Will's Way

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

  “Okay. I’m good for Sunday. If you’re not into breakfast, how about we go out for brunch or a nice dinner somewhere, my treat?”

  “Samantha, honey, thanks for the offer but no. I just can’t work it into my schedule.” His tongue ought to split into two halves for the lie, he thought. His Sundays consisted of bumming around in his boxers, reading the morning paper, eating pizza, and watching sports.

  “So what night are you free?” Her tone sharpened, losing most of the sugar.

  “Honey, I don’t go out much,” he said with desperation. “If I wanted to grab a bite to eat with anyone, it’d be you but I can’t. So let it go, would you?”

  “Why?”

  He cued another damn song and barked, “Why what?”

  “Why don’t you go out?”

  “I just don’t.”

  She said nothing for several beats. “Is it me? If you don’t want to meet me, all you need to do is tell me. I’m wearing my big girl pants.”

  Torn between truth and another lie, he chose truth. “Samantha, I’d like to meet you more than anything…but I can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t.” Her voice cut with the precision of a well-honed knife. “Then why bring me flowers and soup? I don’t need a secret admirer, Will. I guess you thought I wouldn’t figure it out and you could keep leaving little gifts. I’m not stupid. But, I don’t understand why you brought the stuff or why you won’t go out with me.”

  Will segued into the next song without any intro. “I never said you were stupid.”

  “Then talk to me and make me understand.”

  Samantha dangled temptation. It’d be easy, he thought, he could tell her his whole, sad story. Compassion would well up in her heart, she’d shed a few well-meant tears, and things would go okay until they met, face to face. I don’t want her pity and I sure as hell won’t be anyone’s pity fuck. Despite his bravado, rejection would hurt so he’d rather not chance it.

  “It’s impossible. You couldn’t,” he said. “I’m sorry, Samantha.”

  “You’re not sorry enough. I don’t like head games, Will, and I would’ve thought you’d be the last person to play them. I’m hanging up now. You’ve got a show to finish and I need to sleep although I doubt I will, now. Thanks again, though, for everything.”

  He didn’t want their conversation to end this way. “Samantha…” he said into empty air. She’d hung up. He remembered with intense clarity why he hated happiness so damn much. When it ended – and it always did – it hurt too much when reality slammed back in place.

  I’ll never hear from her again, probably. Will wanted to be glad but he wasn’t. And for the first time in a long time, he bought a bottle of Jack Daniels on the way home and drank it all. The booze failed him, though. He didn’t forget Samantha and, worse, he suffered a spectacular hangover, one of the worst he’d ever endured.

  ***

  A day passed and she didn’t call the show. Two, three, then seven days happened without any word from Samantha. Two weeks came and went. He’d done it, managed to alienate her with a good deed gone wrong. Guess the road to my personal hell is paved with good intentions. Will moved through the long nights and endless days on automatic pilot. He drank too much and lacked sleep until he knew he suffered from sleep deprivation. Although thin, he headed toward gaunt but since his appetite had gone AWOL, he seldom ate.

  His ratings slipped a little, probably because his tone veered away from conversational toward caustic. Sometimes Will didn’t listen to his callers and his eclectic playlist shifted into heavy metal. His anger music, he called it, and used it to vent. His rage wasn’t directed at Samantha, though, but at himself. He shouldered all the blame and ached to pick up the phone to fix things between them. If he called her, if he told her the truth, then maybe their friendship could be repaired.

  He lacked the courage to make the call so he suffered.

  And waited for a call he knew would never come.

  Will’s thoughts turned dark and haunted. Despair as deep as when he’d first began to recover and realize he would never be the same consumed him with black lethargy. His nightmares returned and intensified. God help him, he thought about suicide. He considered crime too or leaving everything. He could live on the streets or in a ditch somewhere. No one cared and he could disappear off the grid without anyone noticing. Homelessness would give him the ideal mud to wallow in his self-pity, he thought, or he could wander into the wilderness like Jesus. He would remain there, though, until he walked off a cliff, drunk, or became dinner for a bear.

