“He’s trying to call our bluff.” Hobb is fuming, and pacing, and smoking all at once.
“We knew he would.”
“But hoped he wouldn’t.” You are trying to make eye contact with someone, but everyone is avoiding you—Hal, Hobb, Lester, Proude, and the blond guy…his first name is Tony. You suddenly have in one room more “friends” than you do across the whole city. That is, if “friend” can be defined as a group of people working around the clock to save your ass. Yeah, that sounds about right.
You aren’t a part of the strategizing, just a body in the room (even though everything is about you right now), so you shift in your cold metal chair, trying to be patient, trying to follow what is being said.
“Do you think he knows that we’ve been talking to Will?”
“We made sure of it—“
“No, I mean the real reason, not the contrived one.”
“We have no way of knowing for sure.”
“It’s brilliant really…make sure we’re as committed to clearing his name, covering his stupidity, as we say we are.” Hal coughs into his arm, inhaled smoke escaping in short bursts from his nostrils. All the nervous smoking is quickly filling this tiny cement-block room; a headache is knocking on the space between your eyes. As if reading your mind, Hobb leans on the metal bar across the door and lets it swing open to the flat, gravel-covered roof.
“He trusts me.” He says, throwing his cigarette down and putting it out with his heel. “I know he trusts me to handle this case. It’s you he doesn’t trust, Hal.”
“Well, we know what we have to do.” Now they all turn to you at once.
“Are you ready, Will?” You feel your throat constricting despite the influx of fresh evening air, and suddenly feel the need to stand outside. Hobb moves out of the way as you pass him; everyone moves forward a bit as if they are scared you are going to throw yourself from the building or something equally as desperate. But you stand there, one hand holding on to the brick of the wall to steady yourself. Is it strange that you are only thinking of her in this moment? You are wondering if she will she ever, ever forgive you.
You suddenly realize that Tony…Nash…yeah, Nash, is in the middle of a reassuring speech. He’s the officer that’s about to take you into custody. He’s trying to let you know that he’ll be with you every step of the way. He’s trying to let you know that he’s in control of your experience. You almost believe him until you look into his face—his lack of self-assuredness is not comforting. So you find Hal’s face instead—that pudgy, sweet, fatherly face. This is the man you’re doing all of this for. Why?
“Will.” Hobb places a hand on your elbow. “It’s time.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
She hasn’t been to see you. Why would she? You stare at the gray ceiling you’ve looked at for so many hours that you are certain you’ve made an indentation. Hal’s taking care of Mom, Tony’s doing a pretty good job of protecting you…she’s all you have to think about. You miss her most of all, anyway.
Her dad is furious, you know it. He was already angry when you changed your major last year; he’s certainly flipped a lid now. What does it look like to him? You’ve returned to that old life. You’ve dishonored him, disrespected all he’s done. You don’t blame him—of course that’s what it looks like. You didn’t think about him once when you made this decision.
They must have known you had a record when they asked you to do this. Of course they did. That’s why you were such a perfect target—motive, previous history. It’s easy to believe someone who’s stolen before would do it again, even after years of being a quiet, law-abiding citizen.
You’ve been through this before—this cold, cold cell (you are never warm). Everything hard. Everything lonely. You never thought you’d be back here. But here you are—as if Fate is laughing at you and saying “this is where you belong.” Well, the joke’s on Fate.
It is different this time. Last time, every other feeling was drown out by one… You feel distinctly different without that old companion you’ve managed to shed: Anger.
KC doesn’t understand that some other pieces of you had to go with the rage. It took with it some of your motivation, some of your ambition. You don’t ever again want to give yourself over to the threat of that part of you. As long as you don’t feel anything too deeply, it won’t ever find its way back in.
You lay there, thinking, thinking. Six months tick by one slow minute at a time; you lay low, hoping it will be shorter.
This concludes our omniscience over William Walker. Please choose a character from the list below as the voice in the continuation of this story:
A. KC
B. “J”
C. Mr. Cleary
D. Jeremy Hobb
E. Hal
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