Tear Drop Shades

This is very difficult. My name’s Edgar Weathers and I’m a truck driver; or I was a truck driver at one time. My stepson’s name was Thomas Weathers but we just called him Tim. His mother and I got together just after he was born and I didn’t go through the paperwork to adopt him but he was my son and he took my name. Tim was kind of stubborn, maybe because I raised him or maybe it was just in the genes. Nature versus nurture and all that. He rode his bike every day he could and traded hockey cards with his friends. He got himself in some troube from time to time but I don’t think Tim was headed for hanging with the wrong crowd or anything. He was a little asthmatic and maybe skinny for his age but I think he would have grown up well. He took after his mother on the physical side and had a certain grace and agility that I envied. The kid was a great soccer player. Really, really good. Tim was 9 years old when a man named Dean Warrell moved into the upstairs suite of our home. We lived on the main floor. Dean Warrell lived above us, going to work at a copy center five days a week, preparing his meals and sleeping right over our heads. I guess he just coasted along until whatever thing was inside him couldn’t stay hidden any more. Dean Warrell came out of his upstairs suite, walked down the two flights of stairs to our front lawn where Tim was playing with two transformer robots. He asked Tim to come and help him with something. That’s the impression the old bachelor who saw it from across the street had. I know Tim didn’t make a bad choice. My wife and I had gotten used to Dean and had come to trust him relatively well and I guess Tim just picked up on that and figured what the heck if Mom and Pop think he’s okay then I guess he’s okay. Tim went upstairs and Warrell murdered my boy. I can’t say how. I just can’t. It doesn’t matter anyway. My son had been outside for about forty-five minutes when Julie finally noticed he was gone and called me at the trucking company in a shrill voice. It took me about fifteen minutes to make the half-hour drive home from that point. It kept me up a lot of nights wondering what would have happened if Julie had used her brain and checked with the tenant upstairs, but for whatever reason it just didn’t occur to her. At first we made calls and drove around looking for Tim, but as the time passed Julie got worse and worse; more shaken up. She kept saying “Edgar I can’t feel him! I can’t feel him!” I was going over the topography of our neighborhood, trying to remember all of Tim’s friends houses and trying to keep it as cool as possible. I mentally kind of skimmed over the area in my mind and had a vivid picture of home pop in my head. Suddenly I just knew. I knew where Tim was.

I dropped Julie off at my Mother-in-laws’ and told her to wait for a phone call. Her eyes kept going back and forth between a pleading, questioning look into mine and a kind of animal insanity. She wanted me to say it wasn’t real, that none of this was happening and we’d find Tim so I did. I lied to her. She deserved a lie. I probably knew we both had a lifetime of ugly truth ahead of us. The drive home is a blur. I know that I pulled in to our drive and grabbed Tim’s three-quarter-size Louisville Slugger from the side of the carport. I took off my jacket, dropped it in the driveway, and went straight upstairs to Warrell’s place. I didn’t knock. I didn’t steel myself for what I was about to see. I just walked in. The door was unlocked. Poor sweet Tim was behind an unlocked door the whole time. The stereo in the living room had been turned way up and a Def Leppard album was on. It was playing Pour some sugar on me. Warrell was in the bathroom with Tim’s remains and I guess he was pretty wrapped up in what he was doing, hunched over the bathtub, shirtless and sweaty, when I came in. I’d expected a righteous anger or even a healthy fear but what I got was sick. My stomach turned and I staggered through the door, crying hard, gasping for air and jabbing the bat forward desparately trying to stop what I was witnessing. I kept saying “I’m sorry” and I was speaking to Tim but I guess Warrell thought I was speaking to him because when he turned around and tried grabbing the bat he was kind of crying too and we danced around for a minute like that. I glanced down and got my first and only real look at Tim and then truly, truly lost it in a way I never had before. Warrell survived. The kindly bachelor across the street had seen me grab the bat and go upstairs and hadn’t hesitated to call 911. He later said he was torn between stopping me or grabbing a golf club and joining me but what he did do was sit on the couch and chew his fingernails waiting for the police to come. When they rushed in, and I swear this, the cops spent some seconds trying to puzzle out what they were seeing and pull me off the bastard. I’d dropped Tim’s bat at some point and the police stated that it was probably the only reason Warren lived. I fought the police, trying to get back to Warrell. They really treated me with very little sympathy, all things considered. I was restrained and cuffed. I guess they wanted to sort out who was who and who did what. Either way I spent six minutes facedown in the blood of my son and his killer before they finally uncuffed me. They’d waited until Warrell was locked in an ambulance before escorting me outside. The neighbors had gathered and I felt nothing looking out at them as the police took me downstairs to our main floor. I walked in to our home and it felt smaller. It looked like a mock-up of the place where we’d once lived; like a movie set. You’d think it takes some time for a family’s soul to leave a house but I can tell you that ours was immediately and throughly empty. I was sitting on the couch, still bloody, with a blanket over my shoulders. Do they do that because of shock? Anyway I was sitting on the couch with a blanket

over my shoulders when a plainclothes policeman walked in and took a good long look at me. He was fat, foodstains on his tie, wrinkles in his gray suit; greying hair and reddish mustache and red bloodshot eyes that were either hungover or just tired. There was no sympathy in that look but I saw an understanding there. He looked like he was thinking I see this shit every day buddy. That’s not what he said though. “I can promise you the sonofabitch would get ten minutes alone with a couple of my favorite officers if you hadn’t done such a fine job yourself.” I couldn’t respond. He shuffled awkwardly. “Sorry about your boy Mr. Weathers. I’m truly sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say other than “Thank you.” “I’m Detective Les Burns.” “Edgar Weathers.” “Yeah I know. There’s an ambulance right around the corner. Sir, may I phone your wife?” “Yes. Yes please. Are you going to tell her ab-about…Tim? About what’s happened?” “Yeah. Someone’s probably told her by now.” “Will you let me see my boy?” “I couldn’t if I wanted to Mr. Weathers.” This took quite a while to process. See, part of me still thought if I just went and looked for Tim, if I could just go and check in Warrell’s tub, that somehow my son would be okay. The house, the detective, the flashing lights and crowds gathering just outside; these things felt like a dream. This wasn’t happening. Finally I found more words. “Are you going to tell her who did this?” “Yes.” “Don’t let her come here.” Detective Burns snorted. “Mr. Weathers I have some experience with things like…well not things like this per se but crimes of this...nature and uh…I think you’d all regret it if she were to come here, sir. I’ve told an officer to escort her straight to the hospital.”

