A Life Intercepted

by Charles Martin

  He leaned into the harness, sweat pouring off his face. “Back out of the flats.”

  He was smart and he thought well under pressure, so I pressed him further. “Unless?”

  “Unless my go route is really fast.”

  I smiled. “Good.”

  Once his legs got good and tired, I wanted to activate his shoulders so I unhooked him from the harness, strapped the rope to a tractor trailer tire, and then pulled it with arms out in front, holding the harness in my hands. A functional shoulder press with leg press thrown in. It’s a killer. Somewhere in here he gagged and showed the first signs of throwing up.

  I took the harness from him and began pulling the Honda the opposite direction. I said, “You can puke if you want to.” He gagged again and put his hands on his knees. “But right now your body is telling you what it wants to do.” I lifted his chin and then stepped back into the harness. “What we’re doing is training it to do what we want it to do.” He swallowed and choked it back, stepped inside the harness, and began pulling.

  After sleds, I stretched four long ropes out in front of us. They were old ship anchor ropes, each about twenty-feet long, three inches in diameter, heavy and cumbersome. I held one in each hand and explained. “This activates the shoulders.” I smiled and began waving my arms out in front of me, which created a wave in each of the ropes. When one arm was high, the other was low. I did this for twenty to thirty seconds. “I hate these things, but this, and pull-ups, are the secret to the long ball.”

  Hands on his knees, he shook his head. “Then I should just love them.”

  We ended with a run up and down the Bucket followed by abs: Superman sit-ups, Superman sit-ups with tire toss, bicycles, bicycles with rotation, crunches, planks, wipers, scissors, and finally, one-armed and one-footed planks. Over the entire ninety minutes, we never stopped moving.

  When I said, “That’s probably enough for today,” he collapsed and his face landed in the dirt. He lay there a few seconds, breathing, then stood without ceremony, walked in a slight circle, then stopped and took a deep breath. Then, as if shot from a cannon, he arched his back and hurled from his toes. Much of the fluid he’d drunk since we started ended up on the ground around him, splattering his legs and feet. After a pause, I was about to say something smart and ask him if he was finished when he started round two. After that exorcism, he sunk to his knees, wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve, and stared around and then up at me. His face was a mixture of both relief and incredulity. He said, “Wow.” He fell back, a snow angel in the dirt. He shook his head. “I don’t believe I’ve ever felt this bad in my entire life.”

  I looked down on him. “I’m surprised you held it in that long.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a sadistic and mean man.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  He rolled over and stood up. “Yeah, I’d just never believed it until now.”

  I laughed, we fist-bumped, and Dee stumbled home.

  I straightened up the cabin and then drove the trail bike to town. In the twelve years I’d been locked up, a lot had changed. The way people dressed, the music they listened to, the way people communicated. I felt as if I were walking on Mars.

  I parked in the Walmart lot, perused the aisles until I happened upon the stuffed animals, and dug through them until I found what I was looking for. At the checkout counter, the woman asked me, “What’s that?”

  She was in her late thirties but looked midforties. High mileage. Tried to cover up the bags beneath her eyes with too much makeup. Thickening around the middle, her leathered skin was starting to sag in places, but her smile was kind and inviting. Her hair was pulled back, exposing the skin of her neck and high cheekbones. I think she had been pretty at one time. The thing in my hand was about two feet long and real fluffy. “It’s a spider monkey.”

  She raised an eyebrow and lay the change in my hand, letting each coin drop slowly. “Looks cuddly. Like you could just wrap your arms around him and get lost for a while.”

  I stared at it. “I think it’s a she.”

  She smiled. “Even better.”

  I didn’t realize it until after I’d walked out that she was trying to pick me up. I cranked the motorcycle and started talking to myself, You’ve been in prison too long.

