Chapter Six

Chapter Six

 

 

 

 

    There is something that always sticks in my mind when I think about the day my mother died, something that haunts me to this day. It was around eleven when it happened, when I heard the argument begin. I could hear my father yelling, I could never remember what he was yelling. I could hear my mother crying; I remember her saying Andrew’s name and the name of her dead husband. The only thing I can remember hearing my father saying, was what he said right after she said Ian McEwing’s name. He screamed: “You’ve never believed me! All this time and you’ve never believed me?!” I never knew what he meant, but as I got older, as I found more things out,  I understood what he was talking about and what that meant.

    Let me take you to the last time I spoke to my father, aside from the last few days of his life. It was May of 1996. My father, now 72, had been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. A condition he kept secret. I went to visit him during one of the lowest points of my life, when I felt like the entire universe was closing in on me. I went to see him to try to find some semblance of order in my life, what I would find though was something that I never knew I was looking for. The truth.

    It had been  year and a half since we spoke, three years since we had seen each other. He didn’t even know that I was coming to see him, which explained his reaction when he opened the door and saw my face.

    “Neil? What in the hell are you doing here?” he said with a strong voice and a frail body.

    “I’m here to see you dad.”

    “You’re here to see me? What for?”

    “Because I want to see you, is that so wrong?” He realized that there was no way for him to win this argument.

    “Come on in.” I walked inside what used to be my home, it was alien to me now. A relic of a time lived long ago, in a place distant and forgotten. Everything in the house was exactly the same, all the way down to the tan shag carpet. “So, what did you want to see me for?” he said as he sat down in the same leather recliner that he had been sitting in for almost twenty-five years. I had to think of a way of telling him the reason why I was there without completely showing the cards I held in my hand, so I just told him:

    “There are a lot of questions I want answers to.” I have never been good when it comes to these sorts of matters.

    “What the hell does that mean? What kind of questions?” I leaned forward, towards him.

    “I want to know how Ian McEwing died.” His eyes sharpened, I could see the anger in him. The same anger my mother saw.

    “Ian McEwing committed suicide. I have said that more times in my life than anything else. Why must I keep saying it?”

    “Maybe because you know it’s not true.” I could see rage building inside of him.

    “And what is that supposed to mean, Neil?”

    “It means that I think you know what really happened to Ian McEwing, dad.”

    “You do, do you? And how would you know that?”

    “Because I found mom’s diary.” The air went out of his body like a balloon. His eyes widened, his hands clenched the chair for dear life.

    “You-you found her diary? How-how did you find it?”

    “She left it in her safe deposit box.”

    “What?”

    “In a letter she wrote and had placed in her safe deposit box, a week before she died she wrote about the plan the two of you created. The plan to kill Ian McEwing so that the two of you could be together. She also wrote about how she never wanted to go along with this plan, that you forced her to. Telling her that it was the only way, the only way that you could be together-.”

    “It was.”

    “I’m not finished! She also wrote that she never believed the suicide story, never believed you, all because the way he died was exactly the way he was supposed to die. The way you wanted him to die.”

    “How did you-.” He knew that he was finished, he knew that his secret had been uncovered. “How did you find all this out?”

    “I was tired of all the questions I had inside. I was tired of always thinking these thoughts I’ve had since the night Andrew told me that you killed his father. And because everyday I remember the fight you had with mom the night she died, I’ve always remembered. So, I went down to her bank, the one you never knew about. And I asked them if they still had her safe deposit box. When I opened it up, I found the letter, her diary and this.” I pulled out a ring. “Mom’s wedding ring.” His chin began to quiver.

    “She-she told me that she lost it.”

    “After Andrew died, this ring meant nothing to her. She wrote so in her diary. She wrote that she was convinced that you murdered Ian, she blamed you for Andrew’s death. And she wrote that she didn’t love you anymore, that she was beginning to hate you.” His eyes were shut, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Now you’ll cry for her?”

    “What?”

    “Now, long after she’s dead, you finally cry for her? You didn’t cry for her when Andrew died, you didn’t cry for her when she died. Never once did I see you shed a tear for her. Why now then? Is it because your conscience can no longer handle the burden of all your sins? Is it because you have something more to tell, something worse than what you did to Ian McEwing?’

