Author: Dustin Lawrence Lovell. Reciter of Shakespeare, reader of Dostoevsky, and raconteur of tales from his time at Oxford, Dustin Lovell has written for The Mallard, Silence and Starsong, and other publications, and his novel Sacred Shadows and Latent Light is available on Amazon. He lives near Pasadena, California, where he splits his time between chasing his kids, tutoring, and, occasionally, writing. You can find him on X and on YouTube.

Wendel Fosse tapped the bottom edge of his presentation’s pages against the podium. Over the sound of students standing and gathering their things to leave, Wendel looked at Gilbert Cunningham, who had remained off to the side of the classroom through the presentation. Still leaning his chair back against the wall, Wendel’s old roommate, now a professor of Criminal Justice, gave a token round of applause. Gil had invited the erstwhile Literature major down from upstate to give a talk on “Edgar Allan Poe: Crime Boss of American Romanticism.” It had been over a decade since Wendel had been back to their alma mater, and almost as long since he had revisited his, then-favorite author.

“Great talk—thanks, man,” said Gil, standing to meet Wendel. “Want to grab lunch? As faculty, I can get us into The Glass.” He drew out the name of the college’s finer wing of the Commons, holding up his faculty ID card and pivoting it between finger and thumb.

Slipping his papers into his leather bag, Wendel pushed back his initial hesitation, remembering how rare of a chance it had been in their undergrad years to eat at The Glass. Though at best a step between middle and fine dining, to students such as he and Gil it had been outside of reach; Wendel shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Sure, I have all afternoon,” Wendel said, leaning against one of the desks as Gil collected his things.

“Awesome; after lunch, we can go check out the rest of the campus. Also…”

Wendel looked over to see Gil pull out of his bag an old Panasonic camcorder—the one he used to take everywhere when they were roommates. With a dopey, open-mouthed look of preemptive excitement, Gil raised the camcorder to his eye; Wendel saw the red light turn on in the front.

“Wendel Fosse,” Gil said in a voice between a news reporter’s and game show host’s, “it’s your first time back at Broadbury. How do you feel?”

“God, I can’t believe you still have that thing…” said Wendel. He put up a hand to block the lens.

“What—c’mon man, I thought you’d like it. Remember all the dumb stuff we did with this thing? We would have been famous if we’d had YouTube.”

“We did; you just didn’t want to convert to digital.”

“Well,” said Gil, lowering the camcorder, “I like analog. And I’m not the only one—there’s a renaissance going on, Fosse. The past is the way of the future.”

Wendel glanced at the camera; the red light was still on.

“Let’s go,” Wendel said, needlessly looking at his watch, “we should try to beat the lunch rush.”

“What lunch rush?” Gil laughed, nonetheless putting away the camcorder and lifting his backpack. “I’m faculty, man. But, yeah, let’s get out of here.”

---

         The Glass was beautiful, Wendel told himself as he wiped his mouth after a bite of shrimp scampi. The restaurant’s name fit: the paneled windows enclosing the circular floor allowed those seated inside to look out and slightly down pedestrians outside—and, Wendel noticed, them to look in. Rather than feeling the sense of arrival he had once anticipated about eating there, he kept finding himself distracted by a feeling of exposure; more than once he caught his eyes glancing at the edges of the bushes framing the stretch of sidewalk and central courtyard just outside of the windows.

         “I really liked that part of how Poe uses the Romantic trope of the individual perception cut off from others to make his characters become their own enemies,” Gil continued.

“Thanks, man. I hope your students got that much out of it,” Wendel said, sipping his coffee.

“If I’m not wrong,” Gil said around a mouth of chicken filet sandwich, “you wrote your thesis on the Romantics but changed your mind at the last minute, right?”

“Yeah,” Wendel said, looking away and taking a bite.

“Remind me, what was your final argument?”

Wendel sighed. “That the Romantic vision more often than not leads at best to unintentional tragedy, at worse a justification for evil.”

