33

33

My sleep pattern has abandoned me, I never know what time it is. When I do get up its to an empty house. I roll over to an empty bed, it takes me a bit to remember that my wife of 30 years has left me, I don’t blame her. I do my morning rituals my morning exercises which consist of a couple of squats and a couple of lunges. The doctor tells me I need to keep a busy body to stay healthy. In most cases when a spouse dies its not long after that the other will go soon too, So I wait.

Theres not much to live for anyways, I usually can’t function without having at least a tiny sip of alcohol to get my day going. I used to love the sound of silence in my house, I used to love knowing that my wife was upstairs sleeping and that my boy was in his room all of us safe. We take for granted those quiet boring days. At least I did, what I have now is a silence that will never go away.

It’s the type of silence that plays out at the end of all funerals it’s the vacuum that sucks out all hope when your friends finally leave you alone with your thoughts, when everyone’s gone home and your sitting on the couch unable to comprehend what just happened. theres two deaths in the family one after another within the span of two months. The dead go rotting away in their tombs, getting colder and less human every night but I am still here alive, what a crock of shit.

My wife died of a broken heart and there was nothing I could do to help her. She loved that boy so goddamn much that his death was hers as well. Outside my kitchen window the world is still dark. I think that I might be residing in the inferno for its what it feels like. My brain gets stabbed with these crazy thoughts, they drive me to tears, the random thoughts that I will never have any grandchildren. I will never know what its like to be called grandpa because I was a failure as a father. No grandkids Shit, I must stop. I got to stop thinking if I want to to get through the day. I got to keep moving, be like a shark become the shark that needs to move to live. His face was full of holes, my Tommy.

I was at work when it happened I was always at work. Greg my supervisor had called me to his office over the big P.A. System. I was with the guys Remi and Lonny we were fixing the same machine we had been working on for a couple of days now, mostly we were just shooting the shit. But when my name was called I knew there was something wrong, it was the sound of Greg’s voice over the loud speaker that made my stomach turn and my balls go cold, it didn’t sound like the guy who loved to bust balls, he sounded rattled.

let it be something funny. Please, God let it be Something like mama locking herself out again, Please god. Greg was just standing there by his open door, he didn’t say a word and just motioned to the phone sitting on his desk. “whats going on Greg” I said, but he just motioned to to his phone again. That’s when I knew it was something horrible, I was crying even before I answered the phone “Hey mamma, you lose your keys again?” I said. The voice on the other line lay silent, “Mamma” I said.  and then the voice said “Thomas is dead” it was the only thing my wife could get out, the rest of her words were muffled by tears and a squealing agony I will never forget. The type of sounds reserved for the inferno and not god’s green earth.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what could have been, I play every scenario in my head if only we had done this or done that but it never helps. It just makes the wheels go around and round burning all the rubber from the tires and makes my mind screech and engulf in flames, my mind burns untill I am drunk again.

My wife had killed herself in seeking knowledge in seeking a closure that she should have never gained but she needed to hear it she needed to know what had happened to her baby. My son had been killed at school and my wife had lost her will to live during the trial.

That little bastard smiled as he went through everything in fine detail. The devil of a child had slaughtered his school companions, he had kept track he was tallying the number of students in his head. Room to room was painted in blood.

Tommy was his last victim, he knew him well and he knew who we were. I can’t forget that little monsters face his hideous blonde little face. A blue eyed archangel mocking us, Calling my boy a coward and mocking the fear in Tommy’s eyes. My boy lost control of his bodily functions before he died and the only person he cried for help to was his mother. Not me. He didn’t want his father but his mother. I was always working maybe that’s what it was but he loved his mother, he cried for his mother. The avenging angel unloaded on him covering his face in butllet holes, He kept staring at us as he went into detail and the look of tommy’s face how he cowered in the corner, all the alcohol in the world can’t stop me from dreaming about it.

Outside the world is still dark and cold, the world has gone black, the sun is nowhere to be found its buried under these fat black clouds. But I can feel it waiting to come out and shine on me once more.

I go into the shed and find what I need, it’s a black case and I put it in my truck.

I sit in my truck and try to warm my hands I wonder how cold he is, how cold his little fingers would be now, how much colder would he be months later, “Tommy”.  He hated being called Tommy, he wasn’t a baby any more, he’d say. He wanted to be more mature so, he became “Thomas” and I promised to call him that. His birthday was just around the corner, my summer baby, born in the heat of July but he couldn’t swim. “tommy get in here” I’d say, demanding him to get close to the water. ‘No way, you want to throw me in the deep end.” He’d say and runaway screaming like a school girl. He was the type of kid who got in the lake once everyone else was out. He was a funny little guy my son, he really made my life something, he would have been 13 next month.

