Read Freewill for Free Online Page A

impossible. You have more experience with this than most, but always you are lost for the right things to say. So you say other things.
    â€œSure is dirty water,” you say. “I don’t think I could throw myself into that.”
    â€œBecause it’s dirty,” she says flatly.
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œI see. So this is what you do for fun.”
    You move along the rail, away from her.
    â€œWhat is that move?” she says harshly. “You know, you could just say ‘Shut up, Angela. That’s not true. You’re wrong,’ instead of doing that slither-away maneuver.”
    â€œYou’re wrong,” you say.
    â€œSo slither on back then.”
    You do. “For fun?” you ask.
    â€œYa, what do you do for fun?”
    â€œI like bocce ball. And, you know, I do the shopping and other stuff for my grandparents. Stuff like that.”
    Now she looks like she will be the one slithering away. But she doesn’t, yet.
    â€œThat’s not fun, that’s minimum security.”
    Something comes out of you now. Unusual. Unheard of. It frightens you, doesn’t it? Because it doesn’t come out of your eyes or your pores or your nose. It comes out of you , from somewhere in the diaphragm region and sounds as foreign to your ear as Mandarin Chinese.
    Is that a laugh?
    â€œWas that a laugh, just come up out of you, or are you gonna be sick?”
    You have a hand on your belly. “I think I’m okay,” you say.
    That must be how skydiving feels. Terrifying but thrillingat the same time. You’re thinking about that right now, aren’t you, as you look down. Skydiving.
    â€œThere’s no doubt about this one, huh?” Angela says. “He did it.”
    â€œHe did. I suppose. There’s always doubt. But . . .”
    â€œThey still don’t know about her, though. Not for sure.”
    â€œNever will,” you say. “Never can. A person takes that with them, no matter what the cops or anybody think they know. Nobody ever knows who’s responsible for anything if they don’t see it with their own eyes. Or even if they do see it. Nobody knows anything, that’s what I think.”
    â€œYou don’t really think that, do you?”
    â€œYes I do.”
    â€œCome on. I think maybe he did it. That’s what I think. Did her, then himself. A guy would do something like that.”
    You couldn’t possibly speak any slower than this. “Cannot know. Nobody can know what happened.”
    â€œWhat if they find a note? That’ll tell it, for certain.”
    You shake your head.
    â€œWhat do you mean, no?”
    â€œIf you are not inside someone’s head, or they are not inside yours, then how can you ever know one hundred percent anything about them?”
    Sometimes, even if you are in the head. You still can’t know. Isn’t that so?
    The sun is coming up, pale and milky in an unclear morning sky. The water below, looking like Willy Wonka’s chocolate river now in daylight, is going past faster than you thought.
    â€œIs this what you’ve been carving these things for all along?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen what you been carving ’em for?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œThen what you bringing them to these places for?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhat do you get out of it?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhat do you know, Will?”
    â€œNothing, Angela, I don’t know a thing.”
    With a sudden, spasmodic shove, you are away from the bridge rail. Standing three feet back, and now looking at the wood carving as if it is a surprise guest at your little party, you say to Angela. “I know this: I need to go finish that stupid fat-face little gnome.”
    She checks her watch. “Yup,” she says, and you start off.
    First Angela, then you, as you make your way back over the bridge toward school, pass a hand over the