“No, it wasn’t. I was so full of rage at my dad for rejecting me when Amber-that’s her name, did the same thing I couldn’t handle it. Also, another thing that enraged me was that she was my brother’s secretary. I felt like everyone was against me. The drug use didn’t help either.”
Marcus narrowed his eyes.
“You didn’t kill her, did you?”
I shook my head.
“Thank God, no. But I got caught and sent to prison for three years for assault.”
“That must’ve been tough.”
“I did most of my time too. Saw a lot of heavy shit go down in there. Met a lot of really bad people. But my father came to visit me in prison. I was so happy to see him there. He promised me….promised me…” I broke down. Sobs racked my body as I held my face in my hands.
Marcus sat quietly as I composed myself.
“What did he promise?”
Wiping my face with my sleeve, I sighed.
“He promised we’d be a family. He’d give me a job at his company.”
“That sounds great!”
I laughed bitterly.
“But he died before I was released from prison.”
Marcus’s eyes shone with pity.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I went crazy with grief. I started fucking up left and right. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I swore that I would get vengeance on the two people who put me there.”
“Who was that?”
“My brother and Amber.”
“I see.”
I clutched my hands together.
“When I was released from prison, I went after Amber and my brother. Eventually, I kidnapped Amber to lure my brother to me.”
“Oh my.” Marcus’s mouth fell open.
I nodded.
“Yep. My plan was never to hurt either of them, though. I just wanted to get his attention. I wanted to talk to him.”
“You could’ve picked something a bit less dramatic, don’t you think, Ayden?”
I sighed again.
“Yes. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out. I ended up stabbing my brother and assaulting Amber.”
Marcus moved back from me.
“You’ve really done some bad things.”
“Well, I helped them out of the nightmare I’d created by driving them both to the ER, but I know that’s not enough.”
Suddenly, I fell forward onto the kneeler and cried out.
“God forgive me!”
I don’t know where that came from. Marcus looked as shocked as I was. I had never cried out to God audibly like that before.
Sitting back, I felt embarrassed for the outburst.
“I’m sorry.”
Marcus slapped his hand on my back.
“It’s fine. That’s what I hoped you’d do. It’s cathartic, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“That’s what confession is. You just did it right here. If you were to go inside that little booth they would absolve you of your sins and give you penance to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Like saying the Rosary or an Our Father.”
I was still confused.
He waved his hand.
“If that’s not your belief, that’s fine. But I’ll make it easy on you. If you asked God to be forgiven and meant it, you are.”
I felt a huge weight lift off me.
“But that doesn’t mean people will forgive you. And it doesn’t mean you escape the consequences of your actions either.”
I figured there had to be a catch.
“Yep. So, my advice to you is to stay away from negative people. You know, the people who get you into drugs and the people who entice you into illicit sex.”
“Are you telling me no extramarital or premarital sex?”
“Well, that’s probably the best thing to do, but given your background that’s probably not going to be feasible for you. What I’m saying is that certain people may entice you into doing things that aren’t healthy for anyone like sexual domination that turns into abuse.”
I understood that.
“You mean taking it from consensual sex to abuse?”
“Exactly.”
Marcus stood up and looked at his watch.
“Well, Ayden, it was great meeting you. I have to get work now.”
He walked over to a small area behind the altar. He took out a long black robe and pulled it over his head. Affixing the white collar around the robe, he turned to smile at me.
Holy shit.
He was a priest.
He smoothed his long stringy black hair back. He took a rubber band and pulled it into a low ponytail.
“You’re a priest?” My eyes bulged.
He laughed.
“Well, to some I’m Father Marcus, but to you I can just be Marcus.”
“But you have track marks!” I was shocked.
“That I do. I’ve lived a hard life, too, Ayden. God purposely chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.” He winked at me.
Catching his meaning, I smiled.
“You know, Marcus, I like you and I like this church. I think I’ll come back if that’s okay.”
“Of course. You’re always welcome.”
As I turned to leave, Marcus called out to me. I turned to face him.
“Ayden, just be careful. Don’t fall down into that long, dark abyss again.”
Walking out the church, I felt lighter than air. All the terrible, crushing burdens I’d been carrying were gone.
But now to face Ash and Amber.
God forgave me, but would they?
7
Ash
Racing to my father’s house, I stormed inside. After all this time, I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to sell his house.
Feverishly, I ran up the stairs to the attic. I dumped box after box out onto the floor. Sweat trickled down my forehead stinging my eyes, but I barely noticed.
My father had hidden the fact that he and my mother had had another child, Ayden. What the hell else was he hiding?
After I carelessly flung stacks of paper throughout the room, I stopped in the midst of chaos and looked around.
This was my past.
His past.
All his dirty secrets scattered about me. Now I just had to uncover them one by one.
Falling to the hard wooden floor, I snatched a small pile of papers clipped together. It was a stack of handwritten letters and newspaper clippings. There were several small photos. One was of my father in his Army uniform. I flipped it over.
