CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TOGETHER
It had been a while but I hadn’t forgotten how. Just like riding a bike on your knees. So remembering, I prayed.
I prayed for intervention from above, for a heavenly flash of light to blind the driver and send the car spinning into a ditch where I could sit back and watch those around me die. I prayed for intervention from below, for the bowels of hell to open and the hands of the damned to reach up and claim at least one who was ready to join with old friends in the eternal suffering equal to that which he brought while on earth.
But there was no answer in either howl or hallelujah, just the clacking of the engine’s tappets keeping pace with my pulse. So we rumbled on through streets so familiar they were more than a part of my life and what I knew as home.
Here was the main street, a fast-food menagerie of 24-hour consumption; of burgers, tacos, groceries. A left turn at the light and past the four corners of competing gas stations. A stop at the sign, continuing past the mortuary and its empty and ominously beckoning parking lot. Past the library, overflowing with kids and life with a few always congregating by the rusting pay phone. Past the perfectly manicured and untrodden lawn of the senior condominiums with the white circular veranda in it’s midst, a scattering of white wicker chairs in the middle perpetually pristine and unused. To the next block, where the residential section began, evidenced by a huge Winnebago parked sideways in a specially made drive, hiding the home behind, if it existed at all. The house with the flaking paint and weed-filled yard and shredded blue tarp awning partially protecting a Karman Ghia with equally shredded fabric top. The home of the old hippie with obligatory pony tail and beard and no shirt who seemed to do nothing more in life then sit in a chair in his open garage and watch the world go by while the world looked in and wondered with suspicion how he lost his left arm. Past the home of the retired carpenter whose projects were always on display and for sale in the driveway. Rocking horses were out this day, three standing unfinished and unpainted in a wooden corral.
Down the long road past more homes, undistinguished save for their lack of difference. Down more, to where the road ended at the middle of another. One final turn and there it was, fourth one on the right. My house. Home.
Jim had stopped at the corner. "Stay here," he told Teresa, and got out of the car.
But I was already out and running, his words following as I made my way home. Tina’s car was parked in the drive and I ran past it and jumped, making a perfect cannonball through the front window. I skidded onto the coffee table and fell pronely onto the couch. I got up and ran through the house, searching, yelling out of reflex, “Tina! Tina!” The kitchen was empty and spotless, the dining room the same. I ran up the stairs and to our bedroom, stopping at the doorway.
She was standing at the bed, packing.
I ran to her and put my hands on her head. Her expression was pensive. I pushed inside and felt immediately dizzy at the whirlwind...
...get socks, don't forget toothbrush, lock doors and windows, garage, turn off water--how?--get Tyler, Trace you bastard!, grab address book, where are the keys? hurry, hurry...
I pulled out and shook my head free of the tumult and headache, but relieved I could finally connect with her. I tried again, forcing myself deeper.
He's here! I screamed.
She looked up anxiously. No, her mind said.
Yes, he is! There, look out the window.
I turned her head and she glanced in that direction casually. She suddenly dropped the shirt she'd been folding and ran to the window and scanned the street.
There, I said. Down there.
No one, she countered, relaxing.
There, there!
No, no one. She looked again, saw him walking across the yard, and stiffened. She looked to the night stand, then walked over and opened the top drawer. She grabbed the gun, checked the cartridge to make sure it was loaded, then, holding it white-knuckled, headed down the stairs.
She approached the living room carefully, inching along the wall as she entered and making sure to stay well away from the front window. She tiptoed up to the door and looked out the peephole.
Three loud knocks sent her back against the wall with a gasp. The doorknob moved back and forth, still locked.
"I know you're in there," Jim yelled. "You can't hide."
Tina swallowed hard, moving forward. "Get out of here," she said hoarsely, "or I'll call the police."
Jim laughed. "Go ahead. I’ll be right here waiting.”
There was the sound of cracking wood as the door flew open and hit Tina square in the face, as her head hit the wall behind. The gun fired, sending a bullet into the floor by my feet. As Jim came in, her knees gave way and she dropped to the floor. He took the gun from her and after a moment she put her hands to her face and began to cry. I knelt beside her as blood from her nose dripped to the carpet.
"Not very friendly," Jim said, sticking the gun in his waist. "I guess this means you don't want to pay me." He smiled and knelt beside us and stroked her hair. Tina pulled away and he grabbed a handful of hair and jerked her back. I reached for his heart, his soul, his mind, but there was nothing to hold.
