“I think so,” I said to her, grabbing her hand and squeezing it tight. “I think it has to do with Bruce, with Alec, with everything.”
“I didn’t know what to say back there—with the police—”
“You told the truth.”
“I didn’t tell them about you.”
“I know.”
“Jake—I’m scared.”
“You’ll be at your parents’ in a few minutes.”
“No, it’s not that.”
I looked over at her and saw her haunting gaze.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m scared for you.”
“I’m going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”
The clock on the dashboard read 11:35.
“Don’t worry about anything. I promise you—everything’s going to be fine. Okay?”
“Why? How do you know?”
“There’s stuff I need to tell the cops. About Alec. About—about a lot of things. I need to do it and I need to do it now.
“Will it help?”
I took Alyssa’s hand in mine. “I don’t know. I just know it’s the right thing to do.”
FORTY-FIVE
May 1994
JAKE HAD MANAGED TO GET Carnie to come out to the forest preserve with him. This was the same place they had once gotten a pony keg and invited thirty of their fellow underage sophomores to celebrate the warmth of springtime. The same place where an inebriated Alec and Jake had swum across the lake, getting to the middle and feeling their legs cramp up and laughing and wondering if they were going to die in the Summit forest preserve. The same place they had often come for beer and conversation and to pass away the time.
Now Alec was gone. Franklin ignored them. Bruce was high most of the time. Shane was studying like crazy, ready for graduation. Mike was talking about changing schools at the end of the year.
And then there was Carnie. Jake was worried about Carnie. He didn’t usually say much, but something was different with him since spring break. Something was different with all of them, sure, but not like Carnie. He carried the look of death on his face. If he caught Jake looking at him, he would just look away, silent and secretive.
Even after a few beers, Carnie wouldn’t talk about spring break. But Jake kept hoping that they could get past it. Past Brian’s disappearance and the rumors and the secrets and the lies.
It felt like summertime had arrived, and Jake had a nice buzz going and felt the memories of three years here in the woods of this remote location.
“Where do you think you’ll be in ten years?” Carnie asked out of the blue.
Jake shrugged, staring up at the sky. “I don’t know where I’ll be in ten minutes.”
“Take a guess.”
“My guess is, uh, jail.” Jake let out a chuckle, then realized the bad taste of what he had said.
I used to laugh a lot more. Joke a lot more. But there hasn’t been much to joke about lately.
“I’m serious,” Carnie said.
“I don’t know. Doing something outdoors. With people. Having fun. I think I’d die having a nine-to-five job.”
“Yeah.”
“What about you? What do you see?”
“I don’t know what I see anymore.”
Jake looked up at Carnie, surprised at his tone. “What do you mean?”
“I just want to get away. But I don’t know where to go.”
“Come to Europe with us,” Jake said.
“That wouldn’t help.”
“Then what would?”
Carnie was silent for a minute, then he said, “All the stuff they say in class and chapel. The stuff about God and heaven and hell. You believe all that?”
“I don’t know. Some of it. I believe in God.”
“What if it’s really true?”
“About God?”
“About everything. Eternity and hell and damnation and all that.”
“That’s the stuff I wonder about,” Jake said.
“Yeah. Like—how can God really do such a thing, you know? How can He send people to hell? That’s what I always wonder, what I can’t get my mind through.”
“Yeah.”
“I was listening to Metallica the other day—”
“Ah, such good taste.”
“Their song ‘Nothing Else Matters.’ And I wondered—does anything matter? Does it really matter if we’re drinking beers or having sex with someone we barely know or if someone disappears and nobody knows the story behind it? Does any of it matter in the first place?”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“I told you a hundred times, Jake. I don’t know what happened.”
“You’ve acted different ever since spring break.”
“I know,” Carnie said.
Jake watched his friend, took a sip of his beer, and then waved a hand. “I don’t know what happened, and frankly, I don’t care anymore.”
“You believe in that notion of joining your friends in hell?” Carnie asked.
Jake laughed out loud. “You’re drunk.”
“Maybe. But do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you believe it will be better to have a fun time in hell with your friends than spend eternity with a bunch of holier-than-thou people in heaven?”
“This past semester has been a journey into hell,” Jake said, trying to make light of the conversation.
“Do you really think there is a hell? Honestly?”
Jake looked at Carnie. He felt like a teenager having a talk with his father about sex.
He didn’t want to tell Carnie what he really believed.
In the first place, he didn’t know exactly what he believed. But it scared him, just like a lot of things deep down scared him. But he could put a Band-Aid and a case of beer over them and the fears would subside. The fear of tomorrow, the fear of the unknown, the fear of ever after. The fear of what really happened to Brian Erwin.
He had grown adept at ignoring those fears.
“Carnie … a week from now, we’ll be walking down getting our diplomas, and all this madness will be over and we’ll be free.”
“Free to do what?”
