Admission

by Travis Thrasher

  “What was I supposed to say?” I asked.

  “Why didn’t you come to me?” Franklin asked.

  “Oh, yeah, Papa Frankie,” Alec said in disgust. “I’m sure you would have been a comfort.”

  “Jelen got involved because of you. This is all your fault.”

  “So what’d you do?” I asked.

  “I just—I just wanted you to lay off. To not stir up anything.”

  “Frankie, you see, has this nice little comfortable life set up for himself, and he doesn’t want anyone interrupting it, right?” Alec rested his arm against his side.

  Franklin looked as though he wanted to lunge at Alec, but he was wise not to.

  “But wait—that wasn’t you in Chicago with Bruce and me—” Mike began.

  “I don’t wave guns around like an idiot.”

  “You—you just get people to do it for you.”

  I looked at Franklin’s unchanging face and couldn’t believe it.

  “What’s that mean?” I demanded.

  “I was just trying to keep you from doing something stupid,” Franklin said. “I asked an associate to take care of things.”

  “An associate,” Alec interrupted, mockingly.

  “I asked him to get someone to scare you off. That was it.”

  “Who was it then?” I asked. “The same guy who conked me on the head in Jacksonville? The guy who threatened Alyssa?”

  “Threatened who?” Franklin for once sounded believable.

  “That’s right,” Alec said. “Now he’s threatening women. Who’s next? Jake’s parents?”

  “That was all just for show.”

  “And the bullet in Bruce’s gut?” Alec demanded. “The one that almost killed a former friend of yours? Was that all for show?”

  “Things got a little out of hand.”

  “Yeah, they always do with you,” Alec said. “They got a little out of hand years ago, and they did now.”

  “What were you thinking?” I asked as Alec propped himself on the hood of his car.

  “I was the only one thinking. Period. You take off trying to figure out the past and asking questions—”

  “I was looking for Alec.”

  “You think this Jelen is going to let things just stay the way they were? You think he’s going to back off?”

  “He will now,” Alec told Franklin.

  We looked at him, not knowing what that meant.

  “Alec—”

  “No, this is about Franklin,” he said to me. “What happened that night? After you picked up Brian? Did our little ride here bring back any memories?”

  ”Why don’t you ask Mikey here? He knows.”

  “No, I don’t,” Mike said. “I swear I don’t.”

  “You were the one who opened up the trunk. You don’t remember?”

  “No.”

  Franklin shook his head. “We taped him up, Carnie and I. But I guess we must not have done a very good job. I don’t know. A lot about that night is foggy to me too. I was pretty loaded. We opened up the trunk, and Brian bolted out and went after the first person he saw. That was Mike. Man, don’t you remember—you were bleeding like a pig all night long? He cut you pretty bad with a knife—a knife that came out of nowhere.”

  “Then what happened?” Alec asked.

  “It was crazy. I don’t know. Brian took off after me with that knife and then Carnie was there and things got out of hand—”

  “You’re lying,” Alec said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Carnie went to find me,” Alec continued. “When you guys got here, you parked on the side of the road. You were supposed to let Brian off in the middle of nowhere to fend for himself. Carnie found me by the campsite, and by the time we got there you were standing over his body.”

  Mike and I both looked at Franklin. He didn’t say anything at first, just looked tired and angry.

  “The guy had just tried to kill Mike and he hurt him pretty bad and—”

  “And what?” Mike suddenly shouted out at Franklin.

  “And I just—yeah—I was doing it out of protection.”

  “Carnie told me Brian was shot in the back,” Alec said.

  “You shot him?” I asked.

  Mike cursed and walked to the side of the car saying “No” over and over again.

  “It was self-defense.”

  “It wasn’t Carnie,” Alec said, looking at me. “And it wasn’t me.”

  “It got out of control—we’re talking about Brian. You know—the guy who almost beat the life out of you? You remember that? That guy had it coming. It wasn’t supposed to turn out that way, but he was out of control.”

  For a moment we were all silent. Distant car engines resonated in the background. Crickets in the surrounding forest droned on. I wondered what a gunshot would sound like out here in the middle of nowhere.

  “It was never supposed to happen,” Franklin said.

  “A lot of things weren’t supposed to happen,” I said.

  Alec watched us carefully, his hand and the gun resting against his side.

  “So you just—you just let me—let all of us believe it was Carnie?” I asked Franklin. “How gutless was that?”

  “I couldn’t control Carnie’s demons. We all have them, I couldn’t help it. You think I was happy to hear about that?”

  “You sure weren’t sad.”

  “At least I didn’t bolt,” Franklin said, staring at Alec.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “Something I’ve always wondered. How—how did I get all bloody? I woke up in the back of Bruce’s car with blood all over me.”

  “I think that was mine,” Mike said out of the darkness.

  “What?”

  Alec answered. “I told you he was bleeding—almost bled to death. We couldn’t get it to stop. But we didn’t want him going to the hospital.”

  “How’d I get it all over me?”

  “I think you were helping him put pressure against it,” Alec said. “But I don’t think you were much of a help. You didn’t know how to say your last name.”

