“You know what we want. Come on, Mark. Who are you protecting? Is it worth it?”
He tried to gasp out an answer, but it was so hard to talk and concentrate with his shoulders aching so badly. “I’m not protecting anyone. I don’t have anything to tell you. I swear it.”
Bill reached up and yanked on something, tightening the rope. Mark groaned. “Stop!” Head hanging down, he panted. “Please…just…stop!”
***
“Mark? Are you okay, son?”
A hand shook his shoulder and Mark bolted up. “What?” His heart raced as he took in the golden sunlight that filled the room. He sagged back against the pillow. It had been a dream. It was too real; like he was back in the interrogation room. Mark ran a shaky hand through his hair, then scrubbed his eyes. His shoulder still ached and he rotated it. He must have been lying on it wrong.
His dad stood beside the bed, his eyes lit with worry. “What’s going on? You were yelling.”
Mark shook his head. “Nothing. Just a bad dream.” He didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“It’s nothing, Dad.” He winced at the hard tone in his voice as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Taking a moment, he rested his elbows on his thighs, hands dangling, as he tried to get his body to stop shaking. “What time is it?” He dared to look up, hoping that he didn’t appear as rattled as he felt.
His dad gave him a long look before answering, “About seven-thirty. Your mom is making some breakfast. It should be ready in about fifteen minutes.”
Mark wasn’t sure he could eat with his stomach twisted up like a pretzel, but he pasted on a smile. “Sounds good. I’ll be down soon.” Standing, he stretched, wincing as pain lanced through his shoulder.
“You okay?” His dad nodded towards Mark’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“I must have slept on it funny, that’s all.” That was true enough even though he didn’t think his shoulders would ever be the same as they had been. The joints just weren’t designed to hold all of a man’s weight, especially when pulled at unnatural angles.
His dad gave him a doubtful look, but finally left.
Mark sighed and gathered his clothes. He didn’t need another shower, but took one anyway just because he could. This time, he shaved afterwards.
For a year, he had avoided looking at his face in the mirror. The blank look in his eyes had scared the hell out of him, and so he had stopped looking. When he shaved in prison, he had focused only on the patch of skin he was shaving. Nothing more.
Seeing his face now was like looking at the face of an acquaintance. His skin was dead white from months without sunlight, the dark bristles of his beard a marked contrast. As he scraped the razor over his jaw, he held his skin taut with his free hand. He noted how sharp his cheekbones appeared. They were more defined with hollows beneath them. The changes in his face shocked him. He scarcely recognized it. Ducking his head, he rinsed the razor.
***
A plate stacked high with steaming pancakes greeted him when he entered the kitchen. A bowl of sausage sat beside a pitcher of warmed syrup. Mark didn’t know which was watering more, his mouth or his eyes. He was home.
“Wow, Mom. This looks great. After I couldn’t eat for awhile, they tried to tempt me with pancakes, but-” He was going to say that they were tough and dry, but the look of horror on his mother’s face stopped him cold.
“Why couldn’t you eat?”
Mark opened his mouth but then realized that he couldn’t tell her about the things they had done to him. He shrugged and grabbed the syrup, pouring it on the pile. “I…uh…I got a stomach bug. You know how those things are.”
His dad entered the kitchen, the newspaper folded under his arm and interjected, “How what things are?” He pulled his chair out and set the paper beside his plate, giving Mark a questioning look.
“Mark said he was sick and couldn’t eat for awhile when he was…when he was gone.”
“When I was in prison, Mom. You can say it.” He cut into the pancakes and shoved a forkful in his mouth, catching a drop of syrup with his tongue before it dripped onto his shirt. They were cooked just the way he liked them, crispy around the edges and tender in the middle.
“What kind of illness?”
Mark wanted to smack himself for bringing up the subject. Now his dad would grill him about symptoms and try to diagnose him. “Nothing I want to talk about over breakfast.”
Hopefully they would think of the worst symptoms associated with stomach problems and drop the subject.
“Vomiting? Diarrhea?”
