“Just not yours. I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.” Sarah flashed an eat-shit-and-die grin and moved off to get a ringside seat for the actor’s toast.
Jess didn’t have time to consider following her as he felt a tug at his sports coat. Standing right beside him was the definition of a lanky brooding teenage boy in a form-fitting dinner jacket. The kid looked as uncomfortable as Jess.
“Hey Jessie.”
Jess looked more dumbfounded than when he first saw Sarah.
“Harry?”
“Sarah’s still a pain in the ass, right?”
“Wait a minute. Did my not-so-baby brother just say ‘ass’?”
“I’ve learned a whole lot of new words since you left,” said Harry Stark.
“I’m sure you have.”
Whereas the changes in Sarah were certainly considerable, at least his sister was recognizable after Jess’s seven-year absence. Harry was a completely different being. The adolescent beside him bore no resemblance to the eight-year-old whose sole ambition had been to build the perfect Lego castle. Jess couldn’t have been less interested in helping out his baby brother growing up—he had games to win and girls to chase—but now he was genuinely pleased to see Harry and didn’t hesitate to hug him.
“I didn’t even know you were home.”
“Mom brought me back for the school year when Dad got sick. I’m not really sure why. It’s not like we’ve spent quality time together.”
“I’m sure she’s had her hands full.” Jess shocked himself by suddenly defending his mother. He chalked it up as a rote response.
“Nah. She just knew it’d look bad if she didn’t.”
Jess didn’t disagree with his brother, who had grown both older and wiser. “You going to Desert Chapel?”
“Yeah. Sophomore year.”
“Playing sports?”
“They tried to get me to go out for football. Figured maybe it ran in the blood.” He gave Jess a self-effacing shoulder shrug. “Like I could ever play quarterback.”
“Wouldn’t know unless you gave it a shot.”
“No way. They’d expect me to be you. By the way, you still hold half a dozen records.”
“Teams must have really sucked since then.”
“Yeah. Kind of.” Harry chuckled. “I might try golf in the spring. Depends on how long Mom wants me to stick around.”
“You don’t have a say in the matter?”
“Hell no. You did the right thing leaving, Jess. This place is fucking weird and depressing.”
He didn’t know what was more surprising: his younger brother possessing such a colorful vocabulary or feeling the exact same vibes that Jess had sensed since he rolled into town that morning.
“This ought to be a crock of horseshit,” said Harry.
Harry was staring at Clark James. The actor had one hand on Walter Stark’s shoulder, the other holding up a champagne flute. “Can I have your attention, please?”
The hubbub died down as all eyes turned toward their host. James took the pregnant pause he’d used in dozens of films to feign sincerity and then launched into his toast. The first part was all about himself instead of the honoree, which didn’t surprise Jess in the least.
“You make a bunch of movies and you start believing your own press. You get used to getting lots of free stuff, moving to the head of any line, and people looking at you all googly-eyed wherever you go. But when I got to Palm Springs fifteen years ago, I became aware of another man getting that same treatment. I couldn’t help wondering who was stealing my thunder.”
A healthy dose of laughter filled the room. Some forced, most genuine. Jess thought that these people were easily entertained.
“Walter Stark. Who was Walter Stark? I’d never heard of him. I hadn’t seen a picture he’d made, a ball game he’d played in, or an elected office he held. I wanted to know—I needed to find out—who the hell was Walter Stark?”
James gripped Walter’s shoulder tighter. “Walter Stark turned out to be a humanitarian—a foreign breed in Hollywood. He built hospitals to take care of the sick and elderly, made countless donations to numerous charities, and could always be counted on to lend a helping hand.”
“Like I said, horseshit,” murmured Harry.
James built toward his ending. “I got to know Walter and it has cost me a shitload of money in donations.” There were more hearty laughs. “But I am extremely honored to call him my friend. And happy to share the press with him any time he sees fit.”
James raised his glass up high. “So, here’s wishing Walter a happy birthday, a speedy recovery, and that one year from tonight we’ll be throwing him a bigger and even better party!”
Everyone took sips of bubbly and responded with plenty of “Hear, hear” and applause. James leaned closer to Jess’s father. “Anything you’d like to add, Walter?”
“Just one thing,” said Walter.
Jess thought it remarkable that his father’s voice was so much stronger than it had been on the lanai only a few hours earlier. “I’d like to know if you’ve got a picture in some closet getting older every day. Because if you do, I’d love to meet the artist. You look like you did in a movie you made ten years ago.”
James laughed. “I might have quit but that doesn’t mean my makeup artists aren’t still on salary.”
Harry nudged Jess. “Glad you came home for this crap?”
But Jess’s eyes had drifted to the French doors leading outside, where a drop-dead gorgeous girl was watching the proceedings. Raven haired, with alabaster luminous skin and just the slightest trace of rouge and ruby lipstick, she was a vision in a white cocktail dress. Her eyes landed briefly on Jess and then she walked outside.
Clark James and his father continued to chat away to the delight of the crowd, but it was just so much white noise for Jess. He stood transfixed on the carpet, eyeing the empty French doors. He’d often wondered what he would do when it came to this moment. Would he beat a hasty retreat, or go and confront the past?
