Keeping the Tarnished (25 page)

Chapter Forty-Four

Ashes To Shit

Johnny

His heart was racing and his armpits were wet, even with the truck’s air conditioner going full blast. He felt the beads of sweat formulating across his forehead as the familiar surroundings were coming into view one by one. As the truck approached the tiny store on the corner of the road, Johnny softly instructed Jackson to turn left, and then left again. The boy’s heart was beating so hard he felt it in his eardrums. Returning to this area with this family seemed beyond surreal, and the morning’s events had already proven to be difficult for Johnny as well as the rest of the family.

“Stop. Please just stop. I can’t…I don’t think I can do this. Please just stop,” Johnny blurted out as the Jackson began braking on the parish dirt road, with a freshly cut cornfield on the left side of the truck. Johnny hadn’t been gone that long, yet everything seemed so different.

“Johnny, sweetheart, you don’t have to do this. The officer is waiting at the house and I’m sure he can get you as many pictures as you like,” Graye said in a comforting tone as she placed her hand on the boy’s head.

Johnny knew the officer wouldn’t be able to find pictures, he knew Graye more than likely assumed there were family pictures on the walls or displayed elsewhere in the house. That wasn’t the case, Johnny knew he would have to look in a special place to find the picture of him with his mother and Jacob. The only pictures Thomas Tregalis had ever seemed to show concern for were the ones Agent Boudreaux had taken as evidence.

“No, I’m sorry. I’m…I’m okay. It’s just up here on the right,” Johnny said, trembling as he pointed toward the shambled house on the right side of the road. Although the house itself wasn’t completely visible, the garbage and numerous car parts had caught the Johnny’s eye first as he watched Jared’s reaction to viewing his former home. “The driveway is right there,” Johnny said as the house came into view, with the patrol car sitting in front of it.

As Jackson drove down the driveway to the house, all were speechless as the drive was lined with mufflers, door panels, and endless garbage that had escaped the burn barrel. As Jackson came to a stop, Johnny watched as the family seemed to stare in horror as they looked at the disgusting, rundown shack. The majority of the paneling had fallen off the side of the house, most of the front windows were boarded up with plywood, and the front door had a large hole kicked through it.

“Sweetheart, the officer is heading this way, would you like us to go in with you?” Graye asked sweetly as Johnny continued staring at the house.

“No, no, I…I wanna go in by myself, if that’s all right.” Johnny didn’t want anyone in the vehicle to see the inside of his nightmares, the place where all his deepest fears originated from.

Jackson rolled down the driver’s window as the policeman showed up. “Hello, officer,” Jackson said politely as the older officer looked past Jackson and into the backseat of the truck.

“How you folks doin’ today? Is Johnny Tregalis in there?” Johnny grabbed the door handle and quickly opened the back door without speaking a word. As the boy exited the truck, he quickly walked past the officer without acknowledging his presence.

“Son,” the officer called out, “boy, you’re gonna need some of this,” the policeman said as he held up a small blue jar.

Johnny turned to the officer and walked slowly back to the man as his emotions were beginning to finally take over. He felt tears began pouring down his face as he stood in front of the sympathetic-looking officer.

“I’m gonna dab some of this under your nose, it helps with the smell, okay?” the officer said kindly as he opened the jar and stuck his index finger in, removing a small amount of the thick, semitransparent, substance. “It smells like menthol and it’s a little powerful at first. And uh, we talked to Bill Clementine about your request. He ain’t home, but he said to come by just the same,” the officer continued as he dabbed the substance under the crying boy’s nose.

Johnny turned from the officer, drew in a deep breath, and began walking toward the front door of the house. He ducked under the yellow tape surrounding the premises. Staring at the destructed door, Johnny took the time to read the condemned sign posted on it, it pleased him to read the set demolition date of October 2. Pushing the door open, Johnny was hit by an overwhelming stench that seemed to enter his nose thicker than water from the swimming hole.

This wasn’t the smell of rotting garbage or months of molded, maggot covered dishes; this was the smell of death and decay. Johnny instantly knew the lingering smell was from his father’s bloated corpse, rotting in the shack in the Louisiana summer heat, even though the body had been removed long before this final visit.

The horrendous smell gave Johnny a strange sense of reassurance. He inhaled deeply through his nose, knowing he was breathing in his father’s death. The stench made it real, and Johnny could tolerate what several investigators could not because of this.

