Late Summer Thunder J. Jacen De La Garza
Late Summer Thunder
J. Jacen De La Garza
LATE SUMMER THUNDER
The unexpected cool of the breeze stirred him from his thoughts. Dragging deeply on a cigarette he shouldn’t be smoking on the roof of the two-story Colonial where he was raised he looked out at the city. The chrome of his Zippo lighter gleamed in the sun even as the sky darkened.
He brought his family by for a visit after a day spent at the zoo so that his parents could see the kids. Sam excused himself to make a call and get out of sight for a quick smoke. It was something his family thought he no longer did.
Another cool gust came rushing down the hill toward him and the thick, earthy smell of rain followed. Thunder rolled heavily from over the horizon. On the breeze the sound of the first few raindrops of a deluge made their way. A storm was rolling in, it was one of his favorite forces of nature although this time he found it easy to ignore. It was almost identical to another afternoon, more than twenty years before.
Back Then
Sam dragged a match along the rough asphalt roof shingles and produced the familiar phwoosh of a match at ignition. He brought the flame to the tip of the cigarette and dragged deep on the unfiltered Camel. He was fifteen years old that summer and celebrated the milestone by sneaking smokes on the roof. His perch not only provided solace and a secure area to break the no smoking laid down by his parents but it also afforded a truly spectacular view of downtown.
The familiar skyline stood out against a backdrop of the summer sky rapidly becoming angry from the South. Watching storms roll across the sky from up here was one of the spoils of summer and this was shaping up to be a good one. He took another puff and realized he left his bike at the pool.
The neighborhood was an older one. Back in the forties a group of neighbors decided to construct a pool and open membership to residents. Well constructed as things were back then and monstrous, it had weathered the test of time admirably and looked much as it did on opening day all those years ago. There were not many children in the neighborhood and his family was the only one with kids under fifty. It was a good setup. Most of the old folks that made up the bulk of the pool’s membership were gone by nightfall and during the hot part of the day they were mostly nonexistent. It made for a great place to laze around and waste the short lived gift that is youth.
Earlier he and his brother were swimming when they heard the sound of gravel gnashing beneath the weight of a vehicle. Someone was pulling up the driveway. Sam looked at his brother and then at the two cans of stolen Lone Star beer sweating in the August breeze. The two froze with fear. The cinderblock building that housed the restrooms and showers also held an ice machine, a freezer and an ancient bullet shaped fridge stocked to the gills with beer. They had been pretty slick in the past and were never caught sneaking those beers, but there was a note on that fridge that proved they had been found out, the threat of retribution: TERMINATION OF POOL MEMBERSHIP. Punishment to be levied on the guilty party. The guilty party being Sam and his brother.
The shuffling of footsteps stopped at the locked gate. They both knew they had finally been caught. In a short time one of the ranks of angry old pool members would storm in with a comical “AHA!” and they would be finished, but instead of hearing the click of an opening padlock they heard the rattling of the chain link fence that secured the property.
“SAMUEL!” A voice sounding strained and comically low flowed from the gate.
“SAMUEL! We know you have stolen our beer, and our assorted ointments and pills!”
It was an immediately recognizable voice. It was his best friend, it was Tony.
“Let me in, Sam.”
“Open the gate Stevie” said Samuel to his brother who had resumed swimming laps as the danger of being found sneaking beer had passed.
“No.” He replied backstroking calmly.
“Hop the fence.” Yelled Samuel, he paddled over to the corner of the shallow end so he could see his friend at the gate.
“You hop the fence.” Tony said flatly.
“Hang on.”
Sam hauled himself up and out of the pool, he made his way to the table to grab his towel and take a slug of that frosty can of Lone Star that could have resulted in TERMINATION OF POOL MEMBERSHIP.
He opened the gate and his friend moved through in a flurry of hand slaps and insults. Sam sat down and Tony went to the fridge and reappeared with more beer.
“You know,” said Sam. “I really need to get these old bastards to start drinking better beer.”
“First the beer is free, Second, Lone Star is great beer and third shut your yap.”
Tony smiled and nodded at Sam knowing it would get a rise out of him. It did, but Tony couldn’t take it anymore and burst out laughing. Sam joined grudgingly.
