by David Haynes
“You better shut the hell up,” Donovan stood up, coming to his friend’s aid. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“But the others couldn’t make that call, could they? Certainly not your father, so it was down to you, wasn’t it?”
“Another word, mister, and you’re going through that fucking window.” Donovan took a step forward, his fists clenched. It was a shock to see a man usually so placid erupt like that, but Donovan knew Wilson’s family better than anyone.
Wilson took his elbow. “John,” he said softly. “No.”
“It’s the reason I came here.” Pace got to his feet. “My mom has been in six different hospitals in the last two years. Six moves, six upheavals, six sets of doctors who all think she’s gone.” He shook his head. “But I know she isn’t. And then this new place, this... this... hospital seems to offer everything we need. A new approach...” He stopped mid-sentence, mid-thought.
For the first time, Wilson saw the facade of calm control slip entirely from Pace’s expression. His eyes aged like a horror movie special effect scene on fast-forward.
“I need help. I need your help. I’m the last one, I’m the only family she’s got left. There’s something going on in that hospital, something I don’t understand. It isn’t right. I can’t move her again. I can’t… I don’t know where to turn.” He looked directly at Wilson and then quickly away. It was as if he knew what Wilson had seen and he had revealed too much.
“Nobody will listen to me. Nobody wants to listen. They all think I’m crazy.” He lifted his head and looked at Wilson again. “And now you think the same.”
Wilson stared back. Pace had done some homework on him and that made him nervous.
“My intention was not to insult or anger either of you. I merely raised your family in the hope you might understand. I apologize for that, I apologize deeply and...”
“You’re wrong,” Wilson said at last. “None of us made a decision about my mom. We never had to. Whatever dark place she was in after the stroke, she knew she wasn’t coming back. She made the decision from there. She put an end to her own misery. Not me, not my dad and not my sister. She saved us from that.”
Pace lowered his head again, his face flushed. “Then what I said was unforgivable.”
Donovan grunted in agreement. “Maybe you ought to leave now,” he said. “I’ll show you the door.”
Pace lifted his head, nodded and followed Donovan. A few seconds later, Wilson heard the door slam shut. Donovan walked back into the room.
“Shithead,” he mumbled.
They both watched Pace walk to his car. The man looked a dismal caricature of the cool, sharp businessman who had walked toward the house just a few minutes ago.
“Want me to throw rocks at his car before he goes?” Donovan said.
Wilson couldn’t help but smile. “Not today, John.”
Pace climbed into the car, his silhouette rigid and upright through the window; hands down in his lap, not on the steering wheel. They waited for the car to slide away but it didn’t, it just sat there. Its hood was as polished as a spider’s carapace in the weak autumn sun.
“What’s he doing?” Donovan asked, craning his neck for a better look.
And then it was obvious what Pace was doing, his hand rising slowly, the barrel of a gun pointing forward and then turning, turning in his hand until it was pointing toward him.
“Shit!” Donovan yelled and set off toward the door. But Wilson was mesmerized. It was like a grotesque version of the shadow-puppet shows he’d seen on TV as a kid. Pace’s head lifted and his mouth opened, the barrel sliding between his teeth.
Donovan jumped into view, sprinting across the yard, slipping in the dirt, shouting something and waving his arms. And then came the loud report – an orange flash – and the car’s window was suddenly filled with the Jackson Pollock spatter a bullet makes of a man’s brains.
*
The cops were there for the rest of the day. The cops and everyone else who needed to take a look at what was left of Richard Pace. Then they took him away in a bag that was every bit as black as his expensive car. The exterior of it, at least. Rain sloughed from the sky and gathered in waxy pools on both the body bag and the car.
By the time both Wilson and Donovan had provided their statements, the last of the police vehicles drove out of the yard and onto the highway with headlights cutting a track through the persistent rain. Somewhere in the last hour, the afternoon slipped away silently and became night.
