Motive ; One Last Day ; Going Viral

by Dustin Stevens

  That doesn’t mean I advocate or even condone it.

  “You said that once the pastor began speaking, you got even madder,” Pearson says, pulling me back into the moment.

  She doesn’t finish the question, though the implication is clear.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say, a scowl again crossing my features. “My father’s name was James Doyle. Not one time in his life was he ever called Jim or Jimmy. The damn guy didn’t even respect him enough to get his name right at his own funeral.”

  Chapter Five

  Monday, October 3rd, 2011

  6:30 pm

  “Two people,” I mutter, walking back and forth across the floor of my bedroom.

  My path is limited by the narrow confines of the space, stretching no more than eight feet in length before forcing me to turn around and retrace my steps. Posters of Einstein, Star Wars, and Lost stare down from the wall, watching me as I stomp to and fro.

  “Two goddamned people are all that showed up.”

  On the bed sits Quasi, his dress shirt having been discarded. In its place is the plain white t-shirt he wears under everything, the armpits on it yellowed from years of flop sweat.

  “That’s not true, I counted six,” he counters.

  I know he means well and is trying to help, but the comment only seems to piss me off even more.

  “Yeah, but three of them are in this house right now,” I say, waving my hands between us before motioning towards the door.

  Somewhere on the other side of it, my mother has sequestered herself away to cry again, thinking we can’t hear her as she sobs her soul away.

  “The fourth was paid to be there,” I say, my voice rising, “and he couldn’t even get his damn name right!”

  The last statement reverberates off the walls. The sudden outburst, the venom behind it, surprises both of us, freezing Quasi in place on the bed. He remains laying on one side, his right hip and elbow digging into my comforter, his legs crossed at the ankles.

  I am acutely aware that he is staring intently at his cuticles as I pace, avoiding eye contact as much as possible, though I do nothing to remedy it. The exasperation, the rage, the repulsion within me is just too much to be concerned with his feelings at the moment.

  “How is that even possible?” I ask, shoving my hands in my pockets and continuing to move in exaggerated steps. “How the hell does a man live his entire life and resonate with so few?”

  A moment of silence passes.

  “That wasn’t rhetorical,” I prompt, glancing over to the bed.

  “Oh,” Quasi replies, a jolt seeming to pass through his entire body as he reanimates before me. “I don’t know, man. Your dad just didn’t really fit anymore.”

  The words bring a harsh look to my face, my feet stopping for just a second. I don’t say anything but my disgust registers with Quasi just the same, his hands rising in front of him, his mouth forming into a circle.

  “No, no, no,” he stammers, shaking his hands to either side. “What I meant to say is, to borrow a cliché, he was an old-school guy in a technological world. That’s all people care about these days.”

  I keep the stare on him a long time before starting to move again, pulling my hands from my pockets. I cross my arms over my torso as I go, a slight nod eventually moving my head up and down.

  “He didn’t even have a cell phone,” I manage, my shoes scraping against the threadbare carpet under my feet, “never once sent an email.”

  “Do your parents own a computer?” Quasi ventures, placing the question out there almost delicately, trying to bolster his argument without inciting any further wrath.

  “No,” I say quietly, shaking my head. “My laptop over there is the only one in the house, and I doubt either one of them even knows how to turn it on.”

  Quasi follows my gesture towards the computer sitting silent on my desk, a mishmash of stickers dotting the top of it. His gaze lingers there a long time before he comes back to face me and asks, “So what are you going to do about it?”

  The question comes in at me from nowhere, a sucker punch I wasn’t expecting. In my grief, my frustration, my anger, I hadn’t once thought of actually acting on it.

  “What do you mean, what am I going to do?” I snap. “You were there this afternoon. You saw us lower the man into the ground. He’s gone. It’s over. No second chances, no hitting reset.”

  Quasi doesn’t move an inch as he stares back up at me impassively.

  “I know, that’s what I meant. What are you going to do about it?”

  Chapter Six

  Friday, January 21st, 2015

  10:50 am

  I can hear the sigh long before I see it.

  The typing stops, a loud exhalation rings out, a pair of pale hands run over her scalp. Only then does she reach and lower the screen towards her, letting me see her face in full.

  “Is this why you brought me here? To tell a convoluted story about how everything you did was for your father’s memory?”

  It is a struggle, but I keep my reaction neutral. I stare back at her, curious to know how far she is willing to prod with her little outburst. In the previous six months of dealing with reporters and interviews, I have found it often works to my advantage to know exactly what they are after as soon as possible.

  The longer I know their endpoint and do everything I can to keep it just out of reach from them, the better for me.

  “Because I’ve seen the videos,” Pearson says, a vertical wrinkle forming between her eyebrows as she pulls them together. “All of them. From the cheesy early stuff when you were pasty and pudgy and didn’t know what was going on to the later versions when you became the great Chaz D.”