He chuckled. "You said you wanted to call the cops. Why not? Let's call them. Together."
He looked for the phone, finding the portable on the end table. He walked over and grabbed it, walking back. "Here. Call!" He threw it against the wall and it splintered in plastic shards by her head. “Afraid of what they'd do? You should be more afraid of what I'll do."
He straddled her, grabbed her shirt, and ripped it open as buttons flew.
In blind fear I jumped onto his back, searching for anything tangible. I found it in his chest and squeezed my fingers shut. Jim straightened, tearing off a piece of Tina's blouse as he stood. I spun off, landing hard against the wall beside her. Nausea stomped my stomach at the small contact I’d made. I tried to stand and couldn’t. “Rollins!"
Jim had Tina's pants down to her knees, slapping her whenever she fought back. She dug her nails into his arms and he yelled in surprise, grabbed her arms and threw her against the wall. She gasped, her breath gone.
My strength was slowly returning and I slid my feet up underneath me, taking deep breaths to gather everything I had left for one last leap, one last attack, to save my wife.
That’s when he spoke.
"It’s a simple choice. Give me the money or I tell everybody you killed your husband.”
There was a sudden booming in my ear. The world moved and my balance left. What had he said?
Their faces were almost touching, spit dribbling as he spoke.
"I guess I was in the right place at the right time, sitting in my car minding my own business. And here comes this guy walking across the street, minding his own business. And off to the side stands a little blond, minding her own business. Except she's holding a gun. Then she aims it at the guy and starts shooting. Not very nice, shooting a guy in the back, especially somebody you’re married to. But I'm sure you had your reasons. You weren't the only one. After all, he was the guy I'd been hired to kill. I guess a lot of people wanted him dead. No loss. You saved me some bullets, as well as saving me from being a murderer, though I got paid just the same. I never did thank you." He pulled his pants down. There was a red and purple mark on one thigh, crudely bandaged. He glanced at it, then back at her. "But I didn't appreciate you shooting me." And he slapped her face.
I watched his mouth as he spoke, the words forming and falling off his lips to be replaced by more. I could read them but refused to believe. He spoke more gibberish, weird sounding syllables, none fitting with the next. I looked to Tina for help, seeking denial in her face or eyes. One nod, one touch, one word, and I would believe her to be true, the accusations a lie. I would forgive a lifetime.
But she refused to end my pain.
With more effort than I thought possible, I raised my arm and moved it across that vast emptiness between us, my fingers touching T
ina’s head, then her mind, to reveal what I didn’t want to know.
It was momentarily dark, then exploded with light, fragmenting like fireworks to fall on a shadowy street in a quiet neighborhood. The house to my left was as familiar as the car parked to my right, for the house belonged to the Hewitts and the car in the distance my own.
The fear of knowing the truth made me want to pull out of her, but the fear of an eternity spent wondering was greater, and in the seconds of hesitation the decision was made. I was pulled into the memory, no longer myself but Tina, and the sights being seen were from her eyes and worse...her perspective. She was sitting in the car looking into darkness as the last night of my life began playing in her mind, and I watched my murder with her…
...blowing heat through my fingers, trying to get the feeling back, but even with my heavy jacket and gloves I couldn’t get warm. I wanted to turn on the heater but that meant starting the car which was sure to bring attention. I didn't want anyone to know I was there. I didn't want many knowing I was alive. Maybe I wasn't. I felt like I'd died long ago.
I touched the side of my face and winced. It was sore when I didn't touch it and painful when I did. I was afraid my cheekbone was broken but more afraid of the doctor's all-too-obvious questions and the all-too-obvious lies I would have to tell. I looked in the car mirror and was relieved to see my eyes weren't black. Not yet. I looked at the house he had gone into two hours before. It belonged to Brenda Hewitt, a client who suspected her husband was having an affair. What a joke. They both were; her husband with whoever, and her with my husband. Husband. Another joke. Damn you, Trace.
It was all in the folder Trace had left lying at the side of his bed with all his other papers, and books, bills, magazines. I'd had enough of his sloppiness and decided to at least put it all in a box somewhere, probably the garage. I wanted to throw it all away and be done with him, but there were things there I might need. Maybe I would find an un-cashed check or—miracle of miracles—an already-paid bill; something that might mean more money. So I began organizing piles onto the bed, finding invoices and payment stubs. We needed every write-off we could find. Food receipts, mileage notes. An old gas and electric bill I'd been looking for, now overdue. A big pile of papers needing to be filed. There was a manila folder with the name HEWITT on the front, a case he'd been working on. I opened it and skimmed through, making sure no other bills or papers had been stashed inside that needed attention. There were none. Some pictures of a house, some of an office, a half dozen of a black BMW from six different angles. More receipts, log-book, pay stub. On one receipt, at the bottom by Services Rendered there was no amount, no dollar sign, just the outline of a woman’s lips in dark red lipstick and a three-word note written in red ink in a woman's handwriting. Paid in full.
