Hallowed (15 page)

It was one of those generational events that from that moment after you might be asked, “Where were you when..?”  My parents’ generation had the assassination of JFK and the moon landing.  For us it was September 11, 2001 and the school shooting in Jasper, Texas on October 13th.

The first shot was fired at 7:36 am and before 9 o’clock twenty-six human beings were dead.

I told Claudia at her locker that I didn’t feel much like having lunch (or talking about serial killers, I felt it unnecessary to add).  She gave me a simple nod of acknowledgement.  When she asked me if I was okay, I lied to her.  “I just have to practice some music in the band hall.”

The afternoon slid by uneventfully, and by the time I reached Honors English class, I was starting to recover from the dark feeling that had enveloped me at lunch.  Mrs. Hebert (with a tip of the hat to King Arthur) had arranged our desks in the circle, which she must have felt was more conducive to equity.

She said that we would set aside our discussion of the assigned reading, a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, so that we could talk about the more important issue of what happened today in Jasper.

First she asked us how we felt about what happened.

“Sad,” Katy Drummond responded.

“Sick,” said Victor Avison.

“Angry,” was what James Anderson said.

Finally, Vicki Duplantis admitted, “It makes me afraid.”

“Anyone else afraid?” Mrs. Hebert asked.

There were scattered grunts of agreement from most of the girls.  A couple of boys were brave enough to admit that they were.

“Nah, mostly I’m pissed,” James Anderson murmured.

“Okay, James.  Who are you angry with?”

“The gunman.”  James shrugged.  “I guess I’m angry with the school, too.  How could this thing go on for almost two hours without anyone doing anything to stop it?”

“What makes you think no one tried?” Vicki asked accusatorily.

James stared down at his desk, slowly simmering in a vat of anger.

“Doesn’t anyone know why he did this?” Stephanie Tidwell asked hoarsely.  She appeared as though she had been crying and sounded like she might be on the verge of beginning again.

“That’s a good question,” Mrs. Hebert added.  “And since the gunman committed suicide, I’m not sure we’ll ever really know for sure.”

“Didn’t they find anything explaining what he did?  Like a suicide note or something?” asked Nick Woodward, speaking up for the first time.  For most of the class, he and Henry Felder had been whispering back and forth to each other (probably talking about their grand plans for the weekend or something), seemingly oblivious to the whole conversation.

“No, not that I know of.  We might just have to accept the fact that we’ll never know the reason for this.  Does that bother anyone?”

There was complete agreement on that issue and everyone seemed to want to talk at once.  Mrs. Hebert called order and let that loudmouth Vicki Duplantis have the floor again.

“It might help if we knew that he was depressed or being bullied.  That way we would know why he did what he did.”

And suddenly before I could temper the force of my words, I found myself saying aloud:  “Why is everyone talking about the murderer and not the victims?”

“I think it’s because the victims don’t need explanation.  They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ginger Reynolds responded in her annoyingly sing-song voice that had the affect of rendering anything she said sound like part of a comedy routine.  All she had succeeded in doing was incite me further.

“Y’see, that’s the thing.  All you people want an explanation, but no one wants to talk about what it really is?”

Mrs. Hebert looked over the top of her glasses at me.  “What is it really, Paul?” she asked me almost contemptuously.

“It’s evil,” I stated bluntly, and for a moment it was so quiet, I could hear the chirping of a bird just outside.  “It is exactly as it has always been and always will be.  It’s a creature of opportunity, and it saw an opening to get into our world through this kid.”  Every wide-eyed alarmed face was on me now.  Any other time my shyness would have drove me to silence, but at that moment, I was too wound up to stop in mid-swing.

“This poor little straight-A model citizen, who they’ll say, by the way, had no friends and was a bit of a loner, will become a poster boy for gun control, meds control, and the suppression of religious freedom.  It doesn’t matter what set him off, because every lobbying group in Washington will adopt him and make him a martyr.  On the other hand, those six victims--those students and teachers who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time--will always be faceless.  Books will be written about this murderer.  Movies will be made.  Hell, I bet there’ll be trading cards with his picture on it.  But the six people who died today, they will always be the victims of this ‘senseless tragedy,’ and not a horrific mass-murder.  Those are the ones who will be forgotten.”