It was one of those summer days when their youth and their freedom was at a peak. The kind of day Sam knew, even way back then, that he would reminisce about in his older and inevitably, fatter future. Sam’s little brother got out of the pool and toweled off. He walked over and slapped hands.
“I am going to head home, and no I will not come back and get your bike.” He said anticipating What Sam would ask him to do. Sam let it slide.
“Tell mom I’ll be home later and I’m hanging out with Tony.” said Samuel.
“Nope.” Replied his brother.
“You’re an ass but I still love you.”
“Not taking your bike, Sam.”
“We found you in an alley and you owe me for not letting the dog catcher drown you.”
His younger brother’s final reply was a trailing middle finger as he made his way out.
Tony and Sam were a strange mix. They met when seated next to each other in a fourth period math class at Longfellow Middle School, the same school adjacent to the pool. High school sent them on different paths, but later they met again when Tony unexpectedly appeared in Sam’s biology class.
Tony was the ring leader. He had his driver’s license and a way with the girls; he was smooth as glass and he had only to flash a sly smile to get his way. Lately he had been different. Sam attributed the changes in behavior to the strain of losing his father. Confusion and anger had begun to peek out from behind the façade of bravado and candor he displayed to the world. Tony’s dad was a good man, and commanded respect. Menacing and friendly at once he valued his family above all else. He was also an extremely hard worker, he would take double shifts for city public service then come home and stay up late help to help Tony with his homework.
He had a sixty’s cool that he wore without trying. From the greased hair he fashioned into a ducktail obsessively with a small black comb, to being outside every Sunday afternoon in the driveway with Tony, wrenching on a very special 1968 Camaro SS.
Chevy Orange with Black stripes.
When Sam met Tony again in high school he was still the same old Tony but a piece of him was gone. During the time they weren’t in touch Tony’s dad was killed on the job in an accident involving laying hands on a hot cable full of lightning during a thunderstorm. The utility settled out of court and he and his mother, Margo, came into some money. She bought a truck for Tony when he was fifteen and parked it in the driveway until he was legal to drive it.
The truck was flawless. The paint, a bottomless pool of obsidian, it draped the frame in midnight. The roll bar, awash in a blaze of glimmering chrome it hurt to look at. The Chevy Z-71 step side sat commandingly astride classic Cragar mag wheels wrapped in oversized rubber. Power tore through the dual exhaust erupting in a blistering roar of the deepest tenor.
All this and yet for Tony it was no comfort. Some days he could hardly look at it. It wasn’t his vehicle, that is, it wasn’t the vehicle he was supposed to have. The fact was that he just couldn’t ignore the pain caused by the senselessness of it all and decide he would let it go.
His heart ached for the past. For him the car was his father, made manifest in a simple mode of transport, truly greater than the sum of its well maintained parts and that made it special.
That made it very special.
The sorrow of his loss went deep down into the place where memories of Sunday afternoon with his father, and with the car, dwelled. It was in this place his heart ached. He would never wake to see that very special 1968 Camaro SS, Chevy Orange with black stripes at home in the driveway of the house his parents bought the month he was born.
The reason he would never see that car only made it worse.
Money talks, but speaks entirely in farewells, an unfortunate truism in Tony’s case.
Soon after his father’s death his mother developed a debilitating heroin addiction and burned through the settlement money. It was a panicked and failed attempt to kill her own pain, losing her husband and the father of her only child. The absence of her harmony, he was her opposite but equal. It was too much for her. Along her spiral through the numbing depths of nothingness she met Marcos. One of his first contributions to the family was a monthly disability check, after that came the methamphetamine and domestic violence.
A few weeks later Marcos handed the pink slip of the Camaro to his drug dealer to settle a five hundred dollar debt.
It was the last thing Tony had. It was his birthright, and now it, just like his father, was gone forever.
Now
The big pecan tree in the backyard rattled its papery dry leaves to bathe in the rich, damp perfume of rain. The hollow rustling sound was comforting because it sounded like home. It had been a while since Sam sat on the roof staring at the city. It had been even longer since he let these memories come back without blocking them instinctively. Memories of the day he went to the pool to retrieve a bicycle and found much more than he could have ever imagined.
A gust howled though the treetops causing him to shiver, his skin immediately reacted in a rash of goose bumps. Twenty years had passed in a blink of an eye and he marveled at the strange concept of the perception of time.
He allowed himself to be taken back, to his friend, to the pool and to the night of the storm.
