Samantha's Song

by David Carroll

  “Yeah, that. It seems to me that you need to come clean with us because the reasons you gave for leaving her in the first place are as made up as Marky Mark’s Jersey Shore episodes.”

  “Hey, dat’s not fair. I was on for three episodes. They were just scheduled to air after the zombies showed up, so nobody ever got to see it.”

  “We don’t doubt that you kissed Snooki at the bar as you claim.” Amanda said.

  “You’se damn right I did. She kisses like a bucket of warm cotton candy.”

  Marky had closed his eyes as he said this. I was trying to decide if kissing like a bucket of warm cotton candy was a good or bad thing. I imagined it had to be a good thing. Fred shifted in the chair bringing my attention back to the here and now.

  “Listen guys, it was nothing personal. My daughter is my life. I had to try to get her to safety.”

  “No changing the subject. Why did you lie about your wife?” I said. Fred again looked down at the floor. “I didn’t lie to you Charlie, I just changed the circumstances around. Just a bit.”

  “That would be lying.” Amanda said.

  “It would be in your best interests to start talking.” I said.

  “I needed help. I needed you to come with me and I knew if I told the truth you wouldn’t come. Samantha is abused. It happens every day of her life. You’ll never see a scar, but she carries the pain that living with her mom causes every day.”

  “Drug addict? Alcoholic?” I asked.

  “No. Neither. I made all of that up. She isn’t an addict. She is a cold, emotionless, detached bully. She doesn’t abuse with fists. She hits Samantha with her words. The scars she makes are emotional and those are wounds that never really heal.”

  I looked at Amanda, her poker face was intact showing nothing. Marky Mark looked like he didn’t buy anything Fred was saying. I could hear him thinking something like “emotions are for wusses. Somebody says something about you just punch em in the mouth till they think different”. Then again, he was built like a brick wall. He would have been the guy saying the hurtful stuff back in the day. Nobody in their right mind would have tried to pick on Mark Spacoli.

  I knew how wrong he was first hand. Emotional scars don’t form until you have been brow beaten by life for years, after all your confidence is gone. Your self worth becomes non-existent. You finally start thinking that maybe, all these years, you’ve been wrong and everybody else has been right about you. It takes years to undo that damage. How many times was I called fatboy in elementary school? How many times did the other boys actually complain that they had to take me as part of their team in gym class? How many girls had laughed at me? Each new insult would dig the pit in your soul a bit deeper. Down in that pit you would stay. Scared to be yourself for the attention it would bring. Scared to do anything because it would just mean more insults. Once you break ground on that pit you’re never really able to fill it back in. Even when you get compliments, inside you look at the pit and you remember every harsh word. Every joke at your expense. Ever laugh and every look of “oh god, him again?” You find yourself doubting the truth in whatever compliment was said. You hear a voice in your head telling you, “They didn’t really mean what they said. They were just making fun of you and you’re too stupid to see it, but behind your back they’re laughing. They’re always laughing.” This is the pain of those emotional scars. I was very sure that Marky Mark would never understand. He had never lost his confidence. He had never been told he was stupid, or ugly, or fat, or just not good enough. I understood though. I knew exactly what Fred was talking about.

  “You spoke to her Charlie. You know what I’m saying. She is just so disconnected from human emotion. So yes, I lied. It’s all I could think to do. She talks down to Samantha all the time. She judges her and tells her every little fault she finds. She is destroying my daughter and there’s nothing I can do to protect her. That’s the worst of it. I am completely powerless to stop it. I also can’t help heal these wounds because once they’re made, the damage is done.”

  “I hate to admit it, but he’s right about her. She seems like she is an island unto herself emotionally.” I said.

  “What do we do?” Amanda said.

  “We have to get Samantha and get out of here. We have to escape.” Fred said.

  “I hate to be the voice of bad news, but in case you’se guys haven’t noticed, we are locked in a room and anyone walking down the hall can look in here.” Marky Mark said.

  “Yeah, Tabitha is much better at the whole hostage thing than the King of Gray was.” I said.

  “Agreed.” Amanda said.

  “I don’t think escape is our best answer. I still feel that we need to talk to her. We need to put all these issues out there. Maybe we can make her see the light.” The look on Fred’s face almost made me laugh as I said this. I was loving it. There was no way I was going to give them what they wanted. There was no way I was escaping this room.

  “Charlie, do you think that I haven’t tried to talk to her about this stuff?”

  “I’m sure you have, but after today maybe she will be able to see how serious this is. It can be like that show intervention.”

  “Charlie man, you’se one crazy bastard.”

  “I think we should at least try one last avenue of communication before we condemn ourselves to a war with these people.” Amanda said.

  Fred looked at us with a bewildered expression. His eyes kept shifting from Amanda to me as he searched for an argument that would get him what he wanted. The real panic began to sit in when he realized that there was nothing he could say or do to change our minds.

  “Can you set up a meeting with her? Are you allowed out of our cell?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I’ll have to check.” Fred said walking over to the door. He knocked and a man carrying a shotgun opened the door and listened as Fred spoke. The man shut the door and left. A few minutes later he returned and led Fred down the hall towards his wife’s office. I turned to look at the others after he was gone and could see the smiles on their faces were as wide as mine.