I took a deep breath and tried to regain control over my emotions, but I couldn’t tune out all those prying eyes on me.  I had exposed myself and I felt naked, vulnerable.  I felt cold and alone on this island I had just set myself adrift on.  I had just marked myself as some sort of unstable wacko.  A subject of pity and derision.

Mrs. Hebert finally regained her voice, turning away from me frostily.  “Let’s all consider the rage that Paul has just expressed to us.”

I calmly and rationally stood, gathered my books, and started outside.

Wisely, Mrs. Hebert did not try and stop me.

Not knowing where else to go, I went out to the bleachers and lay down with my jacket wrapped in a ball beneath my head and stared up into the sky.  I lay there until the final bell rung, then went to my locker to put my books away.

Swinging my locker door open, I was startled by something colorful hanging from the top hook just inside.  The only other person who I trusted enough to give my locker combination was Claudia, her identity revealed by the scent of Secret deodorant again, sprayed all over last week’s dirty gym clothes that I had tossed into a dark corner.

I reached up with one finger and gently, almost as if was something fragile, took the friendship bracelet made of bright orange and black threads.  I just stared at it in wonder, listening to my heart marking time.

Claudia was waiting for me at my car.

I gave her a brief smile and raised the bracelet that I was still holding.

“You’re supposed to wear that silly.  C’mere.”  She pulled my right arm out straight and tied it off.  “Comfortable enough?”

“This was only bright spot of my day.”  I just stared at the bracelet, afraid of what I might do if I looked her directly in the eye.  (I could picture tears as a worst case scenario.)

She rolled her eyes, gave me a quick glance and sighed heavily.  “Well, are you going to give me a ride home or aren’t you?”

“Get in.”

We sat in silence for a good five minutes as the after-school traffic trickled out of the parking area.  Finally, she said, “I was actually hoping that thing on your wrist would cheer you up, not make you more non-communicative.”

I shrugged.

“I’m just not used to you being the one in the funk.  What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“I walked out of Mrs. Hebert’s class.”

Claudia stared at me in wonder.  “You serious?  What happened?”

“I’m just tired of all of it.”

“All of what?”

“All this death is making me sick.”

Claudia stared out the window.

We rode in silence until we’d reached her house.  She sat there a few silent moments, and I was starting to think that I was going to have to ask her to get out, but finally she told me, “Well, I wish I could cheer you up.  Unfortunately, Mom took away my sense of humor as part of my punishment.”

I smiled.

She reached out and punched me.  Hard.

“Something to remember me by.”

I grabbed my arm, massaging the area where a bruise would be arriving soon, and stared at her in disbelief.

She stepped out and came around to my window, holding her fist out to me.  “Are you going to get happy or do I have to give you another?”

I put my hands up in baffled amusement.

We were looking at each other with smiles on our faces, and suddenly she was moving in and I was moving out, thinking that she wanted to tell me something.  Instead, her lips touched mine ever-so-briefly, almost a brush.

Then she rushed away and I was half in shock.  My heart was racing a mile a minute.

That was a kiss.  I was sure of it, though I had no basis of comparison besides for the kisses of relatives and those were of the totally platonic variety.  Was that what this had been?  Platonic?  Did she mean for this to be like a friendly handshake as in, “Hey, howya doin’”?

I waited until she’d gone inside before I pulled away from the curb, a hundred thoughts running through my head, not one of which involved serial killers.

When I got home, I found Mom watching the news.  They were, of course, comparing this latest murderer to Charles Whitman, the University of Texas architectural student and former marine, who after killing his wife and mother took a sniper rifle up to the observation deck of the university’s twenty-seven floor clock tower and killed fifteen people and wounded thirty-one others over the course of a ninety-six minute long stand-off in 1966.  Many believed that a brain tumor found at his autopsy was the reason for these murders.  Some also speculated that abuse as a child led to his rampage or as state report concluded, “a homicidal breakdown.”

Me, I think, Evil found itself another vessel ripe with opportunity in young Whitman.  I found out later, in my research on the internet, that he had typed a suicide note before killing the woman who gave birth to him.

In his own words, he said, “I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man.  However, lately (I can't recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.”

He was the right man in the right place at the right time to kill as many innocent people as possible before two vessels of Good, police officers Ramiro Martinez and Houston McCoy (a name any Old West adventure writer would have been proud to have invented) stormed the castle and destroyed the monster.  McCoy fired his shotgun twice and Martinez unloaded his .38 revolver before taking the shotgun from McCoy and giving the limp body one more blast to make damn sure it would never take another innocent soul ever again.

