Terminal (21 page)

“I will not leave her alone. I will have my say. This is her soul we’re talking about. Only through knowing Jesus can she—”

“Martha,” I interrupted, “if you don’t shut the hell up, so help me God I will shoot you. Right in the fucking head. I don’t care if I stopped Sherm before or not. I’ll do it.”

“Oh my . . .”

She was silent again, and the entire room exhaled in relief. Sheila winked at me and I smiled back. When Oscar’s and Kim’s cigarettes were down to the filter, I collected the butts and snuffed them out. Then I went back to John.

My headache was reaching the crippling point, and the nicotine hadn’t helped much. I winced, rubbing my brow with one hand while keeping the pressure on John with the other. Both my hands were cramping. The tourniquet needed changing again, but I wasn’t sure what to use. I considered Dugan’s chambray work shirt and decided that it didn’t really matter. To be honest, there wasn’t much blood coming from the wound anymore, and I’d relaxed my grip a bit. It was hard to concentrate on John’s situation. Hard to concentrate on anything. I’d never felt more exhausted in my life.

“Your head is hurting, isn’t it, Mr. Tommy?” Benjy observed.

“Yeah. Yeah it is, buddy. Pretty bad.”

“I’ve got aspirin in my pocketbook if you want some,” Kim offered.

“Thanks.”

“You don’t need aspirin,” Benjy insisted. “I can make your head better— and everything else too.”

“I wish you could, Benjy. I wish you could.”

And I did. I wished it more than anything. But I didn’t believe. I thought back to the church, and my rant at God. If He existed, if He could help us by acting through Benjy, then why hadn’t He answered me when I’d asked Him to? Why had He given me cancer to begin with? Maybe Benjy really could help me, but my lack of faith and my concern about what Sherm’s reaction would be if he caught us overrode my urge to try. And I think, deep down inside, even more than those two things, I was afraid of being disappointed once again. I didn’t want God to let me down one more time.

I reached out with my foot, snagged Kim’s pocketbook from the floor, and slid it toward me. Then I rifled through it, found the aspirin, and downed four of them. I tried to ignore the other glimpses of her life inside the bag— birth control pills, cell phone, lipstick, car keys, breath mints, loose change, and pads. It made me feel like I was spying, like I was going through her panty drawer or something. I zipped the purse shut and kicked it back over to her.

“Hey, what about you, Tommy?” Sheila asked. “If Dugan and Roy are right, and this is Stockholm Syndrome, then you might as well finish telling us about you.”

“There’s really nothing to say,” I insisted. “You guys already know about Michelle and T. J.”

“You started to tell your wife about something else when you were on the phone. And Benjy said you were sick, and he’s never been wrong. There’s something wrong, isn’t there? Something more than just this robbery?”

“Like you guys really care? I’m fucking holding you hostage here.”

“I do,” Sheila whispered.

Benjy’s head bobbed up and down. “You’ve got dark stuff inside you, Mr. Tommy. Black shadows. Not like the monster people in Mr. Sherm’s head, but dark just the same. And it’s spreading too.”

I sighed, wondering how to proceed.

Then I opened my mouth and said the words that I’d been unable to say to my wife.

“I— I have cancer.” At a very advanced stage, the doctor’s voice echoed through my head.

“Terminal?” Roy asked.

“Yeah. It’s terminal.” The word sounded like another gunshot. “It’s spreading through my body like crazy. The doctor thinks I’ve got a few weeks at the most. Like I said, John, Sherm, and I got laid off from the foundry, and Michelle and me are already way behind on the bills. This just seemed like a good idea at the time— a way out of it all. A solution. It was like life handed me a real plate of shit, so I might as well make one good thing out of it. Dying of cancer was the downside, but it seemed like there was an upside too, and that was the chance to help my family in ways I’d never have risked before. What was the worst that could happen, you know? If they caught me, I’d be dead soon anyway. That was how I saw it. It didn’t really hit me as to how this would affect Michelle and T. J. until I got here and things went bad. I guess I was cocky. I honestly didn’t think we’d get caught. And I definitely didn’t mean for anyone to get killed.”

