Complicated Shadows

by James D F Hannah

  That cut down the chances of a typographical error. Which likely meant Isaac McCoy had opted to become Isaac Martin.

  Flipping through the yearbook, Martin was everywhere. There was a game of "Where's Isaac?" on every page. He was in nearly every photo for every group the school offered, and always with this massive smile on his face. He seemed to have legitimately enjoyed the high school experience.

  I kind of hated him already.

  6

  School consolidations had rolled around to Parker County several years back, the product of a declining student enrollment combined with buildings dating back to the New Deal. My old high school ended up converted into school board offices and training facilities while they built a new high school a few miles up the road. The new building was shaped like a tweaked-out amoeba, with the sense the architect wanted something that seemed "modern" and "art déco" but instead looked like from a 1930s Commander Cody movie serial, constructing the concept of the future on a budget.

  Nothing makes you consider your years faster than walking into a high school in your 40s. All around you is nothing but the rushed footsteps of youth and the impatient heartbeat of un-promised tomorrows. You're invisible to these kids, because when they look at you, they have to confront the idea their futures won't be gleaming and shiny, and they may have to settle for less than the perfect dreams they've set for themselves. The curse of youth is you can only imagine a perfect future, so you opt to ignore adults who wear failure in pained strides and second-hand clothing and lined faces and prematurely graying hair, and you tell yourself you'll be different, you'll be better than them.

  Fuck them, I thought, as I headed into the front office.

  The office felt like the return area at a department store, with chairs against the wall, a long counter on the far end, and several women busy on telephones and computers. A skinny kid sat in a chair with his head between knobby knees. He lifted his head up and stared at me. He looked as though he wanted to vomit. I tried to not take it personally.

  The door flew open behind me as I walked toward the counter, and an unstable set of molecules bonded together to resemble a 17-year-old girl burst into the room, blew past me like a tornado aimed at a trailer park, and leaned herself against the counter until most of her torso crossed the countertop. She wasn't much more than a pile of blonde hair and too-tan skin, dressed in denim shorts long enough to make her street legal.

  A woman behind the counter was on the telephone, saw the girl and smiled something that hinted at familiarity and dread, and held up a finger toward her. The girl sighed and spun around and rolled her eyes. She looked at me, gave me an appraising once-over, and decided I hadn't been worth the effort. She reached into her back pocket and texted on a smartphone larger than my first television.

  The woman hung up the telephone and approached the desk. She was pear shaped, with white-blonde hair sprayed into a shape high enough to put ceiling fans at risk. She wore drugstore reading glasses pushed above the end of her nose and plum-colored lipstick that matched her nails.

  "What is it today, Gloria?" the woman said.

  The teen-aged girl finished her text, slipped the phone into her front pocket, and smiled. The blonde woman folded her arms across her ample chest and settled into an expression that said this wasn't her first rodeo.

  The girl said, "I need to talk to Dr. Wilder."

  "Dr. Wilder is in a meeting right now. Can you tell me what you this is about?"

  "I need to inform her I graduate next year, and my fascist guidance counselor won't let me sign up for Advanced Placement Physics, and if I don't take this class, I'll never get into an Ivy League school, and I'll end up at WVU and my life will be nothing but a shattering list of disappointments from then on." She said it all in a way that implied the entire world had gone mad, and she needed someone to set everything right.

  The woman went to a computer, tapped on the keyboard, and said, "Your records show you got a C-minus in the standard Physics course." She arched her eyebrows. "That doesn't indicate a grasp of the subject matter needed for AP Physics."

  Gloria huffed a breath. "That class was lame. Mrs. Galloway drinks, and she wasn't ever going to give me a good grade, anyway."

  "And what makes you think you will do better in AP Physics?"

  Gloria cranked her head around at an angle human bones shouldn't allow and cast her eyes toward the heavens. A smile slipped across her face. "Mr. Garson and I, we get along so much better. He's ... he's a better instructor, and I'm positive I can bring myself up to the level needed for the class. He ... understands me."

