by Jeff Vrolyks
Nope, it didn’t happen.
I press preset #5 and hear the familiar Pachelbel’s Canon in D, nearing the conclusion. It’s a strange feeling hearing a composition chosen and played by someone outside the prison cell, and it is terrifying. Terrifying, but something more. It is also liberating. I have no idea what piece was going to follow Pachelbel’s, but the uncertainty and limitless possibilities were becoming less frightening and more arousing. I pull back onto the highway and head down the road with the mountain air surrounding me, music influencing me, and glove box tempting me. The conclusion of Canon in D is followed by a woman speaking. Not at all what I had in mind.
“—where you are, but if you see him, tell him I love him. This—”
I quickly remember why I use compact discs instead of the radio. I turn the volume down in full.
An imperfect day, to put it mildly. Everything about it has been disruptive and a detriment to my sanity. Could it be the beginning of a whole new routine, one governed by external forces? I cringe at the thought, but somewhere in the underbelly of my mind is a glimmer of curiosity, a spark of ambition, a neural discharge of… hope?
As I drive down the empty mountain road, I can’t stop glancing at the well behaved glove box. The button keyhole smiles at me.
Could it be as bad as I fear? Could I be overreacting?
Today has been a perversion of my reality, yet I remain steadfast and (arguably) sane. Could the key that unlocks my prison-cell door be inside the glove box? Not likely, but what if it is? If so, what could that mean to me? There is only one way to find out.
Mingled contentment and sorrow have found a home inside my cell and are micromanaged by my routine. My contentment is why the glove box remains closed; my sorrow is why I peek at it. The burden of my broken heart and loneliness, having no foundation to rest upon, have been carried on my shoulders in perpetuity. The contents of the glove box may or may not be the answer to this enigma I’ve built, but unless I check I will be forever vexed.
I approach an interstate turnout and gently push down on the brakes to pull over to the narrow asphalt embankment. I lean over to the passenger seat and push the button that has been winking at me since I caught it smiling several minutes ago. The lid falls and bounces once before settling.
My heart is thrumming, mouth dry.
The first thing I find is what I had hoped to find, registration and insurance papers. And not because they were on top—they were not. I dug blindly to the bottom until I found them; they are doctrines of my self-proclaimed sanity.
A small victory.
I hold them up and eclipse the sun; the edges flap in the breeze as I grin. I set them aside and get down to business. I look inside:
A half smoked cigar. I sniff it. It the catacombs of my memory something awakens. A hair brush with three-inch bristles of jet black hair. A small paper bag with fish hooks and weights inside. In my chest winged things are fluttering. Cherry Chapstick (an image of hot sauce manifests in my mind). A red fruit-rollup. The fine hairs of my neck stand erect. There is pressure in my chest.
I remove a plastic Walmart bag. I apprehensively gander inside and its contents seize my breath and pang my heart. A Winnie the Pooh refrigerator magnet, an old wallet, and an empty pregnancy test box. The wallet is old black leather, it doesn’t look familiar. It is quite flat, so when I open it I am not surprised to find it nearly empty. A lone receipt is folded inside the bill compartment. Something is scribbled on it: Pro meus Dominus, ego addo vos Septima. “For my Master I bring you Seven,” I say without a clue how I know this or even what language it is. The number seven doesn’t sit well with me, but I don’t know why.
The final item in the glove box is a plastic indicator. The indicator window shows a blue circle, which means either pregnant or not pregnant. I do not know which, but the box in my lap does. My breaths are shallow and rapid, heart beating in my throat. The box says O is pregnant. The source of my sorrow.
Tears sting my eyes. The flood gates of despair open up.
That’s why you don’t open the fucking glove box! Didn’t I tell you?
I throw all the shit out of the car and slam the glove box shut. “Think good thoughts. Think of anything but those items. We’ll get through this.”
Black memories are knocking on the gray upstairs door: I’m not answering. In a state of rebellion, I turn up the radio and throw the car in drive and aggressively step on the gas pedal. The woman is still rambling on. What is this, public access radio? Is she soliciting donations? Where’s Bach or Chopin, damnit?
