Hidden Falls, page 21
“I’m sorry, Derrick,” I said. “But you never reached out to me either. Why didn’t you ever say something?”
“Why, so you could tell Ma and Dad?” he snapped.
“No, Derrick,” I said. “So I could have helped. How’d you get into such a fucking mess?”
“You don’t give a shit,” he said with animus. “The’ah ain’t nothin’ you can say now to save ya life. I’m gonna kill you and it’s gonna make me happy. It’s gonna feel good to watch you die.”
“Fuck you. You never gave a shit about me either. Your life was too fucking easy. The second you had to try at anything you just gave up. What kind of a fuckin’ coward points a gun at his own mother?” I shot back. “Nobody owes you a fucking thing in this life.”
“I wanted to kill you the night we stole the money,” Derrick said coldly. “But Vinny said not until we had The Bet. I gave him that fifty grand in exchange f’ah the key, but he gave it to you instead. I should’a known he was workin’ for Andrianov, but I didn’t until he gave you that fuckin’ key.”
“It was you that killed Vinny?”
“We had it all planned out aft’ah that,” Derrick said as his eyes glazed and his voice became even more distant. “Matt shoots Vinny with the plant gun. I shoot you for killing Vinny and we plant the gun on you. Then me and the Donovans split the money. But Vinny was working with the fuckin’ Staties to get me and Matt.”
“You said Vinny was working for Andrianov?”
“You really ‘ah fuckin’ stupid, huh?” he said. “The Staties and Andrianov both wanted us f’ah the same fuckin’ reason. Vinny put the whole fuckin’ thing togeth’ah.”
“Sounds like we were both setup.”
Derrick began to shake—his mind and body seemed completely dissociated. “Matt got too afraid about what they’d do when they found us. He blew his own fuckin’ head off. I went to get us food and I came back to find his fuckin’ brains on the wall.”
“I’m sorry, Derrick.”
He pointed the gun at me. I wanted to live. I wanted to be there for the people I loved, but I didn’t fear death. “I’m not afraid to die, Derrick,” I said, maybe out of kindness. There was so much pain in his eyes that it hurt to look at him. “But think about what you’re doin’ to Mum and Ben.”
His eyes filled with tears. The pain seemed to increase with every word. “You w’ah supposed to have the money. Me and Matt w’ah just gonna leave.”
“You don’t have to do this, Derrick,” I pleaded one last time.
“But, I want to, Mikey. You ‘ah supposed to be dead already, not Matt.” He broke down as he spoke. “You aint gonna feel a thing, Mike, ‘cause I’m filled with fuckin’ mercy.”
He took aim and I jerked my head to the side, closed my eyes, and waited for the impact. Two shots were fired. I felt searing pain on the left side of my head. I opened my eyes to see Derrick going limp, the gun falling away from his chin as his lifeless body collapsed to the floor. His blood had splattered on the ceiling and everywhere behind him. I was alive. The first bullet had grazed my head above my temple. Blood was spilling down the side of my face and all over the bed.
I dropped my head into a pool of my own blood and fixed my eyes on the ceiling above me. My wound felt like it was on fire. The flowing blood eased the pain. The hospital staff rushed in. There was a lot of yelling. The nurse, Anita, asked me if I was alive. I moved my eyes in her direction and smiled. She yelled for a doctor. “You’re going to be fine, sweetie,” she said. “You’re going to hold on and you’re gonna be fine.”
That made me smile wider as they rolled my bed toward the operating room. I thought about Ben and felt awash with love and then my thoughts raced to my father. It only took me getting shot twice to understand why he hid everything from me. I finally understood what he was protecting me from. He was a loving man.
My heart was broken. I hoped my brother found peace.
19
#19 MICHAEL QUINN, GUARD, NEW BEDFORD HIGH SCHOOL WHALERS
It rained for eight straight days after I got back to Portland, but eventually a cloudless sky reveled the snowcapped peaks of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens. I took in their magnificence from the balcony of my apartment as I tended to the salmon, potatoes, and asparagus on the grill.
Paul and his family were over for an early dinner. Mary was opening wine. Paul was explaining to Ben and Tia who the ex-football player Brian Bosworth was and why the shaved swath of hair above my ear that exposed my stitches had earned me the nickname “The Boz” when I went to watch the guys at my regular Saturday morning basketball game. They seemed unconvinced that the moniker would stick.