When the screen door slapped closed behind me, Mom got up from the couch almost guiltily and snapped the television off.  “Hi, Paul.  How was your day?”

“Considering all that,” I said, pointing to the television.  “It was actually a pretty decent one.”  Funny how a day filled with a never ending series of trials followed by one kiss at the end of a day can make everything more manageable.

Mom must have been pretty distracted by all the news, because her superhuman maternal detecting skills didn’t kick in until after we had sat down at the table for dinner, again without Dad, who was still at work.

“Did something happen at school today?” she asked, taking a sip of tea.

I looked up to find the trained eye of a person who saw every little deviation in my behavior, whether it be the way I was breathing to a dumb smile on my face (which surely must have been the giveaway).

Shoving something in my mouth to avoid answering, I shrugged.  “Surely, I don’t know what you could possibly be talking about, ma’am,” my expression said.

“By the way, how’s Claudia taking all of this?”

“Oh, she’s okay,” I replied a little too quickly, then cleared my throat and added a more downbeat “Fine” as way of compensation.  I gave a furtive glance up and noticed those analyst’s eyes on me and wondered if she had learned those interrogation techniques from Dad or he had learned them from her.

“Did she get upset?”

“About what happened in Jasper?”

“That and your not wanting to discuss, y’know, those
crimes
anymore.”  The stress she put on that one word—crimes—told you everything my mother thought about that part of the world she found herself in.  It was horrible; it was something apart from our family; it would not be discussed; it might not even exist.  The problem with this theory of hers was that it was also the reason one third of our family was not at the table tonight.

“Oh, she still does,” I replied.  Honesty is the best policy when dealing with my parents when they have you in the chair with the bright light in your face.  “I just stay out of the discussion.”

“And this works?”

“So far.”  Of course, the “brief answer” technique wasn’t going to work for long.

“So you’re finding other things to talk about?”

“Um hm.”  The broccoli was looking particularly fascinating this evening.  Those stalks!  Those bushy plumes!  Oh, let me count the distractions.

“Well, I’m glad about that.”  Finally, a smirk bloomed on her face that she tried to hide.  “Personally, after all the emergency protocol procedures we were staffed on today, the last thing I need to hear when I’m with my family is more about crimes and violence.”

“Death is a fact of life.”

Mom narrowed her eyes at me.  “Excuse me?”

In my mind’s eye, I could almost see myself raise my foot to identify the steaming substance I had just blindly put both feet into.

“Well, it’s true,” I murmured with a little less enthusiasm than how I had started the conversation.  “It happens and to deny it is to deny reality.”

“Just eat your broccoli,” she snapped, her expression hardening.

“Mom, is that why you don’t like what Dad does for a living?”

She raised her head with surprise and chose to just watch me for a few moments.  “I don’t like the element that it puts him in contact with.  I don’t like the risk it exposes him to.”  She took another sip of her tea.  “His job is a very honorable one, but I’d prefer that now that he’s retired that he let someone else do it for a change.”

“Maybe they think his instincts are better at this sort of thing.  After all, they obviously remember that he was the one who found that Tatum girl and that was before he was even out of high school.”

Mom set her fork down and gave me a look of complete and utter surprise.  “Paul, you know we don’t talk about that.”

“Why not?  He saved that girl, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did, but you know he doesn’t like to remember that time in his life.”

“That’s why I never asked him about it, but I want to know.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I just want to understand.”

She sighed long and deeply, lifting her napkin and blotting the corners of her lips.  “First thing you ought to know is that this thing didn’t start with your Dad.  It started with Hank and Ronnie.”

“Uncle Hank and Claudia’s father?”  It was slowly dawning on me that I knew even less than I thought on this subject.

“It was your Uncle who had gone in to save the Tatum girl,” Mom explained.  “Ronnie and your Dad had gone in after Hank.”  There was surprise in her voice, as if she thought I’d known all this already.

“Well, how was I supposed to know that, since we never talk about it,” I snapped defensively.

She gave a pert nod and continued eating.

“I’ll see if I can find some of the clippings that your Grandpa saved from the newspapers back then.”

Funny how all this time I had visualized my father saving this child, this five-year-old child, all on his own.  Somehow it had made him seem more heroic in my eyes that he had done it by himself with no help from anyone else.  This version, though, seemed slightly more realistic.  More haphazard and messy.  More like real life.

