The gate was open so Hyde drove through and parked in the VIP lot behind the stage. It was five minutes after twelve when he stepped out of the car into the puddle of his own shadow and heard the collective laughter of another Brandywine summer. 

He hoisted himself up the loading dock. The metal theater door was propped open with the rock that Kayla gave the Carmels more than two years ago.

Hyde stepped inside. Will’s grand piano sat on the ground and the momentary pressure change fluttered the staff paper that covered the instrument’s lid. The pages were blotted with sloppy ovals like squashed ants, and angry black scribbles tore thin gashes through the sheets.

Hyde...

The deep reverberating whisper fell from the rafters and--in a split second of drug-induced paranoia--Hyde actually thought it was the voice of God.

“Hyde Whitaker! You have sinned against me!”

“Will? Where you at, bro?” He meandered across the stage with his hands in his pockets. “I’m running late, bud. What can I help you with?”

“Why did you do it, Hyde?”

“Uh... what?” There weren’t many places to hide on the spotless stage. He walked to the front of the left wing and peeked behind the first drape. Nothing.

“Colder...” said the voice.

“I can’t play games today. If you don’t come out, I’ll have to help you another time.”

“Why did you do it, Hyde? William was your friend!”

He looked to the large black speaker above his head. The power indicator was off... it wasn’t the source of the amplified voice. 

Paranoia escalated. Hyde felt naked... observed. His brain didn’t have the clarity to solve this puzzle.

“Why did you lie to your friend, Hyde?”

“About what? What did I lie about?” He hopped to another black drape at the rear of the stage and jerked it aside. Nothing.

“Waaaarmer.”

“Forget it. I’ll talk to you later, Will.” He marched toward the back door.

“Will? I am not Will! I am Alpha and the Omega and you are standing in my home!”

“You’re William Carmel and I’m leaving.” Hyde stepped on a crumpled piece of staff paper, twisted the ball under his foot, and grabbed the door handle.

“How did you do it, Hyde? How did you watch your friend go mad? How could you prolong his embarrassment with your silence?”

It took a moment for the accusation to register, and when it did, his hand dropped from the door handle and his legs felt the sudden compulsion to sit. Will wasn’t suppose to know... 

How long did he know?

Kayla. Kayla told him everything! She told him that her husband was divorcing her and she told him about the prank! What a sick form of revenge!

“Why did you do it, Hyde?”

He turned from the exit and looked to the catwalk. “It shouldn’t have gotten this far, Will. I’m sorry for that and I take full responsibility.”

“Full responsibility? Are you sure you can shoulder that, Hyde?”

Thanks to the turbid haze of the cannabis, Hyde’s thoughts swam in an ocean of molasses. “I won’t have this conversation here. Tell me where you are!”

“Tuba, mirum spargens sonum per sepulchra regionum, coget omnes ante thronum.”

Hyde barreled down the length of the right-wing and whipped through every drape along the way. The bars swayed overhead and the curtains wobbled like the wings of a sickly raven.

“Luste iudex ultionis, gonum fac remissionis ante diem rationis.”

He looked to the catwalk and stepped backwards rapidly, blindly, spinning and searching the bandshell ceiling until the floor’s solidity shifted beneath his footing. He glanced down and found himself in the center of the seam that outlined the square hatch. He bounced his knees and the hatch sagged under the pressure. A perfect hiding place, but William couldn’t be downstairs.

“Lacrimosa dies illa, qua resurget ex favilla iudicandus homo reus. Huic ergo parce, Deus.”

“Where the fuck are you!” he yelled, and then he found him, not obscured behind a curtain, but cloaked in stillness and shadow between the taught ropes of the fly system. The new laptop sat on the same set of weights that had crushed Will’s hand; the same hand that now clenched a microphone to his lips.

“Amen,” he said, but his mouth moved out of sync with the booming voice.

Hyde stormed across stage-right and Will remained motionless (but smiling!) behind the vertical bars.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the rope,” he said, his real voice finally audible over the amplified echo from above.

“Did Kay tell you?”

“Did Kay tell me what, Hyde?”

“Put the microphone down and talk to me! Did Kayla tell you?”

“It was only a month ago that I saw you on stage... drooling on yourself. Did you find what you were looking for in your Kindergarden high?”

“You saw that?”

“I could have called the police.”

“Salvia’s legal.”

“Not when you smoke it on another man’s property.”

Hyde snatched the microphone and threw it to the ground with a foundation-rattling ka-thud.

