The Face of Death

by Cody McFadyen

  I look at it and think: I am not an alcoholic.

  I have spent time reviewing that statement, along the lines of “all crazy people say they’re not crazy.” I looked without giving myself the benefit of a doubt and arrived at that certainty: I am not an alcoholic. I drink two or three times a month. I never drink two days in a row. I get pleasantly buzzed but I never get truly shit-faced.

  There’s a truth, though, a big, bellowing elephant in the room: I never drank for comfort until after Matt and Alexa died. Never, not once, no way.

  It troubles me.

  I had a great-uncle on my father’s side who was a drunk. He wasn’t the funny, friendly, charming drunk-uncle. He wasn’t the artistically inclined, self-tortured, pitiable drunk-uncle either. He was embarrassing and violent and mean. He reeked of booze and sometimes worse. He grabbed me by the arm at a family gathering one time with enough force to leave a bruise, put his boozy mouth about an inch from my terrified face (I was only eight) and proceeded to say something garbled and sly and disgusting that I’ve never fully deciphered.

  The things we see as children make lasting impressions. That’s the picture of a drunk that always stuck with me. Anytime I was drinking and found myself heading toward a little too much, Great-Uncle Joe’s rheumy-eyed, unshaven face would pop into my head. I’d remember the smell of whisky and tooth decay and the cunning look in his eyes. I’d set down whatever I happened to be drinking at the time, and that would be it.

  Not long after my family died, I found myself in the liquor section of the supermarket. I realized that I had never bought anything other than a bottle of wine, certainly not at a supermarket, definitely not in the middle of the afternoon. The tequila caught my eye, the song came to mind.

  Screw it, I’d thought to myself.

  I’d grabbed the bottle, paid for it without meeting the checker’s eyes, and hustled home.

  I spent about ten minutes at home with my chin in my hand, gazing at the bottle, wondering if I was about to become a true cliché. If I was about to become Great-Uncle Joe, a chip off the old block.

  Nah, I’d thought. No one pitied Great-Uncle Joe. They’ll pity you.

  It went down good, it felt good, I liked it.

  I didn’t get drunk. I got…floaty. That’s as far as I’ve ever taken it.

  The problem, I think now, as I pour an inch (never more) into a glass, is that I continued this habit even after the agony of losing my family subsided. Now, it helps me with my fear, or in times of great pressure. The danger is in that arena: not drinking because I want to, but because I need to. I know that means it’s not a healthy habit I have here.

  “To rationalization,” I murmur, toasting the air.

  I down the glass in a single gulp and it feels like I just swallowed paint stripper or fire, but it’s a good feeling, putting pressure behind my eyes and delivering an almost instantaneous feeling of contentment. Which is the point. Contentment is so much harder to come by than joy, I’ve always thought. A single shot of tequila does it, for me.

  “Jose Cuervo, da do do do dah dah,” I sing in a whisper-voice.

  I consider a second shot, but decide against it. I cap the bottle and replace it in the cabinet. I rinse the glass, taking care to get rid of any lingering smell. More tiny red flags, I know: drinking alone, hiding it. In the end, I have to accept that, rationalized or not, my drinking isn’t out of control, and hope that I’ll recognize it if it ever becomes so.

  I consider the moment. Why is Sarah’s tale getting so under my skin? Why the need to run to Mr. Cuervo right now? It’s a terrible story, but I’ve heard terrible stories before. Hell, I’ve lived terrible stories. Why is this one hitting me so hard?

  Bonnie’s already nailed it: because Sarah is Bonnie, and Bonnie is Sarah. Bonnie is a painter, Sarah is a writer, both have lost parents, both are dark and damaged. If Sarah is doomed, does that mean that Bonnie is too? These similarities stoke my fears. Fear is what I struggle with most, these days.

  I had played down the actual level of my terrors about Bonnie when I had talked to Elaina. The fear, when it comes, surpasses mere discomfort. I have hyperventilated. I’ve locked the bathroom door and crouched on the floor, arms around my knees, shaking with panic.

