The following year, Brady killed Holly’s cousin, a woman with whom Hodges had been falling in love. Fittingly, it was Holly herself who stopped Brady Hartsfield’s clock, almost literally bashing his brains out with Hodges’s own Happy Slapper before Hartsfield could detonate a bomb that would have killed thousands of kids at a pop concert.
The first blow from the Slapper had fractured Hartsfield’s skull, but it was the second one that did what was considered to be irreparable damage. He was admitted to the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic in a deep coma from which he was unlikely to ever emerge. So said Dr. Babineau. But on a dark and stormy night in November of 2011, Hartsfield opened his eyes and spoke to the nurse changing his IV bag. (When considering that moment, Hodges always imagines Dr. Frankenstein screaming, “It’s alive! It’s alive!”) Hartsfield said he had a headache, and asked for his mother. When Dr. Babineau was fetched, and asked his patient to follow his finger to check his extraocular movements, Hartsfield was able to do so.
Over the thirty months since then, Brady Hartsfield has spoken on many occasions (although never to Hodges). Mostly he asks for his mother. When he’s told she is dead, he sometimes nods as if he understands . . . but then a day or a week later, he’ll repeat the request. He is able to follow simple instructions in the PT center, and can sort of walk again, although it’s actually more of an orderly-assisted shamble. On good days he’s able to feed himself, but cannot dress himself. He is classed as a semicatatonic. Mostly he sits in his room, either looking out the window at the parking garage, or at a picture of flowers on the wall of his room.
But there have been certain peculiar occurrences around Brady Hartsfield over the last year or so, and as a result he has become something of a legend in the Brain Injury Clinic. There are rumors and speculations. Dr. Babineau scoffs at these, and refuses to talk about them . . . but some of the orderlies and other nurses will, and a certain retired police detective has proved to be an avid listener over the years.
Hodges leans forward, hands dangling between his knees, and smiles at Hartsfield.
“Are you faking, Brady?”
Brady makes no reply.
“Why bother? You’re going to be locked up for the rest of your life, one way or the other.”
Brady makes no reply, but one hand rises slowly from his lap. He almost pokes himself in the eye, then gets what he was aiming for and brushes a lock of hair from his forehead.
“Want to ask about your mother?”
Brady makes no reply.
“She’s dead. Rotting in her coffin. You fed her a bunch of gopher poison. She must have died hard. Did she die hard? Were you there? Did you watch?”
No reply.
“Are you in there, Brady? Knock, knock. Hello?”
No reply.
“I think you are. I hope you are. Hey, tell you something. I used to be a big drinker. And do you know what I remember best about those days?”
Nothing.
“The hangovers. Struggling to get out of bed with my head pounding like a hammer on an anvil. Pissing the morning quart and wondering what I did the night before. Sometimes not even knowing how I got home. Checking my car for dents. It was like being lost inside my own fucking mind, looking for the door so I could get out of there and not finding it until maybe noon, when things would finally start going back to normal.”
This makes him think briefly of Library Al.
“I hope that’s where you are right now, Brady. Wandering around inside your half-busted brain and looking for a way out. Only for you there isn’t one. For you the hangover just goes on and on. Is that how it is? Man, I hope so.”
His hands hurt. He looks down at them and sees his fingernails digging into his palms. He lets up and watches the white crescents there fill in red. He refreshes his smile. “Just sayin, buddy. Just sayin. You want to say anything back?”
Hartsfield says nothing back.
Hodges stands up. “That’s all right. You sit right there by the window and try to find that way out. The one that isn’t there. While you do that, I’ll go outside and breathe some fresh air. It’s a beautiful day.”
On the table between the chair and the bed is a photograph Hodges first saw in the house on Elm Street where Hartsfield lived with his mother. This is a smaller version, in a plain silver frame. It shows Brady and his mom on a beach somewhere, arms around each other, cheeks pressed together, looking more like boyfriend and girlfriend than mother and son. As Hodges turns to go, the picture falls over with a toneless clack sound.
He looks at it, looks at Hartsfield, then looks back at the facedown picture.
“Brady?”
No answer. There never is. Not to him, anyway.
“Brady, did you do that?”
Nothing. Brady is staring down at his lap, where his fingers are once more loosely entwined.
“Some of the nurses say . . .” Hodges doesn’t finish the thought. He sets the picture back up on its little stand. “If you did it, do it again.”
Nothing from Hartsfield, and nothing from the picture. Mother and son in happier days. Deborah Ann Hartsfield and her honeyboy.
“All right, Brady. Seeya later, alligator. Leaving the scene, jellybean.”
He does so, closing the door behind him. As he does, Brady Hartsfield looks up briefly. And smiles.
On the table, the picture falls over again.
Clack.
9
Ellen Bran (known as Bran Stoker by students who have taken the Northfield High English Department’s Fantasy and Horror class) is standing by the door of a schoolbus parked in the River Bend Resort reception area. Her cell phone is in her hand. It’s four PM on Sunday afternoon, and she is about to call 911 to report a missing student. That’s when Peter Saubers comes around the restaurant side of the building, running so fast that his hair flies back from his forehead.
Ellen is unfailingly correct with her students, always staying on the teacher side of the line and never trying to buddy up, but on this one occasion she casts propriety aside and enfolds Pete in a hug so strong and frantic that it nearly stops his breath. From the bus, where the other NHS class officers and officers-to-be are waiting, there comes a sarcastic smatter of applause.
Ellen lets up on the hug, grabs his shoulders, and does another thing she’s never done to a student before: gives him a good shaking. “Where were you? You missed all three morning seminars, you missed lunch, I was on the verge of calling the police!”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Bran. I was sick to my stomach. I thought the fresh air would help me.”
Ms. Bran—chaperone and adviser on this weekend trip because she teaches American Politics as well as American History—decides she believes him. Not just because Pete is one of her best students and has never caused her trouble before, but because the boy looks sick.
“Well . . . you should have informed me,” she says. “I thought you’d taken it into your head to hitchhike back to town, or something. If anything had happened to you, I’d be blamed. Don’t you realize you kids are my responsibility when we’re on a class trip?”