Bird Song (48 page)

“We play the game.
 
Next question, Oliver.
 
What is your worst crime?”

Oliver looked at Robert and then back to the car.
 
His head kept swinging back and forth between the two, obviously deciding which fate was worse.
 
Robert, having stared at the half-moons in his nails while Oliver decided, impatiently snapped his fingers.
 
A slight spark flew out from between them and landed in a stream of liquid, igniting it in a bright blue flash of fire.
 
The flame traveled quickly, hungrily seeking out more fuel as it headed directly towards the station wagon.

“No!
 
Wait!”” Oliver cried out.
 
He lurched forward but Robert held him back with the faintest of grips on his shoulder.

“Will you tell me?”

Oliver nodded his head frantically, his gaze fixed on the flame that streaked ever closer to his body and its would-be metal coffin.

Robert waved an indifferent hand in the air and a gust of chilled wind suffocated the determined blue wave of heat.
 
“Now.
 
Tell me.”

Defeated, Oliver nodded.
 
“I killed a girl.”

Robert’s body jerked at the confession.
 
“You…killed a girl?”

Oliver nodded, his head hung low in shame.
 
“I was on vacation with my wife and kids in Nebraska four years ago.
 
I left them at the hotel to go and get some food from this take-out place we had read about in one of those tourist magazines, you know.
 
I stayed longer than I was planning and had drunk a little too much while there.
 

“I didn’t mean to do it.
 
I didn’t, I swear, but I couldn’t see her on the road—it was dark and I didn’t know where I was—and by the time I realized what had happened, it was too late.
 
I tried to get her some help, but she was already gone.
 
She was so beautiful and young, not much older than my own daughter, and all I could think about was what would happen if I got caught?
 
What would happen to my own little girl?
 
What would happen to my wife?
 
My son?
 
I panicked and I left her there—my family, we left the next day.”

Robert acknowledged this confession grimly, his ire and disgust turning his body cold.
 
“There’s more.”

The man fell to his knees.
 
“Yes, there’s more,” he replied.
 
“I hit another girl a few months ago…here.”

Robert’s body grew ramrod stiff as he listened to the man on the ground begin to retell a story that the two of us were very familiar with.

“I’ve been having nightmares about what happened, about that girl that I killed.
 
I didn’t even know her name.
 
I never looked it up on the internet or anything—I didn’t want to get to know her, see her family, her pictures—but her face kept haunting me every time I closed my eyes.
 

“It became so bad that the only way I could get her out of my head was to drown her out.
 
I started to drink more often; I couldn’t function without it; I couldn’t work, couldn’t do anything unless I could no longer feel my legs or my hands.

“I was at a friend’s house one morning—he was having problems at work, too—and we just sat around the house and drank can after can, bottle after bottle of whatever it was we could find.
 
I saw the time and knew that I had to get going; my wife had made reservations for dinner with her parents and I had promised that I wouldn’t be late this time.

“I was fine driving, I swear.
 
I could have made it home without a problem.
 
But then I saw her again, the girl I had run over four years earlier, riding her bicycle, and I thought…I thought that if I could catch up to her and talk to her, get her to forgive me, she’d let me go, she’d let me go to sleep.
 
I thought I was putting my hand on the horn.
 
I swear.
 
I didn’t know that I wasn’t pressing the horn with my hand.
 
I didn’t know that I was pressing the gas pedal with my foot until I heard the bike beneath the car.

“I stopped.
 
I did, I stopped the car and got out.
 
I ran over to her, the girl, and I saw her—only it wasn’t her, it wasn’t the girl.
 
I didn’t know that first girl, but this one…I knew her, I recognized her face.
 
I couldn’t believe that I had done it again, and to someone I knew on top of that.
 
I didn’t know what to do…and then she started to speak, and I panicked again.
 
I left her there.
 
I left her on the road and I went home.

“I promised from then on that I’d never touch another drop if she lived.
 
I swore to myself and anyone who was listening that I’d never drink another drop of alcohol if she made it.
 
But I knew that she wasn’t.
 
I knew that she was going to die just like the last one because she looked worse.
 
There was so much blood this time, not like the other one.
 
She was bleeding everywhere, I had crushed her and her bike together.
 
Oh, God.”

Oliver threw his hands onto the ground and began to gag and heave.
 
Robert stood there and watched him in stony silence, his frigid demeanor doing nothing to calm the ill man before him.
 
Finally, he bent down and grabbed him by the nape of his neck and yanked him upwards.
 
“You’re not going to throw anything up.
 
You’re not in your body, remember?
 
And even if you were, you already emptied your gut of everything in it the minute you crashed so I suggest you quit with the theatrics and get on with it.

“Now-” he released Oliver and watched him as he crumpled back to the ground with a soft thud “-finish your confession.”

The man bobbed his head sickly and did as he was ordered.
 
“I stayed up all night waiting for the news to say something about what happened.
 
The Sunday paper had a small story about it, but it was the Monday paper that said that she had survived with minor injuries—minor injuries!
 
I kept following the story in case she didn’t make it after all, but she was fine.
 
I kept to my end of the deal.
 
I was good, I kept off the bottle.

