Let's Go Play at the Adams'

"That's not the point," John said.

"What is then? I mean, we proved we could tie her up and do anything we wanted to her.

We've already proved we can kill her. All you have to do is go up there and get my .22 and-

blowie!-she's dead. What's the sense of going to jail the rest of your life for it? What good is

she, dead?"

John was in no way a Catholic, but he said, "If you don't feel it yourself, I can't tell you."

The antique argument was fairly effective with Bobby; it was also unassailable, but he

tried. "So, tell

me."

201

"You remember how we used to play when we were younger?"

It had been kind of neat then, Bobby remembered, but now that they were talking

about real life, it was too gruesome to repeat. "Yeah, I remember," he said quickly.

"Like when we cut off the guy's fingers so he

couldn't climb out of the well?"

"I said I remembered."

"Well?"

-

"Well, nothing. That was only playing."

"So's going out for football after school; only Namath made 400-grand for signing with

the Jets. So's grinding out the grades; only some guys get sent around the world with

scholarships for it. Free."

"I ... ," Bobby struggled. "I guess that was fun, and this isn't. I didn't really mean it

about killing people."

"I didn't either," John said. "It's funny." "What?"

"Well I mean, I mean it now.''

"Will you just say why?" "Killing-is-what-one-person--does-to-

another-person-who-can't-help-himself." For John, this commonplace verged on

profundity. His face grew stern with the effort of it.

"It isn't," Bobby said.

"Well"-John gave an annoyed shrug-"Maybe only when you're not going to be caught at

it."

"Even still, it isn't that way."

"Then why does it happen all the time? Every time somebody gets the chance?"

"It doesn't. Not all the time.'' Nonetheless Bobby was swayed, bent by obvious fact, left

without an answer that he could easily express. What was in the corner of his mind

was the general argument, "We all ought to try and not do it," or something of the sort,

but it was a dumb chicken thing to say because nobody but him wanted to try anyhow.

In the-to him-ava- 202

lanche of Freedom Five opinion, he could only say, "Anyway, I don't want to kill her."

"You don't have to. Paul will. Or Dianne. Or me, if I have to."

"Or me!" Cindy said brightly. She was becoming

more savage as time went on.

"You better not!"

"I'll do what I like." "Leave her alone .... "

"And I don't even want to watch."

"You don't have to. Go up and put your head under the pillows all day if you want to."

"Then what do I have to do."

"Stand your guard. Shut up. Or it'll be you instead of her. You can't get away from us."

Well, that was true enough. Bobby could not get away from John. They were sitting not two

feet apart in the water. In such a tone does society speak.

Bobby sighed. A tear came down one cheek, and he clumsily washed it away with river

water.

"Oh, cut it out for godsakes," John said. "It's going to come out all right."

"Yeah. Don't be a cry baby," Cindy said.

At that point Dianne appeared above them at the top of the bank. "Let's eat." She was as

neat as ever but rather prettier and more animated than usual. "We have to clean up the

house and get ready, and then we have to take her to the bathroom."

"What for?" Cindy said. "She hasn't eaten since Wednesday."

"To make sure she's purged," Dianne said.

When the kids were late, and when, after they arrived, they did not come down, and when

she heard the muffled sounds of voices coming through the floor at the other end of the

house, Barbara assumed that it was a meeting. The occasional formality of the kids when

dealing as Freedom Five had not escaped her. But about what? A very strange tingling-was

it so prosaic a thing as hope?-began inside.

203

Was it about the person, the man who, they thought, had looked in the window last night, the

one who had been prowling around the woods the last couple of days? (His existence in her

mind was absolute enough.) Was it about the Adams coming home? Something new? Was it

about letting her go?

Freedom? (Oh-my-god!)

The freedom. Freedom, so abruptly taken away from her, so persistently denied, returned like a

chord of grand music (Ravel? Tchaikovsky? Wagner?) sounding through her head, a chord

struck by a thousand piece orchestra accompanied by choirs, cannon, and rockets. She was

engulfed in the great A-major majesty of it. It was just plain silly in her situation to feel so

momentarily free, and yet the sound echoed on. For a moment the strength in her returned

until she felt she could simply fling her hands upward, snapping rope like thread. Freedom!