The Guardians (19 page)

    "Not
just two missing persons. Two women, early twenties, look kind of similar. Fits
a profile."

    "Listen
to you. 'Fits a profile.' You auditioning for some crime show?" He reaches
for his wineglass. "Actually, I auditioned for a crime show a few weeks
ago."

    "You
get the part?"

    "Are
you trying to hurt my feelings?"

    When
the maître d’, who took our order, is also the one to pour the first bottle of
"Ontario Bordeaux," it becomes clear that he is the only
front-of-house staff on tonight—and that he is the only one needed, seeing as
we're the only customers. This fact, combined with the Old London's velvety
gloom, gives us the sense of cozy seclusion. Anything might be said here and it
will never pass beyond these stuccoed walls. It seems that Randy shares this
impression, because soon he is turning the talk toward topics we would be
better off avoiding, yet here, for the moment, feel are merely intriguing, the
sort of thing you light upon in reading the back pages of the paper and
harmlessly ponder over the morning coffee, protected by the knowledge that it
has happened to someone else, not you.

    "Don't
you think it's weird?"

    "This
is Grimshaw, Randy," I answer, employing my full concentration to guide a
chunk of rib-eye past my lips. "It's
all
weird. And if you're
talking about Tracey Flanagan and how—"

    "I'm
not talking about her. And I'm not talking about Grimshaw. I'm talking about
how we've been here for almost two days now and we haven't even mentioned
it."

    "You're
going to need to be—"

    "The
coach. The coach. The
coach!
"

    I
stop chewing. "There's good reason we haven't brought that up."

    "But
it's just the two of us, in the same place at the same time, for the first time
in forever. Who knows when we'll be together again like this?"

    "I
get it." I swallow. "Seeing as we're sitting here enjoying ourselves,
we might as well bust out all the bad memories for the hell of it?"

    "I'm
not sure I deserve the sarcasm."

    "I'm
just trying to understand you, Randy."

    "Understand
me? Okay, here's a start: I'm scared. Haven't slept a good night's sleep since
before I could shave. And it's only going to get worse now that I've seen that
house again and know it's still there."

    "Do
you want to talk about it? I mean, do you feel you need to?"

    
"Want
to? No.
Need
to? Maybe. It's a lot to carry around all the time, all on
your own, don't you think?"

    "I've
done my best to pretend it's not even there."

    "And
how has that worked for you?"

    "Couldn't
say. It's the only way I've ever known how to be."

    "But
that's not true," Randy says, lowering his fork to the table with an
unexpected thud. "Once upon a time, you were yourself We all were. But
since then, we're something else. We got so good at holding on to what we knew
that even coming back here—even what Ben did to himself—won't let us bring it
up."

    Randy
looks around to make sure no one is listening, though in the Old London's murk
there could be a guy six feet away holding a boom mike over our table and we
wouldn't be able to spot him.

    "What
we did was a crime," I say.

    "You're
the one blabbing about the past into a Dictaphone. So why are you talking to a
machine about it and not me?"

    "That's
different."

    "Really?
Haven't you ever wondered if we all would've been in better shape if we'd just
shared what we were going through instead of trying to bury it?"

    "I'm
not sure sharing something that could send us to prison is great therapy. I'm
wondering if you forgot that part."

    "I
haven't forgotten."

    "Good.
Let's not start forgetting it now. We're supposed to give a statement to the
police tomorrow about being in the bar last night. Once that's done, and so
long as Betty doesn't need more help in clearing up Ben's things, I plan to get
the hell out of here."

    "Isn't
that tidy?"

    "I
happen to
like
tidy."

    We
busy ourselves with our steaks. Hoping for our tempers to even, for the bad
wine to bring back its initial good feelings. We just chew and swallow. Or in
my case, chew and spit a mouthful out into my napkin. It turns Randy's
attention my way. And I am about to explain that with the Parkinson's, grilled
meat can sometimes be a challenge to choke down. But instead I say, "I saw
something."

    Randy
continues to look at me precisely as he had a moment ago, as though I have not
said anything at all.

    "Back
then," I go on. "And then, just yesterday, I thought I saw it again.
When I was looking at the house from Ben's window."

    "What
was it?"

    "Me.
I thought it was only a reflection in a mirror the first time. And then, I
guessed it was only you, or Carl, or Ben, because he was a boy about our age,
looked the way we looked. Except it
wasn't
one of us."

    Randy
blinks repeatedly over the vast distance of the tabletop.

    "I
saw him too," he says.

    "So
it wasn't just Carl and me."

    "Carl?"

    "After
we found Heather. He told me he'd seen someone. Or was it that he'd only heard
someone? Anyway, he was pretty messed up about it."

    "Join
the club."

    "I
mean he was even worse than I was."

    "Worse?"

    "He
held my hand."