After dinner, Mom sat back down at the kitchen table and flipped to the end of the worn leather bound family Bible, which sat loyally on the nightstand beside her and Dad’s bed since Grandpa had died.  She withdrew a folded newspaper clipping, yellowed with age from the Book of Revelation.  “Be careful. It’s old,” she said as she handed it to me.  “I really should get it laminated or something.”

In the sparse style of newspaper journalists, the clipping told me how three young men had responded to smoke coming from a home and had ultimately rescued a five-year-old girl who had been missing from her home for three weeks.  An additional body was found burned alive.  Investigators identified the corpse by his dental records as a professor from LSU, Dr. Wenton Joyner, who had been a friend of the family.

Though I read through the article several times, I could find no reference to the location of the house.  No city.  No landmarks.  Nothing.

Then there was the picture.  In fading newsprint on yellowing paper, the house stood, towering over the lone fire engine.  Two boys my age stood out before the truck.  Their defensive postures seemed to indicate that the little girl with the blanket draped over her shoulders was under their guard.  Though fuzzy, the faces held the same features I recognized as those belonging to my father and his younger brother.  A third boy stood just off to one side, his face turned away from the camera to look back at the burning house.  Claudia’s father.

The picture sent a chill like cold fingertips across my skin.  I recognized it.  I could see the flames in my mind, licking at its porch.  Though captured thirty-five years ago, the structure appeared as solid a piece of reality as any building I had physically stepped foot inside that very day.

“This house? Where is it?”

“They tore it down and built over it.  Housing development, I think.”

“But do you know that for sure?”

She gave me a peculiar look.  “That’s what your father told me, so of course I’m sure.  I think I had wanted to see this place, because all this happened years before we’d even met.  I found the article tucked away in his father’s Bible, long before you were even born, and I wanted to know about it, of course.”  Her eyes went out of focus and her lips tensed.  “I remember that he got… a little angry with me, so I let it go.  Never asked about it again.”

She stood up and peered at the article over my shoulder.  “You’ve got to understand, Paul, this whole thing broke your father’s heart, because the little girl they saved that night later died of a drug overdose when she was nineteen.”

Nineteen.  That would have been fourteen years after they had rescued her.  But Mom had said that this conversation had taken place before I was born.  The math just didn’t work out.  When I opened my mouth to debate her on this point, she continued to explain.

“He’d felt somewhat responsible for giving her life back to her, and I guess he felt guilty that it had all come down to that.”

“And Uncle Hank?”

“Hank took it a little better.  He just said that every one of us is free to live our lives the way we choose, for better or for worse.  They had saved her life and whatever she did next was forever her choice.”  She sighed and gave me a hug of security around my neck.  “Your father was afraid that whatever she had experienced in that house, at the hands of that… monster… Well, that it must have scarred her forever.”

I was finally able to tear my eyes away from that tiny window into the past and hand it back to Mom.  She squirreled it away in the last chapter of the Bible and this time I couldn’t help but attach some significance to the less than random placement.

“Mom, what happened to Claudia’s father?”

My mother’s face changed.  It both hardened and grew weak at the same moment.  Her eyes began to glisten, as she seemed to reach back and glimpse that particular moment in her life.

“Ronnie was driving home one night in one of those classic cars he used to love to restore.   He was on some lonely stretch of road out in the middle of central Texas when a buck leapt out into the road.  The thing was over two hundred pounds.  Ten point rack, Pat will tell you. She said that he must have been going too fast to stop.  It went completely through the windshield.  Your father told me later, they said that you couldn’t tell where it ended and Ronnie began.”  She seemed to ponder the image for a moment before shaking her head, maybe in an effort to clear it from her mind again.  “His neck was broken, so we knew that death was instantaneous.  That much was a blessing at least.”  The words came out in a cathartic rush, like the stripping of a bandage.  She managed to compose herself again and squeezed my shoulder.  “It’s a really hard thing for us all to talk about, especially Pat.  I’ve only asked her about it once a long time ago.”

I lowered my head and an image that might have been ripped from the pages of one of Claudia’s crime scene books snuck through my defenses.  Blood and glass and the rack of a ten point monster buck.  What a violent image, I thought.

Then on the heels of that thought, another one materialized.

Evil is a creature of opportunity.