Friday Fiction (On a Sunday): Missing Wilson

 

MISSING WILSON

 

Summer came in violently, with storms, and still Wilson had not returned. His distraught mother wrote letter after letter, but did not know where to send them. They ended up in a box on the mantlepiece, and George later used them to light the fire. No-one noticed.

Elizabeth had waited in agony for the first three months. She sat in the gingham window seat and watched the grey storm clouds, and had once, in vague apprehension, lit a candle in the window. When she awoke, the left wing was burned to the ground. The summer rains had washed her heart.

Grandpa was dead, and so no longer worried about Wilson. They had found him in the garden chair, on his knees a cold cup of tea in which a June bug bobbed. He had been left there overnight, until the hearse could come, but by morning he had vanished, no one knew where. Only the heel of his right shoe had been found, discovered by Jimmy in the dry birdbath.

George did not care if Wilson ever came back or not. If the subject was ever brought to his attention, in casual conversation or after a late meal of meatloaf and noodles, he would rub the side of his nose and say that the government probably knew what it was doing. At night he was observed taking spare socks out of Wilson's dresser and replacing them with a few wadded shreds of toilet paper.

Jimmy took to drinking many Coca-colas and listening to sad songs on the gramaphone for hours into the night. Wilson had been the boy's hero, the bright summation of all Jimmy wanted to be. He had been almost his father, almost his big brother. Now the trees seemed taller, the cellar darker. Unknown troubles loomed invisibly over his shoulders, weighing him down as the days dragged on. He ate little and grew thinner.

Sometimes he and Elizabeth would sit on the pale green divan and leaf through photo albums and encyclopedias, looking for something important that they had forgotten.

The Professor lived in a small apartment over the garage. He had known Wilson only briefly before Wilson had left, called in the middle of the night by the urgent men with turned-up collars, and so could have no strong feelings about him. But the mood of the household had drifted over him like volcanic ash and settled in his bones.

One day he dashed his coffee against the garden wall at the Ladies' Lawn Banquet, and shocked everyone. When questioned later at the police station, he had feebly protested that he had been distracted by the fact that baboons have no chin. They had released him, but after that all looked at him with some suspicion.

Old Red would whimper and scratch at the back door, although no one dared let him in. He was Wilson's dog, and when Wilson was gone he would be almost mad with fury, growling and snapping at any who came near him. In all the months that Wilson was gone he lived on whatever he could catch, squirrels or birds or frogs. No one would enter the back yard where he was penned, not even to feed him.

Summer ripened, heating the roads to hard, baked, choking dust, and still Wilson had not returned. His mother began to neglect her housework, to frantically sew lace, yards and yards of it, sometimes for days at a time without rest or food, as if she hoped in her heart that it would bring her son back safe. The house grew shabbier and shabbier from neglect until Elizabeth took it upon herself to do a few simple chores, washing the soup kettles and dusting the knick-knacks, and flushing the toilet which Jimmy, in his despair, often forgot to do.

Into the situation the government dropped Basil Twain, ostensibly to investigate the disappearance of Grandpa's body. He was a short, dumpy, sagging man, dressed in plain battered clothes. He stood on the porch, pencil and pad in hand, smiling sadly and questioning Wilson's mother.

"Mrs. Wilson?" he asked, and she desperately nodded her head, wisps of stray hair feathering around her face. "I'm from the government. I'd like to ask a few questions about your father's death..."

For the next half-hour they sat in the dusty living room as Mrs. Wilson told all she knew of the old man's departure, of the chair and the tea and the June bug, of the disappearing body and the right heel. All through the story Twain nodded and sighed sympathetically and smiled sadly, and finally he asked, "And Wilson, where was he when this happened?"

The old woman started. "Oh, he was gone for weeks by then. Didn't you know? You are from the government aren't you? They took him away. They took him away," she cried desperately.

The detective looked startled. "You mean Wilson isn't here?"

"He's been gone months and months," she sniffed. "Some men came and took him away."

"I see," he said, and scribbled some notes. "I'm not in that branch, so I wouldn't know. Just a few more questions. Did you see these men that took your son away?"

"No, no, Elizabeth saw that. That's one of my boarders. They were so close! And Jimmy, her brother. They saw it."

"Could I speak with them, do you think?"

"Yes, of course," she said. They both stood and she led them to a door in the hallway. "In there. Just knock. If you'll excuse me, I have some lace I must finish. Good-bye."

Twain stood a bit by the door after Mrs. Wilson had left. Then he knocked.

A moment passed. Then the door opened just a crack. A tousled head of dark hair with hollow eyes looked out. "Yes?" said Jimmy hoarsely.

"Hello, son," said Twain sympathetically. "Could I speak to your sister for a minute?"

"What do you want?"

"Just a few questions."

"Wait a minute," said Jimmy. The door closed. After a few seconds it opened again. "Come on."

