The Melody of Silence: Crescendo

by LP Tvorik

  I wanted to scream at her— to take her by the shoulders and shake her until the blinders she was wearing fell off and she realized my world and goals and priorities didn’t look the same as hers. That I had real problems that a quality essay on Chaucer wasn’t going to solve.

  Instead, I’d just nodded and made an empty promise to ‘try harder.’

  It was Friday, so Tim and Marsha were up a little later than usual. At 8, we tucked Trish into my bed and switched to more subdued activities. Deb read a magazine. Ronnie plugged headphones into his boombox and listened to music. I sat by the door and tried to concentrate on my book. I’d already finished Pride and Prejudice— Alex’s ooey gooey love story selection for our two-man book club— and had moved on to the Fellowship of the Ring. I usually wasn’t much for fantasy, but the last two weeks had necessitated an unprecedented degree of escape.

  The book wasn’t bad. Given a choice, though, I’d prefer to escape to Alex than to Middle Earth.

  By nine, Ronnie was out cold. Deb gently pulled the headphones off his ears and shook a blanket out over him.

  By ten, Deb had fallen into restless sleep, curled up on Paul’s old bed. As she did every night, she wrapped herself into a ball, twitching and mumbling at every yell and laugh that came from the living room. I switched off the lights and retrieved Ronnie’s boombox from beneath his bed. I had my own stash of cassettes and found an old Beatles album, plugging that in and turning the volume down low. Background noise usually helped when one of the kids was having trouble sleeping.

  I wouldn’t have had any trouble sleeping at all. With the lights off and the kids asleep, my own eyelids grew so heavy I had to fight to keep them open. I sat with my back against the door and tried to read by the dim streetlights, but my eyes kept sliding out of focus. The nauseous fear of drifting off and missing my last chance at redemption only made me more tired.

  So I stood. I paced. I did push ups and crunches. I silently rehearsed my speech. I’d have to start at the beginning. If I’d learned anything from living half my life between the pages of a book, it was that context is important. I couldn’t just tell her. I had to show her.

  It wasn’t until midnight that Tim and Marsha shifted to the bedroom. By the time I heard them moving I was suspended awkwardly between consuming anxiety and pressing exhaustion. My heart was pounding, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My brain was firing on every synapse, but my head felt stuffy and too heavy for my neck.

  I did another set of pushups and then stood, leaning against the wall and trying to listen to the Beatles instead of Tim and Marsha going at it in the room down the hall. Outside, a car drove by and bright white headlights slid across the room, illuminating the kids. They all slept peacefully, and an unexpected bubble of hope swelled up in my chest. I don’t know if it was the exhaustion making me stupid, or the knowledge that I was about to tell Alex the truth after over a decade of going it alone, but I felt good. I could do it. I could keep them safe and hang onto Alex. I could support myself when I left Tim and Marsha’s. I’d find a way for the kids to spend their time with me. I’d figure it out. With Alex in my corner, I’d make it work.

  I was so caught up in the delusion, I almost didn’t catch the sound of Tim rising from bed and stumbling down the hall. A year or so ago, that sound would have sent chills down my spine. That night, I just felt annoyed.

  About time, old man.

  He was fumbling with the girls’ doorknob when I slipped out into the hall.

  “Go to bed, Tim,” I said, leaning against the wall. We’d long since abandoned our back-and-forth. He knew exactly why I was confronting him. It was almost refreshing. Tim was the one person with whom my relationship consisted of no secrets or lies. No false smiles. We hated each other, pure and simple and honest.

  “Fuck off,” he slurred, turning back to the door.

  Sighing, I pushed myself off the wall and approached, shoving him back. “I said go back to bed.”

  The cracking backhand came faster than I would have expected, slamming me against the wall. My head rang, my mouth filled with blood, and the familiar, comfortable red haze dropped over my vision.

  I punched him in the face, so hard he dropped back against the opposite wall, giving me room to circle around so we were no longer crowded. I had the empty hallway behind me— room to maneuver.

  He came back swinging, but I ducked beneath the blow and plowed a shoulder into his stomach, driving him back. He stumbled away until he hit his own bedroom door, at the end of the hallway.

