by J. C. Gatlin
“What are you doing?” the boy asked him, and moved beside him by the fire.
Michael ignored him, ripping out another page. The boy grabbed it before he could throw it into the fire.
“What is this?” he asked, staring at the paper. It looked like some kind of poem in handwritten cursive letters. “Did you write this?”
Michael shot him a fleeting glare and ripped the notebook paper from his hands. He gave it a quick glance, reading a couple of lines he had written.
“For every tear that you have shed
My own heart has wept and bled.”
This had been one of his very favorite poems. It was poetic. Beautiful. Sad. Lonely. And it was about Ross.
“He's dead...” Michael spat under his breath, then tossed that page into the flame. It lit up before gradually disintegrating into a wad of black ash.
16
A Grave Denied
Friday, January 21, 2000
11:38 AM
Rain made the already miserable conditions of Ross McGuire's funeral that much more unbearable. But the attendance was fairly admirable at the First Baptist Church of Stillwater. Ross came from a large family, and it appeared every relative was there. His drinking buddies and several brothers were pall bearers. Many of his coworkers left the garage early to pay their last respects. His mother sat in the front row, sobbing uncontrollably.
The service was understandably closed casket.
Kim and Mallory sat with the family. She looked around at the teary-eyed faces in the little church. She was surprised to see Alec Whitman there. And, appreciated the landlord and Mrs. Roundtree showing their support. She brought little Rosie with her, and held the dog in her arms. Most surprising was her Professor, with his hands cupped in front of him, some three aisles behind her. Several of her classmates sat in the row alongside him.
Michael was among them. Quiet as ever. But his eyes weren't focused on the shiny casket, or the grieving families, or the eggshell memorandum detailing Ross McGuire's short life. He was watching Kimberly. Staring at her. Glaring at her again. Their eyes met.
Kim looked away and over at Mallory. She was searching the crowd as well, and Kim wondered if she was looking for Addison. And, she wondered, if he was here, somewhere, hidden among the mourners. She was positive that he had lied about going out of town.
* * * * * * *
In the back of the church, he watched Kimberly sitting in the front pew, sitting near the corpse's brothers, sitting beside his whore of a mother. Poor Kimberly. Poor, sweet little girl. He watched salty tears roll down her cheek. He wondered how long she had been crying. Poor child. She looked so frail. So gaunt. So unhealthy. As if she hadn't eaten in a week.
It made his own eyes fill with tears. His heart ached for hers.
Through blurry eyes, he watched her every move. Her black hair fell onto her shoulders and down her back. It was so curly. So wild. So free. She should have worn it up. It would've been the proper thing to do. Still, he longed to touch her. To hold her. To comfort her. He wanted to take away this pain. This awful, ceaseless despair caused by such an undeserving boy.
He looked up at the closed casket. Its smooth oak sheen, nestled among wreathes and ribbons, couldn't hide the depravity that lay cold inside. That awful, awful corpse that touched his little girl. No, Kimberly shouldn't feel such anguish over such an undeserving boy.
* * * * * * *
Kim could feel him watching. Feel his eyes burning holes in the back of her head. Self-consciously, she looked over her shoulder. Michael was staring at her again, his eyes unblinking.
Uneasy, she reached over and took Mallory's hand in hers. Mallory squeezed it. She held Kim's trembling hand throughout the service. And she was still by her side when the procession moved to the cemetery, and Kim was standing over the gravesite.
The graveside services were short, as the rain kept most of the mourners away. But Michael was still there. She watched him button his black coat to keep out the rain.
When the casket was lowered and the mourners parted, a sea of black umbrellas returning to their cars, Kim let go of Mallory's hand and ran after Michael. Mallory tried to stop her, but Kim ignored her, calling for the thin boy with wet matted black hair to stop.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
He shrank back, as if he were surprised to have her attention. “Excuse me?” he said meekly.
“You've been staring at me through the whole service,” Kim said, moving toward him. She was on the verge of screaming at him. “What do you want? Why are you here?”
“Ross was my friend.” He kept his head lowered, his long bangs covered his eyes.
“Since when was he your friend? I don't think he even knew you.”
“He knew me.”
People stopped walking, watching them. Mallory approached and put a hand on Kim's shoulder. Kim swatted it away. She pointed a finger at Michael, daring him to retreat.
“Tell me,” she said. “When were you friends with Ross? I want to know.”
“No you don't,” he said quietly and turned away from her. He started walking again. Kim ran after him, grabbing his shoulder and spun him around. He almost slipped in the wet grass among the head stones.
“I want to know what is going on here!” She shook him.
Mallory stepped forward to separate them but Dr. Whitman put an arm around her, holding her back. He leaned toward Mallory's ear. Kim ignored it, though. She was solely focused on Michael.
“What are you hiding?” Kim finally released him. Michael took a step back.
“Ross was my best friend. I loved him,” he said.
Kim didn't want to hear it. “Since when?”
“Since before he met you.” Michael turned around. His eyes welled with tears. “You wouldn't be together if it wasn't for me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“All those love letters he wrote you, all those words that swept you off your feet,” he said slowly. “I wrote them. He was reciting poems that I wrote, because he wanted to impress you.”
