Harmless (2 page)

As I walked up to her
house, sifting through my stack of overdue bills and unread magazines, I kept
flipping through long after my name ceased to grace the envelopes. 

I have a tendency to be
absentminded like that.  It’s a fault that I’m aware of.

I stopped at an
envelope from Carroway Elementary School and held it up to the waning afternoon
light; it looked like a paycheck.  If you ask me why I examined it so closely,
I’d say curiosity and hope.  I was under the assumption that she didn’t have
kids, at least none I’d ever seen, and the thought of Kerry with a couple of
rugrats of her own, whether stowed away inside or living with a husband that
cared as little for her as Shayna did for me, well, that only increased the
possibility of our bonding after some indeterminate amount of time.

But no, it was a
paycheck.  The amount is an unnecessary detail.  Kerry’s private matters are
none of your concern.

It disappointed me in a
way—mostly because it ruined the daydream of sharing stories about our children
over a glass of white wine and my world-class chicken enchiladas.  I thought
she was a vegetarian, but I’ve never met a person that’s been able to resist my
mouth-watering recipe.  On the other hand, it relieved me to know that she had
a steady job.  One that didn’t involve removing her clothes.

When I knocked, she
didn’t open the screen door.

“Hi, I have your mail,”
I said.  I’ll admit it wasn’t my smoothest opening line.

“My mail?  You don’t
have to keep doing that.  I mean,
really
, you don’t.”

I held it out, sort of
teasing her with it.  A cute gesture that she’d appreciate.  “Should I—do you
want to open the door, or—I mean, I can leave it out here.  Looks like rain,
though.”

Kerry slid a hand out,
nothing more.  “No, I’ll take it.”

Her fingertips touched
mine.  It had to be on purpose.

She retreated, allowing
the screen to ease shut.  “You’re Steve, right?”

“Steve, yeah.  With a
V.”

She looked confused.  I
don’t blame her.  It was an awkward aside.  “How else would you spell it?” she
asked.

I made something up. 
“Steven, actually.  For the V, I mean.  Not a P-H.  Whenever I see the name spelled
with a P-H, it looks like
step-hen
.  Makes me think two chickens got
married and one of them has a daughter from a previous marriage, so she’d be a
step-hen.”

Crisis averted.  That
quick wit of mine.

“That’s…interesting.”

  I changed the
subject.  It didn’t matter.  “Didn’t you say your name was Jan?  I mean—your
letters, they’re addressed to Kerry.”

“Jan?  No, I never
said—wait—you went through my mail?”

“No, no, nothing like
that.  Some of it was mixed in with mine.”  (White lie.  No harm.)  “You know
how Jeffrey is.”

“I don’t, but look,
hey, this isn’t necessary.  Like, really.  Just, no more, okay?  I’m—it makes
me uncomfortable.”

She didn’t mean it, of
course, but I took my cue.  Maybe I’d been a bit forward.

“Oh.  Oh, right.  Yeah,
no worries.  Just being neighborly.  I’m, you know, right next door over here
if you ever need me.”

Her smile, as
uncomfortable and endearing as it was, kept my soul warm for days.

I told you all of that
to tell you this, that deep down in the bottom of my heart, the very same heart
that Shayna compared to a shriveled, moldy lemon, I knew that Kerry and I would
one day laugh over our awkward encounter as we dined over prunes in a nursing
home, hand in hand.

Not long after, the
thing happened.

The thing.  I still
have trouble saying it.

As I stood there,
staring through the blinds, praying I’d heard a loud truck backfire instead of
a gunshot, with Sparkle purring and brushing against my leg, the possibility of
a love-engorged life with Kerry ended when she was thrown from her bedroom
window on the second floor. 

Not thrown—
launched
.

She landed in my yard,
face up, and I could do nothing but watch, terrified, as she expired.

CHAPTER
2

Don’t ask me why,
because really, I don’t know—okay, I
do
know why, but that’s a different
matter altogether—I didn’t call the police.  Not immediately.

