Buried Truth

by Caleb Whitaker

Chapter 7: The Bar

   

  For some reason, I start driving towards the bar from the graduation celebration with my friends. Gravity pulls me back to the last place my memories end and my nightmare begins. I send Matt a text asking him to meet me at the bar because I really could use his help. I’m under no illusions that I could very easily find myself under arrest for murdering my parents.

  As the area becomes more familiar, I begin thinking about all the mess that happened the past couple days. Walking the stage at graduation after all the work I put into my degree. Finding my parents. Telling my sister the bad news. All of it right there in my mind constantly.

  Nevertheless, I am still unsure what exactly I am doing as I drive. How is going to a bar or hiding the truth from the police is going to make anything better? I still can’t remember the bar or that night. There are no clues as to what my secret situation is or why my parents died. I have a text message and note that are freaking me out despite doing my best to not think about them. I’m losing my mind. The bar must be as good a place as any to start. It's usually filled with people that have lost their mind. Maybe I’ll find mine.

  Even though it is only a little before eight o’clock there are still quite a few people filing into the various markets and stores running along the street near the bar. In order to search the street for anything that might jog my memory, I have to get out of the car. The heat is already starting to slow roast the area causing sweat to build instantly around my brow. Upon seeing the bar, the nausea I am becoming more and more accustomed to returns to the pit of my stomach.

  I know the bar is closed, but I'm still being drawn to it as if the building itself is telling me I should check out the entrance. I get the sensation that I couldn’t resist checking the bar out even if I try. The unseen force continues to pull my legs towards the building until I reach the covered arch of the entrance. Then the force lessens and a coolness breaks through the heat.

  The locked door forces me to peer in through the smudged laden window. It is a typical sports bar with several TV’s and tables. It is one of our group’s hang out spots where we eat, drink, and watch a game. What could be so special about it? All of a sudden something within me answers by sending memories from that night at the bar flashing through my mind.

  I’m sitting at a table drinking with my closest friends. My eyes fall upon a young lady at the bar all alone. I can’t make out what her face looks like because there is a haze distorting her entire figure, making it impossible to distinguish any of her physical traits. Maybe curly hair I guess.

  I invite the girl over to hang out with my friends and me. The girl and I sit talking with some of my friends for a while. I’m very comfortable around her. I laugh a few times as we talk. It feels like I know her at one moment, and the next moment it feels like we are just two awkward people that met at a bar.

  The way the whole encounter resembles that of a man caught between two lives makes my body tremble. There is always the possibility I could be just projecting the things I want to feel into our actual conversations. It has been a long time since I last was on a date. Matt says something to her as I turn to talk to Joanna. Joanna is one of my few friends of the opposite sex that I have kept from high school. For whatever reason, it never became anything more despite our moderate efforts. She was the first girl I ever truly loved, but I never expressed it.

  A great wave of nervousness sweeps over me as I stare into Joanna’s eyes. Every time I look at her, something deep within me restrains itself from charging out into the open. Love or hate I can’t know for sure, but this time it is exceptionally awkward. The snare created by sitting between two beautiful girls is not as good a feeling as one might expect.

  My conversation with Joanna turns from casual and friendly to heated fairly quick. She pulls me away over to the side of the bar away from the other girl. My hands wave reassuringly back at the mystery girl just to make sure she knows I’m interested. The conversation flows back and forth. In the blink of an eye, Joanna is calmly leaving the bar as I return to my newly found opportunity with the girl I just met.

  I can feel myself running my fingers through my hair as I pick up my phone with the other hand. I fidget with the phone as I sometimes do when overwhelmed with anxiety, then I dial my voicemail. Then the girl walks out the door and both of us get into my car.

  Then nothing happens. No new image pops in my head. No new feeling or emotion pops up from somewhere inside me. Nothing left to look at except the empty bar.

  I move away from the glass window of the bar, scratching my head in frustration. There is nobody near the bar, so I lean up against the side of the building. I needed more than that. I couldn’t even remember her face or the conversations. Man my head hurts.

  A bench a few feet away from the bar under a nearby tree allows me to sit down in some heavenly shade. Let's look at this in a positive light. At least I remembered something. Why couldn’t I see her face though? Why did I leave with her and where did we go? Who is she? Pull yourself together. Come on stay positive!

  There are many questions, but there are answers. Find the answers. Ok, so what do I know? I was at the bar with friends, and I met a girl that I left with in my car. We left sometime after I called my voicemail. The only voicemail I have knowledge of getting from that night was from my dad. I guess we could have been heading to my parents’ house for dinner.