It wasn’t just Thomas; the whole town had been ripped to shit by that “kid” How could the devil live in something so small? The kid was special, so they didn’t take him seriously even when some kids had reported the things he had said that he would do. That little fucker had come into the school loaded to the teeth with weapons. He had run through them all killing every single person in his path. It was his own marathoon he was trying to keep count as to how many he had, he reloaded his weapons twice. He had ran through the buildings cutting down children like trees, their limbs broken and severed flying through the air, so many children were killed. But he didn’t die, he lives, and now I know what I must do.

They found the little devil in Thomas’ class room. Everyone in the room was obliterated but him. He stood soaked in blood and confused. He held his last pistol empty with the marathon over, he collapsed. the only time the cops didn’t shoot first was when they had my son’s killer in front of them. He said that god had wanted the naughty children cleansed. He had said this during the trial, his blonde face mocking us again. I prayed for murder then, I prayed for the death of a child, I prayed for the worst atrocities of the world to be fall on this babe. God forgive me for I prayed for the most violent rape to destroy and humiliate this fucking kid.

Too much booze and lack of sleep is getting to me, I have these awful thoughts that I can’t quiet anymore. The nightmares fuel my mania, it’s always that awful wooden paneled courtroom and that kid. I hear him telling the same awful stories. In my dreams they squeal like pigs, the kids go crying for their mothers, for their fathers, their tiny pleas becoming a chorus no one can hear but me, they go on playing that awful melody of the dead, they march one by one as he cuts them down. The blood makes me nauseous and the red of the blood makes me wish I was born color blind, I can’t take it anymore, this deviled kid is here to haunt me, he isn’t a child, but my own personal tormentor for some shit I did in another life. I need to move for if I don’t I get these thoughts brother and boy are these some thoughts brother, I can’t bear to be alone with them anymore.

I used to drive out to see Thomas grave every night, Id visit him when I thought I would break, I’d tell him I wished it all blew away. Don’t worry about your mother, I’d say, she will be out to see you soon. Its just “If she sees you here, in this grave, it would all be to real for her you know, you have to give her time. let her greave over you Like I do”. I’d tell my son to wait for me, I am almost there, I’d say. Id kiss my sons grave, and rub my hand over his name “R.I.P. Thomas”

The truck is finally warm, and I now know what I must do I put her into gear and drive off. These days I don’t drive to Thomas grave anymore. No, I’m closer to his killer than I am to my son, I drive by the little devil’s house now instead. It’s only a couple miles down ours. It’s a nice home, it’s got these great big windows throughout the place. its great for looking into, anyone can go and investigate, and I do. Been at it for a few weeks now, it’s the only thing that makes me feel better. I put on a 20-dollar black ski mask from big 5 and I investigate their lives.

I want to know if they are happy. I want to know what they did to create such a kid. I want to know if they hurt. Do they feel the pain that I do, that we do? I park my truck a house below, I am an expert already it’s still early in the morning. But I can see their awake, they talk but I can’t hear them I see them through the window there an older woman in her early forties, she’s crying and an older version of her comes and holds her. There’s a man also looking to be in his 40’s he’s the husband he’s wearing the same old grey suit he wore in one of the trials He’s “Dan Sandler” the little devils father. I can barely stand to look at him, the face of a man who   raised a monster. He allowed this to happen. He had destroyed both our lives.

Oh yes, I know what I must do. My black case, I go back to the truck I open the back door and I unroll the seat to reveal my silver pistols. They glow bright in the moon light my hands the same color as the ivory grips. The grips lie still in my hands, cold and smooth to my touch I close the truck door behind me and I am off into the night. I get a feeling of something, something like what the little devil must have felt before he did it. It’s a quiet suburb full of beautiful homes, surely no crime like this one had ever taken place.

I go up the steps to the front door, I knocked on the door and placed my guns behind my back. The mother came to the door, she looked surprised to see me, beautiful in her surprise she knew who I was, we stood there in silence staring at each other the world moving past us. I had prayed to god for a moment in time for just a glimpse of hope for revenge and here it was, my payback staring back at me with lovely green eyes.