Whirlwind

by Hilary Norman

  Nothing more she could do but remember, then put Michael Rider back into her mental lockbox and get on with her own life.

  Some things just not meant to be.

  TEN

  1990

  The Messenger had spoken to him two evenings ago, just after lights out.

  Clanging into his head suddenly, the way it often happened. Issuing a command. Briefly and unequivocally.

  So now he was here. Had found the place he was intended to find. Near Nooseneck, Kent County. Inside Grace Church. A simple house of worship, nothing fancy, yet still, a place obviously well-cared-for, smelling of polish. Ready for Sunday service.

  This being Friday, though, there was no one here but the organist, practicing the Te Deum Prelude up front. Not much of an instrument, nor much of an organist. Playing badly, making the music ugly, the way these people were when their outer shells of piety were scraped away, the wickedness exposed.

  He had a bad headache, and the music was hurting him, pounding in his skull. But the Messenger was back again, making himself heard. Louder, more powerful than any other sound could be.

  The young man’s hands and feet worked, his shoulders stooped, his eyes scanning the sheet music on its stand. Oblivious to anything else.

  Unaware that an alms basin stored beneath a table in the narthex had been quietly removed, was gripped in the right hand of the man who had once been the boy who spoke to angels.

  The basin, made of brass, ready to be swung.

  As the Messenger directed.

  Three hours later, the organist, whose name was Larry Kurtz, saw Death descending on him, saw its fizzing white heat in the pitch darkness, and understood only its absolute strangeness, because though he played organ part-time for Grace Church, he was not overly religious, and yet the instrument of his end appeared to be a cross.

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ he cried out, his voice muffled by the material that had been bound around his lower face, covering his mouth …

  The cross came down slowly, appearing disembodied, though Larry knew that there was a human being holding it, controlling it, and he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for it, praying inside his head, because prayer was all he had now.

  It touched down on his forehead gently, no force behind it.

  ‘In the name of the Father,’ his captor’s voice said.

  It took seconds for the pain to penetrate, along with the scorched smell and sizzle of his forehead’s thin skin and the bone beneath it, and then, just as Larry began to scream, he realized that he was being branded.

  He felt the light weight lift off, dared to open his eyes, saw it seem to fly away, heard soft footsteps, heard another small sound, saw a palely flickering bluish glow on the ceiling above, struggled to wonder where they were, how he’d gotten here trussed up, naked, on cold, damp ground, tethered to something invisible, something hard.

  The darkness was impenetrable, but he heard breathing, movement, fabric rustling.

  His tormentor struck a match. Larry smelled sulfur, saw another glimmer – of candlelight, he thought – and then there was another sound.

  ‘Oh, God.’

  It was a blowtorch, had to be, Larry recognizing it because his father used one for welding. And then the sound cut out and the footsteps came closer, and with them the hovering, burning cross.

  It descended more swiftly this time.

  ‘And of the son,’ the voice said.

  The cross landed on his naked chest, over his heart, and Larry screamed again, and the cross went away, and there was more blue light and the hiss and whoosh of the blowtorch, and he knew now that there would be two more brandings, that this was the Trinitarian formula, that he was being stamped with the Sign of the Cross, so two more, left shoulder, then right.

  His next scream twisted into a howl …

  ‘And of the Holy Spirit.’

  Different sounds suddenly, human. Breathing, growing more and more rapid, like a sobbing sound, and it sounded almost like the monster was masturbating, for Christ’s sake, and he was saying something …

  ‘He that speaketh lies shall not escape.’ The voice was breathless and low, but clear. ‘He that speaketh lies shall perish.’

  He was not going to survive, Larry realized. Except those words made no sense, because he hadn’t spoken lies so far as he could recall, at least no more than most people did now and then. But the blue fire was burning again, and his abductor, his torturer, was working himself up into a frenzy.

  ‘Put on the whole armor of God.’

  Larry stopped listening, felt his soul shrivel with terror.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered in his mind to his father.

  ‘I love you,’ he told his mother.

  And then, finally: ‘Please help me, God.’

  No help coming. Only the white-hot cross.

  Coming down real hard this time, smashing down on his Adam’s apple, cutting off his scream. Cutting off his breath.

  ‘Amen,’ the voice said. ‘Amen.’

  And the cross rose up and came down again and again, no longer branding Larry Kurtz, church organist and pleasant, happy human being. Bludgeoning now, stabbing, pulverizing flesh and bone, over and over and over.

  ‘Amen, amen, amen …’

  ELEVEN

  In the summer of 2002, Michael had returned to Walden Pond Campus School to volunteer again. One year after the journalist major with the direct blue eyes and short, wavy blonde hair had wasted his and the children’s time on the so-called ‘feature’ which had never materialized; Liza Plain, who’d claimed – who’d really seemed – to be so genuinely interested, who hadn’t even possessed the common courtesy to write or call, and Emily had warned him long ago about journalists, but Liza had seemed different. He’d felt more than a little attracted to her, had really felt they’d connected …

  That disappointment in the past a year ago, his reconnection with those remarkable kids much more important; another summer in which to build up his experience and hope to make a difference. Besides which, he’d met Louise Lawson. Mom of eight-year-old Jessica, a bright, sweet child with cerebral palsy, mother and daughter both dark-haired with soft eyes and a great, positive attitude. Louise, single since her husband had walked out six years back, had invited Michael to a barbecue at her parents’ house in Concord where she lived, and the spark between them had ignited into something stronger. They’d begun getting together every chance they had, Michael driving up regularly, Edward and Julie Parks, Louise’s parents, more than welcoming.

