Black Wood Read online

  No one could understand what Samantha was doing with him. And that made Charlie even more of an enigma. The minds of John Shade High went into overdrive. Were they really lovers? Or just friends? How could they possibly be friends after what had happened between them? And if they were lovers, what did she see in him? Was it the ‘bad boy’ thing? They say that every woman loves a bad boy, especially if they treat them badly, and that certainly applied in Charlie and Samantha’s case. And then, there was Charlie. He would never have associated with Samantha in a million years prior to this. First, the assault on Dale and now this ... people began to see the Freak in a whole new light.

  And there were implications beyond just their relationship. After all, he was on bail for assaulting her. Given that the case hadn’t come to trial yet, surely they shouldn’t have even been speaking to each other? And this is apparently exactly what they were told. The Concord Grapevine had it that Samantha’s father confronted her and told her that he’d heard that she was hanging out with the weirdo who’d punched her. He asked her what the hell she thought she was doing? She told him it was her business who she made friends with. Basically told her dad to go fuck himself, something she had never done in all the seventeen years living under his roof. That did it for Harry Pierce. He went on a tirade. Now, of course, I wasn’t a party to this conversation, but I did observe and collate the various rumours and second-hand reports that circulated the halls of High School afterwards. It went something like this.

  “What in the name of Christ are you doing with this guy?” her father asked. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Samantha said nothing.

  “This is the guy who nearly killed your boyfriend and assaulted you. Do you realise what this will do to your case?”

  “To your case,” Samantha said.

  “Trust me, Samantha, now is not the time to get smart. If there was ever a time not to get smart, this is it. You do realise you could ruin everything being seen with this guy ... not just the trial but your reputation. He’s a psychopath.”

  “He is not,” she shouted back. “Besides, it’s my business who I’m friends with.”

  “The hell it is!” Harry Pierce shouted. “You’re going to be the key witness in a case against him ... how can you take the stand and have any credibility if you’re carrying on some kind of weird relationship with him? Even if it is just platonic, the defence will twist it into something else. And anyway, what the hell kind of relationship could you possibly have with that weirdo?”

  “May I go to my room now?” Samantha said, finally.

  “Yes, you may go to your room now. But I’m warning you, Samantha, I am deadly serious. This ... thing ... whatever it is, it ends here.”

  But she was never going to do what he said. Whatever was going on between her and Charlie, it was more important to her than obeying her father. Of course, nobody actually knew what was going on between them. Nobody understood the attraction. I’m not sure that I did either, at that stage, but I could see that there was something that had a hold on them. Given that, Samantha was never going to listen to her father and stop meeting up with Charlie. But now, meeting up got a lot harder. And if it got a lot harder for Samantha and Charlie, then it got a lot harder for me to observe them. Any future rendezvous would involve subterfuge, secrecy, and deception. There would be no more public places, only secret hideaways. They would have to be more and more ingenious about how they planned their meetings. And I would have to be even more ingenious in how I planned my observance.

  But, in the end, I had to do it. I felt like I was getting to know them, getting to the bottom of their strange relationship. In fact, it felt like I was becoming part of the relationship. I was their intimate, whether they knew it or not. How could I let that go now? I felt I had a responsibility to them and to the public. I was observing, but I was also documenting. I was their biographer, almost, and this was important. It needed to be documented, and I was the only one who could do it. I would be the one to tell their story to the world. They would be my Dr. Johnson and I would be their Boswell.

  I thought that, perhaps, I had found my Romeo and Juliet, my star-crossed lovers, so devoted to each other that even their families couldn’t keep them apart. Or was their story a little darker? Were they the illicit lovers in James Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, with some hidden agenda? Or, if Charlie went to prison, maybe I could be Capote to his Perry Smith. Okay, a punch in the face doesn’t exactly equate to murdering an entire family in cold blood, but I was only starting out – I had to start small.

  ***

  The next day in school, I searched everywhere for Samantha but there was no sign of her. So, I decided to observe her friends to see if they knew anything. The prospect of this was analogous to being tied to a chair and forced to watch endless episodes of daytime soaps and chat shows. There was nothing beneath the veneer of their hair, and their nails, and their make-up. They were as vapid and soulless as Samantha was fascinating and enigmatic. I didn’t understand how she could even speak to them, let alone call them her best friends.

  I observed them for most of the day, and the excruciating torture of listening to their inane conversations was worth it. A large proportion of their conversations were taken up with the subject of where Samantha was. The quick answer was: they had no idea. Nobody had heard from her. But there was plenty of speculation, most of which involved Charlie. Samantha’s friends, it seemed, didn’t think that she was just skipping classes; they thought she was skipping classes to be with Charlie.

  One was dumber than the next. But that didn’t mean they weren’t useful. They were huddled on the grass in front of the school.

