Stone: Past Is Prologue
Got a long line of heartache
I carry it well
The list of lives I've broken
Reach from here to Hell
And a bad luck wind been blowin' on my back
Pray you don't look at me
And I pray I don't look back
I was born in the soul of misery
And I never had me a name
They just give me a number when I was young
When I was young
When I was young
When I was young
* * * * *
May 8, 1976
Hoboken, NJ
Reverend Mother Superior Mary Frances Clarke checked herself as best as she could in the small mirror she kept in her tiny cubicle on the modest table next to her single bed. The light was dim, the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling was of the low-wattage variety, but the lack of light did nothing to cloud the illumination that burst forth from every part of her soul.
At that moment she was the happiest she had been in her entire life. As she turned this way and that she chided herself about acting like a teenage girl in her first prom dress. She was wearing her best habit, her favorite rosary beads, the ones from Medjugorje, hanging from her hands. Even the extreme modesty of the consecrated garb couldn’t dampen the brilliance of her smile.
Today was going to be the perfect day. Today she was going to meet the Pope.
Paul VI was visiting the United States and she had been chosen as one of several representatives of the Newark Archdiocese’s delegation, representing the charitable work of the church, specifically the orphanages maintained by the church. She had prayed and prayed that she might be chosen when the word first arrived that His Holiness was coming. She had even confessed her sin of wanting it so bad – it felt sinful, almost prideful.
Her orphanage, Orphana de Iglesio de San Nicolo, was the one selected by Archbishop Gerety to represent their efforts. As the most senior sister it was her honor to accompany Father Haggerty, the senior-most priest, to the mass at Saint Patrick’s in Manhattan that afternoon and then to the reception where she would be blessed with the impossibly rare once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kneel before His Holiness, kiss his ring, and receive his blessing. That would be followed with another mass, this one a public mass in Central Park. The other sisters had already left to secure a good location.
It was time. The butterflies in her stomach made her euphorically queasy as she checked her appearance one last time before picking up her Latin missal and leaving her room to meet Father Haggerty in the orphanage’s entranceway. As she descended the wooden stairs down to the ground floor she couldn’t help but feel the hand of the Lord upon her shoulder, guiding her to her destiny. It was the most wonderful, most spiritual feeling she’d ever experienced.
Haggerty was there, waiting for her. He smiled at her and she smiled back and they shared a knowing look. This was to be a life-changing event for both of them, the pinnacle of two lives spent in devoted service to God. Mary Frances took a deep breath and felt as though she would burst with joy.
The large heavy wooden front door opened. It was James, the lay person who maintained the orphanage’s van and often served as chauffer.
“Is it time?” Mary Frances asked excitedly.
“Yes,” James replied, but there was something in his tone, in the way he looked to the priest and then to her and then back again, that was troubled.
“What is it, James?” Father Haggerty asked.
“You got…there’s something here,” he replied uneasily before leading the pair to just outside the doors.
There on the front steps, was a cardboard box. It was an beer case, Budweiser longnecks. But it was empty of beer. There was a heavy blanket lining the inside, and wrapped in a second blanket was a sleeping baby. A shock of thick black hair stood out from the white swaddling.
“Oh, dear.” Father Haggerty checked his watch. This wasn’t the first time some poor woman had decided to leave her trouble on their doorstep, but the timing sucked.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay behind,” the priest said suddenly.
“W-what?...” Mary Frances felt sick, light-headed, confused.
“No…No!”
“I’m sorry, Mother Superior, but everyone else is gone and this is your responsibility.”
James looked from Haggerty to Mary Frances and slunk down the front stairs to get into the van, avoiding the coming storm.
“You bastard!” Mary Frances saw her life falling down around her like this was some dream-turned-nightmare. Yes, she was nominally in charge of the orphanage and Haggerty the church, but that was no reason alone to make her stay behind. It felt cheap, sexist. The goodness she had been basking in had changed to equal parts frustration, bitterness, and venom.
“You can’t do this! I’m supposed to…supposed to…”
“I’m truly sorry,” Father Haggerty interrupted with little actual remorse. “We must leave now or we’ll be late. The Lord works in mysterious ways, Mother. I will pass along your apologies to Archbishop Gerety and His Holiness.” And with that, he started down the steps to the running van, leaving her alone.
“You bastard,” Mary Frances mumbled as she stared at the retreating priest’s back. “You bastard,” she repeated while looking down at the infant, shaking her head slowly.
It was fully five minutes before she moved again. The van was gone. Madison Street was silent. Mary Frances stooped down, picked up the box, and slowly walked inside. She moved in a daze. Everything had been so wonderful and her mind was stunned trying to understand how it all could have gone so bad so suddenly.
When she reached her office she dropped the box on her desk, causing the occupant to stir, and walked to the window. After a moment she started to sob. After several more the sobbing turned into crying, then wailing. Her clenched fist, rosary beads still clutched tightly within white-knuckled fingers, beat against the window sill again and again.
“Why?” she cried. “Dear God, why?”
That was when the baby woke fully and started to cry. Mary Frances closed her eyes shut at the noise and struggled with the worst parts of her soul, and lost.
“Shut up!” She wheeled around suddenly, her habit rising and falling, her eyes wide and wild with rage. “Shut up!”
She stormed to her desk, fists raised to strike downward. Her arms shook with the war between restraint and release. She’d never felt such anger, such burning hatred towards a thing. It was this thing’s fault, this evil wicked thing. She wanted to hurt it, make it go away. Thick streams of tears ran down her red, blotchy face leaving spots on her desktop blotter.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
Her screams continued for a long, long time.
* * * * *
November 21, 1981
Hoboken, NJ
“Come in.”
It was Father Haggerty. Mary Frances stood up from her desk because she had to. It was expected. The look in her eyes told the priest all he needed to know about what respect she might have for him or his position.
She bowed politely, again, as expected, obeying the forms of their order. “Father.”
The nun didn’t wait for his response and instead got right down to business. “What is the word from the hospital?”
Haggerty sighed. Sister Clarke had never forgiven him for what happened five years previous and had become a bitter, angry steward of the orphanage. It was a shame, but it was her cross to bear, not his.
“Not good news, I’m afraid,” he started. “The children will need to stay in the hospital for at least a week. One of them will require reconstructive surgery on his face. Father Smith has a broken hip from his fall down the stairs. He’ll be in surgery today and tomorrow and then he’ll be transferred to a more relaxing appointment.”
Haggerty shook his head as he looked down at the floor. “As if this church wasn’t relaxing enough for an old man. It’s too bad. Father Smith was a good teacher. We’ll have trouble filling his shoes.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a suitable replacement.” Mary Frances’s plainly-spoken words were devoid of concern. “What about the boy?”
Father Haggerty dashed her hopes but didn’t let his pleasure at the deed show. “He stays.”
“But…why?” Mary Frances grew angry. She was sure she’d finally managed to rid herself of her demon. “He’s a blight upon this institution! He’s violent, incorrigible, a detriment to everyone he encounters! He must go!”
Father Haggerty enjoyed watching this bitter woman sputter. “The Archbishop disagrees.”
The sister paused in her rant and almost gasped. “You’ve already spoken to him? What did you say? Tell me!” she demanded.
“I told him about your lapse of supervision and assured him you’d do better in the future. And you will.”
The nun’s face turned red. She felt heat in her forehead and her eyes grew wide, her fists clenched.
“You b—“
“Oh, stop it, Mother Superior,” the priest broke in before she could say it. “The older boy, Peter, told me everything.”
He nodded his head as he saw the traces of apprehension leak into Mary Frances’s demeanor.
“Oh yes, that’s right. He told me how you put him and the other boys up to it. What were you thinking? He’s only a child, and blameless of the sin I know you hold against him. And now we have three children – children! – in the hospital with life-threatening injuries and a priest who will spend what years remain to him in pain.”
“That boy is evil!” she countered. “You know it as well as I. How is it he doesn’t have a scratch on him? How is he so strong? Have you ever known a child who reached age five without ever having been sick? It’s unnatural! He’s a child of Satan!”
Father Haggerty rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’ve heard about your inquiries to the Benedictum Vade Retro Satana. That is going to stop immediately. I won’t have you making a laughing stock of this church by dragging in the church’s exorcists to address what is clearly your own personal crisis of faith.”