Back Then
Lightning pulsed in the distance. By the time Sam made it over to the pool, the sunny warmth of day had succumbed to the cool, dark pull of night. A ten foot high chain link fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the pool which sat on a pie shaped lot facing away from the street. What would have been an eyesore was made beautiful by the planting of honeysuckle along the fence line many years before. By August it became a solid wall of perfection in bloom. That year was no exception. The heady floral scent mixed with that of the rain’s sweet promise possessed the intoxicating effect of an opiate.
Sam closed his eyes and followed the bouquet in the magnificent colorful darkness you can only see with your eyes closed. The sound of his footsteps along the crushed gravel driveway gave way to the soft swish of cool, emerald green grass. Each blade spread wide and full in thirsty anticipation of the rain it somehow sensed was coming. Sam reached out his hand and opened his eyes. There he stood in front of the gate; in his hand the padlock. He knew this place well, even with his eyes closed.
He clapped his hands over his front pockets then his back.
Damn, no keys.
He remembered taking them out and setting them on the kitchen table, one of those well intentioned time savers that usually wind up costing time in the end. No matter, he had jumped the fence before, but getting the bike over the fence, well the devil’s in the details of course.
After a quick look around to make sure the coast was clear he unbuttoned his jeans and stripped down to his boxers, he draped the Levi’s over the fence to cover the barbs and climbed over. He dropped down on the other side and dressed. Against a mesquite tree his bike waited to be taken home before being left out in the rain…again. He wheeled it around and contemplated the least destructive way to heave it over the fence.
As he walked the bike poolside he heard what he thought at first was an animal close by and in the darkness. He heard it again, though this time it was different, was it a person? A sob or a gasp from between the picnic tables under the covered patio by the ice machine and the ancient fridge helped him zero in on what it was. Sam stood motionless, he gripped the handlebars vise-like, and he strained in the dark to see what it was. A flash of lightning illuminated a scene he would never forget. In that instant of brilliance he saw Tony, wilted against the cinderblock wall, a wall adorned with poorly drawn tropical fish, an equally uninspired coral reef and a list of pool rules.
Rule 1: No running.
Tony locked eyes with Sam for a tiny slice of time and yet they conveyed years of emotion. Tired and haunted then cold and vacant, his tears reflected in trails that glistened down his face that changed into a blank and unreadable canvas. There appeared to be blood on his shirt even though it seemed like an irregular shaped oil spot on his chest. He was holding something or resting his head on something, was it a beer? Sam couldn’t make it out, but another flash of electricity lighting the sky removed all doubt.
Tony held in his hand and rested his head on model 1911 Colt .45 automatic, and he saw blood, it was blood on his shirt. The irregular shaped stain that should have been an oil spot was blood and what should have been a frosty can of Lone Star stolen from the big bullet shaped refrigerator was a cold steel firearm he pointed at his brain from beneath his chin.
The gun was alien but immediately familiar. Earlier in the day they were hit with that insatiable hunger that goes hand in hand with a day of swimming. The two hopped in the truck and decided on Whataburger. Tony turned the key and three hundred ponies rumbled to life.
“Reach under the seat for me.” said Tony and flashed a trademark Cheshire grin.
Sam fumbled under the seat and after blindly handling an empty coke can and some cigarette packs he happened upon something cold, heavy and out of the ordinary. His hand curled naturally around the handle of the aforementioned weapon.
Sam was in awe.
“Where did you get THIS?” He managed, looking stupidly at the gun then at Tony and back to the gun.
“I lifted it from Asshole.” (This meant Marcos, his step father). “He and my mom went over to their friend’s house for the next three days, but never mind them, how about that piece huh?” Tony relished the rush of clean, pure satisfaction his act of rebellion had afforded him.
It was the same gun.
The flash of lightning was gone punctuated by a clap of thunder. It was the same gun, but a different Tony. Sam tried, but found no words. He was frozen, locked in disbelief and confusion that left him dumbstruck.
Tony spoke first.
“Oh man Sammy what have I done?” He croaked. “I’m gonna end it man, I’ve lost everything. I have to end it right?” Tony began rocking back and forth against the cold cinderblock wall but now kept the gun pointed at his chest.
“What have you done, Tony?” Finally words had come to him. He eased the bike down and started toward his friend but Tony stiffened up and put the gun back under his chin.