Will’s voice returned to it’s mortal growl. “It’s okay, old friend. I forgave you weeks ago.”

“Forgave me for what? For the joke?”

“For fucking up my life.” Will stretched his arms like a prehistoric pterodactyl from his twine cage. “That feels so good to say!” He looked Hyde right in the eye. “I forgive you, Hyde Whitaker, for fucking up my life.”

Something uncorked the drain in Hyde’s pool of mental molasses and his sticky thoughts sprang to life with epic clarity. Will was offering the very thing Hyde longed for. But he couldn’t accept it. Not this easily. Not after two years of this very confrontation looping through his brain; the ways he justified the prank, the witty retorts to every perceivable question that his buddy could ask. Hyde spent too many sleepless nights assuring himself that he wasn’t the reason William lost his hand... or his wife.

He jabbed his index finger in the sunken cavity of Will’s chest. “You should be thanking me.”

“Oh?”

“I gave you the motivation to pull yourself out of a stagnant life.”

Will stepped from the pulley system with one giant stride, forcing Hyde to move back.

“I gave you a reason to stand on that piano. The whole town looked up to you that night. It’s not my fault if you fucked it up.”

Will took another step forward. “Accept my forgiveness, son, while it’s still offered.”

“Your narcissism was your downfall. You’re full of yourself; a selfish old troll who types, types, types, and writes, writes, writes and dreams of being immortal.”

“I didn’t call you here to attack me.”

“You question the passion I have for my job because you can’t imagine a life so mediocre. You laugh at my sports. You tell me that dance and theater and film are nobel; something greater than mere entertainment. But I was thinking about it, Will, and you’re full of shit. Artists are selfish. Dancers and actors may perform in groups, but they all long for the spotlight. Whether it’s a ten-year-old dancing to Britney Spears in Michigan, or a fuckin’ opera in Italy. Sports are a team effort. Running a business is a team effort. And I happen to like that idea. I’m not less of a person because I like that idea.”

William and Hyde stood center-stage. “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. My ambition was to direct film and theater. There’s nothing selfish in such a collaboration.”

“Ah, but the principal is the same. You’re still alone in your little head. Maybe you have a crew, but they’re just tools. Am I wrong? You use a crew as your paintbrush and your actors as paint. It’s still all about Bill Carmel!”

Will raised his chin but his eyes stayed on Hyde’s. “Is there anything else you need to get off your chest?”

“Sarah--”

“Do not talk about my wife.”

“Sarah came to me after your accident. She warned me about you; said she’s seen this before. Said your temporary insanity wasn’t my fault; that I merely triggered something dormant. What was she talking about, Will? What exactly did I trigger?” Hyde knew he should stop (oh, how he wished he had stopped!) “You must have been boiling that Easter night! Just longing for a sign from God to snap you into full-blown crazy! You would have sacrificed your only daughter if that angel’s voice asked you! And when crazy came, what did you do with it, Bill? What greatness came from your brush with divinity? Mediocrity. You had matchless passion! You gave it everything your heart and soul and the culmination of your creativity had to offer! You worked for months on this gorgeous theater! And for what? Mediocrity. Tennessee Williams will live in infamy for his plays. Steven Spielberg will be remembered forever for his storytelling. And William Carmel? Who’s that? Oh yeah! He ran a little-kid dance competition... didn’t he? Oh that’s right... he only managed the theater for a little-kid dance competition.”

The self-confidence vanished from Will’s expression. His chin was aimed at his chest and his eyelids were heavy with anger. But both pupils were trained right on Hyde. He spoke with deliberate restraint. “Aside from the lie I told my wife, I like who I am. I’ve made peace with my failures and I’m content with my life.”

“We lie best when we lie to ourselves.”

“Engrave it on a stone.”

“Fuck you.”

“Follow me.”

“Where?”

“I have something to show you downstairs.”

“I’m sorry, Will. I went to far.” Hyde surprised himself with his instantaneous apology, but the empty words came easily after the terror of William’s request.

“Follow me,” he said again. “It’ll only take a second.” He stepped around Hyde and walked to the back corner toward the stage-left staircase.

“I think I’m gonna head out. I’m not in my right mind.”

“It’ll just take a second,” Will repeated, then inspected an L-shaped set-jack forgotten against the wall by the Sparkle Motion crew. He grabbed the wooden brace--it was taller than he was--and carried it down the stairs. “You coming, Hyde?” His voice was dampened by the cement walls.

