Loving the Rain

by Jeff LaFerney

  “You’re a disgusting human being! And you’re miserable aren’t you? Revenge? From high school? You should just let it go, Jack. And you should just let us go.”

  ***

  Pete Piggott rode the bus back to the school then grabbed a quick bite to eat from a drive-through on the way to work. He was getting there a little early. The sleeting rain put him in a bad mood. When he pulled into the parking lot at Harding Metals, he had a bad, bad feeling. There in the lot was Jessie Thomas’s car, along with Jack’s and one other. Either they’d moved from motel to office and were doing it again, or Jessie was in trouble. If Pete was a betting man, he’d put money on Jessie Thomas being in trouble, and he wasn’t going to let any woman he loved be hurt by Jack Harding. He reached into his coat pocket, touching the now familiar .22. He fought his way out of the car, the steering wheel, as always, interfering with his fat frame. He saw that he didn’t need his key for the gate; it was already open. He opened the door and heard talking as he crept his way toward Jack’s office.

  “Don’t be playing any mind games on me, Clay. You either, Tanner. Step away from the door, and move over to this wall.” Jack pointed to the wall opposite the door. The sleety rain was coming down harder now, showering the metal roof above, the tapping sounds almost certainly drowning out Pete Piggott’s heavy breathing. Jack had his gun pointed at Clay Thomas, his back to the office door.

  Clay pulled Jessie behind him. “The police know you kidnapped Tanner. I called them before I came here. They’ll be here soon. Whatever you’re thinking, you won’t get away with it.”

  “You’re prob’ly just tryin’ to get in my head, Thomas, but do you think I really care? I’ve been lookin’ forward to hurtin’ you for a long, long time.”

  Jessie stepped out from behind Clay. “You’ll be in jail. What about Kevin and TJ?”

  “They got their mother. They’ll be all right. Things’ve gone too far to stop now. It’s time to finish what I started.” He raised his gun, pointing it directly at Clay.

  Clay immediately thought, “Don’t shoot me.”

  At the same time, Tanner was thinking, “Don’t shoot him.”

  Jack lowered his gun. “I just got the distinct message in my head that I shouldn’t shoot you, Clay. Did you or Tanner send me that message? Okay, I won’t shoot you.” Immediately he aimed his gun a little to the left and fired a bullet directly into the chest of Jessie.

  Clay grabbed her as she fell, and then he heard, “NO!!!”

  He looked up as Pete Piggott barreled through the doorway, gun in hand. The gun was firing shot after shot, ten shots in all. Jack whirled and fired back, and by the time Pete Piggott’s magazine was completely empty, Jack had managed to fire a couple of slugs into the rampaging man. When Pete fell, it was directly onto the body of the dead Jack Harding.

  CHAPTER 34

  “Jessie!” Clay lowered her to the floor. The bullet had entered the middle of her chest and had actually exited her back and struck the wall behind. She was bleeding terribly. Clay pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to the chest wound. He held a hand over the wound on her back, but blood was still spreading quickly across the floor. She was already breathing shallowly. “Call 9-1-1!” Clay shouted to Tanner.

  Tanner punched in the numbers. When the operator answered, he shouted, “There’s been a shooting! Harding Metals! We need an ambulance!” He snapped his phone shut and kneeled in the blood beside his father.

  “Hang on, Jessie. Please hang on,” Clay pleaded. “Don’t die on me. Please hang on.”

  Jessie, whose eyes had been closed, managed to get them to flutter open. “I’m so sorry, Clay. I’m so sorry I hurt you again.”

  “It’s okay. I forgive you. It doesn’t matter. Just hang on. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Please, Mom, don’t die,” Tanner begged.

  “I love you, Clay. I really do,” she whispered. “I love you, Tanner.” She was fading fast.

  “I never made you love me. You know that, right?” Tears were dropping from Clay’s eyes.

  “ I know that…think I always knew. So sorry to hurt you…. Clay? Tanner? Do me a favor…please?” She was struggling to get the words out. She was dying.

  “Anything, just don’t die. Please,” Clay begged.

  “When it rains…remember me…don’t hate the rain anymore.”

  Her eyes rolled back, and she died.

  “No!” Clay cried. He laid her head back and began giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He breathed out some quick breaths and then pressed on her chest with his hands, bloodying them further. But Jessie was dead.

  “Dad, she’s gone,” Tanner said, tears flowing down his cheeks. “She’s gone.”

  ***

  Detective Hutchinson burst through the door, gun raised, assessing the violent scene before him. To the back of the office, Clay and Tanner were helplessly holding the body of their lifeless wife and mother. To his left, Jack Harding lay sprawled beneath the body of Tanner’s fat basketball coach. Blood was pooling on the floor. He kicked away the gun that was still in Jack’s hand, and felt for a pulse on Pete Piggott. “This one’s alive! Get a team in here right now!”

  Sirens were wailing as Detective Janski left the building to direct the paramedics. Other police cars were also arriving on the scene. The paramedics strained to load Pete Piggott onto a stretcher, but he was alive as they rushed him to the ambulance.

