The Awakening

by Allen Johnson

  “Hmm, what is this?” Miguel reached into the pocket with thumb and forefinger and retrieved a small, uneven piece of paper.

  The fragment was bloodstained and folded in half. Miguel carefully unfurled the snippet of paper on the utility counter. It was a note, hastily handwritten in English.

  As much as Miguel hated to defer to Lupita, he had no choice. “My English is a little rusty, Lupita. Can you translate?”

  Lupita leaned over the scrap of paper and read slowly, first in English and then translating into Spanish:

  Anthony,

  You were unbelievable.

  Savannah.

  “Then his name is Anthony,” Miguel said and then immediately corrected himself. “I mean, his name could be Anthony. It is a possibility.”

  Lupita smiled. “It is a good possibility.”

  Diego looked at the small piece of evidence. “We will call him Antonio. It is a good strong name.”

  “Okay,” Lupita said. “Antonio he is, at least until we know better.”

  Miguel completed his examination of the clothing. With the exception of a neatly pressed handkerchief, disappointingly without monogram, there was nothing else.

  Apparently satisfied with his investigation for the moment, Miguel wished Lupita and Diego a good day and asked to be contacted as soon as the stranger revived. Lupita walked the police chief to the front door.

  Miguel turned to face Lupita. “There is one other thing, now that I think about it.”

  “Yes?”

  “There is a festival in the town square on Sunday. There will be much to eat and drink. Flamenco dancers, too, I think. Would you like to go with me?

  “Thank you, Miguel. That is very kind, but I have so much work to do now. I am behind on my rounds, and I know I will be working straight through the weekend.”

  “All right,” Miguel said, rotating the band of his cap with both hands. “But you have to rest sometime.”

  “I know. And I will. Thank you.”

  “Hasta luego.”

  “Hasta luego.”

  Lupita closed the door and walked to the kitchen where Diego was reading the regional newspaper at the kitchen table.

  “Has he asked you to marry him?” Diego asked without looking up from his paper.

  “No, Tito, he has not.”

  “But he wants to.”

  “Yes, I am sure he would like to marry me.”

  “And what will you say when he asks you?”

  “I do not know. I hope he does not ask.”

  “He is a good man.”

  “Yes, he is a good man, but I do not love him.”

  “That is important,” Diego said, turning the page of his paper.

  And during this time, the stranger plunged deeper into the times of his life.

  Tony’s third foster family was not easy; his foster father, Michael was as demanding and autocratic at home as he was on a glacier mountain top. Still, he was better than the first two foster families.

  The first family lasted only a month. They were Isaiah and Millie McAlister, devout Pentecostal Christians, who believed that youthful rebellion was a sign of the devil and needed to be beat out of the child with what his foster parents called “the rod of righteousness and obedience.”

  Tony received his first and last beating after literally calling “bullshit,” when his fifteen-year-old foster brother said he could beat him in arm wrestling. Tony never got the chance to prove his claim.

  “You go to your room right now,” his foster father said.

  “Wh’d I do?” Tony protested.

  “It’s not what you did,” Isaiah said. “It’s what you said.”

  “Wh’d I say?”

  “You know very well. I will not have that filth in my house. This is a good Christian home. Just as Jesus cleared the temple of the money lenders, so I will clean my house. Go to your room right now.”

  Tony obeyed. He walked slowly to his room, sat on the bed, and waited.

  In a few moments, Isaiah opened the door. His belt was in his hand. He spoke calmly, “Drop your pants, young man, and grab your ankles.”

  Tony was just fourteen years old, but already he was not intimidated. He already had a plan.

  “I will if you will,” he said without losing a beat.

  Isaiah was caught off guard. He was the kind of man who was easily unsettled: afraid to walk in tall grass, because there might be snakes; afraid to leave his car unlocked, even for a moment, for fear of thieves; afraid to skip out on Sunday worship, for fear of eternal damnation.

  Tony’s surly challenge made Isaiah drop his jaw. When he had collected himself, he said, “You’ve just earned yourself ten more lashes.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Tony said, unzipping his pants and bending over to form a tight surface across his buttocks.