“My crisis?” Mary Frances was livid, apoplectic. Her hands clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed.
“Consider yourself on notice, sister,” Haggerty warned. “I’m growing tired of having to defend this child from you, and very tired indeed of covering up the collateral damage of your personal vendetta.”
Then Haggerty turned sharply and left. For the first time in her life, Sister Mary Francis contemplated the murder of another human being.
* * * * *
February 14, 1983
Hoboken, NJ
“Come in.”
She knew it was him. She thought she could feel him, his evil, when he got near. The boy entered her office and moved to stand in front of her desk. She didn’t acknowledge him; she just kept reviewing the paperwork in front of her for several minutes while he remained silent. Finally she could stand it no longer and looked up at him with eyes full of disgust and loathing, openly studying him for several heartbeats.
“Do you know what today is?”
The seven-year-old shook his head to the negative, eyes still downcast.
The slam of her hand on her desk was quickly followed by a sharply cut, “Answer me!”
“No, Mother.”
The anger faded as quickly as it had surfaced, and she almost laughed. Shame on me, she thought, for letting this little cur draw such emotion from me.
“Today is Saint Valentine’s Day,” she explained calmly as she stood up from her chair. “It is a day devoted to celebrating love in all its forms. It touches upon the greatest gift given to us by the lord God.”
She stood next to him and looked down at his quiet, still form.
“But that is all meaningless to you, isn’t it?”
She snorted a single cold chuckle. Her words were decorated with cruel barbs, her tone harsh and hateful.
“Who could ever love something like you? You’re a bastard. Your mother was a filthy whore, and even she couldn’t find enough love in her worthless heart to keep you. Surely the demon who used her and whose dirty seed created you had no love for you at all. You’ll never know love. It’s not for you. You’re just a worthless, evil child.”
“Yes, Mother,” the young boy replied. There wasn’t any life to be found in the child’s monotone response.
Mary Frances nodded slowly in approval at his broken spirit. “And we will drive the evil from you. Now assume the position.”
The movements were well-practiced. The child turned and faced the large cross on the wall to his right, and then kneeled down on the hardwood floor, head bowed. Behind him, Mother Superior opened the wardrobe closet against the other wall. Her hand moved across the items within: a reed cane, a length of rebar, a metal pipe. She decided on the aluminum baseball bat and took it up. Then she closed the wardrobe door.
Mary Frances moved behind the kneeling boy. She relished the adrenaline rush which always came at this moment.
“Begin.”
Quietly, reverently, the boy started whispering. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”
“Louder!”
“Hail Mary, full of grace…”
The bat came down on his shoulder, as hard as she could swing it. The metal rang with the shot and the nun’s hands tingled from the shock of the impact. The boy swayed somewhat but quickly recovered and returned to his previous position.
“The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women…”
The bat came across to drill into the side of his head this time. Mary Frances grunted in exertion and shook her hand in pain from the sting transmitted through the metal. The boy fell sideways to the ground from the sheer force of the blow, but again he quickly resumed his position.
“Continue!”
“A-and b-blessed is the f-fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ…”
The next shot took him in the head, but from the other side. The bat twisted in the nun’s hands and then flew across the room to clatter loudly against her office door.
A young sister passing by in the hallway jumped at the noise and rushed to the office door to knock rapidly.
“Mother Superior, are you ok? Is everything alright?”
The door opened a foot and Mary Frances appeared in the opening. She was breathing hard and flushed.
“Oh, Sister Patricia…Oh, I’m so sorry to have startled you. I was carrying a stack of books and tripped on a chair – startled myself half to death. Spilled the books and the chair, I’m afraid. But be not troubled, I will abide.”
“That’s okay,” Sister Patty replied, smiling. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” The younger woman went on her way.
Mary Frances closed the door softly and locked the deadbolt. She turned around and looked upon the source of her pain. He was kneeling as she had told him, but instead of praying he was simply trying to not sob, ending up instead snorting and sputtering in intermittent bursts. His jaw was set, clearly determined to not give her the satisfaction of watching him cry.
“Continue,” she ordered him calmly yet sternly, as she walked towards him once more.
* * * * *
April 30, 1986
Hoboken, NJ
The young professional couple sat across the desk from Mary Frances, holding hands and smiling.
“So,” the sister started with a wide smile, “I’m sure you’re excited. I’ve been doing this for twenty years and I always get excited, too. Have you made any decisions?”
“Yes,” the man said, and then he nodded at his wife.
“We’d like to adopt one of the boys,” she revealed. “One of the older ones.”
“That’s wonderful!” Mary Frances joyously exclaimed. The older children were always the hardest to place. “Which one?”
“Nico,” the man replied, equally happy.
The nun caught herself in the process of getting to her feet and slowly deflated back into her chair. Her expression started to turn from elated to subdued. The sudden change didn’t go unnoticed by the couple. They looked at each other with concern.
“Is there something wrong?” the man asked.
The sister paused in thought before answering, disguising her disapproval as reluctant concern. Mary Frances leaned forward and rested her elbows on her desk to speak earnestly yet gently to the misguided couple.
“No, it’s just… Well, Nico is…special.”
“We know,” the woman replied. “We spoke with him yesterday and I even told David I felt there was something special about him.”
“Yes, well…” Mary Frances’s mind raced for some excuse and settled on one. “Nico has issues, developmental issues. He seems fine for a stretch and then, for no reason we can tell he just snaps, becomes violent. And he’s also developed a bad habit for stealing,” she lied, but proud of her quick thinking. “We’ve caught him several times in the past year taking things from the other children.”
The couple shared a look of real concern between them. It seemed impossible, or at a bare minimum highly unexpected, that the sister would be waving them off.
“Mother Superior, are you telling us not to adopt Nico?”
Mary Francis sighed and looked down at her desk. “No, of course not. You must follow your hearts. I would just hate to see such a wonderful couple have to deal with such a troubled child on their first adoption.”
The couple shifted uncomfortably in their seats engaged in a non-verbal conversation. Finally the woman said, “Well, we really didn’t want any problems… Maybe we could go with someone else?”
“Yeah, uh, yes,” the husband added, a bit more confidently. “Maybe that would be best.”
“Of course, of course,” Mary Frances assured them, inwardly satisfied.
* * * * *
August 5, 1987
Hoboken, NJ
Along Hoboken’s waterfront, where once stood docks and warehouses which lined the Hudson River, there was now the green grass and stately tree-shaded gazebos of Sinatra Park. The verdant quarter-mile stripe was a popular place in the warmer months of the city.
This day it was full of children. The youngsters ran and laughed and played with the boundless energy of children. The older ones grouped together in cliques and did their pre-teen or teenage things. Meandering through them all were couples, most of them holding hands. A pair of clowns made balloon animals and painted young faces.
This was the Archdiocese of Newark’s latest idea to help spur an awareness of adoption within its boundaries. All of the church’s wards from the surrounding counties were gathered here for a picnic day of fun so that prospective adoptive parents could walk among them, and perhaps stop to talk to one or two of them. Even if only one child ended up being adopted, the event could be considered a success.
Nico stood at the water’s edge, leaning up against the wrought-iron fence and looking out across the river towards the daytime moon hovering above the towering Manhattan skyline. This day held neither hope nor interest for the eleven-year-old. In the very rare event that a couple was interested in a child his age, Mother Superior would be sure to warn them off as she always did.
He kept to himself, forgoing the pleasure of his peers’ company. As his differences became more pronounced as he grew older, and as it became known that an easy way to curry favor with Mother Superior was to make his life miserable, Nico’s life at the orphanage had become a daily routine of humiliation and mockery. He didn’t talk to anyone, now. And after he broke one kid’s arm after a particularly strong verbal assault, nobody talked to him, either. They would still target him every chance they could get away with, however.
It was later in the day when it happened. Nico had decided to move to the pleasant shade of a tall oak tree where he could relax and maybe close his eyes for a bit while leaned up against the trunk. It was the first of two mistakes he’d make that day.
A sudden warm wetness on his lap woke him. The top half of his pants and the bottom half of his shirt were wet, and there were pieces of brightly-colored rubber on the ground. Someone had filled a balloon with water and—
His nose caught up a pungent odor rising from his clothes. It hadn’t been water.
“Hey, look at Nico!” someone shouted.
“Check him out!” another kid yelled. People were starting to gather, and stare, and laugh.
