The Joy of Killing (24 page)

I can only accept the scene just played out as the way it happened. I believe that it is immutably etched in the eyes of the girl on the train. I pull in a deep breath, and tears accompany its exhale. The boy did what he could for Joseph without sacrificing himself. His mistake was in saving Sally from her desire to join her brother; she knew what lay ahead of her and she was entitled to avoid it. I see it now, but the boy could not have known it then. He misread the girl's damnation. He lived away not from the curse of taking a life but from saving one. He grew into manhood without the images of the story in his mind, only the harsh glance of Sally at the gathering the next day. Whatever self-judgment lurked in his being is now purged. He owes it to the girl on the train, he owes everything to her. There is no judgment in life. Only acceptance.

I
FINISH TYPING
the scene, reach out and flick off the lamp. The room blackens and is slowly illuminated by the light of the moon, which now hangs high and bright in the sky like a celestial ornament. I stand and walk to the window. I look past the moon into the stars. Another story for the universe to absorb, I think. The orb spins slightly to the left, and then rights itself. The rattling sounds, but far off, as if something has scurried into the bowels of the old house. Perhaps Sally is waiting outside the door, or at the garden wall, having divined my purpose and wanting to witness it. I would kiss her, if I could. See if there isn't the faintest spark of life in her.

The boy and the girl, I notice, have fallen silent. The metal-on-metal clickety-clacking is so loud, the train is moving so fast, yet the two of them seem to have found some sort of peace together. The images of his story fade from her eyes. They grow shallow, like the water at the edge of a calm sea.

T
HE LIGHTS IN
the car flash on. The old woman in the shawl and the conductor are looking between and under seats for something she's lost. Complaints arise from a few sleepers. The conductor finally locates an earring hooked in her shawl. The lights dim.

T
HE BOY FOUND
himself in growing discomfort, as if something was pushing up against his throat. The relief from having told the story of Joseph is leaving him. The wall has been breached, something else waits to be told. The girl is leaning forward slightly. Her eyes have left his story behind and have a gentle light in them. She holds out her hand to him. In it lies the Zippo. She turns it over,
to show the barely visible engraving of my father's initials. R.L.M. U.S.M.C.

“It's so lovely,” she says. “Don't ever lose it.” She places the lighter on my palm. Her fingers linger on the globe and anchor, and then drop away.

I
STAND AND
walk over to the chair on which my coat is hanging. I lift it up and feel an unnatural weight. I swing it back and forth. I put one arm through it, and then the other; I straighten the coat over my shoulders. I was wearing it earlier today, at the alley where Willie was gutted. And on the drive up here. And wherever in between, still a mystery, and the solving of it, I see, is becoming more and more wound into the scenes of the past. I pat the side pockets. My left hand knocks something. Jesus. I tap it again. Perhaps I bought another one. A replica. I smile; I will toss it down the stairs to see what it scares up; or I could fling it out the window through the leaves at the moon, now dimming somewhat. I feel the ground shift under me, like the rocking of the train back and forth. The girl's face is smiling, as if with secret knowledge. Slowly I slip my fingers into the left pocket and brush hard metal. I know from the feel, the weight, that it is one of the original Zippos, the one that outlines itself in white on your jeans pocket. My thumb brushes the globe. It can't be. I pull it from the pocket and walk to the window. The globe is worn almost smooth. I open the window, and just before winding up to toss it I turn it over to see if the owner left his initials. He did: R.L.M. My hand drops to my side. The Zippo slides to the tips of my fingers. A flutter of wings in the air
above my head, a shadow diving over the glowing object, arcing off through the wooden frame. The sound of the metal hitting the floor echoes. How did the girl on the train know where it was? I reach down and touch it; the globe and anchor glow red like embers. I grasp the edges of it, stand. My breathing has grown shallow, but my eyes, sharp as a sparrow's, spot the dent on the corner, from the time I had accidentally dropped it from a second-story school window. It couldn't have been in my pocket all of these years. I hold it up, turn it about in the light.

My thumb snaps the top up—clink!—and brushes down over the wheel—whoosh!—an orange flame leaps high and twirls like a manic dervish. Clunk! Perfectly executed. My hand flashes down over my jeans and whips back up with a flame. The fire dances blue and gold; in it I see a face of pain and a feeling of joy, even glory. I snap the Zippo shut and drop it in my pocket. The ecstasy of the moment will, I believe, lead the way to the terribly elusive clarity I seek.

I settle down in front of the Underwood. I leave the light off. My fingers settle over the keys, my eyes remain on the golden orb, now only inches from the window.

Yes, the cat with the tips of its whiskers flecked with Willie's blood. Jade eyes, stepping back slowly. I tap it out, without watching my fingers, like Mrs. Roberts taught us. The feeling I had then, in the alley, was one of—what?—relief? Purpose? Newly found. Understanding, possibly, as to what must have happened. I turn away, the image torched into the visual neurons in my brain, but feeling incomplete: I want to imagine the story of Willie's demise. I
need to see it, not out of bitterness, but because I feel entitled to it, and to slip another piece into the ongoing puzzle of my life. I cast a final glance at the black cat, sitting back on his haunches, who was likewise casting a final glance at me.

