Revised Bury the Lead Ebook Formatting Embedded Cover

by Bury the Lead (retail) (epub)

  “Come on, Randolph. I’m a big boy. You don’t need to beg me for forgiveness. Everyone makes mistakes now and then.”

  “This wasn’t a mistake. I judged your character, and I judged it harshly. Without mercy. Without knowledge. I was angry against you without cause. Our Lord said that he who is angry with his brother has murdered his brother in his heart.”

  “Christ. Do you know how many times a murderer I am?”

  I spoke without thinking.

  “Forgive me, Jeff. Or tell me what you need me to do. I cannot rest otherwise.”

  Was melodrama a requirement of the cloth? It appeared so. I hauled Willis Randolph to his feet.

  “I forgive you, Randolph. Now seriously. Don’t give it another thought. But the truth is … that woman’s husband is one of these sex offenders? That has to be some comfort to her, right?”

  “Ah.” Randolph sat back down, offered me a fry. I’d already eaten an entire order of the things, but I accepted it to be social. “Not so comforting. She’d already known, you see? But she hadn’t told anyone else. Thought God’s forgiveness should mean a clean slate. So now the women who comforted her last week are condemning her this week. From their point of view, she delivered the sheep up to the wolf.”

  Quicksand all around. But I couldn’t resist one more step.

  “And you don’t?”

  Randolph sighed. “She’s a sheep, too. I can’t fault her for simply being foolish enough to think that the wolf had changed his skin. Even if I am not quite Christian enough myself to believe that happens very often at all.”

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  I shrugged. “It suddenly strikes me, Randolph, that those of us outside the church actually have an easier time dealing with evil than those of you in it. I never find myself feeling compelled to offer forgiveness to monsters.”

  He smiled crookedly at me. “Then maybe you aren’t as far outside the church as you think you are. After all, you still believe in monsters and non-monsters. And judgment. Sounds like a pretty classically Christian worldview to me.”

  “Even the devils believe and tremble, huh?”

  “Exactly. The devils believe because whatever choices they’ve made, they have seen the face of God. Maybe you have, too. But you resist admitting it.”

  I shook my head and stood up, brushing crumbs from my jeans. “Ever the optimist, Randolph. But I guess you have to be. I’ll see you around.”

  He raised his hand in a wave before returning his attention to his lunch.

  Well, that was an unexpected development. Unexpected, but not surprising. I wondered how all this might affect the psyche of the community. Especially the women of the community.

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  People have a tendency to extrapolate from small to big. For instance, Angela’s husband was a sex offender and he cheated on her. My husband cheated on me, so he must be a sexual deviant, too. Or the other direction: there are forty sex offenders within a given radius of this area. This town must be friendly/appealing/forgiving to sex offenders.

  When maybe it’s just one of the cheapest places to live in Colorado, and sex offenders often struggle to find high-paying jobs.

  Regardless of how people interpreted the information, the story had to sow distrust among citizens. As if they weren’t already on edge thanks to the person attacking family pets. This was a community accustomed to casually discussing each other’s dirty laundry over the back fence or a cup of coffee at Crumbly’s, content in the certainty that the worst they could discover was only what was common to everyone. Once people started identifying certain individuals or groups not as flawed or troubled but as pariahs, then manipulating social norms would become much easier.

  Haterade: noun, excessive negativity, criticism, or resentment

  Congressman Pleads With President For Honesty

  I decided to keep walking around town and see how the paper was selling. I was confident that after last Sunday’s debacle, this week’s paper would sell at least as well. I was not disappointed. Three in the afternoon, and every stand I checked was empty. Sex offenders and dead dogs on the front page were good for business.

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  The real trick would be to see how the cannabis stories affected the local dispensaries’ bottom line. Last week’s story on the influx of transients since the legalization of marijuana had fostered some resentment, no doubt. But this week’s stories carried a decidedly positive outlook. Sami had done a great job for all her protestations of inexperience. Not content to discuss the various medical applications, she’d included a sidebar on how marijuana was being used to treat pets with chronic pain and anxiety conditions. Rather than a beacon for the dregs of society, this week’s dispensaries were headwaters of peace and healing, offering respectable alternatives to traditional Western medicine and prescription drugs. Sami had even taken a couple of photos of their waiting rooms: graciously appointed rooms with comfortable wooden chairs, bamboo plants, and professional-looking staff. I was almost curious enough to go check them out myself.

  Just kidding. The last thing I need is one more vice. I take to them too easily, it turns out. Better to limit my liability.

  Tomorrow would be an interesting day for me. Doing some online research about resources for families coping with autism, I had discovered that our little county actually had a respite care program. To be honest, I didn’t even know what respite care was when I first ran across it. Basically it’s a free babysitting service for families dealing with a disability of some kind. The free part was helpful, of course, but that’s not the real appeal of the program. One of the toughest things for these families was finding anyone with the training and compassion necessary for them to trust their child with them. The number of things that could go wrong, ranging from merely traumatic to actually lethal, if they left their child with someone untrained, was staggering. I guess that’s kind of true for any parent, but concern was substantially greater once you threw a disability into the mix. Particularly if the disability affected verbal ability. The child can’t tell the sitter what he needs, and he can’t tell his parents if things go badly.