  That was my fatal mistake.

  Pinning Tim against the door with my weight, I pounded my fists into his sides, grimacing in satisfaction at the sound of his grunts of pain. Then something happened. Maybe he finally got his arms up and brought an elbow down on the back of my neck. Whatever the cause, the world went unpleasantly colorful and my legs dropped out from beneath me. When I got my shit together, I found myself face down on ratty carpet with all of Tim’s weight bearing down on the knee he had pressed between my shoulder blades.

  My right side was pinned against the wall and my left arm was trapped beneath me. Tim had a hand on the back of my neck, shoving my face to the ground, hissing obscenities at me. If he was smarter, or had the gift of hindsight, he’d have knocked me out cold while he had me vulnerable. Instead, he just took the opportunity to wax poetic.

  “You’re a useless little faggot,” he whispered venomously, pressing his weight into that knee until it was all I could do not to scream.

  “Fuck you,” I gasped, struggling to get my left arm free.

  “Maybe I will. Just like I fucked that slut you love so much. Teach you a little something about defying me.”

  I didn’t even bother replying. With a gargantuan effort, I managed to leverage my body up just enough to free my left arm and swing it back blindly. My elbow met with the side of his thigh, just above the knee.

  That little lump of muscle and nerves is more vulnerable than you realize if you’ve never been hit there. Tim didn’t exactly collapse in overwhelming pain, but he did cry out, and his weight shifted as he instinctually moved away from the blow. It wasn’t much— just enough to get my arms beneath me and shove up, bucking him off.

  Tim dropped back against the wall, struggling to keep his balance as I scrambled to my feet, clumsily batting away his punches. He was panting hard already, his booze-drenched muscles failing him. Just a minute more— maybe less—and I’d have him.

  I was too confident. Too oblivious to my surroundings. I drove Tim back, dealing three times as many punches as I took, so consumed with my looming victory that I didn’t even hear the door open behind me, or Marsha approaching at my back. All I knew was Tim, and the fact that I had him. He was stumbling backward, nose and lip bleeding, panting raggedly as he struggled to fend off my blows.

  Then, in a flash, my skull was splitting open, spilling me off the surface of the earth and causing time to blink and swirl together. I felt my body hit the floor, and Tim’s weight straddling me, and the flashing pain of meaty fists pounding into my face. I heard Marsha’s voice.

  “Get him, baby!” she screamed. I must have woken her up when I slammed Tim into her door. Back in the day she’d have stopped us fighting, but she knew that with my record it wouldn’t be Tim the authorities suspected. Especially now that I was eighteen. He’d be cited with self-defense and I’d be carted off to jail. She wanted this fight.

  My arms didn’t want to respond as I fought to get them up in front of my face, fending off Tim’s blows.

  Holy shit. Is this how I die?

  No way in hell. Alex was waiting for me. Gritting my teeth, I pulled my arms up, blocking my face while I screamed at my legs to come back to me as well. If I could buck him off I could get the upper hand. He was still tired. I could still win.

  “Get off him!” someone screamed, and my blood froze. The voice wasn’t tin
ny or raspy from years of chain smoking. It was young. Crisp. Terrified.

  Trish.

  Her round, innocent face appeared behind Tim’s shoulder, her skinny little arm wrapped around his neck. Her free hand was balled into a fist and she pounded it against his back with righteous fury. “Get off! Leave him alone! Get off!”

  Tim shrugged her from his back like she weighed nothing. With a growl, he tossed her against the wall and she slid to the ground, stunned, and that was that.

  I snapped.

  It wasn’t just Trish that did me in. The sight of her sprawled against the wall was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the real weight was in the build-up. It was in the years of suppressed hatred— blows I pulled for the sake of the kids. It was in the fury over what he’d done to Deb. It was in the heartache over the thought of losing Alex. It was in the sheer exhaustion— mental and physical and spiritual— that had dogged my footsteps for as long as I could remember. In the looming darkness and the fear of what would happen when it finally closed in around me.

