Mrs. O’Reilly handed us each a packet of work. I flipped through it: some math, an essay in English about Macbeth and a worksheet in science.
“I’m just going to go to the ladies’ room.” Mrs. O’Reilly got up slowly. “You two keep working.”
I watched her walk unsteadily away.
“She sure is on the sauce this morning,” I said out loud.
Melinda giggled holding her hand over her mouth.
“What grade are you in?” I asked looking over.
“I think I’m in 11th. I don’t really know. I just do the work she brings me.”
I thought it was odd. How could someone not know what grade she was in?
“I’m a senior,” I said. I then added, “My friends call me Gus. Please don’t call me Agustin.”
“Lindy. I don’t really like Melinda.”
“I’ve never seen you in school,” I continued trying to make conversation.
“I only went when I was a freshman.” She looked away adding wanly, “I’ve been too sick.”
I just nodded my head. She sure looked sick to me. Whereas, beside some unseen tape on my ribs, I looked just fine; my bruises had all faded and my teeth were back in.
“I’m pretty good in math,” I said, “and I’m OK with the Shakespeare stuff, but I do use the Cliff Notes some.”
“Well, I like science,” she said after thinking a minute, “and I like writing essays on any subject.”
“Looks like we’re a team,” I smiled extending my hand.
She looked at it a moment, then stuck out hers. I shook her hand. It was small, bony and cold. We had struck an agreement. We were on our own. Mrs. O’Reilly was not going to be much help. Soon, she tottered back and Lindy and I started our work.
I can’t really explain it, but after meeting Lindy, there was a feeling like I was waking after a very long sleep. I felt things in my chest, arms, legs and head that were new. Actually, I’m not sure if they were new but suddenly I felt fully alive, fully awake. I slept better, I woke feeling more refreshed. Aunt May commented on the fact I was eating more. I couldn’t wait to get to the library each morning. I began to dread the weekends where all I did was sit around the house and watch TV. Uncle Elliot would not let me leave the house. He said it was for my own safety. He had no idea of all the wandering I had already done when we had been trapped at the motel.
I can’t really tell you what it was about Lindy. When we first met, she rarely spoke to me. We sat side by side, Mrs. O’Reilly across from us, doing our schoolwork. I would try to engage her in conversation or make a joke. She would giggle or smile at me, always with her bony hand covering her mouth, but she actually said very little. And she was so thin. I wondered if she had cancer or something. She wore the same outfit pretty much everyday: an oversized sweatshirt, sweatpants and white Nikes that were scuffed and dirty. Her hair always hung down, straight. Her teeth were very yellow and looked dirty. She had one black tooth in the center of her bottom jaw. I was equally attracted to Lindy as I was repulsed by her. I didn’t understand my own fascination with her but I didn’t really care. When I was with Lindy, I felt fully alive.
Chapter Thirteen
Then one day, I arrived at the library and Lindy was standing at the circulation desk rather than sitting at our usual table. She was holding a slip of paper and Mrs. O’Reilly was nowhere to be seen.
“She’s not coming today,” Lindy said in her soft voice. “She called the library and said she was sick.”
Lindy held the note out to me. “Tutoring canceled. Mrs. O’Reilly is sick. She will see you tomorrow.”
I looked down at it for a few moments. Lindy stood in front of me, her school books clutched to her chest.
“Well, bye,” she said, walking past me.
I let her walk a few steps, looking down at the note before I turned and said, “Hey, wait.”
Lindy turned back towards me. Her eyes always looked as if she were daydreaming or seeing something that only she could see, far off and distant.
“Why don’t we hang out together?” I asked.
There was a long awkward pause.
“I mean...” I started to stumble over my words, “I don’t really want to go home, you know? I don’t have anything else to do.” She still hadn’t responded. “We could...uh...go down to the lighthouse or something. That would be cool, right?”
The Sawyer Lighthouse was located at the end of the Esopus Creek where it flows into the Hudson River. It was large and made of brick, built in the late 1800s to guide boats into the channel. There was a narrow mile pathway that led to the lighthouse, shrouded on either side with large rushes, cattails, marshes and trees. I used to walk there with my brother all the time. It had been a long while since I had ridden my bike down there and walked on the trail.
Lindy was looking at me. Actually, I wasn’t sure if she was looking at me or through me. She seemed to be there but not there at the same time.
“Uh...thanks,” she finally spoke. “I’d like to but—” her voice stopped for a second then she continued, “I...just don’t think I could walk that far.”
I exhaled, relieved. “That’s OK. I got my bike. You can ride on the handlebars.”
She smiled. This time her hand was not covering her mouth. Even with her dusky teeth, her smile was warm and genuine.
We left our books at the circulation desk. The librarian was very nice to us. She had seen us from our visits there with Mrs. O’Reilly but I’m not sure if she knew our names or that my brother was the town’s only serial killer. But, at this moment, I didn’t really care.
