BUDDY

Brian Johnpeer

 My brother, Martin had invited me over to watch the UFC 92, but he had also requested that I bring Mildred, my forty-four magnum for a purpose which eluded me until he brought me into his garage. Buddy lay under a blanket by the old washer and dryer set and as we approached the dog couldn’t take notice. Buddy was a large thirteen year old German Shepherd, Mastiff mix, which Martin had raised him from a pup. He spent ten of those years in the country on Atlas Peak road in Napa, California where ten acres was a doggie heaven for the one hundred-twenty-five pound canine.  I deciphered a look of despair on Martin’s face.  His eyes were glossy...tears. I pulled the blanket down to Buddy’s shoulder and though he couldn’t move his head his eyes eagerly shifted upward to greet me. Buddy’s eyes were heavy with fear, pain, hopelessness, but moreover, fatigue. His breaths were labored, and he wheezed upon exhales. Buddy opened his mouth as if to smile and his tongue fell on the dirty floor.....

“Did you take him to a vet?”

“Ya,” Martin said wiping a tear from his cheek.

 “Cancer,” he said. “He’s got fucking cancer. His whole insides are riddled with it.  Black spots everywhere on the x-ray…even on his heart. I didn’t even know that dogs could get cancer.” Another tear streamed down Martin’s face, this one reaching the floor. “They wanted to put him down right there; said he’s in too much pain, but I told the lady that I’d planned on burying him up here…on my property, but she said that if she euthanizes a dog, that they have to dispose of the carcass; something to do with the possibility of other animals eating him and catching a disease,” he paused.  “Can you believe she said carcass?”

It was clear what I was there to do.

“Did you bring the forty-four?”

I nodded.

“I dug a hole out back by the walnut tree.”

Buddy would sleep beneath that tree on hot summer days while Martin and I would drink cold beers and shoot darts on the large wraparound porch. Every once in a while Martin would call Buddy with a sharp ear piercing whistle and the dog would lazily climb to his feet, walk across the dirt, up four stairs, and wait for his head to be scratched so he could return to the base of the walnut tree. ‘That was Buddy-luck,’ Martin would say and then gracefully sink a bull’s-eye to end the game.

I felt my heart surge to my throat; God, how Martin loved that mutt. I swallowed it back down before I spoke. “Do you wanna say goodbye?”

 Martin nodded, stepped forward, knelt, and gently kissed Buddy between the ears. He whispered the words see you on the other side, Buddy and then with two glistening trails of tears on his cheeks, turned and walked away.

I could feel Martin’s uncertainty, and knew that he wanted to keep Buddy alive…knew that he had questioned his decision…knew that he believed in miracles and God, but I also knew that he wasn’t a selfish man. He had to do the right thing, and that was to put Buddy down. I went to my Ford truck, reached under the bench seat, pushed a bottle of Jack off to the side, and fished out the handgun and a box of shells.

***

Martin shifted nervously inside the house as if he had ants beneath his clothes. He pacing the living room carpet and wiping at tears and the corners of his dry mouth. He trawled his mind for a reason…any reason to keep Buddy alive…to go outside and yell, wait! But he could think of none. He fought back an overwhelming urge to draw the back window shade to see what was going on.

Crack!

Martin jumped and the contents of his belly seemed to rot all at once.

***

I placed Buddy in the thirty-six inch hole that Martin had dug earlier that week. Feeling for Buddy, seeing the lost look in his eyes, I reached down and pet the dog one last time and told him that everything would be okay. He held a look of bemusement, if a dog could hold such a look, which suggested I was full of shit. I placing the cold barrel of the forty-four between the dog’s ears on the backside of his head, (right where Martin kissed him earlier) held my breath, not knowing what to expect, and squeezed the trigger. Immediately his body went limp.  I tossed the gun on the grass, grabbed the shovel leaning against the old walnut tree, and shoveled mud onto Buddies remains. I hurried knowing that Martin had overheard the shot and would come out wanting to make sure that the deed had gone smoothly, but he never did.

Before I entered the house, I put my gun back under my truck seat, took a shot of Jack swished it in my parched mouth and spat to remove the sour taste that only comes with executing ones brother’s dog, and took another, much larger shot, and swallowed. I washed my mud caked boots and hands with the garden hose out back. The water was near freezing.

An hour later I entered the house.

 “Hey,” I said.

Martin stood up with a sick look, and determination on his face, and marched passed me. “Hey, David,” he managed.

“Where are you going?”

“Gotta bury him,” he said.

“I already did.”

With the doorknob still in his hand, and his eyes full of watery concern, he asked. “Did you leave the blanket on him? You know that was Buddy’s blanket.”

I told him that I did, and watched relief flush through his body.

“If there is anything, David…anything at all that I can do for you, you just name it.”

“If I ever wind up being a vegetable, promise me that you’ll pull the plug!” That was the same thing that I had told my wife time and again, only I added cremate me after my organs are harvested, when I spoke with her. I had a deep fear of living in an impaired state with beautiful nurses wiping my ass and giving me sponge baths…and wanted to cover all my corners, and by telling both Julie and Martin…well, that about covered them.

Martin smiled knowing that that time would never come. “I promise,” he said and raised his beer in the air.

“Salute,” I said.

***

           Two weeks later

            My mind works. In fact it works better, but my body refuses to respond to its commands. I heard the doctor telling my wife, Julie, (my eyes were closed…I’ll be damned if I can’t open my goddam eyes to see my wife) that a full recovery wasn’t in the cards, but David may, with physical therapy, and a miracle from God Almighty, be able to live life in a wheelchair…that is, if he wakes from his coma.

“They make them,” he paused and then continued. “The wheelchairs so one can move around steering with their mouth.”

I discerned the adjustment in his voice when he lied. I would never make it out of this bed. The doctor’s language confirmed that much, but to an optimistic spouse, his words were the silver linings around angry storm clouds…nothing more. I taught Julie how distinguish a lie by the shift of one’s voice, and broken eye contact. I hope that she knew he was forging the truth.

Julie came to visit me once a day, and announce the date as if that was something that I needed to know…as if it mattered. She spoke to me as calmly as if we were sitting in the breakfast nook of our house on a Saturday morning sipping coffee and trading sections of the Sacramento Bee. On occasion I could detect a quiver in her voice, but if she cried, it was after her visit. On November fifth, when she told me Obama had won the election I had nearly shat…well, to be honest, I may have soiled myself a bit, but that’s what I was doing those days. I could in fact control my bladder and bowels, but couldn’t make it to the john nor could I tell anyone of my urge, so I become accustomed to letting loose upon arrival.

Words, in our one sided conversation, became redundant and often times limited, so Julie began bringing a book and reading to me. The Catcher in the Rye, was the first book that she brought…my ultimate favorite. I was quite surprised that she had remembered. She read the entire book in five days, and my mind was swimming in J.D. Salinger’s words; roaming New York City, and wondering how many people still used the word throw in place of sex.  

I couldn’t wait for morning. Maybe Julie would bring Islands in the Stream, by Earnest Hemingway…oh how that story reminded me of myself; fishing and drinking. Oh, how I missed the two, but oh, how I missed the three. Martin was missing from that equation, and since I’ve been in this hospital bed had yet to hear his voice. But that didn’t bother me much considering the last time he set foot into a hospital he passed out flat on his face. The nurse had to use smelling salts to bring him back.

Julie proclaimed the date, January twenty-ninth, two thousand-nine, as she entered the room. I heard the door latch, and my mind smiled at her. I couldn’t wait to hear what book she had decided on bringing. Instead, this morning, she addressed me in a somber voice. “David, as you had asked for time-and-time again,” she whimpered in my ear while stroking my hair off my brow with her hand, “I won’t leave you in this condition. I asked…” suddenly her words were overcome with watery emotion, and she sniffed, “…I asked the doctor to terminate your life,” she sniffed again. “Pull the plug, honey. Just as you made me promise; but they won’t do it…the fucking doctor said you might snap out of it, he said that there is slight brain activity, but I detected the lie in his voice,” she sniffed back snot and took a deep breath.  “Just like you taught me.” She giggled. “I asked Martin to come…”

“Hey David.”

