Side Roads and Dandelions

by W.H. Harrod

  ~~ Chapter Thirty

  The cool early morning dampness mixed with her own perspiration caused Allison to pull the light windbreaker tighter around her torso. One block ahead, the red tiled roof of the professor’s house stood out as a beacon guiding her to safe harbor. The long stroll through the hilly neighborhoods located near the campus invigorated her and helped arrange her thoughts. She never ceased being amazed at how effective the simple act of doing something that pumped more blood, ergo more oxygen to the brain, facilitated the fundamental act of thinking. This embodied the totality of what she learned from her study of philosophy, particularly of Aristotle. The guy taught philosophy while walking around with his students because he observed that active people often think more clearly. Clearly then, she deduced, the leaders of this country must spend their time sitting on their behinds because thinking people don’t do the crazy things our government does.

  Ah, but I digress, she scolded herself and began to review the previous day’s activities. Ernest hadn’t arrived back at the apartment until evening. Drained from his encounter, he barely touched the pizza they brought home for him before he went to bed. He planned to be with the professor again today and said the professor intended for him to deliver a letter to her.

  Sam and Bobby had accompanied her to the previous evening’s candlelight vigil, and once more, she came away pleased with the way the event turned out. Hundreds of students attended with anti-war signs, and although many blocked the streets for a time, most motorists were either unfazed or showed their support for the protestors by honking and waving. The appearance of the mayor along with members of the city council in support of the protestors also impressed her. The realization that not all governmental leaders walked around in lock step with the other rear echelon warmongers lightened Allison’s spirit for a fleeting moment. Even the Berkeley police commented on the peaceful nature of the evening’s activities.

  Too bad the same couldn’t be said for the demonstrations occurring across the bay. All day long reports came in about violence on both sides continuing to escalate. Some protestors were found carrying weapons, and the police became even more abusive in their response. By the end of the day police sweeps resulted in the arrest of more than fourteen hundred people, many of them innocent bystanders and elderly people. There was much mayhem already, and the big march didn’t go off until Saturday. What might the situation be like by then? Allison shuddered at the thought of what waited for them across the bay tomorrow.

  Forcing herself to quit thinking about tomorrow, she recalled that Sam and Bobby spent a large part of the evening discussing the organic farming industry and what part they might participate in if it turned out to be something they both wanted. Allison overheard Sam telling Bobby that this is exactly the sort of activity people ought to involve themselves with if the country ever expected to have a chance to be less dependent on foreign resources, starting with oil. Also, it provided healthier food for the consumers, and the environment didn’t have to suffer. Together, it added up to three important reasons to look seriously at this opportunity. Sam’s small fortune could provide the capital to get them started if Bobby believed the idea held merit. Plus, Sam had the ability to raise almost unlimited amounts of funds for similar valid investment opportunities in the foreseeable future, even if he never went back to work for his old firm.

  Bobby said he owned productive land, although heavily in debt, that had produced high-yielding grain crops on a regular basis, which could be converted to organic production along with plenty of acreage for grazing cattle. He also knew of more land available for a fair price. For him, it would be a relief not to be at the mercy of farm markets controlled by the mega-corporations that ultimately established the prices for most everything the small farmer bought or sold. He said as far as he was concerned, if Sam thought the idea held merit, he was in.

  After their talk, Sam took over the kitchen table and spent most of the night going over the piles of documentation provided by Lia. From the stacks of written notes on the table the next morning, Allison expected he’d read everything. In no way did this surprise her.

  Sam planned to spend the day at the restaurant learning about the food industry from the end user perspective, so Allison hoped he had taken time to rest. The way those young workers ran around the restaurant almost nonstop, he would need to conserve his energy. Allison felt excited for Sam. The thought of someone so smart and energetic getting involved in an industry so important to the future survival of the country encouraged her. She also highly approved of Lia. If she had to pick out a person for Sam, this would be the lady. There was certainly no guarantee that anything would ever get started between them, but Allison could hope.

