Leaping

by Diane Munier

  Good thing. He didn't want anything in the way of this coconut, tropical scent he'd forever associate with Cori and love-making.

  "Cori," he said, and she told him he had to be quiet before someone heard them.

  That was potentially embarrassing, his wailing…like a whale, but he didn't care he…was…crazed.

  That night he reached a new level of letting go. She had blown him up. Pulverized him. In the morning he'd have to scrape himself off the ceiling and find pieces of himself in all the corners.

  "That was…holy," he told her.

  Chapter 21

  The ball smashed into the wall, and Jordan did a long-armed reach that sent it arrowing back to crash again. He loved that hollow sound.

  It was Seth's turn, and he swung his racket and missed. "Damn."

  "Okay, you know what? We need to curb the language."

  "You're a great one to talk," Seth said.

  Jordan caught the ball and bounced it a few times. "I said we, Seth."

  He passed the ball to Seth and tucked his racket under his arm.

  "We going?" Seth asked.

  Jordan didn't answer. The fact that he was walking off the court seemed self-explanatory.

  Seth followed, bouncing the ball, sometimes using his hand, sometimes the racket.

  He was so engrossed he walked into a couple of men going in to use their abandoned court. "Oh," Seth said holding the ball and looking up. "Excuse me."

  The kid was well-mannered when he wanted to be.

  Since he seemed to be on a roll he caught up to Jordan and said, "I told everyone I was sorry about the eating dick thing."

  "Yeah…that was great," Jordan said flatly. "But…I've let loose too. Too many times. You know I was a minister, right?"

  "Well…yeah. Duh. I was at your church…. I've never known a minister with a dirty mouth. Until you, I mean."

  They were in the locker room now. Jordan was sitting on a bench untying his shoes.

  "Yeah," he said. "Sorry to burst your bubble about that, but I got out of the habit of cursing in seminary. I made a real effort to get more creative…and less offensive.

  “But I've just…gotten so damn sloppy. So…what do you say we help each other?"

  "I don't know," Seth said wiping his sweaty face with one of the towels the club provided. "I don't really think I have a problem."

  Jordan smirked. "Well, I do."

  "Like you'll give me a dollar every time you curse? That would be cool."

  "Not a dollar." Not a damn dollar.

  "Fifty cents then? I'll be rich," Seth said joyfully as he changed his shirt.

  Jordan saw them then, the scars. He stood up and lightly touched Seth's skinny bi-cep. "Hey bud…damn."

  He'd already seen the leg, the entrance and the exit, clean-through. But this was something else. An entrance, and then the scars from surgery…the story like Braille on Seth's pale skin.

  Jordan felt his throat grow stiff and he swallowed and the wound in his heart cracked open a little and bled.

  Seth pulled away, and got his bag out of his locker. He quickly pulled a clean shirt over his head.

  "You know what? Hell with it," Jordan said, also pulling his bag.

  Seth laughed. "That didn't last long."

  "There're worse things…," Jordan said, pulling his own soaked shirt over his head.

  Seth eyed Jordan's chest. "You lift weights or something?"

  "No," Jordan said, also ripping a clean shirt over his head. "Not for a long time."

  "Not since…but it's a good thing. You were strong…what you did to Carson."

  "Oh…that was…adrenaline…," rage, fear, horror, reaction.

  "They said you wouldn't stop…."

  "Yeah. We've talked about it, right?"

  "Yeah but…I'm glad you did it."

  Jordan threw the last of his gear into his bag. "Yeah. It was better than the alternative…right?"

  "You wish he would have lived?"

  "I…couldn't take that chance. But…you ever read about Moses?"

  "The baby in the basket…some."

  "Yeah. He was this guy…he knew he needed to do something…to help his people…so one day he sees one of the Israelites being beaten…and he kills the guy…this guard who is doing the beating. But…people turn on him…and he's afraid…and it blows up in his face…you know? So he goes to the dessert for like, forty years, and he's just this shepherd. And one day this bush lights up and God speaks to him out of this fire and…Moses was kind of right all along. He was supposed to do something. It just didn't turn out like he thought. But…there was more for him to do and God was like…handing it to him. God was…calling him out of hiding."

  Seth was listening. Jordan really loved this kid. He really did.

  "So…what?" Seth said.

  "So…I kind of feel like him. I've just been thinking about it."

  "You're like…on the desert?"

  "Yeah. Kind of."

  "You're like…waiting for a fire?"

  "I didn't know I was. I was just…hiding. And…you and your mom…."

  "I'm confused."

  "You and your mom are like…the light. You just kind of lit up right there…where I was hiding. I don't know." Jordan scratched the back of his head.

  "Isn't it like schizophrenia?"

  "Oh…the all-wise Internet," Jordan said picking up his bag. "C'mon."