“What’s the matter? Can’t control your bladder?”
“Somebody get him a diaper!”
“That’s gross!”
Nico turned this way and that, looking for a way to get lost, but the crowd had circled around him. Everyone was laughing now. He looked across the field and saw Sister Mary Frances laughing with a group of boys he knew from the orphanage. They were all laughing at him and pointing. She was patting one of them on the back.
“He pissed himself!”
“I think he’s gonna cry!”
Nico’s head swam. “Get away from me,” he mumbled, then again, stronger. “Get away from me.”
“I think he is gonna cry! Hey, loser boy is gonna cry!”
“Check out this loser! Dude peed his pants!”
“Get away from me!” It had become a warning. “Get away from me!” The eleven-year-old showed all the signs. His fists were balled up. His eyes were hunted, wary, unstable.
“I think he’s gonna spaz out!”
“Nico needs a diaper!” It got picked up like a chant, sing-song. “Nico needs a diaper! Nico needs a diaper!”
“GET. AWAY. FROM. ME!!!”
Years of repressed anger exploded like a bomb. His fist lashed out. The four-foot diameter trunk of the giant oak tree shattered like wooden glass. People close-by cried out as oaken shrapnel peppered the crowd. Of all those who would end up injured this day, they were the lucky ones.
The tree dropped and fell sideways, starting in slow-motion but picking up speed. The wide expanse of thick branches that formed the canopy slammed down upon several score horrified onlookers with a deafening crash. There were screams of fright and pain. Adults and children alike ran panicked from the area – those who could run.
In the aftermath, Nico stood alone, face expressionless, by a ruined stump surrounded by the sounds of agony, fear, and sirens.
* * * * *
July 18, 1992
Red Bank, NJ
Case Worker Christopher Case – and don’t say it because he’s heard them all – had worked with the Department of Children and Families for twelve years but he’d never been involved in a situation like this. The business of caring for the wards of the State of New Jersey was a predictable one. Things happened a certain way every time and rarely did circumstances ever cause variation from those expected events and outcomes.
So when he scratched his head and spoke across the table, his voice carried not a little bit of confusion and revealed clearly his inability to understand the why behind this situation.
“Doctor Manter, Mrs. Manter, I’m extremely reluctant to agree to this. You’ve never been foster parents before, and the youth in question isn’t exactly what we’d call a ‘starter kid’.”
Chris looked across the table at the couple who now sat with him in the office conference room. The Manters were a well-respected couple from Rumson, one of the state’s more affluent communities. His doctor title was scientific in nature and he did some kind of work for the government, and she was a photographer, according to the foster program paperwork. In truth, they were ideal foster parents. But…
“Mr. Case, please do not think that this is a lark, or some whimsical decision on our part,” Doctor Manter said in an attempt to be reassuring. “I know this individual is troubled, but--“
“He’s way more than just ‘troubled’, doctor,” Chris countered. “Look at his file.”
The case worker turned the open manila folder towards the couple. “He’s lived his entire life in the system. Never had a mother or a father. He spent his first eleven years with the Archdiocese of Newark during which time he put three priests, two nuns, and five other kids in the hospital for everything from a black eye to a broken hip. The state stepped in and took up custody in ‘87 after he killed two people and severely injured sixteen others during a picnic outing by dropping a sixty-foot oak tree on the crowd.”
Chris turned the page. “It turns out the kid had been abused pretty regularly by the orphanage staff, so the judge cut the murder charges down to aggravated manslaughter and let the kid cut a ‘psychological trauma’ deal with the DA. He spent three years in medium security up in Bordentown and then two more bouncing from foster home to foster home. His violations list during that time is as long as my arm – menacing, assault, eluding officers, misdemeanor theft, destruction of personal property more times than I can count.”
As he closed the folder, Chris sighed. “To be honest – and no offense – but as well-meaning as you are, I don’t think you have the slightest idea what you’re getting yourselves into. This is a bad kid – maybe through no fault of his own, but it is what it is.”
The doctor and his wife turned to look at each other. There was a shared resolve there. Maybe they had thought this through, Chris thought as he watched them. They seemed appropriately scared, but also very resolute. Him more than her, but in the end she nodded in agreement when Dr. Manter looked back at the case worker and said, firmly, “We understand. Nico’s the one we want.”
Chris just stared back at them like they were nuts. In the normal course of things he’d decline the Manters’ request and move on, but they must have known the right people because Chris’s marching orders were to give them whatever kid they wanted, and that had come right from the Governor’s office. The case worker shrugged in defeat.
“I’ll start the paperwork,” was all he said.
Chris gave it two weeks, three tops, before they were back begging him to take Nico off their hands. He noted in their file that the Manters had a teenage daughter. He thought about the laundry list of girls in state care who’d had to be moved to new foster homes after being seduced and used by this kid, and he hoped against hope that the Manters’ daughter was made of sterner stuff.
* * * * *
August 1, 1992
Rumson, NJ
“Yeah… uh huh… I know, tell me about it… oh shit, I think he’s here. Gotta go.”
Bella Manter snapped her phone shut and turned sideways on her bed towards the books spread out on the comforter. The moment she had been dreading had arrived. She’d always been an only child and now, having apparently lost their fucking minds, her parents decided to take in a foster kid.
She looked over her school books without reading them, merely pretending. She could hear them downstairs in the large house as they showed him around. Then she heard the footsteps on the stairs. The steps were slow, measured, and heavy. They reached the landing and stopped, and then started again, moving towards her open bedroom door.
He passed by the door slowly and then stopped and came back to look into her room. For a moment Bella’s breath caught in her throat. He was tall, almost six feet, and yummy to boot. His hair was black and long and he was dressed like a burn-out in ripped jeans with chains and a plain red t-shirt. The eyes that took her in on her bed were deep and magnetic. She didn’t expect him to be so hot.
Bella quickly regained her composure as the circumstances repeated in her head. She stretched just as she’d rehearsed. Her young, tight body, her flawless smooth skin, from her head to her toes, was on display for him just as she’d intended. She was hot, too, and she knew it. Her pink silk robe was open. Underneath she had on a lacy white bra and panty set and nothing else. Her long, dark blonde hair was loose. She wore her shiny-wet Monica Lewinsky lip gloss on her parted lips.
“Hi.” She was selling it hard with her eyes.
He didn’t respond. He just leaned against the doorframe and put his free hand in his pocket as he looked her over. She noticed he wasn’t nervous or falling all over himself like the boys in her school would have been. It was a surprise – not what she expected at all.
Her eyes darted to the hand in his pocket and then back to his. She smiled a sultry smile and asked, “You got something for me in there?”
He still didn’t respond. Bella swung her legs provocatively over the side of the bed and stood up.
“Why don’t you come in, and close the door.”
The new arrival pushed himself off the door frame with a shrug of his shoulder and moved a couple of feet into the room before pausing, and then turning to close the door. When he turned back, he found Bella had closed the distance between them and was standing right in front of him. Her hands rested on her toned flat stomach and her blue eyes looked up into his.
“You’re cute,” she said. “I think I’m going to like having a brother.” One who’ll do whatever the fuck I tell him to, she left unsaid. She’d figured to wrap him around her finger quickly with a promise of sex that she’d never fulfill and get what she could out of this bullshit arrangement, but he looked back into her eyes with none of the hopefulness or uncontrolled teenage lust she’d expected and counted on.
“I’ve seen better,” he finally said, his face a mask of cool detachment. He didn’t even stare at her breasts or her crotch on display in her best lingerie. He just insulted her cold and looked around her room for a few seconds before staring her down again.
She didn’t get it at first, but then… He knew, she realized with disbelief. He’d figured her out already, her entire plan, right off the bat. All of the allure and inviting aura about her vanished. She quickly closed and tied her robe tightly.
“Okay,” she said, her tone turned form seductress to rival, her smile gone. “Let’s get something straight right now. I’m in charge around here. I’m part of this family, not you. You’re just a scumbag loser my idiot parents took in to make themselves feel better about being middle aged. They’re not your parents and this isn’t your house.”
Nico looked around and sighed. Then he replied glibly, “It is for now, honey,” before turning for the door.
“This will never be your house,” Bella assured him before he opened the door and left.
“Nice tits,” he called back from the hallway.
“This will never be your fucking house,” she repeated under her breath as a promise to herself.
