A Question of Will

by Craig Spector

  Faded neon advertising Stroh’s and Johnny Walker Red flickered behind fly-specked windows permanently tinted by decades of diesel exhaust and grit; the dark interior smelled of stale smoke and stale beer, with the occasional faint waft of cheap perfume, even cheaper cologne, piss and vomit. As a workingman’s joint it made the Gaslight Tavern look like the Plaza; as Paul entered, the word shithole came clearly to mind.

  He took a seat at the far end of the bar, scanning the murky interior from a vantage point that strategically covered the door. The bartender ambled over. Paul ordered a beer. He came back with a longneck Bud, which Paul proceeded to nurse. He was not there to drink.

  He watched the room. The ghosts of longshoremen past may have hung in the air, but the current denizens consisted of a depressive smattering of middle-aged Teamsters seated on bar stools as if they had sprouted there, and aging low rent hookers wearing too much makeup and not enough clothes, flashing unfortunate expanses of flesh through fake fur, spandex and fishnets. Paul watched, waiting.

  The meeting with Kathryn had been purest chance, but from it was born a new sense of purpose, a necessary recalibration of direction. He had been going about this all wrong, trying to achieve results from the outside in. Kathryn, in pouring out her sorrows, had led him to realize: time to shift strategies, and work from the inside out.

  That required reconnaissance, investigation, research. He was not without compassion for her; in her own way, she was a victim, too. And it was not lost on him that he could have eased her pain with a word. But he needed answers, and she might have them. And the die was already cast, such as it was. She had made her choices, as had he. And now they just had to live with them.

  For Paul, that meant, among other things, maintaining the illusion of normalcy, as best he could. He had gone to work, putting in his time. There had been another fire of mysterious origin - an abandoned house near the corner of Atkins and Middleton Streets that was appropriately credited to the elusive Mr. Toast -- plus the usual array of civilian screw-ups and random disasters. The torch job was marginally clever -- a space heater left on near a gallon of paint thinner in the basement, with bundles of newspapers spread around for kindling -- but otherwise it was hot and dirty and mundanely dangerous, and Paul humped his load like a grunt, getting the job done but no more, and nobody died. He said nothing about Julie or the upheaval at home to Dondi or the others, and no one asked - indeed, his crewmates seemed relieved to be freed of the burden of knowing, or caring.

  His sessions in the box had likewise winnowed down to the most perfunctory of functions. The transformation seemed to be holding, which was a good sign... but rather than press for answers, Paul had left him alone. There were other things he wanted to know first.

  Which brought him to this dark and dreary place, with its gummy floors and scarred wooden stools and dead-end loser vibe. He knew from Kathryn’s later outpourings that James Wells could be found here, eventually: he worked swing shift at the docks, and the Waterfront was one of his regular haunts on his way home. It was just a matter of time.

  Paul stared down at his glass. Poor Kathryn. A weak woman with a good heart, married too young to know who she was or what she wanted out of life, pregnant before she was twenty, middle aged by thirty, old before her time. Hating her was pointless, like punching a sand castle; in the end she merely took on the form life had molded to her, and crumbled at the first swell of the tide. She was the living embodiment of everything he had never wanted for Kyra, and she was legion; you couldn’t throw a rock in Jersey without hitting a Kathryn Wells.

  And yet, in his dreams...

  In his dreams, Paul had seen her, fleeting images fed by a lonely woman’s grief: Kathryn, young and fair, her beauty uneroded as she welcomed him into her arms, her legs parting wide to receive him... her legs, smooth and sleek and trembling, spread wide to issue forth a child...the child in her arms, its innocence as yet uncorrupted, never dreaming that he would grow to become the monster... the monster who would murder his child...

  ...and as he watched she became Julie, in the glow of her own youth, cradling the squirming bundle in her arms... his daughter, his love made flesh, the tiny, fragile center of his world...

  ...and he knew, somehow it would be different for him with a son... the same love, the same care, but with it, the knowledge that one day, God willing, he would grow to be a man and he would have to let him go... but a girl, a daughter... even as a woman, she would still be his little girl, she would always be his little girl... and he would always be there to protect her...

