It had started to rain again. We both froze as the man stepped forward and pulled out a flashlight. Its light shone on both Cody’s and my face and from that circle of light we could just make out his face, too. Although it was partially hidden by his hat, the man was middle-aged with huge, owl-eyed spectacles. His mouth was twisted into a frown and he nastily asked what the two of us were doing out here, where we were going, and why.
Cody was a bit more quick-witted than I was, plus he also had a bit of temper (and neither of us appreciated the threatening stance or meddlesome questions). When the man had stopped barking his questions at us, Cody irritably let fly with a response. “Listen, we’re trying out for the cross-country team so we thought we’d take a run. Is that all right with you? We were tryin’ to get over to th’ dorm but you showed up an’ all...”
Owl Eyes ran the flashlight up and down to check out what we were wearing. He then causally turned the light on the nearby University Police Department call box situated between Old Administration and the Communication Building. Cody held his ground. “Look, we’re not doing anything wrong,” Cody said crossly. “We aren’t drinkin’ or anything. An... and we could even ask you the same the question. What are you doing out here? Snoopin’ around in the dark? ”
The man’s face dropped and his attitude changed in an instant. Gone was the threatening groundskeeper he pretended to be; now Owl Eyes seemed embarrassed by his outburst and more so for being caught. He hem-hawed an apology and muttered something about running into a group of toughs during his previous research. After that encounter he said he was always defensive and edgy when confronted.
The two of us exchanged glances as if to say it was time to go. The strange, lonely owl-eyed man began pleading for us to stay, as if this would qualify as penitence for his earlier actions. We had taken but a few steps toward Bowman Hall when the man popped the question: "Don't you want to know what I was doing?" I must admit, Cody was more inquisitive than I was at the time. He turned around. "Yeah, you're casin' the joint and are goin' to end up being arrested for breakin' and enterin', that's what!"
Neither of us was prepared for what Owl Eyes said next. "Did you know this university’s first president was found dead somewhere in this area?" This was new to me and Cody, too. I knew nothing about the first president and sadly not much more about the man currently holding the position.
Cody and I stopped and listened as Owl Eyes began the brief story of Theodore Conall. He had been hired from somewhere out east – "Birmingham, Biloxi, Bedford, I don’t remember where" – where his extensive background in teaching had earned him the nickname "Magic Tad." These experiences impressed the local board of directors who saw fit to hire him for work in Grandville. Conall arrived in the early summer of 1873 (his wife and family wouldn’t arrive until late-September) and spent his first month conferring with community leaders and helping further shape the curriculum of Grandville Normal that opened that October. But over the next few months Conall changed. While he seemed as dedicated to the role of president as ever, he avoided excess attention and shied away from interviews. Once boisterous meetings with the faculty were mostly muted affairs, or so said occasional items in the Examiner-Press. Conall led opening day ceremonies on October 5 with what went down as the longest and wettest investiture speech in school history. Ten days later his body was found in the tree-lined acreage behind the red-brick Grandville Building. "Somewhere out in this area," Owl Eyes said wearily, waving a limp arm out toward the quadrangle.
Neither of us said a word but Owl Eyes knew what we were thinking. "He succumbed to Typhoid fever...or small pox. Some disease"
A disease? Well, that sort of sucked the air out of any potential mystery. We were tired. We were drenched. By this time Cody and I knew we needed to be getting back to the dorm. The rain had slowed down to a light drizzle again and Owl Eyes said a few more words and thanked us for bearing with him. With a down-turned head, he galloped toward where we had come, to the other side of the quadrangle and a parking lot just on the other side. Cody and I watched until his raincoat melted into the colors of the night. We then both agreed the best word to describe the evening – and Owl Eyes – was "weird."
We got back to Bowman Hall close to nine o’clock and immediately washed up and went to bed. It was had been a long day preparing for the rapidly approaching fall semester and now, for it to be capped off with some strange story from campus lore…well, the mind wondered about who the owl-eyed man really was and what he was doing. But those questions would have to wait for another day.
We weren’t even college students, yet.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Man of Mystery
(Michael Carr)
Fathoms
From the album Evening in Nivram: Music of Shadows
1997
