The Witch of the Wood

by Michael Aronovitz

  Blind faith. No choice here.

  His son worked his tiny hands above the top edge of the quilt covering, and for a moment they played at the air spasmodically, like the hands of any infant painting his formless colors into the world. Then he gained a level of motor function right there before Rudy’s eyes, turning his palms in, staring at them with the interest of a much older boy looking at his butterfly collection. He flexed his fingers, then closed them, making slow fists. Stopped. Looked at Rudy directly.

  “There will be gifts,” he said.

  And Rudy believed him.

  The Super Fresh was crowded, and Rudy felt ridiculous, pushing his big cart around like some “Main Line Mom” gone haywire. Usually, he was in and out with a handbasket scattered at the bottom with the stuff he needed for a day or two: a rib-eye steak, a purple onion, a pack of double-A batteries, a stick of Gillette Cool Wave gel. But here, he was blocking the aisles at weird angles, pausing, reading labels, loading up on diapers, wet naps, formula, paper towels, Band-Aids, cotton balls, ammonia, the works. Next would be the “Baby Store,” and he wondered how much of this shit he could fit in the car. He needed a Diaper Genie, a playpen, a chest of drawers, clothes, and about fifty thousand other things he couldn’t think of right now. At least he’d pretty much decided to nix the crib. They’d sleep together in the big bed no matter what the psychologists had to say about it. In fact, Rudy looked forward to it.

  A woman wearing a beret and those popular tight black leggings she was really too fat for cut Rudy off in front of an end cap stacked with cases of sale water and Coke Zero. Her little one was in the built-on baby seat facing her, slapping at the plastic shapes on the arched wire-mount, spinning them. The kid smacked the blue elephant straight on and it whirred around to a blur.

  “Whoa! Awesome!” Mom said.

  Yeah, bravo kid, Rudy thought. You’re destined for participation trophies and accommodations, loopholes and parent advocates. You’ll learn to play the system and we’ll call it delicate genius.

  A voice slipped into his mind.

  Rudolph Christopher Barnes, come in please.

  Rudy shuddered, palmed his ears hard. Felt like a spider web floating along the regions of his mind, sticking to the ridges.

  “That you, Wolfie?”

  Beret Lady glanced over casually and noticed he had no ear-to-phone hookup. She pushed her cart away hard then, actually nipping the corner of his, her sneakers squeaking on the smooth shiny floor. Her fat ass looked no better in retreat then it had from the side.

  “The same,” Wolfie said, voice itching, teasing, all sticky silk. “I’m getting bored here all by myself.”

  “Right. Got it,” Rudy said sort of into his collar. His face had gone scarlet, and it wasn’t because it looked as if he were talking to himself like a mental patient. Just how many literal and ethical laws had he broken, leaving that child by himself in the house? And worse, had he really a choice?

  He navigated his way to the self-checkout lanes, jumped in front of an old guy rolling his dentures around in his mouth, and started beeping barcodes as quickly as he could. He swallowed hard, tasting copper.

  What he going to come home to, anyway?

  He bagged up quick and shoddy, pondering these last three questions and trying to discern which of the answers scared him the most.

  Rudy reached to the passenger seat to make what would be the first of multiple trips inside with the plastic bags of groceries and everything else. He hoped that when he finally lugged up the boxes containing the particle board for the baby bureau in the big oblong crates no one would question why he’d bought particle boards for a baby bureau, or the two cases that made up the changing station, or the glider, or the new lamp with stars and moons on the shade.

  The mess out on Maple Grove Avenue had been cleaned up already, and the only reminder was an arc of residue on the asphalt where Sam’s head had struck down. From the car just now it had looked shadowed, still damp on the glistening street, and from the puddles in the gutter, Rudy had figured the EMTs or the police had had some kind of portable pressure washer.

  Gorge rose up in the back of Rudy’s throat, and he almost threw up right there in the car. He couldn’t do this. A man had died. And what had been a distracted sort of passing fear in the grocery store was now coming back to him in glorious Technicolor; Rudy had left a baby all by himself in a dark apartment where there were about a thousand and one things that could hurt him. Just how advanced was this kid, and in how many subject areas? Just because he could talk and “promise gifts” didn’t mean his other facets of intelligence had fully developed.

