The Joy of Killing (13 page)

I'm getting chilled. I rub my arms. Suddenly, the pressure seems to drop. The squall winds begin weakening. On top of the blackness is a golden shimmer. The moon is shining down on the storm. Bands of stars appear. I lean out the window and reach for the oval frame. I grab it, and for a moment hang there in the balance. Below me is the garden and the lake-stone wall and the sharp cliff and, barely visible, the inky water below. The blackness of the squall evaporates. An eerie silence takes its place. A dark form seemed to be working its way to shore, sliding in on top of the waves.

I lean an inch further and pull hard; the window gives way so suddenly that I lose my balance and almost tumble backward.

I couldn't say how long the detectives stayed that morning, so many years ago, but now it's so fresh in my mind that I can feel the smoke fill my lungs as I drag on the fancy weed and sense but not see the terrible judgment in my mother's eyes. My father had returned but was sitting on a chair across the room, waiting for it to be over. A lawn mower started up outside, and I tracked its sound as it grew closer and then moved on. The second detective
leaned in and said: “David told us what happened. You didn't do anything wrong. We just need to hear it from you.” Suddenly, I got it: David had lied to them. Told them I was involved. It fit him; he always saw things the way that suited him best, and in this case that meant pointing the finger at me. My neck grew hot. Through the front window I could see a neighbor's car slow as it passed the detectives' vehicle. The detective lay a photo of Willie on the glass table. “You know him,” he said. The lawn mower grew louder, as if it had moved into our yard. It was David, not me, I almost said. His idea. He tapped David's photo without taking his eyes off me. That's right, him. The two of them. Him and Willie. I felt myself nod, and words formed in my mind. If they wanted to know what happened, I would tell them what happened. Starting with the wallett.

“Tell them,” my mother said. I looked up. The revulsion in her eyes was really saying the opposite. She understood that whatever I had done would only get worse if I admitted it. (Not that she ever doubted that I had done it.) The detectives got her message, too. The heavyset one with the river scar spoke: “We'll be filing a report with the juvenile probation department.”

“We just want to get Willie off the street,” the first detective said, “put him in jail where he belongs.”

They needed a witness, someone to take the stand and testify as to what happened. Both of us needed to tell the same story. They didn't care who had done what, as long as it matched up. My mother must have seen it, too. It would get out, around town, before the sun set on the day.

“My son doesn't lie.”

The detective broke a cynical grin. “He's already lied.”

It was over. You didn't challenge my mother. The second detective sensed it, tried to pull it out. He put his note pad away and sat back in his chair. I could have told him it was no use. It was over for them. I finally had a protector. “We can handle this quietly,” he said. “It won't go to court. Willie's been in jail before; he knows how it works.” The lawn mower suddenly quit, and the room fell silent. My mother seemed to look at both of them at once. They were now intruders on her turf. And they knew it. The river scar sighed. My mother walked in the direction of the door. He picked up the two photos and stuck them back in the wallett. He folded it shut, held it out, and started to say something.

“Call first next time,” my mother said. She pulled the door open. The detectives rose in unison, my father stood up.

T
HE AIR IN
the room was heavy. The window was open a foot, but the gauzy white curtains hung straight and still. In a cheap gold frame over the bed was a picture of Jesus with a radiating heart in his chest. A brown nubby spread covered the small bed. No girl. There wasn't even a bathroom in the place. Willie shut the door and snapped the lock. Have a seat, he said, pointing to the single wood chair against the wall. David motioned for me to sit, but I stayed where I was. Willie sat on the edge of the bed. His pale forehead was shiny.

“Where's the girl?” I asked again.

“She got held up,” he said. “She'll be here soon.”

David didn't seem surprised by this. A look passed between them.

“She's a piece of ass,” David said. “Red hair, up and down.” He twirled his hands in front of him, meaning big tits.

I wanted badly to believe him.

“Tight pussy.”

“You fucked her?” This wasn't part of the story he'd been telling.

