Willow Wood Road: Lavender and Sage

by Micah Sherwood

  “I just do not understand why the bastard was trying to hurt Micah. He had done nothing to him. It just doesn’t make sense.” Tom was shaking his head.

  “Harry Benoit was a bad man. He had been detained down in Louisiana for sodomy on a young boy a couple of years ago, but there never was a trial and he served no real time. And he was arrested for the same thing earlier this year. He was not prosecuted because the boy who accused him with his family died in a house fire. The fire was labeled suspicious by the New Orleans Fire Marshall.” Officer Mason was quiet for a few moments. “Forgive me for saying this, but he got exactly what he deserved. Now those boys and their families have some justice. And you and Micah have some peace.”

  Chapter 24: Confessions

  Micah was fifteen yards from the scrimmage line when Kevin finally decided to throw the ball, and he threw it wild. All Saints had a fantastic defensive game for a young high school team, and St. John’s had an equally aggressive offensive line, but you couldn’t tell it from this particular play. Micah ran ten yards crossways to get into position to catch the ball before he was sacked, but that was good enough for a first down.

  There were fifteen seconds left on the clock as Kevin got ready for the hike. When the ball popped, Micah ran wide right toward the End Zone with half of the All Saints defensive line chasing after him, while the quarterback tossed the ball left to Cory who ran it the 10 yards for a touchdown: Final Score 12 to 6 in favor of St. John’s.

  There was a good size crowd from Amarillo supporting the team. As Micah walked past the mob carrying his helmet, Lindy rushed him and placed a kiss on his forehead; he stopped, lifted her off of the ground and squeezed her as he laid his head against her neck breathing in her fragrance before proceeding into the building.

  The plan was to meet at the little café on McMasters after the five hour ride back to Amarillo. The all night café was expecting the team and their supporters; this was a St. John’s tradition. Micah, Cory and Kevin sat together on the bus, with Tandy and Dane sitting in an adjacent seat. Kevin had melded into the group seamlessly. He was not a cowboy; he hated horses and would rather go to the stock-car races than a rodeo. But nevertheless, he made himself one of them.

  Tandy and Dane played on both offensive and defensive lines. There were bigger boys on the field, but none that targeted and tackled better than they could. Dane had a way of flying that always amazed Coach Britt. He’d be yards behind a receiver and would spring at the boy, floating in slow-motion as he made the tackle. It was an amazing thing to behold. Tandy preferred the center position, snapping the ball to the quarterback and then ramming into the defensive line. For Tandy, it was the best of all worlds.

  Micah and Cory were the runners, and they had an eye—knowing where the ball was going before it was even thrown. Coach called it uncanny. The boys called it fun.

  Micah pushed his knees against the seat in front of him as he slouched back. The bus was quiet and dark as he glared into the darkness. It had been a very cool summer, but October felt like August, and the windows were down letting the wind air-condition the bus. Sleep had become a stranger since the Harry incident. Micah had never slept much anyway, but now if he slept more than a couple hours a night, he was doing well. And when he did sleep, his nightmares were terrible. He never could remember them, but he would awake sweating and throwing punches or yelling. All he knew for sure was the blood. Blood everywhere: on his hands, his clothes and shoes, everything was covered with gooey crimson.

  The boys knew about the night-visions. How could they not know when Micah would wake up slugging them? They threaten to tie him down at night but settled on letting him sleep alone. They thought it was sort of funny except Cory. Micah had stowed his emotions so deep that his pal was unable to read them, and that’s what scared him; that and Micah’s turn toward self-destructive behavior.

  The week before, Cory came into Micah’s bedroom late at night and stopped as he watched him tie and untie the hangman’s knot over and over again. His eyes were blank as his hands worked the rope. Cory went up to him and smacked him, but Micah continued without ever noticing. Then Cory almost beat the crap out of his friend. Only then did Micah come around.

  “Hey buddy,” Micah smiled as he lay back on his bed bloody from his friend’s blows. “Want to go running?”

