A Question of Will Read online

  "You wouldn’t believe some of the things people have said about you," Paul said, as he cut another swath. "They call you a monster, a psycho, you name it." He stood behind him, wielding a sleek black Panasonic beard trimmer as he calmly, determinedly shaved the boy’s head.

  "It’s like they think you’re from another planet or something, like you’re not even human. But I don’t believe them."

  Wells clenched his fists futilely, wrists and ankles still tightly bound. There was no escape. Paul grabbed the base of his neck in a vise-like grip, tilting his face down, raking tiny buzzing blades across his skull.

  "I mean, I know what you are," he said. "I can read all the psyche evaluations and listen to all the experts from here to hell and back, and they’ll all tell me what you are. But I still don’t know who you are. And you don’t seem inclined to enlighten us, do you?"

  More hair fell away, denuded tufts wafting in the air. Will said nothing, breath hissing through his nose in rage. Paul continued.

  "Guess not," he said. "But guess what? That’s not acceptable. And you’re a tough little fuck, so I figure all the cops and court-appointed shrinks in the world won’t get it out of you, either. And even if they lock you up, you’ll probably take your little secret with you, and come out one day even worse than you are now. And that’s not acceptable, either."

  The trimmer buzzed madly, slicing away at Will’s dignity; Paul moved around to the front, heading into the home stretch. "So I’m just going to cut through all the bullshit, pardon the pun," Paul informed him, "until I can finally figure out just...what... makes...you...tick..." Paul punctuated the last words with final, dramatic sweeps, then stepped back.

  "Ta-da," he goaded, then reached into his medbox, came up with the little metal first aid kid. He flipped it over to the unpainted bottom and held it up to Wells’ face.

  "Whaddaya think?" he said. "A good look for you?"

  Will stared at the floor, where his former hair now lay in piles. Paul rattled the box, and Will glanced up, caught a glimpse of his shorn scalp, completely bald, distorted in the polished steel surface. As he did, Paul saw something so shocking it was almost miraculous: the barest hint of a tear, welling in the corner of the boy’s eye. A solitary bead, clearly born of frustration and anger and boundless rage, but nonetheless visible through the layers of attitude and carefully contrived defenses. Then Will shook his newly naked head, and it was gone.

  It didn’t matter. Like the fact that half the regular kids and fully three-quarters of the punk bangers Paul saw these days sported similar styles. It was not a question of fashion; it was the fact that it had been taken from him, by force, against - pardon the pun - his will. Paul had stripped him of something, and for a fleeting moment, it had penetrated, registered, broken through.

  Paul had seen it in his eyes.

  It was a start.

  ~ * ~

  Paul stood before the furnace, an old coal fired monstrosity dating from the early 20th century. Like the boiler, it was archaic and inefficient, and Paul had always known it would one day have to be replaced. Now more than ever, he thought, if only to get rid of evidence. But it still burned hot.

  The little iron door was open, flames dancing yellow and orange inside, radiating heat. A small pile of clothing lay at Paul’s feet: Will’s jeans, t-shirt, and battered leather jacket and sneakers, along with a dustpan filled with the sweepings from the box. He had carefully cleaned up, making sure to snag every stray hair, even checking the soles of his shoes. As he fed the sweepings into the flames, the air grew acrid with the nauseating waft of cindering hair.

  Paul picked up the jacket, thought about it for a moment -- burning leather. Might as well send smoke signals. The shoes, too, with their leather trim and knobby rubber soles, would be way too aromatically obvious. He set them aside for a less obtrusive form of disposal, then picked up the shirt and jeans. The shirt went in first, instantly curling into a black, embered ball. As Paul went to feed the jeans in, he noted that the left leg was festooned with intricate ball-point doodles, saturating the worn and faded denim... curls and spirals and angles forming into an odd personal graffiti: a leering demonic face, a giant winged gryphon, and faces, dozens of faces, cartoonish and bizarre. The kinds of scribbles a kid might do in class when bored beyond belief.

  Paul looked at the drawings, and in some way had to acknowledge that they weren’t half bad. It would seem that Wells was not utterly without talent, to go with all that squandered I.Q. He didn’t recall hearing anything about the boy being an artist, nor about him being left-handed, which Paul was, too.

