Stranger Will (18 page)

“How many states,” William asks.

The rebels dig holes in the sandbox, jaded it seems by the displays. William and Eugene discuss maps and geographic division.
Enlightened
, he would call himself, but for the way Mrs. Rose seems to know of everything within this playground fence, he keeps the designation quiet.

“I don’t know. A lot,” Eugene says. “Some are Democrats and some are something else.”

“Republicans,” William says.

Eugene pulls away and squints into the afternoon sun. “You’re smart,” he says.

“I’ve been smarter.”

“I can read, too.” Eugene pulls a yellow piece of paper from his pocket. He butchers words learned by his peers years ago, refusing help when William offers. Reading is a mission and how badly, William wonders, will this child fail?

William remembers Frank’s words that Eugene “isn’t right in the head”;
isn’t right for Harold Straton Elementary
is what he seemed to mean. The boy mispronounces simple words, skips them like he’s been trained to believe that his small steps don’t matter.

Chapter Nineteen

The next morning William eats a bowl of cereal with no greater belief than the present. Shelia, he, speak only nouns.

“Morning.” “Sleep?” “You?”

Two pigeons he knows about, and how many others might she have had? How many other babies? She sits across from William with a newspaper, slurping coffee. She has pulled back her hair, sleep-tangles and all, into a rough ponytail. Her forehead mole disrupts the breaking sunlight.

“Philip?” William asks, milk dripping from his chin to the floor.

“Work,” Shelia says.

Philip is considerate of William’s recent past—the fire, Julie’s hospitalization—and insists that William stay away from work for a while. William happily perpetuates his concern. The night William’s house burned, Philip received a two am call, a body found beaten against a white wall. Cue sadness. He woke William who cried hysterical at Philip’s softest “wake up,” pretends Philip saved him from a nightmare, the crash relived, Julie unconscious body, and “thank you” William said with glassy eyes. Philip let him sleep, saying that he could handle the stain alone and that all William needed to worry about was getting through the day.

As far as Philip is concerned, William is suicidal on the verge of dedication. Philip does what he can to keep him alive, and William has another day to himself.

“He said the job sounded pretty severe. A decomp,” Shelia says peeking over the newspaper. Her waking pigeon beats itself against the ornate, brass-plated cage, and William thinks of it beating just hard enough to—

“It does that when it’s cold,” she says watching the bird for a moment before bringing the conversation back to Philip. “He really wanted your help, but I told him that you needed rest. You’ve been through a lot lately. Your house, Julie, everything.”

William shovels dry cereal into his mouth, crunching loud enough to distort Shelia’s words into simple noise.

She sips her coffee louder. She adds sugar and stirs a metal spoon hard against the ceramic mug. What matters is not whether she is deliberately testing his patience—what matters is that he recognizes it is as a possibility.

She taps her foot, a rhythm at first, but it soon dissolves into unsystematic pounds. No art. No reason. She sneaks a few glances around the newspaper; William pretends not to notice.

She then invents a hum so against the rhythm of her feet that William stretches his cheeks with cereal to keep from yelling. She wants conversation. She wants to speak, but William knows that topic-one would be “birds and babies,” and he has nothing yet to say. He is afraid of how many things this woman might need to explain, how many things he does not know.

He distorts his face at every bite. He examines the reflective qualities of the spoon to prevent exchanging words. He fakes interest in branches controlled by breezes outside the window. She ups the volume of her hum.

Seven minutes pass, time that drips like hours and William’s teeth are so tight through cereal paste that blood vessels bulge from his forehead. At minute eight he stands and turns toward the kitchen.

“Coffee’s hot,” Shelia says. “Watch out.”

William parts his lips, steam yearning to escape. “Thanks.” Talking hurts his ears.

“You and me shouldn’t be like this,” she yells from the table. “We shouldn’t pretend to be so different.”

He returns with a steaming mug, bypasses the table, and goes straight for the front room couch. The TV displays an antiquated test pattern on channel thirteen, a quiet tone, so William turns the volume high until Shelia’s bird screams and spreads its feathers. “Different?” William yells over the noise.

“We really aren’t,” she yells back. “I know enough about you to know that we have more in common than just Philip.”

