by Greg Walker
Adam wasn't in the water, and he wasn't alone. Someone stood in front of him. Isaac Burroughs. He couldn't see what he was doing, but his arm worked upwards in short jerky motions. Adam had his shirt off. JT thought of the sex perverts that they warned about in school and almost ran the other way.
Isaac saw him then, and he smiled. A pleasant smile, and JT smiled back. It didn't seem like the smile of a pervert at all. A welcoming smile. The sort of smile that rarely, if ever, came his way. He was still returning that smile when Adam fell to the ground as if someone had let the air out of him, and he saw the knife, and the blood, and Isaac took a step towards him. But the older boy's smile became a frown, and he shook his head and turned away, began to walk along the edge of the swamp and deeper into the woods, muttering to himself. JT felt the sting of some sort of rejection, but his mind was trying to process the particulars of the scene, wondered most of all why Adam didn't get up.
He did walk closer, then. Isaac was gone, and he felt uneasy but didn't yet know to be afraid. That came when he got close enough to see. And then his mind simply refused to process what his eyes insisted on. He bent down and shook Adam, whispered for him to get up. Then he lifted his hands and saw the blood on them and tried to run. He stumbled on legs that forgot how to work, and began to crawl. But even that failed him and he stopped and sat, vainly wiped the blood on his shirt, on the grass. He vaguely registered someone standing over him, a boy. He knew his name but it wouldn't come. Nothing would.
Then the boy was gone. Soon after, someone began to scream. A real scream. The scream that the other boy had tried to make before...and he was up and running, stumbling over tree roots and deadfalls and falling once so hard that it knocked the breath out of him. But he got up and ran home, to an empty house and crawled into his bed. His mother wasn't home, and his father had gone to make his home somewhere else.
When the police detective came later that day, he nodded when asked a question, or said "yes" or "no" if he had to speak. He knew what the detective had asked, but he answered as if remembering from a television program, but one that he hadn't seen to the end and would have to catch the rerun. His mother stood next to the battered kitchen table wearing hair rollers and smoking cigarettes one after another down to the butt, staring at him in her way that said "you're a liar." Often she was right, but more often not. And not this time. He wondered then, and still did sometimes later, if she had hoped he had killed Adam. To be rid of him.
When the detective walked to the door, he spoke briefly with JT's mother. He heard him say, "You might want to think about getting him some help. He needs to talk to somebody."
She answered, "Look around you. Does it look like I can afford to send him anywhere? If he needs to talk to someone, he can talk to me."
The detective paused as though to say something more, but then handed her his card, said, "If he remembers anything else, please have him call this number. And we might need to talk to him again, regardless, so make sure you're available."
"Sure. I'll just cancel that trip to Paris," she said and chuckled, then coughed.
He didn't know why she had to be so rude. JT wanted the policeman to stay longer. He at least believed his innocence, more so than his own mother.
Two nights later, he woke up with a name on his lips, and had to vomit before, shaking and sitting on the cold tiles and moldy grout in the bathroom, he could speak it. Isaac.
He had last seen the detective's card on the kitchen table, but it wasn't there. Nor was his mother home. He searched the house. After an hour and still no card, he envisioned it in the bottom of her purse or of a trash can at one of the bars she frequented. He looked at the clock. Only eight-thirty. He had gone to bed early that night, to try and avoid remembering that he had indeed seen the end of the program. He picked up the phone to call 911, but the dead silence said that his mother hadn't paid the bill again.
It was still light outside, and he thought of the store down the road. Marjorie West had always been civil to him when he bought bread and peanut butter for his lunches, if not exactly friendly. He doubted the store would still be open, but she might let him use her phone. When he told her why, she would have to. He thought briefly of going to the Kane's, but dismissed it. The thought of entering their home and the concentrated grief and horror there frightened him.