  “I though he was gonna stroke out when you’se said you wanted to talk to her again.” Marky Mark said.

  “And when you said we should exhaust all avenues of communication I swear it looked like he was going to start crying.” I said to Amanda.

  Amanda’s smiled waned first and she lowered her voice as she spoke. “We need to know what our next step is before we get summoned to the meeting with the mother.”

  “Oh, I know exactly what I’m going to do.” I said. “I’m going to force her hand. I’m going to not do what they are setting us up to do. I want to see exactly how far these people will go to convince us to escape.”

  “Why do you’se guys think they won’t just come in here and kill us and be done with it?”

  “I don’t think they can. The leaders here may be evil but the others are just the patients and nurses that were here when all hell broke loose. That’s why they are doing the whole act with the kid. They have to convince the others that we are the bad guys. Once they accomplish that then its fire at will.” I said.

  “Haven’t they already made us look like the bad guys?” Marky Mark asked.

  “Not yet, but they’re getting close.”

  “Charlie’s right. They have created a moment of pause. A question in the hearts and minds of their followers, but it’s not a certainty.” Amanda said.

  “As long as we are here saying that we did not come all the way down here to pick a fight we weaken their position. We play the good guy to be perceived as the good guy.” I said.

  “But aren’t we really the good guys?” Marky Mark asked.

  “Who is good and who is evil all depends on where you are when you ask the question. Up on Browns Mill Road we are the good guys, no question. Here, in the Med Center? I would say if they were handing out hats we’d get the black ones. All of life is perception, not intention. We stay put, we make no aggressive moves. All we say is
that we want to help the child’s parent’s work through their problems. We get the people here to perceive us as the good guys and Tabitha can’t kill us.”

  “We be smooth.” Marky Mark said.

  I smiled at Marky Mark. Everything in life could be related back to picking up “hot chicks” at the bar when you were talking to our Jersey Native. It was easy for me to always find the humor in that.

  “We play nice and we do everything we can to help. And we make sure everyone here can see us while we’re doing it.” I said.

  “Charlie man, You’se got the patience of a saint. Some day you’se gonna have to tell me how that happened.”

  SEVEN

  There is a story about a sniper from Great Briton. This story is said to happen during World War Two. He had been sent deep behind enemy lines on what amounted to a suicide mission. He was barricaded in the bell tower of a defunct church in a German Town near Berlin. It had been rumored that Adolf Hitler was to visit this town in the next few days and when he did our sniper’s commanding officers, who were still sitting safe and sound in England sipping tea, wanted a bullet to go through some part of Hitler’s body. Preferably the head, but center mass would do in a pinch.

  After a week the sniper packed his gear and began his long walk out of occupied territory, per his orders. Once back in England he was asked by a reporter how on earth he was able to sit in that cramped tower day after day without losing heart. To this question the sniper just smiled and said, “Patience is a virtue and Englishmen are the most virtuous on the planet.”

  Of course, this whole story is a lie. The phrase patience is a virtue dates back to sometime in the thirteenth century. It was in a poem I think. Even knowing the story is a hundred percent made up, I still love it. The thought of that man sitting up there, day after day, managing his fear and stress and doing his best to carry out his orders. It is the definition of a warrior. Had the story really happened and Hitler had shown up, as soon as he pulled the trigger he would have been condemning himself to death. To believe the story means you are believing that he was in a cramped bell tower for a week waiting for the opportunity to die. Amazing isn’t it? Sure does put into perspective those important decisions you’re going to have to make today doesn’t it? That is what helped me stay calm when I ordered Amanda and Jane to go find the bikers hideout. It is what helped me keep my fear in check when I stepped onto that window washer cart and rode up to the seventh floor with the others. The thought that somewhere there are people who are patiently dealing with situations that are just as life threatening, if not more so, than this. People who are aware that they are waiting for the chance to die, and still they stay on course because it's their job, their responsibility. Samantha is my responsibility. Seeing that she is safe is my job. I don’t care whether that safety is here or back at Wal-Mart as long as she is safe.

  Fred doesn’t quite get that yet, but that’s okay. Fred still thinks I’m on his side. Samantha is the only one that matters at this point. If she is in on this whole set up, it’s because of her father and mother, not because she chose to be. She is a victim no matter who wins. I will not leave this tower until this mess is sorted out and Sam is safe. If that means I die up here, then so be it. Just like that mythical sniper waiting to end the war, I am sitting up in my own tower waiting for my shot. My one clear chance at ending this. I am not yet sure what that one shot will be, but I do know it’s out there. All I have to do is be patient and it will present itself to me. Patience is a virtue and leaders in this new world are the most virtuous people on the planet.

  I can say that because over the last four months I have become a very apt pupil on the subject of patience. I even learned a few quotes about the subject. Michelangelo said that “Genius is eternal patience.” As much as I would have liked to believe this one, it just makes no sense to me. You can train a dog to be patient and wait for his supper. This does not equate to a dog being a genius. Trust me on this, anything that eats, and happily rolls in, its own poop is not a genius in any shape or form.

