1) Sallas Mahone--Don't Run With Scissors 5K Valdosta, GA 3/20/2010 Time: 29:37.4
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=75064
2) Gnat Days 5K Camilla, GA 4/30/2010 Time: 27:40.8
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=76243
3)Rotary 5K at Kinderlou 5K Valdosta, GA 5/15/2010 Time: 27:37.9
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2010/05/sunrise-rotary-2010.html
4)Watermelon 5K Monticello, FL 6/19/2010 Time: 29:16
http://www.gulfwinds.org/raceresults/2010/Melon%20Run%202010.htm
5)July 4th 5K Valdosta, GA 7/4/2010 Time: 27:50.8
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=77777
6)Honor Our Neighbor 5K Valdosta, GA 7/10/2010 Time: 27:06.1
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=77944
7)Barnes 5K Valdosta, GA 7/17/2010 Time: 26:35.9
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=78232
8) Break Bread Fun Run at YMCA Valdosta, GA 7/24/2010 Time: 28:16.1
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=78236
9) Run for Love 5K at ABAC Tifton, GA 8/7/2010 Time: 27:47
http://www.runningintheusa.com/HostedResults/2010/78804_2010RunforLove-Overall.HTM
10) Hornets' Nest 5K at Pelham High School Pelham, GA 8/21/2010 Time: 27:05
http://www.runningintheusa.com/HostedResults/2010/79117_HornetsNest5k2010results.pdf
11) Labor Day 5K Valdosta, GA 9/6/2010 Time: 26:54
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=79872
12) Partnership for Cancer Fund Run 5K Valdosta, GA 9/11/2010 Time: 27:14
http://www.runningintheusa.com/Results/View.aspx?ResultsID=79975
13) Hahira Bridge Run 5K Hahira, GA 9/25/10 Time: 27:32
14) Pelham Wildlife Festival 5K Pelham, GA 10/2/10 Time: 26:40
http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2010/10/pelham-wildlife-2010.html
15) Cross Country Invitational 5K Hahira, GA--Lowndes County Boys' Ranch 10/16/10 Time: 28:56
https://mail.google.com/mail/h/1aqtg3go6zusw/?view=att&th=12bbfbd699b938bb&attid=0.1&disp=vah&realattid=a7fc8916b82a39b6_0.1&zw
16) St. John's Road Race 5K Valdosta, GA 10/30/10 Time: 26:54
http://www.getactive.us/raceresultsList.php
17) Speed Run 5K Valdosta, GA 12/11/10 Time: 27:49
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=a7473e7b7f&view=att&th=12cd7987a9e03c5e&attid=0.1&disp=vah&zw
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Virtual Heaven
Paradise, for all of Dr. Sands' clients, always began in the same way. They would see a gateway in the distance made of two wooden pillars with another connecting them from the top. Their feet, clacking along the brick path, would be the only sound they heard at first. As they walked, the landscape would come to life. Wildflowers would bloom with brilliant colors, their fragrant scents filling the air. Birds would sing from their perches in the distant cherry orchard. The late afternoon sun would shine warmly against their faces from a cloudless sky.
The gateway lay at the foot of a grassy hill. Beyond it, the path twisted and the traveler could not see his destination until he had walked beneath. Past the gate, each client's paradise was tailor-made by the doctor to meet the requested specifications of the client. Of course, sometimes Dr. Sands was moved to improvise...
His business was booming. Who would have thought so many people just weren't willing to take their chances on the afterlife? The price for his services varied according to the complexity of the clients' requests, but averaged around two hundred thousand dollars. Dr. Sands believed it was a small price to pay for eternal bliss.
Of course, he didn't always give them bliss, but who would ever know?
He hadn't guessed his business would prove so lucrative. Perhaps it was symptomatic of a troubled world that so many were willing to check out of it so easily. He also kept the dual function of his place of business a secret from the general public. It was, ostensibly, a high-tech arcade called Virtual Heaven, and always teeming with youths, most of whom found themselves addicted to his games. These games were truly cutting edge in their graphics and tailored to fit the thought patterns and muscle movements of their operators. Most dealt with the very violent themes that teenage kids were most attracted to. He'd seen kids come in fresh-faced and enthusiastic, and watched them deteriorate into slack-faced junkies within only a few months. The games began to matter more than life to them. Dr. Sands wasn't moved by their plight. It was just another option for escape, he told himself; no different than books, movies, or music. It wasn't like he was a drug dealer.
The arcade was very profitable, but the real business was done after hours.
He met them by appointment and did not see them until they had spent a month considering it. A few changed their minds, but most did not. Nearly all had incurable illnesses, although he wasn't above offering his services to healthy individuals as well. If a man or woman wished to die, who was he to disallow it? All that he required was payment and the obligatory waiting period.
After he had met with his client in his office to ensure for one final time that he or she had most definitively decided that they were taking the proper action for themselves, he took them down to the underground warehouse where the cryonic vaults were located. This warehouse was a vast space that currently held nearly five hundred frozen people. All were hooked to monitors that kept careful watch over their vital signs and ensured their body temperature remained properly low. Dr. Sands enjoyed the warehouse. He liked to listen to the low hum of the instruments and to walk amongst the sealed vaults. It pleased him to think of his charges inside, with virtual reality goggles strapped to their heads, perpetually dreaming of a world he had created only for them.
Not all of them dreamed of paradise. Some were tortured by their visions. He tried his best to give them what they deserved.
He wasn't hasty in his judgments. During the month waiting period, he researched his clients' lives as thoroughly as he was able. He almost always knew what fate awaited a given man or woman by the time he met them, but just in case, he designed two possible programs for every one; one containing the heaven that had been requested, the other holding a much less pleasant fate.
In the end, he gave most the benefit of the doubt. Everyone had his foibles and frailties. But some he just could not forgive.
There was the former mob boss, Richard Eruzione. He had been serving a life sentence at San Quentin, but had been released to die at home when a malignant tumor was discovered in his brain He’d quickly contacted Dr. Sands before the cancer had its way with him. He pretended to be contrite for the many murders and crimes he’d arranged or committed in his lifetime, but Dr. Sands was not convinced. After a bit of thought, he designed what he deemed a fitting hell for the man.
In the afterlife, Mr. Eruzione found himself on his back in the middle of a banquet table surrounded by all of his past victims. They all had knives and plates. One by one, each took their turn cutting his flesh and eating it, all the while observing proper table etiquette. They sipped his blood in wine glasses and talked of what a great and powerful man he was. He was a little tough to chew, however. Perhaps, he should have been cooked a little more. In the kitchen, the oven was hot and the chefs were willing.
But some cases were not so easily judged.
He'd made a much harder choice in condemning Sylvia James. She’d had a nightmarish childhood herself, constantly abused and neglected by her drug-abusing parents. In her teens, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prone to periods of psychotic mania. She once wrote a three hundred-page novel in three days. The only problem was that her handwriting was so expansive and full of overlapping loops, and flourishes, she could not read a word of it and did not even remember the plot a week later when the manic phase had run its course. The depressive phase soon followed. Sylvia had scars crisscrossing her arms and legs from the slashes she had self-inflicted with a razorblade. Only frequent stays at mental hospitals and the assistance of medications and therapists had prevented her from committing suicide.
In her twenties, she had managed to crawl out from under the shadow of her mental illness and live a normal life for a time. She went to law school, graduated with honors, and then began a successful practice. She kept her past mental health history a closely guarded secret and blamed her scars on a traffic accident in her youth. She soon married, and a year later gave birth to twin girls: Kierstin and Megan. They were the light of her life.
After their birth, however, the symptoms of her mental illness came roaring back, seemingly undeterred by medication. In the midst of a psychotic episode, she became convinced that her two beautiful babies were dual Antichrists. She carved 666 on their foreheads with a steak knife and was standing over Kierstin with the knife poised above her heart when her husband came home and forcefully took the knife from her hands. He left with the children, and Sylvia soon lost her law practice and was declared an unfit mother. Then she'd made her way to see Dr. Sands with a check for all of her savings.
The doctor discovered all of this on his own, and was amazed by Sylvia's brutal honesty when she told him the whole story herself on the day of their meeting. Dr. Sands promised her peace from her illness at last. But he was lying.
He had debated to exhaustion in attempting to determine Sylvia's proper fate. She would have murdered her children if her husband had not stopped her, and had succeeded in mutilating their innocent bodies. He certainly believed she was not in her right mind, but in his view, this made no difference. A person had to answer for his deeds. Excuses were irrelevant. Besides, his own mother had abandoned him at an orphanage when he was three years old. He still remembered her final words to him and the sheer terror he had felt when she had walked away from him for the final time.
"Be a good boy, little Lewis," she had said. "Mother needs to go away for awhile. I'll be back for you. Don't worry."
But she never came back. He was moved from foster-home to foster-home, group home to group home until he turned eighteen and found his way to a better life through Science.
He had little sympathy for mothers who mistreated their children. Mental illness was a crutch for the weak-minded, he believed. Thus, Sylvia had to pay for her sins.
He had walked with her to the vault and placed the virtual reality goggles on her face once she had climbed inside. In a few moments, she found herself again standing over her babies with the steak knife poised above them. This time, her husband did not come home to save them. She could try her hardest to prevent the knife from coming down into first little Megan's heart and then Kierstin's, but its descent was inevitable. In her hell, she murdered her babies over and over again, each time experiencing the horror of it freshly. This was her fate for all eternity.
In hindsight, Dr. Sands believed he might have been a little harsh, but he was not troubled with regret. He preferred to make a decision and to not look back. He believed this attitude contributed to his success.
Tonight, he closed the arcade and went to the back to await his client. He’d spoken to him on the phone just yesterday. The man had wanted to make an appointment immediately, and the doctor's scheduled client for tonight had cancelled, so he had fit him in. The man was dying of leukemia. The doctors had done all they could and sent him home to die. He was reasonably young at fifty-seven years and married for thirty-three of those years. His wife would be accompanying him to the appointment. On the phone last night, the man insisted on addressing the doctor by his first name throughout the conversation as if he had a reason to be familiar with him. Dr. Sands found it irritating, but supposed it must have been an eccentricity. And besides the man was dying.
At eleven thirty, Mr. Samuel Ellis and his wife arrived right on time. They walked through the door holding hands, both of their eyes swollen from crying. Mr. Ellis was very tall and had probably once presented a dashing figure, but now his disease had reduced him to resemble a concentration camp victim; his eyes sunken deep in their sockets, bald-headed from radiation treatments and painfully emaciated. His wife, in contrast, was the picture of health: an attractive middle-aged woman with striking blue eyes and a thick mane of raven hair. She walked with perfect posture, and presented a rather severe aura. Dr. Sands imagined she must have been a school principal or a military officer. She walked like someone who expected respect. He idly wondered if he should give it to her or put her in her place.
He assumed his "undertaker" role and stepped around his desk to greet them.
"Hello Mr. Ellis. Last night, you did not mention a Misses," he said.
“This is my wife, Isabel,” Mr. Ellis said. “She is the love of my life, and has been my strength throughout this horrible year.”
Dr. Sands shook Mrs. Ellis’ hand. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said. He could tell by her gaze and her grip that she was sizing him up. He thought he would have likely done the same if their circumstances had been reversed. He always strove to keep meetings with his clients as formal as possible. Things seemed to go smoother that way. They didn’t seem to be in the mood for small talk, which suited him. He was not a naturally garrulous person.
"Let us speak in my office," he said.
He led the couple there and they took their seats.
"Mr. Ellis," Dr. Sands began. "You told me of your situation last night. As I told you on the phone, I require a month waiting period and payment in full before I design your custom heaven and fit you into a sleeping vault. Do you have any questions about either of these requirements?"
Mr. Ellis seemed hesitant to speak at first, but found the strength when his wife took his hand.
"Well, Lewis," he said. "It is not a question, but a statement I have concerning your two requirements. That is, that I can't abide by either of them."
"That's unfortunate," said Dr. Sands, "I'm afraid we will not be able to do business in that case. I wish the two of you the best." He rose from the chair to see them out, but neither stood from the couch.
"Wait," the dying man said. "There is something....personal I need to speak to you about. Just give us a few more minutes of your time if you could, Lewis."
"Personal?" Dr. Sands said, perplexed. He sat down again and waited for Mr. Ellis to continue.
"Yes, something very personal. You see, Lewis, I am...." He put his head down and seemed unable to continue. Fresh tears leaked from his eyes. At last his wife spoke for him.
"What Samuel is trying to say, Dr. Sands, is that he is your father."
"My father?" said the doctor, bewildered. He studied the hollow-eyed man with fresh eyes and knew in a moment that his wife spoke the truth. His features were strikingly similar to his own, particularly his distinctive Roman nose and slightly under-sized ears. Even the way the man held himself suggested a kinship between them.
But what need did he have of a father? He'd lived his entire life without a parent of any kind. It angered him to have this man suddenly appear to make such a declaration and expect to be instantly accepted, to even expect to be granted special privileges when he was in truth, nothing but a stranger with whom he shared his DNA.
"You must be mistaken," said Dr. Sands coldly. "I have never known a father. Now would you kindly be on your way? The hour is late and I would like to go home."
He stood from his chair again and this time, Samuel Ellis stood as well, with an air of defeat. His wife did not stand. When the doctor moved within reach of her, she shot out her hand and gripped his wrist with painful force, pulling him down to meet her eyes. Dr. Sands tried to break her grasp, but was shocked to discover that he could not. Her grip and her gaze made him feel like an ill-behaved child.
"Do not be so cold and arrogant, Doctor," she said to him. "Your father is not perfect, but he is good. He regrets that he could not raise you as a son, but he never knew of your existence until recently. Sit down and let him tell his story."
It took all of Dr. Sands' willpower not to comply in the face of her authoritative presence, but he somehow managed defiance. "Mrs. Ellis, I have no desire to hear his story. If this shell of a man here is in truth my biological father, then so be it. But he is only a stranger to me. I owe him nothing. Won't you please be on your way?"
She did not release her iron grip and her eyes bore like lasers into his.
"You will hear him out," she said. "Or you will regret it.”
“Are you threatening me?” he asked in disbelief.
“Call it what you will,” she said. “Just because you carry out the deeds of God here does not mean you share His omnipotence."
The doctor’s cheeks burned, and he wanted to strike her, but instead he sat back in his chair. "Have it your way," he said. He feigned nonchalance and shifted impatiently in his seat. “Then speak your piece, Father,” he said.
It was a standard tale of woe and love lost. His mother and he were very young when they met and he'd traveled to college and left her behind, not aware that she carried his child. Samuel Ellis only learned of his son’s existence ten years ago when he saw Lewis's picture in the paper after Dr. Sands had received a prestigious scientific award and read a bit about his life. He was afraid announcing himself to his son after so many years would make him seem overly opportunistic. He'd been content to follow his successful career at a distance. He'd only come here tonight because his wife, who was a devout Catholic, feared he would burn in Hell after his death. He was an atheist and had no such fears, but he wished to appease his wife who, Dr. Sands would have to agree, could be quite persuasive. He had been an astrophysicist of some merit until his health forced him to quit a year ago, and now he'd spent his last dime fighting his disease, and was out of options. He apologized for never being the proper father he suspected his son always hoped for. He could not wait a month. In a month, he would certainly be dead.
When the story was done, Dr. Sands summoned his best empathic expression and hid his condescension. He had once needed a father, but no longer did. A true man of character would have found a way to be there for his son, he believed. His father, Samuel Ellis, had failed him.
"I understand, Father," he said. "I am sorry for behaving so harshly before. I understand that events in life often occur beyond our control, especially in the days of our youth. I was wrong to have judged you without first hearing you out. My only regret is that we will never be able to truly know one another as father and son."
"Thank you, Lewis," Mr. Ellis said. Then he buried his head in his hands and sobbed.
Annoyed, the doctor handed him a Kleenex.
"So you will make the necessary preparations tonight for him?" Isabel Ellis asked.
‘Have they no shame,' he thought. He usually spent several days designing a suitable fate for his clients. But he forced a smile and looked her in the eye.
"Certainly," he said.
Isabel placed a comforting hand on her husband's back. "Darling, can you tell your son what kind of paradise you are hoping for?"
Samuel looked up and wiped his eyes. "No," he said. “I’d rather not. Surprise me, Lewis. I trust you."
Dr. Sands’ tone was properly somber. "I will do my best, Father."
He left them alone in his office to work on the computer program for his father's afterlife. He wracked his brain to come up with something creative, but in the end decided standard fare fit the man best. Just before dawn, it was finished. He was proud of himself. For a program so hastily created, he thought he had done quite well.
He found them asleep on the leather couch. Samuel's head rested on his wife's shoulder.
"It is ready," he told them in a voice he thought loud enough to wake them.
Isabel woke before Samuel. She stared at him, and he could not discern her expression. He didn’t like the woman and wished she were going to the same place as her husband.
"This is a good and honest man beside me," she told him. "He's placed his trust in you only because he truly sees you as a son. I love this man and you had best grant him the grandest heaven ever imagined."
"That is what he deserves," the doctor answered.
They measured each other like prizefighters for a few more moments before she woke him.
"Samuel, my darling," she said. "Your son is ready for you."
He opened his eyes shared a moment of communion with his wife before turning his gaze to Dr. Sands. With a great effort, he stood from the couch without assistance.
"Very well then," he said.
Dr. Sands led them to the basement where the vault he’d prepared for his father waited.
Samuel embraced his wife one final time. "Good-bye, my love," he told her. "My body might be frozen in that tank, but my spirit will always love you."
She wept as Samuel shook Louis’ hand.
"I am grateful for the kindness you have shown me," he said. "I would not have blamed you if you had turned me away. My only regret is that we will never know one another as a father and son should."
Dr. Sands could think of no proper reply to his father's words and was relieved when the man stepped into the vault. He reclined against the cushioned interior and waited. With an air of great ceremony, Dr. Sands attached the goggles to his face. Then he sealed the top and activated the freezing jets.
When Samuel Ellis next opened his eyes, he was horrified to see a lake of fire burning below him. Its flames leaped high into the air, seeming to reach for him like greedy fingers. He realized now that his son held a grudge.
"Lewis, why have you betrayed me?" he screamed into the blackness. But no one answered him. In the next moment, he splashed into the lake and was engulfed by the flames. They scorched him from the inside without touching his skin. His heart, his lungs, all of his organs erupted within him as they boiled. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came from his lips. He burned and burned, yet the agony never ceased. As he lay in the lake of fire curled into a fetal position, writhing in anguish, he sensed someone standing over him. Hopeful they had come to ease his pain, he lifted his head and gazed upon the familiar face of his beloved Isabel. He felt a moment of relief until he saw the hatred in her eyes. They were alight with ecstasy, taking pleasure from his pain.
"Burn, my slave," she said to him. She cackled and her evil laughter echoed through the bowels of his hell.
"This is unjust!" Samuel Ellis tried to tell her. But Dr. Sands had not intended justice to be part of his design.
He walked his father's widow to her car and helped her inside. All of her intimidating presence seemed to have deserted her during her husband's final moments.
"Thank you, Doctor," she told him. "I believe he is gone to a better place because of you. He will no longer have to suffer so."
"Yes," he said. "I will tell you, that in his mind, you are forever by his side."
"Is that right?" she said, touched. "I believe I misjudged you, Doctor."
"Perhaps I misjudged you as well.”
She gave him a final hug and drove away.
When he finally reached his home, he was exhausted and slept the day away. In the evening, a flash of lightning closely followed by crashing thunder woke him. He looked out the window to see rain falling in torrents and wind bending the treetops. The storm fit his troubled mood. He was the epitome of the rich recluse, living alone in a mansion built in the middle of a thousand acre plot of wilderness. He enjoyed his solitude. He thought of this place as his own little slice of heaven. He was not a man of extended conscience, but still felt a vague pang of irritation in his belly. It was not everyday that a man condemned his father to hell. He considered going out into the storm and allowing the cold rain to soak him to the bone. Perhaps it would clear his mind. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Isabel would somehow learn of what he’d done. He laughed at his paranoia
“The crazy old bat,” he said aloud to himself. He watched the storm through the window, mesmerized by its power. The rain pelted his manicured lawn until it was reduced to a marshy quagmire.
A particularly bright flash of lightning illuminated the soggy landscape and Dr. Sands saw in its fleeting light the shape of a woman staring back at him. He disbelieved the sight at first, but it was confirmed to him when a second lightning flash revealed her as well. He recognized her easily, although thirty-seven years had passed since he’d last seen her face. The face of his mother was as permanently etched into his mind as his own.
She spoke to him.
"Lewis," she said. "I've finally come back for you." Again came the lightning and again he saw her face in the flash. She lifted her hand and beckoned him.
"Come to me," she whispered in his mind. "Come accept your mother's love." He could not understand how she could be real and yet here she was. Perhaps, he reasoned, his father had somehow led her here. Without another moment's hesitation, he rushed out in the storm, anxious to embrace her, and forgive her for deserting him so many years before. But when he reached the place where had stood, she was gone.
