Turnabout Is Fair Play

by Bill Willoughby

  I was a mess! I felt like I was losing my mind. On top of it all I kept thinking about Marcus Garvey. I still had it in the back of my mind to find him and make him pay for what he did to Miranda just like I had made Resnick pay. There was just no end to this madness.

  The day finally came when Mom and my sister, Reagan, came to take care of Miranda’s things. I went to Virginia Beach and got a room on the top floor of The Windward Hotel facing the ocean. I mostly sat on the balcony and stared off at the ocean. I took some food with me for breakfast and lunch but went out for dinner. It’s not all that fun to eat by yourself. I missed Miranda so bad. I had an excellent meal at Captain George’s Seafood Restaurant. It’s a famous place with a huge buffet. I gorged myself but was still lonely for Miranda.

  Mom called Sunday night and told me they had sold almost everything at a yard sale. What they didn’t sell they took to Goodwill. She said they had left the money on the dining room table. I told her she could keep it to pay for their travel and trouble. She laughed and said I was being ridiculous. Besides, she said, they were already back home.

  “But, I need to tell you something. Reagan wanted some of Miranda’s clothes and she kept them. I told her not to but she said it would be alright. She just wouldn’t wear them around you.”

  “She what? I said explicitly…”

  “Calm down, honey. She wanted something to remember her sister-in-law by.”

  “No, she wanted something for nothing. This is why we don’t get along, Mom. She is always pulling crap like this. She doesn’t care about Miranda. She didn’t even show up at her funeral.”

  “Well, she had to work.”

  “She could have gotten off. All she does it make appointments for timeshare sales. From home! She could have just gotten up and walked out her front door. I’ve had it with her!”

  “Please calm down, Don. She’s family and one day when we’re gone it’ll just be you and her.”

  “No, Mom, it’ll just be me. I don’t want anything to do with her!”

  Back to work on Monday. We actually had something kind of exciting. Someone had broken into a sailor’s house. He was out at sea so we had to try and figure out what was missing. It wasn’t too difficult; his big screen TV was gone, his laptop, his game system and a stereo. We figured it was probably kids so we put a call out to local pawn shops after we got in touch with the sailor and he told us he had a list of serial numbers in the table by the front door. Smart man!

  I called maintenance and waited until they showed up to replace the broken window. They said they’d be right there and three hours later they showed up. They claimed there had been a problem in the men’s room at the Officer’s Club. Of course, that was much more important than protecting the belongings of a sailor at sea serving his country.

  I had noticed over the last few weeks that my temper was more and more on edge. One day Dany pulled me aside and asked me what was going on.

  “What do you mean? Nothing is going on. Why?”

  “You’re flying off the handle pretty easy these days. You didn’t use to do that. You were probably one of the most level headed guys I knew. Know what I think?”

  “What’s that, Danny?” I said impatiently.

  “That’s what I’m talking about right there. That attitude you have.”

  “What attitude?” I demanded.

  “I think you aren’t handling Miranda’s death very well. In college we learned about the five stages of grief. One of them is anger and one is denial. I think you’re stuck somewhere between the two.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll work on it. Can I go home now?”

  “Not quite yet, Don.” He pulled a brochure out of his back pocket and handed it to me.

  “What is the Employee Assistance Program?” I asked.

  “They can help with all kinds of problems you might face. It’s paid for by the company and your insurance. I want you to contact them and get some counseling.”

  “Well, I’ll think about it.”

  Danny looked me straight in the eyes and said, “No, you’ll do it. It’s not a request, it’s mandatory. If you don’t comply I’ll have to write you up and it’ll go in your jacket. The company can put you on administrative leave if they have to. I don’t want it to get to that. Won’t you do it for me? But especially for yourself?”

  I thought about it a moment and then nodded my head. “Yeah, Danny thanks. I had been thinking about talking to someone a little while back. Thanks for doing this for me.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder, smiled and said, “I’ll see you in the morning, killer!”

  Oh my god! That hit me like a punch in the gut. I knew it was just an expression but it wasn’t funny.

  I walked out to my truck and headed home. On the way the realtor called and told me that the condo was ready for me to move in. I actually smiled at the news.

  When I got home I called the number on the EAP brochure and the operator gave me the names of several counselors on the Peninsula. I’d start calling them in the morning and set up an appointment with one of them. She told me that my insurance would cover only three sessions and she wished me luck.

  Great! I’m sure I could work out all of this pain, anger and guilt in three one hour sessions. What could go wrong?

  I told Danny what was going on and asked him if the counseling could wait a couple a weeks since I was in the middle of moving. He agreed but said I had to go. I promised him I would.

  I never told the counselor about Resnick directly. I did tell him that I wished the two of them were dead and felt like if I could get my hands on them I’d be able to kill them myself. He said he understood and that was really a natural reaction as long as I didn’t act on it. I nodded my head in all the right places.

  It took time for me to unpack and get the new place set up. Thankfully the movers I’d hired put things in the rooms they needed to go in. They even set up my bed so all I had to do was put bed linens on it and go to sleep. I tossed and turned all night. I guess it was being in a new place.

