Gypsies

“I knew there was something wrong with him. He made me think of somebody who had been hurt somehow. When I was a girl we used to see veterans who had been gassed in France: he reminded me of that. He moved his head oddly; he had strange eyes under that old slouch hat. I thought he might be, you know, simpleminded.

“But then he sat down and looked straight at the kids and I saw them looking at him, and he smiled, and it was a horrible smile, and his eyes lit up in a terrible hungry way… and when I saw Tim smiling back at him I just felt faint, the way you would feel if you saw your child playing with a rattlesnake or something. I grabbed the kids and rang the bell and we got off at the next stop—ran off is more like it.”

Laura said, “We moved after that?”

“I told Willis about it… and yes, we moved pretty much directly after that.”

“Every time we moved, was it because of the Gray Man?”

“I think so. Mostly. Willis never talked about it.”

“You never asked him?”

“Hardly ever. And he wouldn’t answer.”

We never talked, Karen thought. Nobody ever talked.

Laura said, “I wonder if this Ben Williams is still alive. Maybe there’s somebody in Burleigh who would know… Mama, do you think so?”

Mama said, “You’re determined to go stirring this up?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

“Well … I doubt that you’ll be able to find anybody who can help. Most of that Assembly congregation must be scattered by now. The mill closed down years ago. A few of the men knew what happened that night when you three were taken from Ben and his wife. But they never seemed liable to talk about it. In a town of gossips, that is one thing people kept to themselves. And who else is there?”

Karen said, “There’s Daddy.”

Laura looked at her. Mama regarded her with obvious surprise.

“Your father,” Mama began, “would never—”

But then there was the bang and rattle of the big front door, and Michael rushed into the house.

Chapter Thirteen

Karen found her son in his room, cross-legged on the bed and breathing hard. He looked up sharply when she came through the door.

“Michael?” She closed the door for privacy. “Michael, what is it?”

“Willis,” he said.

Michael had been out in the hills south of town, he said, and Willis had picked him up and driven him back here. Willis wasn’t drunk but he was angry. Willis had accused him of practicing witchcraft or raising demons or something… Willis had tried to hit him.

Karen felt a sudden chill. “How do you mean, tried?”

My son, she thought. My father.

Michael said, “I didn’t let him.” “Michael, that’s silly … if he wanted to hit you, he would have.”

“I stopped him.”

Willis might be older now but he was still strong and he was twice Michael’s size. “How could you possibly stop Daddy?”

But Michael didn’t answer, and Karen—thinking about Michael and Daddy alone in the car—guessed she already knew.

“You wait here,” she said.

She asked downstairs, but Daddy hadn’t come in yet. So she went out through the side door into the cold, hugging her sweater around herself and breathing icy plumes.

The garage door loomed open. It was not a garage so much as it was a shed, a barnboard box leaning cockeyed against the north wall of the house. The seasons had put big gaps and rents in it. The interior was dark in the wintry light.

She moved cautiously around the pitted chromed fenders of the Fairlane, along a wall lined with rust-flecked garden tools.

“Daddy?”

No answer. But there was a flicker of light in the car: Willis’s cigarette as he turned toward her.

“Daddy,” she said, “I’m cold.”

He hooked open the right-hand car door with a weary gesture. “What do you want?”

“To talk,” she said.

The door hung open.

Trembling a little, Karen slid inside.

Willis sat crammed against the driver’s side, one arm up to cradle his head, the other resting on the wheel. The car was full of cigarette smoke. A crushed pack of Camels lay on the dash.

Karen looked at him, at his face. It took a certain amount of courage just to keep her eyes on him. She had seldom truly looked at her father; she had learned a long time ago that it was better not to. In her memory he was not a thing seen so much as a presence, a voice, a rumbling imperative. He was something fundamental, like lightning or thunder—and you can’t stare down the weather.

But he was an old man in an old car—that, too.

She said, “You tried to hit Michael.”

Willis exhaled and butted out the cigarette in the door tray. “He went ru

“I asked him about it.”

“You ask him anything else about it?”

“No… should I?”

“Maybe. For instance maybe you ought to ask him what he was doing up in those hills this afternoon.”

There was no way to avoid this anymore. She cleared her throat and said, “Daddy, I know what he was doing.”

Willis looked at her once, startled… then turned away. His big hands gripped the steering wheel. He said after a time, “I used to think you were different. But you’re not, are you? You’re just like the other two.”

It made her want to yell. I am, she wanted to say, I am different, you made me different! I’m what you wanted—Christ, look at me! But she forced away the thought and took a deep, deliberate breath. “I tried to bring Michael up to be normal. I really did. But he can’t be forever what he’s not.”

“Well, what is he, then? Have you given any thought to that?”

No, she hadn’t, but… “That’s why we came here. To find out what Michael is. And what we are.”

Willis just shook his head bitterly. “He threatened me. Did he tell you that? He threatened to drop me down a hole into Hell. And I…”

He seemed to stall in the recollection.

Karen said, “You believed him?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Daddy, you scared him.”

“He’s like your brother. He’s about as respectful. Less. Oh yeah… you did a great job on him, all right.”

She said, “But I never hit him.” “Well, you should have.”

No, Karen thought. I’m a grown-up woman now. I know better. “Maybe Tim was right,” she said.

Willis regarded her angrily.

Karen said, “Maybe we should have hated you. Maybe the problem is we never did. You beat us and we loved you anyway. It was like loving a rock, but we did. Laura did, even though she won’t admit it. Maybe even Tim did. At least when he was little. But you know what? If I had a neighbor who treated his kids the way you treated us, you know what I’d do? I’d call the police.”

She was saying this and thinking it at the same time; it surprised her as much as it seemed to surprise Willis. He said, “You came here to tell me that?”

“I came here to save Michael’s life!”

He frowned.

Karen said, “Daddy, the Gray Man almost took him. And there was a little girl killed.”

Willis winced. “Christ Jesus.” He shook his head. “You never told me …”

Karen said, “Who was Ben Williams? Who were our parents? Daddy, do you know?”

But he didn’t speak. He stared at her and then he reached over and took a second pack of Camels from the glove compartment. He crumpled the cellophane and dropped it into the shadows at his feet, drew out a cigarette from the package, struck a match, and inhaled deeply. He held the smoke a moment and then said, with a meekness she did not recognize at all, “Your mother told you about this?”

Karen nodded.

“Well, shit,” Willis said.

“But not the important parts. Daddy, we need to know.”

He was silent for another long while. He smoked his cigarette down to the filter. Karen was about to give up and go back to the house when Willis suddenly opened his door. The overhead light flashed on in the car and the glare was sudden and harsh. He stepped out onto the concrete.