Chapter 1

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We lived in the gray area, you and me.

 

 

 

        “It was arson. The report said the building was burnt down because of a simple cigarette.” Johnny Halmon told me as I stocked the shelves.

       “It could have been an accident.” I asserted but he quickly shook his head.

       “No, I don’t think so. Word is; it was that Jew dude’s fault. His keeper paid him to do it and now she’s got him staying in an expensive suite at the Bellmore Hotel until all the police frenzy dies down.” Johnny insisted. I continued to work diligently in the bright noon light as customers filtered around us. I hoped if I could make my temperament seem cold enough, Johnny would eventually back off and quit bringing up the all too familiar subject of the Westport fire. The burning down of one of the apartment buildings in the Westport Complex was all everyone had been talking about for weeks. Something about fire engulfing the apartment building right next to ours followed by the disappearance of a coworker, Collin Mandell, left the residents to speculate and form conspiracy theories of corruption and malevolent intent. However, as I steadied my breath and shoved blue grass CDs onto a shelf, I sensed that Johnny’s reasons for bringing up the subject were more than just curiosity. He had a personal agenda to hate Collin. “I told you that guy was no good. Listen to me from now on; I only have what’s good for you in mind.” Johnny expressed as he leaned against the shelf I was working on and stared at me fully.

    “It’s okay, I know about Collin now. I know better.” I replied and stepped away from him. After that, I took my break and stepped outside with a cup of coffee from the store. Its black waters did little to calm me, but gave me strength where words could not. As I drank down the needed caffeine, I thought of a boy who was addicted to nicotine, and the truth of everything that happened here. The cup felt warm in my hand and I could almost imagine the warmth of his hands again. There was too much to explain that Johnny couldn’t know or understand even if he did know. Those moments were gone but I had not forgotten them; I could remember it all. Right and wrong - two separate words and meanings yet they feel nice in the same sentence. Neither of them and both of them summed everything up well.

 

    It is the human sense of morality that gives people a perception on what is right and what is wrong. We seek our guidance from religion and our divine faith, local laws with strict codes of conduct, and social ethics stemming from culture and traditional beliefs to provide us the answers to good vs. evil. Most of the time, the answers seem clear. It is often a simple conclusion that can be derived from an obvious situation. For many people, the matters are boldly defined as in either black or white. Courts are only needed to clarify the facts of a case on whether a defendant is innocent or guilty, but in the end, the crime itself doesn’t need to be questioned on whether or not it is a good deed or a horrid act.

    I’m here to tell you myself that everything is not always in black or white. Sometimes, as rare as it may come by, we find bad decisions justified in the light of purity. Sometimes the circumstances change everything and a simple notion of right and wrong will fail to grasp what is at hand. There is a gray area - an area where bad and good clash and make deterring one from the other rather difficult. It is in this gray area that a once simple judgment is now warped by confusion. Everyone already realizes that people have both bad and good in them, imperfect and perfect when studied in the light. Ironic creatures we are indeed. It is often the ones who refuse to do bad the most, even denying human emotions such as anger and lust, one day go on to break and do the most corrupted deeds.

   Then why is it so hard for many to grasp that an act itself can be conflicted, especially when flawed humans come to play in the situation? I guess for a lot of people, there is no reason to wonder about such uncertain events until they are presented with such an event themselves. Questioning the universe and the philosophies of it are meant for people with more idle time, or are at least fortunate enough to happen to come across unfortunate incidents. Everybody experiences them, just not everybody realizes it.       

    That is why everything that happened in the time that I worked at Woodbridge Recreational Parks complied with such human nature. If I was to cast myself as a victim of this story, it would be plainly inaccurate; I was a villain too. But I don’t regret working there; I could never regret working there. Time may not heal all wounds and fix all problems but it sure as hell does one thing: move on. So it is with nostalgia and embarrassment that I relate to you the events of the one year I was hired to work at a tourist attraction. There is a lot to explain, too much to explain; but nonetheless, I will start at the beginning. I hope you don’t find me too ordinary -

 

     It was in the bitter month of February that my mom had lost her job. She had worked as a columnist at the Cantey Courier, a newspaper created and distributed in our hometown. Even though she hated her employers and their argumentative dispositions, she loved her job. Each week she got to write about life, love, and yes, sometimes we the family were occasionally mentioned. However, after her instigative head boss, who at the time was going through a turbulent divorce, read one of her columns about marriage, a heated quarrel quickly ensued. This resulted in my mom being fired. An “Ask Amy” advice column immediately took her place. It was easy to say she could just find another job but in actual reality, this was nearly an impossible task. No one was hiring and everywhere she applied never called back. I never begrudged her for this current unemployed status, but after a month of not finding anything, she ultimately quit looking. Now the month of June came in and with it was the whiplash of unpaid bills finally catching up with us. My father, a used car salesman, became the primary supporter of a house of five.

