Broken (6 page)

And then–yes, when I hear those words “accept” and “love” and “who I am,” I think that what I need is the faith of my father.
But every time I think about praying, think about going to church, think about any of that, I go back to the mess I left behind.

My problem is not wondering why God could allow bad things to happen. My problem is believing that God can do wondrous things.
Yes, the Garden of Eden might have been real, and Moses parting the Red Sea and all the prophets
of the Old Testament doing their miracles and yes, even Jesus coming and dying on the cross next to a couple of criminals
and surrounded by masses who mocked him. That might all be real, but to me right now, it seems like a fairy tale. Just like
in all the stories of old, the stories from youth, when things worked out happily ever after. Those stories sell because people
are looking for happily ever afters, and that includes people going to see a shrink or people living their whole lives in
their own bubbles of a family, or people sitting down in church and getting saved.

What are they saved from? That’s what I want to know.

I
f James lives to be one hundred years old and never hears another country song, he knows he won’t have missed a single second.
Between his recent trip to Texas and now having spent several days in Greenville, James finds himself tired of the twang rooted
in every accent heard and every guitar plucked. He wants his old life back, before the new year rang in with blood and caused
everything to go to hell.

He sits at the bar and glances at his watch. A couple of stools down sits Willie Nelson, or at least a man who James thinks
looks exactly like him. When he hears his cell phone, James knows who it is without even checking.

“I just need a little more time,” he says.

“A little more time for what? You planning on robbing a bank or something?”

“Give me a few weeks.”

“I’ve given you a few months, James.”

“Give me one more.”

“I don’t want to give you another day.”

“I’m going to handle everything. I just can’t make it all happen overnight.”

“Then when is it going to happen?” The man on the other line curses.

“Give me a week. One more week.”

“Do you know what a week means? Do you?”

James takes a sip of his bourbon and hears the sound of country music in the background, and he feels his eyes water from
the bite. The barrage of insults continues on the line.

“Seven days. By next Monday,” James tells him.

“That’s eight days.”

“Sundays don’t count.”

“What?” the man says. “You going to church or something? We’re not allowed a day of rest. Not for what we do.”

“Then give me eight days. Eight days, all right?”

“You really are something.”

“I’ll get it to you.”

“Your word means nothing, and it hasn’t in a very long time. And if your brother was still alive, he’d say the same thing.
And I hate saying that, because I know how much it hurts, James. But it’s true, and you know it.”

“Yeah.”

“Next Monday. And that’s it. That’s all the time you have. So if you’re a praying man, you better get on your knees and start
praying you find something fast. Because hell will come knocking on your door if you don’t.”

James places the cell phone on the bar, and he stares at it as if it might talk or explode. He takes another sip and glances
at his watch again.

He is tired of this.

“Nobody should owe anybody anything,” he says.

Just a little longer.

The drink burns and bites as it goes down.

Just a little longer.

•   •   •

The voice wakes her up.

Laila sits up and looks around. This time she doesn’t see anybody.

But she hears it again.

“Who’s there?”

But nobody can be there. She’s hearing things that she’s making up. The ghosts of madness are seeping in. This is what guilt
does. This is what running away can do.

The voice says it again, a whisper that somehow floats all around her.

“No.”

She shakes it off because it’s not real, because the word is imagined just like the voice and just like all of this. She refuses
to acknowledge the word because it’s a lie and it’s hateful and cruel.

“No.” Maybe the louder she says it the more awake she will be.

For a moment she stops breathing in and out, listening, waiting, wondering.

The voice doesn’t come again.

The word uttered is no longer there.

Her head makes its way back to the pillow, where she waits and listens for a very long time.

Laila is walking and sweating from the midday sun when she hears a refreshing and hypnotic sound. She rushes toward it.

It’s just over a small hill of grass.

She arrives at the crest, and then she sees it. The small creek twisting its way down the mountainside.

Skipping down it, splashing, is a small figure.

“Hello?” she calls out.

But it seems like the sound of the water is getting louder.

“Hello. Hey you.”

She walks over to the boy who has his back to her. The rushing sound is piercing now, as if she’s standing at the edge of
the falls. The boy doesn’t hear her and she taps his shoulder and then he turns and she sees him.

The face reveals empty holes that should be eyes.

Laila stumbles and falls as the black pits stare at her, burning her from within.

She starts to shout, but she can’t over the sound of the rushing water that’s suddenly all around her.

She’s drowning and coughing and sucking in water and she cries out but nothing can save her and all she can see when she closes
her eyes are the eyes of death mocking and taunting and blaming her.

Choking on her tongue, gasping in too much air, Laila wakes up and keels over.

Her body is burning from sweat. When she finally realizes what was happening, Laila tries not to look at the clock.

She doesn’t want to know how many hours are left in this night.

By midmorning Laila is bored and restless. She calls Shelley to see if her friend is up.

“Have you recovered from going to church?” Shelley eventually asks.

“You’re not going to ask me to come again, are you?”

Shelley laughs. “You make it sound like it’s going to the dentist.”

“You make it sound like I need to go.”

“Well, I’m still hoping you might go and not pass out. You doing okay?”

“I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Any reason why?”

“No,” Laila lies. She pours a glass of orange juice as she balances the phone between her shoulder and ear.

“What are you doing?”

“I need something to drink. I swallowed some of my toothpaste this morning while I was brushing my teeth, and I can’t get
rid of the burn.”

“I could take you out for breakfast if you’re that desperate.”

“Amusing. So do you have any stories from last night? Any crazy Shelley stories to brighten my day?”

“You could just come down the hallway you know.”

“I need to put some pants on. I don’t want Crazy Larry seeing me.”

