Savior

by Caplan, Anthony

  There is something bubbling under the surface, Ricky. You're not crazy. Do you have the tablet still?

  Yes.

  Let me see it.

  Ricky showed his uncle the stone tablet. Tony turned it over, studying it, and gave it back suddenly, as if it were hot.

  Here. I don't know what it is. But it's worth some investigation. You'll have to let me bring it up to the lab. But first I'm going to take you guys home. We're going to find Al, Ricky. Don't you worry about it.

  You can't tell anyone about where he is or where we are or anything.

  Absolutely not. You've done the right thing.

  Tony and Ginny lived on the backside of a steep hill leading down to the riverfront. Ricky had remembered the neighborhood all wrong. The next morning, the sun lit up the den and the flat screen television and the kitchen with the microwave for popcorn, and then it was dark the rest of the day. Ricky watched the television as soon as he was up and Gabe joined him, smiling, and wiping the muck from his eyes. Ricky let Gabe handle the remote. The Nature Channel fascinated him. He had never watched much television before. He loved the crocodiles and the Australian guy sticking his head down their throats. Ricky took the remote back and watched CNN and the BBC, and it seemed that the main thing happening in the world was governments everywhere putting down their own people with the help and aid of the United States and the United Nations. In Guatemala, the new regime of President Azulaje Montes had declared a state of emergency and martial law due to civil unrest. No mention of the Santos Muertos on any channel. However, in the footage of demonstrations in Spain and Greece and of fighting in Sudan and Guatemala, there were the same motorcycle guys with the black shirts and tattooed arms and ski masks. It might as well have been an open declaration of war by the Santos Muertos, as far as Ricky could see. He turned it back to the Nature Channel and went and made some popcorn, as Aunt Ginny had suggested.

  Ginny left around noon for her part-time job at a hospital, UPMC Presbyterian, something to do with fund-raising. Tony took the tablet with him a little later and had his students run checks on Mayan hieroglyphs and numerical notation using a version of a CMPR database. By the evening they'd come up with a theory that the tablet depicted the rebirth or resurrection of a god. The number sequence seemed to suggest a relationship, some sequential correspondence, an oscillation, between one and zero that Tony had never seen before. At dinner, he began to describe it, but then stopped and just chewed his food. They were eating some tuna casserole Ginny had made in about ten minutes after getting home. Tony had a bottle of beer and Ginny had some red wine in a goblet. The boys wolfed down the casserole and drank root beer. Tony was somewhat dismissive of the Mayans and their ideas about numbers, but then it was possible that there was something to it that he was not seeing, he said. Otherwise, it made no sense, although there was a certain elegance to it.

  What does it all mean, Uncle Tony? I just want to get my dad free.

  It makes me think we might have to make a road trip up to Canada.

  When?

  The college kids go on Thanksgiving break in 10 days time. That will give me some more time to work on the tablet, and. . .

  What? Ginny broke in. What are you saying, Tony. Are you actually thinking you and Ricky are going to somehow get Al out of some terror camp on your own?

  The stuff on that tablet might just be the key to getting Al out. It's worth a try.

  Definitely, said Ricky.

  Tony slugged down some beer. Ricky looked at Gabe. Ginny looked at all of them as if they were crazy.

  Seventeen—False Gods

  Sixty Minutes’s ticking clock was still going when I fired at the old box television with the kill button and lifted myself off the couch. The segment had documented another failed government project, getting inner city residents to take ownership of their food supply. I was thinking of lesson plans I needed to look at with school starting in two weeks. Football team tryouts started in two days, and that always meant a couple of sleepless nights thinking about the stretch of days ahead dealing with hopes and dreams and that shared passion play that enveloped the school community every fall, with me at the helm. This year was going to be special, though. This year Ricky was going to be a part of the show. He’d been training with me all summer, running and lifting weights on the back terrace.

  Mary was busying herself in the kitchen. We'd had an early dinner, and I'd loaded the dishwasher. And then I thought I would go help her unload it since Ricky was making no signs of life. She was holding her head with one hand, leaning against the cabinet in the corner with the cooking pots and the tall glasses.