“Good that’s good.” “I think she’ll need you Mr. Weathers. Can I suggest that you get yourself a little cleaned up before we go out there? To the hospital, I mean.” “Good, good.” I wasn’t really processing anything at this point; numb and responding because I was supposed to. “Come on sir.” Detective Burns took my shoulder and guided me to the spotlessly clean bathroom where our son had taken a bath…what, sixteen hours ago? Outside I could see EMT’s rushing back and forth across the front lawn where Tim’s toys were waiting. I later found out that the same EMT’s saved Dean Warrell’s life with a shot of adrenaline and the electric paddle machine. They saved this man’s life while my little boy’s body lay on porcelain two feet away. Why would they do that? Fucking professionalism? I splashed some cold water on my face, changed my shirt and rode to the hospital in back of a cop car, like a criminal. When I got there and Detective Burns led me off an elevator to a sparse waiting room I saw Julie alone in a waiting area with her face buried in her hands. Every few seconds her shoulders would rise and fall and as we got close I heard an unearthly groan emerge from her that I could never forget. It started low and grew higher and more desparate until she just shook. She just shook. As for me there was only a low dull throb in my head and a heat in my chest like I’d swallowed a red hot shotput; and the heat was growing. Even then I could feel it. The Detective looked uncomfortable even though he’d probably been through this before. The two of us stood there lamely with my hand on my wife’s back for several seconds before he excused himself. Julie had been cheating on me and I was suddenly very aware of it, at this of all times. I tried not to think about it; tried to put it out of my head. But she looked up, her eyes swollen and old, and I pictured in my mind’s eye Todd whatshisname, pants around his ankles, having sex with my my wife in a not-so-cheap hotel. I saw her mouth on his; watched as he ran his hands over her body. This I saw clearly though I’d only heard about their trysts from one of her friends. I wondered if somehow my wife’s affair had caused this; wondered if I had caused this. Julie searched my face, waiting for words of comfort or just old faithful Ed to make it real. I knew Julie wouldn’t believe it until she heard it from me. Doctors and cops could tell her that her little boy was gone but it wasn’t real until I said it. I wanted to slap her; slap the weakness and uncertainty off her face. Instead I dropped to my knees and found myself sobbing right along with her. We held each other and dissolved into a crying mess on the floor. I remember a sheriff-type trying to talk to us; lanky and sort of…ultra-American; khaki pants, khaki shirt and cowboy

hat and everything. Then a kind nurse came along and shooed him away. We stayed like that, on the floor, for ten or fifteen minutes before a couple of very nervous suits and one doctor came along to start the process of grief counselling, legal counsel and insurance paperwork. I gritted my teeth for Tim’s sake and we pulled ourselves together. Tim’s funeral was three days later and it was well attended. Lots of friends and relatives, too much press, not enough time to say goodbye; it felt rushed. I neither threw myself on the coffin nor got drunk afterwards (both things that had occurred to me as perfectly natural reactions). Julie and I quietly thanked those at the funeral that had approached us afterwards and then discreetly went back to our now very awkward living arrangements. We had just stepped in the door. She stood in the hallway, about to get changed when she turned around and gave me a sad smile, the only time she had or would for weeks. My folks said later that it seemed like she turned into a ghost and they were mostly right. For some time I saw flashes of the old Julie because we lived together but they were special occasions. Her high, unashamed laughter was rarest of all but it still came, out for a walk or watching one of the light romantic comedies that were the movies we could still see together; horror and action and drama had lost it’s sheen. I think Julie even made a half-hearted attempt to get together with Toddfromtheoffice but apparently that had lost some sheen too. I was out shopping when I bumped into Todd. He was with a girl much younger than my wife. What’s the matter Todd? My wife ain’t good enough for you? Nice place to visit but you wouldn’t wanna live there? “Hello Ed. Roweena this is Ed. I…I worked with his wife, Julie.” A caught a glimmer of recognition from Roweena; a shared glance between them. Her voice was a little too kind. “Hello Ed.” I knew by her smile and the drillbit eyes that she knew I was the guy with the murdered kid. Maybe she even knew Todd had been banging my wife when it happened. Yeah sure it probably made for a good third date story. Nice place to visit. “Hi Todd, Roweena. Nice to meet you.” “How’s the wife anyway?” I think I heard a hint of shame and maybe something else I didn’t like but it was like I was stuck following a script. This was not at all how I’d thought meeting Toddfromtheoffice would go. I hated myself for this, for making small talk with this man; for looking him in the eye. I had my own shame. “She’s fine. I’ll say hi for you.”

It should have been nothing more than a chance meeting with some guy the wife knows but Todd felt cocky. I must have become the boogeyman to Todd over the weeks he was sleeping with Julie. He would have thought about me crashing through his door so many times that it must have felt inevitable; that I would crash into his apartment swinging like I’d calmly walked through Dean Warrell’s. Maybe I would have if Dean Warrell hadn’t come along. But that day hadn’t come for Todd. He had gotten away with it and was more than relieved. He was fucking smug. Todd and I had almost been finished with each other forever when I saw that he hadn’t any idea that I knew about the affair. I literally saw the thought process in his eyes. Toddfromtheoffice decided that, no, Julie’s husband didn’t know a thing and he’d lived the dream. He’d regularly gotten his whistle wet, free and clear. “Hey Ed, I know Julie’s having a tough time. Tell her to give us a call if she needs someone to talk to, okay buddy?” I reacted. I reacted to his tone. I reacted to his smug fucking smile and dripping sincerity and I hate being called buddy. I gave him all the boogeyman I had in me. I squared my shoulders and stepped forward; watched his face change. He knew I knew now. Roweena didn’t see a thing coming and was still in small-talk, getting-to-know-you mode with a man named Ed that her boyfriend knew from work. I tried to push her out of the way as I swung with my left. I missed and nearly hit the girl. Todd backpedaled and jabbered away, probably thinking he could still somehow get out of this with his mouth when I caught him with the follow up right. His lip popped like a balloon and his tooth gashed my knuckle with a sharp pain. He stared at the blood on his fingers, a brief statue. Toddfromtheoffice wasn’t a sick pathetic freak like Warrell though. He was a regular guy and fought back like one. I guess he forgot to feel sorry for me. His knee came up and went deep into my stomach. He drove me back a step and threw some punches and then for a second I flashed back to the day Tim was murdered and my strength went completely out of me. The anger that had shot me forward dissipated and I looked around in shame at the gawkers that had gathered. The fight quickly descended into a beating. Toddfromtheoffice got me down, kept me down, kicked me once in the stomach and then waited around to press charges. The witnesses corroborated his story that the attack had been unprovoked and the young man had only been trying to defend his pretty girlfriend. Two weeks later all the charges were dropped and Julie told me she was moving out, which she did. I kept driving truck against everyone’s advice and spent a lot of long nights staring at the painted lines and thinking about Tim; thinking about Julie too. There were nights on the road that I half-wished I would nod-off and crash the Peterbuilt but I never did. I think now I had too many nights to think about the past; to dwell on Tim’s last minutes. I wasn’t alone in that.