It was Martin’s voice…he came! I couldn’t tell that he was in the room. I didn’t hear him come in, but he was there.

“He’s gonna help us, sweetheart…” her voice cracked with sorrow, and she sniffed back more mucus.

 Julie and Martin came to pull the plug. They came to kill me? Julie pulled back after kissing my lips, and I felt the presence of Martin standing over me. Her footfalls suggested that she was to guard the door. Suddenly my left eyelid was forced open and light poured in through my dilated pupil blinding me. My eye slowly adjusted and Martin came into focus. His face sported a beard and his hair was overgrown, but I could see him clear as day.

Look at my eye, Martin! Look at my eye! I will be okay and we’ll be watching the UFC, and fishing again at Lake Berryessa in no time. Just look at my eye and notice my pupil moving. Look at my goddam eye, Martin!

Martin smiled, “I may go to jail for this you know.” His fingers still stretched my eyelid to its limits.

Don’t do it, Martin!

“I don’t know if you can see me…hell, I don’t know if you can even hear me, but either way, I want you to know that I do this out of love, and respect. I asked if there was anything that I could do for you after you put Buddy down, and this was your request…” Martin’s lower lip began to shiver. Since he was a baby, Martin’s lip had always shuddered before he cried.

For Christ’s sake, don’t do it bro. I can come out of this. I can feel it!

Martin’s leaned in and kissed my forehead. “I’ll see you on the other side, bro,” he said, with distorted vision due to tears.  He pulled the pillow from beneath my head and released my eyelid. By some miracle, I managed to keep it open, blinked and managed to open the other too. I shifted my eyes to my wife who bawled silently with her body slumped hopelessly against the door. Though my eyes remained wide and eager to see, a white mass quickly blocked my vision and my world became dark again. The ample pressure Martin applied on the pillow with both hands was enough to constrict the amount of air I needed to survive. I tried desperately to cry out in a shriek. I blinked against the weight of the pillow, but my body was still in paralysis. My lungs expanded in quick aggressive heaves, like a frog’s gullet calling for a mate, but air was minimal. I only managed to suck to my lungs what little air was in left in my mouth and nose, and then…there was none. Surely my lungs would collapse from the struggle if my heart didn’t implode first; a sharp steady siren in the distance declaring my heart failure to the rest of the third floor. My mind went from pinpricking fear to relaxation.

Martin lifted the pillow and I detected shock on his face when he noticed both my eyes were open. I tried to breathe, but couldn’t. Three nurses stormed the room, pushed Martin aside, and began pumping vigorously on my chest and blowing into my mouth, as Martin and my wife looked on holding each other by the window. One nurse held the defibrillator while she waited for the adequate charge; another lubed the flat pieces of metal.

My vision was quickly fading as were the sounds around me.

God, I wanted to live.

“Clear!”    
 

The Wax Man

It was Johnny's first time to Disneyland and he was as excited as any ten-year old could be about an eight hour road trip from Elk Grove to Anaheim California. This trip was planned and budgeted for by Johnny's parents Stephen and Shelly for past two years, and a day before their weeklong vacation, Stephen's boss called with news that would prevent him from attending the trip with his wife and son. He insisted that his wife and son take the trip together, besides, Shelly's sister Becka lived but five minutes from the theme park, and they could stay with her rather than at a Holiday Inn as planned. Johnny felt bad about leaving his father behind, but couldn't wait to pull out of the driveway. Stephen and Shelly's goodbye was much too lengthy by Johnny's account, he just stared out of the window and thought of Mickey Mouse and the Pirates.

Ten hours, five bathroom breaks, one fill-up, and two fast food joints later, Shelly and Johnny pulled into Becka's driveway. It was nine at night and Johnny was sleeping when Shelly patted his shoulder to wake him. 

"Are we there yet?" Johnny's young voice was cloaked with sleep.

"Not yet Johnny. We are going to sleep at Aunt Becka's and then leave first thing in the morning. Is that okay with you?"

Of course it wasn't, but Johnny nodded his tired head lazily, then gathered his stuff. Becka met her sister at the door and they greeted each other excitedly. She showed Shelly Johnny room, then helped her in with her luggage. Shelly and Becka spent the next three hours reminiscing and catching up while Johnny dreamt.

He and his mother were walking through Disneyland on a bright sunny day when the street parade made its way down the center of Main Street. Johnny looked up against a glaring sun and saw that his mother was fully energized; jumping, clapping and hollering all in slow motion. And though the crowd was ecstatic with mouths open wide jeering, their clamor was mute. Johnny saw the Little Mermaid waving and flipping her green fin playfully from atop a rolling sea shell as she winked at him. Johnny looked down after the beautiful redhead passed and saw a peculiar looking man across the street staring back at him. Johnny thought the man's head to be bigger than most and his skin appeared smooth and unscathed…waxy. Johnny felt uncomfortable and looked back up to his mother for reassurance. She was bouncing up and down with glee as she waved to Sebastian, and Johnny grabbed her hand and held it. Johnny smiled and looked across the street, but the statues waxy-man who'd been there but moments ago was gone…like he'd never been there at all. The sun yielded suddenly to dark clouds and Johnny looked up to his mother again but this time it was the waxy-man staring down at Johnny with vacant black eyes, a black bandana on his head, and an neglected mouthful of teeth. Johnny tried frantically to retrieve his hand from the waxy-man's grip, but his grip was obstinate.

Johnny woke to the sound of his own scream, which was quickly replaced with crying. His mother rescued him from the horror, squeezing him firmly against her, and rocked him back and forth.

"Shhhhhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhhhhhhh. It's okay baby. It was just a bad dream. Mommy's here, mommy is here."

Johnny looked up to ensure that his mother was indeed his mother and not that creepy waxy-man from his nightmare, then rested his head on the soft refuge of his mother's breasts.

Becka was impressed as she watched her sister orchestrate a perfect motherly rescue at two in the morning, and once satisfied that her assistance wouldn't be needed, slipped quietly back down the hall to her bedroom with a smile.

Shelly tried to speak to Johnny about last night's trepidation, but this morning he had a one-track mind and couldn't rid his thoughts of Mickey Mouse and the Pirates. She tried once again on the tram to find out just what her son had dreamt about but was unsuccessful, and after one last try, buried the hatchet. It was time to have fun.

They entered the park at eight and even Shelly forgot about last night---Disneyland has a way about diluting even the most difficult of life's tribulations. Shelly and Johnny rode ride-after-ride walking from one end of the park to the other, and then at lunch, with a large bite of hamburger stuffed to the side of one cheek like a chipmunk, Johnny asked. "Where's the Pirates ride Mom?"

Shelly swallowed a gulp of cola and replied, "The Pirates ride is too old for you."

Johnny managed a scowl as he swallowed a big lumpy swallow, the sun warming his face made the blue of his eyes prominent and his pupils all but obsolete. Johnny shook his head. "I'm ten!"

"But that seems…"

"Mom," Johnny interrupted. "I'm ten. Even seven-year-old kids go on that ride!"

Shelly saw the exhilaration comingled with distress in her son's straining blue eyes. "Okay," she said. "After lunch we will find the Pirates."

"Yes!" Johnny said, pumping his fist victoriously.

The line wasn't as long as Shelly anticipated and they were strapping in within fifteen minutes from the time they found the ride. Johnny's pupils expanded in the ominous glow, and a young man began a well rehearsed spiel about the rules of the ride.

 Shelly glanced at Johnny momentarily and thought for a second that she could possibly be more anxious about this ride than he. Johnny's eyes where unblinking and his brain was in sponge-mode sucking up and storing everything that he saw and heard. Shelly tucked her camera into her pink purse after the young man concluded with; there shall be no flash photography on the ride. Thank you and enjoy The Pirates.

Johnny thought the ride to be everything he expected and more until he saw a vaguely familiar pirate who was holding a jug and dangled one leg carelessly over the side of a bridge that they floated under. The pirate was immobile, unlike the hundreds of others. Johnny nudged his mother and pointed. Johnny could only see the side of the pirate's face and that disturbed him. He wanted to see the rest of that pirate's face.