  The first whack caught Tony off guard; he winced and uttered a muted grunt: “ehhh.” After that he was perfectly silent.

  Isaiah had counted off the strokes. At twenty he stopped. “You can pull up your pants now,” he said matter-of-factly. “What do you have to say for yourself, young man? What have you learned?”

  Tony stared coldly into his foster father’s eyes, who was wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. “I’ve learned that you are an asshole,” Tony said, “and that you get your kicks out of beating helpless children.”

  Isaiah’s face reddened. He raised the belt over his head with the intention of snapping it across Tony’s face.

  Tony grabbed Isaiah’s wrist with one hand and his neck with the other and pinned him against a five-foot-high bureau. “Don’t even try it, old man. There will be no more beatin’s tonight.”

  Tony pushed the man to one side and stared him down. Isaiah’s eyes were darting like a cowering animal.

  Tony knew he was in control. He laughed. “Don’t wet your pants, old man,” he said. “Jesus wouldn’t like that. You know where people go who can’t hold their water. Right to hell, Isaiah, right to hell.”

  There was a leather jacket draped across the bed. Tony picked it up, slipped into it, and snapped the collar up. “See ya, old man.”

  Tony made his way out of the house, and walked three miles to the police station. He reported that he had been beaten and lowered his pants to the sergeant on duty to prove it. That was the end of his stay with the McAlisters—one month to the day.

  Tony stayed almost a year with his second foster family; it took that long to learn the real story.

  Their names were Richard and Kathy Madison. They also had a thirteen-year-old daughter, Lizzy, who was strangely sullen. Tony was two years her senior. When he met his foster sister for the first time, he extended his hand. She did not move. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor.

  “She’s just a little shy,” Richard said. “She’ll warm up to you.”

  Tony looked first at Richard, who had a round, smooth face, his lips naturally red, as if he were wearing lipstick. He was at least fifty pounds overweight. Then he looked at Kathy, a plain, mousey woman, who, like her daughter, also looked away. In those first moments, Tony knew that something was wrong. Nine months later, in midsummer, he learned the truth. Lizzy and he were sunbathing on the deck of the public swimming pool. By then, the two felt comfortable with each other. Tony did not challenge Lizzy’s silence, and she loved him for that. So, Tony was surprised on that summer day, when Lizzy took a deep breath and made her confession.

  “He touches me,” she said without warning.

  Tony knew instantly what she meant. He spoke softly, almost whispering. “Who touches you?”

  “Daddy.”

  “In a nice way?” Tony asked.

  Lizzy shook her head.

  That was the end of the conversation. Tony felt the rage turning in his gut, a rage that was familiar to him. And he thought he would not let that happen to Lizzy again … and, by god, not to him.

  In a few weeks, he would make good on that covenant.

  Tony was asleep when Richard
entered his room. When he awakened, Richard was sitting on the side of his bed, his left hand slipped into the boy’s pajama bottoms. He was fondling Tony.

  Tony’s eyes opened slowly. He was not startled. In fact, he smiled—almost serenely. “Richard, give me your hand,” he said softly.

  Richard looked at Tony with mild surprise and then gratitude. He slipped his hand out of Tony’s pajamas and offered it to the angelic boy, palm turned up. Tony gently kissed the fingertips of Richard’s hand, turned it over, and lay it, palm down, on the mattress at his side. Then, looking lovingly into Richard’s eyes, he reached under his pillow, drew out a pin-point sharpened pencil and with all his force drove the weapon into the back of Richard’s hand. The downward thrust was so crushing that the pencil passed through the entire hand and pierced the mattress below.

  Richard bellowed in agony, while Tony threw back the blanket, sprang out of bed, and dashed down the hall, colliding with his foster mother, who had rushed out of her bedroom into the hall.

  “What are you doing? Where are you going? What has happened?” Kathy screamed all at once.

  “I’m leaving,” Tony said, breathlessly.

  “Leaving where?”

