Two to Nothing

By David Sarles

Arthur Dale is a grownup, a high school English teacher. He tries to meet his students halfway, let them run with their ideas, and then also offer them other ways to look at stories or poems. He sees his students holding back, trying to be cool as they pass through the days in his classroom, but he knows that out in the world they are lively, spirited, and they look around to find others to run with, to engage in their schemes, to push against the limits. Arthur worries -- does he muster his courage and join them in their rebellions, or keep his cool and stay in school? This is an important moment for him. Does he take a chance and run with the pack? Or stay back on the sidelines. Can he do both? What would happen then?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685627522

Book preview

Foreword

Palisades. That’s what they’re called.

Nothing like them on this side of the river. You have to wonder if they’ll still be there a million years from now. The grand houses we’re passing won’t be. Some already torn down or made into museums.

Or moved. Boscobel.

Yes, you remember. Moved up the river to near you in Garrison.

Oh, and Springwood. FDR’s home.

Yes, and his church in Hyde Park, completely rebuilt after the fire. The graveyard will always be there. It’s a historic site. Lucky us. Get to stay in the curate’s house while she’s on sabbatical.

We do? I was wondering about that.

I told you, Arthur. This morning, at Grand Central Station, when we got our train tickets. You don’t remember that?

No, you are mistaken, Kate? I went to the men’s room when you bought the tickets.

Well, doesn’t matter. We’ll have a marvelous time. Imagine, Winthrop’s 60th anniversary. And we get to be the guests of honor.

You do. You’re the graduate. You’re the guest of honor. I’m window dressing.

No, Arthur, no. You taught there for 30 years. A lifetime. You’re just as much a guest of honor. Just like the 50th anniversary. You were the hit of the celebration ten years ago.

It was only ten years ago? No, can’t be. I moved into the Cedars, when was it? Well, not that long ago anyway. I was still in the city. They came and picked me up. From the Village. I was still in the Village.

You were in the Cedars, Arthur. I came with Land to the Cedars to persuade you to come to the 50th. You read the chapters from your book, the one you’re bringing for the weekend.

I hope we don’t have to remember anybody’s name. The ones we knew are all dead.

Everyone will have name tags. If you can’t read what they write, just say Sweetheart or Old Sport. You know. You do that all the time anyway. You’re good at that. And you have them all here in your book.

Well, maybe. If I can read it at all. Who’s picking us up? At Poughkeepsie? Do we know them?

Land Winthrop. Just about the only one besides you and I who hasn’t died.

You and me.

What? Oh yes, and he’s going to stay with us at the curate’s house. He sold his house after his wife died, and he moved to Florida. He’s back. And he’s meeting us and driving us up to Hyde Park.

Land. I remember Land all right. He must not be a spring puppy anymore.

A spring chicken, silly. No, he’s our age.

I remember Land. How old do you think he is now, Kate?

He’s our age, or a year or two younger. Now let’s you and…me…take a short timeout.

We’re already past Cold Spring. We’ll get to Poughkeepsie in a jiffy and we both need to be sharp. Here, take the neck cushion.

Hudson River Line Springwood Extension

We have nothing to fear except fear itself.

Early summer haze. Nineteen thirty-nine. They float above the river’s western shore, ominous towers of West Point. The vision reflects uneasiness in members of the party – President and Mrs. Roosevelt, England’s King George VI, his wife Elizabeth and their royal entourage. They travel in a single Hudson River Line coach to the President’s private Hyde Park landing at Springwood. An uneasy landing party. Would each country’s state of readiness for war be sufficient?

On the bluffs of Springwood, the Roosevelts’ home overlooking the Hudson, the royal party picnicked on hot dogs, American fare for alliance. And on that warm summer Sunday morning, President and the King rode together in Roosevelt’s open top Cadillac to celebrate communion at St. James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park. On a path through St. James’ 200-year-old churchyard, Roosevelt’s swing step like the sound of coupling railcars, led the delegation through the monuments. At the gravestone commemorating Roosevelt’s mother Sarah, the party stopped to pray for peace. Peace remained long unanswered as each nation rode out the war.

After five long years of protracted war and troop trains packed with exhausted soldiers, Franklin Roosevelt died. Together with Mrs. Roosevelt and a few family members, friends, and military guards in the private Pullman car that had taken him thousands of miles, the President’s body made a final journey from Hot Springs north to New York. Then along the 75 miles from the city, guarded by troops on both sides of the tracks, the Hudson River Line extended beyond Poughkeepsie as a cortege of mourners in 18 Pullman cars, coupled together for this final Springwood stop for President Roosevelt.

