The Road to Lazarus (The First book in the diaries of Lazarus House)

by Patrick T. McAlister

  Chapter 7

  Gabriel moved his chair closer to her. Reaching his hand up, he lifted her chin. “Look at me Raven” he said. Timidly, she looks into his eyes. The longer he held her gaze the more uncomfortable she began to feel. She felt as if with every moment their eyes were locked he was breaking down a brick in the wall she had been building around her heart since she was a young a child. The longer he looked into her brown eyes, the deeper he seemed to travel into her soul. She began to realize she knew those eyes. They were the eyes of her dreams the eyes she had lost herself in. In her fantasies; they are the eyes from the beach, the eyes from the room. A shiver races down her spine. She kept starring into his eyes, trying to get lost in the moments when he had taken her away from reality; she bit her lower lip out of habit, lustfully willing Gabriel to take her to the places they had been meeting.

  Gabriel cleared his throat and began to speak softly. As eloquently as he could he began. “Here sits Raven Marie Wagner. She is thirty-seven years old and during those thirty-seven years she has lived a harder life than anyone should really have had to. She is aged way beyond her years simply by the abuse of others and her own hang-ups.

  It is my understanding that at eight years old she was molested by her uncle, by ten she had been passed around the family to the point that her own father was sexually abusing her. When told of this, her strong Mormon mother did nothing except blame her for her own beauty, saying the sexual and physical abuse was all her own fault. The way she paraded around the compound she asked for what she got! By the age of 16, Raven had lost all site of God, there was no room for him in her heart or in her life.

  After all that had happened it seemed He was never there anyway. Even high school was not the happy time it is for most teens. She was raped yet again at a party one night. As she raced away from the party afterwards her thoughts were only of ending it all and escaping the torment and pain. She drove too fast, too reckless, barely able to see through her tears. She swerved off the road and hit a tree; the shame she felt had driven her to want death.

  Her friend Laura found her and took her to the hospital after the rape kit was collected her parents walked in. Both held a look of disgust in their eyes and told her how ashamed they were of her. She hardly spoke to either of her parents for the next two years."

  Her eyes grew wider the longer he talked. How could he know so much about her? Still holding her gaze he continued to speak. “After graduation, Raven came out to California and enrolled in Rio Hondo Community College. Her goal was to gain a degree in criminal justice that she could use to gain entry into a Police Academy somewhere here. By the age of twenty-one she had been abused by two more boyfriends, sexually assaulted one more time.

  She was accepted into the LAPD academy, graduating at the top of the class. This was during a time when female cops in the LAPD were mostly viewed as Public Relation tools for women’s rights groups and the lesbian community. Not her though, she had being a cop down pat, it seemed like a natural part of her. She was going to spend her life making sure the bad guys went down for hurting the innocent! Especially the ones that raped or harmed women!!!

  Oh yes gentlemen, she was very good at this. Five years into her career she made detective out of Devonshire division. Shortly after she married the man that she believed was her soul mate, a fellow officer still working the gang task force at 77th precinct.

  She fell for what she thought was love. They married a short time after that, she was ecstatic. A marriage she believed was perfect. Her career on track to meet her goal of making into the famed “RHD Club” at Parker Center! Where she could solve puzzle after puzzle with the end game being bad guys going away to prisons for years to come. All was great in her world. She had no need for that thing people called “God.” She was doing just fine living life her way.” Gabriel paused for a moment to get his breath then continued.

  “Then her life, gentlemen, forever changed just weeks into her marriage. Her husband began beating her on a regular basis. She never quite figured out what would set him off, it just happened again and again. She had no control over it. So she did the only thing within her power to do, she began to withhold sex from him. She believed by doing this she could hold on to some sliver of control over her life. His answer to this was to go pick up prostitutes off the streets of the valley or young women trying to make a name in Pornacopia and bring them home. He forced her to watch him being pleasured by these women, at times he would force the women to please her in a sick twisted manner he found amusing. The son of a bitch would always force her to clean him afterwards. This was just another in the long list of ways he found to humiliate her.

  Then without warning he would stop. The beatings would stop. He wouldn’t bring the women home. He would stop the verbal humiliation. To her things would just suddenly seem “normal.” His real reason for these “breaks” was simple. He worried she would find her backbone, or reach her limit and would find a way to cost him his badge and career. He expertly manipulated her into a false sense of hope and love. He would even go as far as buying her flowers and send them to her office for the whole world to see. Over the weeks of peace she would begin to relax, she would begin to hope that things were really going to be different, that his apologies and all that he promised would be true this time. He would take all of the promises away, when she would reveal she was with child." Steel seemed to seep into Gabriel’s voice with what he had just said.

  “This continued for a long time, until the night when she finally snapped. The one thing she never told anyone was that she was six months pregnant at the time. She miscarried while watching the life drain from his body.