“—sorry it has taken so long to come see you. I knew seeing you would break my heart… and it does. I know it’s selfish of me, but I can’t help it. It was the worst year of my life. But these last six months, these last six months have been wonderful. I have a new love of my life.”
The speed limit is fifty. I’m pushing seventy. My blood is boiling and I don’t know why.
“Play some damn music! Shut up, lady!”
The compact disc. That’s what I need. A return to normalcy. I reach for it on the floor mat.
“—I thought I had died, because it was like heaven. It was amazing, I didn’t want to leave. There’s no doubt in my mind I could have stayed there and been happy forever. But you know what? Inevitably there comes a time when you have to make the decision—stay or go, and it’s the hardest decision you’ll ever make, trust me, I almost chose differently.”
My heart is breaking, tears stream off my face from the seventy-mile-an-hour made wind. I turn the radio off, it’s worse than the damned glove box. Without thought, I accelerate.
Is it typical upon reading the final few words of a novel to reflect upon the emotional highs and lows of its contents? Having no recollection of the story, I daydream of chapters yet to be written. Maybe our most beloved novels end with new beginnings so that our imagination can write the endings we yearn for most. Whatever didn’t pan out in life is only because the story hasn’t ended; it is just a low point in a larger story with a Happily Ever After ending.
Engine roaring, I drive past the road’s six-thousand foot elevation sign, followed by a 25 MPH warning sign, while looking to the sun which now resembles a halo over the mountain’s crest. The view is a welcoming friend and I am knocking at her door.
I close my eyes as the front tires of the car hit a small dirt berm and quickly reach down to grab a hold of the ground, but for once they are not finding it, and in a split second the car is no longer a part of the interstate. In mid air I feel the touch of a hand upon my shoulder.
A voice consoles me, “Don’t be afraid.”
I wait for the impact that will bring me the sweet release of death, but it does not arrive. The grip releases from my shoulder, and everything fades to black.
Chapter 63
My eyes opened—vision dreadfully blurry, colors and shapes blending together. Squinting and blinking, I made out a woman in a white outfit and hat walking away from me. A random memory brought me back to the fifth grade, sitting in the nurse’s office. Mrs. Walter cleaned and dressed a scrape on my knee, smiling at me the way a loving mother would smile at her child. Having placed a lollipop in my hand, she turned and walked out of the nurse’s office, wearing a similar white outfit and hat.
The door closed. I was alone. The blurred edges began sharpening; colors stopped bleeding into each other. After several eye rubs I knew what I was looking at: a pink diaper bag leaning against a chair leg. I was in a hospital bed. Next to my bed was a nightstand with a vase full of wilted tulips. A few cards stood on end. Pushing against the ceiling was a red foil balloon: Happy Birthday!
The door opened and a heavily tanned middle-aged woman in a white nurse’s outfit entered. She glimpsed me and continued walking toward the pink diaper bag. Before arriving at the bag, she froze, wide-eyed. From her reaction I surmised she wasn’t expecting to be watched. I smiled at her and with my atrophied arm gave a feeble attempt at a wave. She looked back down to the pink diaper bag
and then ran out of the room with great purpose. I figured she left to retrieve a doctor, but minutes later I was still alone. I tried speaking but my voice was hoarse. I cleared my throat a few times. The door flung open violently.
Alison stood still in the doorway. Her hair was different, much longer and in a different style. Her eyes were wide and glazed. She covered her mouth with her one free hand; the other cradled an infant in a blue one-piece jammy against her hip.
“Hi, Ali,” I said. “What brings you here? Who’s that?” She rushed in and sat the baby on my bed and embraced me without a word.
A moment later she said through tears, “Thank God. I thought you weren’t ever coming back.”
“How long have I been here?”
“A year. A year and a half.”
A year and a half?! “What happened? Why am I here?”
“A bitch by the name of Marla. She’s why you’re here. She made it to your camp with a gun, got several shots off before a Yosemite Park Ranger killed her. How do you feel?”
“Killed her? Why was a—”
“Kevin, calm down. I shouldn’t have said it.”