“That's not true.” She spoke in a suffocated whisper.
“Oh, love rips the heart in pieces and distance fills the empty creases.” Michael's voice was barely above a whisper, as if his words were for Kimberly's ears alone. “So take what little comfort and solace to atone in knowing that you're not alone.”
Kim inhaled as her mind struggled to wrap around what he was saying. She looked at Mallory. The doctor still stood beside her, his arm still draped around her shoulder, holding her back. Ross' mother was trembling. Her boys surrounded her. The Professor and several students encircled them. Kim turned back to Michael.
“No,” she said. “No, I don't believe it.”
“I think you knew.” His voice was still quiet. Unnaturally calm. “I think you've always known.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“I wrote them for him.” A look of tired sadness passed over his features as tears flowed freely down his cheeks. “I wrote them for him,” he said again, quietly looking down. “He gave them to you.”
Kim didn't know what else to say. He was right. She did know. She had always known. And there was nothing left to say. Turning, she walked away.
Mallory called after Kim. Breaking free of Dr. Whitman's grip, she ran after her friend.
For the briefest second she thought she saw Addison amid the crowd of mourners. Mallory paused looking in his direction.
He wasn't there.
Of course he wasn't. Addison was out of town. Laughing at the thought, she called out to Kim and caught up to her standing next to Ross' grave. Taking her hand, she gave Kim an encouraging smile.
Still she caught herself glancing uneasily over her shoulder.
Doctor Whitman watched Mallory take Kim's hand as the two women stood above the gravesite.
He wondered what it was that grabbed Mallory's attention, and looked in the general direction she had been staring. He saw noth
ing unusual.
Alec considered joining the girls, then decided to give them some privacy. Turning his head against the rain and wind, he headed toward the parked cars.
When he heard his name called out, the doctor turned, complete surprise on his face. “What are you doing here?” he asked the slender man approaching him.
“I'm sorry to bother you doctor.” The man looked frazzled and was entirely underdressed for a funeral. “But I need to talk to you.”
Alec forced a thin smile. He retained his affability but there was a distinct tone of annoyance in his voice.
“We've talked about boundaries before,” Alec said to the man as they walked past Michael and headed for the cars. “You must call my secretary and schedule an appointment.”
As the two men brushed past him. Michael didn't move from his spot while the rain fell harder. He watched everyone leave the cemetery one by one.
Kim was the last to leave. She returned to Ross' grave and lingered there for nearly ten minutes before Mallory took her by the hand and led her to a waiting limo.
He watched the headlights come on, pull from the slick pathway and roll away.
Finally alone, Michael walked over to Ross McGuire's grave. He stood where Kimberly had just stood, his feet covering the wet indentions in the grass where her high heeled shoes had been. He then knelt forward, the rain cold in his face, and read Ross' headstone.
“You had panache,” he said out loud, almost yelling through his tears, never seeing the man behind him. A sudden, involuntary scream died in his throat as an arm wrapped around his neck and shoulders, pulling him back, and the instant flicker of pain penetrated his right eye socket
Michael twisted his head, his eye popping and blood gushing down his face. He screamed and flailed his arms. His hand hit the face behind him; he punched a nose. The arm around his neck suddenly released and Michael fell forward, landing on the ground. He spun around and looked up. He could see out of only one eye. Rain fell in his face. Blood gushed down his cheek.
Above him, the angry man yelled, raging forward. He lifted his arm, his fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of a sharp awl. He thrust it forward. Michael raised a hand to protect himself. The spike punctured his hand and he screamed.
Thunder crashed and the man pulled back, whipping the awl out from Michael’s hand. He thrust it again, as Michael’s instincts took over and he rolled. The awl slashed through the air and planted into the wet ground.
Michael scrambled to his feet, too shocked to speak. He could barely see. The man came toward him. Moving backwards, Michael held up his bloody hand. The man raised the awl again. But Michael lunged forward, taking the offensive, and grabbed the assailant’s legs, knocking him violently to the ground. Thunder crashed again.
Michael stood and backed away from the man lying on the ground. Blood poured from his hand and he could feel it streaming from his eye socket down his face. He felt light headed, looked around and stumbled. The world around him was spinning.
Tumbling backwards, his head hit Ross McGuire’s headstone. With one last thud, his body hit the ground, his face planted in the mud.
Blood poured out of the meaty eye socket into a pool of rainwater.
17
End in Tears
Mallory drove Kim home late that Friday afternoon. They rode in silence as she pulled into the complex. Kim rushed to find her keys and headed toward her front door. Mallory followed right behind her. Flustered, Kim inserted each key into each lock and slowly unlocked the five deadbolts. Mallory fumed.
“A crazy mental patient could rape and murder you before you ever got inside,” she said.
Kim didn't answer as she opened the door, then rudely shut it leaving Mallory on the other side, outside.
Zeus was waiting for her, but she ignored him too. She was focused on the old recliner and walked straight over to the black scrapbook and picked it up. She flipped through the pages of photos and love letters. All the handwritten poems. Her tears splashed onto the pages now mocking her, smearing the lying words. Screaming, she threw the scrapbook at the wall. It smashed loudly taking a picture frame with it and split into several pieces on the floor.