    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

    “Yes you do. You know exactly what I’m talking about you son of a b***h.”

    “I don’t.”

    “I’m talking about how you murdered my mother!” He closed his eyes.

    “I did not kill your mother.”

    “No more lies dad!” I said as I stood up. “There’s nothing left for you to say except for the truth. That’s all I want to hear out of your mouth. I want you to look me in the eyes and for once tell me the Goddamn truth. About how my mother died, about how you murdered her.” He struggled to stand, he looked me straight in the eyes.
    “Neil, I swear to you, I did not kill your mother. I admit, that I killed Ian McEwing, I admit that. But I will not confess to something that I did not, would not ever do. I loved your mother! I loved her more than anything in this world!”

    “Loved her enough to kill for her. Loved her enough to kill her. Right dad?” I placed the ring on the table and I walked out of his house and I listened to his screams of innocence.

    Let me now bring you back to the motel…

    “Neil?” Alison said as she put on her socks and shoes. “Are you sure that we had sex last night?”

    “I think so, why?”

    “No reason, it’s just that I usually have this feeling after I’ve had sex. Especially after we’ve had sex, and I just didn’t feel it this time. I just don’t feel quite right.”

    “Maybe it wasn’t that good.” She smiled at me.

    “It was always more than good with you Neil.”

    “That’s nice of you to say Alison.”

    “So, do you want to go get some breakfast or something?”

    “Sure.” We left the motel and we went to the pancake place across the road. We sat in a corner booth. Alison on one side, me on the other. We both ordered a nice little stack of pancakes with sausage on the side. I ordered a cup of coffee, Alison some grapefruit juice.

    “I don’t know how you can drink that crap Neil.”

    “Oh, so coffee’s bad but alcohol is good?”

    “That’s not what I meant. I meant that some six-year-old kid making ten cents an hour probably picked those beans. A kid who’ll probably grow up selling cocaine in the streets of Bogotá to feed his family. Do you want that on your conscience?”

    “No, I want a cup of coffee to wake me up in the morning because I like how coffee tastes. I like that when I take my first sip of it I can feel the caffeine race thru my body. I like the way it smells, I like the way the milk swirls when you pour it in. And I like the fact that I don’t have to think about six-year-old Columbian coffee bean picking drug dealers. It’s a cup of coffee not an anti-human rights statement.”

    “That’s your opinion then.”

    “Yes it is. And I could use your argument on you with your grapefruit juice there.”

    “Oh, you could?”

    “Yeah. That grapefruit and all its brethren were probably picked by a two year old Guatemalan with impetigo and half a leg. And that kid will probably grow up making low budget porno movies for deaf paraplegic shut ins who have special devices that help them to masturbate. Do you want that on your conscience Alison Matthews?” she began to laugh.

    “But Neil, it’s a glass of grapefruit juice. Not an anti-human rights statement.” We both laughed. “You know what would be really awful though?”

    “What’s that?”

    “If we never saw each other again.”

    “Alison, that’s not going to happen.”

    “Because I lost you for five years Neil. I don’t know what I would do without you in my life.”

    “Alison-.”

    “Let me ask you this Neil. Why did we even break up in the first place?” I had been thinking that very same question ever since our senior year at Stanford.

    It was now March of 1986, Alison and I had been having some problems. We fought more than we ever fought before, as a matter of fact we had only had four real fights since we had been together. They were the kind of fights that you can’t remember what they were about, the kind of fights that you didn’t want to remember. Alison had made some new friends, most of whom I didn’t like. Especially one that I knew very well, my old room mate Greg Vincent. I had not seen Greg, thankfully, since the end of freshman year when I told him off. I told him just how much he and his family made me want to rip out my brain with tweezers then throw it on the floor then jump on it many times. He knew, of course, about Alison. He knew how much I loved her, and how much she loved me. But he didn’t care, all he saw was her chest her a*s and an opportunity to hurt me for life. Every single chance the little b*****d had he flirted with her, nine times out of ten right in my face. And every time I’d tell him to f**k off. But by March, when Alison and I were having our problems, I began to find that she was with him more and more and with me less and less. I confronted her one night on this very topic.

    “Alison, are you having an affair with Greg?” I blurted out in the middle of dinner. She dropped her fork and sighed annoyed.

