Well, before.
"Yes. There's a photograph of him standing on top of San Juan Hill. It's around here someplace. Grampy claimed to have fought in the Civil War as well, but my research--for my memoirs, you understand--proved conclusively that he could not have done. He would have been a toddler, if born at all. But he was quite the fanciful gentleman, and he had a way of making me believe the wildest tales. Why would I not? I was only a child, not long from believing in Kris Kringle and the tooth fairy."
"Was he a lawyer like you and your father?"
"No, son, he was a thief. The original Light-Finger Harry. Anything that wasn't nailed down. Only, like most thieves who don't get caught--our current governor might be a case in point--he called himself a businessman. His chief business and chief thievery was land. He bought bug-and gator-infested Florida acreage cheap and sold it dear to folks who must have been as gullible as I was as a child. Balzac once said, 'Behind every great fortune there is a crime.' That's certainly true of the Beecher family, and please remember that you're my lawyer. Anything I say to you must be held in confidence."
"Yes, Judge." Wayland takes another sip of his drink. It is by far the finest Scotch he has ever drunk.
"Grampy Beecher was the one who pointed out that island to me. I was ten. He'd had the care of me for the day, and I suppose he wanted some peace and quiet. Or maybe what he wanted was a bit noisier. There was a pretty housemaid, and he may have been in hopes of investigating beneath her petticoats. So he told me that Edward Teach--better known as Blackbeard--had supposedly buried a great treasure out there. 'Nobody's ever found it, Havie,' he said--Havie's what he called me--'but you might be the one. A fortune in jewels and gold doubloons.' You know what I did next, I suppose."
"I suppose you went out there and left your grandfather to cheer up the maid."
The Judge nods, smiling. "I took the old wooden canoe we had tied up to the dock. Went like my hair was on fire and my tailfeathers were catching. Didn't take but five minutes to paddle out there. Takes me three times as long these days, and that's if the water's smooth. The island's all rock and brush on the landward side, but there's a dune of fine beach sand on the Gulf side. It never goes away. In the eighty years I've been going out there, it never seems to change."
"Didn't find any treasure, I suppose?"
"I did, in a way, but it wasn't jewels and gold. It was a name, written in the sand of that dune. As if with a stick, you know, only I didn't see any stick. The letters were drawn deep, and the sun struck shadows into them, making them stand out. Almost as if they were floating."
"What was the name, Judge?"
"I think you have to see it written to understand."
The Judge takes a sheet of paper from the top drawer of his desk, prints carefully, then turns the paper around so Wayland can read it: ROBIE LADOOSH.
"All right . . ." Wayland says cautiously.
"On any other day, I would have gone treasure-hunting with this very boy, because he was my best friend, and you know how boys are when they're best friends."
"Joined at the hip," Wayland says, smiling. Perhaps he's recalling his own best friend in bygone days.
"Tight as a new key in a new lock," Wayland agrees. "But it was summer and he'd gone off with his parents to visit his mama's people in Virginia or Maryland or some such northern clime. So I was on my own. But attend me closely, Counselor. The boy's actual name was Robert LaDoucette."
Again Wayland says, "All right . . ." The Judge thinks that sort of leading drawl could become annoying over time, but it isn't a thing he'll ever have to actually find out, so he lets it go.
"He was my best friend and I was his, but there was a whole gang of boys we ran around with, and everyone called him Robbie LaDoosh. You follow?"
"I guess," Wayland says, but the Judge can see he doesn't. That's understandable; Beecher has had a lot more time to think about these things. Often on sleepless nights.
"Remember that I was ten. If I had been asked to spell my friend's nickname, I would have done it just this way." He taps ROBIE LADOOSH. Speaking almost to himself, he adds: "So some of the magic comes from me. It must come from me. The question is, how much?"
"You're saying you didn't write that name in the sand?"
"No. I thought I made that clear."
"One of your other friends, then?"
"They were all from Nokomis Village, and didn't even know about that island. We never would have paddled out to such an uninteresting little rock on our own. Robbie knew it was there, he was also from the Point, but he was hundreds of miles north."
"All right . . ."
