Now and Then

46.

Coyle state college was a scatter of yellow brick buildings across from a shopping center in Parma. The vice president for administration was a guy with a bad comb-over.

“Gerald Lamont,” he said when we shook hands. “Call me Jerry.”

Jerry was wearing a plaid sport coat, with a maroon shirt and tie. It went perfect with the comb-over.

“I’m interested in a member of your faculty from ten years ago, Perry Alderson.”

“Sure,” he said.

He picked up the phone and dialed an extension.

“Sally? Could you look up a former faculty member here, from ten years ago, Perry . . .”

He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“Alderson,” I said.

“Perry Alderson, yeah, soon as you can. Thanks, Sal.”

He hung up.

“What’d this guy Perry do?”

“Just a name that came up in a case back in Boston,” I said.

“Red Sox Nation,” Jerry said.

“That’s right,” I said.

“It was great for you guys in 2004,” Jerry said. “I think the whole country was rooting for you.”

“It was great,” I said.

Jerry’s phone rang.

“Hi, Sal. You’re sure? How about a few years either side?

No? Okay.”

He hung up and looked at me and shook his head.

“No Perry Alderson,” he said.

“Teaching assistant?”

“We have never had a sufficient graduate program for teaching assistants.”

“The college have a program,” I said, “for counseling street people at the Church of the Redeemer, on Euclid?”

“I don’t think so,” Jerry said.

I didn’t have the sense that Jerry was on top of things here at Coyle.

“Did they ten years ago?” I said.

“Ten years ago I was working for the Ohio Department of Education,” Jerry said. “Lemme call my assistant dean. She was here then, I think.”

He picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hi. Lois? Could you come down to my office? Yes. Please. Now. Okay, thanks.”

“You don’t have this kind of information on computers?” I said.

“I’m not a computer guy,” he said.

Assistant Dean Lois came into the office. She was a great improvement on Jerry. Jerry introduced us, and explained me.

“I’m interested in a guy named Perry Alderson. Said he was a professor here about ten years ago. Psychology.”

Lois shook her head.

“I’ve been here for twenty years,” she said. “First four as a student. I was a psych major. After graduation I stayed on as an administrator. I don’t remember a Perry Alderson.”

If she was a freshman twenty years ago she’d be in her late thirties now. A fine age for a woman. I took my picture of Perry Alderson out and put it on the desk.

“Either of you recognize him?” I said.

They both looked. Jerry shook his head.

Lois said, “My God, that’s Bradley Turner.”

“Bradley Turner,” I said.

“Yes,” Lois said. “I used to date him. Though I guess I wasn’t alone in that.”

“Active ladies’ man?” I said.

“Very,” she said.

“Tell me about him,” I said.

“This place used to be a junior college,” Lois said. “Two years to an associate’s degree. Then when we joined the state collegesystem, we moved to a full four-year curriculum and added a small graduate program offering a master’s degree in social work and psychology.”

“The master’s was terminal?” I said.

“Yes. We did not, still don’t, offer a Ph.D. We don’t have the resources.”

“We’re headed in the right direction,” Jerry said. Both Lois and I nodded. I had already fi gured out what Lois had long known about Jerry.

“Was Bradley in the graduate program?”

“Yes. He was older. Said he had been deeply engaged in the peace movement for many years, but now had decided that there was a better way. He was working toward a master’s in pysch and deprivation counseling.”

“Deprivation counseling,” I said.

“It’s a program to which we lay original claim,” Jerry said.

“Working with the impoverished, those challenged by drugs and alcohol. They have special problems, and we feel that there needs to be specialized training.”

“Turner was in that program,” I said to Lois.

“Yes. I was too. That’s how I met him. We had classes together.”

“While you two are talking,” Jerry said, “I’ll go and see if Sally can dig up this guy Turner’s record.”

“Good,” I said.

Jerry got up and went out.

“And now you’re working with the impoverished here at Coyle State?” I said.

She smiled.

“The reality of impoverishment is much nastier than the academic hypothesis,” Lois said. “I decided college administration was more my line.”

“Speaking of nasty,” I said.

“Very nasty,” she said. “But here, at least, no one has the fortitude to be really dangerous.”

I nodded.

“How old would you say he was at the time?” I said.

“Late thirties. It was part of what made him fascinating. Remember, I was like nineteen. He would talk about his adventures in the peace movement the way some men tell war stories. Haight-Ashbury. Kent State. SNCC. All that. Names. Songs. He was like a legendary fi gure.”

“So he’d be in his late fi fties now,” I said.

“Yes. Isn’t that amazing.”

“Why’d you break up?” I said.

“My tendencies are monogamous,” she said. “I got tired of sharing him.”

“Did you have to share him with many?” I said.

“Every.”

I nodded.

“When’s the last time you saw him?” I said.

“Oh, God, I don’t know,” she said. “He stuck around one more year after I graduated, working on his master’s. It was slow. He only took a few courses, like one a semester.”

“Did he ever tell you where he was from?”

“California. I think Los Angeles, or around there.”

“What had he been doing between the end of the revolution and the time you knew him?” I said.

“He would have answered that the revolution was ongoing. That the impoverished were the victims of an oppressive government.”

“No doubt,” I said. “But what was he doing?”

“He implied that he was slowly putting together the elements for a new movement,” she said. “But I don’t really know that. He was always mysterious about his past, which I loved. It made him quite exotic.”

Jerry came back into the room looking perplexed. My guess was that Jerry was often perplexed. This time, however, he appeared to have good reason.

“There’s no record,” he said, “of Bradley Turner ever being enrolled here.”

“Hot damn,” I said.