There was no drama in his words. He was somber, reflective, low energy. He was in his dormant phase.
Past the lake, we moved through a crazy Paumanok mix of tupelos, red maples and wild raspberry bushes. The air was diamond clear.
“I’m thinking too much,” he said. “There’s too much pondering going on, too much cerebration. And the things I’m thinking about, I can’t believe it.”
“Like what?”
“You don’t want to know. Shit, I don’t even want to know.” He took three more steps, eyes down on the pine-needled trail. “Growing up. Been thinking a lot about being a kid, the growing-up days.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“In my case, best not to bring it up.”
I told him again about Jen, the woodsy I’d met, how she was trying to get along after the death of her father. Nearly a minute went by without him saying anything.
“My mother,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about her.”
“She still around?”
“No. She passed a long time ago, I was 10. Cancer. Only I didn’t know it at the time. No clue. That’s mostly what I’ve been thinking about.”
“Bad time to go.”
“I knew something was wrong. I knew she was sick with something. I asked my father, the shithead. He tells me oh it’s nothing, she ate some bad swordfish. To this day I’ve never touched swordfish again. Then she starts losing weight, starts losing her hair. She’s fucking bald around the house. I ask my father what’s going on. Nothing—she was wearing a defective hat and that’s why the hair. I still won’t wear a hat.”
“Was it just you?”
“No. Me, my brother and sister. I was the oldest. We didn’t know shit. My mother starts all this weirdness. She starts eating Vaseline. Eating it right out of the jar with a spoon. We don’t know why. We got a Christmas tree that year. We get up one morning, she’s taken all the dirty socks out of the laundry and hung ‘em on the tree. I go to my father. He says nothing’s wrong. She’s fine—what’re you talking about?”
“Dementia, from the treatment.”
He nodded. “Bout a month after that she went away. Who knows where? He hired a woman to take care of us. I figured he was going to see her everyday, but he wouldn’t say a thing about it. One afternoon, I’m coming home from school, I see him pull up. I could see by his face that something had happened. I say how is she? He tells me she’s dead. Just like that—she’s dead. I say what? He says you knew what was going on—she’s dead. But I didn’t. I didn’t know. I had no idea it was anything like that. And he walks in the house and doesn’t say another thing. He never said a word about her again. I just stood there. I just stood there like a stone.”
He kept walking, head down, showing no emotion for once. He was a plane wreck of a man, and I was looking into the black box of his soul.
“He didn’t know how to deal with it,” I said. “A lot of people don’t.”
Wooly shook his head. “It was more than that. It was a lot more than that. He was just a bastard. He was a cold, no-heart bastard. One of my earliest memories of him, I was about 3, I’m sitting in the back seat of the car while he’s getting a blow job from a hooker in the front. I didn’t know what it was at the time—it was years later when I figured out what so to speak was going down, but that’s what it was. What kind of father does that to a kid? But that was him. That’s what kind of son of a bitch he was. He was just a bastard is what it was. Just a selfish, miserable bastard. After my mother died, I can never remember having a meal with him. You know, sitting down eating, the four of us? Just as a for instance? I can never remember anything like that. Maybe it happened at some point, but I can’t remember.”
“He still around?”
“No. He took a stroke years ago, kicked off. Bon voyage. He jacked me up, he really did. Let me get you told—he jacked me up good. The things he did, I don’t know. I just don’t know. Why am I even talking about this? I have no idea.”
We were here. We’d come to an ordinary 20-foot oak that one night was nested with thousands of fireflies and lit up like the most incredible Christmas tree in the world. We went past the tree and through the brush on the other side and there it was, there it was. The thing looked as impossible as ever—a gigantic 100-ton boulder squatting with complete equilibrium on a circle of small stones. If somebody who was 300 feet tall and blessed with extreme accuracy had dropped a stone turd, this is what it would look like.