"My chum Robbie never came back from that vacation. We got word a week or so later that he'd taken a fall while out horseback riding. He broke his neck. Killed instantly. His parents were heartbroken. So was I."
There is silence while Wayland considers this. While they both consider it. Somewhere far off, a helicopter beats at the sky over the Gulf. The DEA looking for drug runners, the Judge supposes. He hears them every night. It's the modern age, and in some ways--in many--he'll be glad to be shed of it.
At last Wayland says, "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"Well, I don't know," the Judge says. "What do you think I'm saying?"
But Anthony Wayland is a lawyer, and refusing to be drawn is an ingrained habit with him. "Did you tell your grandfather?"
"On the day the telegram about Robbie came, he wasn't there to tell. He never stayed in one place for long. We didn't see him again for six months or more. No, I kept it to myself. And like Mary after she gave birth to God's only son, I considered these things in my heart."
"And what conclusion did you draw?"
"I kept canoeing out to that island to look at the dune. That should answer your question. There was nothing . . . and nothing . . . and nothing. I guess I was on the verge of forgetting all about it, but then I went out one afternoon after school and there was another name written in the sand. Printed in the sand, to be courtroom-exact. No sign of a stick that time, either, although I suppose a stick could have been thrown into the water. This time the name was Peter Alderson. It meant nothing to me until a few days later. It was my chore to go out to the end of the road and get the paper, and it was my habit to scan the front page while I walked back up the drive--which, as you know from driving it yourself, is a good quarter mile long. In the summer I'd also check on how the Washington Senators had done, because back then they were as close to a southern team as we had.
"This particular day, a headline on the bottom of the front page caught my eye: WINDOW WASHER KILLED IN FREAK FALL. The poor guy was doing the third-floor windows of the Sarasota Public Library when the scaffolding he was standing on gave way. His name was Peter Alderson."
The Judge can see from Wayland's face that he believes this is either a prank or some sort of elaborate fantasy the Judge is spinning out. He can also see that Wayland is enjoying his drink, and when the Judge moves to top it up, Wayland doesn't say no. And really, the young man's belief or disbelief is beside the point. It's just such a luxury to tell it.
"Maybe you see why I go back and forth in my mind about where the magic lies," Beecher says. "I knew Robbie, and the misspelling of his name was my misspelling. But I didn't know this window washer from Adam. In any case, that's when the dune really started to get a hold on me. I began going out almost every day, a habit that's continued into my very old age. I respect the place, I fear the place, and most of all, I'm addicted to the place.
"Over the years, many names have appeared on that dune, and the people the names belong to always die. Sometimes it's within the week, sometimes it's two, but it's never more than a month. Some have been people I knew, and if it's by a nickname I knew them, it's the nickname I see. One day in nineteen forty I paddled out there and saw GRAMPY BEECHER drawn into the sand. He died in Key West three days later. It was a heart attack."
With the air of someone humoring a man who is mentally unbalanced but
not actually dangerous, Wayland asks, "Did you never try to interfere with this . . . this process? Call your grandfather, for instance, and tell him to see a doctor?"
Beecher shakes his head. "I didn't know it was a heart attack until we got word from the Monroe County medical examiner, did I? It could have been an accident, or even a murder. Certainly there were people who had reasons to hate my grandfather; his dealings were not of the purest sort."
"Still . . ."
"Also, I was afraid. I felt, I still feel, as if there on that island, there's a hatch that's come ajar. On this side is what we're pleased to call 'the real world.' On the other is all the machinery of the universe, running at top speed. Only a fool would stick his hand into such machinery in an attempt to stop it."
"Judge Beecher, if you want your paperwork to sail through probate, I'd keep quiet about all this. You might think there's no one to contest your will, but when large amounts of money are at stake, third and fourth cousins have a way of appearing like rabbits from a magician's hat. And you know the time-honored criterion: 'being of sound mind.' "
"I've kept it to myself for eighty years," Beecher says, and in his voice Wayland can hear objection overruled. "Never a word until now. And--perhaps I need to point it out again, although I shouldn't--whatever I say to you falls under the umbrella of privilege."
"All right," Wayland says. "Fine."