  The only item left on her list for the four to talk about was Sam’s suggestion they decide if they were personally willing to do whatever was necessary for the country to change. She agreed, especially since the reports of the violence over in the city started coming in. It didn’t make sense to go over there and risk their lives again if they weren’t committed to backing the solutions to the country’s basic problems. Allison agreed that practically every person in the country contributed to the creation of the reasons our troops were presently on their way into combat thousands of miles from home. We foolishly elected self-serving leaders who pandered to our baser instincts, while we insisted on driving gas guzzling vehicles that keep us at the mercy of every country in the world holding oil reserves. Changes needed to start with each individual and family. Unfortunately, the discussion had to wait until that evening when everyone got back together.

  Allison thought to herself, Sam will be working at the restaurant, Ernest will be meeting with the professor, and Bobby –

  Allison stopped dead still in the middle of the residential street. The realization of what she planned to do that day hit her squarely between the eyes. Every day for thirty-four years she had thought about this day, and now it was here. Today, she, with Bobby’s help, would confront the man who raped and beat her in this city almost thirty-four years earlier.

  The polite honk of a car horn brought her back to the present, and she hurriedly moved to the side of the road to allow the car to go by.

  “Wow, get it together here. If this is the way you’re going to act just thinking about it, what will you be like when you confront the guy?”

  The morning went by quickly as everyone, except Bobby, prepared for the day’s activities. Bobby had publicly assigned himself a simple task: Do whatever was necessary to protect the rear ends of the other three, especially Allison’s. He calmly waited as the others bumped into one another during their individual preparations. Eventually, things settled down as first Sam, acting like a school boy on the first day of attending a new school, headed out with his bag of books. Ernest looked worried and weary as he mumbled his goodbyes and headed down the stairs for another round of discussions with the professor and his loyal caregivers. That left Allison and Bobby, and a cell phone for calling a certain local individual who worked in the real estate business.

  Allison knew the name of the person who raped and beat her. For years after she arrived home, images of the assault flashed into her mind. Little bits and pieces of the attack appeared from out of nowhere. As she tried to get past the event and direct her activities towards rebuilding her life, her subconscious mind brought the pieces together. Finally, one day, she remembered a face and part of a name.

  She recalled that she had met the guy one night months before the attack while having a beer at a local hangout popular with the students at the university. She knew this guy wasn’t a student, not full-time at least. He had tried hard to hit on her but even during that period of her social life when her standards for acceptable male companions were fairly liberal, if existent at all, she didn’t like this guy. Eventually, she gave some lame excuse and got out of the place. After that, on the infrequent occasion when she saw him again, she couldn’t help but notice he paid a lot of attention to her.


  His first name was Lance. The little voice she had no control over in her unforgiving sub-consciousness told her this one day from out of nowhere. The recollection came so suddenly that she let out a surprised yelp right in the middle of a boring class on how to fill out new forms required by the government agencies that provided part of their funding. Next came the recollection of the conceited smile that had turned her off so quickly the first night. He bragged about being a surfer at some local beach Allison never heard of before or since. Sporting bleach blonde hair, the guy looked too pale to fulfill the image of the classic California surfer. It was little wonder she didn’t put the image of the smirking, conceited surfer and the snarling, profanity-spewing image of her crazed attacker together at first. It made sense after she thought about it. That’s how a young guy, not in college, stayed out of the regular army; he joined the National Guard. He went to a couple of meetings each month and the rest of the time he was free to surf and hustle coeds at the bars or anything else. The next important part of the puzzle was his last name, which she couldn’t remember, even though, she recalled that it fit perfectly with the image he projected.

  She could still remember the date and place when the last name finally came to her. Once more, her attention was directed to something completely unrelated. It happened during the late fall of 1979. She, her husband, and their two children were in a pumpkin patch on the back part of their acreage picking out the choicest pumpkins for Halloween and the pumpkin pies she made for the holiday season. They did this every year since their kids were big enough to walk, and everyone always looked forward to the occasion.

