THE LAST BOY (36 page)

“What about someone willing himself dead?”

“Trip, you’re moving way out of my realm. Listen, when I’m ready to retire, I’ll put that on a death certificate: ‘Resolved themselves dead.’ Then they’ll cart me off to Willard Psychiatric Center and I’ll have a nice vacation.” He laughed boisterously, then caught himself when he saw how serious Tripoli remained. “Come on, man,” he said taking hold of Tripoli's shoulder. “Pull yourself together. This is not exactly the first corpse you’ve brought me.”

Danny was so miserable he refused dinner.

“I’m not sitting down!” he said standing by the table with folded arms. “And I’m not eating. I don’t like this kind of store food. And I don’t have to eat it and nobody can make me!”

“But, Honey, you have to eat. You haven’t had anything since—”

“I’m not eating until they bring him back! I want to talk to my friend. I want to see him.” He shoved his lower lip out and then started to cry again.

“But, Darling,” Molly moved to comfort him, but he pulled abruptly away. “I know it must be horrible for you, but there's no way—”

“I want to see him,” he said, staring at the floor and continuing to weep.

“Probably right at this moment he's in heaven, happy and—”

Danny stamped his foot on the floor.“No he's not! I want to talk to him!”

Finally, she got him to sit at the table. She held a glass of juice to his lips and reluctantly he started to drink. First a few sips. Then he took hold of the glass and emptied it in a series of quick gulps. Molly pretended not to notice. She made a melted cheese sandwich and fed Danny morsel by morsel, all the while keeping up a distracting chatter.

After he had eaten, his mood seemed a bit more elevated.

She turned on the tub faucets, put in some bubble bath, and filled the tub with hot water.

“What's this?” he asked, his eyes lighting up when he discovered the billowing mounds of suds.

She let him play in the tub, made a white beard and mustache for herself that got him laughing. “Make one for me, too!” he exclaimed and then giggled when he stood and saw himself in the mirror.

Molly sat on the seat of the commode watching him play.

“The others,” she ventured cautiously.

“Huh?” he looked up at her.

“The others. With the old man. Did you see them?”

“No,” he said, and scooping up a huge handful of suds and piling them on his head. “Hey, do I look silly like this?”

“So,” Molly persisted,“how do you know that there are any?”

“I dunno,” he said, gathering up more suds and heaping them too on his head.“He just talked about them.”

“There's plenty of blame to go around,” wrote Wally Schuman in an
Ithaca Journal
editorial that appeared in the early morning edition. “Had there been a little less haste and a bit more coordination by police agencies, one poor soul who lived in the woods would still be alive today.”

“It's simply horrible,” said Kelly Scutt, leaning across the aisle of pumps at Chuck's Mobil as she filled up the tank of her SUV.

“Imagine being gassed to death in your own home,” said Carla Shaeffer, cleaning her windshield.

“Like a bunch of Nazi storm troopers,” said old Marv Firestein, who had just pulled up in his Jetta and caught the tail end of their conversation. Born in a concentration camp in Poland, he knew what he was talking about.

“The old man was extraordinary,” Kelly raised her face skyward. “He gave the boy all kinds of magical gifts. To see things that no one else can see.”

“I heard he can predict the future.”

“And heal sick people just with his touch,” added Chuck, wiping his greasy hands on a rag as he stepped away from the repair bay to join the conversation.

“The world's going to hell in a handbasket,” said Jeff Potter climbing out of his Mustang convertible. “And the old man knew how to save it. And us.”

“And for that he deserved to die?” asked Carla.

“Everybody who hears about this is simply appalled!” added Kelly.

Carla dipped her squeegee back into the soapy water. “But I don’t know what we can do.”

“We have to let the authorities know.” Marv dug through his worn wallet hunting for his credit card, then ran it through the pump.“Protest so this never happens again!” he said, getting authorization and lifting the nozzle.

The reaction among the cops in town was ostensibly different.

“Maybe the Hermit should have opened a daycare center,” said Ron Weaver, leader of the SWAT team. He was sitting with another off-duty trooper in the dimly lit The Wooden Nickel Bar off Meadow Street working on his fourth beer. “You know, you drop your kid off for six months!”

