With Death in Autumn

by Sonia Bosetti

  Ally smiled. “I think he would enjoy that.”

  ***

  Brad made it to 5 o’clock before watching a video, but then he couldn’t stop. He watched it over and over. It was a bit like watching porn, the time when he had gotten hooked on amateur videos of men giving their girlfriends anal - especially when the women cried or tried to push the man off. He felt guilty each time he watched it, knowing that wasn’t any way to treat a woman, but he had still gotten a certain thrill.

  Watching the raw footage of mass shootings had the same thrill.

  Sometimes it was more potent, even… He wasn’t sexually turned on by it, of course. That would be gross. But he felt excited, and he was never sure if he was more excited by the fear of those running, and imagining the adrenaline from that brush with death, or by the power elicited by the gunman.

  News footage was one thing, and he would watch that, too. But what he really got into were the raw footage pieces found in the underground of the internet. This was where people paid big money to get cell phone video from the people involved, body cam video from the police, and sometimes even video from the gunman himself.

  Those were rare, because the FBI usually found the missives of the gunman and any GoPro video that might be taken. (Brad wondered at how rarely it was mentioned that the gunmen wore GoPro, even the ones who ended up shooting themselves. He wondered what the plan was, there. Did these men know that there were people like him, who would watch obsessively? Was it some sort of martyr complex, that they thought people would elevate them in death? Or was it that they had gone in with the plan to escape, and they wanted a souvenir?

  It was stupid to go in with a plan to escape. No one escaped shooting dozens of people. It was about going out in a blaze of glory.

  It was about finding meaning in the destruction, about embracing the full chaos of existence right before you said goodbye to it.

  Brad told himself he wouldn’t do it himself, not really. But even as he told himself this, he relished the idea of ending it all this way. He could blow his brains out in this pathetic little camper and rot here until wolves found him. (Or buzzards, he decided, it would be best to shoot himself outside.) Or he could die on the battlefield in glory.

  The whole world was a battlefield. That’s what the mourners didn’t understand. The people who cried why? The people who talked for hours about tedious things like gun laws and background checks. The people who talked about how other countries didn’t have mass shootings, because they had better laws. Because they didn’t have access to guns.

  Those idiots didn’t realize, it wasn’t about the guns. Even the NRA bullshitters thought it was about the guns.

  None of it was about the guns.

  It was about how much life sucked in America. It wasn’t because people in other countries didn’t have guns… It was because they had better lives. The fucking Africans in tribes had better lives than the average American man did. Those men at least had a sense of purpose. They had fucking tribes, man.

  What did American men have? Fuckin’ all-for-one-nothing-bullshit, is what.

  Here’s what life in America was like: You grew up being told you could be anything you wanted to be, you just had to believe and dream and work really, really hard. But somewhere along the way that became, you might be lucky if you get a job that pays your doctor’s bills, if you meet a nice girl who will let you kiss her at the door without saying you are a fucking rapist, if you are able to get a low interest rate on a mortgage.

  And then you realize even that mediocre shitshow is just a pipe dream. No one gets anything in America unless they come from rich families, or are really poor and get the government to pay your way. (Not that he was jealous of those people. The way the government kept people in poverty under their thumb was a whole other shitshow. It was a wonder more black men weren’t shooting up fast food joints, honestly.)

  So what if you put some other fuckers out of their misery when you bought your own one-way ticket?

  So the fuck what?

  Chapter 12

  Stuart felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb at the party, as the midwestern style began to register for him. This was a jeans and t-shirts crowd, sure, but his skinny jeans and Italian-cut shirt - which had been a low-end buy at his corner department store, and way below the standards for a lot of his peers - screamed, “I’m a New Yorker and you’re not.” He realized just how much he wanted to fit in, and made a mental note to ask Ally to help him shop sometime before he met his own family.

  He had woken up drowsily and realized it was dark out, and worried he had slept through half the night on his old waiter schedule. Then the sound of chatter and laughter had drifted up the stairs and through his slightly-ajar door. He had enough presence of mind to change from the grubby clothes he had been traveling in and to run a comb through his hair after splashing some water on his face.

  And once he had made his way downstairs, he had attracted attention immediately from the women. This will be really good for my ego…. Or really bad for it. They weren’t hitting on him, but being approached by 3 women at once with questions like, “Oh, who are you?” “Where have they been hiding you?” or his favorite “Are you single? I have a niece I’d love you to meet”, made him feel much more attractive than he had felt at New York parties.

  When they had given him a moment to respond, he answered simply, “I came with Ally,” they had seemed positively shocked. The immediate chatter subsided to soft, “Ohhh”s. One of the women, a brunette with a souvenir Bahamas cruise ship sweatshirt and heart-shaped face, said, “Good for you,” followed a few beats later by, “and good for her.” He had coughed nervously, and they had pointed him to the kitchen to find his escort.

  Ally caught his eye from a corner by the stove and waved him over. “Glad you’re here. There seem to be a lot of single friends of cousins tonight. Not sure what’s going on, but it’s a little..”