  What faint light he’d possessed before Samantha stopped calling dimmed more with each day. Will figured it wouldn’t be long until blackness reigned and extinguished the last flicker of light, one way or another but he didn’t care.

  ***

  The first chill of autumn frosted the morning air as he stomped up the steps to his lair. He’d stopped cleaning weeks ago and forgot to take out the garbage, so the place always reeked with a sour, nasty stench. Will walked in, tossed his keys onto the table, and halted in the early morning dimness. Something had changed and he frowned with the effort to figure out what. His nose twitched as he caught of whiff of something fresh. Will fumbled with the light switch and cried out. “Holy shit!”

  Someone had invaded his space. Whoever it had been managed to create order out of chaos. The jumbled blankets and pillows on his couch were folded into a neat stack. They smelled clean, too. Dust no longer coated the television or the end tables. His scattered dirty socks were gone and his ancient athletic shoes were parked beneath the battered old coffee table. The mugs, bowls, and plates he’d left any and everywhere had vanished.

  His next stop was the kitchen. Every counter in the room gleamed bright, free of grime and clean. The empty sink sparkled and his wastebasket no longer overflowed with trash. The stovetop glistened and when he opened the microwave, every surface within the oven shone. He caught a hint of lemon fresh cleanser in the air and when he peered into the fridge, all the stale food including the moldy bits of who-knew-what were gone. In their place, he found a fresh package of bologna, a packaged, perfect steak, a brand new carton of eggs, and several other items. His crusted condiment bottles and jars had also been replaced. “What the hell happened here?” he asked, with more interest and wonder than he’d known in weeks.

  Inside the kitchen cabinets, clean dishes and glassware rested side by side. His worn old pots, pans, and single skillet had been scrubbed too. The floor beneath his feet wasn’t sticky any longer and all the crumbs had been swept away. In the bathroom, all the fixtures shimmered bright and white. The shower walls lacked their usual soap scum and the mirror glistened.

  His bed had been made for the first time in longer than he could recall. His dirty garments had been washed and were stacked in a new plastic basket. Pleasant aromas floated in the air, lavender and vanilla, he thought. This is kinda nice but weird. I need a drink.

  Will jerked open the drawer of his nightstand and bellowed. His whiskey bottle wasn’t there. He backtracked to the kitchen in a hurry, jerked open the set of cupboards he used as a pantry and also as his liquor cabinet. A variety of canned goods, including ravioli, soup, baked beans and tamales, sat beside a few boxes but not a single bottle of booze remained.

  “What the fuck is this shit?”

  The mystery of who’d invaded his space, sanitized the place, and removed his alcohol loomed large. His landlady, Mrs. Frye, was past eighty, too crippled with arthritis to climb the outside stairs to his apartment. Temperance wasn’t her thing – she drank a glass of Mogen David wine every night before bed and downed a snort of bourbon on occasion. No one from the radio station would dare to touch his place. The way he’d been acting, they probably hated him enough to hire an assassin, not provide maid service. His dad in faraway Arizona didn’t give enough of a shit to hire someone to clean the place and his cousin loved his stiff drinks as much or more than Will did.

  Nothing seemed to be missing and burg
lars don’t clean up, he thought, but what neat freak had? Will twisted his lips together and tried to figure it out but came up with zip. Perplexed, he decided to fry the steak, maybe with some eggs, so he opened the fridge. When his elbow bumped the door, something fluttered to the floor. He picked it and found a note. Will unfolded it and read the short message aloud, “You made my day when I was down so I’m returning the favor. From what I hear, you’ve been trashing your show and from listening every night, I’d say what I’ve heard is true. I don’t know why and I’m not asking but I hope it’s not because of anything I did or said. If you ever want that cup of coffee, the offer’s still good so call me.”

  He didn’t need to read the signature to know who’d written it. Samantha. Will couldn’t figure out how she’d found out where he lived or what she’d heard what who but she’d made one thing plain – she cared. All the weeks, hell, almost a month of silence hadn’t meant she didn’t. He’d unleashed a round of self-punishment because he thought he’d run her off permanently, then he’d gone wild and more than a little crazy. His picture ought to be posted under self-destructive in the dictionary.