“Don’t come near me, Sammy, really stay the fuck away.”
The look in his eyes was something completely unreal. They were vacant like fish eyes, nothing there.
Sam had a cousin that raised pit bulls. One dog, Bully, was the meanest of them all. Sam would later ask his cousin what ever happened to Bully.
“Turned on me,” his cousin explained. “One day Bully turned, and I knew right then I had to put him down.” It was the look in that dog’s eyes that scared him the most.
“They were like fish eyes,” he explained to Sam, “nothing there”.
It was that lack of humanity now in his best friend’s eyes that chilled him. Heavy drops of rain fell fatly on Sam’s head and the goose bumps brought him back.
“I just want to get out of the rain Tony, can I? It’s me man, it’s me.”
Tony motioned with the barrel of the gun for Sam to sit and he carefully, deliberately obliged. Tony let out a deep breath that hitched toward the end and wiped his eyes, then stared down the barrel of the gun.
“I would never hurt you man, you know that. Just give me a couple of minutes, I wasn’t expecting to see anyone here tonight.” Tony put his head back against the wall and looked up at nothing. More of the hitching breathing followed and he seemed to relax. Lighting flashed and lit them up again. Framed by the backdrop of the painted fish and pool rules Sam could make out the next rule carefully painted on the cinderblock wall.
Rule 2: Never swim alone.
Sam figured he would ask another question. “I didn’t see the truck out front, did you walk here?”
“The truck is around a phone pole up on Quill Street,” answered Tony matter of factly. “I hit the curve too fast and spun it right into the pole. I wound up here because I didn’t know where else to go. I’ve always loved it here; I thought it was a good place to do…this.” he said holding up the gun. There in the dark as the rain fell, Sam could feel his friend Tony filtering back into the stranger the he had found sitting against the wall that reminded him of that dog with the sinister fish eyes, the pit bull named Bully.
He could talk him out of it.
Sam knew he just had to bring him all the way back and it would be like it was before. They could be those no good kids who stole cans of beer from the bullet shaped refrigerator at the neighborhood pool and shamelessly continued to waste their adolescence. But deep down a sense of dread, a small knot of leaden weight grew larger. It belied the untruth he so desperately wanted to believe. The untruth that everything would be okay and that everything could go back to normal.
“Is that where the blood is from?” Said Sam, pointing to what should have been an oil spot on Tony’s shirt “Come on man, you can get it fixed, your truck can be fixed, you don’t have to do all this.”
Even as the words left his lips he knew that this had nothing at all to do with the truck.
Now
In the sky a white bolt of plasma spread delicate fingers gracefully down from the clouds. First white then blue and finally purple, they flickered gone and back again as they touched the earth. The massive oaks and pecans on the property stretched and groaned in the wind. Sam produced another smoke from his beaten up soft pack he kept hidden from everyone and struck another match. He watched the soft orange flame flicker, breathing in deep the hint of sulfur, welcoming the burn like an old friend. The wind extinguished the flame and pulled the blue smoke tendrils of the little match’s life along with it. Today’s storm was still miles out, but that night they were right in the middle of it.
Back Then
The patio at the pool was covered by corrugated metal. It wasn’t the best place to be during a thunderstorm, a fact not lost on Sam but it didn’t seem they were going to be leaving anytime soon so he tried to relax. The snare drum raindrops on the metal roof steadily evolved into a barrage of bullets fired from the clouds. The lightning and thunder, shells fired from some far off celestial artillery
“Why should I even care about her Sam? Why?”
The sudden burst snapped Sam out of his rain induced lull.
“She…when dad died she died too. Not right after, but you weren’t there man. You didn’t see her change like that. My mom was a fucking junkie man, a fucking drugged up…” The shouted, and sobbed words poured painfully from his friend. “My mom you hear me, my mother turned into this. When she.” Tony stopped his thought mid sentence.
Sam straightened up, he didn’t catch it at first, but he replayed what was said and he thought he heard Tony say his mom WAS a junkie, but shouldn’t he have said she IS a junkie, the way one references the living?
Tony sensed Sam make the connection and put the gun back under his chin. Tony was receding like the tide, and Bully was rearing his ugly fish-eyed head again.
“What Sammy? You think it, right? My best friend right?” asked Tony through that same Cheshire grin but this time it was twisted and pained. To Sam it was teetering on the brink of frightening.
