A Guardian of Innocents

by Jeff Orton

  Leaning back into me, she said, “Damn, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were that ticklish.”

  My eyes rolled down her neck and I noticed a small birthmark for the first time. It was shaped like the state of Florida, only backwards with the panhandle pointing east instead of west.

  I could feel my face turning red, “Yeah. Never knew I even had a ticklish spot.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” she said, looking up at me with a sly grin, “Everybody’s got ‘em. You probably have more.”

  She set her glass on the table and turned on me. Her playful fingers attacked my stomach and sides, determined to find another weak spot. I fought back with an assault of my own and Des squealed and laughed as she locked her arms to her sides in self-defense. She fell back towards the left, face red, bare feet kicking out at me. But I wasn’t about to let up now.

  Her mental blockade had wavered when I started tickling her back.

  In our struggling, I ended up on top of her. She suddenly stopped squirming around then. She took both of my hands in hers and gave me... the look. No words (or thoughts) were exchanged. The Look transcends all that useless bullshit.

  I leaned in and kissed her, gently at first. She let go of my hands. I was fearful for a moment she meant to push me off of her, but one hand found its way into my hair, her other moved up the back of my arm. Her tongue slipped into my mouth as warm breath escaped her nose, caressing my face. She let out a soft, weak moan.

  She was shaking. We both were.

  We were entranced like this for quite some time. I was lost in a reverie of amazement and euphoria. It seemed so damn unreal that this could actually be happening. We lasted like this for maybe a half hour. What finally broke the spell was the loud white noise of the television static after the movie credits were finished and the tape had run out.

  The VCR began to whine as the automatic rewind function kicked in. I found the TV remote on the floor and hit the power button as I sat back up on the sofa.

  “So—“ I started to say.

  Desiree sat up and hushed me, “Talk later.”

  She pushed me back so that I was now lying down and straddled me. Her dark red hair hung in my face. The smell of it was intoxicating, like some potent, exotic incense. She went to work on my neck, delicately kissing some exquisitely sensitive spot the girls before her had never discovered. She moved her hips back and forth at a slow pace that grew steadier every minute that passed. At this point, I was so damn hard it hurt. It was literally aching and throbbing.

  My hands roamed freely, no longer hindered by questions of impropriety. We stripped each other in a rush of impetuous excitement. I kissed her breasts and suckled her nipples as she rode me on the couch. Never in my life had I felt such an excruciatingly powerful release as I did that moment when I first came inside her.

  We did it once more on the floor, though it really wasn’t much more than a continuation of the couch. We did finally end up in the bedroom, but that was mostly just to rest and talk.

  “So what prompted all this,” I asked, “On your end, I mean.”

  She shrugged as she lay on her back, staring upwards at the ceiling. Her wavy hair spilled over the pillow and along her bare shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally, “I guess I just had time to think about things... regret things.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  * * *

  By the next morning, I knew I had no intention of ever returning to Dallas. It wasn’t a conscious decision, not really. It felt more like just a simple fact I’d discovered.

  And Des wanted me to stay. She invited me to live with her indefinitely before I even had a chance to ask. The plan was for me to lie low for the next few weeks until we were reasonably sure the FBI didn’t have anything that might point me out as the gunman. We would watch the news and read the paper and news magazines religiously. After we became confident the entire Mansfield Massacre media fiasco was safely dead, I could get a job and maybe transfer my school credits to a local college up here.

  The call I finally made to Doris wasn’t easy. To describe her as a basketcase would be like calling Hurricane Andrew a bad thunderstorm. She had filed a missing person’s report with the police who’d told her just today that I had purchased a plane ticket to New York. My entire body went cold when she told me that. The police advised her since I was of age, there wasn’t anything else they could do for her and recommended she might try to hire a private investigator.

  I did my best to calm and placate her, but all assurances that I was okay fell deaf on her ears. I was crazy. I was mean. I was ungrateful. She was all alone here now. I was feeling pretty shitty until the ungrateful comment. I almost lashed out with: “Yeah, Mom, I’m grateful. I’m so grateful that you let Dad fuck me all those years and said nothing!”

  But of course I stopped myself at “Yeah, Mom—” The last thing I wanted to say was something hurtful (maybe even catastrophic) to her. I knew she still cared about me in her own twisted way.

  The call to Bo went much more smoothly.

  “You’re in New York, aren’t you? Good to hear from yuh.”

  I hadn’t even said hello yet. “Yeah, how’d you..?”

  “I knew you had it bad for that girl, man. Hey, I got a call a few days ago from your mom. Said you disappeared. I didn’t tell her anything, but I figured I knew where you probably ran off to.”

  Eventually, the media circus surrounding the Massacre dissipated itself into near oblivion, as any news story where nothing new is discovered inevitably does. On the day before the one-year anniversary, 20/20 ran a special on it, which did almost nothing but rehash the same information the public was already aware of. This particular program was hard for Des to watch. Certain pictures taken from the crime scene caused her to avert her eyes. The gore which was too graphic for primetime television was blurred out, but her imagination was strong enough to compensate for what she couldn’t see.