  “Jake the hero,” Franklin said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Kinda ironic, huh? The big famous adventurer used to be a messy drunk we’d all babysit.”

  I walked over to Franklin. “You’re going to tell me who you hired and where he lives.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “What if he threatened your wife? Huh? Your kids?”

  “So, what? You married to Alyssa?”

  I was about to punch him in the face when Alec came and held me back. “Jake, hold on. I just need to know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where’d the body go?”

  Franklin tightened his lips and looked down. “I got rid of it.”

  “How?” Mike asked.

  “Carnie and I did. That morning when you guys were searching for Jakester here.”

  “Carnie said you got rid of it in the Cal Sag,” Alec said.

  I thought of the murky channel nearby where a body could easily decompose without moving or being found.

  Franklin didn’t say anything. But his silence confirmed it.

  “All this time—all these years—I’ve thought …” I couldn’t believe this.

  Alec nodded. “You should trust somebody once in a while.”

  “Who? You?” Franklin asked. “Where’re you going to run off to this time? Huh?”

  “Actually, I think I’m going to have a chat with the Summit police. I think they might be interested in all of this.”

  Franklin laughed and cursed. “You’re as full of it as Jake.”

  “Nobody’s going to hang anything over my head anymore,” Alec said. “Nobody’s blackmailing me anymore.”

  “So you’re doing this out of love?” Franklin asked.

  “No. I’m doing what I should have done if I’d stayed around. I’m doing it for Carnie.”

  FORTY-NINE


  May 1994

  WHAT ELSE DO YOU HAVE IN MIND?

  Jake no longer tried to sound civil. No longer tried to appear agreeable. All he wanted and needed was to be rid of everything and everyone.

  The last five days had been like a smear across a freshly painted picture. What should have been the warm and beautiful start of summer and beginning of his adult life had been smudged with Carnie’s wake and funeral in Tennessee. Meeting family and friends, crying and being cried on, walking in silent numbness, all the while just wanting to get out of there. Jake and Bruce had just gotten back from the twelve-hour drive. And Jake wanted to get real drunk real fast.

  He had graduated, yet had not received any diploma. Nobody said his name out loud last Saturday morning except for the shouting, shrieking voice of Carnie’s father when Jake spoke to him on the phone and delivered the news.

  “It shouldn’t work out like this,” Bruce’s voice said across from him.

  But Jake didn’t care. He didn’t give a rip. He could try to be cute or coy but those days were gone. Long gone.

  You’re not the man you used to be.

  Amen to that.

  You and I weren’t meant to be together.

  Hallelujah.

  I might be a lot of things, but I’m not a liar.

  Yeah, sure, but you’re a deserter.

  Do you really think there is a hell?

  And I don’t know, I don’t know anymore, because if there is, I’m really afraid now, I’m terrified, because what then what then WHAT THEN, CARNIE?

  You’re going to get what you deserve.

  Jake drank. Of all the things he could do or should have done, he sat in Shaughnessy’s drinking. Sitting across from Bruce, having a beer, a smoke, trying to comprehend the carnage that had taken place this past semester.

  “You still gonna go to Europe?” Bruce asked.

  “I have to get outta this place. This country.”

  “You going with Franklin and Shane?”

  “No. I’ve said four words to Franklin this past month. The guy never said a word to me about Carnie. Not a word.”

  Jake felt anger but knew he couldn’t put it anywhere. All he could try to do was swallow it, drink it up, and let the drinking numb his pain.

  He had found Carnie’s body five days ago. His roommate had taken an entire bottle of prescription medication and given nobody a reason why. There was no note, nothing.

  And in the black and blue and blurry days since, all Jake could conclude was that Carnie felt guilt from Brian’s disappearance. That maybe he was the cause.

  What about your own guilt?

  Carnie had done something about his. Now Jake just sat back and did what he had always done. What his whole life had led to. This grand, climactic moment. Lots of people had adventures and went on quests and sought out their hopes and their dreams and their loves and their lives, but he sat in a bar across from a half-baked stoner doing nothing and saying nothing and giving nothing back.

  Nothing. Everything turned out to be nothing. Hemingway said it and Kurt Cobain said it and his entire angry generation said it.

  Nothing

  He had lived twenty-two years for nothing. Carnie was the brave one because he had checked himself out permanently.

  Liar

  Bruce tried to talk a little more, but Jake was done. Bruce didn’t understand what was going on. Perhaps his stoned mind just couldn’t comprehend the guilt and the madness overflowing in Jake.

  Sinner

  All Jake could do was drink. And even after Bruce left, calling a cab because he knew he was too drunk and telling Jake to do the same, Jake kept it up. He didn’t care anymore.

  Though it all looks different now, I know it’s still the same.

  At some point, he played darts with a seventy-year-old man who laughed at him. The guy told him not to drive back home, but Jake lived ten minutes away and, come on, who cared anyway.

  On the drive home, the night lights bright and shiny and rapidly passing by, he blared Nine Inch Nails. It was angry and agitated and fit his mood.

  Thank you, Trent, thanks a lot for adding to my pain.

  He thought of his last drive with Alec.

  Where are you, Alec?

  The farewell to Mike in the parking lot. The tears and the hug from Shane. The rest of them.

