Within minutes, Ginger and her entourage had commandeered the steps, transforming them into a primetime stage. Colorful flags, spotlights, even fans meant to blow her hair back were brought in and set in place. Seated at a glass table situated between the columns while the courthouse served as the backdrop, Ginger looked toned and fit. Short skirt, muscular legs. A makeup artist brushed her face while another woman fussed with her hair. Ginger had always dreamed of the spotlight. If I didn’t experience such visceral disgust at the sight and thought of her, I’d be tempted to admire her—a self-made woman staring down on the world she’d created. The wind from the off-screen fans tugged at her perfect hair—auburn red had given way to jet black—and vacuum-sealed her blouse across her artistically crafted, perfectly enhanced plastic surgery chest, highlighting her personally trained and sweat-sculpted body. When the on-air light flashed from red to green, she proclaimed in a loud, articulate, triumphant voice, “This is Angelina Custodia, broadcasting live from the sex-offender epicenter of south Georgia.” Her voice rose, as did the perception of her passion. “I am the sound of the silenced, the town crier, the mouthpiece of the muted and the muzzled, the declaration of the disillusioned, the voice of the victimized.” Walking forward, the conquering hero, calm, resolute, finality in her tone, she pointed her finger at the camera. “Because you don’t have to sit there and just take it!”
Man, she’s good.
The several hundred crowding the steps of the courthouse agreed, and Ginger ate the applause like candy. At one point, she wiped away a tear and made some off-the-cuff comment to the audience about how she learned a long time ago that to do this job she “needs waterproof mascara” and that she would keep doing it “until they pry this microphone from my cold, dead fingers.”
They loved that, too.
If she didn’t make me want to vomit, it would have been comical.
Feeling a bit too exposed, I pulled my helmet back on and slid the visor down. I bought a shaved ice, straddled my bike, and continued to enjoy the festivities—illegally close. I felt like a voyeur.
Because I was in violation of my parole and she was not, I kickstarted the bike and was easing off the clutch, hoping to pry my way through the crowd, when the show returned from commercial. Ginger, basking in her confidence, descended the steps and began asking members of the crowd:
“Given the deviant crimes for which he was convicted, how do you feel?”
“Does Matthew Rising’s presence in this community give you pause?”
“Do you lock your doors at night?”
Wanting a better view of her, the crowd amassed in the street in front of me. Doing so funneled Ginger directly toward me, closing off my exit.
This was not good.
Scrambling, I hopped the curb, circled around the shaved ice trailer, and found that barricades had appeared out of thin air, closing off both the street and the sidewalk. I turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, eased down the curb, and ran directly into Ginger and her two cameramen. Our image appeared on the JumboTron at the base of the steps. She in all her glory and me in my dumb-looking but much concealing helmet. Concentrating on her surroundings and not the face inside the helmet, she asked, “Tell me, sir, are you afraid of Matthew Rising’s presence in your community?”
I shook my head.
She chuckled and the cameramen inched closer. “You’re not concerned about what he might do if given freedom in this town?”
Another shake.
Expressing her irritation that I’d not removed my helmet, incredulous that I was not in agreement with her riot-inciting speech, and wanting to prove for all the world to see that she would not back down from a man who stood nearly a foot taller, she—for the first time—attempted to peer through the plastic reflection on my visor, which was made all the worse by the two spotlights shining off the shoulders of her cameramen. Just inches from my face, she spouted, “Well, tell me, sir, what then do you want?”
I flipped up my visor, made eye contact, and said, “I want you to tell the truth.”
As the color drained out of Ginger’s speechless face, I eased off on the clutch and smiled as her producer clued into the fact that Ginger was completely tongue-tied and sent the show to commercial. Just before turning the corner, I glanced in my rearview and caught a glimpse of Ginger’s stunned and ashen face. I’d caught her off guard. And she did not like it.