  In my playing days, I experienced a feeling—or a rush of emotion—after a touchdown pass or score that is best described as jubilation. We’ve seen this countless times on instant replay. It’s expressed by a look on the face, something screamed in triumph, a dance, a jump, a fist pump. It is the culmination of hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of mental and physical work, of a strategy defined and executed, of eleven guys gutting something out. It’s a powerful release of emotion seldom, if ever, equaled in my life. Driving through town, the slide show in my mind began ticking off passes and scores, and with each picture I remembered, even tasted, the sense of jubilation. Of happiness. When I looked at the speedometer, I was driving twenty-seven in a fifty. And my knuckles were white.

  A horn behind me, followed by an angry passing vehicle and a driver who told me that I was number one in his heart, brought me back to that seat and the handlebars. So many times, I’d thought about walking out of prison. Of unlocked doors and freedom. Of the ability to go and come as I wished. And the belief that all of that would be accompanied with that fist-pumping sense of jubilation.

  I was wrong. It had not. Didn’t even come close.

  While my hands cramped from squeezing the handlebars, the painful reality of my life set in. In prison, the possibility of what could be fueled my hope, and the impossibility of acting on my anger kept me safe. Out of prison, what I saw waged war with what I hoped. And churned inside me.

  Given that my helmet hid my face, I detoured to Wood’s office. When I peered through the window, he was leaning back in his office chair listening to talk radio. I pushed open the door and stepped into his office. The sound was turned down, but I could hear Ginger’s voice. When he spun in his chair and looked up, I said, “Really?”

  A shrug. “She’s talking about you. A lot of people calling in.”

  Her tone of voice betrayed her smile. She was enjoying every minute of this. She clicked between callers with the speed of a court reporter. Those in support of me were quickly silenced. Those who wanted to nail me to the barn door were encouraged to express their feelings. Their emotions. In her time on air, she hadn’t lost a step. She led this dance, and she could give Jim Kneels a run for his money.

  Wood and I listened as one caller spouted, “I don’t know where he is, but that pervert needs to be deported. Exported. Ported somewhere. He made us believe in him. We bought his jerseys. Shouted his name. Made us think he was all that and turns out he wasn’t. He wasn’t nothing. That’s the worst kind of man. The kind that says he’s one person, but inside, he’s another. And another thing is this…” The person’s voice rose and you could hear a chair squeak in the background. “People have a right to know where he’s living. Don’t he have to register or something?”

  Ginger clicked over to another call. “Mary from Ellaville, you’re on the air with 1-800-R-U-A-VICTIM.”

  “Angelina, I can tell you right where he’s living.” The sound of paper being unfolded or crinkled echoed over the phone line. “2122 Whiskey Still Road. Just outside of Gardi, Georgia.”

  Wood’s eyes lit and he sat up straight. Both palms landed flat on his desk. “They just gave out your address over national radio.”

  Ginger interrupted the caller. “Thank you, Mary. For those of you listeners who don’t know, convicted sex offenders are required by law to register where they will be living for any period of time greater than seven days. This information is public and Mary is correct. Matthew Rising registered three days ago, and his address is listed as 2122 Whiskey Still Road.”

  Wood stood out of his chair and pointed at the radio. “She just said it again.”

  Ginger continued. “You can find Mr. Rising’s regi
stration online at—” She rattled off the web address as if she knew it by heart.

  Wood sat back down, scratched his head, and began talking out loud. “Did you lock the gate when you left?”

  I nodded.

  He shook his head. “Won’t take them long to find it.”

  “I know.”

  “You might should take the back way home.”

  And he was right. I should have.

  It was a quarter to six when I rode up to the gate. The sign was six feet long and maybe four feet tall. White background. Big black letters. Hung between two four-by-four posts. It had been professionally stenciled. It read:

  CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER MATTHEW RISING LIVES HERE.

  HE WAS CONVICTED OF KIDNAPPING, DRUGGING, SEXUALLY ABUSING, VIDEOING, AND RAPING ONE WOMAN AND TWO GIRLS UNDER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN.

  HE IS NOW FREE ON PAROLE TO VICTIMIZE AGAIN.