Gil looked for him to continue. When Wendel declined, Gil tipped his head. “C’mon man, what’s wrong? We used to talk forever about these things.”

“I’m just tired of talking about it,” said Wendel. Gil frowned and then shrugged, leaning back to focus on his meal. Wendel scanned the room; no one had noticed the moment. “Sorry, man,” Wendel said, “was just a long drive this morning.”

The two men ate in silence. Wendel really was sorry. He had surprised himself—he had not meant to be so terse. His eyes went back to the bushes’ edges.

“Aw man, there she is,” said Gil after a few minutes, “don’t look.”

         Wendel focused on his food. After a moment an Asian woman—Filipina, he would have guessed—with shoulder-length hair and a knee-length skirt walked into view and sat alone near the window.

         “Pretty,” said Wendel, chewing. “Gonna talk to her?”

         “Man, not yet,” said Gil, taking a bite and looking away.

         “Careful. Never can tell…”

         “That’s just the Poe talking,” Gil said, suppressing a grin.

---

Gil and Wendel crossed the street that divided the campus’s south and north sides. After finishing their lunch—Wendel trying not to dampen the exultant Gil, who had yet deferred talking to his female colleague—they had commenced a stroll around campus. Going first to their old dorm, Gil following his camcorder lens every which way, they had circled the south campus where most of their memories had taken place.

Wendel had enjoyed reminiscing, on some of them. His dressing up like a giant traffic cone and following people around like that one Monty Python skit about the Keep Left signs had been so dumb it was profound, or that time they had interviewed students about their views on the currently unfolding revolution against the Bourbons in France. For each he had thought, in the next moment, that much had changed since then; he doubted they could do either as a joke, nowadays. The former might result in reprimand from the college, and what with the amount of protest and violence France had seen in recent years…

Nonetheless, Wendel felt there was something more that had followed him through the day—which he had thought he was looking forward to!—something that he could not pinpoint but which had seemed to check his return as if he were not allowed to enjoy the day.

Wendel glanced up at one of the palm trees lining the driveway up the hill to the administration buildings. Alone on one of the fronds sat a crow. The lilting songs of other birds had accompanied their day, reminding Wendel of the bright feeling of his early college years, but the crow seemed unaware of the other birds as if it roosted in spite of them. Had he seen it earlier that day? Had it followed them up here? Wendel could not decide.

“Hey, let’s check out the tennis courts,” said Gil.

“But we already went over there,” said Wendel, motioning back to the sports complex to the south.

“No, I mean the old ones. I heard they’re finally planning to bulldoze them next month; that one case has been cold for too long, I guess, and the college got the okay from city police to use the land.”

The memory of an old newspaper clipping came to Wendel’s mind. “…brutally murdered…suspected sexual assault…left for dead…discovered next morning in the bushes…” Wendel looked up; the crow was flexing its wings. If Wendel remembered correctly, there had been a crow in the picture they had used of the tennis courts, too. He remembered there had been something about the crow afterward…

“Sure,” Wendel said, seeing the look on Gil’s face and unable to think of any reason not to.

“Nice,” Gil said, raising his camcorder to look out from the raised elevation of North Campus over the rest of the college. He then stepped lightly towards the wall of oaks that separated the administration buildings from the old tennis courts.

---

         The wall of overgrown foliage that shaded the western edge of the courts accentuated the waning light of the afternoon. After scraping beneath the rusted lock and chain on the chain-link gate—“It’s fine,” Gil had said, managing his way through with the camcorder strapped to his hand, “again, perks of being a prof!”—they had walked around, stepping over ten years of dead leaves and overgrowth.