  What's wrong?

  Nothing. Just a headache.

  Where's Ricky.

  He’s upstairs. He's got something to tell you.

  Something to tell me? Why didn't he say it at dinner?

  He couldn't get up the nerve.

  What is it?

  You promise to give it one night before you say anything to him?

  What is it?

  He’s not going out for the football team.

  What?

  Don't Al. Just. . .

  How could he? I don't believe it. Where is he?

  Shh, Al. Don't go there. You better not.

  Why not?

  You'll be sorry if you say the wrong thing.

  Oh, come on. I'll go talk to him.

  Al!

  I stomped up the stairs, taking two at a time, rounding the corner on the worn blue carpet. I'd meant to change it years before but never had gotten around to it.

  Ricky? I knocked on his door and then pushed inside. He was reading a magazine in bed, casually flipping through the pages. It was one of those surfing magazines and the sight of it turned my stomach. I hated surfing; the whole ethos of laid back sensual pleasure just went against the grain.

  Ricky, Mom says you're not going out for the team. Is that true?

  Yes, he said without looking up from the magazine.

  That's nuts. Ricky, listen to me. I approached the bed and pulled the magazine out of his hands. His hair, tousled, fell in his eyes. I wanted him to get a haircut and had spent the last couple of days nagging him about it. Suddenly the long hair, the surfing magazine added up. He was slipping away from me. My son was rejecting the vision I'd inculcated in him of a young life seeking to be challenged, hardening himself in preparation for the battles ahead. Now he was choosing something different, the path of least resistance, the path of fun and long hair and slacker culture that defined the kind of kids in the high school that ended up nowhere in life. I needed to clue him in and fast.

  Ricky. You're making a huge mistake. Football is important. It's part of who you are.

  It's not, Dad. It's part of who you are.

  You’ve been playing since fourth grade. You're good. Now you're going to quit before you give it a chance?

  So?

  How can you throw it all away?

  It's not fun any more.

  That's a cop out. It's not about fun. Not everything has to be fun.

  Why do I have to play football? What's so important about goddamned football, really?

  It says something about you. You think that doesn't matter? What about college?

  I don't want to be a football star, Dad. That's your dream. I'm sick of having whistles blown at me and getting yelled at.

  That was last year. You had a bad coach. High school is different.

  No, that's football. That's the way it is. We're performing bears, Dad. I just want to find my own way. I like surfing. I want to catch as many waves as I can. Football is just not cool.

  You don't know what you're saying. You're not quitting. I didn't raise a quitter.

  It's not about you, Dad. You don't get it.

  I threw the magazine down.

  Goddamn surfing. Losers who couldn't cut it. Is that what you are, Ricky?

  If you say so, Dad. If you say so.

  You've cut me bad, Ricky. That's what this is. You're
cutting me out.

  I slammed the door behind me and stormed downstairs. Mary was waiting at the landing.

  He's a goddamned pussy, I yelled at her.

  Al! That's uncalled for.

  And it's your fault!

  You're sick.

  I went out the back door and slammed the screen door, which was broken anyway. I went walking along Citrus Road all the way down to Indian River and across the bridge. Down at the beach, I watched the water. I had wanted this so badly, and I realized it was a vision that went beyond logic. There was an unspoken need for my own fulfillment, and I was the one cutting the cord by rejecting my son. Mary was right; I had acted and spoken too soon. My hotheaded ways had gotten me in trouble in the past, as a young man, but I thought I had largely learned to control my impulses.

  I was the one who was a loser. I didn't know where to turn. I didn't want to go home and face the wreckage, and I didn't want to stay out walking on the beach as the sun went down behind the swamps.

  Eventually I got back home. It was dark. There was no light on in the house. Mary was sitting in the dark in the kitchen.

  I turned on the light. She had her head down on the counter. I went over and stroked her hair.

  What's wrong, Mary?

  She lifted her head up.

  I'm scared, Al. He's locked himself in his room and won't come out. I'm going to call the police.

