Freewill (5 page)

“Sure is dirty water,” you say. “I don't think I could throw myself into that.”

“Because it's dirty,” she says flatly.

“Uh-huh.”

“I see. So this is what you do for fun.”

You move along the rail, away from her.

“What is that move?” she says harshly. “You know, you could just say ‘Shut up, Angela. That's not true. You're wrong,' instead of doing that slither-away maneuver.”

“You're wrong,” you say.

“So slither on back then.”

You do. “For fun?” you ask.

“Ya, what do you do for fun?”

“I like bocce ball. And, you know, I do the shopping and other stuff for my grandparents. Stuff like that.”

Now she looks like she will be the one slithering away. But she doesn't, yet.

“That's not fun, that's minimum security.”

Something comes out of you now. Unusual. Unheard of. It frightens you, doesn't it? Because it doesn't come out of your eyes or your pores or your nose. It comes out of
you
, from somewhere in the diaphragm region and sounds as foreign to your ear as Mandarin Chinese.

Is that a laugh?

“Was that a laugh, just come up out of you, or are you gonna be sick?”

You have a hand on your belly. “I think I'm okay,” you say.

That must be how skydiving feels. Terrifying but thrilling
at the same time. You're thinking about that right now, aren't you, as you look down. Skydiving.

“There's no doubt about this one, huh?” Angela says. “He did it.”

“He did. I suppose. There's always doubt. But . . .”

“They still don't know about her, though. Not for sure.”

“Never will,” you say. “Never can. A person takes that with them, no matter what the cops or anybody think they know. Nobody ever knows who's responsible for anything if they don't see it with their own eyes. Or even if they do see it. Nobody knows anything, that's what I think.”

“You don't really think that, do you?”

“Yes I do.”

“Come on. I think maybe he did it. That's what I think. Did her, then himself. A guy would do something like that.”

You couldn't possibly speak any slower than this. “Cannot know. Nobody can know what happened.”

“What if they find a note? That'll tell it, for certain.”

You shake your head.

“What do you mean, no?”

“If you are not inside someone's head, or they are not inside yours, then how can you ever know one hundred percent anything about them?”

Sometimes, even if you are in the head. You still can't know. Isn't that so?

The sun is coming up, pale and milky in an unclear morning sky. The water below, looking like Willy Wonka's chocolate river now in daylight, is going past faster than you thought.

“Is this what you've been carving these things for all along?”

“No.”

“Then what you been carving 'em for?”

“I don't know.”

“Then what you bringing them to these places for?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you get out of it?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you know, Will?”

“Nothing, Angela, I don't know a thing.”

With a sudden, spasmodic shove, you are away from the bridge rail. Standing three feet back, and now looking at the wood carving as if it is a surprise guest at your little party, you say to Angela. “I know this: I need to go finish that stupid fat-face little gnome.”

She checks her watch. “Yup,” she says, and you start off.

First Angela, then you, as you make your way back over the bridge toward school, pass a hand over the woodwork. Stroking its rounded top, looking down on it. It fits. The way the plaque fits, the railing fits, the abutment fits, as if it were
incorporated into the design of the lovely miserable old gray structure. It probably won't even get noticed for the first few hours, as drivers pass it by feeling like it has been there all along forever. No fuss. Good.

You walk in a file, she first, you following.

“Do I scare you at all?” you ask.

“Not at all,” she says.

“So you get it, then. Like, you understand.”

“Not at all,” she says.

What did you think, that you were going to slip one past her? That by tricking her into saying the wrong thing somehow the contract would be legal and binding and therefore you would make sense because you made sense to Angela? Is that what you were hoping to achieve? To cheat your way in?

“So why are you bothering?” you ask, rather recklessly.

“I don't know,” she says.

You have always loved the
beach. Always loved waters. Moving waters most of all. Could never resist the pull. Is it the magician's trick, the waving of the cape, coming and going, the possibility of tides and river runs that can produce something out of nowhere or that can take something away just as quick? Is that it then, the idea that what is coming and what is going presents the possibility of something better than what you've got right here right now? That what you cannot see under there has got to be better than that which you can see?

What are you waiting for? Ever believing, aren't you, that a good tide is going to bring you a superior something?

Only now more than ever you like the beach when no
one else is there to appreciate it. Which means you like your beaches best cold and windy and rainy and raw and awful.

The severed head of a tuna is a joy.

You look around in every direction, as if a wad of fifty-dollar bills has just blown in your path and you are afraid the owner is going to come flying after it. But no, the tuna head is all yours.

You go close, face-to-face with it. You open your mouth wide, like it does. You touch a very pointy tooth. Your hair is now beaten down hard on your frosted head, by the wind and spray, but it is not uncomfortable. Looking around the back you can see where the spine has been neatly sawed, where the fishermen have removed the useless bits at the dock a half mile to the south. Would have been nice if this find had been the rubbish of a shark's meal. There would be a certain savage kick to that, a primal bloody rightness. But this isn't bad either.

And neither is “Summer Wind,” playing in your head, like it does without fail every time you hit this beach. The autumn wind, and the winter wind, have come and gone . . .

Then just like that you are no longer a pair alone. You are a trio. He comes up behind you, the other big skeletal gape-mouthed tuna head.

“Hey, nutter,” Pops says. “No jacket, no hat, no brains? I'm going to come down here one of these times and find you looking like
him
.” He is squatting next to you, pointing at the tuna.

“Ah, it's not so cold.”

“And you're scratching again. Quit with the scratching, or you're not going to have any hide at all. You know that's the best way to get some kind of infection, don't you?”