I looked down at John, then back up at them all, meeting their eyes. In a way, it felt like I was cheating on Michelle by telling them this.

“Any of you ever hear the song ‘Hard Knock Life’?”

Oscar, Sheila, and Kim nodded. The others stared at me blankly.

“Well, if you’ve heard it, that pretty much sums up my life in a nutshell. It’s a hard knock life.”

“Me and you both,” Sheila agreed. “Believe it.”

“Me too,” Kim said. Oscar nodded along with her.

Sheila I could understand, but I didn’t see it with Kim and Oscar.

“Sounds to me like you two got it made, going to college and shit.”

“You think my life doesn’t suck?” Kim snorted. “I mean sure, maybe I don’t have cancer. That’s horrible, and I’m sorry for you and your family. I really am. I still don’t understand why you did this, but I do feel sorry for you. But I’ve had my share of hard knocks too.”

“Me too,” Oscar said. “Guys like you and Sherm have picked on me and fucked with me since the first grade. I’ve never had a date. I spent prom night jerking off in my bedroom, looking at porn on the Net. How pathetic is that?”

A tear ran down his face as he continued.

“Just once I’d like to have a life. All I do is read and watch TV and play video games and go to school. I’d just like to have a normal life, with some friends, and maybe a girl who liked me and didn’t think I was weird or a geek. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

Kim’s expression was sad and knowing.

“I know how you feel.”

Oscar laughed, but the sound was cruel and bitter.

“How could you know how I feel? You’re beautiful. I bet you had a date to the prom.”

“You might be surprised, Oscar.”

“So then what do you want out of life, Kim?” I asked. “If you could have one thing?”

“Honestly? I just want to find a nice guy. That’s it, plain and simple. A nice guy that would listen to me and take an interest in what I have to say. One that likes my cat and did little things just to show he cared. That’s all it would take to make me happy.”

“I’d formally introduce you to John, but he’s out of it right now. Maybe when he wakes up. He’s a nice guy.”

I laughed a little too long and patted John’s hand gently.

“Tommy.” Roy’s voice was soft, and he spoke slowly.

“Yeah? What’s up, Roy?”

“Tommy—”

“What, Mr. Kirby?”

“Tommy— son, I think your friend is dead.”

That’s not funny, Roy. You better take that shit back right now.”

“John is dead, Tommy,” he repeated.

“Why you want to say some shit like that, man? Why you gotta fuck with me?”

I could hear the desperate tone in my voice, and I hated myself for it. I willed it to go away, but it increased instead as he tried again.

“He’s not breathing, Tommy. He hasn’t been for a while. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Your friend is gone. He’s dead. Look at him, son.”

“Shut the hell up, you old fart. Just shut the fuck up right now!”

“Tommy . . .”

“He’s not dead. You don’t know shit, man. You don’t fucking know, okay?”

“Look at him, Tommy!”

“No! Now knock it off.”

“Look at him.”

“I SAID NO!”

Without thinking about it, I swung the pistol out from me at arm’s length and pointed it at him. Gasping, they all scurried backward, trying to push themselves into the wall, trying to hide behind each other. Roy closed his eyes in fearful resignation. Kim whimpered. Sharon and Dugan cowered close together. Oscar let out a frightened squeal. Only Sheila held her ground. She bent her head and listened while Benjy whispered something in her ear. Then she looked up at me, her face serious.

“Tommy, Benjy says to check his pulse.”

“I don’t need to check his pulse. He’s alive.”

“He’s not breathing.” Roy tried again. “It’s over. How many more people have to die before you let us go, Tommy? Who’s going to be next? Me? Kim? The boy?”

“Don’t start with that shit! I told you to drop it!”