The latter won out.
Jess looked apologetically at his brother. “I’ll catch up with you in a bit, Harry.”
Then Jess headed for the French doors—following the girl who broke his heart.
She stood on the grass-lined rim of the infinity pool staring out at the twinkling lights of Palm Springs below. Her exquisite skin took on a porcelain sheen in the moon glow, and as Jess crossed the lawn his heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t seen Tracy James in seven years and she still took his breath away.
“Not a word all this time. Now, suddenly you show up in my living room,” she said.
“It wasn’t my idea, believe me.” Jess stopped when he was two feet away. Part of him wanted to hurl her into the pool or off the cliff. The other part wanted desperately to pull her into his arms.
“You could’ve called. Told me you were in town,” she said.
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
“Always, Jessie.” Tracy offered up a sad smile. “Maybe you’re the one who didn’t want to see me.”
“That was true for a long time.”
“And now?”
Jess wrestled with what to say. Did he dare tell her how he’d thought about her every day for the first two years? And how that basically hadn’t changed over the next five? Or did he come clean about all the pain she had left him with? Maybe he ought to tell her how she’d caused him to flunk Dr. Clifford’s biofeedback test.
Jess went with a convenient truth instead.
“I came here to see my father.”
Tracy lowered her eyes. “I’m so sorry about all that.”
Jess couldn’t help himself. “Are you really?”
She looked genuinely hurt. “Of course I am. About everything.” Her eyes drifted back to the party inside. People were continuing to hobnob and drink, oblivious to the fragile reunion happening poolside.
“I think about you all the time, Jessie.” She moved almost imperceptibly. But definite
ly closer. “Do you ever think of me?”
There it was. A second chance to fork over the truth. But he had waited too long to speak up.
“Isn’t this nice? The happy couple together again.”
Jess felt a chill as he turned to face his father. Could this really be the same man who hours earlier had been shivering to death under a blanket? Tracy looked out at the city lights, avoiding Walter Stark’s penetrating gaze. Jess instinctively stepped in front of her. “Your party’s inside, Dad.”
“Not as interesting as what’s happening out here,” said Walter.
The nasty grin was what made Jess finally snap. “You really want to get into all that? Right now?”
“You wouldn’t do that to your mother.” Walter looked back toward the house.
“You don’t think so?”
Tracy tried to step between father and son. “Jessie…”
But Walter wouldn’t let it go. He glared menacingly at Jess. “You don’t have the nerve or the guts.”
Maybe it was a lifetime of built-up anger toward Walter and having to toe the line. It might just have been Tracy standing by his side. But Jess found himself doing what his father thought him incapable of—issuing a threat.
“What you said earlier? About what they’re doing?”
Walter backed off a bit. Once again, Jess saw fear in his father’s eyes.
“Watch what you say, boy.”
“Maybe they ought to finish it.”
Walter waved a pale finger in his son’s face. “You’ll regret saying that.”
Tracy finally couldn’t take it. “Stop it! Both of you!”
The two men were taken aback by her sudden outburst.
“I must have been out of my mind coming back here,” said Jess. He turned away from both of them and made a beeline for the side exit.
Walter yelled after him. “That’s right. Run off. Just like you did before!”
Jess didn’t let that faze him and kept on walking. He was in the yard just long enough to hear Tracy call his father a bastard before he disappeared into the desert night.
JESS BELOW
Jess stopped screaming after the sixth or seventh shovelful. Not only did his assailants have no intention of pulling him out of the grave, he knew there was a limited amount of oxygen in the enclosed space. He had no idea how long it would take to use up the available air and no interest in rushing the process.
Eventually, the thudding clods of dirt ceased. Jess heard a car door opening. When an engine revved, and tires screeched, his heart sank. Suddenly his plight hit him full force—buried alive in the middle of the desert and no one knew where he was.
“OhGodohGodohGodohGod…”
He kept up the frantic mantra until he remembered the price of overexerted breaths. It took every ounce of willpower to try and calm himself down.
Once his breathing became less labored, Jess faced the next obstacle—escaping before he ran out of oxygen. He tried pushing up against the coffin lid, which, of course, didn’t budge an inch. There was a ton of caked dirt piled on top of it.
Horrific thoughts raced through his head. What sort of creepy crawly things were living down here with him? What if he managed to poke a hole in the coffin lid, dirt poured into his mouth, and he choked to death on his own burial ground long before he would have asphyxiated? These fears were fueled by not being able to see a damn thing.
That was when Jess remembered his cell phone.
He’d always made fun of people who went to rock concerts and held their iPhones up to replicate the classic lit match from days gone by. Now he wished he had a dozen of them.
There was very little room in the coffin. Jess thought it might take him a good hour to turn himself around. It took ten minutes just to extract the cell from his pants pocket. He said a silent prayer his phone was holding a full charge—it was half-answered when he saw the battery bar was at fifty percent.
It illuminated his surroundings: simple carved wood. Wherever his ski-masked captors had obtained the coffin, they had bypassed the showroom models. He was just relieved to see he wasn’t sharing the space with a rodent, reptile, or nest of worms.