Passenger service on the Hudson River Line declined in the decades after the war. The Hudson River Line scheduled fewer runs north through the divided Sleepy Hollow hills, the express made fewer stops at stations. From Poughkeepsie station, where it became the New York Central, trains passed north under the condemned Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge. New diesel trains rolled steadily up the eastern shoreline of the river past St. Andrews-on-Hudson, skirting the property of Winthrop, a private secondary school nestled into the hillside north of St. Andrews-on-Hudson, winding on north from Winthrop, bypassing Hyde Park and Springwood, where Mrs. Roosevelt continued to entertain dignitaries and guests.

Every year after the President’s death, selected students from Winthrop School guided guests through Springwood, students from Wildwood, a residential school the First Lady founded on the western side of the Hudson River. Wildwood School’s one hundred boys, removed by court order from dysfunctional family settings in New York City, many of them deeply emotionally troubled except in the eyes of their teachers, social workers, psychologists, together with Mrs. Roosevelt, the boys were the world’s discarded. But the boys relaxed when they were brought together with Winthrop students, moderating behavior patterns, bringing the nation’s socially privileged together with the city’s unwanted.

On grounds bordering Springwood’s wooded acres, students at Winthrop School, most of them removed by probated settlements from empty baronial worlds, found themselves abandoned to the school. The more despairing cohorts wandered down to the rail crossing below the Winthrop campus.

There, they timed the Montreal Limited express, train spotted the occasional private car of the extended Hudson River Line carrying occasional guests to Mrs. Roosevelt’s Springwood, counted freight cars carrying cargo along the tracks bordering their campus, and photographed freighters carrying cargo from the Atlantic up the Hudson River.

Summer afternoons, Winthrop students crossed the rails to wade along the Hudson River shore, fished in a creek filled with spring herring spawning, and trekked down the river road down under the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge to count cars crossing to the western rails. When trains ceased to cross over the derelict bridge, Winthrop students wandered north, up the railroad right of way to the Springwood stop and up the hillside overlooking the river.

On the opposite Hudson shore, students in Wildwood’s residential treatment facility attended classes at Wildwood’s P. S. 604 campus school, a New York City school for emotionally disturbed students. Living together there, in their named Roosevelt Residence dormitory complex, they fished Black Creek, a tributary flowing under 9W to the Hudson River. Wildwood boys played softball, hiked up Black Creek to a waterfall, and learned to box and swim. Under an inspired band director, they tuned the top half of 55-gallon oil drum lids and recorded albums for Folkways Records as the Wildwood School Steel Drum Band.

Would you like some lemonade? asked Mrs. Roosevelt, pointing to the trays of cookies and a pitcher, shook the hand of the Wildwood boy holding drum mallets. A Winthrop School student guide held out a pitcher and cups to the boy in the steel drum band blazer.

Jamel, is it? Mrs. Roosevelt noted the name on the boy’s band uniform, this boy with the pitcher of lemonade is Roger. He goes to a school next door here. Winthrop School. And Roger, this gentleman with Jamel is Mr. Patterson. He was once a Wildwood boy himself. Floyd, meet Roger.

Pleased to meet you, Roger, shaking hands with Roger gently, in a grip intended neither to frighten nor to injure. I used to play the steel drums at Wildwood just like Jamel here. Jamel helped make his steel drum. I remember tapping the lids with a hammer to tune them.

Jamel looked up first to the white Winthrop face, then back to Floyd’s face and replied, We mostly watch Mr. Grimes, he be our director, he cut the big drums in half. Mr. Grimes got him a mask and an acetylene torch. He do the hammering too. I give him a tuning fork when he ask.

I’m really looking forward to your band, Jamel.

You see we play real good.

Oh, here, let me pour you a refill. Now excuse me, but I have to go get more lemonade.

Jamel, you better go get ready. I’ll come along in a minute, I might get invited to play one or two songs with your band. You get on over on stage.

Roger started to say something, but Floyd turned and said, You know, when I was at Wildwood, we came over here to Springwood a couple of times. There was a student I think went to your school. I got to talk to him after we played. Orlando somebody. A tall kid with an afro. I really liked him. You know anything about what he did after he graduated?

No, I don’t…Wait a minute, Orlando? Yeah, he helped out on the maintenance crew. I got to help sometimes when I got back from school in town. Yeah, he was a great guy. He got the Winthrop prize when he graduated.

If you get to talk to him ever, say hi from Floyd.

I will. What happened to your hands, Floyd?

They get all swollen like this from boxing. I’m training for the Olympics over up the river not far from the Wildwood campus. Mr. Grimes called to ask me to come back today to help the kids. I went to Wildwood up until 6th grade. We started the steel drum band with Mr. Grimes.

Oh, hey, that’s cool. Did you get to box at Wildwood? We don’t have boxing at Winthrop, but we do have archery.

