Midnight Diner 3

by Edoardo Albert

  A few feet away, six other guys of various ages and levels of hygiene milled around the cell while they waited for their ride from the courthouse back to the jail, looking at each other just long enough to show they weren’t punks but not long enough to have to prove it. Their movements were calculated, stalking, the kind that kept their backs from being turned to danger, which was apparently everywhere in the small space they shared. Every few seconds, one of the others would look at the massive kid on the bed and shake his head before recalling that his attention should be elsewhere.

  They kept looking, though, because they knew what he’d done. In places like this, it was one thing to be hard. It was another to be crazy.

  All movement ceased when Ricky bolted upright and exhaled as if breaking the surface of the pool after swimming from end to end in one breath. Everyone else took a step back. They weren’t stupid. He was huge. Unstable. And he shot a girl in the face because she broke up with him. In the silence, they waited and tried to figure out how they’d deal with the guy if it came to it. He walked to the cell wall and put his head against the cool cinder block.

  Collectively the cons exhaled and watched slack-jawed as the kid’s slumped shoulders began to rise and fall in jerking sobs. They looked at each other and smiled predatory teeth. None of them were first-timers. This guy was a cherry. Only cherries cried in front of anyone else.

  "Hey, kid, you want a tissue?" asked a guy everyone called Custer. Ricky ignored him, and the grin on his lips stretched under its rat-stache frame.

  Custer was no cherry. He was a third strike. His career of incarceration began early with a nickel stretch for sexually assaulting his high school guidance counselor when she asked him what he saw himself doing after high school. Unfortunately for him, it happened on his eighteenth birthday, so he’d served his sentence at Corcoran where he’d learned the meaning of sexual assault first-hand and on a regular basis. All of his subsequent crimes jumped the gender track and earned him true molester status.

  Seeing Ricky cry was arousing.

  "C’mon man, I got it in my pocket. Take it."

  Slowly, Ricky looked at Custer, who was smiling even more broadly, his shirttail pulled through his zipper and his hips pumping in Ricky’s direction. He could only hold the laughter a split second, but as soon as he saw Ricky’s eyes trail down to his punch line, Custer broke down. The others laughed along with him without taking their eyes off the kid.

  For his part, Ricky did very little. Slowly, his eyes slid upward to hold Custer’s for a second and then he turned back to the bunks. Flushed with the prospect of this guy ending up his prize, Custer stepped toward him. Ricky yanked free one of the support bars connecting the two beds and continued the arc of his swing straight through the bridge of Custer’s nose.

  In less than thirty seconds, three sheriff ’s deputies were in the cell, drawn by Custer’s high- pitched screams. Pulling the cell door open, they found him rolling around on the floor, blood spilling from his hands, which were cupped over a gaping hole in the middle of his face. The rest of the prisoners stood on the wall, looking back and forth from the writhing mess on the floor to Ricky, who sat quietly on the edge of the bed, his right foot sliding in and out of its shoe again and the bloody support bar resting lightly in his left hand.

  "Dupont! What the hell’d you do?" one of the guards yelled at Ricky as the other two dragged out Custer, now alternating between moaning and gagging on the blood pouring into his throat. The teenager stood to his full six-foot-six-inch inch height and looked at them calmly, the knots of muscle in his arms and shoulders supple and relaxed. One of the deputies pulled a can of mace from the clip on his belt while the other two rushed back into the cell to flank him, batons raised. He just stared at them.

  "I need to die," he said. They were the first words he’d said since officers found him sitting on the hood of his girlfriend’s tiny Toyota MR2 in the Mira Loma High School parking lot. Her blood damp on his shirt and her body still slumped behind the wheel, Ricky Dupont turned and laid himself limply over the car with his arms extended behind him when they pulled up. The move looked so practiced the arresting officer was shocked later when he learned Ricky’d never been arrested before.

  "What?" asked the lead deputy, leaning his head around the slim black aerosol can as if it were a shield between him and the giant murderer.

  "I need to see Bishop Thompson so I can die."