  Allison had purposely stood away from her family to capture photographs of the children with their father scampering around to be the first to find the perfect pumpkin. Allison laughed at their antics. That is until her husband playfully recited a nursery rhyme to their daughter who sat crying because she couldn’t run as fast as her brother to find the best pumpkin. The event will be forever seared into her memory. The rhyme went: Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn’t keep her. He put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well.

  She swooned and fell to her knees in a faint as the last name of her attacker unexpectedly came to her. The name was Eater. Lance Eater. That was the rapist’s full name. As plain as the gray late fall day right before her eyes, the name came to her. Her family rushed to her side to see what ailed her. It took a moment before Allison could collect herself and assure the frightened faces surrounding her she was okay. She explained she laughed so hard watching them frolic that she got dizzy. She said she was fine and not to worry.

  The very next day she went to the local library and looked in the phone book for the entire San Francisco bay area, and sure enough, the name showed up. He still lived in Berkeley, and every year after that, she went to the library to check the new phone book to see if the name was still listed. Every year it showed up and in the middle ‘80s something else appeared with the listing -- real estate agent. This went on until the year Lance Eater opened his own agency. Every year since then, the ad in the back of the book grew bigger and bigger. He obviously did well in his chosen profession.

  The advent of the Internet added a new dimension to Allison’s annual investigation into the whereabouts of her despised adversary. The first time she pulled up his web site she almost fainted. Pictured in front of her was a balding, pudgy Lance Eater displaying the same sickening smile that turned her off so many years earlier. Pictured with him was his family, consisting of a wife and two daughters. Without him in the photo, the other people looked normal in every way. All three of the ladies were attractive, and apparently, very proud of their successful father and husband. Allison regretted his good fortune, mostly because it made it harder to despise the man as much as she did, knowing he had two daughters who probably thought he was the greatest person in the world.

  Through the years, Allison refused to allow her hatred of this man to completely dominate her existence. Once each year, after verifying that he still lived in the same place, she dedicated a full day to imagining all sorts of mayhem and violence pouring into his life. At the end of an entire day of silently hating and cursing the man’s existence, she put the matter aside as best she could, and except for occasional brief recollections of the horror, she officially forgot about it for another year or until she found the nerve to go back to California someday to confront him in person. That someday had arrived.

  The appointment was made. Bobby dialed the number and promptly handed Allison the phone to do with as she chose. She could either set up an appointment or hang up and forget about it. She made an appointment with his secretary for 1 p.m. Allison dressed in khaki pants and blue pinpoint oxford dress shirt with a brown cashmere sweater tied around her shoulders. Her hair pulled back from her face revealed the slightest trace of scars only partially removed by cosmetic surgery. An unsuspecting person would not imagine that the attractive lady concerned herself with the possibility of doing physical violence upon Mr. Lance Eater, a long established and respected member of the Berkeley business community. But, she did.

  During their short trip to the thirty-four year late meeting, Allison practiced her deep-breathing exercises to calm herself. Bobby was unperturbed as if he were going out to check on his cattle grazing in the south eighty. Allison fully realized as she rode along in the bus with Bobby driving, she could not do what she intended to do today without his help. Not with her husband, not anybody else, only Bobby. This man she had not visited or talked with except on a few occasions over the last thirty-four years would help her gather the courage to finish this overly long chapter in the book of her life. Bobby had told her of his mission to ensure that this small band of warriors, unlike the crew he fought with in Vietnam, did make it back. She harbored no doubts he would die trying, if necessary.

