“I guess so,” replied Michael. He looked over at his father.
Mr. Bair said nothing. He was shaking out the evening paper he’d purchased at the depot.
Michael said, I hate you, to his father—but the words were deep within him and Mr. Bair did not hear them. I hate you for what you did to my mother and for what you did to me and for what you’re doing to my sister. You sent my mother away and now she’s dead in a strange city—and it’s all because of you.
The evening paper rustled softly in Mr. Bair’s carefully manicured hands.
I hate you, the voice deep inside Michael continued, because you lied to me about my mother, told me awful things about her that I know are lies... all lies...
His father’s voice lived again in his mind. And the words were there, the words he would never be able to forget: “Your mother was sick, Michael She had a serious illness which she could not control and which eventually destroyed her. She was a drunk, Michael, a lost and helpless alcoholic—and now she is dead, a victim of her own weakness.”
You never loved her as I loved her, Michael silently accused his father; she went away because you drove her away. She was good and kind and never like you. Never like you...
Michael remembered listening, in darkness, from his bed next to Lucy’s crib, to the violent quarrels they had, to the shouted terrible words ringing through the night rooms and entering his body like a series of small explosions—until he would begin to cry and bury his head under the pillow, trying not to hear...
“Watch sister,” said Leonard Bair, folding aside the paper. “I’m going up to the front of the coach and get us a little something to eat. Don’t you think oranges would be agreeable?”
Michael nodded and Lucy said, “Yes, thank you,” softly, looking down at her lap. She sat primly on the green velvet seat like a solemn toy doll, serious and unsmiling.
“Very well,” said Mr. Bair. “I’ll return shortly.”
When the compartment door slid closed Lucy raised her dark eyes to Michael. “Tell me about her again, please. Will you? Will you, Michael?”
The boy looked at his sister, at her large, clear eyes and pale face and he thought: She’s older, too, like I am. Father’s made her that way. She looks seven, but she’s not like other seven-year-olds.
“Please,” Lucy prompted. “Tell me, Michael.”
“Well,” he began, “when you were a baby she’d pick you up and hold you for hours, just singing to you and rocking you in her arms.”
Lucy was silent, watching her brother. The train had begun to move, sliding out of the station over the steel rails, gathering momentum, but the little girls eyes did not waver from Michael’s face.
“She used to take you out for long walks and lots of times she’d let me push your carriage if I promised not to run or bump you over curbs. Don’t you remember her at all?”
“No,” said Lucy in her soft child’s voice. “Not any. I wish I could, like you can, Michael. Oh, I wish I could.”
“Her eyes were like cool water,” he told his sister, “deep and full of sadness. And she loved us, Lucy I know she did. No matter what father tells you, she loved us both.”
The compartment door opened.
“Well,” said Leonard Bair, sliding it closed again. “That didn’t take long.” He handed an orange to each of them.
Michael began to strip away the thick rind, mechanically, not really wanting the fruit but knowing he must accept it. He repeated the process for Lucy.
“Can’t understand why people choose to spend hard-earned money on an airplane ticket when a train will do nicely,” said Leonard Bair. “My father always traveled by rail. Right to the day he died. Sensible. Civilized. Lets you see the country.”
Michael listened, and told himself, someday I’ll fly in a plane. It must be wonderful... like a bird... free in the sky. I’ve never been free to do anything. Never.
Beyond the train window, the countryside was flowing past, city outskirts giving way to open farm country: A pattern of browns and greens checkered by, and the sun, moving rapidly down the western sky, was beginning to glare in solid yellow waves through the glass.
“Lower the shade, Michael,” instructed Leonard Bair. “These windows should be tinted, but then we accept what we get. Ah, that’s better.”
The tall man arranged a magazine on his lap and adjusting his steel-rimmed spectacles, settled into the velvet seat, his lips already moving almost imperceptibly as he read.
