Leigh and William Hush
by C.E. Hyun
It was raining the night he came. I went downstairs for a late-night snack. There was the gallon of ice-cream I had started on earlier that evening, and I took a metal spoon from the drawer.
Through the lace curtains above the kitchen sink, I saw the backyard illuminated by a flash of lightning. It had been pouring for days. I saw the straining muscles of the trees, their trunks drenched and heaving. White flowers were ripped from their beds and sent careening into the darkness.
I watched the battle replay through detached eyes as I padded across the linoleum floor. The only sounds in the kitchen was the steady metallic drip of the sink—it never stopped leaking—and the annoying tick-tock of the timer clock above the stove. I dug my spoon into the open container of ice-cream.
My name is Leigh Wilder, film noir actor and aspiring producer. I was at my grandmother’s farmhouse in the ghost town that was Lapland, South Dakota. She left me the house when she died, and I liked it here because there was a desolation about this place. It hinted at long-forgotten memories, of dark and perhaps tragic things that happened long ago.
What brought me here was the success of my most recent film. Based on a popular graphic novel, it exceeded everyone’s expectations when it not only became a box-office hit, it was nominated for several prestigious awards, including Best Actress. I didn’t expect to actually win, but the irony of my nomination was too much. I had to leave.
My spoon was lodged inside the ice-cream, stuck between the strawberry and the chocolate. As I pulled it out and took my first spoonful, the back door flew open.
I glimpsed the war that raged outside, and then he stumbled into the doorway bringing a gust of cold rain with him. His shirt clung slick to his body as he clutched the doorframe for support. He was breathing hard. Of course, he must have traveled from very far away to come here. He raised his head, the rain running down his face and neck.
Our eyes met; I knew who he was.
It was William Hush, one of the villains from my film. A brilliant soul, with a talent for putting together mind-controlling toxins in cunningly wrapped packages. His signature was red velvet ribbons and an empty, morose stare.
Had I ever seen such a beautiful and disturbed creature?
I dropped my spoon.
It clattered loudly against the linoleum. Once, twice, three times before coming to a stop. Like out of my films, William appeared in my doorway as a black silhouette, illuminated by a flash of lightning.
#
In a cold, dark city, corruption and chaos reign. In a city of over two million, the lone two people battling the corruption and chaos are Robert Leir (the city’s idealistic white knight) and myself, Jackie Tree (the frigid but incorruptible judge).
Robert and I, we battle back-to-back. I battle the bureaucracy, the ruthless corporations, the police corruption. Robert battles the litany of costumed bad guys, one of who is William Hush.
William warrants a personal demise at Robert’s hand because he commits an unspeakable crime; he breaks my arm. He kills two police officers, a fellow judge who was on the verge of moral redemption, and a poor but bright young woman with aspirations of going to college. It isn’t until William breaks my arm, however, that Robert channels his inner bloodhound and tracks the costumed villain down.
#
In actuality, William Hush was created as a stock villain. But the actor who played him added far more depth to the character than it deserved, swooning critics and teenage girls. And it wasn’t just the audience whose attention he had caught.
There was blood at the corner of William’s mouth. He held one arm against his ribs. His chest heaved, not just from exhaustion, but as if it was difficult to breathe. I didn’t move forward in time to catch him as he collapsed to the floor. Unlike a typical film noir, it wasn’t blood that spread from his body, but water.
All I wore were slippers and a long nightshirt. As I approached him, he grabbed my ankle. His hand was cold and wet against my bare skin. I looked down and his eyes pleaded, a strange sight on a face usually devoid of emotion.
I knelt and pulled him away from the backdoor. I settled down on the linoleum floor, and he burrowed his head into my lap. I found myself leaning over him, my dark hair casting a protective curtain around his face. My nightshirt was soon soaked in rain. His hands clutched my shirt, my sides, and I pulled him close to me.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
He turned his head to look at me, his lips curving into a weak smile. “Your lover threw me over a building. I’m dying.” He spoke in that flat, toneless voice of his, and yet with a hint of dismay.
I searched his body for a puncture or a wound, but felt neither warmth nor the scent of seeping blood. His body was cold but untouched.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“To see you.” His hand wrapped around mine. His lips brushed against my fingers. “To know what it was you thought of me.”
#
In the film, I first met William through his employer. The criminal kingpins had divided up the city, and I had tried one of them—the Respectable Businessman—in my courtroom. Bribery and a seemingly honest countenance being a stronger currency than my cold, justice-driven persona, the Businessman won. As the courtroom adjourned, I noticed the Businessman conferring with William Hush.