  Tony did not answer. Richard had bounded out of Tony’s bedroom and staggered down the hallway. He held his mutilated left hand to his chest. In his right hand he grasped the bloody pencil.

  Tony turned and ran diagonally across the living room and exploded through the front door. Richard would never catch him. “Help me!” he shouted, as he sprinted to the neighbor’s home and slammed on the door. The front porch light snapped on.

  The door flew open and Tony pushed past the bewildered neighbor into the safety of their home.

  The next three months were a blur of incriminations, litigations, and court hearings. Throughout the proceedings Kathy and Lizzy remained silent. In the end, Richard pleaded his innocence, arguing that Tony was a troubled and severely disturbed boy, as demonstrated by the “unprovoked attack.” The court agreed with him, and he was set free. In turn, Tony would again be processed through family social services. It was not long before he met his third and final foster family.

  II

  ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

  Tuesday, September 11, 1990

  ON THE MORNING OF THE third day, Diego awakened to the sound of soft chords played from a Spanish guitar. He looked at the alarm clock at his bedside; it was already 6:30. He had overslept. He had wanted to be up before sunrise to look in on Antonio. Disgusted with himself, he tore the sheet back and bounded out of bed. He wore only striped pajama bottoms. His bare chest, frosted with white like the Sierra Nevada Mountains, was still lean and firm from years of hard work in the orchards. He snatched the bathrobe that was draped across the foot of his bed and cut a straight line to Lupita’s bedroom. He stopped at the doorway.

  Lupita sat cross-legged on a chair beside Antonio’s bed, her back to Diego, her body caressing her guitar. Her fingers passed gently over the strings, a sorrowful current of minor major seventh chords rising and falling from her classical Spanish guitar. If she knew Diego were in the room, she made no sign.

  Gradually, she drifted into Diego’s beloved song, “La Violetera,” breathing new life into the melody with her own lyrics. The rendition was so tender that Diego’s eyes glistened with tears.

  Do not sleep too long, my sweet friend.

  Do not linger in this twilight.

  Soon the dances will begin,

  Leave the night where you have been,

  Chase the music to the light.

  The music stayed on after the last word was sung, after the last note was played. Lupita sat motionless, her eyes resting on Antonio.

  Diego stepped into the room and put his hand on his granddaughter’s shoulder, Lupita responding by tilting her head to feel the back of his hand on her cheek.

  “He is still asleep, Tito.”

  “Yes, I know, my dove.”

  “If I could will him to awaken, I would.”

  “I know.”

  Lupita stood, leaning the guitar against the chair, and then took Antonio’s hand. “It is time to awaken, Antonio,” she said. “Look at him, Tito. He is in torment.”

  It was true: The stranger was in anguish. Behind his closed eyelids, he was reliving some horrifying nightmare, his eyes flitting in all directions. His face grimaced again and again, unable to escape the demons of his dreams.

  “I can do nothing more for him,” Lupita said. “He must save himself.”

  “We can talk to him,” Diego said. “We can let him know that he is safe here.”

  Lupita smiled. “Yes, Tito, that is good. I did not ask for this, but now all has changed. Now, he is our responsibility.”

  “Yes, Lupita.”

  Diego sat on the edge of the bed and looked into the stranger’s face. “I have seen torment like this before,” he whispered.

  “Where have you seen this?”

  “During the war, Lupita. I saw this torment, this ugliness in the face of the Black Squad soldier who took the life of my friend, Juanito. Do you know the name of that soldier?”

  “No, Tito. You have never told me.”

  “His name was Cecilio.” Diego flared his nostrils for just an instant. “It is not a good name. Cecilio means ‘blind.’ The soldier was true to his name; he was blind to grace, blind to compassion, blind to forgiveness. He was a man of suspicion and revenge.”

  “Do you think Antonio is that kind of man?”

  “I do not know, Lupita. If he is, we must help him. No man should know that kind of hell. If he is blind, we must teach him to see again.”

