A Brilliant Death (34 page)

She was covering four tiny hands with oven mitts. “I don’t know,” she answered, looking back briefly. “I never heard of them. I thought they were friends of yours.”

“Not that I recall.” I tossed it back on the heap, finished my wedge of pizza, wiped off my hands, and picked it back up and examined the left-handed script that seemed oddly familiar.

“Daddy, look,” Michelle squealed. “Mommy says we can put icing on ’em.”

I looked at my girls as Laura helped them maneuver the hot tray to the kitchen table. “That’s great, sweetheart.” I looked back at the card. “Laura, where are the envelopes to these cards?”

“In the trash.”

I fished the envelopes from the wastebasket, knocked off the clinging dust and sprinkles, but it was no help. There was no return address, but the cancellation stamp showed that it had been mailed from Los Angeles. I called directory assistance and found three potential candidates in the Los Angeles area. I called them from work the next week, but none of them was the former Travis Baron.

I knew it was him. I can’t tell you how or why I knew, but I knew.

I had trouble sleeping for a month, wondering where he was and what he was doing, and when he would again get in touch. I said nothing to Laura. For years the secret had been dormant, though I constantly wondered about him. It wasn’t until the next Christmas that I heard from him again. This time the card was signed: J.C. Wagner, Becky, and Lisa, and was accompanied by a photo of an infant in a Santa Claus sleeper. Again, there was no return address, and this one had a New York City cancellation.

It was maddening. I didn’t even bother to check the telephone directory for New York City. I assumed he was mailing them from different cities to remain hidden. Perhaps he didn’t want to get in touch but simply wanted me to know he was alive and well. Or, knowing Travis, he was enjoying tormenting me.

We went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina on vacation the following June. When I returned, there was a stack of mail on my desk. One of the envelopes contained a note complimenting me on a column I had written about a World War II pilot’s efforts to rebuild a P-40 Warhawk. The letter and the signature were in the familiar left-handed script. It was signed “J.C. Wagner.” There was no return address, and it had a Chicago cancellation. Two weeks later, another letter arrived.

We were living on Kriegers Lane in Wheeling, and Robyn was playing soccer in the Wheeling Youth Soccer Association, an activity that has best been described as bumblebee soccer because the kids hover around the ball like a swarm of bees, all kicking at something—sometimes the ball, but more likely the ground, teammates, and opponents. Mostly, the kids are playing ball because their parents think it’s a good idea, not because they particularly want to be there. I wrote a column about bumblebee soccer and Robyn’s team, the O.K. Carry-Out Little Buckaroos, and their Saturday morning games at Wheeling Park.

I received a postcard the following week cancelled in Asheville, North Carolina. The message said, simply, “Go Buckaroos!”

Robyn wanted to play soccer because her best friend, Anna, was playing. Surprisingly, it turned out that Robyn was one of the better players on the team. She was lightning. She could easily outrun any kid on the field, which I found astonishing, considering she got half of her genetic makeup from me, and I had never been a speedster. We were late in the second half of a one-to-one game with the Brandt’s Pharmacy Raptors when Robyn broke loose from the pack, sprinted the length of the field, and scored. Parents and players were still celebrating when the guy standing behind my lawn chair said, “That little girl’s got some good wheels.”

The chills that had consumed me when I recognized the handwriting on the first Christmas card returned, though I didn’t immediately turn around.

I nodded. “Well, she gets it honestly. Her dad was a rocket.”

“Oh. Really? I thought that was Mitchell Malone’s daughter.”

I laughed, hoping to fight off the tears that were already welling in my eyes. I was oddly afraid to turn around and look into the eyes of someone who had been like a brother but had died nearly fifteen years earlier.

Laura turned and squinted into the sun at the man, assuming it was someone I knew from the paper. She smiled and turned back to the game. I stood, my knees barely able to hold my weight, and turned fully toward him before looking at his face. The man grinned and arched his brows. It was the late Travis Baron—a receding auburn hairline, thin crows’ feet, a neatly trimmed beard and moustache. He was dressed in a golf shirt and shorts, and looked the part of a dozen other suburban fathers.

