by Inmon, Shawn
The Death and Life
of Dominick Davidner
Copyright
The Death and Life of Dominick Davidner
By Shawn Inmon
©·by Shawn Inmon 2017
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the authors, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
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Published by Pertime Publishing, 2017
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
For Dawn | I would search for you for many lifetimes
Part One
Chapter One | Dimension AG54298-M25735 | 1999
Chapter Two | 1968 | Dimension AG54298-M85678
Chapter Three | Universal Life Center
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six | 1977
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Part Three
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Coming in March, 2018 | Available for Pre-Order now: | The Final Life of Nathaniel Moon
Author’s Note
Other Books by Shawn Inmon
For Dawn
I would search for you for many lifetimes
Part One
Chapter One
Dimension AG54298-M25735
1999
The day Dominick Davidner died, he awoke with a smile on his lips.
“Hey, old girl,” Dominick said, laying his hand on Emily’s hip. “You’re going to be late for class if you keep snoozing.”
Without opening her eyes, Emily mumbled, “I’m the teacher. I can’t be late, because they can’t start without me.” She rolled toward him and opened one eye. “And what the heck is this ‘old girl’ stuff? I am still but a child, taken advantage of by an older man.”
“Six months. I am six months older than you. That is not exactly robbing the cradle.” He brushed her blonde hair, now with streaks of gray finding their way in, away from her eyes and kissed her. “Happy anniversary, Mrs. Davidner.”
“Oh, please. You know I’m diabetic and can’t handle this much sugar in the morning.” She groaned as she rolled out of bed and slipped her feet into her slippers. “Maybe you were right the first time. I am an old girl.”
“Just as beautiful as ever, though.”
“Mmmmph,” Emily said, shuffling toward the bathroom.
An hour later, coffeed and ready for the day, Dominick kissed her goodbye. “Tonight. Dining. Dancing. Maybe even some of that hootchie kootchie I hear the kids talk about.”
“Promises, promises,” Emily said.
They got into their cars—hers four years newer than his, but still not new—and headed in opposite directions.
THAT AFTERNOON, DOMINICK sat in the teachers’ lounge at Middle Falls High School. “Why don’t you take my last period for me, Zack?”
Zack Weaver, the PE teacher and track coach, was in his early forties, but looked younger. He laughed and put his feet up on the table, his hands behind his head. “You know what? I’d love to, but they don’t let old jocks like me teach the hard classes. I’m gonna spend sixth period in my office, getting ready to go home. You are suffering from the weariness of being a real teacher.” He winked at Dominick. “This is what you get for being an English teacher instead of a track coach. You’ve got to actually teach the little bastards.”
“Ah, I love ’em.” He looked sharply at Zack. “Even your twins, who might be just a little too smart for their own good.”
Zack shrugged. “Any smarts they got came from Jennifer, not me.”
“But,” Dominick continued, as though Zack hadn’t interrupted, “I’m hoping to get out of here early enough so Emily and I might have a shot at beating the traffic in Portland.”
“Driving all the way to the big city, huh? Nice.”
“Ten years, man. Ten years she’s put up with me. She deserves more than one nice night out in the city, but on two teachers’ salaries, that’s all she’s getting.”
Dominick glanced at the clock in the teacher’s lounge.
2:03. I better hustle.
“Gotta run,” he said over his shoulder to Zack.
He slipped out of the teacher’s lounge and quick-stepped down the hall to his classroom. He closed the door behind him just as the bell rang.
He smiled at the small class. There were only six students in sixth period AP English. There weren’t many kids interested in taking the toughest advanced English class.
“Let’s continue our discussion of Lord of the Flies. Now, where were we?” He flipped his own copy open to the bookmark. “Ah. Right. We were talking about how both Ralph and Simon are perceived as ‘good’ characters, but—”
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Three sharp reports came from down the hall.
Dominick stopped, held his hand up, and listened.
Two more reports. Louder. Closer.
Gunshots?
School shootings in Jonesboro, Arkansas; Springfield, Oregon; and Columbine High School, had put safety issues at the front of many teachers’ minds, but there was no security in place yet at Middle Falls High, and
no locks on the classroom doors.
Dominick ran to the light switch and turned the overheads off.
We went over this at the safety meeting. Pull the shades. Turn the lights off. Keep the students in the room.
