Дж. Хатчинс - Personal Effects - Dark Art

None of us knew what was going on with that stranger, but Dad’s reaction was clearly bullshit. I was suddenly curious, hungry-curious, to learn more.

“—any interesting patients lately?” Dad was asking me.

“Uhhh… “Great. Frying pan to fire. I couldn’t get into this particular subject with my father right now, considering I was assigned to Martin’s Grace case and Dad was on a mission to personally crucify the man. To me, Grace was already “a shit-storm onion”—a Lucasism, meaning layers and layers of trouble—without locking horns with Dad over the guy.

More importantly, I needed to know what had just happened here.

“…yeah, Dad. Settled something on Friday, in fact.” I faked a grimace, then checked my watch. “Lucas and Rachael can tell you a little about it. I need to hit the head before the service starts.” I passed Eustacio as I left the parlor; we exchanged a nod.

And then I was off, trotting down the hallway, heading out of the lobby.

I caught up with the stranger a half-block down East 77th Street. Despite the autumn chill in the air, I was sweating from the run.

“Hey!” I hollered. The stranger turned, spotted me, and made to bolt across the street.

A taxi nearly clipped the man as he stepped onto the asphalt. He leaped back to the sidewalk, swaying wildly. In classic New York style, the cabbie screamed “fuck you” and then the car screeched off, leaving me alone with the man, both of us still panting.

“Look, I just want to know what the hell that was about,” I said. The fellow shook his head, eying traffic for another opportunity to cross. He clutched his bruised forearm. I waved my hands in front of him to get his attention.

“I swear to God, man, my dad doesn’t know I’m here. I just need to know. Who are you?”

The man barked a panicked laugh. “I’m nobody, Zach,” he said. His spectacles reflected the passing headlights. “I’m the invisible man, the Ghost of Christmas Past, I’m an afterthought, a vapor”—and now his face twisted into a sneer as he spat out the words—“ vaporized by your father, edited out of the history books, just like him .”

I blinked. “Edited what? Who?”

“My God!” the man yelped. “It’s all new to you —they never told you, did they? Of course you don’t know. Gone, poof, a whole life ruined and erased. Your grandmother listened to Will—always the one with the answers, the one with the plans, the angles, the power—and she agreed! Decided it was for the best, to protect you. How could Will do that? Henry was a good man!”

“Who?” I asked. This was insane, The Brink brought topside, lunatic times, lunatic talk, shink-shink-shink jingle-jangle craziness.

“HENRY!” the stranger bellowed. “Will’s brother. His own brother!”

Something small broke inside my head, like a cog popping loose. I cocked my head to the side, trying desperately to understand.

“My father doesn’t have a brother,” I whispered.

The Invisible Man was nodding now, his hand sliding up to his photographer’s vest.

“Oh, yes he did,” the man said. “Yes he does . Still alive, worse than dead. I came here tonight…”

His voice trailed off. The man stared up into the night sky for a moment. A tear slid down his face. He looked back to me.

“I came here to finally tell her I was sorry, so sorry for not telling her Will was wrong, for not speaking out, for not standing up for your uncle—”

“I don’t have an uncle,” I said. That gear in my head was still rolling around loose.

“You do, Zach.” The stranger’s expression was pitying, sympathetic. He fished the memorial card envelope from his pocket and pressed it into my sweating palms. “You do. Hidden away, buried by your dad. But it didn’t—”

He was looking over my shoulder now, the panic surging over his face again.

“Fuck.”

I turned and saw—and now heard—my father as he ran up the street toward us, shouting as he came. Damn it. Either Dad hadn’t fallen for my “gotta whiz” sham, or good ole Papa-Jean had been suspicious and followed me. It didn’t matter.

“Who are you?”

The Invisible Man shook his head again. He glanced into the traffic, then to me.

“I’m nobody, Zach. And so’s Henry, right now. But know this: It didn’t happen the way they said it did. It’s all lies.”

My father was screaming. The Invisible Man and I stared into each other’s eyes for a heartbeat. He smiled and dashed across the street. The cars braked and honked, roaring around him. He made it to the other side.

And then, he disappeared into the darkness.

I gazed down at the crumpled envelope in my hand, a thing that—if this man was telling the truth—was a message from an alternate reality, a parallel universe. An uncle? Lucas and I… had an uncle?

I pocketed the envelope. And then William Taylor, in all his Defcon-One glory, was upon me.

Call me the perpetual Young Man. I was a “young man” when I was six and accidentally dropped a jar of Skippy peanut butter on my kid brother’s toes. I was a “young man” when I was ten and got caught watching a scrambled adult cable channel in our living room, well past my bedtime. (If you crossed your eyes just right, you could make out flashbulb pops of naked flesh through the snow.) And I was a “young man” when I was actually a young man: doing the Anti-Zach thing, breaking into high school lockers, acquiring mad skills with slim jims and stealing cars, getting stoned, picking locks, swiping merchandise, losing cops in alleyways and street crowds. And then the sin I committed, the unforgivable one that forced my father’s hand and swept me away to a New Hampshire facility for “evaluation.” I’m better for it. I hold back because of it. I’m no longer giddy to get giddy-giddy .

I’m sure I’ll also be a “young man” when I’m fifty and my father is on his death bed.

“Young man, I want to know exactly what you’re doing here,” Dad growled now. Neither Lucas nor I had inherited our father’s height, which was something he used expertly in times like this. He stepped toward me, looming like a thundercloud. He was far too close now, invading my personal space. I felt a desperate pang of claustrophobia; the tie around my neck felt like a noose.

Dad’s blue eyes flared.

“Put some words into the air, son. Answer me.”

I stammered and took a step backward, but he persisted, matching me footstep for footstep.

“Ah…” I heard myself say. “Dad, I just…”

“Just,” he said. “What.”

“Jesus! It was fucking weird, Dad!” I cried. I’d never seen him like this, this ferociously intent on getting answers. “What you and Papa-Jean did back there. Don’t look at me and say that it wasn’t! Can you honestly—”

“I’m asking the questions, Zachary.” I heard his teeth click together on that last syllable. He took another half-step toward me. He was a playground bully, a junkyard Rottweiler, a lawyer vivisecting the accused on the witness stand. This was something he was dangerously good at. I realized then this was something he’d spent the past thirty years perfecting.

He huffed an exhale through his nostrils.

“I said. Tell. Me.”

“I was curious,” I replied. My shoulders jigged, shrugging madly. “I couldn’t not be curious. You get all mafioso on some poor scrub, somebody who knew us—”

“He knows us because he’s a criminal, Zachary,” Dad hissed. “I helped send him up to Clinton twenty years ago, twenty-to-life. Must be out on good behavior… and let me tell you that’s a joke, young man, because there was nothing good about his behavior, not back then. Veterinarian. He had a clinic, clinic had a basement. He took his wife there, skinned her alive, kept her alive, and ate her skin. Cooked it like strips of bacon. He had enough training to know where to cut, how to cut, and how to stop the blood before she could die.”