  To maintain their image Bobby wisely decided to park the multi-colored bus a half-block away from the building housing the Eater Real Estate Company. Not exactly Class A commercial lease space, but not bad either, observed Allison as she scanned the surrounding area. Out of the bus and strolling along the sidewalk, Allison noticed for the first time that Bobby had borrowed pants and an attractive knit shirt from Sam. He looked every bit the part of the dutiful husband following along behind his wife, not anything like the drunk they found passed out behind a barn in Oklahoma. Right then, for the first time, she knew they could do this. She felt different emotions rushing about in her consciousness, but not fear. No matter what happened here it would not be the result of her being afraid.

  The smile on the face of the attractive, sweet young receptionist who greeted them as they walked into the offices of the Eater Real Estate Company, would, under normal circumstances, be disarming. The young lady gave Allison reason to feel as if this few seconds of conversation between them would be the highlight of her day. Allison only hoped the girl never had the personal misfortune to learn the truth about her employer. The receptionist requested they have a seat, and Mr. Eater (hearing someone else say the name reminded her of how it affected her the first time she heard it) would be with them as soon as he finished with an important call. Allison calmly thanked the receptionist and took a seat along side Bobby who had developed a pathetically unconvincing smile. Inwardly, Allison laughed at her friend’s well-intended attempt to carry out this ruse as the happy couple, come west to seek a retirement home in the land of eternal youth and unabashed optimism.

  “By the way, I’m your wife and my name is Allison Owens. If you don’t mind, I’ll do most of the talking. Agents usually expect to talk more with the wives anyway. That okay with you?” Allison conveyed a look of confidence as she awaited a reply from Bobby.

  “No problem. If you want me to say something, turn and give me the stare, and I’ll jump in.” Bobby, too, appeared at ease as long as he didn’t try to smile. Some people were not built to smile, and Bobby fell into that category.

  “Mr. Eater can see you now.” The app
earance of the receptionist so suddenly took Allison by surprise. Recovering, Allison smiled and rose from the chair to follow her towards the far office or more appropriately, into the arena of overdue retribution, while Bobby, the reluctant husband, dutifully tagged along behind.

  Cheap, gaudy, and totally consistent with the image I had of the man, thought Allison by the time she progressed no more than six feet into the heavily carpeted, cheaply paneled, rental center quality furniture saturated office. The entire wall behind the huge pecan wood veneer desk dominated the office and bristled with citations and certificates ascertaining the worthy recipient’s expertise and professionalism in the field of filling out forms and hauling people around to houses until they found a new home that would move them up a notch in society’s economic pecking order. Off to the side, on a wall above a credenza piled with magazines, real estate books, and manila folders, hung the distinguished trappings of an individual who successfully and wisely joined one of the local National Guard units that did not deploy to Vietnam. Most notable were framed items such as: an Honorable Discharge, an Expert Marksman Certificate, and photos of Private Eater along with several of his part-time soldier pals frolicking with their old World War II rifles while at summer camp. In no way was Allison surprised by this weak attempt to prove his faux patriotism to potential customers.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Owens. Please come in and sit down. I’m Lance Eater. How may I be of help to you folks today?” The warm slimy grip of the man’s hand brought a feeling of nausea to Allison’s stomach. She bravely smiled and endured the moment.

  The man has no idea who I am, thought Allison. It’s possible he doesn’t even remember the attack. Suck it up; it’s time to go to work.

  “Thank you so much for meeting with us on such short notice. I can see by your many certificates on the wall that you are the person we need to be talking to.”

  “Make no mistake about it; you have come to the right place. If you are interested in real estate or want to know something about this side of the bay, I’m your man. Lived here my whole life, and I don’t expect to ever live anywhere else. May I call you Allison? I prefer not to stand on formality.”

  “Of course, and this is my husband, Bobby.”

  “Excellent. Now Allison and Bobby, how can I help you today?

  Although thirty-four years older, he had the same pushy personality she recalled from years ago. Allison could read his thoughts. Enough of strolling down memory lane. Get on with why you came here.

  “My husband and I are interested in finding out about communities as we travel around looking for a place to retire, and we are most interested in learning about Berkeley. Can you help us with this so we can make a final decision from the cities on our list?”

