Feral Boy Meets Girl

by William Jablonsky

  Walt did not look up at them.

  “Walt,” Roy said, “We’re gonna need you to come with us.”

  Walt glanced up at Roy, chuckled. “About time. Where’s Pete?”

  Roy knelt down in front of Walt, slowly, to show he wasn’t a threat. “He’s not here. We’re trying to handle this the right way.”

  He glanced at the white rope in Andy’s hands. “You boys come to hang me?”

  “No, Walt,” Roy said. “Just come with us. Please.”

  Walt gulped down his paint-thinner whiskey and got up, joints crackling. He started to stumble, but Andy steadied him with a big arm.

  “Here, Walt,” Andy said. “Let me give you a hand.” He picked Walt up off the ground and carried him piggyback up the dirt road.

  They didn’t have to use the rope.

  They kept Walt in Nora Brimeyer’s house, a red brick ranch with ceramic deer in the yard. If a man was set to die, we thought, he might as well enjoy decent accommodations before the end. The place had been empty since the coy wolves ate her, and no one had come to claim it because squatting in it felt unseemly. Everything inside was exactly as she’d left it: thin peach curtains open enough to let in just the right amount of light, Damask rugs, fine Amish oak table, porcelain tea set in the middle of the dining room table—everything immaculate but for a fine layer of dust. Andy and the Skoal boys sat Walt on Nora’s white fainting couch and set about the place with feather dusters. When it was done, Andy and Jeremy stayed behind to look after him—no way Walt was getting past the both of them.

  Some of the men went out the next day and dug a deep hole in the old park out by the river, lined it with cement, then fixed a manacle to the bottom.

  In the meantime, Andy took it upon himself to give Walt a proper shave and haircut, and drew him a bath with water he’d heated on Nora’s wood-burning stove. Some families brought him grilled chicken and corn on the cob to set his health right, and after a few days he was almost back to himself again, like the man who used to play the mandolin in a bluegrass band at the county fair, back when there still was one. When he plucked the strings his eyes would close like he was in a state of bliss.

  After a week, Walt looked like a new man but for the drooping bloodshot eyes. No one knew how to make that right.

  The day Walt Grimley was to die was a Monday, and a pleasant one. The weekend had been warm and muggy, and hard rains had knocked all the lilacs down off the bushes in our front yards, and everything in and around the town of Patience seemed sad, but beautiful too. We held a meeting that morning, because it seemed like we were hesitating for no good reason. After some spirited debate, we agreed that if Walt had to die, we ought to at least have the decency to let his last day be a good one.

  Fred Gackle, who raised pigs down the river, cooked Walt up some pork ribs with bourbon sauce, which had been Miranda’s specialty and Walt’s favorite thing, and sent it over to Nora’s. Later, Andy said the first bite brought a tear to Walt’s eye.

  And we decided there should be music, so Floyd Burwell went up to Walt’s place and retrieved his old cherry-sunburst mandolin that sang like a wind chime. He spent that morning restringing it and fiddling with the bridge to get the sound just right. His daughter Ella could play almost as well as Walt before the nerves in his hands went, and she spent the afternoon rehearsing a number with her brothers to send him off.

  Pastor Rickey went up to Nora’s house that morning to give what comfort he could. It was well-known that Walt was a godless man who hadn’t set foot in church since well before Miranda passed on, but we hoped Pastor Rickey could be a kind presence upon whom Walt could unburden his troubled heart. Andy, who’d been standing watch outside, said Walt broke down after about an hour, and finally let the Lord back in. But Jeremy, who’d been smoking on the back porch, said Walt just asked Pastor Rickey about the weather.

  Because it was such a pretty day, sunny but not too warm, with the smell of wild clover in the air, Andy decided to walk him the eight blocks to the old marina. We stood on our front stoops and watched as he passed by. It took us a minute to realize it was Walt. His skin had lost its gray tinge and looked healthy and pink. The dingy yellow had been washed out of his hair, which sat neatly on his head in a silver pompadour, and instead of his threadbare overalls Andy had put him in a gray houndstooth suit they’d found in one of Nora’s closets—one of Skip’s, that she’d kept around after he passed away. The occasion demanded a certain formality, and Skip’s old clothes were the only ones that fit the span of Walt’s big round shoulders. They hung on him like loose skin over bone, and the shoes were a size too big, but it was the best we could do.

