I shift a few paces to the left and lean against the wall, sense my face becoming cold and wet at the notion of another young child getting dropped into a program that will never set him free, the next Melody to suffer through a life of fear and loss and misery. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, my face in my hands. I try to imagine who the woman and child are, wonder how many more family members are waiting in another room, why they are here, what crime family or drug dealer or gang they’re running from. I rationalize how I’ve manipulated the system to truly free one of its witnesses, and I hope and pray that that frightened little kid down the hall will one day be free, too, that the sacrifices he and his family are making now will bring them peace.
Part of me wishes I could bring my father and Peter to this place and have them look around, show them what has been created to protect people from their type of brutality, how the few tax dollars they ever end up paying are contributing to their own eventual demise. Yet I’m the one who bought them more time on the clock. And to what end? Were they to walk these halls with me and see these panicked families, would they turn themselves around? When they catch a glimpse of the little boy scared and shaking and looking for help, would they stop and question, “Why do we do these things?” Would they look at how the government has invented this ingenious operation to give men, women, and children far braver than anyone in our crew a way to survive? My existence, my three decades of living among these men, offers the one true answer: never.
I slowly get to my feet, feel the same exhaustion as if I’d finished one of my evening workouts. I wander toward the place where the boy stood, know my decision to free myself of my family was the right thing to do—to give up everything, including who I am. But let my honesty be known: the if you love something set it free concept is nothing more than a platitude.
Now, Melody? She may be free, but I’ll never let her go.
I pass the place where the boy stopped and stared at me, gone now like the ghost he’s become, another apparition to exist among the living and real. I take small steps toward the desk and wipe my face of cold sweat, face the lady behind it.
She looks up and smiles, but I can’t return the sentiment. I stare at her, can barely utter the words: “How much longer?”
On my fifteenth morning, I turn on the water in the shower, strip down and shave as I prepare to officially depart from Safesite. I’ve packed all the things I’ll be taking with me, which took less than five minutes. The overnight bag I brought and the clothes that were in it are gone—“You’d be surprised how often a witness is recognized by the shirt he’s wearing or the suitcase in his hand or the backpack over his shoulder”—been replaced by government-supplied versions. The odd fit and inferior quality, I am told, are intentional; if a witness wore expensive and/or fashionable clothes in his former life, he gets junk now—and vice versa. On my unmade bed rests a small gray overnight bag with their temporary clothing selections and toiletries by companies I don’t recognize. Beyond that, only two other things remain: a small stack of notepads that chronicle and detail my every memory of Melody, and the case of compact discs that act as the soundtrack for those memories. I take all these things and place them on a small table in the corner, in case the cleaners service the room while I’m showering: the bag, the discs, three note-filled pads stacked in chronological order.
I take a long time washing myself, and as I turn off the shower and grab a towel off the rack, I realize I left my comb on the dresser adjacent to my bed. I open the bathroom door and swear I hear the latch to the door of my room click shut, though it happens so quietly I doubt myself. I step into the bedroom and feel a sweep of swirling air, as though the door had closed as I imagined. My naked skin comes alive with goose bumps at the change in temperature from the steam-filled bathroom to the chilled bedroom and I realize I’m jumping like a witness who really has something to fear.
No matter: I leave the door to the bathroom wide open as I towel off and finish getting ready, take a few final minutes to examine myself in the mirror, notice the last traces of bruising from Sean’s released anger, see the long gray blemish at my hairline where he slammed my head into the doorframe of the Explorer—indeed, a souvenir—the permanent mark that will be the newest addition to my collection of scars, and I wonder if any other woman will assess my face and body the way Melody did.
I slip on my new pair of glasses, same prescription as determined by a contracted optometrist, but different frames—big round frames that could only have been intended for use as sunglasses. I look like a movie star trying to draw attention instead of evade it. But the actual lenses are perfect, clear and scratch-free, so large I can see clearly from the widest angle. These glasses, like the new me, are unscarred, undamaged.
I stare at myself.
I stare at Jonathan Bovaro while I still can.
This is the moment I turn and walk away from him forever, have a permanent out-of-body experience. I will from this day forward begin to read and hear about myself and refer to it in the third person. I will look at pictures of myself and perhaps say, “That guy’s a dead man,” or “I hope someone takes that scumbag out.” Down the hall are marshals waiting to escort me away, to push the boundaries and walls of Safesite to a distance far away. When I walk from my room, everything about my former self will disappear, will be a collection of memories that will define some other person, like a distant relative or soon-forgotten loved one.
Here is where I should feel the panic. Here is where I should say goodbye.
Right before I turn off the bathroom light, I instead say this: Good riddance.
I walk to the table and collect my things, still lined up in perfect order, all neatly assembled.
I open the overnight bag and toss in my comb and toothbrush, gently place the CD case into the open slot on the side, and as I pick up my perfectly stacked set of journals and prepare to protect them, sandwich them between two pairs of unfaded and unworn jeans, I stop in mid-motion, do a double take: The journals are out of order.
