Believe what you want to believe

by George Williams

  This was it. We had reached our breaking point. Now Father Paul knew we were not afraid to tell and we were insubordinate. Also Ziggy knew we had the map. As terrifying as it was to stand up for ourselves, it felt good to be fighting back for once. The bad guys couldn’t win every time. This wasn’t a victory. We may have failed at saving Mickey, but we drew a line in the sand.

  The next day, Janie and I discussed what we should do with the locations of the bodies on our map.

  “Now that Ziggy knows we have the map, we need to do something,” Janie said to me.

  “Yea, I know. Maybe you shouldn’t have told him about it... Maybe we acted too fast,” I said.

  “Are we going to keep this a secret forever?” Janie asked as tears rushed down her cheeks.

  A few hours later, Ziggy came home and our hearts sank. Luckily for us, Jason was home and we could scream if Ziggy tried to hurt us. When Ziggy entered the house, he walked right up to us with a half-friendly grin.

  Janie took a different approach this time. Tired of the victim role, Janie said to him, “Hello Ziggy...”

  Ziggy said, “Okay, So I am going to ask you nicely this time and then it’s not going to get better. Where is my paper?”

  Janie stated, “Not telling you...”

  “Okay this is how you want to play?!” Then Ziggy lifted Janie’s mattress and knocked over her dresser. Janie and I did the best we could not to react. “Don’t show him you are afraid,” Janie whispered to me. This scare tactic isn’t going to work for him this time.”

  Defeated and out of breath, Ziggy ran out of energy from tearing the place up and walked out the door.

  He looked back at Janie on his way out and said, “This time... you've gone too far!”

  Then he slammed the door shut, knocking over the picture on the wall next to the door. We knew that this small victory was not something to be taken lightly. We were messing with evil men here and it would have been foolish to underestimate their degree of insanity.

  Janie and I walked on eggshells after defying Ziggy and Father Paul. We set up code words and remained on the lookout for Ziggy’s car coming in the driveway. The last thing we needed was to be alone with him. For the next week, Ziggy stayed away from the house, so we begin to disarm. He kept his distance and we were not sure why. Maybe he needed to digest what was happening or to plot his next move.

  Chapter 16

  Mercy

  Early one morning after my parents left for work, Ziggy picked Janie and me up at school unexpectedly. When we were called to dismissal, my heart dropped since our parents had not told us about being pulled out of school early. Only one other person had the power to take us out of class. With no time to react or make a plan, Janie and I were at the front office being dismissed by Ziggy.

  None of us said a word to each other as Janie and I entered the back of his pickup truck. After a couple of minutes of awkward silence, we took a sharp turn I didn’t recognize, heading down a sketchy dirt road. After about a minute of driving, Ziggy pulled the truck over, got out and grabbed a shovel out of the back. We watched him walk to a small wooded area nearby where he began to dig a hole. His face was flushed red as he spat to the side and started shoveling dirt into the air.

  Only a short time had gone by before a woman out walking her dog noticed this strange behavior and questioned his motives. “Excuse me, sir. What exactly are you doing out here!?” she demanded, with one hand on her hip.

  He replied, “I'm just burying my dog.”

  Her response was, “Not here. Leave now, or I will call the police.”

  “You got it, ma’am,” Ziggy said, putting the shovel down to appease her.

  Ziggy wiped the sweat from his forehead and the woman stated, “Move along now. This is private property.” Ziggy paused for a second and then reached for his knife.

  We had seen this before, confident that he was going to kill her. We both squinted our eyes shut and looked away.

  After about thirty seconds of painful anticipation, Janie opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder to see the woman walking down the street.

  “Why did she leave?! Sean, Ziggy didn’t kill her!” Janie alerted me. We began to panic, unable to breathe, unable to move.

  “The hole is for us! This is it. We are dead!” I cried to Janie in between breaths. We hugged each other tightly, anticipating our final moments.