He put on his shoes and a t-shirt, and walked down the road, stopping periodically to squeeze shut his eyes when the images of Adam lying in the red mud surfaced, until retreating for the next showing. But now that he remembered, he wouldn't push them away entirely. And he didn't care what Eric's parents would think if he could identify their son's killer. He simply wanted to tell the truth and see Isaac arrested.
There was a light on in the store, and he tried the door but it was locked. JT put his hands to the glass and peered in, looking past the neat rows of canned goods, loaves of bread, and his favorite rack of Hostess products. His stomach responded. He couldn't remember what or when he'd eaten last. A car approached but didn't pass. He heard it slow, and sought to identify it through a reflection in the window, but the light inside prevented it. A flutter of fear began in his already unsteady stomach.
"What are you doing? You looking to steal something, Groves? Better get home before I call the police. Surprised they didn't take you in with them today."
He flinched at the recognition of Mr. Fisk's voice. But here was an adult that could help him. For this, he would have to shelve his animosity. It might even change his mind entirely. He felt ashamed that in the end he might be taking advantage of Adam's death. But Adam was dead, he wasn't, and still had to live in this town.
He turned around and blurted out, "Mr. Fisk. I know who killed Adam. It was Isaac Burroughs. We have to call the police. My mom took the card the detective gave her, and our phone was shut off..."
He trailed off as Fisk's face, peering out through the open passenger window of his car, lost its color. But then the news of the pastor's son involved in murder would be the sort to do that.
In a somber voice, Fisk said, "Get in the car Groves. That's a serious accusation. I might need to take you to the police station myself if it's true."
"It is, Mr. Fisk. I couldn't remember at first, but I remember it...all...now." He came down the two steps that led to the grocery and opened the car door. He hesitated, thinking of all the cruel words and insinuations delivered by Mr. Fisk, but knew that this took precedence over his own comfort.
He shut the door, and Fisk began to drive, staring straight ahead, his jaw working. JT had never noticed how thick with muscle his arms were, evident even under the suitcoat he wore, and felt uneasy to share the same small space. They drove past his house, past the junkyard and its hidden cache of pornography, and to the deserted firehall parking lot. They bounced through some holes in the packed dirt, and the car came to rest.
Finally Arnie turned to him, and his expression was hard. "Why would you tell such a wicked lie, Groves? Isaac Burroughs hasn't been around for about a month. He's in California, last I knew. Why would you want to lie about good people?"
"But...it was him. I saw him." Doubt gnawed at his certainty of a few moments ago.
There was no give in Arnie's tone or expression. "No, you didn't. You saw someone else, and you'd better think hard about who."
JT tried to imagine the face, the smile, as belonging to someone else, but the more he attempted to rearrange the features, the more his memory insisted. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. He had to get out of the car, had to think. Maybe Isaac had never really left, just pretended and hung around, waiting to kill someone. Maybe it had been someone that just looked like Isaac. He needed some time to think, to find someone else to talk to that didn't hate him.
"I have to go, Mr. Fisk." he said, and began pulling the door handle. Fisk's arm shot across the space and his hand closed on JT's, crushing his fingers. His shoulder pinned him to his seat. He could smell his aftershave and stale breath and the peppermint mint eaten to try and cover i
t up.
"You listen to me, Groves. If you go ahead with this story, who do you think everyone's going to believe? Paul Myers helped Isaac pack up his things, and got a letter from California postmarked two weeks ago. Pastor Burroughs knows he left. I was there when he drove away. You think they're going to believe you over us? You're nothing but trash, Groves. And you know what else? I think you did it and are making up this story to hide it, but you're too stupid to know Isaac's been gone. Killed Adam because even he was better than you. Better than your whole damn family. Leaving you and your mother was the first smart thing your daddy ever did."
JT felt hot tears leak from his eyes, wished for strength just long enough to kick the shit out of Arnie Fisk. "It was Isaac." he said, no longer sure, but defying Fisk in the only way he could.