As he entered the house, he wasted no time in the kitchen as he had no desire to relive anything that ever took place in the filthy area. He walked briskly to the hall and went straight for his father’s bedroom, holding both hands up to either side of his head, blocking his peripheral vision like blinders. The only thing that was keeping his anxiety from overtaking him was that sweet stench, reminding him that there would be no drunken, raging man stomping down the hall to bloody him.

As he opened his father’s bedroom door, thoughts of Jacob came flooding into his mind. The situation proved too much for the young man as he hit his knees. He remembered how the two would spend hours in this room, playing with beer caps and army men made of old Kleenex. He remembered how Jacob would kiss the scars on his back and tell him he loved him, how he would have to hold his hand in order for the toddler to drift off to sleep, and how Jacob would kiss Johnny all over his face in the mornings to wake him up. Even the morning after a beating, Johnny would always welcome his brother’s wakeup kisses as the little boy smiled largely with a mouth full of milk-rotted teeth.

Johnny then realized he was crying rather loudly as he looked up at his father’s destroyed bedroom, which had obviously been ravaged by investigators. Although this place never felt like home to Johnny, this visit made him feel as if he were trespassing in someone else’s life and house, and this was a good feeling for Johnny. He was beginning to disassociate from the horrors of this hellhole, and soon the house would be nonexistent.

Wiping his eyes, he stood and walked to the corner of the bedroom on the right side of the room. Squatting down, he pulled back the corner of the burnt orange carpet, which came up easily. There it was. The picture Irene took of her and her two boys with the Polaroid camera that Doug Davenport was so fond of. It had been there, hidden since the day she had taken it, which was about a week before she was murdered.

Johnny looked at the picture and realized he hadn’t forgotten their faces at all as he smiled through his tears. He wiped his nose with one hand and shoved the picture in his back pocket with the other. As the boy rose and turned to leave, it caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

The belt buckle was large, and was the closest thing to a family heirloom that Thomas Tregalis had ever owned. An instant anger came over Johnny as he reached for the large, tarnished brass buckle on the floor, squeezing it tightly as he stood with it in his hand. He hated this object and wanted nothing more than to destroy it, he knew he couldn’t so he did the next thing that came to mind, he threw it right through his father’s bedroom window.

As he turned from the shattered glass, he began walking quickly out of the room for the last time, and toward the front door, toward the people that loved him regardless of the labels his father branded on him. Walking out of the front door, Johnny felt a rejuvenating sense of release come over him.

***

Jackson

From the truck, Jackson saw Johnny exit the dilapidated home. The man was somewhat puzzled by how quickly Johnny was returning.

As Johnny opened the door and climbed in the backseat, no one said a word. Jackson simply put the truck in drive and began turning around in the front yard, hoping he wouldn’t run over a nail or some other random piece of metal.

Jackson tried to look at Johnny in the rearview mirror, but Johnny avoided eye contact as he stared out the backseat window and continued to sob. As the truck approached the end of the driveway, Johnny reached up and placed his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “Can…can you please go right? Can you turn right, please?” Johnny muttered in between gasps and sobs.

Jackson said nothing. He only smiled at the boy in the mirror and turned in the direction he requested. He watched Johnny set back as the boy resumed looking out the window, seemingly attempting to compose himself.

Jackson looked toward the large box on the floorboard. Inside the box were two small, beautiful, silver urns and a small coffee can. He and his wife spared no expense for the handling of Irene and Jacob’s remains; however, at Johnny’s request, Thomas’s ashes were placed in an empty tin coffee can.

“Can you stop just up here?” Johnny asked as he pointed to a small farm on the right side of the road. Jackson had no clue what to expect, but he did as the boy asked and pulled into the sloppily kept farmstead that boasted a small, white stucco house, and several livestock pens attached to makeshift wooden and sheet tin shelters. The place appeared run down and dirty.

“Will you guys come with me?” Johnny asked with a red, wet puffy face as he reached over the seat for the coffee can.

Jackson glanced at the boy in the mirror as he put the truck in park. He looked at Graye briefly and then reached for the door handle, as did the two boys in the backseat.

As Johnny exited the truck, he took the lead in front of Jackson, Graye, and Jared while toting the coffee can, walking from the driveway through the dead crabgrass of the farmyard.

