The Road Out of Hell (40 page)

Jerry did not seem to hear him. He kept pushing with all of his strength. The muscles in his arms stood out in cords and the veins under his skin were raised. “Jerry?” Sanford said again, leaning in close to him. But his son still did not react to him. Then it hit him, and it all made sense. Jerry was in the middle of a nightmare caused by the terrible images that Sanford had been forced to put into his mind. Jerry was trapped in a pit just like Sanford had been, and he was pressing up against the ceiling just as Sanford had pushed against the boards over him.

Sanford stepped up onto the bed. “Jerry,” he whispered. He took his son’s hands and slowly pulled them down from the ceiling. It took all of his strength. “Come on, now. Just lie down. Lie back down, now. You’re just having a bad dream. Come on, son. Lie back down.” Jerry slowly relaxed, allowing Sanford to guide him back down into a horizontal position on the bed. He finally spoke in a sleepy voice, thoroughly confused.

“Dad?”

“It’s me. You’re okay now.”

“What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing. You had a bad dream. It’s all right now.” He sat on the bed and stroked Jerry’s hair until his face relaxed. Before he left, he shook his son just enough to get him to open his eyes. “You okay now?”

When they made eye contact, Jerry nodded. Sanford turned to go. They both knew.

The local murder case came and went, and nobody in the news media ever named him or tried to interview him. There was no public mention of the Wineville murders. Sanford was happy not to have to tell Bob, but he had taken what he thought was a safe bet and lost that gamble in trying to forewarn Jerry. He could have gotten by without saying anything at all and spared Jerry the pain.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
He had learned that one in the Army.

Jerry never mentioned having any more pit nightmares to him, but Sanford knew that the damned things were not likely to leave him any time soon. It was clear to him that the boy was keeping quiet about it for his father’s sake. It was another strand of support and kindness in the small human net that supported him so that he was able to continue to walk his route and call greetings to people who knew him and liked him.

When his sons grew older and more independent, he and June began to sign up for even more community volunteer causes than they had in the past. Sanford and June became heavily involved in the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, and as the years passed June took on a much larger role there. She became president of the Women’s Auxiliary and was a chief organizer of a charitable group called the Boom-town Volunteers. Sanford pitched in as much as his job permitted, and they remained a popular local couple.

June prodded him into action, fully aware of how hard it often was for him to work himself into the right frame of mind. But she admired the way that he was not only able to go along with the social occasions, but bring a personality that people enjoyed being around. She watched him listen to conversations and actually concentrate on what was being said instead of mentally preparing his next remark. People responded to that, whether they consciously noticed it or not. She also saw how his eyes lighted up when he was able to get some teasing going back and forth without causing hurt feelings. She saw that people genuinely sought out his company and appeared glad to see him. It made her feel proud.

It was June who got into trouble out in society, not Sanford. Her strong will and plain speaking were more than some men—and the occasional woman—could abide. When June joined a group, she got people on their feet and kept things moving. The groups generally loved her and put her in key positions because she was so effective, but she lacked the demure feminine style that certain people needed in order to feel secure in her presence. In reaction, their resentments sometimes spurred one of them to throw a taunt at her or to deride her in some way.

But June simply would not back down, if she believed she was right. It made no difference who the opponent happened to be. Sanford only came to her defense if a man was being openly disrespectful or threatening to her, since he knew she could handle anything else. He could usually disarm the worst of the volatile situations with his quiet voice and the smooth mask. It worked every time except one, when a man who was confronting her over something became so outraged and frustrated over his inability to back her down that he shoved her hard and she landed on the floor, luckily unhurt.

Sanford came flying at the man and attacked him with full force, knocking him backward and locking his hands around the man’s neck. He moved with such power that it was as if he was grabbing Uncle Stewart with a body that was finally tall enough and arms that were powerful enough and courage that was tough enough to make Sanford a deadly adversary. He had to be pried off the man and pulled back away from him. Still, everybody there, including the man himself, agreed that there was no reason to go to the police.

The years rolled on and Sanford’s violent headaches continued, but less often. The nightmares became sporadic. Both were still terrible when they happened, but he got more breathing room between attacks. The worst reaction that June ever had to it all happened many years into their marriage, when he fell into a particularly black mood of self-condemnation and retreated to his room for the day. He remained isolated that night, even when other family members showed up for a dinner that had been planned for days.

But by then June had learned so much about the ways his mind worked that even though other people might have been automatically inclined to give him all the room he needed, June also knew that Sanford’s strongest ability was his determination to rise to a challenge. She had already been using that for years to keep up their social life. That evening June steamed right along with the pots on the stove. It was plain to her that Sanford had the ability to shake this off and rise to the occasion. Everyone there was family; he would be given a wide latitude. June’s heart was always guided by compassion for him, but she was not one to tolerate self-pity in anybody. That evening she loaded up a plate of food, stomped downstairs to their bedroom with it, opened the door, and heaved it in at him. She turned around and walked out.

Sanford took a few deep breaths, sitting up a little bit straighter with each one. He slowly stood up and scraped the food off his shirt. A few moments later, he went up and joined the others, wearing a sheepish expression and a clean shirt. June had never heard of the school of thought called tough love, but she didn’t need to take the classes.

Fifteen

In Sanford’s twenty-eighth year with the Postal Service, he suffered a heart attack. It was serious enough to force his immediate retirement at the age of sixty-one. June greeted the retirement with dread; in spite of his heart condition, Sanford was too healthy and vital to take to a rocking chair. Free time was sure to work against him, and she could never permit that.