“Free to be adults. To do whatever we want.”
“Haven’t we been doing that the last couple of years?”
“You know what I mean,” Jake said.
But Carnie seemed distant, lost in his own ocean of doubts and insecurities.
“It’ll all work out, man,” Jake said.
And he believed it too. That he really, truly believed.
FORTY-SIX
June 2005
“JAKE.” ALEC’S VOICE SOUNDED harried on my cell.
“What is it?”
“Where are you?”
“Heading to the cops.”
“Jake—”
“It’s over. I’m through. With everything.”
Alec cursed. “You said you wanted proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“I’ve got it.”
I had left Alyssa ten minutes ago. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was driving and what I was doing, but I wanted this to be over. Tonight.
“I’m supposed to actually believe you?”
“This one time,” Alec said. “One last time.”
“I’m tired—”
“Come to the campus.”
“To Providence?”
“Just meet me there in an hour. And I promise you, you’ll understand.”
Something in me still believed him. I didn’t know why.
Another part of me was scared that Alec’s lie would be his last.
I could remember driving these same streets, a different person. It wasn’t that long ago. The past decade didn’t feel that long. Thirty-three years old didn’t feel that old. But I wouldn’t have recognized that kid driving that car. I wouldn’t have known what to say to him.
Had I been given this chance only to discover the truth about myself? The truth I had
suspected all along? That I was guilty, that I was more guilty than I realized? That they had been covering up for my sins. That they had taken the blame for me.
There’s only one person who can do that, who’s ever done that.
I saw the shimmer of the street lamp. A nearby church I’d never visited still remained on the corner. A restaurant. A health club.
I spent three years existing around here but never really living. Never really opening my eyes to the world around me.
I turned onto the street where the sign said Providence College.
If I could go back, I would. If I could simply go back and try again, I would try harder. I would change and do something good. I would stop ridiculing the so-called phonies I labeled and judged without knowing them. I would finally acknowledge that I couldn’t do it alone and that I needed help and that God was the only person who could help me.
Help me now. Help me tonight.
I’d spent so much time running and I’d tried running far away but God had caught up with me.
I don’t understand why, God. Why me?
It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right but that’s why it was called grace. I was learning about such things. I’d heard about it but hadn’t really understood it until a year ago.
The college parking lot was empty except for a lone car with its headlights on.
Let this be the end, I thought. Let this be over and done with, regardless of what happens.
I opened my car door and breathed in the cool summer night.
“This better be good.”
The voice I heard belonged to Mike. He turned off his car and opened the door, leaving the parking lot suddenly coated in darkness.
“Alec called you too?” I asked.
“He said I needed to get down to the college. That it was urgent. I figured—after everything with Bruce—is that what this is about?”
“It’d better be.”
It was closing in on one o’clock. I watched Mike light up a cigarette.
“This is crazy,” he said. “I thought we’d go the rest of our lives without bringing all of this up.”
I wanted to reply, but for the moment I leaned against his car looking up at the stars. It was a brief moment of relaxation.
Then I heard the engine approaching and knew Alec was near.
FORTY-SEVEN
May 1994
THE STILLNESS WOKE HIM. A hollow quiet that nudged him and made his subconscious perk up with alarm. His body was slower to follow. The familiar remnants of the past night, of the past four years, covered him like a blanket. The dry mouth, the smoky clothes, the crusted eyes, the pressed skull. Jake looked at the wall and wondered where he was, if he’d slept in his own bed and how he’d managed to get there from the party the night before.
He tried to replay the last memory but it didn’t come. He’d gone through this too many times, and now he just didn’t care. Sometime between Shelli’s graduation party and now, he had lapsed into that too-familiar state. The long tail of a falling night when darkness and silence eclipsed everything.
Jake sat up and tried to get his bearings. He thought of the party, which made him think of toasting graduation, which made him think of the cap and gown, which made him think of
10:30 sharp
The clock said 10:45 a.m.
The class of ’94 would be walking in fifteen minutes.
He could make it to school in seven minutes, still have time to adjust his cap onto the gnarly-looking mass of hair sticking over his head, and could smile as he walked and heard his name.
Why didn’t his roommates wake him up?
Last night was a blur. This morning was a blur. Everything in the past week had been a blur.
Jake walked to the bathroom. He looked in the mirror and saw a large bruise on his forehead. It looked like he had run into something, or someone, last night. A pipe or a cabinet or who knows what. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
He only had a few minutes. He turned on the faucet and took a cup to run water over his face. He quickly brushed his teeth.
Then something caught his eye.
What …
He looked to his right and stared into the tub.
The stained plastic shower curtain was half torn off its rings. Something was weighing it down. Maybe someone had been sick and had left a morning surprise in the shower. Maybe that someone had been him.
With one hand still brushing his teeth, Jake casually tried to open the curtain. It wouldn’t budge, so he jerked it off its rings.