And I was pretty sure it’d never happen again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
For dinner, I sat on the porch and ate a can of tuna. Just before last light, I saw a small black shape, looked like a raccoon, walking timidly up the dirt road toward me. It would walk a few steps, sniff the air, then take a step, sniff, pause, and then repeat the process. It took it a long time to get close enough for me to make out that it was a small limping dog. As it neared the yard, it saw me on the porch and froze, nose in the air. I just kept eating my tuna. Driven by its stomach, it circled the mattress and stood some twenty feet from me. It was quite possibly the filthiest dog I’d ever seen, and I’m not sure which stunk worse, it or the mattress. When I stood, it jumped and ran back down the road into the safety of the woods. I grabbed my last can of tuna out of the pantry, pulled the top, dumped it onto a paper plate, and then walked out into the yard and set it on the grass where the dog could see me. Then I retreated to the porch. The dog circled upwind, his eyes up and keeping the plate between him and me. He reached the plate and quickly engulfed the tuna. Licking his lips, he looked at me as if to say, That all you got?
I laughed and spoke softly. “Sorry, pal. I’m cleaned out.”
It was almost midnight, there was little moon, the pine needles made walking through the woods almost silent, and, even in the dark, I felt funny carrying the stuffed animal. If caught and arrested again, this would not help my case. When I reached the garden, I climbed the wall, let myself down, and walked back out onto the field Audrey had created. The fragrance greeted me. The scarecrow had been patched back together. More glue and duct tape and even some plastic wrap. Wood’s gut had been reshaped and pruned. Everyone else seemed in their rightful place. I set the spider monkey on the shoulders of the scarecrow and turned to leave, but the nagging picture of Audrey crying stopped me. Beyond the garden lay the convent. I didn’t know which cottage was hers, but if I peeped in enough windows and avoided any nighttime security they had, I could probably figure it out.
I didn’t actually see the woman in the first cottage, but I saw her shadow and it was too large and round. The second was singing and not Audrey’s voice. I thought the woman in the third cottage could have been Audrey, but when I drew close to the window her cat jumped up and looked at me. Audrey is not a cat person. Scratch number three. When I approached cottage number four, a series of motion lights lit up the side yards like a runway, sending me diving into a row of hedges. When the woman who lived there looked out to investigate, I realized she was too tall to be Audrey. Then something Dee said struck me. He said he’d been emptying trash cans and heard her crying. So I started looking for big trash cans needing drum liners.
Bingo.
The last cottage, maybe older and slightly smaller, sat apart from the other buildings. Lights inside showed someone inside walking room to room. I approached a window and, given that the curtain was halfway pulled, had a view of about half the room. Audrey walked out of one room and into the room into which I was looking. She passed across the room and out of my field of view. I could see the end of a bed and the bed shook once like maybe she’d sat briefly or set something on it. I squatted, crept to the other side of the window, and could see her sitting on the edge of the bed, reading the label on a pill bottle. Then she stood and returned back across the room. I squatted and followed her with my eyes.
She walked into the bathroom, where the mirror reflected the image of her turning on the shower and then walking back into the main room and standing in front of her closet.
Where she stripped naked.
Hav
ing not seen my wife in almost thirteen years, the sight shocked me. Not in a bad way. Rather the reverse. I’ve loved her from the moment we met in the training room, and I love her still. But she was no longer mine. The heart she’d once given me, she’d taken back. So while I sat there, spying on my wife, face flushed, a strange emotion crept over me.
Shame.
Like I was stealing something that wasn’t mine. I turned and slid to my heels. The argument within myself was loud and incoherent and I’m not sure which side won, but as the voices raged, I crept back up, stretching my fingers up the brick and then pulling my eyes above the level of the sill in time to watch her walk back into the bathroom.
Wow, I love my wife.
While I tried to reinsert my jaw into its lower socket, she stepped into the shower and began washing her hair and shaving her legs. Feeling more and more like a Peeping Tom, I turned and sat on my heels until I heard the water cut off.