    “Are you serious?”

    “Yes. I want to know why you’re spending so much time with him.”

    “Because I like him. He’s funny.”

    “He’s funny? You think that Greg Vincent is funny?”

    “Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”

    “No it’s just that I never knew you found jokes about going to the bathroom funny.”

    “Those aren’t the only kinds of jokes he tells, you know.”

    “Really they’re the only kinds I ever heard.”

    “I know what this is about.”

    “You-you do?”

    “Yeah. This is about you thinking that Greg is trying to take me away from you.”

    “Well he is.”

    “No he’s not Neil. God, don’t you trust me enough to know that I would never ever do that to you?”

    “Of course I trust you Alison, it’s just that I don’t trust him. I see how he looks at you. It’s the same way all those guys looked at you in junior high.”

    “Neil, I am a different person-.”

    “Alison, this isn’t about you. It’s about him. I know what he wants from you, and he won’t stop until he gets it.”

    “And what might that be Neil?”

    “Well, sex.”

    “So, just because he wants to have sex with me does that mean he gets to? Neil, you are the only person that I want to do that with. The thought of me having sex with Greg has never once entered my mind.”

    “But Alison-.”

    “Neil, I am not going to have sex with Greg Vincent.”

    “You promise?”

    “Yes! Wow.”

    “What?”

    “I’ve never seen you so jealous before.”

    “You should’ve seen me most of that year in junior high. I couldn’t stand seeing you with all those guys.”

    “I know.”

    “Like that b*****d Curtis. Christ I hated him-.” She had the kind of look a child got after it spilt a glass of milk. “What?”

    “I-uh-I ran into Curtis the other day.” I felt my brain swish around my skull.

    “Excuse me?”

    “The other day when I was in the bookstore.”

    “Curtis is going here? How did that brainless burnout get into Stanford?”

    “Because he got a 1500 on his SAT’s.” It was remarkable; a man who never once went to class got a 1500 on his SAT’s.

    “He probably had someone take it for him.”

    “Yeah, so anyway, he kind of asked me out on a date.”

    “What?! You did tell him you were in a relationship with somebody right?!”

    “No Neil, I undressed for him and we fucked right there.”

    “That’s not funny Alison.”

    “Of course I told him I was seeing somebody.”

    “Did you tell him it was me?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Good.”

    “He wouldn’t stop laughing.”

    “Huh?”

    “It was sick, he was roaring with laughter-.”

    “Okay, I get it.”

    “So then I kicked him in the balls.”

    “You did?”

    “Uh-huh, and I told him that being with you was a million times better than it ever was with him.”

    “You see this is why I love you so much.” That was one of the last pleasant conversations we had for a while.

    By the second week of April our relationship was all but over. At least to Alison. She never returned my calls and I never saw her. Then came the night the world as I knew it came to an end. It was April 14, 1986; I decided to go to this bar in San Francisco.  It was a bar that I took Alison to a few times before. It was a Friday night, so the place was packed. I sat at the bar and I ordered a shot of double malt scotch. As I sat there slowly nursing my drink, trying to forget all my troubles, the bartender said something to me.

    “Haven’t I seen you in here before?”

    “Yeah.” I said having sipped my drink.

    “Don’t you usually come here with a girl?”

    “Yeah.”

    “So, why aren’t you with her tonight?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “Oh, I understand. Things didn’t work out huh?”

    “Guess not.”

    “So, that’s why she came in with that other guy.” My head which had been hanging down, snapped right back up.

    “What other guy?”

    “Some little punk with a leather jacket, you know, trying to look cool.”

    “Did you get a name?”

    “Not really, all I could hear was something that began with a ‘C’.” I almost fell out of the stool. I took out my wallet and I threw some money down.

    “Do you know where they went?”

    “I couldn’t hear them that well. I did hear something about a place on Lombard.” I walked out of the bar and I got into my car. I drove up and down Lombard looking for any sign of them, after a little while I saw Curtis’ motorcycle outside of a townhouse. I walked up the stairs and I rang the bell. A woman with ratty brown hair and dirty clothes answered the door.

    “What?” she said thru a cough.

    “Is there a guy named Curtis here?”

    “Yeah, why?”

    “Where is he?”