Julie started drinking with a determination she had never shown in any area of her life before. I would stop in and see her every now and again. We didn’t hate each other but we both knew we’d never be together again. We were like war veterans getting together out of a sense of duty; not to remember but to comfort each other because we knew we’d never forget. Every time I stopped in she was farther gone. She’d changed from the woman I knew; a woman who wore make-up for a quick run to the drug store; a woman who loved, actually longed for, socializing and dinner parties and get-togethers. She was my opposite and I suppose it’s why our marriage worked for so long. But now when I would go see her she was gaunt and sloppy drunk. Deep lines creased her forehead and hours of crying into the bottle had sapped her vitality. The only thing she could get cleaned up for was the trial. For the trial she was stone cold sober.

Dean Warrell was charged with First-Degree Murder. TRIAL BEGINS TODAY FOR CHILD-KILLER (Fraser BC) A man went on trial this afternoon Wednesday for the murder of 9 year-old Thomas Weathers. Weathers had been six weeks shy of his tenth birthday when Dean Garth Warrell, a man with a previously clean record, abducted and murdered the boy in an upstairs apartment. Warrell had been renting a suite in the Weathers family home for several months previous and neighbors stated that he was a friendly man who gave no one cause for suspicion. Thomas’ father Edgar Weathers, 37, the person who actually apprehended and subsequently attacked Warrell at the crime scene, made an official statement prior to the proceedings. “What are we having a trial for? What’s this for? Anybody can see through that piece of {expletive deleted}. That’s it, I’m done.” Warrell was arrested on the scene and when questioned by local police about the crime stated that “I waited and waited as long as I could. I wanted to stop.” Groups of protesters have already begun to gather at the Fraser Courthouse, ‘furious and outraged’ at Warrell’s insanity defense and the possibility he may never see Federal prison. The death penalty is outlawed in British Columbia but crown counsel stated that they will be seeking the maximum possible penalty.

Julie and I sat together for the trial. Warrell’s lawyer was a bookish type with curly hair and too-large glasses. He told the jury that they didn’t have to like Warrell. He said they could even hate Warrell because personal feelings didn’t matter. He said that Warrell lived in a fantasy world and that his fantasies and delusions were augmented by antidepressants. He said that when Dean Warrell talked my son into his apartment and bludgeoned and choked him that Dean Warrell was in the midst of a severe psychosis and that he didn’t know that he was hurting a real person. He said people like Dean Warrell were sick, like diseased-sick. He then sat down next to Dean Warrell and I guess they discussed the effectiveness of the opening statements. Dean Warrell sat there thirty feet from me sipping water and soberly discussing his case. Thirty feet was all there was between he and I. Security had been stringent and I suspected I wasn’t the only person who would have been willing to take a shot at him but the bailiffs did a good pat-down search and kept a pretty close eye on me. The courtroom was absolutely packed through the entire ordeal. We live in a small town. Julie would rarely try to discuss the case with me but I knew she was remembering every detail, in her way. The only thing that kept her sober for more than six hours was seeing Warrell convicted. I didn’t really pay much attention. I mean I paid attention but didn’t try to fool myself into thinking that somehow any of this mattered. This was just part of it. This was part of the murder. This was part of Dean Warrell’s actions; we got to watch him live. I couldn’t count the hours I spent staring at the man. I watched his chest rise and fall for hours.

Late on the fourteenth day of the trial I was in the courthouse lobby during a recess. The massive throng of reporters had moved on but there was still a buzz of activity over the trial and the lobby was crowded. I was just about to lean down to sip from a water fountain when a hand, calloused and filthy, shot down and covered the water spout just as I was about to sip from it. It was a machinists hand; a mechanics hand; that was my first thought. No rings or watches for this fellow. The nails on each finger were chewed down to the quick and the dirt muddied the water that flowed from under the hand into the fountain drain. I shot my head up, a little annoyed. “What the f-…” “Sorry Pard. Just trying to catch your attention.” Tall; lanky; an older sinewy fellow with black teardrop aviator sunglasses, cowboy hat, khaki shirt and matching khaki pants. He stood there with the dumbest grin I’ve ever seen and for a second I thought we knew each other just because of that stupid grin. I realized he was waiting for me to speak but my belligerent streak took over and I stared right back. An awkward silence came and went and still he just stood there grinning with cold water running over his filthy hand. Fine, I’ll bite I thought. “Do I know you man?” “No sir I don’t believe we’ve ever had the pleasure of introducing ourselves.” “Yeah…uh, I mostly just meant get your damn hand out of my drinking water.” I said this thinking that there was no way I was drinking from that filthy fountain now anyway. I thought the confrontation would press the man off but he just stood, probably freezing his hand. The man continued grinning, took his hand back, hooked his thumbs on his belt, and flicked his tongue out to lick his lips. He looked like a man preparing to give a speech he’d waited his whole life to give. He looked absolutely thrilled with himself. “Just so’s you know? That sonofabitch figgers he got away with hittin’ your boy.” Hitting my boy? The words had just left his mouth and I was already turning to walk away before I did something I was sure to regret later. I sure as hell did not feel like discussing my son’s murder with another stranger, least of all some half-wit country sheriff playing armchair detective, but he grabbed my attention. “You know he’s laughing at ya and you’re too chickenshit to do something about it aintcha, Ed?”

