Stranger Will (24 page)

Hippo forces a breathy laugh. “Looks like they got you pretty bad.”

“You saw it?”

“No, no. I heard them celebrating down at Wiley’s.” He turns to William. “You know Wiley’s?”

He does—a bar at the southern end of Brackenwood. Smoke and sad drunks. William and Philip have had business there twice in the past six years. Twice the police left clueless. Twice William and Philip arrived to a dark room spotted with bar- stooled regulars the owner said wouldn’t leave because the blood was ‘nothing they hadn’t seen anyway.’ “Maybe,” William says.

“If it means anything to you they got thrown out. Tried to start something with a couple from downstate.”

It doesn’t, but William says that it does. “How’s the face?”

“Still there.” William dabs at heavier spots with his shirt- sleeve. Each touch dyes the cloth red. “For a while.”

Twelve streetlamps, far enough apart to let wires kiss the earth, pass before Hippo finally asks the question William had hoped the shock of his face made him forget. “Why?”

“Why what?” William returns, each breath bringing back swallows of blood.

“Why’d those guys attack you? What’d you do?”

“Maybe money. I don’t know. Picked the wrong guy if it was money they wanted.” He leans forward to Hippo, examines the fur-covered costume. “You’re a bear.”

The man laughs. “The misnomer isn’t lost on the kids either. It works well enough for business. Somebody want you dead?”

“Maybe.”

“They said something about the school. Said you were watching the kids. ‘All day,’ they said.”

“My nephew. Don’t get to see him that much. His parents aren’t around enough.” William is impressed by his wit in spite of the pain. “They have other obligations. Work and friends. I try to be there for him as much as I can.”

“I like kids, too. I understand.”

“He’s a good kid. Smart as hell and pretty athletic, too. Not too athletic, though. I won’t have that. Don’t want him getting an ego on me.”

A smile breaks by the pass of a streetlight. “We wouldn’t want that,” Hippo says.

“Can I smoke?” William asks and pulls a lighter from his pocket before Hippo even has his lips rounded for “sure.” He pats his shirt, his pants, stopping at pockets, pretending he may have cigarettes hidden somewhere, knowing he doesn’t. “Got one?”

“Don’t smoke,” Hippo says. “I am hungry, though. Let me get you something to eat after the hospital. Call it an incentive to stay conscious.”

“I’m starving,” William says and bites through the pain in his hand, his wrist, his elbow, his shoulder as he wedges the lighter back into a pocket. “We can skip the hospital for now.”

“It’s your body,” Hippo says.

He pulls into a small diner, the name
Marilyn’s Place
scripted too small to draw interest from anyone just passing through. The large front window allows an uninterrupted view from the parking lot to empty booths, to the bar, through the dessert case, to the kitchen, a path surrounded by bodies living lives to the laws of the diner. The cook chews his own tongue and the sole waitress pours coffee into chipped mugs. She is a short, thin woman with hair William would have at one time described as “too much,” but having been beaten, he forfeits criticism in favor of envy. He wants her range of motion.

He steps in behind Hippo, shadowed by the enormous bear suit, limping as the able man walks. The patrons chew biscuits and whisper behind the swallows. William follows the bear to a booth in the furthest corner. They sit behind a family: a thin woman, a baby, and a tired-looking boy. The boy blows bubbles in chocolate milk.

“Nancy,” Hippo says, and William hears the name echo still after her footsteps, her pen click, her shallow, “hey, Vince.” When he looks up, there she is.

“This is William,” Hippo says. “He won’t cause any trouble.” “Looks like trouble’s already come his way,” she says setting two coffee cups down, filling both with a single pour. An escaped stream drips onto the table. William slides a napkin over the spill bringing back a menu offered by the woman’s brittle hands, each finger wound in translucent blue veins. The menus are filled with typos and blatant misspellings. Hippo shakes the menu away, saying “biscuits and gravy” with confidence. William asks for the
porch
chops. Nancy is at the bar, clipping the orders to a piece of string when William finally settles his shallow laugh.

“They’re good here,” Hippo says sipping the coffee. “The pork chops. A bit dry but I’ll let you in on some of my extra gravy.”

“Thanks,” William says.

Hippo takes another long sip. “So what grade is your nephew in? Must be pretty young, having recess and all.”

“Third.”

