Angels And Bad Men

By: David H
(© 2011 by the author)
Editor: Ken King

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

 Chapter 2
“The Comforts of Home”

When I left Tuscaloosa, I’d planned on staying at home only for a few days--just until the swelling around my left eye went down enough so that I could open it and the stiffness which afflicted me became bearable.  It surprised me a little that it took longer than expected for my physical recovery to begin.  By the Monday of the next week, my eye had barely been open a day, and it remained a deep purple color.  My body still ached despite the pain medication Dr. Abney had prescribed for me.  The only good thing was that the stitches on the outer part of my face were starting to itch a little bit, meaning that they’d soon be removed.

That Monday morning I awoke relatively early, at around nine.  The house was quiet except for the sound of the television playing in the living room.  Over that week, my parents insisted that I not be left alone.  My sister-in-law was the person charged more often than anyone else with making sure that there was somebody with me at all times.

As I put my clothes on and walked out of the room, I found Laura sitting on the sofa with a laptop computer, checking email and doing whatever work she could while away from her office.  In the background, some talk show she was fond of revealed the results of paternity tests to mothers were unsure of who had impregnated them.

“Good morning,” Laura said with a chipper tone as I walked into the room.  “How are you feeling?” she asked as she did every morning.

“I’m okay,” I said as I gave a half smile and continued en route to the kitchen.

As had been the case for days before, coffee was ready, but I didn’t want it.  The coffee from the morning of the attack had turned me away from the black water, at least for the time being.  I grabbed a bottle of water instead, along with the three orange bottles which contained meds I’d been taking for a week.  I took two of the pills together before opening the bottle to the last one.  The bottle was almost empty, with just one pill remaining.  I took a little breath as I poured the long white pill into the palm of my hand.  I realized I held in my hand the very last of my pain meds, and I was honestly a little scared of what might happen when the combined effects of them wore off.

I took the pill anyway, and rapidly washed it down with the rest of the half-liter bottle of water I’d grabbed.  I placed the plastic container into the recycle bin Justin had insisted my parents install, and I grabbed another bottle from the fridge.

“So, anything interesting going on?” I asked as I sat beside my sister-in-law on the couch.

“Not really,” she said as she looked up at the TV.  “So far, all the women have been right about who their baby’s daddy is.”

“Fun times,” I said as I focused on the screen for a second.

The rest of the morning went on much the same way, with but momentary breaks in the monotony to carry on brief conversation with my half-Anglo-Saxon, half-Greek sister-in-law with dark hair and dark eyes.

After both contestants lost the showcase showdown on The Price is Right, Laura and I switched over to something a little deeper, one of those cop shows that are so popular.  The whole thing caused me to reflect on the events that had happened in my own life.  In the show, some woman had been beaten, raped, and murdered.  While the latter two didn’t happen to me, the premise still hit too close to home.  The make-believe cops questioned the victim’s emotionally charged family.  It was all such a mess, but it was a mess with which I could identify.  I wondered what might have happened had I not made it through the attack.  What if Matt hadn’t found me lying there in the parking lot bleeding and taken me inside?  What if he hadn’t had the forethought to call my cousin and have her come over as quickly as possible?    

Unlike my own circumstances, however, the show ended neatly with resolution in less than an hour, as the assailant was found, tried, and convicted for the crime.  In my situation, everything was still in its first stages.  Sure, the physical recovery was progressing, but how was I going to deal with the inevitable emotional upheaval that was only just beginning?

For lunch, I sat in the kitchen while Laura prepared ‘macabarongi’ as my niece, her daughter, Heidi, called a simple dish containing elbow noodles and cheese.  Laura’s wasn’t ordinary, though.  She made it the ‘fancy’ way, with noodles, cheddar and feta cheeses, and a béchamel that she had perfected to a point where she didn’t need a recipe.  It took forever to cook, but when placed on one’s tongue for the first time, it was heaven.  It was just another in the line of food she’d prepared especially for me in the previous week.  I found early on that the damage to my face was far worse than I had initially imagined.  The injuries were such that I couldn’t chew solid foods without pains shooting through both my jaw and skull.  To that end, Laura had pulled out her best soft food recipes, including a dish that she called ‘papas cremadas a la puertorra,’ mashed potatoes with flavors and spices that reminded me of my mother’s homeland.

After lunch, I went back into my bedroom to sleep for a while.  I’d been doing a lot of that, as my body was telling me that it needed the time without activity to continue recovering.  That afternoon, I slept deeply.  My dreams were both amazingly vivid and acutely scary.  It was the first time my subconscious had permitted me to view some of the things which had happened to me.  In the dream, all of my friends from The Bar were there, pointing and looking at me as I walked around trying to find my way.  Some of them were crying and wouldn’t respond when I said something to them.  Some of them would talk to me, but wouldn’t say “It’s such a shame.”  The place in the dream, though, seemed so real.  It was as if I were actually interacting with people who were little more in that moment than figments of my imagination.

