by C Thomas Cox
My son Charlie visited for two days. The day before he arrived, Claire and I agreed not to tell him about the incident involving the Vietnamese farmer. Claire didn't think it would be fair to put him through the pain that knowing his father was a murderer would inflict. And I didn't want him to have to keep my transgressions a secret for the rest of his life.
As soon as he arrived, he apologized to me for talking to Claire behind my back while I was stuck at Oak Ridge. I told him that I understood that he felt he was doing what was best for me, and we embraced. We then spent the rest of his visit talking about fishing hotspots, watching baseball on television, and eating the food that Claire and Liz prepared. I would've helped cook -- I know my way around the kitchen, and I make a mean shrimp scampi -- but my ribs didn't cooperate until the two weeks had nearly ended.
Though the pain worsened at night, I was still able to sleep in our bed with Claire. Before we drifted off each night, we reminisced about the good times...and only the good times. Beach vacations, dinners out, evenings spent watching the stars. I wrapped her in my arms and kissed her. She forgave me for lying about my visions of Half-Ear, and I stopped seeing him.
Claire wasn't comfortable leaving me at home alone. She made sure Liz was around whenever she had to leave the house, "Just in case you need anything." I knew, though, that she worried that, while she was out, I'd imagine Half-Ear. I promised her I wouldn't, but she didn't take no for an answer.
The first time Claire had to leave, Liz and I talked while we sipped homemade sweet tea on the patio. "Just a week ago, while I was in the woods back here, I imagined myself back in Vietnam."
"That must've been awful."
I nodded. "But once Claire told me about the boy who saw me with Scout on the driveway, I felt like this Vietnamese fog in which I'd been living lifted. I realized that it was all in my mind." I was certain that confessing my sins helped, too.
"You haven't had any visions since then?" she asked.
"Some of the images that I saw before still float around in my mind, but I feel like I can banish them at will. I'm not seeing anything new."
"Nothing?"
I hesitated before saying, "Well, I did think I saw someone when we left the police station."
"Half-Ear?"
I shook my head. "Not sure. Just noticed a bush rustle and a pair of eyes." I took a sip of tea. "But it was just after the accident, so I'm sure I was just seeing things."
"Could've been an animal," she suggested. "Maybe a dog, cat, or even a raccoon."
"Could've been."
We watched a gray squirrel leap its way across our yard and over to the edge of the patio. It glanced first at me, and then at Claire, and then back at me. It turned toward the woods and took off. Within seconds, it'd climbed to the top of one of the oaks.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry for misleading you. For convincing you to trust me. For throwing you into a situation where the police were ready to charge you with crimes you didn't commit."
She reached over and placed her hand on mine. "Don't be sorry, Jim. I know you don't understand, but you've done more for me than anyone I've ever known." I could feel my eyes begin to tear up. "You saved me from my brother's crimes. You trusted me. You believed in me. And you showed me what a man -- and what a family -- should be."
I stood up and embraced her. "I love you," she said.
"I love you, too."
I felt as though the shattered shards of my life were finally coalescing, and I again started to like the man that I was. The man who I saw in the mirror each morning. A man who could leave the past behind him. A man with a wife, a son, and a daughter who he loved...and who all loved him.
I didn't think that psychiatric care was unnecessary, though. I wasn't a fool. Rather, I embraced the opportunity to enter the VA facility. I was prepared to do everything I could to keep my memories from ever haunting me again.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
The fourth time Claire left the house, she took Liz to meet with the real estate agent. In her absence, she asked Gene to stay with me.
Gene had already visited me once -- it was on my second day home -- but since I was on narcotics I hadn't been much company. I'd since shifted to a couple ibuprofen every four or five hours, so I was clear-headed when he arrived...just a day away from moving to my temporary home at the VA hospital.
Just minutes after Gene walked in with his tackle box, Claire and Liz left. I expected them to be out for at least a few hours, as their meeting included an assessment of the improvements Liz needed to make to her condo before marketing it.
To take up the time, Gene opened the box and talked me through the techniques he used to tie the assortment of jigs contained inside. He hated paying for fishing lures that he could create on his own. I wished I had the patience to do so myself.
"We could use you behind the plate," he said. "Seems like every week at least a couple of the umpires don't show up for their games."
"I wish I could. But I'm in no condition either here," I pointed to my side. "Or here," I pointed to my head, "to help out."
He sighed. "It's a darn shame."
"It's fine," I said. "I'm in a good place right now."
"Maybe next season."
"Not sure about that," I said. "I just don't know if I could get back behind the plate. I don't want to do anything that'll bring those memories back."
"You know," Gene said. "Sometimes, it's best to confront your fears head on."
"Sometimes." This, however, was not one of those times.
He closed the tackle box. "You know, you're lucky to have such a wonderful lady in your life," he said. "A woman that'll overlook all your faults."
Was that a dig? I looked around the room to make sure a hidden camera wasn't recording my reaction for some television show. "Claire's wonderful," I replied.
"She sure is," he said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Come on, Gene. Out with it. Doesn't sound like nothing."