“I do, Pops.” Of course you do, but this is what you do at the beach. It's the salt, probably. The wind, probably. The sand and the salt picked up by that wind and driven by it and embedded into your pores, probably, that make you scratch. It always passes, when you leave the beach. It will pass.

“Skin. Best protector you've got. Take care of it. There's not much we can do to hold back the years, but we can do that.” His own looks like the outside of an old suitcase. “And drink that V8, for crying out loud. The supply is all backing up, so I know you've not been drinking it.”

“Sorry, Pops,” you say. You both know you have no intention of drinking the V8.

For a while the two of you merely crouch there, facing the decaying skull of a creature that was once as big as both of you. Are you waiting for it to speak? You look like you are waiting for it to speak. It probably won't, you know.

“School called,” Pops says.

“As they do,” you say.

“You need to go, Will.”

“I do go.”

“Yes, but you need to go all the time.”

“Oh. Okay.” Like this is news to you. You both also know this is not likely to happen.

“Have you been stealing stuff from the school, Will?”

“No way. Did somebody say that? Who would say that?”

“Fella named Jacks. Shop teacher.”

“Those were mine. I made those.”

“But they are really school property, yes?”

“Technically. He just wants me to make a stupid gnome for his mother. She can steal them but I can't.”

“So just make the stupid gnome. Then go back to what you want to do.”

A monster wave builds and builds, and the two of you are pulled, watching the rearing up, the building and cresting and crashing of it. Tide coming in now, and the frothy fingers come touching the tuna just slightly. Won't be long.

“Right, then after that he wants me to make her a whirligig. It's not going to end.”

“So speed it up. Make him a gnomeygig.”

You smile, but you don't half mean it. It is not lost on you, where you are at, and why you are at it. You know, don't you, Will? And Pops knows, because he is one of the architects.

“I'm not a fucking case, Pops.”

“It's not like that.”

“Yes it is. I'm in the fucking rehab ward. I'm in with the
dead-enders. Everyone there is either stupid or dangerous or hiding out. It's for people who don't
want
to go to normal school. I
want
to go to normal school, Pops. Why did you stick me in there? I don't belong there. I'm supposed to be a pilot.”

Now he stands, and backs up. “Tide's coming in fast now,” he says, to make like that is what he is backing away from. The wave comes closer this time, coming up all around the jaw of the tuna, giving it a white Abe Lincoln beard, and you wet shoes. “Come back out of there, Will. You are wet enough already.”

You get to your feet and take a couple steps back.

“Stop scratching, dammit,” Pops says.

You are taxing Pop's patience again, Will. Must you do that? Are you aware you are doing it? Of course you are. You know this is hard for him. You know he is trying. You know what he can and cannot do. He is renowned for what he can and cannot do. Why do you want to make it harder than it already is?

Could it be harder than it already is? For either of you?

“If I'm going to be stuck in occupational therapy, in
special programs
—did you know that, Pops, that they call that
special programs
? Of course you did. But did you know that it's called Hopeless High by the locals? Bet you didn't.”

You think? You really think he didn't know? Debatable. Do you want a debate?

“Listen,” Pops says carefully, but not quietly. He has to growl somewhat to beat the crash of the surf, but also, he has to growl to beat you. “You agreed. We had an agreement. You were going to try. So. Try.”

The
agreement
. Remember the agreement? If Pops was going to
agree
to be stuck with you, then you were going to
agree
to try and get normal? Sure you recall.

“I am trying.”

“Not really. You have your father's gift for drama.”

Oh. We can ignore that. Do you do yourself any favors if you react? You don't have to. Will, you don't have to. Are you rising to the bait? Your tuna friend rose to the bait. Look at him.

Do you want to fail any more tests? Can you
afford
to fail any more of life's tests, big or small?

Or is it even one? He doesn't do it on purpose. He has no more control of this than you do. Let each other off once in a while. Can you do that?

“Don't start on my dad, Pops.”

Let it go. You don't have to.

You are pointing a long, hard, angry finger at your father's father. Is that what you want to do?

“Put that finger down, young man,” he says.

What do you think he thinks? Do you think the whole thing is hard for him? Do you think it is harder to lose your father or your son?

Do you think it was your fault?

WillWillWillWillWillWillWillWillWillWillWill.

Do you think it was his fault?

Does one of you owe something?

What do you suppose he thinks?

Do you give a shit?

“I don't give a shit,” you say. But you do slowly lower your hand as directed. You turn your back to him now and watch as the tide attempts, in small grabs, to take back the head that it gave you. It looks like a hard job, a big heavy mother job. But in increments, it will get done. The tide will win. It always does.

It is impossible to hear it, but you know your slope-shouldered grandfather is fighting his way back up the beach. He is headed to work in his garden, just as sure as you are sitting there. His garden is your beach. Only when he runs and hides, at least things grow in his wake.

This never works out quite the way you intend it, does it? Probably not the way he intends it either. But he tries. You know that he tries. You give him that, even if you don't tell him.

But there is no book. No rules, no diagrams. Seat-of-the-pants flying, for both of you.

“Sorry, Pops,” you scream, toward the sea, as it takes back its gift.

Odds are long that he heard you. But you will assume he
did. And if he did he will be waving the wave he waves, without looking back. To acknowledge, and absolve you.

But you don't need to look to see if he's doing it. You slink into a cross-legged lump in the cold wet sand, staring staring at rotting skulls and white horses and gray horizon and vast, vast, vast untold.

Why can't we do better than this? If everyone is to survive we have to do better than this.

•  •  •

So whose turn is it? Who's next? That'll be the question. Do you know? There has to be a next, right? These things always happen in threes, don't they? Don't they always happen in threes? Why is that?