  Will reached for the phone, then stopped. He wanted, hell, he needed to call her. He wanted to thank her, to ask how she’d been, and hear her voice. But if he did, she’d want to meet and he lacked the balls to look her in the eye. He resisted an urge to smash the phone and his brief burst of appetite died. He did something he hadn’t since he was a boy, not even after he’d seen his ruined face for the first time. Will sat down on the couch, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

  ***

  He roused out of a sound sleep, shaved the rough whiskers from his face, and took a thorough shower. Will made coffee, then fried the steak and eggs. Then he managed to eat most of what he cooked. When he walked into the studio, Taylor rolled his eyes. “Welcome back,” he said in a martini-dry voice.

  “What’re you talking about?” Will said. He made an effort to keep it light and smart-ass. “I haven’t been anywhere.”

  “Back to the land of the living,” Taylor said. “Man, I don’t know what drama you got going in your life but I hope you get your shit together. If you want her, tell her, dude.”

  Being sober might be overrated because Will’s befuddled brain didn’t grasp Taylor’s meaning. “Want who?”

  “The girl, oh, hell, what’s her name, Susanna, Serena, wait, no, her name’s Samantha like that witch chick on the old TV show.”

  “You know her?” Will was dumbfounded at the idea.

  Taylor rolled his eyes. “Hell, no, man. She called the studio a bunch of times, looking for you. We chatted and that’s it. But if you’re worried she’s not into you, she is, man, big time.”

  Where the hell was the god of wine, Bacchus, when you needed him? One damn drink might help him to think straight. “I’ve never met her.”

  “Maybe you should, then. Five minutes and it’s all yours.” Taylor opened the mic and introduced his last song.

  Will stared. “Don’t be an asshole. I can’t meet her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dude, I look like a freak show in case you haven’t noticed,” Will told him. “I’m like a cross between Bozo the fuckin’ clown and Quasimodo or the Phantom of the Opera or maybe the Elephant Man. She’ll scream or puke or both, then run like hell and I can’t blame her.”

  Taylor shrugged. “Whatever. It’s your deal, man. I’m outta here in a few minutes.”

  Will began his show, his wavering reflection in the glass dividing his studio from the commercial production room visible. He glared at it and squelched an urge to shatter the glass. Taylor meant well but he didn’t understand. No fucking body did. Focus, man, focus. He had a show to do.

  “It’s midnight,” he said. “So let’s get this show on the road. We’re taking callers tonight, talking about almost anything with some tunes in between to fill the spaces in my head and yours. Before you light up my lines, though, I wanna tell you what happened to me today. I was the victim of a drive-by cleaning. Yeah, cleaning, folks. Some wonderful person came into my place last night and scrubbed it till everything shines. I haven’t lived someplace this clean since I left the Marines. She knows who she is and she might be listening. I hope she is because I want to say ‘thanks’. She’s an awesome lady and that’s all I’m sayin’. Go ahead, talk to me, you’re on the air.”

  A voice he didn’t know said, “Maybe Cinderella makes house calls.”

  The next suggested fairies or pixies. Although Will waited, Samantha didn’t call. He hoped she might be listening, though. Or maybe he didn’t. If he could, he’d give her what she wanted but providing more than a friendly voice on the phone or an ear when she needed one stretched beyond his capabilities. His show unfolded with a lighter note than it had in recent weeks but Will failed to summon even a tiny smile. Maybe he should’ve called her, tried to explain it but he’d turned into a coward. Facing Samantha and making explanations presented more of a challenge than he could manage.

  By the time six o’clock approached, fatigue dogged Will, more emotional than physical. Samantha’s silence bothered him. Maybe when he got home, he’d call. Or he wouldn’t. Leaving her alone might be best.

  A shiver lurked in the early morning air and a steady rain fell as he walked out of the radio station. Will put up his hood and shivered. His mind refused to think straight, kept being distracted by all the emotional bullshit. He determined he’d stop at a liquor store on the way home. To hell with sobriety, he thought.

