Mourning Glory

by Warren Adler

  And then Grace had left him and he was bereft. He was marooned now. All bridges burnt, surrounded by an infinite, impenetrable swamp.

  In the split second of her leave-taking, he had seen the bleakness of his own future and the long, hot desert of regrets he would walk for the rest of his life. It was then, as he wavered on the razor's edge of decision, that he had heard the grating sound of the motorcycle.

  He stood up and peered over the railing. At an angle below him, through the fine mist, he could see Grace talking with two strangers, vaguely seen and oddly dressed. He had no idea who they were.

  He stood up, peered through the fog, watched Grace move toward her car, then disappear into the mist. He felt assailed by his own reticence. Go, bring her back, his heart told him, while his mind berated his judgment. Go. Act.

  Then, suddenly, he saw, as if the mist opened briefly just to give him this clear snapshot, Grace mounted on the motorcycle, crouched on the seat, her hair flowing in the wind. He saw the machine shoot through the green edge of his property onto the beach.

  The ominous sight panicked him.

  "No," he shouted, flailing his arms, certain that she was deliberately headed for her own destruction. Below him, he could hear a man's voice shouting curses into the wind.

  "Bitch," the voice cried, loudly, repetitively, inciting Sam to anger. He heard the girl also scream a word. It sounded like "Mom." Mom? A stab of fear shot through him.

  He ran down the stairs and cut out the back door to the beach, his heart pounding, banging against his chest. He saw nothing, but he could hear the sound of the bike's motor, growing fainter as it headed farther away.

  Coming up behind him was a man in black leather. He saw silver swastikas dangling on metal hooks. The man was shouting obscenely, "That bitch stole my bike. I'm gonna kill that fucking bitch."

  Beside the young man was a girl in a similar outfit, almost a child.

  "M-o-m," she was shouting into the dense mist. "You come back."

  "I'll kill that fucking bitch," the man in black screamed again.

  Beside him, the young man and the girl looked like ghosts, floating into emptiness, their shouts muffled as if coming from a far distance.

  "Where the fuck is she?" the man in the black outfit screamed.

  In the distance they heard the motor's growl, fading away. Sam noted that the mist was rising, clearing from the ground up.

  "She's up ahead," Sam said.

  The man in the black outfit turned and saw him.

  "You make her come back, you Jew son-of-a-bitch. She stole my bike."

  The phrases of hate stunned him. Suddenly his glance caught that of the girl. Her face was ashen, and her expression showed the familiar grimace of abject fear.

  "Darryl, stop," the girl cried.

  "I'm gonna slit her fuckin' throat," the man shouted.

  Frightened, Sam peered forward into the rising mist. In the distance he could hear the motor's angry growl, growing louder now. Straining, Sam could see the outline in the distance, a figure on a motorcycle, drawing closer. Then, suddenly, there was no movement, only the persistent, rhythmic growl of the motor, moving from loud and frenetic to soft and steady. She was revving it up and down, taunting him.

  "There she is. Crazy bitch," the young man shouted, pointing.

  She looked like a still photograph, its image slowly emerging in a development bath.

  Sam stood beside the young man and the girl, frozen figures in stunned contemplation.

  "You bring that bike back, bitch," the young man shouted through cupped hands. Despite the makeshift sound tunnel, his voice sounded reedy and hysterical.

  "M-o-m," the girl whined.

  The response was a revved-up motor, still alternating between a soft purr and a hard, angry growl. He could detect only the sounds, no movement.

  "Bitch is playin' with us," the young man said, turning to Sam. "Make her come, Jew boy."

  Sam looked at the man, his anger rising. He shook his head and turned away in disgust.

  "Go on and call your cunt, Jew boy," the young man prodded.

  Sam remained silent, shaking his head, hoping the man would note his disgust and contempt.

  "You hear what I'm sayin'?"

  "Hear?" Sam shot back. "I hear. You offend my ears and I can smell the stink of you," he hissed, freezing the man out of his perception, concentrating his gaze through the rising mist to Grace perched on the motorcycle, watching them, revving the motor in teasing insult.