The temperature of my cheeks must've rose by at least ten degrees as I stared him down. Although my ribs weren't one hundred percent, they were close enough for me to take him out.
"I'd rather not say."
"Too late for that."
I stood up and hovered over him like Godzilla over Tokyo. "She's just a good woman, that's all."
"Good - in - what - way?" I stammered.
He stood up. "You do realize that she's just sending you to the VA hospital to get rid of you again."
"That's not true."
"Do you really think she wants someone as unstable as you in her life?"
"What are you trying to say?"
"Have you seen the way she looks at me?" He straightened his back and stuck out his chin. "She needs a real man. A man who doesn't let fifty-year-old events destroy him."
"You?" I poked his chest. "You really think that Claire wants you?" I chuckled as I recalled Claire's reaction when I told her about my fear that she was sneaking around with Gene.
"Why do you think I hang around here so much?"
"You sorry excuse for a friend!" I growled. "Just wait 'til I tell her that you think you have a chance with her. Her reaction will be priceless.”
He howled. "You really think Claire's going to believe you...the man who hallucinates every few hours."
"Get out." I pointed to the front door.
"Claire wants me here so she can see my pretty face when I return." He ran his palm over the gray stubble on his chin.
"Get the hell out of my house!"
He held his hands up. "Fine. Suit yourself. Let those memories haunt you while you're stuck at home all alone...like a little boy without his mommy."
I held out my clenched fist and shook it. He picked up his tackle box, backed up until he ran into the doorknob, and left. I locked the door behind him and watched him through the window as he drove away.
I couldn't believe his nerve. Sure, Claire was a wonderful woma
n. But to think that he was trying to steal her away from me! A friend he was not.
Looking back at our confrontation, however, I think Gene accomplished his purpose. He wanted to agitate me so much that I lost the equilibrium that Claire and Liz had helped me achieve. If Claire saw me return to the anguished mental state that got me in so much trouble to begin with, she might realize that she desired a more stable man. And Gene would project himself as such a man, a man to whom he hoped she would eagerly flee.
Even after Gene raced out of the driveway, I kept staring out the window. I was still processing the rage that he'd stirred up inside my stomach, and I wasn't quite sure what I'd do next. He was right about one thing -- if I told Claire what he said, she'd probably fear that I was again losing it…even though it was the truth. But could I really withhold the truth from her again? Especially the day before she was going to take me to the VA hospital?
The illumination provided by scattered lightning bugs signaled the impending darkness. Although I wasn't quite sure what I was going to tell Claire, I stared at the end of the driveway, hopeful that she'd return an hour earlier than I expected. She was my rock...the only one on whom I could fully rely. Her passenger came in a close second.
Light emanating from an oncoming vehicle soon illuminated the driveway, and within seconds a pair of headlights appeared over the crest. My heart leapt with the joy that only Claire's presence could provide. As the tires crunched the sticks and gravel beneath them, however, I realized that the vehicle was much larger than Claire's.
I raised my fist again, sure Gene had returned in his pickup truck to continue our fight. But as I watched the vehicle while its driver threw it into park, I realized that it wasn't Gene's truck at all. I threw my arms against the glass when I learned that, instead, the vehicle just outside my window was a silver Honda Pilot.
Chapter Seventy
I turned away from the window, closed my eyes, and forced myself to breathe. I was certain that the heightened anxiety that Gene's visit brought on was causing me to again imagine my tormentor. He's not real. He's not real. He's not real.
In the previous two weeks, I had finally admitted to myself that Half-Ear existed only in my head. I couldn't let my delusions again overthrow me.
As I pressed my back against the cool glass, my lungs began to again function as they would during any spring evening. That is, until I heard my front door’s knob to rattle.
I turned one-hundred-eighty-degrees to scan my driveway through the pane. I expected to see either Claire's car or Gene's truck -- either of which I'd prefer over the alternative. Instead, I still stared at the Pilot.
The Pilot's driver nudged the front door open just seconds after he began to fiddle with its knob. Gene must not have taken the time to lock the front door behind him when he stormed out.
I dashed to the door and threw all of my weight at it, hoping to shove the intruder -- whether real or simply a fabrication of my mind -- back outside.
At that point, I almost convinced myself that fabrication was the most likely alternative. Perhaps Gene left the door slightly ajar, and a passing breeze blew it open. Maybe the Pilot was merely a remnant of my past hallucinations.
When I made contact with the door, however, I felt it slam into someone on the other side. Someone who was as real as me. I shivered.
Shoving the door from the inside must have surprised the intruder, as the door slammed shut. Its latch clicked into the catch, and I turned the deadbolt.
After a quick deep breath, I returned to the window. I hoped to watch him flee in the face of my resistance. Instead, he took off toward the garage. I watched in horror as he turned over a rock just to the right of the garage…and picked up our spare house key.
Not only was I scared that he'd be able to unlock the deadbolt and again attempt to break in. His knowledge of the location of our spare key indicated that he'd either spent hours combing the property for such a key or, more likely, he had watched either Claire, Liz, or me retrieve that key sometime in the past. Which meant, of course, that he'd been surveilling our property for who knows how long.
