Leaping (3 page)

Chapter
4

In
the morning, she startled awake. He'd been holding her for hours, quiet,
the
 
urge
to pee the
only protest in the serenity. But holding her…he couldn't deny…it felt useful.

Life
was still sweet. And he couldn't care enough, desperate as he was to feel it.

Why
had he moved out of the fog? There, it had been painless at least. But now…with
her…oh God…life became tragic once again.

To him…she was
beautiful.
Her
skin, her dark brows, and hair, her sweet lips.
To him, the rise and fall, the thump of
her heart, the way her hands moved in her sleep and she mumbled, and she
quieted becoming aware, again and again…she wasn't alone.

God,
what are you doing to me, he thought more than once, and though he was bitter,
he was not just that, he was asking a question, like a student, like someone
open to learning, and he didn't want that…to learn. He'd quit asking. He'd
quit.

He
held her and that was the thing. He let himself feel her weight, her need. What
was she doing? Who…? He'd seen the indent on her ring finger, he knew it had
been there recently, and for a good while, maybe it belonged there still.

He
was conflicted, and he knew it would make him unstable, and how he'd worked to
quiet the madman…to die to himself.

He
was not a haunted man. The voices had stilled. He had buried them. He had been
counseled…he had listened. It wasn't his fault…surviving…breathing through
it…lasting long enough…to walk away. It wasn't his fault that his words…his
deeds…and he knew all that. It's what he'd say himself to someone else
wrestling with a situation they'd been thrust in…hadn't chosen…wouldn't want.
He'd said that in his pastor's voice, his soothing, shit-filled slide of a
voice, it will all be alright…it matters.

He
just wanted to hold her. That's it. Anything more was impossible. Every word
ready to blow it up…blow them up. She was playing an impossible game. They'd
started with sex. It couldn't be anything more. They were good at
it…compatible. It's what they both lacked…him at least…connection…mindless
driving need…it's what they needed…he did…and she was clawing for it…chirping,
bleating for it, mewling and mooing for it, trying to drain him…like she could.

He
moved from beneath her, went outside and peed in line with the wind. He went
in, shed his clothes, moved to her where she waited on the sofa, pulled her
onto her feet, her eyes soft with deep sleep, he started to undress her,
knocked her hands away and did it himself, hurried, but careful enough for a
man with a hard heart, a hard story, he unbuttoned, unhooked, unzipped, and
tugged until her skin and curves and temptations and secrets were his, for him,
for his eyes. He took her to the windows, to the floor, that soft honey shine,
and her on top and he wanted to feel her weight, he wanted to be crushed. His
fingers dug into her flesh, and his eyes rolled into his head and he took, and
took, and took. And he fell back and she laid over him, a shell of woman, an
armor of woman, and her hair and her limbs sprawled, and he finished, his mouth
open, and against her neck, and his lips gathered slowly to plant a kiss
against the flutter, his breath in her ear, but no words.

Time
dripped from the eaves and they lay on their backs. Not touching.
Staring at the crisscrossed wood above them.
"He was…he
was with you…they…were with you," she said.

It was like mercury had
been shot into his veins, the cold silver running through, slamming into his
heart. The betrayal…stunned him.

Cori
Weston. He looked at her. She was already turned to him, the sympathy,
the
fear in her eyes.

"That's
why," he said.
A set-up.
Nothing
more.
Of course.
The
world…the Godforsaken ruined world.

Chapter
5

"Leave,"
he said. It wasn't difficult. His sense of betrayal…it wasn't hard to ask
her…to demand it.

"Please…please…let
me explain."

"How
did you find me?"

"Alisha,"
she said, still naked, her hair her only covering sitting on the floor still,
and him already standing, dressing.

Double
betrayal…his…tryst…and his sister and she
was
so damn
open with him…this woman…this woman who needed to cover herself.

"You
have to go. Go now. I don't want to see you again. Go now." He found her
clothes, lonely discarded…crumpled…her jeans, her underclothes, her blouse, her
pride. He flung these at her, in her direction, and she made no move, but she
sat there, naked, untied, undone, unholy, unwanted, scab, scar, intrusion.