  "She fucks up my bike, I'll waste her ass," the young man cried across the distance between them. Above the din of the pounding surf, his voice carried. Sitting on the motorcycle, Grace didn't respond except to rev the motor into an angry, guttural squawk.

  "I'll cut your fuckin' heart out."

  Suddenly he pulled a knife from behind him and brandished it in a menacing manner, slicing it through the air. The blade glistened, catching brief sparks from the quickening sunlight emerging swiftly from the mist.

  Sam looked at the young man and spat into the sand.

  "Stop being an idiot," he said.

  "Want me to stick it in you, Jew boy?"

  "What hole have you crawled out of?" Sam muttered despite himself, refusing to show the man his fear.

  "Darryl, stop," the girl whined.

  "Your mama is dead meat," the young man shouted at the girl, who winced; then, to her mother, "You trash that, I'll trash you."

  Again the answer was a revved-up motor.

  "She's not afraid of you either," Sam chuckled, admiring Grace's bravery. She was ridiculing him.

  The young man moved suddenly, grabbing the girl by the hair. He laid the blade of the knife flat across her throat. The girl screamed. He pulled the girl's hair sharply upward, lifting her head, pressing the knife harder against her neck.

  "You better move, bitch. I'll cut her fuckin' throat."

  Grace's response was another loud, repetitive growl of the motor.

  "You better move it," the young man shouted, "or this little pussy is dead meat."

  "No need for that," Sam said calmly.

  "Keep out of this, kike," the young man screamed, pulling harder at the girl's hair. Her panicked scream cut through the air. As if in counterpoint, like some weird concert, the motor responded with its angry, rhythmic beat.

  "She don't mean shit to me, bitch," the young man shouted. "You don't bring that bike back, she's gone."

  Suddenly there was nothing but silence. The mist was quickly disappearing. Sam could see Grace's face, clearer now but impassive, strangely calm. All four of them were frozen in a deadly tableau, like silent figures in a desert. Even the ocean was unruffled, as if pausing between waves, waiting for life to begin again.

  In the silence Sam found his moment to act. He sprang forward and, gathering his energy into his arm and fist, he smashed it into the young's man's arm, a hard, glancing blow that stunned him momentarily, forcing him to release his hold on the girl. She slipped like a stone into the sand.

  Before the young man could recover his equilibrium, Sam hit him again, a pounding blow directly into his face. The force of the blow threw him backward like a fallen plank. The knife slipped out of his grip and fell into the sand.

  Stunned, the young man sat up, shook himself, then turned and crawled wildly, like a spinning top, his hands groping into the sand in an effort to recover the knife. Sam kicked sand in his eyes. Darryl screamed in pain.

  In the distance he could hear the motor growl angrily. The calibration of the sound had changed. Suddenly the bike, like an oncoming missile, was moving toward them with accelerating speed.

  Reaching for the girl, who lay whimpering on the beach, Sam pulled her away and threw his body over her, watching the bike come at full speed toward the kneeling young man. By then he had found the knife, and he was making an effort to rise and get out of the way of the bike, which was still coming at him.

  By a split second he managed to evade the oncoming vehicle. There was n
o question of Grace's intent. She was deliberately coming at the man, determined to hit him. She circled the bike, paused for a moment, then headed back in the young man's direction. Sam watched her, mesmerized, struck by her focus and determination.

  As the bike moved forward again, the man danced away, sidestepped, then, as the bike missed him by inches, jumped on the seat behind her as she passed, gripping Grace with his thighs. Grace revved the motor, and the bike shot forward. As it pulled away swiftly, heading like a speeding bullet toward the ocean, he saw a glint of light as the man's arm went up, then down again, then again.

  Sam tried to shout, but panic prevented his voice from coming.

  Again the young man's arm shot up, then down again, sunlight spangling on the blade in his hand. The bike continued to shoot ahead, Grace still in control. It moved headlong into the ocean, now at full high tide, roaring into the oncoming surf, cutting through the foam and slicing madly into the waves, which swallowed it up with one greedy gulp.

