Freewill (2 page)

“You're Angela, right?”

“Right.” She is talking to the woodwork. “Hmm.”

“Hmm.”

“So what does it do?”

“Do?”

“Do.”

“This?”

“This.”

“Um. Doesn't do anything, far as I know.”

“So what's it gonna be then, when it's finished?”

You are both staring at it now, as if it were one of those alien patterns in a wheat field, or a crying Virgin Mary statue.

“It already is what it's going to be.”

“Which is?”

We all wait.

“I don't know.”

“Oh come on. What does it
mean
?”

What does it mean? Do you think it means something?

Does it have to mean something?

“Everything means something.”

“Oh. Okay. Well maybe that's true. And maybe this means something. But if it does, then I don't know what.”

“You might not know what. But I bet you there is an answer.”

“So why are you making a pole?”

“Shut up. It's not a pole, it's a coat tree. Just doesn't have any branches yet.”

“Sorry.”

Angela is leaving. Back to work. Done with you.

“I like your hair.”

She stops, does a half turn. “Thanks. Didn't do it for you, however.”

“I liked it better when it was yellow, though.”

“Well I think I'll keep it like this just the same.”

“Do you know what today is? May fourteenth? It's one year ago today Sinatra died.”

She waits for you to make any sense at all. She'll be waiting a long time for that, won't she.

“Sorry about that, but I'm still sticking with orange.”

“How do you figure, a guy as rotten as him, could do something as moving as ‘Summer Wind'? Is there any sense in that, do you think?”

Is there any sense?

Angela shrugs.

She goes back to honing an already well-honed trunk of a limbless coat tree.

She is back.

“So why does it look like a penis then, huh? Why you sitting over here quiet like a monk, working on a big ol' penis all this time, huh?”

Angela is a tad piqued. Not unpleasant. But piqued still.

You look seriously, closely, at your work.

“Does it, you think? Look like that? I don't really think it does. Does it though?”

“Yes.”

“So that's why you were talking to me?” You look at your thing. “Because I offended you?”

“Yes.”

“Well I don't think that's what I'm making. No, now that I look at it, I really don't think that's what I'm making.”

Funny, how Angela looks at you,
at
you, the same way she looks at the piece. You are a study.

“Fine. Maybe it isn't.”

You are looking at each other now a very long time. Nothing much comes of it, though.

She walks.

“See ya.”

“Mr. Jacks. Mr. Jacks, I'm done here. Would it be possible to start on another one of those nice pieces of board in your stash?”

“You're
done
? With
that
?” Mr. Jacks is marching over now, with a sense of purpose. He's staring burn holes in the wood and you know what he wants.

He wants
what
. And he wants
why
.

But you can't give them to him.

It's not as if you invented it, whatever it is, anyhow, is it? Does anyone else know what they're doing? Or why? Do you think that stops anybody from doing what they do?

Take a look at what people do, Will. Go ahead. Look. See if any of it makes any sense. He can't make you do
what nobody can do. He can't make you explain.

Jacks is standing over you now. You and yours. Lips pursed, finger pointing.

But then he goes limp. As if he has played the scene out in his head, he has seen where it does and doesn't go. And is drained by the effort. He knows why you are both here. He knows both your limits.

“Go ahead, take another board,” he says.

•  •  •

Why is it you should do the shopping? Not that you mind doing the shopping, you don't, at all. It's the
why
that nags. That is, it's
their
shopping. Do you have some kind of cosmic debt because you have been stuck with them? Isn't that, isn't this, life? You are theirs, are you not? Theirs?
You
didn't kill anybody. Did you? Did you, Will, kill anybody?

Of course not. So why do you owe them? Why should it be that you are treated like an imposition? What does it mean? That you don't belong? That you don't belong there? That you don't belong to them? That's a shame. That's a dirty damn shame. Tough break, kid.

“Hello,” Angela says. She is half-buried in a survey of the comparative unit prices of Green Giant and store-brand garden peas. She waves a can, then gets back to business.