  ***

  In the ensuing hour or so, Jessie and Jack’s bodies were taken away, and Hutch gathered the final missing facts. “So Harding did all this to get revenge for some embarrassing high school moments? You don’t hear too many stories more stupid than that.”

  “That and to hopefully get his son some extra recognition.”

  “I’m so sorry, Clay…Tanner. I wish this one could have had a happy ending. I truly am sorry.” They shook hands and Hutch exited the building.

  Emotionally, Clay was nearly drained, but before he suggested that he and Tanner also leave the crime scene, Clay put his arms around his son. He started crying again, and Tanner shed some additional tears as well. “It shouldn’t have ended like this, Tanner. She finally knew…we could have finally been completely happy together.”

  “Dad, I don’t know exactly what you’ve gone through the last 30 years, but I have an idea. You’ve got me to talk to now, though.”

  Clay stepped back for a minute, and then actually smiled. “You couldn’t have said a more perfect thing, Tanner. Thank you. Just maybe we’ll get through this together.” He placed a bloodstained hand on Tanner’s head and ruffled his hair. “Let’s get out of here.” They walked out of Harding Metals with Clay’s arm draped around Tanner’s shoulders, together.

  EPILOGUE

  Five months later, Clay and Tanner were sitting on their porch during a nice spring rain, just as Jessie always enjoyed doing. Neither was speaking, but both men knew what the other was thinking about. Jessie Thomas. When it rained, just as she had asked them to promise, they thought of her—Jessie, with her contagious personality, fantastic beauty, and unpredictable, free spirit. Tanner still missed her; she always had so much love for him. Clay’s heart still mourned. He and Tanner were moving on with their lives, but their hearts continued to ache. It had been a beautifully sunny May day, but as Clay and Tanner returned home from Tanner’s baseball game, it had started raining. They had instinctively walked straight to the porch and settled into their seats without bothering to go inside. Clay was learning to love the rain. Tanner seemed relieved to release the burden of hating rain that he had felt since childhood.

  Finally, Clay spoke. “It’s nice to see everything green again.”

  “I like the smell.”

  “You pitched a great game today, Tanner.” Tanner had pitched a complete game, two-hit shutout.

  “Thanks.”

  “You didn’t…you know?”

  “No, not one time, but I wanted to get into Corey Taylor’s head. It would have been fun
to make him look stupid. He’s such an idiot, but I resisted the urge. The game was legit.”

  They sat there in silence some more. A lot had happened since they had lost Jessie. There was the funeral and a sad Christmas without her, but life forged ahead. Tanner wasn’t himself for the first few basketball games in January, but that was expected. He came around soon, and finished off a great year. His team lost a game in the conference in January, the loss snapping Tanner out of his funk. They finished the regular season at 18-2, winning the conference championship and then also winning a district championship as well. They lost in the regionals to Saginaw High, and finished the season 21-3. Tanner made All-Conference and All-State first team. He accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of Michigan. Sammy Moretti of Toledo was the only other coach for whom Tanner seemed interested in playing, but Tanner had grown up favoring the Maize and Blue, and he had eventually learned that his dad had probably done more to “foil” the armed robbery than Coach Moretti had.

  Kevin and TJ’s mother came to Flint to stay with her kids until the end of the school year. TJ would be leaving for Toronto once summer arrived, but Kevin had decided to stay in his father’s home and remain in Flint. Tanner broke up with TJ shortly after his mother died, not because of any anger toward TJ, but rather because it was so awkward to be around her. Jack’s entire estate went to his two kids, TJ’s to be put in a trust fund until she was 18. Kevin had a good basketball season, all things considered, and earned third-team all-league. He would be going to Baker College in Flint, a school where he was to earn a business degree, for he had decided to keep Harding Metals and continue to run the business.

  Pete Piggott had survived, his fat body having protected him from death. He was in intensive care for several days and then began his recovery remarkably without complaint. He had a chance to start life over without Jack Harding controlling him. Luke Simm’s father had taken over the basketball team as interim coach, but once Pete was back on his feet, he was determined to continue his career on the hardwood. As Piggott’s health improved, he actually allowed Luke’s father to stay on as assistant coach for the remainder of the season. Kevin had managed to persuade Coach Piggott to sue the estate of Jack Harding to get the money back that Jack had exploited from him through his illegal loans. Pete won, then took the money and bought TJ’s share of Harding Metals, and Pete and Kevin became business partners. Kevin always was the only player that Pete much liked, and besides Honey Suckle, Jessie Thomas, and his cousin, Carlee, there really wasn’t anybody else he much cared about. Pete was going to handle the majority of the business dealings while Kevin went to school. He was down to a nearly svelte 195 pounds and feeling much better about himself. When Johnny Papalli approached Piggott about continuing the business agreement that he had had with Jack Harding, Pete told him he could go back to whatever hole he crawled out of. Harding Metals was going to be a legitimate business and criminal elements were not welcome.