  “Absolutely, what do you want to know?”

  The man’s abruptness revealed his real interest -- closing the deal. The guy most likely looked at life simply. Each day he knew he needed to talk with so many potential buyers or sellers before he signed a deal. Life to him meant numbers. Get face to face with X number of sheep and the averages say you will get to sheer one of them. Don’t waste a lot of time on useless details. If the deal’s not there, move on. Right now, Mr. Lance Eater had them on the clock, and Allison intended to be the one to close the deal.

  “First, tell us about your community. What’s life like here for grown ups? Is it all about the university? What about safety issues? Is it safe to be out on the streets at night?”

  You could see the wheels turning in his head as he made up his mind if this was worth the time or should he blow them off and get on to the next candidate. Allison and Bobby didn’t come across as destitute, but they certainly weren’t high dollar from the way they looked and talked.

  “All I can tell you is, I am married and we have two daughters that we raised here and have never had any reason to be concerned about their safety. As for quality of life issues for older people, there is more to do around here than the average person can get done in a lifetime. Whatever you like or want to do is within an hour’s drive. Have you ever tried surfing? I’ve surfed my entire life. Maybe that’s something you could try. As I said, the possibilities around here are endless.”

  Allison could tell by his tone he was about at his limit for idle conversation. She had to make a move.

  “Wonderful,” she said with as much phony enthusiasm as she could produce, “but back to that safety issue for a minute. Are you saying there is never any violence of any sort in the community, nothing to worry about?”

  His eyes narrowed indicating he didn’t like her insistence upon pursuing this line of questioning. “Oh, well, you know, there are little things that come up from time to time, but nothing more than any other large community wouldn’t have to put up with.”

  “Like what, for instance?”

  “You know, domestic problems, an occasional car theft, or a drunk driver, that kind of stuff.”

  “What about riots? Are there ever any riots around here?”

  His eyes narrowed a little more. “You know kids,” he laughed. “They can get a little wild at times, and I’ll have to admit that’s happened around here a couple of times years ago. Kids these days aren’t into that kind of stuff. They do that over across the bay where the nut cases go.”

  “Seems like I remember reading about a riot around here that happened way back in ‘69. Didn’t that one get violent? Didn’t they have to bring in the National Guard? I see by your discharge you were in the National Guard. Were you involved in that?”

  By this time, his eyes were barely slits, and his fingers drummed constantly on his desk.

  “You know folks, I’m sorry, but I forgot I have another appointment. If you don’t mind maybe we can get back together after you’ve looked over the community and -”

  “You mentioned you had two daughters. Were they ever accosted by any of the young men in the community? Hopefully, you never had to go to the hospital and find them there beaten and bloody after having been raped. Did anything like that ever happen? I hope not. It’s a terrible thing for a young woman to have to go through, being raped and beaten almost to death. Wouldn’t you think Mr. Eater?”

  The next words out of her rapist’s mouth were less than polite. “I want you people out of my office right now, or I’ll call the police!”

  Allison paid no attention to his threat.

  “My real name is Allison Carter and the only reason you’re not a murderer is because of this man sitting next to me. He’s the one who stopped you from killing me the night you raped me. Do you ever think about that? You were actually going to take another human being’s life because you had a hard on, and I happened along at the wrong time. I still can’t figure out what kind of low life scumbag would think so little of human life as to commit such a senseless, brutal act. I’m hoping maybe you can explain that to me.”

  Having had his bluff called on his threat to call the police, he still displayed defiance. “Lady, you’re crazy, but regardless, you have no proof or a witness. There were thousands of guardsmen in the city at that time.”