We went outside and I got my bike. Lindy, facing away from me, straddled my front tire, grabbed the handlebars and tried to hop up. She missed. I reached over and put my hands on her waist to help. There she was mostly sweatshirt cloth. My fingers almost touched as I tried to grab her waist. I was afraid to grab too hard, afraid that I might somehow break her. But, because she was so light, I was able to lift her easily and set her on the handlebars. She balanced precariously for a moment and then steadied herself.
“Hold on,” I told her. I pushed off, Lindy tottering in front of me.
“Ride slow!” she admonished.
She hooked her feet back onto the bike frame and held tightly to the handlebars. I let her lean into me a bit to steady her. I rode as slowly as I could but the road to the lighthouse was mostly downhill. The wind blew her hair into my face. It was soft, like a baby’s, and delicate against my cheek. The smell of her was clean and fresh, no perfume. She smelled like the wind itself. Once down the hill, the path to the lighthouse was sandy and uneven. I had to push hard on the pedals. About a hundred feet before the lighthouse, I had to stop riding because the path was impassable for my bike. We dismounted and I lay my bike by the side of the path. She was smiling as we walked down the path. Her gait was a little stiff but so was mine. She reached out and put her hand on my upper arm to steady herself. She walked as if she had just gotten off a boat. We walked out of the shroud of cattails and rushes and out to the lighthouse proper. The Hudson River shone bold that day, beautiful and calm. We mounted the steps to the deck around the lighthouse, a breeze picked up our hair. I felt free and light.
We leaned on the railing, the brick lighthouse looming behind us.
“It’s pretty here,” she said softly. The wind almost stole her voice.
“Haven’t you been here before?” I asked.
“Oh, not since I was a kid,” she shrugged.
“I used to come here with my brother all the time,” I reminisced. “We used to go fishing or just hang out, throw rocks in the water and that sort of stuff.”
We both stood there awhile, each lost in our own private reverie, the wind caressing our faces.
“C’mon,” I said.
We left the decking and I found a sandy place for us to sit on the shore of the river. The tide was moving out and the ground in front of our feet was damp. She picked up some water chestnut pods.
&nbs
p; “What are these?” she held one up to me.
“Water chestnut seeds,” I said, “I don’t think they’re native. I think they came from Europe or Asia or something like that.”
“Hmmm...” she felt the shiny black surface, probed the spikes with her finger. “Sharp.” She put a few in her baggy pockets.
I was amazed at how she seemed able to fold into herself. Sitting there, on the shore, she rested her head on her knees, hugging her legs close to her. She looked like a folded beach chair.
“So, why aren’t you in school?” she asked me.
I huffed out air between my teeth and rolled my eyes, “They don’t want me there.”
I really wanted to leave it at that.
“Why?”
She turned her head. It was still resting on her knees. Her face had the whitest skin I’d ever seen, the rims of her eyes so pink. She looked like a white rabbit.
I glanced down over the silver water. It was so beautiful here. It was so far removed from my horrible, horrible life.
“I got the shit beat out of me. They broke my nose and ribs, knocked out my teeth,” I said and lifted my T-shirt to show her the remains of the taping, “Mr. Hardy told my uncle he didn’t think the school could promise my safety.” I snorted again.
“Why’d you get beat up?”
I looked away. I didn’t want to answer this question. I wanted Lindy to stay in that fantasy world of mine that was light and free. I wanted her to be in the place where I wasn’t the brother of the Sawyer Shooter. But what could I do? The truth comes out sooner or later.
“You remember in July, the shooting in town?”
“Uh huh.”
“That was my brother.”
She did not respond. Her face remained turned to me, the white rabbit, unresponsive. I thought perhaps she didn’t hear me so I said, “My brother shot Naomi Tillson and Mr. Moretti. He killed them. He’s the Sawyer Shooter.”
Her head made the slightest motion. She wasn’t shocked or amazed or anything.
“You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?” There was a trace of concern in her voice.
“Hell, no!”
“Hmmm,” was all she said. “I don’t know why they would do that to you then.”
“I don’t know,” I sighed.
After a moment, “Why did your brother do it?”
I sagged. “I don’t know.” I paused. I wanted to make sense of it for both her and me but I couldn’t. I thought some more and then said, “I don’t know. He’s crazy. Something happened to him. He used to be a really nice guy. He was quiet, smart, the whole nine yards. Then he changed.” I turned to look at her. She was listening. I went on, “He got sent home from college and he was all crazy and everything. He’d talk to himself, sleep all day. He didn’t even take a shower. We had no idea that he was planning to kill those people. He just went and did it one day. Bam! No warning, nothing.”
Lindy was nodding her head, listening. The more I talked to her, the lighter I felt. I was like a lake being drained, a pitcher being emptied.
“After my brother killed them, everyone started to hate us. Like we did it, too. They burned down our house, with us in it. My mom and I just got out in time.”
“Oh my!’ she gasped in surprised.
“Yeah, it was horrible. We had to live in a hotel, a cheesy one, too, not a nice one. My mom is drunk all the time now. We had to move in with my aunt and uncle. They don’t really want us there. Then when I went to school, I’m not even there 10 minutes and I get the shit beat out of me by Brad Henshaw and his minions.”
