An odd feature of the infirmary of Woeburne was the weapons cabinet. It looked like a hutch to Will, something his mother might have liked if old Jack Clemens had thought antiques were in any way useful. Will had been staring at it since he’d regained consciousness. The weapons cabinet had beveled glass inserts, with strands of twisted lead. Spindle shapes wound through the panes in a trellis pattern. It sent a subtle ripple so the glass looked like water. Will studied the effect for a long time while his head throbbed and the medication wore off. He counted the pistols inside. There were seven, all with metal cables snaked through the triggers. By the time a guard or nurse could detach a gun, the danger would be over, or they would be dead or hurt. But the security system at Woeburne wasn’t Will’s problem.
The sorrowful face of Arthur Schlenker, male nurse, attendant to any sick inmate, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and alternate weekends, slumped over Will’s cot to check on his own handiwork. He lifted a gauze patch the size of a small beret from Will’s head and tapped around the stitches with a long wet Q-tip. Will flinched. That smarts, I’ll bet, said Arthur.
You win.
You know what? Being just like that is what got you here to begin with. Arthur patted back down the loose gauze. This thing is already infected pretty bad.
Will had heard about the infirmary, mostly from Sammy, as an oasis for the discouraged. But the lights were blinding, and back at his desk Arthur Schlenker adjusted an audible neck crick. Five feet away Will could detect the hollow stink of poor dental hygiene. Will leaned over the side of the cot, feeling the urge to vomit. All along the floor beside his bed, little tufts of hair. All black.
What does it look like.
Will brushed up a few strands with his fingers. He could feel the soap slick.
Hang down like that much longer, and those stitches’ll burst.
Will tucked his fingertips beneath the edge of the gauze and felt the nubs of hair still left. He lay back on the sour pillow, closed his eyes, and hoped for sleep. One of the mental defectives carried in dinner on a tray. Meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Will retched on the first bite. When the overheads were finally shut off, Will could see the stars in the skylights to the north. The artists must have earmarked this place for their studio, for when they came back to live here.
He slept straight until dawn, a first for him at Woeburne. Will saw the morning reflected in the trellis of the weapons cabinet, the guns like lilies, the steel cables licorice he could bite through. And he thought, not for the first time, that the people who waited for him would be better off if he never came home. He sat up to assess the condition of his headache but found that, in his sleep, someone had handcuffed him to the bed.
On the second morning, he successfully swallowed oatmeal and a cup of weak sweet tea. Arthur Schlenker took Will’s temperature and pronounced him cured. Twenty minutes later, Pasteur arrived to escort him back to Kentucky. Pasteur was in a pensive mood. He walked Will to his cell without speaking, unlocked the single door instead of the whole row, and told him he could rest there for now. Will would be all alone until the eleven o’clock head count.
In the last day or so, the accumulating solitude had become more frightening and electric than anything Loretta Lynn might have hidden in that petal skirt. His scruples, he thought now, had been ephemeral, the shock of the moment. He was, after all, a bad guy. And if he had fucked her, certainly he wouldn’t be thinking now about the logistics of tying bedsheets. He’d still be working in the orchard outside, making hand signals to Hank Williams through the branches. Making a deal. The way the hangman game was played, Sammy said, they tried, not always successfully, to rig a release. Will didn’t want or need that.
It was the coiled iron of the weapons cabinet that gave him the idea of twisting the strips of sheets, making a weave that wouldn’t give out. An answer to one problem could be fitted to fix something else, Jack Clemens had been frugal with solutions that way. Roofing solved plumbing solved electric solved gambling debts solved a marriage gone dry. Will had always felt more versatile than that, but as he braided the strips of grayed sheets together, he thought of his father and understood him.
Will was at this for quite some time, had a tight unyielding weave three feet long when he realized Pasteur was standing in the closed doorway to his cell. Come with me, he said, and released the barred grill. Pasteur left, already walking down the catwalk to the guard’s station. Just once Pasteur looked back, and Will saw such a profound weariness in those eyes that he decided to follow him, even though Pasteur had given him a second option. Just a year ago, another exec had gone right over the tier rail. The center courtyard and its checkerboard marble squares made a picturesque last moment. Sammy said this caused a lot of trouble with the mental defectives. They were sighting falling bodies for the next month.
Pasteur was reading a slip of pink paper at his desk. We’re going to the warden’s office, he said. Not looking up. Will let Pasteur lead the way down one staircase, through a long gray corridor, back up another flight of stairs, then across a glass and steel pedestrian walkway laced with razor wire in festoons, almost pretty. Over the turrets, across the fields and the orchards, from this high up, the railway bridge glinted red above a gray velvet river. Pasteur leaned hard on the metal door, as thick as a vault’s, that led to the administrative offices.
