The Boy in the Park: The gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by A J Grayson

  As his chest dances with its spasms and convulsions, though, my own heart starts to squeeze with dread. Whatever its cause, something is wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. I see Greg crumbling and I am overcome with sudden fear. Fear inside. Fear everywhere. We’re going to be found out. We’re guilty. We’re never going to get away. I know in an instant that I’m panicked for him, but I’m overwhelmed for us.

  His body hitting the floor causes me a strange pain. I can almost feel the impact in my own flesh; there where his shoulder hits the wood, I sense a blow. I can’t let him die … I’m suddenly convinced that Greg is going to die. The world is ending and Greg is going to die. But I feel a personal attachment to him now. It happened quickly, but it’s real. We’re not strangers any longer.

  Since I know with this absolute certainty that Greg is close to death, I act on my conviction. I have to save him. I can’t lose him. Not again. The words blaze through my mind, though even as they come I don’t know what they mean.

  I fling myself off my bar-stool and lunge down into the floor after him. His body is writhing. I don’t know what to do, but I know that every movie I’ve ever seen with a scene like this involves someone giving CPR to the person on the ground, and that seems like the sensible action to take. I’ve never been trained in the skill, but it can’t be that complicated. I understand the basics. I place my hands over each other and begin to press them into his chest. I space out the compressions by counting the way I used to do as a child: One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi …

  There is yelling around me now, yelling as if people in the bar are upset with me. Disgusted. I don’t understand, but I won’t be deterred. I think I’m doing what’s right. I feel my chest constricting, my heart racing.

  I don’t get to my fourth compression before I’m wrested away from Greg’s body. I’m not sure how it happens. Isn’t that the very strangest thing? One second I’m there, about to rescue my friend, providing him with life-saving aid, and a second later I’m off to the side, watching. I don’t think a hand has pulled me here. I really don’t understand what’s happening—

  I’m suddenly overcome with a new emotion. The crowd has surrounded Greg on the floor, and all at once they look ominous. I don’t know why for an instant I feel far from him, but I’m abruptly certain their motives aren’t good. None of them are doing CPR. No one is trying to save him, or even help. They’re just looming, sinister. One of them is in a uniform, and he looks the most sinister of all.

  Now there is motion again, and my alert is heightened. An enormous bouncer is moving in from the doorway, bulky and lumbering. His face is red and angry and his eyes narrowed with intensity. I can’t explain why, but I’m convinced his intentions are foul and I feel an uncontrollable urge to stop him before he gets to Greg. To fend him off before he can harm my friend.

  I do the only thing that makes sense. I’m scrawny, yes, but a man has to do what a man has to do. I swing at the bouncer with all my strength. My knuckles are in a tight fist when they collide with the side of his face, and I try to push all my body weight into the punch. It’s the only time I can ever remember hitting a man. I hope I’m doing it right.

  The blow has absolutely no physical effect on him. I’m a fly batting at the thick hide of a horse. But it does alter the focus of his attention and he turns from Greg to me. I think that for an instant I realize what he’s going to do, but I have no time to contemplate it. His bulky arm moves, and the fist that swings into my face is like an iron cannon. I’m on the floor in an instant: none of that shake-it-off-and-swing-back magic of action films. One punch and I am levelled. Levelled until consciousness returns, and I have no idea how long that takes.

  As I come to the bouncer is no longer in front of me. I think I’ve been left alone. The floor stinks of stale beer. My head is exploding.

  I loll my head to the side and try to get a look at Joseph. The whole right side of my face feels like it’s been tenderized. It’s hard to move, but I want to see him. I want to know he’s okay. And then, through legs and feet, I catch sight of him. Joseph is still surrounded by the throng of people. He’s writhing, but for an instant he turns his head towards me.

  His face is marked with a massive bruise. The last image in my mind as I black out is that wound on his face. It’s in the very spot where my own face aches, where the blow I just took had landed.