I
DROVE FROM
there to David's house, a large structure built into the bluffs overlooking the Iowa River. I knew he had become moderately wealthy from expanding his father's printing business into nearby towns. He showed up occasionally in the paper's society columns. Thick hair now gray, a lock still falling over his forehead. Unable or unwilling to erase the sly smirk from his face. Other than my first wife's funeral, I had run into him only once in this small town since his wedding, and that was at a cocktail party at the president of the college's mansion, a few years before
The Professor
was published and I was still considered a leading light on the faculty because of my papers on human motivation. David had of course clapped me on the shoulder and said we must get together to “talk about old times.” Even then, before my theory of moral neutrality had fully matured, I felt little animosity or bitterness toward my old friend.

I think curiosity was the reason I drove up to David's house late this morning. Had he killed Willie? What did killing him feel like?
How exactly
had he killed him? I fully intended to do nothing about it; there was no particular value to Willie's life, and David was simply acting out a scene in the play of his life, which he had not authored, as had none of us ours. So it was in a moment of relative ease and transcendence that I turned into David's drive: I
wanted only to understand what had happened, to hear the story of it, and, yes, perhaps to some degree to experience the act of it. I saw myself as neither cheerleader nor judge, only the interested observer.

As I wheeled around the long curve of the sweeping drive, I saw a figure standing in the open door of a large brick garage. Hands hooked in his jeans' belt loops, one hip slightly cocked. He watched in amusement as I pulled to a stop.

I stepped out.

“Good to see you,” he said, holding out a hand.

“Likewise.”

“How long's it been?” he asked.

“Since the funeral,” I said.

“You still got the Chevy?” he asked, glancing at my rental car.

“Same one,” I said.

“I drove it at your wedding,” he said. “From the church to the reception.”

“I remember.”

That image stopped us cold for a few seconds.

“Come on inside,” he said.

“I just stopped by . . .”

“You read about Willie's gruesome end.”

He turned up the walk and opened the door. It was as if Willie were a mutual friend, I thought. It had been over forty years since that day. Inside the house, a massive picture window scanned five miles up and down the river and from his lawn to the clouds in the sky. Leather couches and chairs, with a heavy Mediterranean feel.
A large Oriental rug lay over gleaming oak floors. On the coffee table I noticed a gold cigarette box with his initials on top, and next to it a gold table lighter. David offered me a drink, and when I passed he stepped into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of beer. He walked to the window. Pointed across the river. “There's our old neighborhood,” he said. “The repair shop. Our houses. All still there.” Judy Pauling? My mind went: Is she still there? And the postman? I saw David's approach—get to the heart of things right away, show there's no guilt, even regret over whatever had gone on forty years ago, or yesterday. I could have predicted it; whichever way the world turned, it never got the best of the guy. He would be smirking the moment they slid his body into the furnace.

“Do you think much about those times?” he asked.

“Now and then,” I said. “I remember smoking on the steps behind the repair shop. I remember Willie.”

His eyes stopped to read me, search for a hint of dissonance, blame, regret, anything that could be a threat.

“He lived a long, full life,” he said.

I laughed. David's cool cracked for a moment.

“Funny?”

“Willie leading a full life,” I said.

David lifted the beer to his mouth.

“How did he die?” I asked.

“The paper said he was stabbed to death in an alley.”

“That's it?”

“What does that mean?”

“You know everything in this town,” I said. “Who was it?”

His eyes grew hooded, brushing off the smirk.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious.”

He sat down on the couch. He reached for the gold box, flipped open the top, and offered me a cigarette. When I waved it off, he lifted a cigarette from the case. Pall Mall. Extra Tall. He fired the lighter, touched it to the tip.

“Remember these?”

“I smoked Luckies.”

“LSMFT.” The smirk was back. “Lucky Strike means fine tobacco.” He smiled benevolently. “We did a lot of shit together in those days.”

“A lot,” I said. “Not all of it cool.”

“We were twelve, thirteen,” he said. “We got over it. You got over it. Look at you—college professor, famous author. I read your book
The Professor
, by the way. I loved it.”

“Why would you kill him after all these years?”

He took a slow drag, eyes on me. “Man, you go right at it, don't you?”

T
HAT DOESN
'
T SEEM
quite right. The scene is missing something. It's moving too fast. There was an odd feeling of living in the past. I felt my old attraction for him: the cool guy with his dark hair swirled back into a ducktail, who always knew what was going on. I remember resisting an urge to let go of the whole Willie thing. I think it went more like this:

“I read your book
The Professor
, by the way. It's perfect.”

“Really? It doesn't seem like your sort of book.”

“Hey, man, he had it right. If the Professor felt he was entitled to kill his wife for fucking his neighbor, then he was. We're all animals, you know? We do what we think is right.”

“Did you read his memoir,
The Joy of Killing
?”

He nodded his head. “The way I see it, you're the Professor. The picture on the back should have been you.”

Really? I thought, but said nothing. The smirk reminded me of the old days, when he always had the upper hand.

“Well,” he picked up, “I loved the way the Professor handled those assholes who called him names like psychopath or sociopath. The more they saw he wasn't bothered by what he did, the more pissed they got. He never felt bad about anything. He went to his death a happy man. I admire that.”

I let that sit there. Seconds passed.

“Are you a happy man?” I asked.

That seemed to startle him. I sat down in the chair opposite him.

“Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking about Willie.”

“I don't think Willie was happy.”

“I mean about what happened to him. Why it happened.”

He took a long pull on the Pall Mall, let half the smoke out, pulled it in through his nose, and let it drift out of his mouth in a gentle stream. I half expected him to spit on the floor.

“You think I killed Willie?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

He studied me carefully through the haze.

“I figure that over time the stuff between you and him got to be more than you could handle, and at some point you realized the only way to reduce the feelings was to kill him.”