Woody Fowler's Shadow
All his life, Woody Fowler preferred running away from unpleasantness to confronting it. In school, he would always hand over his lunch money to bullies rather than risk getting into a fight. He did not mind being labeled a coward since cowards only had to endure verbal slings, whereas had he chosen to stand up to his tormenters, his pains would be physical, not emotional. After a while, even the insults and slurs ceased to bother him.
Lacking a normal social life, Woody devoted his time to his education. Thus, he was able to graduate high school at the top of his class and be accepted into an Ivy League college. Upon completion of his schooling, Woody could easily have gotten a job at one of the leading high-tech companies, but working for Microsoft or Apple was not for him. Instead, he returned to his hometown and took a job as a computer science teacher. Although the pay was well below that offered in Silicon Valley, the benefits were good, and Woody loved the idea of getting the summer months off.
By the time the 3:00 p.m. dismissal bell rang on the first day of school, word had spread among the unmarried female faculty members that there was a new man on staff, one who was young, reasonably handsome and, best of all, single. On the second day of school, the interested women made a point of meeting their new coworker.
"He's adorable!" Cherie Bemish, a social studies teacher, declared.
"A bit shy, though," observed Liv Haney from the English department. "I wonder if he's gay."
"He's not," Callie Napier, the girl's physical education instructor, informed the others.
"How do you know?" Miss Bemish asked.
"Because I know him—kind of. My sister graduated with him."
Miss Napier, like Woody himself, was born and raised in North Hamilton and graduated two years after he had.
"He's not gay," she reiterated, "but he is on the timid side."
Over the next few weeks, all three women sought the company of the bashful computer science teacher. Given that Callie pursued him with the same fierce determination she had exhibited as a girl charging down a soccer field toward the goal cage, the unwary bachelor did not stand a chance.
* * *
Why Callie Napier married Woody Fowler was anyone's guess. Perhaps her pursuit of the quiet, timorous teacher was simply another sport in which she hoped to be the victor. Or, more likely, she was at a stage in her life when she felt she ought to be married; and with Woody being so malleable, she could easily mold him into her concept of the perfect man. Her attempts at transforming her husband commenced not long after the couple returned from their honeymoon on Martha's Vineyard.
"Now that we're married, we'll have to go house hunting," Callie announced in the no-nonsense tone she used when drilling her students in a grueling regimen of calisthenics.
Woody looked up from his book, surprised at his wife's words.
"Why? We have a comfortable, modern two-bedroom apartment with plenty of storage space, and the rent is reasonable. What else do we need?"
"What about our future and our financial security? We can't accrue any equity in an apartment."
"We're only in our twenties. We have plenty of time to think about buying a house."
"But I don't want to wait," Callie firmly insisted. "I want a yard where I can plant a garden and a garage where I can park my car. I also want my own washer and dryer, so I don't have to go to the Laundromat and throw away good money in those pay machines."
As usual, Woody did not put up much of an argument.
"All right, dear. Whatever you think is best," he said with a sigh and returned to his reading.
Naturally, the house Callie chose had a price well out of the couple's reach.
"There must be something smaller we could afford," Woody suggested. "We don't need four bedrooms, a finished basement, walk-in closets and a two-car garage. We should look for a nice ranch or a Cape Cod. We can always trade up later on."
Callie cast a withering gaze that made her husband cringe.
"If that's your attitude, we might just as well stay in this pathetic little apartment."
Life in the Fowler household was strained for the next several weeks. Woody often found his dinner burned and his clothes wrinkled. His wife also became increasingly critical of the chores he did around the house, complaining that the dishes were not dried properly or that he missed a spot when he vacuumed the rug. Finally, in an attempt to restore domestic harmony, the beleaguered husband agreed to look for a job with a more impressive paycheck. With his knowledge of computers, he was able to get a position with a software development company that was willing to pay him a six-figure starting salary. The work was demanding and the hours long, but with his wife goading him on, the unambitious programmer quickly advanced up the corporate ladder.