“You think I did it? You? My best friend, you think I did it? You think I killed her?”
Tony explained what brought him there that night.
It wasn’t at all what Sam had expected.
How Tony Arrived at the Pool
After feasting on Whataburger and dropping Sam off at home (minus his bike), Tony reluctantly turned toward home. That weekend he would have the house to himself for at least a couple of days while his parents binged for the weekend. He realized he was mistaken when he turned the corner onto his street. He saw his mom’s car in the driveway, passenger and driver side doors ajar, and as he pulled into the driveway he heard the engine running.
Mr. Sosa, the neighbor, was on his porch in his boxers and a robe. He shook his head disapprovingly as Tony got closer.
“They are fighting pretty bad, I was going to call the police but…”
“That’s okay Mr. Sosa I’ll take it from here, I think I hear your wife calling you.” Tony smiled awkwardly and tried to lend some sense of normalcy to the scene. It was a scene becoming increasingly common and steadily more violent.
They both flinched as something heavy and fast moving crashed inside the house.
The last time Tony ever opened the front door of the home his mother and father bought the month he was born, he found Marcos on top of his mother strangling her. He saw her eyes roll back and her tongue slowly protrude further and further from her blue lips. Tony lunged and knocked Marcos off her. She gasped and choked swears at Marcos, not for nearly killing her but for not having enough money to finance their weekend binge. Tony stared at her in disbelief, he didn’t see Marcos shaking off the hit and get to his feet.
Marcos was not a small man, about six foot and two-fifty, he used his full heft when he shoved Tony into the wall. He then went back to throttle his victim again. Tony had seen this type of behavior from the adults in his life before, but this time it was a bit more vicious. This time it was just a bit too much and this time something inside Tony snapped.
He ran out to the truck and grabbed the Colt. He hesitated a moment and admired the density and weight of the gun had in his hand.
It felt good.
He turned and walked into the house through the wide open front door. Marcos had resumed the beating but this time he was expecting Tony. He released the woman and came straight for him. Marcos knew his stepson wouldn’t pull the trigger, Tony knew it too. He intended to chamber a round dramatically to get him to stop and at least think about what was happening but before he could, Marcos knocked the gun from his hand. They both watched it sail behind the couch and hit the floor. It skidded heavily on the linoleum and into an unseen corner of the kitchen. Tony turned to look back at Marcos but instead of seeing his stepfather he saw the dull green luster of an immense marble ashtray coming to kiss him on the temple.
God he hated that they smoked in the house.
A flash of red, then white and Tony fell to the floor.
Deep and dizzying throbbing brought Tony back to reality. It was in his head, a strong rhythmic thud that slowly came to life in a mash up of pain, haze and nausea. He sat up blinking and his hand went instinctively to his head.
Damn.
There was a knot the size of a golf ball on his temple and it hurt bad. His senses returned and he realized the thudding in his head wasn’t the only one he heard. He looked around and surmised it was coming from the bathroom. He made his way to his feet. There in the corner the .45 lay where it had come to rest. He picked it up almost blacking out by bending down, only the pounding in his head kept him anchored to reality.
He walked down an orange strip of filthy shag carpet lining the hallway to the bathroom. All the while the sound grew louder, and more ominous, echoing in the small house. Tony pushed the door open with the barrel of the gun.
Aggressive and unrelenting realization spread over his body like fever.
Marcos was slamming Margo’s head into the bottom of the tub. Tony’s first inclination was to stop him, until he saw that Marcos had been here for a while, and he’d been busy. Blood was everywhere, it streamed down the shower wall, it pooled underneath her, Marcos was covered in it. His mother lie dead in a bath tub beaten to death by a man she chose to fill the void left by a husband God had taken from her and there was nothing he could do, he was too late. Tony looked away from the horror. He looked anywhere, at the floor, at the toilet and then at his hands and then at the gun, it was instinctive, he knew then what had to be done.
Tony moved without effort almost floating.
Without any conscious thought, the muscles in his legs pushed and pulled his body into the room. Taut bundles of red fiber brought the bones of his arm up and tensed the muscle of his trigger finger. Marcos, with a stupid look of surprise and fear turned and opened his mouth to scream but before he could Tony jammed the cold steel weapon into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The Colt barked hot fire and lead justice into the head of that man.
