On Wings of Song

by Thomas M. Disch

  He was terrified now. For he knew that Eugene would not be at the rally. Eugene had made his break for it. Maybe that had been his intention from their starting out or maybe it was the movie that convinced him, since the moral of it (if you could say it had one) was: Give Me Liberty — Or Else! Long ago Eugene had confided that someday he meant to leave Iowa and learn to fly. Daniel had envied him his bravado without for a moment suspecting he could be so dumb as to go and do it like this. And so treacherous! Is that what a best friend was for — to betray?

  The son of a bitch!

  The sneaky little shit!

  And yet. And even so. Hadn’t it been and wouldn’t it always be worth it — for just this one sight of the river and the memory of that song?

  The answer pretty definitely was no, but it was hard to face the fact that he’d been so thoroughly and so needlessly fucked-over. There was no point in seeing General Donnelly, even as an alibi. There was nothing to be done but scoot back to Amesville and hope. He’d have till tomorrow to come up with some halfway likely story to tell the Muellers.

  When Eugene’s mother stopped by, two evenings later, Daniel’s story was plain and unhelpful. Yes, they had camped out in the State Park, and no, he couldn’t imagine where Eugene could have gone to if he hadn’t come home. Daniel had ridden back to Amesville ahead of Eugene (for no very cogent reason) and that was the last he knew about him. She didn’t ask half the questions he’d been expecting, and she never called back. Two days later it became generally known that Eugene Mueller was missing. His bicycle was discovered in the culvert, where Daniel had left it. There were two schools of thought as to what had happened: one, that he was the victim of foul play; the other, that he’d run away. Both were common enough occurrences. Everyone wanted to know Daniel’s opinion, since he was the last person to have seen him. Daniel said that he hoped that he’d run away, violence being such a horrible alternative, though he couldn’t believe Eugene would have done something so momentous without dropping a hint. In a way his speculations were entirely sincere.

  No one seemed at all suspicious, except possibly Milly, who gave him odd looks now and then and wouldn’t stop pestering him with questions that became increasingly personal and hard to answer, such as where, if Eugene had run away, would he have gone to? More and more Daniel felt as though he’d murdered his friend and concealed the body. He could understand what a convenience it was for Catholics to be able to go to confession.

  Despite such feelings things soon went back to normal. Jerry Larsen took over Eugene’s paper route permanently, and Daniel developed an enthusiasm for baseball that gave him an exuse for being out of the house almost as much as his father.

  In July there was a tornado that demolished a trailer court a mile outside of town. That same night, when the storm was over, the county sheriff appeared at the Weinreb’s front door with a warrant for Daniel’s arrest. Milly became hysterical and tried to phone Roy Mueller, but couldn’t get past his answering device. The sheriff insisted stonily that this had nothing to do with anyone but Daniel. He was being arrested for the sale and possession of obscene and seditious materials, which was a Class D felony. For misdemeanors there was a juvenile court, but for felonies Daniel was an adult in the eyes of the law.

  He was taken to the police station, fingerprinted, photographed, and put in a cell. The whole process seemed quite natural and ordinary, as if all his life he’d been heading towards this moment. It was a large moment, certainly, and rather solemn, like graduating from high school, but it didn’t come as a surprise.

  Daniel was as sure as his mother that Roy Mueller was behind his being arrested, but he also knew that he’d been caught dead to rights and that there’d be no wriggling out of it. He’d done what he’d been booked for. Of course, so had about ten other people, not even counting the customers. And what about Heinie Youngermann — were all his pay-offs down the drain? How could they try Daniel and not him?

  He found out a week later when the trial was held. Every time the Weinreb’s lawyer would ask Daniel, on the witness stand, where his copies of the Star-Tribune had come from, or who else had delivered them, anything that would have involved naming other names, the opposing lawyer raised an objection, which the judge, Judge Cofflin, sustained. Simple as that. The jury found him guilty as charged and he was sentenced to eight months in the State Correction Facility at Spirit Lake. He could have got as much as five years, and their lawyer advised them against entering an appeal, since it was up to the same judge whether Daniel would be let off on probation when school started in the fall. They’d have been certain to lose the appeal in any case. Iowa and the rest of the Farm Belt weren’t called police states for nothing.

  Sitting in the cell day after day and night after night with no one to talk to and nothing to read, Daniel had had a thousand imaginary conversations with Roy Mueller. So that by the time, late on the night before he was to be sent off to Spirit Lake, that Roy Mueller finally did get around to seeing him, he’d been through every possible combination of anger, anguish, dread, and mutual mistrust, and the actual confrontation was a little like the trial, something he had to go through and get over with.

  Mueller stayed outside the locked cell. He was a substantial-looking man with a paunch, thick muscles and a friendly manner, even when he was being mean. With his own children he liked to think of himself as a kind of Solomon, stern but munificent, but his children (Daniel knew from Eugene) all lived in terror of him, even as they acted out their roles as his spoiled darlings.

  “Well, Daniel, you’ve got yourself in a fair fix, haven’t you?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “It’s too bad, your being sent away like this, but maybe it will do you good. Build some moral fiber. Eh?”