    “Upstairs.” I moved right on in and went up the stairs. I opened every door looking for them; from behind the last door I heard moaning and laughing. I felt nothing but absolute rage as I went over to the door. I stood at the door for a few seconds, to try to hear if it was actually Alison moaning. I couldn’t listen anymore so I kicked the door in and I ran to the bed. I grabbed Curtis by the hair and I picked him up.

    “Get the f**k off of her you son of a b***h!” I yelled as I threw him against the wall.

    “What the f**k are you doing a*****e?!” he yelled back. I wrapped my hands around his throat, I wanted him dead. “Let go of my throat!” Just then the woman he was with yelled.

    “Let him go you m**********r!” the voice wasn’t Alison’s. I turned around to see a  woman that I had never seen before absolutely naked. I turned back to Curtis, who was struggling to breathe.

    “Where’s Alison, Curtis?!” And then from behind me.

    “I’m right here Neil.” I turned around again to see her, fully dressed, in the doorway with a look of terror and anger on her face. She turned around and ran down the stairs.

    “Alison!” I looked at Curtis.  “If I ever see you anywhere near her again, I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?” He nodded his head. “You are never to come anywhere near her again, do you understand me?” He nodded his head again. I let go of his throat and I ran after Alison. I caught up with her after about six or seven blocks. “Alison, wait!”

    “Get away from me Neil.” She said.

    “Alison, I need to talk to you.”

    “No, Neil.”

    “No? Alison-.” She turned to me.

    “Have you lost your mind? You can’t go around choking people.”

    “I thought he was-.”

    “I know what you thought Neil! You thought he was f*****g me, right?! Jesus Christ, how many times have I told you that I only want to have sex with you?! You never believe me though! You always think that I’m f*****g every single guy that looks at me!”

    “I don’t think that Alison.”

    “Yes you do! You thought that with Greg, you probably thought it when I was at Oxford, you always think it!”

    “You know, I seem to remember a conversation we had after your father died, when I said I knew what you were thinking. Do you remember what you said to me? ‘Don’t ever assume you know what I’m thinking.’ That’s what you said about me! So, don’t you dare assume to know what I’m thinking!”

    “You know what Neil? You can go to hell. We’re finished.”

    “What?” I felt a sharp pain in my chest.

    “I said, it’s over Neil.”

    “No, it can’t be over.”

    “Neil, it’s been over for months now! Neither one of us has been happy for a long time.”

    “No, I’ve been happy. Every single day that I see you, I’m happy.”

    “Neil,” she held my hands. “What we had was amazing. It was the best thing that ever happened to me-.”

    “Me too, Alison.”

    “But Neil, it was a relationship built on loneliness and necessity. We didn’t have anyone to turn to so we turned to each other-.”

    “What’s wrong with that?”

    “It’s not healthy Neil.”

    “Who gives a s**t about healthy? You gave me a reason to live, Alison.”

    “You can’t think that way Neil. You need to find more in your life than me. And I need to find more in my life than you.”

    “So, what are you saying? You never want to see me again?”

    “God no! No, Neil, of course not.”

    “Then what the hell are you saying Alison?”

    “I’m saying that it’s time for us to move on.”

    “But I don’t want to move on. I want you.”

    “I know you do sweetie, but we can’t go back to what we had.”

    “Don’t you love me anymore Alison, because I love you so much-.”

    “I do love you Neil, but not the way I used to. I love you as a friend now, not a lover.” The nightmare I had a few years before had come true.

    “Why? Why don’t you love me the way you used to?”

    “I told you. I realized that our relationship was a crutch.”

    “Are you intentionally trying to hurt me Alison?”

    “No, Neil. I’m just telling  you how I feel now.”

    “You don’t want to be with me anymore?”

    “Not the way we were, no.”

    “You still want to be my friend?”

    “More than anything, Neil.”

    “So, you just want me to forget all these feelings I have inside? You just want me to forget how much I love you?”

    “No, of course not.”

    “That’s what you’re doing!”

    “No, it’s not.”

    “Yes, it is! It’s like you want to forget you were ever with me!”
    “Neil, no.”

    “I-I-I can’t hear anymore of this. I-I have to go.”

    “Neil, don’t go.” 