Stifling a groan, Mark shook his head. “It was nothing. Forget it.” He should have known his dad wouldn’t care that they were eating. How many times had he discussed some nasty symptom a patient had while they were eating dinner when he was a kid? His mom had become so used to medical talk that she never protested. He stood and poured a glass of milk. He lifted the gallon in invitation. “Anyone want some?”
Neither answered so he took his glass back to his seat. His mom looked at him with concern and his dad with speculation. “You never caught stomach bugs growing up.” There was a note of challenge in his dad’s voice.
Mark set his fork down and watched the syrup drip down the side of his remaining stack. Not only would telling them force him to remember the worst time in his life, but subjecting them to the details would force them to picture him being…questioned. Once that image was out there, it couldn’t be erased. Ever. It was better for them to remain ignorant. “It was a prison, Dad. Weren’t you always telling me that disease and illness run rampant in places where people are crowded together?”
“Son, what are you afraid to tell us? We realize you were in a prison, not on a luxury cruise. You don’t have to spare us the details.” His dad’s eyes locked on his, full of more sorrow and anguish than Mark had ever seen him show. “Our imaginations have probably conjured up the very worst.”
Overwhelmed, Mark broke the visual connection. “They never beat me.” He couldn’t bring himself to lie, but he didn’t want them to imagine things that never happened. “ Most of the time, I was treated okay.” The pancakes were soaking up the syrup. Soon they would be soggy and cold. He took another bite.
“Hon, we won’t think less of you no matter what happened in there, okay?” His mother smiled, her bottom lip trembling.
“I know. But you don’t have to worry. Mostly, I was just bored.” He shoved in the last forkful of pancakes.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“So, what are your plans?”
Mark looked over the top of the newspaper at his dad. “What do you mean? Today? I was gonna-”
His dad shook his head and cut him off. “No. I mean, for work. For getting on with your life.” He took the seat across the kitchen table. “It’s been a week. You have to start thinking about your future.”
Mark folded the paper and set it down beside his coffee cup. His father’s tone took him back to when he was twenty and had rebelled against returning to college. He had gone two years and done okay. School had been easy for him, but he found it boring. How many times had he tried to make his father see that it just wasn’t the path that he wanted to take? Especially not pre-med.
It had been drilled into him his whole life that he would be a doctor like his father. “I’ve been looking through the help wanted ads every day, Dad. I made a resume and sent that to a few employers.”
Mark put both elbows on the table and raked his hands through his hair and flashed a brief humorless smile. There hadn’t been a single ad seeking a newly-freed terrorist suspect. He took a deep breath and folded his arms on top of the paper. “I have an unexplainable gap in my employment history, and all my references are shot to hell. I’m not expecting much response.”
His dad rose and poured himself a cup of coffee. “If you would’ve finished college, you wouldn’t have this problem now.” He leaned against the counter, feet crossed as h
e sipped from his mug.
The muscles in the back of Mark’s neck tensed. “Yeah, well hindsight’s a bitch, isn’t it?” He tried to quell his anger and took a gulp of his coffee. What had he expected from his father? Support and warm fuzzies? The glimmer of warmth the first few days after Mark had returned had faded and now his dad was back to his classic ways.
“Are you still having your special dreams?”
The coffee sprayed across the paper as Mark choked at the question. When he could talk, he stammered, “N-None since I was in prison.” He evaded his father’s gaze and blotted the paper with a napkin.
Those two dreams still puzzled him. Why had he had them when he no longer had the camera? The other question he had was why had the dreams been about him? That had never happened before. Mark closed his eyes and recalled the details. The interrogations blended with reality until he couldn’t tell which had been dreams and which had been real. The memories of the interrogations and the dreams wove together in his mind and now he couldn’t, with certainty, separate them.
“So you’re done with that non…stuff?”
“Nonsense?” Mark jerked his head up. “Isn’t that what you were going to say?” He jumped up from the table, ignoring the coffee that sloshed and made a puddle. “I know you always hated that I chose photography instead of medicine, but goddamn it, even though I don’t have a bunch of letters after my name, I made a difference in people’s lives, Dad.” Mark clenched his jaw and fought to speak through the spasm in his throat. “I did.”
