Mohawk

At the junior high there was considerable speculation. Boyer Burnhoffer advanced a theory that wires would be hooked up to Wild Bill’s head and then,
Zzzzzt!
Boyer demonstrated graphically, his knees and arms quivering, his jaw slack. “I don’t see what good that would do,” someone said. Boyer didn’t know either, only that it was done. “It sure makes your pecker stand up,” he observed. He’d been given a shock treatment once in reform school, and this unexpected effect had lingered in his memory.
    The more Randall listened, the more uneasy he became. When school let out on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, he had a knot in his stomach the size of a fist. Though he tried everything he could think of to ignore his gnawing conscience, nothing worked. He told himself that Wild Bill hadn’t really rescued him.Burnhoffer was nearly finished rubbing his face in the gravel when Wild Bill showed up. Everyone said he was crazy, and there were reasons to think so. Hadn’t he forced the gift of a condom on Randall, a perfect stranger? Hadn’t he done the same with half the young boys in Mohawk, as it now turned out? It was one thing to go out on a limb for a friend, but Randall couldn’t see the advantage of doing so for the likes of Wild Bill. And in the long run the poor man would probably be happier where there were no kids to make fun of him. That night after dinner he decided he would sidle up to the subject with his grandfather, who always had pretty good advice when it came to thorny problems.
    He found Mather Grouse seated in his favorite armchair in the living room, his face behind a book. Mrs. Grouse hummed quietly over the remains of the dishes. Once she finished this chore, she would take off and rinse out her stockings, hanging them to dry over the edge of the tub. When the bathroom door closed behind her, Randall opened the proceedings. He thought it best to keep things relatively abstract, at least at first. When his grandfather was reading, it was sometimes possible to carry on an entire conversation without his looking up from the page. He hoped this would be the case, for Mather Grouse had a penetrating gaze that Randall feared would pierce his heart, especially in its present swollen condition. “Is there any good way to know what’s the right thing to do,” he asked.
    Mather Grouse immediately lowered his book a few inches and peered over the top at his grandson. Randall wasn’t sure from this immediate reaction whether his question was very good or extremely silly. He anticipated a long involved answer full of qualifications, but again Mather Grouse surprised him. “No,” his grandfathersaid with such conviction that Randall suspected that the single word might represent the end of the conversation. “Of ourse, you could always ask yourself what you want to do and then do the opposite, but even that isn’t one hundred percent reliable because every now and then people actually want to do the right thing. I don’t know why.”
    “How do you decide?”
    “I forget. It’s been so long since I’ve had a decision to make about anything important. Mostly I just try not to upset your grandmother.”
    “Were you ever scared to do what you thought was right?”
    Mather Grouse frowned and found his bookmark. It looked like he might find it necessary to put the book down. “Yes,” he said. “Many times.”
    “But you did the right thing anyway?”
    “Sometimes. Not always.”
    “Can you tell me about one of the times you didn’t?”
    “No. I will not.”
    Randall nodded. He always understood his grandfather and wondered if that was why he loved him especially. The boy took a deep breath. “Have you ever seen the man who is always wandering around downtown? They call him Wild Bill?”
    Mather Grouse started imperceptibly at the name and stared at his grandson as if he suspected the boy of clairvoyance. “His name is William Gaffney.”
    Randall nodded. “If you thought something bad might happen to somebody like that, on account of something that wasn’t his fault, would you do something, even if it maybe meant trouble for yourself?”
    Mather Grouse did not answer right away. His slender fingers tapped the scrolled, worn arms of his readingchair as if they were hitting notes on an imaginary keyboard. “It would be good,” he said finally, “if you could help a William Gaffney. But there are many William Gaffneys and there is little that can be done for them. They can be