Kim stared at it. She didn’t move. She didn’t cry. She didn’t breath. She just stared. A cold hollow overtook her, like clammy hands wrapping around her whole body, and she walked up the black spiral stairs to her bedroom loft. Zeus followed her and she embraced him and dropped to the floor. She cradled the dog, holding his pointed head close to her own, and then broke down and cried.
She cried for a long time before finally falling into a light and exhausted sleep, right there on the floor.
* * * * * * *
At dusk, the rain finally let up and the grounds keeper strolled the cemetery in a white golf cart.
Pausing at the entrance, he shut and locked the gates. Getting back into the cart, he strolled along the path through the symmetrical rows of headstones. There, he noticed it: something above the ground that should have been buried beneath it.
Some fifteen, twenty yards away, two legs lay beside the headstone of a fresh grave. Had the deceased crawled out? The thought made his skin crawl. He laughed, squinting, trying to confirm what he saw in the fading light. Then he hopped out of the cart.
Moving toward the headstone, he stepped cautiously forward. He approached the legs, and found the rest of the body lying behind the cement block. It was bloody. Very bloody. And the caretaker leaned down and touched the boy.
Tilting the boy’s head, he jumped slightly, shocked at the sight. It was a face with a missing eye. Rain and blood matted the boy’s black hair. And he looked dead. Composing himself, the caretaker touched the boy's cheek.
Michael groaned.
Startled, the Caretaker stood. Stumbling backwards, he ran back toward his golf cart.
* * * * * * *
It had been the longest day of her life, and Kim didn’t care if she ever woke up. But she did, early the next morning.
The skies were gray, the wind was howling. She dropped the blinds along the bay window in the living room and over the smaller windows in the kitchen and in the bedroom loft. Her townhome became a dark, cold tomb.
She moved slowly into the bathroom, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked terrible. Her skin was blotchy and swollen. Her pores were large holes around her nose and below her eyes. Her black hair was a tangle of rats and frizz. She took an aspirin from the medicine cabinet and swallowed it, then took another
She didn’t know what time it was, but she picked up the phone anyway and dialed the nursing home. Nurse Carla answered cheerfully and sounded excited to hear from her.
“Why Miss Bradford, we were beginning to worry,” she said. “We wondered what happened to you. Your grandaddy is missing you something powerful.”
“I’ve got the flu,” Kim said groggily, her throat hoarse and dry. “I won’t be over to see my grand-father for a few days.”
Carla made a long, dramatic Oooooo-ooooh. “Feel better, child,” she said. “You know, my little boy had it last week. There must be something goin’ round.”
Kim gave a muffled but uninterested, “yeah” then hung up the phone. She went back to bed.
The next day, Mrs. Roundtree knocked on her door, waking her.
“Rosie and I were worried about you,” she said through the door. “I made you a casserole.” Kim told her and the little Pekingese to go away. And when Mallory called later that night, waking her again, Kim hung up without saying a word.
She only wanted to do one thing: lay in bed, in the dark, and sleep. She wanted to dream about Ross and remember everything about him. How he smelled. The roughness of his hands. His heartbeat thudding in her ear when she rested her head on his chest. Every little thing they had ever done and everything he had ever said to her. She didn’t want to ever forget him. She knew she could never really get over him.
At some point – maybe it was still Saturday, maybe it was now Sunday, she
didn’t care – Kim was woken by Zeus’ barking. He brought his food dish upstairs and laid it on the floor by the bed.
Wearily, Kim forced herself up and stumbled downstairs into the kitchen. She felt even worse than before. Her face was broken out. Her eyes were swollen and crusted with sleep. Her stomach felt queasy and empty. Her head ached.
She opened a can of dog food and poured it into the dish, then set it on the floor. Zeus wolfed it down, wagging his stubby tail.
Kim stumbled into the living room. The scrapbook still lay in pieces on the floor among the broken frame and shattered glass from the picture that once hung on the wall. For a moment, she wondered what had happened. Walking to it, she looked down on the pile of painted wood and glass.
The pile looked different, somehow. She hadn’t noticed it at first. Part of the frame stuck up like some kind of twisted arm. Large shards of glass littered around the pieces of the wood. They had cut the photograph in the fall and Ross’ face was slashed clean through.
Kim abruptly stood and looked away. Her heart pounded. She could almost hear it beating wildly with each shallow breath. Was she having a panic attack?
Calming herself, she inhaled deeply and walked to the large picture window. Gazing out, she noticed the street lamps glowing over the quiet parking lot. There was no movement in the dark. All her neighbors' cars stood in silent rows facing the curbs; their windows dark. Everyone was probably sleeping, tucked safe and secure in their homes.
Kim's eyes searched the quivering shadows along the parking lot and she tried to see beyond the iron entrance gates to the outer road. But it was too dark. Too early in the wee hours of the morning.
She wished that she could see a patrol car roll by. She wondered if they were watching her townhome. The thought comforted her. She felt a little safer.