The Topeka School

by Ben Lerner

People were always dropping over, or we were dropping in, sitting beside a pool identical to ours, turquoise water in tiki light. Somebody’s “man” coming out with fresh ice, limes, another bottle of tonic or seltzer. Emptying and replacing ashtrays. Would music be playing? “Unchained Melody”? There were cigarettes and highball or martini glasses in every adult hand. I’m not sure we kids thought of the grown-ups as smashed, but we were aware of their distance, its hysterical edge. Like those Peanuts cartoons where the adult voices are just some kind of “wah-wah” noise, probably a trumpet or trombone; speech was addressed to us every once in a while, but we experienced it as meaningless shaped sound. My brother, maybe on my dare, cannonballing into a neighbor’s pool fully clothed, making a splash that soaked the hosts; it produced only uproarious laughter among the tipsy adults, including my dad, who would have whipped him with a belt in Maryland for that kind of spectacle. Donna Selkie, dark blond hair in a tight chignon, sitting one evening beside my mom; Donna had been given a half-real drink, a thimbleful of gin mixed with soda; what are her plans for college, some diplomat asks, making an effort not to slur, leaning in to hear her better, a hand landing on her thigh.