Wasted Lives, a Detective Mike Bridger novel
Page 35
Epilogue
‘He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster’
Martin felt a slight rush of adrenalin as he walked through the open gate into the yard, it was not much but it was there, sitting just above the dull pain in his shoulder, which reminded him of the last couple of weeks. The doctors had told him he was lucky to be alive, he was not sure if that is how he felt. The doctors had also told him that the police had probably saved his life, stopped him from bleeding to death. The fucking police had shot him in the first place, was that lucky? He did not know what to think. His mind had been all over the place since then, somewhat numb, nothing made sense.
People had come and spoken to him while he was in hospital, they had asked their questions, drilled him about how his stepfather had died, what his involvement had been with the robbery. Some had been Police officers, Detectives or something; he could not remember as they all looked the same to him. Some had been social workers or counsellors, and others had been from places he could not recall the name of, they had even asked him whether he still wanted to harm himself in any way. He had not really known how to answer that one. They just continued asking questions.
Telling them what he knew, that his stepfather had admitted to killing Tama, and then shot himself, felt a little strange. He had not ever spoken out of turn against anyone in his life. However, his stepfather was not just anyone; he was the mould that had spread over his entire being, suffocating the life out of him, as he had gotten older. He had been always there. He was always a reminder.
His stepfather had taken the cowards’ way out instead of facing his demons and taking penance, but he felt comfortable with that so told them everything. It cannot be narking on him if he is a dead man. They had not said anything about whether they believed him or not, they just wrote things down in their little books, nodding along as he had spoken. No one had asked him about the robbery and he had not said anything, he had not gotten away with anything though, he knew his demons would see to that.
Many people had come to see him in the last couple of weeks; they were all different people, some with offers of help, and some with threats. They all had different agendas; all he knew was that every one of them had looked at him in exactly the same way, a mix of pity and indifference. The feeling he got when they looked at him was that they saw an unlucky piece of shit loser, who had lost his way and gotten himself shot, and they were just there to tick some boxes on their stupid little forms. Well if that is what they saw then that is what he was…, to them. He may be a loser in their minds, but only he knew what he had actually been through and how it made him feel. He had survived his stepfather, he had survived his life, was that a loser? He had no idea.
Seeing his mother standing in front of him, frail looking and crying, when she had visited him, that had been the hardest part of all. She wanted to know everything and he had not been able to tell her. She was devastated enough to think her husband had done something like he did and she had not seen it; it would kill her if she knew the truth…, he knew he would never tell her.
During one of her visits, when she could make time between shifts at work, he had asked his mother about what that cop had said to him that day. He asked her directly whether his real father was in prison and not dead, like she had told him all his life. At first, she did not say anything; she had just looked at the floor with a sad faraway look in her eyes. It took her a few minutes but when she had looked up, she had told him that it was true.
It had shocked him at first, to think that his mother, the only one in his life he could truly trust had lied to him, but she had explained. He recalled her speaking in those soft tones, with a small amount of affection in her voice, for a man long since lost to her.
She sat on the edge of his bed and he had listened as she told him his father was a man who had taken a wrong turn in his life. He had been strong once but had succumbed to the temptations offered to him by people who did not care about anything. Apparently he used to have a saying that he would repeat, ‘A person was born into a life and he was destined to live that life but only he could choose what he would achieve with the life he had’.
The gang was the top of his father’s life status in the end; it had given him what he thought he was missing, whatever that was. His mother had told him that she knew this to be wrong now, but in the beginning it had given his father something to aspire to. Over the years, it had eaten him away on the inside and he had become disillusioned with life. She saw the destruction of the man she knew happen over a few short years, spurred on by heavy drug use and a corruption that happened to those in power. She did not want that for her son, she had known that anyone was capable of anything and that she had not wanted the legacy of his father to compromise his life because she loved him too much for that and that was why she had told him he had died.
She said it took a strong person to overcome a bad role model and that she had seen that strength in him in the last few years. Had his mother really seen the role models he had while growing up?
She had compared him to the way his father had been before they moved to Dunedin, when he was younger and had aspirations in life. If only she knew what he had done, what he was really like, would she love him as much then?
What would she think of him if she knew of the strange phone call he received not less than a few days before the robbery? The voice on the phone had been deep and raspy, it exuded a confidence he had not heard from anyone. He had found himself drawn instantly to it but he could not recall exactly why. At first, he did not know what to make of this man on the phone claiming to have known his father, but then as he listened more things started to ring true. He had not said much himself, he had felt more like an embarrassed schoolboy, but he had listened. It was only when he was in hospital that he had connected this man to his father…, this man was his father, his mother had confirmed that in his mind when she had dropped that bombshell at the hospital.
His father had told him on the phone what was going to happen, that he wanted him to have more from life, and that things would make themselves clear very quickly, he just had to wait for it to happen.
Well it had happened, but not the way he would have liked it to be. Things had certainly tested him over the last couple of weeks and he was almost lost to it, but he was here now, it was up to him to make the decision on how it was going to play out. His father had been adamant about that one thing. He recalled the last words he said to him on the phone, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’.
He had heard that before, but he could not remember if it was a Spiderman movie or something else. It sounded like bollocks to him anyway. What great power was he ever going to have? He had been sure all along that the plan for him was to move away and make a new life, but now he was not so sure…
Walking into the empty yard his mothers words were playing slowly in his head, ‘Just like his father’ she had said. The yard in which he stood had once been his father’s domain, knowing this now gave it an oddly familiar feel, completely different from the last few times he was here. Maybe it had something to do with Joseph not being here as he was always, Joseph Kingi junior was now locked away; maybe it was Baz being dead. Or maybe it was just the lack of spaced out losers that used to cling to the fences like rabid monkeys all itching to hurt someone, using that hurt to gain some sort of status and respect from other losers that had been doing the same thing longer than they had. The adrenaline rush he had felt coming in subsided and he felt himself relax a little, looking around he started to feel more and more comfortable. A couple of young males came out of the house in front of him and raised their chins in greeting, they were not wearing patches but then he doubted that there were any patches left. From what he had heard, the police had grabbed them all from the castle.
“How’s it going Star?” One of the males said, with a slight nervous edge in his voice.
Martin looked at him, he was probably about eig
hteen years old, not much younger than himself, but he was looking back at him with respect in his eyes. The other one was about the same age and was looking at him in a similar way.
“Can we do anything for you Star?” the other one said.
Tama’s words came back to him, ‘They are a family…’ He thought about that for a minute. What family did he have? His mother was never there, Tama was gone, and he did not actually know anyone in Auckland, so it was just him… as it had always been. Maybe his father’s legacy was not such a bad thing after all. Maybe he could do this, run things his way, choose his own destiny. One thing was certain; no one was around to tell him otherwise. Auckland could wait…, at least for now.
He looked at both the males in turn “Are you with me boys?”
“Hell yeah” they both replied.
Martin took a deep breath of the warm spring air and smiled, he could hear a lawnmower’s incessant engine noise on the breeze. Somewhere in the distance, almost out of earshot, a dog started barking…
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‘With great power comes great responsibility’
Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire) “Œuvres de Voltaire, Volume 48”
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More books in the Detective Mike Bridger series:
Human Frailty
Send in the Clowns
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