And this would later
prove to be one of the smartest moves I’ve ever made.  As contrarian as that
sounds, it’s the truth.  My unforgivable, despicable qualities aside, I’m not
known for wise decisions, either.  Bad investments, missed opportunities,
falling victim to the whole “everybody’s doing it” pretext and then being the
only one to get caught.  Life would’ve taken a completely different direction
if I hadn’t lost my baseball scholarship over an isolated steroid incident.  I
didn’t know it was a banned substance.

Eh, let me back up. 
That’s not exactly accurate.  When I say isolated, that’s too limiting.  More
like, I took the same thing (one steroid = isolated) for two seasons, but I
still didn’t know it was illegal.  I’m sure there’s a list somewhere, but Coach
never told us what was on it, so whose fault is it?  I refuse to believe I’m to
blame.  How is anyone supposed to excel if you have no clue about the things
that’ll give you a legal advantage rather than an illegal one?  The NCAA can
kiss my ass.

To this day, the
disgrace of walking out of that locker room with my tail tucked between my legs
stings like it just happened.  I get a bit misty-eyed when I watch the Giants,
knowing that it could’ve been me up there on the mound, hurling my ninety-eight
mile per hour fastball past one batter after another.  One, two, three strikes
down the middle.  Have a seat, chump.  Don’t let the bench give you splinters.

That was back when
Shayna loved me.  College sweethearts, hottest girl in her sorority dating the
captain of the baseball team.  Apple pie, Statue of Liberty.  Put it in a
Norman Rockwell painting, right?

And while I’m talking
about paintings, it’s too bad that some people—Shayna, primarily—see an
unattractive model instead of the Mona Lisa when they look at me.  That’s a
stretch, but you get the point.  Kerry, now, she would’ve seen every masterful
brushstroke.

For a time, after I
moved into my House of Exile, I’d shed a tear or two over those days, wondering
if that’d been the genesis of my downfall.  If I hadn’t become so morose over
the years, lamenting the life I could’ve had, would Shayna have driven me to
infidelity?  Or was it the need for approval from someone—a necessary ‘atta
boy, good job’—that wasn’t forthcoming from the woman who was supposedly on my
side?

Or was it always
there?  This weakness gestating inside me, waiting to be born, with the labor
induced by that first unintentional mistake, each bad decision thereafter
another contraction, finally forcing the real me, the wretch, into the world.

Am I, though?  A
wretch?  I don’t think so.  I’m just a good guy with certain uncontrollable
limitations.

The fault lies with he
who can’t find a better reason.  I say “reason” instead of “excuse” because
there’s a huge difference.  An excuse is an admission.  A reason allows room
for circumstances beyond my control.

I’ll offer this: losing
my scholarship wrecked my confidence, for a time.  I felt like I’d lost my
ability to make any sort of intelligent decision, at least until I realized
that I was a byproduct of everyone else’s need to screw over the human race. 
You give, they take.

Until you can’t
anymore, then you do something about it.  A guy can only subject himself to so
much.

Here’s what I want to
know: was I born this way, or was I created?

That’s for you and God
and society to decide.

I know I sound bitter,
but when a dream is ripped from your hands, it leads to some lashing out. 
Believe what you will—I have no trouble accepting blame when it’s indefensible,
when my situation isn’t the byproduct of someone else’s greed, ignorance, or
arrogance.

Three times in my
life—the scholarship, my family, and Kerry—I’ve been robbed of an acceptable
future.

Don’t think the irony
was lost on me.  I got it.  I saw it.  It was like a big, flashing scoreboard
out in center field: three strikes and you’re out.

Only I was the one at
the plate and Kerry’s death was a curveball I never anticipated. 

I didn’t even get the
bat off my shoulder.

It’s tough, this life.