Later that same day as I stepped out for lunch, I saw William standing outside the courthouse, alone. What a—not arresting, but interesting figure he cut, with his gray suit, his morose, scholarly demeanor. He should have blended in but looked entirely out of place, like a jellyfish amongst a school of barracuda. The Respectable Businessman and his friends were nowhere in sight.
I approached William.
“I keep a close eye on the people the Businessman associates with. I’ve never seen you before.”
He turned to face me, his mild countenance cloaking any thought he may have had. “Ah. Judge…”
“Tree. Jackie Tree. Why were you at the trial?”
William shrugged. “Just supporting a good friend.”
“The Businessman is a good friend of yours?” I gave him a quick once-over. “Who are you?”
“The name is William Hush.” He offered his hand, smirking slightly when I didn’t take it.
“What’s your interest in the Businessman? You’re not the type of person he typically associates with,” I said.
William shrugged. “He intrigues me. Not dissimilar to your own interest in him.”
At my inquiring look, he explained: “I was watching you in the courtroom, the way you follow the Businessman. You’re different from that ‘White Knight’ you associate with.” There was in his gaze the gleam of scientific curiosity, and then he smiled to reveal a different, more personal interest. “There’s a part of you that is so fascinated by evil and corruption. You enjoy the power that comes from dominating it.”
My eyes narrowed. “Are you a psychologist, Mr. Hush? Because I’m less interested in your observation and more interested in your information.”
“Ah yes, your long-standing feud. I’m afraid it’s not in my best interest to help you though.”
“I’ll have to find the proper incentive then.”
William arched an eyebrow. He stepped towards me so that our faces were inches apart, deliberately invading my personal space. “Will you be a threat to me, Ms. Tree?”
I didn’t back away. Instead I leaned forward to murmur into his ear: “Only if your relation to the Businessman involves endangering the citizens of my city. I also have powerful friends.”
We stood like that, cheek to cheek, and I could feel him in the way he didn’t react to the intimate distance. This close I could hear the rapidity of his heartbeat—or was that mine instead? He drew in his breath.
Then William, so softly that I almost missed it, asked: “One particular friend?”
Surprised, I pulled back to regard him. I was further surprised at the way William watched me. Not the way one sizes up a future enemy, but like he strangely wanted me.
“Jackie!” A man shouted my name from the plaza below, and William’s eyes flickered past me. I turned and saw it was the district attorney.
I glanced back toward William, gave him a brief smile. “I have a lunch date, Mr. Hush. Please excuse me. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
“How is that masked hero that you keep on your leash?” William called as I started to descend the courthouse steps. I didn’t turn back right away. “I find him quite useful. Particular reason for your curiosity?”
I turned to face William, but he had already gone. I stood on the courthouse steps, searching the crowd for him. I was still searching as the district attorney jogged up to me huffing and puffing, apologizing for being late and asking whether I had a preference for Italian or Thai.
#
William’s breath was warm against my hand. His lips ghosted over my skin. “What did you think of me?” he asked.
“You were a corrupt scientist who chose to hurt other people. Whatever your aura or brilliance, that’s all you were.” I ran a hand through William’s hair, fingering the slight curls.
“It could have been different.”
“Not in that world.” I ran my thumb over his lower lip.
He laved the tip of my thumb with his tongue, slowly kissed it. “But you wanted me.”
Even if I had, whatever character development there might have been had been pushed aside for the grandstanding—I mean heroic journey of Robert Leir.
#
Robert Leir, the city’s hero, and my lover. Back when I was a young, beginning attorney and he a soul-searching graduate student of philosophy, I had snubbed him. Yes, I was mean. No, he didn’t deserve it. But in my defense, his wide-eyed idealism had been particularly trying that day because I had just lost a case to a handsome and charismatic pedophile who in later years would be known as the Respectable Businessman.
I had represented Black-Eye, a young prostitute who had summoned the courage to take her case to trial, knowing full well that the odds were stacked against her. But we had both underestimated to what extent. Black-Eye had been called out as a whore and a liar, and the vehemence of her detractors—the Businessman’s rich and respectable family, his business associates and friends, his pretty fiancée—had been chilling.
If my character had been properly developed, this scene would have revealed a fundamental difference between Robert and me. I may have been trying to save the city, but I didn’t believe the people in it were deserving or good. If anything, I was bitter and contemptuous toward much of the populace. So perhaps it didn’t make sense why I fought so hard and risked my life for them. There wasn’t a good answer, but part of it was that I had wanted to believe in goodness, had to fight for the idea even if it didn’t exist in reality.
