Walter The Homeless Man

by Tekoa Manning

  “Marcie dear, start working on you. Begin to paint again and sketch and listen to music that makes you feel alive, return to school and finish your degree. Focus on you Marcie, and healing yourself, then pursue a man. I think though until you are whole, I regret to say, each attempt at a relationship will end in doom.”

  Marcie realized she needed sleep, sunshine, and teacups with warm honey lemon. She needed to listen to her grandmother and try and heal. Her heart hurt so deeply, and her mind was tired of analyzing Benjamin’s next move, or hers rather. Did he know she spent the night at the hotel? Did he miss her? Would he ever call her again? Were her parents aware that she was even alive?

  Marcie was jolted once again out of her dazed state by another question. “Marcie, are you working anywhere?”

  “No Gram’s, I have been being quite a sloth lately.”

  “What about your artwork?”

  “Haven’t touched a pencil or paint brush in months.” Marcie peered up at Lilly and realized she missed her art. It was therapeutic and staying here awhile and painting might be just what she needed, fresh air, fresh food, and Gram’s’ lovely face. When she thought about how her father had come from this precious woman’s womb, she was boggled. How could such evil be birthed from the very womb where such love lived? “Gram’s, can you call Daddy and let him know I am going to be here for a bit. I need a bath?”

  “Of course dear, why he is so busy with that company he probably doesn’t even know you’re missing! Oops, sorry dear, you know what I mean.” Boy, did she ever. Lilly shook her head back and forth and made a tsking sound with her tongue.

  Marcie finished her tofu and headed for the bathroom. There were candles and flowers everywhere. The scent of floral filled the air, and the large claw foot tub looked so inviting. Marcie grabbed the bath salts and bubbles, allowing the water to get extra hot. Then she laid her head back and closed her eyes. She wasn’t one for praying, but for some reason, she felt like talking to Him.

  “God, if you’re real and you can hear me, I need help. I’m sorry for all the bad things I’ve done and I really need forgiveness. I’m tired of riding this roller coaster, and I’m tired of men treating me like garbage, and God, I’m tired of not knowing why I’m here and what I am supposed to do here on this planet called earth. There has to be more to living than this. If you could bend down your ear and hear me, I need help.”

  A silent tear traveled down her cheek as she ran the soft washcloth over her broken body, finally resting below where Steve had left an ache of invasion, roughly using her to fulfill his lust, and she began to choke up.

  “Do you hear me, God?” another glistening droplet fell into the water. “Oh God, please bend your ear and hear me!” At that moment unawares to Marcie, He heard.

  Reunion

  Chapter 65

  Walter stood up and looked out at the gray sky, familiar ground he thought. He missed home, even the area of town looked engaging to him. It was where he raised his children, where he raised his pigeons, and where he had met Ruthie. “Yes, the air even smells different,” he said, as he inhaled deeply. But although the air was fresh with familiarity, Walter wasn’t feeling like himself. He was clammy and the urgency in his bladder was screaming for relief. He walked off the path of gravestones to a treed area to relieve himself. This was something that was becoming more and more difficult to do. His mouth was exceedingly dry, and he realized he’d had no medicine for his diabetes for days. Walter wasn’t sure how he could physically walk all the way to the police station to turn himself in. Up ahead he heard cars in the distance and then two vehicles emerging straight towards the grave site, both looked hauntingly familiar to Walter. Walter walked back towards them, his eyes following the vehicles. And yet Walter didn’t feel so well. He coughed several times and peered at the cars making their way towards the side street next to the row of tombs where Ruthie laid. Was he dreaming? Then the sound of car doors opening and voices that were calling to him, echoing his name seemed enormously surreal.

  They were over five hundred feet away, but he knew the sound of his children. Yes, he’d know their voices anywhere. Before he knew it his grandchildren were running toward him and the face of his daughter, her eyes peering into his from a distance. “Daddy, Daddy is that you?” He heard her call for him. It was his carrot top and then his son Daniel’s joyous face running towards him. They were drawing closer and closer. But Walter stood frozen and still. What could he possibly say or do to fix everything? He had been nothing but a coward, he had left them and lived as a vagabond while they worried while they cared for his sick wife, his responsibility. Walter looked out at the figures coming towards him and he began to tremble and he began to cry from his belly, an inward shaking of humbleness and grief in the highest of forms.

  Walter had tried to be strong for so long. He had tried so hard to be tough and not feel the emotions that laid dormant underneath, like a breath of winter hidden from reach. He had tried to sleep any and everywhere and never ask for pity or assistance. Even the bread he stole from Desiree was repaid by repairs and handiwork. He had tried not to cry or become angry at God for the hand that was dealt to him, but all of a sudden every emotion from Ruthie’s spirit leaving this earth, along with her mind, was coming down upon him. Every face and every smile he had longed to touch and feel were headed toward him, and all Walter could do was sob and moan as his whole body began to shake. And yet as worthless as he felt about what he had done, he stretched out his arms, to take in any that would still have him. His body rippling with emotions, racked from anguish was shaken.

