The Night Gwen Stacy Died (30 page)

On the television, it was difficult at first to say what he was seeing, except to
say it was the lake. It was the lake as he’d dreamed it. A crowd had gathered. There
was the man with the microphone. He was speaking to the camera, and behind him was
a crowd, a stretcher, a searchlight trawling slowly through the water and settling
on a place close to shore, the shallow parts, where the rocks stood up at odd angles
like the ends of sunken boats. There was a swarm of orange vests, circling a bit of
land like hurried animals, gathered around the water as if they were trying to pull
something out of it. Peter stood in front of the television and waited for the camera
to settle on the thing in the water. He felt a warm pulse move from his head out to
each of his extremities.

NOVAK AWOKE TO THE
uneasy feeling that he was being watched. He had left Seth sleeping on the couch
with a pillow and a blanket hours ago, but as Novak forced his eyes open, he was startled
to find his brother standing over his own bed.

“Jesus Christ,” Novak said. “What are you doing?”

“I need a ride to the hospital,” Seth said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m dying,” Seth said.

“You’re not dying,” Novak said. “Go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” Seth said. “You would know better than me. I just swallowed everything in
the cabinet in your bathroom.”

Novak sat up in bed.

“So am I dying?” Seth asked.

Novak was looking for his pants. He was looking for the light switch to find his pants.
He said, “Get in the truck.”

Seth didn’t say another word. He walked to the passenger side of the truck parked
on the street and was already sitting in it a few minutes later when Novak found the
keys and made his way toward it.

Novak started the engine. He began to drive fast. He said, “Don’t put your fucking
head down. Talk to me,” he said. “Start talking.”

At first Seth didn’t say anything, and Novak thought he was already losing him. He
thought he was starting to go to sleep. He reached over and slapped his brother’s
face. He said, “Talk to me.”

Seth’s eyes watered but would not focus. He said, “They’re looking for her body in
the lake.”

So the drugs were working quick. His brother was already talking nonsense, but he
had to keep him talking. Novak spoke quietly. He said, “Whose body, Seth?”

“Sheila,” Seth said. “Gwen.”

Novak tightened his hands on the wheel. He said, “How do you know that?”

“The cameras there,” said Seth. “I dreamed it. I saw it on TV.”

Seth’s voice had started to drone. His head was shifting with the road. Novak said,
“Keep talking.”

“They’re coming for me,” Seth said.

“Jesus, Seth, no one’s coming for you,” Novak said. “We’re getting you some help.”

Seth started to laugh then, a quiet laugh.

Novak pulled up to the hospital and called to two orderlies standing around. He needed
their help to lift Seth from the truck; his body had become heavy. Novak pulled at
his brother’s hair. He slapped his face.

Seth’s eyes were rolling back and forth in his head. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said
softly. He sounded like a child again, the way he spoke to Novak. “Is that okay?”

“It’s okay,” Novak said. He started to think of his mother then. The thought came
quickly and landed hard in his chest: he wanted to see his mother. As he watched the
men push Seth’s body flat onto the stretcher and wheel him through the sliding glass
doors, he thought back to his mother, no older than Novak was now, with her hands
hard on his face. Novak hadn’t wanted to be found. He had shut himself inside his
closet for half a day, curled still beneath a pile of dirty laundry. He hadn’t wanted
to be found, and he hadn’t changed his mind when he woke up in the hospital to his
mother’s hands on his face—two days after she’d dug him up from the linens and dragged
him into the living world of his childhood bedroom.

The night before, he had tried to ask Seth about their mother. Between his brother’s
long bouts of sleep, Novak had gone to the refrigerator and pulled out two beers.
He thought a cold drink would do them both good. He walked into the living room and
offered Seth one of the cans. Seth propped his head up slowly onto the arm of the
couch, like a kid home from school preparing to swallow a spoonful of some sort of
antibiotic. Novak tried to offer Seth the glasses that had fallen from his face when
he passed out, but Seth waved them away. “I don’t really need those to see,” he said.

“No?”

“They’re more like a disguise.”

Novak nodded. Coming from his brother, this somehow wasn’t entirely surprising. It
was hard to see Seth as an adult, despite his size, despite the tenor of his voice;
his mannerisms were the same as they had been at six. He had a tendency to blink too
much when nervous. His posture was atrocious. But Novak felt like it was time; he
had been explaining his side of things up until this point, and now he had questions
whose answers he wanted to hear.

“How’s mom?”

Seth shrugged his shoulders. He took a sip from his can. “Fantastic,” he said flatly
and looked at the ceiling. “She’s starting to act like an old lady already.”

“She’s sixty-two.”

Seth raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been keeping track of birthdays all the way out
here, but never bothered to write home for one of them.”

Novak looked at the floor. The truth was he wrote a letter almost every year. He had
a shoebox full of handwritten letters beneath his bed, addressed to his mother.

“When’s mom’s birthday?” Seth asked.

“November seventh,” Novak said.

“When’s mine?” Seth asked.