“It a good age,” Hippo says. “I remember being in third grade. Mr. Hide. He was a decent man. A wife. A couple kids. A big house. Kids are so innocent then. You want to show your nephew the world, huh?”

“I do love him,” William says.

“Then experience everything with him. Take him places. Do things with him. Don’t ever let him think that he’s seen it all.”

Glass shatters. A stern “damn it” escapes loud from the kitchen, waking the baby in the booth behind Hippo. The woman calms the child with a bottle. The boy continues filling his milk with bubbles until finally the thin woman pulls the glass away. All William can hear is breath.

Hippo leans over the table, his fake fur falling into his coffee. “She’ll never punish him,” he says. “I know the type. Too cute to be involved.” Before he falls back into the booth the family vanishes. Hippo sniffs the air they leave behind. “Yes sir,” he says and sips from the hair-infected coffee mug.

“Shouldn’t have those kids out so late, anyway,” William says. “They can handle it. Kids are capable of more than a person might think.”

William nods. “I agree completely.”

“Kids can think. They know when something is up. They can love just as well as any adult.”

“You know them pretty well?”

“Look at me, Will. I’m dressed in the body of a polyester bear. I don’t even buy clothes anymore. I’m in this thing all day anyway. I like it a lot, actually. Nobody knows what to think about a man inside a fake bear. They don’t realize I’m just a normal man with realistic beliefs. You, too?”

“Of course,” William says. He begins to elaborate, but the waitress arrives at his side holding two steaming plates in her arms and a check in her mouth. She sets the food down, lays the bill in Hippo’s paw, and leaves without a word or a coffee refill. As William dumps the first bite of food into his mouth he has conquered his pain enough to inquire on the obvious. “What do you do?”

“Birthdays mostly. Was resting at Wiley’s after one in fact. I’ll do a fundraiser every once in a while but honestly, what the hell does a giant bear named Hippo have to do with money?”

“You get paid, right?”

“It’s not about the money, Will. You know this.”

Children
. It’s a recent attraction, but one he truly understands. “Yeah,” he says and rips another bite with his bleeding teeth.

“Those pricks at Wiley’s, why did they really beat you?” William dusts his plate with salt. “Honestly, they didn’t understand me. They probably never will, but I’ve got you, right? You get me.” A tooth rips free with his next bite. He spits the chunk of meat to the table and grabs his coffee mug to catch the flow of red from his mouth.

Hippo grabs the meat, the tooth still buried within it and wraps the mess with a napkin. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital. You’re looking like shit.”

“The food just got here,” William says with a third fatty bite to his lips.

“You’re leaking everywhere,” and Hippo stands holding the check in his mouth. “Come on.”

William forces the rest of a pork chop into his mouth before Hippo rips him from the vinyl booth. William tries to pull away from the man’s furry grip but once standing he can see the damage. His blood decorates the table top like spilled fruit punch. He relaxes into the bear ’s pull.

Taking the money, counting none of it, the waitress offers a shallow thank you and Hippo, baritone and like it’s a rare gesture, tells her to keep the change. She stuffs a handful of broken bills into her pocket. As William is pulled past the waitress, she already looking to the family next in line—a mother, a father, and a small girl—he leans close enough to her face to see only shapes and he tells her to cut her hair. “You’ll be more than a waitress,” he says it like it’s a pickup line.

“I like being a waitress.” Her eyes never pull from the family. She hands the girl a peppermint from a jar near the register that reads “pennies.”

Feeling the loss of blood, his body empty, his mind starved William says “sorry,” and for the first time in a long time really means it.

Hippo has his car warm by the time William wanders outside. “On to the hospital,” he says.

Three miles, seventy-eight telephone poles William counts, and suddenly Julie comes to mind. Julie so close to death and thankful she will be when awake, knowing nothing but the history William will feed her. The week has passed “quickly, uneventful, perfect” but his “crying,” he will say, “I’ve been crying for days,” and she will understand, perhaps not believing any of it. Perhaps breathing by machine, existing by intravenous nutrition, as William squeezes her hand, numb by entropy she will smile and say it wasn’t his fault, “accidents happen.” He will nod, blame himself because that’s what people do, and spend years as moments willing the accident out of his memory. But not yet. In the hierarchy of control William rules proximity and that power is not something he is ready to give up.

“Actually,” he says, yawning like his words are the truth, “I think I’ll be fine. I’ll give it a few days, see how much the swelling goes down.”

