That
first day back he asked me a question.
'You
think we did the right thing?' he said.
I was
surprised. I had never doubted his commitment and resolve.
'Yes,'
I said - as much for myself as for Nathan. 'We did the right thing.'
He
nodded, he smiled, he looked away towards the window.
I
looked out there too, towards the rear of the house. I half-expected to hear
our own voices from the yard. Kids' voices. Laughter. Someone shouting at us as
we ran from some trouble we'd caused. Something such as that. I imagined we
could even go out walking and see ourselves playing, ghosts of who we once
were, still haunting the back yards, the open grass fields near Nine Mile Road,
Benny's Soda Shop, Karl Winterson's Radio Store…
But
we were gone. The children we once were had disappeared forever. I think
perhaps I grieved for that more than anything else.
We
decided then that we would stay for a little while, that this was my home, that
no-one was going to come looking for me. Nathan would stay too, I would go see
his parents, let them know he was fine, that he'd stayed up north and would be
back before the spring. In reality he would stay right in the house, he
wouldn't leave, and if people came visiting, as they were bound to do, he would
hide down in the basement. Meanwhile he could help me sort the place out, fix
it up from all the months of neglect, and we even spoke of selling up, taking
the money and going somewhere else entirely, perhaps L.A., New York, even overseas.
They
were dreams, nothing-dreams really, but we shared them, and it made us laugh,
and after all this time it felt good to be somewhere where we didn't need to be
afraid of who might come looking. That's what we believed. There was no reason
to believe otherwise.
Rousseau
came again the following day. I asked him if he had no place better to go. He
smiled, and though he smiled there was something in his expression that spoke
of his own sadness. He would spend this handful of weeks with me, and once I
was dead there would be another, and yet another. How long could someone stay
doing this without losing their mind completely?
That's
why I asked him the question, and though I knew it was unfair, though I knew I
had no right to put him in such a position, I was aware of my own lack of
concern. Hell, I was going to die. I could afford to upset some people before I
went.
'The
death penalty?' he said, repeating what I'd asked him.
He
sat down, and as was his routine he produced two packs of Lucky Strikes from
his jacket pocket.
We'd
get through a pack each in every sitting. I figured he got a nicotine expense
account.
'It
depends entirely on whether or not someone is guilty,' he said.
I was
surprised at his answer, and then I figured it as the
eye for an eye
philosophy that many of the Southern-state Christians possessed.
'If a
man kills someone, and he did kill them, and he says he killed them and there
is no doubt that he did, then I think perhaps those who were closest to the
victim should decide whether he dies or not.'
'Hell,
that would be a good deal for me,' I said, thinking of Reverend and Mrs.
Verney.
'Wouldn't
be applicable to you,' Rousseau said.
I
looked up, frowned.
'You
say you didn't kill Nathan, and as far as I can tell there really isn't
anything but circumstantial evidence to support that you did.'
I smiled.
'How would you know?'
'From
the trial records.'
I was
puzzled. 'You read the trial records?'
Rousseau
nodded. 'Yes.'
'All
of them?'
He
nodded again. 'All of them.'
'And
your opinion?' I asked, genuinely curious.
'That
there was someone who should have been there to give evidence and they weren't…
perhaps the most significant person in the whole case.'
'I
know that,' I said. 'That's old history. What I meant was whether or not you
thought I was guilty.'
Rousseau
shook his head. 'I don't think you were guilty of murder, but I do think you
were guilty of something else.'
I
looked at him.
He
smiled, tried to look sympathetic, understanding perhaps, but it came out like
he was hiding something, that there was something he really didn't want to say.
'I
think you were guilty of compromising, of cowardice, but most of all of being
untruthful with yourself.'
I
laughed, a hollow and slightly irritated sound. 'What gives you the right to
say that?'
Rousseau
shook his head. 'You asked me.'
'And
that's what you think?'
'The
only thing I can think is what I can gather from the trial records. I wasn't
there, Danny, not when they found you, not when they arrested you or
interrogated you. I wasn't there in your house listening to what was going on
before or after. The only opinion I have is based on hearsay, second and
third-hand reports, and the answers you gave to so many leading questions
during the trial. That's the sum total of what I know.'
'But
that's not all that happened, and certainly not the way it happened.'
'So
tell me.'
I
sighed. 'Christ, so many times I've been through this… seems I've spent the
last ten years doing nothing but explaining myself over and over again.'
Rousseau
smiled. 'I know, Danny, but I think I need to know. I have some explaining to
do as well, you know?'
I
frowned. 'Explaining? Who do you have to explain to?'
Rousseau
smiled, looked up towards the ceiling.
'God?'
I asked. 'You have to explain yourself to God?'
Rousseau
shook his head. 'No, Danny, I have to explain
you
to God.'