A tepid and bloody spray blossomed on the white tile of the shower, a second coat of red on the already gruesome scene. Some of what had previously been Marcos’ brain splattered, soft and warm, on Tony’s face.
The pace of Tony’s breathing leveled out. He rubbed his fingers down his swollen brow then down his cheek. He looked at the remnants of brain and bone, rolling the little bits and pieces between his thumb and forefinger. It was done.
No going back.
********
The lightning and peal of thunder were simultaneous; the ground shook under the billowing, raucous midnight sky as clouds heaved and swirled; reaching into the night. It was coming down hard and fast and the lower lying areas near the horseshoe pits and the big BBQ smoker were flooding, the pool appeared to boil in the downpour. It had been raining like this for over an hour. Behind them the sound of something massive and heavy slammed into metal and it groaned under the strain. Sam jumped up to see what it was then looked back at his friend.
“Will you be okay?” he asked.
“I’m good as I can be, go see what it was, Sammy.” Tony never looked up as he spoke.
The monolithic trunk of an oak tree had washed down the creek and slammed into the barrier of the low water crossing on the opposite side of Sunshine Drive. The guardrail gave way and it barreled into the rail on the other side, the tree trunk now blocked the road. The orange glow of the arc sodium street light reflected in the churning, foamy storm water. It rose around the log causing an immense wave to form in front of it. The old oak must have fallen into the creek before and the night’s rain broke it loose from its temporary resting place sending it downstream. Lee’s Creek was usually dry but even after a little rain it would swell and overtake the street creating a very dangerous situation. A black Impala came down the road and stopped to judge the severity of the condition. The road was impassable and Sam heard the transmission clunk into reverse illuminating the rain slicked street with backup lights. The long black car idled into the driveway of the pool that was situated just before the low water crossing and turned around in search of an alternate route.
Sam turned to report what he had seen when the sky went painfully white and immediately an otherworldly green as transformers blew simultaneously around the neighborhood. He covered his ears as the thunder exploded through the night. The orange street light went dark and all was quiet save the roar of the water around the oak tree that blocked the street and the constant pounding of the rain.
In the street the guardrail buckled under the weight of oak and water. The tree trunk was free to travel down the creek clearing the street.
The headlights of another car played through the honeysuckle that hid the pool from view as it slowly cruised down Sunshine Drive. He heard the car stop at the low water crossing. Although Sam kept his eye on Tony he kept his ear on the progress of the car. The wipers slish-sloshed back and forth across the windshield like a timer on the decision being made by those inside the car. Sam expected he would hear the shift of a transmission finding reverse bringing the car into the driveway as the Impala had moments ago. But that driver had a streetlamp to light the water roiling around the mangled metal guardrail and the tree trunk. Now without the obstacles in the water to break it up and the added danger of the darkness caused by the power outage, the water flowed smooth and black across the road.
Deceptively placid, the powerful and unseen hand of God moved over the street that night, unbridled and unchecked.
As he sat there listening he noticed that Tony was also aware and listening intently to the drama playing out in the street. The sound of the wipers and the metallic chattering idle of the little car had drawn them in despite all that had happened that evening. Neither spoke, they chose to sit there in a tempest and just listen.
Samuel was going to pitch the idea of Tony turning himself in when the little car accelerated into the torrent. The car made it a few feet and the result was instant; the small engine was drowned and stalled. They both sprang to their feet and dashed to the fence. In the air a scream, a cry for help barely managed to distance itself from the roar of water, below it and smaller, another voice was heard.
Was it a child’s?
Sam began scaling the fence without thinking. By the time he was negotiating the barbed wire, Tony had already hit the ground running on the other side.
“Get to your house and call for help!” yelled Tony over his shoulder.
The car was sliding sideways as the unstoppable wall of water quickly became a cresting wave against the small yellow hatchback.
There was no time to think. Sam had to cross the creek to get to his house. Between the pool and the middle school the city had built a concrete wash. At its narrowest it was about eight feet across. He would have to jump across. He looked down, it was usually a six foot drop to the floor of the drainage ditch. Tonight it was flowing by maybe six inches from the top, a thought that quelled any fear of heights but terrified him at the thought of coming up short on the jump. Sam looked and saw Tony yelling to the driver, a woman in her late fifties with pink curlers in her hair. He could pick out some of what she was frantically trying to explain. Her granddaughter was in the passenger seat and neither of them could swim. Tony was trying to calm her down even as the car edged closer to the point of no return. Lightning flashed and he could see Tony glaring at him.