  Posttraumatic stress is what a shrink would probably diagnose. I imagine that’s accurate. But I’m not interested in talking my way through this. I’m going to suffer my way through it, and hope that I don’t screw up Bonnie along the way.

  I find what works best is to divert my thoughts in these moments, to think of something, anything else. What flies into my mind this time isn’t particularly helpful.

  1 for U two 4 me, babe.

  Why, Matt? I made my peace with Alexa. Why can’t I make my peace with you? Why can’t I forget about it?

  He shakes his head.

  Because you’re you. You have to know. It’s how you’re built, how God or whoever made you.

  He’s right, of course. It’s a truth that applies to everything: Sarah’s diary, 1 for U two 4 me, the future. It’s one of the things that drives me forward, that helps me navigate through my fears: the desire to see how the story ends. Bonnie’s story, the next victim’s story. Whatever.

  What about my story?

  Quantico. The second elephant in the middle of my personal room. It appears as I think of it, all sad-eyed and wise. I stroke its gray skin and realize what about it bothers me.

  That it doesn’t bother me enough.

  Here I am, I realize, offered a plum because my face won’t look right on a poster. Here I am, considering a move that would separate me from the only family I have left, that would end a new and possibility-filled relationship with Tommy, that would pack away this house and all its memories for good—and all I can feel is a sense of opportunity.

  Considering leaving my friends and the life I’ve known should be tearing me apart. Instead, I am ambivalent. Why?

  It’s not like things haven’t been getting better. Packing away Matt and Alexa’s things is progress. No more nightmares is progress. Sharing even a small part of myself with a man other than Matt is progress. Why don’t I seem to care more?

  Enlightenment evades me for now, but I realize here, at last, is the discomfort I’d been looking for. Maybe I’ve been fooling myself. Maybe what I’d thought was emotional growth was simply me learning to walk in spite of my disabilities.

  Maybe the parts of me designed to feel most deeply have been injured beyond repair.

  That doesn’t explain the booze now, does it?

  With that it’s time to shove the elephant away. He goes quietly, but stares at me with those wise, sad eyes that say, It’s true, we elephants have long memories to go with our long trunks, but no tusks here, even though memories can have long teeth.

  I lick my own teeth and search for contentment, but I can already tell that both it and sleep will be absent.

  Contentment…

  Wait, elephant, I cry. Come back.

  He does, because he’s my elephant after all. He stares at me with those patient eyes.

  I just realized why. It’s because for all the progress I’ve made…I’m still not happy. You know?

  He touches me with his trunk. Looks at me with those wise, sad eyes. He does know.

  I’m not sad or suicidal, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy.

  Memories, yes, the elephant’s wise, sad eyes say, memories can have long teeth.

  Yes, I think, and the happy memories have the longest teeth of all.

  That’s the problem: I’ve known true happiness. Real, fulfilling, down-to-the-bone, close-to-the-soul happiness. Feeling “okay” doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s as if I was on a drug that made the world glow and now that I’m off it, now that I’m going cold turkey, it’s not that the world is bad, per se—but it doesn’t glow, dammit.

  I’m not confident that Tommy or Elaina or Callie or the J-O-B or even Bonnie will make me happy in that way again. I cherish them all, but I mistrust their a
bility to fill the void, to bring back the glow. Ugly and selfish but true.

  That’s why Quantico appeals to me. A nuclear changeup, a mushroom cloud of “different,” perhaps that’s what I really need. A raw and brutal break to shake the foundation and rattle the rafters of me.

  The elephant plods off without being asked. I can talk to my metaphors without shame when I swallow tequila, it seems.

  Elephant, I think, thy name is “Not-Happy.” Or maybe, “No-Glow.”

  Will Quantico solve that?

  Who the fuck knows? I want a cigarette.

  I sigh and resign myself to wakefulness. Time to shove aside the personal and drown myself in the professional. It’s an old solution, but a faithful one. It doesn’t glow, exactly, but it’s guaranteed to banish the elephants that ail you.

  I plod back upstairs and grab my notes and return to the living room. I sit on the couch and try to organize my thoughts.

  I take the page titled PERPETRATOR and add to it: PERPETRATOR AKA “THE STRANGER.”

