by David Wiltse
"Why? Well, Rae, I may be wrong, but it seems to me that setting a human being on fire is probably a felony of some kind."
"In North Carolina."
"Hell, anywhere."
"I mean, she did it in North Carolina. She's in West Virginia now.
Doesn't it have to be an interstate crime or something like that?"
"What the hell is an interstate crime?"
"Honey, I don't know, but I don't think North Carolina police can just drive up here and arrest her for something she did down there unless it's a federal crime, and then it ain't their job."
"Whose job is it?"
"A federal crime? Well, that would be for the FBI, wouldn't it?"
"Would it?" asked Tommy. He got up on his knees so he was over her for a change. "A case for the FBI, huh?"
"I think so," Rae said. She toyed with the hair on his chest, twisting it into strands. If he didn't stop her he would end up looking like he was wearing corn rows.
"You know what?" he asked.
"What?"
"I think Aural had better be careful who she tells her stories to because somebody might take it into their mind that she should be reported."."Who would do that?"
"You never know," said the Reverend. "Human nature is a very curious thing. Very curious.
A truck passed Cooper as he walked along the highway, its brake lights on as it decelerated rapidly. A heavy mist had lifted only minutes ago, leaving the pines coated with moisture that sparkled in the early morning sun as it broke through. At times the reflection was blinding, and drivers heading east drove with their visors down and sunglasses on.
Cooper watched them, some shading their eyes with their hands and squinting against the glare. Ahead of him, a slight bend in the road coincided with the solar angle in such a way that drivers were blinded for several hundred yards and the traffic there had slowed to a crawl.
As Cooper approached, the sun's angle changed enough of a fraction of an arc that the glare was even worse and people were actually stopping their cars, a few of them pulling to the side. Cooper walked beside them, marveling at the sight of dozens of cars behaving as if a stop sign had suddenly materialized in the center of the highway.
The drivers looked so stupid to him, immobilized by the sun, blindly creeping after the rear ends of the cars in front of them like elephants in the circus linked trunk to tail, while the traffic in the westbound lane raced by at normal speed.
"Idiots!" Cooper yelled. Those closest looked around, gawking, trying to find the source of the voice. Some of them insisted on putting their heads out their windows and looking up, staring into the sun, as if they had heard the voice of God.
"Dummies!"
A man two cars away leaned out, his necktie dangling outside the car.
"What?" he asked. "What is it?" The man was looking in the direction of Cooper, but not at him. Cooper thought about grabbing that necktie-one of the currently fashionable eyesores with a flock of herons against a background of green and orange-and yanking on it until the man's head fell off.
"You're a dumb shit," Cooper said.
The man just kept squinting, looking more puzzled than threatened.
"What?" he asked again, as if the sun were affecting his hearing as well as his sight. "What?"
It was then that Cooper realized the extent of his invisibility. Nobody could see him. Which meant nobody could stop him, nobody could report him. He felt suddenly omnipotent. He could do anything he wanted to any one of these people in any of these cars and no one could stop him. No one would even know that he was the one who did it.
Walking farther, Cooper passed a young woman who glanced up at him as he came abreast of her, then away, towards the backseat. Cooper got to her blind spot and turned and studied her. She looked good, small and clean and neat, and there was something about her mouth that reminded him of that other girl. Her hair was cut close to her head, which made her look like a girl pretending to be a boy. He didn't know why, but Cooper liked that, he felt his excitement growing. He could reach right in there and grab her, he thought, and no one would know. Right in the middle of a crowd and no one would see because he was invisible. He could do what he wanted-he could make her do what he wanted-surrounded by dozens of cars and people and no one would know anything about it.
Cooper laughed in anticipation and the woman lifted her eyes in his direction. She had been studying the floor of her car, trying to avoid the sun, but now she looked up, shielding her eyes with her hand.
She looked stupid, too, squinting at him that way and not seeing him.
They were all stupid, Cooper realized with surge of superiority, stupid as a herd of cows. Only he could see where he was going, only he was invisible.
