinguished by a replying smile but now left dangling without acknowledgment. He stiffened at the wheel, hit by the affront, followed by an aftershock of fury. Why, he asked himself, did he permit himself to be subjected to the insults of these hurtfully fresh children, year after year—five such years at Greenhill House?

Richard Corwin, MD, found his thin mustache with delicate fingers and began his tranquilizing litany: the money was good; the work light, if unpleasant; hours could be shaved off here and there; there were perks, sick leave, vacation time (with pay), holidays; the job provided a nice foundation for his financial edifice. Greenhill and private practice: he had both, realizing a formidable income. This year he would net, let’s see… He calculated while he parked, consoled, basking in soothing, warm numbers.

CHAPTER II

Janet

Good morning, Doctor, Janet chirped.

He enjoyed the ring of it. Back on his turf again, Doctor, a psychiatrist, board certified.

Round and pink-skinned, Janet had the tactile appeal of a rubber bath toy. People liked her. She could reach in behind attitudes, moods, and dignity and emerge with the tiniest of reluctant smiles cupped in her hands, a triumphant midwife. She was an office success, though, Dr. Corwin speculated, probably a failure in her personal life, where confrontations were more penetrating.

Did you hear? We had another rape this weekend. Janet said.

Who was raped? The doctor’s voice carried a studied disinterest.

"June. Remember who she is, poor thing? By Tommy. Tommy Peterson. I can’t stand that boy! They shouldn’t have kept him here. Picking on a child with such a low IQ! He dragged her screaming into the garage. Nobody was there to stop it. They’re afraid of him, that’s what. Isn’t the first time he did something like that either.

And not only with girls, Janet added pointedly. "Remember last week he was caught extorting money from the younger kids? And what did they do about that? He got restricted, that’s what. For three days. Three days! The people who run this place, my God! It’s getting so I’m afraid to walk around here.

"I don’t know what they are going to do with those two. Tommy has already aged out. Both have passed their eighteenth birthdays, although June looks a lot younger. Can it be because she is slow? He has a pending court date, and she is scheduled to go into a group home if a judge goes along with our recommendation.

I don’t think either of them will be sent to jail because he is too sick, isn’t he, and she is, uh, mentally challenged, but for my money they both deserve to be put away. I guess you can’t just throw them into the streets, can you?

Janet turned back to her computer. I’m just now doing your report on Harrington, she continued, barely taking a breath. Can you tell me, what the devil does ‘passive-aggressive’ mean anyway? I keep typing it but I can never get the definition straight.

Janet has fantasies about me, Dr. Corwin decided. Sees me as an attractive, debonair man, but her fantasies would not run to bedroom scenes. More likely she envisions having dinner with me, some good restaurant, French probably, both of us dressed to the nines, me attentive, ordering in French, paying the check with a credit card backed by unlimited funds, driving home in the Mercedes, laughing quietly together, her thrilled, but not touching me.

Peterson, Tommy Peterson, he said at last. Yeah—yes, impulsive kid. Violent. Dangerous. Can’t differentiate between sexes. Listen, I have to get to my office now. We’ll take a look at passive-aggressive another time. Remind me.

He picked up a sheaf of memos and walked down the corridor, noting the nice shine on his shoes.

Janet looked at Goldie, who was sitting stoop-shouldered at the other desk in the secretaries’ office. Goldie, the school secretary, a pathetically thin, bespectacled woman, barely out of adolescence, was occupied with agency files, unsmiling, chronically frightened.

That man! Janet said with distaste. What an asshole!

Predictably, Goldie blanched.

CHAPTER III

The Interview

Janet strode down the hallway, paused a moment to listen at the door, transformed herself into a Kewpie doll on tiptoe, knocked lightly and entered Mr. Cheaver’s office.

The redoubtable Janet, not one to be easily awed, nevertheless felt the beginnings of a swallow reflex and a sense of disappearing physical boundaries as Donald Cheaver looked up from his paperwork.

His head was covered with close-cropped, bristly blond hair that provided too little contrast for bloodless skin. Rimless glasses reflected light, obscuring other features. Janet’s memory dubbed in gray-blue eyes, a mouth almost U-shaped, and fine ears. She groped at a momentary loss for the nose and recovered a thin and pointed one.

Don Cheaver induced in her an overtly embarrassed diffidence as she tried to find places to hide her sprouting murderous impulses. Cheaver sat behind a regally oversized desk.

Hi, Jan. What is it? He spoke in fatherly tones, coaxing.

Morning, Don. There’s a Ms. Blue to see you. Says she has a nine o’clock. Dora isn’t in yet, so I… . Janet wanted him to know his secretary was late. Will you see Ms. Blue now?