“I don’t burn houses down. We’re nothing alike.”

The bird still screams. William wonders about the possibility of frequencies; certain pitches aggravate certain nerves in the bird’s head, like how a police siren makes even the innocent question their position. William smiles and watches the bird stretch its beak.

“I want to know something,” she yells, ignoring his outburst. He continues to ignore her, the rationale slowly reducing to an exercise in endurance.

The bird throws its head against the cage. Screaming, then thump. Screaming, then thump.

Shelia finally stands. Her chair slides hard against the linoleum floor. Then sticky, bare feet footsteps and she is close enough William can smell her sweat. Like vanilla with teeth. Her face is angry, but tolerant. He looks up to her and waits.

“What do you have planned?” she asks. He waits longer for an explanation.

“Mike is going to be tough to beat.” She says hanging the newspaper in front of William’s face. The headline mentions Harold Straton Elementary. Mrs. Rose is quoted as saying something about too much hate in the world. She uses the words “travesty” and “unknown ruffians.”

“The clippings are like trophies to them,” she says and takes the paper back. “Some strangers have walls full.”

William folds. His heart stops long enough to feel the blood pool.

“It was genius. You have to admit that.” She takes a long sip from her coffee and walks slowly around the couch. She sits opposite William in a soft brown recliner he used to love. “It’s not only me. Mrs. Rose wants to know, too.” “What do you know about Mike?” he asks.

“It fucking stinks in here,” Shelia says and grabs an aerosol deodorizer from the coffee table, canned TR-32 disinfectant, stolen from Philip’s car. She blankets the air. “I know he’s been working on the tree for a while. Mrs. Rose was skeptical at first, but she came around. She liked the idea that a child would scar. She loved that permanent display angle.” She moves to the couch, sitting close enough to impact William with her breath.

“Mrs. Rose is therapy to you,” William says, trying to convince himself of the idea. “You’re a head-case. A way to fulfill volunteer hours. A tax write-off. You have no idea what’s going on.”

“I never believed in my child either, William. Mrs. Rose got rid of it. I’m invested.”

“You’re not a part of anything,” he says. “I found you dead.” “And I thank you for not leaving me,” she says. “I mean that.” Taking a sip of coffee he whispers to his own face reflecting in the black, “I should have.”

Shelia, without an extraneous movement about her, stands and walks to her pigeon. She grabs it from its cage, walks back to the couch, grabs the remote control, and throws it against the TV. It cracks open, batteries bouncing along the floor. “That’s not nice,” she says, sitting next to William on the couch.

William slides away fast. “Could you go back to the chair?” “I could,” but she stays firmly in place.

“Why do you care what I have planned?” William asks. “If anything you should be on the phone, turning me in, telling the police all about what goes on down there, all about the clean memories we steal from those kids. The adoptions.”

“No memories are clean.” She moves closer to William. The bird’s caw has settled to a soft purr. “I’m interested is all. Humor me.”

“After what Mike did?” he says.

“They didn’t die, William.” She rubs the pigeon’s head. “That’s the attraction?”

She reaches over and pulls the mug from his face, drawing his eyes to hers. “It proves they aren’t supposed to be dead.” She releases the mug and walks to the kitchen. “So prove to me William that lives are meant to be lived.”

The coffee burns. He tastes vomit. “Nothing,” he says. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“Try harder,” she says coming back to the couch with a handful of spices. Paprika. Nutmeg. Garlic salt.

“What about you? You’re invested.”

“I work with retards,” she says. “Mrs. Rose got me on at the school as a paraprofessional.”

“That’s appropriate,” William says, the muscles used for smiles aching as he brings them to life. “But you can’t neglect the irony. Retards at
that
school?”

“There’s some slow ones,” she says. “Your friend Eugene, for instance. He’s got a build, good physical potential, but the kid’s saturated. He’s so full on walking and talking nothing else is getting in.”

“He’s a good kid,” William says.

“He won’t get any better.” She pulls out a small plastic shaker of cayenne pepper and frowns at the label.