  The woman fit her lips together into a line so thin and tight, air couldn't have passed through them. "Uh huh. Well, let me tell you what I can do. I will tell Dr. Wilder you came by, and I'll pass this onto her, and she'll decide the best course of action."

  Gloria sighed again. She sighed so much, she had to be getting light-headed. "Fine," she said, turning the word into a half-dozen syllables before turning and walking out.

  The woman shook her head and said to me, "May I help you?"

  "More so than you could her," I said. I identified myself and told her I was an investigator working with a firm out of the Pittsburgh area. It wasn't the most egregious lie I'd tell all day. "I'm looking into a student who attended the high school about 10 years ago, the name of Isaac McCoy."

  The woman smiled, an expression more genuine than what Gloria got. "Such a wonderful young man. So smart, so much promise. Has something happened to him?"

  "He's missing, and Dr. Wilder might be able to help."

  She lifted a partition in the counter and motioned me through. "If you'll follow me. Dr. Wilder's office is this way."

  "You told Little Gloria back there Dr. Wilder was in a meeting."

  Her smile turned sharper, and her eyes took on a vague gleam of joyful malevolence. In a tone, and at a volume, intended only for me, she said, "Little Gloria also assumes she can blowjob her way through life, and she will find out when she can't, that will be the beginning of her shattering list of disappointments." She returned to her benign expression of feigned pleasantness. "I'll take you on back to Dr. Wilder."

  7

  Dr. Lillian Wilder was what Woody told me later would be considered "zaftig." I looked the word up and when I realized it essentially meant "curvy," I asked Woody why not say "curvy."

  "Because roads are 'curvy,' and no woman wants compared to a road system," he said. "Whereas 'zaftig' sounds exotic, and what woman doesn't want made to feel exotic?"

  "That seems complicated as fuck."

  "Which is why you're getting divorced, Henry."

  Whatever Lillian Wilder was, she looked good. Her dark hair was shoulder-length, and she wore wire-framed glasses. She dressed in a well-tailored turquoise suit with a skirt that exposed enough firm, tanned leg to keep things interesting. I guessed her to be about my age. I could imagine fantasies involving her and being kept after school. I mean, if you're into that kind of thing. Which I am, I suppose.

  She came around the desk to meet me and motioned me toward a visitor's chair as she sat back down. I won't act like I didn't watch her walk; it was the best part of my day so far.

  She said, "Isaac was one of those students not easy to forget. You know those people who command the room when they enter it, but they never overpower? That was Isaac."

  "You couldn't miss him in the yearbook."

  "He worked to have a part of everything. In my 20 years in public education, I've found most students try to push through the system and get out into what they tell themselves is the real world, and there's no convincing them how overrated the real world is. Isaac seemed to understand we're only existing moment to moment, and to go with those moments."

  "Did you have him in class?"

  "I did. I taught English right out of college, and I advised the yearbook staff when they couldn't con anyone else into doing the job. Isaac's graduating class was my last year as adviser, before I finished my docto
rate and move into administration."

  "Have you ever spoken to Isaac since he graduated?"

  "I've had no reason to. I'm not sure what his high school life can tell you."

  "Anything would be more than the nothing I'm working with. I guess I'm grasping at straws."

  Wilder tented her fingers together and leaned forward, propping her elbows on her desk. "The best way to put this, Mr. Malone, is, yes, Isaac was popular, but Isaac wasn't what you'd term 'well-liked.' Those two terms aren't exclusive to one another when dealing with teenagers."

  "I remember high school well enough to understand the process is a shark tank and everyone has a bleeding wound."

  "Let me assure you that in the age of social media, everything has gotten worse. But 10 years ago, it wasn't much better, and for Isaac, there was never going to be a way to make things easy."

  "If Isaac was everything you say, then I don't see what a problem would have been."