  And that was it. Calmly, he knelt down on the floor, placed his hands on his head, and crossed his legs behind him. The incident report described Ricky as "eerily docile" from that point on, even when a guard took a full beer league softball baton cut at his right kidney.

  ~

  Bishop James Thompson was staring through the family photo on his dresser when the ringing of the phone reminded him that he was no closer to knotting his trademark gold tie than he had been five minutes earlier. He let the two sides fall against his starched white dress shirt and listened as the phone rang to a stop.

  Three days had passed idly. He knew the delay was upsetting Alice, but how could she expect him to find the words to bury their only child?

  Pulling the loose tie from his neck, James let it slip through his fingers to the floor and walked the thirty steps from the bedroom to the living room table where his cell phone sat. He passed eight separate photos of Meka: four by herself, three with her mother and one with his mother, Macy. None with him.

  There was, however, the cover of his latest New York Times bestseller: Affluence Only Education: Accepting the Challenges of Stepping into God’s Abundance for You. He sighed, thinking of the professionally posed portrait of Alice, Meka, and him on the inside of the book’s jacket. It was the last picture he’d taken with his daughter. Etched in the frame was his catchphrase: "Boldly seize what God has to give you and you’ll find there’s always more."

  No one knew he’d stolen it from a sermon given by a Congolese Catholic priest right before he and fifty parishioners huddled in his sanctuary were dragged into the streets and hacked to pieces by a mob of their neighbors. But people from the CEO of the country’s largest pharmaceutical company to the President himself had quoted it and cited Thompson as an inspiration. None of those people had called since Meka was killed. Instead, they sent form grief letters written by assistants and slid under their pens for signatures.

  "You have one new message, and seven saved…" he pressed ‘1’ to skip the information he already knew.

  "Bishop Thompson, Lieutenant Ross with the San Diego Sheriff ’s Department. I have some information I need to pass along regarding the man who shot your daughter. Could you call me as soon as you get the chance? My number is…"

  Acid rose in James’s throat and he hung up, pocketing the phone and walking into the kitchen for no other reason than to move before his feelings grabbed control. Alice was at the sink and not

  the bank where she said she’d be.

  "Who was on the phone?"

  "I thought you were going to the bank." "I did and came back—a half hour ago." "Oh."

  "So?" she said, turning impatiently. "So what?"

  "The phone?"

  "Oh, yeah, it was the Sheriff ’s department." "What did they want?"

  "I don’t know, something about some information about Ricky or some..." "Don’t you think you should call?"

  "I need to work on the service. I’m almost there, but I just need to…" "You need to let Marcus do the memorial."

  "I said I’m almost done," he said as they escalated toward another meltdown. "I just need to pick a couple more songs and look up some verses. Then we can let people know."

  Alice looked at him skeptically, the red rim around her eyes bright against her coffee with cream skin. Stepping toward him, she watched James for a second. They stood at opposite ends of their painfully massive kitchen—one of the aspects of their equally massive home they’d always loved—and stared at one another.

  "Alright then, I’ll start calling people and get
the word out that we’re doing the service tomorrow."

  "Whoa, hold up," he said, his eyes narrowing."We don’t even know if the church is…I mean…

  tomorrow?"

  "Marcus said any day we need it, the church is ours. Tomorrow would fit under the category of ‘any day.’ So, let’s put our baby girl to rest."

  She turned her back and put a period on the discussion.

  ~

  Minutes after Ricky destroyed Custer’s face, he was taken to one of the Otay Mesa Central Jail’s solitary confinement cells. During the entire transfer, he’d remained silent to the point of placidity. Once inside, he pushed his hands through a slot in the locked door and one of the four escorting deputies unlocked his handcuffs. Ricky turned to the window and caught the attention of the guard with the keys.

  " Tell ‘em I need to see Bishop Thompson. Then this can be over."

  "Listen, Dupont, the message has been sent. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. You really think he wants to see you?"

  "You think I want to see him?" Ricky asked, his tone sinking. "I loved her too." "Then why ask for him?"