  For the moment the sight stunned Sam into silence, paralyzing his will. Then, panicked into movement, he ran to the water's edge, his mind numbed by fear as he scanned the surface for some sign of life. He saw nothing but the undulating ocean, heard no sound except that made by the surf slapping the shoreline.

  "There. There."

  He looked toward the young girl. She was pointing to something bobbing in the distance. Shielding his eyes from the now bright sun, he squinted across the water and saw what seemed like a human head, bobbing like a floating beach ball.

  Moving quickly into the surf, he was toppled by the undertow, then found himself struggling to reach the object, still moving above the surface. Adrenaline charged him now. Was it Grace? Dear Grace? Sweet Grace? What have I done? All of his energy was focused on his mission. Please God, let it be Grace.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It came as a burst of light, an explosion of sudden discovery, an epiphany, as if she had awakened from a long slumber in the moist darkness of a tomb ... or a womb.

  Her mind groped for words, a sentence to describe what was happening. This is the end of expectations. This is the death of all dreams. This is the end of the future. This is the murder of hope.

  Before, when she had, in that moment of insanity, jumped on Darryl's hateful icon, bounced her foot on the ignition pedal, sped blindly away into the sanctuary of the mist, she had felt only the prospect of ending, of shutting down, of getting out.

  All her faculties seemed acute. She felt no sense of hysteria or panic. After all, she had chosen to take this ride into the beyond. Beyond what? Beyond where?

  Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, she had turned back, let the motor slow, then idle. In the rising mist, she saw the three figures emerging, heard voices whose words did not register except as blasts of anger, which she returned in kind, working the motor's growl in response.

  Desperation, she decided, had given her permission to do this. Perched on the bike, she watched the three figures emerge more clearly, but still she couldn't hear their voices, only the anger. Then they were fully developed, visually whole. Her child devil, harvest of her bad seed, the beast of hatred with the twisted cross of hate glinting in the sunbeams and the man, that piece of flotsam, her last potential lifesaver, the ring-around-the-finger man.

  All nails in her coffin, she saw, feeling her lips curl in what could pass for a smile, but which she knew was contrived as the last look people might see, a frozen death mask of a smile. Then she saw the beast rise, seize the child devil and, as she believed, slash the knife across her throat.

  Well, then, she thought, here was the moment, the license she had been seeking to kill the beast with his own weapon of choice. Desperation had given her permission. Despair, after all, offered no options. She had lost all the battles. What was one more to lose?

  Then she had moved the monster forward, took dead aim. Her first pass was a miss. Turning, she tried again, missed again. There were voices, shouts, but she heard nothing except the sound of her own purpose. It's all over; what does it matter?

  Suddenly he was behind her. She felt his weight on the seat, and she was now aiming the monsters, both of them, directly into the sea. She felt the first cut as she crossed the mudflat along the edge, then another and another as she shot into the sea.

  It toppled her swiftly and she was flopping in the angry water, swallowing the salt sea. She felt something move beside her, a hand grasping at her blouse, and when she opened her eyes she saw the metal-punched swastikas still shiny and luminous, like tiny tropical fish, in the sun-drenched silence of the water. She was moving downward, pulled by the weight of his hand.

  Why downward? Then her mind interpreted the reality; the bike was sinking like a rock, settling in the mud of the ocean bottom. Above her, she could see the sunlight above the water's surface. His hand still grasped her blouse. She flailed at his closed fist, but the water inhibited any power. Then she noted that the bike held him, a metal protrusion caught on the buckle of his Nazi belt. He had grasped her to save himself.

  She fought his grasp and tried to find the mystery of the buckle, the undoing of it. But it held fast. Her fingers seemed useless. As she worked, she could see his face, a desperate child's face now, his eyes pleading, a fountain of bubbles spewing from his lips, his fist still tight around her clothes.

  Marshaling the last vestige of strength, she ripped apart the buttons and slid out of the blouse, floating upward with bursting lungs, punching into the sunlit air.

