Constable Simon brings me in in handcuffs and sits me down in a chair opposite a desk in the town’s police station. Simon is a middle-aged, usually friendly, but usually serious, policeman. I have no hard feelings.
The man opposite me at the desk is large and doughy and has short stubby hair that I think is probably red, or would be, if it grew. He is evidently of higher rank than Simon, as he sits while Simon stands.
I have been here ten minutes already.
“This, this is a Medic Alert bracelet, ” the man says, holding up a plastic bag with the metallic medallion and chain, “This was in your pocket. Why? Do you know who it belongs to? It belongs to Philippe Grossman. But you knew that, didn’t you? Because you took him off the beach where he was with his parents…”
“Naked, ” I say. “I read it in the papers.”
“Did he give you this? Did you take it? Answer me. Do you know the penalty for murder?”
Do I know the penalty for murder? I think. Of course I know the penalty for murder: being a murderer.
“Where did you get this, eh?”
“The wood pile in Jock Renard’s yard.”
“Really, now? Tell me, Constable Simon, you just came from there. Is there a wood pile in Jock Renard’s yard?”
“Not that I saw, ” Simon says.
“I cleaned it up.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I burnt it in my fireplace.”
“In this heat?”
“I didn’t want…”
“What? What didn’t you want, eh?”
“Things hide in there, injured and when they’re sick or dead. Then they smell and the rats come, and the rats eat them and they spread disease so that more things get sick and die in the wood pile and the rats have more to eat, so there are more rats and more rats, and why would I want that to happen to the world?”
“Is it a good one?”
“No.”
The officer stands up. “But he is not a pervert. He does not walk around with a murdered boy’s bracelet in his pocket, he does not peek in school windows and he does not try to take away a young girl, and he does not sneak and snoop around all night, and he is not sitting here in my police station for trying to do God knows what. And you are.”
There is nothing I can say to that.
“Listen, Pierre, I like you. You’re a good fellow. It’s not your fault. It’s an illness. It’s an illness and we can get you help. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Someplace quiet for a while, where you’ll be safe. Just tell us, just say it.”
Simon speaks in the ear of the officer who is interviewing me. I can hear what he says. Perhaps he means me to. He says, “The Lessers want to press charges. They insist. The public is with them. There is a crowd outside.”
“You see, Pierre, you see what you’ve done? Now you’ve gotten me in trouble. Is that fair? I ask you, is it fair? To get me in trouble? What are you going to do, Pierre?”
Directly across from me, over the officer’s head on the wall behind him, is a calendar of female nudes. Ms. August is naked on a treadmill. She looks Swedish to me. Why is it there are so few black female nudes, I wonder? I am always curious about black women. Do they get tan lines?
“What do you dream about?” I ask the officer.
“Dreams? You have dreams? Fantasies, eh? Tell me about your fantasies, Pierre. Are they sexual? You like young girls? School girls? Everyone likes high school girls, don’t worry. Their uniforms, their hair, it’s natural. But children, Pierre, that is where we have to draw the line. Understand me Pierre, I have sworn to protect the people – the children – of this community. And I will.”
Personally, I do not daydream about sex, though no one will believe me. My fantasies, though, are full of conversations. People talking to me. Me talking to people. Long, elaborate, warm, meaningful, spontaneous conversations. Easy talk. The person I am talking to likes me, picks up on all the obscure cultural references I have acquired. Talk, just talk. Connection. Prayer.
“You raped and murdered Leticia Carmichael. You did God knows what to Philippe Grossman on that beach. You tried to abduct Jessica Lesser. Admit it. And you spied on Jackie Thomas in her own bedroom. And you spied on midnight bathers – probably skinny dippers – on the beaches. I’m asking you one last time, will you sign a confession? There are people out there.”
Anyone might turn lead into gold, or walk on Mars someday, find the missing link, discover the unified field theory, prove God. Anyone might, at any moment – it may happen. But the truth is, it hasn’t happened yet, and that is what we must live with.
There is a story of a man who killed himself in despair when the young girl he loved married another man. This is an old story. Chinese or Indian or something. And the dead man was reincarnated as the only child of his love and her more successful suitor. And like any good mother, the woman loved her child more than she loved her husband.
I consider my options. One word and all will be all right. One word and the Christ child can be born. And the world can go on sinning and being saved, sinning and being saved. What is that word? Yes. What is that magic phrase that makes life worth living? “I do, ” I say.
“You do what?”
“Want to confess.”
“To what?”
“Your choice. Anything… everything.”
It occurs to me, riding to the city in the back of a police car, handcuffed, to wonder what Jock Renard is doing, or will be doing again, sly devil, sinner that he is. Or Robert, addict and sleepless man of the people, will he turn to drink as well and dissolve? Peter the ex-convict. John and his lame-legged prostitute, a sordid, a dangerous, a weakened thing – capitalism in its purest form. Jackie and her life from man to man, saddened or relieved each time, growing older, wider, greyer; ultimately the game always gets called on account of darkness and when the old look in the mirror they see what they will look like dead.
Ralphie and his disappearing business. Maybelle and her pink little girl dresses. Jessica, so always unsure, so always confused. Carole, bold, a child who will look you in the eye. Uncle Jacob, a man I believe truly capable of murders. Could be dealing drugs, probably to Robert. The lumberjacks in the mountains, the women like Laura who hang around graveyards, the nude sunbathers with breasts the colour of porn stars. Me. Them. God. The rabbits hit by trucks on our highways.
The time has come, the Walrus said. It is more right now than it ever will be again, this time. I will stand in the box and all eyes will be on me and I will swallow with my dry mouth and have my moment, enjoy my moment, a moment of such rightness, of such oneness, of such fixedness and I will be brave and happy, the tether around my body like God’s Plumb Line and God will smile at me and I will finally have done what I always said I would give anything to do – give the universe a good feeling, a breath, a chaste kiss, a holiday, an extended holiday, from all the things, the very things, I know. I am not the son of man. I am the son of Giselle Creamer, guardian of Guy, friend of Leticia, former neighbour of Mrs. Bluto, neighbour of Jock Renard – child killer that he is. Christian agnostic, fool, small, small man, bug, yet even I, even I – it will happen to me, through me.
I am going to Montreal to be judged and sentenced. The highway scenery flashes by like warrior stones. I am on stage. How happy I am, how apropos, all those lives snuffed out like a candle. It is better to light than to curse the darkness which is blown out only when the sun rises.
Ultimately there is no reason for things. People just are. It is not a bad thing to be alive. It is not such a bad thing to live out your life – even in prison. I look out the window at the other cars, all going in the other direction. After all, I think, how much worse can it be?
The officer in the front turns and looks at me. “Scum, ” he says.