Second Chances

by P. D. Cacek

  “Yeah!”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Curtis, you know better.”

  He swallowed, mumbled “Sorry” just as the girl working the counter offered Eva a tired smile.

  “Hi. Welcome to Rita’s. Go Phantoms! How can I help you?”

  Eva cleared her throat. “Three mediums, please. One mango, one chocolate chocolate-chip, and Curtis will have root beer.”

  “Okay, that’s one mango, one chocolate chocolate-chip and one—”

  “Hang on a minute.”

  Shoving the last of the sandwich into his mouth, Jessie took a step closer and scrutinized the list of flavors the same way he scrutinized everything: head cocked to one side, eyes half-closed as if he could actually see the chemical formula of each flavor. It wasn’t until Eva began hearing grumbling from the people still waiting behind them that she reached out and tapped his shoulder.

  “Pick one. People are waiting.”

  He looked at the counter girl and smiled. “What do you think?”

  There were louder groans.

  “Um, I like chocolate chocolate-chip the best.”

  “Okay, chocolate chocolate-chip, please.”

  The girl smiled back. “One mango and two chocolate chocolate-chips. That’ll be $8.85, please.”

  Eva handed over a ten dollar bill, put the change into the slotted lid of the purple Phoenixville Phantoms bucket that had been conveniently placed on the counter, and was reaching out to take his arm when one of the medium chocolate chocolate-chip water ice arrived.

  “Special delivery,” the girl said to Jessie and he smiled when he took it. Eva had never seen him smile so much.

  “You look flushed. Why don’t you go back to the car and wait?”

  He nodded and disappeared into the crowd as her husband stepped up to pick up his water ice and drop another ten dollars into the booster bucket.

  “Go Phantoms!”

  “I already put money in,” she said when he handed her the last cup.

  He started to say something else when the shouting started in the parking lot. Eva began moving toward it when someone grabbed her arm.

  “Eva!”

  Oh God, another neighbor. “Hi, Leah.”

  “I just saw Curtis.”

  Eva forced a smile. “Yes, he’s doing wonderfully. Kids are very resilient.”

  “Aren’t they? Sue told me she—”

  Eva shook her head, pointing to her ear with her free hand. The crowd noise was getting louder. Maybe it was an impromptu pep rally, but Eva couldn’t hear what the woman was saying and didn’t care.

  “Right. Go Phantoms. I really have to go, Leah, they’re waiting.”

  But when Eva tried to step around the woman she blocked her. “We prayed for him, Eva.” The woman had to shout to be heard over the other voices. “I want you to know that, we prayed for him.”

  “How nice. But I really have to go.”

  Eva finally managed to sidestep the woman when another hand, small and cold, grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop.

  “Who is he, Eva?”

  When Eva turned, Sue Ramos, chocolate-chip cookie baker, ex-babysitter, busybody, frowned up at her.

  “Who is he, Eva?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sue.” Eva pulled away and felt the old woman’s nails scrape against her skin. “I have to go.”

  There was another voice rising above the noise. Her husband’s. “Eva!”

  “See, they’re waiting.”

  “We know it isn’t Curtis!” the older woman shouted. “We know! A friend of mine works at Transitional Care in Haverford. She was there, she saw what happened. We know it’s not Curtis!”

  “Eva!”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The cup of water ice slipped out of her hand and fell, spattering her sandals and toes as Eva turned and began to push her way through the crowd. “Leave us alone!”

  “He’s one of them!” the older woman screamed after her. “You brought him into the neighborhood.”

  “Abomination,” the first woman who’d accosted her, Leah, shouted. “We don’t want his kind here, Eva.”

  “Eva! Hurry!” Her husband sounded frantic.

  Eva elbowed and shoved and pushed her way through the wall of people as the women followed, bleating like sheep.

  “Not here, Eva!”

  “Abomination!”

  “Imp!”

  Her husband was standing at the far end of the parking lot, at the edge of the crowd, clawing at backs and arms and shouting at them to “Move. Leave him alone,” only to get pushed back. Eva recognized some faces in the crowd, not others, but the one face she couldn’t find was Curtis’s.

  “Eva, help me get Jessie out of here!”

  “Jessie,” another voice, a strange voice, shouted. “Its name is Jessie!”

  Sue’s voice shrieked, “A Traveler!”

  “Imposter!”

  “Get out of here, Imp!”

  “Abomination!”

  “Go back to where you came from!”

  “Yeah, the grave!”

  Laughter followed.

  “Freak!”

  “Hey!” A new voice, louder and deeper, echoed over the parking lot and everything stopped. “Knock it off before I call the cops!”