  Oh my god was that commute from York County to Norfolk a living hell! Traffic backed up every morning and backed up even more on the way home. Some nights it took me over two hours to get home. I began to seriously consider seeing if I could transfer to the Naval Weapons Station in Yorktown. I checked to see if they any openings but there was nothing I was qualified for or wanted to do.

  So I guess I was stuck with the commute for now anyway. I began to have second thoughts about moving back to the Peninsula. But it was what it was. I began to hate the drive until one morning.

  I had gotten off the interstate at Granby Street and was sitting at the light to turn onto Little Creek Road, at Ward’s Corner, to go to the base when I saw two men standing together talking. I swear it looked like Marcus Garvey! I tried to make a U-turn but by the time I got back he was gone.

  On the way home I drove around Ward’s Corner looking for him. I gave up when it got dark. I grabbed something from the Hardee’s drive through and ate in silence at the house.

  My mind was whirling. Had I really seen him? This guy had a beard and longer hair but I was so sure it was him. It had to be him! I couldn’t be mistaken. I had seen him. Dammit.

  I didn’t get any sleep that night. Around two in the morning I went to the garage and put my suitcase in the back of my Tahoe. The one that held my knives, guns, latex gloves and other things I thought I’d need. I loaded in tarps, ropes and a case of bottled water and some snacks.

  I was on the hunt again and this time I’d finish what I started.

  I obsessed on Garvey. I hunted him all around Ward’s Corner. I went into every store and shop. I was tempted to show his picture off to see if anyone had seen him but I didn’t want to tip my hand.

  I spent weekends making circles around Ward’s Corner. I moved a little further down Granby Street and started going up and down all of the side streets looking left and right. My neck started to cramp but I ignored it. I was determined to find t
hat bastard. Sometimes when I’d get home I’d vomit because my nerves were so stressed. I wasn’t eating like I should either.

  How I kept it together at work I’ll never know. Danny never said anything else about my attitude. We worked side-by-side and would go to lunch together every day. I ate pretty well then and sometimes that was my only meal of the day.

  I was more exhausted then I had ever been in my life. I still hadn’t unpacked all of the boxes at the house. I was just grabbing things out of them as I needed them.

  One day Danny mentioned I had a lot of leave time racked up and I was at the point where if I didn’t use some of it I’d lose it. So I took two weeks off.

  I decided I’d spend the first two days resting and trying to figure out my next move to find Garvey. Then I unpacked everything and actually turned my house into a home. I missed Miranda but it seemed just a little bit less than before. I didn’t like that and was determined to hold onto her memory tight. I got one of my favorite pictures of her blown up. I bought a nice frame and hung it over the fireplace. It was one of those pictures that seemed no matter where you were in the room she was looking at you.

  It was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night. I told her I loved her every time I looked at it.

  Was she watching me from Heaven? Was she my guardian angel knowing every thought I had? I was uneasy with those thoughts to be honest. But I still loved her.

  I had dinner with Mom and Dad almost every night. I realized they were getting up in age and I needed to spend time with them. Dad and I talked about what they had planned when they were gone and told me he had set me up as the executor of their will. He handed me a three inch thick notebook and said everything I needed to know was in there. Not only was the notebook heavy but he handed me a heavy burden.

  He had never seemed to trust me much and I was surprised he was now. He also said he had something important to tell me. He said I needed to be calm and not get upset. He was scaring the hell out of me already and he hadn’t even told me what he had to say yet.

  “So, Don. Have you noticed anything different about your mother?”

  “Not really,” I said. “She’s a little forgetful but I just figured that came with age.”

  “Well, yes and no. It’s a little more serious than that. Your mother, Don, is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s.”

  I was floored! Just how much more could I take?

  Chapter 4

  I asked my dad what I could do to help and he said, “Just be there for her. Let her have her memories now because soon she will forget them.”

  Then I asked him what I could do for him. He said, “I’ll let you know if I need anything.” That was my dad’s way of saying, “Butt out!”

  I drove the four miles back to my house and thought about the relationship between my mom and myself. It had never been a good one but I sure didn’t want her to have to go through what was ahead.

  All of this was just getting to be too much for me; Resnick, Garvey, moving, finding out my mom had a death sentence… and of course Miranda.

  I still hadn’t gotten over her. I knew it was going to take a long time, maybe years, but right now it was still too fresh and I was too raw. Maybe it was a bad time to be making any kinds of decisions.

  I kind of felt like maybe I had jumped the gun by moving back to the county so fast. Yes, I needed to get out of our old house but I could have gotten an apartment or something in Norfolk or Virginia Beach. I was faced five days a week with the “Hell Drive” as I had begun to call it. It took hours to drive less than thirty miles. It was just ridiculous.

  I had to face it, this was killing me. I had to step back and take care of me. I decided to go to church the next day since it was Sunday.

  I went expecting some big revelation. I thought the preacher was going to deliver a sermon so wise that it would solve all of my problems at once. But that didn’t happen. The church had changed so much since I had been there years ago. I didn’t know hardly anyone at all. The reverent atmosphere I had grown up with was long gone evidently.

