The Scream

'Okay, David. Thanks for calling.' The phone clicked off.

Now he had hurt her, but he couldn't help it. He stood in the booth after hanging up and tried to find the words with which he could tell Sally what had happened to him. It went fine until he had to say, I didn't stop. They hadn't stopped either, but they'd not seen the screaming woman.

A man waiting to use the phone pushed open the door. 'Do you always go into a phone booth when you want to talk to yourself?'

After an early dinner at the kitchen table David attacked his class assignments. He surprised himself with what sounded to him like a great exposition of the Valery poem. It felt good, as though he'd made some kind of reparation in getting it done. He took it in to where his mother was writing letters and read it to her. He'd been pretty quiet at dinner and she hadn't fussed or probed. He was making up.

She listened thoughtfully. Then, out of a clear sky, she said: 'Would you like a year of study in France if it could be managed?'

David was stunned. It was as though she had said she no longer needed him. He'd been thinking all along that he was tied to her for life, and now it turned out she felt she was tied down by him. Maybe she had a man he didn't even know about, somebody at the bank… A tumult of alarms possessed him.

'Well?' she prompted.

'Yeah, sure. I mean, that's a third-year alternative and I'm only a freshman.'

'Only a freshman,' she repeated. 'You put yourself down, Davie. You shouldn't do that. The essay is very good.'

'It isn't long enough to call an essay.'

'Nevertheless. Would you like to read the poem itself to me?'

He was on his way to get the book when the phone rang. His mother called out to let the machine take it for now. He pretended not to hear her. All evening, except for when he lost himself in the poem, he had anticipated something heavy about to happen. Nevertheless, when he heard McGraw's voice, his heart gave a sickening thump.

'David, I hope I'm not interrupting your dinner. We need to make a date, you and I. Tonight is convenient for me, or first thing in the morning.'

'No,' David said. 'It's not convenient for me.'

'Then you must make it convenient. It's not a matter of choice, young man. Are you with someone now so that you can't talk?'

'My mother's home,' David murmured.

'Well now, sooner or later, you will want to involve her. Maybe not. That's not my business. Let's meet somewhere in the morning. I would say my office, but it's being decorated. Unavailable, really. And I don't want to meet in your car again

We're not conspiring thieves, are we?'

'David?' his mother called inquiringly from the study.

'I'll be in in a minute, Mother.' To McGraw, he said, 'You can come here in the morning, but not before eight- thirty.' It was his mother's turn to drive. She'd leave by eight o'clock.

McGraw repeated the time and checked David's address. He had it right.

Returning, book in hand, to where his mother was waiting, David explained, 'I got some scratches on my car going down to the beach last night. A guy's going to paint them for me.'

'Have it done by a professional, David. I'll help you pay for it.'

'Great,' he said.

'Not everything is great,' she said. Then: 'Shall we put off the poem until another time?'

McGraw arrived not long after the hall clock struck the half-hour. David had again cut loose his riders. He took the lawyer to the kitchen. McGraw was wearing the same topcoat. He took it off and put it on the back of a chair and perched the hat on top of it. 'It's a good thing I make house calls, isn't it? Any coffee left in the pot?'

David poured half a mugful and heated it in the microwave. McGraw was taking inventory of every convenience in the kitchen-like he was pricing it for a yard sale.

He took the coffee black. 'Why don't we start with your side of the story first, David-what really happened to you on the way home?'

'I'm not going to tell you anything,' David said.

'In that case, hear this,' McGraw said. 'A farmer whose address is rural box seventeen on the County Road heard a woman scream out in front of his place after midnight last night. It woke him from a sound sleep. He looked out, thought he saw a car stalled on the road, and decided to call the sheriffs patrol. The call was clocked at twelve-twenty. But on account of the accident on the interstate, the patrol didn't pick up on it till daylight. I went out there myself with Addy Muller, drove him, in fact. He was dead on his feet after a double shift. But the farmer was pissed at how long it took the sheriffs men to show up. I'm telling it to you straight, David…'

David didn't say anything. McGraw took a noisy sip of his coffee. 'Addy remembered you kids on the beach and figured you might've been heading home about then. He remembered you live in Oak Forest. He asked me if I'd like to look you up while he made the rounds of the hospitals. You were the one he remembered by name and school. He thought you were too young to be running with that crowd.

'You didn't want to talk to me, David; you didn't show much respect for the truth either. In other words, you were scared. I can see why.

'It turns out the woman was on her way home from work, tired, late, and she had to relieve herself. No traffic that she could see. She pulled halfway off the road, turned off the lights, and went in front of the car. Now wouldn't you like to take it from there?' David was silent.

'David, there was a witness. You were driving at high speed, came out of nowhere just as she came around from in front of the car. You could have made sausage meat of her, and you didn't even stop.'

'I didn't hit her. I know that.'

'How do you know?'

'I just do.'

'So what do you think happened to her?'

David shook his head.

'But you didn't care as long as you could get away.'

'I did care, but I knew I hadn't hit her.'

'You knew?' McGraw waited, breathing noisily, a snort.

'What happened to her, mister?' David could feel that terrible tightness in his throat.

'I'm not a doctor,' McGraw said.

'Is she all right?'

'I wouldn't say that. Oh, no. But she is alive.'

David caught the emphasis on 'she.' 'You said there was a witness. Were they in the car with her?'

McGraw gave him the sad smirk of a smile. 'No, David, you are the witness.'

He wondered how that could be and then realized he had in effect confessed to McGraw. He'd been trapped. He had trapped himself. And he was all he cared about. Not the woman. She wasn't a real person to him. She was a scream, like a face he'd brought up on the computer screen.

'I want to see her,' he said. What he wanted was to feel her, to flesh-and-blood feel her.

'You could have seen her at the scene. Now it's up to her whether or when she will see you.'

'What am I supposed to do, mister?'

'Exactly what I advised you to do yesterday: Go over to the sheriffs office this morning and give Deputy Muller your statement.'

'And if I don't?'

'They'll come and get you, David. I can promise you that. The woman will swear out the warrant for your arrest.'

And the arrest would be reported in the County Sentinel 'Crime Watch.' But the woman was alive: Why couldn't he say thank God and mean it? He hated himself for what came into his mind and for saying it, but he did: 'What if I asked you to represent me?'

'It's too late for that,' McGraw said, sounding regretful.