“His chest isn’t moving. What do you think that means, Tommy? That he’s sleeping? Of course not. He’s dead . . .”

Now Sheila interrupted Roy. “Shut up for a minute, Mr. Kirby. Tommy, please. Just do it.”

Before I could reply, a series of coughs rattled my chest. Bloody phlegm and spittle shot out of my mouth and onto John’s shirt, mixing with his own. It looked bright and fresh against his darker, dried stains.

“Tommy, check his pulse.”

I looked at the two of them, mother and son. They seemed so sure, so urgent.

“Please, Mr. Tommy,” Benjy pleaded. “He doesn’t have much longer until he goes to see Jesus. The light is coming. It’s just a little pinprick right now, but it’s getting bigger.”

Something in Benjy’s voice, an honesty that only a child could convey, forced me to calm down. If you have kids, then you know what I’m talking about. I looked into those big, innocent, brown eyes— eyes that should have been home watching cartoons instead of being held hostage in a bank vault, and my heart shattered.

John’s chest wasn’t moving beneath my hand. It probably hadn’t been for a while. I just hadn’t noticed.

“He’s my best friend,” I sobbed. “We grew up together, goddamn it. I’ve known him since we were little kids. It isn’t fair for him to end up like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I always watched his back, kept him out of trouble. And look what I did to him now . . .”

Using his feet, Benjy pushed away from Sheila and scooted across the floor toward me.

“He’s not dead yet, Mr. Tommy.”

Hunched over, I pressed my lips to John’s cold forehead— and froze. A soft puff of air, so slight that I almost missed it, escaped his lips. Quickly, I put my fingers to his throat.

“He’s breathing. Barely . . . but there’s no heartbeat. He’s still breathing but I can’t find a pulse.”

I felt a weak flutter beneath my fingertips, then nothing. I checked again for another breath, but all that came out of his gaping mouth was a small trickle of blood.

“Oh Christ! Come on, John— breathe.” I pounded on his chest in frustration. “Breathe man.”

“Mr. Tommy, I can help him, but we have to do it now. He’s almost to Jesus. He’s on his way, now. The light is getting brighter.”

He’s on his way now! Look out! Jesus H. Christ, here he comes! Coming at an alarming rate!

“Mr. Tommy!”

I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“I can’t, Benjy. If Sherm comes back in here and finds your hands untied . . .”

“Then you’ve got to stall him,” Sheila insisted. “Benjy only needs a minute or two.”

“She’s right, Tommy,” Roy said. “We’ve all heard what the child can do. I’ve felt it myself, and I know that you saw it. You believe, whether you want to admit it or not. And even if you don’t, isn’t your friend’s life worth the chance?”

John’s face was completely drained of color. His skin looked like snow.

Snow . . .

One winter, when we were about ten years old, school got canceled one day because of a snowstorm the night before. John and I spent the day with some other kids, sledding down the big hill on the outskirts of town, the same hill I’d gone to the afternoon I was diagnosed with cancer. At the bottom of the hill was a short grassy strip, littered with beer bottles and fast-food bags, and beyond that, the road leading from Hanover to Spring Grove. Not a major road, but busy just the same. Truckers used it as a shortcut between towns, rather than taking the highway.

The storm had dumped about two inches of sleet on top of the snow, so the hill was one big mountain of solid ice. Kids were flying down it at breakneck speeds, turning their sleds at the last moment to avoid going out into the road. All except for John . . .

He’d done it on a dare. A stupid dare. Richie Wagaman had called him a pussy— told him that he didn’t have the balls to ride his sled straight across the road and into the field on the other side without stopping to look for traffic. Rich bet him a House of Pain cassette (remember, we were kids and House of Pain was still the bomb back then). John looked down the hill, glanced up both sides of the road, saw that there was no traffic coming, and took the bet. I pulled him aside and tried talking him out of it, but unlike he usually did, John wouldn’t listen to me this time. Instead, he just stared at Richie and his friends, clustered together and calling him a pussy, laughing to each other and any girl within earshot about how chicken shit John was.

