My wife died of a broken heart and there was nothing I could do to help her. She loved Henry so goddamn much that his death meant hers as well. Outside my kitchen window the world is still dark. I think that I might be living in the Inferno for that is what it feels like; the heat is sweltering. My brain works the overdrive. Random thoughts drive me to tears; I will never have grandchildren. I will never know what its like to be called grandpa because I was a failure as a father. Shit, I must stop. I got to stop thinking if I want to to get through the day. I got to keep moving like a shark that needs to move to live. His face was full of holes, my Henry. “And you did nothing!”
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 soon go too, so I wait. There is not much to live for anyway. 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 Henry was in his room. All of us safe in one piece. I take for granted those quiet boring days. All I have now is a silence that will never go away. The type that plays at the end of all funerals, a vacuum that sucks the hell out of hope. It’s when your friends finally leave, when everyone’s gone home and you’re sitting on the couch unable to comprehend what happened that depression feels like a 300-pound cat that can’t get off your chest; it’s hot and it’s itchy.
Two deaths in the family one after another within the span of two months. The dead go rotting away in their graves, getting colder and less human every night but I remain.
I was at work when it happened, I was always at work. Greg my supervisor called me to his office over the P.A. System. I was with the guy’s Remi and Lonny fixing the same machine we had been working on for a couple of days, mostly we were shooting the shit. I knew there was something wrong because Greg’s voice over the loudspeaker made my stomach turn and my balls go cold. It didn’t sound like the guy who loved to bust balls. He sounded rattled. Please God, let it be something silly, a prank, anything. Let it be Something like mama locking herself out again, please God.
Greg was standing by his 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 the phone again. His eyes, I’ll never forget his eyes. I was crying even before I answered the phone “Hey mamma, you lose your keys again?” I said with my voice shaking. The voice on the other line was silent, “Mamma?” I said, and then the voice said, “Henry is dead.” It was the only thing my wife could get out, the rest of her words were muffled by a squealing of agony. The type of wailing 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 around burning all the rubber and the car with me in it. My mind burns until I am drunk again.
My wife had killed herself in seeking knowledge in seeking a closure that she should have never received but she needed to hear it. She needed to know what had happened to her boy. He had been killed at school, a school shooting, another goddamn massacre.
It was during the trial that my wife lost her will to live during the trial when that little bastard who took our Henry smiled as he went through everything in fine detail. The devil of a child had slaughtered his school companions; he was keeping track as he was tallying the number of students in his head. Room to room, walls to walls painted in blood. Henry was his last victim; the shooter knew him well. Knew who we were. I can’t forget that smile on that little monster’s face; his hideous pale little face. A blue-eyed cherub of death with no remorse, mocking us. calling my boy a coward, mocking the fear in his eyes when he shot him.
Henry had pissed himself before he died and the only person he cried to for help was his mother. Not me. He didn’t want his father. I was always workin. Christ, how he loved his mother. Christ, how I used to give him shit for being so soft. “And you did nothing!”
All the alcohol in the world can’t stop the dreams from coming. His face, the holes, the begging of his life, his piss soaked jeans.
Outside the world is still dark and cold, the world is black, the sun is nowhere to be found its buried under fat purple clouds. But I can feel it. It’s 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; how cold are Henry’s hands now. How cold his little fingers would be now, how much colder would he be months later, –“Hank”. He said because he hated being called Henry, he wasn’t a baby anymore. He wanted to be more mature, so he became “Hank” and I promised to call him that. My summer baby, born in the heat of July but he couldn’t swim. “Henry get in here” I’d say, demanding him to get close to the water. “No way Jose, you’re trying to throw me in the deep end.” and he would run away screaming like a schoolgirl. 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 Henry though; the whole town had been ripped to shit by that “kid.” How could the devil live in something so small. The kid was ‘special’ they didn’t take him seriously even when some students had reported the things he had said that he would do.
That little fucker had come into the school loaded to the teeth. He had run through them all killing every single person in his path. It was his own marathon; he was keeping count as to how many he had ‘gotten’ like it was a game; he reloaded his weapons twice. Christ twice! He cut them down like fledgling trees, their limbs broken and severed, flying through the air, until there was no sound at all. They found the little devil in Henry’s classroom sitting soaked in blood among his peers. Exhausted. The pistol was empty, his ammunition emptied;
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’s smile, “and you did nothing!”
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; the red makes me wish I was born color blind. I can’t take the haunting anymore, he isn’t a child, but my own personal tormentor for some shit I did in another life. I need to move on before I get the thoughts and boy are these some thoughts brother. I can’t bear to be alone with them anymore.
The truck is finally warm, and I put her into gear and drive off. These days I don’t drive to Henry’s grave anymore. No, I’ve been getting closer to his killer. I drive by the little devil’s house instead. It’s only a couple miles down from ours. It’s a nice home; it’s got these great big windows, great for looking into, anyone can go and investigate, and I do. I been at it for a few weeks, 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 this monster. I want to know if they hurt. Do they feel the pain that I do, that we do? I am parked one house below theirs, and I am shaking; it’s still early in the morning. But I can see they’re awake, they talk but I can’t hear them, but I see them through the window there’s a woman in her early forties; she is crying and an older version of her comes and holds her. There’s a man who also looks to be in his 40’s; he’s the husband; he’s wearing the same old grey suit he wore at the trial. He’s Dan Sandler the little devil’s 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 and now he would join the chaos of his actions. Oh yes, I know what I must do because I have done nothing.
The pistol is cold and smooth in my hands; it glows under the moon light; my hands are the same color as ivory. 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 cock the gun back and I go up the steps to the front door. I knock and hide the gun behind my back. It’s the mother that answers the door. She looks surprised to see me. She is beautiful with bags under her red eyes. She hasn’t slept. She’s afraid because she knows who I am. We stand there in silence staring at one another; the world moving past us one slow tick at a time. I had prayed to God for so long for this moment for just a chance at revenge and here it was my payback staring back at me with the loveliest green eyes.
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