I make my final walk down the hall and approach the central desk to find out who would’ve been in my room, but I stop short, notice someone fast approaching from the corner of my eye. I turn and look—Sean slides up to me with a warped grin and a hand on his holster.
I drop my bag on the ground and say, “Okay, when does this part end?”
He keeps his smile and shakes his head, looks me up and down, studies my baggy banana-cream-pie-colored sweater, my jeans that are an inch too loose and a half inch too short, my loafers, my movie star glasses. “Smokin’.”
“You’re not a marshal. You’re not even—I don’t know, what are you, exactly? Why are you here? Please tell me you’re not my contact in WITSEC.”
He crosses his arms and says, “I’m not. I’ll be the first to admit I would not have your best interests in mind.”
“You think?” I say, rubbing my scarred forehead.
“Just here to see you off.” He leans in and adds with a whisper, “Though you never know when our paths might cross again.”
I wince. “I’d say you have an overactive imagination. I don’t plan on ever seeing you again.”
“You shouldn’t be so quick to blow off the security and protection of the FBI.”
“Yeah?” I tilt my head a little. “How’s it working out for Eddie Gravina?”
His eyes circle around and back to me, exaggerating his indifference like I just guessed the PIN to his ATM card. “You don’t know the first thing about—”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Sean. I mean, really, after all these years of supposedly mastering an understanding of organized crime? Gravina’s either resting at the bottom of some body of water and getting nipped at by various forms of sea life, or”—I gesture my hand about the facility—“he’s right here, might have even been escorted to this place by you, yeah?”
He turns as if he’s going to walk away, like a little kid whose mother told him the
best remedy for a bully is to ignore him. “You’re just a street punk, another thug costing a working system a fortune. I’m glad I’m not marshalling you this time, glad I don’t have to pretend to care about the guy I’m protecting with my life.”
And as he walks off, attempts to flee before I can get the last word, I say loud enough that the lady behind the desk looks up, “Did you care about Melody?”
Sean stops, turns, and stares.
“Did you care about her,” I say, “when she kissed you outside your motel room in Cape Charles, when she stood on her toes to reach you?”
He glances at the lady behind the desk—she quickly looks back down—then aims my way, does not walk back or tell me to lower my voice, slips his hands in his pockets and studies me.
“Did she ever know you weren’t really a marshal? That you never possessed the capabilities those guys have? That instead of protecting her life, you were risking it?”
Sean looks at me for a long moment, no longer seems to have the bottled angst and fury. It takes him some time, but when he finally answers he speaks softly, out of everyone else’s earshot, intends the sentence to be shared only between us: “Strange questions from the man who took her life.”
For my benefit—or for those who might be eavesdropping—it sounded like that sentence was altered and forced, for his intonation and glare suggested this unabridged version: “Strange questions from the man who supposedly took her life.”
A marshal leads me to an empty conference room where I sit and wait while an incoming witness is processed and taken out of sight. I wonder for a minute if it’s Gravina—except the odds are maybe one in four that he would’ve made it here. My money is on him being protected by the program offered by the East River.
I wait in the same conference room as when I first arrived, study the same hopeful art on the wall. I rest back in the chair and close my eyes. For forty minutes.
When I’m finally claimed, two marshals lead me out of the core of the building, past all the desks, past the ladies who processed and helped me. I pass Kirsten as she exits the ladies’ room. She gives me nothing more than a nod and practiced grin. I get no gauntlet of hope and well-wishing; this is not an exit from a recovery program. I am not leaving a store with a big purchase, not a welcome customer. They need to get me out so they can get the next one in.
So many ghosts haunt this land.
As I leave the facility and return to the underground parking garage, a third marshal is added to the mix; I recognize none of them. These marshals are bigger, more intense than they ever seemed at a distance, even the one behind me in line in the convenience store on the Delmarva Peninsula. So easily I confirm that Sean was never one of them, does not have it in him. They are not comic book heroes, yet possess the same infrangible composition, armed and angry and hoping to find trouble the way Peter always did; they’re just not looking to cause it.
One opens the back door to an older Ford Expedition, points to the seat. I toss my bag on the floor and secure it between my feet as I sit. The marshal flips on the interior light and closes the door. I wait, can see nothing through the panes that once held glass. After three or four minutes the other doors open in concert and the release of pressure from the cab makes my ears pop.
The other marshals take the remaining seats, and the driver turns back and says as he points to himself, then around the car: “Marshals Wilhelm, Broadview, and Caposala. Any questions before we rendezvous with your travel team?” Wilhelm asks, though he might as well have phrased it as, “You don’t have any questions, right?” He’s already facing forward, turning the ignition. As I consider asking how long before we meet up with the travel team, the divider between the front and back seats goes up and the interior light goes dim and just like that we’re in motion.
So here I sit, protected by the very foes I once fought. How they must hate my guts, yet they promise to protect me like I’m their collective newborn.
