The Witch of the Wood Read online

  “Strike two,” Rudy said softly. Sullivan clearly occupied them with the writing assignment, all their heads down, and he was checking them out, girl by girl, row by row, you could see it.

  Then was the last camera cut, a last cell phone more in the center of the room, first row, slightly stage left, positioned in the operator’s lap so perfectly the image was straight up and down. Sullivan was sweating, it was sheened up on his forehead like glass, and he was darting his glance side to side.

  “Hey,” he was saying. “Put those cell phones away. Hey!”

  Back to the newscaster.

  It was strike three, slam dunk, end of game, end of story. As usual, the media had formed a dramatic line, and whether or not the individual shots were telling, the combination was absolutely damning. Of course, the context trashed the teacher—it best sold the story. And he was probably guilty. Of looking and enjoying it. So were the cops who beat Rodney King, guilty of beating Rodney King. But the first minute and a half was never shown to the general public. Was there footage that could have saved Sullivan here?

  They’d never know.

  And Sullivan was going down. No doubt about it.

  The newscaster ended with:

  “More news from Franklin Heights High School, shop teacher Frank Bond has been missing for a day now. He signed in for work yesterday and never showed up for his classes. Authorities are investigating, but do not expect any foul play.”

  Rudy clicked off the set.

  It was staggering, what Wolfie had managed to churn up in a single twenty-four hour period. Absolute division, confusion, cultural antinomy. Rudy wouldn’t have been surprised to see this on the national news at 6:30.

  Sullivan was guilty, but stained with a crime he shared with many of those who would condemn him. And everyone was forced now to undergo some real soul-searching, possibly making Sullivan a victim of the larger societal contradiction, therefore erasing cheerleading and gymnastics and track and field hockey, not to mention lacrosse, ballet, ice skating, and all the water sports. And if you took the other side, claiming it was O.K. to watch those things in certain contexts, how did you rationalize harsh judgment on a man who very well could have been looking because he was paid to look, to enforce dress code, to confiscate electronic devices? Was he looking at the cell phones, or were they looking at him?

  Then back to square one, everyone saw it in vivid Technicolor. The bastard was looking at the girls, not playing cop. What was expected in the pep rally was a crime in the classroom, at least in the court of public opinion. And if you did slam-dunk Sullivan on the platform of context, you had to live with the contradiction that these latter events (and outfits and uniforms) were designed for male audiences, manufactured for the specific practice of “studying girls.”

  It was the perfect vicious circle. If you backed him, even in the policing scenario, you admitted you supported “looking.” If you condemned him, you were a hypocrite the minute you went to a football game. If you played middle ground and claimed context, your motives would be under the microscope now, and even in this new light, coming in hard from the side so to speak, there would be a strong majority, of women mostly, cheerleader moms just as fanatical as the Little League dads, who would wonder what was fair about telling their daughters to just cover up and dilute the leg stretching, especially considering all the camps, practices, pulled muscles, and turned ankles they’d endured since the age of nine in the name of the sport(s) that they loved.

  Division? This was nuclear. And perfect in the chaos it caused, pristine in that there was never a good answer and it made everyone’s blood boil, like those essay questions we leaned on so heavily, making the students argue for something impossible to solve like the death penalty or abortion.

  Oh, he’d divide them all right. And Pat had been the perfect pawn to set up camp on one side of the fissure.

  Rudy snatched the phone out of its holder and dialed Pat’s cell. She let it ring almost the full five times.

  “Yes?” she finally said.

  “Where is he?”

  “Oh. Hello, Rudy.”

  His teeth were grinding together and he spoke through them.

  “Where is my son?”

  There was a pause, then a blurting that had tears and righteous defiance in it.

  “He’s here in the car, and we’re going to the house for some chicken soup. My precious sweetheart has been through hell today, and he needs a mother’s comfort.”

  “You turn that car around and bring him home. Now.”

  “Rudy . . .”

  “You are not his mother.”

  “I’m the only mother he’s got!”

  Rudy stood.

  “Patricia! It’s a legal issue. He may be eighteen, but he’s still in high school. I don’t care what it says on some random set of registration papers, I am his guardian and I want him home. Don’t make me call the authorities!”

  “You go ahead and try!”

  “Mum,” Wolfie said in the background. “It’s all right, please.”

  “No, it’s not all right,” she said.

  “Mum, you’ll have to take me home right away. Turn the car around, yes. I’m so sorr—”

  The connection broke and there was silence. Rudy tried the number three times, but got voicemail. He was seething; God, she infuriated him! Patricia was the epitome of melodramatic emotionality, weak excuses, painting the picture rosy, and winning because the opposition felt sorry for her. She was all the things in life that made Rudy cringe, and though there was no concrete harm in Wolfie being coddled, it filled Rudy with a nearly uncontrollable rage. How dare she!

  He stalked around the apartment, opening the fridge, not really looking, turning on Comcast, not really watching. Minutes ticked away, hours, years, centuries. Finally, the door opened and Wolfie came through, unaccompanied by the coward, of course. Rudy was in his boy’s face immediately.