  I have a seat on the bench and think for a while as I claw at the wood of the bench with my fingernails. Matt drives up and walks over to the bench I’m sitting on. “How ya doing?” he asks.

  I shake my head, “I’m not doing so well lately.”

  He sits down beside me with a blank stare, “I’m sorry man. If there is anything I can do, just let me know.”

  Sensing my opportunity, I reply, “Actually, I do need some information.”

  “Information about what?”

   I take a deep breath, then say, “Information about that night.”

  “Ok, I’ll tell ya what I can. What ya want to know?”

  I think back over the memories that had just returned. “Do you know what the girl I was with looked like?”

  He chuckles, “Ah, it's about the girl. Yeah, I know what she looks like. Now ya know I’m not too good with descriptions. But, she is slim built. She had brown curly hair. Fairly pretty girl.”

   Thinking about what to ask next causes the conversation with Joanna to come to mind, “Do you know what Joanna and I were discussing before she left?”

  He gets up off the bench, stretching his arms. “Not really. She did tell me, she needed to talk to ya about something important. I heard her mention something about ya needing to know what was happening. Then ya girl asked what y’all were talking about, but I told her I didn’t know. Ya and Joanna ended up moving over to the side of the bar, out of earshot.”

  So what was going on that involved my parents having to tell me something and Joanna telling me something as well? More importantly, are the two connected? Did Joanna know about my secret situation? Joanna does know my parents well. She and my dad talked a lot because she was going into criminal law, and he is a well-known lawyer who has dealt with a few psychopaths. Did he confide something in her? “Do you know where Joanna went when she left the bar?”

  He rotates his head, stretching out his neck. “No, she left after she talked with you. Didn’t say goodbye or anything. What is this all about Ryan? Ya acting really strung out, like ya hiding something.”

  The question catches me off guard. I’m not prepared mentally or emotionally to explain my actions. “Umm, I’m having trouble remembering that night still and… I think I might have gone to my parents’ house that night. That’s why I’m trying to get more information about that night.”

  His expression goes cold, “So, ya were at your parents’ house the night they died and ya can’t remember what happened?”

  I look away in shame. As if he senses my guilt, he follows my movements trying to stay in
my field of vision. “What did ya do, Ryan? Did you have something to do with their deaths?

  Why would he say that? He’s supposed to be helping me! I stand up in a fit of anger, moving towards him so that my face is right in front of his. Punch him! The back stabbing fool thinks I could do that to someone well let’s see! “How dare you accuse me of having something to do with their deaths. I loved them!”

  He backs up a step creating some room between us. “We all know what happens when ya drink too much. Ya get stupid. Ya always have, ever since your first drink. Ya have even been drinking already this morning. I can smell it on ya. Scotch is fun when ya are trying to wind down, but it’s not the answer to everything.”

  He shakes his head in disgust. My grasp on the anger within myself slips further away as my hands clench together in a fist. Looking me in the eye, he continues, “Even if ya didn’t have anything to do with it that night. Ya better still go to the cops. This is sketchy man. Ya need help.”

  Releasing my clenched fist, I say, “The cops probably think I did it. They know I was there at some point that night, and it’s only a matter of time until they find the truth. That’s why I have to find it first. There is no way I can tell them when I don’t remember anything. And I definitely can’t tell them I might have been there the second they died. I’ll be handcuffed before I finish the sentence.”

  He takes an audible sigh, then replies, “Look, I know ya in a tough spot, but ya need to do what’s right. It ain’t worth it to be hiding stuff if ya didn’t kill them. Tell the truth.”

  He slowly backs away, walking backwards to his car as I scream after him, “Some friend you are!”  

  He yells back as he opens his car door. “Sorry man. I can’t have anything to do with this anymore. There’s no telling what happened if ya drank to the point ya couldn’t remember again. Ya need help. If ya won’t listen to me, I can’t be the one to help ya!”

  I walk back to the car angry and confused. Why does everyone think I did something that night? This is crazy! Matt has been a friend since high school. Why would he accuse me? Ugh, he just pisses me off!

  I get in the car and slam the door still feeling betrayed by the encounter with Matt, but I try to wipe the thoughts of him out of my mind by concentrating on the recent flux of memories. I turn the car on while staring at the bar that sent into motion something that ultimately led to my parents’ death. I glance at the clock in the car. Damn, I have wasted over an hour with this crap. Where do I go now?

   While pulling out of the parking lot, I take one more peek back at the bar hoping it will give me more answers before I leave. A figure of a girl standing by the door of the bar stares out in my direction as people walk by not even noticing her. Due to her misty appearance, none of her facial structures are visible from the distance. Then, like a dissipating fog, she vanishes like all the other mysterious figures from the past couple days.