* * * * *
October 20, 1992
Rumson, NJ
“Hey, Bella, what’s up?”
Cynthia Habib was one of Bella’s BFFs. She’d caught up to Bella standing in the entrance of the cafeteria during lunch period. The latter had a scowl on her face.
“Who’s that with the loser?” Bella asked her friend, gesturing with her chin towards the other side of the table-lined lunch area.
Cynthia looked over and saw Nico sitting in his usual spot, but unusually not alone. A girl was sitting with him, one that the teen hadn’t seen before. Considering that she and Bella were two of the most popular girls in school, that alone was cause for concern.
“I don’t know,” Cindy admitted. “She must be new.”
The girl looked to be about their age and dressed much in the style of Bella’s foster brother. It looked like the two of them were hitting it off, as much as the loser hit it off with anyone.
Bella had spent a lot of time and social capital making sure none of the girls in school had anything to do with her loser foster brother. It had been difficult at times, keeping the moony-eyed female masses away from the square-jawed bad boy.
This new situation was completely unacceptable.
* * * * *
October 31, 1992
Rumson, NJ
“Oh god… oh god… ohhhhhh….”
Suzy lay against her lover, draped over him, under their blanket. The cool October night air felt great against her hot, flushed skin where it was exposed. Her hands idly ran along his ribcage, counting them while she basked in the afterglow. This was the best part of her family’s move up north from Atlanta.
His strong hands held her to him in the lower curve of her back. His thumbs traced delightful, small arcs and every once and a while he’d give her a gentle squeeze. He was so strong, and she loved that about him. Still engaged as they were, it was as though she could literally feel his strength. It was unlike anyone she’d ever been with.
The sound of laughter in the far distance made her turn her head and rest it on his chest so she could see. From their high perch in the plywood shell camera box at the top of the football field stands she could see the side door to the high school gym open, spilling light out into the dark parking lot. Three kids she thought looked like preppies had snuck out of the Halloween dance for a smoke where they thought nobody would see.
“Do you ever wish you down there, with them?” she asked quietly.
He snorted, and she rose and fell with the action of his chest.
“No.”
She laughed at herself for asking. She already knew when he said it what the answer would be, or she should have known.
“Neither do I,” she seconded and gave him a hug. She lifted herself a bit to be able to look at him. His eyes were his best feature, which was saying a lot considering what was currently still fairly resolute within her. But his eyes – she could lose herself in them forever. She let herself get a little lost just then.
“Why do you do that?” he asked her.
“Do what?”
“Stare at me like that? You do it all the time. If you were a guy I’d have kicked your ass already.”
“Oh? Would you like that, if I were a guy?” she teased, clenching down on him with her pelvic muscles.
“No, seriously,” he told her, “What’s up with that?”
He’s so damn serious sometimes, she thought with light exasperation.
“I… I don’t know. I feel like I can see through this big bad exterior you always have going on. The eyes are the windows to the soul, you know.”
“What?” He sat up a bit, extricating himself from her and rubbing his eyes with his forearm before turning back to her with that serious, concerned look. She recognized it as that guy fear, when things started getting deep, and she found it didn’t wear well on him.
Starting to get a bit serious herself, she told him, “Well, it’s like, everyone in school, they think you’re this big bad hard case. Between your sister’s rumor mill and the way you walk around with that ‘fuck off’ look on your face all the time, everybody thinks you’re this big murdering bad ass and gives you this wide berth. But…”
She leaned forward and kissed his lips gently, and pulled back to look into his eyes once again. “When I look into your eyes, I know its all bullshit. That ain’t you at all.”
He stared back at her for a moment and then said dismissively, “Sure it is,” and made to get up in a huff. But Suzy refused to let him up, or tried, anyway.
“Bullshit.” Her tone was starting to carry a note of impatient annoyance. “Why do you think I’m fine being with you when you never talk about yourself, ever? I take one good look at those baby browns of yours and I know that’s not you. And if those assholes down there ever took the time to actually look for themselves, they’d know it, too.”
Nico returned her stare with a hard one of his own. He tried to dredge up some argument but failed. He turned to look out at the school, where the three preppies were finishing their smokes and talking about their full-of-shit lives. Then he looked back at Suzy, and then up at the big harvest moon hanging in the sky. An odd feeling of vulnerability crawled across his skin and made him curse inwardly.
I don’t need this shit.
* * * * *
January 17, 1993
Rumson, NJ
Suzy dashed out the school doors and ran towards her car. She couldn’t wait to meet up with Nico down in Sea Bright. They were going to Donovan’s with the fake IDs they’d just got.
She was about to open her driver’s side door when a voice startled her.
“You’re in a hurry.”
Suzy turned to see Bella Manter standing there. It was no big secret that they despised each other. She tensed herself for a fight and checked behind her to make sure none of the popular girl’s friends were hoping to take her unawares.
“Relax, it’s just us.” Bella pulled a large yellow envelope out of her bag and tossed it at Suzy.
“What’s this? Anthrax?” Suzy asked warily.
“Just open it,” the blonde replied.
Something in the girl’s smirk made Suzy very nervous but she opened the envelope anyway. Inside were a thin stack of glossy eight-by-tens. The young woman flipped them over and caught her breath when she realized that the top one was a picture of her father.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Just look at them.”
Suzy returned her attention to the pictures and nervously began to flip through them. Her father in his business suit and coat, coming out of his building in Manhattan. Her father and a pretty woman she didn’t know talking on the street, her hand on his arm. Her father and the woman in a bar, close talking. Her father and the woman walking out of the bar, hanging on each other. Her father and the woman in an alley, kissing. Her father and the woman in the alley, her on her knees…
Suzy’s tear-stained face scrunched up a moment before she looked up and asked, “What the fuck… Why are you doing this?”
Triumph flooded Bella’s bloodstream, but she maintained her exterior cool, her air of superiority.
“What do you think your mom’s going to say when she sees these? Or your father’s boss? Do you think he’d lose his job?”
Suzy shook her head vigorously. “This is bullshit. My father wouldn’t do this. You set it up.”
“Of course I did,” Bella replied condescendingly like she was explaining to a three-year-old. “I even used my mom’s good camera. She’s just a paid escort, but he didn’t know that. She told me she really had to work your dad to get him to cross the line, but the cocktails helped, I’m sure. In any event, I seriously doubt that anyone’s going to believe him. Did you see that money shot?”
“You bitch. You fucking bitch.”
“Yeah, well, whatever. Just tell your loser boyfriend to fuck off and nobody else will ever have to see these.”
Suzy was gobsmacked. “Wha… what? Why?”
“Because he’s an asshole that doesn’t deserve to be happy,” Bella replied smoothly. “Because I hate him. Because he’s a dick. But basically because I said so.”
“No,” Suzy replied, shaking her head. “I won’t. I love him. Nico’s a good guy. He is. You don’t know—“
“Shut up!” Bella got into Suzy’s face and jabbed a finger into the other girl’s chest, and spoke heatedly. “Shut up! He’s a worthless piece of shit who doesn’t belong here and I am not going to let him think otherwise. You just do what I’m telling you or so help me I will destroy your father, your parent’s marriage, your family’s reputation, everything. You do it, understand? You do it.”
Bella stormed off, leaving Suzy dazed, sobbing, and helpless as she tried to come to grips. Her hands moved oddly of their own accord in time with the wrenching of her heart. She fell backwards against her car.
The pictures fluttered to the ground like petals pulled from a flower. He loves me. He loves me not.
* * * * *
January 25, 1993
Rumson, NJ
“But is she there?... Well can I speak to her?... Why the hell not?...”
Nico looked at the now-disconnected phone in his hands for a full ten count before turning sharply and throwing it against the wall where it shattered into several dozen pieces and left a good-sized crater in the drywall.
“Problem?”
Bella’s presence in his doorway was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. As usual he did his best to ignore her, and as usual failed.
“She dumped you, didn’t she?” Bella said, feigning surprise and the following it with a giggle. “Honestly, I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.”
Nico turned on her with thoughts of murder on his mind, but she wasn’t fazed.
“What did you think was going to happen, you moron? Love? That’s not for you. You’re a loser, and you’ll always be a loser, and she probably figured it out and did what she had to do. Smart girl, if you ask me.”
Nico stepped closer but Bella seemed unafraid.