  He then heard a sound that was almost as precious as his children and his grandchildren. It was a cooing sound and a sound of feathers brushing the skies. Walter looked above him and the sight of Jackie gave birth to even more joy mixed with tears. His chest and throat felt swollen and his heart tightened with each breath. Walter tried to run to meet them, but wave after wave of feeling caused him to stand and sob like a baby. Then he began to cry out to them. “Oh God, I am so sorry I left you! Oh God, I’m so very sorry.” His eyes were meeting theirs, pleading for forgiveness. “Oh how I’ve missed you all, can you ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive me?” His words were cracking and slurring with pain.

  Walter fell to his knees right in front of Ruthie’s tombstone and continued to sob. And suddenly they were all before him, his beautiful family, eyes locking and arms and hands reaching towards him. “Daddy, we’ve missed you so. Are you okay, Dad?” But there was a humming sound in his ears and a far away feeling Walter couldn’t shake. And as he rose up to meet them, something happened to Walter’s balance, and there was that tightening gripping his chest and numbness in his arm, then a blackness. And yet Walter heard the sound of his name being sung out over and over, except as hard as he tried to reach them he could not. Then he began to travel swiftly through a tunnel filled with light and suddenly the voices and the faces were completely obsolete.

  Distance

  Chapter 66

  Bradford pulled in the driveway and walked up the porch and let himself in through the front door. Desiree met his eyes and wanted to simply run to him, just put her arms around him, and let him hold her until the world melted away. She didn’t want to fight anymore or let anything come between them. Now with Benjamin in the picture, her heart felt mangled and twisted again.

  “Truce?” He said. His smile was irresistible and she couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Yes, truce,” She answered. Desiree walked up and embraced him with a hug that was over too quickly for her. She then went to kiss the kids and double check with the sitter about the rules, grabbed her purse and cell phone, and looked at Bradford. “Well, where is it that you are taking me that’s so mysterious?”

  “You’ll see, are we ready?”

  “Yes, sir, whenever you are.”

  “Right this way, my lady, your carriage awaits.”

  “Bye Josh, Bye Tabitha, be good for Crystal,” Desiree yelled from the front r
oom as she and Bradford made their way out the door. Desiree hopped in Bradford’s Jeep, and soon they were off for an adventure that seemed perplexing. If Desiree hadn’t witnessed Benjamin firsthand the night before she could just act as if everything was normal and that Bradford’s biological son hadn’t really killed her husband. She could pretend they were off on a date and that everything was blissful. But inside she was scared.

  After several minutes, Bradford was getting off the expressway at an area of town known for drug deals, projects, and poverty. Desiree looked out the window at the shotgun houses that lined the streets. There was a rather vicious looking dog tied to a tree, very inhumane she thought as they breezed by. Across the street an assortment of children were playing ball and jumping rope, their eyes oblivious to the trash and debris that seemed to litter the street and sidewalks. There was a car up on blocks, and several houses had broken down looking vehicles layered about the yard. “Where are we going?” She turned to Bradford her facial expression revealing her confusions as to why anyone would want to be in this part of town.

  Bradford eased down an alley and pulled the Jeep in front of a shotgun house with a ripped screen door and a yard full of brown grass. “We’re here,” he turned and looked at her, analyzing her response.

  “Okay, and where is that actually?” Desiree’s forehead was crinkled and she was confused, to say the least.

  “I wanted to try and explain the chain of events that led to a horrible tragedy for the two people I love.”

  Desiree was intrigued. “Go on,” she said, motioning with her hand.

  “Well, first I need for you to knock on the door of the house we’re parked in front of and meet a man named Larry. Just pretend you have the wrong house and get back in the Jeep. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Bradford, I don’t want to just go up to some stranger’s door and knock on it. Come on?”

  “Desiree, can you just do it for me? Anyway, it’s not some stranger, it’s the man who raised my son.”

  “In this area of town, I know you said it was bad, but gosh, Brad.”

  “I know,” Bradford sighed, “I felt completely shocked when I saw it. I prayed there had been some sort of a mistake.”

  Desiree was starting to get a vivid picture of what this young boy’s life must have been like. And with the atmosphere of poverty before her, she decided to take an even closer look inside the young man’s life who had taken John’s. “Okay Bradford, I’ll be right back.”

  Desiree eased out of the Jeep and walked up the sidewalk littered with cigarettes butts and empty beer cans. She made her way up the porch and knocked on the green trimmed screen door. In the distance, she heard a voice yell something that she couldn’t make out and nervously looked back towards the Jeep. After what seemed like eons the screen door swung open abruptly.

  A little scrawny man with a cigar in between his fingers opened the door. He had beady eyes and reeked of body odor and alcohol. He looked Desiree up and down lustfully and then smiled up at her only to reveal a mouth missing several teeth. “Hey doll, what brings you my way?”

  “Uhhh, I must have the wrong house,” Desiree said hurriedly and turned quickly, heading back down the porch as fast as she could.

  “Where you going in such a hurry,” he called after her. Desiree jerked the Jeep door open and hopped inside and Bradford took off as quickly as he could.

  “See why I wanted you to meet the man who raised my son.”

  “Oh God Bradford, that was horrific.”

