Green Dreams

by Gary W Ritter

  Hugo flicked a switch and stepped aside as the overhead light extinguished. Rather than another wall of cinder blocks, Jason found himself looking at a large picture window. There was light behind it but the glass was opaque, totally obscuring whatever might be on the other side. Even as he narrowed his eyes in confusion, the glass turned from dense to clear, the window opening onto a spacious room equipped with children’s toys and playthings. The effect was like sitting in a darkened movie theater watching the previews begin on the suddenly brilliant screen. Among the paraphernalia in the lighted room were a child-sized replica of a city street scene with office buildings, cars, buses, and open-air restaurants, a variety of Barbie-type dolls—male and female, plus one adult and two children’s sleeveless jackets hanging on a rack.

  A girl in her late teens entered the room with two children, neither of whom could have been older than six. They seemed comfortable with each other and began playing with the dolls, placing them within the street environment and moving them purposefully around. The children appeared sleepy, as though they’d been wakened for Jason’s show.

  Neither of the men with Jason said anything. Jason observed the threesome for several minutes, growing increasingly puzzled. What was the purpose in this?

  Suddenly a neural connection snapped into place. Something about the girl. His eyes widened. There was a familiarity in her movements that disturbed him. His brain synapses fired again, and he caught his breath. No. It wasn’t possible.

  Jason didn’t smoke, but all of a sudden, he wanted a cigarette in the worst way. The girl looked directly at the glass, directly toward Jason, although he was sure she couldn’t see into the observation room.

  The eyes. The bone structure of the cheeks. The tilt of the head. Jason sagged with the weight of knowledge, his heart a hollow shell.

  Tenor said, “I think we have lift-off.”

  Hugo snickered. It was an ungainly sound from the big man.

  “Well, what do you think Mr. Big-Shot IRS Investigator?” Tenor said. “Recognize your long-lost daughter?”

  Chapter 7

  As a star halfback in high school, Jason Ruger’s success knew no limit, but one. He’d broken every school rushing record in the books and had the eye of every cheerleader, except for the one he really wanted. While he’d made it with each of the other four girls on the squad several times, Mary Sue Calloway had continued to spurn his advances. With her bobbed blonde hair, dazzling smile, and legs that wouldn’t quit, it made him want her even more.

  Jason was strong, agile, had great hands, quick feet, and excelled in math class, as well as on the field. He was well liked on the team, even by the third stringers because he never put them down. He was most comfortable with the linemen and tended to hang out with them rather than the other elite members of the team. As a result, they blocked harder when he got the ball. Their efforts opened huge holes that allowed him to scamper his way to more yardage and touchdowns than any other running back before or since. Life would have been great for Jason if only Mary Sue had given him the time of day.

  In the last game of the season, his performance clinched first team all-state recognition. Maybe it was that feat; maybe it was beating their arch-rival for North Carolina’s state high school championship. Maybe it was nostalgia for words and deeds so far unsaid or done. Whatever it was, Mary Sue was all over him after the game. While everyone else partied that night, the cozy spot under the bleachers he’d used so many times with other girls heated up like never before.

  Three months later, Mary Sue told him she was pregnant and his future disappeared like coins up a magician’s sleeve.

  ***

  Jason stood firm telling Mary Sue that he’d marry her to assure the child had the right upbringing. She wanted an abortion. Mary Sue’s Catholic parents pressured the young couple to marry, and the child lived.

  Although Jason’s extended family had its own skeletons and should have realized its hypocrisy, at first none of them wanted anything to do with the new couple and their tiny bundle of joy. Mary Sue’s father, after all, was a judge and anathema to the vocation Jason’s parents had chosen. It might have been this rejection that in the end caused Jason to turn away from their belated attempts at reconciliation by urging him to join the family business.

  Jason doted on the little girl. Mary Sue chafed at motherhood. Because neither had any skills, and the idea of full-time college had vanished, Jason worked in a factory while Mary Sue cared for Marcy. After a time, given his ambitions and his brain, Jason started attending night school. It put more pressure on Mary Sue and she resented husband and child even more.