Services Rendered.
And then I knew like I'd know all along. Like all the others nights he'd spent out with no money to back up his stories. All the other nights when his services were rendered while I waited anxiously with Tyler, telling him: 'No, don't worry, daddy will be here soon. We'll give him a few more minutes. He said he'd be here, let's just wait.' Then: 'Tyler, it's late and past bedtime...no, don't cry, I'll have daddy come in and give you a kiss when he gets in. He's out working hard, making money to pay for our house and birthday presents and Christmas. Yes, I'm sure he'll bring you something. I don't know what, I'll have him kiss you...yes, I'll make sure he wakes you up and gives you a kiss and whatever it is he'll bring you. Time for bed now.'
And once he was in bed, then going to bed myself, alone, and having to convince myself like I convinced Tyler that daddy was out working late, that it was his job and I should accept it because that's what he did and that’s who he was, while my life wasted away into days and weeks and years.
Then, when he finally did stumble in, he wouldn't kiss Tyler or me; he'd go into the bathroom and wake the world with his hacking cough, blowing his nose or throwing up into the toilet, if he made it that far.
I touched my cheek again. I could see vividly, without wanting to, the crazed look he had on his face that night. His hand going back, then flying around like a whip as I closed my eyes right before he hit me, then falling backwards as a thousand needles poked at my cheek which swelled with pain as I lay on the floor. Now, two days later, it was still tender. Two days weren't enough to take away the pain. Neither were two years or two decades, or one lifetime.
Movement from the house made me sit up. A man shut the door and walked down the steps. It was Trace. I could tell by the way he carried his body, his swagger, the way he scratched himself, looking at stupid things that meant nothing as if they were the most important things in the world while the things that should have been the most important to him waited at home night after night. It was him, all right, going home after a busy night's work.
I opened the glove compartment and took out the gun. Something else Trace had left under the bed beneath his pile. Stupid! What if Tyler had gotten hold of it? He didn't care, he didn't think. He lived like he was the only person in the world and it all began and ended with him.
Tonight he was right.
I opened the door gently and a buzzer sounded. I closed it just as quickly and took the keys from the ignition. They slipped out of my hands and fell to the floor. Trace had reached the sidewalk. I opened the door again, got out and closed it gently. He was already to the street. My boots made too much noise as I walked and I kicked myself for not wearing sneakers. But he didn't hear. He was in his own world, emptied of sex and so emptied of life or thoughts of others. I stopped because he stopped. He tilted his head and looked under the car. No, I was wrong. He did care about a few things: himself, sex, his car. I took two more steps and raised the gun as he straightened. My hands trembled, then my arms, then my whole body. I couldn't shoot, not then. I was too far off, I'd miss, then he would turn and see me and it would all be hell. People would know, they'd find out, I'd lose Tyler. I couldn't do it, I didn't have the strength, it was too cold, I couldn't.
Then I did.
The first shot hit him in the shoulder. He jerked, like someone had come up from behind and gave him a sharp push. I wondered how he liked being pushed around. I fired again. The second bullet missed. I fired one last time and hit him in the back, dead center, and he fell dead.
I stared, surprised at what I'd done, at how simple it had been, how easy. No one had seen, no one would know. I found myself smiling and thinking naively that all my problems were over.
A flash of light jolted me back to reality. I looked to its source. A car parked up the street. The driver's side was illuminated with fire from the strike of a match, and it reflected a man's face in every window. The fire subsided slightly and he lit a cigarette in his mouth, puffed once, then looked right at me and smiled. Fire seemed to be all around him, his face ablaze. He took the cigarette out of his mouth with his other hand and blew out the light with a mouthful of smoke, leaving only the red glow of the end staring back.
I turned and ran back to the car without thinking, though a dozen excuses and reasons and alibis were already running through my mind. I reached the car and opened the door and slammed it shut, locking it, feeling for my keys, checking my pockets, remembering I'd dropped them on the floor, groping until they were in my hands, fumbling for the ignition key, hitting on the dome light and looking with shaking hands, finding the right one and jamming it into the ignition, pushing the gas pedal with all my weight as the car screeched away from the curb and around the corner and far from the body on the ground.
