The actual story of William McGrillis Griswold
William McGrillis Griswold Journal #8
Gosh, what an unfortunate name. Maybe that name was the start of my unfortunate existence. Or maybe it was when we moved. Or maybe I did something long ago that upset the Universe.
You don’t actually care where my misfortunes began, Ms. Swann. Not you, the teacher who swears she remembers all the book’s details and perfectly learns everyone’s names by the third day of class yet who does not recognize the redhead repeater who’s been in your class now three years in a row. No, you want to know what I have to say regarding a one Mr. Jay Gatsby. Well, here’s some honesty for you, ma’am: I didn’t read the story this time around, but I can confidently say that Gatsby’s tale is garbage. I tried to read it again. I really did. But I opted to take a nap in my hammock instead (seemed like the more productive choice).
McGrillis pauses in his journaling and lifts his head. The students around him are passing back a hand-out. Naturally, his desk is skipped. Holding in a sigh of frustration, he reaches over and swipes a paper from his neighbor, Tyler, who speaks up right away.
“Hey,” Tyler says, “I didn’t get one.”
Ms. Swann frowns from where she stands at her podium. “That’s funny, I could have sworn I made enough copies for the entire class.”
Is this how Nick feels as the biggest third wheel in literary history, McGrillis wonders, Am I just a third wheel to life and everyone else?
In moments like this, McGrillis lets his mind wander home, to Montana. To the state he grew up in and fell in love with. He’ll let himself get mentally lost on mountain trails and in deep, dark caverns. Anywhere there because anywhere there is better than here at high school.
The day he realized something was amiss had consisted of one what the heck? moment after another after another. It had started with a ‘good morning, mom’ that hadn’t been returned. Mrs. Griswold turned towards him, but only briefly. He’d tried again just to get the same results. Finally, after the fourth time of him wishing his mother a good morning, she glanced at Teddy, who was sitting at the table eating cereal, and asked, “Teddy, do you hear that noise?”
“I think you’re getting old and senile,” Teddy said, unconcerned and unaware.
Mrs. Griswold shook her head. “Well, why don’t you help out this old, senile woman and go grab the mail. It was just put in the box.”
By this point, McGrillis was simultaneously frustrated and disgruntled. This was some horrible prank Teddy had come up with to fulfill his job as the playful, mischievous little brother. It was uncalled for. Not funny in the slightest.
“Here you go, ma.” Teddy set the mail on the counter and returned to his unfinished breakfast.
“Look at all this junk. I swear, we never receive anything good anymore,” Mrs. Griswold grumbled as she sorted the envelopes into two piles.
McGrillis approached as she sorted. While his mind was still trying to process what exactly was happening, a piece of mail caught his attention. His frown deepened as he grabbed the top envelope on the junk pile. It was addressed to him from his high school. “Mom, why wouldn’t you want to keep this? This is probably my schedule for this school year.”
“There it was again, Teddy. That noise. Did you hear it?”
“I still think you’re old and senile.”
Entirely unamused and entirely alarmed, McGrillis left the kitchen and stepped outside onto the front porch. He sat down on the step and tore into the envelope. Sure enough, it was his class schedule. But wait—that couldn’t be right. He’d taken all these classes the year before. What the heck was going on?
The rest of the day was a dissatisfying mess of confusion and increased frustration. He tried to call the school to get his classes figured out but the lady on the other end hadn’t been able to hear him and thought she was on the receiving end of a crank call. For most of the afternoon, he sat out in the front yard in his hammock waiting for one of the neighbors passing by to notice him and say hello, but no one did. Mr. Griswold, when he came home from work and pulled in the drive, didn’t even notice his eldest son reclining between the trees.
Three days. Three days McGrillis did all he could to get people’s attention, but nothing worked. And when summer vacation ended, he began his repetition of sophomore year for the first time. No one heard him when he talked, and no one saw him as he continued to exist around them.
And he continues to exist around them. Because it seems that’s the only thing he can do.
McGrillis eyes his classmate with contempt as Ms. Swann passes back another copy of the hand-out. “Here you go, Tyler. Sorry you got skipped over.”