  Walt looked up at us as he passed; to a man, we looked away when his eyes met ours. It was only once he shuffled past, those big black dress shoes kicking up the dust on the street, that we followed. We had a part to play in this. A responsibility.

  When the procession arrived at the boat launch, Ella and the Burwell boys were waiting, instruments in hand, the boys in suits and Ella in a cream-colored lace dress. Walt’s mandolin looked huge strapped against her chest, because she was only ten, and petite. Walt lifted his head and looked at her for a minute, as if he was trying to remember the feel of the instrument in his hands, his fingers sliding across the ebony fretboard. She smiled sweetly at him. He looked away.

  Until that moment, most of us hadn’t really looked at the hole, because if you didn’t look, it wasn’t real. It gaped like a maw about ten feet from the boat ramp, about as wide as Walt was tall, a good twelve feet deep.

  There was a little leftover rainwater in there from the storms, and someone asked Walt if that was okay, or if he’d rather they siphoned it out to start fresh.

  Walt shrugged.

  Everyone glanced around at one another, at the blank expressions on our neighbors’ faces, at Walt, who was busy staring at his shoes, then at Roy, who we all felt should set things in motion.

  “Anything to say, Walt?” he asked.

  Walt shook his silver head.

  “You understand why we have to do this?”

  Walt nodded.

  Roy nodded to Pastor Rickey, who read the passage from Romans about falling short of the glory of God and finding redemption, which we questioned because Walt was a non-believer and it seemed a little late now. But Pastor Rickey was aggressive that way. The older folks liked it.

  “Walt,” he said, “You’ve got one last chance. Care to repent and unburden yourself?”

  “No thanks,” Walt said, and Pastor Rickey snapped his Bible shut and stepped back into the crowd.

  “All right, then,” Roy said. “Let’s get started.” He gave the band their cue, and Ella started playing a bluegrassy version of “Nearer My God To Thee.” It was probably wasted on Walt, but the notes she played were slow and sweet and beautiful.

  Someone lowered a ladder into the hole. Andy had been standing watch over him, so he didn’t accidentally fall in, and started to lead Walt over to the edge. Walt, who we hadn’t bothered to tie up because he’d been cooperative up to that point, took a couple of hobbled steps toward the ladder. He stopped for a second, stared down into the hole.

  Then he ruined everything by trying to run.

  The band stopped playing and just stared. He tripped twice, getting grass stains on his borrowed suit, and a little space opened up around him. His eyes were big and wild, and no one had ever seen them so white before. He glanced over at Ella and started to make for her. We figured he either planned to grab that mandolin and use it as a weapon, or maybe take poor Ella hostage while he tried to make his way out.

  Ella screamed.

  Before he could lay a fingertip on her, Andy tackled him from behind and held him in a bear hug on the ground.

  “I’m so sorry, Walt,” Andy said, tears in his eyes, as he trapped Walt in an unbreakable half-nelson. “I gotta do this. Just take it easy.”

  Walt struggled for another ten or fifteen seconds, then went limp. It was no use—Andy
could give a black bear the fight of its life—but we like to think that he finally accepted his fate as just and true, because just then, Walter Grimley began to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Walt,” Andy said, rubbing his back. “It’s gonna be over soon.”

  Roy sent Ella home, because she was scared and there didn’t seem any reason to make her keep playing after that. Andy went in the hole first, holding the ladder so Walt didn’t slip, untied him, secured the manacle to his ankle. We were uncomfortable with it, but otherwise Walt could just hold his breath and float to the top, and nobody wanted to have to hold his head down. Nobody except Pete.

  Walt just stood there looking at his shoes, like the shame of what he’d done had finally set in, and then he was ready.

  Andy asked Walt if he was all right.

  Walt nodded.

  Andy climbed out and pulled the ladder up behind him.

