by A J Grayson
‘I’ve been scoping out this place for a while now. This is the best spot.’ He motions to our surroundings. I’d apparently chosen wisely.
‘This,’ he continues, motioning towards the house and the noises coming from it, ‘this isn’t an uncommon thing. They fight like that all the time. Believe me. All the time.’
I can’t respond. What I’m hearing isn’t fighting. It’s assault. No, it’s an … an abomination. It’s indescribable. And if this young man’s been monitoring this house for a while, then it has to be a long-standing thing. Something he’s grown to loathe as much as I have in only a few minutes. I can’t imagine how he’s shown the restraint not to act before.
‘We have to stop it,’ I finally force the words out of my throat.
‘Yeah, I’m with you on that,’ he answers. There is resolve in his face – it’s vivid, like a signpost. This isn’t the first time he’s thought of this. I’m running on instinctual reaction, but I can tell in this instant that he’s operating on plans he’s worked out before.
‘Do you know them?’ I ask.
He hesitates, but nods. ‘Yeah. I’ve known them long enough. Everyone in these parts has. We’ve all known them longer than any of us would like. And it’s always like this.’ He nods again towards the house and the vile noises. ‘Always has been.’
‘Why hasn’t anyone stopped them?’
‘People are people. Easier not to see anything. Definitely easier not to hear anything.’
Not to hear. I’m imagining the boy inside, taking the brutal beating the man is dishing out. It’s impossible not to hear this. I can’t fathom the inhumanity of anyone whose ears would not stir them to rage on hearing such sounds.
We can’t just sit here and talk about this. We have to do something, and we have to do it now.
The young man can sense my urgency. ‘Yeah, I know. It’s time.’
‘What are we going to do?’ I’m all at once conscious that I’m no example of remarkable fitness, no powerhouse street fighter. I’m not quite six feet and barely break 200 pounds. It took one punch to level me in Nashville, albeit from a rock of a man. And I realize in this instant that I have no idea just what it is I expect us to do. We could storm down to the house – we’ll have to do that, one way or another – but then, what precisely? The man inside is clearly drunk, and violent. Am I going to stop him? Me, an angry post-pubescent at my side, and what army?
‘Don’t worry, buddy,’ the young man answers. ‘I haven’t come unprepared. I’ve been planning this a while.’
He shakes his back and a pack falls loose behind him. He picks it up and drags it between us. It’s made of a heavy, coarse fabric. Old and well used.
He unties the yellow cords that close it as he speaks. ‘I was planning to do this alone, but a second body’ll make it go even better. That is, if you’ve got the balls to do what needs to be done, old man.’
I’m almost ready to answer – to assure him I do, to make a snide remark about his age comment; the kind of contextually inappropriate humour that helps calm nerves, like soldiers joking with each other that the cook overboiled their eggs, while driving a tank into battle – when he reaches into his bag and pulls out a handgun.
Humour abandons me, even the dark kind. My whole body stiffens.
I know nothing about guns, so I don’t know what type this is, but it looks fairly old. Not an antique, by any means, but not what you’d see on a SWAT member’s hip either. It’s the kind with a rotating cylinder and six bullets. A moment later he reaches in and extracts another. A rifle, with a vinyl strap.
‘You in?’ he asks, holding out the handgun to me. His eyes bore into mine, determined. ‘I mean, you don’t have to be. I can do this myself. That’s always been my plan. I’m not letting him go on like this another day. But if you want in, man, you’re in.’
I hesitate. I’ve never actually held a gun in my life. Never contemplated holding one.
But in my mind I see the boy, standing beside our pond. I see him holding his stick. I see the blood on his arm, the bruise over his hand, the puffy skin on his cheek, and suddenly I know where they all come from. I hear the thundering voice of a shouting father in the house below us. ‘I’ll show you what it means to get beat, you little shit …’
I look into the man’s eyes. ‘I’m in.’