I
laughed. 'Me? What the fuck has that got to do with anything? I don't know that
I even believe in God.'
'Because
you're here… because of what's happened to you?'
'No,'
I said. 'Not because of what happened to me.'
'Then
why?'
I
looked away towards the vague, gray reflection of my face in the one-way
window.
'Because,
if there is a God, he let Nathan die, Father John… because he let Nathan die.'
The
room was quiet for some time.
I
could hear the sound of my own breathing.
All
these years you take your own life for granted, and it is symbolized by
something so simple as the sound of breathing. You pay no mind to it, it's always
there, never even give it a second thought.
I
wondered, in that moment of quiet, what it would be like to hear nothing, to
hear absolutely nothing at all.
I
think - for the first moment in all the time I'd been waiting - I felt afraid.
Truly
afraid.
People
did come over. Benny came the day after I'd arrived back in Greenleaf. He
seemed so much older than I remembered him, and the day we'd run from the soda
shop, the other kids chasing us, seemed a thousand years ago. He spoke of that
moment, and there was something in the way he spoke that sounded like he wished
to be forgiven for failing to defend us. I felt no resentment towards him, I
was happy to see him, but all the while my attention was on the fact that
Nathan was down in the basement.
Benny
stayed for nigh on two hours, and when he'd left I went down to get Nathan and
found he'd pissed in a bucket in the corner.
'Christ,
Nathan, you pissed in the bucket.'
'Hell,
you didn't get rid of him. What the hell did you expect me to do?'
'I
couldn't just send him away.'
'Sure,
but you didn't have to keep him here two hours.'
I
stood looking at him, his unshaven face, his hair twisted upside his head, and he
reminded me of the Nathan I'd wheeled from a hospital in a stolen chair. His
clothes were dirty, dishevelled and sweat-stained, and when he moved he moved
like a beaten man. He took a step forward and slumped in a chair.
'Two
fucking hours, Danny… you know what it's like to sit down there in the fucking
dark for two hours wondering what the hell is going on up there?'
He
thumped the arm of the chair with his clenched fist and cursed again. He was on
edge. He wanted to see his folks. He felt he couldn't, not yet, not until the
Draft situation had been resolved completely. Either that or the war ended.
I
believed I understood what he felt; I'd felt the same way until I'd arrived
back and found there'd been no call for me.
This
reality created a tension between us, but the moments of tension were brief and
inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
The
abiding feeling was one of relief. We were no longer running, no longer living
hand-to-mouth or wondering who might ask questions about who we were and why we
were there. That sense of ever-present anxiety had disappeared. I had not
realized how great an effect that had had on me.
Nathan,
though, was a different story. He became increasingly agitated, understandably
so, and though he spent much of his time listening to the radio and reading, he
appeared always restless. We had no TV, my ma had never wished for one, and
though Karl Winterson's Radio Store now stocked such things I never considered
buying one. For some reason I believed my stay in the house would be short,
perhaps through Christmas, the early part of the New Year, but no longer. Why I
felt that I didn't know, but the feeling was there and establishing roots was
the last thing on my mind.
As
Christmas approached Nathan's invisibility became more and more difficult to
maintain. People came to visit, people called and asked me to go visit them,
and try as I could to maintain some distance it became ever more real to me
that to avoid everyone, to ignore every invitation, was merely to feed any
sense of suspicion that might already exist. The human mind - concerned, afraid
perhaps - always errs towards thinking the worst when there is no real reason
to think such things. Nevertheless, I felt that way, careful, tentative, alert
to what I said, always conscious of never allowing myself to refer
inadvertently to Nathan Verney. So I would go out, and was out most evenings
during the last week before Christmas, and though I would return as quickly as
I could I found that Nathan would be drunk more often than not. Drinking had
become his solution to the interminable boredom. We had spent eighteen months
working, travelling, doing something different almost every day, and now he was
housebound. I could appreciate how he felt to some degree, but we started
arguing, and one evening I returned and found he'd broken plates and cups
across the kitchen floor.
I was
incensed. These had been my mother's possessions. He had no right.
'Right?'
he shouted. 'Don't talk to me about rights. I have rights. I'm stuck in this
fucking place because someone who doesn't even know me thinks I have the right
to die for something I don't even believe in. That's my fucking right, Danny, a
right that was never granted you -'
'Sit
the fuck down, Nathan, and stop shouting.'
Nathan
paced back and forth across the room for a while. His fists were clenched, he
seemed all wound up inside, tightened like a clock spring. He'd worn the same
jeans and tee-shirt for days, and for the life of me I could not remember when
he'd last bathed.
I
opened my mouth to say something.
The
sound of someone knocking on the front door stopped me dead.
'Oh
hell,' I remember saying.
I
looked at Nathan.
He
looked at me.