Freewill (14 page)

“Death to the freaks,” you say.

He squirms in your grip. You turn your face to examine his, right up close. He smiles broadly from within the headlock. Only because he does not know what else to do. He turns just his eyes toward you.

“You want to be famous. Like me.”

He just keeps smiling his petrified smile.

You start walking. Walking him along. Walking to the water. You release him from the headlock but retain a firm grasp on his collar. Leading him toward water.

Thirty yards from the water.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Doing what I do. You know what I do. And now I'm going to show
you
what I do. You want to see, right? Wanna do what I do? You wanna go where I go, boy?”

Fifteen yards from the water.

“Trying to fuckin' scare me, is that it?”

He still doesn't understand, does he, Will? Does anybody, do you suppose? Is it even possible, in the end, for anybody to understand anybody?

Still, you try and help him understand.

“Why would I want to scare you? Why would I possibly care, whether you are scared, or brave, or happy, or stupid?”

You reach the water. You do not stop.

He pulls away from you. “I'm not going in there, ya crazy shit.”

You are in up to your ankles. You turn to look at him once more.

“Good,” you say, and your smile, broad, almost painful, shapes and distorts your words. You don't recognize the voice. “Stay out of my fucking water. Run home to Mommy. It's over for me, but it's just beginning for you. Now
you
be famous. Now
you
be responsible. You're gonna
wish
you came with me.”

Maybe it's the bared teeth, the electric voice. Maybe it's the angel of death authority of you. But he listens. He runs.
Leather coat flapping away, leather cap flipping right off his head. He refuses to come back for it, as he kicks sand up behind him stride after desperate stride. You watch him run a wide arc around your monument. Your own monument now. He falls. He gets up. He falls again. He gets up. He runs and runs and runs. From whatever plague it is you carry.

He is gone. Everyone is gone. The beach is scoured and empty, your carving as lonely as a flag on the moon.

You are once more on your way. You are up to your knees.

The water actually doesn't feel any colder than the air.

You are up to your hips. You are up to your chest.

Your clothes, hugging you tight, don't even feel wet now. You feel protected, like a channel swimmer coated in grease.

You give one last quick glance over your shoulder as you take the first stroke of your weak Australian crawl which will not get you to Australia.

You are not surprised to find the beach behind you empty of emergency rescue teams, or colonies of benevolent lifesaving penguins.

You crawl away. Your crawl your pathetic crawl, and things fall away. Your coating of grease falls away, and you get cold. Sounds of seagulls and waves fall away, and you hear wide gaping incomprehensible ocean instead of articulate shore. You slow down. Your arms get stiff, and heavy, and your shoes feel like bricks.

You stop. You go from crawl, to dog paddle, to treading water.

A rest? Will, a rest? Conserving energy for what, after all?

You love the taste of it, though. Seawater.

You tread some more. What do you expect? You expect nothing.

You crawl away.

Nobody is responsible.

You didn't expect it to be this cold. It is awfully, awfully cold.

Life is a gift. If it doesn't fit, you grow into it.

You remember what a great swimmer you are. How did you manage to forget, what a great swimmer you are? You are a great swimmer, Will. Time is not pulling you under, it is building you up. You are swimming harder, less stiffly. You love the ocean, and it loves you back. You might make it to Australia before you tire.

Call it charity, call it love.

You switch to breaststroke. Your breaststroke is even faster than your crawl. You forgot, how clean and smooth and strong your breaststroke is, even with soaking, frozen clothes on. You are cutting through the water like a small power boat.

Life, being what life is. Somebody is usually there.

A sandpiper swoops down over you, dips a wing, banks toward the shore.

You flip over, float on your back to watch him. He tacks this way, then that. He glides briefly, then he beats his wings madly once more. He aims for shore, but in no great rush, with zigs and zags and zigs to spare.

Your backstroke. Oh yes. Your fine, fine backstroke.

You float, staring at the reflective silver ocean sky, and power up the first easy movements of your perfect backstroke.

You forgot.

One thing, one last thing, falls away.

You were not alone. All that time. You were lonely.

•  •  •

At the southeast corner of the world's best-kept garden stands a dogwood tree which will very soon be a screaming pink riot, a suspended rocket-burst of velvet petal which will compliantly turn from bud to canopy to carpet in appreciation of love and attention paid to it. Planted, shallow but firm, at the foot of that tree, is one small monument in wood. Sitting on the ground in front of the monument is an exhausted pair of old gardeners.

At the northwest corner of the world's best-kept garden, just inside the gate, stands the grandson of the exhausted old gardeners, the son of the man they have finally put to rest.

You are wet through to the bones, frozen nearly solid, as you stand looking all around, and see them. As they see
you. Poking out of shrubbery, dancing around dusty millers, twirling in the mild breeze or squatting in the far corners of the yard.

You feel a thousand years old, crossing the garden in your wet clothes. You feel as if you're built of rusty wrought iron, crossing the garden. You feel as if you are approaching the finish line of a race you have been running nonstop for a year.

Walking right between your grandparents, you find yourself with two hands resting on the top of a well-turned, beautiful blond piece of wood. It is loud, the sound of your clothes chafing your skin, as you drop to your knees.

“Been someplace?” Pops asks.

“For a swim,” you answer.

You read it like Braille. Your fingers lovingly caress the surface, finding each detail so painstakingly laid in for the touch, if not the eye. The initials, the faces, the hands reaching for hands. The breaking waves, the nautilus shells, the shorebirds. The little shadowy somebody. The lonely bare dunes. The summer wind kicking up the tiniest speckles of sand.

You are unaware when she does it, but there she is, your gran, behind you with her hands on your waist, bringing you up off the ground.

“We never really put him to rest, the first time,” you say. “We just put him away.”

Her little hands squeeze your sides.

You withdraw your hands from the monument, cock your head a bit, regard what you see. “That's a nice piece of work I did there,” you say. “It looks good here. I'm pleased.”

Pops struggles to his feet, claps you far too hard on the shoulder, which also pleases you. Pops being Pops.

“We need to get you warm, and dry, and fed,” Gran says, steering you toward the house like she is pushing the lawn mower.

“Yes we do,” you say, and allow yourself to be gently guided through the yard, weaving through the gallery of waving, leering, spinning creatures you created.

Ugly as ever, the tiny bastards. But now, finally, in place.

In their place. In context. Devoid of their spook.

ALSO BY CHRIS LYNCH

Inexcusable

Angry Young Man

Kill Switch

Iceman

Pieces

Shadow Boxer

Gypsy Davey

Little Blue Lies

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2001 by Chris Lynch

Originally published in 2001 by HarperCollins

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The text for this book is set in Berling.

First
hardcover edition March 2014