"Mother!" he shrieked to the storm. He turned in a circle, seeking her, but despaired in the knowledge that she had deserted him yet again.
He collapsed in the mud, sobbing with disappointment. He had seen her and heard her voice only moments before.
“Where did you go?” he begged. But nothing answered him accept the thunder and pounding rain. He stood and looked into the sky, blinking against the raindrops. Then he felt all of the hairs on his body stand on end. A surge of heat coursed through him so powerfully, he thought his eyes would bulge from their sockets. In the next instant, a flash of lightning descended upon him and ended his days of judgment forever.
He found himself on a familiar brick path approaching a familiar gate. The flowers bloomed to either side of him. The scent of honeysuckle was strong in the air. Birds sang pleasant songs from the distant orchard. The sun shone warm on his face. As he reached the gateway, he noticed an added feature not of his design. On the overhanging beam, symbols were carved in hieroglyphics. He was surprised to realize that he knew the meaning of the words.
'JUDGE NOT, LEST YE BE JUDGED!'
A group he recognized had gathered beneath the gate. These were those he had condemned. His father walked with heavy steps toward him. This was not the gaunt, hollow-eyed man he had sent to an unjust reward the night before, but a younger, more vibrant version: a man of purpose. The man's steps clacked along the brick path as he approached. Lewis could only wait-- paralyzed with dread
His father placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Son," he said. "A man reaps what he sows. So shall it be with you. Some sins cannot be forgiven. You will not pass beneath this gate, Lewis. Turn away from us."
Compelled to obey, he did as he was told.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a hospital bed. Nurses worked busily about him. Tubes and sensors of every sort were attached to his body. He tried to lift an arm, but discovered he could not. Neither could he move a limb of any sort. He could not move his head the slightest bit, nor even blink his eyes. He discovered, to his dismay, that he was paralyzed. The heat of the lightning strike still burnt inside of him. If his vocal chords had worked, he would have screamed in pain.
He could see someone by his side.
"Can you hear me, Lewis?" Isabel Ellis said. "I bet you can. Lightning struck you last night. The doctors say it's a miracle you survived. Your internal organs were cooked to mush, but somehow your heart continues to beat. They imagine you will feel the pain of your internal wounds for the rest of your life and also you will never move so much as an eyelid ever again. One doctor remarked you would be better off dead, trapped in a living hell as you are.
"But don't worry, Lewis, I'm going to great lengths to make sure I keep you alive for a very long time. I'm not one to forget a debt. You took care of him and now I'm taking care of you. That is the way it should be."
He wanted to beg for death, but no words would form on his lips. She left him to bear his penance.
He grew to be very remorseful for his deeds.
The gateway lay at the foot of a grassy hill. Beyond it, the path twisted and the traveler could not see his destination until he had walked beneath. Past the gate, each client's paradise was tailor-made by the doctor to meet the requested specifications of the client. Of course, sometimes Dr. Sands was moved to improvise...
His business was booming. Who would have thought so many people just weren't willing to take their chances on the afterlife? The price for his services varied according to the complexity of the clients' requests, but averaged around two hundred thousand dollars. Dr. Sands believed it was a small price to pay for eternal bliss.
Of course, he didn't always give them bliss, but who would ever know?
He hadn't guessed his business would prove so lucrative. Perhaps it was symptomatic of a troubled world that so many were willing to check out of it so easily. He also kept the dual function of his place of business a secret from the general public. It was, ostensibly, a high-tech arcade called Virtual Heaven, and always teeming with youths, most of whom found themselves addicted to his games. These games were truly cutting edge in their graphics and tailored to fit the thought patterns and muscle movements of their operators. Most dealt with the very violent themes that teenage kids were most attracted to. He'd seen kids come in fresh-faced and enthusiastic, and watched them deteriorate into slack-faced junkies within only a few months. The games began to matter more than life to them. Dr. Sands wasn't moved by their plight. It was just another option for escape, he told himself; no different than books, movies, or music. It wasn't like he was a drug dealer.
The arcade was very profitable, but the real business was done after hours.
He met them by appointment and did not see them until they had spent a month considering it. A few changed their minds, but most did not. Nearly all had incurable illnesses, although he wasn't above offering his services to healthy individuals as well. If a man or woman wished to die, who was he to disallow it? All that he required was payment and the obligatory waiting period.
After he had met with his client in his office to ensure for one final time that he or she had most definitively decided that they were taking the proper action for themselves, he took them down to the underground warehouse where the cryonic vaults were located. This warehouse was a vast space that currently held nearly five hundred frozen people. All were hooked to monitors that kept careful watch over their vital signs and ensured their body temperature remained properly low. Dr. Sands enjoyed the warehouse. He liked to listen to the low hum of the instruments and to walk amongst the sealed vaults. It pleased him to think of his charges inside, with virtual reality goggles strapped to their heads, perpetually dreaming of a world he had created only for them.
Not all of them dreamed of paradise. Some were tortured by their visions. He tried his best to give them what they deserved.
He wasn't hasty in his judgments. During the month waiting period, he researched his clients' lives as thoroughly as he was able. He almost always knew what fate awaited a given man or woman by the time he met them, but just in case, he designed two possible programs for every one; one containing the heaven that had been requested, the other holding a much less pleasant fate.
In the end, he gave most the benefit of the doubt. Everyone had his foibles and frailties. But some he just could not forgive.
There was the former mob boss, Richard Eruzione. He had been serving a life sentence at San Quentin, but had been released to die at home when a malignant tumor was discovered in his brain He’d quickly contacted Dr. Sands before the cancer had its way with him. He pretended to be contrite for the many murders and crimes he’d arranged or committed in his lifetime, but Dr. Sands was not convinced. After a bit of thought, he designed what he deemed a fitting hell for the man.
In the afterlife, Mr. Eruzione found himself on his back in the middle of a banquet table surrounded by all of his past victims. They all had knives and plates. One by one, each took their turn cutting his flesh and eating it, all the while observing proper table etiquette. They sipped his blood in wine glasses and talked of what a great and powerful man he was. He was a little tough to chew, however. Perhaps, he should have been cooked a little more. In the kitchen, the oven was hot and the chefs were willing.
But some cases were not so easily judged.
He'd made a much harder choice in condemning Sylvia James. She’d had a nightmarish childhood herself, constantly abused and neglected by her drug-abusing parents. In her teens, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prone to periods of psychotic mania. She once wrote a three hundred-page novel in three days. The only problem was that her handwriting was so expansive and full of overlapping loops, and flourishes, she could not read a word of it and did not even remember the plot a week later when the manic phase had run its course. The depressive phase soon followed. Sylvia had scars crisscrossing her arms and legs from the slashes she had self-inflicted with a razorblade. Only frequent stays at mental hospitals and the assistance of medications and therapists had prevented her from committing suicide.
In her twenties, she had managed to crawl out from under the shadow of her mental illness and live a normal life for a time. She went to law school, graduated with honors, and then began a successful practice. She kept her past mental health history a closely guarded secret and blamed her scars on a traffic accident in her youth. She soon married, and a year later gave birth to twin girls: Kierstin and Megan. They were the light of her life.
After their birth, however, the symptoms of her mental illness came roaring back, seemingly undeterred by medication. In the midst of a psychotic episode, she became convinced that her two beautiful babies were dual Antichrists. She carved 666 on their foreheads with a steak knife and was standing over Kierstin with the knife poised above her heart when her husband came home and forcefully took the knife from her hands. He left with the children, and Sylvia soon lost her law practice and was declared an unfit mother. Then she'd made her way to see Dr. Sands with a check for all of her savings.
The doctor discovered all of this on his own, and was amazed by Sylvia's brutal honesty when she told him the whole story herself on the day of their meeting. Dr. Sands promised her peace from her illness at last. But he was lying.
He had debated to exhaustion in attempting to determine Sylvia's proper fate. She would have murdered her children if her husband had not stopped her, and had succeeded in mutilating their innocent bodies. He certainly believed she was not in her right mind, but in his view, this made no difference. A person had to answer for his deeds. Excuses were irrelevant. Besides, his own mother had abandoned him at an orphanage when he was three years old. He still remembered her final words to him and the sheer terror he had felt when she had walked away from him for the final time.
"Be a good boy, little Lewis," she had said. "Mother needs to go away for awhile. I'll be back for you. Don't worry."
But she never came back. He was moved from foster-home to foster-home, group home to group home until he turned eighteen and found his way to a better life through Science.
He had little sympathy for mothers who mistreated their children. Mental illness was a crutch for the weak-minded, he believed. Thus, Sylvia had to pay for her sins.
He had walked with her to the vault and placed the virtual reality goggles on her face once she had climbed inside. In a few moments, she found herself again standing over her babies with the steak knife poised above them. This time, her husband did not come home to save them. She could try her hardest to prevent the knife from coming down into first little Megan's heart and then Kierstin's, but its descent was inevitable. In her hell, she murdered her babies over and over again, each time experiencing the horror of it freshly. This was her fate for all eternity.
In hindsight, Dr. Sands believed he might have been a little harsh, but he was not troubled with regret. He preferred to make a decision and to not look back. He believed this attitude contributed to his success.
Tonight, he closed the arcade and went to the back to await his client. He’d spoken to him on the phone just yesterday. The man had wanted to make an appointment immediately, and the doctor's scheduled client for tonight had cancelled, so he had fit him in. The man was dying of leukemia. The doctors had done all they could and sent him home to die. He was reasonably young at fifty-seven years and married for thirty-three of those years. His wife would be accompanying him to the appointment. On the phone last night, the man insisted on addressing the doctor by his first name throughout the conversation as if he had a reason to be familiar with him. Dr. Sands found it irritating, but supposed it must have been an eccentricity. And besides the man was dying.
At eleven thirty, Mr. Samuel Ellis and his wife arrived right on time. They walked through the door holding hands, both of their eyes swollen from crying. Mr. Ellis was very tall and had probably once presented a dashing figure, but now his disease had reduced him to resemble a concentration camp victim; his eyes sunken deep in their sockets, bald-headed from radiation treatments and painfully emaciated. His wife, in contrast, was the picture of health: an attractive middle-aged woman with striking blue eyes and a thick mane of raven hair. She walked with perfect posture, and presented a rather severe aura. Dr. Sands imagined she must have been a school principal or a military officer. She walked like someone who expected respect. He idly wondered if he should give it to her or put her in her place.
He assumed his "undertaker" role and stepped around his desk to greet them.
"Hello Mr. Ellis. Last night, you did not mention a Misses," he said.
“This is my wife, Isabel,” Mr. Ellis said. “She is the love of my life, and has been my strength throughout this horrible year.”
Dr. Sands shook Mrs. Ellis’ hand. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said. He could tell by her gaze and her grip that she was sizing him up. He thought he would have likely done the same if their circumstances had been reversed. He always strove to keep meetings with his clients as formal as possible. Things seemed to go smoother that way. They didn’t seem to be in the mood for small talk, which suited him. He was not a naturally garrulous person.
"Let us speak in my office," he said.
He led the couple there and they took their seats.
"Mr. Ellis," Dr. Sands began. "You told me of your situation last night. As I told you on the phone, I require a month waiting period and payment in full before I design your custom heaven and fit you into a sleeping vault. Do you have any questions about either of these requirements?"
Mr. Ellis seemed hesitant to speak at first, but found the strength when his wife took his hand.
"Well, Lewis," he said. "It is not a question, but a statement I have concerning your two requirements. That is, that I can't abide by either of them."
"That's unfortunate," said Dr. Sands, "I'm afraid we will not be able to do business in that case. I wish the two of you the best." He rose from the chair to see them out, but neither stood from the couch.
"Wait," the dying man said. "There is something....personal I need to speak to you about. Just give us a few more minutes of your time if you could, Lewis."
"Personal?" Dr. Sands said, perplexed. He sat down again and waited for Mr. Ellis to continue.
"Yes, something very personal. You see, Lewis, I am...." He put his head down and seemed unable to continue. Fresh tears leaked from his eyes. At last his wife spoke for him.
"What Samuel is trying to say, Dr. Sands, is that he is your father."
"My father?" said the doctor, bewildered. He studied the hollow-eyed man with fresh eyes and knew in a moment that his wife spoke the truth. His features were strikingly similar to his own, particularly his distinctive Roman nose and slightly under-sized ears. Even the way the man held himself suggested a kinship between them.
But what need did he have of a father? He'd lived his entire life without a parent of any kind. It angered him to have this man suddenly appear to make such a declaration and expect to be instantly accepted, to even expect to be granted special privileges when he was in truth, nothing but a stranger with whom he shared his DNA.
"You must be mistaken," said Dr. Sands coldly. "I have never known a father. Now would you kindly be on your way? The hour is late and I would like to go home."
He stood from his chair again and this time, Samuel Ellis stood as well, with an air of defeat. His wife did not stand. When the doctor moved within reach of her, she shot out her hand and gripped his wrist with painful force, pulling him down to meet her eyes. Dr. Sands tried to break her grasp, but was shocked to discover that he could not. Her grip and her gaze made him feel like an ill-behaved child.
"Do not be so cold and arrogant, Doctor," she said to him. "Your father is not perfect, but he is good. He regrets that he could not raise you as a son, but he never knew of your existence until recently. Sit down and let him tell his story."
It took all of Dr. Sands' willpower not to comply in the face of her authoritative presence, but he somehow managed defiance. "Mrs. Ellis, I have no desire to hear his story. If this shell of a man here is in truth my biological father, then so be it. But he is only a stranger to me. I owe him nothing. Won't you please be on your way?"
She did not release her iron grip and her eyes bore like lasers into his.
"You will hear him out," she said. "Or you will regret it.”
“Are you threatening me?” he asked in disbelief.
“Call it what you will,” she said. “Just because you carry out the deeds of God here does not mean you share His omnipotence."
The doctor’s cheeks burned, and he wanted to strike her, but instead he sat back in his chair. "Have it your way," he said. He feigned nonchalance and shifted impatiently in his seat. “Then speak your piece, Father,” he said.
It was a standard tale of woe and love lost. His mother and he were very young when they met and he'd traveled to college and left her behind, not aware that she carried his child. Samuel Ellis only learned of his son’s existence ten years ago when he saw Lewis's picture in the paper after Dr. Sands had received a prestigious scientific award and read a bit about his life. He was afraid announcing himself to his son after so many years would make him seem overly opportunistic. He'd been content to follow his successful career at a distance. He'd only come here tonight because his wife, who was a devout Catholic, feared he would burn in Hell after his death. He was an atheist and had no such fears, but he wished to appease his wife who, Dr. Sands would have to agree, could be quite persuasive. He had been an astrophysicist of some merit until his health forced him to quit a year ago, and now he'd spent his last dime fighting his disease, and was out of options. He apologized for never being the proper father he suspected his son always hoped for. He could not wait a month. In a month, he would certainly be dead.
When the story was done, Dr. Sands summoned his best empathic expression and hid his condescension. He had once needed a father, but no longer did. A true man of character would have found a way to be there for his son, he believed. His father, Samuel Ellis, had failed him.
"I understand, Father," he said. "I am sorry for behaving so harshly before. I understand that events in life often occur beyond our control, especially in the days of our youth. I was wrong to have judged you without first hearing you out. My only regret is that we will never be able to truly know one another as father and son."
"Thank you, Lewis," Mr. Ellis said. Then he buried his head in his hands and sobbed.
Annoyed, the doctor handed him a Kleenex.
"So you will make the necessary preparations tonight for him?" Isabel Ellis asked.
‘Have they no shame,' he thought. He usually spent several days designing a suitable fate for his clients. But he forced a smile and looked her in the eye.
"Certainly," he said.
Isabel placed a comforting hand on her husband's back. "Darling, can you tell your son what kind of paradise you are hoping for?"
Samuel looked up and wiped his eyes. "No," he said. “I’d rather not. Surprise me, Lewis. I trust you."
Dr. Sands’ tone was properly somber. "I will do my best, Father."
He left them alone in his office to work on the computer program for his father's afterlife. He wracked his brain to come up with something creative, but in the end decided standard fare fit the man best. Just before dawn, it was finished. He was proud of himself. For a program so hastily created, he thought he had done quite well.
He found them asleep on the leather couch. Samuel's head rested on his wife's shoulder.
"It is ready," he told them in a voice he thought loud enough to wake them.
Isabel woke before Samuel. She stared at him, and he could not discern her expression. He didn’t like the woman and wished she were going to the same place as her husband.
"This is a good and honest man beside me," she told him. "He's placed his trust in you only because he truly sees you as a son. I love this man and you had best grant him the grandest heaven ever imagined."
"That is what he deserves," the doctor answered.
They measured each other like prizefighters for a few more moments before she woke him.
"Samuel, my darling," she said. "Your son is ready for you."
He opened his eyes shared a moment of communion with his wife before turning his gaze to Dr. Sands. With a great effort, he stood from the couch without assistance.
"Very well then," he said.
Dr. Sands led them to the basement where the vault he’d prepared for his father waited.
Samuel embraced his wife one final time. "Good-bye, my love," he told her. "My body might be frozen in that tank, but my spirit will always love you."
She wept as Samuel shook Louis’ hand.
"I am grateful for the kindness you have shown me," he said. "I would not have blamed you if you had turned me away. My only regret is that we will never know one another as a father and son should."
Dr. Sands could think of no proper reply to his father's words and was relieved when the man stepped into the vault. He reclined against the cushioned interior and waited. With an air of great ceremony, Dr. Sands attached the goggles to his face. Then he sealed the top and activated the freezing jets.
When Samuel Ellis next opened his eyes, he was horrified to see a lake of fire burning below him. Its flames leaped high into the air, seeming to reach for him like greedy fingers. He realized now that his son held a grudge.
"Lewis, why have you betrayed me?" he screamed into the blackness. But no one answered him. In the next moment, he splashed into the lake and was engulfed by the flames. They scorched him from the inside without touching his skin. His heart, his lungs, all of his organs erupted within him as they boiled. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came from his lips. He burned and burned, yet the agony never ceased. As he lay in the lake of fire curled into a fetal position, writhing in anguish, he sensed someone standing over him. Hopeful they had come to ease his pain, he lifted his head and gazed upon the familiar face of his beloved Isabel. He felt a moment of relief until he saw the hatred in her eyes. They were alight with ecstasy, taking pleasure from his pain.
"Burn, my slave," she said to him. She cackled and her evil laughter echoed through the bowels of his hell.
"This is unjust!" Samuel Ellis tried to tell her. But Dr. Sands had not intended justice to be part of his design.
He walked his father's widow to her car and helped her inside. All of her intimidating presence seemed to have deserted her during her husband's final moments.
"Thank you, Doctor," she told him. "I believe he is gone to a better place because of you. He will no longer have to suffer so."
"Yes," he said. "I will tell you, that in his mind, you are forever by his side."
"Is that right?" she said, touched. "I believe I misjudged you, Doctor."
"Perhaps I misjudged you as well.”
She gave him a final hug and drove away.
When he finally reached his home, he was exhausted and slept the day away. In the evening, a flash of lightning closely followed by crashing thunder woke him. He looked out the window to see rain falling in torrents and wind bending the treetops. The storm fit his troubled mood. He was the epitome of the rich recluse, living alone in a mansion built in the middle of a thousand acre plot of wilderness. He enjoyed his solitude. He thought of this place as his own little slice of heaven. He was not a man of extended conscience, but still felt a vague pang of irritation in his belly. It was not everyday that a man condemned his father to hell. He considered going out into the storm and allowing the cold rain to soak him to the bone. Perhaps it would clear his mind. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Isabel would somehow learn of what he’d done. He laughed at his paranoia
“The crazy old bat,” he said aloud to himself. He watched the storm through the window, mesmerized by its power. The rain pelted his manicured lawn until it was reduced to a marshy quagmire.
A particularly bright flash of lightning illuminated the soggy landscape and Dr. Sands saw in its fleeting light the shape of a woman staring back at him. He disbelieved the sight at first, but it was confirmed to him when a second lightning flash revealed her as well. He recognized her easily, although thirty-seven years had passed since he’d last seen her face. The face of his mother was as permanently etched into his mind as his own.
She spoke to him.
"Lewis," she said. "I've finally come back for you." Again came the lightning and again he saw her face in the flash. She lifted her hand and beckoned him.
"Come to me," she whispered in his mind. "Come accept your mother's love." He could not understand how she could be real and yet here she was. Perhaps, he reasoned, his father had somehow led her here. Without another moment's hesitation, he rushed out in the storm, anxious to embrace her, and forgive her for deserting him so many years before. But when he reached the place where had stood, she was gone.
"Mother!" he shrieked to the storm. He turned in a circle, seeking her, but despaired in the knowledge that she had deserted him yet again.
He collapsed in the mud, sobbing with disappointment. He had seen her and heard her voice only moments before.
“Where did you go?” he begged. But nothing answered him accept the thunder and pounding rain. He stood and looked into the sky, blinking against the raindrops. Then he felt all of the hairs on his body stand on end. A surge of heat coursed through him so powerfully, he thought his eyes would bulge from their sockets. In the next instant, a flash of lightning descended upon him and ended his days of judgment forever.