  “It’s a little much,” he said softly, kissing her temple. “I just had three women who seemed very Greek chorus tackle me at the bottom of the stairs. I can’t tell if they were scandalized or impressed when I said I came with you.”

  “Probably scandalized. I know exactly who you are talking about. They are my mother’s sisters, and they are terrible gossips. She is the only one of them who isn’t.”

  “Hmm… What else can I do to scandalize these fine farm women, then?” He leaned in and nuzzled her neck. The way she gasped in surprise delighted him.

  “Stop it,” she said, but giggling. “Someone will see.”

  “And?” He snuck in a nibble on her ear, and she made a sound that sent a particular thrill through him. “Want to go upstairs?”

  “No.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Have some pizza. Mom said she’s going to make a speech soon.”

  “Have you found out what’s going on?”

  Ally shook her head, her loose curls tossed about her shoulders. Stuart was desperate to take her in his arms and bury his face in her hair. He felt a pang of loss, wishing the days on the road had lasted a little longer, when she was all his. Now he had to share her with all these people; he had to restrain himself.

  It was no fun at all.

  But Ally smiled at him right then, and that made all his worries disappear.

  ***

  Holly’s heart was beating a mile a minute. She wasn’t sure she was ready to do this; it had always been difficult being the center of attention, and it had been easy to turn the attention to someone else on the rare occasions that had happened.

  But tonight was all hers, and there was no one else to say what needed to be said tonight. This was not one of those times to let her husband speak on her behalf. But she did let her husband gather everyone’s attention. He clinked a glass as if a toast were to be raised - that wouldn’t have been her first choice, but it was fine - and yelled, “Hear ye, hear ye!” a few times. Such a ham, she thought lovingly.

  When the floor was hers, she began. She had run t
hrough what she wanted to say many times. God help me say this with grace and to remember it’s not about me, but about you.

  “Thank you all for being here tonight. Some of you, who have worked closely with me on this project, know what we are celebrating. And to you, I say, this celebration is yours. We were running against the wind, and you are the ones who made this possible.

  “The rest of you are probably in the dark, and that was on purpose. I think I was a little worried what you would think, but also, I didn’t want to tell you what the hopes were, and then have them dashed.

  “I do think most of you know about the foster child we took in two years ago, when her mother died and she was only 17. She had been a member of our church and it was only the Christian thing to do. She had been with us for 3 months when she told us she was pregnant.”

  Almost everyone here knew the story. They were members of the church community who had supported them through the whole process. Allison knew fragments of the story, but Holly was sure that her daughter had no idea how pivotal the girl’s stay had been.

  “I won’t go into all the details at this moment, but knowing why we cared so much about this girl is key to what happened next. She was alone, had nothing at all, and still desperately wanted to be a mother. As Christians, we wanted to make sure the child had a family, and that’s what our community decided to provide her.”

  Tears came to her eyes as she saw the heads nod around the room, and remembered all the things these fine friends had done to make the girl’s pregnancy more comfortable. They had started a trust fund for the child, and taken her to doctor’s appointments, and made her healthy meals. Holly had only put a roof over the girl’s head; the rest was a labor of love by the beautiful church community she was blessed to be a part of.

  “Well, long story short. She had a healthy baby boy, and an apartment in the city, and we thought she was off to a wonderful start as a mother. She was so in love with that baby.” She took a deep breath and swallowed as she continued with the heartbreaking story. “We had no idea that she had fallen into a crowd that would take her down a very dark path… and before her child was one year old, she had been sentenced to 1 year in prison for possession. She said it was her boyfriend’s, but that didn’t sway the courts, nor did the fact that she had a child who needed her. A baby who was still breastfeeding.” A sad murmur ran through the crowd.

  “Fortunately, we were able to find another family in our community who was willing to take in the baby, and had still been breast feeding her own child. They were truly Christ’s own servents.” The group clapped, knowing exactly who was being talked about. The mother in question shook her head humbly.

  “It was a terrible thing to realize this young woman wouldn’t see her child, however, for an entire year - not for any real length of time. For any of us who’ve raised children, or just been aunties or uncles even, we know how much happens in a year. All the joys and sorrows, the tantrums and giggles… it’s all part of watching a child become who they are.

  “And when when visited, we realized that even within our rural location, there were far too many women in prison who had young children at home. Some of them had children who were in Chicago and didn’t even come to visit once every six months. They had to rely on pictures alone and updates from family or social workers to know how their own babies were doing. Some of them were arrested while pregnant and actually had babies while incarcerated, who were immediately taken from them and placed with a guardian.

  “The idea just horrified me. I think of what it’s like to have a child, and to raise them as best you can, and that bonding is probably 80% of the game. I know that’s not a scientific number,” the crowd laughed, and she was self-conscious briefly. Were they doubtful that she knew anything about science? She decided to take it as encouragement. “- but what if how much a child is bonded to their parent, what if that has something to do with how they do in life? What if it affects how they do in school? Or how likely they are to develop a substance abuse problem?”

  Holly heard her words rolling off her tongue now, so passionate. She felt the fervent belief of what she was saying, the power of her words, and wondered if this was how politicians felt on the campaign trail - or better, preachers in the pulpit. “And fortunately, that is something we do have numbers on.”