And here comes the rush again. Only it wasn’t a rush per se, not an onslaught of feeling, but a slow undertow, a soft pull on the mind. It just came out of nowhere. Whatever was in the air here—an intense concentration of geomagnetic energy, whatever—whatever maybe drew the Algonquins to this spot hundreds or thousands of years ago, whatever it was, it worked.
Wooly seemed calmer, and somehow suddenly smaller. “You know something? What’s supposed to happen in three days? I know it’s going to happen.”
“Don’t talk that shit.”
“No, I know. I can tell. My life is starting to make sense to me. That’s gotta mean I’m going to die. Everything feels destined, you know? Everything’s falling into place. Looking back on it all, the things I’ve done, there’s a reason for it. Not a good one, but there’s a reason. It can’t be a good sign.”
“Life’s a bitch and then you die?”
“Something like that, something like that.” He nodded heavily. “How old do you think that life’s-a-bitch saying is? How long’ve people been saying that?”
There was no sound out here—no sound in the woods, no sound in the universe.
“It’s as old as our tongues.”
“I can believe that.”
>>>>>>
MONDAY JUNE 18, 11:00 p.m.
FOCUS
We’d never made love like this before. Things went biological as soon as we got into her room. She ripped her top off in one motion, ripped my shirt open in another. She tore into me like a hungry animal, never saying a word. Her nipples were already stiff, her pussy was already wet.
Her eyes stayed open as I pinned her on the bed—eyes like chocolate smoke—her arms tight around my shoulders, saying just fuck me fuck me fuck me, and I was fucking her like I’d never fucked before, I was fucking her with every breath and pulse my body was ever going to have. It was frantic sex, it was almost panicked sex. It was like she believed that if we fucked hard enough, everything around us would be pulled into focus.
But it didn’t seem to work. As we were lying next to each other, it felt like we were further apart than ever before. Her body was still, but I could feel her mind moving away from me, leaving the bed, going someplace where I would never be able to follow.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
CHAPTER 6
KILLERS AND CONFESSIONS
>>TUESDAY JUNE 19 (2 days to go)
TUESDAY JUNE 19, 7:35 a.m.
HEART-WHIPPED
I was dreaming when the cell went off. I was dreaming that I’d woken up in a room surrounded by hundreds of digital clocks, all flashing glowing 12:00’s in the dark, as if a power surge had knocked them all out. I answered the phone. It was Jen. I jumped.
“You see something? Somebody’s here?”
Nooo.
“Somebody’s by the house?”
No, nobody’s here. It’s quiet.
“Are you all right? Anything wrong?”
I’m fine. Thank you. Is this too early to call?
“No. No, it’s fine.”
I’m a morning person.
“It’s okay.”
I’ve been, I’ve been thinking about something. I think I need to talk to you.
She told me to take one of the paths that twisted away from Wooly’s property. I couldn’t see anything until I was walking past a bush cluster with tiny leaves that somehow smelled purple and she called my name. Jen was standing in the clear middle of the brush. She had a rust-ridden shopping cart with her, filled with can and bottle empti
es and a pink plastic lawn flamingo. Somebody was throwing it out, she said. She was keeping it for company.
I didn’t like the way she looked. The under lids of her eyes were dark, and her face was so pale the freckles stood out like birthmarks.
“You sure you’re all right?”
She nodded, pushed her hair back. “I’ve been thinking. I was up all night thinking about something, and I guess I kind of came to a decision in my mind.”
“Okay.”
“You asked me to watch the house? Wooly Cornell’s?”
“Right.”
“I know something about him. My father told me a story once about him. I guess it’s something I should tell you. It’s something I need to tell you.”
“It’s okay, you can tell me.”
She lowered her eyes. “Something terrible happened.”
“You can tell me, don’t worry.”