  The day Jason graduated with an accounting degree and told his parents and their reconsidered business offer to pound sand, Mary Sue declared her independence. By now Marcy had entered first grade, and Mary Sue had additional time to stew in her own discord. She studied up on Marx’s Communist Manifesto, devoured Cleaver’s Soul On Ice, worshiped Carson’s The Silent Spring, and embraced the Cloward-Piven strategy of overloading the American public welfare system so it had no alternative but to adopt a socialist-communist agenda. Socialist, environmental, and radical literature became her passion. Malcolm X was her hero; the Rosenburgs, who had committed treason against the U.S., became her spiritual icons. She read until she dropped and spent the rest of her days pondering life’s unfairness. Jason landed a white-collar position with a local firm of CPAs, which paid less money than he made at the factory. The change didn’t help Mary Sue’s disposition a bit.

  Mary Sue’s declaration of freedom took shape when she decided to cheat on Jason. She’d kept her trim figure and grown more beautiful, if that were possible. Never shy about flaunting her good looks, she flirted whenever possible, even in Jason’s presence. When she finally acted on a dare by one of her flirtees, she literally changed her life.

  Jason was too naïve to see it coming and berated himself afterward for being obtuse; Mary Sue began talking about radical schemes to save the environment. According to her, global warming—later climate change when that became the new buzzword—was shaping up as the greatest danger posed to the planet since global cooling ten years prior. Mankind was responsible because man was irresponsible. Pollution was the root cause of holes in the ozone, and the combustion engine had to be eliminated. It made Jason’s head swim, and he took all that Mary Sue said with a grain of salt. He was naturally skeptical of these various claims. Once he grasped the conversion taking place in his wife, he began reading extensively himself and was unable to find true scientific backing for any of them.

  To Mary Sue it didn’t matter. This was the manna for which she’d been searching; it fed her soul, and she flourished on it. She attended meetings and rallies. She wrote letters to Congress and the President of the United States. Trees became Mary Sue’s sanctuary. She talked about going out to California to sit in a Redwood to save it from loggers. Hiking the Appalachian Trail became her exercise passion. Her female friends wore skimpy clothes, and the males sported hair past their shoulders. All of them criticized the capitalist, earth-destroying policies of AmeriKKKa.

  It was too much for Jason. He considered himself a patriot and hated that these people put down his country, the greatest in the world. And while Mary Sue was off marching and picketing, he spent what time he could with Marcy. They developed a warm, loving relationship that could never have happened had Mary Sue spent her time at home. It was a sad and bitter trade-off for Jason: his daughter for his wife.

  During this time, a developer bought the rights to Honey Mountain. After a contentious period of jousting with everyone from the local residents to Mary Sue’s burgeoning group of Greens, he obtained the zoning permit that enabled building to begin. Agreeing in principle with Mary Sue about how the intended development would despoil the landscape, Jason also thought the whole affair smelled of under-the-table cash. He loved the mysterious beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and hated in equal measure corruption like he’d grown up with in his family
and those who made a mockery of the law.

  The mountaintop “improvement” became an eyesore. To build the fifteen-story condominium tower, the developer first had to level the top of Honey Mountain. In so doing, a neighboring peak that had been lower ended up higher, and certainly more majestic. When the towering condominium building was completed, along with the companion ski resort, HoneyCrest reclaimed its “highest peak in the region” title, albeit with an asterisk. Whenever Jason glanced in its direction, a sour taste flooded his mouth, and he’d avert his eyes in shame. He even worked along with Mary Sue to help pass a law prohibiting any similar developments in the future, one of the few times during this period that they sought the same outcome.

  The one constant in Jason’s life was the passion he brought to maintaining his physical fitness. Call it vanity; he believed that if he didn’t care for himself in this manner, he’d lose his self-respect. Because of the hours he worked at the factory in the early years of the marriage, and his wanting to spend time with his family, Jason got into the habit of rising at 4:30 AM to begin his workout. He often looked haggard from lack of sleep, but he kept at it to remain strong and fit.