  And then, just before Thanksgiving, Michael had decided it was time to share his family history with Louise, and she had repeated the tale to her parents.

  Beginning of the end.

  The old story: sins of the grandfather.

  ‘There’s evil in his blood,’ an appalled Edward Parks had told Louise.

  ‘If you don’t have the sense to think of your own safety,’ Julie Parks had said, ‘can’t you at least consider Jessica’s?’

  Louise had been outraged, had told them that Michael’s mother had been sure of Cromwell’s innocence, and that anyway, it had nothing to do with Michael.

  ‘The bastard committed suicide,’ Parks said flatly. ‘Guilty as hell.’

  ‘And it’s not as if Cromwell’s daughter came out of it normal,’ Julie Parks had added.

  The fact was, they said, Michael Rider was the grandson of a child-killer and a woman in a mental institution. The son of a degenerate alcoholic druggie.

  Parks had gone to the local press. Parents needed to know the kind of man who had the daily care of their vulnerable children. The papers had bitten, and in the space of a few low-news days, the story had made its way into the Providence Journal, even scoring a few lines in the Boston Globe.

  Hard to know who Michael despised more: Louise’s parents or the journalists who’d picked up their poison and run with it. Louise had wanted to stick by him, but, shocked and depressed and hating to put her or Jess through any more, he’d ended it
and dropped out of college.

  Within a month, Emily had begun drinking again and then, staggeringly swiftly, all the wheels had come off. First, she’d lost her job, then the house, and soon mother and son had crashed to earth in a South Boston one-bed.

  It might, up to that point, have been reparable. But one afternoon the following February, a journalist had approached Michael in the street, getting right in his face, refusing to take no for an answer, asking intrusive questions.

  One too many.

  Michael had lost it, smashed the guy’s camera, busted his nose and ended up in court.

  It had been a first offense and the judge had been lenient, but Emily, distraught and blaming herself, had tried to drown her guilt in vodka, taken too many sleeping pills and choked to death on her vomit.

  That same night, shattered, grieving and guilty, Michael had gone back to their old Pawtucket house, climbed up onto the roof with a bottle of whiskey and had fallen off into the backyard. He’d woken up in the ER with minor injuries, people telling him how lucky he was.

  He had not felt lucky.

  He’d been on his way to the men’s room when, still half out of his mind, he’d spotted an unattended instrument cart and grabbed a small scalpel so he could finish the job that he guessed he’d been starting up on the roof. But a nurse had seen him and tried to take it off him, and the last thing Michael had wanted was to hurt her, but she was tough, had really wrestled him for it, and her arm had gotten badly cut, an artery sliced.

  Major injury. Her attacker deemed a danger to himself and the public, and sent to the psychiatric wing at the Garthville House of Corrections.

  Infamous place back then, where bad things happened.

  All the same to Michael Rider, who’d given up.

  The real start of a long downward line on the ‘tragi-graph’ that Liza Plain would come to trace thirteen or so years later.

  Descent almost vertical.

  To his personal ground zero.

  His hatred for journalists had grown during his time at Garthville.

  He blamed them for everything, had made the mistake of telling that to one of the shrinks, whose subsequent report had stated that Rider was a potential risk to all newspaper and media-related people, that until he could properly address this and come to terms with it, he needed to remain in custody.

  Another reason to hate them.

  It was a while before he scrabbled back enough logic to realize that honesty was no way to go. Better to take meds as prescribed, not to speak of blaming others for his own weakness, to tell them instead that he was remorseful and learning about acceptance and renewal of optimism.

  Michael had not been brought up to lie.

  Scary how a man could change in five years.

  It was true that he hated himself even more than the journalists. All that love and care and money wasted on him by Emily. And in the end, he’d let her down.

  He’d as good as killed her.

  He had still been on antidepressants upon his release, had tried several times to quit, but the bleakness always returned, a growing reluctance to face every dawning day, and sometimes he forced himself to think back to the brave kids at Walden Pond, but all that did was bring him memories of Louise and Jess, and greater shame. So he’d continued on the meds, had done his best to get work, but no job lasted for long because he was too consumed by bitterness and self-loathing.

  For a while, he went all the way under, really let himself go. Drank too much, got in fights, his self-destructive behavior getting him locked up again. In Quidnick Correctional Center, a real prison this time.

  For the very first time, he was glad that his mother was not alive to see him.

  ‘Are you proud?’ he asked his warped reflection one day, staring into one of the battered steel sheets that passed for mirrors in such places.

  He got no answer, had to look away again.

  Let himself go again.