  Paul shrugged it off. He mentally weighed saving them, as if they might contain some obscure hieroglyphic code, against the fact that they, too, were evidence. A dark thought dawned on him then, perhaps clearly for the first time - would the boy have need of them again? Paul thought about it for a moment.

  Then consigned them to the flames, as well.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The problem with trying to lead a double life, Paul was beginning to realize, is that ultimately there’s no such thing. In the end, there is only one life, and everything in it must somehow be made to fit. Or else.

  It was late Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving, the weather grey and brooding. Paul stood in the still-gutted kitchen of the house on Marley Street, clad in ratty work clothes: spattered painter’s pants, work boots and a ratty sweatshirt. His toolbox was open on the floor. A little electric space heater hummed beside it, pumping out fifteen hundred watts of hot air, as a battered Sony boombox on the counter played the manically upbeat refrain to Oingo Boingo’s Only a Lad.

  Paul swigged a beer and studied the exposed wall studs, the frayed and ancient wiring snaking them. He was feeling pretty wired himself, and just as frayed, the stress of remaining outwardly calm wearing dangerously thin. His life felt like two trains heading in opposite directions on the same track: it could run for a while, but sooner or later they were bound to hit. Like a perverse incarnation of some deranged Gomez Addams-style collision course, it was not a matter of if, only of when.

  And along the way, there were markers. Case in point: the house itself. For as much time as he spent ostensibly working on it, very little on the surface seemed to be getting done. Not good. Sooner or later, someone was going to notice, but between work and home and his secret sessions, it was hard. Very hard. He wondered how long he would be able to keep up the façade, how long it take to finally be done with this.

  Or what he would do after...

  Paul pushed the thought away, as he knelt and checked the wire. It was worn, a fire hazard if ever there was one. As he reached for it he felt a sudden stab of pain, pulled his hand back. His finger dripped blood; the metal wrapping on the main had come unbound, the edge poking upward like a razored thorn.

  "Shit," Paul hissed, putting the finger to his lips, the taste of his own blood coppery on his tongue as he shook it off, then reached into the toolbox to grab a pair of heavy-duty tinsnips. He was just about to snip the offending metal, when something suddenly moved off to his left, in the hallway.

  "Huh?" Paul looked up. Behind him, the door leading to the basement, a shiny new Shrade locking it tight. He reached over and turned off the music, peered down the hall to the front door. It was ajar. Someone was in the house.

  "Hello?" he called out. "Who’s there?"

  Paul shut off the music: the place went eerily quiet. He put down the tinsnips and picked up a hammer.

  "Hello?"

  Paul heard a shuffling sound, coming from the living room. He reached the doorway, and suddenly a dark shape lunged toward him. Paul’s heart skipped a beat as the hammer came up...

  ...and he suddenly found himself face to face with his dog, jumping up to throw paws onto Paul’s chest, all slobbering dog tongue and surprise.

  "Jesus," Paul gasped, then sternly. "Spock, get offa me!!"

  Spock jumped down, hung his head guiltily. Paul turned the corner into the living room, and
saw Julie: arms folded protectively against the chill. She was dressed in jeans and boots and a black turtleneck sweater, a long wool coat and delicate scarf, her hair pulled back in a loose bun. She was both beautiful and unnerving, and her sudden presence there caught him completely off guard.

  "Julie," Paul stammered, taken aback. "What’re you doing here?"

  "I came to see you," she replied.

  Julie looked around the room, in all its undone glory, then gave a little shudder. "Cold in here."

  Paul nodded uncomfortably. He was not expecting to see her. Julie picked up on it. "Is this a bad time?" she asked.

  "No," Paul replied, perhaps a bit too fast. "I was just, you know, working." He indicated the hammer, as if the presence of a tool explained anything, then slipped the hammer into the leg loop of his work pants.

  "Yeah," Julie murmured. He watched as she moved from living room to dining room, the dog following, sniffing her trail. Paul followed as well, trying to look casual.

  As they reached the kitchen, Julie turned. "Paul," she said. "We need to talk."

