by Diane Munier
"So why'd you leave…after. It's like…you didn't even care," Seth said. His eyes were so open…and brown…and like hers.
He'd answered this. He thought he had.
"After the shootings? I needed to make a change…after."
"Yeah but it's like," Seth waved his hand. "Doesn't matter."
Cori was flushed a deep red, biting her lip.
"I had to…I had to think about it. Everything that happened," Jordan said.
"What about us? Did you even think about us?" Seth said, a little more of the anger leeching out.
"Yes," Jordan said. "All the time."
"Didn't feel like it. You just took off. Every time we had to go to something…even after the funerals…I couldn't see Grampa's. I was in the hospital…every time. I thought you believed in God. You were a minister."
"I did…I do…believe in God."
"And Jesus and all that…is it just bullshit with you?" Seth.
"No. But…I had never…."
"I thought you were supposed to put others first or some shit…." Seth yelled.
"I had never killed someone before," Jordan yelled over him.
Cori had rebuked Seth, said his name, so everyone had yelled, and it was there and Jordan fell back on his chair, and his hands weren't shaking now, but inside…he was shaken.
"That was it?" Seth said, standing.
"Yeah," Jordan said.
He went in the living room then.
"You hardly ate," Cori said.
"Not hungry," Seth said, dropping on to the couch and picking up the controls, setting the game back in motion.
"Turn it down," Cori said. And so he did.
Cori had apology in her eyes, but Jordan didn't need it. He took another bite of food.
"This is good," he said.
She mouthed, 'I'm sorry.'
Jordan shook his head. There was nothing to be sorry for.
It was quiet with Seth muting the game.
Jordan pointed his fork at the screen and looked at Cori.
She shrugged. "Power," she said, laughing some.
Jordan shook his head. What?
They finished eating pretty much in silence. After dinner he helped her clear the table. Then he stood by while she loaded the dishwasher. Seth stayed immersed in his game until Cori suggested he show Jordan his room. Was she trying to get rid of him?
Seth shut down the game then got up like a robot and walked past them. Jordan raised his brows at Cori, then smirked as he followed Seth upstairs. The kid had a heavy tread.
The first room must be Cori's. He could see the bluish bedspread. He was curious but he followed Seth. The boy went into the room at the end of the hall and threw himself onto the bed where he picked up a comic and started to page.
Jordan stepped in. It was a nice room, typical for a kid Seth's age. "Nice pad," he said. He went to the shelf of trophies and started to look.
"I don't play anymore," Seth said.
"Baseball?" Jordan asked.
"Anything."
"Why not?"
"Mom's afraid…well I had to take the year off."
"What about Scouts?"
"Nope," he said, holding the comic so Jordan couldn't see his face.
"Youth group?"
Seth sighed tiredly. "Sometimes."
"What else?"
He crinkled the comic on his chest, "You trying to like…care or something? You don't have to."
"Good to know," he said, moving to the books now. There was a shelf of them. "Read all of these?"
He said he didn't know. Jordan reached for his IPod, but Seth shot off his bed and grabbed it.
"Sorry," Jordan said.
"You ain't like what I thought," Seth said opening his nightstand drawer and dropping it in.
"Oh yeah?" Jordan.
"What was it like when you killed him?" Seth folded his arms.
Jordan folded his arms, too. He looked at Seth for a minute, wondering how to answer.
"It was bad. I hope you never…."
"I'm going in Special Forces. Then the police academy," Seth interrupted.
"Okay," Jordan said.
"I want to kill bad guys." He'd rattled this off, and now the stare.
"Sounds like a plan," Jordan.
"It is," Seth said, picking up the comic and flopping back on the bed.
Cori called up the stairs that desert was ready. Jordan could smell a cake, but he had no appetite. This kid…. He started to walk to Seth's door.
"You never said…," Seth said, still holding the comic in front of his face.
"What?"
Seth lowered the comic. "You never said what it was like."