‘Fucking excellent,’ he answers. I take the handgun from his grip.
‘You have to show me how to use this.’
‘Nothing to show. Point, pull the trigger and shoot if you need to. I’m guessing you can figure out which way is forward.’ There is a black grin on his face. It’s a darker humour now, then stark seriousness. ‘It’s loaded. There’s no safety, so don’t go dropping it.’
I take a deep breath. I feel strangely ready to defend the boy down in that house.
The young man starts to get up, but before he does I reach out a hand. ‘Hold on just one second.’ My breathing is getting shorter, faster, and the tangy adrenalin is returning; but there’s a question I want to ask.
‘What do I call you, if we get caught up in the thick of it down there?’ He doesn’t seem to catch my meaning. ‘Your name,’ I say. ‘Shouldn’t we know each other’s names, if we’re going to do this together?’ Still no response. I decide to take the initiative. I switch the gun to my left hand and hold out my right in the darkness. ‘My name’s Dylan.’
Finally he reaches out his own. ‘Good to know you, Dylan. I’m Joseph.’
32
The Boy in the Park, Stanza 5
Little boy longing, eyes in the dark,
No tears – no silent beckon.
In night a deeper darkness
falls
Till vengeance comes with mounted wings
And creeping heart and passion
For the little boy longing …
The little boy longing …
33
Thursday – Nightfall
Joseph and I have no more time at our disposal to exchange pleasantries, to get to know one another any further, or even to prepare. The sounds of violence from the house have not abated. If anything they’ve grown worse. Yells, grunts, cries. Body parts smacking other body parts; bodies themselves ricocheting off furniture and walls.
‘I’m ready if you are,’ I say, firming up my grip on the gun. In my peaceful, mundane and ordinary life, this isn’t a grip I’d believed my hands would ever take.
Joseph is already up. He’s shaking the dirt off his knees. It’s almost a ritual. He looks me straight in the eyes.
‘I’ve been ready for a long, long time. I know these kind of people. It’s time to make that bastard pay.’
He seems to want to offer me that much of an explanation, though I really don’t feel any is necessary. I was ready to barrel down the hill alone, simply shouting and screaming. Joseph has given us the means to do something more about the situation.
‘We’ll find the old man, and we’ll get him cornered,’ he says as I raise myself off the ground and up to full height. He tosses his pack, now empty, into the darkness. ‘Make him learn that this kind of shit doesn’t fly. That there’s a price to pay.’
I nod, strangely content with this plan. Joseph had instructed me on use of the handgun with guidance on how to ‘shoot, if you need to’, which I take to mean that he believes it might not be necessary, and there’s a certain, comforting reassurance in this. It should be enough without. If I were that father and a teen and a grown man stormed into my home with firearms drawn, it would scare the life out of me without the need for a single bullet to be fired. Sometimes the threat of retribution is worse than retribution itself. I feel a sense of anticipation at instilling that kind of fear in someone who is clearly evil enough to deserve it.
‘What about the others?’ I ask Joseph as we both take our first steps out of the trees and onto the hillside. He passes me a strange look, then shakes his head.
‘The woman’s not to be brought into this. She isn’t like him.’
/>
I nod. That’s enough. We’re focused. We know what we’re doing.
We start to run. The shouts emanating from the house at the bottom of the hill are like magnets, pulling us in. Joseph has the rifle held in both hands, sturdy across his chest. I have the revolver in my right hand. I’m trying to hold it in front of me, but my arm is flailing a little as I run, striving to maintain my balance. All sunlight is gone, now. The moon has emerged from somewhere, casting a silverish hue on the scene around us.
We run faster. My legs are on fire, my heart is thrashing. My mind is chanting a mantra in its rhythm: I will protect that boy, I will protect that boy, I will protect that boy.
Gravity increases the speed of our descent. We’re plunging, racing towards the house. I will protect that boy.