The vehicle speeds over the cement floor, reversing the journey I made here over two weeks ago: up the ramps and out the garage, over smooth pavement, slowing past the gate, and back out to the countryside. The drive is longer this time, twists far more than I remember. The marshals don’t speak to me, to one another. The only voice heard occurs when the driver responds to someone calling over secure radio transmission.
After twenty minutes, the SUV comes to a rest, jerks back and forth as the transmission is put in park, is so well insulated I can’t hear one of the front doors open and close again, but I feel it. Caposala says, “In just a moment your door will open and I want you to immediately follow the marshal.”
I stare at my door, aim my answer toward it: “Okay.”
I slip my fingers around the strap of my bag, curl it in my fist. Within a few seconds my door flies open and a blast of hard rain—drops inaudible as they crashed against the insulated steel shell of the SUV—cascades against me and floods my side of the cab. I turn and wince, my glasses covered in droplets of moisture, and two hands heave me from one vehicle to another the same way my brothers and I would unload all those eighteen-wheelers in the middle of the night; that’s what I truly am: cargo.
I adjust myself in the back of what should be my last government SUV and watch the Expedition vanish, study the farmhouse and silo we’re sandwiched between. I search for something to dry my lenses—really, they’re big enough that they might as well have installed wipers—but I’m so relieved to see the outdoors again that I don’t pursue cleaning them.
The light coming through the windows of the SUV is dim, the glass still bulletproof, but they—the two new marshals now shepherding me—no longer care about me seeing my surroundings, allow me to observe where I’m going, where I’ll be ending. We wind along a dirt and gravel lane with a grass strip down the center where tires never touch, a country path lined by Leyland cypress trees. We stop at the end next to a mailbox and a small sign that reads WINDSWEPT VALLEY FARM.
We pull onto an unmarked road wide enough for one and a half cars, then onto a lined street that bears no sign to identify it, and finally to a four-lane highway. I do not recognize where we are until we cross over the beltway for Washington, DC, and loop back around to the exit for New Hampshire Avenue. We drive south at the speed of traffic, blend into the mix, and within minutes we are south of the city, driving down I-95: my second home.
These silent marshals, cab drivers with guns and permission to kill, take me on my last journey. I drift off near Richmond, sleep on and off through the Carolinas, officially awaken while we’re gassing up somewhere near the northern border of Georgia. When the marshal gets back in the SUV, I’m struck with an adjustment in temperature and humidity that I know will be part of my lifestyle change. When I used to travel to these corners of the country hunting Melody, I knew it would not be long before I would leave; now I am a stranger moving in from out of town, feel like an expatriate. Jonathan Bovaro is disintegrating, a memory that will only fade over the years.
EIGHT
My name is Michael Martin. My friends call me Mike. I grew up outside of New York, which is why you might, on rare occasion, hear me pronounce some words with a peculiar downturn. I have no siblings, parents deceased at the hand of disparate cancers. My wife and I lived up in Poughkeepsie, where together we operated a small produce company until she died giving birth to our first child a few years ago. Having lost the love of my life and my child at the same time, I could no longer stand to return home to an empty bed and a nursery that would never house a child; I had to relocate and start over. I sold the house and most of my belongings and started driving south, ended up here in central Florida.
Such is the general overview of the story provided to me by WITSEC, the one I memorized before I left their underground facility, the one I practiced in those hours I remained awake on my journey to Florida. The external employment service utilized by the professionals at Safesite is twice removed from the actual person hiring the witness, who in 95 percent of the cas
es has no idea who they just put on their payroll. No one here will ever know me as anyone other than Michael Martin from Poughkeepsie.
And how could I not notice the clever digs in what ultimately became of my future? The first: To meet my request of always being near fresh produce and meats, the feds decided to relocate me to Florida, the least expensive option over California or Oregon. The second: I was given a job as a cook in a small Italian restaurant—in the Villages, the largest retirement community in the United States if not the world, which spans three counties and multiple zip codes, has over eighty thousand residents with an average age of sixty-five. I could’ve been relocated to some hamlet in Sonoma County where I’d work as a farmhand, bursting vines and crushing fallen pinot noir grapes with careless footsteps. Instead they delivered me to a noncoastal section of Florida to sweat over a hot stove day after day.
But within one week of moving here, I realize the joke is on them. They might have imagined my misery at preparing salt- and fat-free meals for people in nursing homes, my frustration in not seeing a woman within thirty-five years of my age, my melancholy at building a life where people come to die. But the truth is this is where people come to live. These folks, many as young as fifty, have more energy and verve than I ever saw in people like Paulie or Pop, seem to know more about wine and food than some of the guys from my old neighborhood. These people start their days with a softball game, return home for a swim in their lanai-covered pools, then freshen up before nine holes of golf. And the women here are significantly more interested in their health and well-being than the gals who drifted in and out of the Bovaro establishments.
The Exceptions Page 38