She toweled off, slid on an old pair of faded cotton pajamas, and climbed into bed. The pajamas looked familiar, but I shook my head. Not possible. Once in bed, she clicked on a small flat-screen TV and the video player below it. As the screen flashed and the blue screen changed to a rather grainy picture of an old football game, she clutched a pillow and tucked her knees and hands up under her chin.
At first the video didn’t interest me, then I looked closer. It was me. It was us. High school. Senior year. At various times, she used the remote to fast-forward through plays, then slow-mo through others. She watched for an hour, then two. The games changed. High school switched to college, and Audrey stretched out on her side, watching my every move. The video included clips of interviews, sweaty pictures of me postgame talking about what we did right, where I needed to improve, etc. It showed my first Heisman win. My second. The night after we won our third national championship. Somewhere in here I realized I’d crept too close and fogged up the glass. I backed off and the steam dissipated.
When the video flashed again, I saw myself standing on the stage at the NFL draft. My name had just been called. Audrey was hugging me, crying. Guys were patting me on the back. Wood, the big teddy bear, was crying. Tears dripping off his nose. Another quick splice and the video switched to the ESPN news center. I was signing autographs with the audience, talking to a little boy, having my picture taken with him, and then my interview with Jim Kneels. Again, the video flashed and the screen rolled with clips of my arrest, my walking handcuffed out of the hotel room after twenty-four hours with Ginger, disgusted onlookers screaming obscenities. Clips of the story as it developed over the months preceding trial. People I’d never met debating over coffee on gleaming sets whether the fame suddenly went to my head or if I’d been like that all along and just finally got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. Then the trial. The witnesses. The claims. The grainy, shadowy video of someone that looked like me performing deviant acts. The jury deliberation. Finally, it concluded with the reading of the guilty verdict, and the judge’s mandatory sentencing of me. The last scene showed me from behind, orange jumpsuit, my hands and feet shackled, walking through the double gates of concertina wire leading into Wiregrass Correctional. I was looking over my shoulder, my eyes searching the crowd.
I remember that moment—I was trying to find Audrey. Tell her I love her. But all I heard were the soul-emptying screams from the area of the parking lot where she’d collapsed.
It was nearly four a.m. when the video finished. She clicked off the TV, then the light, and the room went black.
I was about to turn and leave when I heard the first whimper. Then a muffled moan. Soon the dam broke and the wails came. To muffle her own cries, she buried her face in her pillow and emptied herself. This lasted a long time.
Finally, the light clicked on, and Audrey picked up the pill bottle she’d been holding when she first walked into the room. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. She twisted off the lid, poured one pill into her hand, sized it up, poured a second, and then quickly poured a third. Having swallowed all three, she clicked the TV back on and started the video over.
Ten minutes later, she passed out, and her limp body dropped the remote. A drunk sailor, she sprawled half on the bed and half off. Mouth open, one arm and leg dangling.
I sunk to my heels again, arguing with myself. Finally, damning the torpedoes, I skirted around the front of her cottage and tried the door, but it was locked. So I returned to my window and gave it a push. It budged.
I slid off my shoes, lifted myself up and through the window, and stood staring down on my unconscious wife. Needing to do something, I reached down, placed my arms beneath her legs and neck and lifted her onto her bed. The feel of her shaved legs, the smell of her skin, the muscles in her arms—I was not prepared for that. I lay her down, slid her legs beneath the sheets, wedged a small pillow between her legs, tucked the covers up around her arms, and then knelt next to her bed. I pushed her short hair behind her ears and only then noticed her pajamas.
Faded, tattered, worn thin, a hole here and there. They were mine. Had my initials on the collar. She’d bought them for me in New York, and I’d been wearing them the night after the draft when I woke at three a.m. for my workout. I had slid them off, pulled on my workout clothes, and stepped on the elevator. They were the last thing I touched before I left.
I sat there a long time. I traced her ear, the lines of her chin, the small of her neck. I wanted to kiss her, badly. Instead, I spoke the words I’d been wanting to tell her since I left the courtroom. “Audrey, I love you—with all of me.”