The next thing I knew, John ran to the edge, threw the sled down, jumped onto it (landing on his belly), and rocketed down the hill like a runaway train. Kids were cheering and shouting— and then we all heard it at the same time, the loud blast of a truck horn.

The Department of Transportation’s dump trucks had been out early, covering the roads with salt and cinders, but all that did was make them slicker. There was a hiss of air brakes as the trucker tried to stop, and then the back end of the trailer began to fishtail, taking up both sides of the road. I tried to scream but my breath caught in my throat as John shot across the grass and directly into the path of the jackknifed truck. Time seemed to slow down then, just as it had done on the morning of the robbery. The truck slid toward John, John flashed across the road, and the truck slid on by and crashed into a snowbank, sending brown snow and cinders and dirt flying high into the air. The cloud obscured everything, and there was dead silence from the kids on the top of the hill.

The cloud settled, and the trucker clambered out of his cab, unhurt but shaking an angry fist. There was still no sign of John . . .

And then we saw him, clambering off his sled and waving at us from the other side of the road. I’ll never forget how my panic dissolved, how grateful I was to see him at that instant. To see him alive— there in the snow.

Alive . . .

I knew what I had to do.

“Benjy, come here.”

He finished sliding over to me, his eyes alert and urgent.

“How can you— make him better? What do you need to do?”

“I need to touch him, Mr. Tommy. I have to put my hands where that other man shot him.”

The thought of Benjy’s little hands touching that bloody mess made my stomach turn. Not to mention the image of what Sherm would do if he came back and caught us.

“Couldn’t you touch him with your head or your foot or something? Maybe rest your forehead on his?”

“No, Mr. Tommy. It has to be with my hands. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it always works.”

I took a deep breath, glanced down at John, and focused on Benjy.

“Okay. I’m going to take the tape off your wrists. But Benjy, you’ve got to promise me that you won’t try to get away. If you do, I don’t know what Sherm might do. He could get very, very angry and we don’t want that to happen right now. You were right about him. He might be sick too. I don’t want him to hurt your mommy or any of these other people. So you can’t run away, okay?”

“Okay.” He nodded. “I promise, Mr. Tommy. I just want to help. I’m good at helping.”

“All right,” I agreed. “Hold still. This might hurt a little.”

I ripped the duct tape from his thin wrists as carefully but as quickly as possible. He gritted his teeth and I could tell that it hurt him, but he didn’t make a sound. Just like T. J. would have done. He rubbed his wrists and gave me a reassuring wink. It seemed absurd, this little boy trying to reassure the bank robber who was holding his mother and him captive. But I took comfort in it. Maybe that was part of his power— not just healing people, but also making them feel better in general. Then he knelt over John, placing his palms on the bloody wound.

“I’ll make it all better.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I believe you.”

And I did. I actually did. For the first time in my life, I believed in something other than my wife and my son. I’d demanded that God prove himself to me. I’d expected it immediately, but maybe this was more His style.

While Benjy got started, I crept to the vault doorway and listened. There was silence on the other side. I thought again of that strange, muffled thumping I’d heard earlier and wondered what it had been. It occurred to me that we hadn’t heard a peep from Keith or Lucas since Sherm had taken them away. Keith was right across the hall. Shouldn’t we have heard from him? And where was Sherm? I craned my head around the corner, trying to eavesdrop, but the only sound was the blood ringing in my ears. What the hell was going on?

As if in answer to my question, I heard the faint but unmistakable trickle of piss hitting toilet water, followed seconds later by a long fart. At least I now knew where Sherm had gone and what he was doing. But then it hit me. Sherm had also told me that he locked Lucas inside the bathroom and squirted glue in the lock. So was it Sherm or the delivery driver I heard now? There was no way to be sure. Had Sherm lied, and if so, why?