And saw the wet, white head of Carnie looking at him with blank, open eyes.
Every ounce of strength and life in Jake poured out of him in a gasp as he grabbed Carnie by his wet shirt and tried to pull him up and out of the tub.
His bulky friend weighed too much, and all Jake did was stretch the shirt.
“Carn, come on, man, hey, wake up.”
But his words sounded hollow. Carnie’s face was dead white and ghostly, and Jake thought the worst. Why not? Why, after everything, wouldn’t he think the worst, because the worst had already stopped by their front door and delivered a whole case of hurt and sorrow and misery. Maybe it had stopped again last night and delivered its final present for the year.
The voice, his voice, now surprisingly loud, surprisingly scary, rose as it called Carnie’s name. “Carnie! Come on, man! Come on! Paul, for God’s sake, wake up! Paul, wake up!”
And he called out and cursed God and screamed for help and nothing did any remote good. He tried to find a pulse but didn’t know where to look and all he knew was that Carnie didn’t feel warm, he didn’t feel real, he didn’t feel alive.
And as Jake dialed the phone, he knew his twitchy fingers and his sweaty back and his hoarse voice and his frantic words all meant that this was real, that in the almighty words he and Carnie used to sing together he was alive, truly alive, and that this was a living nightmare that he couldn’t wake up from or forget.
He would remember this moment every day for the rest of his life.
FORTY-EIGHT
June 2005
I HEARD A CURSE SHOUTED in the semidarkness and knew it wasn’t Alec’s voice.
“This your idea, Jake?”
I could see Franklin walking around the car to face Mike and me. Alec turned off the engine and the lights.
“So he got you to come too?” I asked the figure approaching me. “What’d he have to—”
Franklin’s fist came out of nowhere and landed awkwardly against my ear. I fell back and gasped out loud.
“Don’t try that again,” Alec said, now out of the car.
“Or what? You gonna use that?”
Holding my ear in my hand, I looked at Alec and noticed his arm pointed at Franklin.
“Alec—”
“He’s got a gun,” Mike said to me.
“Everybody just calm down. Jake, you okay?” Alec asked.
“I’d feel better if you told me what you are doing.”
“You wanted proof. Here’s proof.”
I could make out the shadows of their faces under the glow of the moon.
“You’re holding a gun,” I said. “What sorta proof is that?”
“Tell him,” Alec said, still aiming his handgun at Franklin.
“Tell him what?”
“The truth.”
“The truth died when Carnie decided to swallow a whole bottle of pills one morning.”
“Shut your face,” I said to Franklin.
“It was your idea from day one,” Alec said. “Go ahead, tell ’em.”
“Tell them what?” Franklin asked.
“We were at Shaughnessy’s and I said we should do something to get back at Brian, and that’s when you devised the plan. It was all you, Frankie.”
“I don’t recall you objecting,” Franklin said.
“I wanted to do it. I thought it was going to be hilarious. I thought it would be a good prank.”
“You guys never told me the e
xact plan,” I said.
“You knew,” Franklin barked out.
Alec shook his head. “No, he didn’t. He was barely functional when I told him. And he was out of it the entire time we were out there.”
“And that makes it all okay, right?” Franklin asked.
“You, Mike, and Carnie got him,” Alec said.
Franklin didn’t say anything.
“Come on. Lay it out. Right now.”
“What?” Franklin said. “You gonna beat it out of me?”
“I won’t have to,” Alec replied.
“And why’s that?”
“Because it’s over,” Alec said. “All of it. It’s over.”
“What are you talking about? What’s over?”
Alec wiped his forehead and looked up at the sky. “I just want to set the record straight. Right here and right now. And then I’m gone, and you’ll never hear or see me again.”
“Haven’t you said that once before?” Franklin asked.
“All of us were responsible in one way or another. It’s just time to get the truth out and settle it and go our merry ways.”
“Carnie can’t speak for himself.”
“Carnie doesn’t have to. It was the three of you guys who got Brian off campus. What’s that? Kidnapping? That’s something, and it’s probably not a misdemeanor.”
“And what do you call coming into my house and pointing a gun in my face? Huh?”
“Put the gun down,” Mike said.
“What do you guys want from me?”
“Resolution,” I interrupted.
“And you’re getting it,” Alec said. “Just tell us here what happened, and then it’s done.”
Franklin stared at us. “Don’t you guys get it?” he asked. “I’ve only been trying to help.”
“Trying to help? What’s that mean?” I asked.
“What that means is I’m trying to keep you from stumbling into any more trouble. You think I didn’t know what was going on with Jelen? I was the one he came to first to try and find Alec. He didn’t know how I left things with you—with all of you. He didn’t need to know. But he freaked me out when he pulled out this blackmail threat. I didn’t bite. But I knew that someone would. And that someone was our Mr. Jake Rivers. Resident hero. The prodigal son.”
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