  "Okay," Paul said, bracing himself. Nothing good ever followed those four words. "What’s up?"

  Julie uncrossed her arms, hands draping her sides as though not knowing quite where to go. "First, I wanted to apologize," she began. "I know I haven’t been very easy to be around lately."

  "It’s okay," Paul said, "Really." He meant it; he understood. But his guard was now up, and somehow he doubted it would end there.

  Julie nodded. There was something else. She took a deep breath. "Anyway," she continued. "Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving."

  Paul nodded noncommittally, wary; Julie pressed on. "Mom called and invited us down for dinner," she said, "and I was thinking - I don’t have school until Monday, so maybe we could go down for the holiday, and then go to the shore, find some nice little bed and breakfast, get away from all this..." she indicated the house, but by extension Glendon, their jobs, memories, everything.

  "So," Julie looked at him, hopeful and tentative by turns. "What do you think?"

  Paul didn’t know what to say. She had clearly turned some inner corner, taking the first halting steps to emerge from her shell of grief, achingly reaching out to him. It was like a dream come true.

  And there was no way in hell he could do it.

  Paul thought of the secret laying just beneath their feet, felt himself suddenly one foot into some ghastly psychological punji trap - the weight of his next words the sole difference between evasion or puncturing the thin skin of his false reality. Julie —- the old Julie —- knew the old Paul too well, and would catch a lie in a heartbeat, should he reveal even a hint of what he was really feeling. So Paul did the only thing he could do, said the first and only words that came to mind.

  "Gosh, Jule," he murmured uncomfortably. "It’s not really such a good time..."

  Paul winced even as the words left his lips: a lame non-answer if ever there was one, standard issue, off-the-rack bullshit. And Julie wasn’t buying it.

  "Why not?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. "You could get one of the guys to fill in for you..."

  "It’s not that easy..." Paul dodged, desperately doing the mental math of five days in the box. Left unattended, anything could happen. Wells could escape. He could grow ill. Or worse. In the space of a heartbeat, Paul imagined a healing holiday weekend of reconnecting with his wife and love and life, only to come back to a corpse. Or a cop. Or worse. But he kept to the lie. Hating himself for it.

  "I don’t know," he said. "It’s just kinda short notice."

  Julie was angry now. "Jesus, Paul," she complained, "How many times have you pulled double shifts for Andy or Dondi or any of the other guys?" She looked hurt, her mood crumpling like paper. Then she nodded, grimly resolute.

  "I have to get out of here," she confessed. "I need to get away for a while. Why do they always have to come first?"

  "It’s not just that," he said, grasping. "I’ve got some other stuff to do..."

  "What, this?" she spat back. "I hate this place."

  Julie began pacing in slow, tight circles, as if the very walls and floor disgusted her. Spock ducked out of the way, started sniffing the baseboard under the counter. "I don’t know how you can even stand to be here," she said. "I wish you’d just sell it, give it away, burn it, I don’t care. Just get rid of it."

  "No," Paul said, adamant. Julie turned and stared at him.

  "Why not?"

  Paul said nothing; Julie zeroed in. "You’re not the only person hurting here, Paul. I lost her, too."

  "I know..." Paul said guiltily.

  "Do you?" Julie shot back. "Do you really? I was her mother. I carried her inside me." It was her turn to pull emotional rank, awful as it was, and much as she didn’t want to. She leveled him with her gaze. "She’s gone, Paul, and I’m never going to get over that. But it’s not going to bring her back." She threw her arms wide. "None of this will."

  "You think I don’t know that?" Paul said, guilt ceding to an almost subrational resentment. "You think I can ever get away from that for one fucking second? That’s not what this is about..."

  "Then what is it about?" Julie pleaded. "Talk to me, Paul. I know I’ve been pushing you away, and I’m sorry. But we’ve got to find a way of getting past this somehow..." She was on the verge of tears, her heartache so naked and plaintive that Paul thought his own would break. "We’ve got to do something...please... "

  Julie took a tentative step toward him, imploring. She was right. Paul wanted so badly to give in, to touch her and fade into her arms, to feel something again apart from pain and grim determination. For a moment, it seemed his whole world hung in the balance of the next breath.

