A Question of Will

by Craig Spector

  Mickey lumbered over and set up glasses as Dondi took a seat. He glanced at Mickey as the shooter filled; Mickey shrugged and moved away, wiping down the bar. As long as Paul didn’t throw up, fall over and pick a fight, it was none of his business.

  Paul raised his glass, brimming with amber liquid. "A toast," he said.

  Dondi’s eyebrow arched; he had rarely, if ever, seen Paul drink hard liquor. "What are we toasting?" he asked.

  "Absolutely fucking nothing," Paul said. "No, wait," he amended, intoning earnestly. "To feeling no pain."

  He clinked glasses with a flourish, downed the shot. Dondi watched, then downed his. Paul caught him looking, cocked his head inquisitively.

  "So," he said. "What brings you out this fine holiday eve?"

  "Connie’s cooking the bird," Dondi explained. "Figured I’d stop in for a sec." He paused. "How you doin’, man?"

  It sounded like a casual question, wasn’t. "Good," Paul replied, nodding exaggeratedly. "Feeling... no... pain..." He drew the words out, slurring them only slightly.

  "I can see that," Dondi said. Paul pulled out a cigarette, patted his pocket, searching for his Zippo. Dondi spied it lying on the bar, picked it up and lit Paul’s smoke. Paul inhaled deeply, listening to the music.

  "Like this song?" he asked. "Reminds me of old Blind Faith, man. Remember Blind Faith? Clapton, Stevie Winwood, before he went all soft-rock and shit..."

  "Yeah, those were the days," Dondi said, humoring him. In the background Amanda faded out; the jukebox clicked and whirred into a U2 tune, as lead singer Bono lamented sacrifices made in the name of love. It hit some dim associative nerve, as Paul suddenly looked to Dondi.

  "Tell me something," he said, quite out of the blue. "Is anything justifiable if it’s done in the name of love?"

  "What?" Dondi said, clearly not following. "What are you talking about?"

  "Like, sometimes we do stuff we’re not supposed to, because it’s right to do it, right?" Paul explained. "Like that girl, the other night... I mean, it was right to dose her, you know? She was in pain..."

  "Yeah, I guess..." Dondi nodded warily, wondering where this was going.

  "But we’re not allowed to," Paul continued drunkenly. "It’s not legal..."

  "So what’s your point?" Dondi asked.

  "My point is," Paul replied, "Legal is supposed to be ‘right’, and illegal’s ‘wrong’, right? But sometimes, legal isn’t right, and in order to do right, you have to do a little wrong... right?"

  Dondi risked mental whiplash listening to Paul’s circular logic. He glanced over to Mickey D.; Mickey rolled his eyes.

  "So..." Paul concluded, "If a good person does a bad thing for a good reason, does that automatically make them bad?"

  Dondi shrugged under the weight of the question, like some booby-trapped cosmic karma pop quiz. "Fuck, Paulie, how the hell should I know?"

  "Exactly my point," Paul said, swilling his beer. He shook his head. "Never mind," he sighed. "I’m just talking shit."

  Dondi nodded. "Lemme take you home," he said. "Julie’ll worry..."

  "She’s gone," Paul said.

  "What?" Dondi looked at him, perplexed. ‘What do you mean, ‘gone’?"

  Paul shrugged. "Left to be with her folks," he said. "Thanksgiving, ya know. Even took the dog with her." He said it as if it were supposed to be the most normal thing in the world; Dondi was visibly taken aback.

  "Whoa, time out, back up," he said. "She left to go home for Thanksgiving, and you didn’t go with her?"

  "It’s no good," Paul shook his head. "Her mom trying to make like everything’s all right, her dad eyeball fucking me from across the room..." Paul shook his head bitterly. "He blames me for what happened, ya know..."

  "Who does?"

  "Julie’s dad."

  "Bullshit," Dondi snorted.

  "No. Truth," Paul insisted. "Hell, he never even wanted her to marry me in the first place... I was never good enough. Even after Kyra was born, bastard still wouldn’t cut me any slack. And now..." the thought trailed off morosely, unfinished. Paul put fingers to temple as though trying to rub away a great pain. "Shit..." he hissed.

  "You’re just drunk," Dondi assured him. "Nobody blames you."

  "Why not? I do..." Paul blurted, in alcohol-fueled confession. "I mean, we fuckin’ save people every day, right? So why couldn’t I save her?" A tear formed in his eye; Paul wiped it away determinedly, beating back his emotions.