Some days, I considered
giving up, but then what would my friends think?  Officer Planck, Mailman
Jeffrey, and…and…you know, Darlene down at the liquor store, Michelle at the laundry
place?  I couldn’t let those guys down.  They counted on me for my sharp sense
of humor and well-informed worldview.  Especially Mailman Jeffrey—we talked for
thirty minutes about my love of the postal system one day.  He was kind enough
to drive slowly down the street from box to box while I ran along beside him. 
He didn’t have to do that.  He didn’t have to take the time out of his day to
listen to me chatter on and on for half an hour.  But he’s like that, you
know?  Kind.  He’s a good guy. 

He only rolled his eyes
twice, unlike Shayna, who would’ve given herself a headache.  I’m telling you,
that Jeffrey?  He’s a class act.

Okay, where was I?  Oh,
right, I didn’t call the cops.

And you want to know
why?

Ignorant fools.  All of
them.

In particular those
that would show up and escort me off Shayna’s (
my!
) lawn at three
o’clock in the morning, refusing to listen to the truth.  There’s a reason
people say lies are tangled; it’s because facts are straight.  Mine are so
straight they could cut diamonds, and yet, the police absolutely rejected any
attempts I made at rational discourse.

Unwilling assholes. 
All of them.

Except for Officer
Planck, another class act.  He’s a patrolman; spends most of his days writing
speeding tickets, so I figured murder would be out of his realm of expertise. 
Besides, somebody launched Kerry out of her window after shooting her—talk
about icing on the cake—on Wednesday evening, which obviously wouldn’t have
worked with Officer Planck’s schedule since he has league night down at the
bowling alley on Wednesdays. 

Anyway, so back to the
night in question. I’d say I wasted good scotch when I dropped the glass—poor
Sparkle, he got a Glenfiddich shower—but that would tarnish the memory of
Kerry.  Nothing would’ve ever been wasted on her.  Not time, not money, not
effort, and definitely not scotch.  Such a damn shame.

This is just a guess,
but I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never experienced the type of fury I
felt, watching her die like that.  What a day it’d been already.  First,
Shayna’s snide remarks on the courthouse steps, then the judge’s denial, then
the Giants were down by two in the ninth, and then somebody destroyed Kerry and
everything we’d planned.  I mean, everything
I’d
planned.

Honestly, what the
hell?  What did I ever do to the universe to deserve that?  What more could
possibly happen to a guy on the worst day of his life?  (Okay, so it was tied
for the worst.  When my wife found Johanna’s thong—that day was pretty bad.)

Day ruined, future
ruined.

Kerry. 
Ruined
.

Avenging her death was the
only thing I could think about.

I ran.

I stepped on Sparkle’s
tail in the process, but I ran.  Through the living room, hurdling over the
couch, down the hallway, grabbing my baseball bat from the umbrella stand, and
out the front door.

It’s a good thing I
work as hard as I do to keep my body in shape.  This thing is a temple, man. 
No, wait, that makes it sound too…too
holy
.  I, Steven Allister
Pendragon, am a
castle
.  How appropriate is it that our family crest has
a knight’s helmet on it?  That’s a matter of coincidence, but it’s relevant to
the metaphor.

I didn’t bother with
the steps.  I turned left, shoving my porch furniture out of the way.  That
cheap plastic stuff that bends and collapses if you rock back too far.  (This I
learned the hard way, trying to get a better look at Clarence and his stupid
penny loafers.  I’ll never forget the look on his face when I stood up.  It was
a mixture of pity, contempt, and red-faced exertion in an attempt to contain
his laughter.  I imagine he would’ve honked like a goose if he’d succumbed to
the urge.)

My porch railing was
about waist-high, covered in this white, flaky paint that the landlord refused
to fix.  When I told him that increasing the aesthetic value of the house would
likely increase the monetary value, he laughed and asked if I
wanted
to
pay extra rent.  Needless to say, the paint is still peeling.  And ugly.