  “I know Des, I’m still flabbergasted. Patty and I gave up our son, and all the while I thought he was being raised in some nice home in the suburbs, going to good schools and playing sports. Meanwhile back at the ranch! I have never had so much guilt in my life. While I ate at 5-star restaurants and traveled the world, my son was getting the crap beat out of him and the worst forms of verbal abuse you can imagine from that man. To top it all off, he watched his mother die of cancer. I thought if I showed you this place and where he came from, you might be able to understand better why he was drinking and driving at 17. I am by no means trying to make an excuse for what he has done to you and your children. I know that what he did was wrong, but I wanted you to try and see what life must have been like for my son. Just for one minute, can you please just try and do that for me?” Bradford was choking up inside.

  Desiree sat in silence. So many things and such pain filled her heart for Bradford. Knowing how much she loved her children and wanted to protect them, she knew it must have hurt him terribly to see what kind of life his son had lived and know that it didn’t have to be that way. She wanted to forgive him, but something seemed to pull her back to the cemetery and Joshua standing by her in his little suit coat crying. How could she ever rid herself of the hatred that had consumed her? Now at least, she understood why Benjamin had done the things he had. At least, she had peered into his world from a distance.

  “I’m so sorry Bradford. I know this must have wounded you deeply. I’m sorry your son was raised in such an environment as this. I feel bad for any child who has to go through abuse. Thank you for allowing me to see inside Benjamin’s life more clearly.”

  She looked at him sincerely. “I just don’t know if I can ever get over what he did to my family. I wish I could tell you I was ready to forgive him and that I was mature enough to, but I just don’t know if I can do that. And I know I can never forget, no, I will never forget what he did.”

  Bradford looked at Desiree intently, “He will never forget either.” There was a long pause before Bradford continued. “My son will live the rest of his life rehashing a ride he took one night after hospice came in and removed his mother’s body. He will never forget a ride he took to get away from a father named Larry who was the spawn of Satan himself. He will relive the sounds of that crash for the rest of his life. He will relive the smell of blood and death, and he will replay in his mind every ‘what if’ over and over until he is crazed by mental disturbance. What if I hadn’t drunk so much? What if I hadn’t driven? What if I had just taken a walk instead? Don’t you understand, Des? Don’t you get it?”

  Desiree was crying now and sobbing uncontrollably. She tried to stop by sniffing and continuously wiping her eyes that were streaming. But the tears along with her mascara kept coming.

  Bradford pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant and pulled Desiree into his arms. He laid her head on his chest and tried to calm her. “This is going to take some time Des, but if you will work on it, I know eventually you will do the right thing. If you search your heart and mind and think about what kind of effect this is all having on you and your children, I know you will forgive him.”

  Desiree didn’t know why, but she felt like a child curled up on his chest, and the sound of his heart beating in her ear and the smell of his shirt all made her feel safe. She knew she would miss this man and she knew that she had to walk away because of Benjamin. She also knew that she would regret it for the rest of her life. “I’ll do whatever it takes, Brad. I promise,” she said, as she wiped the smudges of mascara from beneath her eyes. “I’m going to try and get better for me and especially for my children. I’m going to miss you.” She looked at him and felt saddened by the turn of events.

  Bradford took her hand and squeezed it. “We’ll always be friends Desiree, and we will be in touch at work and you know that if you or the children need anything, you can call me. Anytime, you can call, just right now I have to focus on my son and what’s best for him.” Desiree nodded and squeezed his hand in a return fashion. Then they traveled through the dark streets with their silence and their many thoughts that ran as fast as the road beneath them.

  Tears of Forgiveness

  Chapter 67

  Walter stepped through the lighted tunnel to a place where he felt joy like a river. He had no fear whatsoever. He was ageless. It was as if he were spiritual and not physical. A celestial body had taken the place of his physical one. He heard songs that were so f
ull of energy and peace; yet, the instruments used to make the sound of them was foreign to him. Flowers danced on hills and beckoned him to colors he could not name. Trees waved leaves that resembled nothing he’d ever seen, and the fruit of them was large and bright with hues unknown. And there past a river that was crystal clear stood his beloved, Ruthie. She was so young and so beautiful. Walter could scarcely breathe. All at once he realized he had been created for this place. This place was where he belonged and everything seemed too blissful to comprehend. Yes, he had always been meant to live here in this captivating land. He held out his hand and Ruthie took it.

  “You’re early, Walter,” she mouthed. Walter tried to decipher what she meant and then it dawned on him, he was in heaven. He was at the place where time stands still and yet he was early?

  “Walter, you’ve come early dear,” she smiled repeating herself. “Oh Walter, how wonderful this place is!” She twirled around laughing with joy, her eyes dancing and Walter wondered if this was real. Was he dreaming?

  “How do you know I’m early, Ruthie?” Walter did not want to leave. This is what he had been longing for all along, to be with her and enjoy his Ruthie with a strong celestial body and a sound mind. How could he be early?

  “There are things left undone, strings left unwound. Yes, Walter, you are so very close, but the time is not exact. I’ll be waiting Walter, and don’t worry, you will understand when you return.” Suddenly a bright light shone around them and Walter questioned what this light was.