Flynn's World (2 page)

Billy said nothing.

Flynn handed the flashlight back to Jenny. He sat on the ground a couple of meters from the boy and the tree.

Jenny stood between them, looking back and forth from one to the other.

Flynn rested his back against a tombstone.

Silently, he proceeded to pack his pipe.

Jenny said, “Da? Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“Anything what?”

“Anything about Billy?”

“I am doing something. I’m scanning my vast intellect, searching for a possible answer to the question I just asked your friend.”

“Da, we must get Billy unstuck. He’s been standing here two hours!”

“Has he, indeed.”

Billy said, “Mr. Flynn? Pretty soon, I’ve got to pee, you know.”

“Yes,” Flynn said sympathetically. “In life, we all must face the inevitable.”

Jenny asked, “Does your ear hurt, Billy?”

“Not if I stand still.”

A well-built boy standing so still against a tree reminded Flynn of a sleeping horse.

Flynn asked, “Are you a member of a gang, Billy?”

“No, sir.”

“Never have been?”

“No, sir.”

Flynn lit his pipe. It was good seeing the flare of his kitchen match in the foggy, dark, cold cemetery. “Billy, you have displeased someone. That’s the real problem to be solved. Before I get you unhinged from the tree, I would like to know whom you have displeased, and how.”

Billy said nothing.

From the ground, Flynn looked up the half-grown oak tree. “And it’s a fine, sturdy tree, isn’t it? I daresay it will live another one hundred years or more. It won’t even notice your ear is nailed to it. When your flesh begins to rot, your skeleton will drop to the ground. Probably the local household dogs will bury your bones for you.”

Eyes visibly huge even in the dark, in the fog, Jenny said, “Da!”

“You see, Billy, someone wants you to make a decision, while you’re standing there; prove something of yourself. Jenny said you love to read history. Are you aware of the history of what has happened to you?”

“No, sir.”

“But you’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

“No, sir. Not really. Not under the circumstances.”

“But how are we to solve this particular mystery unless we review all relevant facts concerning it?”

“What mystery?” the boy asked.

“How we happened to find you standing upright against a stout tree, your ear nailed to it, after dark in a cemetery? For example, did anyone know you were meeting Jenny here tonight?”

“No, sir. Just Jenny.”

“Then someone must have followed you here. And that someone did not expect you to be so quickly found, at least not until daylight, perhaps not until the demise and slow funeral of one of our citizens, which could be days hence.” Flynn’s hand scruffed the dead leaves beside him. “Sure, there’s no gardening going on in this particular cemetery this dead season.”

“Da.” Except for the pliers, Jenny put her odd collection on the ground. “I’ll free Billy myself.”

“You’re not a tree surgeon,” Flynn said. “From your choice of implements, I’d say you have a dim future in any branch of surgery.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Mr. Flynn?”

“Yes, Billy?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to sneeze.”

“It might solve your problem,” Flynn said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“In the days of yore . . .” Flynn relit his pipe so he could enjoy the flare of the match. “. . . which was just after Once upon a time, Jenny, darling—”

Jenny expostulated, “Da, this is no time for a witty history lesson! I’m sorry I told you Billy likes history. Are you going to help Billy, or not?”

“I am helping him—when a miscreant displeased his fellow citizens, they sometimes would nail his ear to a tree, usually on the town square, usually on market day. This, of course, shamed the miscreant, a punitive device not much in vogue in these days of relentless understanding. The villagers would watch him. He’d be further shamed as he discovered no neighbors, friends, or relatives would do a thing to free him from the tree. Everyone would be waiting, you see, to see how long the miscreant would stand there in his public mortification and isolation before taking matters into his own ear, you might say, and rip his ear from the tree. I daresay a certain amount of wagering went on, with perhaps eyes on the clock. Or, I expect in some instances, calendar. By the end of this exercise in justice, not only would the miscreant be punished, for whatever he had done to displease his fellows, something of the miscreant’s true character would have been revealed, to himself, and all others.”

“Da! Is this true?”

“True as I’m sittin’ here on the cold cemetery ground on a foggy night, my back resting not too comfortably against a tombstone, wishin’ I were at home in my own wee bed hammerin’ a pillow.”

“Billy, what did you do?” Jenny asked.

“And to whom?”

“Okay,” Billy said. “Leave me alone. I’ll take care of it. I’ll do it. Just not in front of you.” The boy’s voice deepened. “Thanks for trying to help, Jenny. Thanks for coming, Mr. Flynn. Now just please go away. Both of you.”

“But your ear!”

“My ear’s my business,” Billy said.

“How much longer do you think you’ll stand there?” Flynn asked.

“Not long. Now that I understand. I’ll do it as soon as you’re gone.”

“Tear your ear from the tree, Billy?” Jenny was horrified.

Flynn put his cold pipe in his coat pocket. He stood up.

Jenny watched her father pick up the hammer, screwdriver, flashlight.

“Here, Jenny. You hold the light. Steady, now. I’m sleep deprived. Never was all that good at carpentry anyway. Remember the time, Jenny, I hung the closet door upside down?”

Flynn began to chisel the wood behind Billy’s ear.

Billy asked, “Mr. Flynn, why did you decide to help me, after all you said?”

“Because I believed you would rip your ear from the tree soon after we were gone. You didn’t offer me any lies as to who did this to you, and why. Hush, now. I’m concentratin’. I don’t want to hurt the tree any more than I need to.”

After chiseling the wood away from all sides of the nail, Flynn slid Billy’s ear along its shaft, closer to the tree. With the pliers he then relieved the tree and Billy’s ear of the nail.

Billy sneezed.