He turned to the class. Adrenaline pulsed through him, but he kept his voice calm.
“Not sure what’s happening, but let’s take proper precautions. Doug, pull the shades down. Let’s make it as dark as possible in here.
There might be more shooters outside. Make it hard for them to see in.
Everyone else, let’s get you into the closet.”
He ran to the locked closet at the back and fumbled for his keys. His hands were sweaty and the adrenaline made his hands shake. He got the closet open and hustled the five girls inside. He saw that Doug was pulling the last shade down.
“Hustle up, Doug. Let’s see if we can all fit in the closet.”
The classroom door burst open.
Gerald Fleischer, a boy Dominick had taught in an English class the year before, strode in. Greasy hair fell over his forehead. He wore a long, olive drab trench coat and he had two pistols in his hand, held horizontal to the ground, like tough guys do in movies. They looked too big for his small hands, and they wavered.
Dominick glanced to his right. Doug had frozen in place, a deer caught in headlights. The closet door was still open.
Michelle Landry made a small “Eek!” of terror, but reached out and slammed the closet door shut.
The color ran out of Doug’s face as he stared at the two shaking guns There was nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide.
Dominick willed his legs to take one tentative step toward Gerald Fleischer.
Gerald swung both guns to bear on Dominick.
“Oh, hey, Mr. D.,” Gerald giggled. His laugh hinted at insanity. “I’m not gonna kill you. But,” he waggled the gun in his left hand at Doug, “this guy’s gotta go.”
Dominick launched himself.
Time slowed.
Dominick had run track in high school. That had been more than twenty years ago.
As Dominick dove toward Gerald, arms outstretched, the shooter’s head turned, eyes wide. He jumped in surprise, which caused him to pull both triggers simultaneously. The bullet from the gun in his left hand ripped through the blinds, shattering the window. The bullet from the right slammed into Dominick’s throat.
Dominick jerked in a half-circle, a crimson spray arcing across the room.
Dominick fell sprawling face-down on the cool linoleum. A pool of blood spread toward his eye, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink.
As consciousness faded, his last words were, “I’m so sorry, Em ...”
Chapter Two
1968
Dimension AG54298-M85678
Dominick opened his eyes with a gasp and stared into the wide brown eyes of a dark-haired cherub sitting on his chest. His hand flew to his throat, but there was no blood, no pain.
The cherub’s lower lip quivered. “Bubby okay?” she asked.
Bubby? What the hell? No one ever called me Bubby, except Connie. He closed his eyes, hard, and tried to focus.
Wait.
He shook his head slightly, focused on the chubby-cheeked face in front of him. “Connie?”
The worried look fled and the tiny angel rewarded Dominick with a smile and a full body hug.
Dominick disentangled himself from her arms, sat up, and looked around. He was in a small, hot living room. Brown paneling covered the walls. A picture of Jesus knocking on a garden door hung on the wall. A small side table had a framed picture of a smiling couple sitting on the steps of a church.
“No way,” he said quietly. “Our house in Emeryville? This place doesn’t even exist anymore. It got torn down for condos.”
He sat on the floor of a small living room. A couch, stripped of cushions, was behind him. The cushions were scattered like stepping stones across the floor to the kitchen.
“Bubby, lava.”
“Lava?” Dominick asked.
The small girl nodded seriously. “Burning.”
A memory snapped into place.
Lava. The floor is lava. That’s really Connie. But how? She’s living in San Jose with her husband. Her kids are teenagers.
“It’s okay, Connie. Game’s over for now.” Wait. What is going on? Why does my voice sound like that? I sound like a little kid!
Dominick stood up and caught a reflection of himself in the window. He was tiny, with a mop of curls and spindly arms. The room spun and he passed out, smacking his head against the thinly carpeted floor.
An unknown time later, Dominick opened his eyes, staring into the eyes of the Cherub who was, impossibly, Connie, his baby sister, now truly a baby again. She looked worried, a frown finding unlikely purchase on her unlined face.
“Bubby okay? Why you fall down?”
“I don’t know, Squig.” That’s right, isn’t it? When she was little, we called her Squiggle Butt because of the way she crawled. She got pretty tired of that by the time she was a teenager.
Dominick stood up to his full height, which wasn’t tall at all. “It’s okay, Squig. Bubby’s okay.”