  “Who said anything about a person in uniform raping me? How did you know that? But even if what you say is true, I have this.” Reaching down to pick up the canvas bag she carried as a purse, Allison reached inside and pulled out a faded and bloodied tee shirt and tossed it on the desk. “I was wearing this tee shirt when you attacked me on the night of May 15, 1969. I’ve had it tested and found there is one other person’s blood on the shirt. One of the few things I do remember is digging my nails into the neck of the person who raped me. Considering the amount of blood and flesh found under my nails, I left marks on someone’s throat. Probably, the same marks you have on the left side of your throat. You should have gotten a cosmetic surgeon to fix that for you like I did. See here, you can barely tell where you smashed the side of my head with the butt of your rifle.”

  His eyes told the whole story. He felt no remorse, only the need to escape.

  “
Lady -”

  “The name is Allison! The name of the person you beat and raped is Allison!”

  “You can’t prove this. What good is the blood without DNA, and do you think whoever did what you said, would be stupid enough to give it to you?”

  For the first time Allison looked over to Bobby who took his queue and calmly sat up in the chair and reached forward and picked up two filter cigarettes butts out of the partly filled ashtray on the overly large, cheaply built desk. Smiling politely, he placed them in his shirt pocket.

  “Actually, you don’t need blood,” said Allison calmly. “All you need is hair follicles, skin, or even dried saliva found on old cigarette butts.”

  Their prey began to squirm, but he had no intention of giving up easily. “Interesting, but perhaps you should have familiarized yourself with the statutes of limitations of this state before you wasted your time coming here. You can’t prosecute a person for something that happened that long ago.”

  The pathetic jerk’s excuses and defenses were laughable to Allison. Only she couldn’t laugh. What she wanted to do was find a gun and come back and shoot the lying bastard. He displayed not one ounce of remorse over his past actions.

  “You are stupid, aren’t you?” said Allison. “You have no concept of human decency. You’re probably disappointed that you didn’t kill me that night because a dead body couldn’t show up thirty-four years later and destroy your miserable life. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to destroy everything you’ve worked for all these years. You stupid prick, there is no time limit on filing charges relating to violent rape in the state of California.”

  The accused obviously cared less about Allison’s remarks or her personal opinion regarding his IQ, or his character, because his next response still dealt with extricating himself from this horrible dream come back to visit him.

  “What do you want, money?”

  His tone of voice now revealed a sense of desperation. Allison recognized this and decided to enjoy the sick spectacle.

  “Well,” he said. “What do you want? You must want something or you wouldn’t have come to me first. So what is it?”

  Allison and Bobby watched him squirm.

  “Damn it! Tell me what you want. I’ve got my whole life invested in this place. I can’t recover from something like this. I’ll be ruined. What about my family? What will happen to them if this gets out? Their lives will be ruined too. Damn it, tell me what you want?”

  The sound of panic and desperation in the man’s voice made Allison feel good. It wasn’t much, but, at least, the bastard was scared. Maybe with a little more effort she could get more emotion out of the shameless cretin. Slowly as she looked the man straight in the eyes, she extracted her cell phone from her pocket and prepared to dial a number from a piece of paper she also brought from her pocket.

  “Wait, please wait. What are you doing? Who are you calling?”

  “I’m going to call the police. That’s why I brought the number with me. I don’t want anything from you except watching you marched out of a courtroom on your way to jail. Yes, your family will be destroyed, and you need remember who caused it… You! They are going to suffer along with you. Think about that as you sit in a cell.”

  Maybe he wasn’t sorry about how Allison hurt and suffered, but he definitely felt sorrow about what this would do to his own life and to his family. He could not cry for a fellow human being, but he could cry for his own selfish interests. Allison understood as she watched the guy sob like a child that this is all she was going to get from him. Maybe somewhere deep within she had hoped against hope that someday her attacker would show genuine remorse for the hurt inflicted upon her, but that was obviously beyond this sub-human’s capability. To hope for remorse was but a waste of time, and she had precious little time left to devote to this thirty-four year old nightmare. She decided she would take what she could get.

  Rising from her chair, she walked to the side credenza and picked up a framed picture of his two daughters taken during their late teens.