  No, don't. Let me see him.

  Al, I don't think you can talk to him now after what you said.

  Let me just try.

  I went up the stairs, fired up this time with the need for immediate remedial action. In our bedroom, I went for the bottom drawer in the bureau. It was already pulled all the way out and on the floor. Underneath it, the case was opened and the gun was gone. It was a Bersa .380 that Ricky and I had taken target shooting a couple of times to the public shooting range.

  I knocked on the door. There was no answer.

  Ricky? I tried to open it. He had the desk up against it and I couldn't budge it.

  Stay out! he yelled.

  Ricky. I'm sorry. I want to come in and apologize.

  It's too late. Just stay out.

  I started to push with all my might and the desk legs groaned and pulled at the carpet.

  Son. There's nothing worth shooting yourself over. Shoot me. I'm the one that needs to be shot if anyone does. I poked my head and shoulder in and he was sitting on his bed, holding the gun in his lap. He said nothing, so I pushed a little more and stepped inside, the desk still between us. I kept talking.

  Ricky. The biggest mistake I ever made I made tonight. It was not understanding you, son. You have a right to your own dreams. Nothing in the world is more important than that. I'm just a dumb old guy who doesn't get it. Sometimes the best intentions in the world are no good if you're too stupid to think of something that makes sense. Do you hear me?

  Ricky finally looked up.

  Dad, why do you always have to try to make sense? Sometimes life doesn't make any sense.

  It always makes sense.

  You're wrong, Dad. He picked up the gun and waved it at me.

  If that's what makes sense to you, go ahead and do it. Shoot me. I understand I've hurt you. But understand this. You will be sorry someday.

  Stop telling me what I will do or won't do, Dad. I don't want to hear it anymore.

  Put the gun down, Ricky.

  He squinted his eyes instead, raised the gun up and fired six times, blasting away at the wall and desk. A Miami Dolphins replica football helmet was the first and only casualty. The holes in the wall were scattered in a ring about two feet wide. Then, as he cried, I tried to console him by putting my hands on his head.

  The doctor we took him to recommended group therapy, and we did that for a year. It seemed to help. With time, he began to come out of his shell shock and resume a normal boyhood. Surfing was the one thing that got his blood going, and after a good session in the water it was clear he was regaining some of the spunk and vitality that could be filed under the name of F. . .U. . .N. That was what it came down to. Good, clean fun, and I had failed to see it. Sometimes what seems like self-sacrifice is just self-aggrandizement. I loved coaching football, but I loved my family even more. It had almost taken my son's self-destruction to make me realize it. The lesson I learned is that the future is resistant to manipulation. The matter to be worked on is always self-perception, and greater understanding always comes from listening rather than doing.

  No, you did not learn the lesson, little man. Your son needed to see you led by example. What were you doing to define your life? The Santa will show you how to be a father to your son. A man. You become a part of death. There is no more fear.

  What do you mean by death, Chagnon? I'm tired of this abstract crap of yours.

  By death I mean cruelty. Even with family members we preach cruelty at the proper moment. Everything is for her, the Santa. And in her. And we are, like how you say, candles in the wind. Your son was listening to the whispers of the profane, the West's sacred cow, the false god of soft pleasure and comfort. That is why we have our drugs.

  But the drugs make you weak, Chagnon.

  No. To the contrary. They form the heart. That is what we are cultivating. The hearts of warriors. You see, we will never die. In order to be immortal we need our cured hearts.

  Why?

  Why? Because we must learn the nature of infinity, which is merciless! Your son and all the young men need a road to follow. A guide to the proper road. A religion is but a way of life, a structure. It is important for the young people.

  But they need to be motivated. It has to be fun, Chagnon. Otherwise all you get is robots carrying out orders.

  You don't comprehend that fun is meaningless if there is no moral content? That is what death teaches. The morality of the new man.

  There has to be spirit.

  Then we agree. The spirit is the important thing.

  I just liked to argue to get him going, but the truth was we ended up agreeing on many things. I think it surprised him. It surprised me. I could, however, never buy ninety percent of what he said.

