We Were the Mulvaneys (40 page)

His nostrils pinching, at the smell of urine. Human piss so much more vile, he'd always thought, than horse piss.

“Turn off the motor,” Patrick said. Zachary obeyed, and Patrick took the keys from the ignition and pocketed them. He would toss them away somewhere, later—unless he returned to get Zachary's car and drive it to some desolate spot, maybe into a lake or a river. This was one of his contingency plans. “All right, get out,” Patrick said. Keeping Zachary at gunpoint, soldier-like in resolve, he marched him back to the street. In the shadows, in the rutted lane, Zachary kept stumbling, whimpering. He seemed to have shrunken in upon himself, inches shorter than Patrick remembered, shoulders bent and his head at a craven angle. He walked like a man whose legs are about to buckle beneath him. Like an invertebrate prized from its shell, naked, vulnerable, twisting into a coil for protection against the touch of the dissecting knife.

Was it possible, Patrick wondered, he himself would collapse so quickly, so ignominiously, confronted by a stranger with a gun? Is none of us any stronger, despite the heroics of TV, movies? Patrick didn't want to think so. He didn't want to think that his enemy, Zachary Lundt, whom he'd so long despised and in a way feared, was no more than this trembling whimpering boy who'd wet his jeans.

Still Zachary was begging, “Don't hurt me, please”—Patrick shut him up by prodding him between the shoulder blades with the rifle barrel. They were in the street, which was deserted, no light except moonlight and that light interrupted, as filmy clouds were blown across the moon's bright face. At an intersection not far away a lone car stopped for a red light. Patrick half hoped the car would turn this way—quickly he'd discover how he would handle the emergency situation, hiding the rifle by holding it lengthwise against his body, commanding Zachary Lundt to behave as if nothing were wrong. Would Zachary have had the courage to run for help? It might be his only chance to escape. Yet, Patrick guessed, Zachary wouldn't have the courage. Helplessly he'd watch the car pass, meek in the face of another's power over him.

But the car continued through the intersection. The street remained empty.

At the Jeep, Patrick ordered Zachary to get into the driver's seat, he was driving. “Ever handled one of these before?—you'll learn.”

Zachary stared at Patrick, cowering. “W-Where are we going? What do you want with me?” His face was oily with sweat and his glasses were crooked on his face. Though he stared at Patrick, it did not seem that he recognized him; terror had blinded him. “Please let me go! Don't hurt me! My parents are waiting at home for me! They'll give you anything you want—they'll pay you anything you want—oh please, sir—
please
—”

Patrick said contemptuously, “I've got other plans for you. Rapist.”

 

How many times, countless times since October he'd heard the voices. His, and his enemy's.

Say it: I'm a rapist.

I'm a—rapist.

Say it: I deserve to be punished.

I—deserve to be punished.

Say it: I deserve death.

And here Zachary Lundt would stare at him speechless. In knowledge of what was to come: his just punishment.

Beyond that, however, the vision was unclear. Patrick wasn't sure where it might lead.
The knife. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
But possibly just his fists, he'd never used his fists against any person, a few times in exasperation shoving at his older brother Mike who'd shoved him, much harder, back, but never his fists, not Patrick Mulvaney. Yet he might—he would—how badly he wanted to!—strike his enemy, smash his enemy's mouth. Malicious grinning mouth he'd seen in the corner of his eye, how many times in the corridors of the high school, on the stairs, in the locker room, Zach Lundt and his friends, yes and other guys too, hinting of “Button” daringly in Patrick's presence, punching one another's biceps in glee, bursting into ribald jeering laughter. Almost out of earshot the coarse voices
Look she asked for it, drunk out of her mind and all over Zach begging for it, got what she deserves she was drunk trying now to blame Zach but we were there, we saw
unless Patrick imagined them, in his pride bearing himself tall, impervious to the presence of such others, inferior in every way to a Mulvaney. But he had not imagined the ugly drawings and block letters MM: MARYANN MULVANY. MMMMM SUCKS COCK. He had not imagined these, or his deep abiding shame, valedictorian of the Class of 1976, scholarship to Cornell, state science prize, aren't we hot shit his classmates murmured of him, laughing behind their hands.
Mulvaney, Mulvaney—look, he's a Mulvaney.

