First Edition
DarkFuse
P.O. Box 338
North Webster, IN 46555
www.darkfuse.com
Restoration © 2012 by Greg F. Gifune
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Restoration
If it hadn’t been for the rain, I would have seen him. Crossing less than a block away, hurrying across slick streets on a rickety old bicycle, probably worrying his mother would be upset that he was late for dinner, he never saw me either. I thought a lot about what must have been going through that kid’s head right before the bullet caught him in the neck and sent him spinning, crashing to the pavement in a tangle of metal and flesh. The sickening sounds of his head slapping concrete, the bike frame scraping and skidding along the curb. And then, my eyes straining through the curtains of rain, watching the rear tire spin, the chain dangling like a broken limb, the kid, face down in the street, a halo of blood fanning out around him and mixing with water escaping into gutters.
It seemed so quiet right then, as if I’d killed the only other living soul on Earth. Even the din generally associated with the city vanished, leaving me alone in the rain, the 9mm still in my hand, chest heaving, hair plastered to my skull.
A horrifying scream cut the night, echoing through the alleys, and it wasn’t until I’d sprinted across the street and crouched next to the boy that I realized the scream was my own.
Sixteen years I gave the department. Sixteen fucking years. Two marriages and three kids later, I was still a beat cop. Just like my old man, and his old man before him. No gold shield detectives or politicians in our family, just stick-swinging flatfoots working the Italian neighborhoods we’d grown up in ourselves.
And in one night, chasing a spike addict who’d ripped off a convenience store, it all ended. The clerk had told me he showed her a piece, so I’d drawn mine and taken off in the direction she said he’d headed. I’d closed the gap quickly, and found a man matching her description crossing one of the parks near the Boston Common. His casual stroll turned into a full run when I shouted to him, and the chase was on.
Blocks later, with still no sign of backup, my lungs burning and eyes tearing, the rain became more violent, and as the perp darted onto a side street off of Washington, he stopped and raised his gun. A bit off balance, but convinced the sonofabitch was going to shoot me, I fired.
I missed him, and in seconds a ten-year-old kid named Jamaal Thompson was dead in the street. The spike addict bolted and was never found. Since he never fired a shot and there was no evidence to suggest I’d even encountered him, several political groups in the city assumed I’d mistaken this poor black kid for the perp and shot him by accident.
Amidst allegations of racism, the use of unnecessary deadly force and outright negligence, I was suspended, the situation was investigated, and a few months later I was cleared of any criminal charges and quietly retired at the age of thirty-six.
I found a shit security guard gig at a used car lot in West Roxbury a while later, where I spent my nights watching a bunch of cars no one would want anyway for near minimum wage. My days were spent hanging at Sallie’s, a bar a block from my apartment in the old neighborhood. But no matter how much vodka I pumped into my veins, the vision of that little kid never left me. The guilt—the fucking unrelenting guilt—never left me, and I replayed that night over and over, falling asleep more often than not reworking endless scenarios that somehow might have made it right.
A year later everything changed.
When I started seeing him again.
***
Located across from a vacant, garbage-strewn lot, the car dealership was sandwiched between a strip mall and a fast food restaurant along a stretch of road less than a mile from the state highway junction. My shift started at ten and wrapped at six in the morning when the owner showed and opened for business.
Except for my occasional rounds of the property, I spent the majority of the shift at a salesman’s desk positioned in the front window, which, on a clear night, gave me a perfect view of the entire lot as well as most of the street beyond. It wasn’t an armed detail, which was good, because since the shooting I’d packed every gun I owned away in a lockbox I kept in a closet in my apartment. I carried a baton and a handheld company two-way, and passed the time listening to late night talk shows on a portable radio I brought with me, or, if my head was clear enough to concentrate, I’d read a paperback. If shit went down, I wasn’t there to save the day anyway, just to call it in and wait for the cops to handle it. Goddamn babysitter with a cheap tin badge and a rented uniform is all I was.
The company supervisor only showed for a few minutes twice a week, and always on the same nights, so I started bringing a handful of nips with me. The vodka helped pass the time too, helped me to forget all that had happened and all that my life had become.
But even the booze couldn’t rid me of the things that started coming to me that night, because unlike the memories and nightmares, this was different. This was real.
It was nearly three in the morning when I saw him. A heavy fog had blanketed the area, rolling in off the water and making visibility only a few feet at most. The street was quiet, I hadn’t seen a car pass in more than half an hour, and I was rummaging through my gym bag for a fresh nip when I noticed movement from the corner of my eye.
I stood up, leaned over the desk and peered into the fog, a small lamp on the corner of the desk providing the only interior light. Two powerful beams positioned on the showroom roof cut a path through the fog, illuminating portions of the lot and the rows of shit-boxes. Just beyond the edge of the property was a boy—a boy on a bicycle—just sitting there, small arms folded across his chest; tendrils of slow-moving fog swirling around him, embracing him like gray fingers.