  “I called by on my way back to school,” the first one said. “There was nobody home.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t asleep? I mean, if she’s sick, she could be in bed.” Number 2.

  “I hammered for, like, five minutes. There was no one home.”

  “So, where is she?” said No. 3.

  “Well, she’s obviously with someone. Why else would she be skipping classes?”

  “With who?”

  At this point, I lost track of who was saying what. It’s really not that important.

  “It’s obviously not someone from school. We’d know. Besides, anybody it could be is in today.”

  “David Cohen from my science class is out.”

  “I said anybody it could be. David Cohen is a total geek.”

  “Well, who then?”

  “I’ll bet it’s the freakazoid.”

  “No way. She hasn’t seen him in, like, weeks. Besides, her parents told her she was totally grounded for life if she ever saw him again.”

  “Like Sam has ever done anything her parents said.”

  “But why is she with him? He’s weird.”

  “I think he’s cute.”

  “But he hit her.”

  “I think she’s doing it to get the whole school talking about her. You know she loves that.”

  “Bitch.”

  “What? It’s true.”

  At this point, the conversation descended into white noise. But I’d heard all I needed to hear.

  This was not good news. If dumb, dumber and dumbest could figure out that Samantha was meeting with Charlie, how long would it be before the whole school figured it out? How long before her parents found out and she was “totally grounded for life”? If that happened, that was it. Game over. They would never see each other again.

  I couldn’t understand it. They’d been keeping everything so low-key – why would they make it so obvious now? They may not have been walking down Main Street holding hands, but if all her friends knew she was skipping school to be with him, it was only a matter of time before word got back to her parents. Did they just not care anymore?

  This was a blow for me personally. While they were in plain sight, it was easy to observe them. As long as they were around town or in school, that was okay, but if they were going to drop out of s
ight like this, I’d no longer be able to observe. And it couldn’t have happened at a worst time, a crucial time. I’d finally made contact with one of them. I was going to gain entry to their circle. I had to find them. The story was not going to end there.

  I searched the town for them that day, went to all the old spots where I’d observed them. To no avail. They’d disappeared. Of course, in hindsight, I don’t know how it took me so long to figure it out. I think I was panicking so much that the obvious answer didn’t occur to me. Until that evening. After dinner, I was up in my room thinking about where they could be. Then, it struck me. Where else would she bring him, except where she’d brought Dale?

  I cycled as fast as I could to the Black Wood, to the same place that I’d been that day when I’d seen Samantha and Dale. It was hard to find in the dark and I had to move painfully slowly so as not to be heard. But, eventually, I heard voices.

  It wasn’t until I got close enough to make out who it was that I realised it wasn’t Sam and Charlie. It was some other amorous couple. Of course. It made sense. It was okay for Sam and Dale to go there but it wasn’t discreet enough for Sam and Charlie. So where was? There were plenty of other spots in the Black Wood – but they had to go deeper. I was convinced I was right, but it would take time to figure it out.

  ***

  Sam was back in school the next day and I made it my business not to lose her again. I went to extraordinary lengths to observe her but also to make sure that I wasn’t observed in turn.

  She met Charlie briefly after school and they arranged to meet in the Black Wood at 8PM. I got there at 7.45PM but there was no sign of them. I hung around for 45 minutes and then decided to go look for them. I spent an hour stumbling around in the dark before I gave up and went home. I realised I would have to take a different approach if I was to continue my observing in the Black Wood.

  The next night they arranged to meet again. But this time, instead of going to the wood, I watched out my window until I saw Samantha leave her house, and then I followed her. I took my bike in case I was spotted; I could say I was just out for an evening constitutional. Just as well really as Charlie was waiting with his motorcycle a few blocks from her house. There was no way I could keep up with them, but I pedalled like crazy and managed to just about keep his taillight in view for the short spin out to the Black Wood.

  When I finally caught up, he had parked the bike and they’d entered the wood. But once I knew the general direction they were headed in, finding them wasn’t as difficult. They passed the spot where she and Dale had been – they went deeper. The deeper you go, the darker your intent. They went into a part of the woods I had never been before. Into uncharted territory. This was getting serious.

  Although there was a full moon and clear skies, it was still too dark to see properly in front of me. I had to be extremely careful. I heard their voices in a small clearing up ahead. I could make out their outlines in the faint moonlight. Charlie was sitting down on a log and Samantha was walking back and forth in front of him. I wondered why they didn’t turn on the flashlight.

  “What’s wrong?” Charlie said.

  Samantha was fidgeting; she wouldn’t stay still.

  “Bugs,” she replied.

  “What bugs?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see them, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there. I’ve never been this deep in the Black Wood before.”

  “Me neither. This is where we have to go if we don’t want to be found.”

  As they were talking, Samantha kept moving around, the twigs cracking beneath her feet as she circled Charlie.

  “Samantha, can you sit down?” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Here, beside me on the log.”