  Wilder gave a smile hinting the next thing she said would not be comfortable.

  "We're a rural school district, Mr. Malone," she said. "The kids here, they come from poverty that would curl your hair, except you live here, so I'm sure you're all-too familiar with it. And no amount of education or effort will cause some kids to change their minds about things someone has taught them to believe."

  I listened to the practiced tone of Wilder's words. She'd made a speech like this before. It rang with familiarity.

  "Is Isaac gay?" I said.

  "He was. I use the past tense, like it's changed, but I imagine he still is. Unlike a lot of young people, Isaac never tried to hide it. Again, he never tried to be anything other than the person he was. He didn't work to hide being gay, but it never became his defining trait, either. He treated it as fact, along with everything else about him." She spun in her chair and glanced through the office window looking out at the football field, and the running track that encircled it.

  Several students did laps around the track. Their strides were long and easy, with no hurry or rush in their movements, enjoying the action of running—if you can enjoy running, that is.

  "Did being gay keep him from having friends?" I said.

  "Not in the strictest sense. He was intelligent and affable, and those are traits that draw others to you. He made friends, but friends at a distance. There was a smattering of grief from some students–jocks, or the deep holler kids, or the religious ones. When he was named valedictorian, a church protested, held up signs claiming Isaac lived 'a Satanic lifestyle.' A few students joined in with the church. Another time, someone broke into Isaac's locker, filled with warm yogurt, and a note which said something charming like 'bet you can't swallow this.'"

  "Pleasant."

  "Quite. The harsh truth is, sometimes these kids are animals. I want to believe they can be better, but too often, they can't, and we're trying to make them ready for the world, when in fact the world isn't ready for them. It didn't help who his family is."

  I cocked an eyebrow. "Who is his family?"

  "You don't know?"

  "I wouldn't be asking if I knew already, Dr. Wilder."

  "Isaac's a McCoy."

  "Yes, and there're more strains of McCoys running through this county than brands of the flu."

  "You don't understand what I'm saying. There may be a thousand McCoys in Parker County, but there's only one kind that counts."

  And that was when the light of recognition hit me, and I muttered curses under my breath.

  "Yes," she said.

  She walked me back to her office door.

  "Do you have a business card or anything?" she said as I stood at the door. "In case I think of anything, so I can call."

  I dug a scrap of paper out of my pocket and scribbled my number. "Feel free to give me a ring if you think of anything."

  Wilder smiled. "Certainly."

  8

  Woody and I stood behind his house at his shooting range. He popped off shots with a German-made nine millimeter into a silhouette target. Two taps to the head, three to the chest, and one at the crotch to make a point. He emptied the clip, removed his shooting goggles and earplugs, and we walked over to the target. Everything kept in a tight grouping, full of intention. Woody rarely missed what he aimed for.

  The shooting range was an open-air setup Woody had built himself behind his farmhouse. The ground was littered with spent cartridges from the endless number of guns he owned. Woody believed in the axiom about a well-armed society being a polite society; with that in mind, Woody was by far the most polite person I'd ever met.

  His pack of rescue dogs sat on the back porch, staring through the screen door. Woody and I had enclosed the porch a month earlier, throwing up mesh screening around it because Woody said he had tired of having to share the space with mosquitos the size of ponies. I'd told him everyone liked ponies; he hadn't cared.

  "Good shooting there, Tex," I said.

  "It'll do." He tore down the target and taped a fresh one onto the hay bales. "Your friend is looking for a McCoy of the 'McCoy' McCoys."

  "Looks that way."

  "Wouldn't asking you to stab yourself in the neck be an easier way to watch you die?"

  "Thank you for that round of optimism."

  “False hope has no place if you're dealing with the McCoys. They've been pot farmers in Parker County for longer than anyone can remember, and they're good at it. They've made more money from it than you’ll see in a dozen lifetimes; they just opt to appear that they live in squalor.”