  "C’mon, man," Dondi shook his head. "This ain’t right..." This was dangerous territory, even for the tightest of friends. Too many tripwires; too many places for the conversation to go off. But just as suddenly as it had come on, Paul shrugged it off, signaling the bartender.

  "Yo, Mickey!" he called out. "Two more! Kill us again!"

  Mickey glanced from Paul to Dondi; Dondi shook his head, no way. The big bartender feigned a shrug. "Sorry, Paulie," he said. "No can do..."

  Paul looked affronted, turned to Dondi, caught the subterfuge. "Oh, I get it," he said. "A conspiracy. Some friend you are."

  "Best one you’ll ever have," Dondi said. He got up off the barstool, put a brotherly hand on Paul’s shoulder. "C’mon, pardner," he told him. "Let’s get you home."

  Paul nodded and sniffed, fished some bills from his pocket, put them on the bar. "Yeah," he muttered. "Home."

  Wherever that was.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Thanksgiving offered little to be thankful for, as far as Paul could see. Not that he could see very far.

  He awoke groaning, stared blearily at the ceiling, trying to focus his eyes. His head whanged as if someone had scooped out his brains and replaced them with moldy cheese. His mouth was an arid disaster zone, offset by a vague rumbling in his guts that told him suffering would be minimized, provided he did not move.

  Everything past the fight with Julie was a bit of a blur. He remembered going to the Gaslight Tavern, starting an endless conga line of shooters and beers, until Dondi had rescued him from his own stupidity. He vaguely remembered returning home to a dark and empty house, bereft of even Spock’s canine antics to ease his entry. He didn’t remember stumbling upstairs and falling into bed with his clothes on. And what dreams may have come were mercifully muted. He awoke drooling, driven from sleep not by some haunted subconscious torment, but by the simple need to pee.

  "Huh...?" Paul sat up, startled. Bad move. His blood slammed against the inside of his skull like a bad lava lamp. His bladder sloshed like an overfilled water balloon. He thought for a fleeting moment that he might throw up.

  But it still took him another ten seconds to realize exactly whose bed he was in...

  "What!!?" Paul jumped up, squinted at the window, late morning light shining in. As he did he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the cheval mirror: still in his rumpled, grotty clothes, hair pasted down and sticking up at odd angles, eyes puffed and baggy from drink. He looked pretty much like he felt. Shitty. Hungover. Confused.

  But none of that changed the fact that he was standing in Kyra’s room.

  Paul turned back to the bed, saw the covers rumpled and mussed. He took a deep breath, realized he could smell the faintest trace of her perfume on his clothes.

  "Oh, God," he gasped, then stumbled out of the room and into the hall, lurching to the bathroom, where he retched violently. Sixty seconds later he returned, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and stepped back in.

  It was the first time since her death that anyone had ventured beyond the door. Standing wide awake in his daughter’s bedroom, Paul felt out of place, alien, an intruder. Kyra’s space was a portrait in teenaged transition: a perfect snapshot of contradiction and mystery, toys and cutesy kid stuff side by side with computer and stereo, books and papers and CDs, funky clothes and lacy undergarments, cosmetics and little bottles of perfume, evidence of changing tastes and hormonal tides. On her desk, a shelf holding prospective college handbooks and SAT test prep, all neatly arranged. Kyra may have inherited Julie’s looks, but her k
nack for organizing space was pure Paul: every inch of the room was a study in meticulously controlled chaos. A place for everything, and a reason for it to be there.

  Paul carefully straightened the bed, smoothing the floral comforter. Stuffed animals lay scattered on the floor, knocked off in nocturnal thrashings: a big Tasmanian Devil, a floppy Cat in the Hat doll, assorted Pound Puppies, Beanie Babies and fuzzy hand puppets. Festive relics. He placed them all back amongst the mound of pillows, tried to make it all look the way it did before. As he did he caught a faint scent of perfume, something French in a little triangular bottle.

  Trésor, he remembered, having once made the earnest error of trying to get her some cheap cologne he had seen at the counter in the Paramus mall Gap, some not so long ago shopping trip. There amongst the yuppie drone gear he remembered little silver metallic cylinders with names like earth, air, and dream. Paul had thought they were kind of cool; Kyra had rolled her eyes and looked at him as though he had suggested she douse herself in yak squeezings. Even at sixteen, she knew what she wanted.