“Why do you think you don’t have any friends? Why do you think nobody likes you, or trusts you? Because you’re a piece of shit, through and through. You should do my parents a kindness and just hit the road before you fuck up their life just like you fucked up your own.”
Nico slowly moved towards her. He didn’t raise a hand to her, but if looks could kill his eyes would have burned her down where she stood. She allowed herself to be backed up until she was out of the room and then he slowly closed the door. As it shut, she made an ‘L’ with her finger and her thumb and mouthed the word “Loser.”
In the hallway once more, Bella fell sideways on her way to the stairs as the house shook violently. There was a terrible roaring-crunching sound from Nico’s bedroom and she quickly ran back to throw open the door.
Nico was gone, as was the entire top corner of the house, both exterior walls and the ceiling ripped away, just gone. School papers and ruined strips of wallpaper still clinging to what was left of the walls flapped in the breeze. The bed, highlighted in the moonlight, looked surreal exposed to the evening outside.
Bella beamed, her eyes gleaming as she took it all in with a deep breath of relief.
FInally.
* * * * *
January 27, 1993
Long Branch, NJ
Jorge Manter felt as though he’d been everywhere in the state over the past couple of days. He’d gotten the call from his daughter two days ago. She was upset that Nico had left like he had and was heartbroken that it might have been something she said that set him off. The Doctor had to leave his work immediately – difficult given the delicate state of the project – but the military brass understood what was at stake with Nico out there on his own.
It was late, but the Windmill was still open. It was Nico’s favorite place. He cursed himself for not thinking of it before.
When he walked inside he found the two employees had just started their closing duties. The tables and booths were empty save for one. Booth six had one occupant, and after a sigh of relief and a thanks to God the doctor walked up to him.
“Mind if I sit down?”
The young man didn’t answer, but the doctor slid into the booth across from him anyway. He studied the table’s contents: two empty dog boats, a paper cup with plastic lid and straw, some wadded up napkins.
“I like mustard and relish on my dogs, too,” he said conversationally, “but I usually down it with a Coke, not a Sprite.”
The youth shifted in his seat. Finally he spoke.
“How’d you know what I had?”
Doctor Manter laughed softly. “These work, you know,” he said with a gesture to his eyes. “It’s all right in front of you if you care to see it, there on your tray – mustard stains on the napkins, clear drops instead of brown ones on the underside of the cup’s lid, and so on.”
“Neat trick.”
“It’s no trick, Nico, it’s just paying attention,” the doctor explained. “You could do it.”
“I doubt it.” Nico rubbed at his eyes like a man very, very tired. “I’m not the brightest bulb on the tree, you know?”
The doctor shook his head. “That’s not what I hear,” he said. “Your teachers all tell me that you’re incredibly bright despite your lack of a formal educational background. They tell me that if you were to apply yourself a little you could be a solid student, maybe even go to college.”
Nico looked up at him then, the bitter sarcasm showing in his large brown eyes. “Do I look like the college type to you?”
The young man looked outside the big windows. “So where are the cops?” he asked. “They usually have a SWAT team to bring me in; all big guns and shit, like it would matter.” The last bit had enough defiance laced into it that the doctor was glad he’d chosen to come alone, despite the urgings of the others.
“No cops, just me.”
Nico nodded, seemingly impressed. “All by your lonesome… that’s brave. I don’t suppose you’ve seen the house, then?”
“I’ve seen the house,” the doctor replied. “I was hoping we could talk.”
“Talk? About what? I can’t pay damages and you couldn’t make me even if I could. What’s there to talk about?”
Before Doctor Manter could answer, Nico kept at it, but this time with less anger.
“Look, it’s not your fault, alright? You’re a good man. You and the Mrs. gave me better than anyone ever had, okay? So if you have guilt, or some need to make it right, or whatever, forget it. It’s not you, it’s me. You’re cool, I’m just… I’m just…”
He groped with something mentally before looking back at the doctor with resignation in his eyes.
“Just call DCF and I’m out of your hair, okay? I’m sure they’re expecting the call, so go make their day. I’ll be eighteen in less than a year anyway.”
“And then what?”
Nico’s eyes shot back to the doctor’s. “And then I’m gone,” he said with authority.
“But where?”
Nico sighed and shook his head, and he leaned back in his booth bench.
“No, seriously, don’t blow this off. Where will you go? Back to Hoboken? For what? What’s there for you?”
“Actually, I was thinking of heading west, trying my luck out on the left coast.”
The doctor was somewhat surprised that Stone had thought that far ahead, but he shouldn’t have. It made sense. Out there Nico was unknown. He’d have a clean slate. Jorge scrambled for something to say as Nico raised his eyebrows, noting the doctor’s expression of having been caught off guard.
The doctor pointed at Nico’s tray. “No Windmills out there,” he noted, followed by a weak smile.
Nico nodded slowly and then sniffed a chuckle. “Yeah, that’s true.”
“You could stay.”
The slight softening of his edges produced by the weak joke quickly vanished into vapors. Nico’s eyes burned into the doctor’s.
“I mean it,” the doctor said, building up his resolve. “I’ve seen the changes in you. Up until a couple nights ago we’d thought you’d turned a corner. Your grades were better, you even seemed maybe a little bit happy. We thought…”
“What the fuck are you talking about, doc?”
Jorge shot Nico a look of disapproval at the language and at being interrupted, but he said, “Carla and I have been talking about it for a while now. At first we were as put off by your attitude as anyone but then, over time, we began to see things start to turn in you. You’re special, Nico, we believe that very much.
The doctor took a deep breath before plowing forward, sharply aware that this wasn’t how he had envisioned this conversation taking place.
“We want… We want to adopt you. We want you to be our son, for real.”
Nico couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t. After he fucked up the man’s house? It wasn’t possible. He was…what he was. It was a trick, a lie. It had to be.
“Why?” he managed to croak after a dozen heartbeats.
Jorge sighed and shrugged. “Because we love you. Please say yes.”
Nico looked out the window, hands clenched into angry fists. He knew it was bullshit. It was always bullshit. A fucking happy ending? They just didn’t exist. He turned back towards the doctor with a finger raised, biting his lip as though he was going to chew the man out but he couldn’t come up with the words.
He struggled with it for a moment and finally shook his head and offered a plaintive warning.
“You don’t know me, alright? You don’t fucking know me, know what I am, where I’ve been, what I’ve done. You don’t. You can’t. If you knew…”
He bit his words off as he worked hard to compose himself. He’d hidden his buttons deep, but the doctor had pressed them hard.
“I know what I need to know,” Doctor Manter replied gently. He waved a finger back and forth at Nico’s eyes. “It was all right in front of me, right there, like the tray.”
Nico’s breathing was labored. His lungs worked hard to draw in and expel air regularly, without that involuntary emotional stuttering of breath. He twisted his head sideways, trying to make sense of the impossible.
“I… I need to think about it… alone.”
Doctor Manter nodded and slid slowly out of the booth. Before he left he said, “Just come home when you know what you want to do – no rush.”
“What?”
Jorge turned back to look at Nico. Catching the young man’s eyes, he realized why he wanted to be alone just then and a warmth spread though him, and he smiled.
“I said, come home.”
Nico watched the doctor through the windows get into his car and guide it down Rt. 36 towards Sea Bright and the Rumson Bridge. Once he was alone again, one of the Windmill operators behind the counter came over.
“Can I get you anything else?” he asked. Translation: ‘we’d like to close so would you please leave?’ Nico sniffed and picked up his tray before exiting the booth.
“No,” he replied. “I think I’ve had enough.”
The worker turned the key in the bolt on the door behind Nico when he left. A cigarette and lighter were produced and Nico smoked while he walked slowly around to the darker side of the building that faced Seven Presidents Park. He sniffed again, and then again, and then he looked at his smoke and tossed it into the street.
The moon was bright and his eyes lingered on it. His face screwed up and his arms wrapped around his front as he leaned against the building. His breath was ragged. The tears seemed to come from nowhere. His hands went to his eyes as the crying started. His body slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground with his back up against the brick, head in his hands, body wracked by his loud, full-throated crying. He cried like a baby. It lasted a long time.
* * * * *
February 20, 1994
Iselin, NJ
“Mmmm, that dinner was wonderful,” Carla Manter said as she eased down in the passenger seat, relaxing for the ride.