  There’s no way on earth someone commissioned and/or printed that sign following the announcement on the radio. The owner of that sign had been waiting for this moment and—although I can’t prove it—I’d say the broadcasting of my address had been orchestrated long in advance. The word “victimize” was the signature.

  The gate was still locked, but the support beam had been bent by something big and heavy like a bumper. I unlocked it, rode through, and locked it behind me en route to the cabin a half mile down the dirt road. I idled along, swinging wide around the corners.

  I was right to suspect something.

  Most everything I owned or Wood had left for me was strewn about in front of the cabin. Somebody had pulled my mattress out of the house and, given the smell, yellow stain, and brown pile, had both urinated and defecated on it. Across the front of the cabin someone had spray-painted the words, RAPIST, PERVERT, DEVIANT, FREAK, and CHILD MOLESTER with a few other choice words thrown in for color. On the front door, somebody had sprayed, YOU WILL BURN IN HELL in red lettering.

  I put down the kickstand and was sitting there reading the walls when Dee appeared. He was early. Out of breath, he’d been running. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I overheard some folks at work talking about that stunt the lady pulled on the radio.”

  I nodded.

  He held up his phone. “You want me to call the police?”

  I shook my head once. “I don’t think it’d do any good.”

  “You want some help?”

  The only bright spot in the whole thing was that I didn’t have much to begin with, so cleanup wouldn’t take long. “That’d be great.”

  When we finished twenty minutes later, the only thing remaining was the mattress. His nose curled. “What about that?”

  It lay in the middle of the yard, surrounded by dirt, so I grabbed the kerosene can used to light the wood-burning stove, doused the mattress, and threw a match on it. The kerosene caught and spread across the mattress. The flames had climbed fifteen feet in the air by the time we tied on our boots and started jogging.

  I began jogging the opposite direction from the gate, across what were once fields covered in cheesecloth that shaded the tobacco. The Bucket loomed behind us. Soon, the sun would set behind it. He’d never been this way. “Where we headed?”

  A mile in front of us sat a tree line. I pointed. “The river.”

  “What’s there?”

  “The solution to your sidearm.”

  The Altamaha River drained southeast Georgia to the Atlantic. It started out in a narrow stretch of cypress swamp many miles northwest of us. By the time it got to us, it had turned into a tannic, ice-tea colored river that meandered its way south, feeding into several crystal-blue springs before eventually dumping into the Atlantic. Flow depended on the rain. In times of drought, it could become a snake-infested mud hole. In rainy season, it flowed with a two-to-three-mile-an-hour current. Filled with catfish, bream, carp, bass, and bellowing with alligators, it teemed with life. Average depth was a few feet while some holes were ten to fifteen.

  Afternoon rains had swelled the river. I’d been counting on this. We neared the edge and watched the current rolling south. “Wow,” he said. “Had no idea this was back here.”

  “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  Off to our left sat a covered area. Wood’s grandfather had built a tin-roof shed over the work space for his still. Dirt floor. No walls. Vines had snaked in and were climbing up the support poles and the wind had blown off one of the tin panels, but I found what I needed. Twenty years ago, some log cutters had left two empty butyl tanks that had been used to fuel their cutting torch. The tanks were eight feet tall and maybe sixteen to eighteen inches in diameter. The volume of air inside each was enough to float two people so, eighteen years ago, we’d used them as a modified log roll. They’d been here ever since.

  The tanks stood on end beneath the shed. Dee helped me lower them and roll them to the water’s edge. I tied a rope from end to end, allowing them to spin independently yet stay oriented toward each other. I pushed off on the first one, straddling it like a horse, soaking my legs to the knee, and said, “Mount up.”

  He stood on the bank, pointing. “You want me to stand on that?”

  I stood, balanced, and slowly rolled the tank beneath my feet. I motioned for him to toss me the ball, which he did. “I want you to stand on that and play catch with me. And do it quick before the snakes and alligators eat me.”