  Ultimately, though, it was a choice to break. Somewhere, deep down, I still had a kernel of strength—a fraying string wrapped around the rage that I chose to cut. That red haze deepened and spread from my vision to my whole being, and I made no effort to stop it. I welcomed the transformation. The surrender. My blood was fire. My bones were steel. My muscles were the frothing waters of a raging sea. I was power. Lethality. I was unstoppable vengeance.

  With a roar that tore itself from my throat like a living thing, I rolled, throwing Tim off me against the wall opposite Trish. He slammed into the drywall, and I followed and pinned him to the ground, all trace of weakness gone as power surged in my veins. I wrapped my fingers around his throat, squeezing with intent to kill. It wasn’t enough to choke him to death. I wanted to rip out his trachea and watch his blood stain the carpet.

  Marsha was screaming, and I felt her approach. Without looking, I sensed the same heavy object in her hands with which she had clubbed me earlier. One hand still wrapped around Tim’s neck, I reached out with my free hand and grabbed her ankle, yanking hard and bringing her to the ground. A lamp thumped to the carpet beside her. With one heave, I dragged her drug-wasted form into reach and shifted my grip up to her neck.

  “You’re next,” I snarled, and she whimpered as I released her neck and shoved her away. Never mind that it was an empty threat. Even in the rage, I couldn’t hit a woman. Not even her. But Marsha didn’t need to know that, and from the way she scrambled away I knew she believed me.

  Tim was choking and gasping, his eyes bugging out of his head. His hands scrabbled feebly at my wrist before shooting up to my face. I smacked them away before he could dig his fingers into my eyes. When he kept clawing at me, I hauled back and slammed my fist into his face.

  It felt good. Better than it ever had before. I felt the distant pain as the tiny bones in my hand jammed against each other and my knuckles met with the hard surface of his cheekbone. I felt the squish of skin and muscle giving out beneath the force of the blow. I felt blood, thick and warm, coating my skin. I hauled back and hit him again. His hands dropped away.

  “You don’t touch them,” I heard myself scream, my voice raw. I let go of his throat so I could hit him with both hands. I needed to feel his skull cave. I needed his blood on my hands. I needed to know— beyond the vaguest shadow of a doubt— that he was gone. I couldn’t share the earth with him. I wouldn’t survive another day breathing his air.

  “Stop!” someone was screaming, and there were hands on the back of my shirt, pulling. I barely felt them. My life began and ended with taking Tim’s. I hit him again and again and again, watching his head snap back and forth with the force of my blows. The air tasted like blood, and I pulled it deep into my lungs with each ragged breath, savoring the tang. I felt his presence leave the earth with each punch, each drop of blood, and I knew I had to keep going. I had to finish it or nobody would be safe.

  The hands tugged harder. “Stop!” someone new screamed, and another set of hands latched onto my right arm. Reality shot through the fog. Trish’s tiny, cold hands wrapped around my wrist, and I knew I couldn’t shake her loose without hurting her.

  Fuck.

  “You gotta stop, Nate,” Ronnie said in my ear, his arm wrapping around me from behind, pulling back. Then Deb was there, her face filling my red-clouded vision.

  “Stop,” she pleaded, pushing me back, and I didn’t have a choice. They were all over me, sucking the fight out, their desperate fear like a bucket of water on the flames of my bloodlust.

  I let Ronnie pull and Deb push me away from Tim’s body, staggering to my feet. The kids let go and fell away from me, grouping together and staring at me as I stumbled back. When my spine hit the wall my knees buckled and I slid down until my ass met the ground. Tim lay in the center of the hallway, arms and legs sprawled out to the sides. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, and his face was a puffy, ruined mask of blood. His chest was still.

  My eyes burned, and my gasping breath began to wheeze with helpless sobs. Hot tears burned their way down my face and I couldn’t find it in me to make them stop. I’d just murdered a man. I should have been flowing over with fear, remorse, and disgust. All I felt, though, was peace. Like the clouds were finally parting. Like the noose around my neck was finally loosening.

  Irony is a bitch, huh? I had just thrown myself bodily from the frying pan into the fire, and all I could do was weep with relief.