He found himself on a familiar brick path approaching a familiar gate. The flowers bloomed to either side of him. The scent of honeysuckle was strong in the air. Birds sang pleasant songs from the distant orchard. The sun shone warm on his face. As he reached the gateway, he noticed an added feature not of his design. On the overhanging beam, symbols were carved in hieroglyphics. He was surprised to realize that he knew the meaning of the words.
'JUDGE NOT, LEST YE BE JUDGED!'
A group he recognized had gathered beneath the gate. These were those he had condemned. His father walked with heavy steps toward him. This was not the gaunt, hollow-eyed man he had sent to an unjust reward the night before, but a younger, more vibrant version: a man of purpose. The man's steps clacked along the brick path as he approached. Lewis could only wait-- paralyzed with dread
His father placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Son," he said. "A man reaps what he sows. So shall it be with you. Some sins cannot be forgiven. You will not pass beneath this gate, Lewis. Turn away from us."
Compelled to obey, he did as he was told.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a hospital bed. Nurses worked busily about him. Tubes and sensors of every sort were attached to his body. He tried to lift an arm, but discovered he could not. Neither could he move a limb of any sort. He could not move his head the slightest bit, nor even blink his eyes. He discovered, to his dismay, that he was paralyzed. The heat of the lightning strike still burnt inside of him. If his vocal chords had worked, he would have screamed in pain.
He could see someone by his side.
"Can you hear me, Lewis?" Isabel Ellis said. "I bet you can. Lightning struck you last night. The doctors say it's a miracle you survived. Your internal organs were cooked to mush, but somehow your heart continues to beat. They imagine you will feel the pain of your internal wounds for the rest of your life and also you will never move so much as an eyelid ever again. One doctor remarked you would be better off dead, trapped in a living hell as you are.
"But don't worry, Lewis, I'm going to great lengths to make sure I keep you alive for a very long time. I'm not one to forget a debt. You took care of him and now I'm taking care of you. That is the way it should be."
He wanted to beg for death, but no words would form on his lips. She left him to bear his penance.
He grew to be very remorseful for his deeds.
Racing Deke the Geek
"Hell found me!" exclaimed Deke as he burst into Gail's Kitchen early that Friday morning.
Rhett and I looked at him over our stacks of pancakes with nonplussed expressions on our faces.
Hell found me—it was one of Deke's favorite expressions though neither Rhett nor I had ever heard another human being utter the phrase. Deke the geek we called him, and no one had ever deserved a moniker so richly. Deke was a tad over six feet tall but couldn't have weighed more than 130 pounds, even soaking wet from the morning dew, as he was presently.
He stood over us staring at our breakfast with a disapproving air. We were cotton scouts, killing time, waiting for the dew to dry before we got out in the fields to look for the pests who would dare to rob the good farmers of South Georgia of their rightful profits. I was on my third cup of coffee and my second stack of pancakes. Rhett and I always worked together and this was our morning ritual, shooting the bull and eating until our bellies were bursting. Then we'd take a token look at a couple of fields before heading home for lunch to sleep off our giant morning meal.
Deke the geek, on the other hand, took cotton scouting seriously. He waded into the wet, sticky fields as soon as it was daylight and checked every quadrant of every field with the utmost thoroughness. Then he would write a detailed report of his findings and deliver it personally to the farmer.
But he was annoying. His voice had an irritating whiny quality that we all took turns imitating behind his back.
"Y'all ought to be out there in the field by now," he scolded. "Not in here lollygaggin'."
"Sit down and shut up," said Rhett, gesturing to the third seat at our table.
Deke made a presentation of rolling his eyes and blowing out his cheeks in exasperation before doing as he was told. The most pathetic thing about him was that he wanted to fit in so badly. But he just couldn't overcome the overwhelming geekiness that defined his very existence.
He took off his Karate pesticide cap and put it on the table a little too close to my plate. The brim of the cap was soaked with sweat and coated with a layer of soil as well. Through its webbing, I made out a looper worm inching along the inside of it.
"Hey Deke," I said. "Looks like you brought a friend back from the field with you." I flipped the cap over, revealing the looper.
"Hell found me," Deke exclaimed. "Damn things was everywhere in that goddarned field. Eatin' them leaves like no tomorra!"
He grabbed the looper and squished it between his fingers, smearing the worm's green blood all over his hand in the process. Then he studied the hand in consternation, as if shocked by his own actions. Deke was always the excitable type. If I had known he was going to squish the poor thing, I would have kept my mouth shut.
Just then, the waitress came over. "You want some breakfast?" she asked Deke. I watched her spot his slime-covered hand. She couldn't prevent a look of mild revulsion from spreading across her face.
"He's havin' fresh squeezed worm juice," Rhett said. I fell out laughing and Deke shot me a murderous look. His face turned beet red and he hid his stained hand beneath the table.
"Just bring me some water," he said.
Deke rubbed the worm blood on his jeans and drank most of his water in one gulp. The boy had been working hard.
All three of us were nineteen. Rhett and I were both home for the summer after our freshman year in college. Deke liked to say he was trying to save money to get into Georgia Tech so he could be an "air-o-nautical engineer." But as far as we knew, he just piddled with car engines and over zealously scouted cotton.
"You shoulda seen the egg and small larva count over on that Johnson field," he said. "Over twenty egg and thirty small worms per hundred squares! I told Mr. Johnson he better get that dadburn crop duster in there to spray that shit or he wouldn't make half a bale this year. You know how he is, so damn stubborn 'bout spendin' a dollar or two, but he'll do like I say if he knows what's good for him."
"Damn tootin'," Rhett said, winking at me. I could tell from the twinkle in his eye that he was working up some scheme to antagonize poor ole' Deke. Rhett could be a real bully when he set his mind to it and Deke was his favorite target. But Deke was forever oblivious to this fact. He believed Rhett did no wrong.
"Deke," Rhett said. "You know Allison McNair?"
"Yeah, I know that ole' ho dog. What about her?"
Rhett knew full well that Deke knew the girl. He'd held an unrequited crush on her for as long as any of us could remember. Allison was not one to bestow her attentions on hopeless geeks like Deke, however. But he never gave up hope.
"You know Bobby here's bangin' her these days, don't you?"
I could see that the news hit Deke like a sledgehammer. To his credit, he tried to stay cool, but he couldn't keep his face from turning a deep shade of purple. He didn't dare to look at me.
"Bullshit," he said. "Quit fuckin' with me!"
"I ain't fuckin' with ya, Dekey. Ask the man himself."
He slowly turned his face to regard me with narrow, suspicious eyes.
Rhett's words were true. I had informed him of this new development in confidence less than an hour ago, naïvely trusting him not to tell Deke. I should have known better.
Allison McNair was a red-headed ball of fire with a body to die for. Last night, she'd nearly killed me with it. I would have died with a smile on my face. I had to give Rhett a great deal of the credit for making it happen. He was the woman killer of the two of us. He had gained intimate knowledge of more girls than I could count during the three years we'd been good buddies. He had movie star good looks with the personality to match and never failed to take full advantage of these gifts. He'd successfully charmed himself into Allison's good graces three months ago. He'd gotten what he was after and then moved on. Hurt and more than a little angered by this, she'd called me out of the blue to say her piece. I was a good listener and she'd been rewarding me for it ever since.
Rhett believed her interest in me was only an attempt to get revenge on him. He'd told me so earlier today and was quite amused by the notion. He was proud of me for taking advantage of the situation as well.
"Nothin' wrong with sloppy seconds," he'd assured me. "I give her my highest endorsement."
I had yukked it up and played along with it, but secretly fallen for her as hard as Deke. Her face and her body were in my mind constantly. Visions of our future together were already playing through my head. Allison was my drug and I was hopelessly addicted.
"Is it true?" Deke asked me in his shrill, trembling voice.
I looked at him hard before answering. His face was a maelstrom of emotion. He was hurt, angry, and bitter and I sensed he wanted to vent all of his rage onto me. He already resented me for being closer friends with Rhett than he, and now I'd robbed him of his only true love as well.
I decided honesty was the best policy.
"Listen, Deke," I said. "Yeah, I'm seeing Allison but it's not like Rhett's making it out to be. I'm not "banging her." I really care about her. She's a great girl and I understand how you feel about her."
"You don't understand shit!" he said so loudly that every face in the restaurant turned to stare in our direction. He was shaking with fury, his neck muscles bulging. "If you ever lay a dirty hand on her again, I'll fucking kill you. Do you understand? I will fucking kill you!"
I could only look at him, dumbfounded by his outburst. Deke raised a fist and would have punched me square in the nose if Rhett hadn't suddenly turned peacemaker.
He stepped between us and put a hand on Deke's shoulder. Rhett had only meant to goad ole' Deke on a bit, not incite him to his present state of fury. He was as shocked as I by Deke's behavior.
"You get your hands off me, Rhett," Deke said. "You're always protectin' that son of a bitch. Let me give him what he's got comin'."
"This ain't the time or the place," Rhett said. "Let's go outside and talk about this, ok?"
He put a firm arm around Deke's shoulder and walked him out the door. When they had left, I felt all the eyes of the restaurant's patrons boring into me. To them, I seemed the villain of the tale after all. I stood and left cash for our breakfast and a generous tip, and got out of there, hoping the whole episode was over.
But it wasn't. It might have been if my cell phone hadn't rung almost as soon as I'd stepped outside. Rhett was counseling Deke next to his truck, but Deke could see me. Of course he had no doubt of the caller's identity and was further infuriated because he viewed carrying a cell phone while scouting to be a sacrilege.
"Hey baby," she said. "I was just thinking about you. Working hard?"
From her voice, I could tell she was just waking up. My heart beat faster and Deke's issues suddenly faded into the background.
"Hardly workin' actually," I said. "You're sleepin' in, huh?"
"Yeah, guess I had a vigorous evening."
I smiled to myself, remembering. "Want to go out to the river with me tonight after I get off? We can go swimming out there, maybe camp out if you want."
"That sounds nice," she said.
"I'll kill that sorry son of a bitch!" Deke suddenly screeched at the top of his lungs. Apparently, Rhett's intermediary efforts were going badly.
"Is someone upset?" asked Allison, hearing him through the phone.
"Yeah," I sighed. "It's Deke. Rhett told him about us and he's gone ballistic."
"Rhett's such an ass!" she exclaimed, sounding angry herself. "He just likes to push people's buttons. And Deke...He's sweet, but he's too intense for me. And he's such a...a complete and total geek!"
I looked up to see that Deke had broken free from Rhett and was coming toward me with malice in his eyes.
"Hey baby, I gotta go. A geek on the rampage has got me in his sights. I'll see you tonight," I said.
"Ok, sweety. Don't let him hurt ya!" she said playfully.
If she'd seen the look in his eyes, she might not have been speaking so lightly about it.
"I won't," I said. "Bye, baby!"
I hung up the phone and turned to face Deke's wrath. I outweighed the boy by fifty pounds of solid muscle, but he was a raging rhino and I was only a little irked. My fists were balled up beside me, ready for action. But he stopped in front of me, still red-faced with fury, but looking marginally saner than a few moments before.
"Was that her?" he asked me.
"Yeah," I said. "She wanted me to tell you hey." I hoped the lie would soothe him.
"You ain't just bangin' her? You really like her?"
"Yeah, Deke, I do. She's a special girl."
"Damn right, she is. You better take care of her or I'll squish you like I done that worm in there, you hear me?"
"I hear ya, Deke."
He offered his hand and I shook it with a firm grip, relieved the mess was resolved.
Rhett came up beside us. "Oh, y'all are makin' up now," he said. I detected a note of disappointment in his voice.
"Yeah, we came to a resolution," I said.
"That's good," he said. "I thought y'all was goin' to throw down for a second there."
"Nah, me and Deke are cool."
"Yeah," Deke added without enthusiasm.
But Rhett didn't quite buy it.
"Deke, ain't you into runnin' long distances lately?" he asked.
"Yeah, I like to run in the evenin' two or three miles. It helps me work out the stress I build up out here."
"You know, Bobby here is a track star extraordinaire. He might could give you some tips."
"I don't need no tips. I don't run 'gainst people. I just run so I won't feel so high strung."
"You know Bobby finished second in the state in the mile? He ran it in four minutes 28 seconds. You reckon you can run that fast?"
"I might could," Deke said. "But I ain't got no reason to."
"Rhett," I chimed in. "What are you botherin' him about that for? I trained like crazy to run that time in the mile. He's just runnin' for recreational reasons."
"So, he couldn't beat you in a race," Rhett asked.
"No, of course not," I answered more emphatically than I'd intended. "Like I said, you gotta train seriously for a long time to run that fast."
Rhett grinned impishly. "Deke," he said. "You think you can beat Bobby in a race. He just said you cain't."
Much to my chagrin, I saw that Deke was simmering again. It didn't take much to rile him up after all. Rhett had baited me and I had swallowed it whole.
"That son of a bitch cain't outrun me," he said. "Just cause you run 'round a shiny track in front of a bunch of folks don't mean shit to me. I can outrun 'bout anybody if I take a notion to."
"Well shit," said Rhett. "Bobby, he done challenged you to a race it sounds like. "What you got to say 'bout it?"
"Rhett," I said, suddenly very frustrated. "That's ridiculous. You think we're goin' to take off racin' just because you're tryin' to instigate somethin'? Come on, man. We got work to do."
"So what you're sayin', Bobby, is that you can outrun Deke so easy, it ain't really worth the effort. You don't even take him serious. Is that what you're sayin' to me?"
I felt myself begin to become genuinely angry for the first time today. "What I'm sayin', Rhett, is that I trained for competition. Deke just runs to work off stress. There's a big difference."
"So you can outrun Deke by a country mile any time you take a notion. Is that right, Bobby?"
"Yes," I declared, exasperated. "That's right. I can outrun anybody in this town over a distance of a mile or longer. That's just a fact."
Rhett said nothing back right away but only gave me a joker's grin. He knew he was going to get what he wanted.
"You cain't outrun me, you arrogant bastard," Deke said. "We need to settle this shit now. I'm tired of you thinkin' you're better than everybody. You ain't nothin' to me. I shoulda kicked your ass earlier, but now I'll just run your dick in the ground. See how ya like them apples. Hell found me! I never seen such a prick as you in all my life!"
"Deke," I said. "You're an idiot."
He sneered at me and went to his rusted out '87 Ford Ranger and cranked it up.
"Rhett," he said. "You take me where we're racin' I'm gon show this SOB somethin' today."
"Alright," Rhett anwered. "I know just the place for it." He was grinning like a horse eating briars, triumph all over his face.
I followed him to his truck and climbed in. There was no way out. I would have to race poor Deke and humiliate him completely for no good reason at all.
Rhett got on his cell phone and started making calls. "Bobby and Deke are racin'," he told everyone he knew. "Meet us out on the dirt road by the old Snipes place. They been talkin' shit all mornin' and I figured out how they could settle it. Yeah, bring some beer and some tunes. We're gon make a big event out of it. 'Bout an hour from now, they'll be runnin'".
By the time we got there, he finally had run out of people to call. The dirt road by the Snipes place was a long and isolated stretch of sand and clay. Rhett determined we should start about a hundred yards from the highway and race all the way to the cotton field in the back; about three and a half miles.
I was almost too angry to speak, but I had to know one thing. "What you makin' such a big thing about this for?" I asked him.
He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. "Just for somethin' to do," I guess.
"You realize that eatin' three large stacks of syrup and pancakes with sausage and grits on the side ain't exactly the best pre-race meal for a three and a half mile run in a hundred degree heat don't you?"
"So you want to forfeit the race to Deke because you ate too much breakfast?"
"No," I sighed. I said nothing else.
Thirty minutes later, a crowd of about fifty people had gathered to watch the big race. Apparently, a lot of others were as desperate for "somethin' to do" as Rhett.
I changed into some shorts Rhett had stowed in his glove compartment. Deke, it appeared, was running in jeans, work boots and no shirt. His chest was milky white and without a hint of muscle tone. I began to stretch and put myself through my pre-race routine. I felt I should go through the motions of treating it like a real race just to help Deke save face to some small degree. The heat of the day was stifling and I had hopes Deke would collapse within a mile. Then the whole charade would be over and exposed for the farce it really was.
Rhett made himself the MC for the event and established the start and finish line for the race. He took it upon himself to help the on-lookers park and filled them in on the background of how the race came about. It was all about Allison McNair's honor, he said. Deke felt I had insulted her. He had wanted to fight me, but Rhett had convinced us to settle our differences in a more civilized way.
He announced the race would begin in five minutes, so Deke and I should start warming up.
Then Allison herself arrived. I nearly melted in lust, seeing her step out of her new Mustang her daddy had bought her only three weeks ago. She wore a pair of tight red shorts with milky white muscular looking legs spilling out of them and a Georgia Bulldog tank top that revealed just enough to make you yearn to see more. She stood just a little over five feet tall, but her body was flawless; dynamite in a small package. She had on a pair of shades and my Atlanta Braves cap that I must have left at her house the night before. She spotted me at the start line and blew me a kiss. Deke must have seen it but he didn't react for once. Though the gesture thrilled me, I didn't respond. A race demanded focus, even when the competition was likely less than stellar.
Soon, a crowd of other girls had gathered around Allison, buzzing with news and wanting to hear her reaction. She was like a queen bee surrounded by her subjects.
I glanced over at Deke. He was watching her too.
"Runners to the starting line!" Rhett announced. Rhett was eating up the attention, totally in his element. I perceived that most of the crowd was less than absorbed in the start of the race. Most were socializing and cracking open beers, thrilled to partake in this spontaneous party Rhett had managed to concoct in an hour's time.
Deke and I walked up to the line in the dirt Rhett had drawn with a stick. My stomach was still bloated from breakfast. I also hadn't run a lick in well over a month.
I felt Deke's eyes boring into me, as if we were boxers at a weigh in. I didn't bother to look back at him. My God, he was such an incredible geek.
"Alright, boys," Rhett said. "I want to see a good clean race. Let's see who the best man really is!"
"You ready to look at my ass for three fuckin' miles, you son of a bitch?" Deke said.
I said nothing.
"Alright, y'all ready to run?"
"Ready," Deke said.
"Ready," I added.
"Then here we go. Runners to your mark...get set... go!" Rhett announced, dropping his arms with a flourish. Deke took off like a shot, sprinting like a wild man, as if the race was meant to be run a hundred yards instead of three miles. I jogged at a nice, easy rhythm, somewhat relieved to discover Deke was as incompetent a runner as I had suspected. I expected to pass him in about half a mile and find him curled in a fetal position, groaning on the dusty road.
Minutes later though, I was still running and Deke was out of sight, presumably around a curve in the road far ahead of me. A stitch had formed in my side as well. I grit my teeth, trying not to acknowledge the pain. The sun beat off my head and it seemed all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Some track star I was.
Soon after sending us off, Rhett had driven past me in his pick-up truck toward the finish line. Now he came heading back toward me. A familiar face sat in the passenger side. He drove past me, made a u-turn in the road, and pulled beside me. I wasn't psycho jealous like Deke, but was less than thrilled to see my girlfriend riding around with Rhett while I tortured myself.
"Big Bobby! You better pick up the pace, man! Deke's kickin' your ass! That scrawny little runt can run! He's a good two-hundred yards up there I 'spect. You gon be eatin' some crow like you ain't never ate before, you don't start doin' somethin' quick. You gotta win by five minutes too or I'm gon owe Rusty fifty bucks. You look like you about to die out here. What'd you do? Eat too many a Gail's pancakes?"
I kept my head down and didn't answer, trying to blink the sweat out of my eyes.
"You best get your mind right, Bobby boy. That's all I got to say to ya! Me and Allison'll see ya at the finish line."
I glanced up at Allison to see how close she was sitting to Rhett. Thankfully, she was next to the window with her elbow hanging out.
"You can still win, baby!" she said to me. "I know you can do it!"
I nodded, comforted by her support. Rhett squealed his tires on the loose sand and drove off, kicking up a giant dust cloud in his wake. I ran around it as best I could, but still got a mouth full to choke on.
I rounded another curve and looked in front of me. The road stretched straight for several hundred yards here and I could see Deke ahead of me close to the point where the road curved again. He appeared to be moving much more slowly now, but I wasn't exactly setting a record pace myself. In fact, it didn't appear that I was even gaining on him.
For the first time, the idea that I might not win this race occurred to me. Being an excellent runner was a part of my identity. I was good at basketball. I was good at football, but there were plenty of others who were just as good as me. But when it came to running, I was the best. If I lost today to Deke the geek in front of all of my peers, the embarrassment would stay with me for the rest of my life. I couldn't allow that to happen. I had to win, stomach full of pancakes or not. I lowered my head, watching my feet struggle in front of me, listening to my ragged breathing. The pain of the stitch in my side increased with every step. The sun beat down on my shoulders and sweat continued to pour into my eyes.
I looked ahead and saw that Deke had rounded the curve and was out of sight again. This discouraged me as nothing else had. How could I beat a man I couldn't even see? I was going to lose today. There was nothing to be done for it. Deke the geek was the better runner, maybe even the better man. I dropped my head to look down at my shoe tops again and trudged on hopelessly.