“January eighteenth. You turned twenty-six this year.” Ask me anything, he wanted
to say to his brother, as if a few minutes of trivia could make up for so many years
of absent acknowledgement. It was only that acknowledging the passing years at all
became increasingly difficult as so many began to pile up on one another, that his
handwritten notes seemed pathetic, unwarranted, a selfish desire to dredge up a past
that everyone else had already ceased thinking about. He was beginning to understand
only now that wasn’t really the way it was.

Seth said, “Sixty-two is young. Her brain is young, but it’s getting lazy. She’s eating
almonds and berries for meals like a squirrel or some kind of scavenger animal that
hordes things.” Novak smiled, but Seth wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t making eye contact
at all anymore. He spoke to the carpet in the living room. “She stopped working at
the hospital three years ago already, and so much time alone isn’t good for her, you
know, and I’m trying, I mean, I’m trying to be there as much as I can.” He looked
up now and met Novak’s eyes, and Novak could see Seth’s eyes were glazed and blinking
like crazy. “I never should have left her,” Seth said. “I never should have left her
alone, but I thought I had to do it.”

Novak said, “She’s an adult. It’s okay.”

And Seth said, “No, it isn’t.” His voice shook, but his point, his accusation, was
made regardless. Novak had already freed himself of such obligations long ago. If
anything happened to their mother, it was Seth who would consider himself responsible.
Novak was a wildcard, an extra, an other, beside the point. There was no one who depended
on him anymore. He had done what he had done in Iowa because he wanted to be free
of so many obligations, and he’d gotten what he wanted. He was free. It was a terrible
feeling.

He was in the waiting room, waiting again. He was waiting for the doctor, but when
finally a man stood over him, Novak looked up to find a police officer in plain clothes
flashing his badge.

“Jake Novak?” the man said.

Novak stood up.

“Your relation to the patient?”

“He’s my brother,” Novak said.

“This way please, Mr. Novak,” the man said. He began to walk, and it seemed the man
would take him to Seth, but he led Novak into a vacant hospital room and closed the
door.

Novak looked to each of the room’s empty beds. He said, “Is he going to make it?”

The officer produced a notepad and flipped it open. “I’m not a doctor, Mr. Novak.
The doctors are doing what they can. In the meantime, I need to ask you about your
relation to Seth Novak.”

“I thought I just told you he’s my brother.”

“Mr. Novak,” he said again, “are you aware that your brother is wanted by the police?”

Novak had to make a split-second decision. There were two sides to every story, and
in that moment he decided he would stick with one version and plead innocent to the
other. “What for?” he asked.

“Armed robbery,” the man said. “Illegal possession of a firearm. Abduction of a minor.
Grand theft auto.”

“It’s a mistake,” Novak said. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Oh, it’s no mistake, I can assure you of that,” the officer said. “Did you know anything
of your brother’s plans to abduct this woman?” The officer produced a photograph of
Sheila and placed it in Novak’s hands.

Novak lifted the photograph. “Gwen Stacy,” he said. “That’s his girlfriend.”

The officer shook his head. “This woman’s name is Sheila Gower. She was abducted from
her place of employment in Coralville, Iowa, five weeks ago. Did your brother ever
speak to you about this woman?”

“Yeah, just yesterday,” Novak said. “He told me he was in love with her.”

The officer wrote something down in his notepad.

When Seth woke up, Novak was allowed into the room. The police officer was already
standing in the hallway, waiting, when Novak approached. The doctor opened the door,
and together Novak and the officer advanced toward Seth.

Seth was in bed, propped up with pillows. He didn’t watch either of them walk into
the room. He stared straight ahead at the wall directly across from him.

“Seth Novak,” the officer spoke first. “I need to advise you that you’re under arrest.”

Seth said nothing. He stared at the wall. Then he said, “I confess.”

“Confess?” Novak shouted. “Confess to what? You were with me all last night.” Novak
turned to the officer. “He was with me all night. What happened to Sheila Gower has
nothing to do with him. My brother is confused.”

“Mr. Novak,” the officer interrupted, “I’m going to have to ask you to either settle
down or leave the room.”

Seth continued speaking to the wall as if he’d heard nothing. He said, “Gwen Stacy
died because of my negligence. I accept culpability for my error.”

Novak walked to his brother’s bedside. He pushed his hand into Seth’s hand. He began
speaking low. “Listen to me, Seth,” he said. “Shut up and listen. Peter Parker is
a good man. He did the best he could to save Gwen Stacy. You know he didn’t kill her.
There was somebody else on the bridge that night, remember?”

Seth continued staring at the wall, but he nodded his head. He looked up at Novak.

“Mr. Novak,” the officer was saying again, but this time it was unclear which of them
he’d meant to address.

“Who else was on the bridge, Seth?”

“The Green Goblin,” Seth said quietly. He closed his eyes.

“That’s right,” Novak said. “The Green Goblin killed Gwen Stacy.” Novak was making
headway. He felt it in his chest. A small victory, a matter of simple, sound logic,
and he would prove his brother innocent. Somewhere in the city, there was a green
goblin on whose presence all of this could be blamed, some alternate evil force or
deed that could explain these false accusations. Novak turned to the officer who again
had taken up his notepad. “I hope you’re getting all this.”