The doorlatch on her car was up, so Cooper yanked the door open and pushed into the car, propelling her into the passenger seat.
At first she was too frightened to speak and her mouth moved open and shut as silently as a fish. Stupid, Cooper thought.
"What…" she finally sputtered. "@who are you?"
"I'm Invisible Man," Cooper said. He grabbed her by the arm and she gasped and tried to pull away, but of course it wasn't possible to pull away from Cooper.
"Please," she said. "Please," and she thrust her purse at him.
She wasn't trying to get out the other door as he had thought she would.
The woman seemed to be trying to climb into the backseat instead. Cooper glanced back and saw the infant in the car seat for the first time. The baby stared back at Cooper, its big blue eyes as curious as Cooper's own.
The mother was panicking, but her fear hadn't transmitted itself to the baby yet and it studied Cooper calmly.
"Hi," Cooper said, reaching his finger towards the child.
The mother tried to pull Cooper's hand away from the baby, so he jerked her back onto the front seat. She bit into the hand that held her, sinking her teeth as hard as she could. The infant was reaching for Cooper's.finger, but he had to snatch his free hand away in order to club the woman.
The baby seemed to sense that something was wrong and its face wrinkled in preparation for a scream. Cooper wiggled his finger before the baby again but it was too late and the child let out an anguished cry.
The woman had slumped onto the seat, so Cooper was free to reach for the infant with both hands, but the crossbar on the car seat confused him temporarily. Suddenly horns were blaring and Cooper heard someone yell,
"Hey, asshole!
The sun had moved and traffic in front of him was already receding into the distance. The man behind him, the one with the necktie, was honking and yelling, in a great rush to move on, and Cooper realized that he was visible again. The woman moaned, her eyes fluttering open and shut and open again, and the baby screamed.
Cooper took the purse that the woman had offered him and left the car.
He ran into the woods, with the man with the necktie yelling at him, and he ran until he could hear no more sounds from the highway.
Cooper crouched behind the empty propane gas tanks that crowded the fence at the back of the restaurant. Kyle came out the back, dragging the garbage towards the dumpster. He passed the police car that was parked close to the dumpster, its front light pulsing on and off the high beam and the front door still open as if someone had arrived and jumped out in a hurry. Glancing around to see if he was observed, Kyle peered into the cop car. Cooper could almost feel the boy's temptation to slip inside the automobile, to sit where the cop sat, to speak into the radio, to fondle the shotgun clipped to the dashboard.
Kyle was grinning with nervous excitement, his freckled skin flushed.
Red on the head like the dick on a dog, Cooper thought and laughed silently.
Kyle resisted the temptation of the police car and hoisted the garbage can with some trouble into the dumpster. Cooper wanted to take the can away from Kyle and lift it with one hand, just to show him how he could do it. Instead, he hissed.
Kyle looked around, startle
d, as if he had heard a snake.
It took him a moment to locate Cooper, who was waving from behind the propane tanks. He hurried over, glancing back at the restaurant.
"Was it you? I figured it had to be you, but I didn't know."
"What?"
"The cops said somebody wearing one of our uniforms robbed a lady's purse in broad daylight on the highway."
"That wasn't me," Cooper said.
"Right in broad daylight. I said, Jeez, that sucker's got balls. I figured it was you."
Cooper shook his head without conviction.
"They said he was a great big guy, that's all the lady remembers. But about eight different people saw him in his uniform. He was even wearing his hat."
Cooper took the striped paper hat off his head.
"it was you, wasn't it?"
"No," Cooper said. "Are they looking for me now?"
"Of course they're looking for you, duh. What do you think the cop car is doing here?"
"You didn't tell him where I was?"
"I didn't know where you were. I just saw you right now."
"Uh-huh."
Cooper laid his hand on Kyle's shoulder.
"And I wouldn't have told him anyway, I swear," the boy said, suddenly talking much faster. "I wouldn't tell him no matter what, but I didn't tell him anyway because I didn't know."
"I didn't do it," Cooper said.