  Clay had accepted an offer to become head baseball coach at the University of Michigan for the 2010 season. When the school year ended, father and son would move to Ann Arbor and start life over on the college campus, another reason why Tanner had chosen Michigan. In April, the winter semester had ended at Mott. Clay was still teaching the spring term, and his baseball season was winding down. Among those things, Tanner’s high school baseball games, and some recruiting for U of M, Clay was keeping busy enough that his mind wasn’t always on how much he missed his wife.

  ***

  The phone rang inside the house, snapping Clay out of his quiet contemplation. He hustled inside and answered it.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, Clay? It’s Zander…Zander Frauss.”

  “You’re the only Zander I know, Doc. Last name’s really not necessary.”

  Zander laughed. “How’re you doin’?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “How’s Tanner?”

  “We’re getting by. What’s up?”

  “Well, I got wind of the fact that you accepted the head baseball job here. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. It’s a great opportunity, especially since Tanner’s gonna to be there too.”

  “It is a great opportunity. I’m happy for you.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, Clay spoke. “I’ve known you long enough now, Zander, to know you’ve got something more on your mind than just congratulations. As a matter of fact, if I’m reading your mind correctly, you’ve got a proposition for me.”

  “Okay, I should have known that I can’t hide anything from you. Are you going to finally let me do some tests?”

  “Doc, Tanner and I can control minds. Between us, there’ve been episodes of ESP, telepathy, and clairvoyance. What more proof do you need that we have those abilities? I don’t want you testing us like guinea pigs in your lab. And you already know what’s causing it.” By then Clay was back sitting on the porch with Tanner, enjoying the rain.

  “All right, all right already. It’s not just testing for the sake of testing that I want. Listen to me, Clay. I’m a believer that things happen to us in this life for a reason. You and Tanner have experienced a lot this past year, the current result being that you both are going to end up on the campus of the University of Michigan. I don’t believe that it’s a coincidence that it’s here at the University that we have the Division of Perceptual Studies. In this laboratory, I may be able to help you and your son focus and enhance your powers.”

  “I don’t see why we would want that, Zander,” Clay interrupted. “I lost my wife; Tanner lost his mother, and the powers played a role in that.”

  “All things work together for good,” Zander quoted. “There may be a higher purpose for this, Clay. There’s a reason for everything.”

  “That’s true, but I…we…don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  “I’m not asking you to hurt anyone; I’m asking you to help. My Division of Perceptual Studies is a serious scientific laboratory, quite possibly the best in the nation. I’m asking you to consider studying with me—you and Tanner both. There are things we can learn together. With the talents that the two of you have, a lot of valuable information could be learned in the field of parapsychology. What if we could duplicate or enhance your abilities scientifically? Let’s talk in my office. Bring Tanner in and we’ll talk.”

  “I’ll…we’ll think about it, Doc, but the answer will probably always be the same.”

  “I understand. You know how to reach me. I’ll be talking to you again soon.”

  “I know,” Clay smiled. “Believe me, I know.”

  ***

  When Clay hung up the phone, he returned to Tanner.

  “Sounds like your friendly neuroscientist wants our cooperation.”

  “Thinks we can provide him with all his answers…and maybe help ourselves in the process,” Clay answered.

  “I was wondering when he was going to call.”

  “Me too. He was considering talking about it the last time I saw him. I read his mind. He didn’t say anything then, but I’ve been expecting his call ever since.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve lived most of your life keeping your abilities a secret, right?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Do you believe your secret harmed your relationship with Mom and me?”

  “I’d say that without question it did.”

  “How?”

  “If your mom was to love me, I wanted to be sure that it was her choice, not mine. I loved your mom with all my heart, yet from the time you were born, I was never fully convinced that she loved me back. I was trapped. If I manipulated her, I’d have no satisfaction at all. If I told her the truth, she’d jump to the conclusion that I’d been manipulating her all along…and I was pretty sure the truth would hurt her.”

  “You were right about that, weren’t you?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Until the week of her death, she never learned the truth about me
—and to some extent, herself—during 19 years of marriage, and in the meantime I did everything in my power to let her make her own decisions. She felt I lacked confidence, that I failed to give her the attention she deserved, that I wasn’t the family leader that I needed to be. And it drove her to find satisfaction somewhere else because she didn’t have the faith in me that she needed to have, and she didn’t know me. Those choices she made seemed right to her at the time, but the end result was her death.”

  “You’re not responsible for her choices, Dad. And you were always a good dad to me.”

  “Maybe. I loved you, but I couldn’t be honest with you either. With you, I couldn’t tell the truth because I couldn’t be sure you could keep the secret. I didn’t use my powers on you because I wanted you to make your own choices, develop your own values. I wanted to be proud of you because you were making good choices on your own. Because of that, you learned all of your values from your mom, who loved you in a way she wasn’t comfortable loving me. I wasn’t able to be the dad that other men could be because I felt I had to let you develop on your own, at your own pace. Oh, I loved you with all my heart, but I was determined not to make you be a good person. You needed to choose that path on your own. As a result, we were not close like you and your mother, and it was a constant source of unhappiness for me.”