  In 2010, life took an upturn after his parole officer, a good guy, kicked Michael’s butt until he got his act together. He attended a One-Stop Career Center for ex-offenders, went to counseling sessions, bought a laptop from a pawnshop so he could put together a résumé; and then a counselor set up an interview with the manager of a Quincy Market café, an open-minded man named Jake Bollino.

  Michael landed a job waiting tables, serving happy, normal people, and just having pleasant work to do, having customers thank him when he brought their good food or coffee or fresh-squeezed juice made him feel that he might, after all, have a future.

  ‘You have any ambitions?’ Bollino asked him one afternoon.

  ‘Just one right now,’ Michael answered. ‘To stay here.’

  He meant it, felt as close to content as he needed to be, having the café, a nice sublet in Allston and an old black Giant bike that Jake swore no one needed.

  Some people were just good.

  And then, one spring day in 2013, off his meds, promoted to assistant manager and considering applying for the vacant manager’s job in the café’s other branch, he took a late lunch break and spotted Louise sitting alone at a window table in Anthem Kitchen picking at a salad.

  Michael stopped, his heart lurching, unsure what to do.

  And then Louise saw him. A smile lit up her face, and that was it, he had to go inside, and she stood up and they hugged, and she began to cry and told him that Jess had succumbed to pneumonia in February, had passed away. And for a while after that they sat quietly together, Michael shedding tears too for Jess and her mother, telling Louise about his new life, staying gently upbeat, until he realized that he had to get back to the café.

  ‘Can I call you?’ he asked.

  ‘The sooner the better,’ she said.

  Two days later, she came to meet him at the end of his shift.

  They embraced, and Michael introduced her to Jake, and then he turned around.

  And saw Edward Parks.

  Nearly a decade older, but still colder than frost to Michael.

  Julie Parks had spotted his name on an email on Louise’s laptop, it quickly transpired, and Louise was furious with both her parents, but it was plain that the Parks machine had already ground into motion. In front of paying customers, Parks informed Jake that he’d told the proprietor that Michael Rider was a convicted felon and a danger to the public, had been in a psychiatric institution as well as prison and could not be trusted around sharp objects.

  The proprietor had assured Parks that Michael was out.

  He saw right away in Louise’s devastated eyes that she wasn’t up to the fight, watched her leave with her father, saw her angry body language, but doubted that she’d be back in touch. And if he did hear from her, he would push her away, because this was how it would always be. No second chance for them.

  Jake was deeply upset, but in no position to fight his boss.

  ‘I’ll give you a good reference,’ he said.

  ‘Better not make it on company stationery,’ Michael said, ‘or you might be out too.’

  ‘It’ll be a great reference,’ Jake said quietly. ‘But if Parks tries this the next place you work, you might be advised to get yourself a lawyer.’

  Pointless advice, they both realized, because Michael couldn’t afford an attorney, and even if he could, he wouldn’t stand a chance against a man like Parks. Deep pockets plus enmity. No chance.

  Down he went again, really spiraling this time, doing it hard. No money to speak of coming in, the Allston sublet lost, his laptop and the bike – which Jake had insisted he keep – his only significant possessions. Living in a shithole of a room on one of Roxbury’s bad streets, he began drinking again, not really caring what came next. Jake’s reference helped him find a breakfast shift job, but three hung-over late starts saw him fired.

  What he deserved.

  He’d had his chances and he’d screwed up.

  Louise had never gotten back in touch and he couldn’t blame her.

  It was what he deserved.
r />   End of.

  TWELVE

  2014

  It had been more than a week since Michael had seen Liza Plain in Copp’s Hill and bolted. He’d gone back twice, because he liked the place, had hung around for a while in case the journalist was there again, but with no sign of her, he guessed it was OK to return.

  He felt as comfortable here as anyplace, and today was a pretty fall day and the birds were singing, so he decided he’d sit for a while, maybe even take a look at a psychology essay he’d begun when he’d worked at the café. He hadn’t realized that he was hungry until he smelled the hot dog cart pulling up outside the Hull Street entrance, and on impulse he hid his laptop and book under his old, cracked leather jacket, jogged over to the vendor, bought his dog and a Coke, turned around and saw, immediately, that though his bicycle was where he’d left it, the jacket had been moved.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said, and sprinted back.

  Book still there. Laptop gone.

  His link to the world, to a semblance of sanity, stolen.

  ‘Fuck.’

  His stomach clenched, anger flaring in his chest, scanned around, saw no one.

  Just graves.

  He sank down on the grass next to his bike and jacket, and then he glanced down and saw that he’d been squeezing the dog in its napkin with his clenched right hand, that it had leaked ketchup and mustard down his sweatshirt and old Levis.

  Not that he had any appetite left. And he didn’t know who he was angrier at: the thief or himself for his sheer stupidity for leaving the computer.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said again, quietly.

  And, oh Christ, he felt so goddamned finished, and he wanted out, almost as badly as the last time, but he didn’t think he had the guts.

  Thirty-five and useless.

  Finished.

  Back in Roxbury, he dragged himself and his bike up the stairs – and saw it.