He gasped when Arnie grabbed his shirt in two fists and pulled him close, felt the thin and worn garment tear under the armpits, tried to look away, but Arnie let go with one hand and grabbed his face, squeezing his cheeks and forcing his eyes to his. He almost spit in his face, but knew if he did, there might be another dead kid in Lincoln Corners.
"You little piece of shit. I could snap your neck and toss you into the weeds, and who would miss you? Your momma? I doubt it. She's too busy sleeping with every man who will buy her a beer. I know cause I bought her a drink once, but turned her down, didn't want to bring those diseases home to my wife. I'm only going to say this one more time, Groves. Isaac is gone. Now if you try to spread lies to hurt Pastor Burroughs, I will personally see to it that you suffer. You might have fooled the police, but unless they catch someone else and we both know they won't, I'll know it was you. Now get out of my car. I've got to go see the Kane's. And don't you ever come around looking for my boys again."
JT felt sweat staining his shirt, could smell the foul stench of his own fear. He couldn't move. Suddenly, Arnie let go, reached past him again, and opened the door. He paused to glance around, then put a thick hand on his shoulder and shoved him from the car.
JT fell into the dirt, which stuck to his sweaty body, creating a gritty paste. He tried to hold back the sobs but failed, had never known such pain and such hatred, and most of all hated himself for the inability to strike back. He wanted to shout something obscene, but he also had never felt so afraid. Arnie pulled away and left him on his knees in the parking lot, crying in a way he thought left far behind him in childhood.
When the sobs had given way to erratic hitches, JT got up and walked the half-mile to his house with his head hung low. Inside, he stripped off his filthy clothes and ran the shower. At least they still had hot water. As the grime slid from his body to disappear down the drain, the images came again. Isaac. No, he told himself. Not Isaac. And again. Eventually, the face blurred enough to become indistinct, and he could finally start to believe the lie.
For a time after, he lay awake in fear that the killer would find him, the only eye-witness, and cut him open too. He might have found comfort in knowing that Eric lay awake, sharing his vigil. But he never spoke to Eric again before he moved away.
He kept to himself that year, glad Eric went to elementary school and so avoided seeing the impromptu meetings and whispers that would begin a dozen paces behind wherever Eric walked. He had already received extra attention from kids that had never spoken to him before, wanting to know details. The excited gleam in their eyes disgusted him, and he wished he still had Adam's blood on his hands to smear on cheerleader uniforms and jean jackets and polo shirts and scream There, how does that feel? He punched one kid in the mouth that wouldn't let it go and received a three-day suspension. But the rest took notice and left him alone after that.
About a week after the murder, with uncharacteristic tenderness, his mother had stood in his bedroom doorway and asked if he was okay. He wanted to tell her everything, but all he could see was a whore on a barstool bought and paid for with a Budweiser and said yes and rolled over to face the wall.
He began to take long walks in the woods. Not Adam's Woods, but the large woods behind where a lost boy could lose himself even further. Even in winter he sometimes hiked as far as he dared. He enjoyed the solitude; the security of knowing that Lincoln Corners safely contained Arnie Fisk. He turned fifteen, and celebrated alone by drinking two thirds of a six-pack his mother had left out on the table. When he woke up the next day on the couch, still alone, he saw his father in the empty cans on the floor and the damp spot on the carpet from the last, unfinished beer and felt an inescapable pull towards a course laid out for him that he didn't possess the will to fight anymore.
In the spring he hitched a ride to Drake City and smoked pot with an acquaintance, reveled in how it reduced Arnie Fisk and Isaac Burroughs and Adam Kane to characters in a story that he could close and put on a shelf. He realized his teachers had it right from the start. And perhaps it wasn't so bad to simply live up to expectations. There were those destined to become doctors and those destined to become inmates, and who could say if any of them ever had a choice? He started keeping a bag of marijuana hidden in his bedroom. The following summer, a few months before his sixteenth birthday, he discovered he did have a choice, after all.