They sat together in the kitchen, Donovan with a can of soda and Wilson with coffee. Wilson felt skittish but whether it was the afternoon’s events or the volume of coffee he’d consumed, he couldn’t be sure. He was on edge though.
“Want to order takeout?” Donovan asked. He stood up and opened the drawer where the vast collection of menus were. “Pizza? Indian? What about Chinese?”
“Whatever you want. I’m not hungry.”
“Me neither.” Donovan closed the drawer and walked back to the table.
“What I really want is a beer,” Wilson said. “A whole keg of it.”
“And if I thought one keg might do the trick, I’d let you. But it wouldn’t, would it?” Donovan winked at him. His dark humor seemed apt.
There was silence again, both men locked into their own thoughts.
Donovan spoke first. He rarely went very long without making some noise or other. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” He shook his head as if he were trying to rid his mind of the awful spectacle. He got back to his feet, restless, and grabbed another soda from the refrigerator.
Donovan had been a lot closer to the car, to Pace, when he killed himself. He had seen more and Wilson wasn’t entirely sure what he could say to him.
“He looked so calm.” Donovan opened the bottle but held the metal cap in his hand. “Just before he pulled the trigger, he looked so fucking calm.” He turned to Wilson. “How could someone who was a second away from killing themselves be so calm?”
“Because he knew before he came that he was going to do it if we didn’t help him. He knew when he walked back to his car, when he opened the door and climbed inside. The decision was made. Final.” Wilson shook his head.
Donovan walked back over but didn’t sit down. They both looked out onto where the garden should have been, but was now just a dark blanket.
“It’s not our fault, is it?” Donovan asked. “I mean, it’s not our fault he put the gun in his mouth. We didn’t... I mean we...”
Wilson leaned forward and put his hand on Donovan’s forearm. “John, listen to me, this isn’t on us. What happened out there was not our doing. Not our responsibility.”
Donovan nodded, looking away from his own reflection in the glass. “So why did he choose to do it out front, while we were watching? When he knew we were watching?”
Wilson shrugged. He’d asked himself the same question; gone over it, around it and right through the middle of it. The short answer was, he didn’t know. If Pace had wanted revenge on someone, to make them feel guilty, then why hadn’t he done it in front of one of those doctors he clearly hated?
“It was just the right time,” he said in reply. “We were the last straw, I guess.”
“Fucker,” Donovan said but there was no anger in his voice. “Wonder what’ll happen to his mom now?”
“What do you mean?”
“He said he was the last of the family. Wherever she is, someone’s going to have to make a decision about what happens to her. For someone who wanted us to find the impossible, he’s left her at the mercy of the hospital.”
Pace’s mom had never entered Wilson’s thoughts until then. It was uncomfortable to say the least. “Maybe he left a will, some directions about her care. I don’t know.” He lifted his hands and shrugged.
“Pretty sad though, huh?”
“I guess.” Wilson was trying hard not to think about it.
“Would anyone think to tell her he was dead
, that her son was dead? Christ, does anyone know she’s even alive?”
“I told you, he’ll have a will, he’ll have left a note or something.”
“There was nothing in the car.”
“How do you know?” Wilson replied.
“The cops would’ve mentioned it.” He drank half the soda in one go and then threw the metal cap into the table. It danced across the wood and fell in Wilson’s lap. “What did you say to the cops?” Donovan asked, sitting down again. He was anxious and the amount of sugar he was taking in wasn’t helping at all. “Did you mention his mom?”
Wilson finished his coffee. “Of course. That’s why he was here. I told them he wanted us to find something that belonged to her.”
“Her soul?” Donovan interrupted. “Did you say he asked us to find her soul? That he was clearly crazy and I had to ask him to leave?”
“I didn’t call him crazy, John. I told them what he’d asked for.” Wilson paused, thinking about the cop’s reaction. “And you know what? The cop didn’t flinch, didn’t bat an eyelid when I told him.” He shrugged. “Guess they’re used to hearing weird shit like that.”
