He looked around, having given in already.
“You there!” came a voice.
He recognized it immediately. It was the voice of an angel come to rescue him. He turned just in time to embrace her. She was barely there in his arms, so thin and delicate, and she smelled of jasmine.
“Hello, Tara,” he said, relieved.
“Come along, stop bothering poor Mrs. Park. I have some things for you back at the stall.”
He glanced back at the Korean woman, who was scowling at having lost the sale. She’s the devil on my shoulder, and this one’s the angel. That was close.
Tara took his hand and guided him away. Some of the other vendors wished her good morning, others cat-called and whistled playfully.
When they reached her stall, she invited him to sit. Whitey moved on to lay beside Ol’ Jerry.
“Thanks for the rescue,” he said, breaking the ice.
“I kind of wanted to stay back and see how the movie was going to end,” she said.
“I don’t think I would have taken the bottles from her. It was hard, though. I was free of this for so long. I never thought about it. Then I gave up hope on everything else, came here to die. Damn if that isn’t irony—I get a miracle drug, a second lease on life, or more time anyway, and now I have to fight this old battle again.”
“Maybe it’s not the drug,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Maybe you’re getting better because you’re happy here and in a natural place. Remember what I said before: the body reacts to the spirit in many ways, Just Tommy.”
He smiled at her. “I’m ready to believe that. More likely, it’s you.”
“It’s been said that I do have healing properties,” she joked.
They talked about life as best they could, Tommy trying to artfully dodge anything related to his past. She didn’t seem to want to discuss hers either, and so it worked out well for both of them.
He helped her with the few customers that came by, and soon the stalls around them began packing up for the day.
“I guess I better do my shopping,” he said.
She jumped up and retrieved a box from the cooler. “It’s done. I have your usual stuff here, and a few other things I want you to try. I went to see Micco and picked up some fish. And if it’s alright, I’d like to come by tonight and make dinner for you and Whitey.”
The suggestion filled him with joy. “I’m sure you’re a far better cook than I am. Invitation accepted. Any time is okay for us, right, Whitey?”
The dog jumped up and bounded onto his lap.
“Micco’s off somewhere in his truck. I’d offer you two a ride, but I only have a bicycle,” she said. “Unless you want to ride on the handlebars.”
“Now that would be something,” Tommy said. “We could recreate that scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Remember, when they were playing ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head?’”
She laughed. “I do remember that. It was an excellent movie, except how it turned out for the vigilantes in the end.”
Her use of the word concerned him for a moment. He wondered if she knew more than she was letting on. If so, she’s okay with it, I guess. “Yeah, that’s true. I liked those guys. Anyway, I’m enjoying my daily hikes very much. Whitey and I will see you sometime tonight.”
He gave her directions and headed down the road, turning to wave, bow, and blow kisses at several intervals along the way. She responded in kind.
He began to question again whether he was asking for trouble, inviting his own capture. I came here to keep a low profile; now I’m showing half the damn town where I live and handing out fruit and vegetables to the other half. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m falling in love, that’s what.
He became excited about the chance to spend an evening with her and then terrified as he remembered his physical failure with Carmen. I’m letting my imagination run wild, getting ahead of myself. She’s probably not interested in that. Not with me, anyway.
THEY REACHED THE CABIN, and he cleaned up a little, then showered for the third time that day. Today is like a dream. Maybe I’m in a coma back north or something. Maybe I’m already dead, and this is my heaven.
He lay down to rest and fell asleep from the exhaustion of the day, with the fresh ocean breeze blowing back the curtains on the window and gliding across his body. He woke to a kiss, and she was there. It still could be a dream, because she’s like a dream...
“Stay right where you are,” she said. “I’m going to start cooking.”
His first thought was that wine would be good with dinner. He still craved a drink under any excuse, and he pushed the thought away violently. I will not let you interfere with this, demon. You can’t have me. Not yet, anyway. Maybe at the end.
She took a break and came to sit next to him, opening her small leather purse and pulling out a joint. “Care for a pre-dinner aperitif?” she asked.
“Don’t mind if we do, m’lady,” he answered playfully.
Each time they traded it he looked forward to their fingers touching in the exchange. A small thing can be a mountain when you are new in love. The evening news had come on, and although he had the television low, Brand’s ranting caught her attention.
“Ugh, that guy again,” she said. “I don’t like to use the word, but I hate him. Everything he stands for. He’s just evil. I worry about the world my daughter and future grandchildren will grow up in if he succeeds. I never thought it was possible, and now I’m scared.”
Tommy picked up the remote and switched the channel to PBS. “I think we’re safe from him on this channel,” he said.
“Can you imagine if he actually got elected?” she asked.
“Not much chance,” Tommy answered. “Good thing, too. From day one, everything we’re proud of and love about this country would start to crumble. He’d do serious damage with judicial appointments, to the environment, to our legacy. He’d turn us all against each other.”
Tara frowned. “We’d lose our standing in the world, for sure. We went through this in the sixties, again in the eighties,” she said. “Every time I think we’re advancing as a society, someone like him, a whole bunch of people with that ideology, come back to try to put us back in the fifties.”