  People didn’t put their kids in the nursery anymore it seemed. Babies were crying, toddlers were fussing and running around. Teenagers were on their cell phones and laughing. Adults were getting up and going in and out of the sanctuary while the pastor droned on. People were dressed in jeans and t-shirts. I had no idea what the sermon was about. I watched as my parents sat there oblivious to all of this and smiled their happy Christian smiles.

  Once the benediction was said I was up and out of there. That was ridiculous. Where was God? Certainly not in that building! You used to be able to feel His presence there when I was young. But then we were in a proper sanctuary, not a converted gymnasium. People dressed up and carried Bibles. Prayers meant something. Sermons were meaningful and heartfelt. But, it seemed, all of that was in the past.

  The church was dead. God had left the building or so it seemed. I was shocked and depressed. I went home, fixed a sandwich and thought about watching TV the rest of the day but I never turned it on. I realized I was truly alone. No friends, no real family, no God. I hurt to my core. My soul literally ached.

  So I sat in my recliner, staring at the wall above the television and tried to decide what to do with my life. It had been shattered and lay in pieces on the floor. I couldn’t even sweep up the pieces because I didn’t have the tools. I held out my hands before me and thought about them.

  When I was a boy they had held toys, a baseball bat, a fishing pole, and so much more. As I became a teenager they had held girls hands and worked on my car. In my twenties they had held a paintbrush as Miranda and I had painted our first home, they had held her while she slept and cared for her when she was sick.

  I grew older and they held a gun on my job, they filled out reports and fed me copious amounts of fast food. They had held the bloodied body of my wife and covered my eyes as I wept. They touched her coffin and held her face as I gave her one final kiss. They reached out when the funeral director closed the lid. I didn’t want her locked in that box. I wanted to jump up and throw it open and gaze on her face for all eternity.

  And now I was alone and in more pain than I had ever been in my life. I didn’t have any answers to all of the questions running through my mind. I hated sitting here alone in this condominium. But I didn’t think I was ready to be with someone else. I felt like I’d be cheating on Miranda. On the other hand I missed the touch of a woman, the smell and taste of home cooking and not microwaved dinners and frozen pizzas. I wanted someone to talk to, to share my day with and kiss good night.

  Would Miranda understand if I was with another woman? Would she forgive me? Would she haunt me and try to drive the other woman out? Or would she tell me it was alright and say that she didn’t want me to be alone.

  If something happened to me would I want her to be with another man? No. I’d haunt them until he ran in terror. I thought about that movie, Ghost. If we couldn’t be together in life maybe that would be a good alternative. No, that was stupid.

  I wanted to be with her. I went out to the garage, opened the tailgate of the Tahoe and got my 9mm. I went back to the living room and sat in my chair. I felt the weight of the gun. I looked at its black surface. Felt the coolness of the metal, I checked the magazine and jacked a round into the chamber.

  I stared at it for a long time. I put it to my temple but didn’t put my finger on the trigger. I could feel my hand shaking. I dropped my hand between my knees. I felt the roughness of the grip in my hand. I rubbed my thumb on it. I picked it up again and put the barrel into my mouth.

  Then I heard Miranda’s voice and remembered a conversation we had had years ago. We were talking about what we’d do if one of us died and what would the other one do? Both of us had had the initial thought that we’d kill ourselves. But the ever rational Miranda had said, “What if we both don’t make it to Heaven because of that? Would it be worth it? Basically suicide is murder, a mortal sin.”
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  Well, that didn’t help my darling. I had already committed murder. Did that mean I was going to Hell while she remained in Heaven? Would she know or would she spend eternity waiting on me and I would never show up? I just didn’t know.

  What I did know is that I still wanted Marcus Garvey dead. It had to be by my hand. If I dwelt on him and let it fester what would happen to me? Look at me now; I’m a complete, indecisive mess with answers to none of my questions. The more I thought it seemed the less I knew. One question seemed to lead to more questions instead of any answers.

  Who knows? Maybe I’m thinking too hard and blocking the answers. Or maybe I’m just a fool and will never have the answers. I can’t find them on my own and I have no idea what to do.

  Then it occurred to me!

  I got up, unloaded the pistol and took it back out to the truck. I came back inside and got a piece of paper and a pen. I sat down at the table and began to make a list. That’s what we did at work when we were faced with a particularly difficult situation. Usually several of us hashed it over and came up with a solution. Now it’d just be me.

  I began to write;

  Marcus Garvey. Live or die?

  What does it mean in the end for me?

  What to do about my job? Is the drive too much? Are you happy there?

  Is it time for you to quit mourning and get back your life?

  Can you face yourself if you do?

  Where would you start?

  So, what are the answers?

  I want him dead. I cannot forgive him for what he did. He took my life from me. All of my plans and hopes and dreams. He took the only woman that I ever truly loved. He has to pay!

  That I can’t answer. I can just hope God understands and forgives me. I think that’s fair in light of how I feel about Garvey. But God has killed millions of people over the centuries because they trespassed against Him. Garvey has trespassed against me. Turnabout is fair play. I just hope God sees it that way!