  On the other hand, divorce rates among couples who have a disabled child are higher than other couples. Finding ways to cope and still connect as a couple is paramount. The county has a vested interest in helping families maintain cohesion and provide a safe and stable environment for their children. Hence, respite care.

  I was able to wrangle permission to tag along with one of the respite care providers tomorrow evening so that the parents could catch a movie, have dinner, something. I didn’t know what to expect. It was fascinating to me that with all the programs disappearing, mental hospitals closing, that this service was still offered anywhere. Maybe their budget was already so small that they didn’t attract the lawmakers’ attention. Maybe a little exposure would inspire some donations in their direction.

  Or maybe they would be next on the chopping block. I mean, if we don’t want to pay for kids to eat lunch at school, I can’t imagine paying for mom and dad to see a movie.

  Well. Two weeks of selling out the paper was worth celebrating. I pulled out my phone and looked at its complete lack of notifications. I thought of Ada’s canvasses, still stacked up in the spare bedroom.

  I drank to drown my sorrows, but the damn things learned how to swim. – Frida Kahlo

  God, I missed color. Some days it seemed as if the whole world was black and white, all the pigments fading from the edges of my vision.

  The problem was, I was a man of many acquaintances and few friends. For the last two years, the only person I’d needed was Ada. Before that, I hadn’t thought I needed anyone. The closest thing to a friend besides her was Andy, and that was probably more the result of habit than anything else. A habit Andy seemed in
tent on breaking.

  Pausing in the middle of the sidewalk, I considered my options. I watched the birds wheeling and chattering around Hattie Dolan’s twenty or so birdfeeders in her front yard. Pretty, I supposed, if you liked nonstop noise and bird shit everywhere.

  I could have a drink, but that hardly felt celebratory. I didn’t think I had the patience to sit through a movie. Besides, I’d have to drive to Grand Junction for that. Not that that was a problem, exactly. More like when you took the time to drive all the way to Grand Junction, you realized that all you did was get to Grand Junction. It’s not much of a destination. More of a depressing default.

  Which left bowling.

  Yup, that’s right. Small town, remember? Options are limited, to say the least.

  Besides, I actually like bowling. I know that’s not fashionable to admit. I don’t have a bowling shirt or anything, and I have to rent shoes every time I go. Still, there is something innately satisfying about hurling a heavy object downrange and watching those pins fall. I’m even reasonably good at it.

  You might not think Sunday night would be hopping at the bowling alley, but as indicated, it was pretty much the only game in town. There were still a couple of lanes open, though.

  I headed to the counter, where a teenage boy sat on a stool, staring raptly at his phone.

  “Can I get a pair of size eleven shoes? And a couple of games on an open lane.”

  He put his phone in his pocket and straightened up, shoving a hank of hair out of his eyes. “Sure. I’ll put you in lane six. Any other players?

  “Nope, just me. Thanks.”

  “Okay. Play as long as you want. We’ll finish up when you’re done.”

  I traded him my credit card for the shoes. Heading to my lane, I set down the shoes and grabbed a ball that would accommodate the width of my fingers. My final task was to order a pizza―supreme, of course (this was a celebration, after all)―and a beer. Yes, it was true I’d had some trials lately indulging in early beers and later shots, but pizza and beer are an inseparable combination.

  Bowling alleys intrigued me. It’s probably different in a big city, but in a place like this, most people eventually wound up here. Even if they never picked up a bowling ball, they showed up for birthday parties, graduation celebrations, or to cheer on their spouse in a league. The beer was requisite, and there were a few mildly questionable pin-up style posters around, but they strove for family-friendly. Eighties rock music played every night, and on Fridays and Saturdays, they dimmed the lights and turned on the big disco ball. In fact, if you asked them nicely, they turned on the disco ball for almost any reason at all.

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  I guess human beings are always on the hunt for more socially acceptable ways to force their dominance on each other. Modern means of counting coup. People like to say, “I’m highly competitive,” and laugh it off, but what they are really saying is, “I feel compelled to regularly prove my superiority over others.” It sounded so bad when you put it like that. But it’s just what remains of our survival instinct. Most of us don’t go to war. Most of us don’t train naked every day, like the Spartans back in their day. So we need somewhere safe to put all the instincts that may keep us alive in the unlikely event we ever need them.

  The thing is, that event is not as unlikely as we want to pretend. Consider how many women are killed by their husbands or boyfriends every year. Or hikers lost in the wilderness. Gang members cut down because of weakness, real or perceived. Homeowners attacked by burglars. Children, teenagers, young women, kidnapped, drugged, and forced into the sex trade. Willing prostitutes who find themselves alone with a john who wants something they aren’t willing to give. Open any paper. Look around. At any moment, any one of us may find himself pitted against another in what could well be life-or-death.