I awoke a couple of hours later bathed in sweat.  My heart raced as a result of something in my dreams.  I wanted to cry; my body was in pain, but I knew that there was no more medicine to make me relax.

As I lay there, people came in and out of the room.  Mostly it was Laura, until, that is, Mom got home from work.  Then it was Dad when arrived.  The whole time I just didn’t want to move.  Movement required energy that my mind wouldn’t let my body use.

I lay there in thought until well after everyone had gotten home.  Justin came in from practice around six; Parker arrived a short time later.  I didn’t know it, but the girls were also there, my precious nieces.  Laura left to pick them up from day care at some point after my mom returned home from work.  The girls were perfect little angels, playing in the bedroom that had once been their father’s.

At around seven, I heard my bedroom door crack open.  The sound of my parents, brothers, and sister-in-law in the next room clued me in as to who was entering my room.  It was a three-and-a-half foot tall little girl with dark hair and an insatiably inquisitive mind. 

“Hey, RyRy,” Heidi greeted me as she walked to the edge of my bed.  I turned over onto my other side so I could look her in the eyes.  To my surprise, Chloe had come in with Heidi and was also standing close by.

“Hey, Kid,” I tried to smile at her.

“Daddy said you had a boo-boo.  Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” I honestly responded.

“Well.  How did you get the boo-boo?”

“I don’t really remember.”

“Daddy said somebody hurt you,” Heidi went on.

“That’s what it looks like.”

“So, can I touch your boo-boo?” she continued.

“Yeah.  Just be gentle,” I said as I closed my eyes and she put her little finger against the black sutures holding pieces of flesh together.

Life for those in the other room was returning to normal.  Laura and Mom were talking about something while Dad, Justin, and Parker were working on a science project for Justin’s physics class.  (Dad was helping him build a model; Parker was helping him blow it up… right.)  At some point, though, my niece’s quietness was noticed.  Parker came into the house and noticed that Heidi wasn’t screaming as normal. 

As Heidi was continuing to feel the stitches, Parker walked into the room.  “Does this hurt, RyRy?” she asked as he stood in the doorway.

“Not right now,” I answered.

“Heidi Marie,” Parker said disapprovingly after a moment of silent observation.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed as she quickly pulled her finger away from my forehead.

“What did your Mom and I tell you?” he asked.

“Not to bother RyRy.  But I’m not bothering him,” she explained seriously.

“Is she?” my brother asked me.

“Not in the least,” I protected my precious niece from the anger that my brother could have expressed right then.

“Okay,” Parker said with a smile on his face.  “Heidi.  Why don’t you and your sister go see what Justy and Pappaw are doing?” he technically asked.  From his tone, however, it was more instruction than suggestion.

“Okay,” Heidi said before turning to look at me.  “RyRy...”

“Yeah?”

“When you find the bad men that did this to you, let me know.  I’ll go with Daddy to kick their asses!” she said sincerely as she reached up and kissed me.  Her innocence brought a smile to my face.  I’m sure she didn’t know what she was saying, but she’d said it, and it meant the world to know that I’d affected someone else’s life so deeply that they’d be willing to do that for me, despite their tender age.  It was also the first time in memory that Parker didn’t correct her use of foul language.  He just stood in the doorway and smiled.  “Come on, Chloe,” Heidi said as she took the baby’s hand and the two walked carefully past her father out of the room.

Parker walked in and shut the door.  “So, how are you doing today?” he asked as he sat on the edge of my bed.

“I’m okay,” I answered.

“Man.  How nice is my daughter sometimes?”

“She’s always nice.”

“She’s a little devil, but I love her because of it.”

My brother and I sat in silence for a moment.  Whereas Justin and I would talk to exchange ideas, Parker and I had a different kind of connection.  Just being with one another, whether things were spoken or not, always seemed to strengthen the fraternal bond we shared.

“Justin and I had ‘the talk’ the other day,” Parker started, turning himself around so could look at me directly.

“He said he wanted to do it,” I commented.

“Yeah.  He said he was worried that I’d be pissed.”

“I told him that you wouldn’t be pissed cause you got it all out of your system with me,” I joked.

“Dude... I know that I wasn’t cool with it at first.  In fact, I wanted to beat some sense into you back then.”  Parker stopped for a second.  “But since all this happened, I’ve found myself wanting to hunt these people down, put explosives all around their shit, and blow it--and them--into space.”  I’d grown to learn that when my brother talked about pyrotechnics, he meant business.  For him, blowing things up was like me sitting to write.  It was release and relief. 

“Thanks, Park,” I said as I reached up and put my arm on his.