  Deb broke away from the group and knelt by my side. I tipped my head back against the wall and blinked at the ceiling, waiting for her to slap me. Berate me. Cry. Something.

  Instead, she just wrapped an arm around my neck and pressed her forehead to my temple in an awkward approximation of a hug. When she pulled back, her eyes met mine and I saw my own relief reflected in her gaze. She tipped her chin up and nodded slightly, and I knew that there was more to the bloody corpse than solace. Revenge permeated the air.

  Then Trish was there, pushing past Deb and worming her way into my lap. “It’s okay,” she said, with all the weight and wisdom of a woman ten times her age. Her hands wrapped up in my shirt and she buried her face in my chest, but she didn’t cry. It was like some sort of twisted role-reversal. My kids, my charges, dry eyed and strong while I melted into the respite of Tim’s absence. “We’re okay.”

  Ronnie didn’t look at me, but he slid down the wall by my side, pulling his knees close to his chest. His jaw was locked tight and his eyes were wide, watching the hallway down which Marsha had disappeared. Ronnie was a smart kid. He knew what was happening— a silent changing of the guard. My watch was ending. His was just beginning.

  Beyond the thin walls of the house, I heard sirens. Trish tucked herself tighter against me, Deb huddled on my right with her arm linked through my mine, and Ronnie sat silent vigil on my left. Tim lay lifeless in the hall, his blood congealing in the carpet. Marsha cried and screamed in the front lawn, railing at whatever poor 911 operator had the misfortune to answer her call. Just miles away, miles that felt like lightyears, Alex lay on the rock and stared up at the stars. Alone.

  Even though I wasn’t there, I could feel her giving up on me. I felt the last sliver of light disappearing as she walked away and pulled the door shut behind her. Even if I’d had the chance to tell her everything, she couldn’t forgive this.

  Could she?

  I was eight when I took my first life, eighteen when I took my second, and felt no remorse on either occasion. I was drawn tight as a bowstring my whole life— both a product and a perpetrator of a ruthless, barbaric brand of violence. Pain was my natural state. Blood was my medium for artistic expression. Cruelty was my native language.

  I was a tough little shit, is what I’m saying.

  The cops knew that. They knew who I was. I suppose that’s why they showed up guns drawn, faces red, eyes popping as they screamed at
me. “Get on the ground, asshole! Hands behind your head! Cross your feet at the ankles! Don’t fucking move!”

  They probably didn’t expect to find me sitting against the wall, face buried in my knees, crying like a baby. I’d sent the kids back to Tim and Marsha’s room the second the sirens drew close and flashing lights bounced off the walls from the bedroom windows. They were safe, so I didn’t feel much compulsion to obey the cops’ orders. I just sat there and sobbed— marooned in a sea of consuming relief and plunging darkness.

  Alex was gone. Somewhere, worlds away, she was walking home with moonlight shining off her tear-streaked face. Walking away from me. Away from the pain I brought her. Away from the darkness I carried with me.

  I should have been happy. She deserved a good life. A man who didn’t have blood on his hands. A life of certainty and light. My arrest was giving that to her, forcing her away when she might otherwise have kept coming back— offering me chance after chance to set myself straight.

  I’m a selfish fuck, though, and I wasn’t happy.

  I just wanted her back.

  Chapter TWENTY

  alex

  I wish I could spell it all out for you. That it was simple and straightforward. I was sad at first, so I cried. After two weeks and three days, I became angry. I left town. I forgot he ever existed.

  But it’s never that simple, is it? Emotions don’t arrange themselves neatly for us to hurdle over on our race to the finish line. They’re a murky, muddy mess. They’re a waist-deep pit of sludge and prickly vines. When one lets go another grabs hold, and sometimes you’re a victim to everything at once. When that happens, it’s all you can do to keep from sinking below the surface and letting them drown you just so you can get some freaking peace and quiet.

  The first few days weren’t the hardest, either. They should have been. Time heals all wounds, right? I’d lived that adage with my mother. Not that I was ‘over’ her death, so to speak, but the wrenching agony had faded and become more livable.