  He pushed off, tried to stand, slipped, and went for a swim. Head first. When he came out of the water, his eyes were wide and he was moving a bit faster than when he went in. I started laughing, couldn’t stop, messed up my rhythm, and followed him head first. The sound of his laughter was good medicine, and I needed it.

  We climbed back up on our “logs,” balanced, and, once he’d found his sea legs, I tossed him the now-wet ball. He caught it and threw it back. The reason this works is pretty simple. In a situation where extreme balance is required, your body instinctively knows what will throw it off balance. Our internal gyro knows without being told. So when Dee caught the ball, he threw it back to me. Perfectly. Granted, it was a weak throw and lacked any zip, but the motion was good. His left arm ripped down. Right arm came over the top. It even surprised him. Proud of himself, he pointed into the air where the ball had just been. “Did you see that?”

  Over the next hour, we talked through his motion. A few times, his arm slipped sideways and so did his body, sending him back into the water. But as the hour played out, he fell less and less. And pretty soon, we were just two guys playing catch.

  We finished with a jog back to the junkyard and then three times up and down the Bucket. Walking down the last time, Dee spoke without looking at me. “I, um… take out the trash at night, all around school. It’s how I pay for my meal plan and books. I drive this golf cart around, and, anyway, last night I was making the rounds near the garden, near Mama Audrey’s little cottage, and—I heard her crying.” He paused. Looked at me. Then looked away again. “And not just a little bit.” A shrug as he stared over the smoking remains of the mattress. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lunchtime. I was sitting in the Laundromat minding my own business when the caravan of black Mercedes, Range Rovers, and one giant black bus came roaring into town. The stardusted ANGELINA was obnoxiously billboard-big. Curious, I packed up and followed them to town, where they set up shop on the courthouse steps. They parked, taking up most of the spaces around the courthouse, the bus’s robotic arms protruded like a transformer and leveled the rolling sound studio. Within moments, dozens of people—mostly dressed in black—all wearing secret-service earpieces, exited the vehicles and began a dizzying, antlike procession around the grounds. It’d been a long time since I’d seen so many people scurrying to and fro for one person. Reminded me of me.

  I parked the bike and observed the festivities in mute amazement. And even some enjoyment. Talk about a well-oiled machine. I’d seen cartoons that didn’t develop this quickly. The trave
ling Angelina Custodia Show had taken Gardi by storm. Within an hour of setup, Angelina had exited her bus to a growing crowd and roaring applause. Without hesitation, she wielded the microphone and began working the bystanders and setting her hooks deep and early.

  “Tell me what you think about convicted sex-offender Matthew Rising living right here, terrorizing your hometown.” To another woman flanked by two ponytailed girls, she asked, “Are these your girls? Does his presence worry you?” The woman stuttered, palmed the tangled hair out of her face, and wrapped her arms around her girls. The wrinkle between her eyes suggested that if that mother wasn’t worried before, she was now.

  I’m not sure the KKK or Black Panthers were as adept at inciting a riot.

  Ginger revealed in a practiced and seductive voice to her adoring crowd that she planned to broadcast live all afternoon and into the evening. This meant that her afternoon radio show would simply fade seamlessly into her nighttime television show. This announcement brought applause and catcalls from the growing audience, which in turn produced a well-rehearsed blush from Ginger. I flipped my hood up, pulled Wood’s Costas down over my eyes, parked the bike, bought a soda from a vending machine, and sat on a bench, viewing the festivities.

  Word spread, cars pulled in, folks mobbed the grounds surrounding the courthouse. Onlookers set up lawn chairs, and both a hot dog and shaved-ice vendor appeared out of nowhere. The city must have called in additional law enforcement, because sheriff’s deputies from neighboring counties arrived en masse. The mayor showed and quickly took credit for everything. Ginger let him, then pounced on him for what she really wanted, which was the courthouse steps. The same steps they marched me down, handcuffed, some twelve years prior. Without the slightest thought to obtaining any type of required city permit, he quickly agreed and the Ginger Machine took over from there.