Tommy laughed. “The fifties weren’t bad if you were a wealthy, white, Christian, heterosexual male. What you said is true, but someone like FDR always comes along to make America great again. We’re resilient.”
He was tempted to mention his old and new outlook on life—that he used to tend toward that line of thought: conservative, hateful, racist, homophobic. He was proud of his transformation, but not of his past. He wanted to tell her about his son, how he hadn’t accepted Bobby’s homosexuality until toward the end of his life. I didn’t know it was almost the end of his life, though.
He wanted to tell her how proud he was to have changed, and how ashamed he was of his past. He wanted to confess to her, to have her absolve him, to tell him everything would be alright, then for her to love him happily ever after.
She spoke before he could betray himself. “Back then,” she said, “in the sixties, I was a campus radical. Against the war and everything about it. I got in with some wrong folks, took it too far. They did some bombings, people got hurt. I’ll always have it on my conscience, Tommy. And at some point every day, I wait for them to come and arrest me. You see, Tara isn’t my real name, either.”
Tommy is my name, he thought. But not Domingo. He realized she was crying, and he pulled her close. “We all do things we regret, often when we believe that they're for the greater good. That’s what you believed in. You were trying to save lives. Sometimes that costs lives. Sometimes, killing is unavoidable, and the bad have to die to protect the innocent. It’s what wars are about and what vigilantes do.” And you’re one of us, who would’ve thought?
She had confessed to him, and he wanted to confess to her in turn. Her trail is cold; mine isn’t. He changed the subject bef
ore he went too far. She was nestled against him now, curled up on the couch in the fetal position with her head against his chest.
“Were you at Woodstock?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I was,” she answered. “Were you in Vietnam?”
“Yes, I was.”
“I knew it,” they both said at the same time, and they laughed again.
“Everyone should join the Marines,” he said. “Teaches discipline.”
“Everyone should join the Peace Corps or Greenpeace,” she countered. “Teaches respect for others and the planet.”
“I wonder why the young people aren’t rising up against this Brand guy,” he asked. “Like you guys did in the sixties. Don’t they realize their world, their future, is at risk of being raped and taken away from them?”
“They’re finally starting to,” she responded. “They’re waking up, and seeing how much this could damage their futures, the very world that they’ll grow up in, not to mention their children.”
“If it even lasts that long,” he said glumly.
“Brighten up, Just Tommy. There’s hope. These Republicans know that each generation becomes smarter and more compassionate toward their fellow human beings. And hopefully, less materialistic, status-driven, and greedy. These elections are their last gasp to try to hold it off with legacy tactics, like appointing far-right Supreme Court justices. But society is evolving for the better. It’s a kind of metamorphosis. They can’t stop that.”
She walked over to a small table and picked up a picture on it. She examined it more carefully, then said, “Oh, it’s you.”
“When I was a younger man, yes. That’s my boy, Bobby.”
“A couple of big, strong men in the outdoors. I’d love to meet him,” she answered.
Tommy was silent. She turned and looked at him, then replaced the picture and took a seat next to him on the couch.
“He’s gone, Tara. It’s part of the reason I’m here.”
“It’s okay, Tommy. It’s not unusual for people to want to start a new life after a tragedy like that.”
That’s not the half of it, he thought.
She rubbed his thick white beard. “I love the strong jawline though. You look good without the beard.”
“I guess I’m in my Hemingway phase,” he said. “Call me Papa. I’m the old man of the sea now. I just hope I don’t end like he did.”
They ate dinner at the picnic table, treating Whitey to bits underneath. Then they moved back inside and sat on the couch again. He left the TV off.
“I’m sorry I don’t have any music,” he said.
“I do,” she answered. She took her phone out and punched some buttons, and a quiet acoustic rock playlist began. She placed it on the coffee table.
They lay back together wordlessly, and she again took the initiative and put her hand against his cheek, kissing him. They kissed lightly and then more deeply, and she moved to lay atop him. He closed his eyes, determined to burn it all into his memory to replay at the inevitable bad times he knew were somewhere out there in his near future.
They paused for a moment, and he listened to his instincts this time, rising and taking her hand, then scooping her up as she rose and carrying her to the bedroom. He let her down, and she stood before him, slowly removing her simple, long dress. She stood still in the moonlight through the window, braless, down to her underwear. She pushed her panties down over her thighs without breaking their gaze and stepped out of them.
He stood in trembling excitement and terror that his body would let him down, as it had with Carmen; he couldn’t move or take his eyes off her. She took one step forward and began to remove his clothes. His shirt first, button by button, from top to bottom, their eyes still locked. When it had dropped to the floor with her dress, she pulled the drawstring on his cotton pants, and they fell almost as if commanded by their owner.
He reached out and cupped the breasts he had been too embarrassed to look at and had longed to touch that day in the clear, warm blue water. Pulling her to him, he felt them against his skin, the buds of her nipples pressed into his chest. He lowered his hands and cupped her buttocks. Drawing her waist against his, he kissed her neck.
She lowered herself to pull off his boxer shorts and take him in her hands. He closed his eyes and touched her soft hair as she began, and he sighed in both ecstasy and relief that his fears were unfounded.