I’ve done some tough things in my life, but one of the toughest was not crawling in that bed and wrapping my arms around my wife. The whisper kept me out, She might be yours on paper, but her heart is not.
I clicked off the TV and was reaching to turn out the light when the flash caught my eyes. I pulled aside the collar of her pajamas, and there, at the base of her neck, lay the dove.
Thinking back over the few interactions we’d had since I’d been out, I’d not noticed it, because each time she’d worn something like a sweatshirt or T-shirt that covered it. Tonight, I hadn’t seen it when she was getting in and out of the shower because my eyes were elsewhere.
After all this time.
That’s my Audrey. Still fighting. The presence of that dove around her neck meant that despite the storm that had tossed and raged around her, something in Audrey had clung to an anchor deep within.
I leaned in, pressed my lips to hers, and held there while her warmth melted me. I’d pressed my luck far enough, so I turned out the light and crept home as the sun was coming up over my shoulder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When I reached the porch, that dog was sitting on the front step. His eyes and nose were trained on the trail that had taken me to school. When I appeared he stood and his tail wagged once. I knelt, held out my hand. He tucked his tail, lowered his head, and walked up close enough to let me scratch his ears.
He was nasty. Dirty. Scabbed. Covered in sores. Flies were swarming. He had either been beaten or hit by a car or both. Fleas were jumping all over him and his front left leg was infected and needed stitches. Lastly, thanks to what I saw squirming around inside the present he left me in the front yard—he also had worms.
“Pal, you fit in perfect around here.”
As long as I rubbed his ears or scratched his tummy, he’d let me do pretty much anything I wanted. As I bathed him, and the dirt, grime, and mud washed off, it became apparent that he, whatever his name was or had been, was a Boston terrier with rather distinct tuxedo markings.
I was drying him off when Dee appeared for our workout. He said, “New friend?”
“Poor guy’s had a rough go.”
“He got a name?”
I shook my head. “Got any ideas?”
He pointed at the dog’s chest. “Tux.”
It fit. “A good name.”
The only way I had to get him to the vet was the bike, so after our workout, I cranked it w
hile Tux stood there looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. When I patted my lap, he walked in a circle, then stood waiting on me. I looked down, and he sat on his butt. I said, “Tux, how’s this gonna work if you don’t do what I tell you?” I patted my leg again. “Now, come on.” He tilted his head sideways, stood, then gingerly climbed up on my leg keeping his back legs on the ground. I took that to mean that something hurt too badly to jump up there, so I lifted him gently. He planted his rear on my lap and rested his shaking forelegs on the gas tank. Wanting to make him feel safe, I wedged him between my arms so he could look out over the handlebars and then we eased out of the driveway. Once we got up to speed, he stood, seeming to like the wind in his face.
The vet was new to town, or at least new since I’d left, and I didn’t know her. I hoped that meant she didn’t know me and didn’t follow football or the major news networks. I signed in and sat in a waiting room along with three other people who paid me little notice. That changed when the lady opened the door and said, “Matthew Rising?” When she did, all three heads popped up like they’d been shot out of cannons. I whispered, “Excuse me,” and carried Tux into the examination room.
The vet looked him over, stitched up his leg, gave him a shot of antibiotics into the infected area of his leg—which he didn’t like—and then gave him two other shots to kill whatever might be squirming around inside him.
She asked, “Is he yours?”
“Found him yesterday. Today was the first time he let me pet him.”
She scribbled a prescription and handed it to me. “Twice a day for a week.” I folded it and put it in my pocket. She continued, “I think he’s had a pretty rough go. He’s malnourished. Very sick. Probably been beat or hit by a car. And I have to be honest and tell you that, even with all the drugs I just gave him, I’m not sure he’ll make it. I also think he’s in a good bit of pain, is suffering a lot. If that continues, you should consider…” She reached up and rubbed his ears. “Letting us put him to sleep.”
A Life Intercepted: A Novel Page 18