Steadily bereft of sunlight from the taller oak trees, the knotty bushes that had grown over the corner where the girl had been dragged had reached with leafless fingers and claws out past the mauve edge and into the green court, their roots breaking up the cleanly level court along the way. Other marks of the years—presumably earthquakes, rain, or the contrast between hot and cold—had left the courts cracked and faded in many other places. Against the bushes a whole contingent of mustard weeds had sprung up and taken over one perpetually sunny corner across from the bushes, their tops taller than Wendel and some of their bases nearly the thickness of a woman’s wrist. Wendel got the sense of a struggle for territory, of a conflict long in the making, between the bright, dusty mustard and the dark brown bushes. He wondered what would happen if they were to suddenly meet. Would the ensuing climax take a further ten years? Above both, Wendel saw the crow, gliding in a circle.

“Hey,” he asked Gil, “was there something in that old story about a crow?” He looked back up as the crow went out of sight over the oaks.

“You don’t remember?” Gil said, squinting one eye as he continued to film the court. “There was that one crow in the picture, and people started saying the crow probably did it.” He chuckled.

“Oh yeah,” Wendel said. Had he felt sick, back then, at the rumor? Something about the macabre humor of blaming the death and possible rape on the dark bird—like an anti-Zeus, some said—had struck him as obscene. Or he had put it out of his mind to focus on Senior year and was only now considering it with disgust.

With crunching steps, Gil trotted over to Wendel, camcorder in his eye. “So, Wendel Fosse, where were you on the night of blah-dee-blah April, ten years ago?”

Wendel’s eyes caught the crow gliding back into view over Gil’s shoulder. Its legs were tucked, making it seem the crow would have to find a way to glide forever, never landing, never even flapping.

“No. Nowhere. I don’t know,” Wendel said, putting his hand up to block out the camcorder lens.

“C’mon man,” said Gil, a hurt expression on his face, “at least give me something. This place was never the same after you left. Besides, you drove down all this way!”

“It hasn’t been the same since…” Wendel said. Feeling a chill despite the earlier spring afternoon heat, he said, “Let’s get out of here. I want to see your place and settle in. Is that Thai place still there?” he added with a smile.

“Yeah, though they’ve changed their menu a bit.”

“Good,” said Wendel, “I like it when places don’t get stuck in the past.” He had not meant it to sound pointed, but Gil winced. Resisting the urge to apologize, Wendel turned towards the gate to leave the courts.

---

Laying awake on the air mattress on Gil’s floor, hands up under his head, Wendel looked at how the moonlight streamed between the slightly drifting, intermittently clacking slat blinds and landed on the wall. Through the open sliding glass door he could hear trucks on the distant but present freeway; there was a fracture, somewhere, between sections of asphalt poured at different times, over which the trucks’ wheels would clatter especially loudly. Wendel tried to guess when the trucks would cross the line, remembering the kids’ jingle about broken sidewalks: “Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back; step on a line, you’ll break your father’s spine.” He wondered about the innocent resilience of children who did not understand and were not worried by the meaning of the things they said. It reminded him of Gil.

The planned line in the freeway morphed into the cracks of the tennis courts. Of course, they had not been there when Wendel and Gil had attended college. Wendel felt he had even played tennis on them briefly but could not remember the specifics. He supposed it had been sometime later in college, maybe his last year, because, as their walk had shown him, he could piece together the first three years with ease.

He should not have been so sullen. He and Gil really had had a great time at school, continuing together after being randomly placed as each other’s roommates as freshmen. He wished he could return to that feeling; for all that one could accuse the man of living in the past, Gil had, apparently, never left it—and was comfortable. Despite the something like static just behind and beneath his sternum that Wendel always felt at the thought, his friend was definitely having a more fun time of things and certainly enjoyed the memories. Wendel, however, could barely remember them.

“Why not?” Wendel whispered aloud, unsure whether out of despair or defiance. He removed the top blanket and stood, careful not to make a sound, the door between Gil’s living and bed rooms having been left ajar. Putting on his slacks, shirt, and jacket, Wendel grabbed his phone and slipped out of the front door, leaving it unlocked behind him.

---

Wendel zipped up his jacket. Despite the growing spring, the night was still cold, and the sweat he had worked up walking chilled with each draft of air.