The guilt rained in Hyde like nuclear winter. Maybe it was good that he let it out. Maybe they could start anew. He inhaled until his chest bulged the front of his t-shirt.

Downstairs, the wooden jack was leaning against the cinderblock wall beside the open metal door of the chorus room.

“In here!” Will said and Hyde followed the voice inside.

The darkness was suppressed only by a path of tea candles that sat in the center of every vanity-top, illuminating the walls and mirrors with a glimmer of murky orange. The room smelled of chum and reminded Hyde of Lake Michigan’s spring regurgitation of Herring; millions of lifeless fish in rotting white streaks across the beach. He breathed through his mouth but could still taste the putridity. The first step inside landed with a dull crunch. The candles provided just enough radiance to highlight sunflower shells--open like beetle wings--scattered across the floor like the unidentifiable nestings of a rat-infested attic. William’s back was outlined by the farthest candle and the way he was hunched reminded Hyde of Lon Chaney in the black and white version of The Phantom of the Opera; if he touched his friend’s shoulder, he might spin around to reveal a wire-bound face and bulging eye. Whatever Will was gathering in the corner, it was too dim and distant for Hyde to make out.

“Tell me Hyde, have you memorized that number yet?” Will stood erect and turned around with a stack of paper in his arms.

“Number?” Hyde asked.

“I just remember ‘zero-zero-eight-six-four...’ but I get confused after that. I think it’s a two? Does that sound right?”

Hyde may have understood the number his neighbor was referencing, but instead, he found himself distracted by the alter behind William that came to focus more and more as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was a wall of notecards; some were pinned to bulletin-boards, some were taped to mirrors and lights and countertops. A typewriter sat at the head of the shrine.

“You’re not dressed for work, Hyde.”

“I have the day off.”

“Then where were you going?”

“I told Kay I’d drop off her lunch.”

“Tisk tisk, Hydey. Thou shalt not lie.”

“It’s not really your business. Did you have something to show me?” He squinted, but Will’s expression was impossible to read.

“You promised me that you would work on things with your lovely wife. But I should have known that a Hyde-Whitaker promise is worthless.”

Kay did tell him about the divorce!

“Janie calls her ‘cheerleader-pretty,’” Will said. “I noticed she shaves her pubic hair. Why does she do that, Hyde? Is it something the kids find attractive these days?”

He couldn’t breathe. And the more he thought about his inability to breathe, the more difficult breathing became.

“I’m not a homosexual... but I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t recommend a little man-scaping for yourself. I have nose clippers that might work well for that.”

He stammered, “How did you... how do you... son of a bitch! How do you know that?”

“Why, my boy, haven’t you heard? I hear the voice of God! It was angels that told me you’re a perv!”

Those numbers... the error! He gasped for breath and braced himself with a hand on a countertop. “You don’t know anything about my situation. You don’t know my struggle...”

“Oh! So you’re a good person inside?” William circumvented Hyde while protecting his bundle of paper. “Mr. Hyde Whitaker had the very best intentions when cheating on his wife, so it’s okay? No!” he shouted. “We are our actions. And that makes you a very bad person.”

“I don’t need to justify my divorce to--”

“How do you feel about this girl? This ‘little apricot’? Are you going to run away with her? Propose? Will you marry her when you discover she’s no different than your last wife? When you discover that you don’t actually love her either? Will you ruin Baylee’s life like your ruined Kayla’s?”

Hearing Will spout her name... Hyde choked. His mouth widened in a desperate attempt to breathe but his mind lost control of his lungs. His stomach crumpled until his forehead hit a puddle of hot wax, finally sparking his ability to inhale and he did in a single, long suck of tunafish-air.

“Once you’re through with her you’ll cast her aside and find a sixteen-year-old to keep you feeling alive. You think you’re having a quarter-life crisis, Hyde? Is that it? Then what? A one-third life crisis? A two-fifths life crisis? Leaving a path of broken little girls in your wake, you perverted fuck?”

When his breathing was finally under control, Hyde wiped the wax from his head and turned to face William and the open door. “You’ll go to jail for this.”

“I warned Janie to stay away from you. She turns fifteen in a few months. I would love for you to go confidently in the direction of your dreams, but... she’s my little angel.”

“If you tell anybody I’ll have you locked up so fast...”

Will backed away. “Do you remember when you went on your business trip last month? Well, Janie went back to your house and installed our little program on your wife’s computer. While I watched your photo sessions in the hotel room, Janie stayed at home and watched Kayla... browse.”