  Their eyes met. Mueller’s were beaming with pleasure, which he passed off as benevolence.

  “I thought there might be something you’d want to tell me before you go. Your mother has been on the phone with me at least once a day since you got in trouble. I thought the least I could do for the poor woman was to come and talk to you.”

  Daniel said what he’d made his mind up to, that he was guilty of selling the Star-Tribune and very sorry for it.

  “I’m glad to hear you’re taking your medicine in the right spirit, Daniel, but that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for us to talk about. I want to know where my son is, and you’re the one who can tell me. Right, Daniel?”

  “Honestly, Mr. Mueller, I don’t know where he is. If I knew I’d tell you. Believe me.”

  “No hunches or theories?”

  “He might—” Daniel had to clear his throat, which was dry and sticky with fear. “He might have gone to Minneapolis.”

  “Why Minneapolis?”

  “We… used to read about it. When we were delivering the Star-Tribune.”

  Mueller brushed aside the implications of this — that his son had shared Daniel’s so-called crime, and that he’d known about it all along — with another toothy smile and a lifting and settling of his paunch.

  “And it seemed like an exciting place to go, is that it?”

  “Yes. But not… I mean, we never talked about leaving Amesville permanently. We just wanted to see it.”

  “Well, what did you think when you saw it. Did it live up to your expectations?”

  “I didn’t say—”

  But there seemed no point in sparring just for the sake of delaying the inevitable. Daniel could see it went beyond suspicions: Mueller knew.

  “We did go there, Mr. Mueller, but believe me, I didn’t have any idea that Eugene didn’t mean to come back with me. We went there to see Roberta Donnelly. She was giving a speech at Gopher Stadium. After he saw her we were heading right back here. Both of us.”

  “You admit going there, that’s some progress. But I didn’t need you to tell me that, Daniel. I knew the night you set off, from Lloyd Wagner, who let the two of you across the border, which is a mistake that Lloyd has had reason to regret. But t
hat’s another story. When there was no sight of you coming back after the Star-Lite’s last show, Lloyd realized he’d made a mistake and called me. It was a simple thing, from there, to have the Albert Lea police check out the bus station and the drivers. So you see, my lad, I need a little more information than just—” He parodied Daniel, making his eyes wide with false candor, and whispering: “—Minneapolis.”

  “Truly, Mr. Mueller, I’ve told you all I know. We went to a movie together and at the end of it Eugene said he had to go to the bathroom. That was the last I saw of him.”

  “What movie?”

  “Gold-Diggers of 1984. At the World Theater. The tickets cost four dollars.”

  “He disappeared and that was it? You didn’t look for him?”

  “I waited around. And then, after a while, I went to the Rally, hoping to see him there. What else could I do? Minneapolis is huge. And also…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I figured he probably meant to get away from me. So he was probably deliberately hiding from me. But what I couldn’t understand then, and I still can’t, is why, if he knew he wasn’t coming back, why he had to involve me in it. I mean, I’m his best friend.”

  “It’s not very logical, is it?”

  “It’s not. So my theory — and I’ve had a lot of time to think about this — my theory is that the idea came to him while he was there, probably right during the movie. It was a movie that could have done that.”

  “There’s only one thing wrong with your theory, Daniel.”

  “Mr. Mueller, I’m telling you everything I know. Everything.”

  “There’s one good reason why I don’t believe you.”

  Daniel looked down at the toes of his shoes. None of his imaginary conversations with Mr. Mueller had gone as badly as this. He made his confession but it had done him no good. He’d run out of possible things to say.

  “Don’t you want to know what that reason is?”

  “What?”

  “Because my son had the foresight to steal eight hundred and forty-five dollars from my desk before he went away. That doesn’t sound like a spur-of-the-moment decision, does it?”

  “No.” Daniel shook his head vigorously. “Eugene wouldn’t do that. He just wouldn’t.”

  “Well, he did. The money’s gone, and I scarcely think it was a coincidence that Eugene should decide to run away at the exact same time.”

  Daniel couldn’t think what he thought. His expression of disbelief had been no more than the last remnant of his loyalty. Friends don’t involve their friends in crimes. Except, apparently, they do.

  “Do you have any other suggestions, Daniel, as to where I can tell the police to look for my son?”

  “No, Mr. Mueller. Honestly.”

  “If any idea should come to you, you have only to ask to talk to Warden Shiel at Spirit Lake. Of course, you understand that if you are able to help us find Eugene you’ll be doing yourself a considerable favor when it comes time to discuss your parole. Judge Cofflin knows about this situation, and it was only at my repeated insistence that you weren’t indicted for first degree robbery as well.”

  “Mr. Mueller, believe me, if I knew anything else at all, I’d tell you.”

  Mueller looked at him with a look of leisurely, contented malice and turned to leave.

  “Really!” Daniel insisted.

  Mueller turned back to look at him a last time. From the way he stood there, smiling, Daniel knew that he believed him — but that he didn’t care. He’d got what he was after, a new victim, an adopted son.

