Dreamthorp

by Williamson, Chet

  "Oh Jesus," Charlie said. He crossed the yard toward the other two men. By the time he reached the porch Tom was on his feet.

  "I've got to go up there now. Got to see Josh."

  "All right, Tom, sure," Bret said. "But, Tom . . . aw God, Tom, he got hit in the, the head. Aw Jesus, Tom, I'm sorry."

  "Okay, okay." Tom began to walk. He couldn't let himself cry now or he would never stop. He had to hold it back, wait until he had seen Josh. Then later, later he could cry, he could let himself go. But not now. Not yet. Control. Now, just keep it under control.

  Bret Walters was right. It was very bad. The bullet, fired from a Mauser rifle, had penetrated the top of the skull, and taken away the top left part of the head. The face, however, was untouched, and although the medics had closed the eyes and the mouth, there was no hiding the expression of surprise on Josh's face.

  My poor baby. My poor, poor baby.

  He touched Josh's cheek with his hand. The skin was still smooth. There were no whiskers, just that fine, downy fuzz.

  Oh my baby.

  For the first time, he found himself glad that Susan was dead, and, certainly not for the first time nor for the last, found himself wishing that he was dead as well.

  When he climbed down out of the ambulance, he looked up at the Goodwins' cottage, and through the window he saw the shiny pate of Ralph Goodwin. He was wearing a bathrobe and standing at the window, and he was crying. His wife, half a head taller than he, had her arm around him, and from the way her shoulders were shaking, Tom could see that she was crying too. They had known Josh. If they had thought he was the killer, would they have been crying, shedding tears over a monster? No, Ralph Goodwin knew what had happened, knew what a terrible and sad mistake he had made.

  And Josh had made.

  And Tom Brewer had made as well.

  Tom looked at Charlie Lewis, and saw tears in his eyes. Everyone seemed to be crying but Tom, and he felt that that was the saddest thing of all.

  The man who has a grave or two in his heart, does not need to haunt churchyards.

  —Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  Laura called Tom the next evening. She had gotten home late the night before and had heard nothing, having slept through the gunshot and the sirens. She only learned of the shooting when she read about it in the newspaper over dinner in the restaurant she stopped at on her way home. Back at her cottage, she dialed Tom's number.

  "Tom, it's Laura," she said when he answered. "I just heard about Josh. Oh Tom . . . Tom, I am so sorry."

  "It's all right." His voice was low but sounded under control. "An accident. A mistake." He sounded, she thought, too controlled, like a computerized voice.

  "Tom, are you all right?"

  "I'm fine."

  "Can I do anything for you?"

  There was pain there, she heard it. Tremendous, unbearable pain that she could sense beneath the layer of hardened indifference with which he tried to mask it. He was locking it away, locking himself away. "Have you talked to anyone about this yet?"

  "The police."

  "What about your parents?"

  She heard him take a deep breath. "My mother is . . . not capable of talking right now. My father doesn't seem to want to."

  "I want to see you, Tom."

  "No, Laura."

  "I want to talk to you. I'm coming over."

  "No." There was silence on his end of the line. Then he said, "I'll come over there."

  A few minutes later he came walking up her cottage steps like a dead man. His eyes were dry and hollow, his hair was uncombed, and the skin of his face was pale and pouched. He looked as though he had aged five years, and she knew he had not slept for a long time.

  "Hello," he said to her in a lifeless tone.

  "Come in," she said, holding the door open as he shuffled through. They went across the hall into the small living room and Tom sat down on the couch, his shoulders slumped, his knotted hands hanging between his knees. She sat in a chair across from him. "How did it happen, Tom?"

  "Did you read the papers?"

  "I want you to tell me. You knew Josh. You know that what the papers said is a lie."

  "Oh, they didn't come out and say it," Tom said with a bitter smile. "They just implied. I talked to the police again this afternoon around four, and they found out that Josh couldn't have had anything to do with Sam Hershey's death. He was working at Ted's all that afternoon, and Ted swore to it. Besides, how the hell would Josh have had the strength to do . . . what that maniac did? Bastards. Stupid bastards."