---
McGrillis watches his mother set the table. One plate for his father, one for her, one for Teddy, and one for him. Except, wait—that’s not right. Now McGrillis watches as she, slightly confused, picks up his dish and mutters, “Why do I keep doing that?”
The cupboard is opened and closed quickly as his plate disappears.
“Teddy, Henry—dinner’s ready,” Mrs. Griswold calls out.
At first, it appears no one’s heard her. Then an old recliner creaks to life in the den, gently propelling Mr. Griswold to his feet, and McGrillis can hear Teddy’s light foot falls on the stairs. Both men enter the dining room with words on their minds—Mr. Griswold slowly emerging from his newspaper stories and Teddy from his anatomy textbook.
What would it be like to take a science class more challenging than biology, McGrillis wonders.
“Smells good, Helen,” Mr. Griswold remarks, taking his seat at the head of the table.
Smiling, Mrs. Griswold places a steaming pan on the table, two well-worn, handmade potholders taking the heat. “It’s that three-cheese lasagna recipe your sister gave me.”
McGrillis reclaims his plate from the cupboard and joins his family. They say grace and begin dishing out the pasta. All McGrillis can do is watch and listen.
“How was swim practice, Teddy?”
“Good.”
“The team ready for the meet on Thursday?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, good. And school? Learn anything today?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“Good.”
Noodles and meat and cheese(s) are stabbed and scooped and shoveled onto forks. McGrillis determines they all are enjoying Aunt Kathy’s lasagna. He’s not shy about helping himself to seconds.
No one asks him if he learned anything today at school (doesn’t matter that he doesn’t think he did). No one asks him anything at all. He sits between his mother and father, but they simply talk around him. They talk about news at the firm, Mrs. Griswold’s little first graders, the upcoming trip to the State swim meet (not set-in-stone yet for Teddy, but they’re feeling pretty good about his odds). They talk about Stanford, an upcoming visit to Grandpa’s, and harvesting the garden.
McGrillis wishes they’d talk about Montana, about going back. Don’t they miss home, too? Don’t they long to be back in the mountains and fishing from those clear, blue lakes? Can’t they tell that Oklahoma simply isn’t the best fit for them?
“Teddy, would you like any more?” Mrs. Griswold asks.
“No thanks, mom. I’m full.”
“Okay, well, why don’t you help me clear the table.”
With that, dinner is over. Mr. Griswold retreats back into the den, and Teddy and Mrs. Griswold clean up the dining room. They put the leftovers in Tupperware, gather the dirty dishes, wipe the table’s surface with a damp rag, and load the dishwasher. All the while they are completely oblivious to the fact that there’s an extra plate among their three.
McGrillis can no longer sit there and watch. Instead, he gets up, grabs his jacket, slips on his shoes, and heads out the door.
No one notices.
---
It takes approximately twenty minutes for McGrillis to walk to the other side of town. It takes him thirty-two to walk back (there was a particularly long train he had to wait for).
Not for the first time, McGrillis contemplates the lamentable situation he’s in. Why did this happen, and how can he fix it? He wishes this could be like The Matrix, so someone could show up and explain everything and tell him which alternate dimension he’s been stuck in.
He blames Oklahoma (also not for the first time). There weren’t any major problems in McGrillis’s life until they’d made the move. For fourteen years, McGrillis had been a happy, normal boy in Montana. It is being in Oklahoma that changes everything. Something, McGrillis knows, is happening in this state. And whatever it is, it’s suspicious.
You’re being a moron, McGrillis scolds himself.
Discouraged steps carry him back home, through the front door, up to his bedroom. He, in his cloudy mood, changes into his pajamas and crawls into bed to find sleep. There’s one thing on his mind as he closes his eyes: “Damn you, Oklahoma. Why can’t you feel like home?”
---
Teddy does his best studying from his bean bag chair. This, McGrillis knows, is because there are less distractions (as opposed to the cluttered desk) and less risk of falling asleep (as opposed to the bed). Academics are important to Teddy. He’s a science-y guy. Though he’s currently taking an anatomy class, he wishes he could be studying biology again. McGrillis knows this, too. Biology is the only class that gets Teddy closest to the water. If there is something Teddy loves, it’s H2O.