"Get
out," he said louder, "
get
out," and he
did not know himself, this voice, these movements, "get out."

He
wouldn't run and hope and cower and steal and stealth…she had to go, he went to
the door, then he saw her pan of soup and he went for this and he took it out
on the porch and he threw it and the lid and the pot and the white slash of
soup, and the gray, gray, gray world.

She
came out then, and he waited, hands on the railing, head down. He didn't used
to be this. But now…he was.

She
stepped close to him, and she wore the sweater and clutched the blouse, her
bra, the scarf, and her hair blew over her face, her lovely, lying mouth, her
beautiful, sinful, scheming, conniving eyes. "I want you to meet him. He
talks about you…all the time."

"Get
out. Get the hell out," he said, though she was out, and waiting on the
porch and he wanted to fling her…like the soup.

"I'm
going. I'm leaving…but I'll be there…at the cabin," she said.

Over
this he yelled, "Get away from me," and he stomped into the house and
slammed the door and locked it against her.

His
back on the door, his shoulders, his stomach…his fury.
He went up the stairs, but that wasn't
it…he went to the room he used now, his room and he stood there and walked
there, to the window to make sure…she was going, and she was, stumbling along,
tripping some, rubbing at her eyes, she'd dropped her clothes, she'd left the
pot, the lid, she left…she left.

Chapter
6

He
brooded for two days. He got drunk and told Cori off in the empty house. He
went so deep down the well of self-pity he could barely breathe. He called
Alisha and yelled and Paul got on and told him to deal with it and to shut the
hell up and then nothing.

Oh,
so this was the new approach now. Run him over…then tough love.

He
threw his phone and heard it break apart on the floor…where he'd been with
her…that cunning bitch…that traitorous bitch.

He'd
passed out on the floor. Mrs. Palm found him there the following morning.

"Are you alright
Mr. Staley?" she asked, leaning over him, startling him as he opened his
crusted eyes and tried to focus on her round concerned face.

He
felt shame. Time was…he put others first…he'd cared how he came off…how he
represented…love. Now he struggled to get up. "I'm fine," he mumbled,
then
he rolled onto his knees and defied gravity to
get on his feet. No sooner had he gotten his bearings than he had to run out
the door she'd left open.

The
fresh air was a shock. He leaned over the railing and threw up and the sea
rolled and his stomach with it, but there wasn't much inside him…he hadn't
eaten.

So
he was quiet and sick deep down then. He hoped Alisha was happy, pulling him
back to all the crap, the voices, the feelings, he hoped she was wrecked and
Paul was cursing him while he tried to comfort her. He knew how he'd leaned on
them, but that was Alisha. She'd have it no other way…his enabler. Now she was
trying to get rid of him, trying to move him past it all so she could breathe.
He'd told her to back off, he'd said it and said it…they weren't joined at the
hip…he had a right to feel terrible…to be terrible. He had a right.

When
he calmed some, and he always did eventually, he cleaned up and drove to the
library in town to use the computer. He didn't have Wi-Fi at the house, and
with his phone broken…. He didn't want it. But here, using the library's
technology, he Googled Cori Weston. There were five of them, maybe more, but
she was head of the list…well, she would be. It had been a big story, and there
was her name…linked to his…the dead grandfather…the wounded kid…linked to him.
On the computer…linked forever.

The
intersection of two souls on the beach…orchestrated.
His
sister.
The one he'd leaned on…the only one left...and now…nobody.

He
followed the thread on the boy…story after story. He'd recovered. He was
walking. She was the mother…Cori Weston.

Emotion
opened…a sinkhole, a pit. That kid was walking. He shut it off then. He looked
around, made sure he was alone as he wiped over his face with a shaking hand.

He
hadn't wanted to see the boy. He hadn't wanted it. It was the only way to
control something…and from his core…he'd refused all interviews.

He'd
done his part…all he could…
limited…
pathetic. He'd had
to let go. Or appear to. He had to appear to let go…like he could.

He'd
pulled out of
everything,
quit everything, his work,
his life. Laura. Just quit.
And months in his apartment…then
at Alisha's.
Counseling in another town.
Two
weeks trying to sell the latest technology at a superstore. Then not coming out
of the house again.
Drinking.
Counseling.
Waiting tables.
Drinking.
Anger.
Seclusion.

