Hometown Favorite: A Novel (36 page)

Hathaway could not settle on this case. The knot in his gut
still had not relaxed, in spite of the evidence, in spite of the
tunnel vision of the district attorney, in spite of public mindset, and in spite of the opinions of his colleagues. Hathaway
paid Dewayne a brief visit in the hospital and asked what had
been the last thing he remembered before waking up. Dewayne
said falling asleep in the car while being driven from the airport to the Stars' practice facility by his alleged paramour, a
bit of information that had stuck with Hathaway. Why would
this young man in mint physical condition, who was about
to leave the country with the young woman with whom he
was having an affair, fall asleep in the car? Of course, he could
have been lying, but if it was the truth, it seemed odd. In addition, Dewayne Jobe's character just did not fit the profile
for this type of murder, this type of methodical plotting and
premeditation. This man did not seem the type to calculate
this much destruction. Hathaway had studied the Jobe bio:
raised by a single mom in small-town USA, good kid growing up, great ball player in high school and college, an NFL
career that seemed to have no limits, and millions of dollars
flowing in from national brands just for his endorsement. It wasn't as if Hathaway was a football fanatic wanting to prove
the innocence of one of his heroes-he watched the Stars on
game days as a casual fan-but the Jobe background profile
did not a murderer make, and Hathaway was finding it difficult
to believe no one else in his world or in the world at large was
willing to cut this guy some slack, especially now when Jobe's
health had taken such an out-of-the-blue turn for the worse.
It was a lynch mob mentality with blatant overtones of racism,
and he had said so to the DA, who did not seem to balk when
he threw the accusation in his face.

"I have two letters for you ... O.J.;' the DA said.

"So is this what our judicial system has become, a way to
settle racial scores?" Hathaway retorted. "Is this your idea of
affirmative action?"

"This is about money and lust. Those two things can corrupt
anybody and drive him to do insane things, I don't care what
color of skin he has"

Hathaway knew this was all about the DA's political campaign. If he could get Jobe tried, convicted, and with any luck
at all from Blind Lady Justice, moved to death row, or better
yet, executed before the fall election, this should assure his appointment to the U.S. Senate. After all, this was Texas, known
for the swift and severe finality of its justice.

However, there was one problem. Dewayne Jobe was not
cooperating. Without doubt, he was slowing the process down.
They could not conduct the trial with the accused in absentia.
He was a national figure, and his presence in the courtroom was
critical. The jury needed to see each day the lawful proceedings
of the DA proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that behind the
mask of a beloved sports star was a true antisocial psychopath
with brutal tendencies that, when unleashed, would create the
domestic carnage inside the walls of his own home. Dewayne was frustrating the DA, preventing him from doing his job and
advancing his political aspirations, and this had kept the case
open. Hathaway had more time, thanks to Dewayne, to keep
studying this case, to keep watching the account numbers, to
curry favor with his police chief for anything that might help
him prove this was not the slam dunk the DA touted. So he
sipped his bourbon and stared at the numbers and prayed
for some activity before Dewayne died by lethal injection or
disease.

He lay on his back stretched out on a cold block of marble, shivering with only a sheet covering his naked body. He felt an immense
weight on his stomach and legs, and when he opened his eyes, he
saw a muscular figure of angelic magnitude standing on top of
him, holding a glass vial containing a murky-colored liquid. He
heard weeping and looked around to see people kneeling as they
surrounded him, their faces buried in their hands as if bereaved
at his current situation, a condition about which he could not
determine the cause or the outcome. There was a light fading into
an incalculable distance, but it was enough to illumine the sky of
black clouds so profuse and grave that they appeared at the point
of bursting. The figure on his chest began to levitate above him,
but the pressure of the weight remained, and the creature was
able to grasp one of the bulky clouds and pull it down around
them, hiding them from the faceless mourners.

With choreographic moves, the being released the cloud, removed the sheet, and poured the contents of the vial over his body
before disappearing into the cloud, leaving a faint trail of laughter
pulsating in his ears and replacing the invisible lamentations. He
could see his skin was turning blotchy, and he felt as if his bones
were burning with white heat.

Hands rose from beneath the marble slab and lifted him to
his feet. Through no act of will of his own, he moved through
the cloud, the sizzling skin dripping off him, his bones heating to
the point of ignition. He could acknowledge these sensations of
flight and of burning, but there were no accompanying feelings of
fear or physical pain. He moved through shadowy space toward
another figure similar to the first but with arms extended in
anticipation of an embrace. Perhaps this creature would explain
all things to him, but as he approached, the arms of the creature
rose not to enfold but to strangle, and his neck slipped right into
the creature's outspread fingers.

Now there was fear. Now there was pain. Now there was no
hope for explanation or escape.

Dewayne nearly sprang from his hospital bed as if the mechanical remote had a catapult button. The only thing keeping
him from flying off the mattress was the set of handcuffs linking his wrist with the bed. The length of the chain was longer
than usual to allow Dewayne to stand and stretch and take
a few steps, but the excess had caught in the leg of the bed,
preventing him from going airborne. He looked around the
room, knocking back large gulps of fetid air between coughs,
relieved not to be floating through dark clouds with his skin
and bones on fire or strangled by a mythical creature.

It took a few seconds to be sure what the here and now was
for him. A police officer stationed outside his door stuck his
head in and asked if he was okay and then announced he had
company, a rarity considering his new life status. Other than
check-ins from medical personnel, he did not see anyone but
attorneys and officers. So it was a great surprise when Sly appeared at the door.

"How the mighty have fallen;" Sly said, marveling at the
corporal deterioration of his best friend.

Dewayne continued to cough, and Sly advanced to the bedside table and poured him a cup of water, but he hesitated
handing it to him.