  I hadn't forgotten my fear of some of my fellow prisoners, notably Talbert, who had given me that look the day when he'd tried to get me to agree to rat on Sabine for accepting the book of poems from Lucas. He seemed to have gotten over his rage. The tunnel and planning for the escape took precedence over any personal grudges, as was to be expected. Sabine seemed to understand that playing favorites was not a smart idea. She was like a sister to us, the three of us, and eventually softened up and took an interest in me. One day she asked me about my family, and I told her a little about Mary and Ricky and my teaching job. She was impressed that, by and large, we'd managed to do the little things right in raising Ricky and had kept house and home together. It was a matter of necessity, I said, but she disagreed and said many people who needed to weren't capable of hanging in there through tough times. I didn't tell her how tough some of the times, especially in the last years before Mary's death, had been. She'd never been married. The career overseas in Central America had taken care of that. But there had been a special man in her life, a fellow Belgian. He was an architect and city planner. He'd married someone else, a common friend, and it had made her bitter for a long time, she confessed.

  Well, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I said.

  Look at us here. Are we stronger?

  Yes, if we stick together. You don't think we can make it? You have to believe we can, Sabine.

  I don't.

  Well, that's bad news. I'm sorry to hear it.

  I will work as hard as anyone, but don't expect me to believe, Al. We are not stronger.

  When we get out of here, you'll come visit me in Florida, okay?

  I will visit. I promise.

  That's better. Your promise is good as gold.

  She was right; we were not strong, only I didn't know it yet. We were sitting against the wall in the dar
kened common cell. For reasons unknown to us, the electricity was flickering and the lights were dimmed. Hammond retrieved his shirt from the overhead camera casing. The guards would be in soon to escort us back to our rooms. I was usually the first one to go back. I grabbed my writing journal and pen from the sofa and made sure my shirt was tied up around the waist, holding the wettish clay lumped around my belly.

  Have a good one, said Talbert.

  Yeah, you too, Billy. Stay cool.

  Guajiro and Ruben were at the door. Talbert came up to me as I walked over to the door.

  Hey. Good luck, bud.

  What's that mean?

  Only that whatever happens, happens for a good reason.

  Talbert stared at me expressionlessly, as Guajiro looked at us both and then gave me a perfunctory wave with the rifle to hurry. I looked back at Talbert one last time quizzically. His smile was sickly, and he looked away with unfocused eyes. This was not good. I got back to the cell and quickly dumped the clay in the bucket, as I had been doing for the past several weeks. I pissed on top of the clay and threw in some toilet paper. I paced back and forth between the wall and the bed in bare feet on the cold, wet cement. The buzzing of the light was interfering with my efforts to focus. So I stood on the bed and inserted a piece of toilet paper in between the bulb and the metal tab to turn it off.

  I was working on images of the boat rides we used to take with Herb Spencer down the Intracoastal Waterway and out into open water through the Sebastian Inlet. He was a guy with a fifteen-foot whaler and a granddaughter about Ricky's age, who lived in New Jersey. He was always trying to hook Ricky up with his granddaughter. She only came and visited once a year, though, since her mother had divorced Herb's son. He used to give us rides in the boat on weekends when Ricky was much younger, maybe about ten. I tried to picture the details of the boat, the way the fiberglass was delaminated around the mounts for the outboard, and how the gasoline cans, rusty and smelly, sloshed around in the lazaret behind the wheel mount. Herb liked to kick up the speed once out in open water and run us out quite a distance. He would shout when he'd spotted the vaguest, dim outline of Grand Bahama out on the horizon. And then he'd turn and run us back to Port St. Lucie. We'd stop and have dinner at a beach shack restaurant he liked there. It was mainly the spray of water and the dapples of light that I remembered. The variety of blues in the water and the sky. I was going over these in my mind, sifting and making distinctions between them. I'd always wanted to go diving out along the Grand Bahama, but I never had. That was one more thing Ricky and I had intended to do together someday.