“Hello,” you say, a little startled. You continue on.

Next aisle, breakfast cereals.

“Hello,” you say, as if you have not already said it.

Angela is walking with her mother and a bulging cart. Mother looks much like daughter, and not all that much older, either. Good skin. Not as tall and muscular. Softer. Walking into a dance, you might very well make a run for the mom.

“Hello,” Angela says, grinning like people do at nuts.

Next aisle, pastas, rices, sauces and whatnot. No mother. Angela.

You burble at her. “I just never figured, I guess, you to be doing the shopping-type stuff, y'know.”

“And I never figured you, to be eating, y'know, food-type stuff.”

Angela laughs first at her own joke, which gives you the green light to laugh too. She's peeking now, and poking at your cart while you look all over nervously, as if she is poking around your underwear rather than your produce.

“What is with all this creamed corn, All-Barn, prunes . . .”

“My grandparents. I shop, for them.” You pull your cart back away from Angela slightly, protectively.

She gets the message. “Sorry,” she says. Sounds insulted. “Didn't mean to go there. Just making conversation.”

You edge your cart back toward hers, offering another peek. Clumsy. Bump.

She smiles. “Thanks, anyway, but I've had enough thrills for today. See ya.”

“See ya.”

And she is gone and you are standing, like a cardboard whatever parked in front of an unmanned display selling old-folks groceries. You sneak a look over your shoulder, catch her rounding the corner, and snap into gear.

She has skipped the next aisle, but you are ten feet of the way up before realizing, so you continue on, make the turn, and start a slow-motion pursuit through cosmetics and toothpaste and deodorant.

What will you do though? You don't, do you? You don't
do
, do you? Do you even know why you are following her?

You slow down. Slow down some more. Angela's mother rounds the corner, looks at you, and you know the look. The I've-seen-you-and-now-I'm-seeing-you-again-too-soon-and-what-do-you-want-with-us look. Fact of life, you make people nervous. You see it, and you wince. Angela, apparently, sees it too. Looks at her mother, follows her line of vision, traces it back to you.

“Hey,” she says. “You following me? Or are you lost?”

And you don't even have an answer for that soft line, do you?

“Sorry,” you say, and busy yourself pawing through the medicated shampoos for old flaking scalps.

You can't see, because you are intensely trying not to see, but you can hear, somewhat. Angela's mother is nervously
asking what on earth you are. Angela is, in fits and stops, trying to tell her.

Might be nice to hear, what you are.

Might not.

“What are you doing?”

“Sorry, Angela. Sorry.”

“Do stop apologizing. Just, like, what are you doing? Are you okay? 'Cause, you don't seem it, you know. And you are scaring my mother.”

“Oh. Damn. Should I speak to her?”

“Ah, no. Thanks anyway. But are you following me for a reason?”

“I'm not—”

“I don't date guys, just for the record.”

“Just for the record, neither do I—I mean, that's not, I'm not like that . . . I don't date, like, anybody, so you don't have to worry.”

“Didn't say I was worried.”

No, she doesn't look worried. You don't worry her. That's good. More than good, that's
it
. Can you think of anyone else you don't worry?

“I should finish the shopping,” you say.

“Ya, so should I. Don't you hate it?”

You'd like to say you do. Just to be agreeing with her. And to approximate the normal behavior of a seventeen-year-old guy.

“I kind of like it, really.” You shrug. Perfect for you, you know. The shrug. Even if it isn't what you mean. What do you mean, Will?

•  •  •

“See, this is what I mean,” Mr. Jacks says as the two of you leaf through the photo album. “Where did all this go?”

You have no idea where it went, or where it came from in the first place.

“I don't know what to tell you, Mr. Jacks.”

“You recognize it, though, right? I mean, that desk there,” he points, madly flips pages, “that corner cabinet,” flip, flip, flip, “and of course these . . .”

These are the worst of it.
These
are so grotesque you cannot believe it.