  ...and Paul smelled the stench of something hidden yet aflame... as he turned flames roared up behind him, a wall of heat and pain that split the floor wide, spewing up as though bellowing from the mouth of Hell, separating him from his woman and child... Paul screamed... the room was burning, his house was burning... Paul cried out in anguish, unable to reach them...

  ... and as he called her name, Julie looked to him, her eyes filled with terror, hair cindering like a glowing Medusa’s nest... the flames exploded into inferno... as Julie became Kathryn...

  Became Kyra...

  Paul snapped back, looked up, breath ragged, a sheen of sweat beading his brow. The front door creaked wide.

  And James Wells walked in.

  Paul glanced at his watch: 11:11. He calmed his breathing as Wells lumbered to a stool in the middle of the bar, took a seat, shoulders hunched. Paul steeled himself, called the bartender over... then watched as he made his way back to where Wells was sitting and set him up with a shot.

  James Wells watched the barkeep pour, clearly wondering what was up. The bartender gestured back to Paul. He felt a familiar rush of adrenaline, like the feeling he got when he strapped on his gear to enter a burning building. Except he was alone, bare handed, and the only fire raging was the one inside his skull.

  Paul drained his glass and stood.

  "It’s showtime," he said.

  ~ * ~

  Wells looked up as Paul ambled over, slid up beside him. It seemed to take a moment for him to place the face; then he harumphed and nodded. "It’s you," he said gruffly. "For a second I thought you were a faggot or sumthin’."

  "Didn’t stop you from taking the drink," Paul replied.

  "Drink’s a drink," Wells shrugged. "If you’re buyin’..."

  "I’m buyin’," Paul said, mock pleasant, and took the stool beside him. He gestured to the bartender to set them up again; as he did, Paul watched Wells. He looked half-ripped before he even walked in the door - as he knocked back the shot Paul caught a glimpse of spider veins lining the creases of his nostrils, visible beneath the wind-burnt skin. Maybe not alcoholic, but a man who drank hard, and long. His clothes were old and faded - fleece-lined jeans jacket, work pants and flannel shirt, the creases limned with toil; his boots were scuffed and cracked; his hands, thickly callused and oil-stained. His dark hair was brush-cut and stippled gray; little tufts of wild black strands poked from the dark folds of his ears. He looked like what he was: an undereducated, blue collar lug whose grey matter had never been seared by a serious thought, with the vibe of a faded high school linebacker for whom life past the prom was one long downhill slide.

  Wells picked up the glass, gazing into it as if it held secrets. "No offense," he said. "But what the hell’re you doin’ here?" he knocked back the shot and looked at Paul through hooded, bloodshot eyes. "I mean, you ain’t exactly a regular."

  Paul glanced past him, taking in the ambience. He shook his head. "Guess not," he replied. "Guess I just wanted to talk to you, man to man... father to father..."

  "Hmmph," Wells snorted. Paul signaled the bartender to set them up again -- shots and beers this time -- then waited, not hostile or threatening, but merely observant. The bartender poured and retreated. After a heavy pause, Wells grumbled, grudgingly yielding.

  "Look, pal," he said at last, "I’m sorry for what happened, and you seem like an okay enough guy, but whaddaya want from me? Haven’t we been through e
nough?"

  Paul said nothing. Wells slugged back the shot. "Kid’s just no damn good," he mumbled bitterly. "Never was."

  Paul gave a half-nod -- not agreeing, merely noting. He sensed something building up inside the older man, like a thunderhead of bile mounting some grim inner horizon. He quietly slid his shot across the bar until it was next to Wells’ now emptied glass. Wells didn’t notice, instead sighing grievously, sinking into his own thoughts.

  "I don’t apologize for what I am, ya know?" he said, words slurring slightly now. "All my life, I did what I had to do. Bust my balls to put food on the table, a roof over their heads, take care of fuckin’ business, don’t ask nothin’ from nobody..." He picked up the shooter as if it were his own, downed it. "I tried to raise him up right, teach him how a man’s gotta be. But his mother..." he paused, washing down bile with beer. "Always protectin’ him, always whinin’ about him... " he sighed bitterly. "Just made him weak, is all. Turned him into a snot-nosed little shit... little pussy can’t even face up to what he did. We put our house up for his bail! Guess who’s gonna pay for that!"