  Sucking in air, she felt her chest lurch; then she gagged, vomiting water. Disoriented, she imagined she noted that for some reason she was floating in a pool of red. Sharp pains shot through her body as she forced her head to stay above the surface, her eyes unfocused. Nausea and dizziness assailed her, and soon she felt herself slipping, going down, then bobbing upward just barely.

  "Easy," a voice said. She felt hands pillow her. "Relax, float. Let me...."

  Her first thought was that someone was guiding her to oblivion, a watery grave.

  "I tried..." she whispered, engulfed by a sudden blackness, a void.

  "Just float," the voice said. "You're needed here." Suddenly she was trembling with cold.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  When consciousness seeped back into her mind she opened her eyes to Sam's face.

  "I'm here," Sam said, smiling. He patted her arm. Looking toward it, she saw the IV plugged into a vein at the back of her hand. She inspected her surroundings, her eyelids fluttering. Her gaze caught masses of color. Flowers.

  "Where's 'here'?" she asked.

  "Hospital," Sam said.

  Memory was returning in tiny tendrils. As she moved, her back ached and pain shot through her. She saw Sam's face descend, then it was out of focus, but she did feel a cool sudden weight on her forehead. A kiss.

  "Close call, my darling," Sam said.

  "Him?" she asked.

  "Drowned," Sam said.

  She shrugged, feeling a vague remorse, despite the memory of her contempt.

  "Jackie?"

  "Waiting in the lounge. She's been here, staying at my place."

  She felt herself being plugged back into events. Is this where I want to be? she wondered, then went blank again. But she could hear his voice.

  "You rest, Grace. Be back later."

  When she awoke nice people in white came. A nurse moved her bed up and she saw the room from a new angle. It was filled with flowers.

  "Who from?" she whispered.

  "'Love, Sam,'" the nurse said, her kindly face very black against the white of the uniform. Then a doctor came by, checked her pulse and put a cool hand on her cheek.

  "Welcome back," he said.

  "Back?"

  "Palm Beach Memorial Hospital actually."

  She tried to move, but the pain stopped her.

  "Stitches," the doctor said. "Pain bad?"

  "Bearable," she said, remembering finally.

  "The cuts were nasty, but nothing sli
ced beyond repair. We put you together nicely. Call yourself lucky, lady." He chuckled. "Mr. Goodwin here pulled you out. Saved you. He can fill you in."

  Again Sam's face came close, moved downward, and she felt his cool lips on her forehead.

  Later she felt stronger. A purpling in the sky told her the sun was setting. With her eyes closed, she recalled the events in detail: the madness on the beach, the motorcycle, the race into the sea. And before that, what she had said to Sam, and the worst part, his reaction.

  "Can you ever forgive me?" Sam said.

  "Forgive you?"

  They had brought in a tray and placed it before her—soup, toast, tea. "You've been pretty out of it for three days. They say you'll be okay."

  "Do they? Then why do I feel still under the water?" She felt a sudden urge to giggle, which she did. She winced with pain. "He stabbed me."

  "That he did. A number of times."

  "He caught his belt buckle on his bike. I couldn't get him loose." She remembered his face, his eyes pleading, the trail of bubbles, the swastikas glistening.

  "That part's over, Grace. And Jackie is confused, but contrite. She's too embarrassed to come in now that you're feeling better. She's ashamed. She seems to be comfortable at my place. I gave her my daughter's old room."

  "Beware of generosity, Sam. It can be unhealthy," Grace protested. It was all registering now, coming back fast.

  "I know," Sam said.

  "In a few days I'll be out of your hair. Get back to my place. Find a job."

  "I have one for you."

  "Sorry, Sam. I can handle things on my own," Grace said. Her IV was out now and he was gently holding her hand. She felt his grip tighten, but she made no move to extricate herself.

  "Sorry, I'm taking charge," Sam said.

  "No way."

  "We'll talk later," Sam said.

  "Now."

  "You're still weak."

  "I'm strong enough," Grace said, feeling her anger begin. Then she crashed and closed her eyes again. Later, she warned herself. She needed a clearer mind. Logic had disappeared.