  The rest of who?

  You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? You did this to me and I know you did. You take every good thing away from me and I never deserved any of this.

  The drive seemed longer. The roads felt stranger.

  I didn’t do this on purpose and I never meant for it to work out this way.

  He cranked up the stereo.

  Hear me?

  He passed a slow-moving car.

  Hear me up there out there mystical magical man?

  He opened his sunroof and felt the gush of air blow down on him.

  Are you there and I don’t think you are I bet you aren’t I bet my life you aren’t.

  “Grey would be the color if I had a heart …” the singer sang.

  Is there a hell

  He could see Carnie’s face after he asked, a haunting, needing, desperate face looking toward him for something he couldn’t give him.

  Is there a hell because if there is maybe I’ll find out maybe I’ll be seeing maybe I’ll be checking in soon maybe I’ll be seeing you Carnie see you Carnie see you Alec I’m coming

  Flying, speeding, racing, cursing, gripping, bracing, Jake in his Honda CRX jumped the curb and tore through the ten-foot shrubbery lining the street and then clipped a tree and rolled.

  I’m down to just one thing, the voice on the stereo still screamed out, and I’m starting to scare myself.

  FIFTY

  June 2005

  THE SUN SHONE on the courtyard outside the library on Providence campus. I sat on the edge of a cement bench, watching Alec come up the walk.

  “You can pull off miracles, you know that?” Alec said.

  In another life, this might have been our farewell. Me graduating, saying good-bye to Bruce and Mike and Shane and Kirby and Franklin and Carnie. And finally wishing Alec a happy-ever-after.

  It was another thought, another life.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “You got me to come back. I never thought I’d set foot on this campus again.”

  Alec sat on a cement bench facing mine and lit up a cigarette. His eyes squinted from the sun. “So why’d you want to come back here?”

  “I wanted you to see it in daylight.”

  Alec only laughed.

  “Honestly? Because I’ve been to more bars and pubs and clubs in the last month than I have in the last ten years.”

  Alec laughed. “I feel like I should be having a beer for this conversation.”

  “We’ve had very few without being inebriated.”

  “Yeah.”

  The campus was still today, with students out for the summer and most of the faculty either on vacation or in their offices working. I never could remember just sitting on campus and looking around, enjoying the tranquility. I never pictured my college days in sunny serenity. I remembered the shadows.

  “How’d it go with the cops?”

  Alec shrugged. “I told them everything. I know you did too.”

  “And Franklin?”

  “He was released on bail. Should be interesting. They’re going to want me—want all of us—to testify.”

  “I know.”

  “Guess I can’t disappear then, huh?”

  “Probably not.”

  Alec smiled and took a drag from his smoke. “I gotta go back home,” he said.

  “And where’s that?”

  “Well—going back to see my mom. She’s still living in Florida.”

  “And Claire?”

  “She broke things off a few weeks ago. Things were, in her words, ‘a bit too intense.’”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “It means we
’re over. And Mr. Jelen doesn’t have to worry about me being his son-in-law.”

  I nodded. For a while we sat in silence, each waiting for the other to speak. Alec broke the quiet.

  “I never did get a chance to explain my New Year’s Eve voice mail.”

  “I’m still waiting,” I said.

  “Carnie told me what happened near the end, before I left. Back then—I don’t know. It didn’t seem like a big deal … in light of everything. But I got it wrong. I should have said something. But I was—messed up.”

  “We all were,” I said.

  “It wasn’t just the drinking. It was something worse.”

  “What’s that?’

  “Selfishness. Arrogance. All those things I’ve been guilty of all my life. It just—the stuff he said didn’t mean anything to me because it didn’t affect me.”

  I waited.

  “You remember the night you got beat up?”

  “Sorta hard to forget.”

  “Before the end—before I took off—remember how Carnie just suddenly stopped being around? We all assumed it was because of what happened on spring break. And that was part of it. But there was more.”

  “How so?”

  “Carnie got liquored up one night and told me how he was outside of the apartment the night you got the snot beat out of you. He was in his car and saw Brian and his buddy storm inside.”

  I looked at Alec and tried to think for a minute. “Did he know what they were going to do?”

  Alec nodded. “It was pretty obvious.”

  “But … I don’t get it.”

  “I didn’t either. Carnie told me this, and he was bawling, man. I mean, he was a wreck. It was weird to see this big guy crying like a baby. I was like, ‘Why didn’t you do something?’ and all he could say was that he was scared.”

  “Carnie? Scared?”

  Alec nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I said. That’s what we all thought. Big guy who could crack anybody’s skull. But he was—well, Brian freaked him out.”

  “There’s no way.”

  “That’s what he told me. He felt responsible for what happened to you that night. That was why—that was why he was bothered so much by everything that happened afterward.”

  “I don’t get it. Why couldn’t he have just—just come into the building—”

  “He did. He heard you yelling out and screaming.”

  I looked out across the campus. I could picture Carnie and me ambling our way to a class, sharing a smoke, trying to walk off a hangover, planning what we’d do that night. With Carnie by my side, I always felt somewhat invincible. I couldn’t believe Alec’s words.