The smell of pig excrement was disgustingly thick as Jackson watched the boy walk toward the large swine enclosure. The pen housed two plump pigs that were well at home in a disgusting muck of their own waste and fly covered mud puddles. As Johnny reached the wooden railing of the pigpen, he seemed to wait for the remainder of the party to join him.

As Jackson stood next to him, the boy wiped the tears from his eyes and opened the tin can. Without saying a word, Jackson watched Johnny turn the can over, dumping its contents out directly into the pig pen, watching the pale gray ashes quickly darken in color as they absorbed the mud water and swine urine.

Johnny was breathing heavily and rapidly as he threw the coffee can on the ground and was embraced by both Graye and Jackson. The family stood still a few moments more, silently acknowledging the symbolic gesture behind Johnny’s actions.

“So, what now?” Johnny asked as Jackson stared out into the pigpen. The three remained in their embrace, Jared at their side, for a few seconds until Graye kissed the boy on his cheek.

“Now we have family game nights, and go school shopping. Now we look at colleges and plan our Halloween party. Now we look forward to years of Christmases and birthdays, and hundreds of home-cooked meals,” Jackson heard his wife say softly as she hugged them both tighter.

Jackson sighed as he pondered the events that had led him to this point, to this incredibly odd and uncharacteristic wake in front of the foul-smelling pigpen in rural Louisiana. He found himself once again thankful for his beautiful family—all of them. He looked down at the bravest young man he had ever had the privilege of knowing and smiled.

“Now we go home.”

Acknowledgements

It was mere seconds after reading a poem to my wife that she looked at me lovingly and said, “You should write a novel.” A few days later, she presented me with a brand new laptop and a mounting support that continues to this day. Thank you, Bethany. Thank you for going to bed alone on countless nights while I completed, ‘just one more chapter’ of edits. Thank you for reading and re-reading my material when I needed a second opinion. Thank you for acting as an underappreciated editor during the days of self-publishing. But mostly, thank you for being proud of me even when I found it difficult to be proud of myself. The literary world is difficult to navigate at times. I'm incredibly blessed to have you by my side on this incredible journey.

To my mother, Connie and my sister, Tana: Thank you for acting as my original marketing and press release team. You have no idea how powerful your small words of motivation have been. It was as if you could sense the lack of self-confidence in my voice, and were quick to reassure me with every phone call.

My cheeks were literally about to cramp from smiling on the day I received the email from Limitless Publishing welcoming me to the family. Team Limitless is without a doubt the best team to be on—I’m confident in that. Thank you, Limitless, for taking a chance on my writing. I couldn’t be happier. The support and camaraderie has been amazing. This has seriously been one of the most awesome experiences of my life.

To Brooke and Brittany: I could offer you a thousand thank-yous, but it wouldn’t express the depth of my gratitude. You have both been the most loyal of friends, social media marketing buddies, and major sources of support and motivation. Friendship like yours is genuine, lifelong, and something I will never find myself taking for granted. I love you both.

To my high school friend, Melissa: Thank you for not only supporting my work, but taking the time to drive all the way from our hometown for my first book signing. We've been dreaming big since we were country kids in rural Oklahoma. Years from now I expect to continue sharing and supporting each other's dreams. I love you very much, and am thankful to have friends like you in my life.

I have always agreed with the saying, “Without demand, there can be no supply.” Without readers, my stories would live in my mind alone. If you are reading this now, thank you. Thank you for acknowledging my hard work, and for placing enough faith in it to allow it to occupy several hours of your life. I would like to give a special thank you to readers Tina, Tammy, Cassie, Virginia, and Jane. Ladies, your initial support fueled my desire to continue writing.

To my high school English teacher, Mrs. Dorothy Williams: You were a constant source of discipline and integrity. Of course, I didn’t see it then, but I consider myself blessed to have had you in my life when I did. There were several times you had me flustered in your office, but nothing could have slapped the smile from my face the day I received the message from you raving on my work. That message will be something I cherish all my life.

To my friend and colleague, Rita Reeves: Thank you for allowing me to pick your professional brain while I was developing Johnny's character. As a licensed behavioral clinician, your input was priceless and completely appreciated.

Lastly, I would like to thank my roots. To the beautiful people of Elkhart, Eva, Yarbrough, and Guymon: I am humbled by your continuous support. So many wonderful things come from our area of the world that often we tend to forget the wonderful things that remain there. The community I grew up in, my community, has been a foundation of solid support. This invaluable platform has allowed me to live the dream and do so with people I know and love.