  Then Ziggy chucked the shovel into the woods, swearing profanities at the lady ahead of him. Not at all rattled by this, she threw her hand up and continued walking away. Janie and I looked at each other, confused, and still in tears. Ziggy stopped everything and ran both of his hands through his hair as he tilted his head up to the sky.

  He sauntered back to the truck, sat down softly, took a deep breath and started crying with us. He said to us, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this to your parents. They took me in when I had nowhere to go. They have been too good to me. I will tell Father Paul. I won’t do it.”

  Breathing for relief but still shaking, Janie and I realized a “Catholic priest” had ordered Ziggy to end our lives.

  After a long period of silence, Ziggy drove us home to my parents, gathered all his tools and started a big fight with my mother. He screamed every curse name he could think of at her so she threw him out of the house for good. She didn’t tolerate that kind of talk and he knew that. If she only knew who he really was, there would have been a lot more she wouldn't have tolerated. Did he leave the house to have an excuse for Father Paul as to why he did not kill us? At least he was gone and we could breathe again.

  Chapter 17

  A guilty death

  Ziggy stopped by the house for the first time in almost a year, knowing my parents were away on business.

  After chatting with Jason for a few, he looked at me and said, “Sport, you’re getting big. You must have grown two inches.” Unpleased to see him, I replied, “Yea. I’m twelve now.”

  “Hey Zig, the whole house reeks. How can we get rid of this smell?” Jason asked while rolling joints in the living room.

  “I have an idea. Sport, come with me,” Ziggy said. I followed him towards the garage located underneath the house. My gut sank as I thought, “I haven’t seen him since he tried to kill Janie and me.”

  Then suddenly he pulled a rifle out of his truck and asked, “Have you ever shot before?”

  Terrified, I answered, “Yes, an air rifle.” Then he said, “Well how different could this be?” I wondered who he wanted me to shoot.

  From the driveway, he aimed the gun over the Chevy’s trunk and as I stared through the scope, I detected a skunk in the garage right below the house.

  Ziggy glanced over at me and asked, “Why are you shaking, Sport? We are just out here to kill some rodents. Be quiet... or they will hear you.”

  I turned my head and saw Ziggy walking toward the garage. Then he stopped midstride. The back of the skunk’s head was now in the crosshairs of the rifle. “Should I pull the trigger?” I wondered.

  He stood there for what seemed like five minutes but maybe it was only an instant. Did he want me to kill him?

  Then he returned to the car and looked me square in the face. I could see he was disappointed but I didn’t know why.

  Then somberly he said, “Hey Sport, take the shot now, will yah?”

  I pulled the trigger for the kill but nothing happened. He started laughing, grabbed the gun and said, “Okay, try it now!!!” as he released the safety. I took the shot, hitting one of the skunks right in the head, as the other two scurried out into the woods. A cloud began to bellow out of the garage. Proud of my accomplishment, I wanted to run and tell Jason but I sat and waited to see if the skunk got up.

  Jason yelled from inside, “Sean, what the hell did you do now?” When I finally got inside, he handed me a bottle of Lysol and said, “This is your problem now, Sean.” I ran around and opened all the windows, trying to get rid of the seeping smell of skunk spray ti
mes fifty.

  As I opened one of the windows, I watched Ziggy drive out of the driveway in his truck. This was what he did. He caused a problem then left. But I was glad he was gone.

  Two months had gone by with no sign of Ziggy. It was a typical Tuesday afternoon when I came home to find Jason and Gill on the front porch in tears. “Did you hear the news?” Concerned, I replied, “No, what happened?” Then they showed me the paper. Ziggy‘s face covered the front page.

  My sister Peggy came outside and said, “I think I was the last one to see him before the accident.” Apparently, she had already heard.

  “Really?” Gill asked curiously.

  “Yea, I ran into him at a bar last night over in Hull. He was wicked out of it. He was telling me something about blood on his hands that he couldn’t wipe clean. Also he told me that he had a baby on the way and he had done some stuff he couldn’t take back.”