I felt a nervous flutter hit my guts and my heart flip-flopped in my chest for a second. The hair on my neck stood up and my father’s rage vanished. I stopped, started walking again, stopped again, and turned to face the stranger. He didn’t really give me much of a chance to say anything. The grimace he’d been wearing stayed in place but I could tell, even through the aviator shades, that he was dead serious about what he said next. He hissed his next words and I don’t think one single person picked up on anything that was said between us. It was like we were on mute to the crowds milling around in spite of my high-profile and onlookers morbid curiousity. “In about four days, Ed my sweet Ed, that Dean feller’s goin’ to be found guilty. No human being in the goddam world would be stupid enough to let him off scott free or let him sit on the funny farm, even one for the Dalmers and the Berkovich-types and the Son ol’ Sam’s. But you an’ me know that in a way he is happy as a pig in shit. He’s getting’ off ‘cause he done the thing he done. He loved it!” My eyes twitched left and right, looking for security or a bailiff; none. I tried to speak. Nothing came out. He went on, really building up steam; breathing faster and raising his voice. “But you caught the bastard dintcha Ed? You caught him red-handed and damn near beat him to death. You did beat him to death. He was dead and they brought him back. Why didn’t you do more? Is that what you ask yourself? He came back from the dead and now he’s waiting just through that door. Isn’t that just something special!” Beads of sweat had formed on his brow and cheeks. He took a couple of steps closer, agitated and sort of…hungry is the only way to really describe it. His hot breath, coffee and sour and stink, hit me and I realized I’d been unconsciously backing up against the wall. Why was no one noticing this? I kind of got my first really good look at the man. I really looked this time. No badge. “Wh-you aren’t an off-officer man.” “Oh that’s where you’re sure fire wrong Ed. I’m an officer of the law all right. Sure as shit.” And with that he smiled at me again with the whitest, longest, and straightest teeth I’d ever seen. Then he turned and walked straight out of the front door of the courthouse. You know those dreams where you’re running and it’s like you’re stuck in tar, or you’re moving in slow motion and everything else around you is going regular speed? It was like that. I tried to go after the ‘sheriff’ to confront him or ask him who he was or something but the room spun. My breath caught in my chest and I reeled back as if physically pushed.

Now I was noticed. The sheriff of nut city wasn’t ten seconds gone when a few people noticed my little episode and someone offered me a handkerchief. I was sweating profusely and still trying to maintain my composure when I got my wind back and regained my footing. I thanked the man who’d offered his handkerchief and made my way back to the courtroom. My arm hurt and my jaw hurt and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest or pushing a fist into the centre of my sternum just as hard as they could. I made my way up the aisle to our second row seats and sat next to Julie. She flashed what used to be her smile at me and it really helped me regain composure for a second. I clung to Julie’s little hint of a smile like a man overboard and I thought clear. It wasn’t the nut job or his brazen approach that was bothering me; nagging at me. I should’ve been able to handle that. It was that he was right about everything. The old guy was right. I did ask myself why Warrel lived. I didn’t want to see him suffer. I didn’t want to ask him questions or find out anything more about that last day of Tim’s. I just wanted him to not be. I wanted Warrell off the earth; dead. I wished him never born. I wanted him erased and I did wonder why I hadn’t done just a little more in that upstairs suite to end him. I did believe he would be found guilty and it was no comfort. I heard the sheriff’s words again. Warrell had loved it. I didn’t see sheriff nutjob again for the rest of the trial. It was four days to the day since our little chat in the lobby when the sheriff had predicted the guilty verdict and I was hardly surprised when it came. The proceedings were fairly dry and emotionless in large part due to mine and Julie’s insistence that we didn’t have any desire to read a victim’s impact statement for the judge in charge of sentencing. The judge, a bear of a man with a gravitas that he would have had in street clothes, sentenced Warrell to the maximum. He wouldn’t walk free ever again. He wouldn’t interact with anyone other than two guards for pretty much the rest of his life. He would not be shanked in the general population or gang-raped by prison gangsters. Also he would receive free medical care, free food, free room and board, and have access to books on a regulated basis. He would breathe for years and likely die an old man in a bunk. This would not do. I purposely restrain from writing about Warrell but I have to now. He was tall, average build, italian-hairy but not terrible-looking. His eyes were not kind and he had bad skin but if he hadn’t been a monster he might have met a nice girl and settled down. His manner (and this is mainly drawn from a very few memories that I have of him as an upstairs tenant) was bookish and awkward but goofily charming. I drove and worked on trucks my whole life and before that I was a treeplanter and before that I worked for my Dad at his auto-wrecking yard and I’ve been around good men my whole life. I like a man who will give your hand a firm shake and look

you in the eye. I believe I can tell if a man is back-and-gut-strong or if he is a coward and will run from a fight. Dean Garth Warrell was the latter kind of man; effete and simpering; too agreeable. Even when I was only his landlord and not his mortal enemy I had held little respect for Warrell. He never looked me in the eye; not once in his time as my tenant. He’d stalked my son and had naturally feared me but it was the same with everyone. With Julie he would smile and make small talk more often but it was always with the same beaten-dog eyes and overeager jokes. On the day of sentencing Warrell had held hushed conversation with his lawyer, a young woman who I could not hate or wish badness upon. (I know because I tried hard) Other than that the monster had sat quietly. When the sentence of life (how ironic) plus twenty-five years was passed down from the judge two bailiffs began to escort Dean Warrell away to prison forever. The coward with his bad eyes and bad skin took a few steps until he was directly in front of Julie and I. He didn’t stop walking completely but slowed noticeably. My mouth went dry and my heart raced as I realized he was turning to look at us; no, turning to look directly at me. Again everything stopped and I felt the corners of my vision darkening as Warrell finally completed his turn and faced me straight on in plain view of hundreds of onlookers. He was grinning happily, greedily. His eyes were shining and alive and he looked right at me. Dean Garth Warrell licked his lips slowly and deliberately and rasped out “Timmy says hello!” right to my face. I had my second ever heart attack just then and was rushed to the hospital where I died and was resuscitated, died again, was resuscitated again, and finally stabilized. *** In the hospital I lay with tubes in me, unable to stop the feverish dreams and nightmares that came for days. Oblivion would have been better but I was lucid through most of it. I had a recurring dream of Julie loudly fucking Toddfromtheoffice but he turned to face me and his face was Warrell’s and suddenly what had been Julie became a faceless body. In the dream Warrell just kept fucking the faceless body and laughing at me and then suddenly like someone had flipped a switch, I was back in the courtroom. It was empty but for me and the judge and the judge was The Sherriff and he would not speak. This part of the dream was different; clearer. It