    "You
and Carl
held hands
?" Randy asks, as though this fact is more
shocking than both of us confessing to having seen the living dead. "I'd
pay a good chunk of change to have been around to see that."

    "You
had more money then."

    "True.
Maybe I should give up this acting thing and go back to dealing weed and mowing
lawns."

    We
both want to go back to half an hour ago. I can see it in Randy's face just as he
can see it in mine. But now that we've said what we've said, the implications
are rushing to catch up, and they're too numerous, too wrigglingly alive to
hold on to.

    "What
happened in there?" I find myself saying. "What
happened
to
us?"

    "Trev.
C'mon," Randy says, reaching his hand toward me, but the table is too
wide.

    "Was
there something wrong with that place? Or something wrong with us?"

    A
cleared throat.

    The
two of us look up to see the maître d’ standing there, hands clasped over his
belt buckle. A vacant smile of blue bone.

    "Something
sweet, gentlemen?"

    We
must have thought it would be easy.

    Force
a man into the cellar of an abandoned house, accuse him of murdering a female
colleague in the very same location, then stick a tape recorder in his face and
expect him to confess.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Except
I'm not sure even this was true.

    I
know now that you can do terrible things without an idea. You can do them
without feeling it's really you doing them.

    Looking
back, I'm almost convinced it was someone else occupying my skin in the cellar
that night. Someone else whispering in my head, encouraging, taunting. Telling
me that it was okay, that none of this counted anyway.

    
You've
come this far already
,
the boy said but didn't say
. You
don't
want to miss all the fun, do you
?

    For
the first hour or so, the coach didn't answer any of our questions. He just
repeated a question of his own.

    "How
do you think this is going to end?"

    We
had no reply to this, only more questions. Like why he brought Miss Langham
here. How she ended up dead.

    "Maybe
it was some kind of accident," Randy suggested.

    "You're
some kind of accident."

    "I'm
trying to help."

    "Help?
I need Handy Randy's help?" He turned to Carl. "Please. Shoot me
now."

    "We're
looking for an explanation, that's all."

    "Why
do you think I owe you that? I mean,
look
at yourselves."

    And
we did. For the first time since we'd filed down the cellar stairs and made the
coach stand with his back to the wall, we let our gaze move off him and to each
other. We looked at least five years younger than we pictured ourselves. Carl
especially. The biggest one of us reduced to a child who needed both hands to
aim the revolver an inch higher than the toes of his boots.

    "How
do you think this is going to end?" the coach asked again.

    I
think now that if Ben hadn't taken a step away at that point, if he hadn't made
us focus on his scuffling movement instead of lingering on the shrunken,
stilled outlines of ourselves in the dark, we might still have avoided the
worst yet to come. Argued a defence based on the stupidity of teenage boys (at
least we hadn't killed ourselves by driving drunk into a tree, the more common
end for the worst sort of Perth County misadventure). It was the conclusion of
our grim, exhilarating ride. And now, facing the coach's question, we found we
had run out of ways to fill the next moment, and this gap had let the awakening
light of absurdity in.

    But
Ben plugged the hole up again by moving. By rustling through some orange crates
piled up around the worktable and returning to stand within range of Carl's
flashlight beam. A length of frayed extension cord in his hand.

    "We
can use this to tie him up," he said.

    We
pulled the parka hood over the coach's head and swaddled him with rank blankets
discovered in the main hall closet. (Carl wondered if we should gag him as
well, but the coach told us nobody could hear him down there no matter how
loudly he screamed. "And
how
are you so sure of that?" Ben
asked.) Then we made our way up to the kitchen.

    After
closing the cellar door we felt the house seal shut, the air silty and still.
For a time we waited there, as though there was something more to be done but
we'd forgotten what it was. Standing on individual squares of the checkered
linoleum like chess pieces.

    "We
can't leave him down there forever," Randy said.

    "It's
up to him." Ben started toward the back door and pushed it open an inch.
"We'll take turns visiting him tomorrow. I'll come first, and we can
decide on a rotation at school. When he makes a statement we can use, he can
go."

    "What
if he doesn't?"

    "He
has to," Ben said, and started out.

    Randy
followed. I wanted nothing more than to be with them. Outside, breathing the
cold-hardened air, sure of where I was. But I stayed. Not out of hesitation
over leaving the coach behind. I stayed because the house wanted me to. It
liked
our being here, was warmed by the mischief being performed within it.
I could feel the plaster ceilings and panelled walls closing toward me in a
suffocating embrace, the too-long hug of a creepy uncle at the end of
Thanksgiving dinner.

    "Wait."

    I
spun around, expecting to see the unimaginable behind me. The boy.

    "Fuck,
man," I gasped. "We gotta go."

    "
Wait
,"
Carl said.

    He
focused on me. A combined expression of fear and insane amusement, as though he
was as likely to run crying into the night as stick his dad's gun into my mouth
just to watch how my brains would slide down the wall.