Dora has the flu. His expression communicated displeasure at having to provide unnecessary information to an underling. Send her in.

She’s pretty, Janet ventured, daring a mildly lecherous look. Receiving no response, she left, a little flushed, vaguely angry.

Donald Cheaver rose from behind his massive desk, briefly irritated with Janet who had neglected to close the door. The right to walk in on him without knocking was an advantage he did not wish to concede to any newcomer. He pushed the door closed, lips tight in exasperation.

Outside, Allison Blue read the letters burned on a slab of wood affixed to the door, ‘Donald L. Cheaver, Residence Director’. She knocked lightly, grasped the knob, and leaned her miniature body against the heavy door. She stepped in to the office, an attractive girl going to a party with an eagerness that overcame anxiety.

I’m Allison Blue. She extended a hand.

Cheaver’s bulk dominated her. He shook her hand in cursory manner, indicating where she was to sit as though placing a pawn at its proper square on the board.

Cheaver examined her with the attitude of getting a pesky, yet stubbornly important chore out of the way. He had hoped to be titillated by a pantie line he did not find as she took her seat. Good looking, with a bit of the teenager persisting for ten, maybe twelve years past due. Dressed too casually, in slacks. Did she think of the treatment center as a kind of summer camp associated with childhood fun rather than adult work? Sexy in a way. Would that prove disruptive to staff, to the kids?

Cheaver picked up Allison’s resume, rereading the attached comment. You’ve already seen our principal, Dr. Rentwood, he noted. He believes you to be well qualified, and he liked you, but he has some questions about your ability to deal with our rough kids. Care to comment on that?

Boy, Allison thought, this guy doesn’t bother with any getting-used-to time. Cheaver’s business-office clichés did not escape her. She registered him as an ex-social worker who was more interested in directing than helping. He was ‘the executive,’ but somehow a facsimile, a counterfeit, acting as if without being a true business leader.

Allison had anticipated Cheaver’s question. I was brought up in the city, not at all in a fashionable neighborhood, she began. I worked a total of eight years at a high school in the South Bronx, five of them as a guidance counselor. I was excessed out. I managed exceptionally well with core problem kids. I’ve been offered teaching positions, but I’m looking for something where I can use both my skills as a teacher and my background as a counselor. I am small physically, I know, but I’m athletic. She concluded with a bright smile, feeling almost smug but with mild regret that her last statement had recalled Cheaver’s eyes to her body.

Cheaver was not much interested in her physical prowess, but as the interview progressed he became impressed by the sense of strength Allison conveyed. However, his concern was centered in altogether another consideration, that of her potential loyalty to him. She might be vulnerable to the oppositional, goof-off, liberal, union wing, maybe act against him, maybe even go whining to the board. He didn’t quite know how to interrogate her without exposing his worry. He elected a circuitous route.

I notice you attended Smith, have your master’s, certification. He leaned toward her. Now, then, tell me: do you have any particular philosophy with respect to treatment centers?

Allison sensed a subtle change in Cheaver’s approach. She knew he was after information important to him, but could only guess it had to do with something like rebelliousness. She agreed with herself to offer him reassurance on that score but would still go easy, girl.

No, hardly, she responded. I’ve had no treatment center experience. My job is teaching and that I know very well. I don’t expect to formulate policy. I expect to work with the grain of the program. I mean to understand what you are trying to do and to help. Of course, in the classroom I can and will be innovative once I have learned more about the children and Greenhill House.

After fifteen minutes, Cheaver was still not satisfied, but he gave up. After all, this was only a courtesy interview. She had already been passed by Principal Seymour even though Cheaver could veto the hire.

Let me tell you something about Greenhill, he began, settling back in his chair, his office, his agency, his domain.

Allison prepared herself for the business of maintaining a look of interested attention for some time. She thought, I’ve got the job! For sure this is the guy who decides.

She wondered what it would be like, say, three months later.

CHAPTER IV

For the Record

Janet.

She sealed the envelope, detached a stamp from the roll, thumbed it from tongue to paper, dropped the letter into the tray on her desk, and was up and rushing in the direction of Cheaver’s command.

Need me?

He filled the doorway. I’ve got three board members coming in a few minutes for a meeting. Coffee and doughnuts ready?

Coffee’s ready to go. Nobody told me anything about doughnuts. I guess Dora usually takes care of it. The storeroom’s locked and we can’t get hold of Ted. He’s off today. How’s Dora?

She’ll be in Friday, Cheaver said, annoyed.

Tell you what. I’ll run down to town and pick up the doughnuts.

Lay out the money. Make out a voucher.

Janet turned to go, but Cheaver’s voice spun her around.

"One other thing.