  Gill asked, “Like what?”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Peggy replied. “He was just drunk rambling. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. He was worked up and guzzled a few more beers before leaving. That’s all I know.”

  I grabbed the paper and read the headline out loud: “Two Boston College Teens, Killed in a DUI Related Crash.” I read along to see that it was estimated that the driver was going over a hundred mph and riding the wrong way on the interstate. I was shocked. I cannot say I felt sad for him. Just shocked. Ziggy was like a cockroach, surviving motorcycle accidents, heroin withdrawals, fist fights and all. Finally it was his time to go.

  After hearing what Peggy said regarding not being able to wipe the blood off his hands, it was clear that Ziggy felt deep remorse for what he had done to Janie and me. It was not illogical to assume that guilt ultimately caused his suicidal death. What I really felt bad about were the other two innocent people who had now perished because of this man. Even in his death, he caused so much pain and sorrow for so many families. He had no respect for human life.

  For Ziggy’s funeral, my mother made sure Janie and I dressed in our best clothes. While we were brushing our teeth and about to leave, Janie looked at me and said, “Now that he can’t hurt us anymore, should we tell mom and dad what he did to us?”

  “I want to,” I said, “but Father Paul is still alive and remember, he ordered Ziggy to kill us.”

  “You are right. We should keep our mouths shut just in case,” Janie replied.

  It was a warm September day and the news crews were already at the funeral parlor, covering the media story when we arrived. When we walked in to see the casket, we noticed it only had a couple of potted flower plants from my parents and a cannabis plant hidden behind the flowers. Since he was unrecognizable after the crash, they decided on a closed casket. The good news was that he could never hurt anyone again. I secretly wished Father Paul had been in the passenger seat that night, right along with him.

  It wasn’t surprising that Father Paul was the priest giving the service at Ziggy’s funeral. Father Paul spoke of Ziggy in his eulogy as if he had never met him. Too slick to be caught, he pulled off acting as though he didn’t know us either, although we had been involved in his madness for many years. He was responsible for turning Ziggy into the monster that he died as. The sad part was that he still believed he was on God's side. I was not sure if any of us would be with God when this was all over. I resented Father Paul for all he did to us and dreamed he felt that same pain one day too.

  At the end of the funeral mass when everyone cleared out, Janie and I stood in the funeral parlor alone. Suddenly the door creaked open and Father Paul strode in. Surprised, we both took a step back. Without looking directly at us, he strolled over to the casket and placed his index finger on it. As he slid his finger across the casket, he started laughing hysterically.

  Then he turned to us, locked eye contact with Janie and said, “With Ziggy dead now, who’s everyone going to believe? A respected Catholic priest or a couple of degenerate, vagrant kids? You two are not my problem anymore.” Then he walked out, still smiling at our terror-stricken faces.

  Chapter 18

  The Party

  I couldn’t tell you how or why these things were happening. I started losing track of time. First it was a couple of hours and then it was days. Was this a side effect of trauma or was it something else?

  I woke up in my room and couldn’t breathe. As I gasped for air, I heard loud noises coming from outside. As I opened the door, thick black smoke seeped into my room. It sounded like a party was going on outside. It felt like an elephant was on my chest. Desperately needing water, I ran past at least twenty-five people in the front yard, grabbed the garden hose, opened the faucet and put the nozzle in my mouth as excess water sprayed all over the lawn. The first person I recognized was Gill. ”Where’s my mom?” I asked.

  His response to my question was, “She went for a package run!” Then after seeing my look of concern, he said, “She’s on the front porch, dumbass. You just ran by her.”

  When I went back to the front porch, I asked my mom what had happened. Drunkenly she said, “The furnace broke and made the black smoke, so we called the fire department. It was really exciting, but you were sleeping so we left you. The fire department said you would probably be okay.”

  “What?” I said. “You left me to die?”