Hippo smirks, shrugs his shoulders and slows the car. He turns around and when an even cruising speed is regained, he finally says, “okay.” Then he asks where William lives.

Proximity is just a way to escape, a way, William reasons, to nurture anonymity. With all the faceless stains they’ve seen together, Philip and William have always approached a scene with the same theory: Once dead the body is just decaying matter. William looks at himself, his skin settling into the fibers of the chair, his blood saturating the seatbelt, the headrest, his own shirt, thinking about the chemicals he might recommend to Hippo once he peels his body from the car. “Philip isn’t ready for my face,” he says loud enough for the bear to pry.

“Philip?” he asks. “Home’s not good.”

“A motel, then. I know some people. I’ll get you a room for the night if you need it.”

With a body now empty of adrenaline his words spill. They ride the bounce of the car, the divots of the road, the underground valleys, “I think I do,” he says and suddenly they are on a new route.

“Before you go, let me tell you about this club,” Hippo says, “of men that care for children the way you and I do. If you’re interested.” The bear slides too easily into his pitch, says words like “intimacy” and “physical love” with eager breath.

Before William can mold his face to disgust and shout “pedophile,” the way he has learned how, everything dies to gray.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“One week,” Philip says opening the car door for a wheelchair- bound William. “And a few days.” The nurse stops and waits for William’s feeble dismount. The nurse says “change the bandages when they get uncomfortable.” William offers his “thanks,” and slips from the armrest as he tries to lift himself.

“They messed you up good,” Philip says once in his car, shifting to drive. The dips in the road splash chemicals in the backseat. William inhales his forgotten cocktail of bleach, phoraid, and phenol, can feel it grinding at his nostrils.

“Your hand is looking better.”

“It’s covered in gauze.” William adjusts his legs, using all the muscles of his arms.

“Probably, I mean.” Philip lets a moment pass, the air cleansed by the silence. “Did they tell you about Julie?”

“I asked,” William says. “They didn’t know a Julie.”

“She woke up last week. The day after you went in. They let her out just yesterday.”

William watches the sky, a week older than he remembers it. “What day is it?”

“Wednesday.”

Eugene is dead.

“What,” Philip says shooting his middle finger to a driver cutting close.

“Nothing,” William says, and it’s true, he realizes. It’s true that Eugene’s death means nothing. A parent is less one child and convinced further of a world according to Mrs. Rose.

“Well, she’s at home. Doing pretty well despite everything. She doesn’t remember the accident, but she feels it.”

“We both do,” William says. He is tired—from the medication he assumes—and breathes slow as the car hums against the road. “It’s been a couple weeks,” Philip says. “You’ve got to be excited about seeing her.”

“I am. I promise I am.” Philip stands at the passenger door. They are at Philip’s house, the air heavy and humid, windows open and curtains flap through to the outside. A strange thump- thump-thump escapes from the windows.

“Let me help,” Philip says, but William pulls away, walking strong by the aid of a single crutch. His back straightens, and his free arm hangs comfortably at his side. “Good,” Philip says but stays near.

He can smell Julie from the porch. Her skin, her sweat, her hair, all of it digs deep for memories lost. Nine days like nine years like decades.

“Will, wait,” and Philip pulls him back by the shoulder. “The police came by a few times asking about the baby. She said she doesn’t remember anything. They think you might know something. Just expect a call is all I’m saying.”

“It’s gone.”

“Don’t think that way,” Philip says dropping his hand from William’s shoulder. He opens the front door for his friend and tells him before a single step down to the hard linoleum entry, “Julie’s been looking, though. At first, I stopped her, but it’s probably something she just needs to do. Doctor said,” and he pulls out slip of paper, “a herniation to the brain stem due to intercerebral hemorrhaging. It sounds better than its effects.”

Thump-thump-thump, from the open windows.

William steps down on a metal spoon, its handle bounces against the floor. A trail from the kitchen, through the front room, to the door, silverware everywhere. His empty fiancée leans against a wall, a hammer in her hand. She has ripped down photographs from bent nails, torn up carpet, filled the floor with the emptied insides of pillows and closets. She pulls back for a swing to the sheetrock. Philip runs for the hammer. “Easy,” he says. “We don’t have to tear into the walls.” He takes the hammer from her hand and spins the wheelchair around. “He’s here,” he whispers into her ear.