  “Will?” His name, spoken in a voice he knew well, stopped him in mid-stride. He tensed, shoulders and back taut.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  Samantha sighed. “I won’t melt,” she said, misunderstanding on purpose. “I’m not made out of sugar.”

  All he had to do was turn around and it would be over. “Go home, Samantha, please.”

  “No.” She emphasized the word. “Will, I know why you won’t meet me, why you don’t want me to see you but it doesn’t matter.”

  His guts twisted into knots made from barbed wire. “You don’t know anything, honey.”

  “I do, Will. You’re not the only person in the world with a few cyber skills. I looked you up and I know you’re a Marine. You were stationed in Afghanistan and you got hurt in a roadside bombing.”

  Despite her soft tone, she held him in thrall. Will listened, trapped and pinned in place. A flash of pain seared his soul, the agony almost as great as when he’d been burned. “You can’t know all of it,” he said, schooling his voice to the same quiet pitch she’d used. “I don’t know what you’ve read or who you’ve talked to but I guarantee you have no idea.”

  “Will, I know you suffered terrible burns,” she said. “I’ve known for awhile now. I knew before I came over and cleaned your apartment.”

  As soon as she named the Judas who betrayed him, he’d track and kill the bastard. Through numb lips, he asked, “Who told you?”

  “I read about it online, first,” she said. “Then after you wouldn’t meet me, I talked to people including Sam, your friend who’s the station manager. I called the station trying to get in touch with you and talked with Taylor. After that, I asked around. I realize you think you’re the invisible man but more people than you think know who you are . You’re kind of a celebrity with your show and all. But, a guy who runs around wearing a hood all year and a ski mask in the winter tends to stand out.”

  Each new sentence stabbed into his consciousness the way a sharp knife gutted a fish or eviscerated a rabbit or squirrel. Everything he thought to be secure hadn’t been. His privacy didn’t exist. It was a farce, a phantom. If he could melt into the pavement, he would. “Thanks for destroying my fantasy,” he said. Although he meant to be calm, his voice cracked with emotion. “I bet you used to get off telling kids there’s no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny.”

  “Don’t, Will.” Despite his bitter outburst, Samantha’s voice remained gentle.

  “I w
on’t if you’ll walk away and we’ll pretend this never happened. Call the show if you want to talk. I’ve always loved your calls, Samantha. I enjoyed them.”

  “We can talk now. Please, don’t shut me out. Turn around and look at me.”

  His refusal wrenched from his throat with powerful force. “No!”

  Another word and he’d break. His body quivered with increasing tension, an agitation that affected him from his toes to his mangled, damaged face. If Samantha refused to stop, he’d erupt in a violent rage or break down in tears. He might collapse but he couldn’t face her.

  “Will.” Samantha said his name and made it an endearment, a verbal caress. He shut his eyes to block the tide of emotion about to swamp him. She put her hands on his shoulders from behind, small and yet heavy. “I’m not leaving until you do.”

  “Leave me alone, please.” His voice emerged somewhere between a sob and a snarl.

  “I won’t because I’m not going to abandon you to your little private hell. You brought me hope when I thought everything looked so bleak. Remember what you told me – ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’? This is my way. Look at me, Will. I want to see your face.”

  As the rain increased, they stood together, his back to her, her voice in his ear, her hands on his shoulders. His sweatshirt became damp, then soaked through. Will tried not to hear her pleas over the sound of the rain but her voice filtered through. His resistance waned and he surrendered. He whirled around so fast he almost knocked her down and stripped back the hood.

  “All right, I will,” he shouted. “Take a look. Here I am, the real Will Nichols, the scarred and damaged carnival side show freak. Step right up, check out my face. It’s not made of wax, no sir, even though it looks like a melted candle. The mashed turnip looking thing in the center of my face, that’s my nose. If you can’t think of words to describe me, I’ll give you some you can us - grotesque, horrible, monster, terrible, ugly as homemade sin, nasty, shocking….”