But I’m not. I’m not okay at all. Where the heck, when the heck am I? I’m forty-one years old. Today’s my tenth anniversary. I’m taking Emily to Portland tonight to celebrate. The thought, the distance, chilled him. Shit. Emily!
Dominick turned and ran down the still-familiar hall. School pictures hung the length of the wall. He dashed into the small bathroom on the right. He didn’t even have time to flip the light on before he was on his knees. He threw up what looked like macaroni and cheese.
I don’t even like macaroni and cheese. He spit a long ribbon into the bowl. Maybe this is why.
Shaking, he unrolled some toilet paper, wiped his mouth and flushed. He turned to the sink and had to stand on his tiptoes to scoop some water to rinse his mouth.
He sat down heavily on the toilet.
C’mon, think. I was in my classroom, that little asshole Gerald came in and shot me. I tried to stand, but couldn’t. I closed my eyes and opened them here. Based on how little both Connie and I are, that would mean this is sometime in the sixties. But, that’s totally impossible. Right?
He sat there for a long time, waiting to see what was next, but what was next was that nothing changed. He heard a crash from the living room.
He ran out and found Connie in tears, the remains of a table lamp broken at her feet,
“Sorry, Bubby, sorry ...” she dissolved again into tears.
“It’s okay, Squig. It’s okay. Here,” he said, repositioning the couch cushions. “Do you want a glass of milk?”
Sensing she wasn’t in trouble for breaking the lamp, the tears dried up. She nodded.
“Okay, jump up to the table and I’ll get you a glass of milk.”
He was barely tall enough to open the upper cupboard, where the plastic glasses for the kids sat on the bottom shelf. He grabbed one, poured half a glass of milk and sat it on the table.
“Connie, where’s Mom or Dad?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Is anybody else here?”
She looked at him with her head cocked, as though these were things he should already know. She shook her head.
He heard the crunch of tires over gravel in the driveway outside. He ran to the kitchen window and looked outside. Joe Davidner’s beat up ’55 Plymouth Savoy wagon rolled into the yard. It rattled and wheezed, then finally went quiet.
A tall man with a hairline moving the wrong direction stepped out of the car. He set a black lunchbox on top of the car, then reached back in to retrieve something. Dominick’s heart skipped a beat. He ran to the front door, banging his hip against the kitchen counter. He didn’t care. He threw the front door open, jumped down the three front steps, and threw himself into his father’s arms.
“Dad!, Dad!”
“What’s all this, then?” Joe Davidner said. He reached down and
picked Dominick up with one arm, light as a feather. “Everything okay, Nicky?”
Dominick didn’t want to pull his face away from his father’s neck. He breathed in the smell of sweat, tobacco, and grease. Finally, he did, and reached out and held his father’s stubbled face in his child’s hands. Tears sprang to his eyes.
“I missed you, Dad.”
“Did you now? Since this morning? I think something must be broken in the house if you’re acting like this.” Joe’s words were serious, but his eyes laughed. He sat Dominick down on the top step.
“Well, yeah, we kind of broke a lamp. I’m sorry, Dad.”
“You’ll need to tell your mom you’re sorry. She’s in charge of lamps. Was it you, or Hurricane Squig?”
“Well, it was both of us. We were playing with the couch cushions and when we put them back, we kind of knocked off the lamp.”
“’We,’ huh? That little girl doesn’t know how lucky she is to have two big brothers covering for her. Speaking of which, where’s your brother?”
“Sam?”
“Yes, Sam, unless you’re mother’s had another son I don’t know about, God forbid.” Joe made a quick sign of the cross—spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch—to ward off that thought.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”
“If that boy was ever where he was supposed to be, it would be a miracle.”
Unselfconsciously, Dominick reached up and took his father’s hand as they walked inside. As soon as Joe sat his lunch bucket on the counter, Connie jumped down from the table and ran to him. He scooped her up in his arms.
Dominick wandered into the living room, picked up the remaining couch cushion and replaced it.
Somehow, this is all real, then, isn’t it? I’m really here. But how? More importantly, why?
Chapter Three
Universal Life Center
Carrie bent over her pyxis, her brows knit in concentration and concern. “Bertellia?”
“Bertellia is away. I am covering her duties.” A disembodied voice, aloof and irritated, came from over her left shoulder.
“Oh! Oh, I didn’t know. Who are you?”
