‘Yes, I suppose it does. Very well.’ He folded his hands. The Camel protruded from between the second and third fingers of his right. He straightened his back and lifted his chin. There was something almost Prussian in his mental coming to terms, Rubber Ed thought, something that made him think of all those war movies he’d seen as a kid.
‘My son and my daughter-in-law are having troubles in their home,’ Bowden said, biting off each word precisely. ‘Rather bad troubles, I should think.’ His eyes, old but amazingly bright, watched as Rubber Ed opened the folder centred in front of him on the desk blotter. There were sheets of paper inside, but not many.
‘And you feel that these troubles are affecting Todd’s academic performance?’
Bowden leaned forward perhaps six inches. His blue eyes never left Rubber Ed’s brown ones. There was a heavily charged pause, and then Bowden said: ‘The mother drinks.’
He resumed his former ramrod-straight position.
‘Oh,’ Rubber Ed said.
‘Yes,’ Bowden replied, nodding grimly. ‘The boy has told me that he has come home on two occasions and has found her sprawled out on the kitchen table. He knows how my son feels about her drinking problem, and so the boy has put dinner in the oven himself on these occasions, and has gotten her to drink enough black coffee so she will at least be awake when Richard comes home.’
That’s bad,’ Rubber Ed said, although he had heard worse — mothers with heroin habits, fathers who had abruptly taken it into their heads to start banging their daughters… or their sons. ‘Has Mrs Bowden thought about getting professional help for her problem?’
The boy has tried to persuade her that would be the best course. She is much ashamed, I think. If she was given a little time…’ He made a gesture with his cigarette that left a dissolving smoke-ring in the air. ‘You understand?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Rubber Ed nodded, privately admiring the gesture that had produced the smoke-ring. ‘Your son… Todd’s father…’
‘He is not without blame,’ Bowden said harshly. The hours he works, the meals he has missed, the nights when he must leave suddenly… I tell you, Mr French, he is more married to his job than he is to Monica. I was raised to believe that a man’s family came before everything. Was it not the same for you?’
‘It sure was,’ Rubber Ed responded heartily. His father had been a night watchman for a large Los Angeles department store and he had really only seen his pop on weekends and vacations.
That is another side of the problem,’ Bowden said.
Rubber Ed nodded and thought for a moment. ‘What about your other son, Mr Bowden? Uh…’ He looked down at the folder. ‘Harold. Todd’s uncle.’
‘Harry and Deborah are in Minnesota now,’ Bowden said, quite truthfully. ‘He has a position there at the University medical school. It would be quite difficult for him to leave, and very unfair to ask him.’ His face took on a righteous cast. ‘Harry and his wife are quite happily married.’
‘I see.’ Rubber Ed looked at the file again for a moment and then closed it. ‘Mr Bowden, I appreciate your frankness. I’ll be just as frank with you.’
Thank you,’ Bowden said stiffly.
‘We can’t do as much for our students in the counselling area as we would like. There are six counsellors here, and we’re each carrying a load of over a hundred students. My newest colleague, Hepburn, has a hundred and fifteen. At this age, in our society, all children need help.’
‘Of course.’ Bowden mashed his cigarette brutally into the ashtray and folded his hands once more.
‘Sometimes bad problems get by us. Home environment and drugs are the two most common. At least Todd isn’t mixed up with speed or mescaline or PCP.’
‘God forbid.’
‘Sometimes,’ Rubber Ed went on, ‘there’s simply nothing we can do. It’s depressing, but it’s a fact of life. Usually the ones that are first to get spit out of the machine we’re running here are the class troublemakers, the sullen, uncommunicative kids, the ones who refuse to even try. They are simply warm bodies waiting for the system to buck them up through the grades or waiting to get old enough so they can quit without their parents’ permission and join the army or get a job at the Speedy-Boy Carwash or marry their boyfriends. You understand? I’m being blunt. Our system is, as they say, not all it’s cracked up to be.’