Not wasting time with qualification or explanations. Wrapped up this chap. and my brain is all about #4
+ + +
When Will had finished complying with recommendations and following instinct, he found himself with a full cart of stuff he’d never imagine owning, much less using. What was he doing here? The answer to that interminable nagging question wasn’t going to be found at the checkout station. The sudden pounding his chest confirmed that, and a lot more.
Will had always perceived of Bertie Blom as an old man. When he first met him, Will wasn’t more than four years old. Bertie could not have yet hit thirty. The last time Will saw him was the summer he spent with Nan, and Bertie may have been in his mid-forties. That summer had been last time he’d seen Nan alive. It was the first time he’d run away and hid; the first time he’d thought such a thing was possible. Nan had sent him away in the Fall, back to school, convincing him such a thing was never possible. But he would try again: Mexico And again: Vienna. And, for what he thought would be the last time and his most brilliant and perfect hiding place: a medical examiner’s office.
And now that urge was on him– again. Bertie Blom, sixty-something, was sitting in the place where Will had first met him and the last place he’d seen him. Will’s hands tightened on the cart. Ditch this shit and flee… He squeezed hard enough to feel the pulses in his wrists. Fuck mom. Fuck Dad. Fuck… He swallowed. If he was serious, to walk away this time final and forever, with all the means in the world to bury himself in the hole of his choosing and let the rest of his miserable life sputter out in the manner of his choosing, all he had to do was add Gran and Nan.
He relaxed the death grip. He closed his eyes, inhaled until he felt the breath threatening to push into his ears. Release . . . Therapy. He blinked a few times, took a step, and convinced himself the laden cart was pulling him to the cash register.
With no one waiting at the checkout, Will went straight to work. Keeping his head down, he began piling his items on the counter, building a wall. He heard a low whistle and, “Looks like somebody’s got a long day ahead of him.” Will answered with a grunt and a nod, careful not to reveal more than a quarter of face. Bertie had always impressed him as a sharp guy, but was he was so sharp he could recall a face he hadn’t seen for twenty years? Take no chances! he told himself.
As the items were rung up and slid down the counter, dismantling his barrier, Will grabbed them and put them back in the cart. Speed was the key to a clean escape. Be packed and ready to fly. Pay up and dash. No need to get a receipt. The last of his purchases were small, a pair of gloves, a package of filter masks and safety goggles. The old man held them from the end of the counter and leaned beneath the counter and pulled out a bag. Will swapped the bag for a credit card, managing the exchange through the corner of one eye and keeping his face turned away as much as he was able. Instead of hearing the whirr and buzz of his transaction being processed, he heard Bertie call out, “Jared!” Will’s hand again grew tight on the cart when he heard, “I’ll have someone get those out you your vehicle and help load it.” Before Will could decline the offer, “Jared!” was called out again.
Before Will could insist on taking care it himself, the kid was there, bounding around the corner, scabbard dancing at his hip. He came to a halt right in front of Will. “Hi,” he said.
“Would you assist this gentleman in loading his merchandise?”
The boy nodded, looking past Will to the counter. “Sure.” He grabbed the front of the cart, grinning at Will. Will sighed, pointed through the window to his truck with his free hand, and said, “Just toss it in the box. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Watching Jared’s fervent departure with the cart, Will considered it may be a blessing. Keeping his back turned to the register wouldn’t be odd if a man were concerned about the paintjob on his new truck. Then he heard something that shot that hope to pieces.
“Willem Holliday.”
He sagged. Will gave himself a second to collect himself, then turned. Just get it over with, and work to keep it short. He expected to be eye-to-eye with Bertie Blom. Instead, the old man was looking at the credit card.
“Willem,” he repeated, “that’s a name that fits right in around these parts, though I haven’t heard it in years.” Will tried not to flinch when Bertie glanced up at him, but it was just a glance, and his eyes were back on the credit card. “Damn near a lifetime since I’ve heard it, actually.’ He fed the card through the slot in the register. “If you’d have grown up around here, we’d probably call you ‘Wim’.”
In a panic, and hoping it would throw the shopkeeper off the scent, Will blurted, “My mom tagged me with Billie. I just go by Will.”
“Billie Holliday?” Now the man was looking straight at him, eyebrows raised and grinning.
Will offered a weak smile and stretched his arm across the counter for his plastic. “Yeah, she thought it was a hoot.”
For a second it appeared the old man was about to surrender the credit card, but he pulled it back and the eyebrows rose even higher. Then his eyes widened as if trying to catch up. “My goodness,” he sputtered as Will’s heart fell, “you’re Marta Rijbergen’s boy!”
Hearing his mother’s maiden name was like having a stroke, a tiny explosion in his brain, but it passed. “Sure am,” he said, motioning for his card. He knew he wouldn’t get off that easy, but thought it worth a try.
Bertie Blom folded his arms on the counter and leaned toward him, shaking his head. “My goodness.” The cash register began spitting out the receipt. “What could possibly bring you back here?” Will pointed at the paper curling out of the machine. The old man grunted, waited until it finished, and glanced over the paper. He looked from the receipt to Will. “The house?”
