A Guardian of Innocents (15 page)

I felt such a tremendous flood of relief (mixed with a little pride) when I heard that.

Kimber continued, “Pete took me out dancing tonight to try to take my mind off everything. He’s in the bathroom now, so I have to get off the phone pretty quick. I didn’t feel comfortable calling you from home, because they did investigate us some. But I think when they saw that Pete and I just barely make enough to support us, Isaac and the horses, well, they knew there was no way in hell we could have shelled out the ten or twenty grand it would have taken to pay some pro, you know? Plus they think that studio owner knows more than what he’s telling. He might be a suspect. I don’t know.”         

“You have no idea how glad I am to hear that,” I said.

“Shit, here he comes. Gotta go. Bye.”

I heard the clunk as she hung up the payphone in a hurry. I sat there a moment at my desk, staring off into space. I knew my studying was ruined for the rest of the night. I was grateful, so damn grateful, for the news I was just given, that just the intense relief alone would distract me for the rest of the night.

*          *          *

After five semesters at a junior college, I had maxed out the number of transferable credits I could apply towards a degree at a four-year university. I wanted to keep going to school (even though I had no fuckin’ clue what the hell I wanted to do with my life) and decided it was time to head out of North Lake and into the University of Texas at Arlington.

The main reasons I selected that school were that it was within driving distance, just twenty minutes from Doris’ house, and that I knew it was a relatively easy school to get into.

I still hung out with Bo regularly and Lloyd would grace us with his presence every once in awhile. Eli had told Bo about the shit his uncle had found in the recording studio and about the whole fiasco with the police. Bo thought it was hilarious. He laughed especially hard when he heard where the extension cord had been placed.

“Sounds like he pissed off the wrong man!” Bo proclaimed, “Someone important. Man, I’ve heard about Columbian neckties and concrete boots, but I’ve never heard about the mob zapping your nuts off! I’m just glad we got our demo done before it happened. Police’ll probably be combing that place for evidence for weeks.”

My first semester at UTA I had so many theatre credits, I was able to skip the acting classes altogether and jump into a directing class. I did another one-act play and the next semester I would get to direct a full-length major production, something that I was surprised to find myself really itching to do.

I was getting such an incredible satisfaction out of life that, of course, something would have to happen that would send me into a whirling downward spiral of depression.

Maybe that’s a cynical, pessimistic view, but that’s how my life has always gone. One damn blow after another. The summer of ’97 wasn’t the first hard time I went through and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the last.

*          *          *

Desiree actually expected me to be happy for her when she called and told me she was moving to New York. She’d been taking classes as well these past two years and had finally snagged that MBA she’d always wanted, and had spent the past six months searching diligently for that one perfect new job to test it out on. 

Unfortunately for me, it turned out to be in Lower Manhattan.

I was grateful that I had at least been told over the phone and not in person. I wouldn’t have stood a chance of hiding the sudden powersurge of emotion that fried all my mental circuitry.

That one phone call shipped in a whole busload of feelings I wasn’t prepared to deal with. My day had been wonderfully calm before she called me, like a scenic view of the ocean at sunset. Then about two dozen submarines emerge, crashing into the open air after being buried in undersea trenches for so long, and they all just start blasting the shit out of each other. All the while, you’re standing on the shore, jumping around, waving your arms, trying to distract another human being from seeing the war being fought only a short distance away.

That was what my end of the conversation felt like.

I’d already known, at least on a semiconscious level, I had feelings for Desiree, but had no idea as to what extent until she’d made that phone call. I thought my crush would dissolve in much the same way my actual relationships with other girls had fizzled: I’d either get bored and lose interest, or she would get tired of my constant refusal to open up and show some personality and then stop returning my phone calls.

The Catch-22 was that I was never once, not even for a second, bored when I was around Dez. And I did open up. I told her things that I never could have told anyone else, things I
still
haven’t confessed to anyone else.

I reluctantly agreed to meet her and some of her friends in two weeks for a farewell get-together at a local bar while I did my best to try to sound as though I
wasn’t
reluctant. Some of what I felt must have leaked through the phone lines. I’m sure she picked up some of it from the one of two word answers I would give for every question she asked me. But I also think she sensed it, even from about twenty miles away.

When I was finally able to get her off the phone, I rolled over on my bed and cried. Whimpered is probably a more accurate word. I wept as silently as possible because Doris was in the house.

At first, I didn’t understand why I was so upset. Sure, a good friend was moving away, most likely permanently unless the job turned out shitty; and yes, she is the only psychic of my caliber I’ve ever met. But those things couldn’t explain the emotional maelstrom I was tumbling around in.

As the minutes whittled away and the sobs became less frequent, I began to ask myself why in the hell did I feel this way. My logical brain was telling my convulsing body this wasn’t a big deal; Dez is a good friend, a friend we can confide in and...

I love her

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re twenty-one, just barely old enough to legally consume alcohol, what the fuck do you know about love? So far’s I can tell you’ve never felt love for anyone.

I’m in love with her

Oh no no no! We are not going down this road! It’s nuttin but a fuckin crush and you’ve had two years to try to get something started and you did nuttin but pussyfoot around with her, talking stupid shit like—

I know i’m right      I love her      it’s that simple

How in the holy flying motherfuck can you possibly know that?