“My father, he grew up with Wooly. They went to school together. Anyway, I guess they were about nine, there was this boy in the class. He was smart, very smart. My father said he had some dome on him—he could think twice to anybody’s else’s once. Any question the teacher would ask, his hand was up. And he was very polite, like extremely polite. Always stood up when the teacher called on him, even though he didn’t have to. Always wore a dress shirt and tie to school. My father said kid’s like nine years old and he’s churched-up everyday.”
“He was different.”
“Very different. Always with the ties, different tie each day of the week. Everything was yes ma’am, yes sir. My father called him a faggot though I don’t think he meant anything about sex.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Anyway, a kid like that, you know he’s gonna be a target. You know he’s gonna get ranked on. Everybody was all over him, my father included. They’d laugh at him, make fun of him, knock him down, trip him up. Everybody was giving him some torment, making his life a little hell. You know kids, you know how they are.”
Yes, my 15-year-old friend, I did. I thought about my daughter—what would happen if she got heart-whipped like that?
“Mostly it was a teasing thing,” said Jen, “that’s all they were doing. But man, Wooly Cornell? Or Willie—that’s what they called him back then, for William. My father said that was before he got to puberty and sprouted all that hair. Wooly, shit, he went ugly on that boy. He’d yell at him, spit on him, leave dead mice in his desk. He put a beating on him more than a few times. It was a lot more than teasing. It was brutal.”
“You know the boy’s name?”
“Ralphie. Ralph. His name was Ralph Freeny.”
The name meant something to me, but I couldn’t get at it right now.
“Nobody knew what Wooly’s problem was. But Ralphie, this poor kid, he started showing signs of it. He stopped wearing his shirts and ties, stopped speaking up in class. Then he stopped, like, taking care of himself. Stopped brushing his teeth, stopped washing himself. One point he like started smearing dirt on himself, mud and shit—it was pathetic.”
“Anybody do anything?”
“Well, the rest of them, they backed off. They let the boy alone. I mean you could see. But Wooly, Wooly kept right at it. No let up in him. My father said you could smell the meanness on his breath. Got to the point this kid Ralphie actually started shitting in his pants. He started shitting in his own pants—that was the only way he could get sent home early and not get a beating from Wooly. Went on like that for a whole week or so. Can you imagine? Can you imagine being like that?”
Jen pulled a handful of hair under her nose, breathing its odor like an alcoholic taking the first drink of the day.
“Then one day he didn’t come to school, didn’t show up at all. Later in that day, around lunchtime, they found out why. He’d hung himself. Happened at home—his family found him. Hung himself in his closet. Hung himself with one of those neckties of his.” She stopped for a moment, fingering her hair but not drawing it across her face. “My father said he’d never forget that, standing there in the playground. One of the other kids told them. The family’d called the cops, word was going around. They were all standing there listening to this piece of news. Then Wooly came over, what’s going on? Somebody told him. You know what that motherfucker did? He laughed. My father said he’d never forget it, out there in the playground. The motherfucker just stood there and laughed.”
I didn’t say anything—I couldn’t for a few moments. I needed to let the effect of the words land in me, settle in my blood.
“What about the teachers, the family? They never saw what was happening?”
“I don’t know what they saw,” said Jen. “I know some of the kids had tried to protect the boy, get Wooly to leave him alone. But Wooly, he was a big kid, even back then.”
I tried to picture the boy, tried to picture his body. Like Monte Slater, another suicide in a closet.
“What I’m saying, I guess, you want me to watch his house? I’ll do it. But I’ll only do it for you. Only cause you asked. Cause otherwise, that man in there, that Wooly? He killed that boy.”
>>>>>>
TUESDAY JUNE 19, 8:55 a.m.
I COULDN’T EVEN PUT A NAME ON IT
I was seeing an expression on Wooly’s face I’d never seen before. It was the look of shame. “I don’t know what happened,” he said, sitting at the table with a hoodie under his bathrobe. “I don’t know why I hated that kid so much. Something about him just got a hold to me.”
“So it’s true?”