“That’s so fucking illegal. When Sarah finds out, she’ll never--”

“Do you know what your wife looked up while you were away, Hyde? She typed in ‘ways to save a marriage.’ She looked up gifts for you. She looked up ‘favorite guy quotes.’ When Janie told me that part... it made me weep. Your wife was going to engrave you a rock, Hyde. Maybe she did. Did she give you a rock, Hyde?”

“You’ll lose it all. I’ll take away your home. I’ll take away your theater. One call to Pauline and it’s over. When she finds out that a joke drove you crazy, you think she’ll still help you out?”

Will’s black eyes reflected the line of candles. Without another word he took two lumbering steps backwards, out the door, and slammed it shut.

*  *  *

Hyde’s body crashed into the door before William could finagle the wooden set-brace into position. The silver handle twisted at the same time that Hyde used his shoulder as a battering ram, and the flat metal bucked Will’s cheekbone hard enough to knock him back, but not hard enough to keep him down. The impact did unfasten his grip on the loose manuscript, and the pages cascaded to the ground like a cruel game of Fifty-Two-Card Pickup.

Eight fingers poked their pulpy tips around the edge of the door. William returned the attack with a brutal punch of his shoulder, and seven of the fingers slipped away.

Hyde screamed. William threw his back against the closed door, eased himself down, and slid his feet through his disbanded work until they touched the opposite wall of the narrow hallway. Hyde screamed again--words this time--but the door muffled his cry. 

The jack was draped with sheets of paper and laid on the ground beneath William’s outstretched legs. Its length ran parallel to the hall and he would need to pick it up and turn it ninety degrees to properly secure the door.

The handle jiggled. Hyde hammered his fists against the metal behind Will’s head.

In one swift motion, William released the pressure on the door, spun his body counterclockwise on the toe of his shoe, snatched the jack in his talon, and braced the “L” into the bottom corner of the opposite wall.

Hyde pushed again, but Will planted his heel against the butt of the door just in time to stop it. The attack only gained Hyde an inch, but an inch was enough for William to see the blood and torn flesh of his victim’s finger, scraped like flecks of leftover potato above the deadbolt.

The sliver between the door and the frame gasped “Please!--” but William cut the breath short by wedging the jack’s point against the very center of the door. He released his hold, then pressed the beam down until it braced the door shut.

He relaxed. He arched his body backward until his spine popped, then he inspected the tender skin above his beard with the tips of his fingers. It would almost certainly bruise.

Hyde continued his rant. The screams were muffled, but his thumps shook the door like a timpani.

Twenty unused bags of mortar were still stacked like firewood in the room beneath the hatch. William stepped inside and ignored the square eclipse hanging eleven feet above his head. By this time next year, Pauline’s partnership would afford his theater the hydraulic lift it needed to make this room--and that hatch--fully functional.

But right now, he needed cement.

He briefly considered repositioning the pyramid of fifty-pound bags in front of the chorus-room door, but the obstruction would be a blood clot in the theater’s main artery and a tripping hazard to the performers.

William ignored the panicking cries. He balanced on his left foot and brushed away his scattered screenplay with his right, then dropped the bag in it’s place with a puff of quicklime from the seams.

Next, he rolled a yellow bucket (”Caution!” it said) from the storage closet. It still held water--thick with soap and grime--and some of the muddy concoction sloshed on his work. “Damnit,” he muttered and blotted the stain with his blazer. Fearing another accident, he gathered the screenplay into a pile and set it on the steps. He would organize it later.

William mixed the dirty water with the ripped bag of cement and considered the liquid situation. There was at least one untouched container of tuna left in the room; maybe even a discarded can of leftover peach juice. How many bottles of Coke were there? He was so enraptured by his writing that he ignored such trivial matters, but now an extra two-liter meant the difference between three days and ten. 

He used his fingers as miniature trowels to complete his spontaneous act of motivated justice, filling in the cracks around the door frame and refilling the cracks when Hyde’s anger crumbled his handiwork.

After twenty minutes of work, the breakout attempts finally subsided and the mortar sealed the door’s perimeter and dampened the drumming vibrations. The jack would need to stay wedged in place until the cement was dry.

The lime began to sting. William pulled the remaining half of the bag into the storage closet, then used a damp mop to sweep away the trail of dust. When the hall was clean and secure, he rushed upstairs to the bathroom, removed his toothbrush from the sink, and washed his crusted hands. He would sleep at the house tonight.