"They probably have to fix that one," she suggested.

The Pirate wore a black bandana, (somewhat confining his long hair) tattered dungarees, a horizontally jail-like striped shirt consisting of red and white, a large parrot on his left shoulder, and a holstered muzzle loading .50 cab pistol on his left hip, and a long Bowie knife on his right. With dirty bare feet exposed, the pirate looked quite harmless to Johnny, but still he would have liked to see him move like the rest of the mechanical men and women. Johnny pulled out a plastic gold coin that he had swiped from the booty-chest before the ride. After gliding under the bridge, Johnny looked back and the pirate with the jug was glaring at him. It was the same face in his nightmare---a face he would have never remembered unless he saw it with his own two eyes.

"Mom!" Johnny grabbed his mother's arm pinching it, and pointed behind them to the mechanical man holding the jug. But when his mother turned around and saw the same immobile pirate Johnny had pointed at before, she just nodded to Johnny.

"I know," she said.

After the ride Johnny tucked what was called booty, by the young man with the well recited words, deep into his pocket and hoped that the pirate with the jug was just his imagination. He hoped that he didn't see the gold coin he had pulled out of his pocket just after the bridge. Johnny had never stolen anything in his life, and this---this was right in front of him---actual pirate booty. He couldn't help himself.

"Mom! We have to go again!"

"What are you talking about, Johnny," Shelly asked confused.

"I wanna go on the pirates again!" he blurted.

She looked at him with wary eyes. "And why do you want to go on that ride again?"

"Because, mom!"

"Why?" she insisted on her question.

"Because the pirate on the bridge looked at me!"

Shelly realized that her son was having repercussions from a ride that she'd figured unfit for his juvenile mind, and realized that it be best she take him once more to level his fears.

Johnny eyeballed the booty-chest as he fondled the coin in his pocket. The young man announced his spiel without the assistance of a microphone as before---with no emotion, a recording coming from his mouth which worked independent from his brain---and this time Shelly knew as she looked down at her son that he was the one more anxious than she. She rubbed Johnny's head, ruffling his hair to comfort him, but he rejected her hand in annoyance rather than a comfort.

The boat began to move with a mechanical jerk, and Shelly slid her camera from her purse determined to prove her son wrong.

This trip the drunkard was waving his bare foot and tipping moonshine-jug to his mouth in a careless fashion. His red parrot was perched on his shoulder and flapped its wings two times and then stopping suddenly, then flapped again.

She snapped one picture as they ventured under the rock-bridge, illuminating the milieu like a burst of brilliant lightning, much to the dismay of the populace accompanying her on the ride.

"Com'on, will ya!" Some man behind her pleaded. 

Once the boat was under the bridge, Johnny looked up and followed the drunkard's position until he was back in view. His mother also turned to watch. The mechanical man continued his same precognitive moves, perhaps feeling Shelly's heavy eyes studying him, because when she looked down at Johnny convinced everything was normal, the man stopped what he was doing, jerked his head and sneered at Johnny.

"MOM!" he screamed.

But when Shelly looked up the man was still tipping the shine jug.

"It's okay Johnny!"

"HE LOOKED AT ME MOM, HE DID!"

"Could ya keep that kid quiet," the man from behind spoke again. He and his wife was sitting right behind Shelly and Johnny.

"He didn't look at you, sweetheart. I was watching the whole time." Shelly paid no mind to the man she figured for the liaison of the group.

"HE LOOKED AT ME, AND MADE A MEAN FACE!"

"Can you keep that kid quiet, lady?" The same man asked.

This time Shelly took a deep breath and bit her tongue.

"Sweetie, he didn't look at you."

Johnny wanted to tell his mother about the stolen booty in his pocket. Wanted her to understand that the pirate wanted it back, but he was afraid he would get into trouble.

"MOOUUM!"

"Lady, would you shut that brat up?" His voice was more prominent.

Shelly unbuckled her seatbelt casually and crawled halfway over her bench chair until she was nose-to-nose with the overweight liaison of the group. "Listen to me, you pathetic piece of shit. My son is experiencing trauma from this godforsaken ride and if you dare talk to me in that condescending tone again, I will personally rip that nasty bird's nest of hair you call a beard off your face. Do I make myself clear?"

The large man was slouched down in his chair and for the first time, had nothing to say. His eyes were wide as he nodded to confirm his understanding. His wife, a stout cotton-haired lady of fifty-five, nudged her husband intolerantly in his orb of a gut. Shelly turned, sat back on her seat, and heard the man's wife scorn him for what she encouraged moments earlier.

"This ride is too much for you, Johnny. I told you that I didn't want to take you on this, but you insisted."

"One more time Mom, I promise!"

"One more time's ass!" she protested. "We are not going on this ride again!"

"Just one more time Mom. I promise," Johnny had planned to throw his stolen booty away; in the garbage, in the water, drop it in the toilet and flush…it didn't matter…the next time he went on the ride, he wouldn't have the pirate's booty. "One more time Mom! Please?"

Shelly couldn't resist her son's puppy dog eyes and she agreed. "This is the last time, so don't ask me again!"

"I promise," Johnny smiled.

Shelly looked over her shoulder once more and the liaison man didn't even make eye contact.

When Johnny waited in line he held his coin taught in his pocket ready to deposit it back into the booty-chest, but once there saw that the young man with the recorded voice to be looking at him with prying eyes. He aborted his first plan and while the ride commenced he tossed the booty into the water once reaching the shadowy lights on the first part of the journey. He smiled to himself, satisfied that the drunkard on the bridge would find comfort in his riches being distributed back unto him and the depths of his sea. 

When Johnny and his mother floated toward the bridge, the drunkard was gone, and when Johnny felt the boat merge from one side to the other, he looked into the water and saw the distorted image of the wax man gracefully swimming beneath the water's surface aside the boat with a long twelve-inch knife between his teeth. Johnny recoiled as his mother studied his actions.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," he answered knowing if he told his mother, she wouldn't believe him.

"Maybe they took him down for repairs," she said. "It's nothing to worry about."

"Maybe," Johnny muttered.

Johnny insisted on leaving early and Shelly was quite tired by that time anyway. They had been on their feet for eight full hours and the sun was relentless for the last four of those.

It was six when Shelly and Johnny made their way back into the driveway, Becka was still at work and Johnny went to lie down while his mother chopped onions for dinner.

Johnny lay on his back and relished the way the soft mattress and clean comforter engulfed his body while he pondered if the drunkard had found his booty or not. He reached deep into his pockets and was shocked to find that the booty he thought he'd thrown in the water was still in his left pocket. Johnny sprang to a sitting position, his heart fluttered in his chest as he pulled the coin from his pocket and stared at it.

"Oh shit!" he whispered.

Johnny tucked the coin back in his pocket and bounced his butt the length of the bed and hopped off. He ran to the kitchen where his mother was now engaged in a conversation with Becka who had just arrived and was still holding her purse.

"Hey Johnny," Becka said. "Did you have a good time at Disneyland?"

Johnny nodded.

"Well don't you look tired," Becka said.

"Mom," Johnny said ignoring Becka's last remark.

"Johnny, I'm busy cooking dinner, and visiting with your aunt can it wait?"

"But, Mom…"

"Johnny! I will talk to you after I am through."

Johnny let out a deep breath of discontent, and reluctantly headed back to the room. He didn't know if he would have told his Mom about stealing the coin or not. He couldn't have known until it was time for the words to flow from his lips. Johnny sat on the edge of the bed and then lay down. He drifted off from exhaustion.

Rap…tap…rap…

Johnny woke to a dark room.

Rap…tap…

Something was tapping at the bedroom window.

Johnny rubbed his sleepy eyes and pulled the drape to one side and peered into the dark night.

Tap…

Johnny's head snapped back with surprise, but he held his post and studied the darkness until a figure slowly came into view. It was the drunkard pirate, the wax man standing beside the Oak tree and he was throwing pebbles at the window. Though dark surrounded the pirate, his face still had a waxy shine like in the cavernous shadow of the ride.

