Free An Incidental Reckoning by Greg Walker Page A

rock the size of his fist. He discretely closed his hand around it, felt a connection with the hard mass that was such an apt metaphor for the anger building in his heart, and in almost a lazy motion, as Brody continued to laugh, cocked his arm and loosed it.
     

Chapter 7

     
    Will continued to shiver as they sat on the ground, watching Brody laugh. He felt his blood pressure rise until his entire body seemed to pulse with the beating of his heart. He wanted to strike out at Brody. Punch him until his face caved in, heedless of the gun, not caring if he died in the effort. The only thing that prevented it was Jon. The deep shame that he had set this up, and put Jon in the middle of it.
     
    He had just assumed that Jon would share his rage and need to strike back at Brody. As his life had disintegrated, he searched for the cause, dug for the roots, and became convinced that the source lay in those two years when Brody had owned them…and then the two years after, when Brody had left for bigger things but left them as pariahs to their peers, a freak show traveling the halls to biology and calculus class. He had no doubt that their solidarity played a part in keeping others out. But the fact that he felt his shame visible like a second skin to anyone that looked at or spoke to him compounded his distrust of others and aided in creating a barrier as solid as steel and concrete. He had no other history in that school than the kid that fought for Brody. And the laughter often heard drifting back after passing a group of kids did not arise from his imagination.
     
    And this barrier had remained in place throughout his life, into college and beyond. He had worked hard, seeking to prove that he was a man and not some guy’s bitch, got married and had a son. And to some degree it helped. But after the novelty of each event wore off - as his marriage lost its excitement and he realized that parenting required hard work and his job bored him despite the possible income if he just worked a little harder – the years from high school remained, like a raw wound that no amount of salve would heal. Or perhaps he just hadn’t found the right one.
     
    He thought that re-establishing a bond with Jon might do it, had searched for and found him after decades of separation. He had often thought about Jon, how he was doing, how much Stape still factored in who he was. But he found it hard to broach the subjct on their trips. If the past troubled Jon to any large degree, he didn’t show it, and Will feared letting on how it ate at him all the time.
     
    And it did help, for a while. If Jon didn't verbalize it, Jon understood. Will returned from their camping trips feeling better, but as the days spread out beyond the trip his edginess and bitterness crept back to their accustomed places at the helm.
     
    Will had planned to tell him wife several times, hoping that she might help him rise above it. But each time, approaching the point of no return, he balked and aborted his plans. He feared her reaction, that she would shrug it off as something trivial to just put behind him, or worse that she would see him as weak, lose respect for him and then desire. Find out that he was not the man she consented to marry. That had happened anyway. He hadn’t told Jon about their separation, about living in a small, barely furnished apartment in Erie. She had complained about an emotional wall that she couldn’t breach, and was tired of feeling alone even when they sat in the same room. He should have said something then, but he couldn’t summon the courage.
     
    And then, sitting in that apartment one night, he saw a newspaper article about the drug trade in Erie while on his way to the sports page. He read it out of boredom and curiosity and came across a line about a Brody Stape, formerly a player in the heroin market, doing ten years but due for release. He read those lines again and again, as though they would offer more information, tell what