  Eva recognized the big man from an article she’d read in Phoenixville’s IN Community magazine. Uncle B. stepped out onto the parking lot, arms folded across his white chef’s coat and sauce-stained apron, and stared at the crowd until it broke apart and drifted away. Eva was still a few yards away when her husband put his arm around Jessie’s shoulder – Jessie, his name’s Jessie – and began pulling him toward the crosswalk. The collar of Jessie’s T-shirt was ripped and the right side of his shorts was covered in melting chocolate chocolate-chip water ice, but otherwise he looked fine…terrified, but fine.

  The big man followed until they reached the corner, putting himself between the crowd and the three of them.

  “Do you need any help?” Uncle B. asked.

  “No,” Eva said. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Take it easy, kid, and you’re welcome to come back anytime. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

  The big man nodded when the light changed but didn’t move until the three of them were safely across the street. He was gone by the time they reached the car and most of the crowd had gone back to standing in line, but there were a few who still watched.

  They really should have gone to Petrucci’s.

  Go Phantoms.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Arvada, Colorado / 9:00 p.m.

  It shouldn’t have happened.

  Jess could feel the heat start to blister his skin but he couldn’t move.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen.

  “That’s him.”

  Hands grabbed his arms and pulled him back into the cold night, but it didn’t help; he could still feel the heat of the fire against his face and chest, still hear the screams above the roar and crackle of the flames. He could still hear the screams.

  Dear God, what have I done?

  One of the hands gripping him spun him around. “State your name, please.”

  Jess blinked and gasped. His eyes felt like they’d been sandblasted. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

  “I said state your name. Please.”

  It was a police officer. Of course it was. Two squad cars had accompanied the fire engine and ambulance. Jess had placed the 911 call himself because he was responsible. Not for the fire; he never agreed to nor condoned that. It just happened. They weren’t vigilantes or some crazed mob out for blood. The fire had been an accident. It shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t supp
osed to happen.

  Jess had chosen only twenty to accompany him and sent the rest of the congregation, including his daughter, who had been sitting alone in one of the classrooms, home with instructions to pray. He had decided against calling the U.C.U.A. office in Denver, knowing that if he did it would become a public spectacle instead of the private matter that it was supposed to be.

  Richard and Laura had been part of his flock and it was up to him to deliver a just retribution for their blasphemy. Jess needed to see the look of shame and remorse on their faces when he condemned them for their heresy and told them to get out, to pack up and leave. To burn in the fires of hell.

  That was all that was supposed to happen.

  “Sir. Your name.”

  “Jess Pathway. Reverend Jess Pathway.”

  “Reverend.” The officer glanced past Jess to the smoldering remains of the house. “Fire and brimstone, huh? Well, you got the fire part right.”

  Jess could feel the heat against his back. “It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Then what the hell were you all doing here? I talked to some of the neighbors and they said you and your group showed up and started shouting and behaving in a threatening manner.”

  “We were praying.”

  “Right. Neighbors also said you were trespassing.”

  Jess took a deep breath and tasted smoke. “We were standing on the sidewalk, which is a public right-of-way, and we weren’t threatening. We were just looking at the house.”

  “Just looking?” The fire was out, but the coals were still sufficiently hot to provide more than enough light for Jess to see the man walking toward him. He wore a dark suit and white shirt, open at the collar, no tie, and held out a gold badge in a black case. “Detective Kurtz. So let me ask you, why were all of you just standing on the sidewalk and looking at the house? Are you a band of wandering real estate agents?”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “No, Reverend, it’s not. So why were you here?”

  Jess turned around and looked at the smoldering remains.

  Laura had seen them first.

  Jess saw a curtain in one of the upstairs windows move and was still looking at it – the two of them were standing together, Laura with her arm around the Traveler’s shoulder, watching – when the front door opened and Richard stepped out onto the porch.

  “Get out of here, all of you, or I’m calling the police.”

  “Try it,” a voice behind Jess said. “We’re not doing anything.”

  “I mean it. Get out of here and leave my family alone.”

  “His family…did you hear that?”

  Jess took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “‘For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.’”

  “She’s not dead, she’s—”

  “Blasphemer!”

  “Backslider!”

  Jess raised his hand again and the voices behind him went silent.

  “‘For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.’”

  “Go home, Jess, we don’t want any trouble.”

  Jess opened his eyes as Richard left the porch, walking out of the light and into the darkness. Laura and the other one were still in the window.

  “Trouble? ‘He who troubles his own house will inherit the wind, and the foolish will be servant to the wise hearted.’” Jess looked at the shadowed face in front of him. “How could you choose that over everything you once believed?”

  Richard shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Jess. It wasn’t real before. There were just images and faces of strangers. It’s different now.”

  “How is it different, Richard? She’s still one of them.”

  “That’s what I wanted to tell you before, when we came to you. Yeah, she’s a Traveler and she’s not Carly, we know that. God, don’t you think we know that? But she’s real, Jess, and she’s alive and she deserves to live in peace.”

  “She’s an abomination like the rest of them!”