Johnny looked down, and then peaked through the window again, but the pirate was gone. He ran for the hallway, to warn his mother and aunt of the present danger, but when he opened the door, and the tall wax man was peering down at Johnny with a dreadful grin and hollow eyes.

"Mom!" Johnny screamed, slammed the door, and raced to the window.

Johnny fumbled with the lock as the wax man opened the bedroom door, wandered in, and wielded his knife back and forth cutting the air with a terrifying whipping hum. Johnny glanced over his shoulder and found new strength to open the stubborn window lock. It flipped open, and Johnny forced the window open, pushed the screen to the ground, and quickly escaped the confines of the bedroom. He fell to his side on a bed of red wax begonias, bounced to his sock covered feet, and sprinted from the house to the old Oak tree, where another pirate emerged, and nearly grabbed Johnny. He shifted direction and gears, as he ran west, but a pirate's shadow was off in that near distance also.

"Mooum!" Johnny screamed again, his heart pounding like a bass drum inside his small ribs.

Johnny ran east but yet another pirate stepped from behind the cover of the corner of the house, and Johnny put on the brakes sliding almost flat to his side, regaining his balance, and then ran towards the elevated wood porch. A grimy, moss-ridden hand broke through the lattes work and grabbed Johnny's ankle, and pulled with a steady slow persistence that his little body could not refute. Johnny flailed his arms as he slid feet-first crashing backwards through the porch lattes, and screaming for his mother. He latched his hand on one of the fragile pieces of woodwork which quickly succumbed to the tension and Johnny felt his body being pulled over a ledge and fell twenty-feet splashing into dark waters. He blew air bubbles from his surprised lungs, and stroked his arms and legs frog-like to the surface.

Johnny was beneath the bridge that he had first seen the wax man. The water was dark and calm, and as Johnny waded in the deep pool realizing that there was no ceiling like on the ride itself, but a thousand glittering stars instead. Johnny helicoptered around looking for the pirate who violently dragged him under the porch and into the water, but he saw no one. He did notice a shoreline off to his right where two skeleton props were cleverly positioned to look like they had died a dreary death guarding their booty. Johnny had second thoughts of swimming to that creepy island but had no choice. Johnny wasn't a very good swimmer, and knew he wouldn't last long in deep water.

He flailed his arms kicked his legs to mimic what his father had taught him last year in his uncle's swimming pool. The lesson was but an hour before Stephen was called into work that Saturday, but Johnny practiced the basics on his own after that, and became at the very least, acclimated to the water. Johnny realized his efforts weren't in vein as he approached the shore. His right hand hit something thick and unyielding. It was smooth in spots and in others he felt cloth or fabric. He couldn't swim over it so he stretched his toes downward searching for the bottom, then stood. The water was up to his chest, but now he could catch his breath while exploring the submerged item with both hands to maneuver around it and ultimately get to shore. The object was extremely heavy, but Johnny managed to lift it from the bottom and move it slowly. A representation of a man's face slowly came into view from under the water as Johnny pushed the body to his left. Johnny took in the morbid image, of the pallid face man with red rimmed eyes which were half open and blue lips, at first doubting and stunned by the revelation of what he was touching.

Johnny screamed out a shout that echoed up and back the top of the black water, and as if on cue, the wax man splashed up behind Johnny and pulled him beneath the water.  Johnny scratched and pawed at the wax man's face pealing layers of wax in scratch marks from his cheeks. Johnny escaped the wax man's clutches and saw his blade reflect a single ray of light as the wax man wielded his knife from his belt beneath the water. Johnny lunged back but the blade snagged and then sliced a horizontal opening in his t-shirt. Johnny surfaced and pushed the corpse aside. He took jean-soggy loping steps up and out of the water and once completely on land, spun around to descry his enemy's position…but he hadn't yet surfaced.

Johnny looked to his right and noticed a large sword loosely holstered around a skeleton's hip. The skeleton was sitting lazily in the sand with its back leaning against a treasure chest overflowing with booty. The wax man surfaced abruptly with a crashing sound of water, his bandana slipped with a wave of water from his head revealing spangled blotches of missing skin and a wet mane of thinning hair.

Johnny quickly reached for the sword, but the skeleton grabbed Johnny's wrist and stood up. Johnny kicked the side of the skeleton's knee and the bones came undone from top to bottom tumbling recklessly to the sand. Johnny watched the wax man stumble recklessly to shore as he heard the clatter of more dehydrated bones assemble to an erect position behind him. Johnny grabbed the sword that was in the mess of scattered bones, then stole a look over his shoulder. Another skeleton, this one wearing a pirate's hat with the traditional skull and crossbones on it cackled like a maniac, and had drawn his sword and wielded the blade from left to right with lightening speed.

The wax man, now only ankle deep, had water pouring from his sodden clothes. He looked up from his forehead with black eyes and sneered like a rabid animal. Johnny glimpsed over his shoulder again and then watched the wax man step out of the water.

"Hehehehehehehahahaha," the skeleton cackled from behind.

Johnny didn't turn to look at it though; he kept his mind focused on the wax man. Johnny held the sword up like a baseball bat and hoped a hard enough swing would cut the wax man into two pieces, and then he could focus his attention on the brittle skeleton behind him.

When the wax man was in range young Johnny heaved the weighty sword as hard as he could loping off the wax man's right arm beneath the shoulder, and he hollered in pain. Johnny swung another looping blow, this time taking off the other arm just beneath the elbow. Again the wax man yelled out a pain-stricken howl. The wax man looked at his arms twitch and convulsed in the sand, fingers contracting and then stretching out again in a fruitless effort to grasp something…anything.

"Give me my booty, young lad, or I'll force you to walk the…"

This time Johnny decapitated the wax man, and his head flew off and his body fell like a large timber in the forest. His remains hit the sand and twitched violently for about thirty seconds before coming to rest.

"You'll never get your booty now!" Johnny tossed the sword on top of the wax man and spit. "There's a new pirate in town," Johnny said triumphantly forgetting all about the skeleton behind him, until it grabbed his left biceps and shook him back and forth shrieking his name.

"Johnny…Johnny!"

The skeleton raised his blade, his skull twisted into a smiling, and Johnny opened his eyes.

"Johnny…Johnny!"

"Mom?"

"You were having another one of your night terrors…are you okay?" his mother asked sitting on the side of the bed while his aunt stood in the doorway.

"Is he okay?" Becka asked.

Shelly nodded. "He has these night terrors about once a week."

"I gotta pee," Johnny said.

"Are you okay, sweetheart?" Shelly pressed.

Johnny nodded and smiled, relieved that it all was just a dream.

"Well after you go pee, go back to sleep…we're going to Disneyland in the morning, and if you really want to, I will take you on The Pirates ride!" she said excitedly.

Johnny smiled and his mother ruffled his hair. "Good night, Johnny."

Johnny peed for a time of which he thought might never end. But when it did he washed his hands and then looked into the mirror. His t-shirt was cut in a horizontal line, and with utter surprise he reached into his right pocket and pulled out a large solid gold coin.

THE INTERVIEW..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

It was called an interview, though Norman knew better. Yes, he was mentally challenged, but he wasn't a halfwit for Christ's sake, he just had a speech impediment mainly. The Police had to pin the rap on somebody and fast, because this was in the Police Chief's best interest. And besides, the small town of Feather Falls wouldn't settle for anything less than a public hanging, and why shouldn't they, a small girl who everyone knew and loved was found floating in the town pond face down under the old dock last Sunday morning.

Mary-Lou was only five, and made her way from door-to-door on a daily basis asking for cookies before she come up missing. She was Earl and Linda's Stanton's daughter--- a slender girl who wore thick glasses, and held a book beneath her arm wherever she went, a talisman if you will; Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Socks, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. She was quite the Dr. Seuss enthusiast.