She moved a little closer to me, reached out, put her bony hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry. That sucks,” she said.
“Yeah,” was all I could say. If I said anymore I was afraid I would cry.
We let the silence sit between us. Then I added quietly, “I’m not like my brother. I’m not crazy. I’m not going to kill you or anything.”
She giggled in response. I smiled. I felt better now that I had told Lindy, not worse, as I had expected.
“So, why aren’t you in school?” I asked. “You got cancer or something?”
I saw her body sag. She looked away and seemed to even curl more into herself. She rested her chin on her knees and gazed down the river. We were quiet a long time, and I wondered if I had said something wrong. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the cancer. I didn’t think she was going to say anything.
“No,” she finally said, “I don’t have cancer. But I wish I did.”
I furrowed my brow, trying to make sense of what she was saying and said to her, “But cancer isn’t a good thing.”
“I know. But at least it’s a disease. It’s something you can name.”
I nodded. I didn’t really know what she was talking about. I let her be quiet again. Then she spoke, not to me, but out to the river, “I just can’t eat. No one knows why. I try to eat, but I throw it up. I mean, I think about food all the time. I fantasize about dishes I’d like to make or order in a restaurant. But then when I sit down at a table I can’t eat at all. Sometimes, I have to eat everything. I will eat a whole cake or all the leftovers after dinner. But then I have to throw up all night long.”
She shrugged, turned her head and shrugged again.
“The school nurse says I can’t come back to school until I’m better. Since no one knows what’s wrong with me, I don’t know how I am going to get better.”
“Wow, that really sucks,” I said softly. She shrugged again.
After a while I looked at my watch. I had to get her back to the library for her mother to pick her up.
Nothing had changed. When I got home, my mother was still in her nightgown and robe. Aunt May was watching her soap operas. Uncle Elliot was at work. Dan was still in a psychiatric center. Our house on Mill Street was still ash. Naomi Tillson and Phil Moretti were still dead. But somehow, that morning, everything had changed.
Chapter Fourteen
Once Mrs. O’Reilly saw that we would do our work by ourselves and not rat her out, she started showing up less and less. We spent those crisp autumn mornings riding around Sawyer, me pedaling like mad, Lindy laughing on my handlebars, her hair trailing behind her like wings.
Some days we would ride down to the Esopus Creek and walk along its shore. Lindy couldn’t walk too far, she tired easily, so we would find a rock or a fallen tree, sit on it and talk. Or sometimes we wouldn’t talk at all; we’d just be quiet together. There was a nature preserve on the other side of town and we’d ride down, sit under the trees and listen for birds. Lindy knew the names of all the birds and could talk back to them by making shapes with her mouth and hands. We’d go over to Sailors and Soldiers Memorial Park and walk among the flower gardens; most of the flowers were gone now, but one garden was blooming with freshly planted mums. When we were feeling particularly crazy, we’d go to the golf course and look for lost golf balls. We got chased off once by a maintenance man in a golf cart. If it was rainy, we stayed at the library and read books. Once, during our antics, I worried out loud about getting caught, what the school might do if they found us running around Sawyer rather than sitting in the library with Mrs. O’Reilly.
“They wouldn’t care,” Lindy told me.
“They wouldn’t?” I found this hard to believe.
“No. I was in the hospital for a whole marking period last year. I didn’t get any work done and I still got all Bs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. It’s like some unwritten code. You can’t fail the sick kid.” She stopped, looked at me remembering I wasn’t sick. “The last place they want us is back in school. They are going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
She was right. When our report cards came out in early November, I had a B in all my subjects.
The place Lindy liked going to the most was the Heavenly Rest Cemetery, located way out of town up on a hill. It had graves way back to the 1700s when Sawyer was first founded. Back then, th
e hills were loaded with all sort of trees and several rich men built sawmills here, hence the name, Sawyer. Later, factories were opened on the Esopus Creek. Iron mills and paper mills flourished. We found the names of all the early settlers.
I showed Lindy the graves of my grandparents and my dad.
“Do you miss your dad?” she asked as we looked down at his tombstone. It was a simple stone, small, rectangular: “Clayton Woodard, 1925-1961, May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
“No, not really,” I shrugged. “I don’t really remember him. I was two when he died.”
We were quiet.
“I wish my father were dead,” Lindy whispered. “Why?” I asked.
“I hate my dad. I wish he were dead and your dad were alive.” Her voice started out as a whisper but got louder as she spoke.
“Why? Why do your hate your dad?”
“Because he’s a bastard and he deserves to be dead,” she said through clenched teeth.
I didn’t ask her anything more. I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it.
After that, we walked slowly through the rest of the graveyard. Lindy stopped every once in a while and traced the names and dates of the dead. Sometimes, I would lose track of her amongst the stones and find her sleeping on the moss. I would sit quietly next to her, waiting for her to wake up.
“What do you think they died of?” she asked me, lying on the grass, her hands under her head looking skyward.
“Who?” I asked.
“Everyone. Everyone here.”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess all sorts of things, like people do now: old age, heart attacks, cancer, that sort of stuff. My dad died of pneumonia.”
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