  "Because it doesn’t matter what I want. Doesn’t matter what he wants either. It only matters that I tell him what God wants him to know."

  "So, now you speak for God?" Vasquez asked, laughing

  Stepping back a stride, Ricky pulled the white prison-issue cotton t-shirt off his massive torso and closed his eyes. The guard’s mouth slacked open as words etched in individual branded scars across his chest stretched and contracted with the movement of his shoulders.

  The love I bear is far too great

  My knee is bent beneath its weight.

  " Tell him he needs to step into his lie and make it truth," Ricky whispered.

  He leaned down until his forehead touched the cold slickness of the floor and began rocking back and forth, tears pooling in the space left uncovered by his eye sockets. Vasquez listened to his sobs as he walked away and could still hear them as he told his supervisor Ricky needed to be put on a suicide watch.

  ~

  "Ross."

  "Yes, ah, Lieutenant this is James Thompson returning your call about Ric—" he paused, "—

  about the boy who killed my daughter."

  "Oh," there was a rustling of pages in a notebook being turned. When he spoke, his voice was flat with the distaste of his task. "Let me start by saying I’m sorry to have to pass this along, but you need to know what…" another rustling of paper, "the Dupont kid has done."

  You mean other than kill my only child, James thought. Instead, he asked, "What is it?" "He wants to see you."

  "Who, Ricky?" "Yes sir."

  James leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He sat silent and noticed that Ross’s tone had changed when he spoke again.

  "Listen, Mr. Thompson, this is where I’m supposed to tell you that you don’t have to come down here. That you don’t owe him anything. But…"

  "But what?"

  "I should say all that, and, for the record, I have. But this isn’t normal."

  "In what way? He killed my daughter. He’s a murderer. How is this different for you?" "There’s more you should know. Earlier he shattered another man’s nose with a metal bar." "So I should go see him? Lieutenant, I’m really not hearing anything that—"

  "—it’s what happened next. The officers who restrained him said he was almost frighteningly calm. And then, he asked to see you so he, and I quote, ‘can die.’"

  "He can do that on his own."

  "I understand. And yet…this is all he’s said. He hasn’t talked to investigators, his lawyer, the judge at his arraignment, or the other guys in lock up. In the last four days, he has asked for you twice so you can forgive him and allow him to die. And that’s it."

  James reeled in his chair. After a moment, he realized he was slashing a scar into the giant calendar on his desk with the gold Cross pen in his hand. Standing, he paced the small space of his home office.

  "Again," he said, struggling so hard to control his tone his words were choked, "this is not my problem. Let him suffer like Meka did right before he pulled the trigger. In fact, tell him I said that."

  "If that’s what you want. But there is one more thing he asked us to tell you. Frankly, we’ve been trying to figure out what it means. Maybe you can tell us."

  "What is it," James said, ready to be off the phone.

  "He said you need to step into your lie and make it truth. That mean anything to you?" James fell silent. He clawed at his tie with his free hand, pulling askew the meticulous double

  Windsor it had taken him all morning to tie. He thought about reaching for the glass of iced tea on the coaster to his left, but the message wouldn’t travel the path to his hand.

  "Mr. Thompson? Sir? Are you okay?"

  "No, no I’m not…" How could Ricky know? "What does it mean?"

  "It means…" he paused, considering whether or not he was crazy. With no clear answer, he continued. "…it means I’ll be there in an hour."

  ~

  Getting out of the house was easier than James anticipated, primarily because Alice was away. He grabbed the keys to the Town Car and shot out of their gated community without even slowing to make eye contact with the guard in the booth. The familiar sights of the 805 Freeway as it wound south toward the Q and San Diego State’s massive campus blurred as he racked his brain for an explanation.

  The images of the night the prophecy was spoken returned to him as he raced down the freeway. Dr. Jenkins falling from his chair. Dropping to his knees to start CPR and screaming for Alice to call 911. Loosening his mentor’s collar to slide his fingers against his neck and finding no pulse.