  So … we bowl. We play Candy Crush. We play paintball. We play World of Warcraft. We play football. We play fantasy football. We play armchair football. We play, and play, and play, and hope that one day when we fight, it all counted for something.

  I slipped on my brightly-colored, hard-sided shoes and laced them up tight. Every time I went there, I would debate with myself if I was really going to put my foot in that disgusting shoe that hundreds of other men had sweat in, possibly peed in, puked on. I was never impressed by that little spray they used on them. I figured it’s probably just aerosol baby powder. I definitely didn’t believe that little squirt of whatever-it-was killed foot funk, when it couldn’t even kill foot smell. But then I would remind myself that I did sit on park benches, I did use public bathrooms, I did eat at restaurants. I had even been known to pet the occasional dog. I could wear bowling shoes.

  Oh, yeah. Metallica. The eighties were the best musical decade, hands down. I didn’t care how that made me sound.

  My pizza arrived halfway through my first game. They made a pretty mean pie there. Not the usual reheated slab with a few shreds of cheese product half-melted on top that you would find in a bowling alley in a bigger city. The bowling alley was also the only pizza joint in town, and they did a brisk carry-out business. I asked the girl who brought it out to bring me a second beer when she got the chance. She flashed a shiny metallic smile and bounced off with a promise to be right back.

  “Jeff!”

  Hastily I swallowed my first bite―much better than the frozen pizza I’d been eating at home―and turned to face Delores.

  Tonight, her red heels dangled from her hand so she could accommodate a red pair of bowling shoes instead. She’d matched that with a pair of skintight blue jeans and a barely-buttoned bowling shirt. I noted the bright red bowling bag slung over her shoulder as well. A slight Hispanic man with salt-and-pepper hair and a better fitting shirt that matched hers trailed quietly behind her.

  Dang it. I’d forgotten she was even married. I couldn’t remember the man’s name for the life of me. I wondered if his wife’s flirting was a sore spot with him, or if he was just grateful to escape her attention from time to time.

  “Mr. Rocco!” I wiped my hand on a napkin and extended it. His handshake was surprisingly firm, cool, and just long enough.

  Delores pouted, predictably. “Really, Jeff. We’re all friends here. Just call him Romeo.”

  Oh, the irony. How could I forget that name? Forget it multiple times, no less.

  “Romeo, sorry.”

  He smiled at me without rancor. He knew I’d forgotten his name.

  “So, my stories,” Delores rattled on. “The agency has already texted me three times. They were thrilled. Although it would have been nicer if they could have been on the front page.”

  “I couldn’t have gotten away with including a couple of their listings in the article if it’d been front page, Delores. House listings are usually back page. This way they made it to page three.”

  “Oh, you’re right. And they are very happy. Where did you find the photos for the hiking story? They were gorgeous. Did you pull them from the internet?”

  Delores didn’t have much sense of what is and isn’t legal and ethical in publishing. She was more like a puppy. You leave out the treats, she will follow.

  “No, I’m familiar with some of the spots you mentioned myself. I usually take my camera when I go hiking, so I used some of my own photos.”

  She was peering around my lane, already bored by the conversation she’d started.

  “Romeo, honey, can you get me a beer?”

  He slipped off. I wasn’t sure if he was an uncommonly quiet person, or if he just seemed that way in Delores’ wake.

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  “You aren’t bowling by yourself, are you, Jeff?”

  I took a long swallow of my beer, draining the bottle. I wished she’d ordered me away along with Romeo.

  “Sure am.”

&nb
sp; “Oh, we can’t have that. Romeo and I will join you. It will be fun!”

  I opened my mouth to claim I’d been about to leave, when ponytail with braces brought me my second beer. Besides, my pizza was barely touched. Delores might not be the most perceptive person on the planet, but I didn’t see a way out of this.

  I had enough sense of self-preservation to at least try, though.

  “Believe it or not, Delores, I kind of like playing by myself. It’s relaxing, you know?”

  “Nonsense. The only reason you are playing by yourself is because Ada’s not here.”

  Well, that was true. I blinked.

  “This is settled. Romeo and I are playing with you. We’ll order some wings and breadsticks, and we can share your pizza.”

  I wanted to protest that them were fightin’ words, but I knew I stood no chance in a battle with Delores. No wonder I kept forgetting Romeo’s name. He probably couldn’t remember it himself by now, except for when she introduced him.

  “You’re right, Delores. This will be fun.”

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  Unregarded loneliness.

  Oh, Ada, I miss you so goddamn much.

  * * *

  The respite care provider was still talking to me, but I let her words run over me like water. Not the best practice for a reporter who is supposed to be crafting realities out of words, but I was too consumed in that moment by images.

  I’d asked the respite care agency to contact me the next time they had the opportunity to work with a young autistic boy, so it wasn’t much of a leap in this small town to hope that these would in fact be the same people who had convinced my beautiful girl that it was time to fly. Sure enough, this family also had a daughter, just like the family at the diner that night. She was playing at a friend’s house for a few hours. Mom and dad had just left, casting anxious glances behind them as Natasha Young, the provider, closed the door on them.