Less than a hundred yards later, I stopped, bent over and gasping. My stomach was a riot of pain in the center of my body. As soon as I was still, gnats and flies swarmed about me as if I was a piece of rotten meat. I knew there was only one hope for me, one thing that might ease my pain. I knelt down beside the road and stuck my finger down my throat until I gagged and regurgitated all of Gail's pancakes onto the side of the road. The sweet taste of maple syrup still clung in my throat when the deed was done. My head felt as if it was literally on fire. The flies immediately descended on the thick pile of puke below me. I turned my head away, not wanting the sight of the mess to make me blow chunks again.
But as I stepped again into the road, the stitch in my side was gone. The barest breeze blew like a miracle against my fevered face and I began to run again. Now that I had purged the contents of my belly, I felt reborn. My feet began to glide along the road as I found my rhythm. I pushed myself to run faster and faster until I had the feeling that my legs flowed beneath me with a will of their own. I often told myself that I was truly born to run. Now that feeling washed over me in a rush. I no longer ran to catch Deke. I ran to see how fast I could run.
That was what I told myself at least. But a darker side of me knew better. I didn't mean to run as well as I possibly could and lose. I meant to win.
The curve Deke had rounded so long before me was turned at last and once more I could make out the figure of my opponent ahead of me. I was gaining on him now. There was no doubt of it. I estimated he must still have a hundred and fifty yard lead on me, but he was straining. Seeing him struggle ignited the predator in me. I felt a dash of adrenalin rush through my body and picked up my pace even more. The heat of the sun no longer mattered to me and I imagined fatigue to be an affliction suffered by lesser mortals. I pictured the winged sandals of Hermes strapped onto my feet rather than the worn out Nikes that were actually there. My legs propelled me forward like indefatigable pistons. Deke may as well have been a wounded antelope fleeing a ravenous lion.
Then I saw to my alarm that the race was nearly over. I was thirty yards from Deke. Deke was a hundred yards from the end of the road. The crowd had migrated there. I could just make out blaring country music and loud voices anticipating a dramatic finish. Rhett stood at the finish line with his hands on his hips, looking like a gunfighter.
I pushed myself to run even faster. My legs began to turn to jelly in spite of everything, but I wouldn't let them quit. Soon, Deke was ten yards in front of me. I saw him look back and strain with every ounce of effort in his soul to increase his speed. But suddenly I was beside him. I stole a glance at his face and saw that it was colored bright crimson, contorted with a horrible, twisted grimace of determination.
Twenty yards to go and I pulled ahead of him. For a moment, he caught me again and we ran stride for stride for five gut-wrenching steps, but then his body faltered at last and I was by him. Seeing all was lost, he flailed and collapsed in a heap less than five yards from the finish line. I ran on past Rhett, who stood marking the spot with outstretched arms, and collapsed in a heap myself. It was only then that I realized the crowd had been cheering at the top of their lungs as the race had reached its climax. Now they gathered around me shouting their congratulations and thrilled by the sheer competitiveness of the event they had witnessed.
I forced myself to my feet and stood with my hands on my knees, still breathing in mighty gulps. Allison embraced me from behind and buried her head against my sweating back.
"That was so awesome baby!" she said to me, hugging me tight.
I tried to respond, but was still too winded to speak. A line had gathered behind me, all waiting to declare their congratulations. I looked behind me and saw Deke still sprawled on the dirt, a foot away from the finish line. As I watched, he forced himself to his feet and stepped across the line. Then he assumed my identical position, his elbows on his knees, gasping for air. I was relieved to win the race, but this boy had given every ounce of his effort, something not one of those who observed would have been willing to do.
I forced myself to stand upright and pushed my way through the crowd to him. When I reached him, I offered my hand.
"Great race, Deke! Nobody else here has half the guts that you do," I said.
He eyed me suspiciously for a moment and then shook my hand as firmly as he was able.
"Thanks," he said.
Then Allison was beside me with her arm around my shoulders.
"Y'all look good together," he said.
I didn't know what to say to that so we just regarded each other for an awkward moment. Then he said, "We ought to run together sometime, maybe not quite like this though. I'm pooped!"
"Yeah, Deke. We could be training partners," I answered.
"Alright, sounds good. Well, I'm gon catch a ride back to my truck and go home and rest awhile. So I'll see you aroun'."
He nodded goodbye, turned and walked into the crowd. No one appeared to congratulate him on his effort or console him for his near loss. To them, he was still Deke the geek. But I would never call him that again. I had a new-found respect for the boy.
"Deke can be a nice guy sometimes," Allison said.
"Yeah, but I think he hates to lose," I answered.
Rhett materialized beside me and put an arm around my shoulder.
"Big Bobby!" he said. "You had me worried there, ya know it? And I had to shell out fifty bucks to Rusty. But hell, that was worth fifty bucks to see. Did you know that little bastard could run like that?"
"Nope," I answered.
*********************
The following Monday, Rhett and I pulled up outside the Collins cotton field at 7 AM sharp. Deke had just gotten there himself. He was taking a good overall visual of the field before he waded in to look for worms. He watched us pull up and looked surprised to see us.
"Hell found me," he said. "Shouldn't y'all be eatin' at Gail's this time of mornin'?"
"Nah," Rhett said. "'Bout time we started takin' this job a little more seriously. Them farmers depend on us, you know it?"
"Yeah," I added. "I've had enough a' them pancakes for awhile anyway."
The three of us stood in silence for a moment, watching the sun peek over the field and seeing the morning dew drip from the cotton stalks.
"I wouldn't wanna be nowhere else right now," Rhett said suddenly.
I felt the same way and figured Deke did too. Then we stepped into the field and went to work.
Rhett and I looked at him over our stacks of pancakes with nonplussed expressions on our faces.
Hell found me—it was one of Deke's favorite expressions though neither Rhett nor I had ever heard another human being utter the phrase. Deke the geek we called him, and no one had ever deserved a moniker so richly. Deke was a tad over six feet tall but couldn't have weighed more than 130 pounds, even soaking wet from the morning dew, as he was presently.
He stood over us staring at our breakfast with a disapproving air. We were cotton scouts, killing time, waiting for the dew to dry before we got out in the fields to look for the pests who would dare to rob the good farmers of South Georgia of their rightful profits. I was on my third cup of coffee and my second stack of pancakes. Rhett and I always worked together and this was our morning ritual, shooting the bull and eating until our bellies were bursting. Then we'd take a token look at a couple of fields before heading home for lunch to sleep off our giant morning meal.
Deke the geek, on the other hand, took cotton scouting seriously. He waded into the wet, sticky fields as soon as it was daylight and checked every quadrant of every field with the utmost thoroughness. Then he would write a detailed report of his findings and deliver it personally to the farmer.
But he was annoying. His voice had an irritating whiny quality that we all took turns imitating behind his back.
"Y'all ought to be out there in the field by now," he scolded. "Not in here lollygaggin'."
"Sit down and shut up," said Rhett, gesturing to the third seat at our table.
Deke made a presentation of rolling his eyes and blowing out his cheeks in exasperation before doing as he was told. The most pathetic thing about him was that he wanted to fit in so badly. But he just couldn't overcome the overwhelming geekiness that defined his very existence.
He took off his Karate pesticide cap and put it on the table a little too close to my plate. The brim of the cap was soaked with sweat and coated with a layer of soil as well. Through its webbing, I made out a looper worm inching along the inside of it.
"Hey Deke," I said. "Looks like you brought a friend back from the field with you." I flipped the cap over, revealing the looper.
"Hell found me," Deke exclaimed. "Damn things was everywhere in that goddarned field. Eatin' them leaves like no tomorra!"
He grabbed the looper and squished it between his fingers, smearing the worm's green blood all over his hand in the process. Then he studied the hand in consternation, as if shocked by his own actions. Deke was always the excitable type. If I had known he was going to squish the poor thing, I would have kept my mouth shut.
Just then, the waitress came over. "You want some breakfast?" she asked Deke. I watched her spot his slime-covered hand. She couldn't prevent a look of mild revulsion from spreading across her face.
"He's havin' fresh squeezed worm juice," Rhett said. I fell out laughing and Deke shot me a murderous look. His face turned beet red and he hid his stained hand beneath the table.
"Just bring me some water," he said.
Deke rubbed the worm blood on his jeans and drank most of his water in one gulp. The boy had been working hard.
All three of us were nineteen. Rhett and I were both home for the summer after our freshman year in college. Deke liked to say he was trying to save money to get into Georgia Tech so he could be an "air-o-nautical engineer." But as far as we knew, he just piddled with car engines and over zealously scouted cotton.
"You shoulda seen the egg and small larva count over on that Johnson field," he said. "Over twenty egg and thirty small worms per hundred squares! I told Mr. Johnson he better get that dadburn crop duster in there to spray that shit or he wouldn't make half a bale this year. You know how he is, so damn stubborn 'bout spendin' a dollar or two, but he'll do like I say if he knows what's good for him."
"Damn tootin'," Rhett said, winking at me. I could tell from the twinkle in his eye that he was working up some scheme to antagonize poor ole' Deke. Rhett could be a real bully when he set his mind to it and Deke was his favorite target. But Deke was forever oblivious to this fact. He believed Rhett did no wrong.
"Deke," Rhett said. "You know Allison McNair?"
"Yeah, I know that ole' ho dog. What about her?"
Rhett knew full well that Deke knew the girl. He'd held an unrequited crush on her for as long as any of us could remember. Allison was not one to bestow her attentions on hopeless geeks like Deke, however. But he never gave up hope.
"You know Bobby here's bangin' her these days, don't you?"
I could see that the news hit Deke like a sledgehammer. To his credit, he tried to stay cool, but he couldn't keep his face from turning a deep shade of purple. He didn't dare to look at me.
"Bullshit," he said. "Quit fuckin' with me!"
"I ain't fuckin' with ya, Dekey. Ask the man himself."
He slowly turned his face to regard me with narrow, suspicious eyes.
Rhett's words were true. I had informed him of this new development in confidence less than an hour ago, naïvely trusting him not to tell Deke. I should have known better.
Allison McNair was a red-headed ball of fire with a body to die for. Last night, she'd nearly killed me with it. I would have died with a smile on my face. I had to give Rhett a great deal of the credit for making it happen. He was the woman killer of the two of us. He had gained intimate knowledge of more girls than I could count during the three years we'd been good buddies. He had movie star good looks with the personality to match and never failed to take full advantage of these gifts. He'd successfully charmed himself into Allison's good graces three months ago. He'd gotten what he was after and then moved on. Hurt and more than a little angered by this, she'd called me out of the blue to say her piece. I was a good listener and she'd been rewarding me for it ever since.
Rhett believed her interest in me was only an attempt to get revenge on him. He'd told me so earlier today and was quite amused by the notion. He was proud of me for taking advantage of the situation as well.
"Nothin' wrong with sloppy seconds," he'd assured me. "I give her my highest endorsement."
I had yukked it up and played along with it, but secretly fallen for her as hard as Deke. Her face and her body were in my mind constantly. Visions of our future together were already playing through my head. Allison was my drug and I was hopelessly addicted.
"Is it true?" Deke asked me in his shrill, trembling voice.
I looked at him hard before answering. His face was a maelstrom of emotion. He was hurt, angry, and bitter and I sensed he wanted to vent all of his rage onto me. He already resented me for being closer friends with Rhett than he, and now I'd robbed him of his only true love as well.
I decided honesty was the best policy.
"Listen, Deke," I said. "Yeah, I'm seeing Allison but it's not like Rhett's making it out to be. I'm not "banging her." I really care about her. She's a great girl and I understand how you feel about her."
"You don't understand shit!" he said so loudly that every face in the restaurant turned to stare in our direction. He was shaking with fury, his neck muscles bulging. "If you ever lay a dirty hand on her again, I'll fucking kill you. Do you understand? I will fucking kill you!"
I could only look at him, dumbfounded by his outburst. Deke raised a fist and would have punched me square in the nose if Rhett hadn't suddenly turned peacemaker.
He stepped between us and put a hand on Deke's shoulder. Rhett had only meant to goad ole' Deke on a bit, not incite him to his present state of fury. He was as shocked as I by Deke's behavior.
"You get your hands off me, Rhett," Deke said. "You're always protectin' that son of a bitch. Let me give him what he's got comin'."
"This ain't the time or the place," Rhett said. "Let's go outside and talk about this, ok?"
He put a firm arm around Deke's shoulder and walked him out the door. When they had left, I felt all the eyes of the restaurant's patrons boring into me. To them, I seemed the villain of the tale after all. I stood and left cash for our breakfast and a generous tip, and got out of there, hoping the whole episode was over.
But it wasn't. It might have been if my cell phone hadn't rung almost as soon as I'd stepped outside. Rhett was counseling Deke next to his truck, but Deke could see me. Of course he had no doubt of the caller's identity and was further infuriated because he viewed carrying a cell phone while scouting to be a sacrilege.
"Hey baby," she said. "I was just thinking about you. Working hard?"
From her voice, I could tell she was just waking up. My heart beat faster and Deke's issues suddenly faded into the background.
"Hardly workin' actually," I said. "You're sleepin' in, huh?"
"Yeah, guess I had a vigorous evening."
I smiled to myself, remembering. "Want to go out to the river with me tonight after I get off? We can go swimming out there, maybe camp out if you want."
"That sounds nice," she said.
"I'll kill that sorry son of a bitch!" Deke suddenly screeched at the top of his lungs. Apparently, Rhett's intermediary efforts were going badly.
"Is someone upset?" asked Allison, hearing him through the phone.
"Yeah," I sighed. "It's Deke. Rhett told him about us and he's gone ballistic."
"Rhett's such an ass!" she exclaimed, sounding angry herself. "He just likes to push people's buttons. And Deke...He's sweet, but he's too intense for me. And he's such a...a complete and total geek!"
I looked up to see that Deke had broken free from Rhett and was coming toward me with malice in his eyes.
"Hey baby, I gotta go. A geek on the rampage has got me in his sights. I'll see you tonight," I said.
"Ok, sweety. Don't let him hurt ya!" she said playfully.
If she'd seen the look in his eyes, she might not have been speaking so lightly about it.
"I won't," I said. "Bye, baby!"
I hung up the phone and turned to face Deke's wrath. I outweighed the boy by fifty pounds of solid muscle, but he was a raging rhino and I was only a little irked. My fists were balled up beside me, ready for action. But he stopped in front of me, still red-faced with fury, but looking marginally saner than a few moments before.
"Was that her?" he asked me.
"Yeah," I said. "She wanted me to tell you hey." I hoped the lie would soothe him.
"You ain't just bangin' her? You really like her?"
"Yeah, Deke, I do. She's a special girl."
"Damn right, she is. You better take care of her or I'll squish you like I done that worm in there, you hear me?"
"I hear ya, Deke."
He offered his hand and I shook it with a firm grip, relieved the mess was resolved.
Rhett came up beside us. "Oh, y'all are makin' up now," he said. I detected a note of disappointment in his voice.
"Yeah, we came to a resolution," I said.
"That's good," he said. "I thought y'all was goin' to throw down for a second there."
"Nah, me and Deke are cool."
"Yeah," Deke added without enthusiasm.
But Rhett didn't quite buy it.
"Deke, ain't you into runnin' long distances lately?" he asked.
"Yeah, I like to run in the evenin' two or three miles. It helps me work out the stress I build up out here."
"You know, Bobby here is a track star extraordinaire. He might could give you some tips."
"I don't need no tips. I don't run 'gainst people. I just run so I won't feel so high strung."
"You know Bobby finished second in the state in the mile? He ran it in four minutes 28 seconds. You reckon you can run that fast?"
"I might could," Deke said. "But I ain't got no reason to."
"Rhett," I chimed in. "What are you botherin' him about that for? I trained like crazy to run that time in the mile. He's just runnin' for recreational reasons."
"So, he couldn't beat you in a race," Rhett asked.
"No, of course not," I answered more emphatically than I'd intended. "Like I said, you gotta train seriously for a long time to run that fast."
Rhett grinned impishly. "Deke," he said. "You think you can beat Bobby in a race. He just said you cain't."
Much to my chagrin, I saw that Deke was simmering again. It didn't take much to rile him up after all. Rhett had baited me and I had swallowed it whole.
"That son of a bitch cain't outrun me," he said. "Just cause you run 'round a shiny track in front of a bunch of folks don't mean shit to me. I can outrun 'bout anybody if I take a notion to."
"Well shit," said Rhett. "Bobby, he done challenged you to a race it sounds like. "What you got to say 'bout it?"
"Rhett," I said, suddenly very frustrated. "That's ridiculous. You think we're goin' to take off racin' just because you're tryin' to instigate somethin'? Come on, man. We got work to do."
"So what you're sayin', Bobby, is that you can outrun Deke so easy, it ain't really worth the effort. You don't even take him serious. Is that what you're sayin' to me?"
I felt myself begin to become genuinely angry for the first time today. "What I'm sayin', Rhett, is that I trained for competition. Deke just runs to work off stress. There's a big difference."
"So you can outrun Deke by a country mile any time you take a notion. Is that right, Bobby?"
"Yes," I declared, exasperated. "That's right. I can outrun anybody in this town over a distance of a mile or longer. That's just a fact."
Rhett said nothing back right away but only gave me a joker's grin. He knew he was going to get what he wanted.
"You cain't outrun me, you arrogant bastard," Deke said. "We need to settle this shit now. I'm tired of you thinkin' you're better than everybody. You ain't nothin' to me. I shoulda kicked your ass earlier, but now I'll just run your dick in the ground. See how ya like them apples. Hell found me! I never seen such a prick as you in all my life!"
"Deke," I said. "You're an idiot."
He sneered at me and went to his rusted out '87 Ford Ranger and cranked it up.
"Rhett," he said. "You take me where we're racin' I'm gon show this SOB somethin' today."
"Alright," Rhett anwered. "I know just the place for it." He was grinning like a horse eating briars, triumph all over his face.
I followed him to his truck and climbed in. There was no way out. I would have to race poor Deke and humiliate him completely for no good reason at all.
Rhett got on his cell phone and started making calls. "Bobby and Deke are racin'," he told everyone he knew. "Meet us out on the dirt road by the old Snipes place. They been talkin' shit all mornin' and I figured out how they could settle it. Yeah, bring some beer and some tunes. We're gon make a big event out of it. 'Bout an hour from now, they'll be runnin'".
By the time we got there, he finally had run out of people to call. The dirt road by the Snipes place was a long and isolated stretch of sand and clay. Rhett determined we should start about a hundred yards from the highway and race all the way to the cotton field in the back; about three and a half miles.
I was almost too angry to speak, but I had to know one thing. "What you makin' such a big thing about this for?" I asked him.
He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. "Just for somethin' to do," I guess.
"You realize that eatin' three large stacks of syrup and pancakes with sausage and grits on the side ain't exactly the best pre-race meal for a three and a half mile run in a hundred degree heat don't you?"
"So you want to forfeit the race to Deke because you ate too much breakfast?"
"No," I sighed. I said nothing else.
Thirty minutes later, a crowd of about fifty people had gathered to watch the big race. Apparently, a lot of others were as desperate for "somethin' to do" as Rhett.
I changed into some shorts Rhett had stowed in his glove compartment. Deke, it appeared, was running in jeans, work boots and no shirt. His chest was milky white and without a hint of muscle tone. I began to stretch and put myself through my pre-race routine. I felt I should go through the motions of treating it like a real race just to help Deke save face to some small degree. The heat of the day was stifling and I had hopes Deke would collapse within a mile. Then the whole charade would be over and exposed for the farce it really was.
Rhett made himself the MC for the event and established the start and finish line for the race. He took it upon himself to help the on-lookers park and filled them in on the background of how the race came about. It was all about Allison McNair's honor, he said. Deke felt I had insulted her. He had wanted to fight me, but Rhett had convinced us to settle our differences in a more civilized way.
He announced the race would begin in five minutes, so Deke and I should start warming up.
Then Allison herself arrived. I nearly melted in lust, seeing her step out of her new Mustang her daddy had bought her only three weeks ago. She wore a pair of tight red shorts with milky white muscular looking legs spilling out of them and a Georgia Bulldog tank top that revealed just enough to make you yearn to see more. She stood just a little over five feet tall, but her body was flawless; dynamite in a small package. She had on a pair of shades and my Atlanta Braves cap that I must have left at her house the night before. She spotted me at the start line and blew me a kiss. Deke must have seen it but he didn't react for once. Though the gesture thrilled me, I didn't respond. A race demanded focus, even when the competition was likely less than stellar.
Soon, a crowd of other girls had gathered around Allison, buzzing with news and wanting to hear her reaction. She was like a queen bee surrounded by her subjects.
I glanced over at Deke. He was watching her too.
"Runners to the starting line!" Rhett announced. Rhett was eating up the attention, totally in his element. I perceived that most of the crowd was less than absorbed in the start of the race. Most were socializing and cracking open beers, thrilled to partake in this spontaneous party Rhett had managed to concoct in an hour's time.