“Yes, it was,” Doctor Manter replied absently as he guided his Mercedes into the center lane. It was cold, and very windy. The car swayed with the gusts of wind that blew across the Parkway.
Carla noted the tone and asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, fine,”
“You seem distracted.”
“No, I’m good.”
“Just good?”
Jorge knew his wife enough to know she wouldn’t stop until he spilled.
“Is it Nico? Did something happen at school today?”
“Hmm? No,” Jorge replied. “It’s just work.”
That got Carla’s attention. She sat up straight in her seat and turned to face her husband.
“What about work?”
Jorge sighed. He really didn’t want to get into this with her now but she’d find out eventually, so…
“The colonel paid us a visit today.”
Carla turned white, almost afraid to ask.
“What did he want?”
“He asked us a lot of questions about the studies we’d done to gauge possible long-term impact of the program’s regimen on the brain. I think they’re… worried about him, about his mental state. He’s drinking a lot, going through women like water, and so on. After the Cando event…”
“That was him? The news reports all said it was a meteor!”
The doctor shrugged noncommittally, realizing he shouldn’t have mentioned Cando.
“Did the colonel ask about Nico?”
When Jorge didn’t answer right away, she had her answer.
“Dammit, Jorge, what did they say about Nico?”
“They might want to take a look at him.”
Carla sat, thinking. “But why?” she finally asked. “As a possible replacement?”
Jorge looked meaningfully at his wife. “Nico’s not exactly the taking orders type.” He returned his attention to the road as a big gust of wind pushed the car to the right. “They know that.”
Carla looked down at the floorboard in thought. “But then why take a look at him at all, unless…”
Her eyes shot up towards her husband. The doctor only gripped the wheel tighter and let his wife’s agile mind fill in the blanks.
“No.”
Jorge didn’t say anything as he changed lanes again, shifting to the far left lane to pass a straggler.
Carla placed her hand on his arm. “Jorge, you can’t.”
“It’s not up to me, Carla. You know that.”
“He won’t let you,” she countered. “You know you can’t make him, none of you can.”
“Yes,” Doctor Manter agreed with a sigh. “I know full well what he’s capable of. But, Carla… Look, we knew the possibilities when we took him in, okay? This was why we fostered him in the first place, for the program.”
“That was then,” she insisted. “This is now. He’s not the same person that he was back then. I’m not. He’s our son now. He’s…”
Carla Manter’s words trailed off as her eyes tried to make sense out of what she was seeing in the oncoming traffic across the median.
The doctor noticed. “What is it?”
“What’s that car doing?” she asked, pointing to his left.
“What car—“
“OH MY GOD, JORG—“
* * * * *
February 26, 1994
Fair Haven, NJ
“Did you take care of it?... Good. Bring it up and wait for me in the reception area.”
Bella Manter, all in black having just come from the funeral, snapped her phone shut and proceeded in to the office of James W. Abernathy Esq., her parents’ attorney.
“Thank you for waiting,” she said demurely to the fifty-something year-old lawyer before she sat down in the chair offered to her. To her adopted brother, sitting just to her left, she said nothing.
Jim noticed the iciness, but said nothing. He’d seen it before, plenty of times.
“Now that you are both present, we can go forward with the reading of the will.”
He shuffled some papers and finally settled on one.
“Sound mind and body, yadda yadda, ok here we go. To our son Nico we leave the sum of ten thousand dollars to be taken from the joint savings account held at Rumson-Fair Haven Bank and Trust. Our most fervent hope is that he finds, somewhere, the peace which has avoided him for so long. The remainder of all assets and properties is granted to our daughter, Bella.”
Jim looked up at the two of them, hoping that there wouldn’t be remodeling in his office’s future.
“There’s more legal stuff, but that’s the important part.”
Nico didn’t move or make to speak. He hadn’t moved since he sat down. He’d worn the same grim expression on his face for six days. He hadn’t spoken so much as a word.
“Nico, my assistant has your check already made out. You can get it from her on your way out. I’m… I’m sorry, son. Sometimes, with children adopted late in life…”
There was silence in the office for minute and then Nico just stood up and walked out, closing the door behind him.
Once they were alone, Bella stood up quickly. The whole thing was so damned dreary she couldn’t stand it. Jim stood with her.
“Bella, are you okay? Do you need me to arrange a car to take you home?”
“Oh, get off it, Jim,” she replied testily. “I’m fine, relieved almost. God, I need a drink.”
She gestured towards the door, looking at the attorney. “That went better than I thought. Are you sure it’s done?”
Jim nodded somberly, somewhat disturbed but not surprised by this woman’s lack of grief.
“Once he accepts the check from my assistant it’s considered an acceptance of the will. Once he cashes it, his options to contest the will become very limited, almost nonexistent.”
“What if he finds out that you altered the will?” Bella asked as she withdrew her lip gloss from her purse.
“He won’t,” the lawyer assured her as he came around his desk, cleaning his glasses with his tie. “He’s not the type. And even if he does contest it, once the check is cashed he’s still got a serious uphill fight to do anything about it.”
“Well,” Bella concluded as she put her lip gloss away and smiled seductively at her co-conspirator. She removed the shawl from her shoulders and let it fall to the ground in front of her, giving her a cushion.
“Then I guess it’s time for the final installment of your payment, isn’t it?” she asked as she slowly sank down to her knees.
* * * * *
March 3, 1994
Clear Spring, MD
He didn’t know how long he had been walking. He’d lost track of time. There were multiple sunrises involved, so it had to have been days. The black suit he wore was much the worse for wear as he’d had it on since the funeral.
He’d headed west, he thought, not knowing why. The end result was he had no idea where he was. Maryland, maybe, he thought as he looked around. It seemed like the middle of nowhere.
His eyes spotted neon. Continuing on he spotted a roadside shack with a Budweiser light in the window. As he got closer he saw there was a single gas pump out front and maybe a dozen motorcycles. His throat was dry. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in a week. A beer might be good.
The door opened easily enough and shut behind him loudly on a set of springs. There was a short bar and a couple of tables and a pool table off to one side which was where most of the bike owners had gathered. Nico ignored them and walked up to the bar.
“Howdy.” The bartender was an older guy, heavy set, dour.
“Bud bottle.”
The server looked Nico and his road-weary suit over.
“You got cash?”
In response, Nico pulled a thick roll of bills out of his pocket and laid a twenty on the bar. The bartender got him his beer and made change.
The beer went down easy, too easy. Nico polished it off in short order and asked for another. He got halfway through it before his old friend trouble came looking for him once more.
“Hey.”
Nico didn’t move.
“Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.”
Nico took a pull from his beer, but otherwise continued minding his own business.
“Hey, jerk-off, I’m talkin’ to you.” A pool cue came up against his upper arm.
Nico closed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t want any trouble. Just walk away, okay?”
The bald-headed biker laughed, surprised.
“Are you telling me to fuck off?” He turned to his buddies. “I think he told me to fuck off.”
“Sounded like fuck off to me,” one of the others said.
Nico put down his beer and left the bartender a couple of dollars. “I’m out of here.”
On his way to the door the pool cue moved to block his passage.
“I’m not done talking to you, faggot.”
Nico counted his breaths. Three… four…
“I said I’m out of here.”
The biker sneered. “And I said, I’m not done talking to you, faggot.”
His friends laughed. Six… Seven… Eight…
Fuck it.
Nico turned towards the biker and stepped closer until they were nose to nose.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said in a low, conversational tone. “I really don’t. But if you don’t fuck off I’m going to take that pool cue and shove it straight up your ass.”
He nodded gravely while the biker’s eyebrows rose in angry semi-disbelief.
“I really will. I’ll bend you over this pool table and do it right in front of your entire Girl Scout troop here. And I know,” he chuckled coldly and shook his head a couple of times. “I know you’re thinking I must be out of my fucking mind and maybe I am, but I’m not kidding. Back off. Back off or I swear to God this will be the most humiliating day of your life.”
“Look at this fucking guy,” one of the others in the background said.
“Look at those eyes, man,” another said. “Dude, this guy’s fucked up in the head. Let him go.”
“He’s got balls, man. Buy him a drink.”
The stare-down continued until Nico decided that he really didn’t want to hurt anyone and turned to leave. The pool cue shattered off the side of his head two steps towards the door. Nothing happened other than he stopped walking and slowly turned towards a biker who was starting to look a little worried at the fact that things weren’t happening the way they were supposed to be happening. Nico moved back to close-quarters eyeball the biker once more.