  Back at the firing area, Woody steadied his stance, pushing his feet into the soft soil, drawing his pistol level, closing one eye. While I don't think there's anything particularly romantic in firing a gun–it's all practice, patience and pulling a trigger–Woody had it to a science.

  He emptied the clip again. He put the 15 shots where he wanted them to be: five in the head, two in each shoulder, and six in the chest.

  Woody lit a cigarette. “Story is that a group of Italian businessman came from Clarksburg to talk to the McCoys—this must have been about 1950—because after Robert Mitchum got busted for marijuana possession, it sounded like maybe the pot thing was going to catch on.”

  “Italian businessmen?” I said. “So the Mob?”

  Woody shook his head. “Certainly not. I’d never make that kind of claim. No, these were just Italian businessmen who maintained interest in affairs both here and in Sicily. But these businessmen, they saw the McCoys as the perfect stepping stones into the marijuana trade, and they thought they would step in and take over. They sent 10 or 12 guys in to convince the McCoys to work for them. They drove up McCoy Holler with guns and baseball bats at noon. One person drove out of there that night, with the message that the McCoys didn’t work for anyone but themselves.”

  “What happened to the other guys?”

  Woody shrugged. “No idea. Rumor was they fed ‘em to their hogs. Others said they got buried and turned into fertilizer for the next year’s crop."

  “Goddamn.”

  “The McCoys don’t play. They get left alone because people know better. No one wants to be the next test of what they’re capable of doing.”

  Woody stepped aside and gestured for me to take my shots. I was shooting a Sig Sauer he had loaned me. Despite years with the state police, and a lifetime in West Virginia, one of the Second Amendment-iest states imaginable, I'm not what you'd call a "gun guy." I was an acceptable shot, could get the job done when need be, but I didn't like to use a gun if I didn't have to. I'd only drawn and fired my service weapon once when I was a state trooper, and that was to stop the guy who'd shotgunned me in the knees three seconds earlier. I had made that shot—and the other 14 in the clip—count.

  I moved into the spot, sucked in a deep breath, brought my gun up, took aim. The warm sun bore down on us. A bead of sweat raced its way down my forehead, over my left eyebrow, and dripped behind my shooting glasses, onto my cheek.

  I opened fire.

  I felt the w
eight of the weapon with each pull of the trigger. Watched as each shot burrowed itself into the target wall, and each spent shell ejected itself from the pistol and dropped the ground. Held each breath as I took another shot. I kept firing until the weapon's action said the clip was empty.

  Woody and I inspected the target. I'd put several shots in the shoulder area, two in what would have been love handles for most folks, and the rest in his general vicinity. It was shooting meant more to annoy someone than to stop them.

  Woody heaved a deep sigh. "Goddammit, but you suck something awful, son."

  Even I could handle only so much shame and humiliation, so we headed inside to drink coffee. We sat at the kitchen table as the coffee bubbled away in the percolator.

  One of Woody's latest acquisitions, something like a mix between a pit bull and a piece of heavy machinery, walked over and pushed his head up underneath my hand. He had an under-bite that jutted his lower jaw out a quarter-inch too far, with teeth like a T. Rex and a tongue so long he could lick his eyeballs. He was lean and well-muscled, and his brindle coat glistened in the kitchen light. I rubbed his head, and he made a noise like a car engine in need of carburetor work.

  "No offense on this—" I said.

  "Which all but guarantees I'm taking offense."

  "This guy is ugly even by the standards of the ones you have around here."

  Woody smiled. He had a particular smile he reserved for his brand of strays—lopsided and bemused. He never smiled that way because of humans.

  "Link might be a special case. He's not quite right, so he's most likely a foster fail."

  Woody took in strays, intent on rehabbing them and sending them to rescue groups that found them new homes. Sometimes things didn't work out, those times based around Woody getting too attached, and they ended up staying, hence the "foster fail."