“I guess.” Donovan stood up again and finished his soda.
“John, you need to lay off those, you’re wired.”
Donovan looked at the bottle and laughed. “Hark at you, telling me to lay off the drink.” He wiped a hand down his face. “I’ll never be able to un-see that, will I?” He turned and looked at Wilson. “His face just before he pulled the trigger, I’ll always be able to see it, frozen in time, won’t I?”
Wilson turned and looked out of the window, seeing nothing but his own reflection. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“What are we going to do?” Donovan asked.
He sounded lost. It was the first time Wilson had heard Donovan sound anything other than assured.
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, John.” He stood up. “You’re going to go out to the RV, fetch one of the kegs you’ve undoubtedly got stashed in there. You’re going to bring it inside, then we’re going to order pizza, watch crap on TV and you’re going to drink as much beer as you can. That’s what’s going to happen.” He patted Donovan on the shoulder.
Donovan laughed and saluted. “Yes, sir!” He walked away but just before he reached the door, he stopped and turned around. “You’re not going to leave this, are you? It’s not finished, is it?”
Wilson smiled but said nothing.
4
They ate pepperoni pizza and watched Clark Griswold drive his family across America, and then immediately after they watched the Griswolds do the same thing in Europe. The pizza lay largely untouched but Donovan worked his way methodically down his beer supply until it, and he, were exhausted.
Before the end of the second movie, Donovan slumped sideways on the sofa and was murmuring to himself like a baby. Wilson switched the TV off and left him there. Sooner or later he’d get cold and stumble off, either to his Winnebago or upstairs to the bed he’d slept in last night. It didn’t matter to Wilson which one he chose but he suspected Donovan would select the room upstairs again tonight. His RV was parked in the yard out front and was too close to where Pace had put the gun to his mouth.
Wilson undressed and climbed into bed. The rain hadn’t stopped since just after the police arrived and it drummed on the roof and windows with hypnotic repetition. They hadn’t spoken of Pace again tonight but he knew behind every one of Donovan’s chuckles were the dead man’s eyes. They were burned into Donovan for all time, staring blankly ahead, lifeless and unseeing. He’d be alright, eventually. He just had to stare right back, and wink if he could. That was the only way to deal with it.
Not that the whole episode hadn’t affected him too. It had, he just hadn’t been close enough for it to be personal; for the bullet to work its way under his skull, the way it had with Pace and, to a different degree, Donovan. It had been shocking, hideous and sad, yes, but not emotional. He wasn’t immune but Pace had already pushed that button when he mentioned his mom and her illness. That was all the empathy he could handle at that moment.
And yet when the police had taken his statement, something had happened. He started wondering about Pace. The cop’s questions had taken him into Pace’s life and made him think. Who was he? His suit, car and demeanor suggested a man of wealth, of intelligence and a certain class, but who was he really? Where did he live? What was his job? Was he married? Did he have kids? There were hundreds of questions, none of which the cop could, or wanted to, answer so he gave up asking.
There could have been any number of reasons why Pace killed himself. The world had always been filled with reasons for that. Whatever the buildup, there was no doubt that the final straw had been his visit here, to this house and the conversation he’d had with the two of them. It was the end of the line for Pace but it wasn’t the whole picture. His mom was the key to that. And now he was dead, was that the end of the line for his mom too? Without him there was no other family, nobody to fight for her the way he had.
Wilson rolled over and turned off the lamp, listening not to the rhythmic patter of the rain on the shingles but to his own thoughts going around and around. Whether Pace had intended it or not, Wilson now felt some kind of responsibility to both him and his mom.
He lifted his head and bunched the pillows up. He couldn’t get comfortable. Read. That’s what he’d do. He’d drank too much coffee and his mind was buzzing. He put the lamp back on and shuffled through the collection of paperbacks and magazines on the nightstand. He selected a book about a murder in the Louisiana bayou and made it to the end of a chapter before he realized he hadn’t read a single word.