  For God’s sake, Rudy hadn’t locked up his poisons, and they were waiting there for Wolfie under the kitchen sink, all skulls and crossbones and danger flags and other various icons and logos that any kid would find nifty just for the colors. If the kid could speak he could probably read warning labels, but would he? For sure? And the iron, oh God, the iron—no more than a heavy steel arrowhead right there in the living room closet, lurking at the edge of the top shelf, cord possibly dangling down just waiting for a good pull. There were electrical outlets all over the place, sharp edges and corners, knives in the drawers, medicines on the shelves, and the toolbox was out.

  Rudy got out and slammed the car door a bit too hard, bringing the bags around with the momentum and clacking some of the Gerber jars loud enough to indicate he might have cracked them. The wind came across and made his eyes tear up. He folded himself into it, head down, and once inside, his shoes made gritty echoes on the stair grids.

  Wolfie would be curled up dead on the floor by the radiator, face blackened, lips blue, throat mottled and stretched to the shape of the bottle of White-Out he’d tried to swallow. That, or he’d be face down in the toilet, arms limp on each side of the bowl because he’d thought he’d found a neat little tunnel to try and dive down, or worse, he’d be this smiling, skeletal cinder because he was advanced enough to walk, he moved when you blinked, and he’d evolved to the point that he could jump up on the stove, monkey-squat there because the perspective was new, then lean over the front and turn on the knobs.

  At his door, bags thrust up one forearm, Rudy struggled with the key and heard some kind of moan from inside. He stopped. Silence. And the noise was hard to identify now in retrospect because of the relative racket he’d been making, mistaking his Widener office key (as he so often did) for the one that fit the apartment lock because the two copper stamps looked so much alike.

  Something fell inside the apartment, something distant, as in the back by the bathroom, and Rudy fumbled the proper key in the hole, thrusting the door open.

  Semi-dark. Vacated, it seemed.

  “Wolfie?” he said, voice dead and close.

  Something came from around the corner of the bedroom, the shaft of sunlight from the picture window cutting across on an angle. It was the silhouette of a little girl, hair tousled and frayed, shoes clicking on the hard wood floor. She stopped, head tilted.

  “Daddy?”

  There was a sudden shriek, and she burst through the shaft of window-light.

  Rudy recoiled, dropping the bags on the floor.

  What came through the light and the dust rising in it was a child-monster, face bruised purple and blue, mouth torn open and smeared bright red.

  She crashed into him, and he crumpled to the floor with her, heart pounding, and she looked up at him there in his lap.

  Her face wasn’t bruised or smeared; she’d been playing “makeup” with someone’s Revlon and Maybelline. He breathed a sigh of relief and she squeezed shut her eyes, as if Rudy’s image was too beautiful to bear.

  “She loves you unconditionally,” Wolfie said from the archway, “and I didn’t find her by accident.” He was a boy of six or seven now, at least physically, standing there under the hall arch wearing Rudy’s old black and gray flannel shirt coming down to his knees.

  “Her name is Brianna Rivera,” Wolfie continued. “She’s five—
”

  “Five and a half!” Brianna wailed. Rudy coo-cooed a bit of soothing down without looking at her, and Wolfie continued with a bit of a laugh. “See, Dad, her father left when she was a month in front of two. She refuses to eat anything but fried chicken skin, chopped-up hot dogs, and Fruity Pebbles. She’s good at hopscotch and remedial ceramics, but still has difficulty making friends in pre-school. She writes poems, likes drawing pictures in the dirt under the tire swing in the back yard, and once had a pet hamster. She also likes chewing things because they make juice, like her hair and the strings on her Flyers sweatshirt.”

  “What’s that to do with me?” Rudy said defensively.

  “You’re a match,” Wolfie said, coming close now. “People are linked psychologically and physiologically. They are cross-wired; biologically drawn to each other, and they spend most of their lives denying it. So sad.”

  “She’s five,” Rudy said, teeth gritted down.