"I was trying to stop him. I was just trying to stop him, you know?"
Seth sat up. "I'm glad you killed him. Only…I wish I could have done it."
"No you don't. You don't want that."
"Yes I do."
"I know you're mad. You should be. It's okay to be mad. What he did…it's the worst. No one can say any different."
"I hate him. I hate his filthy guts."
"I know that. But you can't…."
"I hate his whole family. Mom says I can't and the counselor and the preacher and all. I just let it go by. I will never…ever stop hating him." Fire was coming out of Seth's eyes. He seemed as mad at Jordan as everyone else on his long list.
They stared at each other.
"Go on and yell about it. Everyone else does." Seth said, throwing the book.
Jordan walked to Seth's desk and pulled out the chair and sat. "I'm not going to tell you how to feel about it."
"I'll never forgive him. Do you? Do you forgive him? Cause if you do…fuck you."
Jordan was looking at the floor, the white carpet. He nodded.
"Dalton said you were growling like a crazy man," Seth laughed.
Jordan stayed quiet. He hadn't known that, didn't want to, didn't want to see himself as he'd been then…killing.
"There's nothing funny," Jordan said. Now he was getting mad.
"It's pretty funny to think he shit himself. He did."
"You going to be an asshole now?" Jordan said.
"Fuck you," Seth said.
"There's nothing to laugh at," Jordan repeated.
"I think it's pretty funny," Seth sneered.
"You don't think it's funny at all. Taking a life is never funny. You asked me what it was like…it was sad, man. The saddest thing I ever had to do. I've been damn sad about it."
"Why? You think you should have let him go on killing us?"
"No. What he did…to your grampa…to you boys…to his family…and what I had to do to him. It's nothing but sad."
"I'm sick of hearing it." Seth sat on the side of his bed, holding his stomach. "Get my mom. I don't feel good."
"What's wrong?"
"Mom," Seth yelled, holding his stomach and rocking.
Cori was immediately there. Jordan knew she had to be right outside the door.
She was quickly next to Seth. "Seth, look at me," she said, untangling his arms.
"Look at me. It's alright. You're alright. We're safe."
"I hate him," he yelled.
"Stop it," Cori rebuked.
"I hate James."
"I know. But you have to calm down, Seth. You have to calm down. Think of Grampa. You know he would want you to calm down," Cori soothed.
Jordan waited. Cori held Seth, and at first he sat rigid, looking at the floor. He'd started to cry, but he kept his face down like he didn't want them to see. It was some minutes before he leaned toward Cori and she rocked him a little while she held him.
"Alright now?" she said finally.
"Yeah, sorry," Seth whispered.
"It's alright, sweetheart," Cori whispered.
She moved away then and stood. "Come on downstairs," she said to Jordan, and he could see how tired she was, how tired they both were.
"I'll be right down," he said.
She was slow to leave the room
, but Jordan stood there. "You alright now?" he said to Seth.
"Yeah," that one said, sniffing.
"I'm sorry I let you down…leaving after it happened…with James. I didn't realize how it would be for you guys. I thought…I'd done what I could. I didn't want to think…there was more."
Seth shrugged. "It's okay," he practically whispered.
"It's not," Jordan said. "But…I can't change it. Whatever the answer is…don't hate. If you hate…you change."
"I already told you. I hate him."
Jordan could see the agitation rebuilding.
"Hate what he did. Hate it so much you go in the opposite direction. But hate people, hate James, and you become like him."
"I'm nothing like him," Seth yelled.
"Don't hate. You're alive. Your grampa would tell you…don't hate. Be a good man. Make him proud."
"I will," Seth said intensely. "That's why I'm going to be a police."
"I thought you wanted to kill bad guys," Jordan smiled.
"I do. Like you did. To save people."
Jordan nodded. "A protector. That's cool. A hero. Hate evil, hate cruelty…but don't hate people. You're alive. You made it. That's it. Nothing else is as big as dying. And you didn't die. Now it's all a gift, buddy. Take care of people, man. Take care of your mother. You get crazy like that…it worries her."
