Yes, they threatened me. Threatened to burn my father’s house down with him in it. But I’ve finally learned something from all this, a trait I should have picked up from my father years ago. Life’s too short to spend it being afraid.
I’m writing my book now, the one that started in a small cell occupied by just a black widow and me. Actually, I suppose it all started with that essay I wrote about religion. That’s some kind of metaphor for religion itself, I think. A small, simple idea, which in the wrong hands leads to very bad things.
Three months ago I was contacted by a major publishing house who wanted the rights to my story. They offered me a ghostwriter, but I told them I wanted to write this myself. It should be my voice, my words. They offered me a healthy advance, at least healthy for the likes of a kid from Owen, Pennsylvania. My dad didn’t owe a whole lot on his house, but now he doesn’t owe anything. I bought a small car for myself, a used Audi with 63,000 miles on it. But most importantly, I don’t need to worry about finding a job, at least for a little while. It’s given me time to write, to reflect on everything that’s happened. It didn’t take me long to realize that I needed therapy, and not just because of what happened to me this past year, but also what happened to me as a seven-year-old kid. I’m twenty-one, but my therapist says I’ve seen more than a lifetime’s worth of pain. That’s good, because now it should be smooth sailing from here on out.
If only things were that easy.
After I got out of the hospital and once the media attention died down a little, I spent some time with Derek’s family. Sometimes, when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I remind myself I’m lucky to be alive. Seeing the pain on the faces of Derek’s mother and father is a miserable affair, and it makes me wonder if I would ever even want to have kids. They have an anguish that will be with them always, a dark stain that goes with them everywhere they go, clouding every happy moment, heightening the sting of the painful ones.
I haven’t seen Jacob since he disappeared, though I understand he’s back living with his family. I’ve tried, but he doesn’t want to see anyone. I’ve heard he might have permanent damage from the drugs Coyote gave him, but that could just be a rumor. I don’t think he had any part in what happened to Emma or me, and I don’t hold any bad feelings against him. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to; I just don’t have the space for that kind of thing anymore. Maybe one day we’ll sit down and have a beer together, though most likely I will never see him again. I suppose either of those scenarios is okay by me.
I’m nearly at the end of my book, but there’s one loose end.
Emma.
After the night I killed Coyote, both Emma and I were rushed to the hospital. I was in more critical condition, but my wounds were ones that could heal. The abuse she endured went beyond the physical, though there was no small amount of that. The drugs Coyote had been using on her seeped deep into her brain, leaving her in a catatonic state for nearly a week. When she came out of the state, she was prone to fits of screaming, uncontrollable shaking, and endless hours of weeping. Coyote had consumed her, and what came back up was weak and damaged, just like everything else he had touched.
After three months she had healed; not entirely, but enough to move on with her life. I haven’t seen her yet, but we’ve spent hours on the phone together. She called me first, wanting to tell me she had no recollection of shooting me that night, and that she never would have chosen to do that. Of course I believe her. She had been brainwashed by Coyote and was able to only respond to his voice at that point. She very nearly killed me, but I would never blame her for anything. We were both victims, and she has only four fingers on her left hand as a grisly reminder of that fact.
Right now I’m in a sad little town called Redemption, Kansas, sandwiched between endless miles of fields that I’m guessing grow wheat and corn in the summer, but are barren, frozen landscapes in January. This place is barely a speck on my Thomas Guide map. I’m staying the night in a motel here, and will stay only as long as I need to get enough sleep to drive many more hours. There’s a quiet desperation to this town, where the few faces I’ve seen seem wrinkled not by years of smiling but by worrying, as if for decades they’ve all been told something horrible is just around the corner. I’m a stranger here and feel unwelcome, and am glad to only be passing through.
I’m headed west. San Francisco, to be exact. What I wrote about Emma wanting to move to San Francisco was the truth, and a month ago she did exactly that. I last spoke to her a week ago, and it was the first time I told her I was writing a book based on my experience. She asked if she was in it, and I told her she was.
Funny thing is, Emma has never read what I wrote in that cell. All she knows is one time I asked her to say we were lovers, and she did. She doesn’t know all the things I wrote about a secret love that never actually happened, about our first kiss, or making love in my apartment when Coyote was far away in the woods with Jacob. I wrote these things out of desperation, thinking that I could catch Coyote by surprise for once, and maybe then he would make a mistake. But rereading the words on my tattered and stained manuscript, I see more in my sentences than a ploy. I see something amounting to real affection—if not quite love, at least a serious crush. Maybe I’ve felt this way about Emma since the first time I met her at Benny’s, when I imagined that the gaze from her bright green eyes lingered on mine just a little longer than anyone else’s. That night, I thought she was the kind of woman men kill each other over.
So I’m driving to San Francisco and I’m going to let her read all the words I’ve written, and then I’ll take life from there. Maybe we’ll end up together, or maybe I’ll just be another boy who’s traveled a great distance for a girl, only to end up alone.
On this one, I’m going to be optimistic.
Redemption, Kansas
March 1991
Revelation Page 29