Dropping the nip back into the bag, I moved around the side of the desk and forced myself closer to the window. The boy was looking right at me, his face partially masked in night and mist. I told myself it was just some kid out riding his bike in the middle of the night, but even that first time, despite what my mind insisted could not be true, I knew exactly who he was.
And from the look in the boy’s dark eyes, he recognized me too.
Hands slick with sweat, knees trembling, I forced myself to the door, eyes still locked on his. I felt cool metal in my hand, heard the click as I disengaged the deadbolt, the sound somehow signaling I had dropped my defenses. And still, the kid sat there, the bike between his legs, arms folded across his narrow chest.
The nightstick gently slapped my thigh, reminding me of its continued presence as I pushed the door open and stepped into the fog. The air was brisk, a bit cooler than it should have been, and the fog seemed to dissipate somewhat. A loud and steady thud distracted me, and I casually dropped a hand down to the nightstick. I had taken three more steps into the lot, slowly closing the gap between us, before I realized the sound was my own heart hammering against the walls of my chest.
Too much vodka, I told myself. Too many sleepless nights. Too many nightmares.
“Hey, kid,” I heard myself say, my voice anything but forceful, “you all right?”
The boy continued to stare.
“There a problem? What’re you doing out here this time of night?”
The slightest trace of what might have been a smile twitched across his lips, and he slowly unfolded his arms, raised a hand and pointed at me. The finger held fast for several seconds before curling back, beckoning me.
My gut clenched and my throat constricted, nearly caused me
to gag. I broke eye contact long enough to make a quick sweep of the lot. Maybe this was a robbery and the kid was the decoy. But the lot and street beyond was empty, still as a graveyard. My eyes found him again, and I blinked rapidly until they focused.
“It ain’t him,” I mumbled. “It ain’t him.”
I continued the mantra under my breath, still clutching the nightstick at my side, my palm slick with sweat and my bowels feeling as if they might let loose at any moment. “You’re on private property, son. No loitering.”
The kid grabbed the handlebars and spun the bike in the opposite direction. Before he pedaled off, he looked back over his shoulder at me, and motioned with his head for me to follow him.
I stood there, a shell of the man I’d once been, and hating myself for it. Without a word, the boy pushed his bike forward and slipped away into the fog, glimpses of him visible through the pockets along the road before he vanished completely around a bend.
***
I spent the rest of my shift at my desk, watching the lot like a hawk, chain smoking and powering through the nips still left in my bag. By the time dawn began to break over the city, I’d started to relax again, to convince myself all that had happened was no more than an exhausted and tortured mind conjuring demons and specters where none existed. A kid on a bike, that’s all, not the kid, just a kid. My imagination had provided the rest.
By seven I was back at my apartment, a two-story I’d called home for more than a year. The first floor had once been rented out to a used bookstore, but they’d closed a few months prior, so I had the building all to myself. The second-floor apartment wasn’t anything special, but it was good enough for my needs, basically a studio with a full bath and a functioning kitchenette. Once back in the neighborhood—my neighborhood—a place I’d grown up in, where everyone knew me, and not for all the wrong reasons, I felt a lot more comfortable.
Determined to get some sleep, I stripped down to my boxer shorts and grabbed a fresh bottle of vodka from the cabinet above my stove. I stopped near my bed and studied the framed pictures on my nightstand like I did every morning, remembering times when I was a part of something, something with meaning. A family.
My second wife Audry smiled back at me beneath glass. On either side of her stood our kids, Vincent and Nina. Audry had met a mailman not long after she’d left me and subsequently married him. The kids went with her, and I only saw them now on holidays or special occasions, if I was lucky. They’d sided with her. Their mother the saint, their father the sinner, that’s how they saw things, and on most days, I couldn’t blame them.
I turned my back on what had once been, cracked the bottle and killed nearly half of the fucker in one shot. Sleep. Sleep would make everything all right.
I pulled the shade on one window, then moved to the second, which faced the street. Gripping the bottom, I gave a slight tug, raising it slowly and letting the gentle morning rays of sunshine slip into the room.
On the street below, perched on the curb, sat the boy on the bicycle. He was looking up at the apartment, his eyes focused right on me.
Startled, I yanked the shade back down, holding it there and trying to regain control of my breathing. My heart was racing with such force I had chest pains. I slammed my eyes shut and drew several slow, deep breaths. I plunked the vodka bottle on the bureau to my right, my other hand still clutching the shade, and did the best I could to convince myself I was hallucinating. It’s finally happened, I told myself, my mind’s snapped and I’m fucking certifiable. None of this is happening—none of it.
Convinced I had regained control of myself, I gave the shade a tug and raised it again.
Standing on the fire escape, small palms pressed against the thin pane of glass separating us stood the boy, sorrowful eyes boring right through me.
I recoiled and staggered back, a muffled grunt that should have been a scream dying in the base of my throat as I fell back to the floor. Scrambling and crawling, I rolled over and went for the closet. I pulled open the door and in one motion reached for the top shelf, pulling down the lock box and nearly everything else up there along with it.