  She stops there for some reason, an inner debate apparent as she tries to keep herself from continuing.

  “And?” I prompt, fighting to keep the amusement from my features.

  “And I’m not buying a word of this,” she snaps. “I saw the final video. Our website ran some of the photos.

  “What you did to that man - the blood, the cruelty - there was no honor in that. You weren’t praising your father’s memory, you were playing out a sick and twisted scenario with no goal in mind but feeding your own ego.”

  Once more she pauses, her face flush, her mouth hanging open. Both hands have been pressed into the tabletop beside her as if she wants to raise her waif-like body from her chair and fly across at me.

  “Are you done?” I ask.

  “Just about,” she retorts, the words coming out sharp and hard. “I didn’t drive all the way out here to be lied to. I am a serious journalist, not some young girl you can sit here and spin your drivel to.”

  My left eyebrow arches in response to her last statement but I remain slouched in my chair. I knew beginning at the funeral was a dicey proposition, but my story would not be complete without it.

  “Miss Pearson,” I say, my voice sounding bored, “I promise you, that is not my intent here. I chose to go back that far for a very specific purpose. Believe me, from this point forward, things will become clearer for you.”

  There is no outward sign from her that she has even heard what I said. Her palms remain flattened, her fingertips white beneath the nails from pressing down so hard.

  The look of acrimony stays splashed across her features, her narrow nostrils flaring with each breath.

  “Very little I have done since that day would bring my father any attention worth having,” I continue, “but I do at least owe him the respect of a mention. From here on out, my mother, Quasi, Terry Weinberg, a host of other people will all be involved extensively. This was the only part my father played in the story, but it was a vital one. He was the spark, however misguided, that kicked off everything.”

  It is the first time I have ever told anybody this. The only other person who ever knew it has long since passed.

  From her reaction, I can see that I have finally gotten through to her. Color recedes from her cheeks as she looks at me. The change I know isn
’t brought about by any sudden realization or change of heart towards me, but rather the fact that what I’m telling her is the truth.

  I’m sure she has researched enough to know when my father passed and probably has the full chronology of my exploits detailed in front of her.

  It’s not as if I ever tried to hide a single one. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  “So you decided to tell his story,” she says, her voice so low I can barely hear it.

  “I did,” I reply, raising my head a half inch, “but that didn’t last long. I’m sure he had some good stories of playing sports in high school or shooting at Koreans in the war, but most of them were buried with him. I tried for a week to track down some people that might have access to them, but it turns out the reason so few came to his funeral was they were all gone too.”

  I look across at her and shrug with my eyebrows, letting her know that I am telling the truth.

  “Apparently the seventies were pretty hard on a lot of people.”

  Lowering my attention back to the table, I begin to tap at the metal top with my fingernail, a low pinging sound emitted in a steady rhythm.

  “So I decided to scrap his story and concoct my own,” I say. “I figured if I couldn’t write his story out for the world, I would write a story the world would want to read and make him the lead character.”

  “So that’s what you did?” she asks.

  “No,” I reply, shaking my head, “what I did ended up being even better.”

  II

  The Evolution

  Chapter Seven

  Friday, December 16th, 2011

  11:45 am

  “Yes,” I whisper, “yes, yes, yes.”

  The words spill out so fast I can barely make my fingers keep up with what my mind is telling them to do. One sentence after another seems to just appear on the screen, as if transcribed from my brain onto the Word document in front of me.

  After twelve straight hours stooped over the computer, there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t hurt. My back and shoulders scream from sitting in this desk chair, hour after hour without moving. I lost all feeling in my rear somewhere around dawn.

  The worst pain, though, is my eyes. When I sat down to write last night, the only light in the room was the computer screen. Having not moved since, it is still the main source of illumination, just a faint bit of morning glow peeking in around the drawn blinds on the window above my bed. Otherwise, I have just been staring at this one bright orb, a single oasis of color in a world of darkness, for twelve solid hours.

  “This is so damn good,” I whisper, my tongue darting out over my bottom lip.

  Anticipation and exhilaration both roil through me in undulating waves, making it difficult to even sit still in my chair.

  “And there he stood,” I narrate aloud, “looking out over the city as dawn broke. The new day sun sent golden arrows of light across the sky, one of them hitting him full in the face, touching him as if a finger from God...”

  I pause for just a moment, unable to control the smile on my face.

  “Finger from God, wow.”

  Nothing short of poetry, a bouquet of roses in literary form.

  “He had done it,” I continue reading, “he had pulled off the perfect crime, made the perfect getaway, and now had the perfect girl sitting in the car waiting for him.”

  Never in all my years had I seriously thought about sitting down to write a novel but now that I’ve finished it, I can’t help but wonder what took me so long.

  “A smile formed as he waved at the light coming over the horizon, an acknowledgement to the Heavens for all their help.”