  Paul moved toward the door like a burglar, the morning light inappropriately cheerful. In years past, he would be up and about by dawn, the TV pounding out cartoons and coverage of the Macy’s parade, the scent of cooking food warming the air. He had taken Kyra to the parade once when she was a little girl, bundling up and braving trains and subways and the pre-dawn midtown Manhattan crush of holiday humanity, all for the chance to hoist her seven year-old self up onto his shoulders at the corner of 46th and Broadway, to watch giant balloons and floats and marching bands. Schmaltzy and mercantile though it might be, through a child’s eyes, it was magic - Kyra had giggled and squealed and kicked her heels against his chest, utterly delighted.

  In later years they would have friends or family over to gather around the table and talk and drink and stuff themselves silly; Paul even built a brick oven in the backyard, roasting the turkey in a pan over real hickory fire which burnt the bottom black but yielded succulent meat. The Kelly house gradually became a magnet of annual good cheer, attracting holiday orphans and the familially challenged from both sides of the marital fence: parentless friends from work and school, everyone and anyone in their milieu who didn’t have a home to go to or one they particularly wanted to. Kyra would play with the visiting kids as Paul and Julie played hosts extraordinaire, seeing to it that everyone’s plate or glass never emptied until guests would cry for mercy or shuffle off late in the day, sated and satisfied.

  But it was more than good food and drink and conversation; it was the stuff of true family, and went beyond the bounds of mere blood; it was the ceremonial glue that bound them all together, commemorating the bounty of a year received, and ushering in the hope and promise of more. And like everything else, Paul took it seriously.

  And now here he was, alone.

  Paul’s eyes welled with tears, and for a long, pregnant moment, he sobbed a bitter, wracking sob. "I’m sorry, baby," he said to the room, to her memory. "I’m so s-sorry…"

  The room said nothing. Paul pulled himself together, then sighed and stepped out in to the hall, closing the door softly, erasing the violation. As it shut Paul caught a vague whiff of stale body funk — his own rank odor. He felt unclean, inside and out; and while he might not be able to change much of the former, the latter was easy enough.

  Time to shower, he thought, and get ready. His head still felt like a sack full of wet rags, but unlike other feelings, it would pass. And if there was little to feel truly thankful for, there were still certain amends to make.

  And certain things left undone.

  ~ * ~

  It was shortly after three as Detective Buscetti sat in the happy environs of Glendon P.D., his feet up on his desk, scanning the LIVING section of the morning paper. Inside the squad, the mood was low-key and subdued. Thanksgiving Day was generally like that: burglaries up, due to the preponderance of out of town holiday sojourns, but violent crimes momentarily ebbed. By mid-afternoon most of the citizenry would still be working off the tryptophan buzz of too much white meat and lethargic from starch, engrossed in football games or otherwise mollified by fleeting feelings of familial bliss; later in the day, second wind would kick in, fueled by alcohol and petty resentments, and the lines would start lighting up with domestic violence calls, drunk and disorderlies, the usual smorgasbord of DUIs, o.d.s and disturbing the peace calls, and if history was any judge, at least one attempted or actual homicide. Thank God he wouldn’t be there.

  Buscetti turned the page, when suddenly he heard a familiar voice call out, sing-song.

  "Hell-lo? Anybody home?"

  Buscetti craned his neck past the filing cabinet, saw Paul standing by the empty P.A.’s desk and little wooden gate that comprised the entry area. "Paul," he said, getting up. "How ya doing, man?" He was frankly surprised.

  "Hey, Stevie," Paul replied. "Long time no see." He looked tired but freshly showered and shaved, dressed down and casual. He carried a paper bag cradled loosely in one arm. "Got a minute?" he asked.

  "Sure," the detective replied, waving him in. As Paul entered Buscetti wondered what was up. In the weeks since the Wells’ kid’s release and subsequent disappearance they had seen very little of one another, Paul off in his world of grief and Buscetti tending to avoid the Rescue One house as a mid-shift coffee pitstop. Guilt, mostly, but also a degree of frustration - for all the initial vows of swift justice, the case had gone flat ass stone cold, and nobody knew it more than Buscetti. He still kept Kyra’s file on his desk, as a reminder; he instinctively covered it with the paper as Paul took a seat in the cramped and overcrowded space.

  "Good to see ya, man," Buscetti began solicitously. "How’s it going?"

  "Eh," Paul shrugged. "Okay. Been better."