  “We were wrong, Jess,” Richard said. “We were so wrong about them. They’re just people.”

  “No, they’re not. They were once, Richard, but their time has come and gone. They don’t belong here and you know it.” Jess heard the muttering as he reached out to the man who’d been his friend, but it didn’t stop him. “Please. Get rid of it and we’ll welcome you and Laura back without reservation. All will be forgiven.”

  Richard backed away before Jess could touch him. “And all Laura and I have to do is walk away and pretend it never happened.”

  “Yes.”

  Richard leaned in. “Like you did with Monica?”

  Jess hit him and all hell broke out.

  “I won’t ask you again, Reverend, why were you here?”

  Jess looked past the detective to where two EMTs were putting Richard into the waiting ambulance. Uniformed officers had already interviewed the men and women who’d come with Jess and put them into a police bus. It was idling in the middle of the street, washed and rewashed with blue and red lights as it waited for him.

  “To hold a vigil. They were members of our church and suffered a terrible loss.”

  The detective nodded. “I know about the losses both of you suffered. And about the organization you both belong to—”

  “They left,” Jess corrected.

  “Is that why you broke his jaw? Because he left?”

  Jess didn’t answer.

  “Okay, how about this: did you throw the fire bomb?”

  “No, and it couldn’t have been one of us. This was a peaceful demonstration.”

  “I thought you said it was a vigil.”

  When Jess didn’t immediately answer, the detective took his arm and walked him toward the bus. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney and to have him present with you while….”

  The ambulance began to pull away as they passed. Jess watched it and the police car that followed. Laura was staring at him from the back of the patrol car. There was a dark smudge on her left cheek. The Traveler was sitting next to her but never looked in Jess’s direction.

  “…Do you understand what I just told you?”

  Jess nodded and stepped onto the bus.

  * * *

  THURSDAY

  Phoenixville, Pennsylvania / 12:43 a.m.

  The television woke him up.

  Jessie rolled over and tried to open his eyes, but it took him a few tries to remember how to do it. It must have been the hot cocoa – with cut-up marshmallows – Eva made him drink after he’d taken a shower and changed. She kept telling him how hot cocoa always made him feel better and hovered over him until Jessie drained the cup.

  It was fortunate Curtis liked his hot cocoa lukewarm or it would have scalded Jessie’s already ruined throat.

  He didn’t think a lukewarm cup of anything would help calm him down after the confrontation, especially since he’d been the one being shouted at – “Get out of here!” “Go back to where you came from!” “Yeah, the grave!” “Freak!” – but it’d worked.

  He actually started to feel calmer almost immediately. Who knew cocoa could do that? It was amazing. He felt light and free and barely managed to toe off his Skechers before falling back into the pillow and….

  Jessie didn’t actually remember falling asleep but he couldn’t have been asleep long because the television woke him up and he knew the Mr. and Mrs. didn’t stay up late. Jessie yawned. God, what were they watching? Must have been a w
ar movie or some kind of SF alien invasion flick by the sound of it…all loud, angry voices shouting words he couldn’t quite make out. If he wasn’t so sleepy, he’d get up and ask them to turn it—

  Thud.

  Something hit the window next to his bed and Jessie’s eyes opened on their own. It didn’t sound like snow or sleet…maybe hail, but you never knew what kind of weather you’re going to get in Colorado. Another thud hit the glass. No, definitely not snow or sleet and he wasn’t in Colorado. He was in Pennsylvania and it was summer and they’d gone to get water ice and he had a pulled-pork sandwich and then the crowd surrounded him…and started yelling and grabbing at his clothes and….

  Jessie sat up and held on to the mattress when the room spun a quarter turn to the right.

  Thud thud crash.

  The window shattered, spraying glass as a dark object crashed to the floor. The voices weren’t coming from the television.

  “They’re in the back yard!”

  “Abomination!”

  “Get out! You’re trespassing!”

  “I’m calling the police!”

  “Try it!”

  “Go away!”

  “We know what it is!”

  “Imposter!”

  “What are you doing? Stop it!”

  “Imp!”

  Besides those of the Mr. and Mrs., the other voices sounded familiar, sounded similar to those he’d heard shouting in the parking lot.

  He was trying to stand up when the bedroom door opened, flooding the room with yellow light.

  “There! It’s in there!”

  More rocks hit the house and took out what glass remained in the window. The Mrs. screamed from the doorway as the Mr. ran into the room. Jessie heard glass crunch as he swung his legs over the side of the mattress.

  “No! Don’t move!” the Mr. said. “Here, put these on.”

  Jessie fell back onto the mattress while the Mr. shoved shoes onto his feet.

  “Kill it!”

  “Send it back to hell!”

  “One body! One soul!”

  “Can you stand up?” the Mr. asked but didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled Jessie to his feet and half carried him out into the hallway. “Eva, take him.”