Deke and I walked up to the line in the dirt Rhett had drawn with a stick. My stomach was still bloated from breakfast. I also hadn't run a lick in well over a month.
I felt Deke's eyes boring into me, as if we were boxers at a weigh in. I didn't bother to look back at him. My God, he was such an incredible geek.
"Alright, boys," Rhett said. "I want to see a good clean race. Let's see who the best man really is!"
"You ready to look at my ass for three fuckin' miles, you son of a bitch?" Deke said.
I said nothing.
"Alright, y'all ready to run?"
"Ready," Deke said.
"Ready," I added.
"Then here we go. Runners to your mark...get set... go!" Rhett announced, dropping his arms with a flourish. Deke took off like a shot, sprinting like a wild man, as if the race was meant to be run a hundred yards instead of three miles. I jogged at a nice, easy rhythm, somewhat relieved to discover Deke was as incompetent a runner as I had suspected. I expected to pass him in about half a mile and find him curled in a fetal position, groaning on the dusty road.
Minutes later though, I was still running and Deke was out of sight, presumably around a curve in the road far ahead of me. A stitch had formed in my side as well. I grit my teeth, trying not to acknowledge the pain. The sun beat off my head and it seemed all I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Some track star I was.
Soon after sending us off, Rhett had driven past me in his pick-up truck toward the finish line. Now he came heading back toward me. A familiar face sat in the passenger side. He drove past me, made a u-turn in the road, and pulled beside me. I wasn't psycho jealous like Deke, but was less than thrilled to see my girlfriend riding around with Rhett while I tortured myself.
"Big Bobby! You better pick up the pace, man! Deke's kickin' your ass! That scrawny little runt can run! He's a good two-hundred yards up there I 'spect. You gon be eatin' some crow like you ain't never ate before, you don't start doin' somethin' quick. You gotta win by five minutes too or I'm gon owe Rusty fifty bucks. You look like you about to die out here. What'd you do? Eat too many a Gail's pancakes?"
I kept my head down and didn't answer, trying to blink the sweat out of my eyes.
"You best get your mind right, Bobby boy. That's all I got to say to ya! Me and Allison'll see ya at the finish line."
I glanced up at Allison to see how close she was sitting to Rhett. Thankfully, she was next to the window with her elbow hanging out.
"You can still win, baby!" she said to me. "I know you can do it!"
I nodded, comforted by her support. Rhett squealed his tires on the loose sand and drove off, kicking up a giant dust cloud in his wake. I ran around it as best I could, but still got a mouth full to choke on.
I rounded another curve and looked in front of me. The road stretched straight for several hundred yards here and I could see Deke ahead of me close to the point where the road curved again. He appeared to be moving much more slowly now, but I wasn't exactly setting a record pace myself. In fact, it didn't appear that I was even gaining on him.
For the first time, the idea that I might not win this race occurred to me. Being an excellent runner was a part of my identity. I was good at basketball. I was good at football, but there were plenty of others who were just as good as me. But when it came to running, I was the best. If I lost today to Deke the geek in front of all of my peers, the embarrassment would stay with me for the rest of my life. I couldn't allow that to happen. I had to win, stomach full of pancakes or not. I lowered my head, watching my feet struggle in front of me, listening to my ragged breathing. The pain of the stitch in my side increased with every step. The sun beat down on my shoulders and sweat continued to pour into my eyes.
I looked ahead and saw that Deke had rounded the curve and was out of sight again. This discouraged me as nothing else had. How could I beat a man I couldn't even see? I was going to lose today. There was nothing to be done for it. Deke the geek was the better runner, maybe even the better man. I dropped my head to look down at my shoe tops again and trudged on hopelessly.
Less than a hundred yards later, I stopped, bent over and gasping. My stomach was a riot of pain in the center of my body. As soon as I was still, gnats and flies swarmed about me as if I was a piece of rotten meat. I knew there was only one hope for me, one thing that might ease my pain. I knelt down beside the road and stuck my finger down my throat until I gagged and regurgitated all of Gail's pancakes onto the side of the road. The sweet taste of maple syrup still clung in my throat when the deed was done. My head felt as if it was literally on fire. The flies immediately descended on the thick pile of puke below me. I turned my head away, not wanting the sight of the mess to make me blow chunks again.
But as I stepped again into the road, the stitch in my side was gone. The barest breeze blew like a miracle against my fevered face and I began to run again. Now that I had purged the contents of my belly, I felt reborn. My feet began to glide along the road as I found my rhythm. I pushed myself to run faster and faster until I had the feeling that my legs flowed beneath me with a will of their own. I often told myself that I was truly born to run. Now that feeling washed over me in a rush. I no longer ran to catch Deke. I ran to see how fast I could run.
That was what I told myself at least. But a darker side of me knew better. I didn't mean to run as well as I possibly could and lose. I meant to win.
The curve Deke had rounded so long before me was turned at last and once more I could make out the figure of my opponent ahead of me. I was gaining on him now. There was no doubt of it. I estimated he must still have a hundred and fifty yard lead on me, but he was straining. Seeing him struggle ignited the predator in me. I felt a dash of adrenalin rush through my body and picked up my pace even more. The heat of the sun no longer mattered to me and I imagined fatigue to be an affliction suffered by lesser mortals. I pictured the winged sandals of Hermes strapped onto my feet rather than the worn out Nikes that were actually there. My legs propelled me forward like indefatigable pistons. Deke may as well have been a wounded antelope fleeing a ravenous lion.
Then I saw to my alarm that the race was nearly over. I was thirty yards from Deke. Deke was a hundred yards from the end of the road. The crowd had migrated there. I could just make out blaring country music and loud voices anticipating a dramatic finish. Rhett stood at the finish line with his hands on his hips, looking like a gunfighter.
I pushed myself to run even faster. My legs began to turn to jelly in spite of everything, but I wouldn't let them quit. Soon, Deke was ten yards in front of me. I saw him look back and strain with every ounce of effort in his soul to increase his speed. But suddenly I was beside him. I stole a glance at his face and saw that it was colored bright crimson, contorted with a horrible, twisted grimace of determination.
Twenty yards to go and I pulled ahead of him. For a moment, he caught me again and we ran stride for stride for five gut-wrenching steps, but then his body faltered at last and I was by him. Seeing all was lost, he flailed and collapsed in a heap less than five yards from the finish line. I ran on past Rhett, who stood marking the spot with outstretched arms, and collapsed in a heap myself. It was only then that I realized the crowd had been cheering at the top of their lungs as the race had reached its climax. Now they gathered around me shouting their congratulations and thrilled by the sheer competitiveness of the event they had witnessed.
I forced myself to my feet and stood with my hands on my knees, still breathing in mighty gulps. Allison embraced me from behind and buried her head against my sweating back.
"That was so awesome baby!" she said to me, hugging me tight.
I tried to respond, but was still too winded to speak. A line had gathered behind me, all waiting to declare their congratulations. I looked behind me and saw Deke still sprawled on the dirt, a foot away from the finish line. As I watched, he forced himself to his feet and stepped across the line. Then he assumed my identical position, his elbows on his knees, gasping for air. I was relieved to win the race, but this boy had given every ounce of his effort, something not one of those who observed would have been willing to do.
I forced myself to stand upright and pushed my way through the crowd to him. When I reached him, I offered my hand.
"Great race, Deke! Nobody else here has half the guts that you do," I said.
He eyed me suspiciously for a moment and then shook my hand as firmly as he was able.
"Thanks," he said.
Then Allison was beside me with her arm around my shoulders.
"Y'all look good together," he said.
I didn't know what to say to that so we just regarded each other for an awkward moment. Then he said, "We ought to run together sometime, maybe not quite like this though. I'm pooped!"
"Yeah, Deke. We could be training partners," I answered.
"Alright, sounds good. Well, I'm gon catch a ride back to my truck and go home and rest awhile. So I'll see you aroun'."
He nodded goodbye, turned and walked into the crowd. No one appeared to congratulate him on his effort or console him for his near loss. To them, he was still Deke the geek. But I would never call him that again. I had a new-found respect for the boy.
"Deke can be a nice guy sometimes," Allison said.
"Yeah, but I think he hates to lose," I answered.
Rhett materialized beside me and put an arm around my shoulder.
"Big Bobby!" he said. "You had me worried there, ya know it? And I had to shell out fifty bucks to Rusty. But hell, that was worth fifty bucks to see. Did you know that little bastard could run like that?"
"Nope," I answered.
*********************
The following Monday, Rhett and I pulled up outside the Collins cotton field at 7 AM sharp. Deke had just gotten there himself. He was taking a good overall visual of the field before he waded in to look for worms. He watched us pull up and looked surprised to see us.
"Hell found me," he said. "Shouldn't y'all be eatin' at Gail's this time of mornin'?"
"Nah," Rhett said. "'Bout time we started takin' this job a little more seriously. Them farmers depend on us, you know it?"
"Yeah," I added. "I've had enough a' them pancakes for awhile anyway."
The three of us stood in silence for a moment, watching the sun peek over the field and seeing the morning dew drip from the cotton stalks.
"I wouldn't wanna be nowhere else right now," Rhett said suddenly.
I felt the same way and figured Deke did too. Then we stepped into the field and went to work.
The List
There wasn't enough time. That's what I used to tell myself. There wasn't enough time to do all the things I would like to do in life. It was hard enough to keep up with the things I had to do.
Because of my grandmother's last words to me, I've come to live my life by a different standard.
I came home from work one afternoon and found the red light of my answering machine blinking. I hit play thinking it would be a solicitor's message. My finger hovered above the delete button. Instead, I heard my father's voice.
"Miles," he said. His voice sounded grave and tired. "You might want to drive home tonight. Ma's in bad shape. She may not make it through the night. Call me when you get this."
The message wasn't totally unexpected. My grandmother had existed beneath the pall of Alzheimer's for the last five years. A year had passed since my last visit with her. On that day, I had stayed at her side for exactly an hour by my watch listening to her babble incoherently. She had been unable to call my name and laughed at jokes to which only she knew the punch-line. Finally, I rose from her bedside and told her the time had come for me to leave. She had seemed so engrossed in her own world; I thought she would barely acknowledge my departure. But as soon as I announced my intentions, she stood from her bed and took my hands in hers.
"Honey," she said to me, looking sternly into my eyes. "Are you reading your Bible every night?"
Amazed by her sudden lucidity, I barely had the wit to conjure a lie.
"Most nights I do," I said. As soon as the words left my mouth, my face turned red with shame.
"The Lord knows when you read his Word," she said. Then she collapsed on the bed and her eyes grew cloudy once more. "My husband was never the same after the war. Liquor is the juice of the Devil. I worked my fingers to the bone to raise your daddy," she said.
"Bye, Grandma. I'll come to see you again soon." This was also a lie and my voice quivered as it left my mouth. I left her room and walked quickly through the hall of the nursing home and out the door, relieved the duty of my visit was done and ashamed of my relief.
Now I had to perform this duty one final time.
My fingers dialed four digits of my father's number before I hung up and called my girlfriend, Sandra, instead. She answered on the first ring.
"Hey," I said. "What are you doing?"
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing. Why?"
"Something is. I can tell it in your voice."
I sighed. The girl knew me far too well. "I had a message from my father. He wants me to come home. My grandmother may not live through the night."
There was a pause on the other end. Then she said, "I'm sorry, baby. Do you want me to go with you?"
"No, I'd rather just go by myself."
"Are you sure? I can be ready to go in fifteen minutes. You could just swing by and get me. It might make the drive more bearable if you had me to talk to."
I started to say 'no' again, but realized I wanted her to be with me.
"It's not going to be a fun trip," I warned her. "Unless you just have a thing for death and funerals."
She laughed. "See you when you get here. Love you!"
Without waiting for my reply, she hung up. I found myself smiling as the dial tone rang in my ear. We had been together for nearly a year now, but I had yet to say the three magic words aloud to her. She was loyal and beautiful and deserved to hear them. So many times, they had nearly tumbled from my lips, but something had always held me back.
"I love you too," I said to no one.
Then I called my dad and told him I was coming.
It was a four hour drive from Savannah to my small hometown on the other side of the state. Sandra tried to lighten my mood with small talk and laughter, but her efforts were to no avail. I remained morose and distant and could not bring myself to even look at her. She finally gave up and held my hand, seeming content to ride in silence.
It was nearly midnight by the time we reached my grandmother's home. The nursing home had released her so that she might pass her final hours in familiar surroundings. My dad sat by her side with blood-shot eyes as she slept.
A hospice nurse attended to the IV bag mounted to her bed and checked her vital signs.
"She's stable and comfortable," she said. "I think she's going to make it through the night. All of y'all look like you need some sleep."
My father appeared so lost in thought that he barely acknowledged my presence. He decided to do as the nurse suggested and patted me on the back as he left the room without speaking.
I stayed for another moment, observing my grandmother. Her breathing sounded uneven and raspy. Her body was severely emaciated and she seemed to have grown twice as many wrinkles since I had last seen her. A cynical part of me wondered why I'd bothered to drive four hours to see her go out with such a whimper.
Sandra took my hand. "She'll wake up in the morning and talk to you. You'll see."
"I don't see how you could think that," I told her, not meaning to sound so irritable.
"From what you've told me about her, she won't leave this world without saying bye to you," Sandra insisted.
"If you say so," I said.
We left the room and left her lying there.
We slept in the same bed in which I had spent my teenage years. My mother died when I was fourteen and Grandma had raised me after that. She never spoke a harsh word to me in my entire life and did her best to spoil me. I was late to school on many days because she insisted on having me eat a hearty breakfast before leaving and would do anything for me as long as I accompanied her to church every Sunday and made the honor roll. The grades were the easy part. I was a natural student. Church was endured to make her happy. Once I went away to college, I never entered the doors of the First Baptist Church ever again. This broke her heart although she never told me so directly. I was of a skeptical nature to begin with and college was all it took to convince me to reason my religion away.
I gazed around the room that night before sleeping. My high school football jersey hung by the sleeves on the wall. A multitude of athletic and academic trophies lined my dresser and bookshelves. The room almost overflowed with books and notebooks full of my poems and half-written stories. It seemed to glow with the spirit of my childhood. I was full of dreams then. None of them included becoming a disillusioned insurance agent who couldn't commit to his girlfriend.
At 6:30 in the morning, the nurse woke me.
"Sir," she said. "I'm sorry to wake you, but your grandmother is asking for you. She seems to be aware. I've never seen her so alert."
I shook off the remnants of sleep and went to my grandmother's room. I paused in the doorway watching her argue furiously with a new nurse whose shift must have just started.
"Ma'am," the nurse said. "He's coming. A nurse has just gone to wake him. Please be patient."
"I'm here," I announced.
My voice startled the nurse and she turned to see me.
"Ok," she said, sounding relieved. "I'll leave the two of you alone for a minute."
I approached my grandmother's bedside and stood over her. She looked back at me with eyes undulled by Alzheimer's. The return of her intelligence caused her to look thirty years younger. The transformation shocked me. Wide-eyed, I regarded her almost fearfully. I tried to speak, but couldn't. This was not the same old and dying woman of the night before. This was the ghost of my grandmother as she once was: full of energy and moxie.
Her voice was calm and sure when she spoke.
"Miles, do you love your life?"
I was dumbfounded. "Do I love my life?" I repeated.
She merely waited for my reply.
"Well, love might be too strong of a word for it. But it's not too bad. I have a job and a girlfriend. I get the bills paid with enough left over to have fun with. It's not too bad."
Grandma regarded me with rebuke in her eyes. She was clearly not satisfied. "Miles, do you love your life?" she repeated more urgently than before.
"I guess you could say that," I said.
"My grandson loved his life. He had passion and energy," she said. "He had dreams. What do you have?"
I could not think of a suitable answer and decided to pretend to be ignorant of her present state.
"Grandma, I think you need to rest a bit. You're going to tire yourself out like this," I said, putting a hand on her shoulders.
She knocked my hand away with more strength than she seemed capable of possessing.
"I'm going to meet the Lord today, but before I do, I'm going to straighten you out! You're going to make me a promise right here and now!"
"What do you want me to promise, Grandma? You want me to go to church every Sunday? I can't promise you that. I'm sorry."
"No, sweetie, I want you to promise to do all of the things on your list."
"My list?" I asked, thinking her lucid state had finally ended and feeling shamefully relieved because of it. "What list?"
"The list under my pillow right now," she said. With a monumental effort, she lifted her head and I understood she meant for me to retrieve this mysterious document.
Reluctantly, I felt beneath it and pulled out a single sheet of brittle, yellowed notebook paper and examined it skeptically.
My skepticism soon turned to wonder. This words upon it had obviously been written by my own hand and yet I had no recollection of ever putting these thoughts to paper. In the right-hand corner, I had recorded the date: July 17th, 1987. I had been fifteen years old. I read it silently.
Today, I am going to write down a list of twenty things I plan to do in my life. Some of these items are things I want to accomplish. Others are ways I want to live. My determination and conviction will never waver in my pursuit to accomplish these things. So vow I, Miles Prescott, on this day, July 17th, 1987.
1) Climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
2) Write a novel. Be a writer forever.
3) Read every book I ever want to read.
4) Travel to every continent.
5) Go rafting down the Colorado River beneath the Grand Canyon
6) Explore the Amazon jungle.
7) See the great pyramids in Egypt.
8) SCUBA dive in deep ocean water.
9) Bench press 350 lbs. Never be old and flabby.
10) Learn to speak a foreign language fluently.
11) Fall in love with a beautiful woman who loves me back.
12) Learn to play a musical instrument with great skill.
13) Accept everyone I meet with an open heart and words of kindness.
14) Do everything with an honest effort and determination.
15) Help my fellow man at every opportunity.
16) Be confident but humble.
17) Think and meditate often on spiritual things.
18) Depend as little as possible on material things.
19) Take note of beauty at every opportunity.
20) Be a great and faithful father and husband.
If I do these things, I believe that I will live a full and prosperous life and also be a man of great character.
After reading the list, I looked again at my grandmother, amazed that she had kept this list for all of these years and equally amazed that I could possibly forget something written by my own hand with such conviction.
My eyes returned to the first item. Climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I thought of the photo of this mountain that hung on the wall in my office at work. I had cut it out of Outdoor magazine three months ago only because its stark beauty had struck me. But I had never seriously considered the idea of climbing it.
I looked again at my grandmother. She regarded me with wise, old eyes. I could think of nothing to say.
"Make me a promise, honey," she said with tenderness. "Promise me you'll live by that list. Can you do that?"
"I don't know, Grandma. It would be hard for me to do some of those things now. You know how things happen in life. You start out so idealistic and full of dreams and then things happen and you have to deal with reality."
"Don't make excuses, baby. Just promise me you'll do the things on that list."
"I'll try," I said.
"No, that's not good enough. Would you deny your dying grandmother who raised you a simple promise?" Her eyes blazed as she spoke. She had always been a determined and stubborn woman. She was no different now.
"Ok," I said, exasperated. "I'll do it."
"Good. I love you, Miles." She lay back in the bed and closed her eyes, leaving me holding the list.
I watched her for awhile, unable to tear myself away from her bedside. She seemed to age again right in front of me, reverting to the old and withered breathing corpse she had been the night before.
I don't know how much time passed before I realized she was no longer breathing.
"Grandma?" I asked. But she was gone. I lingered for a little longer, proud to have been there at the moment of her death and very touched by her last words. I finally left the room.
"I think it's over," I told the nurse standing outside. She rushed into the room and a moment later confirmed that she was dead.
I didn't cry until the next day and then it was not the desperate weeping of grief, but cleansing tears shed in appreciation of a woman who gave me all the love and devotion a person could ever want. She lived her life well. I could only hope to do the same.
----------
"What did your grandmother say to you?" Sandra asked as we drove home after the funeral.
"Nothing much," I answered, conscious of the folded paper in my pocket. "She did say she loved me. Those were her last words to me."
"I bet she loved you as much as I do," she said. She placed her hand on my thigh as we drove. I almost answered her, but something held me back.
I went to work the next day and did my job with the same emotionless functionality as always. On the wall in my office, the photo of Kilimanjaro chastised me for ignoring the promise to my grandmother.
There wasn't enough time, I thought. And not enough money either.
A week later, a check came in the mail. It was signed by my grandmother and written for the amount of fifty thousand dollars. A note inside the envelope stated this was her life's savings. She had willed it all to me. I put the money in the bank and went back to work.
In my office, Kilimanjaro haunted me. I could not ignore the photograph or bring myself to remove it. I knew it was not the tallest mountain in the world by a long shot. Its peak crested ten-thousand feet lower than Mount Everest. But it was the highest point on the continent of Africa and the highest stand alone mountain on the planet. Kilimanjaro did not need a range of brothers to reach into the clouds. Instead, it vaulted above the Plains of the Serengeti of its own magnificent accord. No great technical knowledge was needed to reach its summit, only a good pair of walking boots, an iron spirit and an adventurous soul. The first time I'd ever heard of the mountain was in Hemingway's short story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It was the story of a man who found Kilimanjaro to be his own personal heaven. I did not seek this in Kilimanjaro, but perhaps my motivations were similar. In my youth, I would have said that it was a place where I believed enlightenment could be found. But now, I would not allow myself such idealism. To climb this mountain would simply be a cool thing to do. Besides, I'd promised my grandmother I would. What more motivation was needed?
