Fifty One

2019

After Mike’s confession, we spent the afternoon being debriefed by a host of suits. I was reprimanded for grabbing the stiff by the neck, but it was worth the finger wagging admonishment. I’ll always have in my memory bank that image of Mike sputtering when I rammed his eye-ball popping head against the wall.    

During the debriefing, the suits went through the next steps in the prosecution and what our roles might be.  I could not focus.  I sat there pretending to listen, but they’d have to send me an e-mail. My head had no room for next steps right then. There’d been no problem with the audio. We’d got the confession. I felt good about that.

However, I knew I would never be able to purge the demon completely, even if they hung Mike.  I don’t like to kid myself and the truth was that I had.  I had kidded myself. After the Fireside, I should have contacted the Smiths and persisted with the police. Sure, maybe they would have dismissed me as a quack, and maybe for a while they would have thought that I was involved, and--as far as I knew then--it was possible that the drowned woman in Cline Pond was not Jenny, and it was possible that even if Jenny was the victim, that Mike was not the killer. All that was possible.  

Yet, the case could have been explored in 1974 if I’d persisted. The Smiths might have been able to identify their daughter. Initially they would have been devastated, but they would have been spared forty-five years of not knowing what had happened to Jenny.  Mike could have been stopped from any subsequent crimes he may have committed.  

I could lie to myself again and say that I’d done all I could, but I hadn’t.   After a spell, I made the demon disappear in my own head, rationalizing it away. Suppressing somewhere for half a century what I’d not done.  It wasn’t until I got whacked in the head with the newspaper article that I did anything.

***

Becca and I went to get something to eat after the debriefing. A sort of celebratory early dinner. We returned to the motel around 7. Her room was up on the third floor away from the traffic. She doesn’t sleep well with noise.  My room was on the first floor facing the road.  Tonight, I could sleep on an airport runway. 

Tomorrow, Becca has to return to work, so I will be taking her to the airport in our rental so she can catch an early morning flight. I will have to wait until evening to go back. The suits have more questions. The Smiths are flying in and want to meet me.  

I’m in my room and am packing up.  I too will be checking out in the morning.  After I take Becca to the airport, I’ll return to the motel, shower, and put my suitcase in the car.   I plan to leave directly for the airport after I meet with the authorities and Jenny’s parents. 

***

It’s about 830 pm. There’s a knock on my motel room door. I go to open it and there is Becca.  She has a huge shopping bag from Trader Joe’s in her hand.  She’s wearing a white cardigan sweater, jeans, and sneakers. I’m surprised. I thought we’d said goodbye for the night when we came back from the restaurant.

“Hey Z.” She says.

“Hi Becca. What’s up? What’s in the bag?”

“Oh. I brought something.” She says as she walks past me into the room. She puts the bag down and turns toward me.

“A gift?” I say.

“A gift.”

“For me.”

“Well, for us.”

“Well. That’s uh nice.  Thank you.” I lift my head and gesture in the direction of the where she's placed the big shopping bag. “What’s the gift?”

“Not yet. There are some things I have to say.”

“Okay.” I take a seat on the bed and point to what I’d discovered was a surprisingly comfortable motel room chair. She sits and waits a second before starting to speak.

“It would be good” she says “if maybe you cannot be a wise guy for the next few minutes.”

“I’ll give it a go.”

“Tough for you, I know.”

“I’ll try.”

***

“Right. Look, Z.  A few things. First, I want you to know that I think that what you did was special.”

“Not a bad job as an actor.  Eh?”

“Well that too, but I’m not talking about just what you did today. I’m talking from the beginning. Once you read that article in the newspaper.”

“That was not the beginning. The beginning was forty five years ago. Once I saw the article in the airport, I had no choice.”

Becca shakes her head. “No. You had a choice. You could have ignored it. Parked it somewhere.”

“I parked it for half a century. Once I saw the article.  I couldn’t ignore it.”

“Well maybe you couldn’t have. But others would have. Z.”  She stops for a moment. “Look at me.”

I was, but I look at her more squarely.  “I’m looking.”

“If the situation was reversed, if I’d seen that article, and I’d taken that trip.  I would have found a way to ignore it.”

I look at her as if to say, “No way.”

“I would have Z.  I could have made up a dozen reasons.   It’s forty five years. There's nothing that can be done now.  I did what I could have done. I have my own life, The Smiths are better off not knowing. This is what they pay the cops for.  I would have trotted out a host of excuses. Maybe the article would have bugged me some on the flight home, but by the time I landed in Boston, I would have buried it and gone on with my life.”

“Tough to believe.”

