Hometown Favorite: A Novel

by BILL BARTON

  Tyler was the most qualified and willing person within the gang to take the business to the next level, and when his plan received the unanimous approval from the leaders, Tyler told them that Houston would be a great location to test out their expansion program. He would need capital, product, and associates to support his street cred, and he promised that within two months he would turn a profit for them. Tyler had been a man of his word. In one month's time, he was sending revenue back home, garnering further respect and goodwill; but this success did not satisfy Tyler. He had not chosen to relocate in Houston by default or by pulling the name out of a hat. When he watched the Stars play on the television in the detention center's recreation hall, heard Dewayne's interviews about his family, saw the number of commercials the man was cranking out, and listened to the speculations of his rumored wealth among the sports commentators, Tyler knew where to find the golden egg. Therefore, the second phase of a master plan began to fall into place.

  After Tyler's Houston associates had picked him up at a gas station less than a mile from the Jobe house, Tyler formulated the third phase of a master plan on the ride back to Los Angeles. While others slept through the night, he imagined a new life in Costa Rica where he had scouted out the possibilities of expanding the business while he was there on the church mission trip. "Go to the source and secure the supply;" he had told the leadership, and because of his sales pitch and the impressive work he had accomplished in Houston in such a short time, the leadership offered to fund the new venture without Tyler even requesting it. The cash he had stolen from the Jobe home was a bonus, and he would not be in a hurry to transfer a portion of the Jobe millions from the security of a Bahamian bank to one in Costa Rica. The LA leadership never queried Tyler about the Houston murders, several of them offering support to Tyler's alibi when interrogated by the detective, and they regarded this aggression as an asset.

  With such a versatile combination of entrepreneurial risk and ruthlessness, Tyler could one day transform this street gang into an international cartel, something the leadership had never dreamed of happening.

  It was a win-win for all parties, so with a new identity, new venture capital for a new mission, a new Rolex sold to him at a discount by a gang member, Salvador Alverez arrived in the new world ready to begin his new life. When the woman appeared on the front porch and began to kiss his neck, trying to lure him back inside the bungalow, Tyler produced an envelope with twice the amount of pesos she had asked for, including extra for cab fare. He sent her on her way with the promise she would return and bring a couple of her friends, and then he showered and dressed and drove his motorcycle into the jungle for his first rendezvous with a potential supplier, a meeting that had not taken long to establish since the international language of money, spoken all over the world and even recognized in the Costa Rican jungle, had secured the appointment.

  Detective Hathaway had his feet propped on his desk while nursing his favorite bourbon and staring at a list of numbers on the sheet faxed to him early in the day. He was not drinking on the job, though he was no Puritan. His shift was over, but he had some paperwork, and there was no reason to go home to an empty condo and drink alone.

  The detectives on the next shift provided some white noise while he sipped his drink and studied the numbers. There really was not much to study. It was not like trying to break some mysterious code. It was the SWIFT code ABA routing numbers of an offshore account the geeks in the lab were able to retrieve from the Jobe computer, all of which had been set up the day of the murders. Were it not for an old buddy at the Treasury Department in Houston, he would not have known the code was a Bahamian account, and for the price of a couple of bottles of Johnnie Walker, he would be told if and when there was any movement and to what location. Friendship and payola were beautiful things, Hathaway thought as he dreamed of all those millions floating in cyberspace just waiting for arithmetic summons.

  Hathaway could not settle on this case. The knot in his gut still had not relaxed, in spite of the evidence, in spite of the tunnel vision of the district attorney, in spite of public mindset, and in spite of the opinions of his colleagues. Hathaway paid Dewayne a brief visit in the hospital and asked what had been the last thing he remembered before waking up. Dewayne said falling asleep in the car while being driven from the airport to the Stars' practice facility by his alleged paramour, a bit of information that had stuck with Hathaway. Why would this young man in mint physical condition, who was about to leave the country with the young woman with whom he was having an affair, fall asleep in the car? Of course, he could have been lying, but if it was the truth, it seemed odd. In addition, Dewayne Jobe's character just did not fit the profile for this type of murder, this type of methodical plotting and premeditation. This man did not seem the type to calculate this much destruction. Hathaway had studied the Jobe bio: raised by a single mom in small-town USA, good kid growing up, great ball player in high school and college, an NFL career that seemed to have no limits, and millions of dollars flowing in from national brands just for his endorsement. It wasn't as if Hathaway was a football fanatic wanting to prove the innocence of one of his heroes-he watched the Stars on game days as a casual fan-but the Jobe background profile did not a murderer make, and Hathaway was finding it difficult to believe no one else in his world or in the world at large was willing to cut this guy some slack, especially now when Jobe's health had taken such an out-of-the-blue turn for the worse. It was a lynch mob mentality with blatant overtones of racism, and he had said so to the DA, who did not seem to balk when he threw the accusation in his face.

  "I have two letters for you ... O.J.;' the DA said.

  "So is this what our judicial system has become, a way to settle racial scores?" Hathaway retorted. "Is this your idea of affirmative action?"