Oh, we had that too. Couldn’t hit the target. I was better at boxing. I got to go to Police Athletic League lessons in Kingston. We used those big gloves. Headgear too so we didn’t get hurt much and our hands didn’t get all swollen.

We’ve got a lot of woods here on this side of the river and I get to shoot game, rabbits and stuff, but only with a pellet gun while school is on. Or maybe if I don’t get to go on an all-school field trip or something I get to use my .22. My family lives on campus at Winthrop. My dad is Director of Student Services. I get to have target practice in the woods behind the campus when everybody is on vacation.

Nice to meet you, Floyd. Good luck with your boxing.

Yeah, thanks. Good luck to you at, what’s the name of your school, Winthrop? Maybe I’ll stop by and check it out next time I’m over here at Mrs. Roosevelt’s. See you around.

Roger, can I have a word with you? Dr. Worth caught up to his son outside the Winthrop School canteen.

"Hi, Dad. Take a look at these new Teflon coated bullets in The Shooter’s Bible. You want some jerky? You look worried, Dad. What’s up?"

Roger, no thank you, Roger. Roger, it’s about that group you went over to Mrs. Roosevelt’s yesterday. To help out with the entertainment. The kids from that school, Wildwood kids, you showed around Springwood.

Yeah, there was that neat chaperone, Floyd. Yeah, what about them?

There was an accident across the river on their way back. Their bus got hit by a freight train on a crossing in Highland. Three boys were killed. The driver too.

Oh, man, Dad! That’s horrible. What happened?

They think the bus got stuck on some rails. We don’t have the full report. I thought you ought to hear it from me. Before you see the news on the television.

I hope Floyd is OK. How can we find out?

When we hear more, I’ll ask about some of the individuals. I did hear that Mr. Grimes is OK. We’ll be sending him over some school supplies, some books and backpacks, a few extra instruments from the band room. I hear their steel drums were banged up but OK.

Who cares? You can make some new steel drums. It’s the kids.

Yes, of course, the children are the important thing. We’ll hope they aren’t too shaken up, even those that weren’t hurt. They need just as much attention as the injured ones. This is hard for you to understand, Roger.

It’s horrible.

It’s horrible, but it’s something you will be able to get through. I had a tough time after the war. We have a tough time at first with a person dying. Especially a young person. Hard enough for us adults. Let me know if it starts to really bother you.

No kidding, Dad. I can’t believe this happens. Why, to good people especially?

It’s the first thing that happens to us. We don’t know why, so our brains make us think it didn’t happen at first.

So you think Floyd is OK? I sure hope so. He was training for the Olympics. Maybe we could go down to St. James and pray for them.

That is a very thoughtful idea, Roger. Maybe it would be easier for Father Jean to come here to Winthrop for assembly tomorrow and offer a prayer. I’ll call him.

Chapter. I

Edward G. Demarco, III

C’mon over and watch the vet work on the little bulls. we’re going to show you how we help the animals really be just like pets. The vet doesn’t hurt the little bulls and it takes just a few minutes. This is what we do on the ranch. The horsies too, Teddy. And your doggy Zeus.

It’s unethical, boss, and I can’t imagine why your little man would ever have to undergo surgery when there are several non-invasive methods. It’s clear that that new DMPA chemical the vet was talking about is 100 percent successful. Why not see what he can do for your son?

We see that as the best option too, Mrs. D. and I. Better than an operation. Are we sure that some of the side effects are not harmful? After all, we don’t want to send some kind of effeminate boy off to grow up in that school environment. Just a sort of permanent gentleman. We don’t want anything unfortunate to happen. To him, you see.

The eight-year-old boy holding a metal box in his two hands followed his tall, thirty-year-old tutor out the rear door of a chauffeured vintage Lincoln Continental onto Love Field’s tarmac and to the American Airlines terminal, trailing a skycap into the departures building.

American Airlines flight 480 Convair service to New York Idlewild with intermediate stops in Kansas City, Chicago Midway, boarding in twenty minutes at gate 4…

OK, Teddy, we’re right on time. It’s going to be a long flight. Do you want to use the men’s room before we get on the airplane?

Use men’s room, said the boy, shaking his head.

We are going to have dinner on the airplane. You want to get a pop to take on the plane with us. Coke? Dr. Pepper?

Dr. Pepper. Dr. Brown. New York Yankees, .279. Dr. Brown, Ft. Worth.

At 15,000 feet. Temperature in Chicago 75 degrees with northeast wind off the lake at 10 miles per hour…

Sticker label on jacket.

Hello My Name Is

Edw G. Demarco, III

Longview, Texas

To: NY Idlewild

AA #480, 4 Jun

Not so far now. One more stop. You can sit down. We don’t have to get off. Not so much farther to go. Here, here’s another card. Look. It’s Chico Carrasquel.