Within five years, the Fowlers were able to purchase a house even larger than the one Callie had originally wanted. Woody was by that time making so much money that his wife could quit her job and devote her time to maintaining the large home. After several years of a life of comparative leisure, however, Mrs. Fowler began to grow bored with housekeeping. Still, she had no desire to return to teaching. Instead, she joined several civic groups in hopes of becoming a fixture in North Hamilton society. To further her goals, she began to entertain on a grand scale, one not even her husband's substantial salary could cover.
"You should go into business for yourself," she urged Woody. "Your boss is a millionaire already, and he's not even forty! You're the brains at that company. You should be the one with a mansion on the hill, a new Mercedes in the garage and a European vacation every year."
Woody personally felt that his salary was more than fair, but he knew better than to disagree with his wife since she always got her way in the end.
"All right, dear," he reluctantly conceded. "After the holidays are over, I'll see what I can do."
"There's no need for you to do anything," his scheming spouse informed him with an unpleasant smile. "I've already spoken to the bank. They're willing to give you a loan to start up your business. And I found a real estate agent who handles commercial properties. There is an office on Main Street that will be vacant on the first of the year."
"Anything you say, dear," Woody groaned, as he picked up his book and headed toward the bedroom.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm tired. I thought I'd read awhile and then turn in early."
"Have you forgotten what tonight is? The Strattons are expecting us for dinner."
"Do we have to go?"
"Yes, we do! Ella Stratton is the chairman of the Historic Homes Preservation Association. I'm the secretary; I have to be there."
Woody soon regretted having given in to his wife's wishes. He found the dinner party, like all the others Callie dragged him to, long and dull and the food unappetizing.
As he sat at the Strattons' long dining room table between two elderly women who were discussing the renovations to one of the Victorian homes in their town, he thought about how his life diverged from the course he had initially set. His job as a teacher would have made him much happier than owning his own business ever would. Since leaving the school, he had yet to take a vacation or enjoy a full two-day weekend. It would have been nice to have the summer to himself, a week off at Christmas and Easter, a midterm break and a workday that ended at 3:00 p.m. Instead, he was slaving his life away, not for his own dreams but for Callie's.
Suddenly, he wanted to run from the Stratton house, to escape the boring chatter of the members of the Historic Homes Preservation Association, but he knew if he did, his wife would make his life a living hell. Resigned to his fate, he excused himself, ostensibly to go to the bathroom; but when he left the dining table, he snuck into the Strattons' library where he felt more at home among the old, dusty books than he did with his wife's friends.
While Woody sat in a Chippendale chair thumbing through a volume by Ralph Waldo Emerson, he overheard two men talking in the hall as they smoked.
"I hear Callie is pushing her husband to start his own business," Bob Stratton said.
"I'm not surprised," Emile DeLaroche, a neighbor of the Fowlers, replied. "That woman spends money like it was water. She makes my wife seem downright thrifty!"
The two men laughed, and Woody was reminded of the boys who bullied him out of his lunch money when he was in school.
"Do you think she'll succeed?" Bob wondered. "I just can't see that milquetoast of a man going out on a limb like that."
"Fowler may be afraid of his own shadow, but I'm sure he fears his wife even more," Emile suggested.
"I can't say that I blame him!"
The men's voices faded as they made their way back to the dining room. Meanwhile, in the library, Woody felt his anger rise. It was an emotion he had never experienced so strongly. How many other people held him in similar contempt? How many ridiculed him behind his back? Woody did not return to the dinner table but remained in the library, watching the shadows fade as the fire died down. His wife's voice eventually shattered the silence.
"There you are! I've been looking all over for you. You know better than to get up from the dinner table and sneak off into another room by yourself! Hurry up. Coffee and dessert are being served in the drawing room."
Woody followed obediently. He was, after all, Callie's lapdog, but he was now a dog with the urge to bite.