lacked the cotton and smoke and shapelessness of dreams. He was reclined way back in the judges seat picking his teeth and regarding me with those teardrop aviator cop glasses. I could see in fine detail the lines that were just shy of becoming wrinkles, the blue veins on the back of his dirty hands, the sandy greying hair. And then he spoke. Like he was reminding me of something; a note of exasperation in his voice but unmistakeably cold and self-satisfied. “Little Tim says hi.” It didn’t have the mocking tone of Warrell’s but the words thrust me into a panic. I backpedaled and fell and kept falling and suddenly I was gasping for air and opening my eyes in a hospital room and shocked by the betrayal of my body; tubes running in and out of me and machines beeping my life along in imperfect rhythm. Awakening hurt. Regaining consciousness was like surfacing into different and ever-more-urgent levels of pain. My mouth was sandpaper and my chest and ribs were stabbed with each breath. I’m told I spoke at length with a doctor and nurse as I was coming to but I have no memory of that. No one mentioned the murder or the trial. I’m pretty certain there were orders not to; wouldn’t want to get me all jacked up again would it? It went on for days; waking up and staying awake longer and longer each time. I do remember someone holding my hand. I remember someone wetting my lips with a cold towel. I remember a kind voice reading verses from the old King James. It wasn’t my wife though. Julie came to see me just once. She didn’t have to but she did. I was awake when she parted the faded blue curtain around my bed and crept in. I smelled gin. Her eyes were a tired blue and grey and her hair was a bedraggled mess. Her black and yellow sundress needed a wash (something I could tell right away despite my fragile state)and over it she wore a heavy denim jacket that was once mine. It fit her all wrong. She looked homeless. Maybe she was homeless. At first I was afraid of what she’d say. I was sure she’d try to mention something about the thing which had triggered the heart attack and part of me wanted to forget. I waited and waited for her to mention what Warrell had done in the courtroom and felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I realized that she hadn’t seen it. There was no denial or avoidance in her voice or face; she just hadn’t seen a thing. We went through the motions of hushed hospital-talk. Her appearance and hollow sunken eyes were like an elephant in the room but we made an effort to act like two normal people. We were always good at working through the tough things and pretending through the rest. It hurts almost as bad as losing Tim when I think about those eyes. She was a good woman. I know that now. She’d been shallow and unfaithful but her heart had actually never held evil in it; just desparation and

vanity and a bit of willfulness. I cherish our talk now and I think her visit that day was her way of setting her mind for what she had to do. Maybe she saw that the thing which had driven her over the edge hadn’t yet managed to do it to me. Damn near killed me, yes, but at least I was still me. “You’ll be going home soon?” Not coming home but going home. “I don’t know about soon but yeah I’ll be up and walking pretty quick.” “How will you get by, Ed? You’re going to need a caregiver and I’m—I just…” I cut her off; couldn’t help it. “Oh shit you know me I’ll just do my thing. I don’t have to go back to work for a while I guess and I can probably restrain from running any marathons for a month or two.” The joke didn’t even register and she shuffled in her seat uncomfortably. I saw that she was trying to steer the conversation but didn’t know how. She’d never been able to do that. I guessed at where she wanted to go. “He in prison?” A long silence. “Yes.” “Guess there’s not much to say about it.” My little heart machine quietly began to beep a little faster. Julie trembled and just then I missed her so bad. I missed the girl I’d fallen in love with. I missed the girl in college that took me to parties that I hadn’t been ready for. I missed the girl brave or dumb enough to proudly introduce me, the broke part-time jock, to intellectual-types and kids with money. I missed the woman who’d for years reached for my hand constantly and absent-mindedly; a young woman so alive she could make love twice and then insist on going out for a two-click walk. I knew all too well of course how Julie could have gone away and never come back; someone had hurt her baby and lived to tell about it. He’d loved it. “It’s done, Ed. Can I ask you something?” Please no. “Of course.” “When you—when you went up there to…to find Tim…did you see- I mean didn’t you know?… W-were you scared or anything?”

She had meant to ask something very different and the missed opportunity lay heavy in the air between us. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. I should have grabbed her shoulders and shook her; should have screamed in her face or hugged her tight or said something meaningful--especially that. “No swee—Julie I wasn’t scared. I just…I just wanted to find him you know?” I heard myself sigh deeply and turned to stare out the window at the cars and the busy people and the entertainment and the churches and the schools and the malls, amen. I marveled at how the world could just keep thundering on. We talked a little more, mostly about who would pick me up from the hospital if she couldn’t. I told her not to worry I’d call a taxi for a lift since she didn’t drive and say hi to the in-laws and she gave me a tiny kiss goodbye before leaving quietly. I wish she’d given me a clue to the extent of her depression or something but it was just…ordinary. I even thought maybe we could work things out after all. Lots of couples survive affairs and I thought maybe we could be each others projects. She could nurture my broken body (one bypass, three broken ribs and a cracked sternum from enthusiastic CPR) and I could coax the college girl out of the ghost of Julie. And together, I thought, we would mourn our boy forever. But she left and I went to sleep. After visiting me that day she took a cab to the Pinnacle, which is a make-out spot not far from the University. It’s called the Pinnacle because a massive overhanging cliff, as narrow as a foot or two at the very end, juts out in one spot to a ninety-foot drop. There’s a fence and a warning sign but some drunk or dumb kid goes out there every few years and gets himself killed. There’s not much anyone can do to make it totally off-limits. From the pinnacle you can look down and see above the treeline and it’s a gorgeous view. My wife and I had actually had a great deal of sweaty car sex in our teens, twenties and even occasionally in our early-thirties out there. I hope Julie at least once took that view in before she walked out into the crisp springtime air. A young man out for a hike and looking over the edge spotted her remains about six feet from where she’d landed. The fall hadn’t killed her right away and she had actually pulled herself along with two broken legs and a crushed spinal column. Way to go Julie. I heard the news not long after, but not from a doctor and not from a cop. It was just after visiting hours (after a long day of no visitors) when the door to my dimly lit room opened. The hospital was in winding-down shift-change mode and the lights in my room were dimmed. I shared my room with two older men who slept and snored constantly when their families weren’t around. I found myself wishing one of them would wake up when the door to the room opened fast; so fast it actually banged on the rubber door-stop attached to the wall. Through my sheet-