After midnight the town around the campus seemed unchanged. Wendel had remembered a few spots fondly, as well as others he would not have thought significant enough to be so easily and vividly recalled. Yet, again, most of them were from the first three years, and again it was with a kind of relief that he thought of them, as if part of him preferred to dwell on them.

As he continued along the sidewalk that transitioned into the campus, Wendel looked over at the line of oaks that shaded the concourse around the quad. An image of his younger self walking with a girl came unbidden to mind. She had blonde hair that shone despite the shadows. Before stepping out onto the street from beneath the oaks the girl abruptly stepped in front of him, standing eye-level to his collarbone.

Wendel shook his head, redoubling his pace against the memory of how the girl had raised her eyes to the younger Wendel’s without lifting her chin before reaching up to pull his lips down to hers. He turned right, away from the empty oaks, and up the hill towards the old tennis courts.

He thought of Gil, asleep at his apartment. He had left him like that before, to go meet…

“Stop it,” said Wendel aloud.

They had first met in Junior year, at one of those student community socials. He had noticed the girl looking at him. Gil had, of course, brought the camcorder, but unlike other times Wendel had conveniently ditched his roommate. However, despite his attempts, he had not been able to talk to her. As intent as Wendel was on evading Gil, she seemed just as intent on evading Wendel—and letting him see in her eyes that she knew what she was doing. The frustration which he subsequently realized to be a kind of game had continued until, a few weeks later, she had motioned to him with her chin through his dorm window one night.

“Stop, it, damn it!” barked Wendel as he ducked and squeezed through the locked gate to the tennis courts.

A few steps into the courts Wendel stumbled over a stray branch. Falling onto his hands, he saw the image of blonde hair, splayed across the tennis courts a few inches from his face. After pulling him into a kiss they had lost their balance and fallen to the ground just like that.

“No!” he rasped through closed teeth.

Laughing and continuing to make out, the girl unbuttoned her shorts and began to pull them down. However, she then put her hands on his.

“No! Stop!” Wendel yelled.

After still kissing him but pulling her shorts back up against his hands, a different smile spread across her face; she began to whisper the same thing. It was part of the game, the confused younger Wendel had thought.

“No! It was the crow!” Wendel screamed. “It wasn’t me—it was the crow!”

Some girls like it rough, the younger Wendel remembered her previously saying on the walk. Or had he heard it somewhere else? He didn’t know—he’d never done this before.

“Not me! I couldn’t do that. I’d never do that!”

Wendel remembered, then, her sly smile, one like a spider’s, reached its fullness; she started screaming.

He covered his mouth, feeling the scrape of the concrete on his forehead.

The younger Wendel covered the girl’s mouth, feeling the scrape of the concrete on his bare knees. Her sly look turned to fear, her muffled scream rising from affected fear to a pitch of terror.

Wendel grasped his throat, sobbing.

Wendel grasped the girl’s throat, tightening.

A duet of screams echoed across the court, one without sound.

Wendel rolled from the fetal position onto his back. Looking up at the stars, he saw the silhouette of a crow circle around before vanishing into a cloud.

Wendel took a long, heaving breath. “She tricked me! I didn’t mean to hurt her! It was…the…Crow!” he cried.

The scrape of a sole drew Wendel’s attention. Gil stood near the locked gate, a wide grin on his face. A red light shone from between his hands.

“I knew it,” said Gil, loudly enough for Wendel to hear. “I got you, you son of a bitch…”

Wendel tried to wipe away his tears. “Bro, I—.”

“Save it,” said Gil, letting the still-running camcorder hang from its lanyard and pulling out his phone with the same hand. The other held a gun, relaxed but ready. “Hey Vi? Cunningham. Sorry it’s late, but I have new evidence on that university case from a decade ago…Yeah, meet me here when you can.”

Wendel Fosse moved to get up, but a warning twitch of Gil’s wrist kept him on the ground. He rolled to his back, letting the sobs take him. A last, desperate part of him searched for the crow, but it did not return.