  Diego looked again into Antonio’s face, deep into his face, like a man searching for light at the end of a black hole of despair: deeper and deeper, beyond the skin, behind the eyes, and into the dark passages of his soul.

  Anthony was hunched over his desk, poring over the firm’s weekly progress reports. With his left hand he massaged his temple, while marking in red the passages that disturbed him: delays, overruns, material shortages, the kind of setbacks that his managers tried to bury in oblique rhetoric. The ploy was futile; the snags never got past Anthony.

  “No, you son-of-a-bitch,” he said, slashing his pen under an evasive phrase.

  Anthony straightened his back and swiveled his chair around to gaze over the Parisian skyline, accented by the Eiffel Tower to the northwest. It was a spectacular cityscape, viewed from his 52nd-floor corner office atop La Tour Montparnasse, but on this night the vista was wasted on him. He neither had the time nor the inclination to be seduced by the city of light. The sun was beginning to set. He looked at his watch. “Damn.” It was 7:45. Monique was expecting him in fifteen minutes. He turned back to his desk and gathered the layers of scattered papers.

  Then it happened—not all at once, but slowly, listlessly like a reluctant dream. It was the scent of something strange that he noticed first. He sniffed the air. What was it? There was something familiar about it—like an old melody just out of reach—but whatever it was, it was not friendly. The odor—pungent and dank—filled him with dread.

  He searched the room: the long bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, the wet bar, the solid oak entry door, the brass coffee table and cluster of overstuffed chairs. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and yet … he held his breath for a moment, listening for something: a clue, a piece of logic, something he could wrap his mind around.

  Then his eyes flashed back to his office door. My God, what was that? A thread of black smoke spiraled out from the center of the door. And then the smoke undid itself, passing back through the door. Anthony stared at the oak entry that was now normal again. He felt a dull, indescribable spasm in his gut. Then, with the eerie sense that there was someone lurking over his shoulder, Anthony slowly turned and looked out his window. The city was gone! He lurched for the window and pressed his face to the glass. There was nothing, only blackness.

  Anthony turned, rushed to the door, and flun
g it open. In the next instant, his body convulsed, and a scream leapt from his throat. There, standing before him was a specter of a man in a black, tattered military coat and muddied boots, his face a frightening mass of lines and ridges. A fresh, raised scar ran from his right eye and across his hollowed cheek. His right eye was blind and encrusted with a white, opaque, glistening glaze.

  The unwelcome guest was not standing where he should be—in the secretary’s adjoining office; that room had disappeared. He was standing at ease in a narrow, smoke-filled, cobble-stoned street, bordered by bombed-out apartments, a fallen beam, and the word “CERDO”—pig— scrawled in red letters across an unhinged door.

  “Wha . . . what?” Anthony stammered. “What’s going on? Who the hell are you?”

  The specter moved forward, backing Anthony into the front of his desk. His face hovered over his captive, and when he opened his mouth to speak, Anthony got a strong whiff of his breath. It was, again, that vague odor that now registered in his mind: the scent of dust.

  “I am Cecilio,” the specter said in a broad Spanish accent. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I am Anthony Rossi, the president and CEO of Transnational Management Services, and you are trespassing.” His words were haughty, but his voice was trembling. “I’m calling security now,” he said, reaching for his phone.

  Without taking his eyes off Anthony, the specter slammed the back of his hand into the phone, sending it flying across the room. “Cállate, you piece of cow dung. Shut up and sit down.”

  Anthony edged around the desk and took his seat, sitting slowly, as if the chair were wired to explode. His hands wrapped like claws around the ends of the armrests.

  The specter hoisted himself onto Anthony’s desk and crouched with his feet set flat and at shoulder’s width, his elbows pressed against the inside of his knees. “You are not in command now, cow dung.” The phantom soldier unsheathed a bayonet from his belt and pressed the tip of the blade under the chin of his victim, twisting the blade a quarter turn like setting a screw. A single drop of blood suspended from the puncture like a hanging bat and then fell languidly to the desk. The droplet splattered across a ledger of numbers, the dark stain connecting the red underlines from Anthony’s pen.