  "This is about money and lust. Those two things can corrupt anybody and drive him to do insane things, I don't care what color of skin he has"

  Hathaway knew this was all about the DA's political campaign. If he could get Jobe tried, convicted, and with any luck at all from Blind Lady Justice, moved to death row, or better yet, executed before the fall election, this should assure his appointment to the U.S. Senate. After all, this was Texas, known for the swift and severe finality of its justice.

  However, there was one problem. Dewayne Jobe was not cooperating. Without doubt, he was slowing the process down. They could not conduct the trial with the accused in absentia. He was a national figure, and his presence in the courtroom was critical. The jury needed to see each day the lawful proceedings of the DA proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that behind the mask of a beloved sports star was a true antisocial psychopath with brutal tendencies that, when unleashed, would create the domestic carnage inside the walls of his own home. Dewayne was frustrating the DA, preventing him from doing his job and advancing his political aspirations, and this had kept the case open. Hathaway had more time, thanks to Dewayne, to keep studying this case, to keep watching the account numbers, to curry favor with his police chief for anything that might help him prove this was not the slam dunk the DA touted. So he sipped his bourbon and stared at the numbers and prayed for some activity before Dewayne died by lethal injection or disease.

  He lay on his back stretched out on a cold block of marble, shivering with only a sheet covering his naked body. He felt an immense weight on his stomach and legs, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a muscular figure of angelic magnitude standing on top of him, holding a glass vial containing a murky-colored liquid. He heard weeping and looked around to see people kneeling as they surrounded him, their faces buried in their hands as if bereaved at his current situation, a condition about which he could not determine the cause or the outcome. There was a light fading into an incalculable distance, but it was enough to illumine the sky of black clouds so profuse and grave that they appeared at the point of bursting. The figure on his chest began to levitate above him, but the pressure of the weight remained, and the creature was able to gras
p one of the bulky clouds and pull it down around them, hiding them from the faceless mourners.

  With choreographic moves, the being released the cloud, removed the sheet, and poured the contents of the vial over his body before disappearing into the cloud, leaving a faint trail of laughter pulsating in his ears and replacing the invisible lamentations. He could see his skin was turning blotchy, and he felt as if his bones were burning with white heat.

  Hands rose from beneath the marble slab and lifted him to his feet. Through no act of will of his own, he moved through the cloud, the sizzling skin dripping off him, his bones heating to the point of ignition. He could acknowledge these sensations of flight and of burning, but there were no accompanying feelings of fear or physical pain. He moved through shadowy space toward another figure similar to the first but with arms extended in anticipation of an embrace. Perhaps this creature would explain all things to him, but as he approached, the arms of the creature rose not to enfold but to strangle, and his neck slipped right into the creature's outspread fingers.

  Now there was fear. Now there was pain. Now there was no hope for explanation or escape.

  Dewayne nearly sprang from his hospital bed as if the mechanical remote had a catapult button. The only thing keeping him from flying off the mattress was the set of handcuffs linking his wrist with the bed. The length of the chain was longer than usual to allow Dewayne to stand and stretch and take a few steps, but the excess had caught in the leg of the bed, preventing him from going airborne. He looked around the room, knocking back large gulps of fetid air between coughs, relieved not to be floating through dark clouds with his skin and bones on fire or strangled by a mythical creature.

  It took a few seconds to be sure what the here and now was for him. A police officer stationed outside his door stuck his head in and asked if he was okay and then announced he had company, a rarity considering his new life status. Other than check-ins from medical personnel, he did not see anyone but attorneys and officers. So it was a great surprise when Sly appeared at the door.

  "How the mighty have fallen;" Sly said, marveling at the corporal deterioration of his best friend.

  Dewayne continued to cough, and Sly advanced to the bedside table and poured him a cup of water, but he hesitated handing it to him.

  In between gasps, Dewayne read Sly's expression and was sure he knew his thoughts: his friend was choking, but maybe it would be easier for everyone if he refrained from giving him this drink. Maybe everyone would be relieved if an intentional act would squelch his breath altogether.

  "Help me, Sly;" he said, his voice a garroted plea, and Sly offered the drink.

  He washed down the strangulation in desperate swallows, then dropped the plastic cup and held on to the bed, feeling its soft warmth, thankful it had no tangible resemblance to icy marble. When he recovered, he leaned back in the bed and gazed at his old friend.

  "On second thought maybe you should have let me choke to death;" he said, and Sly admitted he had deliberated on the idea confirming to Dewayne that his suspicions were correct. "Then you could have had my jail cell."

  "No, my man, I'd be a hero. Nobody would lock me up"

  Sly stared at Dewayne, feeling nothing but incomprehension. Was this the man with whom he grew up? Was this the man whose mother had been his mother, her funeral he had of late attended? Was this the man the world condemned, tainting all he had touched with a brushstroke of evil? His fall from grace had bruised the conscience of a nation. Yet Sly felt drawn to this hospital room like the pull to the sideshow of a demonic carnival, and nothing could have prepared him for this. Nothing could have prepared him to look into the eyes of a lifelong friend, one he had known longer than anyone else now left on this earth, and see the alteration from man to beast. It was the stuff of sinister, medieval tales told as morality plays in an attempt to hold in check the evil residing in a man's heart.

