Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

The overheated boy decided to take a purgative dip in the pool when he noticed the envelope that had been slid under the door some hours before. He picked it up and read the elaborate scrawl: For My Son .

He was seriously spooked.

Was his father still there, on the grounds, in the house? Worse: was he actually staying over? No! … the same panic he had felt while hiding in the Mauck overtook him — as in a horror film, Marcus Weiner would burst in and shake him to death like a newborn in the hands of a wigged-out au pair. Shamed again, he ascribed his thoughts to the hysterical, nay, prodromal , throes of incipient psychosis, until he was fully beside himself once more—

He opened the door.

And stood in the hall, letting the quietude of the upper floors restore his pulse to a reasonable rate. While there was a certain flamboyance in bringing the man to Saint-Cloud, Toulouse was convinced it would have been uncharacteristically reckless of his grandfather to have organized a sleepover — especially after his churlish response to the visitor’s clumsy overtures. The gambit had been an unmitigated failure.

He closed the door and bolted it. He raced to bed, still nervously clutching the heavy leaf of stationery with the Trotter family crest. Upon it was an elegant, forthright cursive, beautifully engraved and colored in. He drew it to his nose and sniffed the damp paint, instantly becalmed.

Dearest son,

I robbed myself of having known you — and this, along with having done harm to your mother’s heart, has broken mine. But you must be assured that even should you choose not to know ME or speak with me again, and while I would be utterly respectful of your feelings, I shall never leave you and shall always honour you as my progeny; for you are a brave and wondrous boy — this I know without having been told. You have nothing to fear from me, for I have only the deepest and most abiding awe for a boy called Toulouse. Awe, and a father’s kindest love!

Marcus

PS: I have had it with the JINNAS; they will not take me away again. (Ask your grandfather about the latter; it is not a raving but rather a metaphor.) SALUD!

He had plenty to ponder on the ride back to Montecito.

A part of him wished to vanish again. In his mind, with only Jane Scull for companionship, he walked dark, faceless streets searching for cardboard to build a home. He saw them warmed by the blistering sidewalk fires of skid row as they made their way back to the bridge encampment, where they peacefully supped on all manner of discarded delicacies. Yet he knew he could never go back to such a life now, and would die before trying.

The boy! He believed — yes, he did — that it was the very same boy he had seen in the agency lobby some months back. They were, the both of them, staring at … William Morris! Marcus had turned to the child and remarked — no, inquired — why it was that there were no nameplates to identify the painted men. Why indeed! That’s what this thicket of a wicked, ineffable life sorely needed: captions and nameplates.

As they rushed along the coast through the night air, moon roof open, he read the letter again, for the last time:

My Darling Will — Her is the Booke you wantd me to Look after. And I have kild the man who did tern you in and also akuse you of Terible things that shold not be saed of anie personn. He saed you wold be Kild in jael and I had to reek Vengenke. He is the saem man who has taken me to Bed by Forse. I did this with him becos he Threaded you with Vengenke — he sae he kno you from downtow. But wen you were takken by the Poliec, it did not matter Any mor. Also, I am carieing a Chylde. I am sory to say it is not yurs. It is a Man what rapid me. But not the Man who I kild. I am telling Evrythgn you now tho it Hurtts me so, Will! Becos yuou must kno! I am NTO a Hore. I am a good womon who have Terible Luch. I am lovin you So Muc now, Will! I have ridden this with out help from the Butifull Gremar Book you gav me and wich I will hav ben Stuedyingy soon. I thot you mite lik to know that, Signned, Your Own Jane Scull.

Ps. I hav bin told ttha in TWIN TOWWER JAIL, one of the TOWWERS JAILS is for Woman. So if you feele I shold Tern Mysel in for the Kiling, we cold vissit, If that is alowd.

Pss. I hav left this note instedt of Seeing you and wantd too so muche. but I cuold not say these Things to yor face? and thot you wolde not Love me anymor. I hop I am wrong. Plaese rite bak soon.

From Yor deerest friend, who loves You as a Wif. Jane

He told Eulogio to pull into a beachside lot. The driver hesitated; Marcus said he had to urinate. He stepped into the Santa Ana night, loud with ocean, and walked to the sand.

Suddenly fearing for his rider’s safety, Eulogio chased after. “Where you going? Mr. Marcus! Where you going, please!”

He strode into the waves. As they rushed his calves, he tore the letter to pieces, scattering it to sea. He wanted to scatter himself with it, but no: he would not leave again. There were too many people he owed, living and dead.

At Montecito, another letter in the chain awaited. It lay on a bedside table and was from his wife.

A FIRST LETTER [Indian Wells]

Marcus — I hardly know where to begin. I’m writing this for myself—I fled the holidays to a favorite desert spa but now I’m house-sitting for a client who’s in a balmier place. It’s been done up rather Balinese, Rangooney(?) too, with Tabriz rugs, Tang-this and Ming-that. In the middle of it all — or should I say the front — the long low fascia trimmed in copper. Not very “me” but then that’s probably a good thing.

Funny, but I have begun writing you, in my head anyhow, at least a hundred times in the last month but now the stars, literally, seem right. There’s a mystic hair-raising wind peculiar to this corridor that shivers the soul — always a spur to confessionals. I’m seated at a white linen outdoor table beside a great black maw of golf course. A handsome young man in a rather frayed monkey suit just brought me a steak and (nonalcohol) martini — O God, suddenly I’m writing short stories again, trying to please the professors with an undergrad lyrical turn of phrase—

I can’t care, or I’ll never write a word. I don’t even know who you are — but Father tells me you’re making terrific progress and I’m happy for you because I can’t imagine the horrors you’ve endured in your odyssey. I’ve had my share of agony and if I sometimes did not know or bother where I was, I always had the luxury (curse?) of money and a roof over my head. Maybe those things aren’t so important after all; tho I don’t wish to be presumptuous and romanticize what happened to you. That’s always been my impulse, isn’t it? I fight it still — finding the “Zen” bit in what for you was surely catastrophic. It was catastrophic for me too. Anyway, Father assured he’s given over scant details to you of my life after we married; since I seem to know a bit about yours, it’s only fair I attempt to enlighten.

I traveled quite a bit at first

(two hours later now) the morning you vanished, a part of me vanished too (oh, hideous cliché!). For a while, I naturally feared for your life, because the disappearance made no sense. How could it? Initially, we thought you’d been kidnapped — did Father tell you how certain he was he would be contacted for ransom? As for shell-shocked me, I retreated to the topmost room of that dreadful tower, all the while hating that we’d ever discovered the Colonne. Bluey finally pried me out. Doctors gave me pills for depression and pills for sleep; I didn’t learn I was pregnant till ten weeks later (my period had stopped but I chalked that up to the general trauma — is this Too Much Information?) and all those enforced Rx’s gave me a fright I’d done damage to our son …