"I was always excited on days when names appeared in the sand--unhealthily excited, I'm sure--but terrified of the phenomenon only once. That single time I was deeply terrified, and fled back to the Point in my canoe as if devils were after me. Shall I tell you?"
"Please." Wayland lifts his drink and sips. Why not? Billable hours are, after all, billable hours.
"It was nineteen fifty-nine. I was still on the Point. I've always lived here except for the years in Tallahassee, and it's better not to speak of them . . . although I now think part of the hate I felt for that provincial backwater of a town, perhaps even most of it, was simply a masked longing for the island, and the dune. I kept wondering what I was missing, you see. Who I was missing. Being able to read obituaries in advance gives a man an extraordinary sense of power. Perhaps you find that unlovely, but there it is.
"So. Nineteen fifty-nine. Harvey Beecher lawyering in Sarasota and living at Pelican Point. If it wasn't pouring down rain when I got home, I'd always change into old clothes and paddle out to the island for a look-see before supper. On this particular day I'd been kept at the office late, and by the time I'd gotten out to the island, tied up, and walked over to the dune side, the sun was going down big and red, as it so often does over the Gulf. What I saw stunned me. I literally could not move.
"There wasn't just one name written in the sand that evening but many, and in that red sunset light they looked as if they had been written in blood. They were crammed together, they wove in and out, they were written over and above and up and down. The whole length and breadth of the dune was covered with a tapestry of names. The ones down by the water had been half erased.
"I think I screamed. I can't remember for sure, but yes, I think so. What I do remember is breaking the paralysis and running away as fast as I could, down the path to where my canoe was tied up. It seemed to take me forever to unpluck the knot, and when I did, I pushed the canoe out into the water before I climbed in. I was soaked from head to toe, and it's a wonder I didn't tump it over. Although in those days I could have easily swum to shore, and pushing the canoe ahead of me. Not these days; if I tipped my kayak over now, that would be all she wrote." He grins. "Speaking of writing, as we are."
"Then I suggest you stay onshore, at least until your will is signed, witnessed, and notarized."
Judge Beecher gives the young man a wintry smile. "You needn't worry about that, son," he says. He looks toward the window, and the Gulf beyond. His face is long and thoughtful. "Those names . . . I can see them yet, jostling each other for place on that bloodred dune. Two days later, a TWA plane on its way to Miami crashed in the 'Glades. All one hundred and nineteen souls on board were killed. The passenger list was in the paper. I recognized some of the names. I recognized many of them."
"You saw this. You saw those names."
"Yes. For several months after that I stayed away from the island, and I promised myself I would stay away for good. I suppose drug addicts make the same promises to themselves about their dope, don't they? And, like them, I eventually weakened and resumed my old habit. Now, Counselor: do you understand why I called you out here to finish the work on my will, and why it had to be tonight?"
Wayland doesn't believe a word of it, but like many fantasies, this one has its own internal logic. It's easy enough to follow. The Judge is ninety, his once ruddy complexion has gone the color of clay, his formerly firm step has become shuffling and tentative. He's clearly in pain, and he's lost weight he can't afford to lose.
"I suppose that today you saw your name in the sand," Wayland says.
Judge Beecher looks momentarily startled, and then he smiles. It is a terrible smile, transforming his narrow, pallid face into a death's-head grin.
"Oh no," he says. "Not mine."
Thinking of W. F. Harvey
Life is full of Big Questions, isn't it? Fate or destiny? Heaven or hell? Love or attraction? Reason or impulse?
Beatles or Stones?
For me it was always the Stones--the Beatles were just too soft once they became Jupiter in the solar system of pop music. (My wife used to refer to Sir Paul McCartney as "old dog eyes," and that kind of summed up how I felt.) But the early Beatles . . . ah, they played honest rock, and I still listen to those old tracks--mostly covers--with love. Sometimes I'm even moved to get up and dance a little.