In a rage, in his dream he'd begin to beat Zachary Lundt, as Zachary fell to the floor he'd kick him, kick him with booted feet, heard the crack of bone, the cartilage of the nose, saw the bright blood—but immediately the vision began to fade. As soon as he touched his enemy, the vision began to fade. Like a dream of what-ever ferocious intensity, dissipating upon waking, dissolving even as the dreamer tries to retain it, with what yearning, what hunger.

On the way into the country, north on Route 58, and following the Yewville River, as terrified Zachary Lundt drove the Jeep un-steadily, between thirty and thirty-five miles an hour, Patrick thought of such things.
Executing justice. At last. He deserves—all I can give him.
Patrick had to force himself. His rage at Zachary Lundt seemed to have faded. Almost, he felt sorry for Zachary. How beaten, how defeated! Crotch of his jeans dark with piss. The smell of it. His backbone curved, teeth chattering.
He's already been punished, exposed
a voice advised Patrick. But this was not Patrick's plan.

He would not, he vowed
he would not
be deterred from his plan.

His plan how like an artwork he'd created, out of his guts, the anguish of his Mulvaney pride. He, Patrick, fussy P.J., intolerant touch-me-not Pinch his family had loved to tease, gazing in rapt fascination at the German woodcut of the huntsman he'd affixed to the wall of his room. The tall handsome manly blond youth with his rifle lifted to his shoulder, aiming at a magnificent black-curly ram with extraordinary horns. The finely drawn mountains, clouds that seemed somehow alive, quivering grasses, hidden hare in the foreground, all of Nature a setting for that moment when the huntsman pulled the trigger of his rifle—or did not pull it. In adolescent ardor Patrick stared, stared. He had never understood the riddle of the drawing and he had never understood why he seemed to care so much about it.

Signs flashed by in the darkness, illuminated by the Jeep's bright headlights—
SLOW CURVE
35 mph—
STEEP GRADE TRUCKS USE LOWER GEAR
—
YEWVILLE
65 mi. They were about ten miles north of Mt. Ephraim. To the right the Yewville River was dark, near-invisible behind dense banks of trees. This was not an area Patrick Mulvaney knew well yet unhesitating he'd instructed Zachary Lundt to drive north on Route 58.
Chance follows design.
Yet how much more readily than Patrick had imagined. Those many weeks of running in Ithaca, in air so cold it pained his lungs, as if preparing himself for an extraordinary test of strength, he'd believed his enemy would be cunning, dangerous, a match for him. He could not have guessed that the abduction would be so easy. Zachary Lundt who'd had such power over him, and over Marianne, ruining the happiness of their lives, so unresisting! It was as if Patrick had strode up to a door and knocked on it, hard, and—the door swung open.

Both the Jeep's front windows were rolled down, chill fresh air rushed in, to dissipate Zachary Lundt's stink. Panic-stink, not just urine but sweat. Oily beads of sweat rolled down his narrow face. Yet Zachary seemed to be trembling less now, he'd entered a secondary state of terror, a suspension of logic. In childlike obedience to his captor he sat gripping the steering wheel tight, his hands near the top of the wheel, leaning far forward and squinting out the windshield in a pose of utter unswerving concentration. Without hesitation he'd followed each of Patrick's commands, driving them out of Mt. Ephraim and into the countryside. Patrick was sitting with his back against the passenger's locked door, the rifle in his lap, aimed at Zachary Lundt's head. The dead-white face, beaky nose, slightly receding chin.
He thinks if he obeys me he won't be hurt
Patrick thought. The thought revolted him as if it were an acknowledgment of his own weakness.

Patrick said, “Up there, that gravel road, see?—turn off.”

