Hidden Heroes
"Not so fast, bud. You're part of this whether you like it or not. Do as she says. Sit. Stay." She smiled lightly, but he looked concerned.
"All right. We're going to get some straight answers here, and nobody moves until I tell them." She was in full form. Possibly her fifteen minutes of fame.
"First of all, Conrad, if you knew about this angel business, why didn't you ever say anything?"
"You wouldn't have believed me. Anyway, I did. I kept telling mom, and finally one day she said, ‘Oh,
all right, yes. But this is between you and me."
"WHAT! You knew! All this time, mom!?" Julia yelled.
"Mom, I think you've reached an all-time record for concealing information. How come you never said anything?" Jesse implored her mother.
"I didn't know how to tell you." Julia and Jesse looked at each other and seeing the immense irony in this, laughed.
"Okay, second. Why did we move to Oregon?" Jesse didn't know her sister had wondered about this, too. Garrett and Claire exchanged glances while Conrad wildly waved his hand, "I know, I know! Can I answer?" He directed this to his father, asking permission. Mostly out of curiosity or possibly fear, no one objected.
"Dad was out with a hooker, she stole his car and left him to get beat up by some dudes in an alley. It was scandalous, so we got the heck out of Dodge." Julia and Jesse's mouths dropped to the floor. Garrett didn't move a muscle. He could take it all back right now, change his children's image of himself, and hers, perhaps, even have them think him a hero, if only for a moment. It would still be more than he thought he'd get.
He remembered in a flash all the outlandish stunts he pulled trying to impress her, and make her think him grand, a cut above her other suitors. There was no good reason for her to want him. That desire was his driving force for more years than even he could count, but now, for the first time, he realized that he didn't want to be a
hero after all. He wanted to be accepted for who he was, flaws, imperfections and a few measly triumphs. If their opinion of him rested on the events of one day in his life, than changing their opinion was meaningless. Mercy has to be free or it's not mercy, but pity.
He didn't think too much of that night any more. He'd been drunk, of course. In those days, there weren't many nights he wasn't drunk, staying out late, making Claire worry or having to chase him down and drag him home. That girl was fire. Pure fire. He was walking out to his car after leaving the third bar he'd been in (trying to lose Claire's phantom tail), and heard a woman try to scream from over near a dark alley. His instinct took him over, but once there he felt he'd been led to a trap. There were three guys beating on this gal, and as he got closer to them his shoes crunched on the wet gravel, and hearing it, she tried to call again for help. He saw her look out to him from underneath the heap of men, her wet brown eyes wide with terror, begging for mercy.
One of the men whirled around, and for some reason Garrett chose that moment to put his hands inside his jacket pocket. The man who turned around first flinched, and the one next to him started to raise his hands, but the third guy hissed at him to put them down. He thinks I have a gun, Garrett thought to himself. His fingers fidgeted with the keys his hand found in the pocket, and he remembers most clearly this next moment. It happened in an instant, but took forever. He yelled, "Get away from them!" to the girl; at the same time he slowly took his hand out of his pocket. The three men advanced on Garrett, and the girl scrambled out from under them and ran down the alley in the opposite direction of the four men. Garrett saw himself hurl his keys at her, but didn't see if she got them because the three hoods were on him. Garrett Mason is not a big man, and he heard one of the men say, "This is gonna be too easy. Who do you think you are, loser, saving a whore?" Garrett growled back, "Three of you against one of her, and I'm the loser? Fuck you." Then it went black. The thugs used him for batting practice, leaving him for dead when they tired of their easy prey, and left in search of the girl. He was unconscious for two days, and when he woke up in the hospital room Claire was standing beside him looking like she wanted to knock him back out into oblivion. "How could you?! A hooker! They nearly killed you, Garrett. Was she worth it? How could you!?" She shrieked, hysterically.
Laying there in a stunned silence, staring up at his wife trying to put together the details of what she was saying, the tangled pieces of pain, terror and memory slowly unraveled. "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" He couldn't remember much and it was too hard to talk, but it probably didn't matter what he said anyway. A woman getting beaten up and then everything going black. And the question in the mist. "What are you talking about?" He asked. "Don't even think of trying that ploy this time! How dare you insult me like that! Do you know what people are going to be saying? I will never be able to walk around this town again. And what about the children....God, how could you?!" She'd gotten herself so worked up that she stormed out of the room, leaving him confused and in horrible pain. His face was hanging by a thread when they found him, and he'd been kicked so many times nearly all of his ribs were broken. The version of the story that circulated the neighborhood amused Garrett now, but at the time it genuinely hurt him. All his life he'd idolized superheroes, and fancied himself this strong, noble, merciful ruler, with his subjects calling him 'sir' or 'lord'. He longed for someone other than the old Chinese woman at the laundry on thirty-second street to call him Mr. Mason.
A hero. Garrett had never been anyone's hero, and his one big chance was ripped away along with half his face. They said the hooker left him for her thugs to finish off, and she stole his car. He knew no one would believe anything else, and the only reasonable thing to do was to take the family and move out of town. Claire found the whole story hard to believe, but he never said otherwise so neither did she. She put him in the dog house for months, and he never complained.
On that cold, hard asphalt, he knew he was bleeding to death. Happened pretty quick, he thought. Didn't feel much, he was thankful. He hoped she had gotten away safely. He heard the sirens but didn't think they'd reach him in time. His eyes were swollen shut, but for some reason it wasn't dark. Had it been dark when he left the bar, he tried to remember? He was warm, but thought he should be cold. Then he heard a voice say, "You're finished. You may return if you desire. Would you like to stay or go on?" He realized he was being asked if he wanted to leave his life and go home.
How did he know this, he wondered for a long time afterward? His thoughts came rapid-fire, and pictures from his life appeared before him. His life had been such a damn struggle, and he was tired of struggling. It was all so hard, too hard.
It shouldn't be this hard, he thought. Then, her face. The woman he would lay down his life for, and it wasn't the one driving his car. Her fire still warmed his heart, as long as he didn't get too close and get scorched. They used their love like weapons, both too scared to lay down their arms first. Garrett and Claire made an unspoken agreement when they first met: I won't show you mine, if you don't show me yours, and that was just the way it was for them. During their brief courtship, Claire copied a poem for him telling him she saw both of them in the words. It was their first and only intimate exchange, but it was the glue that held them together. He knew the words by heart:
Sometimes
I think
That I'm not really present
At my life,
As though it goes on
Without my permission.
Sometimes,
Although I don't want to die,
I want to stop
Living.
I want to climb
Into the other side
of my face
And observe my experiences
Without having them.
Sometimes,
And only once in a while,
I want to stop living,
But I really don't want
To die.
"This is it?" Garrett heard his mind ask the voice.
"Yes."
"I'll stay." He heard himself answer. Something in him realized the magnitude of his decision, but he would not go without her.
"I'll betcha a dollar, Max, she'd do it for me. Great system, isn't it?" Garrett confirmed.
He could speak up and set the story straight. Right now.
"No, Conrad. That is not what happened." Everyone turned to Claire, but none with as shocked an expression as Garrett.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
|