“Mr. Wagner, I presume?” I asked.

He nodded. “Indeed. J.C. Wagner,” he said, extending a hand. “And you, sir?”

I walked past the hand and hugged the former Travis, tears rolling down my cheeks. He returned the hug and we both cried. This, of course, attracted the stares of many, including Mrs. Malone. We walked away from the crowd and talked until the game was in its waning minutes. I told Laura that I would meet her and the kids at home and went on ahead with J.C. When Laura arrived at the house a half-hour later we were on the back deck, trying to catch up on the years.

During that time, I had not shared the story with anyone, not even Laura, who had known Travis well. Laura got the kids lunch and put Matthew down for his nap before joining us on the deck. She was, I believe, a little perturbed that I had left all the child-wrangling to her and walked off with this stranger. As she came through the sliding glass door, he stood, and Laura smiled, though there wasn’t the faintest hint of recognition. “You remember Laura, don’t you?” I asked.

“Sure,” J.C. said, “but it’s been a long time.” He extended his hand. “Good to see you again. I’m J.C. Wagner.”

She frowned. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”

“We have, but it’s been quite a while.”

He looked at me. “You can trust her,” I said.

He said, “You see, Laura, before I became J.C. Wagner, I was Travis Baron.”

Laura nodded and smiled, and an instant later it all sank in and she shrieked and jumped backward. The lemonade she carried flew out of the glass like a geyser. “Oh, my God,” was all she could say, and she said it about fifteen times.

The “J.C.” stood for Jeremy Christian, who had been a seventeen-year-old high school dropout from Florida when he joined the Navy in 1970. Following basic training, Jeremy Christian Wagner was assigned to the USS
Iwo Jima
and killed February 18, 1971, on the Mediterranean Sea, when the jet catapult on which he was working accidentally released. Travis’s grandfather secured a favor from an admiral with whom he had worked for years. Every bit of documentation on Jeremy Christian Wagner was appropriately altered, copied, and sent to Ronald Virdon. When Travis had climbed into his grandparents’ car on graduation night, he was handed a manila envelope that contained his new identity. That fall, he enrolled at Jerome Township Senior High School outside of Asheville, North Carolina, as a transfer student with a D average and a history of behavior problems. That year, he earned a 4.0 average and varsity letters in three sports, enabling school officials to believe they were responsible for one of the most dramatic salvage projects in the history of North Carolina high school education.

J.C.—who from day one refused to be known as Jeremy Christian—enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, so he could continue to live with his grandparents. He was so enamored of his new family that he didn’t want to move away. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Following college, with seed money from his grandparents, he started Amanda Distribution, a service company in Asheville that handled shipping for clients in the textile and furniture industry. It had grown from a one-man operation to one hundred and thirty-six employees and three warehouses. He had met his wife, Becky, through work; she was the daughter of the owner of a trucking company that shipped the textiles. When we all met later that summer, she was pregnant with their second child.

Travis said he had planned never to contact me. He missed me, but figured it best that he didn’t try to locate me for fear he would expose himself. “You know, I didn’t think it would bother me, but for years after I left, the fact that I was no longer Travis Baron about killed me,” he said. “One day I’m Travis, and I have friends, a past, experiences, trophies, and awards with my name on ’em. And the next day, I can’t be him anymore. I can’t call my friends or send anyone a letter. I’ve got my medals and certificates in a box up in the attic, but I can’t show anyone or talk about them. I made new friends, but I can’t tell them anything about my past. Nothing. If someone asks me about growing up in Florida, I have to completely fake it. I never thought of that before I left. I was anxious to get away from my dad, but I really missed you and the guys. And your mom. Jesus, I missed your mom. She was always so great to me. I can’t tell you how often I’ve craved one of her Reuben sandwiches. But I knew I couldn’t say anything. I was in Pittsburgh on business about three years ago, and I was really tempted to rent a car and drive down to Brilliant. But I couldn’t take the chance. I had a wife, and I still believe that Big Frank would hunt me down if he knew I was alive.”

