Writers’ Bloc 8

Will Phearson. Medium build, five feet ten inches tall, clean-shaven, dark folds beneath the eyes, constant flare up of stubborn acne at the left temple, sunken chest from a surgery too lengthy to get into here, clothes matched just as perfect as you’d want.

Got it?

Good. Not repeating it.

He loved and lost and loved and lost. Turntable story, worn out record, cassette. Scratched CD. Lost MP3 player.

Fuck, this just about ain’t worth it.

Let’s just start here. I knew Will when he still human, about twelve or so. Maybe thirteen. I knew him all the years up till then, too. But after thirteen, that’s it. So don’t ask.

He smiled then. That’s the thing you’ll notice mostly now. He don’t smile. And his eyes are dead. They’re just plunked back in the sockets over top them dark folds, bags. Baggage.

Kerry still knows him. Now you should talk to Kerry after this. She said she saw him sitting on his porch a few days back. Said he just flopped there for something like half the day. Hours. Just sitting there. He’s not on drugs or anything, I don’t think. Talk to Kerry.

Ohmygod. What do you want to know about him for? I mean the guy is messed up in ways I can’t even start to get you to understand. He sit on his porch for like ten hours the other day. This little bitty porch thing somebody had to build for him on the side of his house so he wouldn’t have to keep stacking blocks to climb in, and he just sit there and sit there. My mom finally went over and asked if everything was all right and she said he just growled like a dog. Growled at her. My dad will probably kick his ass when he gets around to it. Kick his ass and kick his ass. Growled like a dog. At my mom. Hide and watch when my dad gets home.

He saves pennies for me and brings them out in jars and cups. He brought enough I cashed them in a few summers back and had hundreds of dollars. Hundreds! Now just think about that. He’d do anything for anybody. Give you the shirt off his back and then some, and you never hear him complain. He bought that plastic toy fiddle hanging on the wall there for me one year. Oh, a long time ago now. He took sap off the pines across the ridge and covered the bow with it. Now you just think about that. And those pennies. I haven’t seen him in a long time. He’s tired so much now, working two jobs and trying to keep up with that girl. I think sometimes he might just wither on the vine.

I don’t know him well.

I don’t know.

He worked here for about a year as a handler. He kept to himself.

Do I need to chart anything on this? If that’s the case, we should keep it short.

I don’t have any information on that.

Am I a suspect?

There is no information of any kind here about his personal life.

No.

I don’t know.

She was hired the week before him. The week he came on, that’s when it started.

He would have been fired if I’d had my way.

I’ve been in this unit for a lot of years and never saw anybody as sick as that boy. All night his chest just heaving up and down, shallow then full, shallow then full. So much fluid build up, and the pain. We couldn’t do much for him. We just made him as comfortable as we could. We didn’t even move him out of ER because moving him would have been the end of the whole thing. We kept him in room four until he went out then called Hall Brothers.

He would have been fired if I’d had my way.

Just wither on the vine.

Growled like a dog.

Talk to Kerry.

Yeah, he wrote me letters. Bunches. Oh, love letters, you know the kind. The kind that says oh I can’t live without you. You are the one, with the word one all in big letters like he was screaming it out or something. Creepy. I don’t have them anymore. I threw them away the same day they got here. Every time.

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