“I understand it,” Ben goaded, “but it’s just, you know, dumb.”
“It’s not dumb,” Paul insisted. “It’s perfect.”
“M.C. Hammer is perfect. It’s the same haircut,” Ben said, and Tia laughed, but not as loud as Renee and Mary.
These moments with my son and the family we constructed were why the universe was created, I decided. An explosion released all the matter in our universe and a few billion years later, sentient beings were able to observe this creation and to see it in each other. What more purpose do we need in our lives than to understand that love exists and to have someone to share it with? I felt content.
“But we already got a ‘Hammer Time’ at basketball,” Paul said. “You can’t have two guys with the same nickname. It doesn’t work that way.”
“You could have ‘Hammer Time’ and ‘2 Legit 2 Quit,’” said Renee as Mary brought her some wine.
“I don’t know about that.” Paul was taking this all very seriously. “I know your dad’s not exactly a badass, but it’s not like he can dance either.”
“I’m standing right here, guys. I can hear you,” I reminded them. “And I am a badass and a badass dancer!”
“Show us your moves!” Mary crowed as she crinkled her nose.
“Et tu, Mary?” I said with a wink, and she kissed my head.
The doorbell rang. I jumped and made a noise like I’d been punched in the gut, which startled everyone. There was a pause as I regained my composure. I’d been suffering post-traumatic stress since leaving the hospital. Sudden or unexpected noises rattled me to the core. I caught my breath, smiled an embarrassed smile, and apologized. I asked Paul to take over the grill. Everyone was quiet and tentative. It was all new and nobody really knew how to act when that happened.
“I can get the door,” Mary said, and the care in her voice and the gesture warmed my heart.
“I’ve got to get past this,” I told her, rubbing her back. “Thank you.” My hand was shaking, but the feel of her skin against mine helped me relax. My mind hummed like a live wire had been plugged directly into my brain. I focused on taking one step at a time, but it felt like I was walking along the edge of a cliff. Every day something happened to trigger my fear, a barking dog, a car horn blast, but I just had to face it. I just had to continue to move forward. I looked back to the patio as I got closer to the door to see everyone staring at me. I smiled and everyone looked away as inconspicuously as possible—which is to say, they were all awkward and conspicuous.
I looked through the peephole. It was the FedEx guy. He was familiar, but I didn’t know his name. I signed for a box of copier paper that I hadn’t ordered. The return address was Providence, Rhode Island, which made me nervous. I carried it into the bedroom, thinking that if it was a bomb or somebody’s body parts, I’d spare the others. It was heavy and felt like paper. It was packed tight, weighed what I thought a box of paper should, and there was no rattling or clunkiness. I put it on my bed and opened it slowly. There were indeed reams of paper in it, but on top was a note: “You remind me of your father. When you write your book, name my character after a Russian gymnast. I always wanted to be a gymnast. Make him handsome with no accent.” There was no signature.
This is a lot of effort to tell me it’s okay to write the book, I thought. It was all so surreal. I had calmed down almost completely, enough to realize that I had been sweating profusely and needed to change my shirt. I went into the bathroom and toweled off. Andrianov wouldn’t have just sent a box of paper, I thought as I reapplied deodorant.
I got a new shirt from the closet and looked at the box as I fastened the buttons. I lifted up one of the reams and felt the paper shift around. I tore off the wrapper and saw four stacks of hundred-dollar bills with about a 2.5-inch buffer of copier paper along the edge. There were six reams of paper each containing $200,000. The crazy son-of-a-bitch sent me $1.2 million in cash through FedEx.
I put the money back in the box, covered it with the lid, and placed it on the floor by my desk because I didn’t know what else to do.
I went back out to the patio and Paul was taking the food off the grill. “Did you overcook the fish?” I teased.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” he joked. “I’m the king of the grill! I’m the LeBron James of grilling!”
Ben came close and asked me if I was okay. I hugged him and told him I was and kissed him on the head.
“What was the package?” he asked.
“Just some paper,” I said and held him a little while longer. “It was from someone wishing me good luck on my book.”
Kevin Myers, Hidden Falls