  Cory was on the verge of tears. “Sure Buck, let’s go.”

  Micah didn’t remember that and Cory couldn’t forget it. His friend was fading away, and no one seemed to notice.

  They pulled up to the little café at 1:00 in the morning. It was summertime warm in Amarillo. There were banners hanging in the restaurant proclaiming “Home of the Saint John Crusaders, and the Globe Newspaper had a reporter there snapping pictures as people were getting off of the bus. They interviewed the Coach then spotted Mr. Dorsey, and the reporter went to his table.

  Tom Dorsey had been on the County Commission since forever. Micah sat next to him with Lindy, her brother Marshall, and Cory filling the rest of the table. The old man talked about how he was proud of the team and his boy, “a wide receiver.” Micah blushed as Tom patted his back. The reporter asked Micah and Lindy to stand together for a picture. They did and then the reporter finally left.

  After Micah ate three eggs and a steak, he was ready to go to the barn. Dane and Micah rode with Dorsey, Cory went with his parents, and Tandy jumped in the car with Marshall and Lindy.

  Dane hit the bed and was asleep instantly, but Micah changed into his running shorts and headed out. He had an appointment. He ran through the prairie next to the road, circling past Willow Wood and then up the alley to Maria Sewell’s house. She was alone and waiting for him, her husband stationed in Saigon.

  He walked through the gate to the patio and unlocked the backdoor with the key Maria had given him. She was asleep on the couch barely dressed. Micah grinned. He didn’t like her, but she was a drug that helped him forget. She felt the same way toward him. Each was the other’s crutch.

  Micah walked past the bar mirror and gazed into it. He froze because it was not his image he saw, but the faint reflection of Harry staring back, the top of his head mangled, blood and brain and bone fragments dotted his face.

  “What’s your name, buddy?” He spoke and disappeared.

  Micah poured some of the cognac that Maria kept on the counter, and he swallowed it in a single gulp while looking back into the mirror. Now it was vacant, no Harry and no Micah. He should to be put down; that’s what he needed to end his misery. “What am I doing here,” the boy said to himself as he stepped toward the couch. It was perverse and degenerate. He was perverse and degenerate. Most boys his age had no clue about intimacies, but for him it was natural and needed, more intoxicating than the alcohol and sort of like tripping with ‘shrooms except the fantasies were not cryptic and colorful but pornographic and debased. His little affair with Maria was quite nice; he’d get laid and a $20 bill in his pocket. “What a job,” he thought.

  He remained quiet, contemplating: “Is this my life, my destiny?”

  Maria was not been the only one; there was the whore at Larry’s place. After Micah’s switchblade vanished the night he was shot, he went to buy a new one from Larry….

  “Looks like you could use a piece of that,” and he pointed again to the girl who sat in a chair dressed only in a slip; but when Larry made the offer, she spread her legs exposing herself.

  Micah nodded his head. The girl, her eyes seeing nothing through her drug infused mind, moved to the couch and stripped off her one piece of clothing.

  “You’ll need this,” Larry tossed him a condom, “dirty seconds you know,” he chuckled and then sat in a chair to watch the coupling, his hand in his pants enjoying the sex more than his customer. There was no gratification in the act for Micah; it was a penance, a punishment, not pleasure. It was a seamy thing to do, but that’s how he felt: dirty, sleazy and criminal.

  He could hear Harry’s voice ask over and over again, “What’s your name, b
uddy,” and every time Micah heard that question, he plunged deeper into his private hell. He blew his wad and stepped back. The whore was asleep with her legs spread and still open for business. As he buttoned up his jeans, Larry wiped his hand on an infested rag and then handed him a bag containing a half dozen sugar cubes. “Acid stud, man you think ‘shrooms are good, wait till you go flying with this.”

  Micah took the bag, which was hidden away in his gun cabinet unopened a month later.

  Maria woke as Micah was lost in thought, but her fingers brought him around, and all of his memories faded away in her touch and his embrace. The sun was peaking over the eastern hills as he closed the back gate. Maria had stuffed a bill into his front pocket. Micah pulled it out, fifty dollars, a lot of money.