And yet, I took no action. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. I did my job and put my promise aside. Grandma's money languished in a savings account. The photo of Kili continued to call to the spirit of the adventure-seeking boy I had been. Perhaps, I would have existed in the same inert state forever if Sandra hadn't forced my hand.
She dumped me.
"Miles," she said to me one night nearly a year after my grandmother's death. "I love you now as much as I always have. I'm sure I will love you for the rest of my life. But the time has come for me to move on. We've been together for nearly two years and you've given me no indication that you want to truly make a life with me. I want to have all the things most girls want. I want to get married, have a family, and live a fulfilling life. I believe I could do all of that with you, but you can't seem to let it happen. I have been the picture of patience for so long and now my patience is gone and I have to leave unless you can make me believe you intend to marry me. I don't want to leave you, Miles. But you're causing me to think I don't have a choice."
Foolishly, I had not seen this coming. "Sandra," I said. "I do love you and couldn't bear to lose you. You are the most important person in my life and I would be lost without you." I tried to hug and kiss her to punctuate my words.
But she held me back.
"Miles, I'm glad to hear you say these things," she said. "But let me ask you this. Can you picture us being married? Can you picture us having children together and living the rest of our lives together?"
Her question stopped me in my tracks. I had prevented the sad truth from coming to the surface of my mind for so long. Now I had to speak it aloud.
"Sandra, baby, I'm not ready to be married yet. I have too much stuff I want to do before I can do that. I don't want to marry anyone but you, but I just don't think it's the right time yet."
"What are the things you want to do so badly, Miles? I don't see you doing anything, but going to work selling insurance every day. You obviously don't love your job, but I don't see you doing anything else. I think you're just stuck in a rut, Miles, and I'd like to find a man who isn't, to tell you the truth. I'd like to find a man who's not afraid to do the things he wants to do."
She hesitated in her speech and seemed genuinely angry at me. In our entire relationship, she had never been anything but tolerant and patient. But now she was mad. She seemed to debate saying something else and then she did.
"You know what? I've been stuck in a rut too. Every day I stay with you is another day wasted. And you know what else? I'm not going to waste another day of my life. I'm going to leave you to waste away on your own."
Then she calmly walked out the door and drove home. It was the last time I ever saw her. My heart was broken. For a month, I called her with repeated pleas to give me another chance. But when she asked for eternal commitment, I could not give it and she would not relent from this demand. At last, I was forced to give up and live my life alone.
I thought deeply about her words. 'What did I want to do so badly?' she had asked me. I thought too of my promise to my grandmother.
On a day soon after, I took the list from my bottom dresser drawer, placed it in my pocket and brought it to work. I sat at my desk that day stewing, unable to take my eyes off of the mountain on the wall. When the work day ended, I took the picture from its place and left, never to return. I began preparations to travel to Kilimanjaro.
Three months later, I landed in the Nairobi airport, and took a long and bumpy shuttle ride over the plains of Eastern Africa across the Kenyan border into Tanzania. I sat by the window and watched in wonder as gazelles and giraffes galloped and loped about, barely mindful of our presence. The sky was clear and mostly cloudless that day and it was with great surprise that I noted the sound of distant thunder. But a moment after the sound had passed, I realized that it was not thunder at all, but the roar of a lion. Wide-eyed and with a thumping heart, I searched the savanna for the noble beast, but failed to see it.
The shuttle finally came to a stop in the village of Moshi. In the distance, I saw the mountain with my own eyes for the first time. The day was hazy and it glimmered like a vision in a dream. The weather was hot and humid, but the peaks of Kilimanjaro were painted white with snow. To see it sent chills racing up and down my spine.
But even here, cynicism followed me. It was just a mountain, I told myself. Hundreds of people scaled its heights every year. By climbing this mountain, I would be doing nothing truly extraordinary. How could I expect some grand epiphany from such an undertaking? Was I so foolish to believe that climbing a mountain would grant me some transcendent insight into the meaning of life?
But then I became conscious of the list in my back pocket and cast these thoughts aside. I would climb this mountain to its highest peak and put all thoughts of 'why' aside. I planned to follow the "normal route", also called the Marangu Route, to the top of Uhuru Peak, Kilimanjaro's highest point and the highest place in all of Africa as well.
After spending a single night in a cheap and sparsely furnished inn in Moshi, I met up with a group of twenty other climbers and a team of porters, cooks, and guides. We began our ascent of Kilimanjaro. It took us six days to climb the mountain. The trail was well marked, the scenery beautiful and majestic. True to my nature, I was friendly but aloof towards my fellow climbers. I learned that many of them were climbing a mountain for the very first time as well. For the first three days, I walked comfortably in short sleeves. But after leaving Horombo Hut on the fourth morning, I found the trail had steepened and the temperature had dropped dramatically. I was forced to don my gore-tex jacket and change from jeans to a pair of insulated shell pants and long underwear. The next three days are still a blur to me. I remember little but being constantly cold and tired. The nights, spent in my tent or the dilapidated huts at each stopping point, seemed to pass in a blink of an eye.
My party departed from Kibo hut to the summit at exactly midnight of the sixth day. The temperature had now dropped close to zero and no one spoke as we slogged up the frozen path. When we reached a position near the extinct volcano's rim called Gillman's Point, the path steepened sharply. Not far past this landmark, half of my company turned back, too tired to continue. It was here that I began to feel the affects of the altitude as well. My muscles screamed for mercy and breathing became an odious task in the paper thin air near the mountain's peak. My lungs and throat burned with every exhalation and my very existence began to consist of one desire: to move my feet ever forward and upward. I walked with my head down, watching my boots as they pressed upon the frozen ground, my will pushing them forward. Every step became an act of indomitable will. I began a routine of counting ten steps and resting for a twenty count in a vain attempt to catch my breath.
I could not help but feel a stab of envy for those who were on their way down, no longer engaged in pitched battle with this mountain. But the list in my pocket and my own desire would not allow me to turn back until my goal had been reached. I had read somewhere that the final push to the top of Kili was as painful as childbirth and now believed it was probably true.
But I persevered. Five hours after leaving Kibo Hut, I reached the summit. A lonely sign announced my success. Someone shined a flashlight against it so we could read its words. I was so overcome with exhaustion that doing so seemed to require a great effort.
Congratulations, it read. You have reached Uhuru Peak, Tanzania. 5895 meters. Africa's highest point. World's tallest free-standing mountain.
Then I turned my eyes to the east and saw the sun rising with blinding brightness. I stared at this sight for a long time, waiting to fill the exhilaration and the magical, mystical feeling that such a sight should have inspired. But I felt nothing. I was exhausted to the bone and eager to descend and return to civilization.
Standing at the peak of Kilimanjaro, I was disappointed to feel a great hollowness inside of me. The scenery was amazing. There was no doubt of it. Besides my present company, I knew of no one else who had ventured upon this ground. But what difference did that make? How would standing here in this rare air upon this high peak change me in any way? Would it make me wiser? Would it make me a man of greater character? I didn't think so.
I posed for pictures with the guides and my fellow climbers wearing a false smile and even cracking jokes and making small talk. But inwardly, I despaired. Nothing had changed. No awe-inspiring moment enveloped me. No moment of transcendent insight occurred within my soul.
Impatiently, I watched the rest of my company mill about, enjoying their moment of triumph and soaking in the magnificent view.
Then I overheard the words of a porter.
"I always wait until I am here to pray," he said. "I think, being so close to God, he is more likely to hear me."
His words resonated with me as nothing else had. My heart and mind opened then and I looked down on all of Africa with fresh eyes. The plains below me seemed to roll forever. I breathed in the thin air and held it in my lungs, suddenly joyous to be standing there in that moment. Even my weariness seemed suddenly pure. It reminded me that I had attained a goal through sincere effort, discipline, and determination.
Inspired by the porter's words, I wandered away from the rest of the group and knelt on the frozen, rocky ground. I looked into the sky and prayed for the first time in many years.
"Thank you," I whispered aloud. "Thank you for this moment and this mountain and all of the things that lie below it." I prayed for more, but not with words.
At last, I stood again and observed the sun's rising with fresh eyes. In spite of the cold, its heat was a blessing against my face.
I removed the list from my pocket and read the first item.
Climb Mount Kilimanjaro, it read. With an ink pen, I prepared to draw a line through the words, signifying that the task had been completed. But then I thought better of this action. I circled the words instead. I couldn't say exactly why, but it seemed more fitting. I shielded my eyes and looked again towards the sun. Somewhere behind it, my grandmother smiled down upon me and rejoiced in my accomplishment. I looked down again at the list. There were still many things left to do.
With a sense of purpose, I began my descent.
Because of my grandmother's last words to me, I've come to live my life by a different standard.
I came home from work one afternoon and found the red light of my answering machine blinking. I hit play thinking it would be a solicitor's message. My finger hovered above the delete button. Instead, I heard my father's voice.
"Miles," he said. His voice sounded grave and tired. "You might want to drive home tonight. Ma's in bad shape. She may not make it through the night. Call me when you get this."
The message wasn't totally unexpected. My grandmother had existed beneath the pall of Alzheimer's for the last five years. A year had passed since my last visit with her. On that day, I had stayed at her side for exactly an hour by my watch listening to her babble incoherently. She had been unable to call my name and laughed at jokes to which only she knew the punch-line. Finally, I rose from her bedside and told her the time had come for me to leave. She had seemed so engrossed in her own world; I thought she would barely acknowledge my departure. But as soon as I announced my intentions, she stood from her bed and took my hands in hers.
"Honey," she said to me, looking sternly into my eyes. "Are you reading your Bible every night?"
Amazed by her sudden lucidity, I barely had the wit to conjure a lie.
"Most nights I do," I said. As soon as the words left my mouth, my face turned red with shame.
"The Lord knows when you read his Word," she said. Then she collapsed on the bed and her eyes grew cloudy once more. "My husband was never the same after the war. Liquor is the juice of the Devil. I worked my fingers to the bone to raise your daddy," she said.
"Bye, Grandma. I'll come to see you again soon." This was also a lie and my voice quivered as it left my mouth. I left her room and walked quickly through the hall of the nursing home and out the door, relieved the duty of my visit was done and ashamed of my relief.
Now I had to perform this duty one final time.
My fingers dialed four digits of my father's number before I hung up and called my girlfriend, Sandra, instead. She answered on the first ring.
"Hey," I said. "What are you doing?"
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing. Why?"
"Something is. I can tell it in your voice."
I sighed. The girl knew me far too well. "I had a message from my father. He wants me to come home. My grandmother may not live through the night."
There was a pause on the other end. Then she said, "I'm sorry, baby. Do you want me to go with you?"
"No, I'd rather just go by myself."
"Are you sure? I can be ready to go in fifteen minutes. You could just swing by and get me. It might make the drive more bearable if you had me to talk to."
I started to say 'no' again, but realized I wanted her to be with me.
"It's not going to be a fun trip," I warned her. "Unless you just have a thing for death and funerals."
She laughed. "See you when you get here. Love you!"
Without waiting for my reply, she hung up. I found myself smiling as the dial tone rang in my ear. We had been together for nearly a year now, but I had yet to say the three magic words aloud to her. She was loyal and beautiful and deserved to hear them. So many times, they had nearly tumbled from my lips, but something had always held me back.
"I love you too," I said to no one.
Then I called my dad and told him I was coming.
It was a four hour drive from Savannah to my small hometown on the other side of the state. Sandra tried to lighten my mood with small talk and laughter, but her efforts were to no avail. I remained morose and distant and could not bring myself to even look at her. She finally gave up and held my hand, seeming content to ride in silence.
It was nearly midnight by the time we reached my grandmother's home. The nursing home had released her so that she might pass her final hours in familiar surroundings. My dad sat by her side with blood-shot eyes as she slept.
A hospice nurse attended to the IV bag mounted to her bed and checked her vital signs.
"She's stable and comfortable," she said. "I think she's going to make it through the night. All of y'all look like you need some sleep."
My father appeared so lost in thought that he barely acknowledged my presence. He decided to do as the nurse suggested and patted me on the back as he left the room without speaking.
I stayed for another moment, observing my grandmother. Her breathing sounded uneven and raspy. Her body was severely emaciated and she seemed to have grown twice as many wrinkles since I had last seen her. A cynical part of me wondered why I'd bothered to drive four hours to see her go out with such a whimper.
Sandra took my hand. "She'll wake up in the morning and talk to you. You'll see."
"I don't see how you could think that," I told her, not meaning to sound so irritable.
"From what you've told me about her, she won't leave this world without saying bye to you," Sandra insisted.
"If you say so," I said.
We left the room and left her lying there.
We slept in the same bed in which I had spent my teenage years. My mother died when I was fourteen and Grandma had raised me after that. She never spoke a harsh word to me in my entire life and did her best to spoil me. I was late to school on many days because she insisted on having me eat a hearty breakfast before leaving and would do anything for me as long as I accompanied her to church every Sunday and made the honor roll. The grades were the easy part. I was a natural student. Church was endured to make her happy. Once I went away to college, I never entered the doors of the First Baptist Church ever again. This broke her heart although she never told me so directly. I was of a skeptical nature to begin with and college was all it took to convince me to reason my religion away.
I gazed around the room that night before sleeping. My high school football jersey hung by the sleeves on the wall. A multitude of athletic and academic trophies lined my dresser and bookshelves. The room almost overflowed with books and notebooks full of my poems and half-written stories. It seemed to glow with the spirit of my childhood. I was full of dreams then. None of them included becoming a disillusioned insurance agent who couldn't commit to his girlfriend.
At 6:30 in the morning, the nurse woke me.
"Sir," she said. "I'm sorry to wake you, but your grandmother is asking for you. She seems to be aware. I've never seen her so alert."
I shook off the remnants of sleep and went to my grandmother's room. I paused in the doorway watching her argue furiously with a new nurse whose shift must have just started.
"Ma'am," the nurse said. "He's coming. A nurse has just gone to wake him. Please be patient."
"I'm here," I announced.
My voice startled the nurse and she turned to see me.
"Ok," she said, sounding relieved. "I'll leave the two of you alone for a minute."
I approached my grandmother's bedside and stood over her. She looked back at me with eyes undulled by Alzheimer's. The return of her intelligence caused her to look thirty years younger. The transformation shocked me. Wide-eyed, I regarded her almost fearfully. I tried to speak, but couldn't. This was not the same old and dying woman of the night before. This was the ghost of my grandmother as she once was: full of energy and moxie.
Her voice was calm and sure when she spoke.
"Miles, do you love your life?"
I was dumbfounded. "Do I love my life?" I repeated.
She merely waited for my reply.
"Well, love might be too strong of a word for it. But it's not too bad. I have a job and a girlfriend. I get the bills paid with enough left over to have fun with. It's not too bad."
Grandma regarded me with rebuke in her eyes. She was clearly not satisfied. "Miles, do you love your life?" she repeated more urgently than before.
"I guess you could say that," I said.
"My grandson loved his life. He had passion and energy," she said. "He had dreams. What do you have?"
I could not think of a suitable answer and decided to pretend to be ignorant of her present state.
"Grandma, I think you need to rest a bit. You're going to tire yourself out like this," I said, putting a hand on her shoulders.
She knocked my hand away with more strength than she seemed capable of possessing.
"I'm going to meet the Lord today, but before I do, I'm going to straighten you out! You're going to make me a promise right here and now!"
"What do you want me to promise, Grandma? You want me to go to church every Sunday? I can't promise you that. I'm sorry."
"No, sweetie, I want you to promise to do all of the things on your list."
"My list?" I asked, thinking her lucid state had finally ended and feeling shamefully relieved because of it. "What list?"
"The list under my pillow right now," she said. With a monumental effort, she lifted her head and I understood she meant for me to retrieve this mysterious document.
Reluctantly, I felt beneath it and pulled out a single sheet of brittle, yellowed notebook paper and examined it skeptically.
My skepticism soon turned to wonder. This words upon it had obviously been written by my own hand and yet I had no recollection of ever putting these thoughts to paper. In the right-hand corner, I had recorded the date: July 17th, 1987. I had been fifteen years old. I read it silently.
Today, I am going to write down a list of twenty things I plan to do in my life. Some of these items are things I want to accomplish. Others are ways I want to live. My determination and conviction will never waver in my pursuit to accomplish these things. So vow I, Miles Prescott, on this day, July 17th, 1987.
1) Climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
2) Write a novel. Be a writer forever.
3) Read every book I ever want to read.
4) Travel to every continent.
5) Go rafting down the Colorado River beneath the Grand Canyon
6) Explore the Amazon jungle.
7) See the great pyramids in Egypt.
8) SCUBA dive in deep ocean water.
9) Bench press 350 lbs. Never be old and flabby.
10) Learn to speak a foreign language fluently.
11) Fall in love with a beautiful woman who loves me back.
12) Learn to play a musical instrument with great skill.
13) Accept everyone I meet with an open heart and words of kindness.
14) Do everything with an honest effort and determination.
15) Help my fellow man at every opportunity.
16) Be confident but humble.
17) Think and meditate often on spiritual things.
18) Depend as little as possible on material things.
19) Take note of beauty at every opportunity.
20) Be a great and faithful father and husband.
If I do these things, I believe that I will live a full and prosperous life and also be a man of great character.
After reading the list, I looked again at my grandmother, amazed that she had kept this list for all of these years and equally amazed that I could possibly forget something written by my own hand with such conviction.
My eyes returned to the first item. Climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I thought of the photo of this mountain that hung on the wall in my office at work. I had cut it out of Outdoor magazine three months ago only because its stark beauty had struck me. But I had never seriously considered the idea of climbing it.
I looked again at my grandmother. She regarded me with wise, old eyes. I could think of nothing to say.
"Make me a promise, honey," she said with tenderness. "Promise me you'll live by that list. Can you do that?"
"I don't know, Grandma. It would be hard for me to do some of those things now. You know how things happen in life. You start out so idealistic and full of dreams and then things happen and you have to deal with reality."
"Don't make excuses, baby. Just promise me you'll do the things on that list."
"I'll try," I said.
"No, that's not good enough. Would you deny your dying grandmother who raised you a simple promise?" Her eyes blazed as she spoke. She had always been a determined and stubborn woman. She was no different now.
"Ok," I said, exasperated. "I'll do it."
"Good. I love you, Miles." She lay back in the bed and closed her eyes, leaving me holding the list.
I watched her for awhile, unable to tear myself away from her bedside. She seemed to age again right in front of me, reverting to the old and withered breathing corpse she had been the night before.
I don't know how much time passed before I realized she was no longer breathing.
"Grandma?" I asked. But she was gone. I lingered for a little longer, proud to have been there at the moment of her death and very touched by her last words. I finally left the room.
"I think it's over," I told the nurse standing outside. She rushed into the room and a moment later confirmed that she was dead.
I didn't cry until the next day and then it was not the desperate weeping of grief, but cleansing tears shed in appreciation of a woman who gave me all the love and devotion a person could ever want. She lived her life well. I could only hope to do the same.
----------
"What did your grandmother say to you?" Sandra asked as we drove home after the funeral.
"Nothing much," I answered, conscious of the folded paper in my pocket. "She did say she loved me. Those were her last words to me."
"I bet she loved you as much as I do," she said. She placed her hand on my thigh as we drove. I almost answered her, but something held me back.
I went to work the next day and did my job with the same emotionless functionality as always. On the wall in my office, the photo of Kilimanjaro chastised me for ignoring the promise to my grandmother.
There wasn't enough time, I thought. And not enough money either.
A week later, a check came in the mail. It was signed by my grandmother and written for the amount of fifty thousand dollars. A note inside the envelope stated this was her life's savings. She had willed it all to me. I put the money in the bank and went back to work.
In my office, Kilimanjaro haunted me. I could not ignore the photograph or bring myself to remove it. I knew it was not the tallest mountain in the world by a long shot. Its peak crested ten-thousand feet lower than Mount Everest. But it was the highest point on the continent of Africa and the highest stand alone mountain on the planet. Kilimanjaro did not need a range of brothers to reach into the clouds. Instead, it vaulted above the Plains of the Serengeti of its own magnificent accord. No great technical knowledge was needed to reach its summit, only a good pair of walking boots, an iron spirit and an adventurous soul. The first time I'd ever heard of the mountain was in Hemingway's short story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It was the story of a man who found Kilimanjaro to be his own personal heaven. I did not seek this in Kilimanjaro, but perhaps my motivations were similar. In my youth, I would have said that it was a place where I believed enlightenment could be found. But now, I would not allow myself such idealism. To climb this mountain would simply be a cool thing to do. Besides, I'd promised my grandmother I would. What more motivation was needed?
And yet, I took no action. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. I did my job and put my promise aside. Grandma's money languished in a savings account. The photo of Kili continued to call to the spirit of the adventure-seeking boy I had been. Perhaps, I would have existed in the same inert state forever if Sandra hadn't forced my hand.