He emptied his mind of everything: every fear, every thought, every bad memory, as they lay down on the small, simple bed and made love in the warm summer air, her light moaning and his heavy breathing mixing with the sounds of the night. The same night that had almost taken him not long ago.
THEY LAY TOGETHER AS one, her body a perfect fit with his. He caressed her as she lay still, her hand spread out on his chest. He felt like a man again; not a broken man, a sick man, a troubled man. Just a man. They slept until Whitey barked, sensing something out in the darkness.
She roused and checked the clock on his nightstand. “I’ve got to go, Tommy. The stall never allows a day off.”
“It's a shame,” he said. “I could stay like this forever.”
He got up with her and walked her out. “I’m not comfortable with you going home alone this late. Why don’t you stay?”
“I’d love to, but I have to go home and let Ol’ Jerry out. His back teeth are probably floating by now. I’m fine; I know this place like the back of my hand. Nothing out there dares to mess with the hippie devil woman of the swamp.”
“More like an angel of the night,” he said.
She gave him a quick kiss and was off on her bicycle before he could protest again. He watched her go down the road, holding her dress up with one hand, steering crookedly with the other, her hair blowing back in the wind.
12 Trials
Tara shut off the alarm clock, exhausted but excited by the events of the night before. She tried to curb herself, remembering the past and her resolve to remain uncommitted and never be hurt again. I hope he’s okay with keeping things casual, and doesn’t get all crazy on me.
She looked out at the dawn and drizzle, relieved that she didn’t have to head to the beach for tai chi. She thought about going to him, but didn’t want to give the wrong impression. I just said I wanted to keep it loose, and here I go again. He’s so sweet, though. I hope it works out.
She lay back down on her bed, thinking about her new man, and the tender way he’d made love to her the night before.
She heard her phone ringing and got up reluctantly to answer it.
“Hello, honey,” she said, after recognizing the caller ID.
“Hi, Mom. I’m just checking in from up here in the cold North. I miss you.”
“I miss you too, baby. How’s school going? Do you like New York?”
“New York, not so much, but school is good. I have great profs, so I’m enjoying classes. I’m also doing a lot of campus activism against the Brand campaign.”
“Glad to hear it, my sweet girl. The rest of the country doesn’t know him like we former West Virginians do. We need to get the word out. The man’s a cancer on humanity and the planet.”
“I’m trying my best. Hey, I saw on the news that there’s some crazy vigilante guy from up here on the loose. They suspect he’s somewhere down there in Florida. He killed a priest and a cop or something like that.”
Tara laughed. “Well, I haven’t seen any vigilante-killer types yet. Same thing as always—retirees and eclectic loners. Florida is a pretty big place. He’s probably all the way down to Key West by now, working on getting across to Havana.”
“Okay, Mom. Be careful anyway. You’re too trusting—always trying to find the good in everyone, no matter how little there is to work with. You always took people in like stray dogs. Stray dogs too, come to think of it.”
TOMMY ROSE EARLY AND fretted over whether he should go to tai chi, if that would be too aggressive, or if she’d get the wrong idea if he didn’t. Love is confusing. As the darkness ou
tside faded, he realized it was drizzling, and the decision was made for him. “I guess that settles that, Whitey.”
He went to the couch and sat back, closing his eyes, pretending she was still there against him. He forced his imagination to smell her, touch her, hear her, feel her. When that wasn’t enough, he went to the bedroom and stood, eyes closed again, and replayed the scene. He felt himself becoming aroused without stimulation, something that hadn’t happened in a long time.
Breaking the spell, he went to the window again and looked down the long path leading to his cabin, hoping to see her. Whitey stared at him expectantly, and Tommy let him out to relieve himself.
Brand was on the morning news. It was a clip from a press conference the previous night. He was attesting again to his love of the military and law enforcement. Draft-dodger and crooked businessman, breaking laws every day. Hypocrite. He turned off the set, pushing the negativity of Brand away.
He couldn’t remember being this happy or falling in love this quickly before. He allowed his mind to play its tricks: imagining that the drug’s effects were permanent, that the two gruesome murders that he’d been a part of hadn’t happened, that he was here after a divorce, and would live many years happily growing old in this quiet, tranquil paradise with the woman of his dreams.
The thought reminded him that he hadn’t taken his pills. He went to the kitchen and took the herbals that he had bought at the Asian apothecary with Sensei Molletier. He pulled the bottle of Forbaxatel from the shelf, taking note of its lightness and rattling sound. Opening it, he saw four remaining pills. Shit. One bottle left. He washed the pill down and went to the bedroom to retrieve the last large bottle of the pills.
I’m going to have to figure out how to get more of this. Maybe get back into the trial under my new identity; it’s worth a shot if it’s the only one I have. Feeling around in the space beneath, Tommy moved aside the stacks of bills, the firearm, ammunition, and few remaining valuables. Not feeling the bottle of pills, he pulled the items out and searched the space. Still coming up empty, he grabbed his flashlight and used it to peer in all the corners. Nothing. Must’ve left them in the sea bag.
Vigilante Angels Trilogy Page 34