  "So what did happen?"

  He looked up at her, her face twisted. "He was peeping, that's what happened. He was peeping in people's windows at night. He had a pair of binoculars on his belt, but the paper didn't say anything about that, because that wouldn't have meant that he was the killer. All they talked about was the knife."

  "Why did he have a knife?"

  "Jesus, I don't know. Maybe he was scared, but not scared enough to stop what he was doing, so he took along what he thought was some protection. Christ, he must've been . . ." Tom shook his head and looked down again.

  She finished it for him. "Obsessed. I know."

  "I knew he was upset," Tom whispered, "but I didn't know how much. If I would've seen it earlier, maybe I could've done something before he . . ." He gave his head a quick, savage shake. "I don't blame Ralph Goodwin," he went on in a softer voice. "I mean, you hear something outside your bedroom window, and you know that somebody's been killing people right and left, and you get your gun and you look out and see somebody in a tree, maybe with a gun, maybe Ralph even saw the knife, I don't know, and you're scared and you shoot, because for Christ's sake, he was just a few feet away from the window. . . ." He sighed. "No, I don't blame Ralph. I hate him, you know, for killing . . . my boy. But I don't blame him, isn't that weird? I can understand it. I can understand it. But I can't . . . accept it."

  Tom Brewer's face was red now, and he was hyperventilating. Laura leaned forward in her chair, ready to get to her feet, to grab him, hold him, do whatever she had to.

  "I haven't cried yet," he went on. "Isn't that . . . remarkable? That I haven't cried yet? I tell myself later, I'll do it later." The muscles of his face quivered. "But maybe if I wait too much longer, it'll be too late, and I won't at all . . . I won't be able to at all . . . like with Susan . . ."

  Suddenly his mouth stretched wide as in a death rictus, and sobs came leaping out of him, tears streamed from his eyes. Laura was beside him in an instant, her arms around him, trying to contain in their circle an infinite amount of grief finally released. It seemed to go on forever, a series of wracking sobs followed by a high, agonized whine; then a long, shuddering intake of breath; the sobs again, the whine, and always the tears, the drenching, cleansing tears. She held him like a child, and he surrendered to her embrace, leaning against her, trusting her with his weakness, as if knowing that only this weakness could restore him to strength.

  At last his cries subsided, and he fell back from her embrace, resting his head on the back of the couch. "I . . ." he began to say, but his voice choked. He cleared his throat and went on, his gaze on the ceiling. "I was just going to say that I was sorry. But I'm not. I'm glad." He looked at her, and saw that her own eyes were watery with tears. "Thank you."

  She nodded. "We're so close," she said, knowing that he would not understand it. "Oh, we are so close."

  He didn't seem to have to understand. He simply took her hand, wet with his tears, and held it. "I can't go back tonight. Not to that house. My parents . . . and just being in there . . ."

  "Stay here."

  He looked at her intently. "I don't mean to imply anything, you understand? I'll sleep down here. If I can sleep at all."

  "It doesn't matter," she said. "One way or the other, it's inevitable. Let me hold you tonight. You need to be held. And so do I. It's been such a long time, a long time since I've cried too."

  There were no more words. It did not requ
ire the joining of flesh to make them lovers.

  In the morning Tom awoke without illusions. Laura Stark was beside him, and he knew it the second his eyes opened. It was not Karen, nor was it dear, lost Susan. It was Laura, who loved him, and whom he loved. Laura, who saw his guilt and was willing to share it, who felt his pain and was willing to share that as well.

  He watched her for a long time in the dim morning light that came through the bedroom window. Her face was delicately lined with years and experience and her own pain too, Tom thought. There were also the lines that smiles had made, but they were ghosts in comparison to the furrows between her eyes, those marks of sadness, of concern.

  And when he thought of sadness he thought of Josh. Poor, dead Josh lying in the mortician's building in Chalmers, poor Josh, whom he might have saved had he known the depth to which his mother's loss and the perception of his father's infidelity had touched the boy. He got up from the bed and went into the hall, where he sat at the top of the stairs and cried again, this time alone, cried and asked God and Josh to forgive him, but prayed that he could someday forgive himself.