  And then he heard the dog.

  Paul glanced over, saw Spock pawing and snuffling at the basement door. The dobie whimpered determinedly, scratching at the threshold.

  Paul exploded.

  "Spock, NO!!" he roared. The dog skittered back as Paul lunged toward him; as he did the hammer hanging in the leg loop swung from the forward momentum, the wooden handle smacking the poor animal square on his long snout. Spock yelped and bounded away, fleeing the kitchen, whimpering.

  "PAUL!" Julie cried. "What the hell are you doing?!" She looked at him like he was a lunatic, then turned and hurried after their pet. Paul followed, found them both in the living room, Julie huddled maternally over the traumatized dog. Spock saw Paul round the corner and yelped again, curling his big body into Julie’s arms.

  "Is he okay?" Paul asked.

  "No thanks to you," Julie said. She looked at him like she had never seen him before and didn’t like what she saw. Paul went defensive.

  "Jesus, Jule, it was an accident," he said. "It’s not like I meant to hurt him."

  "Uh-huh," she said, standing. Spock hunkered behind her like a one hundred pound wayward tot. Paul knelt on one knee, patted it with his hand.

  "C’mere boy," he said. "I’m sorry."

  The dog hesitated, suspicious. Paul gestured again. "Spock..." the dog didn’t budge. Paul’s tone suddenly shifted. "Dammit, Spock, I said COME!!" The dog sat down, shifting and squirming.

  "Paul..." Julie began. Paul cut her off, stood.

  "SPOCK!!!" he barked, his voice going edgy and cold. The dog whimpered; a little spritz of pee pooled beneath its haunches.

  "Paul!!" Julie cried.

  "What?!" Paul glared at her, furious. He caught it almost instantly. "I’m sorry," he said, backpedalling furiously.

  But it was too late.

  Julie went chilly and remote. She sighed and withdrew a leash from her coat pocket, clipped it to the dog’s collar, then turned to face Paul. "I’m leaving to go to my parents in an hour," she said. "You’re welcome to come with me," she paused, indicating the barren space, "if you can manage to pry yourself away."

  Their eyes met for a stark moment, during which his answer passed unspoken. Julie turned away, heading for the front door, the dog in tow beside her.

  "Julie
, please..." Paul started to say. But Julie kept going. He watched as she exited without another word. Out the door.

  And into the coming night.

  THIRTY

  If the pizza at the Gaslight Tavern was the worst in the tri-state area, its jukebox was arguably the best. Big and swirling with backlit faux deco Lucite that glowed like a reactor meltdown, it was eclectically stocked with customer favorites, Mickey D. having partial hearing loss in both ears and no pressing cultural bias, with the possible exception of gangsta rap, which annoyed him not because of the negative social messages but because no one actually sang.

  As a result, in any hour of random play, one was as likely to hear Frank Sinatra belting out "My Way" followed by Sid Vicious doing his own uniquely atonal interpretation of the same number, segueing into anything from Alice in Chains to ZZ Top, depending on the vagaries of fate and whomever last wielded the quarters. It was understood by the regulars that all bets were off where the Gaslight’s playlist was concerned; one literally never knew what was going to come pumping out of its booming speakers next.

  It was just after ten as Dondi came in. The night had turned miserable, cold and wet, rain sheeting down onto the streets like curtains falling across a stage. Inside, the crowd was sparse, in preemptive holiday prep; on the jukebox, Amanda Marshall was crooning Last Exit to Eden, smoky voice crying out over haunting acoustic guitars and strings, against snaky bass and drums...

  Did I just miss the last Exit to Eden

  Is this the only love I’ll know?

  Like a Judas kiss, did my heart betray me

  Back on the road I never chose...

  Paul was bellied up to the bar, nursing a bottle of Rolling Rock and a shooter of Jack Daniels, still dressed in his work clothes. Paul saw his friend and smiled.

  "Hey," Paul said. "My bro..." He was visibly under the influence, two out of three sheets fully to the wind. Paul slapped the barstool next to him, inviting Dondi to sit, then called out to Mickey D. "Mickey, ya fat bastid, set us up."