Norman was forty-one years old, a mental misfit to the working world, and that's why he would receive a social security check each month. A couple fries short of a Happy Meal---that's what people in town say. There goes ol' Norman, a couple fries short of a Happy Meal! It was mostly only the kids though; the adults were a bit more polite about his condition and they'd whisper amongst themselves when they'd seen him. The only kid in town that would even talk to ol' Norman was Mary-Lou. She had a heart of gold, and now she was gone. But that was okay by Norman though, because from here we go to heaven, after all Earl wasn't too nice to Mary-Lou according to Linda.

Mary-Lou would sneak over to Norman's house in the middle of the night after Earl woke her from her bed and done bad things when he was drunk. A while later Linda would knock on the front door and thank Norman for taking Mary-Lou in for a spell. Mary-Lou never wanted to leave, she liked Norman's house just fine. Last night it wasn't Mary-Lou knocking at Norman's door, it was Ben, a nice young Police man who asked him to step out onto the porch and put his hands behind his head. Norman thought Ben seemed like a nice enough guy, so he did as he was instructed. Ben drove him down to the Oroville Police station about thirty-minutes away where he gave Norman doughnuts and milk. Norman only ate one bear claw because his stomach still hurt with sorrow for Mary-Lou. Ben reluctantly said that a Homicide detective wanted to interview him. I know that this is not an interview---no---this is an interrogation, Norman thought.

Norman sat in the interrogation room. A room with walls constructed of cool cinder blocks painted white, and there were no windows. Norman hated rooms with no windows,( it reminded him of his own bathroom, where he sat to relieve himself holding his breath from his own ruin) they made him feel like he couldn't breathe…like he was wearing a tight long-sleeved turtle neck covered with a thick down jacket with a hood. The only refuge Norman found was a portrait of a man, and a long mirror across the room which gave him a sense of the room being larger than it was.  Norman really felt warm, and the room seemed to be warming by the minute. He tried several times to breathe slowly but couldn't, so he panted through his mouth and nose like an overheated dog. There was one door to the far right side of the small room, and it opened.

A man with a nice suit walked in halfway, waved to his friends outside the door as if to say everything was fine, and then resumed to enter the room.

"Are you a Detective?" Norman asked.

The man continued without acknowledging Norman.

Norman figured it must've been time for the tall pale man to get his wax removed from his ears because he didn't hear him---Norman gets his wax removed two times a year.

"Is it that time, mister?" Norman asked.

"That time for what?" the pale man asked.

"To git yer ears cleaned out, mister. My doctor says that when I get mine done I could hear a fly fart on a bull's ass half-mile away if I like. What does yers say?"

The pale man turned his head and looked down leafing through his paperwork in disgust, and then stopped and focused again on Norman.

"One time I walked outside after my ears were cleaned and listened fer a fly fart fer three hours," Norman shook his head in dismay. "But I didn't hear nothin. Prolly cause the wind was blowin that day."

"Cut the shit, Norman," the pale man said. "What happened to Mary-Lou?"

"How should I know?"

"You and Mary-Lou were friends---at least, that's what her daddy says."

"Sure we were, we were special friends," Norman said.

"Her father also says that you would have Mary-Lou at your house late at night. Why was that?" The pale man shot Norman a condescending glare he didn't understand.

"Because Mary-Lou was my special friend," Norman explained. He looked about and felt the walls closing in…the damn room was getting hotter.

"WHY WAS SHE AT YOUR HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!" the pale man slammed his hand flat on the table and stood up tipping his chair backwards crashing it to the floor.

Mary-Lou told Norman to never-ever talk about why she was over at his house. The police wouldn't understand, Norman. They wouldn't, and then they would send mommy to jail. Norman could hear Mary-Lou's voice in his head clear as day. You can't tell a soul, Norman. You just can't.  Norman pinky-promised, and swore not to tell a soul, but Norman couldn't remember the details of what he promised not to say, he just remembered the pinky-swear. "I SWORE I WOULDN'T TELL A SOUL!"  Norman sprang from his chair like he'd been stuck in the ass with a sharp fork. The pale man flinched in a cowardly fashion as Norman towered over him, and then hesitantly reinstated his position over the table.

"Listen here you halfwit, if you don't tell me what that girl was doing at your house in the middle of the goddam night, you are going to fucking jail for a long time!"

Norman was getting mad, "It's none of yer g…g…goddam business, mister!" he stuttered.

"You getting nervous boy? You can't tell us what you done to that poor girl?"

"Her name is…is…is Mary–Lou!"

"You nervous-N…N…Nelly," the pale man mimicked.

Norman plopped back on his chair mad as hell that God gave him a stutter. God made Norman a halfwit in societies eyes.

"Now listen to me, you sick fuck, and listen good. You better tell me what happened to that girl or I'm gonna see to it personally that you get the goddam chair!"

Norman looked at the chair he was sitting on, his eyes shifting nervously, and it wasn't anything that he would want. He had plenty of good furniture at his house. "I don't want yer g…g…goddam chair."

The pale man thought about laying one on Norman as he raised his hand, and Norman was quick to duck. It reminded Norman of his own abusive father at supper time. He used to nail him good if he didn't finish his chores by sundown. Blackened both eyes and loosen a tooth or two on more than one occasion, and then sent him to bed hungry.

Norman's eyes fluttered back and forth nervously.  

"Now I'm gonna ask you one more time," the pale man asked rigidly. "What did you do to that little girl?"

"HER NAME IS…IS…IS MARY-LOU, YOU F…F…FUCKER-ASS!"

The pale man punched Norman in the eye just like his father used to, and then grabbed his shirt wrinkling it into his fists pulling him up to his level, and then hollered back.

"Her name was Mary-Lou. SHE'S DEAD!" The pale man shook his sore hand like he was trying to get something sticky off of it. The pale man figured it was broken.

"She's not dead…Linda said she's in heaven now. She's not dead she's in heaven," Norman tried to keep from crying, but couldn't evade the tears completely and a single stream spilled from one eye and trailed down his unshaven cheek.

The pale man stood up straight and asked. "Just what the hell do you know about Linda?"

"She's Mary-Lou's mama. She'd come to pick her up at breakfast time. I always made Mary-Lou her favorite dish…waffles with Aunt Jemima syrup, and glass of two-percent milk," Norman said proudly. "I'd buy it every week at the market."

"Now why would young Mary-Lou be at your house all night long?" the pale man leaned threateningly across the table again, but this time propped his weight only on his good hand, his left.

"She would run to my house when her…" Norman laughed comically and shook his index finger back and forth. "Oh, no you don't, mister! Mary-Lou made me promise not to tell." Norman really couldn't remember what it was that she said.

The pale man looked back at the mirror, held his hand to his head and moved his mouth like he was talking to somebody on the phone, and then turned back to Norman and smiled. But there was nothing genuine about this smile. Norman could tell that the pale man was still heated.

 "I'll be back," the pale man said. He swiped a card over a HID, and when he heard a high-pitched beep, pulled the thick door open, and exited.

He entered the room but moments later.

"You mentioned Mary-Lou being in heaven," the pale man said pulling a Camel from a pack and offering one to Norman.

Norman just looked at the cigarettes and nodded in concurrence to what was said.

"Well she ain't gonna go to heaven unless we find her killer. God don't allow murdered people into His heaven unless we can prove that little Mary-Lou didn't deserve to be killed," the pale man said raising his eyebrows. "You follow me, Norman?"

"Mary-Lou didn't deserve to get kilt! Mary-Lou was a good girl. The best ever good girl I ever knew!"

"Well if we can't find Mary-Lou's killer, she ain't gettin into heaven," the pale man flashed a thin grin and set a tape recorder on the table. "Now if you admit to killing Mary-Lou," he paused, "and she didn't deserve it, well then, she can go into heaven just fine. All you have to do is say, what'cha did. Can you do that for poor little Mary-Lou…so she can go to heaven and see Jesus?"

"That's all I have to do and Mary-Lou'll go into heaven with God, fer sure?"

"That's it. Pretty simple, huh?" This time the pale man's smile was sincere.

Norman looked at his folded hands which thumb-wrestled on the table. I can do that for Mary-Lou! He thought.