  69

  Monday Evening

  I’m awake. Conscious. How long have I been out? Am I still here?

  I try to look around me, to take in my surroundings. Above me the scene is surreal. There are neon signs. Big hats. A leather riding crop on the wall. Cigarette smoke in the air. The images don’t make sense. This isn’t San Francisco. I’ve never seen such big hats in San Francisco.

  I try to move, but something is constraining my motion. I think I’m on the ground. On my back. That explains the strange perspective. There is pressure on my chest, like there is a foot or a brick on my ribcage.

  I feel detached from myself. Did I lose consciousness? Did I black out?

  But the feeling is deeper than that. Something within me has … I can’t find the right words. Something isn’t right. I feel broken. I can’t figure out who or what I am.

  It’s the strangest feeling, not to know who or what you are.

  I blink, and my vision changes. No, I’m not on the floor. I’m standing at the side of the room. Of course I am. I wouldn’t be on the floor, that’s a foolish place to be. I look down, though, and see myself on the ground, surrounded by a small mob. I don’t recognize myself at first – I can’t remember ever seeing myself in this way, looking on like an outside observer. It’s as if I’m peering through a camera mounted on the wall, beholding a recording of myself.

  No, I’m mistaken again. It isn’t me. I know who it is. It’s the one called Joseph. Or Greg. Yes, it’s him on the floor, not me. We came here together, I think. Yes, that’s right. We were in a car, then a hotel, then here. It’s him, not me. It wouldn’t be me. I’m not the kind of person who can do what Joseph did.

  I can’t remember what Joseph did. For a moment I feel like I should, like his actions should mean something to me and I should have them emblazoned in my consciousness. I think it was something terrible. Maybe that’s why I’m lying there on the floor like that. That is, if it’s me on the floor and not Joseph. Or Greg.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been here or how long I’ve been thinking these thoughts, but it seems like the police arrive extraordinarily quickly. They’re bursting through the front door. Yes, that’s the right poetic phrase. One launches through a window but bursts through a door. That’s what these men do. But maybe they’re not police, after all. They are forceful men with stern faces and large letters on their jackets, bold yellow on black: FBI. Ah, that explains it. The FBI are definitely the sort of people who would burst through doors.

  There are guns drawn, and I can feel my insides churn. I’ve sometimes wondered what it would feel like to have a gun pointed at me – what my reaction would be. In films people usually cower in a kind of whimpering, emasculated terror, begging for mercy and making promises … but then, as I wonder, I think I’ve had a gun in my face before. That I probably didn’t react like that. But why would I have had a gun in my face? It’s not as if I live a life of—

  The FBI men’s march is towards me, and suddenly I suffer intense fear. Do you know what it’s like to feel threatened? To suddenly be convinced of your own imminent demise? One doesn’t think rationally or ponder one’s moves. Instinct drives me and I make to lunge for these men, these intruders – but no, no, it’s Joseph again, not me. He’s the one doing the lunging. It’s hazy, my head hurts, and I’m confused. Joseph is lunging, but I am moving, that much I do know.

  Two shots are fired. Warnings, I think, at my, or his, or our, feet. God, it’s confusing. The small throng of people from the bar back away and the jacketed FBI men move in. And then there are cuffs. They’re cuffing Joseph, I’m watc
hing them do it. But when they slap closed the cuffs on his hands, I feel steel clasp around my own wrists. At least, I’m very nearly certain they’re my wrists.

  I only catch murmurs of conversations in the room around us. ‘That’s the one. I’m off duty but I saw the APB in the office today.’ The man with the uniform at the bar is talking. His voice has an accent I find vaguely ridiculous. ‘This guy was acting really suspicious. Talking to himself at the bar. Something about running away, about hiding in the woods. Seemed worth calling in.’

  I don’t know what this means. I go to the park, not the woods. There are no woods in San Francisco. The world has stopped making sense.