“Believe it. I would have buried it and so would have most of the population. What you did shows who you are and what makes you the person you are.”

“Thank you. Not sure, I deserve an award for sleeping on something for half a century that may have allowed a murderer to keep killing-but thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Another pause. She puts her head down for a moment and then picks it back up. Looks right in my eyes. “Listen Z. You know that you and I could never have made it together.”

“I know that.”

“You’re just too much of a pain in the ass.”

I point to myself. “I’m a pain in the ass?”

“Yes, you are a pain in the ass.  You know, the government has sent me medals for being your girlfriend for those years we were in Buffalo.”

“Medals?” I say.

“Medals.  There’s not enough room in my house for all the medals they sent me for putting up with you.”

“You might want to check the inscription on those medals.  See what’s written on them. It’s probably not complimentary. Those medals are probably engraved with the word ‘BallBuster.’ "

“No. I’ve looked at them. That’s not what they say. On one side the inscription reads ‘Patience’ and the other side ‘Perseverance.’”

“Patience? Right. Must have been delivered to the wrong address. You know. The post office...”

“You and I could never live together. If I foolishly ever decided to move in with you and brought my furniture over, two weeks later I’d have to call the moving company to take my furniture back.”

“Less than two weeks.” I say.

“One week.”

“Probably” I say. “You know if you were thinking of moving in, you could have booked a round trip with the movers.”

“Right. Round trip. Like a plane.” She said. “Make sure to reserve for the move back.”

I snap my fingers. “Or, you know, when they come the first time, have the movers wait on the street. Like a cab. ‘Hey driver. Wait here and keep the meter running. I should be right back.’”

“Something like that.” She laughs. “Look we both know we couldn’t make it together. But still, I want you to know that I think—I’m being serious now—I think you are a wonderful person. What you did, few would do.”

“Not sure I am wonderful. Mike might have killed others. I could have prevented it. That doesn't make me real wonderful.  But if we are talking about wonderful and are being serious here…” I pause and make sure we are looking into each other’s eyes. “I’m not blowing smoke, Becca. What you did was other worldly. We don’t get to today without what you did.   Not only how careful and meticulous you were. Your influence. We don’t get a hearing without you knowing people.  You didn’t need this time sap. You were so thorough. Becca, if I was wonderful, you were wonderful squared.”

“Glad you think so Z.” Becca puts her hand on the back of one of mine. Holds it there for a moment. Then she gets up from her seat. She takes a few steps one way before turning back and sitting down again. 

 “I’ve been thinking a lot about your trip in ‘74. I remember something you told me when you returned.  You said that it was like a microcosm of life. You remember talking about this?”

“Well, I remember thinking about it.”

“You talked to me about it. You said the trip was a microcosm. Good rides and bad rides.  Going the right way, but then sometimes going the wrong way. Getting off track and having to find your way to the right path again.  Like life.  You don’t remember telling me this?”

“I probably did. I thought about it a lot.”

“I thought of something else the other day. Another way your trip was a microcosm of life.  Your trip, like life, was really made up of a bunch of coincidences.  You get one ride it leaves you off here, and therefore you get an opportunity to meet a person there, who would never be part of your life, had you not taken the first ride. You leave a half an hour later from UCLA and you get different rides. Never see the Chicken Farmer or Tim or Lomack. If you don’t get turned around in Salt Lake City, you don’t meet Maurianne, and then you don’t meet Jenny. What happens to Jenny may or may not happen, but it occurs in a different orbit.

“Our whole life is just a bunch of coincidences. What are the odds that Jenny meets Mike at the motorcycle show? Tiny. But then again, what are the odds that I ever meet up with you. I’m from Baltimore. We meet in Buffalo because you, at the last minute, decide not to enroll at Michigan. I was in that class we were in because the one I wanted to get into was cancelled.  And I wasn’t even supposed to be in Buffalo. Before Buffalo I intended to marry my then boyfriend and live in Annapolis. He and I break up and I go to school in Buffalo to get away and have a fresh start, and I wind up taking the substitute class where we meet. 

“And now here we are. In a motel in Scranton, Pennsylvania doing something that would not have been done, by us at least, had it not been for hundreds of coincidences.  We all connect because of coincidences.  

Again, Becca reaches out and puts her hands out. This time she holds onto mine.

You remember when we went to see Jacques Brel is Alive and Well?”

“I’ll never forget seeing that show with you.” 

“And then I bought you the album for your birthday.”

“Sure. That was a great gift, Becca.  We played the hell out of that album.”

“Over and over.” Says Becca “Lying on that cheap rug in your room in front of those secondhand speakers you had. Do you remember the song about the carousel?”