"Are you sure she'll get to Jesus? You are fer sure, fer sure!"

"Sure I am. Jesus wants to make certain she didn't deserve to get killed, because then she might not get into heaven." The pale man was very animated waving arms and looking about the room.

"Okay," Norman said exhaling a deep breath and smiling with a sense of relief. "If that's what it takes to get Mary-Lou into heaven, then HOT-DOG, that's wh…wh…what I'mm'gonna do."

"Atta boy," the pale man said clicking the record button on a cheap cassette player that the station had bought for interrogations ten years ago, and then nodding at Norman to begin.

"Okay, okay, do you think I should speak up?" he asked grinning and looking wide-eyed at the recorder.

"You're doing fine."

"Okay," Norman smiled while thinking of all the good he was doing. "I kilt Mary-Lou."

"What's yer name?" the pale man waved his fingers inward like he smelled a freshly cooked apple pie.

"Norman…my name is Norman."

"Last name?" His fingers still working in anticipation.

Norman reached up and touched his head. "My eye hurts from where you socked me."

The pale man turned off the recorder abruptly and stared at Norman like he was looking through him.

The door on the far wall suddenly opened just as the pale man had planned and Linda marched right over to the desk, picked up the cassette recorder and threw it to the floor smashing it into several pieces on the floor. Norman felt one piece hit his leg. And the pale man recoiled from the sudden crash a lot like Norman's father would do when his mother entered the room on what his father called, the curse.

"You leave Norman Waters, out of this!" she demanded. "I called you Seth on several different nights about Earl's problem…about the way he'd get drunk and lock himself in the room with Mary-Lou, but you wouldn't help…you promised but you would never show up…you protected Earl over an innocent five-year-old girl!" her last words a condemning whisper.

"Earl has been with the force twenty-two years, Mrs. Stanton, and you have the goddam gall to march into this interview room and…"

"Int…int.. interrogation roooom. That's wh…wh…what this is," Norman corrected in a deep, dumb voice.  

The pale man pitched Norman a spiteful glare, and then refocused on Linda, and continued. "…the goddam gall, to march into this interview room and make ridiculing remarks about the Chief of Police…your own husband for fifteen years God help your soul. You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Linda became unleashed poking her indexed finger into the pale man's fragile bony chest pushing him back into the far corner of the room. "You let the goddam bastard continue to abuse my little girl even though I called time-and-time again, and now you're gonna try to pin this shit on Norman…Norman Waters?" she flashed the pale man a look of misbelieve. "He wouldn't hurt a goddam fly!"

The pale man raised his hands to Linda as if he was going to backhand her, and she ducked frantically spilling half the contents of her large purse onto the floor. Norman fell immediately from a sitting position on the chair, to his knees and began picking up Linda's personal items on all fours.

"LEAVE IT ALONE YA HALFWIT!" the pale man barked, kicking Linda's belongings across the floor, and missing Norman's head with his boot by a half an inch.

Norman stood up, towering over the pale skinny man, and asked in a grim serious voice, "What did you say, mister?"

"I SAID…"

The door on the far wall opened with a crash and three men charged into the breadbox shaped room and surrounded Norman, the one in the center holding a Tazer.

"CALM DOWN. Don't hurt 'em!" Linda held her hands flat at the man with the Tazer and fell to her knees. "He didn't do it…Norman wouldn't hurt Mary-Lou!" she bolstered. "For Christ's sake in heaven, Mary-Lou is dead because you didn't have the balls to go after your own goddam Captain on child-porn charges. YOU ALL ARE A FUCKIN DISCRACE!"

The pale man stepped forward cautiously shaking his head, and waving a hand back and forth to settle the tension of his colleagues. They obeyed falling away from Norman with vigilant eyes.

"Linda," he said calmly as he approached her. "You told me nothing of Earl's involvement in kiddy-porn." The scowl on his face suggested he was concealing more than he let on to Linda. "Didn't you tell me that Earl filed for divorce, and that you needed to act fast if you were going to get a piece of his pension?"

"That was before," she began sobbing…trying to make the pale man understand her unique dilemma. "Before I CAUGHT HIM CHEATING WITH THAT BITCH, MELISA!" she squelched like a demon stuck in a flute.

"So, he hasn't been home in some time?"

"NO!" Linda continued to sob, but was still ready for combat. "He moved out with that blonde slut!"

"And you started selling your daughter on the weekends to the highest bidder," the pale man was smooth. "To make ends meet!" he nodded like he understood!

"NO!" she grunted with her teeth clenched. "I prostituted myself because Earl wasn't giving me any support, and I don't have a job!" she glared at the pale man.

The pale man grabbed tissue paper from the far end of the table and casually offered it to Linda. She slapped his hand away spilling the tissue to the floor.

"And then…after your daughter's night was through, you would drop her off at Norman's doorstep and tell her that her daddy made you take her to those bad places. And told Mary-Lou that she had to make Norman promise not to say a word about why she was spending the night at his house," the pale man's mouth twisted shark-like, ready to attack. "The very words you recited with her time-and-time again. My daddy made my mommy take me to have sex with men to pay for our bills. Does this sound familiar?" the pale man walked around the table to Norman's side and then stood there.

Norman stood in astonishment looking from the pale man and back to Linda…his slow mind reeling frantically to process the long line of information.

"But it was not Mary-Lou's father who killed her," the pale man continued, "It was you who did this to Mary-Lou?"

"I DID NOT!" she barked.

Norman's eyes narrowed as he digested the line of information. "You were hurting Mary-Lou…Mary-Lou my special friend?" Norman stood and took an aggressive step toward Linda, but was stopped by when two of the three men who were still in the room grabbed each of his arms.

"I took my daughter to Norman's house so I could walk the goddam streets, and have a free babysitter!"

Norman swallowed a dry swallow and tugged his bottom lip with his teeth as the two officers continued to squeeze his large biceps.

"I sent her to your house so Earl and his pedophile friends wouldn't find her. I just knew that they were going to steal her, and you were the only decent person in this little shithole town that I could trust with her."

Norman looked down as if he'd done something bad, and then said in a low disturbing voice, "I saw something."

Everyone in the cramped room attention was immediately on Norman.

"You didn't see shit. And if ya did you'd be too dumb to remember," the pale man grinned.

"I did, I…I saw something."

Two more men wearing suits and ties entered the room, men of which the pale man was unfamiliar.

"Let him talk!" Linda hollered, and then looked at Norman. "Norman…honey, go'on and tell us what ya saw," Linda pushed herself from the floor to a standing position.

Norman slowly looked up and gazed into the stone mounted in the ring that the pale man was wearing. The pale man pursed his lips and stood visibly uneasy, squirming like a mouse cornered by a large tomcat.

Norman drifted as he recounted the events that took place the night before Mary-Lou was reported missing. There was a hammering at Norman's front door that woke him immediately from the ripped up Lazy boy chair he fell asleep in. (Norman would always give Mary-Lou his bed when she visited and she would read him three Dr. Seuss books before Norman would finally fall asleep. 'Someday Norman, I will teach you how to read.' Mary-Lou told him…he couldn't wait to read the stories to Mary-Lou.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Norman woke quickly and was briefly hung up in a big armrest gash that his hand managed to find its way into during slumber, but managed to get to Mary-Lou, and his book-spangled bed in seconds.

 'We know you're in there, Norman! Best open up the goddam door and let us in, b'fer we have to kick it in!'

'Mary-Lou, we have to go hide,' Norman said, but she didn't wake.

Norman picked Mary-Lou up like a doll, covered her to make sure she wouldn't be cold, and then trotted to the kitchen where he had a false floor.

'We gotta hide down here, Mary-Lou! There are bad guys at the door, and your momma always says don't answer the door to anyone while you are here.'

Norman closed the hatch to the false floor, and sat on the bottom steps with Mary-Lou still cuddling in his arms. He peered through the cracks of the floorboards rocking her back and forth with wide unblinking-eyes.

CRASH! Norman's flimsy front door was kicked off the hinges and slid to a slow stop on his living room floor.