I hurdled the railing,
too, and felt a shoe graze the honeysuckle bush.  Since I’m agile, the
five-foot drop to the ground posed no problem when I landed, rolled, and kept
going.  Have you ever seen those athletes in the Olympics that jump over fences
and bushes and run through water?  What’s it called?  Steeplechase?  I would’ve
been great at it.  Shayna told me once that I run like a three-legged dog.  I’m
not even sure what that means, but what does she know?

You may be wondering
why I didn’t go check on Kerry.  As much as it pains me to admit it, the extra
moment taken to confirm that she was indeed dead would’ve been useless.  I’d
already watched her die. 

That’s such a harsh
thing to say.  The words leave an acidic taste on my tongue.

I’ll rephrase: Her
light had burnt out.

When I ran up Kerry’s
steps and eased open the unlocked front door, I didn’t even stop to think.  (A
common occurrence, or so I’ve been told.)  I didn’t consider the fact that I
had a bat and he had a gun.  But did it matter?  Someone had ruined my one and
only, and he had to pay.

Now, the idea is, when
you enter a home—and this comes from watching hours of police procedurals on
television—the idea is to cover the bottom floor first.  You make sure you have
the all-clear before you head upstairs to find the perp.  You don’t want
anybody sneaking up from behind. 

Perp.  Short for
perpetrator.  Say it out loud. 
Perp
. 

That one solitary
syllable has become synonymous with another solitary syllable.

Steve
.

As in, “Dispatch,
Officer So-and-So checking in on that code sixty-three.  Perp was on his
ex-wife’s front lawn again…no, I’m giving him a ride home.  She didn’t want to
press charges.”

As in, “
Steve
was on his ex-wife’s front lawn again.”

Did I learn my lesson
the first time?  No.

Nor the second.  Nor
the third.

But after the fourth,
after earning an undeserved black eye and a set of handcuffs, I began to get
the hint.  I waited a week before I went back.

So there I was, tucked
low in a crouch position, standing just inside the front door, listening.  I
took off my wingtips because, well, because I was inside Kerry’s house—not only
to stay silent, but as a gesture of respect.  It always bothered me that I
never knew whether or not Clarence took his off.  He wouldn’t.  I knew he
wouldn’t.  He didn’t value her the same way I did.  What if she’d just spent an
hour vacuuming?  From my front porch, I would watch him go traipsing inside,
all willy-nilly without regard to her cleaning rituals.

I run like a
three-legged dog?  Clarence walked like a heron.  Wait,
walked
doesn’t
do it justice.  He pranced.  Legs kicking out, arms tucked back at his sides,
that long, gangly neck outstretched.  I swear his Adam’s apple rounded the
corner before the rest of him.  I could tell he was a minor-league dick just by
his strut.  The kind of guy that would mispronounce the word “focaccia” at a
restaurant and have the nerve to insist that the waiter didn’t know what he was
talking about.  “It’s pronounced differently in different parts of the world. 
For example, the Italians, they would say ‘fah-kuh-chee-uh.’”

Suuuure they do,
Clarence.

It’s “
fo-kah-cha
,”
you moron.

Shoes off, as they
should be, I took a step forward with my hands gripping the bat so tightly I
thought my knuckles would bleed.

Let me stop right here
for a second. 
I was in Kerry’s house
.  Can you even grasp the
significance of that?  The only thing I can equate it to is this: one time, my
folks took me to Disney World, but on the way, they had me convinced we were
taking a five-hour road trip to the dentist.  Do you even remember how horrible
the dentist was when you were nine years old?  Dreadful.  Terrifying.  Here’s
what I never got about the dentist: how can a guy who’s supposedly a
professional at fixing teeth have such an awful set of his own?  You ask me,
that’s a clear cut case of “Do as I say, not as I do.”  I remember that
venomous sneer as he tried to convince me that using Novocain would make it
hurt more later, after it wore off. 
He drilled into my teeth
without
any sort of numbing agent.  Can you imagine?

I remember a lot of
blood, pain, and sweat.  Literal puddles of sweat underneath my palms on the
armrests.