Freewill (3 page)

Nobody knows what to do with you.

“Will you do something for me, Will? I'd like you to make me a nice gnome. Would you make me a nice gnome? I showed some of your stuff to my mom, right, who has this big garden, and she said she would really like to have one of those nice gnomes you do, only sort of customized for her with an extra-big chubby, happy face. Then maybe a whirligig if that works out. I know we're bending the rules a bit but it's a technicality because as a local senior she would be eligible at the end of the term to select the piece anyway. And I do want to see your stuff get publicized. You are very gifted, you know, Will, and if word started circulating, who knows what this could do for you. So.” He puts his hands on your back, eases you up out of the chair and toward the door as if the two of you have agreed to the deal—or he has just fired you—and sees you out.

A nice gnome. A
nice
gnome.

Angela slides over your way once you are settled back at your post, sizing up a block of wood, and staring.

“That was a long meeting. What did you do to deserve that?”

“A nice gnome,” you say.

“Come again?”

“He wants me to make a nice gnome for his mom.”

“Ooooh. You mean those nasty little horrors you used to make all the time before you started making these what-the-hells over here?”

There would be no shame in getting irritated with all this by now. No shame, Will.

“Ya,” you say solemnly. “He wants one of those.”

She laughs. “Guess his mother did some terrible shit when he was little, huh?”

•  •  •

The radio is playing. Are you listening? Listen. No,
listen
. Down at the pond, last night. Somebody was killed. Listen, Will. You didn't know her. She was your age. You sort of knew her. She didn't go to your school. Are you listening? You have to be waking up anyhow. Somebody was killed. A pretty girl who went to school not far from here. You knew her, though not real well. She was very nice. She drowned. Very mysterious. Cops don't know what is going on. Won't know until they investigate. You're awake now. Sad, no? These things are so sad. Aren't they so sad?

And they just never, never, stop. They keep coming at you.

But you do keep setting the alarm to wake you up to it.

You knew her, didn't you?

•  •  •

“Maybe you want to stay home today,” Gran says as she wastes another valuable minute of her diminishing time on this earth whipping up some oatmeal and whipping it down in front of you. “I don't see the harm. Pops, do you see the harm, if he takes a day off today?”

“I don't see the harm,” Pops says. He probably doesn't see the harm. He sees the newspaper pretty well though.

“So there, see, it is a good idea. Beautiful day like this, a young man like yourself in the prime of life. You should be able to take a day now and again. Your grandfather and I will be going to the bowling green, and you could too. Then we'll take you to lunch. What do you think, Pops?”

Pops looks up from the paper, and you can see he's been frozen in a grimace. “Ya,” he says. “Ya, we could do that.”

You take four or five decent-sized spoonfuls of oatmeal, which is more than usual and not at all easy for you to manage. To be polite. And reassuring. Then you stand to go.

“I'm fine, Gran,” you say, standing directly in front of her. The two of you stand there, like the two of you do. Not kissing or hugging or patting shoulders or shaking hands. Not contacting.

Gran wakes up to the same news you do. She knows.

Why does she worry so much? What does she think you're going to do?

“Really, I'm fine. I have stuff I have to do at shop. I'll check the green on the way home and if you guys are there I'll come play. Okay?”

She just looks at you, little lined corners of her mouth turned down like that. “Okay,” she finally says, though she seems to want to go with you to school rather than go bowling in the sun.

•  •  •

“How's it coming?” Mr. Jacks asks brightly.

How's it coming. It's a block of soft wood with a few chips lopped off it. It's nothing yet. He knows it, you know it, his mother knows it. Tell him that.

You stare at it. “Coming along, Mr. Jacks. Taking shape.” You are looking at it as if it is staring back.

Is there a face in there, Will?

•  •  •

It is an ungodly massive and professional-caliber high school stadium, representing the other half of the school's occupational-therapy approach to education. “Busy hands and busy feet, keeps the sad sacks off the street.” It's not on a plaque anywhere. You all just sort of know it.

You sit up in the stands, a soft air rubbing up and over your face. You eat a bag of cheese curls and watch her every move even though from this vantage point in the highest reaches of the stands it is hard to follow any one being. From
here it looks like an army of busy, possessed little creatures—ants stocking their nest, or slave peoples building pyramids. Everywhere, athletes are doing their thing—springing, jogging, stretching, throwing. You think there will be accidents eventually, pile-ups like on the expressway, but nobody seems to cross anybody else out, even if they all cross paths.

And Angela does it all. She must be one of those Greek things—decca, hepta—some kind of 'thlete, because she no sooner finishes spiking that javelin than she is out on the oval track, orange head bobbing around four hundred meters like the taillights on a springy jacked-up old Camaro.

When she cruises to a stop, she tails off the track at the foot of your section of bleachers. She walks in a way you only ever see track speedsters and campy flamey guys do, all loose floppy legs thrown way out ahead of them and hands placed flat over their own kidneys as if giving themselves spontaneous back rubs.

She looks up, right at you.

So what? What are you doing? What's so wrong about that? There are more athletes on the ground than there are watchers in the seats because who is really interested in watching high school runners do their boring meaningless training stuff on a brilliant afternoon? You can be seen, up there in your perch, like they cannot. So what? Are you doing something wrong? If you were, would you know?

You look down, concentrate hard on your cheese curls. Two left. One left. Crumbs. Tip the bag up. Drink the last of the cheese powder, whey powder, salt, color, monosodium glutamate all down. Wipe the orange bits off your lip.

You look down again. She's moving on. You have survived it, whatever it was. Though look there, she is glancing back over her shoulder. Like she doesn't have anything better to do than worry about you.