  ‘Good you did.’ Another voice now, this one coming from one of the FBI men. ‘We’d got a ping on his debit card from an ATM two blocks away just a couple of hours ago. Your call narrowed down the search.’

  I remember I used a debit card earlier. Very convenient. I always like to have cash on hand when ordering at a bar, and Joseph and I were going to get some drinks. But I think we were calling each other by different names.

  One of the bigger men looms over me. He tightens the cuffs until they hurt my hands. ‘A fucking monumental overreaction, dipshit.’ I think he’s talking to me. ‘You want to act out at Mommy and Daddy, learn to hurl a few good insults or steal some cash.’ He seems revolted at the sight of me, but I can’t figure out why. Maybe I drank too much and made a fool of myself. That can sometimes happen. I can play the pretty fool when I have too much to drink, and I’ve been known to have some spectacular blackouts.

  ‘And if you can’t hold your liquor,’ he adds, almost confirming my suspicion, ‘then stay the fuck out of a bar when you’re plotting your escape.’

  He’s lost me again. Escapes are for villains and showmen, but I’m a poet and poets don’t make escapes. We dwell in moments. We linger and persist and contemplate. But I don’t have the strength to try to interpret this man’s strange speech. I can’t be responsible for everybody.

  Suddenly my heart aches. I feel sorrowful, then the sorrow becomes fear. Worse things are happening than the cuffs on my wrists and the officer’s strange speech. Joseph is fading. As I peer at him across the floor he’s fading, though I’m not even sure I know what that means. He’s thinner, ethereal. He’s a phantom, becoming a mist. And now I can’t see him any more.

  Maybe there are just too many people in here.

  My head is going light, and suddenly all the attention is on me. I can feel my consciousness ebb. And for reasons I cannot fathom, the last words I hear before I black out again are those of one of the officers.

  ‘Tom Warrick, you are under arrest on a Federal warrant for murder in the state of California.’

  And it strikes me I know that name. Or perhaps Joseph knew that name. And I remember a boy, and a pond, and a park …

  PART FIVE

  VACAVILLE, CALIFORNIA

  70

  California Medical Facility – State Prison

  The Present Day

  ‘Can you bring him outside, let him get a little light?’

  The voice of Pauline Lavrentis bounces off the brick walls. They’ve all been whitewashed in the last month, a new coat of paint over a dozen coats before. The knobby surface of cinder bricks beneath has long since been rendered completely smooth by the paint, giving all the walls a sheened, reflective pallor.

  ‘Of course, Doctor.’ An orderly pushes the wheelchair through a mesh door into an enclosed courtyard marked 4-BG. Corridor number four, and one of the spots known colloquially as ‘breathing grounds’. Places for inmates to escape the antiseptic interior of their cells and common halls and catch as much fresh air as their sentences will permit.

  Passage through two gates is required to gain entrance, and ID badges must be shown each time, with records taken and access statistics recorded. Corridor four is for prisoners with aggressive tendencies and euphemistically titled ‘behavioural issues’. It’s for the crazies, and the violent crazies most often of all.

  ‘Wheel him over there, if you would,’ Dr Lavrentis continues to instruct the orderly. She has done this many times before. It’s an old routine, even if it’s been a while since the last time out. She knows the spots he likes. Those that tend to keep him calm.

  The wheelchair is moved to the spot that inmate #10481-91 always prefers: the north-eastern corner of the cement courtyard, where at midday the sun casts a shadow just beside the plastic fountain donated by the Sisters of Mercy five years ago. The little unit once had a motor that kept water constantly cycling through a minuscule ‘spring’ that emerged from a plastic rock at its centre, on which a pair of plastic sparrows sits in permanent pose, but the motor had died after its first few months of use. The water in the fountain is now a heavy brown, bits of algae floating on its surface and more sticking to the bowl itself. But the inmate never seems to mind.

  ‘That’ll do.’ Lavrentis taps the orderly on the shoulder. A maternal sign of thanks.