Michael studied his father’s calm face above the magazine, thinking: You killed her and I know it. No matter how she died you killed her. She needed us and you sent her away. Why should I care what happens to you? Why should Lucy care? Michael’s heart began to beat faster in his chest and he could fed its steady throb behind his eyes. An anger was building inside him, a deep and long-withheld anger which was only now, in the coach on this particular day, fully revealing itself The train changed things. The train was taking Michael away from the old world of fear and darkness; the small Missouri town of his childhood was behind them now, lost in gleaming rails and distance. It was easier not to care, here in his new world of the train.
It was easier to hate.
I saw him pack, thought Michael, and I know he didn’t take along the gun. Or a knife, either. Only the bottle. That was all he took along—just the small, green bottle.
“May I please be excused?” Lucy asked, standing in the aisle between the seats.
“Go with sister, Michael,” said their father, his eyes still fastened to the print he was reading. “But don’t be too long.”
“All right,” said Michael, and pushed open the door.
The rest room was at the far end of the coach, and Michael braced one hand against the compartment walls to help balance himself in the swaying car.
“Here we are,” said Michael, reaching the rest room door. “It’s empty. You can go in okay by yourself, can’t you?”
Lucy nodded and entered the small cubicle.
While he was waiting, another boy approached him, maybe a year or two older. Tall and blond and bored-looking. He started toward the door.
“My sisters in there,” said Michael.
“Okay,” said the blond boy. “I can wait.”
A moment of awkward silence. Then Michael said, “This is my first train ride.”
“Me, too. We always fly. You fly a lot?”
“I’ve never been on a plane. Are they fun?”
The boy looked at him oddly. “Yeah... I guess so. Sure beats rattling across the country on this damn thing. How far you going?”
“Los Angeles.”
“L.A’s a good town. Too much smog, though. Been there before?”
Michael shook his head. “I’ve never been anywhere. Is it big, Los Angeles?”
“Sure it’s big. Takes all day just to get from one end to the other.”
“I see,” said Michael, but he didn’t. He could never imagine a town that large. Jefferson had seemed enormous to him.
“I’m afraid of big cities,” said Michael.
“How come?”
“A big city can swallow you up. They frighten me.”
“How old are you anyway?”
“Fourteen.”
“Jeez,” said the blond boy, shaking his head. “You sure don’t know much.”
“I don’t know anything,” said Michael honestly. “I have to learn it all new.”
The rest room door opened, and Lucy came out. The boy darted in, closing it behind him. “Jeez,” he said, faintly.
As he moved back down the coach aisle with his sister, Michael thought: to that boy I’m a fool. And he’s right. I’ve got to grow up. It’s time now. Time to begin acting like a man.
Why should I be afraid of a city? A city is really the same, big or small, familiar or strange. It can’t, of itself, hurt you. People can hurt you, but only if you let them, only if you get in their way. He was good at staying out of people’s way and so was Lucy.
Michael’s heart thudded faster as he neared their compartment. I’m almost a man now, he thought, I’m very close to being a man. I must no longer be afraid.
Outside the window, the sun was nearly down and Michael felt the quietness of sunset here in the clicking train, which seemed to be hurrying faster and faster through the graying country, skimming over the endless tracks, keeping ahead of the night.
Back in the compartment, sitting stiffly across from his father, Michael watched him carefully. He always gets sleepy at this time of day; he and Lucy usually take a nap in the late afternoon. It won’t be long now. They must both be sleeping. He couldn’t do it unless they were both asleep.
He waited.
Lucy curled up near the window with a pillow under her head and was quickly asleep. Michael, too, pretended to drowse, with his head against the seat, eyelids down. But through the lacy slit beneath his lashes he watched his father, as a hunter watches for deer. Soon, he knew. Soon.
In the gentle, rocking motion of the train Michael watched his father’s eyes close, the lids sliding over the harsh, bright pupils; he watched the magazine settle lazily into the lap of Leonard Bair and he listened to his father’s measured breathing.