  The identity of the killer was ‘still a mystery.’ The only way they could find me was if I got caught for another crime and was then subjected to a DNA test.

  Des and I got along about ninety percent of the time, which I think is damn good when you consider all the other miserable couples out there. We still had our squabbles—it seems even telepaths are capable of miscommunication.

  But what we disagreed about most was religion. Desiree claimed to have gotten ‘saved’ sometime after coming to New York. As an atheist/agnostic, it seemed humorous to me that one could find God in the modern-day Babylon. She desperately wanted me to go to church with her on Sundays, but I always refused. My excuse being that I’d been exposed to enough Mormon dogma to inoculate me from the entire Christian faith. I wanted nothing to do with organized religion.

  In what has to be my greatest verbal fuck-up, I once asked Des what her brethren think of her fucking and living with a guy out of wedlock. The hurt in her eyes projected itself into me like frozen arrows of ice. I knew even as the words fell out of my mouth how incredibly cruel that question was and immediately tried to take it back. I spent the next twenty-four hours or so genuinely concerned that I might have to pack up my shit and head back to Dallas.

  But we got through it. She forgave me, but the weekly arguments persisted. In one such heated debate, I told her I might consider letting God into my life if He could erase my tortured childhood and give me a father who actually cared about me.

  She never bothered me about church again.

  The years passed with hardly any noteworthy events. We joined the masses in Times Square to welcome the year 2000. You’d think with all those thousands of people packed so tightly together that we should all radiate some kind of natural group body heat, but the cold seeped through our multiple layers of clothing like icy tentacles.

  In the first half of 2001, Des got laid off, but found a new job quickly enough. She even got to work in one of New York’s most prominent buildings. I tended bar at a restaurant, but my tips were a joke compared
to the steady paycheck she brought home.

  On a cool Monday night, I left work on foot and headed down into a subway station; one of the many that were notorious for muggings, though I had yet to experience one firsthand. I always knew when someone nearby was armed and took great pains to avoid them, always keeping a healthy distance and never making eye contact.

  But I thought my time had finally come when someone sat down right next to me on the train as I read through the latest Stephen King paperback. There was hardly anyone in this car, and this motherfucker in a black trench coat decides to sit his ass down so close to me that our elbows are touching.

  “Been a long time,” he said.

  I knew his voice. I didn’t even bother looking up from my book. I tried my best not to project any fear or surprise.

  “Been a little less than four years, I suppose,” I responded.

  “Good times,” he declared, a hint of a laugh in his voice.

  After a brief pause, I shut my book and looked over at him, “So why now?”

  “Something’s going to happen tomorrow. The world’s going to undergo some painful changes. I need you to be prepared.”

  Slightly perturbed by his vague answer, I asked, “Prepared for what?”

  “I’m not ready to offer you my gift just yet. Something else has yet to occur. You might hate me afterwards for withholding this information from you, but all I can tell you right now is that my silence in this matter is absolutely imperative. I’ll find you tomorrow when you’re ready.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, “Whatever the hell that means. Answer one thing for me, though, alright? What the fuck are you? Some kind of ghost, demon or something?”

  He laughed out loud then, causing the other two subway car occupants to glance up and appraise him with mild indifference. Just another asshole.

  “I’m just a man. Same as you. I just have talents few in this world possess. I’ve discovered how to do things most men could never even dream of.”

  The train squealed to a halt. “This is my stop,” he stated, “Tomorrow, consider all I’ve said.”

  He exited the car along with one of the other passengers. I watched him head towards the turnstiles, perplexed by his words. Why the hell was he so damn concerned with me anyways?

  I arrived home to find Des asleep in bed as always when I had to work weeknights. I thought about waking her to tell her about my latest encounter with the apparition, but decided against it. She looked so peaceful; all I wanted to do was lie next to her.

  * * *

  I awoke the next morning to find Desiree sitting on the side of the bed. She was crying.

  —undergo some painful changes—

  An internal alarm in my gut sounded off and I snapped out of my slumber.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I reached for her shoulder. She was staring at me with imploring eyes, bloodshot and puffy from the tears.

  But just as the tips of my fingers were about to make contact with her shoulder, she disappeared. Her body just winked out into nothingness.

  * * *

  I awoke from the nightmare shaking. What a weird fucking dream. I wished Des had woken me up before leaving for work. I wanted to tell her about the walking enigma I’d bumped into on the subway.

  I got up, took a piss and went to the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of orange juice. There was a small, magnetic 2001 calendar on the fridge’s door which I saw daily, but never really paid much attention to. It was Tuesday morning. I knew that much.

  I walked to the coffee table and hit the power button on the TV remote. I’m sure I felt the same initial disbelief every American must have felt on that tumultuous day. This has to be a joke. Maybe it’s a preview for a new movie, maybe a film based on a Tom Clancy book. But I didn’t think Clancy had ever written a novel in which both towers of the World Trade Center were decimated.

  I was still standing up. Glass of OJ in one hand, the remote in the other. I was shirtless, wearing only long pajama bottoms. My nervous thumb flipped the channel, just out of instinct. But the same images were on every station. Planes. Hijackers. President in Florida.