“What are you laughing at, Will? They are beautiful. You have every reason to be proud of work like that.”

Every reason. Except one. You don't have the primary reason to be proud of work like that. You don't remember
doing
work like that.

“Yes, Mr. Jacks. Sorry.”

But you cannot stop staring at page after page of this garish nightmare that you are supposed to be so proud of. Angela wants to talk about penises? She should have a look at this gallery of freakish penile gnomes so carefully sculpted and hand-painted in loving detail down to the laugh lines spiking out of
their charming soulless eyes. And whirligigs, with their fantastical shapes, improbable forms, and propellers to nowhere. Scores of them, all the work of an exceptional craftsman who must have worked hundreds of hours on them.

Who was you.

Why?

All those hours. All that concentration. All that dedication to craft.

Why?

“
Why
?” you blurt.

Good boy. For once. That's the stuff. If you're going to listen to voices, why not listen to your own?

Alas, Mr. Jacks doesn't get it. Doesn't get why you asked why. Doesn't get the important part anyway. The important part is the complicated part. Is the hard, hard part. It's not Mr. Jacks's job, to get that part.

“Why,” he repeats calmly, “is that, I think it is better for you to keep that kind of variety in your work, rather than what you are now doing. You will advance much further in woodworking by broadening your—”

“I'm supposed to be a pilot, Mr. Jacks. How did I wind up in wood shop? What good does wood shop do for a pilot?”

That is the stuff. Why indeed. Go on, go get it.

Mr. Jacks takes a good long sigh. That is never good, is
it? He leans far back in his squeaky wooden chair, behind his well-turned hard pine desk, looking like one of the important administrators of the school except for the smell and faint dusting of wood powder that is settled on everything in the office including Mr. Jacks himself.

“I am sorry, Will, for what happened to your folks. I am truly sorry, for what has been dealt you. But we have to move ahead . . .”

Do you like that
we
, Will?

“. . . The requirements, for your program, can't be any different than . . . somebody else's. In fact, it's even more important now, that I don't let you slip through the cracks. You are not a pilot, and never were. The aptitude tests don't lie, okay? And the tests indicated that . . . you don't have the skill set, for a pilot. As I understand it, Will, you don't even drive, is that correct? Most guys your age can't
wait
—”

“Surfaces,” you say, stopping him dead. “Surfaces . . . are what I don't like. Doesn't mean I couldn't operate a car or a boat or a motorcycle if I wanted to. I just . . . see myself flying
above
stuff, you know, Mr. Jacks? That's what I'd be better at. That's all.”

That's all. Is that all? You expect he'll hand you your wings now?

He nods. He is good at nodding. From practice, and from wanting to nod, agree, understand. Even if he doesn't.

“The assessment said you would be good with this kind of work, Will. And you are.”

You wait. Wait for what, Will? He said his bit. That's his bit. Do you want to say yours? Do you think he's right? Do you think anything is right?

“I'm a pilot, Mr. Jacks, not a woodworker.”

Jacks gets frustrated, bangs his index finger hard off one photo after another. “You used to be a woodworker. Used to be an excellent woodworker. Do you mind telling me just exactly what it is you're doing out there now?”

He is pointing toward the door that leads from his office to the classroom/shop, where all the other students are most likely inching closer to get a listen. You should run over and throw the door open to catch them, Will. Would you like to do that?

“I don't know.”

He sighs again. “Will, there are four of them already. You gotta know what they are.”

You shake your head. It is a strong move, your head shake. The only strong move in your bag, wouldn't you say?

“Honestly, Mr. Jacks. I don't.”

He stands up. Walks around his desk, over to the wall where pictures of the finest works of wood from the cream of his students of the last ten years are represented in carefully arranged photographs. He looks like he's shopping for
something that he has misplaced, but as everyone knows he spends hours on end going over that wall. You know he is merely stalling. He doesn't know what to do with you. It's not the woodsman's job, to know what to do with you.