One of my favorites was their version of the Larry Williams classic "Bad Boy," with John Lennon singing lead in a hoarse, urgent voice. I particularly liked the exhorted punchline: "Now Junior, behave yourself!" At some point, I decided I wanted to write a story about a bad little kid who moved into the neighborhood. Not a kid who was the devil's spawn, not a kid who was possessed by some ancient demon a la The Exorcist, but just bad for bad's sake, bad to the bone, the apotheosis of all the bad little kids who ever were. I saw him in shorts, and with a propeller beanie on his head. I saw him always causing trouble and absolutely never behaving himself.
This is the story that grew around that little kid: an evil version of Sluggo, Nancy's friend from the funny pages. An electronic version has appeared in France and also in Germany, where "Bad Boy" was no doubt a part of the Beatles' Star Club repertoire. This is its first publication in English.
Bad Little Kid
1
The prison was twenty miles from the nearest small city, on an otherwise empty expanse of prairie where the wind blew almost all the time. The main building was a looming stone horror perpetrated on the landscape at the beginning of the twentieth century. Growing from either side were concrete cellblocks built one by one over the previous forty-five years, mostly with federal money that began flowing during the Nixon years and just never stopped.
At some distance from the main body of the prison was a smaller building. The prisoners called this adjunct Needle Manor. Jutting from one side of it was an outdoor corridor forty yards long, twenty feet wide, and enclosed in heavy chainlink fencing: the Chicken Run. Each Needle Manor inmate--currently there were seven--was allowed two hours in the Chicken Run each day. Some walked. Some jogged. Most simply sat with their backs against the chainlink, either staring up at the sky or looking at the low grassy ridge that broke the landscape a quarter of a mile to the east. Sometimes there was something to look at. More often there was nothing. Almost always there was the wind. For three months of the year, the Chicken Run was hot. The rest of the time it was cold. In the winter, it was frigid. The inmates usually chose to go out even then. There was the sky to look at, after all. Birds. Sometimes deer feeding along the crest of that low ridge, free to go where they pleased.
At the center of Ne
edle Manor was a tiled room containing a Y-shaped table and a few rudimentary pieces of medical equipment. Set in one wall was a window with drawn curtains. When pulled back, they disclosed an observation chamber no bigger than the living room of a suburban tract house with a dozen hard plastic chairs where guests could view the Y-shaped table. On the wall was a sign reading KEEP SILENT AND MAKE NO GESTURES DURING THE PROCEDURE.
There were an even dozen cells in Needle Manor. Beyond them was a guardroom. Beyond the guardroom was a monitoring station which was manned 24/7. Beyond the monitoring station was a consultation room, where a table on the inmate side was separated from the table on the visitor side by thick Plexiglas. There were no phones; inmates conversed with their loved ones or legal representatives through a circle of small punched holes, like those in the mouthpiece of an old-fashioned telephone.
Leonard Bradley sat down on his side of this communication port and opened his briefcase. He put a yellow legal pad and a Uniball pen on the table. Then he waited. The second hand on his watch made three revolutions and started a fourth before the door leading to the inner regions of Needle Manor opened with a loud clack of withdrawing bolts. Bradley knew all the guards by now. This one was McGregor. Not a bad guy. He was holding George Hallas by the arm. Hallas's hands were free, but a steel snake of chain rattled along the floor between his ankles. There was a wide leather belt around the waist of his orange prison jumper, and when he sat down on his side of the glass, McGregor clipped another chain from a steel loop on the belt to a steel loop on the back of the chair. He locked it, gave it a tug, then tipped Bradley a two-finger salute.
"Afternoon, Counselor."
"Afternoon, Mr. McGregor."
Hallas said nothing.
"You know the deal," McGregor said. "As long as you want today. Or as long as you can take him, at least."
"I know."
Ordinarily, lawyer-client consultations were limited to an hour. Beginning a month before the client's scheduled trip into the room with the Y-shaped table, consultation time was upped to ninety minutes, during which the lawyer and his increasingly squirrelly partner in this state-mandated death waltz would discuss a diminishing number of shitty options. During the last week, there was no set time limit. This was true for close relatives as well as legal counsel, but Hallas's wife had divorced him only weeks after his conviction, and there were no children. He was alone in the world except for Len Bradley, but seemed to want little to do with any of the appeals--and consequent delays--Bradley had suggested.