  Wolfie sat cross-legged next to his father, and Brianna reached to touch his hair.

  “So pretty,” she said.

  “You are,” Wolfie teased back, much to her delight. He looked back to his father. “And I’m joking with you just a bit. You and the girl are only linked because it’s passed down. Present’s in the bedroom. Check it out.”

  Rudy handed over the girl, her feet pigeon-toed and dragging a bit on the floor, and he barely noticed that Wolfie already possessed the strength to bear her weight straight-armed before hugging her in. He popped a knee on the way pushing up and his walk had a bit of a disoriented sway, but he pretty much knew what was waiting for him in the bedroom.

  He turned the corner and she was sitting at the edge of his bed, face flushed and long black curly hair tangled almost as badly as was her daughter’s.

  “I . . . I . . . want to . . .” she said. She touched her face, smoothed her skirt. She looked up at Rudy with guilt and wanting, face shiny with nervous anticipation. She had charcoal eyes, dark skin, a studded sliver cross resting on the left breast, and a red sash pulled tight around her waist. She was a Puerto Rican beauty named Ann-Marie, and her breath was high. She’d been a good girl all her life, hating the clichés about women of Spanish descent having big asses, fake fingernails, and the desire to pop babies out as if they were peanuts in a vending machine, but she loved flashy colors and she was going to flaunt them. Little Brianna was her sweet mistake, but the two of them were facing the world together. Ann-Marie worked as a hostess at the Howard Johnson’s on West Chester Pike by the motor parts store, and she was going to community college for business management. She was poor, but generally happy.

  “Cease,” Rudy muttered into his collar, and Wolfie’s sticky little bio of Ann-Marie stopped rubbing and droning on in his head. Ann-Marie folded her hands, sat up straight, and tried to explain.

  “We were taking a walk. My Brianna likes the way the sun sparkles off the reservoir, and he, your son, called to us. We came in. He promised . . . you.”

  She looked up at Rudy, eyes half-lidded.

  “I don’t know why, but I’ve dreamed of you, or a man like you.”

  “And I you,” Rudy said softly. And it was true. He’d always had a thing for the Spanish flair, but more importantly, he’d always possessed somewhat of a specific picture, partly in the back of his mind, somewhat in the forefront, of an “Ann-Marie,” personal and unique, sometimes with a little nick on one knee from when she must have fallen off a bike or a skateboard, or possibly some soft dark hair on her forearms that embarrassed her as a child yet she managed as an adult . . . some flaw that had made her human, and not some two-dimensional Macy’s advertisement. And even though it was probable that this Ann-Marie didn’t have a nick on her knee, it was clear as day she’d look sexy standing in a doorway, or lying back on his bed with all that hair fanned out behind her. It was as if he knew her and he didn’t, and it was rather exciting to fathom that for whatever reason, he fit her sexual profile as well.

  Rudy paused. Ordinarily, he would never talk to the hostess at Ho-Jo’s. Stare at her, yes. Fantasize about running his hands along the small of her back, the swell of her bosom, sure. But asking her out? Meeting her parents? Dealing with her crazy brother? Babysitting her kid while she went off to class? Driving out to the Interstate where her used clunker had broken down again? The thought would just never advance like that, not for most of us anyway, as we sat there “making appropriate plans” in the Ho-Jo’s booths we were anxious to vacate.

  So sad.

  We let our ideal partners wander off into the shadows of their cultures. Then we both disappeared. It was a class thing, and it was stupid.

  Rudy moved closer and knelt on the floor. He delicately pushed the hem of her dress up and almost gasped when he saw a small nick in the skin, left knee, a tiny indentation, long healed.

  “I’m a professor,” he whispered, looking up into her eyes. She moaned, and when he bent and kissed the imperfection she came right there on his bed. At the same moment, Wolfie made a playful whooping sound on the other side of the door to mask the sounds of it.

  For the sake of the daughter.

  And it was the second best sex Rudy Barnes had ever had in his life.

  Ann-Marie came out of the bedroom adjusting her dress, Rudy right behind her, running his hands through his thinning hair. She gathered up Brianna and turned back to Rudy, looking at him and the floor at the same time.