  At the house Alisha and Cori were dancing. Jordan and Seth came home to loud Motown, which Alisha loved. They looked happy. Jordan leaned on the counter to watch. They had their arms around each other. Alisha was teaching Cori how to dance like she was at a sock-hop. Cori was graceful, just naturally elegant. He wanted his arms around her. It was just that way.

  Paul came out of the back bedroom then. He was grinning at his wife and he asked to cut in on Cori. Cori stood back and turned to Seth. He laughed and said no, but he moved awkwardly with her for a moment before pulling away and running to the couch. Jordan walked toward her then. Even that, his approach was bringing up her flush. He laughed, and took her hand and put his arm around her waist and pulled her in, leaving about six respectable inches with Seth looking on. She was smiling at him and they moved some and hey, he was no slouch. He dipped her back, then Paul dipped Alisha and Alisha groaned, and they were laughing, even Seth.

  That night she sat on the porch, scrunched in a chair with Jordan. She wasn't on his lap, as Paul held Alisha, with a blanket over, but she was scrunched beside him.

  They'd all gone to a movie and Seth was in the house, and it was dark and the adults took refuge here, all mellow.

  "Jordan, I was thinking Seth and I need to fly out Monday. That way he can still get in some schoolwork when he gets home."

  They all had to be out of the house soon because the season started in a couple of weeks and Mrs. Palm was anxious to get it ready.

  Here it was. "Why can't I drive you home? I want…shit."

  Did that sound pathetic? She felt the same, right?

  "I already have my return ticket. I'll exchange it and get another for Seth."

  "Do you want me to come?"

  Light spilled next to them from the windows. He could see the deep shine in her eyes but she had her lips puckered.

  "Jordan…I agreed. Remember? We're moving toward a future. You said…."

  "Yes. I just…you're talking about separating…even for a couple of days…."

  "I know, but we have to be…it's okay."

  "Yeah." He'd been dreading this. "Of course."

  "It's been so great to be with you…to be here. I don't want to leave. I'm trying to be…."

  "…an adult?" he said, laughing sadly.

  "Yeah. That."

  He ended up kissing her. They were soft singular kisses, a break between each, but if you put them together they were about a two-minute necking session.

  "Get a room," Paul drawled and Alisha laughed. They knew how much Jordan hated that phrase. He hated it.

  "Ignor
e them," he whispered, his lips against Cori's hair.

  "Oh…," Alisha laughed.

  "I don't even have a job," Jordan blurted. If they were going to eavesdrop he wasn't going to fight it.

  "Real estate," Paul sang.

  "He's too good," Alisha said. "Too…holy."

  Wow. Funny she should say that when it brought his and Cori's lovemaking to the front of his mind. He'd called it that.

  The family loved to tease Jordan about being too good for the business. He'd always known they were proud of his profession. They'd been thrown when he went to less skilled labor, labor he didn't feel called to. That worried them, he knew that.

  He also knew they'd been relieved he was doing something, at least. Until he wasn't. Mostly he wasn't. He lived off savings. Money he'd inherited, and a little money from the sale of his house. Very little as property values in Sydney had tanked and he'd tended to make enough improvements to eat up the modest equity.

  Cori had sold her half of a Florist shop but there had been debt from the shop and lawyer fees from the divorce. She had Henry's life insurance pay-out, but there had been hospital bills from Seth. She had not sued the church, or rather their insurance company, to recover those expenses. She had used the largest chunk of Henry's money. His house had been modest, and the sixty grand it brought is what she was living on now. But it was past time to start earning again. She needed to put the remainder of that money away for Seth's education.

  She was telling this to Jordan. Alisha and Paul had gone to bed so they could speak privately. She was buying the Danville house, and property values there were slightly better than in Sydney as Danville had enough population for a Wal-Mart and all the usual suspects surrounding it. It was also closer to the city.

  "Are you saying you would…relocate?" Jordan said.

  "Oh, Jordan," she sighed.

  "Seth says he hates it," he said, half-kidding, half-wondering if it was true.

  "You feel that free?"

  He thought about it. "Yeah. I cut ties. I had that option."

  She had not.

  "For me, home was the one thing I could count on," she said.

  He got that.

  "But…I would…oh my God I am scaring myself, but I would be open…," she turned quickly, her body facing him, her hand on his cheek holding him so he couldn't move, not that he wanted to, "I'm scared. If you…are not the real deal…I will cut out your liver…and kidneys."

  She smashed her lips against his.

  He laughed but he was into the kiss, then he broke it off. "Cori…I saw his scars."

  "He let you? He's pretty self-conscious."

  "At the club…we changed after the game…Cori…."

  "My boy," she whispered, then her voice caught like a trawl net skimming the ocean's depth and catching itself on a wreck.