  Next, we have Aristotle who wrote that “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” Really? In my experience it would be better to say that patience sucks and earns you nothing. No offense to Aristotle. Jack tells me that he was a brilliant man. However, my experience with the P word has instilled in me a much different point of view. All my patience has done is made my enemies see me as weak. Daniel thought I was nothing more than his personal punching bag until the moment of his death. The King of Gray thought I was some patsy who would sit by and let him have his way because he was oh so much smarter than I was. That line of thought led to his death. Then we have Jericho. The man who believes he is better than I am because of the patience I show him on a daily basis and the fact that god talks to him…in his mind.

  I have learned one very important thing about Patience since Jericho came to camp. Patience isn’t free; you have to pay for it. There are several forms of currency you can use to pay the bill when it comes due. You can use ego, guilt, sympathy, and even fear to pay for your patience. Whatever method of payment you decide upon there is one thing to keep in mind. Your supply of currency can, and will, run out. When you can no longer pay the bill, your patience will leave you and when it’s gone the void left behind is seldom filled with anything good. Hate, resentment, envy, and spite. These are the things waiting for that bill to take the last of your money. They dream of the day that you can’t pay that bill. They dream of the day that they can be let loose into the world and have their way with your life.

  Marky Mark wanted me to tell him how I acquired the patience of a saint, but that wasn’t the question. I would ask how on earth I still had enough currency to afford that patience, and how long until it ran out.

  If I was to honestly give an answer to that question I would have to say that it was going to be soon. I could feel the darker, baser instincts screaming to be let loose more and more every time I was around Jericho. The question of whether he was pulling a huge con with the purpose of grabbing power or having delusions meant less and less to me. I wanted him gone. I had played with the idea of throwing a black hood over his face in the middle of the night and shipping him off to parts unknown. That plan begged even more questions on the status of my morality. I know that Amanda would have zero problems taking out the trash on this one. Jack and Jane would even back her up. Nothing would ever be said about it by the light of day, but we would know what happened. Once we crossed that line we would be changed forever. Whether or not I was ready to do that was still up in the air. So far, every time I had wanted to give Amanda the nod to make him disappear, I would see Sass and I knew that the black bag option was something that he would never support. Even if I felt ready to walk down that road I was not going to force Sass to follow me. I have said before that he tethers me to who I was in the old world and that is the truth. Were it not for him being here I am sure our community wouldn’t be that different from the Head Hunters at this point. He is more than the group's conscious, he is my conscience.

  I looked at Amanda and Marky Mark. They were looking out the front windows of our jail cell, watching the people going up and down the hallways. I knew that if it was up to them, they would both just shoot Tabitha in the face, steal the kid, make a run for it and deal with the repercussions that followed from the top of Wal-Mart. They were both realists. They saw the woman causing the problem, so to them, that meant the woman was the problem. It is never, and I repeat, never that simple. The woman is causing the problem, that is true. However, that doesn’t mean removing the woman removes the problem. In my experience I have found that usually what looks like the problem is really just a symptom of a larger problem. Most likely all Tabitha will end up being is the tip of the mountain that we can see poking up out of the ocean. Amanda and Marky Mark aren’t patient enough to dive beneath the waves and see how far down that mountain goes, but I am. One fact I can guarantee you is that I have more patience than Tabitha Baker. She will fold. She wil
l tip her hand and give me the thing I’m waiting for. It’s just a matter of time. Patience is a virtue and I have the patience of a saint.

  EIGHT

  Fred reappeared at the door and, as if by magic, he had talked his wife into seeing us, just as I knew he would. She would give us one last chance to explain ourselves, just as I knew she would. However, if we stepped out of line she would be done with us and we would die painfully. In truth I knew her threat was just that, a threat. I knew she wouldn’t kill us. Not yet anyway. There was something she wanted from us. There was more to it than just wanting to weaken our community. Tabitha Baker didn’t strike me as a person who thought she had to weaken an enemy to dominate them. I had made my way through most of this problem, but I still felt there was one last corner I had to turn before I could see the way out.

  Marky Mark was leaving the room, and Amanda looked to me and smiled.

  “Are you done with your introspection yet? We need to go.”

  I flashed her a heated look, “You think you’re so smart miss Asare.”

  “No. I just know the look you get in your eyes when you sink into your brain. I’ve learned to just let you waste time working through your issues.”

  She studied me for a moment, waiting for my response. I raised my fist and shook it at her saying, “One of these days, one of these days…POW! Right in the kisser.”

  Amanda smiled back at me. “Anytime you’re ready, I am. Let’s go talk to the crazy evil lady.”

  As I entered the hall I could see there were three or four times the amount of people that we could see from our fish bowl roaming the halls. They were all lingering around, waiting to get a glimpse of us. I resisted the urge to do my Miss America wave at them as I followed Amanda to the office of the angry wife. Waiting for us inside the office was Tabitha and the maintenance guy. Was his name Bently? No, but I thought that was close.