Kyle tried to back away, but Cooper's grip tightened on his shoulder.
"I knew that. I believe you. You wouldn't be that stupid."
"It wasn't stupid," Cooper said.
"I know that, it's the cops who said it was stupid, not me. I knew you wouldn't do anything stupid. We're friends, Coop. We work together. I know you."
"You don't know me."
"Well…"
"You're not my friend."
"Sure I am, sure I am."
"I've got two friends," Cooper said.
"And me. I'm your friend. You can count on me."
Kyle tried to twist his head to see if there was any activity at the back of the restaurant, but Cooper's grip continued to grow in pressure.
The boy felt tears coming to his eyes.
Cooper tried to remember who his two friends were.
"My punk," he said, not aware he was speaking aloud,'and somebody else…"
Two cops came out of the back of the restaurant, each holding a cup of coffee. Kyle started to speak, but Cooper reacted quicker, yanking the boy behind the tanks and clamping a hand on his mouth so fast that the boy's neck snapped back as if he had been hit.
When the cop car drove off, Cooper looked at the boy's struggling form as if he had just noticed it for the first time.
He removed his hand from Kyle's mouth and the boy gasped and sputtered and looked for a second as if he were going to speak again, but Cooper didn't want to hear from him, he knew the kind of thing he'd hear, so he closed his hand on the boy's throat and used that grip to beat his head against the propane tank.
The tank made a dull, hollow sound, like the biggest drum that Cooper had ever heard. When the boy stopped squirming after the fourth or fifth hit, Cooper carried him to the dumpster and tossed him in. He laughed about that as he ran through the back lots. He laughed until he reached the safety of the pines. He didn't know why, it just struck him as funny.
After his second day of walking, Cooper emerged from the woods to follow the sound of a tolling bell. He found himself on a dirt road and he walked towards the bell, drawn not only by the sound but by its promise of human community. He was tired of sleeping on the ground and talking only to squirrels and he was hungry. There was money in his pocket that he had taken from the woman's purse, so he could buy food. He had counted the money many times; he didn't think it was enough to buy a car, any kind of car, but he was certain it was enough to buy a meal.
There was also her credit card, and Cooper knew there were ways to get money and food and cars and anything you wanted with somebody else's credit card, but he had never understood how it was done. He knew his punk would know. Even if the punk didn't know something like that right away, he could sit down and figure it out, just by thinking about it.
And if that didn't work, he wasn't afraid to ask someone else.
Cooper never felt comfortable asking people questions when he didn't already know the answers. It was just asking to be ridiculed, but somehow it never bothered the punk. Swann. He had said Cooper wouldn't even remember his name, but, there, he did remember. He said it aloud,
"Swann," and found himself suddenly close to tears. Cooper shook his head, angry at himself. He didn't know what the hell that was all about, crying over a punk.
Cooper's hand hurt where the woman in the car had bitten him and it was turning a very angry looking red around the tooth marks. As he walked, he put the sore hand to his mouth and sucked on it a little, which made it feel better. The. sound of the bell kept getting louder and even though there was no way to see very far through all the trees that lined both sides of the road, he could tell he was getting closer., Suddenly there was a wider spot that spread and spread and sitting there right beside the dirt road was a one-story, one-room clapboard church. An old man stood in the yard, pulling on a bell that looked more like a dinner bell than a church chime, and a fat-faced man dressed in a shiny black suit, white shirt, and black bow tie stood by the doorway, clasping a black book to his bosom. He looked to Cooper like the preachers he had seen in Western movies, except that his skin was the color of dusty shoe leather. Cooper had also seen undertakers dressed like that, usually in the same movies. Lots of people got shot in movies like that; there was plenty of work for both the preachers and the undertakers.
Cooper's sudden appearance startled both men, and the old one missed several beats on the bell rope.
"Are you sure you're in the right place, sir?" the preacher asked as Cooper headed straight for the front door. The preacher was smiling but he didn't look very welcoming nonetheless. Cooper stopped next to the man, looking at his face and then at the interior of the church.
