Transcription (17 page)

She lied.

Your mother lied so that I would stay out of prison and I would be able to take care of you. Who else would have stepped in? She lied because she understood somehow that the thing that attacked her was simply using my body. I could have never hurt you or your mom. It was the infection I picked up from the cell. Because I didn’t sit down that night and write about the crime, my body acted it out.
 

Your mother died in the hospital, holding my hand.
 

I can never forgive myself, and I can’t let her down. Her last words were spent exonerating me so that I could raise you, and I’m going to do that for as long as I can. You’re almost eighteen now, and I think I may finally be at the end of my rope. Your mother’s inheritance, which is now yours, should keep you financially stable for the rest of your life.

That night, I learned that I could never skip a night of writing. As the years progressed, I learned other terrible truths as well. I’ve left instructions about my stories in the first letter—the one you’ll open after I’m gone. I hope you’ve followed them, and the boxes are tucked away where they’ll be safe. I hope you’ve trusted my warnings that they can never be read, burned, or discarded.
 

I hope you understand why I have to leave you. If you’ve followed my instructions, you’re forty-three when you’re reading this. I hope that twenty-five years was enough time for you to have moved on.

Your mother was a wonderful person.
 

Please forgive me.

-Dad

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James flipped the last page of the letter, facing his father’s signature towards the pile. He couldn’t look at it.

He barely remembered that night. The next day loomed so large that it eclipsed everything else.

He had woken up in Mr. and Mrs. Miller’s bed, rubbing his eyes. He was dressed in his friend Bobby’s sweatpants and a borrowed shirt. Mrs. Miller sat in a high-backed chair, looking through the window.

“Where’s my mom?” James had asked.

When she turned, James saw Mrs. Miller’s shiny eyes. She told him to go wake up Billy and for the two of them to get dressed. She didn’t tell him much that he remembered, but she had driven him to the hospital, where his dad had been waiting out in front of the entrance.

His dad had carried him up to the room, where his mom lay asleep.
 

“She’s very sick,” his dad had said.

“How come?” James had asked. “Did she get sick from dinner?”

“No.” His dad shook his head. Tears flowed down into his stubble.

“Can I talk to her?” James had asked.

“Of course.”

“Mom? Can you wake up soon?” James heard his own voice in his head. It sounded younger than he felt, like he knew it was an act.
 

In his dark apartment, James wiped his adult tears and pushed the letter farther away. Of course he had eventually figured out that his mother was murdered. Of course he had eventually suspected that the murder was somehow connected to his father’s writing. It wasn’t until he read Ron’s story, when he was thirty-eight, that he began to wonder who had murdered his mother.

It was bad enough to harbor the suspicion. Now that he had proof, James couldn’t cope.

In the dim light of his apartment, James looked at the stacks of boxes.
 

They contained thousands of stories. Each one could destroy a family, leave countless souls in agony, or forever stain a young boy’s happiness.
 

James opened the drawer to the left of his silverware. He pulled out a bottle labelled, “Carisoprodol (Soma). Take 1 pill every 8 hours for spasms. Do not exceed 3 pills in 24 hours. Do not drink alcohol. Take with food.”

He dumped the contents of the bottle into his hand and assessed the pile.
 

He scooped the load into his mouth and threw his head back. With a glass of water, he gagged down most. Some pills stuck to the inside of his mouth and it took a second glass to wash them down. They felt like they were moving down his esophagus in one solid lump, grinding their way towards his stomach.
 

James burped and felt a knot just below his ribs. He moved towards the sliding door.
 

With the curtains pushed aside, he admired the morning light.
 

An elephant stood on his chest. His legs threatened to give out.

James turned the catch and unlocked the door. He pushed with both hands to slide it open. The warm air felt so nice. Birds were singing in his good trees. James decided to spend his final moments out on the balcony. After so many years alone, avoiding human contact for fear of the repercussions, he had finally found a friend out on this balcony. He smiled as he thought of Bo. The young man was strange, and coarse, and way too forward, but he was the closest thing to a friend that James could remember since high school. Ever since that day, when he’d found his father’s body, James had felt alone. Bo had intruded into his solitude and made James a little less lonely for the last weeks of James’s life.

He regretted not leaving a present for Bo, or at least a note. Wouldn’t it figure—the last person to show him kindness was the last person he would hurt.

James fell to the deck.
 

CHAPTER 14: BODY

Summer, 1989

“D
AD
?” J
AMES
CALLED
.

“M
AYBE
he’s out,” Bobby said.

“No, he’s here,” James said. He moved into the dark living room. Bobby stayed at the front door. They hung out a lot, but James always went to Bobby’s house, never the opposite. Bobby didn’t have to say that he was afraid of Thomas Hicks, everyone was. The man was a drunk—a mean drunk.

“Dad?” James moved around the back of the couch, where it divided the space between the living room and the hall. “Bingo.”

Bobby was still in the doorway. He took a step forward. “He’s there?”

“Yeah,” James said. He bent over and came back up with a grunt. He dragged the body around to the proper side of the couch and then flopped it up. He tugged on the arms until the body stretched out.

“Is he okay?”

“He will be in a few hours,” James said. “He’s like this every day. Then, at sunset, he gets up like some kind of literary vampire and starts banging away on the typewriter.”

“I heard he doesn’t write anymore,” Bobby said.

“That’s bull—you heard me when I told your mother. He doesn’t
publish
. He still writes every damn day.”

“What does he write?”

“I don’t know. He keeps the room locked,” James said. While he talked, he positioned his father’s arms and legs on the couch. He finished by tilting the man’s head to the side. In his sleep, Thomas snorted and began snoring. James shoved his hand into his father’s front pocket. “Bingo!” His hand came out with a folded stack of twenties.