#
It was at the Christmas-Halloween parade, where the citizens dressed up as Santa Clauses with the faces of skeletons, monsters, and Grim Reapers, that I met William again. He wore a gray suit and a Santa Claus and skull mask over his face, but I recognized him from behind by his lithe frame. By now I knew William was entangled in the schemes of the city’s villains. As I approached him, I saw that he held a square package wrapped in shiny, apple-green paper and tied with a red velvet ribbon.
The crowd moved so fast, so oblivious around him. It was starting to snow and the way he stood there, he seemed lost. What a strange aphrodisiac it is, to see that cold and aloof object of your desire appear vulnerable and uncertain.
“William!”
He turned, searching the crowd for the person that had called his name. When he recognized me, he clutched the package to his chest. “This wasn’t meant for you.”
“Turn yourself in, William. Are you really going to throw everything away, for this madness?”
I approached him quickly, perhaps too quickly, as he recoiled. I grabbed his arm. He jerked back, pulling me with him.
My face just inches from his masked one, I saw William’s eyes, saw the fabric move where his mouth and nose were. Adrenaline ran through me and he must have felt it too, the way time seemed to slow, how the snow glittered down around us. With my other hand, I touched the package to take it from him. The moment broke.
He pulled away. “You should leave.”
“William, don’t. You don’t have to do this. I can help you.”
He was stepping back into the shadows so I could no longer see his eyes. My own face was the most open it had been as I pleaded with him to stay. Was I reaching him? With the mask, I couldn’t tell.
I reached out again, ready to physically wrest the package from him, and it was then that chaos erupted as other costumed villains entered the scene. After all, it was the Christmas-Halloween parade, the perfect venue for crimes of grand and diabolic proportions. We were just one of many in the fight, and in the ensuing chaos, William broke my arm. He ran off with his package.
I leaned against a wall, holding my arm to my chest. Several villains saw me and one of them approached with a knife. I stood helpless in my high heels and with a broken arm, and the villain with the knife treated me to a depraved leer. Maybe he would have had his wicked way with me, but then Robert Leir swept in and saved my life.
“Leigh!” Robert touched my arm and I gasped in pain. “Who did this?” he asked with earnest anger.
“It was William Hush.”
“I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“No!” I cradled my arm, looking past Robert to see ambulances and police cars approaching. “You’re the city’s hero. That’s your role. You have to go.”
“Leigh…”
“Go!”
I watched Robert as he left me, was forced to wait for him to come back and claim me.
#
“I wanted the audience to care about her,” I said. “She was portrayed so unfairly.”
“Tell me what you mean.”
But I couldn’t say any more as my eyes turned moist like the dark night’s rain. I remembered when I saw the completed film for the first time at the premiere, to hear people talk about me and Jackie Tree:
‘Despite her tendency to star in genre and film noir, Leigh Wilder’s cool sexuality is unsurpassed, and her role as Judge Tree does not disappoint.’ ‘…Refreshing to see the Queen of Cold finally submit, but one must wonder why the heroic Robert Leir is attracted to such a judge. Perhaps beneath his hard muscles, the chiseled jaw, the white knight still retains the wide-eyed idealism that would drive such a man to become a hero, to fall in love with a woman who was designed to be unattainable.’ ‘Wilder has finally shed some of her hardness… With her softening, I become reminded of the fact that she truly is a great beauty.’
I pressed my face to William’s, felt his breath as his mouth touched mine. “It wasn’t fair, that you could be such an empty person and still have people who cared and wondered about you,” I whispered. “You deserved to die, do you remember? And not with the loving attention that the camera gave you, with the titillating conversation that arose around you. You killed people. You hurt people. No mystique, no brilliance, can make up for that.”
William shifted in my lap and I ran my fingers through his hair, gripping the roots so that he winced at the sharp pain. “Don’t you agree?” I asked.
“That wasn’t my fault. That one thing, that wasn’t my fault.”
“Wasn’t it?” I looked down at William. William, who I’d wanted, how I’d wanted him to stay. I moved to push him off my lap.
But he clung to me, his eyes beseeching me. “Don’t let me go. I saw how you tried. You were the only one who made me wonder in the end.” William closed his eyes. He started coughing, and blood spread over his lips. He swallowed as though to hold back his coming death. “You had the harder job. I know that.”