And then I see him. The boy, right in front of me. I’m moving and he is still – yet somehow he remains just in front of me, even as I run. Directly in my line of sight. Before my face. It’s not something I can explain.
I will protect this boy.
He stares straight at me. He’s never been this close. In that blur of motion I can see freckles on his upper arms, above the bruises and the blood. I never knew he had freckles. I can see the torn label of his overalls and the scuff marks on its metal clasps. I can make out individual strands of his hair.
But he has no face. He is standing right in front of me, only feet away, the earth around us is a blur of motion, but he has no face. Only a grey space, formless, there where his boyish features ought to be – a space into which I cannot bear to look. I want to, but the void repels me.
The rest of him I cannot avoid. He is covered in blood, now. It’s no longer just on his arms. It’s everywhere. A bullet wound eviscerates his chest. I look closer, see there is more than one. They’re not mere wounds. The boy has been destroyed. It’s as if he is coming apart.
And for the first time, I hear his voice. I cannot see a mouth, but it is clear the voice comes from him. A voice like no other I’ve ever heard, a sound so guttural and deep and feral it seems to come groaning out of the earth itself.
‘Things aren’t what you think,’ he says to me. The world around us remains a blur. I’m still in motion, still following Joseph’s lead; but the boy is perfectly still in my vision.
‘You don’t have to do this.’
It’s this that the boy in the park says to me on the hillside. He spreads his palms, his shattered body growing more tortured, more vile, with each second. He is falling to pieces in front of me.
‘It doesn’t have to be like this.’ The words repeat in thunder, and my eyes are suddenly filled with tears. I feel the boy urging me to stop. Begging me to plant my feet on the grass beneath them and put a stop to everything. To be at peace. Not to take the few steps that remain.
But it’s too late. I’m in motion. I will protect this boy. My feet can’t be halted. I’m barrelling forward in unrestrained fury, Joseph a few steps ahead of me. His rifle is forward and my own gun is drawn, and I feel the crunch of wood as we charge up the steps of the porch.
As Joseph slams his body into the door and I hear it shatter at his attack, I glance back to take a final look at the boy. The boy in the park. The boy I’ve come here to save. The boy I suddenly feel I am somehow betraying.
Behind me, the hillside grass shimmers in the moonlight. I can’t see the boy, and my last thought as I follow Joseph through the door is to wonder whether he’s ever really been there at all.
PART TWO
THE FARMHOUSE, 1974
34
The Porch
The Christmas tree is thin and sparsely decorated, but beautiful. There is no tinsel, no store-bought ornamentation – only a few hand-crafted stars and angels, and one Play-Doh wreath ornament in gaudy red and green that was a kindergarten project a few years ago and takes pride of place. There’s nothing else festive or seasonal about the interior of the house. But there’s always a tree, and it’s always gathered from the nearby woods and brought into the living room during the second week of December. Some things are tradition, tried and true.
The tree is visible through the window, from the position outside on the porch where the mid-sized man is standing. There are no gifts beneath it. Not yet. Those will come at the last minute, if they come at all. Last year there hadn’t been any, but there were promises made that this year would be different. Of course, promises had been made last year as well.
Promises. Always with the promises. Andrew Warrick, the man on the porch, fixes his gaze through the window. He’s paused before entering the house, a moment of reflection that he supposes is meant to calm his nerves. But he looks at the tree in disgust and his emotions are anything but calm. The symbol has become one he resents. It was supposed to represent joy and hope, that’s what everyone said, but in reality the tree was just another monument to obligations the world felt entitled to place on his shoulders, adding to a list that only ever seemed to grow longer and more oppressive. The list that seemed ever more to rule his life.
That’s what this season was really about, he’d decided. Chores. Not love and joy and merriment – he wasn’t sure where that myth had got started, or what sort of fools bought into it. Chores, plain and simple. The annual Christmas laundry list. Get a tree. Get decorations. Buy gifts. Entertain friends. Take all the work a man is normally expected to do, all the weight that normal day-to-day life places on his shoulders, and add more. Colour it in red and green, sing silly songs about it, but demand that the chores get done. Merry Christmas.
