Trace the Dead Eye

by Steven D. Bennett

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  DEAD HEART

  The sun baked down as Rollins wiped the remains of my son's blood from my face with a rag he kept spitting into. The weight of my life and two others sat on my shoulders and held me heavily to the curb.

  "What were you doing on the ground?"

  "Tyler--" I began, stopping as something caught in my throat.

  "Didn't you hear him? Didn't you see him?"

  I nodded. "Yes. I did." I wiped my eyes.

  He finished rubbing a spot. "You look as good as you ever have." He stuffed the cloth into his pocket. "Which wasn't that good. Don't cry over Tyler. He's having the time of his life."

  “Was it...painful for him...when he...?”

  Rollins put his arm around my shoulder. “It happened too fast. He didn’t feel a thing. To him it was like falling down and getting up.”

  “What about Tina?”

  Rollins hesitated. “She’s not doing as well.”

  My head was shaking back and forth like a swivel. “I can’t believe this, I just can’t believe it.”

  “Which part?”

  “Any of it. All of it. Tyler gone. Tina having killed me. Jim. I screwed everything up.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Did Tyler really have to–?“

  ”It was his time.”

  “Was it? Or was it because of what I did?”

  “Trace, even you can’t change things that much.”

  “Or at all, apparently.”

  The chimes of an ice cream truck played faintly in the distance, getting louder as it neared. Two young girls wearing swimsuits bare-footed out to the sidewalk a few houses down. They looked up one end of the street in unison, then the other, then at each other before exchanging words and running back into the house.

  A mail truck drove by and parked. The driver sat drinking coffee, in no hurry to begin the day, but there just the same. Neither rain nor sleet nor the dead at night.

  The crazy lady who lived nowhere and walked everywhere was making the rounds; same flowered dress, same hunched back, same anguished expression as if every step were pain-filled but was too afraid to stop, as if death itself were right behind. She’d been walking the streets for years and could be seen all over the area, a living testament to the virtues of activity. She was eighty if she was a day. I had no doubt I’d see her walking another ten years, unless she got hit by a bus, in which case I'd see her in passing.

  “Rollins, tell me something,” I said. “Was I really such a bad person?"

  "Trace, don't ask questions unless you really want to hear the answer."

  "I'm serious. Was I?"

  He shrugged. "No worse than some. No better than most."

  I thought back through the years and my life with Tina. The day we met. The night I asked her to marry me. Our wedding day. Our wedding night. The day we found out she was pregnant. The day Tyler was born. The day I was killed. Last week. Yesterday.

  "To have Tina...to have made her life so awful she would...” I stopped, unable to put it into words.

  "You're not the first."

  "I ruined her life...Tyler’s life...our lives."

  "She played her part."

  "I can't believe she could hate me so much, after so long. No, I guess I can, after all the things I did. You know what I was thinking the night I died? The exact moment, right before I died, I thought: 'I’m going to start over. From this moment on, I’m going to make it better for her and Tyler and make up for all the things I’ve done.’ That's what I was thinking."

  He didn't say anything for a moment. Then he did. "No, you weren't."

  "I wasn't?"

  "No."

  "Well, I am now."

  "No, you're not."

  "Well, I should be,” I said. “What's going to happen to her?"

  "To Tina? Trace,” he said, “don't ask if you don't want to know."

  "I want to know. We spent a lot of years together. In spite of everything, I still love her.”

  "You won't like it."

  "Tell me anyway." I took a breath, preparing for the worst.

  “Okay. "Nothing."

  "What?" I said, deflating.

  "I said you wouldn't like it."

  "What do you mean 'Nothing'?"

  "Nothing will come from her killing you. Nothing legal, anyway. In the eyes of the world, Jim killed you. That will be the truth."

  "But it's not the truth."

  "True."

  “Well...can’t anything be done about it?”

  “Hold on,” he said. “A moment ago you were worried about what terrible thing might happen to her. Now you’re upset because nothing will?”

  I thought a moment. “Well, it isn’t fair. Is it?”

  "Nope."

  "Where's the justice?"

  "You want justice or revenge?"

  "Just justice."

  “And you’re getting it.”