  “I don’t usually . . .”

  “I know,” Rudy said.

  Wolfie was sitting Indian style and he caught Ann-Marie’s eye.

  “Sweet maiden,” he said. She smiled back, and Wolfie waved his hand across their shared plane of vision like a windshield wiper. Her expression went blank for a second, and then she switched Brianna to the crook of the other arm, smartly tossing her hair back over her shoulder in Rudy’s direction.

  “Thank you for the tutoring session, Professor. I’ll work on that pronoun antecedent issue. And I’ll pay you next time, I promise.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Rudy said. “Good luck with your business writing course at community.”

  She flashed a last smile and walked out, oblivious, shutting the door carefully.

  “It’s better this way,” Wolfie said. “No expectations, no social obligations.”

  “Right,” Rudy said, feeling sad about it, but only philosophically really. He moved past toward the door. “There are a lot of items I need to return—”

  “I read your books.”

  “Really?” he said, turning.

  “Every one. I liked Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls best. Great scene by the gorge. I also liked Macbeth, but the wrong side won and Shakespeare’s portrayal of witches is insulting. But you know that already, now don’t you?”

  Before Rudy could laugh along, Wolfie did the “blink” and reappeared in front of him, blocking the exit. Rudy almost pulled a muscle in his neck snapping his head around.

  “Father . . .” Wolfie sing-songed. He came forward slowly, backing Rudy away from the door a step or two. “My patriarch. Daddy . . .” He stopped, and then, to Rudy’s wonder, he started to levitate. When he came eye to eye with his father, he leaned in close nose to nose, breath smelling like honeysuckle.

  “Your books are interesting,” he said, “but they are rather one-dimensional. Like your mind.” He leaned in and kissed his father’s forehead, slowly, deeply. Despite himself, Rudy bent in to the warmth of it and had his eyes closed even after the release. Wolfie patted his crown. “I need for you to bring me to the library, Dad, where I will spend a day and a night. Not the public library on Sproul Road, but rather the one at the University of Pennsylvania. While I realize that history texts are your most dangerous examples of fiction, I must see with my own eyes the patterns through which you prefer to be lied to. I need to study your philosophy, your most intricate rationalizations, and your science . . .”

  He trailed off and lowered himself to the floor, absently taking hold of Rudy’s han
d on the way down.

  “Your science . . .”

  Rudy squatted down to his level.

  “What about it?”

  Wolfie smiled, and it was the first time Rudy had ever seen him appear wistful. The boy removed his hand gently.

  “Ancient puzzles.”

  “To aid with the destruction?”

  Wolfie laughed outright, gazing up and off to the complicated future he was planning to unveil.

  “No, of course not, Dad. We really only need psychology for Armageddon. Science is for the aftermath.” He looked at his father directly then, with a mixture of affection and pity. “You will better understand when there is a context, Rudy Barnes. For now, you need to return all the items you bought this morning and take me on this university field trip Monday. You’ll need to either cancel your classes or bring the students along. Computers from here even with a passcode are only useful for searching out scholarly journals, and I need access to the shelf texts as well.”

  “Won’t the pages affect you . . . the wood, the pulp?”

  Wolfie’s eyes blazed.

  “Of course they will. Every book is haunted by the soul of a dead witch, just like the ones on your shelves in the bedroom. But I can’t cry over paper and shadows, now can I?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Return the baby products,” Wolfie said, walking past Rudy toward the light of the window. “And find a way to get me into that library quietly.”

  “Couldn’t you just insert mental pictures into a couple of security guards?”

  Wolfie turned, then lowered his eyes in what actually looked like shame.

  “What I did was infantile and crude. Forgive me.”

  “It was just one man,” Rudy said softly.

  “You misunderstand. My actions left trails.”

  “Oh.”

  “There are better ways.”

  “Of course.”

  Wolfie padded across to the kitchen and put his palm on the face of the refrigerator.

  “And your food disgusts me. Bring me iodine. A gallon or two if you can. That will keep me nourished. And I will use your laptop and call you on your cell phone to indicate the clothing I will require.”