When he stopped shuddering in my lap, I knew that he had died. I held him close, felt the softness of his lips, his closed eyelids. Outside, the storm continued like a black-and-white film.
I saw the white flowers, their petals splattered by dirt. I saw that moment in the film when Robert caught William and threw him over the side of the building, the way William lay dying in the alley. That last shot of Jackie in the film at the hospital watching the news, the expression on my face grimly hopeful as I learned that the white knight had won and the city saved. And most vivid of them all, I saw the infamous confrontation scene between Robert and me several hours before the parade.
We were at my downtown office, planning our stakeout. Robert would search from the building rooftops and I would search from the ground. We had only a few hours and hundreds of innocent civilian lives to save. Tempers were high and Robert wanted to talk about my feelings.
“You’re driving yourself against a wall. Jackie, I work with you. I see you. You’re obsessed with him.”
I snapped my head up to glare at Robert. “Obsessed? The Businessman’s ruined thousands of lives. And he’ll ruin countless more tonight if we don’t find him and all his associates. So if that’s how you want to put it, then yes, I am obsessed.”
“Why won’t you let me help you?”
I looked up from the files I’d been going over for days now to see Robert’s boyish face, that genuine, good-hearted concern. I could have said it in more delicate terms, but at the moment I wanted nothing more than to be cruel, to rip apart that incomprehensible idealism.
“Robert, I appreciate you. I truly do. But you seem to operate under the delusion that all I need is love. I don’t. What I need is to do my job and for you to help me. What happens in my personal life is my own burden to bear.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “Robert. I. Don’t. Want you. Why is that something I have to apologize for?”
“You don’t. I just worry about you.”
The look I gave him could have been interpreted in several ways. More important was the expression on Robert’s face as I lowered my head to resume my work. His face was one of bewildered hurt, but I’m sure many in the audience were happy to catch pity in his look as well.
I swallowed my anger as I remembered. And as I remembered, William’s body slowly faded from my arms.
#
Much later, when everything had become silent (the only sound was the steady metallic drip of the sink—it never stopped leaking—and the annoying tick-tock of the timer clock above the stove), I was still sitting on the floor and there was water all over the linoleum.
The metal spoon lay where I had—long ago?—dropped it. On top of the counter, the melted ice-cream dripped over the edge in slow, steady gloops. The gloops were smooth as tear-shaped pearls.
Had anyone who watched the film caught it? That Jackie was drawn to William and not to Robert? I am not justifying or advocating her attraction, and perhaps my own frustration had played into her longing, her desire to be seen. For Jackie had fought against corruption with every available weapon that the flawed bureaucracy would provide her. She had integrity and stuck to her convictions. When she was one of two lone people trying to save the city, didn’t she deserve some recognition?
But no, she was reviled for being cold and for snubbing Robert Leir. Was she obligated to fall in love with him? Why would my pragmatic character ever be attracted to such an idealist? I was remembered for drawing the attention of all the film’s males. Not much choice when I was the lone female character with speaking dialogue in the universe that the film inhabited! I didn’t become remotely likeable until my humbling, when I was saved by Robert, and it was naturally assumed that being grateful for being saved by him would be accompanied by romantic love for him.
The next day, I left my grandmother’s house. At home, I received the script for the film’s sequel. In order for Robert Leir to grow, Jackie Tree was assigned to die. For those who are curious, there were two new women—one a sweet-hearted elementary school teacher and the other a sexy villainess with a tragic past—to take my place. Jackie’s fate didn’t surprise me, but it did pull me out of that other world that I had been wandering in.
I thought of Jackie before she became a judge and was starting out as a young lawyer, representing an even younger girl named Black-Eye. I remembered the crush of young ideals after we lost our case.
“I’m sorry,” I’d told Black-Eye. I tried to keep my tone professional, but it was difficult to look her in the face. All that scrutiny and pain I’d subjected her to, and all for no effect.
“Thank you,” she’d said.
“For what?”
“For caring enough to try.”
And I was grateful and surprised, and her words had helped me.
I did not hold myself to Jackie’s level, but I could at least aspire to them. I remembered first reading the film’s script, how I’d fallen in love with Jackie’s pride, how I’d desired to protect her hope. I thought of the things I would say if I could meet her—the things I thought she deserved to know.
End.
C.E. Hyun is a law student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Pale House, The British Fantasy Society’s BFS Journal, and Viola Beadleton’s Compendium. Her website is www.cehyun.com.
© 2011 All rights reserved C.E. Hyun
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