“Well, okay, fine. I do have some stories. Actually I have big news.”

Laila listens as she goes into the sparse living room and sits on the plush love seat, the only piece of furniture in the
room. She can close her eyes and imagine herself back in Chicago, or back in New York, or back somewhere else. The open space
makes her feel comfortable. She has a laptop on her kitchen counter. Occasionally she will listen to songs off that. She doesn’t
have a television or an Internet connection.

It’s nice to be mostly unplugged from the rest of the world.

But as Shelley talks about the guy she met last night, Laila knows she’s not completely disconnected from the real world.

She still has to earn a living. Or at least feign like she’s earning a living. She still has time in the day to kill.

The job at the bank allows her to do both.

But sooner or later she knows she has to do more.

She knows she has to have a bigger plan than just today.

Today seems like a big task to fulfill, so she loses herself in Shelley’s story and her hot tea and her drab, quiet apartment.

•   •   •

Lex knows it’s her handwriting. Even after so many years he still knows her and would still recognize that writing. It just
feels like her. Like the Laila he once knew. The phone number and the name and the star sign.

He stares at it and shakes his head.

“Come on, Lex, just get it over with.”

He’s been staring at it ever since pulling it out of a box the landlord named Farnick gave him to look through.

The note was surely a mistake, something she would have tossed or taken but that she didn’t find when leaving. If she left
on her own. That was one of the many questions. Where did she go, and why did she leave so quickly?

Obviously someone took some stuff and left, whether it was Laila or someone doing it for Laila.

“Rodney.”

The note was a bookmark in a novel he found.
Sorrow
by Dennis Shore.

In his dreams last night, however short they might have been, Lex imagined meeting this Rodney one-on-one. Rodney told him
that Laila was dead, that she had been dead for a long time. And right before Lex woke up, he found himself driving back home,
driving back to where this had all started, ready to face everything. Ready to face it alone.

“So who exactly are you, Rodney?”

It’s been so long not knowing where Laila disappeared to, so many years of silence. Lex wonders what dark alley he’s heading
toward and fears what breaking the silence will reveal.

He dials the numbers and waits, resting on the edge of the bed in the hotel room where he’d had the nightmare.

On the third ring, he gets a voice mail.

For a moment he’s going to say something, but then he hangs up.

He shakes his head and tosses the phone on his bed. He needs to get some fresh air.

The high-pitched chords of the song on his cell phone begin to play, making him grab for the phone again. The number he just
dialed appears in the display.

“Hello?”

“Who’s this?” a voice barks out.

“Lex.”

Part of him knows he needs to hang up, that he needs to hang up the cell right now.

“Lex who?”

“I’m a friend of Laila’s.”

Silence.

“Is this Rodney?”

“Where’d you get this number?”

“From Laila.”

“What do you want?”

“It’s about her.”

Again, silence.

“Look—I don’t want to bother you in any way—”

“Yet you called me and didn’t even leave a message.”

“I want to talk in person.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I have some information.”

“Who says I need information?”

“It’s something Laila wanted me to give you.”

“Really?”

Lex’s head spins. He’s making this up as he goes, hoping it doesn’t sound as lame as it seems.

“Where are you calling from?” the man asks.

He tells Rodney he’s staying at the Hilton by O’Hare airport.

“Stay there.”

“Until when?” Lex asks.

“Until I call you back.”

“And when—”

But just like the nightmare, the voice is gone, leaving him in this room in complete silence.

Leaving him with a hundred more questions.

At the core, every man desires the same thing. This drug, this drive, this consuming longing always comes down to the same
thing: control. Control over others, control over life, control over everything. So many are scared that life is completely
out of control, so they fight it and they battle it and they usually lose the battle and they need some type of control.

Their eyes always reveal it. The longing. The fear. The caged-in ferocity. The hope.

I’ve heard every possible thing that could be said. Everything. And eventually every word means nothing. Every sensation and
feeling means nothing. Eventually the waking sun seems dull, the setting sun seems stale. And you go through life completely
devoid of emotions and you give over control.

But nobody has control.

Because in a moment, that can be taken away. With a simple act, a life can be taken away.

They used to come to me wanting control, wanting to feel empowered, but the moments were always fleeting. They might have
left thinking they were fulfilled, but they weren’t. They never could be.

Nobody ever is nor ever will be.

The lie remains. Day after day after day.

J
ames knocks for the third time.

“I know you’re in there—let me in.”

He glances down the hallway, then pounds on the door. There are perhaps a dozen or so apartments lining this narrow corridor.

“I’ll kick this thing in if I have to.”

His palm is aching, but James still bangs away. The bolt turns, and the door opens.

Laila stands there, stern and tall. “What?”

“You gonna let me in?”

She appears to think for a moment but then opens the door all the way. He goes inside and closes the door.

He glances around and curses. “Six months and it still looks like you just moved in.”

She is still standing by the door, as if she’s deciding whether to run out or kick him out.

“I told you I’m not going to hurt you.”

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want? I want my brother back, that’s what I want.”

Her glance doesn’t waver.

“Connor Brennan, ring a bell? Connor? Blondish-reddish hair, doesn’t really look like me but you might be able to see the
resemblance. He was my little brother. And he was shot on New Year’s Eve and died sometime before the new year came. Before
I could find him.”

A long strand of hair falls across her tempting eyes and face. She glares at him.

“Tell me something. Was it before or after Connor got what he came for?”

She curses back at him, and he chuckles, knowing the comment stung. James looks at the folding table, a couple of folding
chairs.
There is a stack of mail on the table. In one corner there is a duffle bag that looks packed.