I glanced back over my shoulder. Benjy’s eyes were closed and he rocked back and forth, still holding his hands over the bullet’s entry point. The others craned their heads forward, focusing on him, absolutely transfixed by what they were seeing.

I don’t know what we expected. Maybe we’d seen too many movies or read too many novels. There was no glow, no heat, and no blinding flash of white light. Trumpets didn’t sound and no heavenly chorus appeared before us. But one thing did happen. Immediately, John’s chest began to rise and fall. His breathing was harsh, ragged— but his lungs were working again and that was all that mattered.

I’d gotten the proof that I’d demanded. I believed.

And in that newfound belief, I was both exhilarated and terrified.

“Jesus . . .” Oscar breathed.

“This is— I’ve never seen anything like it,” Kim gasped.

Down the hall, a toilet flushed. Whoever was in the bathroom, Sherm or Lucas, was finishing his business. I reached down, scooped up the torn duct tape that had bound Benjy’s hands, wadded it into a ball, and stuffed it in my pocket.

“Sharon, there’s only the one bathroom in this place, right?”

She didn’t take her eyes off Benjy and John. “Umm, yeah. The one down the hall. It’s the fourth door past Keith’s office, next to the janitor’s closet. That’s all.”

“That’s what I thought. Okay, everybody listen to me carefully. Whatever happens, we can’t let Sherm find out about this. He’ll go ape shit if he sees that I freed Benjy. Even worse, I don’t know what he’d do if he figures out about Benjy’s— power. If he even believes in it, that is.”

“You think he’d try using the boy as a bargaining chip, don’t you?” Roy asked, still watching the miracle unfolding before our eyes.

“It’s a possibility. Shit, it’s more than a possibility. So I’m going to stall Sherm. I’ve let him bum rush this whole thing and it’s time I took it back. Keep an ear out for us and keep quiet for fuck’s sake. If I can’t keep him in one of the other rooms, I’ll start coughing really loud. If you hear that, it’s your signal to get back into your positions. Sheila, if that happens, you’re going to have to do your best to keep Benjy’s hands hidden. Everybody clear?”

They nodded in unison, all except for Benjy.

“Benjy, do you understand, buddy?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he pressed down harder. I caught a glimpse between his fingers and saw something that looked like flesh-colored cheesecloth. It appeared as if John’s skin was growing, knitting itself back together over the wound in weblike strands.

“He can’t hear you when he’s like this,” Sheila explained. “He goes into a trance or something. But I’ll make sure.”

“Okay.”

John’s breathing was audible by then, and more regulated.

I wanted to stay and watch, wanted it more than anything in the world, but I couldn’t. Instead, I took a deep breath, felt my lungs wheeze in response, and walked out into the hall. I felt helpless and powerless. The desk plaque from Charlie Strauser’s office back at the foundry flashed through my head.

“I have gone out to find myself,” I whispered. “If I should get here before I return, please hold me until I get back.”

Then, even softer, I added, “Peace out.”

The door to Keith’s office was closed. There was a slim window in the door and I could see that the lights inside the office were off. I knew that Sherm must have turned them off, rather than the cops cutting the power on us, because the lights in the vault and the lobby still worked. I turned and looked back. From this spot, even if Sherm were standing directly in front of the vault, John and Benjy would be hidden from view since they were in the corner.

I paused, listening. In the bathroom, somebody was washing his hands. Outside, the police called out to one another and their radios crackled with garbled orders and updates. A big part of me wanted to turn left, walk out into the lobby with my hands up in the air, and keep going straight out the door, staring down the barrels of a hundred rifles. Maybe they’d shoot me, and maybe not. What did it matter? I was dead already. I’d seen Benjy’s power, and I knew that it worked. But even if Benjy cured me, without Michelle and T. J. in my life, I would be dead inside anyway.