  She said, “No, you're okay. We figured we would tell you about it when you woke up. We didn’t want to wake you.” As I looked around I saw another fifty or a hundred people in my yard. All types of people were there, girls, guys, hippies and bikers.

  I walked up to Gill and asked, “What is happening here?” He said, “Town party, town party, buddy!!” as he sucked down a Budweiser, crushed it on his forehead and threw it on the walkway. What a character this guy was, I thought to myself. So let's get this straight. My family threw a town party, the furnace went out but the party lived on while the youngest son is left carelessly sleeping inside to suck in the carbon monoxide. At least I survived. The real question was how many brain cells I lost.

  Parties became a normal occurrence at my house. It was pretty cool for a middle school kid to get to go to high school and college parties in their own front yard. Sometimes there was a line for the bathroom so Janie and I charged a quarter per use. We made money and most people didn’t care. They seemed to like us and thought it was cute, but we treated it like a business. Girlfriends and family could go for free, but the rest had to pay a fee.

  Jason went out to a popular bar in Quincy, called the Beach Coma, and at closing time he invited everyone back to our house for the after party. Other times they posted a sign at the top of the hill, that said, “party tonight BYOB.” When the police went by, he kicked it over.

  One night Jason hired a rock band and they set up right in the front driveway. They were a very popular cover band in the area and a thousand plus people were in my backyard. My brother didn't charge anyone for this town concert. He paid the band with drugs, alcohol and girls. They were actually pretty good. The band let me run the lights. Eddie, the lighting man that I helped, was really cool. He had long curly hair like the lead singer and the girls thought he was a musician. They played cutting edge 70’s songs like Tom Petty’s “American Girl” and Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.”

  Mid concert I decide to take a bathroom break. Unfortunately the door wasn't locked and I awkwardly caught the lighting man getting a BJ in the bathroom. Apologetically he said he was sorry and even asked my mother to forgive him for his behavior. Thank God she didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. The girl with him was really pretty I thought. I wanted to be a rock star after that, looking up to a lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

  After midnight, the band played an encore and the police came to shut down the party. Luckily the cops were pretty cool about it as they let them finish their set and told the band to announce afterwards for everyone to go home. I even witnessed the cops dancing a little to the music. That was k
ind of a fun bust for them. They didn't have a choice to get orderly since they were outnumbered a hundred to one.

  At the end of the party, my sister Peggy’s boyfriend Timmy had a final stunt. He had broken his leg the weekend before when my brothers had tossed him over the hedges like a human catapult. Even with a broken leg, Timmy still had more life in him than most. It was his drunken genius idea to ride the beer cooler down the driveway like a horse on wheels. As he sped down the driveway and lost control, I witnessed a frightening disaster of a wipeout. I thought he was done but he stood up on his one good leg, smiled, glanced at the road rash and yelled, “Well that’s going to hurt tomorrow!”

  Then he cracked open another beer. To my bewilderment, he was fine.

  “Is this the answer for all my pain?” I thought.

  Impressed by the drunken shenanigans, I started sneaking a couple of beers on a regular basis. I started getting night terrors in the middle of the night. I woke up panic-stricken, screaming and sweating. Something awful had been embedded deep in my mind. I had seen too much, too young. Knowing nothing about my experiences with Ziggy and Father Paul, my concerned parents blamed themselves for my trauma and allowed me to drink wine every night before bed. The Europeans did it, why couldn’t we? My father bought a crystal wine bottle that sat in a wrought iron frame and was filled with red wine. It was sweet, but I started getting headaches every morning. At least it helped me fight the demons through the night.

  Chapter 19

  Freedom

  A couple of years had gone by and I was in high school, eagerly awaiting the day I got my driver’s license. My father went with me to take the test. During the test, my father distracted the police officer so I could pass. He was good with people and he always found a way to connect with anyone. That was what made him a great salesman. We seemed to have a lot more in common now that his drinking was under control.