“GET MOVING!” yelled Tony.
Sam took a step back, uttered a prayer, and pushed with all he had across the chasm. Beneath him in an odd and somehow slow motion, thousands of gallons of blackness passed silently. As the sky again lit up he could see his reflection, frozen in that instant, free from gravity. He landed half on and half off the other side. Immediately the water grabbed him trying violently to pull him in, the unseen hand searched for a better grip but lost him. He freed himself, stood up and looked back. Tony had waded into the water and was trying to get the woman to hand him the little girl.
Late summer thunder rolled overhead in the darkness.
He rounded the corner at Quill Street trying to decide if it would be quicker to just run to the fire station. Engine number twenty seven was only a few blocks up Hillcrest. As he crossed Quill his heart skipped a few beats. Down the long narrow street he saw the unmistakable red and blue flashing lights of a police car. It was parked behind a wrecked and immediately recognizable Z-71 Chevy step-side, Tony’s truck. The very truck he was in when Tony proudly showed him the gun only hours before this whole nightmare became a reality.
The blue and white cruiser turned an alley light on the soaked and possibly deranged teenager coming at it full speed. The words poured from him in a frenetic and fragmented jumble, a car in the water, a gun and self defense. He spat phrases concerning people trapped in a yellow hatchback and his friend trying to help and the fact it wasn’t his fault. The cop jammed the car into gear and tore up the street and slid to a stop at the water crossing. As the lights played over the water Sam’s hopes came crashing down.
The car, the woman and Tony…were gone.
Only that cold black ribbon devouring the road between them and the pool remained. Sam jumped out of the car and began yelling into the darkness, his voice lost in the collision of water and concrete. The cop came running up behind him and focused the beam of his flashlight downstream. Both of them missed her at first and it was the screams of the little girl that guided the light to her face. In spite of the rain and the noise her tiny, haunting little screams rose above.
The car did slide into the ditch but happened to snag on the tree trunk that had washed down earlier, yet the angle was all wrong. She appeared to be standing there in the water but that was impossible. The water was deep enough to cover the car to the roof, yet there she stood.
“I’ll be damned.” said the cop.
Sam was startled and jumped just a bit at the words. He had almost forgotten he wasn’t alone. The cop swept the area around her with his light. Two arms held tightly around her. Sam immediately knew it was Tony.
His body wedged between the car and the tree, he was just tall enough to keep her head above the water. Sam would later learn that as they waited for help to arrive they were all swept away when the car broke loose and came around on them, knocking them all in.
Tony never let go.
He was determined that she was going to make it. He would do everything he could with his own life that he was about to end only moments before and give this poor little girl another chance.
Sam fell to his knees and began sobbing, Engine 27 came down the road in a fury of lights and sirens to pluck the girl from Death’s hands, and from dead hands…Tony’s hands.
All of the death and the anger and violence born of that day climaxed in a rare scene of redemption and sacrifice where none seemed possible. The firefighters pulled the girl from the water, Tony was finally able to let go. He sank beneath the water and out of Sam’s life forever.
Now
Sam climbed down from the roof and made the short walk to the pool and the Lee’s Creek water crossing, though now there is a bridge over the creek and in the time since then the school purchased the pool and filled it in to make a parking lot. It struck him as a bit funny that a middle school would need so much parking.
He stared down at the concrete walls and floor of the ditch and felt the emotion fill him again. It had taken years to block it out and yet he felt the strangest sense of release and relief as he recalled it. For all the bad that happened to Tony in his short time on Earth, if not for all that pain and if not for all that confusion, a little girl would have drowned alone and in the dark that stormy August night. At the time, Sam cursed God for taking his friend from him, and now he was actually thankful to have been allowed to see such a beautiful thing.
Redemption.
Choices and decisions govern the outcome of life, we choose and we decide. Tony chose to take his own life, but decided to give it instead.
Thunder rolled heavily from over the horizon. On the breeze the sound of the first few raindrops of a deluge made their way. A storm was rolling in, it was one of his favorite forces of nature, although this time he found it easy to ignore. It was almost identical to another afternoon, more than twenty years before.
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