“Then I started to worry about her telling the police about me.
 
I kept thinking what if she saw me?
 
What if she recognized me?
 
The dreams started to come again, only this time I saw two faces instead of just one.

“I had to see for myself if she was okay, I had to know that she was fine, and so I did.
 
She was more than fine.
 
She was different, like everything had suddenly been fixed in her life while mine was falling apart.
 
But then she looked at me, and for a second I thought she’d start telling everyone that I was the one, that I was the one that hit her.
 
But she looked away.
 
Like everyone else, she just looked away.

“That was too much for me.
 
Two faces, one with no name, the other with a name and a history.
 
I couldn’t sleep again, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t do anything but fight with the nightmares.
 
And so I found a bottle of gin that I had hidden away in the basement.
 
It felt like I’d found liquid peace.
 
I closed my eyes and their faces were gone.
 
I couldn’t put the bottle down after that.
 
There was no way.
 
I’d be a complete mess if I did, you have to believe me!”

Oliver stood up on his knees and clutched at Robert’s shirt.
 
“Please, please tell me you’ll forgive me.
 
Please.”

Robert pushed the man away and took several steps back.
 
He was shaking, the black anger turning his vision to a deep, blood red as it blocked out everything else that was good.
 
“Tell me her name,” he hissed at the man.
 
“Say her name.”

Oliver opened his mouth and blurted the name out quickly.
 
“Grace.
 
Her name is Grace Shelley.
 
She’s a student at Heath High School just up the road, one of mine, actually.”

The name on the man’s lips did nothing to calm Robert, and instead seemed to fuel the rage that boiled within him.
 
I could feel something inside of him turning thick and hot, as though hell itself was simmering just beneath his skin and threatened to boil over and consume everyone and everything in its rage filled path.

“
Wh
-what are you?” Oliver cried as Robert towered over him, his menacing presence blocking out the last of the sun’s rays.

“It doesn’t matter what I am.
 
What matters is that you turn yourself into the police and make right the wrongs that you have done.”

“But I just did, didn’t I?
 
I did that by confessing, you said to confess!
 
I fixed it!” Oliver protested.

“No, you didn’t.
 
Because of your cowardice, Grace turned in an innocent man, destroying his life and ruining her credibility.
 
You nearly took her from me, nearly took her from her family, and the casualties keep piling up, Oliver.
 
This is it, do-” Robert grabbed a hold of Oliver and dragged him back to the car.
 
He stretched one hand towards the body in the vehicle and looked at Oliver once more “-or die.
 
Make your decision.”

Oliver looked frightfully at his body in the car and at the murderous expression on Robert’s face.
 
“What is she to you?”

“Who?”

“Grace.
 
You said I nearly took her from you.
 
What is she to you?” Oliver asked once more.

“She is my salvation.
 
And she’s yours as well,” Robert replied, his voice nearly inaudible it was so sad.
 
“Now…choose.”

Oliver closed his eyes and gave Robert the answer that he had been waiting for.
 
Robert’s outstretched hand gently touched the body that hung limply in the car and once again, the blinding flash appeared, blocking out the scene before me.

As soon as the light dissipated, I was shocked to see that Robert was back at the school, his vision locked once more on a pair of students who were heading towards a rusty green car.
 
He continued to watch as the car pulled out of the lot and then turned his attention back to the school.

A man appeared from out of the school.
 
He appeared nervous, jittery as he headed towards his car, a dark brown station wagon that sat far apart from the other cars in the faculty parking lot.
 
He looked around him, as though he were checking to see if anyone had followed him.
 
When he was sure that no one had, he bent down and looked at the front end of his car.
 
Robert focused his gaze and he could see the distinct dent in the front end that was littered with chips of paint that he knew came from my bicycle.

Robert jumped down from his perch, and only then could I see that he had been sitting atop one of the trees that fronted the school.
 
He walked casually over to parking lot, his hands in his pockets, his jacket zipped up slightly.

The sound of his footsteps crunching against rocks and debris on the ground was the only sound as he made his way towards the man who still nervously flitted around his car.
 
Robert’s gaze traveled down and he nodded grimly as he took in the brown shoes with black laces.
 
The man was kneeling forward, his pants lifting up and exposing the white socks beneath the brown slacks.

“What are you doing there, sir?” Robert asked in a steely voice.

The man jumped up and grabbed his chest in surprise.
 
“Oh goodness, you scared me there, Mr.
Bellegarde
.
 
Robert—your name is Robert, isn’t it?”

Robert nodded calmly.
 
“Yes, sir, it is.”

The man looked relieved as he took in Robert’s dark clothing and ruffled hair.
 
“For a second there I thought you were someone else.
 
Well, what can I help you with then, Robert?”

Robert pointed to the damage to the front end as he spoke.
 
“That’s a fairly large dent there.
 
Did that just happen?
 
Did someone just run into you and leave without offering to help?”

The man coughed as he shook his head, the question obviously making him feel quite uneasy.
 
“Um, no.
 
No, nothing like that at all.
 
No.”

Robert bent down to gently rub his fingers against the dented surface.
 
“This looks pretty bad.”