  Money was always at a premium. The early dissonance Jason had with his extended family caused Mary Sue to appeal to her parents for financial assistance. Well-to-do as they were, they never reconciled having a grandchild before reaching the age of forty, despite the pressure they’d exerted on Mary Sue to marry Jason. Unfortunately, this conflicted with the fact that they hadn’t wanted to kill the child. Any monetary contributions were given with strings, and Mary Sue yearned to revenge their niggardly ways.

  When they died in a fiery car crash on the interstate coming back from vacation, Mary Sue’s glee at the thought of inheritance turned Jason’s stomach. Her unseemly joy dissolved into anger when her parents’ attorney broke the news of the will. It was the real death blow. With Jason present, the executor informed her that a trust fund had been established in her name. Unfortunately, the man concluded in stentorian tones, she couldn’t access it until she was twenty-eight. That was four long years away.

  ***

  On the day following Mary Sue’s much anticipated birthday, trust fund firmly in her possession and Marcy eleven years old, the two of them vanished from Jason’s life.

  Chapter 8

  Secure in the metal chair in the cinder-block room, Jason watched the scene before him. The girl playing with the children was striking in her contrasts. Deep-set eyes within hollow sockets framed by a round and cheerful face. A soft body which revealed a veiled strength in the effortless manner she picked up one of her charges. Slender, elegant fingers calloused from heavy work.

  Marcy. Jason couldn’t believe it but had no doubt. The differences between the child he knew and adored at eleven and this stranger of nineteen were immeasurable. Yet it was her. He felt elated and sick all at once. A chance to reunite with a daughter long gone. A sinking feeling that the price would be far too great.

  Hugo snapped his fingers in Jason’s face. Slowly he tore his gaze away from the scene behind the glass and settled it on the big man.

  “You like the kids?” Hugo asked. He continued to sweat profusely, and his body odor was overwhelming.

  Jason remained silent.

  “She makes a good babysitter, don’t you think?” There was a sly undertone to Hugo’s voice. What was coming, Jason couldn’t guess, but he wasn’t anxious to find out.

  Tenor said, “Let’s get on with it.”

  “See that one?” Hugo asked, pointing toward the older of the two children, a towheaded boy with fair skin. “He’s six. Really likes GI Joe. Kid’s a real militant. Name of Joseph. And the other?” He gestured toward the little girl. In contrast, she was lightly tanned with dark, curly hair. “Sister, a year younger. Like an ape. Carolyn. You should see her climb trees and hang from limbs by her knees.”

  “I’m touched that you’re such a child welfare advocate,” Jason said. “Thanks for the social services tour.”

  “It’s more than that, Mr. IRS. How does it feel to be a grandfather?”

  The words hung in the air for a moment as Jason absorbed what Hugo had said. Then their meaning struck him in the gut with all the power of a heavyweight boxer’s fist. His mouth went dry. His head turned from side to side in automatic denial. His eyes focused on the children and their mother with hunger and dismay.

  Finally, he managed, “That’s not possible. Marcy would have been…thirteen.”

  Hugo chuckled. “Yeah, she was small, but real nice. You should have seen the blood.”

  “You…!” Jason exploded, straining every muscle in his body to break free. The leather restraints in the metal chair were too strong. They were snugged tight, and he barely moved in his anger and desire to kill the man before him.

  Jason’s breath came ragged and hoarse. His soul had been ripped from him and all he wanted was his hands around Hugo’s neck and a knife in the clod’s groin. He’d kill the man without blinking if he had the chance.

  The spray of cold water hit him once again, this time with Tenor directing the stream at him. “We got business, buddy boy. Get over it. Plan your revenge some other time.” The water stopped. He was soaked. Streams ran down his face from his hair. His clothes were drenched and clung to his shivering body.