Norman looked down at Mary-Lou who was still fast asleep despite all of the commotion. He heard hard foot-falls across his worn pine floor as he looked through the cracks circumspectly. One of the intruders turned on the kitchen light sending straight lines of radiance though the floorboards, across Norman's unblinking eyes, and across the damp concrete floor in the basement. Sweat formed in spangled formation across Norman's forehead as he tried to glimpse the faces of the men who were now going through his refrigerator.

'Goddam retard ain't even got a cold one. Boy, he sure is dumb!'

'Never mind a beer asshole. We are here to git that girl, not git drunk. Like you ain't had enough already, you tard.'

'What the fuck does tard mean?'

'Means retard you dumb-fuck!'

The other man was mute for a bit then laughed. 'I get it. That's a good un, Seth!'

Norman heard a sharp 'smack'. Hand to skin. 'I told you not to use m' name asshole! See how I use a code name fer you…asshole'.

Now Norman could see as a tall man came into view by the card table and the brown folding chairs.

Norman's eyes opened wide with revelation as he looked at the pale man. The pale man glared back at Norman with eyes of ice.

The small window to the basement opened with the dull sound of scraping of wood-on-wood and a person climbed in. Norman watched in astonishment until a man he never saw before managed the tiny window and then dropped to the floor. He hushed Norman immediately with his meaty index finger over his lips, scooted across the concrete floor with Redwing boots, and then gestured with one hand that he relinquishes Mary-Lou to him. Norman handed a slumbering Mary-Lou to the man with no questions asked. Norman was too afraid to ask questions.

Mary-Lou rustled from the exchange and then became audible. 'Da…'

The man placed a firm hand over Mary-Lou's mouth and nose to keep her quiet. Mary-Lou struggled briefly, kicking and flailing arms and legs in a desperate attempt to breathe. She kicked the side of Norman's mouth bloodying his lip, and he looked upward to see if the intruders had heard the clamor.

'Did you hear that? I'll bet that goddam retard is hiding here.'

The man tightened his grip in fear that Mary-Lou's convulsing chest would stir curiousity from the men above, and her arms, legs, and eyes shuttered rapidly…and then came to a sudden stop.

Norman's eyes widened in trepidation as his special friend went limp. He looked at Mary-Lou's eyes as they rolled vacantly upward, and then reached for her hand.

The man pulled her from Norman and then pushed words from his mouth, in a forced whisper, 'She fell asleep.'

Norman took that lie, and swallowed it as a cactus ball of truth.

'I have to go or they'll find my Mary-Lou,' he whispered.

Norman watched the man carry his only special friend to the window, shove her through it like an old sack of potatoes, and then quickly followed. A tear ran down Norman's face just as the trap door was lifted abruptly opened and two men with guns quickly skipped down the wooden stairs.

The first man's face entered into the small amount of light that the floorboards were allowing to pass, but his features were hidden by the defiant stare of the flashlight he held. Norman shielded his eyes with one hand and ran the fingers of his other over his bleeding lip.

'Where's Mary-Lou!' a voice demanded.

Though Norman tried with all his might to see passed the bright light he couldn't. He could only make out the hand of the person holding the light…and he had on a big bright ruby and gold class ring.

Norman's vacant eyes slowly came into focus, and his vision cleared as he lifted his hand and pointed to a photograph on the wall, just behind the pale man.

"IT WAS H…H…HIM. THAT'S WHO TOOK MARY-LOU!"

The people in the room turned and looked at the portrait of a man sitting behind a desk, but before the American flag. The large mahogany desk was shiny and the cigar in the man's mouth smoldered between smiling teeth. The balding man wore an officer's uniform and age had planted many map-like wrinkles in his weathered face. Below the portrait, on the frame and etched in a fancy gold plate read EARL STANTON: CHIEF of POLICE.

2:03 AM 

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The Art..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I was taught at a young age how to fish by my late father. He instilled in me not only the skills of fishing, but the art of the fishing trip. It was never about how many, how big, and what type of fish…on the contrary…it was about taking in the beautiful Redwoods, deciphering animal tracks and droppings next to the water, and relaxing away from the hustle and bustle of city life. The act of fishing merely fit into it all like a piece to a puzzle. My father gave me an in-depth appreciation for what most people take for granted, and yet offered up valuable fishing lessons in the mean time. While fishing for native trout he showed me how to crawl on my belly through thick brush taking only the tools that I would use at that particular fishing hole.

"Ya gotta sneak up on these sonsabitches," he began. "These are Native Rainbows, unlike those goddam planters in the lake, if these guys see ya coming, they won't bite. Skittish as all hell they are." 

He lifted a rock at the edge of the pool we had just crawled to and flipped it over revealing a hellgrammite. I learned that trout are more apt to strike natural prey from their own surroundings rather than a Panther Martin. Good information for an eight-year-old.

A couple of years after my California based lessons I traveled to upstate New York where I would see if these tricks my father had taught me would hold any weight 3000 miles away where he grew up. I went back east for a three week visit to see my grandparents, (my father's parents of course) in the little one-horse town called Balston Spa. They took me camping, where I would fish from the time the sun came up until I couldn't see the multitude of Sun Fish attacking my bait due to a setting sun.

The third day, my grandmother, (a Native American woman with a keen sense of humor) asked me to accompany her for a canoe ride. I rolled my eyes in protest, and then placed my fishing pole reluctantly next to the trailer.

"You'll need your fishing pole if you want to catch something," she said donning a bright red lipstick smile.

Grandma made me row but a short distance from the shore, dictating my lanky awkward form along the short trip, and then helped me cut a ninety-degree angle on the outskirts of the lake's reeds by taking charge of a paddle. Grandma tied a number two hook to the end of her ten pound test and then took a pair of small needle nose pliers and bent the barb down.

What is she doing? I thought, resisting the urge to ask.

Then she took a red piece of cloth and cut a quarter inch square from the thick fabric as I watched.

Grandma poked the sharp end of the hook through the fabric about a quarter of one inch, and smiled. "Stop here," she said as if I had probably gone too far already.

My father taught me not to question adults, so I kept my mouth shut. Grandma must not know that fish, in California or New York, aren't going to bite at her hook.

"Stay still, Brian!" she demanded.

I did.

She pulled out a bit of slack click-pop, click-pop, the reel made a delightful sound, and then she pulled once more click-pop, click-pop, the red cloth was dangling but four-feet from the tip of the fishing pole. The lake was calm and the air was close as she located her prey. I looked into the dark water hoping to see the dark wagging tail of the lunker she had found, but I didn't. I leaned over the side of the canoe searching for a fish with great anticipation.

"Don't rock the boat, B.J." grandma whispered.

Finally I positioned my head in the direction of the reeds and held it steady.

Grandma took a deep breath and held it as she stretched her short arm, leaning the boat slightly to one side, and dangled the bright red cloth about two inches above the water.  Then she skillfully placed the red cloth on the water and twitched it fiercely creating rings small ringlets of water.

Suddenly it happened.

Four large pond frogs scampered across the water for the red cloth startling me with their sudden assault.

I watched in amazement. Grandma was hunting for an entirely different species.

The largest frog committed itself to the artificial bait and grandma's pole-tip went down hard and her arms lifted a beautiful two pound bright green frog from the reeds with her Ugly Stick.

"Open the ice chest, B.J." she said excitedly. "We're havin frog legs for dinner!"

I opened the chest, and she deposited the frog and closed the lid. The chest bumped and bashed violently as the frog desperately tried to escape.

 "Now you try."

Grandma told me to bend the barb on the hook and she cut a nice piece of square red cloth for me. After a couple more pulls on the old ores with my skinny arms, we searched the reeds until I found one. Without saying a word I dangled the red cloth just as my grandma did just minutes ago and the frog frantically went for the bait. My heart pounded, pumping adrenaline as my pole bent in half and I pulled up a frog from the lakes surface. It was incredible! Grandma watched smiling from ear-to-ear as she raised the lid to the ice chest with her other hand flat to guard against her frogs escape and I deposited my part of dinner to the ice.