  Then Jenkins’ eyes shot open and he sucked in a deep breath. After a mad fit of coughing, he stared at James incredulously.

  "You are blessed and cursed of God, my son." "What?"

  "I just had a vision, a message you need to hear."

  "You just had a heart attack Dr. Jenkins. You need to rest until the ambulance gets here." "Boy, don’t tell me what I need." His pain-creased eyes shone startlingly white in his dark face, the utter belief in them holding James silent. "I saw it James. I saw it.

  "I saw you, and I saw piles of gold and silver bricks stacked higher than your head and all of ‘em were calling out to you ‘Amen, Amen.’" Dr. Jenkins rocked back and forth as he spoke, his breath rasping and his sentences punctuated with hallelujahs. "God says you will prosper and touch many more lives than I have."

  James inhaled deeply. Dr. Jenkins had marched with Martin. His church had 1,200 members. "Then I saw you walking down a long hallway of bricks, all white and stripping the clothes from your back. By the end you were naked and beaten to tears. As successful as you will become, you will lose even more—" the sound of the ambulance pulling into the driveway cut him off. James looked at the door and then back at Dr. Jenkins. An intense light burned in the older man’s charcoal eyes and he grabbed James’ arm.

  "Pour everything into His plan. He wants you to be willing to lose it all. Step into His promise and make it truth."

  The EMTs burst in and knelt beside Dr. Jenkins. Over their shoulder James looked him in the eye.

  "Whatever comes, I’ll do what He wants me to."

  Dr. Jenkins never knew that James had been lying. He died in the ambulance.

  ~

  Sitting in the jail’s cramped visiting room, James obsessively smoothed the crease of his slacks. He wanted to be cold. He wanted to be measured. He wanted to know how Ricky knew what he had never told anyone else —not even Alice or Marcus.

  The clank of the door opening from behind shot him lurching from his seat. He had not counted on the officers bringing Ricky in from that direction. As the guards led him in, James shook his head. A week ago, this kid was crying on his doorstep, begging to see Meka so they could work things out. James’s eyes stung. He’d always liked Ricky and now it felt like his greatest failure.

  "Are you sure?" Vasquez as
ked James, eyeing Ricky with the memory of the words etched in his skin still vivid.

  "I’m sure officer."

  Vasquez was unconvinced, but stepped Ricky over to the seat across from James and pushed him into a seated position. Careful to keep his eyes on the prisoner, he looped a third chain through a stout iron ring embedded in the floor and around the cuffs on his wrists. Giving a hard tug, he stood and walked to the door.

  "We’ll be right outside. Let us know when you’re ready to leave. Then they stepped out of the room and the door clanked shut, leaving Ricky and James alone and silent.

  James paced the edge of the room slowly before coming back to his seat. Each step brought anger and blame in equal parts until sitting down was all he could do. He stared at Ricky and waited, determined not to speak first. But after three minutes of silence he broke down.

  "So, you called this meeting." "No, Meka did."

  "Get her name out of your mouth. You got no right ..." he grunted, the wind knocked physically from him.

  Ricky looked up for the first time. His eyes still held the soft innocence Alice used to say would get him in trouble, but they were bloodshot and rimmed with dark bags. What got James, though, was how still the kid was, the only movement his foot bouncing up and down.

  "I know. But this isn’t about her. It’s about what you need to do." "And what’s that?"

  "You’re supposed to forgive me and live up to your word."

  James stared at him, mouth open. It was all he could do not to rip the stool from the floor beneath him and beat Ricky to death with it.

  "Boy, that’s not my responsibility. That’s His work. "’Blessed are those who forgive, for they will be forgiven?’" "What do I need to be forgiven for?"

  "You already know the answer to that."

  "So, God had you kill Meka to teach me a lesson," James said, laughing at the sheer insanity of the words that still hung between them. But even as he said it, the feeling of his fraud spread across his chest.

  Ricky’s eyes drooped at the corners and he looked sad, like he was the one who’d lost. "God doesn’t kill to prove a point. It’s a promise, a promise you made."