  "This room sucks. It stinks like a backed-up toilet in here;" Sly said, waving his hand beneath his nose.

  "What did you expect from a prison hospital? We criminals don't get much selection," and Dewayne raised his arm with its restraint.

  It was an ancient room in an ancient hospital from an ancient era when the practice of medicine for criminals and the insane was austere, on the level of care given to neglected domestic animals with little hope. Sly went over to the window and looked through the bent and crooked blinds. All he saw beyond the twenty-foot fence topped off with razor wire was the industrial county penal complex.

  "Like the view from here;" Sly said, swiping the greasy dust off a blade with his finger and then wiping the grime on the cracked plaster wall.

  "It's why I keep the blinds closed"

  Sly turned back and really took in Dewayne.

  "You've lost some weight" Sly noticed a withered look of aging in his face and a hairline losing its claim on his scalp.

  "I've been on the radiation/chemotherapy diet. I don't recommend it."

  "So, you really have a brain tumor, my man?" Sly asked, his tone obviously incredulous.

  "It's a little octopus at the base of my brain, spreading out its tentacles like the fingers of God"

  "That explain why you went crazy ... killed your family?"

  "You work for the DA now, my man?" Dewayne asked. "My best friend has gone over to the other side, gone and bought into the lies. You take what you've heard from the world and pass your guilty verdict. A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends, no matter what they say he has done."

  Sly felt contempt rising in him. He thought he had come to find answers, but he now knew he would not have believed any answer he heard. "Let me tell you, my man, you don't have any friends"

  There was the truth. Dewayne was alone, and he felt the weight return to his chest, the weight he felt in his dream, the weight of God crushing him, cutting him off from all comfort, all hope.

  "Why have you come?" Dewayne asked, his voice a whisper.

  "How could you do it? How in God's name could you do it?" Sly asked and bowed his head and stretched his arms over the railing at the foot of the bed. He raised his hand to mute any statement Dewayne was about to make. "I went to Springdale for the funeral of your mother." Sly pounded the rail of the bed. "I buried her ... Jake and me. I can't believe we buried our mama and you weren't there. I can't believe our mama's dead. I can't believe she's gone from us and you ... you..

  Sly did not finish his accusation. Dewayne had already accepted the culpability for the death of his mother. It was not necessary for Sly to point his finger of blame at Dewayne with one hand and pound his fist on the bed with the other. Dewayne dreaded facing his mother on the Day of judgment more than he dreaded facing God. In fact, he looked forward to facing God, to standing before God in the boldness of his innocence and confronting him for his indifference, for his terrors against a man who had done nothing to deserve such malevolent attention. But his mother was a different story. From the grave how would she ever know of his innocence? Who would tell her? Who would plead his case and convince her that her son, her only son, would never, could never, do all he had been accused of? Facing Sly was only a prelude to the moment he would face his mother, whom he had killed. That was the one death, the only death, to which he would plead guilty.

  Dewayne dropped his head back onto his pillow, the chains from his arm rattling as he raised his hand to cover his eyes. Grief incapacitated him. He wondered if Sly was capable of feeling real empathy for him.

  When the door to the room opened, the familiar voice that spoke her greeting made Dewayne pull his hand from his eyes, and he looked into Rosella's exhausted face. She too had lost weight. She too had physically aged, her face drained of its perennial brightness, and her body appeared to have shrunk inside her loose clothes. Dewayne watched as Sly stepped toward her, and she fell into his arms, both of them weeping, oblivious to the man lying in bed, watching their every move, listening to every sob and moan.

  Dewayne felt as though this could have
been a scene performed for his benefit. Perhaps it was; perhaps it was a conscious action long held dormant within the hearts of Rosella and Sly, who were, given the circumstances, free to respond to their true feelings. And perhaps this was another in a series of God's humorless jokes, another of his razor-sharp daggers thrust into Dewayne's soul, forcing him to watch his wife being comforted in another man's arms, comforted for the horrendous crimes the couple in the scene believed he had committed, crimes that had rescinded his right to touch his wife or be touched by her. Why couldn't the brain tumor have shut down his mind or at least taken his sight and hearing? Another of God's jokes, forcing Dewayne to be the helpless observer.

  All he could do to interject himself into the moment was growl; he would fight back, even if it were only with primal instinct. Although the sound caused the pair to release their embrace, the two actors did not give him their visual attention. Instead, Dewayne had to continue to watch as they never took their eyes off each other or made a full break from their physical contact-tears were wiped from faces, hands were held. He listened to their inquiries into each other's well-being, of how Rosella was holding up, of where the children had been buried, of how a distraught Bonita had once again fallen off the face of the world, of the tragic funeral of Cherie Jobe, of the doctors' reports and their bafflement over Dewayne's condition, of the media attention and the upcoming trial and her plans to avoid both, of what Sly could do to help her-anything, he said, anything. When it came to her immediate plans, Dewayne was finally recognized.