Napa California, and many years later my younger brother and I made a habit out of fishing at least once a week. On this particular day in late May the sun was blistering, the waters were clear, and the bass were quite stubborn. We threw out Rattle Traps, Power Worms, spinner baits, and even large night crawlers, but the Bass refused to even look at our offerings. At the end of our trip I twitched one of the larger night crawlers next to a seven to ten pound bass and thought I may have pissed him off a bit by the way it shifted from side to side and that gave me a little satisfaction, but no trophy for my efforts.  

We decided to pack it in without so much as a nibble that day and halfway back to the truck, listening to frog after frog splash into the lake from the shoreline, I realized what my father and grandmother taught me, the lessons came to me simultaneously…natural prey, crawling on my belly to the hole, and catching frogs.

I tossed my gear to the ground anxiously, bent the barb of my hook, grabbed a Salmon egg and crept to the shoreline like a man on a mission. My brother watched from under the baking hot sun, but agreed that this effort was worth a shot. I dangled the salmon egg tapping the water to create waves in front of the frog and it pounced on it! The frog was smaller than the ones grandma and I cooked back in 1976, but this one, stretched out, was only as long as a beer can and plenty long to use as bait. I quickly baited the frog and we hiked back to where I aggravated the seven to ten pound lunker. Yes, the bass was still cruising in and out of submerged rocks when I launched the splay frog through the air and it hit the water with an awkward slap.

The frog kicked frantically in search of refuge under one of  the lakes bottom vegetations, but the Largemouth Bass twisted its girth with snake-like speed, and kicked its strong tail gracefully from side to side then sucked the frog almost effortlessly into its mouth all in one poetic move, and expelled the excess water though its gills. It was like watching a fishing show on television except it was my twelve pound test line that was slowly departing from my reel. I held the pole with my right hand and fed the gigantic bass more line with my left. I heaved back once…I saw the ten-pounder roll…then I heaved back a second time to ensure that I set the hook.

I did!

The fight was incredible with my drag expelling with that delightful click-pop, click-pop sound, and after that catch we combed the shoreline that afternoon taking on more sun than any dermatologist would have recommended as we landed several more Largemouth bass between five and seven pounds. 

A Fish and Game officer saw our success, (I'm guessing through binoculars) and confronted my brother and me. When I told him that we were using pond frogs as bait, he quickly leafed through his handbook eager to catch us in violation. He didn't. Fishing with frogs was legal here in California.

A Spot in Heaven..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

My father was a proud man who was quite hard on himself for his down falls, and short comings, and at the age of eight when I asked him what he thought about heaven he just shrugged, smiled and said there ain't no spot in heaven for a man like me, Guy. God wasn't even too big for heaven so why did dad figure that there wasn't enough room for him. I knew that he wasn't fond of church, and he only had derogatory remarks for the evangelists on television. He saw through Jim and Tammy Bakker like a cellophane wrapper covering a glass bowl of mixed fruit. Dad discounted the church, the evangelists of the time, (late seventies early eighties) saying they were only in it for the money, but never once had I heard him speak pessimistically about God, Jesus or the Bible.

"If there's no spot for you," I said staring through the windshield of a 1959 Ford truck which was now taking ..lets of rain. "Then there won't be a spot for me either."

My father looked down from the driver's seat to see worry consuming my face, and then back through the windshield which was suddenly getting hammered by rain. The next minute was quiet except for the water the cloudburst was dumping on the old rusty truck, and dad thought hard about the next words that would leave his mouth knowing that this was a crucial moment for me.

He cleared his throat, took a deep, thoughtful breath and began, "I've made a lotta wrong turns in my life, made a lotta bad decisions, Guy."

I looked up at him blinking cigarette smoke from my eyes.

"Done some things that the Bible says is bad," he paused recalculating his last words never taking his eyes from the road. "Hell…I've done a lot of bad things, and if God is a good God He won't let the likes of me into His kingdom."

I wrinkled my nose still looking up at the man I thought the world of and said, "That's why Jesus came down to earth…so everyone can go to heaven," I reassured him.

Dad stopped for a light and then focused his attention on me and smiled awkwardly, "Not the things I've done."

"Did ya kill somebody?" I asked unable to believe that the words spoken came from my eight-year-old mouth. 

He laughed nervously and then curled one side of his mouth up giving his well-trimmed mustache a comical slope. "Almost," he admitted.

My eyes were unblinking and my jaw hung as if it suddenly became unhinged.

"Oh ya," he continued. "I shot the bastard in the gut, but he lived."

I tried to utter the word who, and I may have done so, but the rain was so fierce at that moment that I didn't hear the word myself. Dad saw my mouth and though he never heard the word either, knew what I said.

"Me," he said raising his voice above the rain-pelting racket the metal cab was amplifying.

He raised his shirt and twisted, and on the left side of his stomach was a skin graft…on the back side of his body was the exit wound of a twelve gauge shot gun…a large hole that the doctors did their best to graft, but still a nasty hole that you could stick a golf ball inside. I've seen his wound my whole life and never thought to ask what had happened. He pulled his shirt back down when the light turned green.

"God don't let in people who try to kill themselves," he said as we started to move.

"But you didn't!" I raised my voice and flailed my arms in revelation. "You didn't kill yourself so you can be forgiven. All you have to do is ask. If you did kill yourself you wouldn't be able to ask for forgiveness. Jesus died for everyone's sins, dad!"

"I don't know," my dad said shaking his head. "I don't remember anything like that in the Bible."

His eyes became glossy with tears but he refused to blink them away and stared through the rain splashing windshield wipers.

"Look," I said matter-of-factly. "Mom makes me do this all the time. All you have to do is repeat after me and you can go to heaven."

He looked at me inauspiciously at first, but then nodded. "Okay."

I recited the parts I could remember the best I could and dad repeated them. When we were finished he had two streams of tears that ran clear to his chin, and he thanked me.

"Now there's a spot in heaven for you, dad," I said.

Dad laughed in liberation, and though I was only eight could tell that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He reached across and placed his hand around my thin neck and said. "I'll be sure to save you a spot, Guy!"

Thirty-one years later, and now three thousand miles away, dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was given a year to live by his oncologist. We all knew that dad's liver was ailing from a blood transfusion he'd received in the early eighties…before blood was screened. Dad contracted Hepatitis C and since had battled the disease. Usually one receives a buffer notice, a test will return and the doctor will inform the patient that the Hepatitis C had developed into cirrhosis, and that was the stage before cancer. In my father's case his disease had progressed right into cancer and the doctor shocked him when he said he had but a year to get his affairs in order.

My father and I, though we seldom saw each other from the time he left my mother when I was fifteen, spoke on the phone daily, and when he told me he had a year to live, I felt cheated. I always wanted to get to know my father and now the door was being slammed on my face.

A month after he gave me the news I asked if it would be okay if I flew out to see him in September for a week,  I don't have much money, I said, only enough for a plane ticket, but at least I can be there for your sixtieth birthday. His dismal tone perked up immediately and he said, he would much rather have me make the trip out while he is still alive instead of coming out for the funeral. He lived in New York for ten years and I'd never once been out to visit.

That year September rolled around much faster than I remember, and I figured it due to my father's unfavorable condition. I watched him sleep on his couch on his bad days, and we took advantage of his good ones by going to the VFW, and out to shoot his guns at the nearby pond. We laughed, and we cried, and when it was all over I found myself in the passenger's seat of a 2004 Dodge Ram as my ailing father drove me to the Albany airport.

"Dad," I said.

He looked at me with sick, tired eyes that were struggling not to cry behind his bifocals. "Ya Guy?" he mumbled.

We were almost to the airport, both knowing that this would be the last time we would see each other, and he wasn't well enough to walk me inside.

"Repeat after me," I said.

He did…and after, with tears in our eyes, I jumped out of the truck, ran around to the other side with my bags, opened his door and gave him a lengthy hug and then a kiss on the cheek, "I'll see you later, dad."

"I'll save you a spot in heaven, Guy."