“I’m really sorry I wasn’t there to kick their asses, man,” Parker whispered as he looked at me.  My brother, like my father, rarely showed such powerful emotions.  They both put up a façade that was almost impossible to crack.  This single event, however, brought my brother to a point where that veneer was splintering beneath the pressure.

“That means more than you will ever know,” I said to my brother as I lay there on the bed, unmoving.

“I’ll let you rest now,” Parker said as he stood from the bed.  “If you need me…”

“I know how to get your number,” I answered my brother as a less-than-melancholy look came across my face.

Around eight, Parker and Laura came back into my room to say goodnight.  The girls came in as well; Heidi reached up and gave me another kiss as she told me goodbye.  Chloe giggled in my direction, which was her way of saying the same thing, in Chloe-ese.  They left my room after a few minutes, leaving me there in the dark room in which I’d found a moment of solace.

“Hey, Kid,” Dad said as he walked into the room.  “You hungry?”

“Not really,” I answered.  I wasn’t really feeling like eating anything, as the mac and cheese a la sister-in-law had filled me up well.  As Dad stood there and we talked, Mom came into the room and picked up a couple of pieces of clothes from the floor.  She said something and smiled at me.  I knew that they were just trying to make me feel at peace, but darkness and solitude was all that I really needed or wanted right then.

Justin also came in a few minutes later and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Can you help me with something for Mr. Moss’s class?” he asked.  Knowing the eccentricities associated with Mr. Stanley Moss, I agreed.  “He said that we’re supposed to think of a color and then think about what it symbolizes,” he said.  I remembered the assignment well from the time I took his 11th grade English class, so I wasn’t surprised.

“You know.  When I did this assignment, I think I smoked something first,” I joked.

“You got any?” Justin joked.

“NO!” I answered honestly.  I hadn’t smoked anything other than a good cigar since I was a teenager.  The stuff had held no real appeal for me beyond those days of youthful experimentation.

“Just joking anyway,” he said.  “So, what should I put first?”

“What’s the first color you can think of?”

“White.”

“Innocence, peace, beauty, goodness, wholesomeness, boring...” I said in rapid response.

“Shit.  Slow down!” he instructed as I said it again.  Justin moved from the edge of my bed to the opposite side.  I managed to roll myself over so that I was lying on my back.

“Black.”

“Lack of innocence, turmoil, ugliness, evil, fun times, the uncertain...” I answered more slowly.

“Okay.  What about blue?”

“Nobility, freedom, honor, honesty, water.”

“Brown.”

“Shit.”

“I can’t put that!” Justin protested.

“Yes, you can,” I said.  “Just do it and see what he says.”

“If I get detention, it’s your ass that’s gonna get in trouble!” he joked back as he lay down on the bed beside me, much as he’d done when he was younger, when the monsters were in his room and such.  He would alternate between me and Parker until Parker moved out; then, it was all my responsibility to drive them away.  As I thought about it, however, I was the same way with Parker.

“Okay.  What’s next?”

“Pink.”

“Innocence and fragility,” I responded.

“Yellow.”

“Joy, optimism, idealism.”

“Green.”

“Growth, nature, intelligence, and envy.”

“Red.”

Red.  Rather than using what I knew of literature, I thought about myself.  In literature, red is the color that symbolizes power.  It symbolizes passion and excitement, too.  Red can also refer to something as being dangerous, destructive, or aggressive.  It’s the color of blood, so it can also sometimes signify pain and suffering.  My mind couldn’t wrap itself around those symbols, though.  Right then it could only see the patches of blood that were on my walls and carpets in Tuscaloosa.  It could only symbolize the demons that had been expelled from my body as I got back to my place from the police station the week before.  I could the see the blood-stained pavement as if I were right in front of it.

“Ryan?  You all right?” Justin asked as he sat up.

“Red is the color of harlots and bullies, communism and Republicans, and... blood.”

“So, all bad things?” he asked.

“It can be good, depending on how you look at things,” I answered.

“What does blood mean?” he asked.

“Birth, rebirth, anger, passion,” I answered.

“Could it also be ignorance?” Justin asked.  It was almost as if our minds were now veering down the same path.

“I would say that ignorance would be something grey, not blood,” I answered.

“Awesome.  Thanks, Ry,” he said as he jumped off my bed and ran toward his room.

“Welcome,” I answered as he shut my door.

As the rest of the night passed, my mind was like a shopping mall filled with thousands of items and not a single one that I felt like buying.  I listened as everyone else in the family readied themselves for bed, and I was there, just being.  I wasn’t sleepy, but I had neither the energy nor the desire to get out of bed.  I felt like that moment somehow marked the transition from my physical recovery to my emotional one, as in my mind, the two couldn’t have existed simultaneously.

 To be continued...

Posted: 11/18/11