His voice broke as anger burned through him at his own emotions. He shoved the chair under the table and picked up his cup, dumping the contents into the sink. It took every fiber of self-control to keep from hurling the mug across the room. Instead, he rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher. He thought he had learned to shrug off his father’s comments. After all these years, it shouldn’t hurt so much.
He heard his dad come up behind him, but the steps stopped a few feet away. “Listen, son. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Mark bit his lip and stared out the kitchen window. It had snowed the night before and icicles shimmered and glinted in the sun as they hung from the eaves. Out of habit, his mind framed them in a shot, then with a snort, he pushed the image out his mind and dried his hands with a kitchen towel. “Well, whatever. The camera is gone and so are the dreams.”
***
“Mark, you know your dad. He just wants the best for you.”
His mom stood in the doorway of Mark’s bedroom, but he couldn’t look at her. The tears on her cheeks tore at his resolve to leave.
“Yeah, that’s what you always told me, but he has a strange way of showing it.” Mark stuffed his meager wardrobe into an old duffel bag. He owned just a few pairs of jeans and sweat-shirts. When he used to come visit, he’d left his good clothes at his loft. At his parents’ house, he tended to do odd jobs, helped in yard and other chores. If they went out to eat, it was to a local diner, so there was no need to dress up. Now, he wished he had left a few decent things here. A few days before, he had picked up some socks, underwear and shaving gear at the discount store. After shoving those in, he grabbed the old pea coat. It would do for the rest of the winter. It would have to if he was going to make his money last for any length of time.
“Don’t do this, hon. Don’t leave angry. Please.” She clutched at his arm as he brushed past her.
Mark clattered down the steps, trying to ignore the tendril of pain that began in his gut and wound its way up to squeeze his heart. He stopped at the front door and set the duffel down. “I’m sorry, Mom. I have to go. I’m not angry…I just…I just can’t stay here.” Earlier, he’d dug a pair of gloves out of the hall closet and now he held them up. “I hope it’s okay if I take these.”
His mother looked at them blankly, then nodded. “Yes, of course. I think there’s an extra knit cap in the closet too. I’ll get it.” Her voice shook and he swallowed hard. He was the worst son ever.
Her eyes brimmed a few minutes later as she handed him the cap along with a lumpy paper bag. “I tossed some things in there in case you get hungry on the bus. Do you have any money? I think I have some cash in my purse and I can send you some more when you get settled.”
Mark shook his head. “I’m okay. They gave me a little money when I left.” Even if he had been penniless, he wouldn’t have taken any help. His mother wouldn’t care, but his dad would attach so many strings, the loan would look like a vast spider-web and money would be the fly in the middle. He swept her into a hug and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Mom.” He tightened the hug. “I’ll keep in touch.” He broke away and scooped up the strap of the bag. “Bye.”
“Good-bye, and I’ll tell your dad you said good-bye too.”
Mark just nodded as he pushed the door open. He flinched at the sound of it closing behind him. Was he doing the right thing? There was no alternative. When he was younger, his dad had seemed like the most powerful man on Earth. Nobody stood up to his dad. He wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, Mark had felt pride in the way other kids had seemed a little afraid of his father. He hadn’t blamed them. His dad could be scary sometimes. Now, Mark knew better. There were scarier men out there. He knew because he had met them.
His feet crunched across the frozen gravel as he made his way to the main road. The air bit his nose while his breath steamed around his head. He was glad for the gloves and cap and turned the collar up on the coat. It was going to be a long hike.
His mother thought he was going to catch a bus to Chicago, but he had decided to try and hitch-hike instead. Every penny counted now.
Three hours later, his feet almost frozen, he finally got a ride from an old trucker. Mark’s lips felt stiff as he tried to smile and thank the man.
“No problem. It’s awfully cold out there to be trekking very far. I’m going to Gary, Indiana. If you’re going farther, you’ll have to find another ride.” The man sounded the horn as he merged into traffic, his eyes darting to the passenger side mirrors. “Damn cars can see I’m trying to get going. I don’t know why they can’t switch to the middle lane.”