Her solution was to get him a volunteer job at the Western Development Museum that was so interesting and time-consuming that it could fill the hours that his job once had, but without the physical strain. The museum needed a host in the antique-car section, so Sanford volunteered to greet visitors wearing a top hat and formal tuxedo in the early twentieth-century fashion. He also helped to keep up the fleet, so that he was eventually entrusted with the exhibit cars and drove them in parades and at auto shows.

He may have been as close to heaven as he would ever get in this life. The mask of benign affability was never more powerful than it became in that environment. His character was jolly and jovial among one and all, calling out all the salient facts and stories behind every vehicle in the museum. Everyone there saw it as a perfect match. Sanford’s love for this new character and for chances to play to an audience came across to visitors so well that men and women alike got caught up in his presentations. Like all the best salesmen, he was selling himself to them, and he did it with such enjoyment that they naturally wanted to play along with him. People stayed longer than they intended and came back again more often, just to soak up more of what he was selling. Sanford had hit his stride.

During this time of his life, the inner haunting faded to a fraction of its former power. Frequent contact with people who were enjoying themselves relieved the heaviness. Audiences responded to his character, the Old-Time Host in the world of the earliest automobiles, and they showered him with the gratifying approval that a pleased public will display.

For Sanford and the woman who had cast her lot in life with him, their golden years actually deserved the label. He was at last able to accept that it was possible for him to have a normal life and to live that life as a good and decent man. As for the attacks of memory—of Uncle Stewart’s taunting voice, of raw despair—he was also armed by this point with the awareness that other people were also haunted, in their own ways. He was sensitized to the subtle scars that cruelty left behind on them.
Everyone has their story that you can’t know,
as Mr. Kelley had said, and the thought left him with a warm feeling of fondness for his earthly guardian angel.

It wasn’t necessary for anyone to have an experience like his in order to be left with their own heaviness to endure and a cruel voice hammering at the back of the mind. If it takes one to know one, then he could spot them all: the walking wounded. And in spite of life’s mindless cruelty to him, he embraced its compensations. He knew gratitude as a daily experience. The act of seeking this gratitude in his moments of despair was his key survival tool.

Sanford and June celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1989. They made it to that marriage milestone in their mid-seventies and still in relatively good health. It was as if a final piece of grace was bestowed upon them in that way. By then, June had worked the strands of his safety net with such finesse that nobody detected her work. Sanford continued to respond to her prompts when the heaviness was upon him. When things were the worst, he still retreated to a darkened room and endured the headaches. It was a small enough price to pay for his life with June, for his life itself—more than half a century stolen back from the Devil.

The following year, June suffered a massive stroke that left her completely debilitated and in need of a full-time care facility. The Parkridge Centre was within driving distance of home, so Sanford arranged for her to be admitted and went to visit her every day. He spent hours pushing her wheelchair outdoors around the grounds, seeing to it that she got plenty of fresh air and sunlight. But her personality had been cruelly changed by the stroke. She became demanding and full of complaint, highly fragile. He ignored her abuses and focused his mind on the June he knew, trusting that she was still in there somewhere. Or at least that there was a part of her that still felt his love and attention, even if she could no longer express her loving nature back to him.

Jessie Clark passed away at her home in Seattle at about this time, and her death compounded the blows on Sanford. Now he was alone with the heaviness. It mashed his spirit without relief. He endured it as he always had, but the poison overwhelmed him. Within months, his health failed badly and he was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. In 1990, there was no medical technology available that could save his life.

He continued coming to see June every day for as long as his body would allow him. Their sons were long grown and moved away to jobs and families, so it fell to him to be the net that pulled her back from the dark waters. He did as much as he could until his own health failed him. His last visit with her before entering the hospital himself was the end for Sanford and June and their highly improbable love story.

Despair only overwhelmed him at the end, in the hospital. He entered a state of light delirium and began having the old nightmares. They caused him to thrash and cry out with such passion that the well-intended and possibly competent medical staff responded by strapping him to the bed at the ankles and wrists. Sanford’s delirium was not too thick for him to realize that he was tied down.

His son Bob was the first to get to him, and immediately asked the staff to release one of his arms even though they needed to keep his other arm still for his I.V. line. He immediately calmed down when they removed that single strap, which was all they could do in response to his ongoing flashbacks. The next day, older son Jerry arrived, very near the end. Sanford had stopped thrashing for long enough that Jerry was able to persuade them to release his straps. The relief of it filled his father’s face. Brief moments of clarity came and went. During the last visit the father and son had together, Jerry was able to thank him and tell him that he loved him. Sanford’s face took on a confused expression. His last words to Jerry were to ask, “Why would you?”

His weakness overwhelmed him again, and he nodded off into sleep that would only grow deeper. There was nothing more to be done for him. He had lived out an entire lifetime of repentance. He earned the love and trust of those who knew about the Wineville murders and could have easily reviled him. Even if his weakness at the end made him so vulnerable to despair that he would leave his son with such a question, it was only that weakness that was talking and nothing more. He had lived up to his bargain with Loyal Kelley and had lived out the proof of his rehabilitation.

Sanford waited until he was alone to die, the way so many people do. And in that instant he left all the heaviness of unjust torment behind. He died broken and battered and all used up, having expended every ounce of himself in rejecting the evil that had pulled him into a living Hell. The toll for traveling the treacherous black ice on that steep road out of Hell was nothing less than a lifetime of honorable behavior. It has been said that the realm of the Devil has no exit. Sanford Clark put the lie to that.