Forgive Me, Alex (34 page)

I'd been sitting in this damned parking lot for about an hour, staring at the sign above the door.

I didn't come for this. I came for the bookstore, but the bookstore's next-door neighbor intrigued me. They might be my answer.

I'd tried the past few weeks, without much success, to figure out what to do with myself.

Now I knew.

"Are you being a tad impulsive?" I asked myself.

"Maybe. Tough shit!"

I got out of the car and walked into the office.

The sign over the door said,
U.S. ARMY, Recruiter
.

"I'm an idealist; I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way." – Carl Sandburg

~~~~~

"Hey, Hoopster, it's been a long time. Sorry I haven't been around more often, but I was all wound up in my life. You know what I mean?"

The staff has put out flowers, and color explodes throughout the cemetery, bursting from a green so deep, it gives the illusion they plucked the very land itself from the slopes of Ireland. Above Alex's headstone, a plastic pot overflows with blossoms and heavenly scents. Perfect. Mom and Dad rest nearby, and I said a quick hello, but I came to see the Hoopster today.

A blanket of otherworldly silence shrouds the empty cemetery. I'm grateful, as it means I may speak aloud without appearing the fool. Speaking, as opposed to mere thinking, lends credibility to the proposition that Alex can hear me, as though it's inconceivable the dead can be psychic.

"It's been quite an eventful time, Alex. They let loose
the devil
, I'm sorry to say, and the killing started again. That was no surprise, except, as it turned out, it is a surprise.
The devil
didn't do it. That's a long story, so maybe I'll save that for another time.

"Frank is hanging in there, though he's wearing a bit thin these days. He still has that wit like a straight razor, and he still hides a keen intellect below that country charm. I'll be sure to tell him you said, 'Boo!' I know how much he misses his youngest grandson.

"You wouldn't recognize the old house anymore. The folks that live there destroyed much of the side yard, which they use for storage, and it looks like a junk-heap compared to our time there. Whenever I look at it and remember our days playing in that yard, I'm struck by its puny size. It was an entire world back then."

I sigh and shuffle my feet as I look around at the other graves, and continue.

"I've met someone, Hoopster, and she's smart, successful, and quite the looker. Her name is Linda, and when I'm with her, the world makes sense again. We recently spent a couple weeks together, but she returned back east to the FBI. I always knew she would. The only question is what I'll do about it. How could I let her go without me? How will I survive without her touch, her smell, her smile and those devastating green eyes? I think she could save me, if only I would let her, but some final issues are holding me back.

"I've tried to put all the tragedy and sadness behind me, to settle up old debts. I think of Diana often, even tracked her down a few years ago and found out where she lived. I checked recently—she's still there. It's relatively close, only a couple hours north, and I want to go see her but... I'm afraid. It scares the hell out of me, in fact. What will I say? How will I act? A simple 'Sorry' won't do the trick, but what will? I've been unable to figure it out, but I'll keep working on it."

I kneel on the ground beside his headstone, careful to stay off him; that would be wrong. I'm out of gas, emotionally drained, yet this one last thing is important. Once again, I've let
the devil
go, the monster that killed my little brother, except that he's apparently no longer the monster I was certain he must be.

Why am I so confused? God, I need some kind of closure.

"The truth is, this is difficult for me, Hoopster. Every time I think of you, every time I see a picture of you, every time I come here to visit, the damned guilt overwhelms me, knocks me right on my ass. I know it was my fault, and I've never been able to forgive myself."

I fidget with the grass and take a deep breath to control my watering eyes.

"Well, I think I need to. How else can I move on? I'm drowning here, Buddy, and I need your help.

"So I thought... maybe... oh hell! Alex, I'm so sorry. You know that, don't you? Come on, Hoopster, all I need is one little sign. Find my mind. I know you can do it. You always were the one with the big heart."

All these years later, I need one last thing from the boy who was my Shadow.

"Forgive me, Alex."

"Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids." – Aristotle

~~~~~

Circumstances change, roads turn, and life occasionally heads off down its own path, like the impetuous child who turns and says, "Come on, hurry up!" That's how I feel, as if chasing after my own life, unsure where it's going but cautiously hopeful. Contentment remains hidden—my elusive desire. In my entire adult life, I've been unable to cast it from the shadows. It's there, I know—waiting, perfectly camouflaged in the vagaries and machinations of everyday life. I have merely to reach out and grasp it.

Is it that simple? Perhaps, but I must complete one final task if ever I'm to find out.

Interstate 43 runs north out of Milwaukee, parallel to Lake Michigan on the way to Green Bay, but I approach my exit long before then. The town of Mequon is behind me and I'm passing Cedarburg—won't be long now.

I've chewed my fingernails to the edge of bleeding. My stomach is victim to a strange sensation, as if I've swallowed an army of tiny demolitions experts who've gone to work. I hope to keep it together, that I won't need to run to Diana's bathroom to evacuate all this pent-up anxiety.

Nah, that wouldn't be embarrassing at all.

I haven't felt this way since the first time I picked her up for a date. It's strange. I haven't seen Diana—talked to her or written to her—for seventeen years. The pain of that time was too much. I never understood why her father insisted on moving her out of Algonquin, far away from the horrible events, given that she survived. She endured unimaginable horrors, but she
did
endure.

She
made it
.

She underwent a lot of psychological counseling, which was hardly unexpected; one experienced such atrocities with severe consequence. Still, she made it. Yet her father wouldn't let me speak to her. He forbad my seeing her and blamed me for everything.

I accepted that at the time, up to my ears in guilt and prepared to accept responsibility for Alex, Diana, Dad, and for the terrible way limburger cheese smelled. The whole world had fallen into the shitter and it was
my
fault.