"I don't mean to. They're rages. I get them sometimes."
"Okay. I'll bet they've taught you some skills though, huh?"
He shrugged. "Yeah. Breathing and stuff. Good thoughts. Praying. But sometimes…I don't want to. I'm mad."
"Yeah. No one is telling you not to be mad. Just be mad at the right things. James Carson is gone. He's in God's hands now and God is a good judge. But evil…it's not gone, man. It's still here. You can't become the new evil, the new threat. You have to stand against it now."
"I am."
"Good. Use your skills. And you think about what I said…about hate."
He looked at Jordan, then he nodded deep, and something kicked up in Jordan and he sat heavy in the chair. "Hey kid…you're alive," he tried to talk, but he was gone then and he sobbed, at first with no tears, his body pulling in on himself, then releasing and a sound he could barely swallow.
He felt Seth's hand on his back, patting his back. "It's okay Mr. Jordan," Seth whispered.
Jordan sobbed. "I'm so sorry…."
"It's okay," Seth said, and the hands…too big…patted Jordan's shoulder.
"Seth," Jordan gasped through his tears, "you're alive…it's all that matters…you're alive. Nothing else is that big. Nothing else…matters. Don't hate. You're alive."
"It helps if you breathe," Seth said as he continued to pat with his too big hands.
Chapter 16
After dinner with Cori and Seth, they had tried to persuade him to throw down on the couch.
He had been adamant, much as it ruined him to spend any time away from Cori, even Seth, him too. He wasn't there to put a question on Cori's reputation. He could take care of himself. In this at least.
Jordan drove around, meant to get a room, but sat in the motel parking lot in Danville until he fell asleep. When he awoke it was dead night. He was stiff with a crook in his neck cause his head had fallen to the side. But he knew what to do, right away, he drove to the interstate. Under cover of night, he was going to Sydney.
He had no plan. This was all bigger than him and at last he was in touch with it.
He was twenty-two minutes on the highway and he got off at the federal prison there and backtracked to town.
It had not changed. Sydney wasn't more than a square. Houses sprawled beyond it, but except for the churches dotted here there and all over, there wasn't a thing going on in Sydney.
He wove into the neighborhood some. There was Billy's house. Shit, there was his old house. Yeah, cars in front, it had some love, but hey, they'd torn down his fence and he'd worked like a dog on that. Well shit.
But he kept going, chattering in his mind. He got to the schools and in back of them was the street the church sat on. He pulled in the lot there and parked so he could stare at the building. Well, there it was, the battleground, and not just because of what happened with James, but he'd battled there on many fronts, many times.
It was dumb to come here. Did he need to? What was he looking for? He was looking…for his life. He'd dropped it suddenly…and he was looking in the corners now, under all the beds, picking up the pieces…holding them in his hands. That's all.
He fell asleep again. When he awoke it was because the town was waking up, parents driving kids to school, the yellow buses grinding past, the secretary pulling into the lot, around the back, first one in the building. He tucked his hands into his armpits. It was cold. He was cold.
Billy's van, that behemoth, fixed for a handicap. Jordan knew he'd be in his chair, and he was. Jordan figured he was in it most of the time now. That had been coming.
Billy wouldn't know this car. He'd figure Jordan for an indigent sleeping on the lot, thrown out of the house, shipwrecked from another town, suicidal…. No one knew what a pastor might find when he came to work in the morning cause like it or not, a church, even a dark and silent one, was a lighthouse for the broken, but Billy knew how it was.
Jordan wondered what he looked like…like hell is what. Bill was lenient about the dress code, but he asked Jordan not to wear jeans on Sunday, just that, but now…he looked like a tramp. Well his hair did for sure.
Billy rolled toward him. "Oh…from the grave I see," he said, big grin, but pain…too.
Jordan nodded. There was something there…deep. Jordan swallowed it down this easy emotion, this lack of control.