“Got anything else?”
The biker slammed a fist into Nico’s gut and then pulled his hand back with a sharp cry, cradling it in pain.
“Is that it?”
The biker’s forehead came forward and down unexpectedly fast on Nico’s nose. Nico didn’t feel it but the biker looked semi-stunned as he staggered a bit.
“You’re one of those slow learners, aren’t you?”
The biker took a step back and pulled a Saturday Night Special from the small of his back, then leveled it at Nico’s face.
“Fuck you!”
The gunshot made everyone in the place jump. Nico’s eyes were dull, lifeless, as they stared at the open-mouthed biker through the hazy gun smoke. The gun slipped from the other man’s hand as he slowly backpedaled, shaking his head from side to side in disbelief.
The entire place was silent, dead quiet, as Nico slowly bent down to pick up the gun. With a glare at the biker his hand closed around it slowly. The pistol crushed and deformed into a useless wad of dark metal that Nico dropped back down on the ground.
Then, with everyone watching, Nico took a step to his right and reached down to pick up the broken couple of feet that remained of the pool cue.
Several of the bikers scrambled madly for the door.
Five minutes later, the door of the shack opened, releasing the agonized screams from within. The girl-like cries of one man accompanied by things like “Oh my God” and “Dude, that’s just wrong” and combined with the sounds of someone vomiting were abruptly muffled as Nico let the door whip closed on its springs.
He looked around. The night outside was quiet, peaceful.
One of the bikers who ran out must have lollygagged, because he was only just getting on his bike when he saw Nico come out the front door. He made a startled noise and quickly tried starting his engine, pushing the kick-starter for all he was worth over and over.
Nico looked to his left and saw a stack of oil cans. He hefted one in his hand and then threw it at the biker. It hit him in the head just as the engine turned over, resulting in the guy getting knocked out cold, sprawled out on the ground by the gas pump. The bike rolled a few feet and dumped.
The loner strolled over and picked up the bike. He swung his leg over and tried to remember what he’d read about motorcycles in the automotive magazines he used to read during class when he was supposed to be paying attention. It took a little experimentation before he had it moving down the road, unsteadily grinding gears towards Virginia.
* * * * *
September 1, 1996
Triumph, ID
The lone biker rode up the dirt path to the top of the cresting ridge. Behind him, a dust cloud marked his trail and faded southwest down the valley. From the height of the ridge he could see the roads paralleling the East Fork Wood River leading back all the way to the 75. It told him that he wasn’t lost, but looking around he couldn’t see how anybody could be living alone up this way, or would want to.
Still, the dirt path continued on and up, and so he drove his sled up with it. It switched back several times upon itself, and once crossed a small brook with no apparent bridge, but always it went up higher into the northern, forest-draped Rocky Mountains.
The air was cold and came out of his nostrils like whitish jets of steam as he rode higher and higher, but he paid the cold no mind. Instead he focused on the path, which had grown treacherous for a street bike like his with street tires. He considered picking it up and flying while he worked to manage the balky motorcycle up a steep rutted incline, but once he cleared it he checked that thought.
The house in the near distance wasn’t a house at all. It was a log cabin, which made sense once Nico thought about it. Who the hell would truck lumber for a house all the way up here when you were surrounded by a forest? It was good sized, maybe three or four rooms, with two stone chimneys and a porch that ran all the way around. The windows and doors looked square-cut and the joints tight. Whoever built it sure knew what they were about, or seemed to.
There was a fence stretching away from the house in the opposite direction towards a barn. Inside the fence were a couple of horses and a mule, quietly grazing. They stopped their late breakfast and looked up at the new arrival while he slowly advanced towards the open property on the back of his bike.
There was a big shed, too, big enough for a couple of cars, maybe. Next to it was a long oval tank with flammable warnings spray-stenciled on the side. He took note of the smoke coming from one of the chimneys and figured he’d give whoever was inside fair warning, so he gunned his throttle some and stopped himself near the edge of the expansive cleared plateau where he waited in plain sight.
He didn’t wait for long.
“Alright, alright, knock it off.”
Nico turned his head as the voice had come from behind. He saw an old man, maybe seventy by the white hair and weathered looks of him, dressed in well-worn outdoorsman clothing and carrying a shotgun tucked in the crook of one arm. His long horseshoe mustache danced slightly to the left with the easy high-altitude breezes.
“Do you mind?” the man asked impatiently while he gestured to the motorcycle. Nico killed the engine and dismounted.
“I don’t know you,” the man said.
“Officer Durbin sent me.” Nico removed his left glove and reached into his wool-lined denim jacket’s chest pocket from whence he produced a Nevada State Police business card. He handed it over to the man who stepped forward and took it from him.
As he read the card, the old man asked, “Ozzie Durbin sent you, did he?”
“Yeah.”
The old man pocketed the card and sized the new arrival up. He looked into Nico’s eyes for a few moments and then said, “Park your bike in the shed and then come on up to the house. We’ll talk.”
There wasn’t a car in the shed, just some tools and a work bench, chainsaw, etc. It looked pretty much like a list of things you’d want to have if you lived alone up in the mountains in a log cabin. Nico pushed his bike inside and got it settled before he moved up to the house. The front door was open so he walked right in.
The place was rustic yet modern, the furnishings and fittings clean and in good condition. It had a hunting lodge feel to it, but more like a Congressman’s retreat than a wild old hermit’s domicile. Nico saw the old man’s coat hung on a peg by the door, so he removed his own coat and did likewise. The old man was poking at the embers within the fireplace.
“So what are you?” The old man asked without turning around or stopping what he was doing.
“Nobody,” was the reply.
“That isn’t what Ozzie tells me. Got a letter from him a couple days ago, telling me you was maybe coming. He said you saved a lot of people down in Reno, pulled a bunch of cars that slid off the 430 out of the Truckee River or some such thing. Said he never did see such a thing as you did. Says you’re a big hero.”
Nico snorted as he picked up and studied a geode that was resting on a table near the big room’s comfortable-looking couch.
“I’m no hero.”
“Twenty-four people would be dead right now if you didn’t do what you did, what he said.”
The old man turned and rose after he had revived the fire back into a crackling, burning thing once more. He looked askance at Nico and the biker reaffirmed, “I’m no hero.”
“Okay, fair enough” the old man replied, not wishing to argue the point. He placed his hands in his pockets.
“So why’re you here?”
Nico thought about it, then shrugged. “I had nothing better to do.”
The old man grunted. “That’s not a good thing, boy – probably why Ozzie sent you my way to begin with. I don’t suppose you got a home, or a job, or such, am I right?”
“Nope.”
The old man grunted again, and then sighed. “Well… alright, then. Go on and get yourself situated in the last room on the right, over there. I trust the bed’s to your liking, although I can’t say I ever slept in it so I’m guessing at that. But being as though you ain’t got a home—“
“Hold on,” Nico stopped him. “Are you expecting me to stay here?”
The old man bristled and leaned back on his heels, and placed his hands on his hips.
“Boy, nothing irritates me quite as much as being interrupted. My wife used to do it constantly, and since she died I’ve developed a real serious problem with it, so don’t do it. And yes, I am. You said yerself you ain’t got nothing better to do and to be frank you’re the first person I’ve seen since the postman on Tuesday and about two months prior to that and I could use the company. Ozzie sent you to me and now I can see why, so go on and relax a bit, take a walk around, do whatever it is that you do. I’ll have dinner ready in a couple of hours.”
In the action of turning away, the old man stopped and added, “You like elk?”
Not used to being unsure nor lectured so, Nico shrugged and answered “Never had it, but I’m game.”
The old man smiled and nodded.
“No pun intended, I’m sure.” He turned and walked towards a galley-like kitchen set against the wall near the fireplace. “Two hours, then we’ll talk.”
Nico seemed to almost fidget before placing the geode back down on the table and turning to head for the room the old man recommended. He found it small but cozy, with a bed and a few pieces of furniture, a nightstand, bureau, and what-not. There was a door, too, and to his approval it opened to the porch outside, giving him his own private point of access and egress if he wanted it.