“Shit, it’s true. Of course it’s true. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, to be honest, and there’s not much I feel bad about, but that’s one of them. That’s definitely one of them. That horrible thing’s the one thing I wish I could take back.”
He and Nickie were drinking coffee. I’d told them Jen’s story—wondering if the additional $20 I’d given her was near enough. Genevieve had stormed out of the kitchen a few minutes earlier, after Wooly had insisted he wanted hot dogs for breakfast.
“Jen said you laughed when you heard the news.”
Wooly nodded. “I did laugh. Out on the playground, yeah, I laughed in front of all the others. But you know what I did when I went home? I cried. I cried by myself. Days, weeks. I felt so bad about what happened I couldn’t even put a name on it.”
“I didn’t know you had that in you,” said Nickie.
“I do. I got feelings. Way down, I got a lot of feelings. Way down, I guess, I’m a sensitive person. I mean, think about it. Why else would I act like such an asshole all the time?”
I looked out at the quiet Paumanok pines. “You never mentioned this before.”
“What, I’m gonna bring that shit up? I don’t even bring it up to myself. What do you think? Something like that, it was many, many years ago, but there’s no forgetting something like that. There’s no way I can forget that, in effect, I killed Ralphie Freeny.”
Nickie and I nodded our heads, reflexive pause. Though Nickie was nodding hard, lots of energy.
“Ralphie Freeny?” she said.
“Yeah, poor little bastard.”
“Any relation to Roy Freeny?”
“Roy’s his brother. His younger brother, of course. By many years.”
Roy Freeny—I knew it now. Two years ago, a conference room in the village hall. The first time I ever saw Wooly in action. Roy Freeny was speaking for F.L.A.C.—shaved head, a blue tattoo of Earth on his skull. Roy was accusing Wooly of killing songbirds and he’d asked the village board to shut him up when Wooly threw a chair at his head, a display of civic discourse that ended with the two Hidden Lake cops pinning Wooly to the floor.
“Ralphie was an only child,” Wooly was saying. “His folks, they went on alone for many years. Then Roy came along. Change of life baby, they used to call it.”
Nickie was irritated, even pissed at Wooly. “You never saw it? You never made the connection?”
“What connection?”
“Roy Freeny. He cou
ld be the one who’s shooting at you.”
“Roy? Nah. All that F.L.A.C. shit, all that fatal light shit? It’s forgotten history.”
“Not talking about that. Talking about his brother.”
“He never even knew his brother.”
“You don’t think the family might’ve mentioned your name once or twice over the years?”
“I’m not seeing it.”
Nickie put a two-handed grip on the table. “I know Roy Freeny. I know him from years back. I know what he’s capable of, I know what he can do.”
“So why now after all this time?”
“You said it—there’s no forgetting something like that.”
“Wooly,” I said, “you had any confrontation with him lately?”
“No, nothing. With Roy? Not a thing. Not even— Well, okay, few weeks ago, I ran into him in town.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. He called me a world class murderer, I called him a luckless perv and accused him of fucking goats. No big thing—I didn’t think anything of it. Day in the life.”
“Was this before the shootings?” said Nickie.
“A little.”
“Jesus fucking Christ! It’s him! I’m shit sure it’s him.”
“Oh man I don’t know.”
“Wooly,” I said, “you killed his brother and you’re destroying the earth. Could be a motive.”
>>>>>>
TUESDAY JUNE 19, 10:10 a.m.
I KNOW MY COLORS
There was no listing for Roy Freeny, only for a Carol Freeny. “His mother,” said Nickie. She checked the address: 318 Exeter. “That’s where the family lived. That’s the house he grew up in.”
“Ralphie too,” said Wooly.
The neighborhood was in the poorer section of Hidden Lake. Some of the houses you could call modest. Most aspired to be modest. The Freeny house had given up the fight. It was a small and saggy ranch with a coat of paint applied around the time Lee was surrendering at Appomattox.
The Dead Have A Thousand Dreams Page 9