  At least there was Dreamthorp. And now there was Laura.

  They ate a light breakfast in her small kitchen, and talked little. The funeral was scheduled for the following day, and Laura told Tom that she would like to go. "I can take you," he said.

  "Won't your parents be upset by that?" she asked. "They can't be any more upset. They're drained."

  "No, I don't think so," she said. "I'm sure Charlie's going. I'll go with him."

  Tom nodded. "All right. It might be best." Then he looked it her curiously, and he thought she flinched a bit at his gaze.

  "What is it?" she said.

  "Tell me about the friend you lost. When you mentioned it before, I didn't understand. But now I think I might. Tell me."

  Laura went to the coffee carafe and poured another cup before she started to speak. Then she told Tom Brewer about Kitty, and about Gilbert Rodman and what he had done, and what she had done to Gilbert Rodman and its aftermath. The only thing she did not talk about was what she and Kitty had felt and done before Rodman came slashing through their tent.

  "Gilbert Rodman wasn't his name," Laura said, watching the patterns forming in the thin film of coffee oil that covered the liquid in her cup. "It's as if . . ." She paused and corrected herself. "It was as if he didn't need a name. He seemed like something inhuman. Like a force of nature. Oh, not in the bar where we met him, but when I came to and saw him . . ." her voice thickened, ". . . saw him hunched over Kitty. He was like a demon. Coated in blood. Hideous. Barbaric. I've never seen—and had never imagined—anything so terrible. And though I know he's dead, I'm still . . . afraid. I still think about him so much. And I think about Kitty . . ."

  Tom reached across the table and rested his hand on hers. "God, Laura, I'm so sorry."

  "It's over," she said.

  He shook his head. "Nothing's ever over. But you'll learn to live with it. Just like . . . I'll live with Josh."

  She smiled bitterly. "It seems like every love . . . every attachment . . . sets you up for sorrow, doesn't it?"

  "That's the price, I guess."

  "It's high," she said, her eyes fixed on him.

  "You're right. But sometimes we have no choice." He took a last gulp of his coffee and set down the cup. "I've got to go. There are so many things to be done."

  "Will you be all right?"

  "I'll be too busy to think. I pray to God I will, anyway."

  "Call me if you need me."

  She stood on the porch and watched him walk home. It was still early, and no one was outside, so no one would know that he had spent the night there. Her practical side was relieved by that knowledge, but that side of her, she found, was shrinking, growing weaker. She had loved sleeping beside Tom Brewer, had loved waking up to his touch, sharing her morning coffee with him, telling him about herself, about what she feared. Perhaps one day, she thought, she could even tell him everything.

  Then she remembered his son, and grieved for him, feeling guilty for thinking about her own wishes and needs and fears, while that boy with the sad and tragic and too short life lay dead with nothing to look forward to except his own funeral. Laura felt her throat close then and tears begin to form. Poor Josh, she thought. Poor Tom. Poor everyone.

  And Tom, walking home, felt guilty as well. For in spite of sharing Laura's story, in spite of his son's death, in spite of everything with which fate had bludgeoned him, he could not help feeling something small and secret inside him that would help him keep his sanity and the days ahead. At last he had something for which he had been searching, and though it was not his son's love, which now he would never have, or the proven and unselfish love of a woman, which still could lie ahead, it was something.

  At last he had his subject. At last he knew what he would bring out of the man-sized block of wood in his cellar.

  At last he had Gilbert Rodman.

  Who would have thought of encountering a funeral in this place?

  —Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  The people at the cemetery breathed the dust of the grave.

  It was a hot and dry Friday, and the gusty winds that kicked up when least expected brought no relief. They brought only bits of soil that lodged in the eyes, so that even those not pricked by grief or guilt rubbed tears away.