  “I told you, no contact with that woman.”

  Wolfie backed away and waved his hand in front of his face.

  “Whoa, breathe, Dad, yo.”

  “Not funny.”

  “Not laughing.” He walked around the sofa and plopped himself down. Rudy followed and stood over him.

  “Stay away from her.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s an influence.”

  Wolfie looked up.

  “On me? A bad influence? Really? Did you just say that out loud?”

  Rudy ran his palm across his mouth, trying to calm himself. He moved across the room and sat on the footrest. He sighed and turned toward the window.

  “My biography?” he finally said softly. “You got this from me?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “I’m not like him.”

  “Yes, but you look at them too.”

  “Well, there’s looking and then there’s looking, Wolfie.”

  “Potato, potaaato.”

  “No!” Rudy said. “It’s not the same thing!”

  “Really?” Wolfie stood up. He looked as if he were about to say something harsh, but he shut his mouth, reconsidering. He put his hands in his pockets, looked down, and said softly,

  “Dad. I know two girls from Franklin Heights who would each be a perfect sexual match for you.”

  “No!”

  “But they are.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Isn’t it? One is eighteen.”

  “Wolfie . . .”

  “And the other turns eighteen next week. Would it be O.K. for you then? I could arrange a threesome, I’m sure of it.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Why? Does the week really make a difference? Really? They are both beautiful, one a redhead with a sour apple pout and freckled cleavage the way that you like it, and the other is a blonde with long, athletic legs. Both have a daddy complex and neither is a virgin.”

  Rudy’s fists had tightened and his neck strained with it.

  “No!” he shouted. “I won’t! Not with a mi
nor, and not with a student, even if she’s twenty-two! I don’t care what the law would let me get away with the moment a girl sees her eighteenth summer, and I’m not interested in the way you can twist things! I notice a young woman’s sexuality because I’m a man, but I choose my lovers as a human being with a conscience. There are certain things that are off-limits, even in your new world order!”

  The room rang with it, and the silence afterwards felt thick and unhealthy. Wolfie shook his head and walked off to the bedroom.

  “So sad, what you deny yourself, Dad.”

  Rudy followed, speaking at his son’s back.

  “But it’s my sadness. I’m happier living with it, Wolfie, and it’s not going to change. Ever.”

  “So sad,” Wolfie repeated.

  He sat on the bed and opened the laptop.

  “What are you doing?” Rudy said. Wolfie looked up.

  “You want to come in and see?”

  “No. I’m happy here in the doorway, Wolfie.”

  The boy shrugged and looked back at the screen.

  “It starts with the Facebook war, Dad. Duffey will be looking for me on here, gathering friends and supporters, and I’ve got to address him. Sullivan was the most popular teacher in the school, always voicing ‘cool’ things on the inside track, like ‘I don’t understand this book either,’ or calling money ‘serious coin,’ or joking about farts and telling stories during class time. He was a bit transparent, but an easy A and a hearty laugh. And then there was Duffey, the poor little rough kid that got signed up at age ten for football by his parents because he’d lit a fire in a field behind the paper branch after a long summer of rock throwing, shoplifting, and shooting out windows with a .22. He needed a focus. Since the first Pop Warner game that this frustrated, warped child played years ago out on the grass-worn field at the Dermond complex, Coach Sullivan has been a close friend of that family. He took a disadvantaged kid who could rush the quarterback and built dreams inside of him, of a D1 school, a full ride, and the NFL from there. I’ve destroyed Duffey’s savior. He’ll want to kill me.”

  “And you’re going to fight him.”

  Wolfie closed the laptop gently.

  “It won’t be much of a fight, Dad. I am going to try to reason with him at first, apologize. He will shove me around pretty good, and there on the asphalt, possibly down on my knees by that point, showered by his taunts, I’m going to stand up for the downtrodden, the abused, the violated, and the weak. I am going to . . .”

  He stopped thoughtfully.

  “It’s best not said aloud.” He looked at his father. “But the violence will be so profound and extreme, it will erect a sort of religion.”

  “So you can be worshipped in prison.”

  “By some. Division. Remember?”

  Rudy ducked out and closed the door gently. He tried to eat and didn’t have the stomach for it. He tried to sleep on the sofa and couldn’t.

  Only someone pathetically weak or utterly insane could possibly let this continue, as father, as citizen. It was no longer some abstract, intellectual concept, a nosy neighbor here, a shop teacher there. It was going to go global fast, and once Wolfie was lost inside the prison system, there was no stopping this grisly, loathsome machine.

  Witches underground?

  It was a sin, certainly.

  Did he believe it?

  Every word.

  And now the kicker. Would he try to put a stop to this horrific and unacceptable vision of revenge while there was still time?

  Rudy Barnes tossed and turned out on the sofa all night, trying to fend off the heaviness that lay on his heart whenever he thought of any kind of harm coming to this beautiful and dangerous boy. Then he questioned the heaviness itself and fought to stay rational about it.

  Yes, Wolfie was his son, his blood, but where did this “love” really come from? Was not this emotion something you developed over time, learned to trust, nurtured, built layer by layer?