  James Wells squatted on his stool like a brooding gargoyle. The stench of disappointment -- with his son, with his wife, with himself, with his whole miserable life -- radiated off of him in waves. Suddenly he turned toward Paul, off balance and belligerent. "You think I wanted any of this?" he said, voice raising. "Think I wanted cops crawlin’ all over my house, fuckin’ reporters shoving their cameras at us like we’re responsible?! I didn’t take any crap off my boy, and if he ever tried to give it he got the back of my hand!" Wells held up one thick-knuckled and formidable hand, waving it menacingly. "It’s not my Goddamned fault!"

  Across the room, heads turned. The bartender looked at them warily. Paul put his hands up in a gesture of easy supplication, and James Wells calmed somewhat.

  "Ah, fukkit," he muttered. "S’alla buncha bullshit."

  He got up off his stool, lurching toward the back of the bar, and the bathrooms, his gate unsteady and plodding. The other denizens went back to minding their own misery. Paul watched him go. He’d seen enough.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a twenty, and signaled the bartender. The bartender approached. "Anything else?" he asked.

  "No," Paul told him. "We’re outta here," He handed him the bill, waved it off: keep the change. As the bartender moved away, Paul reached into his jacket pocket, surreptitiously removed a vial of small blue and white pills. SECONAL SODIUM 50 MG. PULVUL, the label read. Paul glanced around the room casually. Then cracked one and emptied it into James Wells’ beer.

  Just then Wells returned, looking slightly less combative. Paul quickly pocketed the vial, acted like nothing was wrong.

  "Sorry," Wells mumbled sheepishly. "Didn’t mean to crawl up your ass like that. It ain’t like you did anything."

  Paul nodded, then stood and raised his glass in toast. Wells followed suit.

  "Whaddaya we drink to?" he asked blearily. Paul thought about it for a second.

  "To taking care of business," he replied.

  ~ * ~

  It was just past midnight as Paul manned the wheel of his truck, snaking up Route 9. It was a dreary section of secondary highway that wound past industrial parks, gas stations and roadside diners, long stretches of four-lane blacktop punctuated by the periodic stoplight. By day it was a clogged artery clotted with commuters, buses, trucks and tankers, but by the witching hour, it was a ghost road. The posted limit was fifty, but the big rigs that rumbled up and down both sides of the concrete divider routinely blew by at half again as fast. Especially in the open stretches.

  So much the better, Paul thought. He was moving along at the speed limit, keeping careful distance behind a piece of shit ‘84 Monte Carlo with mismatched doors and an undercarriage so ravaged by rust that it looked like it had been attacked by a vehicular version of the flesh-eating virus. It strayed from lane to lane as if finding them by Braille. It was an accident looking for a place to happen, and as far as Paul was concerned, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

  You bastard, Paul thought, picturing life in happy casa Wells, with a man carved from stone and a woman made of sand, and a child ground inexorably in between. You miserable ball breaking rat bastard. James Wells’ patented no-nothing, cro-mag concepts of how to raise a real man filled him with incomprehensible dread and rage. If you hadn’t been such a controlling asshole, he wondered blackly, would it have happened? Would any of it? His memories of their encounter swirled and coalesced into their purest, most concentrated essence.

  Would Kyra be alive today if you hadn’t been such a callous, caustic, unmitigated prick?

  Paul fumed, jaw tight, fingers throttling the steering wheel. The Chevy bobbed and weaved unwittingly before him. They passed a stoplight: dead ahead lay a sweeping stretch of darkened road, perhaps a mile to the next light. And they were the only vehicles in sight.

  Paul reached up and flipped off his headlights. The truck went dark, little yellow running lights and dashboard glow his sole illumination. He hit the gas.

  The engine revved and roared as four hundred-sixty gas-sucking cubic inches growled into action. The truck sped up, closing the distance. The speedometer climbed... fifty... fifty-five... sixty. Closing the distance.

  Paul waited until the big Ford was right up to the Chevy’s back bumper. On the cab floor, left of the brake, was a little cylindrical footswitch. Paul stomped it. Halogen hi-beam glare instantly pierced the rear windshield, flooding the interior with brilliant white light. He could see Wells’ head bob and crane around in stark shadow, stunned and disoriented. The Chevy lurched in the lane.

  Paul nudged the gas, massive bumper delivering a violent love tap to the back of the car, big steel and rubber bumper guards jutting up like fangs. Tires screeched as the car careened and straightened out. Paul bumped it again. Wells racked the wheel, arcing into the left-hand lane.