“How many Hermits does it take to screw in a light bulb?” asked Sheriff's Deputy Wayne Pruitt, who had been part of the assault force. “None. There's no electricity in the woods!”

Tripoli spent the day on his farm. He laid out a section around the barn and then, picking up a heavy sledge, pounded in one post after another, the sharp ring of steel on steel punctuating the silence. The roll of fencing was heavy, and he became bathed in sweat when he unrolled it, wrestling it down the line of vertical supports. He hadn’t labored on the land in years, and he had forgotten how satisfying the simple act of building a fence could be. He thought of the days off he had spent in a stupor on the couch, watching grown men beating their heads against each other on TV.

Lured by the perspiration that dripped from his face, flies buzzed around him, but he remained unfazed. From inside the barn came the bleating and restless hooves of the flock; and when he stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow, he could see little furry snouts
poking through the slats, pairs of curious eyes watching him. As he labored on, unsettling thoughts of the old man returned. There was far more to all this than he could fathom. Who was this peculiar old man? Why had he kept Danny? Where in the world did he come from? The prints, of course, might be the key.

Finally, in the late afternoon, he took a break. He ate a bologna sandwich and had a cool beer, lay down on the couch for a few minutes of rest and fell deeply asleep. By the time he awoke it was evening. He reached for the phone near the couch and called Molly. She was already home from work.

“How's Danny taking it?”

“He seems a lot better. I got him eating. We ate some of the peas and spinach from his garden and that made him very proud and happy,” she said. “He's working in his garden again—and that's always a good sign.” She glanced out the window to check on him. Danny had gathered more sticks from the woods in the back and was building small teepee-like structures to support his tomatoes.

“And he's still angry at me?” he asked, stretching and stifling a yawn.

“He doesn’t talk about you. Doesn’t want to. Or about the Hermit. What's odd is that he refuses to believe that the old man is dead.”

“Maybe it's just as well,” said Tripoli.

There was a long silence on the phone.

“And you?” he asked, finally.

“Hanging in there. Trying to.” Molly exhaled a long breath. “What I said about being glad he was dead. I didn’t really mean that.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“I don’t want to wish anybody dead. And I just don’t want to keep worrying. But if there are others,” she said finally, “then I’m back to square one. I can’t turn my back. They could be anywhere.
Anybody. Not just living somewhere in the woods, but people right here in town. My neighbors. My—”

“Hey, slow down,” he said.“Did Danny see other people when he was out there?”

“He says no.”

“So how do you know—”

“The Hermit talked to him about others.”

“Okay. Supposing there are others. Or were others.”

“Huh?”

“Maybe there were others—before him. Who says they’re now living?”

“Then why would he talk about them? I don’t get it, Trip. What are you thinking?”

“Frankly,” he paused,“I don’t know. I just don’t think you have any basis for panic. You’re starting to worry about things that may be pure conjecture.”

“You think so?” She wanted some fragment of hope.

“Sure!” he said, trying to reassure her.

A few minutes later he roused himself and went back out to the barn. He stretched a section of fencing, yanking on it with all his weight until the buckles and bows were gone, then wired it tight. He moved on from section to section, but always there was that lingering sense of loss and grief and guilt hanging over him, muting the pleasure he took in his labor. There was no way to deny it; he had broken his solemn promise to the boy. They had hurt and killed the old Hermit.

The lingering light of the summer evening was golden and seemed to last forever. By the time he finally had a section of deep grass enclosed at the mouth of the barn, the sun was below the horizon. He slid open the barn door, moved away, and sat down to watch. “Come on, boys and girls,” he coaxed. “Nothing to worry about. You’re home.”

Cautiously, in the soft blue light of the evening, they began to emerge—the bold billy goat leading the way, then a ewe with her lambs. They looked around, sniffed the air. He counted. There were nearly a dozen of them all told. Eleven to be exact.