He wanted a car as soon as he could drive, to escape Lincoln Corners, and got a job helping Paul Myers on his farm. Paul had seemed reluctant at first, but JT's size and persistence won him over. He enjoyed being away from town, appreciated the fact that Paul hardly ever spoke, and never about the murder. He only saw Arnie Fisk there once, shortly after he started. He peered through a filthy barn window as Fisk parked his car in Paul's driveway. Myers went out to meet him, and an argument ensued. He couldn't hear, but Arnie's face was the shade of his mother's red Saturday night lipstick, and he expected the row to turn physical. He willed Paul to break some bones, but the big man waited impassively for the storm to blow out, and then said a few words. Arnie screamed again, and this time JT heard his own name. Paul shook his head and walked away, was close enough now for him to hear, "He's a damn good worker Arnie, and I need him. Are you going to come take his place?" Arnie kicked his own car, denting the door, and then spun his tires on the dirt road to leave a cloud of dust behind.
He tried not to think about Fisk most of the time, but now felt his hatred as a hard solid mass in his guts that had metastasized since their meeting and the threats delivered in his car. But it kept close company with the fear, pulsating and alive. He began to entertain fantasies of setting fire to the lumberyard.
Paul had cut his hay, and JT and two other men from another town that didn't know he had seen Adam Kane die picked up the bales from the field and stacked them in a wagon, and then later threw them into the hayloft and stacked them again. The stirring of his hatred and fear pushed him to work as two men, and won him the first respect from other men that he had known. As they sat around later drinking water to replace the gallons sweated out, Paul casually remarked that he should go out for the football team. Before he quit to start training camp, JT found a discreet way to ask Paul about Isaac Burroughs, and learned that he had left for California when Fisk said he had, still lived there, and still wrote occasionally. Paul wasn't anything like Arnie, and he couldn't come up with any reason for Paul to lie.
Football changed everything for JT. The hatred, his increasing size, and the muscle from farm labor got him a starting job as linebacker. He was only a freshman. His name and photograph showed up often in the papers, frozen brutality rarely seen at the high school level. He bought a weight set, ran instead of walked the trails in the woods, quit smoking pot and moved through the halls projecting a menace that refused his peers access to their newfound idol. They loved him even more. Before every game, JT stood on the sideline facing the home crowd until he found Arnie Fisk. Fisk tried to stare him down once, but finally drew his eyes away in a show of pointing out something to his wife. And after that, even though he wouldn't make eye contact, JT let him feel the weight of his stare until he fidgeted in his seat or got up to get a drink or use the bathroom. The c
rowd loved JT. Fisk's son Tony, his teammate, loved him. The girls loved him. This revenge satisfied more than any midnight conflagration of the lumberyard. The murder of Adam Kane still haunted him, as did the face of Isaac Burroughs in his dreams, where his deeper self refused to participate in the deception.
He found the buried children the spring before graduation and transition from High School to Penn State. The town still talked about Joe Paterno coming to Lincoln Corners. He had welcomed the legendary coach into his mother's house without shame or apology, taking an unexpected pride in his humble origins. He wanted Paterno to see the near squalor, inwardly dared him to comment. JT had colleges begging shamelessly for the privilege of giving him a free education in return for his services, and Joe would boogie right on back to Happy Valley empty-handed with a boot up his ass for any show of disrespect. But even if he had any such thoughts, Joe was no fool and said nothing. JT wondered if he even saw the house. He felt like a draft horse on the auction block.
He had hiked by the tree before, the enormous oak that sheltered the cemetery, and even sat down to rest and think in the same shade. But never when the foliage was so thin. He saw the ribs, dug up the skull, threw up and cried. He sat next to the graves until the slanting rays of the sun announced that dark would come soon. And no matter what courage he displayed on the football field, he didn't want to be here in the night with them. But they followed him home and shared the darkness anyway.