I don't remember how I got home or how long it took or the streets I drove on but all of a sudden I was there, sitting in the driveway, holding the wheel and sobbing as my body heaved from years of grief and loss.
My head was pounding and I was covered with sweat. I peeled off my coat and opened the door and pulled myself out. I steadied myself, then opened the back door.
Tyler was still sound asleep.
I undid the seat belt and
picked him up, straining my back, kicking the door shut and carrying him to the house and in and up the stairs and into bed.
I made it to the bathroom and took a sleeping pill before putting on my pajamas and getting into bed and pulling up the covers all the way to wait in the dark for the call that would surely come...
My hand dropped to the floor, my head drooped, my mind blurred. The pounding in her head merged with mine, staying steady and hard. For the first time I felt truly dead.
It was then, in as depleted and weak a state as I’d ever been, that a tiny sliver of God’s wisdom peeked through. I suddenly understood why we were made to be isolated and alone within our bodies and limited in our thoughts and intimacies from the billions of people that surrounded us. If we were ever exposed to the unfiltered soul of one other person for a single moment, we would surely die.
I now knew more than any man should about his wife.
It was a helplessness beyond reason. Seeing my life end like it had--Tyler a silent witness--was a shattering of all that remained of my existence. All of it taking place as he slept--hopefully slept–unaware that the man skulking from the adulterous shadows was the same man who had a hundred times before wished him sweet dreams. Unaware that the person holding the gun had, just a short time before--mere years--promised a lifetime of love to the one she was about to murder. Unaware that another man, a spectator to the whole scene, had been hired to do that very same deed but could now profit in more ways by doing nothing. And of all the people involved, no matter what had been promised or planned or paid, Jim was the only one who stood unblemished.
But that was over and he was now kneeling astride my wife. She had only her panties on and was beginning to struggle, but her arms were pinned. "Don't worry," Jim said, parting her legs. "This won't take more than an hour. Or two." He ran my gun over her calf and knee and the inside of her thighs, and higher.
The front door opened.
"Jim, there’s cops outside. I heard a shot and I was scared so I came--" It was Teresa, who stopped open-mouthed when she saw him.
"Get out of here!"
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" He stretched one leg over and kicked the door shut. He looked back at Tina, considering, and cursed. He stood and pulled up his pants. "I'll be back," he said, then knelt again, holding Tina's face. He stuck a gun in her mouth, moved it back and forth, took it out and kissed her on the lips. "Wait for me." He laughed as he grabbed both guns, one in each hand, opened the front door and ran out in a crouch.
Tina's face slowly contorted until she heaved a burst of tears into her hands.
I leaned forward slowly until I could reach the floor. I crawled to an end table, pulled myself up, took a step, fell to one knee, got up again and stumbled out.
Jim was running to his car, pointing both guns at a squad car which had parked across the street. Two policemen were talking to a small gathering of neighbors. Everyone turned as one, pointed, and ducked for cover as Jim bellowed like a Comanche and started firing. There was the sound of popping and broken glass amidst the screams. Jim made it to his car and dove in the passenger side window. The two officers had taken cover behind the squad car and now had their guns out and were firing into Jim’s.
He scrambled to the drivers’ seat and started the car as the cops yelled for him to stop without letting up the barrage. People hung to the sides of houses and behind bushes, under cover yet not wanting to miss the action. A postman sorted mail down the street, unaware of the goings on. A UPS truck drove by on a far cross street. A little boy wandered out of a chain-linked yard a few houses down, stooping to examine something on the sidewalk. A little boy, maybe five, six...
Tyler!
He was at his friend's house. He had played there a dozen times. A safe, closed-in yard with an attentive mother. A good place for your child to stay while you were home packing. A good place to hide if you were being watched. A safe haven from the world of kidnappers and extortionists.
But you can't watch them every second of the day. A phone rings and is answered. A child needs a drink and you walk to the refrigerator. A dryer buzzes and you grab a basket and turn your back, and before you realize it the front door is open and they’re in the yard and gone.
The car was moving now.
The cops were firing now.
Jim was shooting back, both hands hanging out the driver’s side window as he hit the gas. A bullet struck the windshield, cracking the glass. He jerked backwards reflexively and the car pulled to the right. As he reached inside to grab the wheel with his right hand, the gun in his left went off wildly and a bullet meant for the cops was now headed toward my son.