As various items showered down around me, scattering across the floor, I fumbled with the padlock on the box, only to realize the key was on my ring, which I kept in the top drawer of my bureau.
Turning, forcing myself to look at the window again, I gave a defiant scream of both rage and fear, prepared to lunge for the bureau. But the boy was gone.
I struggled back to my feet and approached the window hesitantly, certain something would materialize before me. But nothing did. The fire escape was empty, the street below now crowded with neighborhood folk milling about, going to work, hailing cabs, drinking coffee, checking watches, hurrying to begin their day.
I ran a shaking hand over my face. My boxers were stuck to me, my inner thighs soaked, and a growing puddle of urine was collecting around my bare feet.
Sinking slowly to the floor like a deflating balloon, the tears quickly transformed from sobs to a violent force that overtook me, choking my entire body like unseen hands throttling a rag doll.
There on the floor, my body twisted into a fetal position, lying in my own filth and tears and sweat, I understood for the first time that which I feared most had come to fruition. I was completely insane.
And then another thought slithered into what was left of my mind.
Maybe I was damned.
***
My brother Nicky had always been the pride of the family, and even though our parents had died within months of each other a few years before, the feeling of having always been their “other” son remained with me. It wasn’t Nicky’s fault; we’d just gone in different directions. I went to the police academy; he went to the seminary. I’d followed in my old man’s footsteps, but nothing topped being a priest—your own flesh and blood hand-selected by God Himself—at least not in a Catholic Italian family. Third generation Americans still practicing the “three P’s” that had been associated with our people since we’d crossed at Ellis Island all those years before: Politics, Police and Priesthood.
After stints in upstate New York and Maryland, Nicky was assigned to Saint Rita’s, the parish in our old neighborhood, where he’d served as pastor for nearly a decade. We weren’t as close as we should have been—as we both would’ve liked—and since the incident and my retirement from the force, we rarely saw each other except occasionally in church, or now and then when we happened to pass each other on the street.
But after all that had happened, I knew I had to sit down and talk to someone. Nicky was a priest, and I respected that, but he was still my little brother, and when I looked at him it was hard to see the sanctity of his position. Instead, I saw the same kid I taught to hit a baseball, the same little runt with a runny nose and chocolate ice cream smeared all down the front of him, following me around and trying to be just like me. At least until his calling, then it all changed.
Just the same, he was a priest, a man of God, and someone who had known me his entire life, through thick and thin. If nothing else, I could trust him.
I splashed some water on my face, dressed, and walked the four blocks to the rectory, my eyes trained straight ahead for fear I might see the boy on the bicycle again. But the four blocks came and went without incident, and I found Nicky in his office doing some paperwork for an upcoming wedding.
“Mike,” he said, eyes peering at me over his half-glasses.
“Hey, Nick.”
He sat up quickly, tossed the paperwork aside and pulled his glasses off. “Mike, my God, are—are you all right?”
I moved deeper into the office and closed the door behind me. “I need to talk to you.”
Nick slowly rose to his feet, moved out from behind the desk and embraced me. “You don’t look so good,” he whispered.
I gave a feeble attempt at a hug then nearly collapsed into a plastic chair. He sat on the front corner of his desk, an expression of concern and vague disappoin
tment etched across his otherwise handsome face. “You’ve been drinking again,” he said, more statement than question. “You look like shit.”
“You shouldn’t use that language,” I sighed. “You’re a priest, for Christ’s sake.”
“I’m also your brother.” He rubbed his eyes and offered a sigh of his own. “What can I do for you, Mike?”
“I need to ask you some questions. Some strange stuff has been going on lately, and…I’m not sure what to think.”
Nicky nodded, folded his arms. “All right.”
“Do you think…Nicky, do you think there’s such a thing as ghosts?”
He rolled his eyes and moved over to a small coffee maker on a table against the far wall. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Nick, I’m—”
“When’s the last time you slept? You can’t keep doing this. Drunk this time of day, it’s—”
“Listen to me, goddamn it!”
The volume of my voice startled him, and he turned slowly, looked back over his shoulder at me, a Styrofoam cup in each hand. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.” I watched him blur through the tears filling my eyes and struggled for control. “I’ve been…seeing things. Things that aren’t supposed to be there, that can’t be there, you understand?”
Nicky filled both cups with coffee and handed me one. “You’ve got a serious alcohol problem. These things happen after a while. Why don’t you let me make a few calls, I know some good programs where—”
“It ain’t the booze.”
“You expect me to believe you’re seeing ghosts?”
“You’re my little brother. I expect you to believe me period.” I sipped the coffee, felt it burn the back of my throat as I swallowed. “I’ve been seeing the kid.”
Nicky stared at me for a moment, then it dawned on him and his expression softened. “The Thompson boy?” He waited until I nodded before speaking again. “You need to go see someone, Mike. You need to get some help.”
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