    During the month following my graduation from high school, I turned eighteen. I was thrilled that I could finally go out and seek a job with decent hours and make a paycheck to help out my family. My parents, Frank and Harriett Cohen, were prideful people but they were grateful for the opportunity of my employment. This, perhaps, was the reason that my possible attendance of college was never even mentioned that summer. I had two siblings, a ten year old brother named Tyler, and a fifteen year old sister named Phoebe who was wheelchair bound since birth from a severe spinal deformation. It was those two that became the main focus of my mom’s life after she lost her job. She spent her days tending to housewife duties and doing activities with my brother and sister. Along with that came the massive reading of fifty cent romance novels and the occasional interest in television. She could now open the windows and listen to the outdoor chimes tenderly clang in the wind, she could now garden and replant gentians where the others had died. For her, the dog days were coming in like a welcomed friend she once knew long ago. For me, there was no such thing as a summer break anymore.

    There was something strange about this new responsibility at hand. It was my first taste of adulthood, the world that I was rapidly escalating into and couldn’t stop or even slow down. It’s the kind of thing everyone warns you about when you’re graduating; the real world is coming and she’s a needy b***h. It was almost frightening how much power I had to govern my life with and not the slightest incline on what I wanted to do. However, I can’t complain. I wasn’t one of those poor soul children who rushed prematurely into adulthood. I got to climb trees and run through fields and swing so high that I flew off. I got to be a kid when I was a kid. I also wasn’t one of those fools who moved too slow and strolled around with an infantile manner among teenagers. I behaved just as I should have through each stage of my life and with the coming of adulthood; I hoped there would be no exception.

     So it was some day in early June that I stepped onto the porch overlooking the neighborhood and found my mom sitting idly in a rocking chair while reading some thick erotic page turner. “Good morning, Anna,” She said casually without even looking up and I took the seat of a rocking chair next to her.

     “Hi, mom. I was wondering, where do you think would be good places to apply?” I asked and she pondered for a moment as she rocked in her chair.

     “I wouldn’t do anything too far, transportation would be an issue. Get a job either in this town or the ones closest to us. Try the restaurants, the mall, grocery store, or the city park.” She suggested while still looking at her book.

      There was something about this moment, it’s the reason I’m mentioning it. I don’t know how a simple conversation could be such a keystone in the events to follow. Almost like the butterfly effect; the ripple of changes caused in time if a fellow was to travel back into the past for some phenomenal reason and accidentally step on a butterfly. That is the best way I can explain it, as ridiculous and far fetched it may be. Although, since this was occurring in present times, we didn’t even have an idea on whether or not we had made a mistake and changed the course of time. I could have been cheated of possibly better futures by making the decision that I did. If an alternative suggestion had been made by my mom or perhaps if an alternative reaction had been made by me, maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe life could have been better or worse.

      That is why the idea of destiny is both probable and comforting. Just to know in life that my decisions have purpose and were meant to be makes everything feel safer and preordained by some heavenly source. Suddenly, my mistakes and downfalls seem reasonable in the shining of the warm light of this idea. They are merely stepping stones to the next decision and without them everything would be lost. Everything happens for a reason, although an obnoxious phrase, is some how reassuring with the possibility of its truthfulness. This fragile idea of destiny may just be a theory, but for me I rather believe that I needed to respond the way I did to my mother’s words and that all of this is not just some random, miraculous event. I’m tired of the lingering of “what if” on my lips. This may just be a lullaby to get me through the pitfalls of my life and then enlighten me with the triumphs, but either way it makes sense to me.

      So that is why I explain that moment because right afterwards, I borrowed my mom’s car and ventured out to go apply for a job. Ironically, it was the last thing she suggested in her list of places that was the first and only one I applied to.