  Roy steeled his nerve with a deep breath, then looked up at all of us gathered round. “Best get this over with.”

  There was a stack of wood and plastic buckets lined up near the old boat ramp, which had deep cracks in it with pigweed and thistle growing out of them.

  Roy took a bucket and filled it with brown water from the river, then poured the water into the hole, careful not to dump any on Walt’s head. Even with all he’d done, we wanted to spare him that indignity. “Sorry, Walt,” he said.

  Each of us followed: fill, dump, set the bucket back on the ramp for the next person. Walt looked up at each of us as we poured the river water in, maybe a sign that he forgave us. Everyone said “Sorry, Walt,” as we dumped more water in.

  It took hours—the hole was deeper than it looked. Walt stared the whole time, even after the water came up to his chin.

  “Don’t hold your breath, Walt,” Roy called to him when he’d floated up the length of the chain. “It’ll just make this take longer.”

  “Sorry,” Walt said in his gravelly voice, his mouth just barely out of the water. “Can’t help it.”

  “S’okay,” Roy said, and motioned for the next person to come.

  Then the water was just over his head. It was dark from all the silt, so all we could see was Walt’s face, cheeks puffed, eyes wide open and looking up at the surface. A few more buckets went in. Walt’s hands went to his nose and mouth, like that would be enough to keep the air in. Only natural. The body wants what it wants.

  Walt grasped for the surface, bloodying his fingertips against the concrete.

  Most looked away then. The rest of us understood.

  Finally Ray shuffled over to the hole, reached in and put his hand on Walt’s head. “It’s all right, Walt,” he said, gently, and stroked Walt’s forehead with his thumb as if he were saying goodbye to a beloved dog. “Just a little longer.” He pressed down, just hard enough to keep Walt’s head under the surface. Then whatever air was left in his lungs bubbled out, and he started grasping at his throat and thrashing. Even Pete turned away. Because it was our duty, the rest of us watched until the thrashing stopped and Walt sunk to the bottom of the hole, and then we couldn’t see him anymore.

  A few feet from the hole, his back turned to Walt’s final moments, Andy Snow began to cry. Those who couldn’t bear to watch Walt any longer shuffled through the grass to pat Andy on the shoulder and tell him he’d done well by Walt.

  After a while, when we were certain it was over, Roy and a couple of the boys fished him out, wrapped him in some towels, and took him by cart to bury him on his own land, next to Miranda, we think. He’d never marked her grave.

  “I need a drink,” Roy said when it was finished.

  We set for home after the burial, uneasy but thinking that we’d done the right thing, and that all in all, it was a good day in Patience. On the way back, we could overhear Roy and a few others talking about what to do with the hole now that it was over. When we first made the decision, we’d agreed to fill it back in, for safety’s sake—couldn’t have kids playing around it—but a few of us wondered aloud whether we should just put a fence around it instead, in case we should need it again. We’d probably have to have another meeting to talk about it, but it would have to wait. We were all sick to death of meetings.

  We went home, drank our homemade whiskey to quell the unease, went to bed like always. That was life. No other choice.

  But we didn’t sleep, because behind our eyelids all we could see was Walt’s face at the end, his gaping mouth, eyes big and round and desperate. Instead we stared up at our ceilings, looked over at our husbands and wives to see if they were still awake too.

  And we wondered aloud, in whispers so the children wouldn’t hear, if it wouldn’t have been better to let Pete take that shotgun to Walt. More humane. Quicker, at least.

  In the early morning, hours before sunrise, those of us who lived near the river heard a noise outside our windows, metal scraping against stone. Nattie Palmer, a known insomniac, was up smoking the first-class weed she grew in her greenhouse and swore she saw a sasquatch walking in the shadows, big and black, with a swatch of white-blond hair over its eyes. On its shoulder it carried what she claimed was a tree branch with a human head affixed to the end, and it was whistling a tune she didn’t recognize, though when she hummed it for us, it sounded a lot like the tune Ella had played.