“Just felt it,” he said, grinning.

I would have heard of this earlier if it had happened. The whole thing was a story. Willie's small, dark eyes darted between us.

“She'll suck your dick,” he said.

David looked out the window, as if she might be coming up the walk at this very moment. The curtains jumped in a puff of air. I could feel the heat.

“There needs to be something in this for me,” Willie said.

T
HE CLICKING OF
the typewriter keys reverberates in my head, as if to remind me of steel wheels spinning over steel rails and to get on with the story of the night on the train. I twist the knob and slip the paper out, stick a new one in behind the roller, and twist the knob again. I lay the page on top of the bloodstained one. Let it go, I thought. There is nothing to fear now, and maybe there never was. Joseph is long dead; you owe his father and Sally nothing. Willie is dead, too. I glance at my briefcase, wherein still lies the article. Let the thin thread snap. I suck in a deep breath, let my chest collapse. The squall has passed. The blue-black sky and
yellow moon fill the window. David, I realize, is a blank. I can't pull him into my mind. I pick up the top page from the stack. As I feared, it is stuck to the one beneath it. I shake it, and it separates. On the back of the page is a vague imprint of blood. I study it for meaning, like a Rorschach card.

T
HE RESTROOM SCENE
in the train is fading. Losing its color, its vitality. The boy seems to be barely there. He watches the girl rearrange her sweater. He wants to want her, but he feels no force in his body. Her glance in the mirror catches him, and he looks away. Now you see what you have, he thinks. You've wasted your night. He looks over at the door.

The scene is stuck there. With him in collapse. Her looking at him in the mirror, with eyes now soft and concerned. I squeeze my eyes shut, let them drift open. I tap on the space bar several times. Listen intently for sounds. The scene is now like an ink etching, bereft of color and texture. It can't end like this, I think. It will leave us all nowhere. It's not too much to ask, I insist. A little peace at the end. I know better than to force it, but Jesus, the boy came so far. I look away from the scene, into the blackness beyond the moon and stars. What difference does it make? You owe him clarity, I answer. He doesn't understand. It all swirls in his soul. The wallett. The life jacket. Even what is yet to come. You mustn't feel sorry for him. The girl understands. I would shake him if I could. I try to imagine another scene, to distract my mind. I see the cold light of a winter morning as we pull into the Chicago train yards. Everything is bright but unmoving, frozen in black and white, like
a scene on an old postcard. “Chicago,” the rough voice calls out. “End of the line.”

The concern in the girl's eyes lingers, but she sees the boy's features have come back to life. She sees a tenderness she had missed before.

M
Y FINGERS RISE
from the keys and brush my neck, nick a rough edge I hadn't noticed before. The tear in my thigh pulses. I'd forgotten about it. I grab hold of the edge of the torn jean and rip it back to reveal a three-inch-long gash. I pull the lamp over to the edge of the desk, bend it low over my wound. The edges of the gash are crusted, but a bright red is seeping out the center. I rip the jean back until my thigh is exposed to the knee, and there I spot it: the old scar a few inches below the new one. I hadn't gone to the doctor for several days after ripping it on the fence in Judy Pauling's backyard. I told my mother I had fallen off my bike. The doctor, who worked out of a house at the end of our street, said it was almost too late to close, but threaded a few stitches in anyway. I had bragged about it afterward, my battle scar, a wound suffered in the unsuccessful pursuit of pussy. Over the years the scar had shrunk some, but now it seemed to glisten fiercely in the light. The new one was ragged, and deeper, cut voraciously. I pressed in on it; pinkish blood spurted from the crust. I felt the pulse again, but this time there was no pain.

I recall that the main character in my novel
The Professor
went about his murderous deed without concern or care. Some said he must have had a cold heart. I agree: Cold enough that he knew
neither remorse nor guilt would follow in the path of his deeds. He was a free actor, in other words. He could move through the world without fear of consequences, because in his makeup there was no place for them to land. I think we secretly envy him his ability to live his life in neutral, our natural state of being.