Suddenly, something obvious occurred to him. He was holding a cell phone. It was probably a long shot but what harm was there in trying to dial 911?
He punched in the three digits and hit “Send.”
The display screen immediately flashed “No Signal.”
Jess groaned. He was tempted to hurl the cell but knew it would bounce off the lid and hit him square in the face. With his luck, it would probably land directly in his open head wound and he’d end up passing out again.
Jess regained his composure and as he stared at the phone, he became aware of a few things.
He could see the walls of the coffin.
The time was 2:42 a.m.
And he was completely fucked.
8
Jess was in the passenger seat of the family station wagon punching radio presets. A newscast, a ball game, and a couple of rock stations blasted out of the speaker he’d cranked up to drown out his parents, who were arguing in the driveway. Sarah was behind the wheel with her hands over her ears and eyes shut, trying to wish it all away. Jess was nine and Sarah was seven. She punched the horn in frustration and accidentally hit the gear shift. The station wagon lurched down the steep driveway.
Sarah screamed. Jess yelled at her to stomp on the brake. Her feet couldn’t reach it. A hysterical Kate shoved Walter toward the car, which was picking up momentum. Walter stumbled and fell to the ground, helpless to come to his children’s aid.
As an AC-DC tune blared on the radio, Jess tried to grab hold of the steering wheel from the passenger seat and got Sarah’s hands clawing in his face instead. Jess grabbed his door handle and screamed for Sarah to do the same. But the doors wouldn’t budge—they’d automatically locked when the car started to move.
Kate keened at the top of the driveway. Sarah’s face was drenched in tears. Jess noticed something in the rearview mirror.
The adult Tracy James stood at the bottom of the driveway.
She was wearing the white cocktail dress from Walter’s birthday party and it was drenched in blood.
The nine-year-old Jess screamed as the car hurtled on a collision course with the impassive Tracy.
Bang!
Jess bolted up in bed.
There was another sharp bang. He whipped around and realized something was slamming against the motel room wall. Blue neon washed above the bed; it came through the thin opaque curtain of the room’s only window. The wind howled outside—an endless echo.
Jess hopped out of bed. He wore a white T-shirt and pair of sweatpants. He crossed to the window and peered outside. The neon sign was on (the “S” still wasn’t fixed) and spread a turquoise glow across the parking lot. Jess’s SUV and the vintage Mustang were the only two cars. The Santa Anas blew sand all over both of them.
There wasn’t a living soul in sight.
Jess closed the flimsy curtain and headed back to bed. He chalked the nightmare up to desert winds, an old love, and general familial unpleasantness. He looked at the clock radio on the nightstand—just past four in the morning. Too early for a cup of coffee and way too late to analyze a bad dream. He lay back and tried to drift back to sleep.
This time, a scratching sound got his attention.
He sat up slowly, trying to ascertain where the noise was coming from. The wind continued to blow but there seemed to be something else. It sounded like a moan, as if someone was calling his name.
Jess was tempted to pinch himself. Maybe he was in one of those horror movie sequences where you’re dreaming and wake up in a cold sweat, only to throw open a door and wake up again because it was just one big fucking nightmare. But he was pretty sure he was wide awake and someone was at the door.
He climbed out of bed again. “Who is it?”
The answer was a more pronounced scratch and a heavy blast of wind. He placed his hand on
the doorknob and hesitated before throwing it open.
The scratching stopped.
So did the wind.
Jess opened the door and his father fell onto him.
Walter was a mess, with blood trickling from his mouth. He was ghostlier than he’d been in the wheelchair. His father started to slip, so Jess tried to pull the old man up but was dragged out the door for his troubles. They tumbled to the ground in the parking lot.
Walter gasped for breath but barely found any. “Son…”
Jess clung to his father. “Who did this?”
Walter didn’t have strength left to answer. His bloodshot eyes drifted to the wall beside Jess’s motel door.
A bloody “T” had been scrawled there. The horizontal slash was thick; as if it were being emphasized.
Jess couldn’t help raising his voice. “Did you do that? What does it mean?”
But Walter didn’t respond.
He died in his oldest son’s arms.
9
By the time the cops arrived, the wind had died down to a slight breeze. The morning sun crested over the eastern mountains, throwing sparkles off the purple quartz. It was cold. Unless it was the dead of summer, the days started out frigid even if the mercury climbed into the high eighties by noon. For Jess, that chill was going to linger a while. There was a litany of unresolved issues between him and Walter, and now Jess was forced to carry a one-sided burden for the rest of his days.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Jess found himself with Thaddeus Burke while the sheriff’s men tended to a dead body. This wasn’t lost on the lawman, who sucked coffee from a 7-11 Big Gulp while waving at the coroner van with his free hand.
“This is becoming a nasty habit, son.”
“Tell me about it,” Jess replied.
“I’m sorry for your loss. Walter Stark was a great man.”
Jess just nodded. The sheriff was entitled to his own opinion.
Burke finished off the coffee, crumpled the cup, and tossed it in a trash can. “I know you’ve been gone a long time. But I’m sure you’re aware of all the good things that your father did around here.”
Descending Son Page 5