  Afterwards, she went to therapy as the department ordered, only giving surface level accounts of her emotional and psychological state, just enough to satisfy the therapist that she knew didn’t really care. The LAPD, being like any other form of government, did only what was specifically “required.” The therapy was more of a formality than actual treatment. Just a means to get her returned to duty as quickly as possible while appearing to help.

  She was placed in the vacant slot at RHD when she returned. Again, she felt she had no need for God in her life. The way she saw it, He was just a lie people used to make themselves feel better about the shitty, fucked up world we live in. One more way for them to delude themselves into believing that there was hope for something better."

  Gabriel paused again, looking at her to see if she would speak up if she had anything to add. She just sat there completely dumbfounded by how much he knew about her life! Everything he had said was the truth. All of it!! Down to the smallest detail of her feelings and her thoughts!! How could he know so much about her and her so little about him was the only question she had, but she decided to keep that herself for now.

  Gabriel looked around the group and asked if he could continue? Raven, not trusting her voice, simply nodded her head in agreement. Fred and Michael sat back in unison, each mirroring the body language of the other without even realizing it.

  He returned his eyes to her and began to speak again. “Many realize that she is a fighter and a survivor. What they don’t realize is that she feels HER way of fighting is the only WAY and her way to love is the only way, plain and simple. What hardly anyone knows is what she believes strongest of all and that is that God doesn’t exist to any of us.” He let this hang in the air for a moment, letting it all sink it. Then, he leaned in close to her, he taking her hands in his and begins to speak softly. The background noise of the coffee shop, the road, the parking lot and all the people faded away to silence. All she could see are his eyes; all she could hear was his voice.

  “Even now you struggle to find a way to logically explain away what has been happening to you lately. (Turning to face Fred and Michael he drops the bomb of bombs about her personal life) “You see, over the past few days she has been having these deep sensual fantasies where she is seduced and pleased by an unknown presence.” She gasps as her eyes widen. �
�This presence does things to her” he continued. “Things she has never dreamed of or imagined pushing her further and further from the reality of love, deeper and deeper into the throws of complete and utter lustful behavior.

  These fantasies take her completely out of reality for hours at a time. Yet, lately they are crossing from fantasy to reality. She finds candles burning in her empty apartment, candles she knows she put out. She finds a single rose left for her this morning just like the one she had last night in her fantasy."

  She is utterly shocked that Gabriel knows these details. She tries to speak, to lift her hand, anything to stop him from speaking, but he held her hands firmly. The look in his eyes stops her from speaking. Leaning back slightly he glances knowingly around at the others. In a more conversational tone he goes on to say. “We all know that fantasy and pleasure are given to us by our maker, that we bear His image according to what we read when we study the garden of Eden, but the garden is long closed and evil has long walked this earth twisting love and intimacy into words and actions that reflect sexual aggression and hurt. We know that when we don’t believe, when we feel we have no hope we are bound to believe in anything. Even believing that our own sexual pleasure is what defines us. Although Raven is not a “loose women” by anyone’s definition she lets her fantasy world take over reality. She lets this fantasy bring her to do things that would be taboo to most of the people walking through this place right now.

  She sees love in a pair of emerald green eyes and a face she can’t even make out. Little does she know that the whole thing has been watched over by God. If you don’t believe in him, then how could she even know? She doesn’t realize it is His way of teaching her to long for true love. She is missing the point to it all. With the life that has been forced upon her, she believes the acts that bring her pleasure are love. When in fact it’s the only way she can let go and finally let a man love her for the heart that is buried so deep. Behind the wall surrounding her heart!!

  Gentlemen, I think you will agree Raven here is a genuine beauty among women. She just thinks her way is the best way. She’s asking herself right now how I can possibly know these things. How I could know so much? It is just my gift Raven, as any of these men will attest too." With that, he leans back and finishes his beer and sparks up a smoke he pulled from his pack on the table.

  Michael sat there looking at Raven, waiting for a response. She looked over at his hazel eyes, not even noticing the tears rolling down her face. “I have to leave.” she says. Before any of them could stop her she was racing for her car across the parking lot. She threw herself into the drivers’ seat and slammed the door. She fired up the motor and then flew out of the lot, gravel and dust flying in her wake. She was desperate to put as much distance between her them as she could.

  Watching her Mustang speed away the men looked at one another. Fred looked at Gabriel and just shakes his head. “Why do you have to reveal the whole truth in one big rush, instead of easing people into it?” Gabriel shrugged his shoulders and replied, “That’s just the way I am. You have to say exactly what you know and feel, for this moment may be all we ever find” He winked at both men with the last line.

  Michael, watching the dust begin to settle in the parking lot finally spoke. “I wonder what she will see when she rests tonight.” Gabriel replied “A glimpse of true love, I hope.”