Ashler Blackthorne, Private First Class, Honorable Discharge April 1967.
That was no surprise. I knew he’d served in the Vietnam War. I placed it aside and dug further into the packet. Several small photos fell out. One was a picture of what appeared to be my father with his hair well past his shoulders. He was wearing an atrocious pair of striped polyester pants and a long brown suede vest. I cringed. What a horrible look, I thought. He was posing next to a group of scantily clad young women with their long hair bounded back with flowers. The street sign next to them read Haight Ashbury.
Oh my God.
He had been a hippie just like Clayton said. No way, I thought. Not the stodgy, high powered businessman I knew.
The oppressive heat in the attic caused me to feel a bit faint. I groped for the bottle of water I’d brought up with me.
My mind reeling as I realized there was so much more to my father than I’d ever know I kept reading the articles.
Local Band, Alice’s Attic to Play to Sold Out Crowd!
Alice’s Attic, a local glam rock band, is hitting the stages of local venues this summer. Come celebrate the summer with the most far-out band on the West Coast!
Frontman, Black Ash describes the band’s sound like this: ‘Imagine if Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, and Black Sabbath all did a hit of acid together. Well, what you’d have is us.’
Alice’s Attic will
be playing in Venice Beach this Saturday night.
Oh my God.
Pictures of my father dressed in tight striped pants and a vest singing on stage! What in the hell was this?
I sat back in amazement.
Growing up, I’d always known he’d had a passion for music. He kept his prized record collection in his office under lock and key. I heard him play several hard rock songs from the 70s. I had heard him sing as well and knew that he did possess musical talent.
But this?
Seriously?
Black Ash?
Clayton hadn’t been delusional. He had been telling the truth.
Stunned, I sat the pictures down. I didn’t know what to make of it all. But did it really mean anything to me today? So what if he was in some local band in the 70s?
Several more pictures were hidden beneath a smaller box in a wooden crate. I brushed the thick dust from it and pried it open.
There inside were hundreds of pictures of women! Most of them were nude and they were surrounding my father. Some were quite beautiful and some wore long colorful beads.
On the back of one was captioned: Rita, Mavis, Ilene. Several other photos featured the same gorgeous dark haired woman named Rita. Could that have been the same Rita my father dated after my mother left? How was that possible? I peered closely at her face in the faded photo.
Indeed, the woman in the picture looked quite young at the time. It very well could have been the Rita I’d known.
So my dad had known her before my mother? She’d been a hippie too?
Apparently so, according to these photos. The pictures depicted my father and dozens of women living at what looked like a hippie commune.
I pushed the photos off of my lap. How could he have kept all this from me? First my brother, now this whole other side of his personality? Why?
Shaking with rage, I struggled to stand up. My legs had fallen asleep from sitting so long and I fell backwards knocking another box over.
A huge pile of papers came crashing down upon me. A red leather bound book hit me on the head.
I flipped the book over and brushed the dust from the cover.
Opening it, I scanned the pages. It was what appeared to be my father’s journal. My curiosity piqued as I began to read.
Ashler’s Journal-June 1973
“Ashler, what’s been going on with you? You’re acting like you’re off on a bad trip or something.” Rita handed me a smoke.
“Nah. I’m just thinking of getting out of here. The scene’s dying. All this peace and love is nothing but bullshit.” I took a long drag of the cigarette.
Rita looked at me incuriously.
“What the fuck are you talking about, man? Dammit, Stacy was right you are off on a bad trip. You just need something to ease out the edges.” Rita pulled several tabs out of her short red halter top. Her tits jiggled as she moved.
I shook my head pushing the tabs back to her.
“I’m serious, Rita. This shit’s got to stop. Look at me! I’m almost 27 years old! It’s time for me to think about the future. I’ve got a college education and look what I’m doing! Living on a fucking deserted ranch with a hundred other deadbeats. I can’t keep this up.” The words shocked me as they fell from my mouth. It sounded as if my own father had possessed me. I wasn’t going to tell her about all the threatening letters I’d been getting from home telling me that if I didn’t return by the end of the year he was giving my entire inheritance to charity.
“So, that’s it? No more Black Ash and Alice’s Attic? Fuck, Ash, you were the best! You’re amazing on the guitar!”
I flicked the butt of the cigarette to the ground. Glancing around the dilapidated building, I knew I wanted out. Dozens of men and women lie on the floor in various stages of undress. Two girls wrapped around each other were kissing each other in a drug induced haze. Their long greasy hair was entangled in the dirty sheets.
I stared back at Rita. She was so fucking beautiful. I first met her when I came to Haight Ashbury after I got home from Nam. The year was 1967. After seeing so many people die so brutally, the peace/love hippie movement appealed to me. When I flipped on the TV and saw all those young people hugging and kissing and talking about the world being one huge orgasm, it moved me.
So my best friend, Clayton and I found a bus full of gorgeous young girls headed out to the West Coast. My father demanded that I stay with him and go into the family business.
