The Wildman (20 page)

“
How ‘bout you, Fred,” Jeff said.

He didn’t miss Fred’s reaction. His left leg twitched, and his eyes widened as though he’d gotten a mild electrical shock. In the glow of the firelight, his face looked as pale as paper.

“
What? What about me?” Fred’s voice sounded tight and higher than normal.

Jeff shrugged, trying to look totally casual about the discussion, but he was suddenly convinced Fred had something really important on his mind. He didn’t know the guy, so he didn’t know if would have to coax it out of him or if he would have to pressure him to confess whatever he was hiding. He knew he should let Fred keep whatever it was to himself, but Jeff didn’t want to do that … especially if it had anything to do with Jimmy’s death.

“
You sure look like you got something on your mind,” Jeff said. “Is there anything you want to tell us?”

Fred bit down on his lower lip until it went bloodless as he shook his head vigorously. The tightness around his mouth and eyes indicated something definitely was bothering him. His hand started shaking as he raised his beer to take a sip. When he swallowed, his throat made a loud gulping sound.

“
Come on,” Evan said. “Tell us.” He seemed not to have noticed Fred’s reaction and was just playing along with the discussion. “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”

“
Could we talk about something else?” Fred asked. His voice wavered, and he had trouble looking directly at any one of them for more than a second or two. A hint of frantic desperation lit his eyes. Jeff caught it even if no one else did.

“
Why’s that?” Evan asked.

There was no way Jeff could miss the sudden shift in Evan’s tone of voice as he leaned forward practically glaring at Fred, who withered visibly under such his intense stare.

“
No … No reason,” Fred said. “I just think after … after all these years, maybe there’s something a bit more—you know, more interesting to talk about.”

“
By the expression on your face,” Evan said, now leering at him, “I’d say you’ve got some serious shit you’re holding back.”

“
No … no way,” Fred said. His voice was high and strained as he looked at the floor and shook his head in vigorous denial.

“
Come on,” Tyler said, bristling at Evan. “Back off, will you? He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“
Yeah,” Mike piped in. “Let’s change the subject.”

Evan turned on both of them with an angry fire in his eyes.

“
No,” he said coldly. “I’m interested. And I think it would be good for ole’ Freddie-boy here to talk about whatever’s bugging him. That’s what we’re all about here, aren’t we?” He looked from person to person as though soliciting support he knew he wasn’t going to find. “We trust each other one hundred percent, don’t we? Well …? Don’t we?”

For a long, uncomfortable moment, no one said a word. The logs in the fire blazed and crackled.

“
Sure we can,” Jeff finally said. He was feeling sorry about starting it all by pressing Fred the way he had. If Fred or anyone else didn’t want to talk about something, they didn’t have the right to force it out of them. “I’m just saying … if he doesn’t want to—”

“
Aww, come on. What is it?” Evan said, cutting Jeff off and turning to Fred. “Did you kill someone or something? Is that it?”

Jeff like where this was going. It was just like when they were kids and, without ever talking about it or agreeing on it, somehow they all picked the one kid in the tent to heap their abuse on—the scapegoat. Usually it was someone who was new that year, but was that what Fred was now … their scapegoat? For what?

Jeff’s anger flared at Evan when he saw the wounded expression on Fred’s face. Before, he had been looking tense and worried, but now he looked like he was so scared he was about to burst into tears. His eyes glistened like wet marbles in the firelight, and the lines on his face deepened into shadow that looked like thin ink lines.

“
Stop picking on him, will you?” Jeff said. “For Christ’s sake.”

But Evan ignored him as he stared at Fred, still pressuring him. Jeff wanted to tell Evan that he was acting like a bastard, that he shouldn’t be picking on Fred or anyone else like this. Why was he being so pushy about it? They should all act like adults here, not turn it into some kind o
f
Lord of the Flies
thing.

After another short, tense silence, Fred took a deep breath and let it out in a long puff as he turned to look at Evan with a steady, empty stare.

“
You really want to know? The worst thing I ever did?” His voice was low and shaky. “I’ll tell you, and you’re gonna wish to God you’d never asked.”

“
No. Wait,” Jeff said, waving his hands impatiently. “You don’t have to tell us anything, Fred.” He looked at the others. “This isn’t fair.”

But Jeff could see that something inside Fred had snapped. Any second now he was going to flip out and let them all have it. Jeff wished he could scream at both Evan and Fred to just shut the fuck up, but he fell silent as he waited for the explosion.

“
I … I killed one of my kids,” Fred finally said, breaking the silence that had settled over them. He heaved a phlegmy sigh that rattled in his throat.

The confession hit them all like an exploding bomb. For a long time, no one said a word as Fred and Evan stared at each other. Fred had a blank stare, and his lower lip was trembling. Evan looked like—for once-he had no idea what to say.

“
There! You happy?” Tears filled Fred’s eyes and ran in glistening streaks down his cheeks.

“
Aww … shit, man,” Evan said, looking absolutely crest-fallen. “I didn’t mean to— Jesus, I’m sorry.”

“
Shut up for once, will you just shut the fuck up?” Fred shouted. There was pain and rage on his face, and Jeff realized he had never seen Fred like this, either as a kid or as an adult.

“
How … how’d it happen?” Tyler asked, his voice laced with sympathy. “I mean … if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”

“
Jesus, man,” Mike said as he reached out and placed a hand on Fred’s knee. Fred flinched at the touch and drew back.

“
That’s gotta be …” Tyler said, but then his voice faltered because he obviously didn’t know what else to say.

Fred sniffed loudly and wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands. Jeff thought he looked diminished, somehow, and so sad and vulnerable. He wondered how Evan w
as taking this, but the truth was—he didn’t care.