  He held her then, for a long time, he felt it in her…where she'd been…the fear of where he would take her. He felt that net pull tight, so tight. He felt that net break free.

  Epilogue

  Chapter 22

  Fifteen year old Seth Tulley bit his nails while his step-dad Jordan read his essay. He had written this, but he knew it came from them all, and he said this, not only his family but from everyone involved in the shootings, involved in any way. They had all taught him something, and he was ready to talk about it as this was to be read in the ceremony that would recognize him as an Eagle Scout.

  Cori and Jordan had cleaned up a few of the sentences or made suggestions, but it belonged to Seth. It came from him as he drew his own conclusions.

  "It's really good," Jordan said as he laid the paper on the table and rubbed his carpenter's hand over it.

  Jordan was trying not to cry. He did that now…since Seth had been sick that winter and they hadn't been able to pinpoint the reason—he cried easily. Seth had lost weight, and that was something he didn't need. He was ten pounds under weight as it was. So once he turned around and started to heal, yeah, Jordan cried easy now. He wasn't sad, his life had never been so precious, but he loved, Seth, Cori, their baby girl Jane…he loved them with that abandon…well he said he'd be like this…ridiculous.

  Here was what he'd just finished reading, they were Seth's words:

  I wore a uniform. Buttons and badges and patches my mom had sewn in place. A Boy Scout of America. When I put it on, that uniform, I felt good. Proud. It made me hopeful about the future. I wanted to be a policeman. Like my grandpa. And when I wore that uniform, I was on my way to all the other uniforms I'd wear…in the army…and on the force.

  Mom hand-washed my shirt so the colors wouldn't bleed, so they'd stay bright.

  When I wore it, when I put that shirt on, it told about me, who I was, what I did, what I thought was important. I couldn't imagine how it would be ripped apart first by the bullet meant to take my life and second by the hands of those who would save my life. I couldn't imagine that a small patch of that shirt would be forced into my chest and removed two hours later by a surgeon at Glenmore Hospital.

  I held the American flag. I was taught to never let the flag touch the floor. It is the symbol of my country. The land of the free and the home of the brave. I thought I was free. I knew I was brave. But five minutes after I lifted the flag and carried it down the aisle it not only fell to the floor, but I fell on top of it and my blood soaked into the red, white and blue.

  I walked with my friends, the other Scouts, Troop Twenty-Five. We'd been together since Cub Scouts, except for Jason. He had just moved here from Arizona. He was so glad we had space in our troop. It was his second time to attend one of our meetings. Well it wasn't really a meeting. It was a practice. It was a special event. Jason would be wounded, like me, and after he recovered…his family would move away.

  We were in a church. In the olden times if you were in trouble with the law, you could run into a church and seek sanctuary. No one could touch you there. We were safe in that church, in our troop, with our flag, in our shirts, with our badges.

  But even more….there was my grandpa. He'd driven me over to Sydney. He'd taken off work early to do that. He was trying to spend more time with me. My first dad didn't want involved. My second dad didn't get involved. But Grandpa…was involved.

  He wore his uniform too. His badge. He sat in the pew near the door just like on Sunday, so he could get out quick, he said.

  But he never got out of that church on that day. He died in the back pew.

  On television….people get shot all the time, and they bounce back up and they fight. In video games they don't even have to fall down. But when you're really shot, it's not like that. I was shot in my chest and my leg. I wasn't aware of the leg wound.

  I never felt it. But the chest…it was like I'd been hit as hard as you could imagine with a hammer. Thor's hammer. And fire. I couldn't move. I couldn't stand. I couldn't fight. I could barely breathe.

  But as I lay there…on the flag…in my shirt…I felt something move past. I saw a man. He would become my third dad…my real dad…Jordan Staley. My dad tackled the shooter to the floor. My dad overcame the shooter…and we were saved.

  That was the last thing I knew before I lost consciousness. We were saved.

  But people died that day. The shooter, my best friend Aiden and another friend Colin. My Grandpa. Two of us got wounded. Six of us were alright if you don't count the bad dreams and the nervous feelings that come out of nowhere, if you don't count that…and we don't. We're glad to be alive.

  Kids think they can't change the world, that they don't matter. But that's not true. After I was shot, two of the scouts from Troop Twenty-Five put their bandanas over my wounds and applied pressure until the ambulances started to arrive. I learned about this later. I couldn't help myself, but I was helped, and the flag I carried, the shirt I wore, and the church I laid in…as surely as those things had meant so much to me...now my blood had mixed with those things, those symbols, and they came to life…hands…so many hands…helping me…telling me to be brave…tellin
g me to hang on…hands working and working to make me well…I believe…I know that good is better than I ever imagined, that love really is the most powerful thing. I believe that the living get the final word, and our word is this—peace.

  The End

  Other Titles By Diane Munier

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