He pushed the book back on the nightstand, got out of bed and looked out of the window. His room, at the front of the house, looked out onto the yard. It was dark out there, the only wedge of light coming from a street lamp some twenty yards away. A dagger point of orange light sliced across the dirt, stopping at the place where Pace’s car had been.
“X marks the spot,” he whispered.
When his own mom had died, it had been a relief, and for a long time Wilson felt an aching guilt about feeling like that. But he no longer thought badly of himself for thinking that way. She had been in what the doctors assured them was a persistent vegetative state for six months. She was not going to get better. She was not going to suddenly open her eyes and say goodbye to them. She had gone. She had probably gone the day the stroke cut her down, the day her body dissolved around her. On some level they had all known that. They had all known she was gone but none of them, not Ellen, not Dad and not Wilson himself had been strong enough to admit it and say goodbye. Wherever she was, she wasn’t coming back.
It was horrible, it was a pain like no other. Gray days, black weeks and finally an absence of light altogether. It was hideous and hellish but she was gone and they were all at the end of the line. Just like Pace, except they had each other, they had a family, and they accepted it.
He turned his back to the window and looked down at the jumble of lumpy duvet his bed had become. It didn’t exactly look inviting and his head was pounding from a severe caffeine overdose. He needed Advil. A lot of it.
He pulled on his robe and padded downstairs. As he reached the foot, he saw a light coming from the living room. The light flickered and flashed across the wall. The television was on again.
He peered into the room. Donovan was lying out on the settee watching a sports report. The Patriots were beating the Bills.
“Thought you were out for the count,” said Wilson.
“I was,” he replied. “Needed a leak though and now I can’t get back off. You?”
“Headache,” he replied.
They both stared at the screen for a minute until Wilson broke the silence. “I’ve been thinking.”
Donovan turned his head from the screen toward him. “About Pace?”
Wilson stepped further into the room. “Kind of. About his mom more, I suppose.”
“Oh?” Wilson walked over to the armchair and was about to sit when he remembered that Pace had sat in it.
“I agree with you, I don’t think we should just leave this,” Donovan said, shifting his body.
“Agree with me? I haven’t said anything.”
“Come on, Frank, you’re down here in the middle of the night. You can’t sleep and you look like shit. Not even Chevy Chase could shake it out of you.”
“Shake what out? What are you talking about?”
“We need to do something. Find his mom, I don’t know, just something. Someone blows their brains out in the front yard a few seconds after asking us to find his mom’s soul. I mean, come on!”
Wilson watched a replay of Tom Brady completing a thirty-five yard pass to Aaron Dobson. He watched it but his mind disregarded the image. He knew Donovan trusted him and he knew they thought about things the same way. That’s what made them successful. It made them friends as well as associates.
“I don’t know. We’ve got practically nothing to go on. We don’t even know his mom’s name, for Christ’s sake. Nobody will want to talk to us, you know that don’t you? It’s not a pinball machine we’re looking for here.” He felt bad as soon as he’d said it. Comparing Pace’s mom to glass and chrome was appalling.
“No, we’re looking for her soul,” Donovan said in his best matter-of-fact tone. “Now, I’d like to watch the rest of the game, if you don’t mind.”
Wilson opened his mouth to follow up on Donovan’s comment about her soul. Was he still drunk? It was very likely but he had been so lucid, so clear and rational that he decided to let it go. For now. They would have another conversation about this in the morning. When he was sober. He walked out of the room, to the rear of the house and the kitchen. He took four Advil from the pack and dry-swallowed them in one.
Wherever this led, whatever it led them to, Wilson needed Donovan with him. It was probably nowhere and nothing but it couldn’t be left as it was. Neither of them could bear that. Neither of them would sleep properly until they knew exactly why Pace had come to them and done what he had done.