  Once more I pause, a series of pops rolling down the length of my spine as I lean forward over the keyboard. My fingertips tap at the black plastic at the bottom of the keyboard, my mind searching for the ideal words to close my masterpiece.

  “As if scripted, a shaft of light caught the glassy exterior of a building far below, refracting off it, the morning sun waving back. Even the Heavens above recognized how immaculate his work had been. He kept his hand in the air for several seconds before turning back to the car and his woman curled up on the front seat in it.

  “All that was left to do now was enjoy the spoils of his victory.”

  As the last letters appear on the screen, the excitement becomes too much. I smash my feet into the ground and snap myself upright in front of the desk, the backs of my knees slamming into the chair behind me.

  The momentum sends it careening across the hard plastic mat underfoot and into the bed, toppling to the floor with a clatter. I pay it no mind as I type out the last words, the very ones I have been dreaming about for two long months.

  “THE END.”

  My voice is several decibels louder than even I anticipated as I announce them to the world, an oral conglomeration of everything I have been through. For a moment, all I can do is stand and stare down at those blessed final two words on the screen. My breathing becomes labored, my eyes glass over, as I stand and look at them.

  “Honey, are you alright up there?”

  The sound of my mother’s voice snaps me from the revelry of the moment. Without my mind even commanding it what to do, my body springs into action, carrying me across the floor.

  In three quick steps, I tear across the same carpeted path I had paced with Quasi months before and pull open the door.

  “Ma! Ma!”

  My voice is so filled with excitement it sounds almost shrill, reverberating off the walls around me.

  “I did it!”

  The top banister is the only thing that keeps me from toppling over into the stairwell as I slam into it. The smile is still in place, my eyes red and wild, as I stare down at her at the foot of the stairs.

  “You did what, honey?” she asks, concern touching her features.

  “My book! The one with Dad as the main character! I finished it!”

  I am aware that I am almost yelling every word at her, but I don’t care. There’s no way I could stop it even if I did. My body is practically bursting with joy.

  “You did?” she asks.

  A smile mixed with pride and relief crosses her face. Just the tiniest bit of sorrow flashes behind her eyes as she does so, the same way it does every time there is mention of my father.

  “I did! And it’s good. I’m telling you, it’s really, really good.”

  Her smile turns upward a little further, growing into a full grin.

  “I’m sure it is, sweetheart.”

  For the first time this morning, the reality of the situation sets in. Both hands still gripping the rail before me, I use it for leverage, hoisting myself almost a foot into the air.

  “This is only the beginning, I have so much to do now!”

  The moment of levity for my mother passes as she raises her left arm, her wrist cocked back towards herself. With her right index finger, she points at a stretch of bare skin where a watch would be, a chipped fingernail tapping against a freckle.

  “Not right now, you don’t. Have you forgotten you agreed to go in at noon today?”

  The bottom of my stomach drops as a slow dawning settles in. All of the joy from just moments before fades away, her words finding their way to me.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, honey,” she says, shaking her head. “I am very, very proud of you for finishing your book, but it will have to wait until you get home tonight.”

  Scads of responses run through my mind. Every bit of me wants to tell her that I am now an accomplished author. Managing the local Bob’s Burger Shack was only something to pay the bills until I hit it big.

  That moment is now. I don’t have time to be handing out sandwiches and fries to snot-nosed kids.

  “But I haven’t even been to bed yet,” I manage instead. “I can’t drive to work like this. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  Again, she taps her forearm. “If you leave right now, you can walk there in time.”

  I can see my
knuckles grow white as I squeeze the wooden banister in front of me. The look on my face lets her know I don’t agree with what is happening, and I make a point of holding it a little longer than necessary to really drive that fact home.

  “Or maybe if you stop giving me that ridiculous face, I will drive you,” she says, her usual half-smile in place as she disappears back into the kitchen.

  Without responding, I release my death grip on the railing and head back into my bedroom. The computer screen on the opposite wall is still the sole source of light in the room as I walk to it and press save a half dozen times.

  The old wheels on my desk chair whine in protest as I slide it back over in front my screen and sit down, closing out of the word processor and drawing up my email account.

  As I work, I flip open my cell phone and press the first speed dial. Leaving it lying on the desktop, the sound of ringing echoes out over the speakerphone.

  After five rings, the exhausted sound of Quasi’s voice comes on the line.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, Quas, you have any plans today?”

  He lets out a sleepy groan, the closest his passive-aggressive nature will ever get to a complaint about being awoken.

  “Sleep. Supposed to hang some Christmas lights later.”

  “Not anymore,” I snap, “I’m sending you something right now. Read it this afternoon and pick me up at Bob’s at eight.

  “We’ve got work to do.”

  Chapter Eight

  Friday, January 21st, 2015

  11:15 am

  “You wrote a book?”

  The question seems innocent enough, just four words in total, but the implication is clear.