It was all too much, and Andrew Warrick is well past tired of dealing with it.
His shoulders slouch as the thoughts collide in his head. It’s not just Christmas in its own right that eats at him. If it were only that, a man could bear it. But Christmas is a reminder, one that comes every year at this same time and wags an accusing finger in his direction. A reminder of his lot in life. A beacon of failure in a world that just never lived up to a man’s expectations.
It hadn’t been Andy’s dream to live on the outskirts of nowhere in a rundown house with a rundown wife and one scrawny kid. No man dreams of that. A man dreams of a good house, with a two-car garage and a gas grill on the porch, with a picket fence and a big lawn you’ve got enough money to pay someone else’s kid to mow. He dreams of a job that doesn’t break his back and summer holidays to places more exotic than ‘into the city’, which normally meant into a Denny’s or an Olive Garden, on a good year, in the shopping district of the nearest bigger town. A man dreams of a cruise ship at least once in his life, with his hot wife in a two-piece bikini on his arm, his other hand filled with one of those drinks that has an umbrella coming out the top, which isn’t gay in those circumstances because he’s drinking it on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.
Those are the kinds of dreams a man dreams for his life, and Andy had once been set to attain them. He was no dumb kid, back in his day – he’d had brawn and muscle and enough smarts to get by. And looks, and a good solid appetite for the kinds of girls who would one day become those hot, bikini-clad, arm-hugging wives. Christ, he’d dated the prom queen in high school. Jennifer Erwin. She’d been like a local goddess, the kind of girl every teen male drooled over in private and sometimes in public. And she’d actually come to him, asked him out (or, in keeping with his manliness, strongly suggested that he ask her out, which he’d promptly done). That’s how drawn to him she’d been. A badge of honour. Andy had been marked for success. No man who’s dated the prom queen is supposed to end up burdened with a nonsense life once the crowns have come off.
But hell, how things had changed. The Christmas tree taunts him through the window. The wood of the feeble porch moans beneath his feet. A nonsense life was exactly what he’d obtained. He didn’t know how it had happened, but it had become a reality he wasn’t able to escape.
Andy couldn’t even afford his own truck, that’s how bad things had become. Worked like a bastard, sweat and grease and muscle, and couldn’t man up to buy
his own truck. He had to drive a hand-me-down he’d inherited when his old man had died, and it had been worn out back then. The old man hadn’t even given it, either: hadn’t so much as left a will or even a note saying ‘my stuff goes to my boy’. He’d died like he’d lived, a selfish bastard. Andy had simply taken the truck. No one was going to ask any questions about it. He’d thought about taking more, but there hadn’t been anything else to grab. The few books lining a shelf in his father’s bedroom weren’t of interest and, apart from those and a few dishes, he’d lived in a barren house.
Good riddance.
Still, to not even have your own truck …
The old man was certainly to blame, at least in part. For things to go wrong so fast in his life it must have been the working of more than just his own foul luck. There was no love lost between Andy and his father. He neither misses nor mourns him. But he does blame him. Had he been a little less self-righteous and detached, maybe things would have gone differently. Maybe. Who knows.
It is cold, and Andy shivers on the porch. For an instant, he feels the need to console himself. It’s not all that bad. Things could be a lot worse, he reminds himself, as he does from time to time. He stares through the window at the scrawny tree inside. Ain’t got the job I want or the life I’d dreamed of, but things could definitely be worse.
But the comfort of the thought immediately turns to bitter resentment. When did the fact that things ‘could be worse’ start making people feel better about the shit they have to face in the present? Andy isn’t a stupid man, though he’d never gone further with his education than high-school graduation an eternity ago. These sorts of questions bother him. Yes, he could be homeless. He could have some crippling disease. But none of that changed the fact that his life was crap, right here, right now.