In between gasps, Dewayne read Sly's expression and was
sure he knew his thoughts: his friend was choking, but maybe
it would be easier for everyone if he refrained from giving him
this drink. Maybe everyone would be relieved if an intentional
act would squelch his breath altogether.

"Help me, Sly;" he said, his voice a garroted plea, and Sly
offered the drink.

He washed down the strangulation in desperate swallows,
then dropped the plastic cup and held on to the bed, feeling
its soft warmth, thankful it had no tangible resemblance to icy
marble. When he recovered, he leaned back in the bed and
gazed at his old friend.

"On second thought maybe you should have let me choke
to death;" he said, and Sly admitted he had deliberated on the
idea confirming to Dewayne that his suspicions were correct.
"Then you could have had my jail cell."

"No, my man, I'd be a hero. Nobody would lock me up"

Sly stared at Dewayne, feeling nothing but incomprehension.
Was this the man with whom he grew up? Was this the man
whose mother had been his mother, her funeral he had of late
attended? Was this the man the world condemned, tainting all
he had touched with a brushstroke of evil? His fall from grace
had bruised the conscience of a nation. Yet Sly felt drawn to
this hospital room like the pull to the sideshow of a demonic
carnival, and nothing could have prepared him for this. Nothing could have prepared him to look into the eyes of a lifelong
friend, one he had known longer than anyone else now left on
this earth, and see the alteration from man to beast. It was the stuff of sinister, medieval tales told as morality plays in an attempt to hold in check the evil residing in a man's heart.

"This room sucks. It stinks like a backed-up toilet in here;"
Sly said, waving his hand beneath his nose.

"What did you expect from a prison hospital? We criminals
don't get much selection," and Dewayne raised his arm with
its restraint.

It was an ancient room in an ancient hospital from an ancient era when the practice of medicine for criminals and the
insane was austere, on the level of care given to neglected domestic animals with little hope. Sly went over to the window
and looked through the bent and crooked blinds. All he saw
beyond the twenty-foot fence topped off with razor wire was
the industrial county penal complex.

"Like the view from here;" Sly said, swiping the greasy dust
off a blade with his finger and then wiping the grime on the
cracked plaster wall.

"It's why I keep the blinds closed"

Sly turned back and really took in Dewayne.

"You've lost some weight" Sly noticed a withered look of
aging in his face and a hairline losing its claim on his scalp.

"I've been on the radiation/chemotherapy diet. I don't recommend it."

"So, you really have a brain tumor, my man?" Sly asked, his
tone obviously incredulous.

"It's a little octopus at the base of my brain, spreading out
its tentacles like the fingers of God"

"That explain why you went crazy ... killed your family?"

"You work for the DA now, my man?" Dewayne asked. "My
best friend has gone over to the other side, gone and bought into
the lies. You take what you've heard from the world and pass your guilty verdict. A despairing man should have the devotion
of his friends, no matter what they say he has done."

Sly felt contempt rising in him. He thought he had come
to find answers, but he now knew he would not have believed
any answer he heard. "Let me tell you, my man, you don't have
any friends"

There was the truth. Dewayne was alone, and he felt the
weight return to his chest, the weight he felt in his dream, the
weight of God crushing him, cutting him off from all comfort,
all hope.

"Why have you come?" Dewayne asked, his voice a whisper.

"How could you do it? How in God's name could you do it?"
Sly asked and bowed his head and stretched his arms over the
railing at the foot of the bed. He raised his hand to mute any
statement Dewayne was about to make. "I went to Springdale
for the funeral of your mother." Sly pounded the rail of the bed.
"I buried her ... Jake and me. I can't believe we buried our
mama and you weren't there. I can't believe our mama's dead.
I can't believe she's gone from us and you ... you..

Sly did not finish his accusation. Dewayne had already accepted the culpability for the death of his mother. It was not
necessary for Sly to point his finger of blame at Dewayne with
one hand and pound his fist on the bed with the other. Dewayne
dreaded facing his mother on the Day of judgment more than
he dreaded facing God. In fact, he looked forward to facing
God, to standing before God in the boldness of his innocence
and confronting him for his indifference, for his terrors against
a man who had done nothing to deserve such malevolent attention. But his mother was a different story. From the grave how
would she ever know of his innocence? Who would tell her? Who would plead his case and convince her that her son, her
only son, would never, could never, do all he had been accused
of? Facing Sly was only a prelude to the moment he would face
his mother, whom he had killed. That was the one death, the
only death, to which he would plead guilty.

Dewayne dropped his head back onto his pillow, the chains
from his arm rattling as he raised his hand to cover his eyes.
Grief incapacitated him. He wondered if Sly was capable of
feeling real empathy for him.

When the door to the room opened, the familiar voice that
spoke her greeting made Dewayne pull his hand from his eyes,
and he looked into Rosella's exhausted face. She too had lost
weight. She too had physically aged, her face drained of its
perennial brightness, and her body appeared to have shrunk
inside her loose clothes. Dewayne watched as Sly stepped toward her, and she fell into his arms, both of them weeping,
oblivious to the man lying in bed, watching their every move,
listening to every sob and moan.

Dewayne felt as though this could have been a scene performed for his benefit. Perhaps it was; perhaps it was a conscious action long held dormant within the hearts of Rosella
and Sly, who were, given the circumstances, free to respond
to their true feelings. And perhaps this was another in a series
of God's humorless jokes, another of his razor-sharp daggers
thrust into Dewayne's soul, forcing him to watch his wife being
comforted in another man's arms, comforted for the horrendous crimes the couple in the scene believed he had committed, crimes that had rescinded his right to touch his wife or be
touched by her. Why couldn't the brain tumor have shut down
his mind or at least taken his sight and hearing? Another of
God's jokes, forcing Dewayne to be the helpless observer.