Fuck Evan!
He thought.
If he feels like shit now—good! … He deserves it.

“It was our second child …
our first son. We named him Alex.”

Fred’s voice hitched and closed off with a loud click. This was obviously taking a great deal of effort, but Jeff had the feeling, as tough as it was to talk about, this might be exactly what Fred needed … especially since he obviously had been bottling it inside for so long.

“
He … he was born with a—uh, a brain defect.” He narrowed his eyes as though in pain and clenched his hands into fists. “I don’t want to go into all the medical bullshit, but I lived with it for so long … so goddamned long. The bottom line was, the doctors all said Alex would be severely retarded all his life, and there was no hope of a cure, so one night—one night—”

Again, his voice closed off as more tears flowed from his eyes. He leaned forward, cupping his face in his hands and resting his elbows on his knees as he sobbed. Mike moved his hand to Fred’s shoulder and patted him, but Fred gave no evidence that he noticed the touch.

“
Take it easy there, buddy,” Mike cooed softly.

With his face still buried in his hands, his voice muffled, Fred continued.

“
We already had a child—a girl, Lara, and she was—she is the brightest little thing you’d ever want to meet, thank God. She’s fourteen now, and she’s not giving us any trouble like you hear about from teenagers these days. But Alex … he … I just … I couldn’t face it, you know?”

Mike kept patting him on the back, and everyone—even Evan—made soft murmurs of agreement.

“
So one night … when he was asleep, I … Oh, Sweet Jesus in Heaven, I’m so sorry, but I …”

He let out a barking cry that sounded like an animal that had been hit by a car. He slammed his beer bottle onto the floor, shattering it into dozens of amber shards. His shoulders were shaking violently as he leaned forward and crumpled in on himself.

“
You don’t have to talk about it,” Tyler said softly. “I … I’m sorry we brought this whole thing up.”

Jeff wanted to say it was his fault, but he was still angry with Evan for pressing Fred the way he had. It had been obvious he didn’t want to talk about this, and here they were, practically strangers to one another, talking about something so private and horrible as the murder of a child. There was no excuse for making anyone admi
t to something like that.

“I
had
to do it. Don’t you see?” Fred took his hands away from his face and looked at them with absolute anguish and despair etched on his face. “I smothered him in his crib with a stuffed toy—a goddamned Winnie the Pooh bear— so I … so
we
wouldn’t have to live with … so
he
wouldn’t have to live his life with something like that.”

“
Oh, man. I understand completely,” Jeff whispered. “Who can blame you?”

“
I … the medical examiner determined it was SIDS, you know? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. But I’m pretty sure—I’m positive he knew I’d done it.”

“
And I’ll bet he understood, too,” Tyler said. “That’s probably why, if
he
did
suspect what really happened, he didn’t make anything of it, you know?”

Fred’s face was contorted with agony as he looked at Tyler, but a distant coldness filled his eyes … a coldness that made it all too clear to Jeff, at least, how absolutely alone he felt. No one here could possibly begin to understand what he had been through.

How could they?

How could
anyone
u
nderstand the torment being so bad that you were forced to suffocate your own child?

Jeff was ashamed of himself. All along, he had been thinking Fred had been holding back something about what had happened to Jimmy Foster. He wished there was something he could do or say something to make Fred feel even a little bit better.

“
So—” Fred said, sniffing back his tears and looking at them. “Does that constitute the worst fucking thing any of us has ever done? Does it?”

Moving slowly, he got to his feet and stood there for a long time, silently staring at the broken beer bottle on the floor. The flickering firelight shot amber rays of light through the glass and onto the worn wooden floor. After a moment, Fred hitched his pants and said, “I think I’ll take a little walk.”

“
It’s gonna start raining again,” Jeff said. He didn’t like that any one would feel uncomfortable enough to be driven out on a night like this.

Moving as if he hadn’t even heard him, Fred bent down and grabbed his raincoat from his pile of clothes on the floor. His face held a curious, blank expression as he pulled his raincoat on and zipped it up to his chin. When he pulled the hood over his head and tugged the drawstrings, his face was lost in shadow.

“
I just need some time to clear my head,” he said in a distant, hollow voice. “Don’t let me bum you guys out.”

With that, he walked to the side door and went outside. The screen door banged shut behind him loud enough to make Jeff jump. For a long time, everyone in the dining hall remained perfectly silent until, finally, Tyler let out a loud breath and said, “Christ on a cross.”

“
Who’d a thunk it?” Mike said with a shrug.

“
You had to push him, didn’t you,” Jeff said, turning to Evan. “You didn’t see how much this was bothering him?

“
How was I supposed to know? I had no fucking idea,” Evan said, shrugging as though absolutely helpless. “Honest to Christ. If I had known …”

“
Yeah, well you might want to think before you open your goddamned mouth next time,” Jeff said with a snarl.

The words were out of his mouth before he realized it, and he knew he would regret them later—just as Evan seemed to regret what he had just done. But it was too late. For either of them. The anguish and pain Jeff had seen on Fred’s face and in his demeanor made him furious at Evan, and he had no doubt this would cause a rift between him and Evan for the rest of their lives.

But what did it matter?

He hadn’t had a
real
friendship with Evan for over thirty-five years.

Why should he give two shits what he thought now?

“
I said I was sorry.” Evan cast a sullen look at Jeff. “What more do you want?”

“
You can start by apologizing to Fred when he gets back,” Jeff said.

“
I already apologized. I don’t think I have to—”

“
Oh yes you do. Apologize again, and make goddamned sure he knows you mean it.”

Evan started to reply but stopped himself before he dug himself in any deeper. Lowering his gaze, he nodded his agreement. Only the crackling of the fire and the hissing sound of wind-blown rain, beating against the windows, broke the silence of the room.