Diana's letter explained the first few weeks, perhaps even a few months. But seventeen years? Forever?

Grafton, Wisconsin, a bedroom community for Milwaukee, offers little by way of excitement. The homes are older than I expected, appropriate to a basic working middle class kind of town, not too pricey but quaint and clean. Diana lives on Sixth Street. I know from my source that she's unmarried and still using her maiden name of Gregario, but that she does have one dependent.

Okay, she had a kid somewhere along the way—nothing surprising there. I didn't expect her to join a convent. Still, why does it bother me? Is it jealousy, all these years later, even now that I have Linda in my life?

I park up the block from her small, boxy old house. It has light gray siding, darker gray roofing, a sliver of driveway without a garage, and a tailor's patch of front yard. Elbowroom is an excessive luxury in this neighborhood. A basketball hoop occupies the back end of the driveway, and a basketball rests in the grass beneath it. The bicycle that leans against the house looks like a boy's fifteen-speed.

Although it's Saturday, I wasn't sure she'd be home. I wanted to surprise her.

Right, good plan, Tony.

The driveway is empty, but a car hugs the sidewalk along the street in front of the house, an old '88 Ford Taurus with dull paint and a small dent on the passenger-side rear panel—Diana's car, exactly as my investigator indicated.

Okay, she's home. Now what? Boy, you sure thought this one through.

My stomach cartwheels again. I'd feel better if I puked first.

Right, surprise her after seventeen years with some lovely barf-breath.

As I walk down the sidewalk toward her place, I try to look relaxed, nonchalant, cool—as if somebody will call the cops or something. I'm nervous as hell, damn it, but here I am.

The doorbell emits no sound, so I also knock.

Seconds later, she opens the door and immediately dons that
oh-crap-it's-a-salesman
look. "May I help—?" She comes up short.

I can see her search her memory and try to sort it out.

"Oh... my... God."

"Hello, Diana, it's been a long time." The ghosts of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are dancing the Jitterbug in my stomach, and my emotions are about to explode my brain through my skull.

She shakes her head. "It's really you."

Her hair is shorter and dyed a light reddish-brown; it looks good on her. Her eyes are mostly the same, encircled by a few thin lines, the residue of a life that's been... difficult, I imagine. The light I remember in them lurks somewhere in the background, subdued. She carries a few extra pounds, with hips that imply children.

I drift back in time.
God, she looks good enough to....
I can't believe my heart is fluttering. How can that be? "It's me."

"My goodness, it has been such a
long
time. You look well."

Anxiety laces her words, and suspicion hangs like a hammer over the doorway.

She rifles through several questions in a vocal sprint. "Why are you here, Tony? After all this time? How did you find me? What do you want?"

She gives me little opportunity to answer. The last question is more like an accusation.

Take it easy, Tony. Just press on.
"The last few weeks have been... well... difficult. A lot has happened, things that brought me back to 1978." I hesitate and attempt to recapture my nerves in a deep breath. "Mitchell Norton was released."

There, I said it. I brace for her reaction, a storm, horror.

Nothing. She already knows. Her silence is uncomfortably detached and unconcerned.

"I got drawn into this whole big drama. There were more murders in Algonquin, but it wasn't him. It wasn't Norton."

She still stares at me with that look:
Yeah, yeah, I know all that.

"When it was over, I needed to put that life behind me, to find a way to start over. I wasn't quite ready—had to do a few things first. I suppose it's what they call closure."

She doesn't react, but her eyes remain lasered to mine.

"I needed to talk to you, Diana, about what happened back then. May I please do that?"

As she mulls it over, a new voice shatters the uneasy silence. I'd been so engrossed in the conversation that I hadn't heard the two boys come up behind us.

The nearest one looks at me as though deciding if he needs to run and get his gun. "Hey, Mom, I'm going over to Sean's to shoot some hoops. What time should I be home for dinner?"

"Six o'clock."

"Okay."

He looks at me again, then back at his mom, then shrugs and heads off. He and his friend hop onto skateboards and zip down the street.

I stare after him for several seconds. There's something familiar about him, but I can't quite put my finger on it. He's older than I'd expected, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, but that's impossible, since his mom and I—

Diana clearly recognizes my stunned concern—and the question. When she smiles, melancholy nevertheless peeks through as she shakes her head and stares at the ground. A cloud of resignation masks her expression.

I strain to hear her soft voice. "That was my son. His name is... Alex."

I can only stare at her with my mouth agape, my mind whirling in a twister of incredulity and confusion.

She nods. "Yeah, I thought you'd like that."

"You mean he's our...?" I can't believe it, yet I can. I still remember vividly our last time together, a night to surpass all other nights.

She smiles and deflates in a heavy sigh, which drips again with resignation and, if I'm not mistaken, relief.

She stands aside to make room for me. "You'd better come in. I'll put some coffee on. We have a lot to talk about."

"If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble." – Elbert Hubbard

~~~~~

The critical element to good torture, of course, is pain: unfathomable, unending, but endurable—just barely—right unto the moment of death.

When the voice of the Reaper comes to call, you'd better put on your listening cap. He's quite the work, the Reaper, dedicated to everlasting misery, the exploitation of flesh, the ecstasy of terror. If the deepest, darkest and most horrifying recesses of the human mind can conceive of it, then the Reaper has already heaped it upon the dredges of humankind, already made of it a plaything, already rollicked in the pure joy of it.

His grin can freeze your blood. His words can destroy your mind. His laugh can seize your soul and send you running hysterically, gladly into the great fires.

I know. I've been there. I escaped.

You only thought you escaped.

"Am I back?"

Yes, you're back.

"Fuck a rubber duck."

Hey, Mitchell, you're the MAN!

—THE END—