walls I could see a sillhouhette of a thin man with a cowboy hat. He walked in, boots clicking on the linoleum loudly, stopping to close the door. He walked straight up to the sheet-wall around my bed, paused and drew it back with a smile so charming I almost felt a sigh of relief escape my lips, but it was choked off with recognition. My old friend the Sherriff. “My name’s Mason Crane, son.” He’d spoken like I was being corrected. “You’re not supposed to be in here.” I didn’t think he could hear the shake in my voice or the sudden shortness of breath. My beeping sped up. “Au contrary pard. I’m right at home. How’s your health?” I pressed the call button maybe five or six times before I even started to try to think of a response. “I’m tired. Visiting hours are over. You. Aren’t. Supposed to. Be. Here. Understand?” He walked around the side of the bed and sat in the plastic backed chair to my left. I felt worse with him blocking the window. He ignored my protest and continued with the southern charm routine. Suddenly I was reminded of a movie I watched when I was a kid. It was my father’s favorite movie and I hated it. It was called The Gentle Stranger. It starred Spencer Tracy, I think, and there’s a scene where Spencer is rushing to the young heroine’s house because the killer is somewhere inside. The girl is knocked unconscious and the bad guy (Fredric March maybe?) creeps across her boudoire in grainy black and white to strangle her. In the movie the killer is a man horribly disfigured from the neck down. Mason, the Sherriff of my hospital room, reminded me of that, like if I unbuttoned his khaki shirt there would be nothing underneath but bone and gristle and scar. He looked like a man in ill health. I could not miss the unmistakeable snapping and popping of stiff joints and arthritis, like the worlds worst case, yet he seemed unaffected. ‘Mason’ slithered into the chair; licked his lips once, and slowy removed the tear-drop shades. Grey eyes, yellowed in the corners and weeping mung looked back at me. Mason’s eyes did not reflect the manic grin plastered on his lined face. Then, the grin became a tender smile; grandfatherly in a way, and he spoke again. “The spirit’s willing but the flesh is weak eh?” “Yeah. Someone’s coming sir. Please leave.” “Hm. I’m here with a bit of bad news pard. It’s your lady-friend. Can’t rightly call her your wife because of her recent un-wifely conduct but I figgered you’d ought to hear it from me.”

Beep beep beepbeepbeepbeep where’s the nurse where’s the nurse “Do we know each other, um, Mason.?” “Well, not in familiar terms Ed but I’ve taken an interest in you for quite some time and the thing is-” “You’re the man from the courthouse.” At this he reached out and gripped my left wrist, ever so gently. “Don’t interrupt me, son.” The tenderness I heard in his scratchy, almost wheezing voice was not reflected in those empty grey eyes. They were eyes of disease; eyes of war; cancerous and past their due date. “As I was saying -- I’ve taken an interest to you and yours and that, my man, is a thing that means something special. It means there’s something between us now. It means there’s an us now. So you can stop pressing that goddam nurse button because when I go out of my way to have a private and meaningful conversation with a man then I mean for it to be private.” Now nervousness became something else; something with far more clarity. The room shrunk smaller in my sight and I lost my breath for a telltale moment. I could see this Mason man enjoying it. He saw my fear. Now this deserves context. I have been a trucker my whole life as I’ve repeatedly stated. I guess that fact as a kind of anchor to get through this telling. I’ve been robbed at knifepoint, been in quite a few late night drunk scuffles, and attacked by two dogs when I was fifteen so when I say that I can handle myself and I don’t see why I’d be scared of an old man with eye-boogers and bad breath you can see why. But I was. I was pissing myself with fear; so scared I couldn’t hide it. It wasn’t just being halfway helpless in a hospital bed with a shitty ticker and tubes invading my body. It was the man. Something ancient and knowing about him; something confident. “Don’t worry Ed. Your nurse should be right along once we’re done here.” I broke a little and my voice came out louder than I’d intended. “What do you want?” Mason’s eyes widened in delight at that. “Easy Pard! You’re right excitable all things considered! If I were you I’d keep it gentlemanly and this will go a lot easier. Wouldn’t want you kicking off early would we? Anyway Ed, pains me to say I’m here as the bearer of bad news.”

Wait. He’d said something about my lady friend, my wife, hadn’t he? This was happening too fast. I remained silent, staring, shivering under my thin blankets and wanting to go home to a year ago, to ten years ago. “She came to see me Ed. We had a good long talk, me and her. Just like you did a short time ago in this same room. I bet she sat in this same chair and looked into your purty eyes like I’m doing right now didn’t she? She came to me for the same reason you know, to talk it out, least that’s what I figure. But the thing is, Ed, you coulda done worse and that’s what you gotta remember. I think your cheatin’ wife felt a little better after you and her talked. I wanted you to hear that from me, too. Because I don’t think I did quite the same job of comfortin’ that lyin’ trollop that you did.” My eyes blurred and watered up and Mason Crane was obscured for a second, but for that awful grin, back again, and the grey piercing eyes that wouldn’t blink. “Ed, I did my best. That I will tell you as one man to another. I did my very best to give her some words to suit the occasion. Might not be much comfort but you know what buddy? It’s good she had someone there to give her some gumption.” I regressed further and became childlike; pleading, even. “W-what what are do you want? What are you saying? Please!” “Ed, you’re batchin’ it from here on in. Julie jumped off a cliff and didn’t make a sound until she hit bottom.” He paused with a faraway look in his eyes. Then, a chuckle and: “She made a lot of noise after that.” Ten seconds of silence. Then: “What are you talking about?” I felt hot tears building and was ashamed of it. I think he began to lose patience because the hand that, much to my surprise, was still gripping my wrist gently tightened. I got the impression of claws and an incomprehensible strength. I saw cords in the madman’s neck stand out momentarily and then he calmed just as quickly. “We got to talk business now, Ed. What’s done is done and I’m going to try to ignore your lack of gratitude. Lot of good it would do me waitin’ for you to figure out what I just said in time to thank me!” He found this funny and laughed out loud; joyless and fearful. “Shit Ed, maybe you’re doped up or somethin’ but I need you to understand. You’re pretty little wife will no longer be forcin’ you to share that sweet little cooch with every arsehole around. Dead dead dead, you get me?”

Still I shook, unable to respond with more than a stutter that wanted to form a protest or a curse or a cry for help and became only a whimper from deep in my stomach. “Heh. Not too much to say about that eh? Bet you’re happy as a clam deep down and don’t even know it. Anyway me and your little missus talked it over before she took her little swan-dive. I just wanted you to know that.” Somehow I muttered “You k-killed her?” He didn’t even blink and his reply was instant. “I didn’t kill her, no. I just told you she jumped. Boy, you must be on the good stuff, Ed.” “You’re saying Julie is--? Where’s Julie? Why are you saying this? Where’s the nurse?” The old man chuckled and let go of my wrist. He stood up and leaned over me, far too close. He smelled like ash and animal. “Now it’s time for you and me to talk business Ed. I want to help you, in spite of myself. You’re not half as stupid as you look and sound right now and that’s why I’ll cut to the chase. You want that sonofabitch what killed your boy to plain die dontcha?” That got my attention and evaporated all fear. Momentarily I was my old self. I could even forget the news, if that’s what it was, about Julie. Poor sweet Tim and that piece of shit is sitting in Abbotford Prison on a cot in a heated room breathing the same air as the rest of the human race just loving it and Tim is gone gone gone “Yes.” “It’s going to cost ya. I think you know what it’s going to cost ya.” “Yes.” He licked his lips again, raised his eyes as if to heaven and sniffed once, looking pleased. “I ain’t holding a gun to your head, pard.” “I know that.” “It’s a deal.” And we shook. His hands were so dirty. The last thing he said and did trumped all before it and my fear of Sherriff Mason became a rushing wall of pain; a hammer to the chest.