Will was going to attempt a few-words-as-possible approach. He nodded. “My God, son, are going to fix that place up?”
“Yeah.”
There was no doubting the old man’s astonishment was genuine. He spent a few moments letting his head turn back and forth while he kept his eyes fixed on Will. He didn’t speak again until Jared came crashing back in with the empty cart—“All loaded up!”—and went galloping off to the back of the store, yelping, “Thank you, and come again!”
“I sent Loren over there a couple times after your grandmother passed,” he told Will, “but I don’t imagine anybody’s been there since.” He stopped shaking his head. “You’ve been there?” Will nodded. “In what kind of shape is it?”
“Pretty rough.” This was okay. Give the man a few minutes to prattle on about the house, then announce he’d better get to it. “The bricks are all where they belong…” Now, he told himself, stand back and wait for a cue. He stood in front of Bertie Blom’s pulpit, nodding along with the words that rolled past him, inserting a “yawp” or a “nawp” where it seemed to fit, marveling at how easily the local vernacular crept back into his speech. At hearing, “You’ve got quite a job ahead of you,” Will found his chance to get out the door.
“That’s a fact,” he said brightly, “and it won’t get anywhere with me standing here.” He lifted a hand in farewell and turned.
“Your card.”
Will turned back, picked the card and the receipt from Blom’s fingers and was about to make for the door.
“Quite the character, your mother.”
The air grew dense, too heavy to push through. Will couldn’t ignore him, or even look away.
“Knew each other all our lives, church, Sunday School, you know, then kindergarten and right on up through high school. I was a year ahead, but the schools were so small, you know, we spent a lot of time in the same classes.” Bertie was smiling as he talked.
Will felt his jaw tighten. The smile is genuine, he told himself. It’s benign, harmless. But, with each word, the clench strengthened, creeping up to his ears, descending into his throat.
“After grammar school we rode the bus together to Maastricht for high school. At least once a week– or whenever we could –we’d pile into a car and go to all the games, football, basketball, even the baseball games, just to get out…”
The words came at him. Will heard them, understood them, but as soon as they made it to his ears, they separated from an old shopkeeper’s reminiscence. They churned, torn away from the context of a past Will had never so much as gotten a glimpse of. The memories of an old friend became septic, poisoned by the fetid gunk of his less than fond recollection.
“A driving license didn’t mean much in those days…”
It took Will a moment to recognize he was sliding into a panic attack. Impossible. How long? A dozen years…? Fifteen. His first week at the morgue as a Tech, unzipping a body bag. Blood, brains and hair… The guy was in his kitchen. Did it in front of his kids… It didn’t hit him until he heard “shotgun.” The tunnel vision was kicking in. The man at the counter shrank back, framed in a blur, the mouth moving. Will’s throat grew tighter, threatening to close. Drowning, with lungs full of air. It was this place, this town, this day. Too much, all at once… Blom’s voice became clear again.
“We never missed a dance…
Which led to what? Your first drink? Your first kiss? First feel… first fuck?
Struggling to steady himself, Will raised a hand. There was nothing he could do to stop the tremors. Blom fell silent. “That Marta Rijsbergen wasn’t the one I knew.” Saying it out loud, the name, helped. It pushed her back in her place. “The Marta Rijsbergen I knew was a crazy person.” The air began to move in his chest. “And she was a terrible mother.”
The storekeeper killed his smile, pursing his lips. He said, “I’m sorry, Mister Holliday. I am. I did hear she had some serious problems later in life.”
Will lowered his hand. He followed it with his eyes until he could focus on his crusted shoes. He studied them until the shaking stopped and his breathing was even. When he looked up, Blom’s face was somber, almost shamed.
“I was just trying to let you know that, when she was younger, she was a wonderful friend. I thought the world of her.”
Will bled the tension out of his neck by nodding. He plucked his credit card and the receipt from the counter. Looking only at the paper and plastic, he said. “I’m sure she was, Mister Blom. I’m sure she was.” Turning to leave, he couldn’t allow himself to take a step before adding: “And I’m glad you thought the world of her. It’s good to hear somebody did.”
He walked out, straight to his truck, without looking back.
Will drove to the house. He left the parking lot with no other destination in mind. His only thought was to be mindful of the speed limit. Down the new driveway. He left the keys in the ignition when he swung from the cab. Walking around the back of the vehicle, he caught the handle of the splitting maul and swung it to rest on his shoulder. He entered the house without a glance to the useless kitchen. He instead turned left. He pounded up the stairway to the second floor. He had no concern for the condition of the steps, felt no fear of rotted flooring or weakened studs when he topped the stairs and crossed to the northeast corner bedroom. The door was ajar, and the hinges held when he kicked it wide open. He took scant notice of the pink, flocked wallpaper, curled, stained and faded. It looked to Will no different than it had when he was a boy. The gloves, safety goggles and filter masks were in the bed of the truck. He didn’t think of them. He just hefted the big hammer and swung.