“Yosemite? What was I doing in Yosemite?”
“What do you remember?”
“Uh, driving my truck down the hill. From the fire.”
“That was over two years ago, sweetheart.”
“Two years…? You’ve got to be kidding me. It feels like it happened last night.”
Alison hugged tighter. “My God, Kevin. It’s so amazing to have you back.”
“What’s Holly’s situation? Two years is a long time. A long time to wait for someone you just met. Is she at home? Did her house survive the fire?”
“You’ll see her in a minute. I called her cell and told her the good news; she turned around, probably did a U-turn on J street in rush hour traffic, because I heard more than one car laying on the horn. We were both here ten minutes ago, but I came back for my diaper bag. And two years—more like two and a half—is a long time to wait, but it was only one and a half and you didn’t just meet. You’re in love with one another.”
The first bit of good news in years. I smiled like a school boy. “We’re in love?”
Alison wiped her tears with a sleeve and nodded. She picked up her little boy and sat him on my lap. “This is my son, Michael Junior. Wave at Uncle Kevin, Mikey.” She waved his hand for him.
“Wow, you had a kid? And named him Mike?”
Footsteps slapped down the corridor. Holly stood in the doorway, a mirrored image of Alison moments ago.
With a quivering smile she burst into tears.
She clung to me on the hospital bed (pushing Ali the hell out of the way) and all was right in the world, though I couldn’t remember much of it. She asked how I feel and what I remembered, and I answered just-fine and not-a-damn-thing. She told me about Mike dying and my just-fine was executed—she wouldn’t tell me about our son William dying for a while, unloading the bad news in installments. She briefly explained Ali’s engagement to Mike and that explained why her little boy had tanned skin and an abundant frame. The prominent features of Senior’s face were softened by Ali’s DNA before they found Junior’s cute little face.
Near the doorway was a stroller that I presumed to be Michael’s, but when Holly pushed it alongside my bed I caught my breath: an adorable little nugget sat patiently inside. A thatch of delicate buttermilk hair with tousles curling around her ears was perched atop her angelic face. Her enormous blue peepers peeped at me with curious interest. She pointed a mealworm finger up into space and cooed. Her fat little rosy cheeks dimpled as she widened her wet mouth and decided to show me some teeth that she so proudly (but kinda painfully) grew all on her own. Her nose was that of a cabbage-patch doll and I wondered if it was functional or just decorum.
“She’s adorable,” I whispered, marveling at just how adorable she was. I glanced at Alison, praying she would take credit for making her, too; begging she would take credit for creating this adorable cherub. She must have sensed the desperation in my eyes. As she blotted her own and bounced Mike on her hip, she shook her head apologetically. In came a wave of panic.
“She’s not yours, is she?” I said to Holly. The idea that she had a child without me, with God-knows-whom, twisted my gut into a pretzel. She blinked away a tear and that lower lip started quivering again. It stoked the fire of my panic further. Was she ashamed? Remorseful? What’s going on here? I glanced at her ring finger and found an impressive engagement ring. The walls were closing in on me.
Holly nodded.
I didn’t know what to say. I was devastated. I thought we were supposed to be in love?
“Congratulations,” I said, and realized it sounded insincere, maybe even condescending, but not as bad as what followed it: “I take it she wasn’t planned?”
She scooped the child out of the stroller and sat her on my blanketed lap. Holly-Little fixed on me. She pointed a digit at my nose and said, “Nose,” and smiled proudly at me. She leaned forward but couldn’t quite reach so I leaned in and she tugged my nose with an expression of bewildered satisfaction.
“She has her daddy’s mouth,” Holly said.
“Oh? And who’s that?”
I vaguely saw her eyes through the tears. “You are. Sweet, sweet man. Anne is our daughter.”
A Summer of Seven
My memory returned in pieces over the days. I would never remember that evening in Yosemite (which I learned is a good thing). Holly colored in what I couldn’t, and I honestly thought she was making most of it up, but the punch line never came. I felt blessed that we lived through it, though not everyone was as lucky. A woman by the name of Sally O’Mally died shortly after shooting a man who would have undoubtedly killed us. A Park Ranger named Sandy killed a man making his way to us, and then killed Marla, who wreaked havoc upon our camp in quick-time and put the bullet in my head and Sally’s.