Tripoli filled the trough with water and gave them a generous helping of corn. He took a quick shower and shave and then headed for town. Whether they wanted it or not, Tripoli felt he needed to be near Molly and Danny.

Tripoli was coming in from Newfield, cutting through the downtown, when he spotted the large crowd moving slowly up the road that overlooked the eastern shore of the lake. He couldn’t believe his eyes. There must have been more than three hundred people assembled, carrying little candles, their hands sheltering the fragile flames.

He circled them, drove ahead, then pulled off far to one side where he could observe their approach without being noticed. He got out of his car, leaning against the open door, and watched as the procession snaked its way towards him. There were men and women, even children in the crowd, and no one uttered a word. Though it was night, the city streets were still broiling hot; waves of heat rose up from the pavement. Without the faintest hint of a breeze, the air was so still he could make out the shuffling of hundreds of pairs of approaching feet. He scanned the nearing cortege. In its ranks were matrons from up on the Hill, laborers in coveralls, punks with spiked hair and pierced bodies, a smattering of students and professionals.

As the procession got closer, Tripoli also saw familiar faces. There was a teacher he knew from Boynton Middle School and a vice president from the Trust Company. Wally Schuman from the
Journal
was there, too, as were some of the people who worked in the Moosewood Restaurant. And there were lots of people that Tripoli didn’t recognize, dressed a little too formally for locals. The women
were in heels, the men in sport jackets and suits. Definitely out-of-towners, plenty of them. Downstate city types.

Tripoli kept to the shadows, watching. There was something about the procession that unnerved him. It felt as if the people in their silence were accusing him of killing the Hermit. Having locked his car, he followed at a distance, slipping from one dark area of the streets to another.

In the end, as he suspected, the long line of people snaked their way into Molly's trailer park, where the crowd coalesced into a tight but silent throng near Molly's trailer.

Someone started singing “Amazing Grace,” and soon everyone joined in. Those who didn’t know the words just hummed along.

“What's that?” asked Danny, looking up when he heard the singing voices.

“Sounds like some kind of religious service,” said Molly. When she peered out the window, she couldn’t believe the number of people squeezed in the small grassy space. The neighbors from the other mobile homes, she saw, were leaning out their windows as well, staring curiously.

Then there was a knock. Molly opened the door to find Wally Schuman on the front steps.

“We’re all very upset,” he said with lowered eyes, his hands clasped together.“About what happened to the old man.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Molly. Some of the voices were now singing in harmony, high and low merging into a consonance that was quite beautiful. “I…we…Danny and I…” Danny was at her side, his head cocked listening to the voices.

“Maybe Danny could join our memorial for a moment? It would be nice if…” Schuman trailed off.

Uncertain, Molly turned to Danny.

“People want to express their concern about what happened to your friend,” said Schuman, kneeling down in front of Danny.

“Okay,” Danny nodded. He stepped forward and Molly followed, grasping his hand tightly in hers. Danny followed Schuman as the crowd parted to let the trio into their midst, then closed in on them until they were surrounded in the darkness by a sea of flickering candles.

When the song ended, there was a long moment of silence, and in the air hung a palpable, rising sense of anticipation.

Molly gripped Danny's hand yet tighter. Her palm, she realized, was wet.

“Say something,” called a voice from the crowd.

“Tell us…tell us about him,” murmured a young girl, stooping down so close to Danny that Molly instinctively drew him back.

The crowd tightened, all eyes on Danny. Molly clung to him.

“Look, it's getting late and I think I’d better…” said Molly, trying to edge her way out. She pushed against two of the young people directly in front of her, and though they tried to move out of the way, the throng behind refused to budge. All she could see was a wall of faces illuminated fitfully by the lights. “Please, do you think you could…?”

Molly began to panic. But when she looked down at Danny, she saw there was not the slightest hint of fear on his face.

By now Tripoli had started moving in. But it was hard for him to penetrate the crowd without creating a fuss. He stopped deep in the knot of people, watching, uncertain how to proceed, how to oppose the will that held the people.

“Let the boy speak!” cried out an elderly man leaning on a cane.

“The boy!” called another, craning for a view above the forest of heads.