“Sure.” I sing-song the recurring lyric: “‘We’re on a carousel, a crazy carousel.’”

“That’s right. I wrote that on the wrapping paper when I gave you the gift: ‘We’re on a carousel, a crazy carousel.’ Happy birthday Z. Let’s enjoy this ride. Becca’”  

“I remember that.” And I do. I even had kept the wrapping paper for some time.

 “I’m glad that you remember that note.” Another pause. “I just want to say this last thing and then I am going to shut up.”

“Good.” I say  "If you speak any longer I'm afraid you'll send me a bill for consulting."

She waves at me. “When we all are on our carousel rides, we, on occasion, mess up. We’re not machines. We mess up now and then. And then we have choices. We can either keep on riding around in circles and pretend nothing is wrong. Or we can clean up the mess.”

“Good analogy.” I say.

“And what sets people apart, I think, is their willingness to acknowledge their messes; and not pretend they don’t exist.” Becca releases her hands from mine. She stands up again and looks down at me. “The truth is Z, you did mess up. You’re a good man. But you did mess up. Not saying I wouldn't have messed up in the same way.  I think it's likely that I would have done just what you did. But you did mess up.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“But as opposed to most people-including me-you, today, and for the last months have looked squarely at the mess and you dealt with it.”

“A little too late.”

“Not too late. Not too late. There is no” Becca puts her hands up to make air quotes, “There is no ‘statue of limitations’ on acknowledging our messes and cleaning up.”

Becca pulls me up from where I’d been sitting on the bed “You’re a good man Z. A good man.” 

And then Becca embraces me. She gives me a hug that is no tent triangle hug.  It is a braless squeeze that is accompanied by as steamy a kiss as one can enjoy. I embrace it and return the kiss. When we disengage, my heart is beating rat a tat tat. There is no traction on any of the thoughts that are coursing through my brain.  Starch is beginning to work between my legs.

"That wasn't the gift?" I say

 Becca laughs. “Jenny had that moon and star tattoo. Light illuminating the darkness. When anyone cleans up their stuff, they are light illuminating darkness.”

“Hey Becca, I’m serious. Without you, today does not happen.”

“I helped. I know. You’re too stubborn and impetuous to have done this yourself.”

“Now you sound like Becca.”

“And it was beyond stupid and irresponsible for you to have hitchhiked by yourself in the first place. Stupid. Irresponsible. We’re not invulnerable.  And really, Z, let’s be honest, you are difficult…But you’re a good man.”

“Should I have that as my tattoo. Get a tattoo on my chest that says Good Man.”

“Nah. Don’t bother with the ink. It’s already there and you can’t get rid of it. Besides, to be truthful, you’d have to have another tattoo underneath it… ‘But extraordinarily difficult.’ It would require more ink and probably be expensive. So many letters in extraordinarily.”

“Okay. Fine. Enough with the barbed compliments. What’s in the bag?”

“Right, the bag.” Becca takes a breath. “I told you. We could never make it, you and me.”

“Nothing could be more incontrovertible.” I say.

“But we did bring justice to Jenny Smith.” 

“Thanks. Glad you used the pronoun We.” I gesture with my head toward the bag.   

“The bag.” She says. The bag is sitting a few feet over from where Becca and I are standing. Before moving toward it, Becca leans over and kisses me lightly.  Then she turns and reaches into the bag. She yanks out a stuffed pillowcase and hoists the pillow case over her shoulder.

“Santa Claus coming to town?”

“Sort of.” Becca says.  Then she opens up the pillowcase, and pours out tee shirts, underwear, a pair of white shorts, and a bra.

I stare at the clothes. I think I know where she is going. Becca sees my staring and begins speaking.“It’s time to do the wash, Z." She pauses. “There's a very powerful there here, and the carousel does not run forever." 

“Is there a reason you still separate the white clothes from the dark. I never could get that.”

Becca smiles.  “It’s time to do the wash.  You agree?” 

I nod. “I can be down with that.”

Becca smirks. “I trust you soon will be.” Becca slowly unbuttons her cardigan and removes it.  She turns around and, go figure, folds the sweater neatly before placing it on the motel dresser. She turns back “Take off your shirt Z.”  

I do. We stand there naked from the waist up staring at each other.   

Then Becca takes a step forward and hugs and kisses me again.  It is thrilling. The starch has done its work.

"We'll always have Scranton." I say.

Gently Becca takes a finger and presses against my chest so that I will fall back on the bed. When I am seated, she begins pushing her jeans below her hips. “This is right.” She says. “The crazy carousel does not run forever. It will stop for us both at some point. Right now. This moment when the there is so here. Let’s enjoy the ride.”

The End