  Paul gunned the engine and pulled up alongside, the two vehicles now locked in a lethal duet. From his high vantage point, Paul could look down and see James Wells struggling at the wheel, mouthing obscenities; but with the sedan’s wide roofline Wells could not see him. The concrete abutment whizzed by at a blur, inches from the Chevy’s driver’s side.

  "Son of a bitch," Paul hissed, the hum of the road beneath him echoed by the throbbing bloodlust in his veins. He racked the wheel again. The truck crossed the line, perilously close to the car, squeezing it toward the abutment. The Chevy’s tires bit narrow shoulder gravel, then Wells desperately retaliated, veering back toward Paul. Paul pulled away, playing three ton tag at sixty per.

  A sign flew by, warning CAUTION: ROAD WORK. Some two hundred yards ahead, a large metal public works sign, strobing arrows flashing >...>...>...>. The road narrowed to a single lane. Paul’s.

  One hundred yards. Wells gunned the Monte Carlo, fighting for the right hand lane. At sixty yards Paul suddenly cut the gas and dropped back, as Wells veered in front of him... then gunned it again, cutting right, onto the shoulder. He punched it, left front bumper giving Wells’ right rear bumper one final, fatal tap...

  ...and the Chevy screeched and skid, fishtailing madly and out of control, as Paul hit the brakes and slid to a rubber burning stop. He watched as the Chevy screamed sideways, gravity and sheer momentum slamming it through the road sign with a deafening crash, then smacking into the abutment with the grinding shriek of mangled metal and shattering glass, finally flipping it all the way over, roof compacting as it came to a stop, horn keening into the night.

  Paul’s truck waited, growling on the shoulder like a beast of prey, headlights glaring. He stared, heart pounding, adrenaline jangling his nerves. Suddenly he jumped out, jogging over to the wreckage, boots crunching on safety glass and shrapnel. As he drew near the Chevy’s horn wailed a faltering death low against the hiss and creak of mechanical carnage; the smell of gasoline hung heavy in the air.

  Paul came abreast of the wreck and saw Wells, body pinned between wheel and se
at, his face a mass of glass and blood. He knelt down near the crumpled driver’s door, crushed like a beer can and hanging by one hinge.

  "You fucking deserve it." he hissed.

  Perhaps so. But Wells moaned weakly, half-conscious and in shock. He was not yet dead. Paul cursed and stood, saw a sudden flash of oncoming lights: a hulking tractor trailer in the southbound lane, air brakes hissing as it geared to a stop. The driver jumped out. Paul fought back panic, calling out urgently.

  "Call an ambulance!" he cried. "Now!"

  The driver nodded and reached back into his cab, grabbing his CB handset. Paul knelt and reached inside the car, checking James Wells’ pulse, instantly shifting from an avenging angel to one of reluctant mercy, a trained professional, saver of lives. And hating it.

  ~ * ~

  St. Anthony’s. Intensive Care. Two a.m. The elevator doors opened. Kathryn Wells stepped out, haggard and anguished. She saw a pair of uniform cops, an Iselin ambulance crew, a whey-faced young intern whose nametag read "Wheaton," and Paul.

  Surprise offset anxiety as their eyes met, his own features sober and concerned. He took a step toward her. She asked if her husband was alright. Before Paul could answer, the intern stepped in and explained: it did not look good. He ran down a laundry list of damage... critical condition... coma... concussion... subdural hematoma... cracked sternum... punctured lung... ruptured spleen... lacerations... broken bones... plus a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, with trace amounts of sedatives.

  Kathryn nodded as he spoke, taking it in as if in a blur... then stopped. "Excuse me," she said, "did you say sedatives?

  Dr. Wheaton glanced at the tox screen chart. "Sodium Seconal," he replied. "Prescription stuff. Doesn’t mix well with alcohol and automobiles."

  Kathryn looked confused. "I don’t understand," she began. "My husband doesn’t take drugs..."

  Behind her, the uniforms and ambo crew rolled their eyes. "Lady, wake up," one of the EMTs scoffed. "Your husband was hammered outta his gourd," He gestured to Paul. "You’re just lucky he got there when he did. Saved his Goddamned life."