Zachary did as he was told. Braked the Jeep carefully, slowed
and put on the turn signal
turning off the highway onto a badly puddled gravel road hardly wider than a cow path, leading into the wilderness. Where did he think he was being taken? What could he envision for himself that would not be disastrous, in such desolation, alone with an armed man? Yet he did as Patrick instructed. Murmuring what sounded like
Yes, yes sir
. Like an animal hypnotized by its predator, a rodent about to be swallowed by a boa constrictor, putting up no resistance to its fate. As if the throbbing protoplasmic life of the prey had already been assimilated by the life of the predator, in allegiance with its terrible hunger.

Patrick thought
I won't weaken
.
I won't be deterred.

The bog. The dying trees denuded of leaves, peeling bark the color of damp newsprint. Smell of rot, sewage. It was only mid-April and so the teeming thrumming life of the bog had not yet begun yet there was an atmosphere of density, crowdedness; as if invisible, ravenous shapes, all mouth and gullet, hovered near. How quickly a body would decompose here, Patrick thought. It was the first he'd had this thought.

“Do you know where this is?” Patrick asked, almost casually. He didn't want his deep guttural voice to weaken, with excitement. He didn't want to sound like a college kid, a boy Zachary Lundt's age. “Do you know who I am?” But Zachary seemed not to hear. All his concentration went into driving: wincing as the Jeep, even with its shock-absorber tires, lurched and bucked. “I know who you are—Zachary Lundt. That's why you're here.”

The Jeep continued, slower and slower, until the gravel road became a spit of muddy land between stretches of bog and Patrick said, poking Zachary's shoulder with the rifle barrel as if to wake him, “Shut off the motor, we're here.”

Zachary did so. Patrick pocketed the keys. It was very quiet now that the Jeep's motor was turned off and in that quiet Zachary had begun to cry again, softly.

The Jeep's headlights were still on, illuminating a cattail-choked marsh that stretched into darkness punctuated by slivers of light reflected in water. Patrick climbed out of the Jeep and switched on the flashlight. “Get out. Don't look back, Lundt, just
walk
.”

Zachary climbed down uncertainly from the Jeep. He was sobbing, wiping his face on his sleeve. He whispered, “No, please—don't make me—”

“
Walk.
If you can get to the other side, you can live.”

Was there another side? The headlights, Patrick's flashlight, the mottled light of the moon seemed to illuminate the same expanse of bog, replicated out of sight.

“W-Why? Why are you doing this to me? I don't know you—”

“You know me, sure you do.”

“I—I don't. Please—”

“Rapist. Raped my sister. Now you know.”

“Your sister? Who—”

“Now you know!”

“I never—never raped—Who?”

“There've been so many, is that it? So many girls?”

“No—”

Patrick began shouting, “Just
walk
, Lundt. You son of a bitch, you filthy bastard, ruining people's lives, a coward like you, filth like you, you don't deserve to live, you're filth and you belong in filth,
get going I said
.” Patrick jabbed Zachary between the shoulder blades with the gun barrel, forcing him forward into the bog where he stumbled, whimpering as if desperate now to escape. Up to his ankles in the soft black muck, then to his knees. It was cold: his breath steamed. Patrick shouted at him, cursed—“You bastard, keep going! Don't look back or I'll blow your head off.” He watched as, about fifteen feet out, lunging forward, Zachary fell; trying then like a frenzied animal to crawl forward through thistles, reeds, cattails. Patrick heard bubbles softly popping, the black muck stirred to life, sucking at Zachary. Was it possible, as in his nightmare? The bog was quicksand? Zachary's terrified voice was barely audible. “Help!—help me—”

Patrick cried, raising the gun, “Help yourself, you son of a bitch! Rapist!”

Elsewhere, the bog was still, silent. A faint wind through the trees, what remained of the trees. Bearing an odor of rot.

Beginning to slant in the sky, the bright moon, mad-glaring moon, past which strips of filmy cloud were blown.