Twain entered and felt a sudden shock he was too polite to express in words or looks. The room was just a bare floor and four charred remnants of walls. There was a bed and several chairs, all under the open sky. In one of the chairs a young girl--eighteen? nineteen?--was reading a book with a red cover.

"Elizabth?" he asked. She looked up.

"Yes? she said politely.

"My name is Twain," he said, and explained his business. "Now, a few questions. These strangers that took Wilson. What were they like?"

Elizabeth pondered. "Do you think they're connected with Grandpa's disappearance?" she asked, puzzled.

"Maybe. Maybe. I think Wilson's disappearance may be connected with the grandfather's."

"How could that be?" she wondered, then dismissed it. "Those men. There were two of them. They were very secretive--black suits, black sunglasses, black car. That's why I thought it must have been the government. And the way they talked--very stern and businesslike."

"But they never actually said they were from the government."

"No."

"They weren't."

Elizabeth went very still. "Then who--?"

Twain hushed her. "We don't know. But we can pretty surely deduce they are enemies of the state. Don't worry. I'll explain more later."

"Can you find Wilson?" asked Jimmy anxiously. "Forget about the old man. He's dead! He doesn't matter anymore! Just find Wilson."

"Settle down, son. I'll try. I have to ask a few more people some questions. I'll talk to you some more later." He walked over to the door. He paused, hand on the knob. "Oh, by the way. Nice room."

Elizabeth smiled and blushed. "It rains, sometimes."

Twain went across the hall to George's room. George had little to say, and laughed sarcastically like an animated woodpecker in answer to his questions. Twain then passed to the Professor's room over the garage.

"Yes, I am a professor of entymology," said the Professor. He gestured at the various cages and cases that held many live specimens.

"Very interesting, but beside the point now," said the detective. "What did you know about the old Mr. Wilson?"

"A doddering fool," sneered the Professor. "I could hardly believe the fuss they made about him. They acted as if he were the final word on everything. I couldn't stand his smug superiority."

"I see," said the detective. "Is that why you killed him?"

The Professor gasped. "You can't prove it!" he shouted.

"No, I can't," said Twain, shaking his head sadly. "But I know it. The June bug was a dead giveaway. You have access to all sorts of natural poisons. And a motive." He sighed. "Not, maybe, that it really matters. He was old, would have gone soon. What made me suspect you first was the incident at the Lawn Banquet."

"Yes," said the Professor miserably. "It wasn't baboon chins, or the lack therof, that distracted me. That was a feeble excuse. It was really the thought of my own wickedness."

"Well, don't fret about it," said Twain. "There are more important things now to think about. I won't denounce you. Just answer a few questions. First, do you know what happened to the body?"

"No."

"Do you know where Wilson is?"

"Haven't the faintest idea."

"Alright. Gather everybody into the living room. I've got a few things to say to all of you."

A quarter hour later found the household assembled in the living room. Twain paced up and down, preparing his words carefully. He looked up at the expectant faces.

"I'll begin by thanking you all for your co-operation. I will also say right away that I don't know what happened to the old man's body. Nor does it matter to my real business.

"My real business is finding Wilson.

"You see, a little while ago the President was advised by top metaphysicians--poets, theologians, philosophers--that this house is a microcosm of the whole country. The people here embody the essentials--love, God, science--other things too complicated to go into here, rather than accidentals, like race, religion, sex. As long as balance was maintained here, all was alright.

"But enemies of the state heard about this and whisked Wilson, a key element in the equation, away. Who were they? Russkies, Chinks, traitors...they could be devils, for all I know.

"With Wilson gone, the system crumbled, destroying itself, preying on itself. The entire country is in a turmoil."

Twain looked sadly around the circle of pale, frightened faces. "We need Wilson. We can't find him. It's more important than you think. We've got to find Wilson." His voice rose pathetically, urgently. "You must realize, we've got to find Wilson! He's the one essential!"

The circle of faces looked on in despair. Only George smiled. Then, in the quiet after Twain's speech, he began softly, madly, to laugh.

Notes

What can I tell you? It was the early Eighties, and my first year in college. I had entered a Creative Writing class with Mike, my older brother, and he was far more dedicated than I was. I had more of the desire to have written than to actually sit down and write. What I really wanted to work on was Fantasy, but it wasn't as socially acceptable at the time as it would become again, and I was a little wary. I thought I might ease my way into things with an absurdist fable; my patterns were John Gardner and Edward Gorey, Monty Python and Woody Allen. I launched into the story with very little idea where it was going or how I would end it. I don't know why I still cling to it, as unsatisfying as I find it. Perhaps because it's a story that I actually finished; perhaps because it is part of my history now; or perhaps it's simply because I find it hard to abandon even the weak, halting products of my creativity. They are after all unrecreatable, even if miscreated.