  “Are you crazy? That thing could be crawling with bugs.”

  “I can turn on the flashlight.”

  “No!” she shouted. “That’ll be worse. We’ll be able to see them.”

  Charlie finally managed to get her to turn on the flashlight and seemed to reassure her that there were no bugs on the log. She sat down beside him, and he put his arms around her.

  “These past few days ... they’ve been great,” she said.

  “Yeah, but you know it’s dangerous, right? Meeting like that in the daytime? We can’t do that again. It’ll have to be at night.”

  “I know, I know ...”

  “We can get a couple of sleeping bags and leave them here. It’ll be cold but ...”

  “I don’t care. I just want to be here. With you.”

  They didn’t speak again for the rest of the time there. They just sat there, locked into each other. I had never witnessed something like it before. Whatever else had happened in the past, whatever type of people they had been – or still were – this was where they were now. Locked into some crazy, dysfunctional, glorious relationship. Together.

  ***

  The more Samantha and Charlie met, the more comfortable they were around each other, and the more they told each other what was going on in their lives. It was the strangest ménage à trois. Strange because they didn’t know I was there. But that didn’t matter to me. I was happy there. Certainly, I would have given anything to be welcomed into their circle, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, at least. So, for the moment, I was content to sit and listen, as the secrets I’d wanted to hear for so long poured out of them like water. Listen, as I discovered all the things I’d always wanted to know about their lives. For the moment, that was enough.

  I read this book once – I don’t remember its name now – but there was a section in it that stayed with me. I don’t know the exact words, but it was something along the lines of: “I remember the beginning of happiness, and thinking, ‘This is it. This is what it will be like for the rest of my life.’ I didn’t realise that that was it – that one moment. That was happiness, and it would never be like that again.”

  And that’s how it was with me. That summer with Samantha and Charlie, I thought that was the start of my life, that everything up to that point had been a rehearsal. I didn’t realise that that was it, right then and there. Those months were the moment, and nothing would ever match up to that again. George Bernard Shaw was right: youth really is wasted on the young. I didn’t realise what I had. I was seventeen. I was young, I was virile, and I had all my hair. And I had twenty years to get to where I am now. That’s a long time.

  “Have you heard about Dale?” she asked him one night.

  “No. What about him?”

  “Rumour is he skipped town.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “Skipped town where?”

  “Nobody knows. Apparently, his parents are freaking out. He cleaned out their bank account, took off. No word to anyone.”

  Charlie’s face dropped.

  “Why would he do that?” Samantha went on. “I mean, he’s not the one in trouble, right?” She sounded like she was fishing. Charlie didn’t answer her. “Right?” she repeated.

  “What?”

  “I just don’t get why Dale would leave town. I mean, you’re the one in trouble, not him.”

  “Why are you asking me? He’s your boyfriend.”

  “Not anymore.”

  She let that statement hang in the air. I got the impression that Charlie would have liked to have dropped the conversation there, but Samantha wasn’t having it.

  “What’s wrong?” she said. “I thought you would have been glad.”

  “Why would I be?”

  “Because with Dale out of the picture, surely the trial won’t go ahead.”

  “You kidding? You really think your Dad’s gonna drop it that easy?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that one.

  “What happened with you and Dale, anyway?” Charlie said.

  “Why are you so interested?” There was an edge to her voice.

  “I’m not ... I’m just curious. You said before that you were curious about me. Don’t
I get to ask any questions?”

  “I was curious about you. Not about your old girlfriends.”

  “What makes you think there were old girlfriends? I’m the Freak, remember?”

  “Aren’t there freak girls?”

  “Funny.”

  “Sorry.”

  There was silence between them, but it didn’t seem to be awkward. They were becoming comfortable with the silences, as couples do.

  “So ... Dale ...” Charlie went on.

  “We split up.”

  “I gathered that. I just wondered why.”

  “Why do you think? Because of you ... because of us. This ... Dale just seems another part of my life now. He was the High School quarterback ... the guy I felt I was supposed to go out with ... the guy my parents would have liked to have seen me with. But that doesn’t feel like who I am anymore. It doesn’t feel like part of my life. This feels like part of my life.”

  “But, we’re not ... Sam, we’re not ...”

  “What?”

  “I’m ... this is not your life.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You and me, I mean, all this ... it’s not real life, is it?”

  The expression on her face then in the glow of the flashlight, she looked like he’d just hit her in the face all over again.

  “It is for me,” she said, quietly. “I spend my entire day waiting for this. Why do you think that is?”

  “Because it’s dangerous? To be seen with me.”

  “Why do you say that? You treat me like I’m a fucking child ... like all this is just a game to me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yeah, you do. Before, you asked me if I talked to you just to piss off my parents. And now you think I meet you just because it’s dangerous. Don’t you think there could be something more to it than that?”

  His answer was instantaneous. “I know there is.”