Mark cringed as a little red sports car whizzed past. “I’m going to Chicago, so if it’s not too much trouble, you could drop me off somewhere as you pass by. It doesn’t matter where.”
“You got it.” The other man reached out and turned the heat up when Mark couldn’t suppress a shiver. “You look half-frozen.”
“I am. And the other half is cold as hell.” Mark took his gloves off and blew into his hands then held them out to the vent.
The trucker laughed and nudged an open package of cookies across the seat. “Help yourself. I eat too many of the damn things.” He patted his impressive belly.
Mark ate a few cookies and then settled into the seat. The heat seeped into him, relaxing him until he dozed.
The cell felt like an inferno and Mark stripped down to his boxers, but the sweat poured off him. Had the air conditioner broken or was there a fire somewhere? The water in his sink had been shut off and he didn’t think it was close to a meal time yet. He’d give anything for a drink of ice cold water. He sank onto the steel shelf, at first it felt cool, but as his body warmed it, his skin stuck to the metal. His head ached and his throat felt raw.
The cell morphed into the interrogation room and Mark stood in front of the team, acutely aware of his almost naked state of dress. The chain around his waist scraped against his back.
A man Mark had never seen stuck his face close to Mark’s. “We’re turning up the heat. You brought this upon yourself by not telling us the truth.” Even in a dark suit and tie, the man wasn’t sweating.
How was that possible? As Mark wondered about that, the man snapped his fingers and pointed towards a long board in the corner of the room. “We got some water for you. Ice cold. You said you’d do anything for it.”
“I didn’t say that! I only thought it!” He knew what that board was for. He tried to swallow the fear, but his throat was
too dry. “You don’t need to do that.”
The guards grabbed him and wrestled him to the board and strapped him down. One gripped Mark’s head and the man in the suit held a pitcher of water just above Mark’s face. A shudder shook him. “No!”
“Whoa there, buddy. Time to wake up.”
Mark started awake, and brought his hands up to wipe his face. It was dry. The lights of Chicago lit the interior of the cab.
“You okay?” The trucker raised an eyebrow.
“Just a dream.” He scrubbed his eyes. The cab had grown hot and Mark unbuttoned his coat. His mouth felt parched, but the thought of water sent a wave of revulsion through him. He tried to cover the shudder by stretching.
The cookies were gone and a smattering of crumbs covered the trucker’s belly. The man noticed Mark’s gaze and looked down, swiping the bits away with a grin. “Told you I’d eat too many. Any place in particular you wanna be dropped off?”
Home would be good, but that wasn’t an option. Ducking his head, he caught sight of a green road sign that announced the Addison Street exit one mile away. He shrugged. “I guess since it’s not too far away, Division or Ohio would be fine.” He recalled a little hotel right off Ohio that shouldn’t cost too much. At least it didn’t look expensive. In the morning, he could look for work. There were plenty of warehouses just west of the highway. They weren’t too picky about who they hired as long as the person had a strong back.
“You got it. I’ll exit on Ohio and loop back around.”
Ten minutes later, Mark stepped into the parking lot of a McDonald’s. He grabbed a quick meal then headed for the hotel. The price wasn’t outrageous, but he would have to find something cheaper as soon as he could. He lay on the bed, his hands behind his head. The only light in the room was the dim green cast by the bedside clock.
The hotel was in the heart of the city and he was literally surrounded by millions of people. The mattress shook whenever a heavy vehicle passed the motel. Cars beeped their horns, and down the hall, a door slammed. The city pulsed with life. It surrounded him, pushing and prodding him to dive back in, but as much as he wanted to, he didn’t know how. He glanced at the door. He held the key and he could leave anytime he wanted, but where could he go? It wasn’t places that he had missed, but people. Someone to laugh with, have a beer, see a movie. He ran through a mental list of some of his old friends. Even before he’d been locked up, he hadn’t called them often. It was his own fault for ignoring the friendships in favor of using the camera.
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