I ran without reason, ignoring the impossible, and that’s when I saw Teresa. She was standing near Tyler as she stared wide-eyed at the carnage. Tyler had his back to her, looking at the kids playing in the safe yard he'd just left while the bullet continued on its deadly course.
I moved faster. The imperceptible time since Jim had fired was being stretched and manipulated by another hand as I outran the projectile and saw a horrible choice setting itself up before me.
It was so clear that I didn’t need time to think. Like in a chess game where one move begets the inevitable response until resignation, so were all the steps up to this point leading to one final conclusion. Because here was Jim trying to escape and here were the cops preventing those plans and here was a bullet flying mindlessly toward no target in particular and here was Teresa in line to be that target and here was Tyler being shielded by Teresa and here was I running to reach them both and save one but no matter what the decision I made, someone would die.
Before I left my feet all the words Rollins had said since the beginning had made the decision for me.
Stay with Teresa, she needs you, if you don’t her life will end like yours, so stay with the girl, stay with the girl, stay with the girl.
As I hurtled toward them there was a calmness in the chaos, design amidst disaster, and I stretched out to touch Teresa, gently pushing her every so slightly out of the way as the bullet passed through me and by her and now toward Tyler. But as she fell she knocked him backwards and the bullet passed a mere inch from his forehead to bury itself deeply in the dark ground beyond.
I skidded on the sidewalk, turning to see them both sitting, Tyler beginning to cry, Teresa joining him.
But it wasn’t over. The car was careening in jerks as the cops fired into it. I jumped over Tyler and ran to the middle of the road, hoping to stop Jim in whatever way I could.
I braced myself and held my hands out for protection and prayer as the hood hit my chest and continued, the fan and belts and engine tearing into my stomach. I passed the windshield and reached for Jim at the exact moment a bullet came in through the side window and ripped off his nose. He screamed and I did the same, and as our bodies met and souls entwined I yelled with a roar that must have come from someone else but was me just the same, for in the brief instant we touched I felt everything he felt: the terror and hatred and fear and psychotic joy and bubbling insanity.
But isolated and alone, in the deep darkness, barely perceptible, maybe imagined, was one more emotion which was the complete antithesis of everything else exploding from his crazed mind. It was the voice of a little boy lost, and it encircled him with a growing peace as his life sped to its conclusion, for with the arrival of the end came that which he had been searching for all along in the tortured journey that was his life: relief.
Our souls disconnected and the vehicle went through me in a rush, the vacuum holding me breathless for a moment before I fell. Gasping on all fours, I looked behind. A cop on the sidewalk was taking careful, deadly aim as Jim came closer. His wrists snapped and the shot hit Jim in the neck, sending him back and forward like a rag doll to land with his head lodged between the steering wheel and dashboard as the car began turning in a long arc toward the sidewalk.
Tyler was struggling to his feet, Teresa already up and ru
nning, and the car, as if led by a magnet, drove straight toward my boy.
I turned away and closed my eyes and dug my hands deep into the asphalt. Jim’s car hit the curb and there was a silence, a pause, as it was airborne for what I wished were an eternity but was only the briefest of seconds, before it came crashing down. It hit something with a thud--crushing my heart--then the metal fence beyond which gave way and bent with deafening shrieks that matched my own but continued long after the vehicle had stopped.
Then, after madness, came silence. I opened my eyes to find my hands bleeding, rocks and dirt and bits of glass embedded within.
Slowly, the sounds of people began buzzing in my mind and the silence gave way to the inevitable turmoil that tragedy brings. I didn’t have the strength of will to look back and confirm what my heart already knew.
And then I heard it.
"Dad!"
I raised my head.
"Dad! Hey, dad!"
I looked around. The neighborhood was filling as people came out of hiding. Parents looking for kids, kids looking for parents, all calling.
"Dad!"
But I knew that voice.
"Dad!"
I turned around and squinted through tears.
It was Tyler. He was waving, smiling, in the distance.
I blinked and he was right in front of me, smiling, happy, just like always. I blinked again and saw the car against the fence with a body underneath. I blinked a third time to find him back down the street, waving, smiling.
I blinked again.
A large black man was standing next to him, holding his hand. He leaned over and said something to my boy. Tyler nodded, then yelled to me: “Bring me something! Don’t forget!”
He waved again, one last time, as the man beside him met my gaze with a sadness that seared my soul before turning and leading my son away, away…and then gone, fading like mist between cars and cops and crowds.