Up you get, and down you go, back out of the stadium. You have things to do anyway, rather than spend your valuable hours watching some sport that hardly anybody cares about even when it is a competition, never mind practice.

•  •  •

Did you hear that? They have not ruled out suicide. They have not ruled it out. But of course they haven't. They never do, do they? Are you listening? If you didn't want to get up you wouldn't have set the clock radio for six forty-five on the all-news-all-the-time station. So listen. Are you listening? They have not ruled out suicide. She may have done it herself, but they are not sure.

How screwed is that, that they can't be sure? Of course they can't be sure. They can
never, ever
be sure, and they are lying sacks of dirt to ever claim that they can. Isn't that right?

Suicide is still a possibility, says mister investigator. You could have told him that.

Because you know what he knows what we all know. That as an alternative to absolutely everything, suicide can never be ruled out.

That's why we have it.

Neither can foul play, adds mister investigator. He'll keep you posted. On the bright side, a lovely memorial to the girl is accumulating at the site. Flowers. Cards. Notes. Bears, and things. People care. People are good.

•  •  •

“Okay, so are you following me for real? Am I supposed to think now it was a coincidence that you found me at the supermarket? What gives with you?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to watch track-and-field practice, that's all.”

“Nobody watches practice. Practically nobody watches
meets
. What are you after?”

“I'm not after anything.”

“I told you I don't date guys. I did tell you that, right?”

“You did. I'm not looking for a date.”

“So then what
are
you looking for? And what could you possibly want from me?”

Go on then, tell her. Tell her what you want from her.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. Everyone wants something.”

“I don't. At least not that I'm aware of.”

Now
there's
a distinction. Maybe that's worth exploring. Awareness. Do you think?

Is something there. If you're unaware?

“Will,” Mr. Jacks interrupts. “Will, it appears that one of your . . . things . . . has gone missing. You know anything about that? You know you're not supposed to remove any of the works.” Unless they are specially commissioned for his mother.

“I know, Mr. Jacks. That I'm not supposed to remove them. So I don't know. What happened.”

“Hmm,” Jacks says, and walks away.

“You stole one of your own . . . things,” Angela says with an incredulous half grin.

“Could I come watch you again today?” you ask her.

She was shaking her head before you'd even asked. “No.”

“Oh. Okay. I see. Okay.”

“There is no practice today.”

You have not been rejected, Will. Congratulations. You may as well proceed.

“Would you like to come play bocce with me?”

“Play
what?
I mean, the answer is no, but, play
what?
”

“Nevermind.” You're talking into your shirt. What did you expect, after all? “Italian lawn bowling. Nevermind.”

Angela's face is now all contorted. “Ya, that's a good idea, neverminding. Let's nevermind, huh?”

She goes back to work. You stare at your gnome with the face that nobody can see but you. You pick up your mallet, and your chisel, and you stare and you stare more, as if you are going to make it take shape with nothing sharper than your glares and the laser zigzags of your mind.

Then you slam down the tools and walk over to Angela's workspace.

“It's just that, I figure, you don't have any friends around here like I don't have any friends around here, and so maybe, we could just, y'know. I don't know.”

“Whoa. Time out. The reason
I
don't have any friends around here is that people suck and I'm not interested. The reason
you
don't have any friends is that you're a damn weirdo. The main reason I talked to you in the first place was that I figured being seen with you would make me even scarier and less approachable.”

She is joking with you, Will. Half, anyway. Don't you think she's half joking with you? That would be a good sign, actually, right?

If she were joking. Maybe. Maybe not.

“Oh. I see.”

You all but bow before taking your leave, returning to your spot, gathering up your tools, and embedding that chisel a good three inches in, right between the gnome's eyes.

She is standing right in front of you. Both of you. Neither
you nor the gnome appears to notice, but that is not true, is it? You know she's there. You both know she's there.

“Listen, this is all wrong. It got kind of confused.
You're
kind of confused. I came to this place to run. That's it. Track and field and minding my own business and if they want me to assemble shelving to earn my spot then fine. I said hi to you once, fine, it was like a freak solidarity thing maybe. I didn't mean for it to be a relationship. That was my mistake.”

You figure that's an apology?

“Are you a freak?” you ask. Hopefully.

Finally you do look at her. And find her very much looking at you. It's a punishing look.

“No, my mistake again. I am not interested in talking about myself.”

“But you said that's why—”

“What is
your
story, creep boy? That's the real question. You been here three months already, and you still got this mystery shit all over you.”

“I don't have a story.”

“Oh, now I
know
you got a story, and it's probably a hummer. You gonna tell it to me?”

You gonna?

You gonna?

You gonna?

What else is there? Where else is there to go?

You gonna tell your story?

Do.

“No,” you say.

She is about to leave. “Good. I was afraid you were gonna tell me.”

She is about to leave. Will. Do you want her to leave? Do you want that? What do you want, Will?

“I don't know what I want with you,” you announce. And that is all.

A kind of a growl thing comes out of her. You are trying her patience. But it is not the unfriendliest growl you have ever heard.

“Okay, there's this vigil sort of a deal. Down at the pond. For that girl who died. That's where I'm going this afternoon.”

Angela pauses. Under the mistaken impression that you will be able to take the logical step into the breach and say something. You know better though.

“So do you want to go?” she asks finally.

“Yes,” you say.

“Did you know her?”

Did you know her?

“No,” you say.

•  •  •

There is a pond, sitting in the bottom of a grassy glacial bowl that sits next to a smaller, drier grassy glacial bowl
just outside of town. As if two glaciers stopped by for a sit twenty thousand years back, had a look around, then got up and went on their way again. More recently this location is renowned as someplace you come to have picnics or beer or sex. It is equally famous for what you do not have here. A swim.