  4

  His first night in the compound at Spirit Lake, sleeping out of doors on sparse, trampled crabgrass, Daniel had a nightmare. It began with music, or sounds like but less ordered than music, long notes of some unknown timbre, neither voice nor violin, each one sustained beyond thought’s reach, yet lacing together into a structure large and labyrinthine. At first he thought he was inside a church but it was too plain for that, the space too open.

  A bridge. The covered bridge above the Mississippi. He stood on it, suspended above the moving waters, an intolerable expanse of blackness scored with the wavering lights of boats that seemed as far away, as unapproachable as stars. And then, causelessly, awfully, this scene was rotated through ninety degrees and the flowing river became a wall still whirling upwards. It towered to an immense unthinkable height and hung there, threatening to collapse. No, its flowing and its collapse were a single, infinitely slow event, and he fled from it over the windows of the inner bridge. Sometimes the long sheets of glass would fracture under his weight, like the winter’s earliest ice. He felt as though he were being hunted by some sluggish, shapeless god that would — let him flee where he might — surely crush him and roll him flat beneath his supreme inexorable immensity. All this, as the music lifted, note by note, into a whistling louder and more fierce than any factory’s to become at last the P.A. system’s tape of reveille.

  His stomach still hurt, though not so acutely as in the first hours after he’d forced down the P-W lozenge. He’d been afraid then that despite all the water he was drinking it would lodge in his throat instead of his stomach. It was that big. The first set of its time-release enzymes burned out a small ulcer in the lining of the stomach, which the second set (the ones working now) proceeded to heal, sealing the lozenge itself into the scar tissue of the wound it had created. The whole process took less than a day, but even so Daniel and the seven other newly-admitted prisoners had nothing to do but let their situation sink in while the lozenges wove themselves into the ruptured tissues.

  Daniel had supposed he’d be the youngest prisoner, but as it turned out a good percentage of the people he could see being assembled and sent out in work crews were his own age, and many of these, if not probably younger, were a lot scrawnier. The moral of this observation was the basically happy one that if they could survive at Spirit Lake, then so could he.

  It seemed to be the case that a majority of the others, even those his age, had been in prison before. That, anyhow, was the subject that united five of the seven others once the compound had been emptied by the morning’s call-up. For a while he sat on the sidelines taking it in, but their very equanimity and easy humor began to get at him. Here they were, sentenced many of them to five years or more of what they already knew was going to be sheer misery, and they were acting like it was a family reunion. Insane.

  By comparison the poultry farmer from Humboldt County who’d been sent up for child abuse seemed, for all his belly-aching, or maybe because of it, normal and reasonable, a man with a grievance who wanted you to know just how all-out miserable he was. Daniel tried talking to him, or rather, listening, to help him get his mind more settled, but after a very short time the man developed a loop, saying the same things over in almost the identical words as the first and then the second time through — how sorry he was for what he’d done, how he hadn’t meant to harm the child, though she had baited him and knew she was at fault, how the insurance might pay for the chickens but not for all the work, not for the time, how children need their parents and the authority they represent; and then, again, how sorry he was for what he’d done. Which was (as Daniel later found out) to beat his daughter unconscious and almost to death with the carcass of a hen.

  To get away from him Daniel wandered about the compound, facing up to his bad news item by item — the stink of the open latrines, the not much nicer stink inside the dormitories, where a few of the feeblest prisoners were laid out on the floor, sleeping or watching the sunlight inch along the grimy sheets of plywood. One of them asked him for a glass of water, which he went and drew at the tap outside, not in a glass, since there were none to be found, but in a paper cup from McDonald’s so old and crunched out of shape it barely served to hold the water till he got back inside.

  The strangest thing about Spirit Lake was the absence of bars, barbed wire, or other signs of their true condition. There weren’t even guards. The prisoners ran their own prison de
mocratically, which meant, as it did in the bigger democracy outside, that almost everyone was cheated, held ransom, and victimized except for the little self-appointed army that ran the place. This was not a lesson that Daniel learned at once. It took many days and as many skimped dinners before the message got across that unless he reached some kind of accommodation with the powers-that-be he wasn’t going to survive even as long as to September, when he expected to be paroled back to school. It was possible, actually, to starve to death. That, in fact, was what was happening to the people in the dormitory. If you didn’t work, the prison didn’t feed you, and if you didn’t have money, or know someone who did, that was it.

  What he did learn that first morning, and unforgettably, was that the P-W lozenge sealed in his innards was the authentic and bonafide sting of death.

  Some time around noon there was a commotion among the other convalescent prisoners. They were shouting at the poultry farmer Daniel had talked to earlier, who was running full tilt down the gravel road going to the highway. When he’d gone a hundred yards and was about the same distance from the fieldstone posts that marked the entrance to the compound a whistle started blowing. A few yards farther on the farmer doubled over; radio signals broadcast by P-W security system as he passed through the second perimeter had detonated the plastic explosive in the lozenge in his stomach.

  In a while the Warden’s pickup appeared far off down the highway, hooting and flashing its lights.

  “You know,” said one of the black prisoners, in a reflective, ingratiating tone, like an announcer’s, “I could see that coming a mile away, a mile away. It’s always that kind that lets go first.”