MAY
Junior year, signs around town boasted, “Wear a costume to Town Block Party, get free stuff.” Gladys and I bought four overlarge plastic horse heads at Family Dollar and headed down to the square, dragging Aulus and Tank along. Some yearbook committee girl snapped a photo of us and gave it to Aulus, who gave it to me in a frame. “I can’t tell who is who,” he’d said, laughing. Something about the light and shadows and horse heads blurred us into an androgynous lump.
This photo is a lump of welders.
“Head to the community center,” I say.
“Should we call Constance? See if she remembers who these men are?” Nick asks.
“Griff’s closer.”
After-school traffic is in full swing. Traffic cops in yellow vests empty the elementary pick-up line. Since we’re stopped, Nick points at the handwriting on the back of the photo. “Don’s Guys. Doesn’t say Don. Can you tell if—”
“—one of them is my father? No, I wish.”
We’re eleven traffic lights from the community center. More than enough time to imagine Aulus staring at his captor’s welding mask. I often superimpose survivor testimonies to conjure Aulus’s life with Welder. For instance, the dumbwaiter’s chain rattles and brings him to a panel in the wall. Rufus and Zared are there beside him. The tiny elevator opens on twenty-four neatly stacked cans of soup and a message from Welder.
I’m coming to talk.
The boys welcome these meetings; they’ve learned not to fear them.
From the bunker descriptions, I know there’s a sliding steel door on an electrical track Welder controls. When open, a heavy Plexiglas barrier separates the captives from the nondescript room. The boys assume this boundary doubles as a door, though they’ve never seen it open.
Twice a month or so—time moves uncertainly—Welder announces his arrival and sits on the other side of the Plexiglas, taking time to examine injuries and entertain concerns or requests. The boys are asked if they have all they need. Are there special items they require? Things they miss terribly? Small wishes are often granted and Welder delivers gifts and requests to the June Boys. Comic books. A beloved song piped into the bunker on repeat. Soft sweatshirts. Toenail clippers. Cheetos, the puffy kind. A single Tylenol for a headache. These items arrive via dumbwaiter several days after they’re requested.
I play this home movie against the photo in my lap and am struck by how Aulus could have been abducted and imprisoned by his uncle and have no idea. Dozens of survivor accounts, dozens of descriptions of Welder—all the same—and they’ve never shed light on the perpetrator. Welder is Welder. Little more than a ghost on the other side of the glass.
Potholes in the community center parking lot jolt me back to the present. “Look at this photo,” I say. “Nick, he could be Welder.” That fact feels less fiction now. Was Dad working me up, playing on my sympathy, when he said, “Honey, don’t forget what you already know. That’s what’s true. Not all this.” My gut twists. This photo extinguishes eighteen years of known life. Thank God Principal Markum offered to buy the castle. I’ll need to change my name and disappear, and that takes serious cash.
“Don’t jump to worst-case scenario yet,” Nick warns as he cuts the engine.
I tap the welding helmets in the photo as if to say, Can you really argue this is coincidental?
Threatening rain clouds dull the afternoon heat. Kids empty off a bus and run squealing toward the WCC playground. Through the window, my godfather leans over the counter dividing his attention between the kids and a magazine. Leah, one of his faithful workers and my favorite coworker from before, dispatches to the playground. Meanwhile, Ruby stands at the hydration station pouring Kool-Aid into Styrofoam cups.
Nick pauses, knob in hand, on the street side of the door. “You trust him? Because we can’t show him this if you—”
“Completely.”
Face scarlet and frustrated, Griff waves us toward him. “Thea, we’ll get him out. Don’t be discouraged by the arraignment.”
“We’re not here about the arraignment.”
Griff raises his bifocals to his forehead. “I assumed you were in court today,” he says to Nick.
Nick shoves his hands in his pockets. “I wish. Test.”
“Well, the lawyer called and the news wasn’t great. The judge believes there’s a flight risk—”
“Someone should tell that judge my dad can’t put his castle in a suitcase so—”
Griff holds up a hand in understanding. “Maybe he thinks Don will hurt the boys if there’s any chance he’s out on bail, or maybe they want to deal if he tells them where the kids are. Either way, they kept him.” He turns the magazine over and it’s not a magazine at all; it’s a phone book. He’s reading legal ads. At least I’m not alone in this hell.
Griff closes the book, shifting his focus to the kids outside. Their voices pitch slightly higher as Leah yells over the thunder, “Inside. Time to go inside.” The after-school program runs Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and if I don’t ask now, I’m four hours away from Griff’s full attention. I place the photo on the counter. “Tell me about this.”
Griff lifts the print tenderly and lowers his bifocals, absorbing each detail. He thumbs the faces of the four men before flipping over the photo to read the description. He asks, “Where’d this come from?”
“Found it in some of Dad’s old stuff.” I’m not proud of the lie, but it’s for Griff’s own protection. He’ll feel terrible if he thinks he sent me off on a journey to meet Constance in the middle of this stuff with Dad.
Griff flips the image several more times. “Out at the castle?”
“Do you know who these men are?” Nick asks.
Kids, shoulders wet with rain, flood through the door and flock to the snack table. “Hi, Mr. Holtz,” one yells. “Hello, Daniel,” Griff replies, watching with pride before bringing his eyes back to the photo. He points out the man on the far left. “Uh, well, that’s Don.” Slides his finger over. “And Kevin Markum. Warren’s beside him. And this last one is Scottie McClaghen.” He removes the bifocals and huffs on the lenses. He polishes each two times before resituating them in his pocket. He works his hands like they’re cold. “The four of them did welding work for Wildwood after a barge ran into one of the pylons of the Old Scottsville Bridge.”
Nick scribbles the names under Constance’s handwriting. “You’re sure?”
Ruby’s still at the Kool-Aid station, filling cups, and Griff’s staring at her or somewhere past her with huge owl eyes. There’s no doubt why he’s rattled. Any connection to welding equipment can’t be good for Dad. Ruby seems to realize Griff needs her. She hustles over and tucks an arm around him. He points to the men for her benefit. “Don. Kevin. Warren. Scottie.”
“Hmm.” She is hollow, hollower, hollowest. “Yes, that’s right.”
I contemplate the men. Kevin Markum, Principal Markum’s husband. Teaches shop in the vocational school. Always beside his wife at football games, wearing his purple-and-yellow Wildwood attire.
Officer Warren Burton. My “favorite uncle,” when he’s bragging to Griff and Ruby. Unmarried. Steadfast. Addicted to his job. Scottie McClaghen. I sink my teeth into my lip. Scottie and Don, the brother kind of cousins. Is it possible they did this together? Is it possible that no one can identify Welder because Welder isn’t one man but two? When I add Scottie, this scenario almost makes sense. Dad would lie for him. Once, I asked Dad how he and Scottie could be so close and so different. “We’re not as different as you think,” Dad told me.
“You’re sure?” Nick asks Griff.
“I hired them,” Griff says. “Back in my planning and zoning days. The city needed welders and I wanted to toss some work their way and a few extra dollars in their bank accounts. Listen, Thea, this photo—”
“Griff, what do I do?”
Ruby pantomimes tearing paper. Griff seizes up the way he did in the car when he mentioned Constance. “If you love your father, destroy that photo. For all of us.”