“Ah!” Flynn said. “Jenny, we weren’t a moment too soon!”

Alone, Flynn staggered through the front door of his house.

In the front hall, Elsbeth was just taking off her coat.

“I thought you were home hours ago,” she said.

“So did I.” He started up the stairs.

“The twins won the basketball game.”

“All by themselves?”

“Did you get your messages? Sergeant Whelan called, sounding quite cheery. First he said to remind you you must be in court at nine in the morning. I forget which case. He stressed it was Courtroom 9. He won’t be picking you up in the morning. And he said you have a meeting with Captain Walsh at two-thirty. You’re to be fired. Apparently he called again, and gave the same message to Todd: you’re to be fired tomorrow. It’s past ten and I don’t know where Jenny is.”

Without turning around at the top of the stairs, Flynn said, “She’s been with me. I left her in the boneyard, I suspect discussing inevitability with a friend.”

“Oh, and Frannie?” Elsbeth called up the stairs. “The President of Harvard University called. He’d like you to call him back.”

“Sure.” Flynn closed the door to his dark bedroom. “Call the President of Harvard. Sure, sure, sure. Right away next week.”

TWO

“Now, Da. Listen.” On the front seat of the car, close beside Flynn, Winny settled his schoolbooks on his lap.

“When have I ever not listened?” Flynn asked. “More’s the pity.”

“You see those six birds on that tree branch?”

Flynn lowered his head to look up through the windshield. “I do.”

“If I shot one of them off, how many would be left on the branch?”

“None.”

“None!”

“The others would fly away.”

“Oh, Da. Someday I’ll make up my own riddle and you won’t get it.”

“At the age of nine, my son, you already are your own riddle.”

A back door of the ancient Country Squire station wagon opened. The “Flynn-twin,” as they were commonly known, Randy and Todd, climbed into the car, throwing their sports bags behind their seat.

“Ah, Winny gets the front seat this morning!” With his left hand, Todd messed up Winny’s hair.

“Cut that out!” Winny had worked hard on making the part in his long brown hair perfect to his own eyes. “You guys! Da, why don’t you beat one of them to death with the other one!”

“I’ll consider it,” Flynn said.

At fifteen, Todd was slightly more blond than his identical twin, his nose a centimeter shorter. He spoke a little faster, was a little less precise in his violin playing. On the soccer field and basketball court he was also slightly more aggressive than his brother, who would hesitate that fraction of a second and usually make the more dazzling play.

Randy rolled down the car window and shouted at the house. “Jenny! Get your face out of the mirror! There’s nothing you can do about your looks! We’ll be late for school!”

“Jenny was late getting home last night.” Winny was trying to perfect the part in his hair in the rearview mirror.

Behind the steering wheel, Flynn turned his broad shoulders to look at the twins in the backseat.

“Did either of you know Jenny has been meeting with a boy in the cemetery?”

“No,” Todd said. “What boy?”

“I did,” Randy answered. “Billy.”

“Who’s Billy?” Todd asked.

“Capriano.”

“The wrestler at the high school?”

“Yeah.”

“Capriano,” Flynn said. “I’ve seen that name somewhere. Recently.”

“He’s a neat kid,” Randy said.

“What do you know about him?” Flynn asked.

“Not much. Seen him around. Parties. Used to be in Scouts with us. He beat Bobby Wentworth.”

“Nobody ever beat Bobby Wentworth,” Todd said in defense of the Cartwright School wrestling champion.

“Bill Capriano did.”

“I’ve run into him in the library,” Todd said. “He’s an altar boy.”

“Runs with a tough bunch, does he?” asked Flynn.

“Billy? No.”

“A street fighter?”

“No way. He’s smart.”

Flynn addressed Randy. “You object to his meeting Jenny in the graveyard?”

Randy shrugged. “Her business.”

“Did you know they were meeting last night?”

“Not particularly.”

“Yes or no?”

“No. But she didn’t come to our basketball game. So I guessed.”

“How did you know they meet?”

“I saw Jenny climbing over the cemetery wall one afternoon. Billy was inside the cemetery, between the trees.”

“What did you do about that?”

“I waved at him. Billy’s a nice kid, Da. I trust him with my little sister, okay?”

“Is there something you want us to do about this?” Todd asked.

Jenny was coming down the back steps of the house. A hair drier, cord dangling, was on top of the books cradled in her arms.

“Yes,” Flynn said. “The next time I ask you about Billy Capriano, which I expect will be soon, I’d like you to know more about him.”

Jenny got into the front seat beside Winny. “Who put my hair drier in the laundry basket?”

Flynn started the car.

He readjusted the rearview mirror.

The routine: Todd said, “Randy did”; Randy said, “Winny did”; Winny said, “Jeff did.”

“Sure. At ten months old, Jeff put my hair drier in the laundry basket.”

“Boy oh boy,” Winny said. “I’m glad that kid was born. It was tough bein’ the youngest in the family all these years.”

Flynn turned left out of his driveway toward Cartwright School.

Todd muttered, “If you hadn’t spent all night talkin’ to the other witches in the cemetery with Billy Capriano”—he said the name loudly—“you would have been up in time to find your hair drier.”

“Da! Did you tell them?”

“Not everything.”

“Everything what?” asked Winny. “Did something grave happen in the cemetery?”

Flynn looked down at his nine-year-old son.

“It’s not funny.” Jenny made a double-defensive turn in the conversation. “I have to use the hair drier after swimming practice. You think it’s nice coming out in this weather with a wet head?”

Autumn weather: all three of Flynn’s sons continued to wear their school-uniform shorts.

“I don’t use your damned hair drier,” Todd muttered.