I'
M OFF THE
track. Night will soon fail. I read through some early pages of the train ride to move back into the story. The boy's reaction to the girl and his first true sexual experience of any note seem strangely muted, as if he's watching it all from a distance, and he can't quite decide how far in he wants to go; or better, how much of it, of her, he can handle. He's in, he's out, he wants more, he wants less, he wants to hold her forever, he wants to be alone in his seat. Maybe it's simply the matter-of-fact way I'm writing the scene. Maybe something is lost in the translation into words. The girl is trying to free him, you can tell. She sees his incompleteness and wants to bring him more alive, and she believes in this one lonely night on the rails she can do something for him. The boy didn't see it that way. He felt the distance, but it seemed natural to him, and he satisfied himself with the physical sensations of sex. He memorized the experience as it was happening, perhaps in fear that it will be lost to him if he doesn't burn it into his brain. Wake up! I want to shout at him. But of course it's me writing it, so I would be screaming at myself. It's my version of how that night went that is the account of it; the boy, were he available, might tell it much differently. The years since have colored it. Truth is nowhere to be found, but that's nothing new. Glimpses here and there, through
thin clouds of dust. He was happy that night. And not just because the girl fucked him. The flat tone is in my writing, and there's little to be done about it, and now that I understand it, I don't care. In fact, I'm pulling for the girl, because I don't quite remember how the rest of the story goes. She is determined, along with everything else, for reasons beyond me, then or now, to lead the boy out of the haze.

What if I had told her about Willie? About Joseph? David? Perhaps she would have loved me for my courage. Maybe we would have stayed together. Maybe I wouldn't be here now. A love that never faded. But what would I have told her? The boy's memories, at least the way I recall, were very vague and not subject to a linear recitation. Not unlike now, really. The past lay like a terrible storm beyond the horizon: something in you is always waiting for it to blow in, but it never hits. There was a moment in the restroom on the train when it seemed like it might. The girl's face in the mirror was gentle and receptive. The relentless click-clacking of the wheels had faded into silence. But I could not find a word to begin with. I looked away, and then back. She was a stranger.

I see now that my fear had transformed her. But in the moment all I could feel was loneliness turning into a raging lust. I didn't want to just fuck her, I wanted to punish her. I placed one hand on her neck to hold her in place, and with the other I pulled my dick from my pants. I lifted up her skirt, and ran my cock down the crack until I felt wetness. I sought resistance on her face, maybe even a little fear, but her eyes were closed.

“OK,” I said.

I lurched forward and jammed into her. I grabbed both shoulders, pulled back and pushed in deeper, hearing a guttural sound from my throat. Her head dropped. I grabbed a handful of hair and jerked her head back. She cried out, and I jerked it back further, until her white throat was arched and her mouth was forced open. I heard the slapping of flesh on flesh.

The girl was waiting.

“Fuck you,” she said.

I grasped her hips with both hands and bucked into her hard. Her head banged into the mirror.

The lights dimmed. Flickered, went off. The room was dark, except for lights flashing by in the window.

“See what you did?” she said.

I laughed, she laughed, and then we both were laughing, exhausted. The lights came back on, flickered, then stayed. I glanced at her in the mirror. Her eyes held mine. On her forehead was a red streak. And a crimson smear on the mirror. I started to back away. “No!” she cried and pushed back into me. Her hands reached back around and grabbed my hips.

B
LOOD EVERYWHERE
. O
N
her forehead, my nose, beading around Shelley's neck, on the very page, my first wife's wedding dress, my thigh, the cat's whiskers, the white face of the moon, and the pavement where Willie had lain. My hand, the palm. Was that Willie's blood I had tasted? I glance at the briefcase a few feet away: The blotch on the handle his as well? Here, in my lost city of refuge? What had I done? I needed the truth of this day, as well
as what had come before, I was coming to see, and I knew that if you sought the truth you couldn't open the door a few inches, let a crack of light in, and then shut it.