Leaping (12 page)

Jordan
stepped in. It was a nice room, typical for a kid Seth's age. "Nice
pad," he said. He went to the shelf of trophies and started to look.

"I
don't play anymore," Seth said.

"Baseball?"
Jordan asked.

"Anything."

"Why
not?"

"Mom's
afraid…well I had to take the year off."

"What
about Scouts?"

"Nope,"
he said, holding the comic so Jordan couldn't see his face.

"Youth
group?"

Seth
sighed tiredly.
"Sometimes."

"What
else?"

He
crinkled the comic on his chest, "You trying to like…care or something?
You don't have to."

"Good
to know," he said, moving to the books now. There was a shelf of them.
"Read all of these?"

He
said he didn't know. Jordan reached for his IPod, but Seth shot off his bed and
grabbed it.

"Sorry,"
Jordan said.

"You
ain't like what I thought," Seth said opening his nightstand drawer and
dropping it in.

"Oh
yeah?"
Jordan.

"What
was it like when you killed him?" Seth folded his arms.

Jordan
folded his arms, too. He looked at Seth for a minute, wondering how to answer.

"It
was bad. I hope you never…."

"I'm
going in Special Forces. Then the police academy," Seth interrupted.

"Okay,"
Jordan said.

"I want to kill
bad guys." He'd rattled this off, and now the stare.

"Sounds
like a plan," Jordan.

"It
is," Seth said, picking up the comic and flopping back on the bed.

Cori
called up the stairs that desert was ready. Jordan could smell a cake, but he
had no appetite. This kid…. He started to walk to Seth's door.

"You
never said…," Seth said, still holding the comic in front of his face.

"What?"

Seth
lowered the comic. "You never said what it was like."

"I
was trying to stop him. I was just trying to stop him, you know?"

Seth
sat up. "I'm glad you killed him. Only…I wish I could have done it."

"No
you don't. You don't want that."

"Yes
I do."

"I
know you're mad. You should be. It's okay to be mad. What he did…it's the
worst. No one can say any different."

"I
hate him. I hate his filthy guts."

"I
know that. But you can't…."

"I
hate his whole family. Mom says I can't and the counselor and the preacher and
all. I just let it go by. I will never…ever stop hating him." Fire was
coming out of Seth's eyes. He seemed as mad at Jordan as everyone else on his
long list.

They
stared at each other.

"Go
on and yell about it. Everyone else does." Seth said, throwing the book.

Jordan
walked to Seth's desk and pulled out the chair and sat. "I'm not going to
tell you how to feel about it."

"I'll
never forgive him. Do you? Do you forgive him? Cause if you do…fuck you."

Jordan
was looking at the floor, the white carpet. He nodded.

"Dalton
said you were growling like a crazy man," Seth laughed.

Jordan
stayed quiet. He hadn't known that, didn't want to,
didn't
want to see himself as he'd been then…killing.

"There's
nothing funny," Jordan said. Now he was getting mad.

"It's
pretty funny to think he
shit
himself. He did."

"
You going
to be an asshole now?" Jordan said.

"Fuck
you," Seth said.

"There's
nothing to laugh at," Jordan repeated.

"I
think it's pretty funny," Seth sneered.

"You
don't think it's funny at all. Taking a life is never funny. You asked me what
it was like…it was sad, man. The saddest thing I ever had to do. I've been damn
sad about it."

"Why?
You think you should have let him go on killing us?"

"No.
What he did…to your
grampa
…to you boys…to his
family…and what I had to do to him. It's nothing but sad."

"I'm
sick of hearing it." Seth sat on the side of his bed, holding his stomach.
"Get my mom. I don't feel good."

"What's
wrong?"

"Mom,"
Seth yelled, holding his stomach and rocking.

Cori
was immediately there. Jordan knew she had to be right outside the door.

She
was quickly next to Seth. "Seth, look at me," she said, untangling
his arms.

"Look
at me. It's alright. You're alright. We're safe."

"I
hate him," he yelled.

"Stop
it," Cori rebuked.

"I
hate James."

"I
know. But you have to calm down, Seth. You have to calm down. Think of Grampa.
You know he would want you to calm down," Cori soothed.

Jordan waited. Cori
held Seth, and at first he sat rigid, looking at the floor. He'd started to
cry, but he kept his face down like he didn't want them to see. It was some
minutes before he leaned toward Cori and
she
rocked him a little while she held him.

"Alright
now?" she said finally.

"Yeah,
sorry," Seth whispered.

"It's
alright, sweetheart," Cori whispered.

She
moved away then and stood. "Come on downstairs," she said to Jordan,
and he could see how tired she was, how tired they both were.

"I'll
be right down," he said.

She
was slow to leave the room, but Jordan stood there. "You alright
now?" he said to Seth.

"Yeah,"
that one said, sniffing.

"I'm
sorry I let you down…leaving after it happened…with James. I didn't realize how
it would be for you guys. I thought…I'd done what I could. I didn't want to
think…there was more."