But I had other plans.
As soon as the bus stopped in San Francisco, I saw her. She was standing against a street post looking up at the sky. Her hair was long, wavy and nearly jet black. Her long legs were encased in a pair of white go-go boots. Her dress was short and pink. She wore flowers in her hair and long strands of beads.
I stepped off the bus and she ran right up to me.
“Here, welcome!” She wrapped a strand of beads around my neck. Clayton and I followed her to her commune that she’d been living in near Los Angeles.
There the two of us became Rita’s lovers.
“Rita, I’m sorry, but Debra and I are leaving.” I began to pull my suede vest on and as I grabbed my backpack.
Tears spilled down her as she stood watching us both pack. The others had gone down to the lake for the day.
“But what about Amelia? You’re just going to leave her here?” Rita’s attempt to tug at my heartstrings was working. I sat my backpack down. I motioned for Debra to step out.
Walking over to her, I cupped her face in my hands.
“Rita, I love you, but I can’t stay here anymore. All the drugs, the crime, everything. It’s out of control. I want to move back to New York.”
Her eyes blinked several times in an attempt to clear them of tears. She was trembling all over. Outside, I heard Debra cough several times impatiently.
“New York? You told me you’d rather die than go back to that cesspool of capitalism! New York City business? That’s the epitome of the fucking establishment!” Rita tugged on her long black hair. She reached out to catch my hand.
“Please stay, Ashler. Don’t you remember all the fun we’ve had over the years? Don’t you remember the first day you saw me when you pulled up in that VW bus in Haight Ashbury?”
I closed my eyes. I could see it like it was yesterday. She had been so very beautiful and young. Full of hopes and dreams.
Just like me.
But that was six years ago.
After years of partying, dropping acid, experimenting with free love, and living on the commune, I just couldn’t do it anymore. Those had been wonderful times, but the scene quickly began to turn sour after Charlie and the girls got locked up. Ever since those murders, I hadn’t been able to sleep soundly through the entire night no matter how much dope or Quaaludes I took.
“We have a child together, Ashler. How can you leave her? She’s only a year old!” Rita raced to her sleeping bag and pulled out the photo she just took of Amelia.
Indeed, Amelia was a beautiful little girl. She had raven black curls and an adorable dimpled smile. Her eyes were hazel just like mine.
But still I couldn’t quite believe Amelia was mine. Living in this free love commune, orgies were a daily occurrence. I knew that Rita had multiple lovers. Debra, Rita, and I had been involved in a relationship together for several months.
My heart ached in my chest. How could my dad have kept all this from me? Obviously, he was a completely different person than the man I knew as my father. Why had he kept this a secret?
I flipped a few pages. It seemed as though he didn’t write in the journal regularly. He jumped around a lot.
December 1970
The girls were more rowdy tonight than usual. Rita came flying in after a drug run breathless and frantic.
“Oh my God, Ash, did you hear?”
Sitting Indian style on the floor with my guitar in hand, I shook my head. I had a feeling she’d already had several hits of acid today. I had been hard at work on a new song. I had alread
y written the music, but the lyrics alluded me. Debra was sleeping next to me on the mattress zoning out on Quaaludes she’d taken earlier.
“What?”
Rita flapped her hands in the air. Now, I definitely knew she was on some freaky trip.
“Charlie and the girls!”
Clayton walked in running his hands through his long hair.
“Rita, don’t tell me you’re still hanging out at their ranch again! Fuck, we both told you to stay away from there. Those people are too far out.”
“No, I just went there to meet with Joey to get this. He was selling to some of the Family out there so he told me to meet him.”
Shaking my head, I went back to strumming my guitar.
“It’s awful! Oh my God, Ash, it’s awful!” She sat down beside me and buried her face on my shoulder.
I pulled her up and looked at her. She was white as a sheet.
“What’s going, Rita? Are you on a bad trip?”
She shook her head.
“No. It’s all over the news! Oh God, it’s so awful I can’t stand it.” She pulled on her long black hair.
“What are you talking about?” Clay fell upon the mattress beside us.
“This!” She held up a newspaper.
‘Three women, Two men Indicted in Sharon Tate Slayings’
“Are you serious? They did this?” My eyes scanned the hideous details of the Tate murders.
“I don’t know.” She whispered.
I tossed the paper to Clay. His eyes widened in horror as he read.
“The Tate Murders? Oh my God.” I whispered aloud.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from them, Rita?” Clayton demanded still holding the paper.
“You weren’t caught up in any of this were you, Rita?” I grabbed her wrist.
“No, no, no.” She shook her head. Her pupils were dilated and I knew she was on something.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“No one goes over there again. Do you hear me? I don’t want any part of those crazies.”
We all nodded in agreement. Debra remained sleeping on the mattress.
“Come to me or Clay first, Rita, if you want something. We’ll find another dealer.”
Wicked Redemption (Dark Book 2) Page 4