  Then I saw the first burning tower collapse into a billowing smoky gray cloud. I only half-heard the sound of breaking glass as the OJ slipped out of my hand and smashed onto the floor. I only half-felt the wet stickiness on my feet as the juice splashed onto them.

  “Not the North Tower, that’s not the North Tower,” I pleaded.

  The image of Des sitting on the bed came back to me. Her new job had her working on—what floor was it? Somewhere in the eighties. Maybe.

  A male voice announced, “The second tower... The second tower... Both towers of the World Trade Center have now completely collapsed.”

  “NOOOO!!!” I shrieked. I doubled over and fell to the floor as if sucker-punched.

  She was dead. I knew she was dead. I could feel it. I knew it as surely as I knew the sky was blue and the sun is yellow. She was gone. Buried in millions of tons of burning rubble. All I could do was cry, “No!” over and over again until my voice was hoarse. My throat was swelling shut from sobbing. I could hardly breathe.

  * * *

  I don’t completely remember how I got to Ground Zero. I think I went temporarily insane from a combination of the immense shock and unbearable grief. I can vaguely recollect a cab ride. I don’t even recall what the cabbie looked like. I was dropped off half a mile or so from the barricade the police had set up.

  The powderized concrete drifted through the air like snow. Those around me who weren’t crying just looked dazed and incoherent. It seemed fire engine horns and police sirens were echoing from every direction. Without much else to do, I walked the streets, confused. None of this seemed real. Everything looked two-dimensional.

  I lit a cigarette with jittery fingers. I was hungry, but felt no desire to eat. I had lost the one person in this world I truly loved and cared about.

  —tomorrow, consider all I’ve said—

  I stopped where I was.

  —you might hate me afterwards—

  I gasped, my eyes widening. “Son of a bitch!”

  That piece of shit knew this was going to happen today! Did he know Desiree worked in the World Trade Center? Hell, did he even know who Desiree was? What the FUCK! If he had told me... If he had only told me, I could have convinced Des to call in sick. Even if we’d thought he was full of it, we would have still taken the precaution.

  My stomach seized up as I coughed out a few dry heaves. The fact my belly had nothing to surrender to the Manhattan sidewalk seemed to make the motions of vomiting all that much more painful.

  Where are you, you son of a bitch? I thought as I looked around at all the shell-shocked citizens of New York, Where are you hiding? I know you’re watching me.

  The sky above looked like watered down milk. An approaching fire engine blared its horn, urging pedestrians to get out of the damn road.

  Tired of walking aimlessly, I sat down on a curb. I couldn’t help but think about Des. I couldn’t help but think about how I was never going to see her again. I’d never hear her laugh again, or see her smile. I thought about the slight dimples she got when she smiled after I complimented her about something, and... Oh, God—

  I lost it. My body curled into a fetal position as I wrapped my arms around my legs and buried my face in my knees. I rocked back and forth slightly as I screamed and wailed as loud as I possibly could into the muffled darkness I had created for myself.

  Several people were watching me. I could feel them. I didn’t give a fuck what they thought about me, but their thoughts came to me nevertheless. What surprised me was they all felt they understood why I was crying. Why I’d broken down. They sympathized with me because most of them felt like doing the same thing themselves. The horror of it all was just too much of an emotional overload.

  It was then that I decided to commit suicide. There was no Should I? or Will I have the guts to?. The only question I had for myself was “H
ow?” By what means was I going to end my life?

  It was that question I pondered as I started walking in the general direction of home. I figured if I got far enough away from the chaos of Lower Manhattan, I might be able to find another cab.

  * * *

  I walked a lot further than I’d planned. I spent long periods of time in a zombie-like trance. It was amazing someone hadn’t run me over during my long trek through the New York metropolitan area.

  It was the urgent need to take a piss that pulled my mind out of auto-pilot mode. I relieved myself in an alley and looked out towards a sun that was about an hour away from setting. How long had I been out of it—seven hours maybe? The sunlight was now coming in at such an angle, it was refracted by the smoky sky, bathing the city in a sickly orange hue.

  When I stepped back out onto the street, I realized I was almost home. As soon as I thought that my legs should be killing me, they began to give out. My legs had felt fine until I had a conscious thought concerning them. I was never so glad that our apartment was only on the second floor and no higher.

  Our apartment. I guess it was just mine now. Wait. No. I never put my name on the lease. I just lived there with Des. Oh, well. It wasn’t going to be anyone’s apartment for awhile, at least not until my remains had been cleaned up, and the chalk outline of my body had been erased from the floor.

  I had decided to hang myself, but I couldn’t find any rope that I thought was strong enough to support my weight, and as I checked out the ceiling of each room in the small one-bedroom apartment, I discovered that rope was a moot point since there was really nothing for me to hang from.

  My next plan was to try to get to the roof of my building. I’d go out as a jumper instead of a dangler. Hell yeah. I even told myself I was going to jump head first, just to eliminate any possibility of survival. Something told me the door to the roof of this ten-story building was probably going to be locked, so I took a crowbar with me.