  The funeral message was brief, preached by the minister of the church whose adjoining cemetery held the Brewer plot, a small parcel containing the earthly remains of Tom's paternal grandparents and an uncle who had died, only slightly older than Josh, in Germany during World War II. Susan's body had been interred there, and now Josh's was lying, coffin encased, on a bier next to his mother's grave.

  Together again, Tom thought, and wished that he were with them in some better place. He felt miserable at the way the finality of the open grave, despite the minister's apocalyptic words, crushed his hope of eternity, smothered the last surviving vestiges of his childhood indoctrination. He had not been inside a church since Josh had begun to protest against being dragged to Sunday school. Maybe he should start going again, he thought. Even if, as he feared and suspected, the church taught lies, they were deeply felt and comforting ones. God knew he could use a little comfort.

  He was sweltering in his suit, over eight years old and out of style but the only dark one he owned. Sweat was gathering in his armpits, and he could feel dampness in the small of his back. Even his feet felt choked. He blinked as another bit of dust blew into his eyes, and scrubbed it away with a knuckle. He found the dust welcoming. It gave him an excuse for his tears, as though, he told himself, he needed any. Men could cry; there was nothing wrong with that. Still, it made him feel weak, and he had to be strong, for his mother at least.

  She had been crushed by Josh's death. As "odd," as she put it, as her grandson had become in the past year, she still loved him deeply, with the unquestioning generosity and support that a break in generations allows. When Tom returned to his house on Tuesday night and told his parents about Josh's death, Frances had become hysterical, delaying Ed's response until they had her calmed down and tucked into bed. Ed stayed by her side until she slept, and then had come downstairs to join Tom.

  Tom could see that he had been crying. His cheeks were red where he had been rubbing them, and his eyes gleamed wetly. "I'm sorry, Tommy," he said, placing his hand on his son's shoulder. "I don't . . . I can't say . . . I find it hard to say what I feel. But I know how I would have felt if this had happened to you when you were young. There's nothing like . . . like your son. Even if you don't always get along. There's still something there that's so big. . . ." He sighed and a sob escaped him. "I love you, Tommy, I really do. I'm proud of you, I've always been proud. And Josh was . . . a good boy. He was."

  The old man shook his head then and gave Tom's shoulder a final squeeze, then went upstairs to his wife. He didn't speak to Tom again about Josh's death, but now the silences that passed between them
were filled with something other than space, and the task of mentally sedating Frances gave them a common goal.

  Still, Tom could not help but feel that his father blamed him for Josh's death, even as he realized the feeling was illogical. He blamed himself, and so saw judgment on the faces of everyone else. Now, as he looked at the blinking, tear-stained faces of the people at the funeral, he saw no blame in their eyes. Their tears were for Josh and for Tom's loss. His mother, beside him, clung to his hand with a grip so strong he feared his fingers would break. He was glad for the pain and the distraction it caused him.

  Laura sat three rows back, next to Charlie Lewis. She was blinking and sniffing frequently, but met his gaze steadily when he looked at her. Charlie was dry-eyed but miserable looking. He had moved into his house when Josh was five, and the man and the boy had taken to each other instantly. It was only since Susan's death that Josh had grown away from Charlie's camaraderie, as he had grown away from so much else.

  Tom saw a number of Josh's classmates as well, some of them friends he had stopped seeing, who had now come to say their last good-bye. His teachers were there too, and the principal of the middle school, along with a wide assortment of Tom's neighbors and colleagues from Harris Valley College. There must have been well over a hundred people, and Tom wondered sardonically if they didn't get tired of coming to Brewer funerals.

  The drone of words from the minister stopped. Tom looked up and saw that the service was over. There would be, he had decided, no reception at his house, no dishes full of plastic-wrapped cold cuts, no full coffeepots bubbling in the kitchen, no gathering of people not knowing what to say. This was no death of an aged relative, and that ever-so-useful line, "It really was a blessing that he didn't suffer any longer," was totally unsuitable in this situation. No, when the funeral director had brought up the idea, Tom had said that everybody could just go home. And they did.

  Tom went home as well. He felt no urge to remain and watch the casket lowered, the grave filled in. He needed no further evidence that Josh was dead.