Though he’s where he typically does study best, Teddy’s really not accomplishing anything at the moment. His econ notes rest on his lap, practically unnoticed. The left-hand corner of the top page gets folded, unfolded, folded, unfolded as Teddy stares vacantly at the carpet.
Except McGrillis knows someone’s at home up there in his little/big brother’s head. McGrillis has seen that look numerous times before. It’s the look of a boy who just wants to be back in the pool, back in the water. Even though the next time the stakes will be much higher than ever before, Teddy wants to be there.
It’s a pretty cool thing watching Teddy swim. McGrillis attends every single meet. This isn’t how things used to be. When the Griswolds’ moved to Oklahoma, McGrillis had noted Teddy’s decision to join the team and his rising swimmer status; however, he had been too focused on settling in and finding his own place at their new school to really be invested in the new star athlete. Then when he realized he was stuck, he discovered that going to the meets was one way he could try and erase the distance that had so unexpectedly grown between him and Teddy. McGrillis can be at the pool and feel closer because the pool is the place Teddy feels most at home.
And, boy, does that make sense. Teddy is so good in the water. It is truly phenomenal. The way his arms slice through the clear, blue liquid as his legs propel him along. The ripple of tense muscle, muscles working and straining. In quick movements, Teddy’s head breaches the surface of the water then dips down. He’s up a moment later for another breath before he’s gone again.
McGrillis finds it funny how much speed his brother has in the pool because when Teddy wanders through the rest of his day he’s slow. The bell rings at school, springing kids from desks and giving them four minutes to make their way to another class. But Teddy walks at such leisure, the pace of a Sunday stroll. It appears the bell and its passing minutes until the second ring don’t apply to him.
And, McGrillis watches him now, Teddy slowly fidgets, he’s casually restless as he sits. The energy he exerts in the pool is so hidden and buried somewhere.
That’s how Teddy’s always been—a quiet kid though not shy or unfriendly. McGrillis has always appreciated that about his brother.
“Hey, Teddy,” McGrillis, a smirk playing on his lips, shifts in the doorway, “don’t study too hard for that econ test.”
Teddy blinks and frowns, registering he’s heard a noise but unsure what it is or where it came from. He lets out a deep breath and returns from his daydream to his notes.
Nodding, McGrillis mutters, “There you go, buddy.”
Then he just stands there and lets the silence settle in again.
---
William McGrillis Griswold Journal #9
Here we are again, Ms. Swann. Discussing the greatest Gatsby that ever was. And you want to know what we can learn from him and his story. Well, I learned I’d certainly go to him first if I ever want advice on how to throw the party to end all parties. However, I do think that if I want help with the ladies I’ll go to someone else.
Gatsby and I are similar, but I know that you don’t know this. But it’s true. We’re both stuck. He’s stuck pretending to be this carefree man who’s loving life night after night as wild, intoxicated people dance around his house. He’s stuck pining for Daisy.
Then there’s me, and I’m stuck, too. I’m here in your sophomore English class for the third year in a row. Nothing moves forward for me. I watch it all pass by. Hell, my little brother—a kid who’s supposed to be a year younger than me—is graduating this year, and all I ever do around here is just stay.
And, man, I’m stuck with Gatsby of all people. Ms. Swann, do you even know how awful that is? If his Rolls Royce wasn’t obnoxious enough, there’s the fact that he doesn’t even survive his own story. How bad is that?
---
How, McGrillis wonders, do these people feel so at home here?
The Griswolds’ are comfortably watching television in the den, and McGrillis is observing his family. He’s drawing conclusions. Maybe for the first time he’ll start to make some sense of what his life has become. And maybe for the first time he’ll have to make a life-changing decision on his own.
During his latest wanderings across town and back, McGrillis discovered something about home. Home is where you feel safe, cozy. It’s the place where everything makes sense. It’s the place you can live your best life. And right here, right now, he fully understands that he’s not living anything at all. He’s not home.