Our son, William Reed, well… sadly he died. He received a gunshot wound as well, but he wasn’t alive. He was still born. He is buried under a modest marble gravestone at the very spot he was delivered by a man with my name. As heart wrenching as losing our son is, the tragedy was counterbalanced by a miracle: our eighteen month old daughter, Anne. Anne, as beautiful as her mother, the apple of my eye, the key to my heart (Holly possesses the duplicate). Nobody was more surprised than Holly when she went into labor a second time, while in the care of the EMT.
We had been certain that Will had an extraordinary destiny to fulfill and that’s why they went through great lengths to kill Holly. We either failed at securing Will’s destiny or just the opposite. That night when I was in the RV with [whom I perceived to be] Sue Ellen, something she said resurfaced in my mind:
“People were written into existence solely to prevent your child from being born. Leading up to this day, this very special day, all writing in new ink has been by the hand of the damned.”
On that day Anne and William were conceived. Whom might a friendlier person have written into existence that day, that very special day? Perhaps William? Was it Anne who had the incredible destiny all along and William was (for lack of a better word) a decoy? And who exactly was written into existence by the hand of the damned? Could it have been those who became possessed by the two entities? I could only guess. It didn’t seem plausible that these people were born for the sole purpose of becoming a weapon against Holly. But why was it that most people were immune to their possession? There were over a hundred people at Kloss’s barbecue that fateful day; why weren’t one of them utilized to kill Holly? Same with Serena the Slayer. A fifteen-year-old Catholic girl was possessed instead of someone at the hospital; surely they’d have had a better chance at success had they chosen someone at the hospital. And of the many thousands of VonFurenz Fan Club members, they selected a specific thirty or so of them, the ones capable of being possessed. What made them so special? I spend a lot of time wondering why this was, and there is no answer to this mystery. It was Holly
’s theory that every soul on earth has some unknown destiny to fulfill and once they achieve that destiny they become expendable; they outlive their usefulness. According to her, those who were possessed fell into that category. She had nothing to base this theory on, but it was something to ponder over.
I moved in to Kloss’s house, joining Holly, Anne, Alison, and Michael Junior. Kloss and I became best of friends, like brothers. His frenzy in the news eventually subsided, with the exception of an occasional story about his lead roadie Keith and the mysterious circumstances regarding his disappearance, but nothing would ever come of it. His latest album A Summer of Seven was his biggest success to date. A song by the same name was a tribute to the pack of friends whom he described as balancing the scale from the evils that work to tear us apart. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the wolves or us—there were seven of each. Maybe both.
Both Holly and Alison chose to part from managing VonFurenz and focus on Anne and Michael, at least for the time being, and all three of us began taking classes together at Cal State University of Sacramento.
Alison frequently flew with her son to Amarillo to visit Pea Willy. She was the foundation of his rebuilding efforts, and they formed a deep bond, the kind that comes from sharing the same miserable fate of losing a mate. For the first time since he lost Sue Ellen, over two years ago, he regained his passion for life (and soon for Alison). Pea Willy would eventually begin coming out to Sacramento to visit us, specifically Alison, and by the time Sue Ellen had been lain to rest for four years, Pea Willy would have a full time job in Sacramento and have Alison as #1 on his speed-dial.
November 22nd, 2001, was our wedding. The wedding might have taken place in Kloss’s backyard if it wasn’t tainted. We chose to have a smaller wedding at a nearby church. Anne was a couple months shy of two and much too young for the duty we bestowed upon her as flower girl, but she pulled it off marvelously. Kloss walked Holly down the aisle and then stood by me as my best man (a spot still reserved for Mike in my heart). The maid of honor’s parents drove from Carmel to the wedding and to visit their grandson. The ceremony was short and lovely. We read our own vows and Kloss sang a song with his acoustic guitar. After the reception we drove east to begin our honeymoon.