* * *
As Woody had promised his wife, he tendered his resignation shortly after the holidays and moved into the Main Street office on the fifteenth of January. Despite his computer savvy, he lacked the people skills necessary for a successful business venture. Consequently, his new company did not do well.
Callie hounded him every night when he came home from work.
"You've got to bring in more business. Go knock on doors. Call up your clients from your previous job and see if you can steal them away."
Woody did not bother to bring up the subject of ethics; it was one his wife would never understand.
As the months passed and the unpaid bills piled up, Callie began to worry.
"Maybe you should see if you can get your old job back. I'm sure they'll still want you."
That's just like her! he thought with exasperation.
She would not care if he had to crawl back like a dog with its tail between its legs and beg his former employer to take him back, to suffer the humiliation of admitting he was a failure. As long as Callie got what she wanted, that was all that mattered to her.
"I'll see," Woody said as he sat down to dinner: a dried-out, leftover meatloaf reheated in the microwave oven.
"You'll see? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I'm going to think about it."
To a woman who had heard nothing but "yes, dear," "all right, dear" and "whatever you say, dear" during their marriage, "I'll see" and "I'll think about it" were tantamount to outright defiance.
"You go ahead and think about it all you want," she shouted, storming out of the room. "Just make sure you do it—and soon!"
* * *
Woody always believed that people, like the branches of trees, must bend or else break. Thus, his entire life, he bent to the will of others, yet now he was in danger of snapping. Long after Callie had gone upstairs to bed, he stayed awake.
The grandfather's clock in the hall chimed midnight, one, two.
I really should get to bed, he thought, but he made no effort to rise from the chair. What's the use?
He was a fool, a buffoon, the laughingstock of North Hamilton. He was nothing but a henpecked husband, a man who, according to Emile DeLaroche, was afraid of his own shadow.
When the clock chimed three, Woody mustered all his strength and forced himself to stand and walk toward the stairs. Dispirited, he hobbled like an old man, with his back bowed, his shoulders hunched and his head down.
His shadow accompanied him up the stairs, but there was something odd about the silhouette he cast. While Woody's body was bent, the shadow's stood straight and tall. He attributed the discrepancy to a trick of the light, but as he raised one leg slowly to mount the next stair tread, the shadow was several moments ahead of him. There was a spring in the shadow's step that was sadly lacking in his own.
When Woody reached the landing, he stopped and faced the wall. He raised his hand; the shadow did likewise. He lowered his hand, and the shadow followed suit. Indeed, the shadow mimicked his every move like a game of Simon Says. But as he turned toward the bedroom, his shadow faced the opposite direction.
Frightened, the former teacher ran back down the stairs and switched on all the lights to banish the shadow. Although neither he nor his wife was fond of alcohol, Callie kept a fully stocked bar to entertain her friends. Woody poured himself a large brandy, hoping it would steady his nerves.
"Emile was right," he laughed hysterically, as he gulped down his drink. "I am afraid of my own shadow."
His voice must have woken his wife.
"Woody? What are you doing down there?" she called.
Several minutes later she walked into the room.
"Why have you got all the lights on? Do you think we're made of money?"
Callie turned off all but one lamp, and Woody's shadow immediately returned. Only this time, it made no attempt to conceal the fact that it had a will of its own. As he watched, open-mouthed with shock, his shadow bravely walked up to Callie, who had steered her tirade from the subject of wasting electricity to her husband's failure at business.
"If you had any sense," she screamed, "we wouldn't be in this predicament. Why I even married you I'll never know. I could have ...."
Slap!
Callie spun and stared at her husband in disbelief.
"How dare you hit me!"
"Don't be ridiculous! I'm not even near you."
"You'll be sorry for that," she cried, convinced it had been his hand that struck her face.
What could Woody say in his own defense? That it had been his disembodied silhouette that had delivered the blow? She would think he was insane.
When his wife returned upstairs to the bedroom, he was left alone with his shadow. Surprisingly, he was no longer afraid.