She dumped me.
"Miles," she said to me one night nearly a year after my grandmother's death. "I love you now as much as I always have. I'm sure I will love you for the rest of my life. But the time has come for me to move on. We've been together for nearly two years and you've given me no indication that you want to truly make a life with me. I want to have all the things most girls want. I want to get married, have a family, and live a fulfilling life. I believe I could do all of that with you, but you can't seem to let it happen. I have been the picture of patience for so long and now my patience is gone and I have to leave unless you can make me believe you intend to marry me. I don't want to leave you, Miles. But you're causing me to think I don't have a choice."
Foolishly, I had not seen this coming. "Sandra," I said. "I do love you and couldn't bear to lose you. You are the most important person in my life and I would be lost without you." I tried to hug and kiss her to punctuate my words.
But she held me back.
"Miles, I'm glad to hear you say these things," she said. "But let me ask you this. Can you picture us being married? Can you picture us having children together and living the rest of our lives together?"
Her question stopped me in my tracks. I had prevented the sad truth from coming to the surface of my mind for so long. Now I had to speak it aloud.
"Sandra, baby, I'm not ready to be married yet. I have too much stuff I want to do before I can do that. I don't want to marry anyone but you, but I just don't think it's the right time yet."
"What are the things you want to do so badly, Miles? I don't see you doing anything, but going to work selling insurance every day. You obviously don't love your job, but I don't see you doing anything else. I think you're just stuck in a rut, Miles, and I'd like to find a man who isn't, to tell you the truth. I'd like to find a man who's not afraid to do the things he wants to do."
She hesitated in her speech and seemed genuinely angry at me. In our entire relationship, she had never been anything but tolerant and patient. But now she was mad. She seemed to debate saying something else and then she did.
"You know what? I've been stuck in a rut too. Every day I stay with you is another day wasted. And you know what else? I'm not going to waste another day of my life. I'm going to leave you to waste away on your own."
Then she calmly walked out the door and drove home. It was the last time I ever saw her. My heart was broken. For a month, I called her with repeated pleas to give me another chance. But when she asked for eternal commitment, I could not give it and she would not relent from this demand. At last, I was forced to give up and live my life alone.
I thought deeply about her words. 'What did I want to do so badly?' she had asked me. I thought too of my promise to my grandmother.
On a day soon after, I took the list from my bottom dresser drawer, placed it in my pocket and brought it to work. I sat at my desk that day stewing, unable to take my eyes off of the mountain on the wall. When the work day ended, I took the picture from its place and left, never to return. I began preparations to travel to Kilimanjaro.
Three months later, I landed in the Nairobi airport, and took a long and bumpy shuttle ride over the plains of Eastern Africa across the Kenyan border into Tanzania. I sat by the window and watched in wonder as gazelles and giraffes galloped and loped about, barely mindful of our presence. The sky was clear and mostly cloudless that day and it was with great surprise that I noted the sound of distant thunder. But a moment after the sound had passed, I realized that it was not thunder at all, but the roar of a lion. Wide-eyed and with a thumping heart, I searched the savanna for the noble beast, but failed to see it.
The shuttle finally came to a stop in the village of Moshi. In the distance, I saw the mountain with my own eyes for the first time. The day was hazy and it glimmered like a vision in a dream. The weather was hot and humid, but the peaks of Kilimanjaro were painted white with snow. To see it sent chills racing up and down my spine.
But even here, cynicism followed me. It was just a mountain, I told myself. Hundreds of people scaled its heights every year. By climbing this mountain, I would be doing nothing truly extraordinary. How could I expect some grand epiphany from such an undertaking? Was I so foolish to believe that climbing a mountain would grant me some transcendent insight into the meaning of life?
But then I became conscious of the list in my back pocket and cast these thoughts aside. I would climb this mountain to its highest peak and put all thoughts of 'why' aside. I planned to follow the "normal route", also called the Marangu Route, to the top of Uhuru Peak, Kilimanjaro's highest point and the highest place in all of Africa as well.
After spending a single night in a cheap and sparsely furnished inn in Moshi, I met up with a group of twenty other climbers and a team of porters, cooks, and guides. We began our ascent of Kilimanjaro. It took us six days to climb the mountain. The trail was well marked, the scenery beautiful and majestic. True to my nature, I was friendly but aloof towards my fellow climbers. I learned that many of them were climbing a mountain for the very first time as well. For the first three days, I walked comfortably in short sleeves. But after leaving Horombo Hut on the fourth morning, I found the trail had steepened and the temperature had dropped dramatically. I was forced to don my gore-tex jacket and change from jeans to a pair of insulated shell pants and long underwear. The next three days are still a blur to me. I remember little but being constantly cold and tired. The nights, spent in my tent or the dilapidated huts at each stopping point, seemed to pass in a blink of an eye.
My party departed from Kibo hut to the summit at exactly midnight of the sixth day. The temperature had now dropped close to zero and no one spoke as we slogged up the frozen path. When we reached a position near the extinct volcano's rim called Gillman's Point, the path steepened sharply. Not far past this landmark, half of my company turned back, too tired to continue. It was here that I began to feel the affects of the altitude as well. My muscles screamed for mercy and breathing became an odious task in the paper thin air near the mountain's peak. My lungs and throat burned with every exhalation and my very existence began to consist of one desire: to move my feet ever forward and upward. I walked with my head down, watching my boots as they pressed upon the frozen ground, my will pushing them forward. Every step became an act of indomitable will. I began a routine of counting ten steps and resting for a twenty count in a vain attempt to catch my breath.
I could not help but feel a stab of envy for those who were on their way down, no longer engaged in pitched battle with this mountain. But the list in my pocket and my own desire would not allow me to turn back until my goal had been reached. I had read somewhere that the final push to the top of Kili was as painful as childbirth and now believed it was probably true.
But I persevered. Five hours after leaving Kibo Hut, I reached the summit. A lonely sign announced my success. Someone shined a flashlight against it so we could read its words. I was so overcome with exhaustion that doing so seemed to require a great effort.
Congratulations, it read. You have reached Uhuru Peak, Tanzania. 5895 meters. Africa's highest point. World's tallest free-standing mountain.
Then I turned my eyes to the east and saw the sun rising with blinding brightness. I stared at this sight for a long time, waiting to fill the exhilaration and the magical, mystical feeling that such a sight should have inspired. But I felt nothing. I was exhausted to the bone and eager to descend and return to civilization.
Standing at the peak of Kilimanjaro, I was disappointed to feel a great hollowness inside of me. The scenery was amazing. There was no doubt of it. Besides my present company, I knew of no one else who had ventured upon this ground. But what difference did that make? How would standing here in this rare air upon this high peak change me in any way? Would it make me wiser? Would it make me a man of greater character? I didn't think so.
I posed for pictures with the guides and my fellow climbers wearing a false smile and even cracking jokes and making small talk. But inwardly, I despaired. Nothing had changed. No awe-inspiring moment enveloped me. No moment of transcendent insight occurred within my soul.
Impatiently, I watched the rest of my company mill about, enjoying their moment of triumph and soaking in the magnificent view.
Then I overheard the words of a porter.
"I always wait until I am here to pray," he said. "I think, being so close to God, he is more likely to hear me."
His words resonated with me as nothing else had. My heart and mind opened then and I looked down on all of Africa with fresh eyes. The plains below me seemed to roll forever. I breathed in the thin air and held it in my lungs, suddenly joyous to be standing there in that moment. Even my weariness seemed suddenly pure. It reminded me that I had attained a goal through sincere effort, discipline, and determination.
Inspired by the porter's words, I wandered away from the rest of the group and knelt on the frozen, rocky ground. I looked into the sky and prayed for the first time in many years.
"Thank you," I whispered aloud. "Thank you for this moment and this mountain and all of the things that lie below it." I prayed for more, but not with words.
At last, I stood again and observed the sun's rising with fresh eyes. In spite of the cold, its heat was a blessing against my face.
I removed the list from my pocket and read the first item.
Climb Mount Kilimanjaro, it read. With an ink pen, I prepared to draw a line through the words, signifying that the task had been completed. But then I thought better of this action. I circled the words instead. I couldn't say exactly why, but it seemed more fitting. I shielded my eyes and looked again towards the sun. Somewhere behind it, my grandmother smiled down upon me and rejoiced in my accomplishment. I looked down again at the list. There were still many things left to do.
With a sense of purpose, I began my descent.
Brother's Keeper
On the day I left St. Ignatius asylum after twenty-seven years, my eyes were filled with tears. I trudged down the narrow hallway towards the exit for the final time, focusing on the sunlight streaming down the stairs in front of me as my heart pounded and a smile came to my face. I was tempted to run to those stairs and to the freedom beyond, but instead walked slowly, choosing to savor the moment. I had dreamed of this day on so many nights, but to be living it now was better than any dream. I listened to the echo of my steps against the worn tile floor, and relished the feel of a faint breeze against my skin. For the first time in a very long time, hope bloomed within me.
When my foot reached the first step, I found it suddenly difficult to push my way up to the light beyond. I had wanted this for so long but now that it was here, doubt paralyzed me. What if freedom was not all I thought it would be? What if the world was only an asylum without walls?
But then my brother's voice chased these thoughts away.
"Jonah!" he said. "What are you waiting for? Come see me, little brother! I'm here to take you home!"
I heard the love in his voice and felt ashamed. Today, I decided, I would bear no grudge against him. Today, all his past sins would be forgotten. We would simply be brothers, happy to be reunited.
"Sam, I didn't notice you there." Now my feet were light upon the steps and I bounded up to greet him. I nearly hugged him on impulse, but at the last moment, caught myself and extended a hand instead. But he shook the offered hand for only the briefest moment, and then embraced me without embarrassment. The hug freed the tears from my eyes and when he released me, I saw that he too was crying.
"Let's go home," Sam said, blinking his tears away.
I climbed in the passenger side of my brother's Lexus and rode far beyond the city limits toward his large plantation style house in the country. We rode in silence for the first half of the two-hour trip, feeling mutually awkward in one another's company. There seemed to be so much we needed to say to one another, yet neither of us knew how to begin. Finally, I was compelled to attempt small talk to ease the tension.
"How's your practice going?" I asked.
As soon as the question was out of my mouth, it occurred to me that perhaps my brother had not wanted to think of his profession today.
"It's going well enough,” he answered. “You know I haven't taken a day off like this in five years?"
"Well I guess it's a big day for both of us. I haven't been outside those walls since I was thirteen years old."
I grimaced at the sound of my voice, knowing I’d said the wrong thing once again. Sam answered with pursed lips.
"You know I tried to get you out sooner. I tried to get you released right after your operation, but there were those who were determined that you serve your full sentence. I have a lot of pull in certain circles, but there was only so much I could do."
"Brother, I wasn't complaining. I know you did all you could, and I appreciate your efforts."
"Twenty-seven years is a long time, Jonah,” Sam said. “A damned long time."
I thought he was going to say something else, but he chose not to. The rest of the ride passed in silence except for Sam pointing out various long-standing landmarks along the way. He was anxious to see what I remembered and impressed to discover that almost nothing had escaped my memory.
His house was far removed from the city. It was a home befitting the wealth of its owner and its location suited his preference for isolation as well. My brother, Dr. Samuel Mason, was a brilliant man who enjoyed all the luxuries money could by, but treasured solitude above his riches. He had never married and seemed satisfied not to be. He was a man wedded to his work.
As we rode down the long driveway to his home, which could have been rightly called a mansion, I felt his eyes on me. I realized he wanted me to be awed by his wealth and fame, but for some reason, I was hesitant to grant him this satisfaction.
I'd seen the segment about him on the network evening news program seven years ago. My brilliant brother had discovered how to restore the intelligence of those afflicted with Down's syndrome through surgery. It was a revolutionary breakthrough that had earned him a Nobel Prize and worldwide fame. In every interview, he stated that his own brother was the inspiration for his research and he intended for me to be one of the first recipients of the surgery as well.
A surgeon personally trained by my brother gave me the gift of intelligence on April eleventh, two thousand nine. I woke the following day with the feeling that I had lived my whole life underwater, but had at last poked my head above the surface. It was the difference between being inside of a dark closet barely large enough to stand in, and lying on a grassy plain on a clear day with nothing but space around me in every direction. My entire life I had existed in a haze, but now the fog had lifted at last.
For six months, my newfound capacities terrified me. Nightmares besieged me, and on many days I thought I would truly lose my sanity, and fit in more readily with the denizens of the asylum that was my home. But in the end, I adjusted and prospered. More than that, I remembered everything that occurred before. I recalled all that my formerly handicapped brain had once hidden from me.
Sam showed me to my room. Taped to the wall was a banner that read, 'Welcome Back, Jonah!' I was touched and felt tears threaten once more. I might have kept them at bay if I had not spied my childhood stuffed monkey resting on my pillow.
"My God, Sam, you kept Georgie! I can't believe it! " I said, reaching for the monkey and holding it against my chest.
"It was the least I could do," he answered. "Brother, after all you've been through, it was the least I could do."
We passed the rest of that day in pleasant conversation, setting aside the past and becoming the brothers we had never truly been. My first day home from the asylum was easily the best of my life.
The days went by, and my busy brother was often gone. He worked long hours and traveled to distant places for countless speaking engagements. We developed a marriage of sorts. I kept up the house while he was gone, and even cooked for both of us on the rare nights he was home. It was mostly a pleasant time for me, especially in comparison to my former existence at the asylum. I often took long walks about the countryside, and fantasized about making a life of my own someday, maybe even having a wife and family and a career of my own.
Nights alone were difficult. It was then that I had too much time with my thoughts. One night as I sat in my brother’s favorite velvet chair, I spied a familiar object by the hearth: a fire poker. On impulse, I picked it up and after only a few moments, found what I was looking for: a faint crimson stain on one side of its business end. I studied it, mesmerized by its existence, running my fingers across it and letting my mind drift to the night it came to be.
I remembered the sound of rain pelting against the roof of our home with the force of a herd of galloping horses. Thunder boomed and jagged flashes of lightning flashed across the sky. The electricity had been out for over an hour, and our family had sat at the dinner table eating sandwiches by candlelight.
The tension among us matched the weather. The cause was Sam's report card. He'd failed to make an ‘A’ in a single subject. To my father, this was tantamount to failing. Sam had never before brought such a poor grade home to our father before. He sat across from me, his head hung in shame, awaiting the worst. The man had not meted out a punishment yet, nor even raised his voice, but even someone as stupid as I could see the fury in him. His lips were pursed and his eyes were blazing. He slammed his tea glass on the table after every swallow, still holding the offending report card in his fist as if it was as hateful as a cancerous tumor. I watched my father as fearfully as Sam, knowing in the dim way I knew things that the harsher the punishment my father handed out to Sam, the worse my brother would, in turn, punish me.
I knew he hated me. There was no way I could understand the reasons why in those days although they became quite clear to me later.
Sam was an only child until my parents adopted me at the age of three. I did not remember life before coming to the Masons, and had no desire to do so. My parents showered me with unconditional love and affection in spite of my disability. I could do no wrong in their eyes. On the night the fire poker became forever stained, I was thirteen years old and could barely write my name. But Mom and Dad acted as if my every move was a thing to be adored and fawned over.
I remember painstakingly drawing a picture for my mother that depicted my family standing outside of the church after the morning service. My mother, father and I were depicted with bright smiles. The three of us were circled with hearts. In my picture, even the sun and the church smiled as they beamed down upon us. Removed from the family, in my drawing, stood Sam. No smile lit his face for I'd never seen him wear one in life. I had drawn a straight line for his mouth as he looked away from the rest of us, staring into nowhere. Above the drawing, I had done my best to write: 'I love Mommy and Daddy.'
When the picture was completed, I rushed to show it to my mother. She made such a fuss over it that one would have thought it as brilliantly created as any work of art by a master. She did not seem to notice that I excluded her older son from the family circle and did not include him among those I loved.
But Sam noticed.
An hour later, I still clutched my masterpiece and shone with the glow of my mother's praise. I wandered into the room I shared with my brother, but did not see him enter behind me, and close the door.
He spun me around to face him, his face twisted with rage. He jerked the picture from my hands, and shoved me to the floor. I tried to scream, but he slammed his hand so tight over my mouth that nothing emerged but a muted bleat.
"You little retard! I'm sick of you!" he said. His eyes burned with hatred. "Let me show you what I think of your stupid picture." He wadded it up into a crumpled ball and forced it in my mouth.
"Now eat it, or I'll kill you right here and now. I'll get away with it too. You know why? Because things happen to retards! You know that? Retards like you have accidents all the time just because they're about too stupid to live. You whisper a word of this to Mom or Dad and I will kill you and that's a promise. You got that through your thick, retard skull?"
I was too terrified to answer, but managed to chew and swallow my picture without choking. I couldn’t help peeing my pants. As soon as he felt the wetness, he released me, and kicked me in the groin.
"Retard!" he said. "Now I’ve got to change my clothes because of your idiocy! Remember, dimwit. You tell Mom or Dad about this and I'll kill you. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise."
I didn't tell.
From that day forward, my brother found every opportunity to torture me when my parents weren't looking. He'd pinch me hard enough to make me bleed, thump me in the testicles, stomp on my bare feet, give me Indian burns, and constantly remind me of what a retard I was. The government shouldn't allow idiots like me to live, he said. We were just a drain on society's resources. I believed him and never whispered a word about his abuse to my parents.
Then came the night of the storm and the fire-poker. Until that night, Sam had revealed his dark side only to me.
My father was given to anger, especially in matters concerning my brother. Sam was expected to be perfect and to excel in every aspect of life. To my brother's credit, he did his best. He was a top student and a standout athlete. People said he was destined for greatness and of course they were right. But in his own mind, he was never good enough for my father.
My mother, in contrast, was the picture of pacifism. She feared my father. She may have thought his expectations of my brother unreasonable, but would have never dreamed of speaking a word in opposition to him. When she saw his anger coming, she simply climbed within herself and waited for the storm to pass. She had already found her inner sanctum that night as we all waited for him to explode.
"Explain this grade to me!" he said at last, shaking the report card at my brother. "Explain what's so damn hard about English for Christ’s sake!"
My brother said nothing at first. He only sat with his head down, studying the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he'd taken a single bite from.
His silence only served to accelerate my father's rage. His face went red and the blood vessels in his neck appeared on the edge of exploding. He spoke in a low, terrifying growl that made me want to whimper aloud in fear.
"You better answer me when I talk to you boy! Or goddamn it, I'm liable to do something we'll both regret. The good book says, 'spare the rod and spoil the child' and I'll be damned if there's going to be any spoiled children in this house. You get an attitude with me, son, and you're only making your whipping worse. Now tell me why you can't make an 'A' in a class teaching you a language you've been speaking your whole insufferable life."
Sam raised his head and looked into my father's eyes. He might have been frightened before, but now he swallowed his fear. Rage had conquered it. This time, he had no intentions of backing down in the face of my father’s wrath.
"You want to know what 'spoiled' is, Dad? Why don't you take a good look at this little moron across the table? You fly into a rage because I make a 'B' and you and Mom about fall over yourselves any time this little idiot strings two sentences together. I'm sick of it, Dad! You want something to scream at me about, old man? I'll give you something to scream about."
I watched, astonished, as Sam went to my father and jerked the report card from his grasp. Then he ripped it into shreds, letting the pieces drift to the floor at his feet. My father gaped, too shocked to react. He had not dreamed his son could be capable of such unbridled defiance.
"You know what, Father?" Samuel continued, spitting the title. "I think I'm going to give you something to really get angry about. God damn you father. God damn you to hell. With the last curse, he turned his back on the man and stalked towards his bedroom.
My father finally found his voice.
"Boy," he said quietly. "If you know what's good for you, you'd better come back here and face what's coming like a man."
"Ha!" Sam said, without turning around. "If I know what's good for me...," he mocked. "Here’s a new plan, Dad. From now on, I’m going to do just what I please, and you’re going to leave me the hell alone. How about that?”
In response, my father growled a primal grunt and leaped from his chair with a quickness I had not dreamed he possessed. He tackled Sam from behind, and the two of them crashed to the floor. Father thrashed him with all his strength and fury, but somehow, Sam managed to slither out from under him and deliver a blow of his own to my father's head. The two of them fought on the living room floor like wildcats, neither seeming to get the best of the other. Their struggle moved ever closer to the fireplace. Suddenly, Sam twisted again and there was the sickening sound of a cranium striking the brick corner of the hearth. Then the fighting ceased and my father's blood flowed like a crimson river in the dim candlelight.
Samuel rose over him, his eyes wide with fear or anger. I couldn't tell which. I realized then that I had been screaming at the top of my lungs since the incident began and was unable to stop myself even now. Without feeling in control of my body, I stood and went to my father.
"No," I wailed. "Daddy, No!" I fell onto his body and wrapped myself around him. In only a moment, his blood soaked me.
"You hurt him. How could you hurt him?" I wailed to my brother.