James crossed the room and closed the front door behind them.

“Can you just leave him like that? What if he vomits?”

“That’s why I turned his head. He’ll be fine. He always is.”

James fanned out the money and waved it in front of his face.

“How does he have so much money if he doesn’t write anymore.”

“He doesn’t
PUBLISH!
” James said. “I don’t know how much he ever made from his writing. My mom had money. As far as I know, they were just living off of that, and her salary.”

“Oh,” Bobby said. Any talk of Ms. Hicks always made him very quiet. He still had nightmares about the night that his best friend’s world had come crashing down. They had both lived in fear for a year, fueled by the self-imposed curfew on the neighborhood after the stabbing.

“Come on,” James said, jogging towards his car. “Let’s go spend this.”

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At the end of school, James found a job and started earning his own money. He stopped stealing from his dad and spent less and less time at the house. His father seemed determined to work all night and then drink until he passed out. James didn’t see a way to stop him.

James moved on, and began making his own plans. After careful consideration over a pizza he split with Bobby, he decided his best course of action was to take a year off. He didn’t get much from his trust account—most of that money wouldn’t be available until he turned twenty-one—but with the earnings from summer work and the allowance from his trust, he would be able to scrape by for a year. Then he could start to seriously consider colleges.

Bobby wasn’t waiting. He was already enrolled in Worcester Polytech, and would start his freshman year in a few short months.

After the pizza, James dropped off Bobby at home and drove slowly towards his own house. He pulled into the driveway and sat behind the wheel. His dad would be getting up soon. Summers were better on his old man—there was more daylight, and therefore more time for him to sober up before he locked himself in his office again. Still, James hated going inside.

It would be another long night of playing the radio and only hearing the clacking typewriter keys between commercials.

He slinked through the living room, glad to find that his father had vacated the room at some point. James slipped into his own room and closed the door behind himself. He collapsed on his bed and caught the magazine as it bounced into his hands.

A timid knock interrupted him. His father pushed the door open and started to come in.

“Please don’t come in here, Dad, you smell like death.”

“Sorry,” Thomas said. He retreated a little and stayed in the doorway. He was propped up by the frame. “I wanted to talk to you about graduation.”

“You missed it. It was two weeks ago.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “I know. I know. Look—I want you to have something.”

“I don’t need your money, Dad. I got a job.”

“Oh. Good. But listen. This is a key to our safe-deposit box,” he held it out.

James raised his eyebrows, but didn’t move any closer to his father’s outstretched hand. Thomas ended up tossing it towards him and James let it land on the bedspread.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” James asked.

“Nothing. It’s just—that’s where all our important family papers are. The deed is there. All the papers relevant to your trust. My will. Everything. If you ever need to find anything, that’s where you go. The address is written on key.”

“Okay,” James said. “Thanks.”

“You’re on the list. You just need to take ID with you.”

“Okay, Dad.”

He should have realized—it was not a random conversation.

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James woke with the dawn. He switched off his radio and let his eyelids fall again. He would get another hour or so of sleep with no clacking typewriter and no radio to disturb him. Even though it was after dawn, the typewriter began chattering again.

James banged on the wall. His dad’s office was across the hall, but James thought his point would still carry. It didn’t. The typing continued. James pulled his pillow over his head. He was sick of listening to the radio. Sunlight was supposed to bring relief from the typing. It always had in the past.

James groaned and somehow managed to fall back asleep anyway.

When he woke again, he saw that he had overslept.

James pulled on his clothes and tried to squirm his feet back into his shoes without untying them. He threw open his door and headed for the bathroom. He didn’t have time for a shower, but he could at least swish some mouthwash around while he peed.

The office door was still closed.

Normally, his father would already be in the living room, drinking. James shrugged it off and tried to put it out of his head.

When he finished in the bathroom, he came back down the hallway, picking up speed. If he drove a little faster than normal, he figured he could still make it in before Mr. Gregory walked the floor. His time card would be a little short, but at least he wouldn’t get yelled at.

He slowed again when he saw his father’s door.

James frowned and stopped. He knocked.
 

“Dad?”

No answer.

“Dad? I’m going to work now. You okay?”

He reached for the handle. It would be locked, but maybe if he jiggled the handle, his father would answer.

He reached for the knob.

“Don’t go in there,” his father said, gripping his arm.
 

“Jesus, Dad, you scared the fuck out of me.”

At least as scary as the arm grab, was the sight of his father. The man was shaved, showered, and held a hot cup of coffee instead of a beer.

“Please, don’t ever go in there.”

“Okay, whatever. I’ve gotta go, or I’m going to be late.”

James darted around his father and ran for his car.

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He pulled into the driveway, an hour before sunset, and put the car into reverse again. He didn’t want to go inside. Work had stretched on forever, and he was too tired to deal with whatever new weird stuff his father had come up with to torture him.
 

James put his car back into park. He didn’t have anywhere else to go. He could stay with the Millers on a weekend, but it would be a huge imposition to stay there during the week. Everyone would be competing for morning showers, and it would just be strange. Besides, Mrs. Miller wasn’t as nice as she used to be. James got out of his car and decided he would watch a videotape. That would cheer him up.

The house looked strange.

He couldn’t put his finger on it.

He’d spent his whole life in that same house, but it didn’t feel that way. He remembered a very different place from when he was a little kid. Back then, the yard was huge, the rooms were sunny, and everything felt joyful. Even when his parents were angry with each other, there was a warmth, a completeness, that had disappeared with his mother. When she had died, she took a corresponding part of both James and Thomas. They were incomplete.