Now!
No, not too quickly. Be certain; make no mistakes. He knew he would have one chance, one try at the bottle and no more.
He studied his father’s face, the half-opened mouth, the lidded eyes. Then, slowly, Michael began to move.
The bottle was in his father’s briefcase, which he had placed under the seat when they entered the compartment. Michael knew the briefcase was open; the small gold lock was broken as it had been for years.
Slowly. Glide your hands toward the briefcase, Michael told himself. Another few inches. That’s it. Now you can reach it.
Michael’s fingers closed firmly over the dark leather and he eased the case from its place under the seat, his eyes never off his father’s sleeping face. Swiftly he loosened the two worn straps and reached inside. Yes, there it was, the bottle, green and solid in his hands, the neat metal cap screwed tight over the white, grainy powder inside.
Well, don’t sit there holding it, Michael told himself. You know what to do with it. Quickly!
Outside the darkening country flowed past. Lights were beginning to blink on in the dusk.
Michael slid the briefcase back under the seat and moved toward the door, the bottle safely in his shirt pocket.
“Michael, where are you going?”
The boy froze. Had his father been playing one of his terrible games? Had he seen Michael take the bottle?
“Answer me! I asked you where you were going.”
“Just to the end of the coach. I wanted to take a walk.”
“Well,” said his father, easing back, closing his eyes again, “see that you don’t leave the car. I don’t want you wandering all over the train.”
“I won’t,” Michael said, still facing the compartment door. He didn’t want to turn; his father might ask about the bulge in his shirt pocket.
“Go along, then.”
Noting that Lucy still slept soundly, Michael slid open the door, and moved into the aisle. His heart was pounding against the wall of his chest. Could he do it? Could he really?
The rest room at the end of the coach was unoccupied. Michael stepped inside, throwing the latch, locking himself safely away from everyone. The small cubicle smelled of disinfectant, like a hospital room. It was cramped and ugly. A neatly-lettered sign on the wall above the toilet said, “Please DO NOT flush while train is in station.”
Michael took out the green bottle, unscrewed the cap and upended the contents into the bowl. Then he pressed the round silver foot pedal and watched the grainy white powder swirl and foam away.
Michael drew a small square of folded paper from his trouser pocket, opened it. He carefully funneled the contents into the green bottle. White. Grainy. The same, but not the same.
The train was moving faster over the unseen rails below him. The steady clicking of the wheels beneath his feet seemed to be matching the rapid beating of Michael’s heart as he made his way back to the compartment. It was evening now, and with the corridor lights on all the windows were dark, as if the glass had been painted black.
Mr. Bair was sleeping soundly when Michael entered the compartment, and even the slight noise of the sliding door did not awaken him. Lucy, too, still slept deeply near the window.
In another few minutes it will all be over, thought Michael. His hands were trembling as he slipped the bottle back into the leather case and replaced it under the seat. There, now. Everything ready. “Wake up,” said Michael, prodding his father’s shoulder. “Wake up.” Mr. Bair coughed, raising his head. He focused his eyes on Michael and frowned. “I assume you have an excellent reason for disturbing my sleep. Disturbing it, I might add, for the second time this evening.”
“I have a reason, all right,” said Michael, sitting down across from his father and meeting his eyes squarely. “I want to find out a few things, Father. A few things I’ve been wanting to know about for a long while.”
“Your behavior is extraordinary, Michael. I believe the train has upset you. Perhaps—”
“I want to know,” cut in Michael, “why you sent Mother away.”
“This is neither the time, nor the place, to discuss—”
“Answer me,” said Michael, his voice edged in hate. “You answer me!”
“You’ll wake your sister!”
“No, I won’t. Lucy can sleep through anything. Even this.”
“You’ll go without supper tonight, Michael. I promise you that.” Leonard Bair’s eyes glittered, coldly.