  I think about what I’ve read so far in the diary. I begin to write, my notes now less structured and more extemporaneous.

  He was caused pain = he’s causing others pain. Revenge.

  The question remains, though: Why sarah?

  The logical suspicion would be that he’s making Sarah pay for something her parents did. But he told Sam and Linda that they were not at fault. It’s not your fault, but your death will be my justice. Was Sarah simply chosen at random?

  I shake my head. No. There is a connection, and it’s not imaginary. I feel as though some aspect of it is staring me right in the face. Something about who he was speaking to…

  I sit up straight, suddenly energized.

  If Sarah’s account was accurate, The Stranger was speaking to Linda when he said, Your death will be my justice.

  Linda specifically.

  A phrase I had heard earlier today comes back to me:

  The Father and the daughter…

  Revenge isn’t random and he loves his messages. That wasn’t a slip of the tongue.

  I write.

  What if the object of revenge goes back another generation? He said to Sarah yesterday, while he was flicking blood onto her, “The Father and the daughter and the Holy Spirit.” He told Linda Langstrom, “It’s not your fault, but your death will be my justice.” Could we be talking about Linda’s father? Sarah’s grandfather?

  I read it back to myself and experience that flush of energy again.

  I’m in my home office, faxing the pages containing my notes to James. I didn’t call him; James will hear the fax and wake up. He’ll be pissed and grumble about it, but he’ll read them regardless. I need him to know what I know.

  The grandfather.

  It feels, if not certain, at least very possible.

  The machine beeps to let me know it’s done and I go back downstairs. I check the clock. Five A.M. Time marches on.

  I want the morning to come, and I want it here now, dammit!

  A thought comes to me.

  Sarah said no one’s believed her about The Stranger. Why? From what I’ve read so far, that makes no sense.

  I glance over to the diary pages waiting on the coffee table. I glance at the clock and the hours I have left to burn.

  Only one way to find out.

  Sarah’s Story

  Part Two

  24

  So how do you like the story so far? Not bad for an almost-sixteen-year-old, huh? Like I said, I’m a sprinter more than a runner, and we sure sprinted through that first bit, didn’t we? A summary: Happy me, bad man comes, dead Buster, dead Mommy, dead Daddy, unhappy me. Now we’ll take a jump. A leap to the next starting line.

  First, some backstory: I was hazy and crazy after everything that happened, and somehow both Doreen and I ended up in the backyard. Doreen, poor dummy, got thirsty or hungry or both and couldn’t rouse me (I was too busy lying on the back patio, drooling on the concrete) and she started howling. God, could she howl.

  Anyway, so our next-door neighbors, John and Jamie Overman, called the cops because of all the racket and because I guess they peeked over the fence and saw me drooling and thought, Hey that’s kinda strange.

  Two coppers showed up (cheezit!), a guy named Ricky Santos and a new rookie named Cathy Jones. Cathy becomes what we call an IMPORTANT CHARACTER in my story.

  Over the years, unlike most other people, she actually gave a poopydoody.

  More on her later. That’s the thirty-second recap. Now we’ll head back into third-person view.

  Time for another trip to the watering hole. Ready?

  1-2-3: GO!

  Once Upon A Time, things were totally, totally screwed….

  SARAH SIPPED WATER THROUGH A STRAW AND TRIED NOT TO

  feel tired.

  A whole week had gone by. A week of floating in marshmallows because of the drugs they gave her. A week of sly voices whispering in her head. A week of pain.

  One day she’d woken up and hadn’t started to scream right away. That was the end of her visits to Marshmallow Land. She still had dreams, though. In those dreams, her parents were

  (nothing they were nothings nothing at all)

  And Buster was a

  (puppyhead—puppyshead?)

  (nothing nothings nothing)

  She woke from these dreams shivering and denying, shivering and denying.

  Right now she was wide awake, though. A lady-policeman was sitting in a chair next to the bed, asking Sarah questions. The lady’s name was Cathy Jones, and she seemed nice, but her questions were puzzling.

  “Sarah,” she started, “do you know why your mommy hurt your daddy?”