  He’d known the boy for barely more than a weekend. If this was fiction he wouldn’t believe it was worthy of the page, so why trust it here in real life?

  He stared at the ceiling in the semi-darkness. Wolfie was a warlock. He cast spells of love, so this feeling was not real. It was imposed. It was rape. And the idea that this state of mind lay on his emotions like some terminal cancer gave a perspective, at least intellectually.

  He knew that in the end he needed to be true to himself. Rudy hadn’t asked to be king of the universe, but he’d gone and signed on when it was offered to him, yes he had, and the blood of two men stained his hands.

  Time to undo this mistake.

  The question was how. The question was whether Wolfie could actually be defeated.

  And also, Rudy wondered whether there would be anything left of his own heart when the spell was ripped clean? Cancer had this clinging ability that made it a tough trick to split it from the tissue.

  Rudy had until 7:00 A.M. to figure all this out.

  But at 7:10 the next morning Rudy hadn’t figured it out. What he had done was wake his boy with a snuggle and a muffling of his hair. He’d made him his iodine shake and sat at the table across from him.

  This was going code red, and he couldn’t do one thing to stop it. It was easy to picture heroics on the sofa in the dark, but in the pale light of the kitchen those things seemed like dreams and mist.

  Wolfie put his glass down hard and gave a little burp.

  “Amen!” he said, and something clicked in Rudy’s mind. Something tangible, something insightful, it was that sudden, like waking up with a cold shock of water straight in the face.

  Amen.

  Religiosity.

  Perspective.

  It was all about riddles, about looking at things from different angles, and Rudy sat at that kitchen table fighting to retain his outer “calm” while on the inside he worked desperately now, point by point, facet by facet, blowing smoke and dust away from the forms and lines that made up an alternate interpretation of Wolfie’s “Coming of Dreams.”

  Rudy had never quite bought into the nova theory. It was not that he hadn’t understood the terminology (and he hadn’t), but there was something about it that seemed off-kilter. Scientists had formed a way to put the witches under the dirt, but release-codes, propaganda, and prophecies were typically architected by politicians, those who wouldn’t know the first thing about life pods, or R. H. rotations, or new reproductive dualities.

  Politicians were more like Rudy. They were wordsmiths.

  What was the first thing people tended to flock toward during social crisis or change?

  The clergy, or something similar depending on the culture.

  Rudy’s heart pounded in his chest as it all came together. Beautiful and horrific. Holy and violent. The paradox was that the freedom of the witches was not synonymous with the death of all men, and the protective clause was win-win, lose-lose on both sides.

  Wolfie’s dreams were actually connected.

  The number three was a traditional religious reference.

  The “Riddle of the Wood” with its flowing golden rivers was a play on words, and the black widow was the most venomous in the shadow of her lair.

  “Wolfie,” Rudy said smoothly. “I think that before your . . . event with Duffey, you should pay a last visit to Patricia. You never quite made it over to the house, and it will be a long time before the two of you will have a chance for reunion.”

  He’d tried to make it sound like it had been a tough decision he’d really fought over within himself. Overcome with emotion, Wolfie stood and almost stumbled on his way around the table. He took his father’s hands in his.

  “Finally, Dad,” he managed. “You see her beauty. There’s hope for the new race of man after all.”

  He bent to kiss his father, and Rudy stopped him by gently placing his palms on both sides of the boy’s head.

  “I’m the one who needs to kiss you, Wolfie. Take it with you where you go. Remember it.”
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  He pressed his lips to his son’s warm cheek, amazed at his amazement at how much it hurt inside to do so.

  In the car, they did not speak. Wolfie was evidently preoccupied with what he was going to do with Duffey, and Rudy’s face was a mask. Beneath the surface he was terrified. Sitting beside him was a demon, loyal only by birth-tie, trusting him solely because of the brief history of subservience Rudy had worn about himself like a soaked poncho.

  Wolfie could read biographies. That was exactly like reading minds, except if he made the mistake of thinking the last one he analyzed had remained stagnant, hadn’t been updated so to speak. Wolfie had “read” his father on first meeting and had no idea things had changed. Rudy hoped beyond hope it would stay that way, at least for the next five minutes or so.

  They rounded the corner of Hamstead and Elm, and Rudy was flooded with memories, some bitter, some pleasant. He and Pat had “grown up together” here and then grown apart, married at twenty-seven, divorced in their forties. They had put all their dreams in this place, a Queen Anne Victorian with its wrap-around porch and asymmetrical roofs, the external basement entrance out back adorned by a slanted wooden “Dorothy” door and a yard leading down to Patricia’s “craft” area at the rear of the property where a black iron gate separated her work shed from a stand of thick and rather tangled woods. As Rudy had settled himself indoors through the years, making his dens into offices and eventually overtaking the upstairs where he’d demanded silence while he worked, Pat had gone eccentric with all her “projects” outside, erecting her many sculptures soon to be abandoned, her gardens that wound up bug-eaten and wilted, her paintings that eventually got moved and re-moved to the far corner of the basement, dirt-spotted with their edges curling down.