  In the morning, the hole had been filled with rocks from the riverbank and covered over with a thick layer of dirt. Whoever had done it had worked all night and had the strength of four, maybe five men. But for the patch of dirt, you could hardly tell anything had happened there.

  No one complained. Whoever’d done the deed did a damn fine job: a few handfuls of grass seed and in two weeks, maybe less if there was ample rain, the grass would grow back and everything would be just like it was—smooth, green, and unspoiled.

  Minutes of the Pine Valley Residents’ Board

  4.22

  5:33 p.m.

  Members Attending: Steinhauer (President), Metzger (Treasurer), Reese, Pitkin, Sherman, Langforth

  Minutes from meeting on 4/15 were approved, with two corrections: first, Langforth would like her description of B1’s Ford F-150 as “that hideous, rednecky piece of shit” stricken from record. Such comments are to be considered personal and private, and Secretary ought to know better than to post them. Secondly, Secretary is to delete description of Langforth as “insensitive, self-congratulatory bitch,” as minutes are not to be used as personal diary. Steinhauer agreed, pointed finger at Secretary, said, “Amelia shouldn’t have to put up with that sort of behavior.” Will strike offending comments, sooner or later.

  Langforth nonetheless moved that B1 be made to park his truck behind Building D, so as not to be visible from the street. Steinhauer seconded, on grounds that the sight of such a vehicle on Pine Valley grounds was not good for property values. Reese voiced disagreement, suggested Board had better things to worry about than where B1 parks his truck. Secretary agreed and was subsequently reminded by Langforth that he is not an official member of Board and is to remain silent.

  Motion was passed, 5-1.

  Board President Steinhauer reported progress of replacing vinyl siding with faux wood on each of the six buildings in this complex; this would bring a more upscale feel to Pine Valley and might raise property values enough to drive out certain undesirable residents. Cost to each resident will amount to $975, payable to Treasurer Metzger. Metzger advises those who wish to complain to suck it up or sell off their units.

  Pitkin raised point of order regarding the two children from B3: specifically, that the children—Annie, 6, and Jacob, 8—play noisily in courtyard and disturb his late-afternoon viewing of The Frugal Gourmet, which he must watch after work to dull urge to murder first person he sees. Langforth added that the children are also ugly and painfully stupid, and lamented that, at time woman bought unit B3, complex was too empty to be choosy.

  For the purpose of record-keeping, Pitkin listed the children’
s many offenses:

  Singing country songs at unacceptable volume in the courtyard. Pitkin specified these are not “classic” country songs, but a mix of low-brow patriotic fare and line-dance drivel—their rendition of “Achy Breaky Heart” is especially maddening.

  Shouting just outside other residents’ windows, in particular the epithet “poop-face,” which Pitkin finds vulgar.

  Walking across grounds eating ice cream cones, milkshakes, corn dogs, and other processed foods, the remnants of which can be found strewn across courtyard, sidewalks, and parking lot.

  Jumping on trampoline in courtyard, screeching as if being ritualistically disemboweled; in addition, children and their friends from neighborhood frequently bump heads and cry out to a degree that fills Pitkin with white-hot rage. Also, Langforth added that the trampoline, placed by the mother, resembles something one might find in a trailer park.

  There was consensus among Board members that this concern was paramount. As representative from Building B, Langforth will approach mother about these concerns first thing in morning; she requested Secretary be present so meeting will be on record. Board is hopeful that this will lead to an amicable solution, but should this fail, will consider other options.

  Meeting adjourned at 6:23.

  Addendum

  4.23

  6:35 a.m.

  Langforth came to fetch Secretary at 6:27 a.m.; met her at door in boxers and fuzzy monkey slippers. Langforth expressed disdain. Secretary did not care, having no need to be awake at this hour; first class at community college where he teaches history does not begin until eleven. Hundred-dollar monthly discount on maintenance fees, a perk of Secretary position, takes edge off child-support payments, but may soon cease being worth constant hassle.

  Langforth insisted early hour was necessary; best to catch B3 off-guard so she might be more receptive to Board’s complaints. Made Langforth wait, brushed teeth and threw on tattered bathrobe, then followed her and her imperious clipboard across courtyard.