Chico, Chicago White Sox. Is this Pokissie, is Pokissie near or far from Ka City? Is Ka City near or far from Chicago?

Good. Right. OK, now. Let’s put your cards away. Here comes lunch. Your favorite, turkey and stuffing. And some peach cobbler. You want milk?

Want Dr. Pepper. An milk.

OK. Here comes. Say thank you to the lady. Say thank you.

Thank you, lady.

"Larry Yogi Berra. Calvin Ripken. Phil Cavaretta. Domenic DiMaggio is Joe DiMaggio? No, Domenic…Domenic is brother.

White Sox versus Red Sox, June 4, 1952, Wrigley Field, 8:00 p.m. Battery: Mel Parnell 3.25 ERA & Del Rice, c.; Bobby Doerr 2b, .285 1 for 4; Domenic DiMaggio cf, .288 2 for 3, double; Walt Dropo 1b, .250 0 for 4, 2 SO; Billy Goodman…"

…Chicago, battery Wynn 4.95 ERA and Lollar…

…Nelson Fox 2b, .265, 0 for 3, one BB, one SB…

…Luis Apparicio ss, .198, 3H 3B, 2 RBI…

…Dick Kluszewski…

…arriving New York Idlewild 12:30 p.m….

Is Pokissie far from Dalls?

Dr. Worth gets to the American Airlines terminal at Idlewild and meets Teddy’s flight on time, even after a flat tire on Highway 9A in Ossining. He introduces himself to the boy’s aide, Lawrence Chisholm.

Pleased to meet you, Mr. Worth. My name is Lawrence Chisholm. This is Teddy.

Dr. Worth, Lawrence. Everybody calls me Doctor. He turns to the young boy holding the box. Hi, Teddy. You can call me Doctor.

Dr. Brown. New York Yankees, .279; .439 in World Series.

What’s he say?

Oh, speaks baseball all the day long, is a baseball fan from morning to night.

OK. OK. You like the Yankees?

Dr. Brown, four World Series. Yankees third base. Triple, game five, three RBI’s. Dr. Brown Ft. Worth.

He’s saying Bobby Brown played in four Yankees World Series. Dr. Brown has a medical practice now in Ft. Worth. Dr. Brown was one of his favorite players. We met him at a minor league game in Dallas, has about a dozen players he follows loyally. About two hundred he keeps track of during the season.

Wow, he’ll be right at home at Winthrop. We have some students who he’ll get along really well with.

I was pretty impressed when I found out about Winthrop. His parents were convinced it was the place for him. They asked me to stay with him until he settles in. I’m going to go up with you to be with him at Winthrop for a few days. I have to get back on Friday for classes. I’m in my second-year med school at Texas Christian. But he will be fine on his own. I’ll check in with the school every month for a while to see how he’s doing.

Oh, we’ve got it covered, Lawrence. But very glad you can come up to Winthrop to see what we have going.

By the way, Doctor, it isn’t on his medical report, but his parents arranged with a Poughkeepsie physician to have injections scheduled for him so he won’t be so anxious. He’s effectively going to be maintained in a preadolescent sexual development phase.

Oh. Oh, well, it’s good you told me. I would have wondered about that. Is that so he won’t have such a tough go when he reaches puberty?

I guess that’s the reason. May be other factors. Anyway, he’s a sweet kid.

Yeah, I can see that. OK. So the van is over at short-term parking. Let’s go. Can I take your box?

He’ll want to keep that, Doctor. He checks his cards all the time.

Sure. Cards. Good. Well, there’s the van. Hop in. Let’s get going. It takes about an hour and one-half to get to Winthrop. We’re ahead of rush hour traffic. Bet you’re hungry. We have a great supper lined up. Turkey and all the trimmings.

Turkey and stuffing. An cranberry sauce. An milk. An Dr. Pepper.

Edward G. Demarco, III, box perched in lap, seated in the front seat of the new Winthrop School International van, between Dr. Worth and his tutor, Lawrence Chisholm, his metal box and his canvas carryall, his single pieces of luggage. Lawrence Chisholm puts his athletic duffle on a seat in the second row of bench seats. He folds his hands across a medical bag in front with him as he nods off on the hilly road somewhere north of Sleepy Hollow.

Two f’ four, .293…

How’s that? Dr. Worth asks.

Is Pokissie far?

Edward G. Demarco, III endures eleven long years, 1952–1963, at Winthrop School, four in the elementary grades, two in seventh grade, then, five more fruitless years through classes, his final two as a token senior. Winthrop School’s occupational therapist, training in handling table settings in the dining room, finds his large motor control coordination in sweeping and mopping to be limited but acceptable, but observes his nimble hand movements and determines he will be able to follow through with fine motor directions.

In other later explorations of his running monologues, the therapist guesses that his computational skills are advanced to a