He towered over the minister, whose size was more lateral than vertical.
"What?"
The minister smelled of very old sweat and bourbon and some kind of perfume. Cooper wrinkled his nose in distaste and the minister moved back a step.
"You're welcome, of course," the minister said. "All sinners are welcome."
"Uh-huh," Cooper said.
"Did you walk all the way from Wycliffe?" the minister asked, trying to strike up a conversation.
"What?"
"Your uniform," the minister said. "The nearest one of them is in Wycliffe. I wonder, did you walk all the way from there, because I see you got no car."
Cooper looked at his striped shirt. He had lost the hat somewhere in the woods.
"Which way is Wycliffe?"
"That way," the minister said, pointing in the direction in which Cooper had been going before he stopped at the church.
"How far?"
"Walking or riding?"
Cooper squinted at him, suspecting a trick.
"About seven miles by car," the minister said.
"Uh-huh… Do you think I could get a job there?"
"Yes, sir, I bet you could. You already got the clothes."
Cooper debated whether to keep walking towards the restaurant in Wycliffe or to go inside the church. He poked the black book the minister clasped to his chest and the heavy man staggered back a step.
"I know what that is," Cooper said.
"Hallelujah," said the minister.
"Jesus is my friend," Cooper said, laughing slightly with pleasure at remembering who his second friend was.
He wanted to tell Swann that he had remembered a great many things. He searched his pockets until he found a postcard.
"Amen to that," said the minister.
The old man gave up on the bell and shuffled past both Cooper and the minister and into the church. He had recovered from his initial shock and no
w had no curiosity about the sudden appearance of the candy-striped giant at all ' "You can go on in, if you like," the minister said to Cooper. "You just about the first. The womens will be along directly."
"Womens?"
"Well, it's mostly womens, now isn't it. Womens takes to the spirit better than men. I don't know why."
"Uh-huh."
"Maybe they is just better and cleaner spirits altogether. Take away the womens and I wouldn't have hardly no congregation whatsoever."
"I like women," Cooper said.
'Bless you," said the minister and smiled with real warmth for the first time. "I know what you mean. I do know what you mean." He chuckled conspiratorially.
The minister seemed friendly and Cooper thought of telling him about the woman who had helped him with the questionnaire and then took him out in her car, but then thought he'd better not. He walked into the church instead.
Cooper sat on a bench in the third row from the front and thought about his friend Jesus and his friend Swann and realized that he knew Swann a lot better than he knew Jesus. Jesus was really Swann's friend and had become Cooper's friend, too, mainly from being talked about so much.
He stayed there when the congregation filtered in, nearly filling the church with their heavy, gaily clothed bodies, but giving him a wide berth on either side as if he emitted a repellent force field.
He liked the singing, which certainly wasn't pretty, but it was loud and enthusiastic and one of the women in front of him seemed to keep fainting and waking up and yelling something about Jesus and then fainting again. He liked that part, too, even though the preacher, who must have seen it, didn't pay any attention to it at all.
When it was all over and everyone else was leaving, Cooper started walking towards Wycliffe. No one offered him a ride. When he came at last to a postal box he took the postcard from his pocket and studied the address that carried his punk's name. He thought for a moment about writing a message but remembered Swann had said it wasn't necessary. He would know automatically that 01' Coop was thinking about him and would start praying right away. Cooper mailed the postcard, proud that he had remembered. It wasn't until he had walked several miles farther that he recalled that he was hungry.
Becker was met at the Nashville airport and driven to Springville by car. The Birmingham airport was actually about twenty-three miles closer to the prison, but the airfare was cheaper to Nashville so the Bureau travel agents had booked him that way. The agent-in-charge in Birmingham was alerted that Becker was on his way and to stand by for assistance if necessary, but inasmuch as Becker came escorted by a special agent from Nashville, the Birmingham agency was more than happy to maintain a healthy distance and let Nashville cope with it. Becker's visits had a way of turning into a lot of trouble for anyone close enough to get involved.