“Do you think Big Frank suspects you’re alive?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I hope it torments him every day not knowing for sure.”

The break had been clean. He had made a wonderful life for himself with loving grandparents who treated him like a son. His grandfather had passed away a few years earlier; his grandmother was in failing health. He was close to his uncle and his family.

Travis had been in Charlotte on business when one of my columns, which were distributed by the Alpha-Omega News Service, was reprinted in the Charlotte
Ledger
. He called the
Ledger
and was told that I was working at the
Ohio Valley Morning Journal
. From there, it was a simple call to directory assistance to find me. Even then, it took a while to build up the nerve to make contact.

Travis said he had been following my columns for several years in the
Morning Journal
, which he received through the mail. “So, I could have tracked you down simply by checking in with our circulation department?” I asked.

He laughed. “Yep. Your investigative skills need a little work.”

We’ve stayed in constant touch since, and we get together at least once a year. This caused J.C. to have to tell his wife the truth about his past, which she at first didn’t believe. When she finally came to the realization that he was telling the truth, it made her irate that he had kept it from her. But, like me, she couldn’t stay angry at him for long.

I’m glad to have my friend back. I missed him. Granted, our relationship isn’t the same as it was, but we are no less close. During a vacation our families took together to Bracebridge, Ontario, J.C. and I sat out by one of the pristine lakes, the embers of a campfire glowing between us, a full moon reflecting off the lake. We had shared a six-pack of Molson and were relaxing in our lawn chairs, talking about the past, of Urb, Brad, Snookie, and Johnny Liberti, and of Project Amanda and Big Frank.

“It would make one helluva book,” I said.

“Write it,” J.C. said. “Just make sure Big Frank is dead before you start.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Yes. Brilliant, Ohio, is a real place.

It is the Ohio River village in which I spent the first eighteen years of my life, and which helped shape the man I grew to be.

Brilliant sits on a soft bend in the Ohio River between Steubenville, Ohio, and Wheeling, West Virginia. Since that descriptor may not help those unfamiliar with the geography of the Upper Ohio River Valley, go to a map and find the point where Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania meet, and come down the river about thirty miles. You’ll find Brilliant tucked hard between the Appalachian foothills and the river. It stretches for about two miles along the Ohio River but is only about five blocks wide, consuming the flood plain and the first row of hills. From my side yard, I could see both the hills of West Virginia beyond the river and the western edge of Brilliant, and there wasn’t a half-mile between the two.

Until I left for college in 1974, all that I wanted in the world could be found in Brilliant. Although I love my hometown, there was nothing quaint or charming about the Brilliant of my youth, as the name might suggest. It was a hard-working, blue-collar town where alcohol was outlawed in the early 1900s because of the numerous bars and fights. At the time, Brilliant had just six hundred and forty-seven residents, but thirteen bars. By the late 1960s, when this story began, the town was dry and the population had swelled to a robust sixteen hundred.

The Brilliant of my youth was a wonderful place to be a kid, where the surrounding hills, river, and sand quarry in the south end of town provided a landscape ideal for an adventurous boy, and enough dangers to worry parents half to death. We were a self-sufficient community in those days, with gas stations, churches, grocery stores, hardware stores, a lumberyard, drugstore, diners, and barbershops. And jobs. The valley was flush with good-paying jobs, and the economy thrived.

Much has changed since then. Brilliant, like the rest of the Ohio Valley, struggles to find solid footing in an economy that has been devastated by the collapse of the steel industry and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

In
A Brilliant Death
, I took a few liberties with the topography and the commerce, but anyone from the area will clearly recognize it as Brilliant. It is a place where I roamed the hills, played ball and waited for the day when I would be able to don the uniform of the Brilliant Blue Devils.

It will live forever in my memory.