  Dane was still asleep as he walked into his bedroom. Micah gently kicked him. “Time to dress for Mass so get your ass up.”

  The boy crawled out of bed and appeared to still be asleep as he made it into the shower. Micah threw off the shorts and pulled on some clean jeans and a dress shirt, and then out the door to the kitchen. Tandy and Tom Dorsey were at the table talking as he came in. The old man was in his overalls while Tandy was in slacks and a neatly pressed white shirt.

  “You know I’ll get you some Sunday clothes if you’ll wear them,” Tom spoke to his ward.

  “That’s okay. I go to Mass with the condition that I’ll wear what I want. You think God really cares?” Micah opened the icebox and grabbed the milk but then turned toward the old man. “I know, get a glass,” he grinned and walked over to the cabinet.

  Tom watched the boy, who looked more relieved than happy; there was something oppressive gnawing at him. Micah had shown growing signs of depression since August, and the old man had to help him somehow.

  “Look here,” Tom motioned Micah toward the table where the morning newspaper was open to the sports page:

  St. John’s Academy Slides Past All Saints

  To the right of the article was a picture of Coach Britt standing in front of the bus, but in the upper right corner of the photo, as clear as the morning sun, was Micah looking out of a window with a goofy expression on his face and a finger sticking in his nose.

  “Oh Jeeze, this is gonna cause me some pain.”

  Tom and Tandy laughed, and as Dane came in, he joined the teasing. Soon there was a honk, and the Krigsmans waited in the driveway to take them to church. The three boys hopped in the backseat of the car, and Cory immediately held up the sports page for all to see. “If you gotta itch, you gotta itch, right Bucky?”

  “Ugh,” Micah uttered.

  The group walked into the chapel, and the Sports Page was tacked on the bulletin board. Micah ignored it and went to sit at the back of the sanctuary. He was joined by the boys, including Kevin and a couple of the other football players. The Cowboy Clan had been replaced with the jocks. That made Micah sort of sad, but life is about evolution, incremental changes that over time create a new sort of life.

  As soon as the entrance song commenced, Micah entered his own kingdom. He was cognizant of the people around him, but his focus was on other things; things that were not quite right, a battle in his spirit between the sane and the insane. If he were to place a bet at that moment, he would wager that insanity would win. “How do you fight a feeling, a thing you can’t identify or define?”

  As Micah pondered, Cory contemplated him. Last December he felt his friend leaving him, submerging into an illness that wanted him dead. And now he had the same feeling of loss, but this time it was to something more obscure. And just like last winter, he had no clue how to fight it. Hopelessness was the sense he was picking up from Micah, hopelessness, futility and self-hatred. Cory got up and left, walking from the chapel to the school administration building and disappearing into the maze of offices.

  Micah came alive at the Dismissal. He looked at the Krigsmans who stood near the outside doors. The Monsignor was shaking hands with people as they were leaving. Micah said good-bye to Kevin and the other players, and walked with Tandy and Dane to stand with Cory and his parents. Soon cliques of people were gathered together talking and gossiping. This was the point that they usually left, but not today.

  “Micah, you and the team played excellently last night. You’ve all found your niche.” The Monsignor was happy and exuberant as he spoke, but he also concealed something. “You mind taking a walk with me. I’ll make sure you get home later.”

  “Sure,” and Micah followed the priest down the center aisle of the chapel and through a side door.

  “You in the mood for weights?”

  “Why not?” Micah spoke while looking suspiciously at the man.

  “Good,” and the two walked over to the gym. The Monsignor unlocked the door and entered the dark building and the weight room. “I’ll spot for you.”

  Micah threw his shirt on the floor and loaded a hundred pounds of iron onto the bar. He lay flat on the bench as he uncuffed the weights and pushed upward then bringing them down to chest level. The cleric stood over him ready to help if there was a slip-up as the boy did three reps, rested and then completed three more. He returned the weights to the bench and sat back. “Okay Father, what is it? Did I do something? Am I in trouble?”