  “I want you to look at me while I talk to you, and if you look away for even a second, I will stop talking and call the police. Good, just like that. Now tell me, you sick bastard, how would you feel if someone did to your daughters what you did to me? How do you think they would feel? Think about one of these innocent girls lying helpless on the ground, beaten unconscious and bloody, and then think about some mindless idiot standing over her with a rifle intending to beat her brains out. Do you have a picture of that in your mind? If you don’t, think back to that night when I laid there helpless with my head beat in. Imagine your daughter having to live with that memory while she fought every day not to take a bottle of pills to end the thoughts of that horror forever. Some days she would have the whole bottle of pills in the palm of her hand and start screaming because she was so terrified. Terrified of living another day with the memory of the attack. Terrified of the hurt and pain she would cause her loved ones if she took the pills. If she lived, there would be pain. If she died, there would be pain. Never having hurt another person in her entire life and yet, her whole life is about pain, nothing but pain, a pain that lasts for years and years and years.”

  Allison returned the photo to the desk. The sobbing individual across from her hardly resembled the confident, brash individual who met them at the door only a quarter-hour earlier. Tears flowed freely as he sat helpless before his judge, jury, and executioner. Allison knew the tears had nothing to do with any remorse over the pain inflicted on her. His every thought dealt with the personal losses of his reputation, business career, friends, family, and ultimately, his freedom. She knew, without a doubt, she had the object of her hatred for all those years right where she wanted him -- crawling at her feet. She held the power to destroy his entire life, to take everything he owned, and even put him in jail. This thought made her feel good. He’s helpless and afraid, realized Allison, like I was helpless and afraid the night he attacked me.

  Allison held all the cards and the next move was up to her as she watched a grown man sob. Whatever her decision, she had no intention of moving from her present spot while the long awaited spectacle took place in front of her. She would be patient as the pathetic individual across from her crawled and begged. She sat back in her chair to watch more of the meltdown. The sobbing figure awaited Allison’s official pronouncement of his punishment. Allison’s knife-like stare cut his life apart, piece-by-piece.

  “What are you going to do?” The helplessness in each pleading word verified what Allison already knew, the man feared for his existence. He felt the terror.

  Allison watched the spectacle. He owed her this and more.

  “Please, tell me what you are going to do to me. Please!” As the last syllable passed over his lips, his sobbing intensified.

  Allison had all her options at the forefront of her mind as she sat there deciding the man’s fate. Would she ruin him? Would she put him in jail? What should she do to him? She imagined this scene before, but now something was missing. She no longer felt the hatred. It was gone. After thirty-four years, she no longer felt hate for the man. The figure before her didn’t deserve her hate. He was a pathetic, unrepentant, and self-absorbed fraud incapable of dealing with others as human beings. They were merely targets of opportunity.

  She also knew his family would suffer more than him. They probably understood what being a functioning human was all about and, likewise, would condemn such a violent and brutal act. Why make them victims of his crime? She made her decision.

  Rising to her feet she placed her hands on the top of the desk and leaned towards her soul’s former antagonist. “I’ve devoted thirty-four years of my life to hating you and thinking about what I would do to you someday. If I put you in prison and allow your family to become victims for your lack of the basic concepts of decent behavior other humans possess, I will continue to think about you. If I take time to enjoy the fact that you are sitting in a jail cell, it will detract f
rom the quality of my life because I will be thinking about you. You still have no remorse over the hurt and pain you put into my life, and you never will. You are less than a human being. You are the afterbirth of creation, and you don’t deserve to be thought about. I refuse to waste another moment of my life thinking about you. Your evil has sucked the marrow from my life for too long. I’m ready to go, Bobby. We’re done here.”

  Outside the building, side by side, walking back to the rainbow wagon, the two old friends held hands. Allison couldn’t help but notice the air smelled fresher, her step felt lighter, and the warm spring sun shone brighter.