The old man smiled one last time, looked somehow deeper into my eyes, opened his mouth wide, far too wide, and laid it forcefully over mine. And I had my third heart-attack. His face was the last thing I saw before passing out. *** When I woke again the first thing I did was ask my doctor about poor Julie. He told me straight-out, no holding back anything, and I was thankful for it. I spent eight long weeks in that hospital, some of it in dutiful tears for my flighty cheating wife and all of it in constant pain. A heart attack is a sickening jolt to the entire system. Nothing really goes unaffected. My third-ever heart-attack had been lesser in severity than the other two but complications upon complications kept me in hospital and hooked up to more than one machine. I told no one about my, for lack of a better term, experiences with Warrell in the courtroom or the Sherriff of the nut farm Mason Crane. What good would it have done? I’m not a young man and hardly the picture of health. The thought of the look on people’s faces was too much. Might as well have told someone I was receiving telepathic messages from Elvis for all the good it would do. A lot of those nights were spent sleeplessly staring at the door to my room. I think it made my recovery that much slower. I was in a holding pattern, not knowing where I would go or what I would do when I was finally discharged. In a short space I’d been robbed of my family, my livelihood, my health and every joy I’d ever found. And I think even then I knew I was dying anyway. That’s why I did what I did. It was in the middle of the day, just after a hearty lunch of simulated swiss steak, styrofoam mashed potatoes, and a tiny cup of mandarin orange slices when I felt him again. The thing is, my roommates were awake. They were good guys as it turned out. I think not one of us hardly felt like making small talk but you put three old farts in a room with not much to do and there aren’t too many variables on where it’s going to go; we chatted about our wives and children (me, not so much on those subjects), the weather, and what we used to do to put bread on the table. Yosef, a (fellow) widower who snored every minute he slept had been an industrial welder in the Ukraine before coming to Canada to retire near his daughter and her husband. The other guy, Paul, swore like a construction worker but worked in hotels or a restaurant in a hotel. Paul liked to talk about all the women he’d bagged working in his hotel or restaurant and Yosef and I had an unspoken understanding, quite sure that Paul was full of shit. Paul and Yosef were wide awake and enjoying the last of their own lunches when I felt him coming. Mason Crane was on his way. I knew it. I could imagine the front entrance to the hospital, smokers going hard against doctors orders, mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and aunts and old friends pacing the foyer,

waiting and waiting. And here’s Mason; scuffed boots, faded cream-colored felt cowboy hat, no jacket despite the cold; he wouldn’t need it. I saw him step into the foyer, smiling and tipping his hat to a couple of the ladies. And maybe one or two of those ladies checking him out right back. Why not? Here’s an old guy, a man in uniform no less, looking spry for his age and whatever he has that passes so well for charming is oozing out of his every pore. I saw him saunter up the stairs (not an elevator type of guy, Mason Crane) two-at-a-time, make a sharp left past the hospital cafeteria and start down the long hall that led to the room. I saw those scuffed boots line up right outside the propped open door. The angle was wrong for me to actually see him standing there but I saw the boots and I didn’t have to see who was standing in them to be, literally, close to pissing myself. My bladder, in my approaching age, had for years been turning on me slowly but surely. When you’re old you believe you’ll bounce back; sure it might take a little longer but you’ve always bounced back before so why not again? But the day that you realize your body is irrevocably betraying you is a lot like the day you realize you’re growing hairs in places you didn’t before, the day the girl across the street goes from being someone to flick boogers at to someone who suddenly makes you very nervous and won’t get out of your head. You can’t go back and that’s life and mostly it’s okay but there’s part of you, maybe the lizard-lobe at the base of your neck, the cortex that’s preoccupied with staying alive, staying breathing, staying you, that fucking rages against those changes. The growing-in hairs are the same as the ones that start falling out. It’s the process of dying and it goes on and on. I wanted to shout at Yosef and Paul that someone was here; someone bad. But I couldn’t catch wind and I was having a hard enough time just staying put. The bed was rolling like a boat on rough seas and my left arm was getting a familiar ache. I think I might have gasped or something because Yosef and Paul both put down their trays and sat up. I saw Yosef mouthing something to me looking very concerned and Paul reaching for the button you use to call the nurse. The peripherals of my vision began to turn black and I got a bit of a nose bleed, staring at those boots outside the door again. Paul and Yosef, across the room from me, could have, actually had to have been able to see Crane right from where they were. I mean, I guess if they did see him he just looked like another guy, but they didn’t even look in that direction. Then, all at once, my chest hitched in a too-famliar punch and my entire left side seemed to slide away from me. With hands that no longer worked I grasped for railings that weren’t there, that had been lowered and locked, swooped forward once, twice. Then I fell right out of bed onto the linoleum floor. Yosef and Paul were shouting something now but I hardly noticed. I was too caught up in the thin rivulet of blood that was coming out of my nose and weaving it’s way across the tiny, jumbled squares of bland green and bland brown and bland beige that cover linoleum floors all over the world.

The rivulet trickled it’s way along leisurely when Crane walked through the door, pausing to say hello to Yosef and Paul (who may or may not have noticed him) and stopped his scuffed boots right in front of my face. I couldn’t move at first but then he leaned down and offered me a hand. I took the hand, dirty, cold, and dry, feeling each wrinkle, each jutting bone spur of what seemed like severe rheumatism, and the thin, sinewy muscle underneath. “Heh. Got yourself all knocked around didja?” His voice was different this time, more familiar. He spoke not so much like old friends, but conspirators, codefendants. There was an unspoken thing between us and most, but not all, pretense seemed to have been cast aside. The country sherriff schtick was almost gone. Some of his accent was gone too, as if it had served it’s purpose but was still a necessary formality. I went from spastic gasps for breath and wrenching pain in my arm and torso to standing up straight with only a slightly bloody nose in less than a second. The left half of my body was definitely numb and my temples felt like someone had stuck ice cubes to the side of my head, but the stretched-on-the-rack elephantsitting-on-your-chest pain was gone as fast, faster, than it had come. Mason Crane suddenly seemed very comforting then. I was still terrified; somewhere in the back of my head that lizard was banging on the walls and scratching under the door, but I was so glad to see Crane. I felt a delirious irrational desire to throw my arms around the man and hug him; either that or kick him and run. “I-I think I’m okay.” I said to Crane. “Do ya, then? Well that’s about as lovely a thing I heard today, Ed.” Said Crane, raising his eyebrows well over the top of the teardrop aviators and showing teeth. “You’re going to take me out of here aren’t you?” I said. “I tell you what I’m going to do, mister Ed.” said Crane. “I’m going to pay what’s owed. I’m going to honor that which I don’t necessarily have to honor. But first I want to ask you a question. One question.” I didn’t want to answer any of this man’s questions. I think I knew what he was going to ask. “Ask your question Mr. Crane.” “Your boy. I want to ask you about your boy. You don’t have to answer. We’re leaving just the same, but I’d think as a courtesy to me you’d answer like a man.” My stomach turned. “Yes.”