  “How do you figure? She kills me and yet nothing—“

  "Here's your justice," he said. "She had a husband who cheated on her. She was threatened, nearly raped and almost killed because of it. And the only thing she had left, her son, was killed, all because of your actions. You want justice? You're a little late. Someday, down the road, there will be another justice. But that's not for us to know or be a part of or even think about. For her, now, life is over. Satisfied?"

  I stared at the road and thought for the first time about Tina; wondering what she must be thinking and feeling and how much she had lost because of me. Everything. Satisfied?

  "How about revenge, then?"

  Rollins sighed.

  "Look,” I said, pointing. “Look at that blood on the road. That’s all that's left of Tyler."

  "And that won't even be here in a couple of days," he said. "Next rain'll probably wash it away."

  "You're not helping."

  He put his hand on my shoulder. "Tyler's fine. That stain on the road has no more to do with him than the body lying in your grave has to do with you."

  “He was my legacy,” I said. “He was all that was left of my life. He was going to carry on my name, and then his children and grandchildren after that. Rollins, now no one will ever know I was even here.”

  “They’ll know.”

  “How?” He didn’t answer. It was just something to say, I supposed. "When can I see him?"

  He took his hand away. "A while."

  "How long?"

  His eyes didn't waver. "A time."

  "That, again. What does that mean? Can you tell me?"

  "Just what it is. A time."

  "I've got to see him. I need to."

  "I know you do. But it's not that easy."

  "Sure it is," I said, pushing the anxiety away. "God can do anything, right? He can do that. It would be easy for him to do that, no problem for him--"

  Rollins was shaking his head, then he spoke gently, like a fist in the mouth. "You were given a choice. You could either go forward or go back. You chose to go back."

  "I wanted to be with my family."

  "I know."

  "I didn't know what would happen."

  "I know."

  "I didn't know I was deciding never to see him again."

  "I know."

  "But you knew," I said. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I didn't know. All I know is what I told you: when given a choice, go forward."

  "So this is my punishment?” I asked. “Because I didn't make the right choice?"

  "This is simply the result," he said. "You're not being punished. This is a natural consequence. Believe it or not, Trace, the world doesn't revolve around you."

  I heard echoes of Tina’s voice in his words.

  “And neither does any other world. It was Tyler's time. Nothing," he said, "could have changed that. Understand?"

  I nodded, accepting the inevitable. Then I shook it off. “No! I don’t believe it. I need to see him.”

  “You will. Just not now.”

  �
��Then when?”

  “When it’s over.”

  “When will that be?”

  He paused. “In a time.”

  I took a long breath.

  "I can't explain it better," Rollins said. "It's different for everyone."

  "A time," I repeated. "I don't understand." But I did understand. That was the hell of it, I understood completely. In eternity, a time is the same as a heartbeat is the same as a thousand years.

  The melody of the ice cream truck making its way up the street brought the two girls out of their home again, then more children appeared, running with hands full of coins. For them, time was a comforter. Although it had been less than a day since someone had been shot to death and a child killed, that graveyard was now their playground for time had brought safety. To a child, yesterday was a lifetime ago, a fading memory to be revived in distant adulthood. Now the squeals of delight and play brought a needed salve of normalcy to the neighborhood.

  "So I'm stuck here."

  "For now."

  "Forever."

  "For a time."

  "At least one."

  He slapped me on the back. "It will go fast."

  "It hasn't so far."

  "There's still work to do."

  "There's the one constant, even in eternity. What work?"

  "Teresa."

  I didn't know I had another groan in me, especially one so loud. “Tell me you're kidding. Isn't she dead or something?"

  "Not yet."

  I patted debris off my pants. "Too bad.”

  “She still needs you.”

  “I saved her life. What more could she need?”

  "Loose ends."

  “Where?"

  "Back at the bungalow. She's been hiding all night. She just now went back to get some things."

  I looked in the direction of the bungalow, then closed my eyes. “Too far. Too damn far.”

  I felt his hand on my back. "I'll help you."

  I felt myself lifted up into the wind like a kite...and for a moment all was quiet and peaceful and floating with the lightness of a summer’s breeze as I moved through the air...

  ...and ended with a gentle bounce on a soft cloud. Except the cloud felt like cushions, someone was crying close by, and heaven never smelled so bad. I opened my eyes to find Teresa, bent over and shaking, sitting beside me on the battered couch in the bungalow.