  Buscetti nodded. It was an honest enough query; he had worried for Paul in the aftermath, especially when Wells’ disappearing act had inevitably cast generic suspicion on Paul as a matter of course. Standard issue stuff, dutifully if expeditiously done; Paul had alibied out down to receipts from the repair shop for his truck. Buscetti had been frankly relieved; some things one just did not want to seriously consider.

  "Anyway," Paul smiled. "I stopped by your house," he explained, "but Angela said you got called in."

  "Yeah," Buscetti said ruefully. "Parrish called in sick, but between you and me I think he’s in Atlantic City. At least it was the eight to four." Buscetti glanced at the clock on the wall. "Another forty minutes, and I’m outta here."

  "Good, that’s good," Paul said, then, "Oh... this is for you. Happy Thanksgiving." He held out the paper bag; Buscetti accepted it, peeked inside. A bottle of Glenlivet’s, single malt, Buscetti’s off-duty beverage of choice. The detective smiled, craggy features crinkling appreciatively.

  "Wow, thanks," he said.

  "By way of apology," Paul explained, adding, "I’ve been kind of a jerk lately."

  Buscetti shook his head. "Hey, you don’t have to apologize to me..."

  "No, seriously," Paul insisted. "It was fucked up. I was outta line. " He paused. "We appreciate all you’ve done for us."

  Paul held out his hand; Buscetti shook it. Peace. He waited for Paul to ask him about the case, but instead, Paul just leaned over to look not at the file, but at a little Polaroid of the detective’s child propped up on the desk lamp. "Oh my God," he said, picking it up. "She’s so big..."

  "Yep," Buscetti replied, chest swelling with paternal pride. "Twelve pounds, seven ounces, getting bigger every day..."

  "Wow," Paul squinted. "What the hell is she wearing?"

  "Don’t ask," Buscetti blushed. "Angie got it for her for Thanksgiving... it’s called a Goo Goo Gobbler..." he rolled his eyes. "Now she looks like Tor Johnson in a turkey suit..."

  "Nah," Paul said. "She’s a doll. She’s got your eyes."

  "Let’s hope that’s all she got," Buscetti joked. God forbid she ends up with my mug."

  Paul smiled, said nothing. Buscetti scoped him, still concerned;
he couldn’t help but feel that all was not well in Oz. "How’s by you?" he asked. "Julie okay?"

  "She’s okay," Paul lied. "I guess holidays are kind of a bitch."

  "Yeah," Buscetti concurred.

  As if by some perverse cosmic punchline, an angry male voice suddenly sounded out in the hall by the P.A.’s desk. Buscetti and Paul both turned to see a large, surly-looking man glowering at the gate.

  "Can I get some help please?" he intoned sarcastically, hands pounding the railing impatiently. The man was big, two-fifty plus of hard fat and bad attitude, clad in a beat biker’s jacket and filthy jeans, balding pate giving way to greasy ponytail. Buscetti turned to Paul.

  "Wait here," he said. Paul nodded, as Buscetti moved out the door. As he did, Paul’s gaze flitted across the desk, the photo, the assorted and sundry papers. He picked up the newspaper, casually perused the headlines. And then saw the file laying beneath it, the name clearly marked: H4687. KELLY, KYRA.

  Paul’s eyes went wide. He glanced at the doorway, heard Buscetti placating rowdy citizenry.

  Then carefully opened the file.

  ~ * ~

  A minute later Paul emerged from the office, found Buscetti facing off with the man, trying to get a straight story without getting pissed off or pissed on. The man was obviously drunk or doped on something, his words slurred and surly. "I told you, man, I wanna report a domestic attack..." He looked bad, smelled worse. "Bitch fuckin’ stabbed me..."

  "Who stabbed you?" Buscetti asked, placating.

  "My old lady, man! Whodahya think?" The big man looked annoyed. "Didn’t like how I was carving the fuckin’ turkey," he continued. "I want her locked up, man... fuckin’ bitch..."

  Buscetti rolled his eyes. "Whoa, back up," he said. "First things first. Now, where did this alleged incident occur?" He meant as in location, but by way of answer the big man just turned around.

  "Jesus!" Buscetti gasped. The back of the complainant’s jeans were flecked and spotted with fresh, wet red; a twin-pronged carving fork poked out of the broad expanse of the man’s back, tines sunk deep through leather and into flesh just above the shoulder blade. The wooden handle stuck up like a little flagpole, vibrating with every movement.