But in Montana, he was.
He watches his parents as they sit next to each other on the sofa. Mr. Griswold has the newspaper folded over his crossed knee, a pen in hand as he puzzles over a crossword clue. The arm that’s not occupied is around Mrs. Griswold. She leans in closer to him. They keep each other close. That’s how life is for them. That’s home for them.
Then McGrillis turns his attention on Teddy. The little/big brother who swims and swims and swims because that’s the life he loves. The pool with all its deep waters and chlorine and racing lanes is what Teddy knows. And that’s home for him.
The only real home McGrillis has ever known, every truly felt, is the one he and his family left behind. Maybe that’s where he needs to be. Maybe instead of living in limbo he needs to be living in Montana.
His latest theory sounds ridiculous to him. Yet, despite its ridiculousness, it ignites a spark of hope in McGrillis’s heart. This could finally be the solution to his problem.
Maybe what McGrillis has needed all along is to go home.
---
McGrillis willingly sticks around long enough to be at Sections and is there when Teddy wins the 100m butterfly and the 100m freestyle—when Teddy wins his ticket to State. The pool is packed and too warm, but no one minds as they cheer and yell and laugh in crazy excitement.
Over the last week, McGrillis has had plenty of time to think on his hypothesis. Time to question and laugh at himself. Time to seriously consider. Time to pack.
Teddy can’t keep the wide grin off his face as he steps up onto the podium, and a burst of pride beats in McGrillis’s heart. A wave of motivation courses through a moment later. He’s leaving this week. He has to leave this week or he’ll run out of time before the State meet. Because if there’s one thing McGrillis wants most, it’s to be told first-hand about the next time his brother wins a medal.
---
Leaving, as it turns out, is not as easy as McGrillis imagined. Last minute doubt creeps into his mind. The urge to wrap his mother in a gigantic bear hug appears, too.
Mrs. Griswold is sitting at the kitchen table. McGrillis hovers by the door, wanting to head out but unable to fight an instinct that tells him to wait a moment. Wait for what, he doesn’t know. The only sounds in the room come from the occasional flip of a magazine page and the vent. Mrs. Griswold pauses in her magazine skimming to peer out the window. The mailman’s just passed by. She peeks at her watch. Ah, good. Right on schedule. This is pleasing to Mrs. Griswold.
Perhaps McGrillis’s sub-conscious stalled him so he can see that. So he can see his mother’s contentedness in the life that’s before her. Good, he thinks, I hope they all are content.
Prolonging his silent goodbye any longer feels like a bad idea to McGrillis, so he blows a kiss to his mother and closes the door softly behind him.
---
As soon as McGrillis crosses the state border, things start to feel right, again. He senses the return of his presence. Maybe it was the pines that gave it back to him or maybe the mountains. He doesn’t actually care what it was that brought it back. All he cares about is that it has returned.
About twenty minutes later there’s a buzzing coming from his backpack. Confused, he halts. What is that? For one illogical moment, McGrillis fears someone has put a tracking device somewhere in his belongings, and it’s been activated and alerting the authorities to this runaway nobody.
Then he realizes it’s his phone. His phone. A device he hasn’t had reason to use in quite some time. McGrillis shrugs off his pack and digs through it. By the time he’s located it squished somewhere between his hammock and some socks, he’s missed the call. But there’s a voicemail.
It’s from his mom.
All he can do is stare at the screen. Then, after a moment, he realizes time is moving and he is actively moving with it now. He can do more than silently exist. He can do more than fly under the radar. Anyway, now he’s back on his mom’s radar, and he’s going to have to call her back at some point. So, he listens.
“Hey, honey,” Mrs. Griswold’s recorded voice starts, “We’ve had an exciting morning at the swim meet. We wish you could be here with us. Teddy’s races—wait, Henry, take a picture of that—Teddy’s races went so well. Second in the butterfly, and first in freestyle. Just wanted to keep you in the loop. Oh, anyway, I have to go. Your father is doing a horrible job of taking pictures. Love you, William McGrillis.”
For the first time in his life, that name doesn’t seem as unfortunate as it always has.