  Jason gritted his teeth. “All right. What do you want?” He couldn’t help but let his eyes wander onto the three figures in their quiet interaction behind the glass. At that moment, Hugo touched a switch. The view into the other room disappeared as the glass became opaque once again. The light illuminating the other room winked out, and the one overhead in theirs returned. Jason could see nothing in the opposing room. A hollowness pitted his stomach. The tenuous link with Marcy and the children dissolved. Jason longed to reestablish it, but the reality of Hugo and Tenor was too immediate.

  “I want you to listen, and listen good,” Tenor said. “We got instructions for you, and you’re gonna do just as we say. If you’re a good boy, maybe you’ll get to see your daughter and grandkids again someday. If not, well…I can’t guarantee a thing. You got that? It’s all up to you. Okay, you listening?”

  Jason glared at the men, took a deep breath, then nodded his head.

  Tenor said, “Fine. Here’s what you have to do…”

  Chapter 9

  The car screeched to a stop. Doors opened with hands grabbing and shoving at him simultaneously. He fell to the pavement in a crumpled heap. “Let’s go!” Slam—slam—slam. The vehicle sped away. Shivering from the cold in his wet clothes, it took immense concentration for Jason to undo the loosely tied restraints they’d bound him with and remove the blindfold. The car was long gone by then, the license number unattainable. He pitched the ropes to the ground and stumbled to the door of his parents’ house.

  Inside a jazz rendition played, a soft background to murmured conversations. He heard somebody say, “…HoneyCrest…massive explosion….” His mother saw him, uttered a stifled, “Oh, Jason,” and called to his father, “Hank, come help me.” She found a wool blanket on the top shelf of the hall closet, which she wrapped around him. Hank Ruger came, liquor hot on his breath, and they aided his slow progress up the stairs.

  His mother drew a hot bath and his father helped him undress and ease into the tub where steam rose and clouded the mirror. The water was so hot that Jason could barely stand it, but he forced his frozen body in anyway. His teeth were chattering and in the numbness of his mind knew he was close to hypothermia. Deep within his ear canals his head throbbed from the near concussion caused by Hugo’s huge hands. He closed his eyes and let the heat overtake him.

  ***

  He awoke to find himself in bed layered under a heavy down comforter. The sun shone brilliant through the window. Late morning on a clear winter day. It took a few minutes for his brain to begin functioning. When it did, he bolted upright with two images burned onto his retinas: seeing Marcy with the two children, and witnessing the spectacular de
struction of HoneyCrest from the neighboring mountain. Pain shot through his head. He held it in both hands and moaned from the vividness of the memories.

  Had both incidents occurred all within the space of a few hours last night? Anger washed away the pleasantness of his cozy surroundings. He was due to leave tomorrow and needed to learn what he could in a short time.

  Downstairs there was no sign of Rick. He must have staggered to his own home last night, beat his wife a couple of times, and was sleeping it off. What a piece of work, Jason thought. Come to think of it, is he even still married? He didn’t think so.

  He was famished and bolted down a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, and French toast. While eating, he made up excuses and successfully avoided the inquiries of his mother as to what had happened to him the previous night. Finally, she switched to horrified exclamations about HoneyCrest. Jason didn’t comment on that either. He slipped in one question of his own, received the answer, and fled. Over his shoulder he saw his mother give him her famous tight-lipped look. Even without a Catholic heritage, it left him feeling guilty for leaving her in the dark. Better that he keep his own counsel.

  On the road, he sped toward his destination. It was the land of his youth. Around every bend, small family cemeteries and automobile junk yards dotted the hillsides. In one rested the souls of men, in the other the cast-off creation in which man invested his soul. Cars and immortality, a potent combination indeed. Churches, mainly Baptist and Christian fundamentalist, competed with each other for adjacent land. In some stretches of the road it seemed there were more of them than houses. And the Blue Ridge Mountains overlooked everything. Always there. Majestic. The blue haze that gave them their mysterious aura hovering over snow-capped peaks.