Now
here, to the house, his grandfather's dream, that's when he'd moved in and he
found…he couldn't move at all, not really, but he was great at pretending to
move. That he could do…on occasion…for brief spells of time.

For a few weeks, they
had loved him, held him up, and he had hidden while they created their idol
that was him…without him, the young pastor who had tried to stand before the
sixteen year old giant wielding an assault rifle…like the Chinese student in
Tiananmen square, before the oppressor's tank he'd stood. Like David of old
standing before Goliath with just a sling. Like Gandalf with the
Balroc
slamming his staff in the path of its
onslaught, "You shall not pass."

They
had said all of those in various articles, not that he read them, but Alisha
did, and that was nearly the same.

They
were tired now, those writers and wielders of laurel wreaths, the cheerers and worshippers
of the courage they'd ascribed him, the superman suit, but there were more
tragedies lining up all the time, and he was pushed to the back of the line
then off the hero's cliff altogether, and those who knew him best were left
with the truth…he was human and distant and no more brave than the next person
working his ideals in a church where boys came to practice walking the
aisle…for Boy Scout week.

Henry
Tulley
was shot first, the proud grandfather watching
his grandson practice from the back row, straight from work. Henry wasn't a
leader, he had too much work to do, , but he came whenever he could, always on
the sidelines of his grandson's life, filling in for a father that never was,
and he'd watched his grand boy carry the flag and march in step, and all the
aisles a boy walked in his life, all-important, and this no different, but
Henry was first, nearest the door when the shooter came in, the first to go,
and that's when they knew, when their heads snapped up, when they looked to the
source of a noise these hallowed halls had yet to hear, for all the sins
confessed, for all the tears cried, it had never heard the pop of an assault
rifle, for all the talk of the blood of Christ and how it cleansed and forgave,
it had never seen that shocking red explosion, that far-flung spill that
quelled the few splatters of communion wine it had witnessed, brighter, bolder
was this spray this spill, warmer, no less life altering, no less
precious…sacred.

Jordan
had met him in the center aisle, but not before James shot two more, the
flag-bearers at the end of the group, Seth
Tulley
and
Aiden Barnes. He paused and boys screamed and yelled and moved behind him, but
Jordan, hands out, kept approaching the shooter, and he recognized him, knew him,
"James," he said, "no…no…don't do this, no, no…."

There was no remorse,
no repentance, but a set look, and James raised the rifle and Jordan dropped
and moved forward on his hands and feet, and more shots over his head and
screaming and like a crazed perversion of himself Jordan made a sound and
closed the gap, and this was the moment, where he reached James and took him
down, and the struggle, God the struggle and finally the rifle pressed on James
neck and Jordan…all his weight pushing that weapon into James' neck, pushing,
pushing against James' wild struggle, pushing down, crushing breath…until he
wasn't moving, until sometime later a voice, an agonized voice, and a hand on
his shoulder pulling him, pulling, telling him to stop, to stop. And he looked
up and it was one of the boys, tears tracking his soft face.
"Stop
Jordan."

He
had strangled James Carson. He was dead. But he didn't stop. "Go on and
wait for the ambulance," he told the boy. He stayed on top of James. He
held the rifle where it was. Minutes later, the sheriff had to pry Jordan's
hands from James' gun.

He
didn't want to let it go…he couldn't on his own.

Back
at his grandfather's house he stood, looking out the door, at the sea. He
wanted to walk into it again, to let it slam against him…but the pot from her
soup…and the lid. He walked out there and gathered these, put the lid on the
pot and holding it by the green handles, he walked some and gathered her
discarded clothes, her bra, and he kept glancing at the sand encrusted cloth
that seemed to make her so intimately real, and he thought of her, he didn't
want to…but he did…and how broken she was…had to be…was…and he neared the
cabin, and went to the porch, and not knowing if she still lived inside, he set
these things on the porch, and he turned away and walked home in the path they
had carved beyond the ocean's reach, and he knew regret to not have those
things in his hands anymore.

He
knew real regret.