“You drove Mother away,” said Michael evenly. “And she died because of you.”
“She died because she was a weak-minded alcoholic. And I sent her away because the court ruled her unfit to raise you and sister. Her drinking killed her. I had nothing to do with it.”
“You lie!” accused Michael. “She drank because of you, because of the sick way you treated us, because of all the terrible things you said to her. And you’re only going back for the money she left us.”
“I won’t listen to this kind of talk,” snapped Leonard Bair. The veins on his corded neck stood out, taut with anger. “You will apologize at once or—”
“Or what? Or you’ll take out your bottle and use what’s in it. Is that what you’ll do?”
“Yes, Michael,” said Leonard Bair, in a quiet, steady tone. “That is exactly what I shall do.”
The scene, for young Michael, was horribly familiar. It had been repeated over and over, with variations, a thousand times in his life. Whenever he or Lucy would seriously misbehave, whenever they would create a scene with Father, the threat would descend upon them. Sometimes a knife was brandished, held close to the flesh of his father’s throat, when only the smallest movement would part the skin; sometimes it was a razor, held above a wrist artery; sometimes the gun, with the barrel inside his father’s mouth... But, always, the threat was the same: “Behave. Obey me or my death will be on your head. Tell me you’ll be a good boy, Michael, and that you are sorry you troubled your father. Tell me, Michael, tell me...”
And he would always cry and say that he was sorry, that he would do as his father told him to do, that he would never misbehave again. Never again.
But now, in the train, it was different. Leonard Bair’s threat could be challenged, put to the test that Michael had so often pictured in his mind’s eye.
“Take it, and be damned!” urged the boy. “Take it all. I want you to take it! Go on, what are you waiting for?”
Leonard Bair snapped up his briefcase, dipped his hand inside for the green bottle. “Then I will,” he threatened. “I will, Michael. I’ll die, and all your life you’ll remember why I died.”
At the window, her head deep into the pillow resting against the dark glass, Lucy stirred faintly, then lapsed back into sleep.
Leonard Bair moved to th
e small sink, set into the wall of the compartment.
Michael watched his father fill a paper cup with water from the silver tappet, watched him unscrew the metal cap and pour the white powder into the cup. “You see,” said the tall man. “I mean to carry out my word, Michael.”
The boy said nothing. He smiled coldly up at his father, who was swaying above the seats, the cup poised in his hand.
He can’t do it, thought Michael. It’s always been his sick way of establishing control over us, but he can’t do it. But, if he does, then I’ll have beaten him.
The cup hovered in the air near the mouth of his father. “You still have time, Michael. Say the words and mean them. Tell me you’re sorry.”
Michael continued to smile. He waited. Silently.
Leonard Bair lowered the cup. His face was ashen, his forehead finely beaded with silver perspiration.
“I—I’ll give you one final chance,” he stammered, settling heavily into the seat. “I’ll wait for you to regain your senses. This trip has upset you, Michael. I’ll give you one more chance.”
“Damn you, swallow it! I don’t care anymore. I want you to do it!”
“Then let my death be on your conscience!”
And tipping back his head, Leonard Bair emptied the cup down his throat.
And Michael thought, I’ve finally called his bluff. Now that I’ve forced him to do it, he’ll try to find a way out, a way to pretend it was real. It will be more fun if I help, give him what he wants me to give him, what I’ve always given him: repentance.
“Father, I didn’t really mean what I said! Shall I call for the conductor?” Michael stood up, looking frightened.
“No, that’s not necessary, not if you promise me you’ll never question me in this manner again, ever!”
“I promise.” Soft-voiced. Defeated. Head down.
“And you will always remember this?”
“Yes... always.”
“Very well then. Luckily, I brought along an antidote. It will reverse the effects of the poison.”
And Leonard Bair shook the contents of a small packet into the paper cup, added water, drank quickly. “There. Done.”
Things Beyond Midnight Page 9