  Now the crowd was excited. She could tell that some of them - those who had been involved but not inner circle to know the final outcome - were getting the hint. This was a day of good news, indeed. “A few of us took those numbers to people who made decisions. We started a charter program using the funds from our own community development fund - thank you so much to our board of directors, all the members are here tonight.” A few cheers went up, but hushed quietly . People wanted to hear her. She had them hooked, now.

  “The charter program led to a pilot program which led to a grant proposal.” She took a deep breath. “And that’s why we are here today. We have received a grant to fully fund the Center for Mothers at the (name) regional prison.”

  She was going to say more, but the group erupted in celebratory cries, and suddenly everyone was hugging her and clapping her on the back, and there were more than a few tears. She supposed she could speak to the rest later. Before the celebration descended into chaos, Holly announced. “Open bar, drinks on the house!” There was a mixture of laughter and cheer, and Holly was sure she hadn’t been this happy since the day her daughter was born.

  ***

  Ally wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but she definitely hadn’t been expecting that. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “Oh my God.”

  Jen Crathens, who Ally remembered from Sunday school as a stern teacher, coughed and gave her a pointed look. Taking the Lord’s name in vain, shit. “Sorry,” she murmured. But Miss Jen just laughed and said, “I’m just giving you a hard time, girl. It’s good to see you.” They hugged, and Ally realized with a start the woman wasn’t more than 10 years older than her. She must have been a teenager when she was in Sunday school.

  Miss Jen - just Jen - Ally realized from her adult viewpoint - tilted her chin at Stuart. “And who’s this city boy?”

  “This is Stuart, my....” Ally trailed off, and still couldn’t figure out how to introduce him. “He’s got some family in the area, so we took the trip together.” She felt him tense, and knew she had said the wrong thing. But what could she do? They hadn’t defined this, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to, no matter how great the last few days had been.

  “Oh. Single?” Jen was also very attractive, Ally realized.

  “No, not really,” Stuart said, tersely. “Pleased to meet you. I just… I think I’m going to grab a drink. Either of you want anything?”

  Shit, thought Ally. I’m going to fuck this up in so many ways.

  “Just a beer,” she said, trying to send him a look that said she was sorry, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Jen was feeling a bit bolder, apparently, in spite of his mild discouragement. “Rum and Coke, since you look like a pirate, and pirates like rum.”

  She was flirting. As Stuart walked away, Ally said with a chuckle, “I guess I’m going to have to stop thinking of you as a Sunday school teacher.”

  Jen winked. “Still a Sunday school teacher, Miss Allison. And still giving you a hard time.”

  Ally blinked. “What do you mean?”

  Jen rolled her eyes. “It’s obvious you’re together. Why the hell-” she coughed a little ‘- excuse me, why the heck aren’t you introducing him as your boyfriend? There are way too many girls here who have already dated all the boys in this small town and he is really hot. You need to claim him”

  Ally groaned. “Ugh, that sounds so primitive… and I don’t know… it’s really new.”

  “Uh-huh,” answered Jen. Her flapper hair tilted in an angular way around her face. “Well, we’ll see how long it takes for someone to drape herself - or himself - over him. He’s yummy.”

  This was completely surreal. How could her Sund
ay school teacher be talking about her yummy love interest?

  Stuart came back, holding the three drinks snug together with a true waiter’s skill. Ally savored the beer and watched her mother from across the room while Stuart and Jen made small talk. Her mother was shimmering with the light she used to think was Death but turned out to be Destiny. How many people had she seen on the streets whom she thought were dying, but were really living their “best life”?

  Jen excused herself after a few minutes, with a slight elbow to Ally’s ribs on her departure. She turned to Stuart. “I can’t explain how strange it is to see my mom doing this, like… She’s completely…”

  “Being awesome?”

  “Yes.”

  Stuart smiled. “She seems pretty amazing. This can’t be the first big thing she’s taken on?”

  “No, but the other things were, I don’t know, normal.” Stuart listened attentively, as she led him across the room. “Church events, committees, things she did for work in pre-K. Lots of really creative kids’ programs.”

  “But this is a little out of the box, huh?”

  “Way out of the box.” Three miles out of the box. A moon jump!

  They eventually worked their way through the crowd.

  “Mom, oh my - That was amazing! I’m so proud of you!” She gave her a hug, and extra squeeze to accentuate her excitement. “You’re so brave.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart.” Her mom sniffed. “I might need a tissue. This has been more emotional than I expected.”

  Stuart handed her one. “Here you go, Mrs. -”

  “Call me Holly.” Stuart blushed. He was adorable when he blushed. “And I can tell you’re a useful sort to keep around, can’t remember the last time a man had a tissue ready!”

  “Mom, that’s stereotyping. Or sexist.”

  “But it’s true. When was the last time you saw a man carrying tissues?”

  Darcy carrying a handkerchief in Pride and Prejudice came to mind. She nodded in defeat, and wondered why Stuart was carrying tissues… Had she noticed that before?