"Shut up, retard!" he answered. "I've had about enough of you too!" I looked up and saw his fury was not yet quenched. He stood above me, poised to strike me with the fire poker, murder in his eyes. He swung with all of his strength and I cringed in expectation of the blow. But before it fell, I was shoved aside and the poker struck my mother instead.
He dropped his weapon when he saw what he had done, and fell to his knees in front of her, cradling her broken head, but being careful not to allow her blood to stain his shirt.
"I'm sorry, Mother. I didn't mean..." he sobbed. But she couldn't answer him, for the dead can't speak.
He examined my father, also being careful to avoid the blood that still ran freely from his wound. Sam determined that he too, no longer drew breath.
Then he stared at me as I gazed back at him, paralyzed with terror, expecting that he would soon murder me as well. Somehow I found my voice.
"You're a monster," I said.
"Me? You're the one covered in your parents’ blood," he answered.
I was horrified to see that he was right.
Sam called the police and blamed the double homicide on his mentally retarded brother, and for twenty-seven years, I was locked away.
As the years passed, Sam did his best to redeem himself. He never said another cruel word to me, and wrote me many letters of kindness during my time at St. Ignatius. As time passed, it seemed he came to believe his own lie, that it was I who murdered our parents in a mindless rage retardates such as me were prone to. But somewhere within him, I did not doubt that he knew the truth.
While I wasted away at St. Ignatius, my brother used my father’s lucrative life insurance policy to send himself to medical school, and to eventually become a nationally renowned surgeon and researcher. He became obsessed with finding the cure to Down's Syndrome, to solving the mystery that extra chromosome presented. He must have believed, on an unconscious level, that by curing me, he could absolve himself of his sins of that night.
But some sins cannot be forgiven.
I felt ashamed to have such memories of my brother as I lounged so comfortably in his home that night. He was certainly a far different and better person now, far removed from the cruel boy I had known him to be in my youth. I enjoyed his company as well as my freedom. I realized my future lay before me like an ocean of possibility. I was free to pursue any life I wished, and yet I could not move on until I had settled the matter of my parents’ death to my satisfaction.
My brother came back from his business trip two days later. In anticipation, I had prepared a special meal for both of us.
"Jonah," he said, as he stepped through the door. "Something smells delicious."
"It’s almost ready, brother. Let me pour you some wine."
"I appreciate this," he said while we ate. "But you should know it's not expected of you."
"Oh, I like to cook," I replied. "It's just my way of thanking you for the hospitality you have shown me since the day I came to live with you."
"Well, thank you," he said. "You know what, Jonah? I know we had our differences growing up, but I'm so glad we've put the past behind us."
I nodded, but didn’t answer.
After supper we sat in comfortable seats in front of the fireplace, sipping our wine. He smoked a pipe as soft jazz played on his stereo. I could see his eyelids growing heavy, and knew he was on the verge of dozing off to sleep.
”Sam,” I said, loudly enough to rouse him. "I recognize that poker by the fireplace. It's a peculiar item for you to want to keep."
”Oh, I keep it for sentimental reasons,” he answered. “It used to be in our parents’ house.”
"Yes, I remember it. Have you ever noticed the stain on its point?"
"No, I can't say that I have.” His indifferent tone infuriated me, and I was glad to have righteous anger to fuel me.
"One could say it's the stain of your sins," I said. "You should give it a closer inspection."
"Brother, what are you talking about?" He picked up his wine glass, and took a swallow.”
I crossed the room, and retrieved the poker. It was only when I cocked it back to swing, that comprehension dawned upon his brilliant face. I struck his skull three times with the weapon: one blow for my mother, my father, and myself. The blood that ran from his brain was almost the same color as the wine in his glass.
When the deed was done, I took his body to the cemetery in my brother’s vehicle, and buried him beside my parents. It was a sad chore, but I owed it to him to give him an honorable burial. I did love him in spite of his past misdeeds after all. I left the car where it was, judging that he would have no further need of it, and lacking the skill to drive it well myself. I hiked all day through the countryside, and deep into the forest. I had a world to see. Too long, I had been locked away, first in my own mind, and later behind cold walls. Perhaps the authorities would catch up to me eventually and bring me to justice. If they did, I would not resist. I would only say that I had done my duty as they were doing theirs.
Sometime past nightfall, I left the woods, and found myself in an open valley. Above me, the stars twinkled, and a full moon shown down upon me. I lay on the grass and smiled at the beauty of the sky. As I drifted off to sleep, I was thankful for the life my brother had granted me with his brilliance, and relieved my debt with him had been paid. At that moment, my future seemed as bright as the stars that shined above me.
When my foot reached the first step, I found it suddenly difficult to push my way up to the light beyond. I had wanted this for so long but now that it was here, doubt paralyzed me. What if freedom was not all I thought it would be? What if the world was only an asylum without walls?
But then my brother's voice chased these thoughts away.
"Jonah!" he said. "What are you waiting for? Come see me, little brother! I'm here to take you home!"
I heard the love in his voice and felt ashamed. Today, I decided, I would bear no grudge against him. Today, all his past sins would be forgotten. We would simply be brothers, happy to be reunited.
"Sam, I didn't notice you there." Now my feet were light upon the steps and I bounded up to greet him. I nearly hugged him on impulse, but at the last moment, caught myself and extended a hand instead. But he shook the offered hand for only the briefest moment, and then embraced me without embarrassment. The hug freed the tears from my eyes and when he released me, I saw that he too was crying.
"Let's go home," Sam said, blinking his tears away.
I climbed in the passenger side of my brother's Lexus and rode far beyond the city limits toward his large plantation style house in the country. We rode in silence for the first half of the two-hour trip, feeling mutually awkward in one another's company. There seemed to be so much we needed to say to one another, yet neither of us knew how to begin. Finally, I was compelled to attempt small talk to ease the tension.
"How's your practice going?" I asked.
As soon as the question was out of my mouth, it occurred to me that perhaps my brother had not wanted to think of his profession today.
"It's going well enough,” he answered. “You know I haven't taken a day off like this in five years?"
"Well I guess it's a big day for both of us. I haven't been outside those walls since I was thirteen years old."
I grimaced at the sound of my voice, knowing I’d said the wrong thing once again. Sam answered with pursed lips.
"You know I tried to get you out sooner. I tried to get you released right after your operation, but there were those who were determined that you serve your full sentence. I have a lot of pull in certain circles, but there was only so much I could do."
"Brother, I wasn't complaining. I know you did all you could, and I appreciate your efforts."
"Twenty-seven years is a long time, Jonah,” Sam said. “A damned long time."
I thought he was going to say something else, but he chose not to. The rest of the ride passed in silence except for Sam pointing out various long-standing landmarks along the way. He was anxious to see what I remembered and impressed to discover that almost nothing had escaped my memory.
His house was far removed from the city. It was a home befitting the wealth of its owner and its location suited his preference for isolation as well. My brother, Dr. Samuel Mason, was a brilliant man who enjoyed all the luxuries money could by, but treasured solitude above his riches. He had never married and seemed satisfied not to be. He was a man wedded to his work.
As we rode down the long driveway to his home, which could have been rightly called a mansion, I felt his eyes on me. I realized he wanted me to be awed by his wealth and fame, but for some reason, I was hesitant to grant him this satisfaction.
I'd seen the segment about him on the network evening news program seven years ago. My brilliant brother had discovered how to restore the intelligence of those afflicted with Down's syndrome through surgery. It was a revolutionary breakthrough that had earned him a Nobel Prize and worldwide fame. In every interview, he stated that his own brother was the inspiration for his research and he intended for me to be one of the first recipients of the surgery as well.
A surgeon personally trained by my brother gave me the gift of intelligence on April eleventh, two thousand nine. I woke the following day with the feeling that I had lived my whole life underwater, but had at last poked my head above the surface. It was the difference between being inside of a dark closet barely large enough to stand in, and lying on a grassy plain on a clear day with nothing but space around me in every direction. My entire life I had existed in a haze, but now the fog had lifted at last.
For six months, my newfound capacities terrified me. Nightmares besieged me, and on many days I thought I would truly lose my sanity, and fit in more readily with the denizens of the asylum that was my home. But in the end, I adjusted and prospered. More than that, I remembered everything that occurred before. I recalled all that my formerly handicapped brain had once hidden from me.
Sam showed me to my room. Taped to the wall was a banner that read, 'Welcome Back, Jonah!' I was touched and felt tears threaten once more. I might have kept them at bay if I had not spied my childhood stuffed monkey resting on my pillow.
"My God, Sam, you kept Georgie! I can't believe it! " I said, reaching for the monkey and holding it against my chest.
"It was the least I could do," he answered. "Brother, after all you've been through, it was the least I could do."
We passed the rest of that day in pleasant conversation, setting aside the past and becoming the brothers we had never truly been. My first day home from the asylum was easily the best of my life.
The days went by, and my busy brother was often gone. He worked long hours and traveled to distant places for countless speaking engagements. We developed a marriage of sorts. I kept up the house while he was gone, and even cooked for both of us on the rare nights he was home. It was mostly a pleasant time for me, especially in comparison to my former existence at the asylum. I often took long walks about the countryside, and fantasized about making a life of my own someday, maybe even having a wife and family and a career of my own.
Nights alone were difficult. It was then that I had too much time with my thoughts. One night as I sat in my brother’s favorite velvet chair, I spied a familiar object by the hearth: a fire poker. On impulse, I picked it up and after only a few moments, found what I was looking for: a faint crimson stain on one side of its business end. I studied it, mesmerized by its existence, running my fingers across it and letting my mind drift to the night it came to be.
I remembered the sound of rain pelting against the roof of our home with the force of a herd of galloping horses. Thunder boomed and jagged flashes of lightning flashed across the sky. The electricity had been out for over an hour, and our family had sat at the dinner table eating sandwiches by candlelight.
The tension among us matched the weather. The cause was Sam's report card. He'd failed to make an ‘A’ in a single subject. To my father, this was tantamount to failing. Sam had never before brought such a poor grade home to our father before. He sat across from me, his head hung in shame, awaiting the worst. The man had not meted out a punishment yet, nor even raised his voice, but even someone as stupid as I could see the fury in him. His lips were pursed and his eyes were blazing. He slammed his tea glass on the table after every swallow, still holding the offending report card in his fist as if it was as hateful as a cancerous tumor. I watched my father as fearfully as Sam, knowing in the dim way I knew things that the harsher the punishment my father handed out to Sam, the worse my brother would, in turn, punish me.
I knew he hated me. There was no way I could understand the reasons why in those days although they became quite clear to me later.
Sam was an only child until my parents adopted me at the age of three. I did not remember life before coming to the Masons, and had no desire to do so. My parents showered me with unconditional love and affection in spite of my disability. I could do no wrong in their eyes. On the night the fire poker became forever stained, I was thirteen years old and could barely write my name. But Mom and Dad acted as if my every move was a thing to be adored and fawned over.
I remember painstakingly drawing a picture for my mother that depicted my family standing outside of the church after the morning service. My mother, father and I were depicted with bright smiles. The three of us were circled with hearts. In my picture, even the sun and the church smiled as they beamed down upon us. Removed from the family, in my drawing, stood Sam. No smile lit his face for I'd never seen him wear one in life. I had drawn a straight line for his mouth as he looked away from the rest of us, staring into nowhere. Above the drawing, I had done my best to write: 'I love Mommy and Daddy.'
When the picture was completed, I rushed to show it to my mother. She made such a fuss over it that one would have thought it as brilliantly created as any work of art by a master. She did not seem to notice that I excluded her older son from the family circle and did not include him among those I loved.
But Sam noticed.
An hour later, I still clutched my masterpiece and shone with the glow of my mother's praise. I wandered into the room I shared with my brother, but did not see him enter behind me, and close the door.
He spun me around to face him, his face twisted with rage. He jerked the picture from my hands, and shoved me to the floor. I tried to scream, but he slammed his hand so tight over my mouth that nothing emerged but a muted bleat.
"You little retard! I'm sick of you!" he said. His eyes burned with hatred. "Let me show you what I think of your stupid picture." He wadded it up into a crumpled ball and forced it in my mouth.
"Now eat it, or I'll kill you right here and now. I'll get away with it too. You know why? Because things happen to retards! You know that? Retards like you have accidents all the time just because they're about too stupid to live. You whisper a word of this to Mom or Dad and I will kill you and that's a promise. You got that through your thick, retard skull?"
I was too terrified to answer, but managed to chew and swallow my picture without choking. I couldn’t help peeing my pants. As soon as he felt the wetness, he released me, and kicked me in the groin.
"Retard!" he said. "Now I’ve got to change my clothes because of your idiocy! Remember, dimwit. You tell Mom or Dad about this and I'll kill you. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise."
I didn't tell.
From that day forward, my brother found every opportunity to torture me when my parents weren't looking. He'd pinch me hard enough to make me bleed, thump me in the testicles, stomp on my bare feet, give me Indian burns, and constantly remind me of what a retard I was. The government shouldn't allow idiots like me to live, he said. We were just a drain on society's resources. I believed him and never whispered a word about his abuse to my parents.
Then came the night of the storm and the fire-poker. Until that night, Sam had revealed his dark side only to me.
My father was given to anger, especially in matters concerning my brother. Sam was expected to be perfect and to excel in every aspect of life. To my brother's credit, he did his best. He was a top student and a standout athlete. People said he was destined for greatness and of course they were right. But in his own mind, he was never good enough for my father.
My mother, in contrast, was the picture of pacifism. She feared my father. She may have thought his expectations of my brother unreasonable, but would have never dreamed of speaking a word in opposition to him. When she saw his anger coming, she simply climbed within herself and waited for the storm to pass. She had already found her inner sanctum that night as we all waited for him to explode.
"Explain this grade to me!" he said at last, shaking the report card at my brother. "Explain what's so damn hard about English for Christ’s sake!"
My brother said nothing at first. He only sat with his head down, studying the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he'd taken a single bite from.
His silence only served to accelerate my father's rage. His face went red and the blood vessels in his neck appeared on the edge of exploding. He spoke in a low, terrifying growl that made me want to whimper aloud in fear.
"You better answer me when I talk to you boy! Or goddamn it, I'm liable to do something we'll both regret. The good book says, 'spare the rod and spoil the child' and I'll be damned if there's going to be any spoiled children in this house. You get an attitude with me, son, and you're only making your whipping worse. Now tell me why you can't make an 'A' in a class teaching you a language you've been speaking your whole insufferable life."
Sam raised his head and looked into my father's eyes. He might have been frightened before, but now he swallowed his fear. Rage had conquered it. This time, he had no intentions of backing down in the face of my father’s wrath.
"You want to know what 'spoiled' is, Dad? Why don't you take a good look at this little moron across the table? You fly into a rage because I make a 'B' and you and Mom about fall over yourselves any time this little idiot strings two sentences together. I'm sick of it, Dad! You want something to scream at me about, old man? I'll give you something to scream about."
I watched, astonished, as Sam went to my father and jerked the report card from his grasp. Then he ripped it into shreds, letting the pieces drift to the floor at his feet. My father gaped, too shocked to react. He had not dreamed his son could be capable of such unbridled defiance.
"You know what, Father?" Samuel continued, spitting the title. "I think I'm going to give you something to really get angry about. God damn you father. God damn you to hell. With the last curse, he turned his back on the man and stalked towards his bedroom.
My father finally found his voice.
"Boy," he said quietly. "If you know what's good for you, you'd better come back here and face what's coming like a man."
"Ha!" Sam said, without turning around. "If I know what's good for me...," he mocked. "Here’s a new plan, Dad. From now on, I’m going to do just what I please, and you’re going to leave me the hell alone. How about that?”
In response, my father growled a primal grunt and leaped from his chair with a quickness I had not dreamed he possessed. He tackled Sam from behind, and the two of them crashed to the floor. Father thrashed him with all his strength and fury, but somehow, Sam managed to slither out from under him and deliver a blow of his own to my father's head. The two of them fought on the living room floor like wildcats, neither seeming to get the best of the other. Their struggle moved ever closer to the fireplace. Suddenly, Sam twisted again and there was the sickening sound of a cranium striking the brick corner of the hearth. Then the fighting ceased and my father's blood flowed like a crimson river in the dim candlelight.
Samuel rose over him, his eyes wide with fear or anger. I couldn't tell which. I realized then that I had been screaming at the top of my lungs since the incident began and was unable to stop myself even now. Without feeling in control of my body, I stood and went to my father.
"No," I wailed. "Daddy, No!" I fell onto his body and wrapped myself around him. In only a moment, his blood soaked me.
"You hurt him. How could you hurt him?" I wailed to my brother.
"Shut up, retard!" he answered. "I've had about enough of you too!" I looked up and saw his fury was not yet quenched. He stood above me, poised to strike me with the fire poker, murder in his eyes. He swung with all of his strength and I cringed in expectation of the blow. But before it fell, I was shoved aside and the poker struck my mother instead.
He dropped his weapon when he saw what he had done, and fell to his knees in front of her, cradling her broken head, but being careful not to allow her blood to stain his shirt.
"I'm sorry, Mother. I didn't mean..." he sobbed. But she couldn't answer him, for the dead can't speak.
He examined my father, also being careful to avoid the blood that still ran freely from his wound. Sam determined that he too, no longer drew breath.
Then he stared at me as I gazed back at him, paralyzed with terror, expecting that he would soon murder me as well. Somehow I found my voice.
"You're a monster," I said.
"Me? You're the one covered in your parents’ blood," he answered.
I was horrified to see that he was right.
Sam called the police and blamed the double homicide on his mentally retarded brother, and for twenty-seven years, I was locked away.
As the years passed, Sam did his best to redeem himself. He never said another cruel word to me, and wrote me many letters of kindness during my time at St. Ignatius. As time passed, it seemed he came to believe his own lie, that it was I who murdered our parents in a mindless rage retardates such as me were prone to. But somewhere within him, I did not doubt that he knew the truth.
While I wasted away at St. Ignatius, my brother used my father’s lucrative life insurance policy to send himself to medical school, and to eventually become a nationally renowned surgeon and researcher. He became obsessed with finding the cure to Down's Syndrome, to solving the mystery that extra chromosome presented. He must have believed, on an unconscious level, that by curing me, he could absolve himself of his sins of that night.
But some sins cannot be forgiven.
I felt ashamed to have such memories of my brother as I lounged so comfortably in his home that night. He was certainly a far different and better person now, far removed from the cruel boy I had known him to be in my youth. I enjoyed his company as well as my freedom. I realized my future lay before me like an ocean of possibility. I was free to pursue any life I wished, and yet I could not move on until I had settled the matter of my parents’ death to my satisfaction.
My brother came back from his business trip two days later. In anticipation, I had prepared a special meal for both of us.
"Jonah," he said, as he stepped through the door. "Something smells delicious."
"It’s almost ready, brother. Let me pour you some wine."
"I appreciate this," he said while we ate. "But you should know it's not expected of you."
"Oh, I like to cook," I replied. "It's just my way of thanking you for the hospitality you have shown me since the day I came to live with you."
"Well, thank you," he said. "You know what, Jonah? I know we had our differences growing up, but I'm so glad we've put the past behind us."
I nodded, but didn’t answer.
After supper we sat in comfortable seats in front of the fireplace, sipping our wine. He smoked a pipe as soft jazz played on his stereo. I could see his eyelids growing heavy, and knew he was on the verge of dozing off to sleep.
”Sam,” I said, loudly enough to rouse him. "I recognize that poker by the fireplace. It's a peculiar item for you to want to keep."
”Oh, I keep it for sentimental reasons,” he answered. “It used to be in our parents’ house.”
"Yes, I remember it. Have you ever noticed the stain on its point?"
"No, I can't say that I have.” His indifferent tone infuriated me, and I was glad to have righteous anger to fuel me.
"One could say it's the stain of your sins," I said. "You should give it a closer inspection."
"Brother, what are you talking about?" He picked up his wine glass, and took a swallow.”
I crossed the room, and retrieved the poker. It was only when I cocked it back to swing, that comprehension dawned upon his brilliant face. I struck his skull three times with the weapon: one blow for my mother, my father, and myself. The blood that ran from his brain was almost the same color as the wine in his glass.
When the deed was done, I took his body to the cemetery in my brother’s vehicle, and buried him beside my parents. It was a sad chore, but I owed it to him to give him an honorable burial. I did love him in spite of his past misdeeds after all. I left the car where it was, judging that he would have no further need of it, and lacking the skill to drive it well myself. I hiked all day through the countryside, and deep into the forest. I had a world to see. Too long, I had been locked away, first in my own mind, and later behind cold walls. Perhaps the authorities would catch up to me eventually and bring me to justice. If they did, I would not resist. I would only say that I had done my duty as they were doing theirs.
Sometime past nightfall, I left the woods, and found myself in an open valley. Above me, the stars twinkled, and a full moon shown down upon me. I lay on the grass and smiled at the beauty of the sky. As I drifted off to sleep, I was thankful for the life my brother had granted me with his brilliance, and relieved my debt with him had been paid. At that moment, my future seemed as bright as the stars that shined above me.
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