Janie. The last time he saw his daughter was last night when she brought him a bowl of turkey salad. Today was Friday. Kayla picked her up at 2:45 on Fridays. That meant she was practicing in her room. Her window faced the theater, but the theater blocked her view of Hyde’s arrival and parked car. 

The car.

Shit.

Standing in the afternoon heat with his hands on his hips, William heard laughter from a distant birthday party and wondered if someone noticed Hyde’s cement-grey car as it turned from Boulevard into the gravel parking lot. It was a Friday in June; surely dozens of people saw the car. But what were the odds that one of those people knew Hyde?

Will’s heart remained at a steady seventy-five beats per minute during the entire conversation with Hyde. It raised to ninety during the jamming of the door, and finally settled to its usual sixty-five when he finished sealing the door. But when William remembered that Hyde was a practicing member of the twenty-first century and carried either a cellphone or earpiece at all times, his chest nearly imploded. Technology, once again, would be his downfall.

He paced once around the car. If Hyde still had his phone--if the phone still had service--William would be hearing sirens instead of laughter. Right? Then he grabbed the driver’s side handle and pulled.

It was open.

The keys were in the ignition. The cellphone laid crooked in a cup holder. 

Will pressed his forehead against the steering wheel until his heart resumed its normal rhythm, then he started the car.

Across the lot, through the gate, down the back of the hill; he turned left at the base and abandoned the pavement for grass. He followed the curve of the hill and stopped when he faced the stables.

The massive sliding door was fifty feet away, but if William pulled another inch forward, he would be visible to Clint and Travis on the left, and Janie’s bedroom in front. Another twenty feet and Hyde’s house would peer from behind his... but Will was certain that Kayla was still at her morning dance lessons.

He hopped from the car and meandered to the stable door. The foot latch was rusted, but a solid kick broke it loose and he pulled back the door in steel tracks.

He eyed the gay’s home on his way back to the car, but it was difficult to spot any peeping-toms through sun-streaked windows.

Janie’s blinds were closed.

Back in the car, William studied the final stretch to freedom. Somehow, he knew the path was clear. He knew that nobody was watching; and that nobody had seen Hyde turn into the theater’s entrance. He grinned at the notion of freedom, then rolled the car across the yard and into the stable’s refuge.

*  *  *

Janie and William were sitting on the wicker chairs when Kayla pulled her car up the drive. Will smiled and waved. Kayla lifted the corners of her lips, raised a hand, and moved it from side to side.

Janie was truly as perceptive as Kayla feared. Despite a triple-platinum smile and, “Hey there Janie!” the girl new something was wrong before she was in the car.

“What happened? You’re sad.” She tossed her bag in the back and buckled up.

Kayla dipped and dodged the questions and steered the conversation back to smalltalk; she would never tell Janie Carmel that her heart was broken beyond repair.

Kay called Hyde for the first time at four o’clock when the desperation to hear her husband’s voice overcame the desperation to remain calm. She speed-dialed his number and bottled the tears in preparation, but he didn’t answer.

Her voicemail was simple, loving, independent. “Hey,” she said, “I hope you’re still open to a discussion tonight. Maybe we can meet for dinner or talk over the phone before bed. I love you. You might not want to hear it, but I do.”

The tears broke at the last phrase, but she shut and pocketed the phone before her weeping became audible.

Hyde didn’t answer an hour later, or the hour after that.

Kayla left Janie in charge of closing up. She couldn’t be there when Sarah arrived to pick up her daughter. Sarah was in Hyde’s position. Sarah was the one who left.

Friday night came and went without an answer or call. When the next two days followed suit, Kayla knew that her husband’s decision was final.

*  *  *

As the neighborhood slept and the crickets announced the night, William stepped from the house, crossed the yard, and entered his shed through the back door.

Dirt-covered planks served as the rickety floor between the abandoned section of stables and the hollowed-out bomb shelter. The splintered boards pried quickly and quietly. After an hour of work, William found himself face to face with a chasm twice the size of the incriminating vehicle.

He put the car in neutral and pushed from behind.

A quarter inch of tin siding and two acres of midnight silence separated that hole from the closest neighbors... but if anyone heard the brief crash of bumper on dirt, the low creek of collapsing metal, or the subsequent shoveling of gravel, they would simply assume that Crazy-Will Carmel was up to his usual mischief.