  “Are you in trouble Micah?” Monsignor Mathias questioned. “You tell me. I am not empathic, but even a dunce like me can see something is bothering you.”

  Micah looked toward the showers as he spoke. “Cory’s been talking? He’s an ass. I’m fine.”

  “Cory didn’t need to say anything, and he loves you. You are loved by everyone. You have no enemies.”

  “You mean now that Harry’s gone I have no enemies.”

  “That man is dead. He can’t harm you anymore. Let him go.” The priest thought for a moment before speaking again. “Remember Mrs. Derocher, when you told her to let Guy go home and she set him free. Your words saved her sanity. Micah, you need to listen to your own counsel. You are keeping Harry alive. You’re allowing him to stalk and torture you; and if you don’t release him, he will end up killing you.”

  Micah glared at the priest. “You don’t know what in the fuck you’re talking about. You don’t know me. Look at me. Who am I? What am I? I’m not sure I’m even human.” The boy stood and went to a rowing machine, but dropped to the floor, holding his knees, floundering within a darkening world and struggling to find his way. He looked lost and desperate, a soul in purgatory.

  Monsignor Mathias wanted to grab Micah like he would a little puppy and cuddle him, to make things better. “Let me help you.” He pleaded with the boy.

  Micah said nothing, but only shook his head back-and-forth. After a few minutes, he spoke. “I’ll be fine,” and he sensed his soul falter, falling even deeper into hell. Then he yielded. “I need to tell you some things. I need to make a confession. Can you listen to me? You won’t hate me will you?”

  “I am your friend Micah. I am here for you, to help you. A confession is between you, your priest and God, no one else. I am here to guide and protect you.” The man lowered himself next to the boy.

  Micah never looked at the Monsignor. “Everything is so good, I can’t figure out why I feel so bad, like my soul has been ripped out of me, that there is just blackness and emptiness inside. It’s been like this since August. When Harry died, I told the police that I had gone running to get Puckers. That was true, but I left things out.”

  “I ran to the creek and climbed the tree to look across the prairie toward Harry’s place to make sure he wasn’t there; I wanted him gone, no longer a threat to anyone. I was in the tree for a little while until I saw Harry coming up the trail heading toward Mr. Dorsey’s barn. I followed him. He was drinking and he tossed his whiskey bottle into the brush. He was slinging that gun around like a maniac and mumbling to himself.”

  “‘I hate that man, and if I had my rifle, I would blow his head off.’”

  “That’s what I was thinking. I read him, making his hate my own, and his hatred was both
debilitating and energetic; he despised me, but he also thirsted for me in a creepy and obscene way. That made me sick, and I turned my head away because I became disgusted, but when I did, I heard a gunshot and everything went black. I woke up the next morning in the barn next to Cory. I don’t know what happen between the time I saw Harry at the old place and when I opened my eyes. I’m afraid that I did something very bad. I wanted to kill him and maybe that’s what I did.” Micah looked up at the priest who reflected love and compassion.

  “Harry shot you. That’s all you know. Everything else is supposition. You don’t know that you did anything. But let’s say you putdown that monster, it would have been self-defense. He shot you first, remember. Let it go.”

  Micah looked at Father Mathias pleadingly and continued his rambling confession. “He shot me at the creek and not the tracks; yet they found him and his discarded whiskey bottle a mile from where I heard the gunshot. I think the whiskey bottle is the key; I had to plant it at the tracks. That’s what makes sense; that’s the only thing that makes sense. And there’s something maybe more incriminating.” Micah stopped momentarily. “I’m sure I burned the clothes and shoes that I was wearing that night because they are missing. I don’t remember torching them, but Cory and I found the burn barrel smoking the next morning. Inside it I found rivets from my pants, and melted rubber from my shoes. My switchblade also disappeared. And I’ve been having terrible dreams that are full of blood, blood everywhere, and I’m covered in gore.” Micah’s arms were folded; he started rocking back-and-forth.”