  Sarah frowned at Cathy.

  “Because The Stranger made her,” Sarah answered.

  Cathy frowned. “What Stranger, sweetheart?”

  “The Stranger that killed Buster. That burned my hand. He made Mommy hurt Daddy and hurt herself too. He said he would hurt me if they didn’t.”

  Cathy stared at Sarah, perplexed.

  “Are you saying there was someone in your house, honey? Someone that forced your mommy to do the things she did?”

  Sarah nodded.

  Cathy leaned back, uneasy.

  What the hell?

  Cathy knew that forensics had been through the Langstroms’ home and that they hadn’t found anything to point away from a murder-suicide. There was a note from the mother that said: I’m sorry, take care of Sarah. There was the fact that Linda’s prints were found in a number of damning places, notably the hacksaw that beheaded the dog, her husband’s neck, and the gun she’d used to shoot herself.

  There was also the matter of the antidepressants the mother appeared to have been taking, no sign of forced entry, Sarah being left alive—if it looked like a dog and barked like a dog…Cathy had been asked by the detectives in charge to get a statement from Sarah for corroboration. A loose end, nothing more.

  So what do I do here?

  Ricky’s voice came to her.

  Just take the statement. That’s what you’re here for. Take it, give it to the detectives, and move on. The rest of it is not your problem.

  “Tell me everything you remember, Sarah.”

  Sarah watched the lady-policeman walk out of her room.

  She doesn’t believe you.

  It was something Sarah had become aware of about halfway through her story. Adults thought kids didn’t know anything. They were wrong. Sarah knew when she was being humored. Cathy was nice, but Cathy didn’t believe her about The Stranger. Sarah frowned to herself. No, that wasn’t quite right. It’s that she seemed…what? Sarah puzzled over the nuances for a moment.

  It’s like she doesn’t think I’m lying—but she doesn’t think that what I’m saying is true.

  Like I’m

  (crazy).

  Sarah leaned back in the hospital bed and closed her eyes. She felt the pain riding in like dark horses. The horses, they’d gallop into her soul and rear an
d scream, their hoofs sending black sparks flying off her heart.

  Sometimes the pain she felt had clarity. It wasn’t a dull ache, or a background noise. It was a ragged wound, nerve endings, and fire. It was a blackness that swept over her and made her think about dying. In those moments, she’d lie in her bed in the dark and would try to get her heart to stop beating. Mommy had told her a story about this once. About wise men in ancient China who could dig an open grave, sit next to it, and will themselves to die. Their hearts would stop and they’d topple forward into the waiting dirt.

  Sarah tried to do this, but no matter how much she concentrated, how hard she wished, she couldn’t die. She kept on breathing and her heart kept on beating and—worst of all—she kept on hurting. It was a pain that wouldn’t go away, that wouldn’t lessen or subside.

  She couldn’t die, so she’d curl up in her bed and cry without making noise. Cry and cry and cry, for hours. Cry because she understood now, understood that Mommy and Daddy and Buster were gone, and they weren’t coming back. Not ever.

  After the grief came the anger and shame.

  You’re six! Stop being such a crybaby!

  She didn’t have an adult there to tell her that being six meant it was still okay to cry, so she curled up in the dark and tried to die and wept and berated herself for every tear.

  Cathy not believing her, Cathy thinking she was a cuckoo-bird, brought a new kind of pain.

  It made her sad and angry. Most of all, she felt alone.

  Cathy sat in the patrol car and looked out the window. Her partner, Ricky Santos, was downing a milk shake as he gave her the once-over.

  “Kid’s story bothering you?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Any way you slice it, it’s bad news. If we’re right, she’s crazy. If we’re wrong, she’s in danger.”

  Ricky sucked on his straw and contemplated the insides of his sunglasses.

  “You gotta let it go, partner. That’s how it works for us uniforms. We don’t get to follow things through to the end, not very often. We parachute in, secure things, turn it over to detectives. In, out, clean. You carry things around when you’re not in a position to do anything about them, you’re gonna go crazy. Why cops end up drunks, or at the wrong end of their revolvers.”