The twenty-nine stitches Arthur Schlenker had configured in a scythe shape above Will’s left temple itched like mad. He hadn’t seen his head except in fragments reflected in the small glass panes in the infirmary, but now the grimace on Nancy Campanella, the warden’s secretary, made him want to see what he looked like. She frowned at him, then glanced quickly away. Something that almost never happened to Will. Nancy Campanella had flame-red nail polish on short square nails. She scratched at her powdered chin as she asked Pasteur to wait a spell. You take a seat right there, he’ll get to you soon as he can.
Nancy Campanella collected miniature semiporcelain waterfalls. A tiny, certainly rare, series of cascades lined up in frozen effusion behind her head on the bookshelves that stored telephone directories and boxes of stationery. Will had seen animals and people but never water commemorated in this way. Nancy wore a dress with anchors and nautical flags embroidered on blue cotton. He wanted to ask her about her artifacts, to catch her attention, but he was invisible to her.
Twenty minutes passed before the carved oak door whined open and the warden gave Pasteur a meaty wave in. Come on, Pasteur said to Will. Pasteur’s cap hung so low on his bald head that his small sad mouth was framed and accentuated. Will felt he had hurt Pasteur’s feelings in some way, which seemed ridiculous except when he thought about Emily. Pasteur’s daughter wasn’t much younger than Loretta Lynn, maybe the whole episode afflicted his sense of his daughter’s safety. It wasn’t Will’s fault that the orchard was a cathouse with high school girls, but Pasteur was acting like it was.
Warden Flagmeyer offered Pasteur a seat by the huge mahogany desk, Will was left to stand. The warden took his own thronelike chair, looked down at his blotter, then up at Will. I hear you’ve been biting cherries over in the orchard. The warden glanced at Pasteur’s serious face and suppressed a giggle. That’s not nice.
Warden Flagmeyer spread his fingers along the edge of his wide desk. There is a place right here in Woeburne for perverts. Everyone all together. You won’t need to chase children. You can all take care of each other. Isn’t that right, Officer Pasteur.
Pasteur’s huge hands capped his knees. He didn’t answer. The warden looked at Will. I think an explanation would be nice.
There isn’t one.
Beg pardon?
I was working in the orchard. I went to piss. I never saw what hit me.
I heard a different story. A little girl might have got hurt by you, and Hank Williams intervened just in time. He did the right thing. Warden Flagmeyer nodded, then picked up a piece of paper on his desk. One that had been folded and pressed flat a number of times. He rubbed the raised seal at the bottom. You know, Mr. Clemens, your smart friends can only help you so far. And that’s not far at all. Isn’t that right, Officer Pasteur.
Pasteur’s full lips folded in.
But this is a court order, and out of respect for that office, I will comply. A judge was convinced that you should have a special privilege. But don’t be encouraged. I can charge and punish you for what you did. Sooner or later, doesn’t matter which. Later is fine with me. Warden Flagmeyer’s smile crumpled into a swift hard cough. Okay. Okay. Take him upstairs, Pasteur. The doctor is already here.
He coughed again. Then banged on his chest with his fist. Summer’s the worst, he said, opened his pen drawer and dropped the court order inside. Pasteur stood up. Thanks, Warden. He nodded Will toward the door.
What’s going on? Will said.
Oh boy. I’m ready to start this day over. Go ahead. Take him up, Pasteur. The warden blew his nose into a madras handkerchief.
In the outer office, Nancy Campanella had the black phone tucked into her shoulder. Yup, he’s here. I’m sending him right up.
Officer Pasteur, she said, they’re waiting for you.
Thank you.
I can go the usual way.
I’ll take you. Give me two secs. Nancy Campanella picked up her blue straw clutch purse and a key attached to a large plastic reindeer. Little girls’ room, she said, and went out a side door.
What’s going on? Will said.
Back to the infirmary for you, mister. A doctor’s come from New York to take some blood or something. Seems your son needs it. It’ll go back with him packed in dry ice. Quite a production.
I haven’t heard about this.
Been pending since around Tuesday, I guess, court order came by special courier. Takes a little time for the warden to fix up his ace.
Will looked at Pasteur.
Warden’s not going to do anything for you without protection. He doesn’t want to seem like a pushover. That’s why you got the transfer to the orchard.
I don’t understand.
Your child needs something from you. But the warden is not happy to have you here. He won’t give you the time of day. He doesn’t like your background, especially your Jewish friend. Nothing will go right for you unless the warden has the lever to make it go wrong. He installed that lever. That’s what those stitches are in your head. That’s Loretta’s job.
Pasteur stared at his pressed-together thumbs. The room was quiet except for an oscillating fan blowing back and forth over the ceramic waterfalls. Funny little things, Pasteur said. He touched a small pink crest of foam. I never did get this kind of stuff.
Nancy Campanella returned with the shine on her nose canceled out and fresh dark lipstick the color of her nails. She dropped her blue straw purse in a file drawer and stood, chest high, very straight. I’ll see you two gentlemen up right now.