How does anyone know the first time?    I just do    

*          *          *

Over the next two weeks, I did absolutely no socializing. I didn’t return anyone’s phone calls except for Desiree’s—only because I had to keep up appearances. She wanted to go do other stuff with me before she left, but I kept feeding her excuses. Unfortunately, it was summer. The only responsibilities I had were a part-time job and maybe a few chores around the house, and she knew it. Bo and I had already made plans to go do this, and, no, I can’t do anything that day because Lloyd and I were gonna do something.

But even over the phone, it seemed I was still transparent to her. “Are you avoiding me?” she asked.

“No, I’m not avoiding you,” I lied, “I just—“

“Good, then you’ll come over Wednesday night. I’ll rent some movies; you pick up some fast food. You know what I like. Alright?”      

I was inhaling a breath of air that was almost exhaled as a sigh of protest, but I caught it just before she would have heard it. I couldn’t give Dez any more grounds for suspicion than what she already had.

“Okay, cool,” I agreed, trying to sound pleasant.

“Alright, babe. See ya then.”

I spent the next few days alone in my room, practicing ways to keep my thoughts from being read. Surely there must be a way.

*          *          *

I arrived at Desiree’s apartment around seven that Wednesday night armed with nothing but a thin plastic bag full of Taco Bell.

“Hey, sweetie,” Desiree said as she opened the door.

As the previews on the first tape rolled, we ate our food sitting next to each other on her loveseat. I used to be so comfortable next to her, but now felt nothing but panic. I kept reciting two lines from an oldies song over and over again in my head...

Ooowa ooowa cool cool kitty

Tell us about the boy from New York City

I did my best to pretend I was relaxed while we watched the movie. It went pretty well for the first thirty minutes or so. The movie proclaimed itself to be an uproarious, outrageous, hilarious comedy (don’t they all) on the back of the cassette box, but neither of us had laughed. No giggles, no chuckles. Neither of us had even coughed.

I didn’t dare try to read her. I would have to let my defenses down for that. My heart froze as she hit the pause button on the VCR remote.

“Sorry. Be right back,” she said as she got up and walked to the bathroom. When she came out, she grabbed her pack of cigarettes off the kitchen counter and lit one up.

I expected her to come back to the couch, but she stood there for a moment. She leaned against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room as she inhaled a long drag, wanting to make it last as she thought something over. I suspected she was contemplating her plan of attack.

“So, are you going to tell me what the hell’s up with you, or are you going to make me pry it out of you? Because I have to tell you, if I hear the words ‘cool cool kitty’ one more time out of you...”

I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t feel like a deer caught by a pair of headlights. I was the deer that already has its guts strewn over the road, taking its final dying breath.

She stared down at the floor, visibly upset. “Please tell me you haven’t killed someone again.”

Is THAT what you think!
I cried out mentally before I could catch myself. The question was asked so hastily mostly out of shock, but there was also an undertone of joyous relief that I felt Desiree detect.

“Well, if that’s not it, then what the hell has you so wound up you—Wait. Does this have something to do with me going to New York?”

“No.” I spat the word out quickly, resuming the song in my head. My nervousness was speeding the song up a bit. I’m sure to Dez it sounded like the Alvin & the Chipmunks version.

“You just lied to me,” Desiree said matter-of-factly, “First time you’ve ever done that.”

“Believe me, that’s not something I want to do,” I said, “But this is just something very embarrassing for me and I just couldn’t stand it if you found out.”

“Even after everything I already know about you?”

“Especially after everything you know about me,” I replied.

We argued about it back and forth, nip and tuck, for awhile but I eventually won. I had to concede one issue, though. She made me agree to tell her one day, even if it meant waiting a whole year or two or even five. One day I would have to reveal this secret to her.  

I opted not to attend the farewell party, choosing instead to be the only person that offered to give her a ride to the airport the next day. She left me with a gift, a rather odd one for an atheist.

It was a large metal cross, ornately decorated, about eight inches long—and heavy. I gripped the end of it in my hand and was certain I could hurt somebody with it if I brought it down hard enough.

“Why are you giving me this?” I asked.

“I want you to hang it on your bedroom door... Might help keep, uh, you-know-who away.”

“Oh, I haven’t seen him in... God, has it been two years already?”

“Going on two and a half,” Dez added. We were sitting in one of the many rows of brutally uncomfortable chairs that were parked in front of Terminal 31 in DFW International.

“Still not gonna tell me, huh?”

“One day,” I said, faking a smile.

Ooowa ooowa cool cool kitty

“Stop that,” Desiree growled, “You have no idea how irritating that is. I could pry you open like a can of sardines, and the only reason I don’t is out of respect for you.”

She was a little mad, true, but she was really only half-mad and half-playing. And just to egg her on a bit, I silently produced another solitary “ooowa.”

“Okay. That’s it. I’m gonna hurt you,” Dez declared as she turned suddenly and frogged me three times in the shoulder. We were both laughing. But the laughter had a woeful sadness behind it neither one of us wanted to acknowledge.

When it came time for her to board the plane, I realized who this person was that I was losing. I recognized just exactly how much she meant to me. If I didn’t start to force my thoughts in other directions, I was going to break down. I was about to really fuckin’ lose it.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I knew I couldn’t sing the song again, so I used a technique I’d developed in my childhood for my own psychological survival. I called it ‘going cold’ at first, when I was little, but later came to think of it as ‘going dead’ as I grew older. I think the only people truly capable of this are the serially traumatized.

Going cold (or dead) means simply turning off my emotions as though they’re connected to a light switch. It’s probably difficult for most people to grasp that this is even possible. All I can tell them is living with Jack had made going cold a vital necessity in the preservation of my sanity.