    “I have to. I-I-I can’t look at you right now.” I walked away from her and I went back to my car. I sat there for a few minutes and then I began to cry. That night I went for a drive. I drove for most of the night, I didn’t have any set idea of where I was going, I just knew I wanted to be as far away from Alison as I could get. By dawn I found myself back in Fresno, sitting outside my father’s house. I sat there for a half hour, I wanted to go in there and end his life.  I thought of so many reasons to kill him, but only one major one to not. If I did, then I would become just like him. Become what I now hated more than anything else. I drove off and decided to let him live with himself, to live with his sins, to let his guilt eat him alive.

    I avoided Alison for the rest of that year, I didn’t even go to my graduation. That summer I decided to get away, away from everything and everyone. So, I went on a trip. I went thru most of Canada, and much of America. It was am incredible experience, it healed me. It made all the bitterness, all the anger, and all the hate vanish. So, that when I returned to my home that fall of 1986 I was happy.

    I found out from one of her friends that Alison had moved to San Jose, so I went to the modest apartment building she lived in. I sat in my car trying to think of what to say to her, trying to form my emotions into words. Finally I stopped caring about what to say, and I just went to her door. I rang the bell and when the door opened and I saw her and her long flowing hair again, all my love for her returned. Her eyes opened wide.

    “Oh, my God Neil!” she wrapped her arms around me yet again, I never realized how much I enjoyed that until that moment.

    “Hello Alison.”

    “What are you doing here?” she said as she released.

    “I, uh, I came to see you, what else?”

    “Of course. Come on in.” I walked inside her apartment, with its tan carpet and beige walls.

    “Nice place.”

    “Yeah, it’s not much, but it’s all I could afford. You want to sit down?”

    “Yeah.” I sat on her nice leather sofa. “Ohh, leather.” She giggled.

    “So, how have you been?”

    “You mean, since-since that night?”

    “Yeah.”

    “I’m not going to lie to you Alison, for a while there I wasn’t doing too good. But then I went on a little pilgrimage, and now I couldn’t be better.” She smiled.

    “That’s so good to hear Neil. When I didn’t see you those last couple of weeks, it scared the hell out of me. I left about a hundred messages for you to call me, but you never did. And I don’t blame you.”

    “Yeah, well, that’s all in the past now Alison. It is amazing how quickly your life can go to s**t, and then come right back to where it used to be.”

    “Are you seeing anybody?”

    “No. Are you?”

    “No.”

    “So.”

    “So?”

    “What now?”

    “What do you mean, what now?”

    “I mean, you and me, what now? Are we friends, what?”

    “Yes Neil, we’re friends.”

    “Good.” We had never had such an awkward conversation. There was a painfully uncomfortable silence for almost a minute.

    “Neil, do you remember the day we met?”

    “Yeah.”

    “There’s something about that day that I never told you about.”

    “What’s that?”

    “The minute I laid my eyes on you, I wanted you.”

    “Really?”

    “Yeah. I thought you were so cute, I just wanted to throw you up on that table and straddle you.”

    “Wow! So, why didn’t you? I would’ve liked that, a lot.” She smiled.

    “Because you looked too nice to do that to.”

    “Oh, really? What about all the other times you did it to me?”

    “Well, I knew you weren’t nice then.” She laughed. “I’m sorry.”

    “Yeah, that’s real funny Alison.”

    “I know it’s only been a few months since we’ve seen each other, but it feels like years.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Let’s not let this happen ever again, okay Neil?”

    “Yeah. Never again.”

    “So, what are you going to do now? Mr. Bachelor of Arts?”

    “I don’t know yet. I’m not going for my masters, though, I know that much.”

    “Why not?”

    “Because I’m tired of school. I’ve been in school since I was five years old, it’s time for a break.”

    “Well, I am going for my masters.”

    “You are?”

    “Yeah. I’m going to be a teacher Neil, it kind of helps to have one.” I chuckled. “What?”

    “What are you going to teach?”

    “High school English, why?” I chuckled some more. “What’s so funny?”

    “I’m trying to picture you in a classroom full of a bunch of horny teenage boys. I bet you’ll be the most popular teacher in the entire school. All the boys will want to stay for extra help.”

    “You’re sick, you know that?”

    “Yeah, I know.” From that day on Alison and I had no problems. Then came the day in 1994, when I almost ruined both of our lives.