Seth
shrugged. "It's okay," he practically whispered.

"It's
not," Jordan said. "But…I can't change it. Whatever the answer
is…don't hate. If you hate…you change."

"I
already told you. I hate him."

Jordan
could see the agitation rebuilding.

"Hate
what he did. Hate it so much you go in the opposite direction. But hate people,
hate James, and you become like him."

"I'm
nothing like him," Seth yelled.

"Don't
hate. You're alive. Your
grampa
would tell you…don't
hate. Be a good man. Make him proud."

"I
will," Seth said intensely. "That's why I'm going to be a police."

"I
thought you wanted to kill bad guys," Jordan smiled.

"I
do.
Like you did.
To save
people."

Jordan
nodded.
"A protector.
That's cool.
A hero.
Hate evil, hate cruelty…but don't hate people.
You're alive. You made it. That's it. Nothing else is as big as dying. And you
didn't die. Now it's all a gift, buddy. Take care of people, man. Take care of
your mother. You get crazy like that…it worries her."

"I
don't mean to. They're rages. I get them sometimes."

"Okay.
I'll bet they've taught you some skills though, huh?"

He
shrugged.
"Yeah.
Breathing and stuff. Good
thoughts.
Praying.
But sometimes…I don't want to. I'm
mad."

"Yeah.
No one is telling you not to be mad.
Just be mad at the right things. James Carson is gone. He's in God's hands now
and God is a good judge. But evil…it's not gone, man. It's still here. You
can't become the new evil, the new threat. You have to stand against it
now."

"I
am."

"Good.
Use your skills. And you think about what I said…about hate."

He
looked at Jordan, then he nodded deep, and something kicked up in Jordan and he
sat heavy in the chair. "Hey kid…you're alive," he tried to talk, but
he was gone then and he sobbed, at first with no tears, his body pulling in on
himself, then releasing and a sound he could barely swallow.

He
felt Seth's hand on his back, patting his back. "
It's
okay Mr. Jordan," Seth whispered.

Jordan
sobbed. "I'm so sorry…."

"It's
okay," Seth said, and the hands…too big…patted Jordan's shoulder.

"Seth,"
Jordan gasped through his tears, "you're alive…it's all that
matters…you're alive. Nothing else is that big. Nothing else…matters. Don't
hate. You're alive."

"It helps if you
breathe," Seth said as he continued to pat with his too big hands.

Chapter
16

After
dinner with Cori and Seth, they had tried to persuade him to throw down on the
couch.

He
had been adamant, much as it ruined him to spend any time away from Cori, even
Seth, him too. He wasn't there to put a question on Cori's reputation. He could
take care of himself.
In this at least.

Jordan
drove around, meant to get a room, but sat in the motel parking lot in Danville
until he fell asleep. When he awoke it was dead night. He was stiff with a
crook in his neck
cause
his head had fallen to the
side. But he knew what to do, right away, he drove to the interstate. Under
cover of night, he was going to Sydney.

He
had no plan. This was all bigger than him and at last he was in touch with it.

He
was twenty-two minutes on the highway and he got off at the federal prison
there and backtracked to town.

It
had not changed. Sydney wasn't more than a square. Houses sprawled beyond it,
but except for the churches dotted here there and all over, there wasn't a
thing going on in Sydney.

He
wove into the neighborhood some. There was Billy's house. Shit, there was his
old house. Yeah, cars in front, it had some
love
, but
hey, they'd torn down his fence and he'd worked like a dog on that. Well shit.

But
he kept going, chattering in his mind. He got to the schools and in back of
them was the street the church sat on. He pulled in the lot there and parked so
he could stare at the building. Well, there it was, the battleground, and not
just because of what happened with James, but he'd battled there on many
fronts, many times.

It
was dumb to come here. Did he need to? What was he looking for? He was
looking…for his life. He'd dropped it suddenly…and he was looking in the
corners now, under all the beds, picking up the pieces…holding them in his
hands. That's all.

He
fell asleep again. When he awoke it was because the town was waking up, parents
driving kids to school, the yellow buses grinding past, the secretary pulling
into the lot, around the back, first one in the building. He tucked his hands
into his armpits. It was cold. He was cold.

Billy's
van, that behemoth, fixed for a handicap. Jordan knew he'd be in his chair, and
he was. Jordan figured he was in it most of the time now. That had been coming.

Billy
wouldn't know this car. He'd figure Jordan for an indigent sleeping on the lot,
thrown out of the house, shipwrecked from another town, suicidal…. No one knew
what a pastor might find when he came to work in the morning cause like it or
not, a church, even a dark and silent one, was a lighthouse for the broken, but
Billy knew how it was.

Jordan
wondered what he looked like…like hell is what. Bill was lenient about the
dress code, but he asked Jordan not to wear jeans on Sunday, just that, but
now…he looked like a tramp. Well his hair did for sure.