Matt Kellner’s pool house

Matt Kellner’s pool house is both Matt’s largely self-contained home on the Haskell Avenue estate in Encino and the private setting of his relationship with Bret. Its pool, aquarium, and secluded position behind the main residence sustain Matt’s daily routines and Bret’s repeated visits; after Matt disappears and is found dead, those same familiar features become signs of absence. Bret’s return to the cleared-out room uncovers a phone number marked with Robert Mallory’s initials, linking the house to the questions surrounding Matt’s death without resolving them.

Setting and Everyday Life

Matt lived in a pool house at the back of his parents’ large Encino property, with its own garage and a path leading through a gate to the backyard. The separate quarters gave him unusual independence. His parents, Ronald and Sheila, might go days without seeing him, and when Matt failed to attend Buckley for two days, the school’s call to the family initially found them unaware of his absence. The arrangement made the guesthouse not merely an amenity but the center of a life that could remain largely out of his parents’ view.

The room was furnished as a beach-themed retreat. A mounted, shellacked dolphin and pastel surfboards gave it a nautical character, although Matt did not surf. An aquarium ran along one wall, its colored lighting illuminating fish and other marine life; the room also had a stereo, a television connected to the Z Channel, and a refrigerator. Matt kept marijuana there, and the cat Alex sometimes settled in front of the tank. The pool house was thus a self-contained setting for swimming, watching films, listening to music, and spending time apart from the main household.

Its habitual rhythm was exceptionally consistent. Matt generally left for school in his red Datsun and returned by late afternoon; he was not involved in sports or extracurricular activities. He often swam, and at night the aquarium’s glow or candles beside the pool could be seen from the main house. On weekends he sometimes drove alone to the beach, but he left a note on his desk stating where he had gone and when he expected to return. These small practices made the guesthouse legible to anyone who knew Matt’s routine—and made their interruption meaningful.

Bret’s Visits and Their Relationship

Bret began visiting the Haskell Avenue property in July 1980, when he and Matt were sixteen and attending Buckley’s summer program after failing the same subjects. Matt invited him over to swim and get high while his parents were away. The secluded pool house soon became the place where the two boys’ relationship took shape, away from the school community and the main residence.

Their visits continued through the following school year. Bret often arrived without warning, entered by unlatching the gate, and found Matt in the pool house watching a film, preparing marijuana, or attempting to study. Matt rarely answered the telephone, so the unannounced visits became part of their pattern. Over time, they needed little conversation: Bret’s arrival led directly into private intimacy, while the room’s familiar setting allowed the relationship to continue without being named publicly.

That private world was never fully separate from the rest of the story. Bret later acknowledged that he had been monitoring Robert Mallory and, after an upsetting conversation involving Matt and Robert at Buckley, followed Robert’s car. The pool house’s privacy gave Bret and Matt a space of their own, but it also became a place Bret associated with questions about Matt’s connection to Robert and the events that preceded his disappearance.

Signs of Absence

The house’s objects first registered Matt’s disappearance through change rather than explanation. After a visit, Bret noticed that the aquarium cover was missing, the tank was empty, and its filters had been switched off. The lights still glowed, but the familiar water and filter sounds were gone. Matt only shrugged when Bret asked what had happened. Because the aquarium had been a constant presence in the room, its silence made the change difficult to treat as incidental.

Matt’s parents had their own way of noticing that the routine had broken. Sheila realized that the aquarium no longer cast its usual light from the guesthouse windows; there were no candles beside the pool, and she neither heard activity nor saw signs that the Jacuzzi had been used. The absence of those ordinary signals accumulated alongside Matt’s missed school days. His parents’ unfamiliarity with his daily movements meant that the signs could be recognized before they could explain where he was.

The pool house’s routines also supplied a practical contrast to the uncertainty. Matt normally left a note when he went to the beach, but no known account of his whereabouts resolved his disappearance. His father’s last encounter with him concerned a headlight on the Datsun: Matt said he rarely drove at night, and Ronald took the car to be serviced. School security later remembered Matt driving out alone at about 3:15 on Friday, apparently without anything unusual. The ordinary details of the car and schedule offered a last known sequence, not an answer.

Bret’s Return and the Room as Evidence

After learning that Matt was dead, Bret returned to the property. The street and house looked as they had before, but the pool house was now inseparable from the death that had occurred in Matt’s life. Bret had entered it many times before; this time, he found the gate accessible and the space unusually clean. The change in the room’s condition sharpened the difference between the remembered place and the one he was entering.

The stripped mattress, stacked surfboards, mounted dolphin, and empty aquarium remained, but the room had been cleared of many traces of ordinary use. The refrigerator held only a couple of Corona bottles and a can of Cactus Cooler; the marijuana and drug paraphernalia were gone. Schoolbooks were neatly stacked beside Matt’s typewriter, while most desk drawers were nearly empty. Among the few remaining objects were a notepad and a ruler Bret remembered having used during their private visits. The room’s cleanup did not erase every trace, but it made each surviving object conspicuous.

On a pad, Bret found a phone number with the initials RM written in Matt’s looping handwriting. He associated RM with Robert Mallory and tried the number from the green rotary phone on the desk, but the line had been disconnected. Bret took the note with him. He could not determine whether the number was listed in a school roster or was a separate number Matt had received from Robert, so the discovery raised a question rather than establishing what their connection had been.

Other details made the return an encounter with the material remains of routine. Matt’s red Datsun was no longer in the garage, his clothes had been washed and folded, and the pool was drained. Bret found no trace of Matt in the clean clothes. The hammock between the palm trees remained, recalling an earlier summer visit. From the pool house, Bret encountered Sheila in the gazebo; although he had been coming to the property for about a year, he had never been introduced to either of Matt’s parents or entered the main house. The visit exposed how narrowly Bret’s knowledge of Matt had been confined to the guesthouse and Buckley.

Narrative Significance

The pool house’s significance comes from its double role as a refuge and an archive. While Matt lives there, it holds the repeated, private pattern of his days and the relationship he shares with Bret. When the aquarium is emptied, its usual glow and sound disappear before the larger circumstances are understood; after Matt’s death, the drained pool, removed belongings, and disconnected phone number turn familiar parts of the setting into uncertain evidence.

The setting also gives Bret’s memories a physical address. His return does not restore access to Matt or supply a complete explanation; instead, it makes the distance between their shared private life and Bret’s limited knowledge newly visible. The room preserves clues, but no single object settles the story. Its emptied aquarium, cleared desk, missing car, and cryptic initials leave the pool house suspended between a remembered sanctuary and an unresolved site of loss.