"I'm in trouble now!" he said. "She won't stop until she makes me completely miserable."
Then the despondent husband smiled for the first time in months.
"I suppose it's worth it, though, just seeing the look on her face when you smacked her!"
The shadow raised its hand and gave its human counterpart the thumbs-up gesture. Several minutes later it pantomimed a yawn.
"Yeah. I suppose we should get some sleep. I'll bet Callie locked the bedroom door, though. Does the couch sound good to you?"
The shadow nodded its approval.
* * *
There was no breakfast waiting for Woody when he woke the next day. His wife, he supposed, was still barricaded in the bedroom. If Callie thought this a form of punishment, she was sadly mistaken. A cup of coffee and the newspaper made him perfectly happy.
In the light of day, Woody keenly felt the loss of his shadow. Had it really been there, he wondered, or had he only imagined the bizarre incidents of the previous evening? He assumed by Callie's absence from the table that morning that something had happened. But what?
He dressed and went to the office; however, the only business he conducted was with bill collectors seeking payment. He did not bother staying until five, his usual quitting time. Rather, he left at four; and with the last five dollars he had in his wallet, he bought himself a burger, fries and Coke at a local fast-food restaurant.
It was already dark outside when he pulled into his driveway. In the headlights of his BMW, he saw the pile of clothes and shoes Callie had thrown onto the front lawn. Not bothering to pick them up, Woody grabbed his briefcase out of the back seat and went inside the house.
His wife was busy taking his books off the bookcases and tossing them into a cardboard box. He did not greet her. The pile of clothes on the front lawn made her feelings clear: she wanted him out of the house. For his part, Woody was only too happy to leave, but he had to get a few personal items from the bedroom first.
Callie, who was never one to be ignored, marched up the stairs after him, hurling vituperations and accusations at his back.
"I want a divorce!" she finally screamed. "Do you hear me?"
Woody said nothing. He simply took his suitcase out of the closet. Into it, he placed what few clothes remained in his dresser drawers and a manilla folder containing his birth certificate, the title to his car and other important documents.
"I intend to take you for every cent you've got," his shrew of a wife continued, "which isn't much, thanks to your pathetic failure as a businessman."
Woody still did not acknowledge her presence, and that infuriated her even more.
"Of course, what could I have expected from you? You're nothing but a sniveling little weasel, a coward, a spineless jellyfish!"
Her husband silently turned toward the door.
"Don't you dare walk away from me!"
Callie took a hairbrush off her vanity and threw it at her husband. It bounced off his shoulder and struck the light switch beside the door. The bedroom lamp went out, and the light from the hall cast eerie shadows in the master bedroom. Woody smiled, content to let his darker, unsubstantial half deal with his wife. He would actually enjoy watching Callie get a slap across the face.
"What are you smiling at, you moron? Do you think that was an idle threat? Just wait until I get you in court. I've got you right by the ...."
Callie's eyes bulged as Woody's shadow grabbed her by the throat and squeezed. For a moment, her husband actually considered reaching out his hand and turning on the bedroom light, thereby banishing his avenging shadow. But the moment quickly passed, and he stood back and watched, a silent accomplice to his wife's murder.
* * *
Woody Fowler sat at his desk, reading a novel and drinking a cup of coffee. His students would be arriving shortly, and class would begin. He put down his book, finished the coffee and tossed the empty paper cup into the wastebasket.
As he looked out at his empty classroom, at the dark computer monitors that would soon awaken, he took no notice of the bars on the windows. Unlike the other inmates at the correctional facility, he did not see them as a means of keeping him locked in but as a way of keeping reality and its myriad problems and demands locked out. Prison life agreed with him. Strangely enough, for the first time in his adult life, Woody was happy. He had his books, his peace of mind and—should any of the other inmates dare give him trouble—he had his shadow for protection.
Salem gets along well with his shadow, just as long as it stays away from his chocolate supply.