The back of my head began to pound as I grabbed a kitchen chair and wedged it under the doorknob. I then searched the room for anything I could use as a weapon. I didn't own a gun since Gene had told Claire about my request for one rather than lend me one of his.
I pulled a twenty-eight-ounce aluminum baseball bat out of a wicker basket in the corner -- I used it every year to hit grounders to infielders during spring tryouts -- and jogged back to the window. As Half-Ear approached the front door, I could see clearly that the bottom of his left ear had been unevenly severed from his head. A narrow scar, near the base of his skull, ran parallel to the ear's lowermost terminus.
Just before he shoved the key into the deadbolt, he noticed me at the window. He paused, took two giant steps toward me, and spat. The sputum landed at my eye level and worked its way down the pane like a slug works its way across a sidewalk, leaving a trail of slime behind it. I held up the bat, but Half-Ear didn't care. He marched over to the front door and unlocked it.
I started toward the door, expecting that it would take him minutes to gain entry -- if he was able to do so at all. If he did, I'd knock him unconscious with the bat. However, as I glanced at the wood-spindled chair I expected would hold him at bay, I recalled that, just before my admittance to Oak Ridge, I had added no-skid feet to the bottom of the chair’s legs. Claire had asked me to do so to prevent the chairs from scratching the floor. The feet did a great job protecting the floor, but they made it awfully difficult to use the chair as a wedge to keep a maniac from entering one's house.
Once Half-Ear applied the slightest pressure, the chair slid out from under the knob, and the door swung open. I dodged the oncoming chair and held the bat over my head.
I wanted to rush him...to strike him with my bat before he had the opportunity to attack. I took one step toward him, but recoiled immediately when I saw the pistol he was pointing at my head.
"Drop the bat, old man," he said. Although his accent reminded me of the Vietnamese citizens with whom I interacted during days in Vietnam, it was a shadow of the heavy accents with which they spoke English. He must've lived in the States for much of his life.
Trembling, I dropped the bat. "Good," he said. "Now, if you want to live, do everything I say." I nodded. After the past two weeks with Claire, I wanted nothing more than to live. And I feared that protesting -- or even asking questions -- might prevent that from happening.
"Pick up that chair in place it front of the window," he said, pointing to the overturned kitchen chair that failed to keep him outside. I lifted it off the ground and walked it over to the window, glancing at him at least four times while I did so. Every time I looked his way, he shook the gun at me. I looked past the gun, however, and focused on his face.
Although I was certain I had killed the Vietnamese farmer all those years ago, the man who stood before me reminded me so much of him that the residual guilt prevented me from thinking about ways in which I could fight back. I felt that striking Half-Ear would somehow heap pain upon that farmer's soul. He still might kill you, I told myself. But it was no use. I placed the chair in front of the window, slumped my shoulders, and begged for mercy with my eyes. “Sit,” he commanded. I did.
"Now look into the backseat of my car," he said.
"What?" I asked, wanting to confirm that I understood him correctly.
"Look inside. There's something...someone, rather...who I want you to see."
In the settling twilight, I craned my neck toward my window and stared. At first, I could barely see anything through the Pilot's tinted rear window. However, as I my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I was able to discern slight movement. I soon realized the object rocking back and forth wasn't an object at all. It was someone's head.
The person inside must've realized that I was looking at him, as he leaned his head toward the glass and stared back. As he did so, I was able to
make out his features, including eyes that I'd be able to pick out of any crowd. His mouth was taped shut, and he appeared to be bound to his seat.
Just as I realized who Half-Ear was holding captive, I felt cold metal against the bottom of my left ear. Before I had a chance to move, a shot rang out and tore through my flesh. The window shattered, and pain emanating from my wound caused my body to jerk to the right and plummet onto the floor. I recall watching the wood planks grow close as my world turned to midnight.
Chapter Seventy-One
When I came to, I found myself tied, with braided nylon rope, to the bloodied kitchen chair. The chair, however, rested on the cold concrete floor of my unfinished basement rather than my hardwood first floor. The pain originating from my own newly-created half-ear pierced the side of my skull, and a combination of blood and puss dripped onto my shoulder.
Across from me sat an empty chair that Half-Ear must've carried down from the kitchen. Half-Ear, though, was nowhere to be found.
Since I didn't hear any sounds coming from the floor above me, I wondered if, perhaps, something scared him enough to cause him to flee. Though I had no desire to see him again, it was difficult for me to stomach the idea of him departing with his backseat prisoner. How did Half-Ear capture him? Was it merely a means to inflict more pain upon my crushed soul?
The blades of pain that pierced my ear made it difficult to focus. However, I did my best to try to determine why Half-Ear had it in for me. I understood that he wanted me to suffer the same injury as he...but why? Did he select me at random...an easy victim of his plot to make others suffer from his deformity? I couldn't figure it out but, based on the effort he put into my demise, I doubted it. And I couldn’t comprehend why, even after he shot off half my ear, I wasn't ready to kill him.