“Was he your boy?” “Yes.” “Now Ed I want you to think. Was that your boy?” I am a stubborn man sometimes. “Yes. He was my boy. Tim was my boy.” “His Mama’s gone now. Who’s the last relatives he would have had Ed?” “No one. All his blood relatives are deceased, I guess. He wasn’t my blood if that’s what you mean. He was Julie’s boy.” It was hard to talk about my wife for some reason. Julie didn’t have to be part of this. “You’re damn skippy about that Ed. She came to me, you know.” “I know Mr. Crane.” “Blood’s thicker than water, you better believe that, Ed.” Now he took off his sunglasses and I had to look into those eyes, too full, too rich, too full of life. I would have preferred to look and see emptiness in the man but I saw life. I saw lives. “Guys like us find that out the hard way I guess.” “I guess.” I said. “Come and see.” He said.

The inmate has been in the HR NC unit of the prison (‘the Hill’ as the prisoners have taken to calling it) for a short time but already it’s worse than he imagined. He’s pictured this place since he was a very young man. He’s watched all kinds of movies about it, always taking mental notes, perhaps knowing that this place was in his future, grooming himself for it. The inmate was not prepared for what it actually means to be here though. For one thing the fantasy, the bad yet exciting thing which has consumed his mind for the last twenty something years (the last five almost constantly, like a tick has burrowed into his brain) is different. The fantasy, the bad pictures and movies and smells and sensations that have been playing in the cineplex of his cerebral cortex, is smaller somehow. He realizes it’s because no matter how unthinkable, no matter how taboo, his fantasies which have always been the thing that has kept him going is gone. The bad thing that kept him going to his job, speaking to human beings almost daily, wearing his seatbelt, and even going on dates with girls is gone. It’s gone because no matter now enticing the fantasy was, it was just that; fantasy. Possibility. Now everything has gone wrong and the bad thing has happened and

that means that the possibility part of the fantasy is gone and the inmate mourns this. He mourns the loss of his secret life, not his real one. The inmate has read about how others with the same bad thing inside them committed the same unspeakable crimes for years without being caught. But the inmate is not like those men. He has been strong. He was raised (mostly) right. His compulsion only needed him once, and now he feels used by it. He feels used and beaten and drowning and like crying but you can’t cry in this place. You can’t cry because they will see you crying and know that you are broken and then they will satisfy their own compulsion, their own fantasies. The lawyers and judges and bailiffs and everyone said that the inmate would be kept in private places, like the places the fantasy was kept for all those years. Even the prosecutor had mentioned in his closing statement that the inmate would be kept out of sight of the entire human race, but for two guards at a time, for the rest of his natural life. But that has not been entirely true. Sometimes the guards walk the inmate to a different part of the Hill. They leave him sorting pieces of plastic that are spit out of some kind of textile machine. Sometimes he notices that other prisoners are walked through that same, set-apart, area of the prison. Sometimes two or even three prisoners are left behind as the guards lead a long line of murderers and robbers and badguys through the set-apart area to their next work detail. Those two or three prisoners rape and beat the inmate before leaving through the same door they come in. Afterwards the guards return, bring the inmate to a prison doctor who knows what is going on but will not report it, have him treated for anything serious, and then he is led back to his cell, which is small and bare and far away from the rest of the human race. The inmate wishes he could tell someone that he does not belong here, but he knows he does belong here, even if it was just because of the one time that the fantasy he’d entertained for all those awful years became real. He wishes he could tell someone that the guards are allowing prisoners to beat and rape him, but there is no one to hear it. He doesn’t want to talk to his lawyer. She hates him and he feels it and it hurts his feelings. He still wishes to cry out, scream, and beat the walls but he will never do that. It would be too embarassing. At 12:55 pm on a Thursday morning one of the trips to the set-apart area of the prison is made. The inmate begins half-heartedly picking up the horseshoe shaped pieces of plastic and waiting for the door at the other end of the large room to open and for rapists to walk in. Instead, what he sees is someone who appears to be some kind of sheriff, cowboy hat and everything, walk in with what must be another inmate. The sherriff is sort of leading the man by the elbow. The man, the presumed inmate, is wearing what looks like a hospital gown. The inmate wants to make a joke, tell the man in the hospital gown that this is not the place to walk around with your ass bare, but decides it’s not very funny, all things considered. Still, the moment almost makes him smile.

The man in the hospital gown seems to grow very, very angry at the sight of the inmates brief hint of a smile. He leans over and whispers something to the sherriff and the sherriff finally lets go of the man’s arm. The inmate thinks he hears the words ‘thank you’ somewhere in all that whispering. The inmate feels very worried suddenly. The sherriff is grinning at him like an old friend. The inmate gets a good look at the man in the hospital gown and finally, truly recognizes him. The inmate, beginning to cry loudly, wonders how this is possible. The man in the hospital gown looks sick and is shambling towards the inmate now, reminding the inmate of old George Romero movies where all you have to do is run, (hell even just walk faster) and you will get away yet somehow the people shambling along in those movies find a way to get you anyway. The inmate can’t run though because his back is to the wall. He can’t strike out because he has never struck out at a grown man in his life and knows it wouldn’t be very effective if he did. The man in the hospital gown gets close enough to the inmate to say something, takes a very long moment violently trembling with obvous rage, decides there is definitely nothing to say, and strangles the inmate. He strangles the inmate and bashes his head very hard against the yellowing concrete wall he is pressing the inmate against. The inmate looks to the sherriff pleadingly but the sherriff just stands there, not grinning, not doing anything but the inmate cannot look away from the sherriff and that is the worst thing of all. The sherriff just stands with teardrop sunglasses on, waiting, waiting, waiting for the next thing. The sherriff is the last thing the inmate sees before a blood vessel in his brain bursts painlessly and his heart stops. The inmate is locked in this moment, separated from man and God; lost in the dark glasses of a man he has never met but always known.

--The End.