Free Mad Boys by Ernest Hebert Page A

tie you up. You’ll run away, won’t you?”
    “No, Father.” I tried to see his face. The barest of moon glow coming in through the tie-dyed curtains reflected off his sweat. “Father, if we could find Mother, maybe she’d take care of both of us.”
    Father laughed a little, a tiny heh-heh.
    “She’s in Sorrows, New Mexico, right?” I said.
    But Father wasn’t listening to me. “You wouldn’t do your father a favor and tie yourself up, would you?”
    “No, Father, I won’t tie myself up.”
    He took my hand and gripped it hard. I thought he was going to tie me up, but he only said, “I tried to live free. Put it on my gravestone, will you? He lived free and died.”
    It occurred to me that Father and Royal had the same motto. “Please don’t die,” I said.
    “We died a long time ago, your mother and me. We died at Woodstock. We died at Altamont. We died far out. Far out. Far out.” His grip on my hand slowly loosened. “We were already dead when we had you—the son of the dead.” He shuddered, just vibrated as if in an earthquake. After that his hand went limp and I slipped free. I stayed with him, kneeling beside his bed; I think I dozed off, half-waking to Xiphi’s voice, “Kill him in his sleep! Kill him in his drunken sleep! Kill him in his stoned sleep!”
    Father was dead asleep. Why not just plain dead? I could kill him right now. I put my hands around his throat. If he woke up, he would kill me. Or maybe we would kill each other. That would be perfect. Peace. Together in hell. I squeezed, cutting off his air for maybe two or three minutes. Then I let him go and fetched a flashlight and shined it into his face. It was sweaty and pale. I lifted open an eyelid. The eye looked at me, not seeing. I dribbled some spit in the eye. No reaction. Maybe he was already dead. But no, I could smell his breath, like radioactive flowers.
    I started to squeeze again, determined to continue until the life was far out. But I couldn’t do it. I relaxed my grip. I had to face the fact that I was too much of a coward to kill anyone. Father picked that moment to wake up. He grabbed his throat, and his eyes opened wide.
    “You’re trying to kill me, my own son.” He jumped up and made a grab for me, but I was too quick for him. He came after me. I opened the door to the school bus and ran out. Father lunged for me, missed, fell, and cracked his head on a rock. From out of nowhere, Xiphi leaped between us. He picked up a stone and brought it crashing down on Father’s head. I heard a squashing sound. I stopped, watching Xiphi run off into the woods. Father lay on the ground. I knelt beside him, and put my arm around him and just held him.
    Maybe I fell asleep or maybe I was out of my mind, frozen in place by madness. Anyway, the next thing I knew there was a wall of kingdom-come white light. I threw my hand across my face to protect my eyes from the light until I realized it was only the dawn. Father didn’t move. I figured he’d be knocked out for quite a while, three or four hours before he’d wake up and come after me. I went through his pockets and took all the bills from his wallet: about enough money for a pizza and ten video games.
    The weather was cool but I could feel warm temperatures coming on. It was going to be a nice day, maybe even a summer’s day. That’s spring in New Hampshire, jumping back and forth between raw winter and cooked summer, rarely behaving like spring. I wondered what the weather was doing in Sorrows, New Mexico, as I started down our hill.

THE AUTODIDACT
    I didn’t take any changes of clothes or a coat or anything. I even forgot my cigarettes. When I reached the town road I stuck my thumb out for a ride, and a few cars went by but nobody stopped. Local people wouldn’t give me a ride, because they wanted nothing to do with Dirty Joe Webster’s son. Once I reached the state highway, the traffic would thicken and I’d stand a better chance of getting a ride. I calmed