William filters through possible rebuttals, reasons Eugene isn’t worth neglecting. The sun sits window high, stabbing his eyes through a thick veil of fat rain. He thinks of the child outside, waiting by the fence, letting the rain permeate his soft skin as children all around him find shelter and keep dry because of the problems Mrs. Rose says hypothermia can bring. “I’ve got to go.” William stands. “Work.”

“Don’t bother.” She nods toward the window. “No recess today.” Then she grabs William’s bandaged hand and rips the gauze free—he pulls for a breath or two but forfeits as her grip strengthens, as her knuckles whiten—and pours cayenne pepper into the wound. She shushes him as he continues to test her grip, says the pepper will help.

“Me on the other hand,” she says rewrapping the wound and placing her pigeon in his free hand. “I’ve got to be there. Eugene has a test today—colors.” She laughs as she walks to the bedroom at the back of the house. “Let the pepper set for a while. We’re cleaning you from the inside, William. We don’t want internal infection. That could bring the whole body down.”

The pepper burns as it works into the dog bite. Every twist is a flexed muscle making room for more pepper to dig deeper.

“Think about your project,” she yells from the bedroom. “I’m eager to see what you can do. Philip tells me you’ve got some shit in that head of yours.”

The pigeon snaps at William’s finger, jumps from his hand, and looks back with its head cocked. William grabs for it, but the bird flutters to the back of the recliner. He lights a cigarette and stares through the smoke.

“Maybe I can just keep talking,” William says. “I’m good with talking to the kids.”

“We’ve seen where that gets you.” A hair dryer muffles her voice enough to let William trick himself into thinking all she says comes from his own head. “You’re not there to make friends, William. You’re there to make flawlessness.” Before she gets the final ‘s’ out a loud pop echoes from the back room and the hair dryer winds down. All the lights in the house die. “Fuse,” she yells, and William pretends her conclusion isn’t obvious by offering his sincerest, “really?”

The dark clouds and the blankets of rain let only a mild glow flow throughout the house. The sharpest light glows at the tip of William’s cigarette, a beacon, and the bird follows wherever William waves it.

“Flip the breaker,” Shelia yells. “I’m fine.”

“I can’t see,” she yells.

William grins at the symbolism in her struggle. “I’ll lead you to the box,” he says. “We’ll get through this.”

He yells directions. He tells her to take three steps this way, two steps that way. Nothing he shouts has any real effect other than it moves her. She bashes into walls, missteps into clutter covering the floor. William wishes for a flash of lightning, enough to see just a glimpse of her struggle.

“Fuck you,” she finally yells.

He checks his laughter. “You’re almost there.” He stands and walks slowly toward the fuse box, still the only light given by his weak cigarette tip.

She continues to yell, claiming that she does not feel well, that she does not take well to darkness. She warns of nausea.

“Don’t give up,” William says. The fuse box sits against an outside wall. When he opens the back door, a cold shot of mist hits his face.

He flips the breaker. The lights rise bright, darkness to luminescence with a single finger. But Shelia vomits still. She comes out wiping her mouth on a towel. “I told you,” she says. “I can’t handle the dark anymore.”

William nods, sympathetic and lips pursed. “Maybe it’s morning sickness,” he says turning to a grin.

She doesn’t laugh.

“Or something you ate.”

“It was the darkness.” She throws the towel to the ground and returns to the bedroom emerging moments later looking adequate enough for her in-class therapy work. One of Philip’s old t-shirts hangs loose around her, digesting the abused body beneath. She takes a long swig of coffee and is halfway out the door before turning back with a tight smile William loathes even before words part her lips.

“About your house,” she says, “Mrs. Rose was right. You are supposed to be alive…”

The bird flutters from the back of the recliner, picking at its wings, and William tightens both fists. The pepper burns buried nerves.

“…but you’re making it so hard to believe her.” She is gone, already with Eugene, teaching him colors, shapes, simple words, and as the car disappears behind distant trees William watches the pigeon groom and decides that even though interruption won’t stop anything, it’s worth the change of direction. He grabs the bird.

Her first mistake was leaving William alone and enraged.

Her second was leaving the bird out of its cage.

He takes a long drag from his cigarette and watches the new ash turn grey and brittle. He pulls his sleeves tight over his fists and shivers as the rain cools the world.