He couldn't get a word out, but he went quick to Bill and got pulled into a hug that took him over and moved Bill's chair back some, but that one, so strong in his arms, he was squeezing the life out of Jordan and the last scrap of his self-control.
Jordan heaved in Bill's arms. Then he caught it, and it wasn't so much, the worst was what had just escaped, a near convulsion.
Bill slapped his back two or three times, but mostly he held on.
His hands slid to Jordan's shoulders and he gripped there and moved Jordan back to look in his face, the laser look that would tell him everything.
"Oh," Bill said. "Come on in."
Jordan stepped around back of the chair and took the handles. Billy didn't need a push, not at all, but it was a courtesy he extended if a man needed to step away for a minute and do a job and find his dignity.
So Billy chattered now, about the grounds and gardens and Jordan pretended to hear, but he looked mostly at that cowboy hat Billy wore and the man underneath it in this berg, this hamburger town, and he felt such a rush of gratitude it about buckled him.
They got in and that smell hit Jordan, cleaner and paper from the flapping bulletin boards telling about anything with a pulse for Jesus in these surrounding towns, and that other smell of prayer and despair and hope. Jordan's stomach clenched.
Bill turned the chair to face him. "We did it over…the sanctuary. New carpet…new pews. You won't hardly know it."
Jordan closed his eyes and groaned. How did this man always know how to hit the target.
"Listen to me," he said. "I know you ain't here to beg for your old job."
Jordan shook his head.
"Frankly…I don't want you. You need to be out there now you got your stripes."
"I…."
"Now hold on. Whatever you got to say…I don't need to hear. I ain't never said that to a man trying to tell me his heart, but I'm saying it now to you. You know what you're here for. My job was to get you in the door. I got some calls to make. We gonna say our good-byes here?"
Jordan nodded. "I…thank you."
"You'll be alright," he said. "You know where to go for the answers. I ain't got a thing more to tell you cause you know what I'd say before I got it out."
Jordan laughed. He did.
"Let me know when
you get where you're going. I don't mean all that meandering you're doing while you fart around, I mean…let me know when you enter in."
"I will," Jordan said.
Billy rolled to him and slapped his arm. "You're alright," he said.
Jordan nodded.
"Best get to it before the quilters get here."
Yeah. He did not want to run into that group.
Billy went in the office and Jordan shoved his hands in his pockets and continued down the hall. He got to the foyer, and the sound of the gurney wheels on those gray tiles that day, as they took out the wounded…the dead.
But there were other things…so many…funerals, and weddings, and Christmas trees lit up here, and folks huddled and voices and laughing. There was so much.
He pushed in the wooden doors that opened to the center aisle. Brides walked here, and the wise men, the choir, the weeping, the smiling. He stood where he'd done it, the new carpet under his feet, the new pews with the padded seats.
It wasn't here. Memories…sure…but like he knew, so many kinds.
It wasn't here. It was in him. It was his. It was a part of his history…it was a part…just a part…and it was his now…to let heal…to let scar…so he could use it…so he could give it…so he could speak from it…so he could say…don't hate…with power…with authority.
It gave him the right. He'd been tested. And James Carson had not won.
Because the living had the final word. And he…was…alive, and the pieces weren't in his hands, they were in his heart.
He knew it for Seth. Now he knew it…for himself.
Chapter 17
She was it. Cori Weston was the one. It's like most of the static was gone. He couldn't foretell the future, he wasn't being ridiculous, but what he'd found with her, felt with her…it had never been this way before…so clear he could…lick it.
She was part of the why. He wasn't trying to add to it…the reason he'd suffered, but she was one of the gifts that came out of it.
He could wait two months, or two years, but heart of hearts he knew this wasn't going to change. He loved her. She had entered his life…she had already become…the best thing.
He knew this driving back to Cori's house. He pulled in front, and took the path quickly, and knocked on her door. She opened as though waiting on the other side.