  As she drove the short distance home, her tears fell uncontrollably. She was dealing with too many emotions to even put names to them. All the rampant thoughts racing through her head- She has never been one to cry. Not at any point except when she lost her child to the punishing blow from her husband. Now, the tears just kept falling. As she pulled into the parking garage of her apartment and parked her car she didn’t even bother to wipe her eyes. Getting out, locking the door she walked up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. She really didn’t think she could deal with the questioning looks if anyone were to see her right now.

  Entering her apartment, she threw her keys on the table and went straight to her fridge. Reaching in and grabbing cold Corona in one hand and a slice of lime from the bowl with the other she bumped the fridge closed with a swing of her hip. Snapping the top from the bottle with the edge of the counter she pushed the lime though the opening and grabbed the bottle of Patron as well. In a daze she walked to the couch and sat down, tears still falling from her eyes. Why did he attack her very core like that? He knew her whole LIFE. All of what he had said was true, every last detail, but how? How had he gotten behind the walls she had created to hide her true self? He seemed to walk right through all her defenses like they weren’t even there. She took a sip of her beer and followed it with a shot of tequila straight from the bottle, yet it seemed to have no effect on her.

  She leaned back putting her feet up on the coffee table, slowly drinking her beer letting the words of Gabriel play over and over in her head. As she sat in the silence she felt the warmth in her scar again. “Today IS NOT the day for this.” She spoke loudly to the empty apartment and the presence she could feel, “I am not in the mood for this today.” As her words faded to silence her scar became even warmer. With an exasperated sigh she stood up, draining the beer on her way to the kitchen to grab another.

  This time Raven took the time to remove the top with the bottle opener that was on her fridge instead of the edge of the counter. Without a lime she turned and walked back to plop down on the couch. All she wanted in the world right at that minute was to escape the truths she had heard today. Laying her head back, she closed her eyes. The hardest to come to grips with was being told how she had used the beauty and delight she had gotten from these fantasies as an idea of actual love, that she somehow believed all she was worth to a man was her sensuality and her sexuality. Without opening her eyes she took another long drink from the bottle of beer, her mind replaying the afternoon. His words. She couldn’t believe that anyone knew she had made an orgasm her god, while turning her heart and mind away from the one real God. He had been right in how he described how she took the fantasies and let them become her identity to the world around her. “How do I change this image of myself? How do I find what I so desire, when I am not really even sure what it is that I desire?” A thousand questioned raced through her mind as she finished her beer.

  Chapter 8

  At the coffee shop the men sat around the table. Michael took out a folded piece of paper and a photograph. Gabriel did the same. They both placed them on the table for Fred to see. One was a police record he had seen before; the other paper was a prison release form. The photos were a mug shot and a recon photo Gabriel had taken.

  “Pops this is the man that killed Francis” Gabriel said. “Michael rescued his girlfriend in one of his first cases. He had beaten her several times, while he got her addicted to meth. That was at least five years ago. The guy was put away for a minimum of five - ten years for the crimes. Michael testified against him in that court case.

  We know she’s still safe, living a new life far away from this guy. He said in court he would come after Michael and make him pay for what he had done. He was released from Walla Walla State Prison in Washington State two weeks ago. Michael did his geeky thing and found the last number Francis got a call from. He traced the call back to a cell phone that is owned by this guy’s sister here in Oxnard.

  I drove over to the house this morning, and took this photo” he said pushing the recon photo closer to Fred. “His name is Jose Martinez. His record is a mile long full of battery charges and simple assaults. We’ve known for years that he has ties to the “Pistolaro” Motorcycle Gang.

  From what research Michael did before putting the guy away and what we’ve found now, we know for sure that he would help smuggle meth from the inland empire area of California up to a small town in Washington just south of the Canadian border called Blayne. He was moving large amounts at the time of his arrest for battery. No law enforcement agency has ever been able to charge him for the drugs. He always stayed in the
wind when things started getting hot. Now that he is out he is going right back into the business and sticking to his word"

  Fred sat looking over the information and at his two boys, well now they were men, and his heart filled with pride and love for them both. He looked over at Michael, sitting there with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes squinted against the smoke rising from the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He chuckled remembering how many times Michael had been told that he was hell bound for smoking those things. They both looked back at him with a quizzical look on their faces. Fred shook his head slightly, pulling himself from his memories back to the reality at hand.

  Smiling, he asked “Michael, is this the client that got you away from only counseling warriors? If I remember right you said the one that changed your heart until the Lord takes you home?” Michael smiled back, “Yes, this is where I met Summer and her sons. Jose had taken her other son right out of the day care one day. He kept the boy from her for years. Never going through the courts or anything, he just took him, saying she was a meth whore that would never change. I did persuade him to begin talking with her again though. Man was I naïve back then. I had this idea that Jose would change just like she had and they would find a common ground, and maybe at least work things out enough for her to see her son on a regular basis.