  She looks down at her patient, his right ankle cuffed to his wheelchair. This was one of the conditions of his right to visit this spot, granted as a special exception to his otherwise complete restriction to solitary confinement. Pauline hadn’t been able to sway the board away from that decision, not after his last violent outburst, but after so many months of exceptional behaviour in solitary he’d been granted this one privilege – at her special pleading – without being given the right to return to the general population. But he is required to remain cuffed to the wheelchair, though Pauline knows he always prefers to sit on the sagging green plastic chair with a broken back that’s near the little fountain. She thinks she can just manage to manipulate him in such a way that he can swivel onto that seat with his right leg still attached to the chair, and decides it’s worth the effort. It takes a bit of doing, but after a few seconds he’s seated on the squeaking seat, the wheelchair at his side.

  Pauline had worked hard to obtain the requisite permissions for this exceptional visit. For months her requests on her patient’s behalf had been refused out of hand. Men in solitary don’t get time off for restful breaks in courtyards. But finally she’d managed this afternoon’s privilege: only forty-five minutes, and only under lock and-key and constant guarding. It’s a test run, and in a few days there will be a hearing to determine if visits like this can become more regular. But for the moment it is enough, and Pauline intends to make the most of it.

  The transition into solitary confinement had been disastrous for the inmate’s mental state. She’d predicted it would be, and she’d been proved right. Pauline knows her former patient is gone, that this man only bears the marks of him. But she hadn’t been able to halt the essentially automatic process that took over once his increasing violence led to an assault on a guard. At least they hadn’t decided to keep him permanently bound.

  Some people can bear solitary, others can’t. There was never any question in Pauline’s mind into which category this man fell. The moment his sentence had been altered, she had known he was already lost.

  In some real, practical and diagnostic sense, there is nothing for her to do. No treatments left. No more therapies to pursue. But she has been working with him a long time. And as she sees him now, back outside – even if bound – she feels there is the slightest flicker of hope. If she can manage to make this more regular, there is the chance at least that he will find some peace. And she wants that for him. Just that. After everything.

  She grabs a second plastic chair and walks it over to a position at a right angle to his. There’s no place to set a recorder between them, and the sight of it seems to bother him these days anyway, so she clicks it on and places it out of sight in her breast pocket.

  ‘I’m happy to see you here,’ she says, kindly, sitting down and drawing her right leg over her left. Her eyes are genuine, the tone friendly.

  The inmate looks up. He is startled, but his eyes are gentle.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t see you arrive. Must
have been lost in my thoughts.’ He smiles, a perfectly ordinary smile.

  ‘What brings you to my pond today?’

  71

  Conference Room 6A

  California Medical Facility

  When the time comes for Pauline to go before the governance board with her request, the trial run of her patient’s first visit to the courtyard having gone smoothly and without incident, she finds herself uncharacteristically hesitant. She’s made similar requests many times before for other patients; she’s always been a strong advocate for those in her care. Her nerves aren’t caused by the content of her request.

  She is anxious only because she expects to receive little sympathy. She knows, in the depth of her being, that her cause is important and the request reasonable. But she also knows this is going to be an almost impossible thing to prove. Inmates who attack guards with shanks that draw blood and pierce organs go into solitary and stay there a good, long time. Her patient has only been in such confinement for twenty months, and that isn’t even close to long enough. But she knows that that continuing time in solitary is nothing more than torture for a man who is already gone.

  There is another worry. If the panel is made up of the same members who had been on the review committee after the incident that had sent her patient into isolation, she doesn’t expect a generous audience to hear her plea. Still, she is determined to try at what needs to be done, even if a try is all it will amount to. At least they’d finally agreed to hear her request, rather than refusing it outright as they’d done some nine times previously.

  Pauline pushes open the door to meeting room 6A and finds the configuration almost identical to that of the previous interview session. These surroundings rarely change. A panel, a stenographer, and the interviewee.