One of the horses nickered and he stepped outside in his jeans and black t-shirt. His boots made soft plodding noises on the well-tamped ground as he made his way over to the fence. The animals didn’t shy away and he gently extended his hand out to touch one of them on the neck. He’d never been this close to a horse before, so he let his hand wander across the roan’s soft fur.
Inside the house, the old man stood and watched Nico through the window, his face a mask of grim thoughts and real worry.
* * * * *
September 6, 1996
Triumph, ID
“Hey, Stone-face!”
Nico looked up from the fence he was repairing and gave the old man a “what do you want you cranky old bastard” flip of his chin.
“Lunch is ready.”
That elicited an “oh, okay” nod from the stoic young man who set down his pliers and wire cutters and headed for the house.
“Let me guess,” he asked when he made it inside. “Elk stew?”
The old man shook his head at Nico’s implied criticism.
“You kill an animal and you use all of it – no wasting anything. Ain’t like we got ourselves a supermarket up here, you know.”
He turned towards the table and placed two bowls of steaming stew on the surface.
“Now, what do you see?”
Nico studied the bowls and the table, as he’d been doing since he walked in.
“You used rosemary instead of thyme today… and you mixed in yesterday’s stew with some fresh stew you made today. You also forgot to head to town today. The letter you wrote is still in your coat by the door.”
The old man laughed. “You’re getting better. But for the record, I used both rosemary and thyme. Dig in.”
Nico sat and the old man sat with him.
“I was just kidding about the elk,” Nico offered. “I like it.”
The old man leaned back in his chair. “Kidding? You? Ha! Now that sure is something, I’ll tell you what.”
Nico chewed and contemplated the cabin with his spoon without looking up from his bowl.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t get it when I got here but I get it now. These past few days… I could really get used to this.”
The old man nodded. “I noticed that about you. That’s why I know your Stone-face act is a bunch of bullshit.”
Nico did look up at that, an annoyed expression coming over him.
“Hey, why you keep calling me that?”
“You ain’t never told me your name, that’s why.”
“Yeah, well you ain’t never told me yours, neither.”
“Yeah, well it fits, the way you go walking around like somebody done kicked your dog or something. Anyway, when you’re up here you spend a lot of time with yourself, and people who hate themselves don’t care for it. Now you, you smoothed out like cake batter after five days, so I know you don’t hate yourself.”
Nico snorted and went back to his stew. “Yeah? Tell me what you know, old man.”
“I know you’re running from something, and I know you ain’t answered my question yet, Stony.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The old man’s tone was sharp and lacked humor. “When you first came in here I asked you, what are you? You ain’t said and I got a feeling that you don’t know, either. Oh, I know what people have told you and maybe you even believe some of it. But you don’t know what you are and so you can’t know who you are, and that’s a damn shame because I think you’re okay for a young person.”
Nico chewed and looked at the old man for a moment. “Did you hit your head today?”
The old man leaned forward and pointed at Nico threateningly with his spoon. “Don’t sass me, boy. You’re way too smart for your own good but truth is you don’t know shit. Now you can be what you think you should be or you can be what these people you running from tell you you are, or you can cowboy up and be what you want to be, down inside that, that stony exterior.
The old man knocked on the table with his spoon a few times like it was a gavel.
“You hearing me, boy? You’re young, smart – sure, whatever happened to you sucks, but that hand’s over. You been dealt a new hand, and a damn good one, so in between the pouting and the pity party maybe you start thinking about taking tomorrow by the balls instead of worrying about yesterday so much, and kick some ass out there.”
After the rant, the old man seemed to run out of steam. He blew out his mustache and returned to eating. They both ate in silence for a good five minutes.
“I like the stew,” Nico finally said.
“Go to hell, Stone-face. Give me your bowl, I’ll get you more.”
* * * * *
September 12, 1996
Triumph, ID
“So, finally had enough of the old man, eh?”
“I’ve had enough elk stew.”
“Now look here, boy—“
“I know, I know, waste not want not n’shit.”
“Now what did I tell you about interrupting me, you stone-faced idjit?”
“Save it,” Nico replied. He fished something out of his bike’s leather saddle bag and handed it to the old man. It was a key, a circle-cut security key on a length of thin metal keychain, like a dog tag.
The old man eyed it like it was a dead fish. “What’s that?”
“It was my father’s. He always had it on him, swinging it around, and after he died… The last time I left his house I grabbed it off his bedroom dresser. He was the only person who ever told me I was more than just some loser, you know? At first I didn’t know why I took it but since then it’s been something like a reminder, like some token of validation or some shit like that.”
He placed it in the old man’s hand and closed his fingers around it. “I don’t think I need it anymore. It’s really all I got, so take it.”
The old man nodded and placed it in his pants pocket.
“I guess I’ve heard less genuine thank-yous.”
Nico snorted and pulled out his smokes. He placed one in his mouth but the old man stopped him before he could light a match.
“Here, use this.”
The old man handed over an old Zippo lighter with an American flag emblazoned on one side. It looked almost as weathered as he did.
While Nico looked it over he commented, “This is pretty neat.”
“I carried that with me through both my tours in ‘Nam,” the old man explained. “That experience taught me a lot about who I am and who I wanted to be. You keep it. Maybe it’ll do the same for you, or at least remind you not to believe that bullshit you’ve been fed up ‘till now. Anyway, it’s yours, as are these.”
The old man pulled a pair of mirrored steel-frame sunglasses from the pocket of his hunting jacket.
“Here, try ‘em on.”
Nico took the shades and put them on his face. The frame was old-school aviator with the ear stems that curved all the way around the ear.
“Yeah, that’s nice,” the old man said approvingly with a half-smile. “Remember one thing, boy: if you’re going to hide what you are, hide the eyes. You can wear anything, do anything, talk any way you like, but if they can see your eyes they’ll figure you out right quick. Make it your mask, and be careful about who gets to see behind it.”
The old man stepped back. “Now go on, get. I’m already missing my solitude.”
Nico extended a hand. “Thanks, old man.”
The old man shook the offered hand and waved the sentiment off with a grunt. Nico held onto his hand for an extra beat.
“Seriously,” he said, not wanting the gratitude to be lost. “Thanks.”
The old man nodded almost affectionately back. They both let go and he said, “You take care, Stony.”
Nico nodded and fired up his engine. He gave the forest and mountain some good revs before he started back down the dirt path for the river road and the 75.
* * * * *
It took them a whole two days to get around to showing up on his doorstep. He’d started keeping the horses confined to the smaller yard by the barn and out of the larger fenced paddock since his guest had left. Sure enough, the helicopter landed in the paddock when it finally arrived.
“Good morning, Colonel,” the old man said without really feeling it. He stepped away from the door to let the uniformed officer enter the cabin.
“Get you something?”
The colonel looked around and moved to the couch.
“You still a bourbon man?” he asked.
In response, the old man moved to the bookcase bar and drew two rocks glasses of Jack Daniels. The colonel waited until he had been handed his and they clinked glasses before partaking.
The colonel opened. “I got your message. Looks like we got lucky.”
“That we did,” the old man replied with a nod. He sat facing the colonel in his elk leather easy chair. “Did you take care of Ozzie Durbin?”
“He’s been debriefed,” the colonel answered. “So what do you think?”
“I think the kid’s been through some serious shit, colonel. I think we’re damn lucky he ain’t killed more’n them two out in Jersey back in eighty-six or eighty-seven, whenever it was.”
“Seven.”
“Right. Anyway, as one could expect he’s all fucked up in the head. Still, despite all that, I’m actually kind of encouraged.”
The colonel looked at the old man with some disbelief. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I mean it,” the old man assured him. “We talked a lot, and the kid actually listens, which is a far sight more than some people do around here. I really think he’s going to be okay. Sure as hell ain’t going to be what you hoped he’d be, but I don’t think he’s going to do any harm out there.”
The old man took a thoughtful sip of his whiskey and studied the amber fluid through the crystal.
“Might even help us some if he figures the personal shit out. I mean, look at what happened in Reno. He did that on his own.”
“Maybe.” The colonel grew thoughtful for a moment and then shook his head. “I can’t take the risk.”
“Oh, relax, you hasty bastard,” the old man droned. “You forget, we didn’t have all the answers either, and we did some fucked up shit in our time, too. I’m telling you, I think he’s going to be fine.”
“Is that your official answer?”
“It sure as hell is,” the old man replied heatedly. “Leave him be, Colonel.”
The colonel shook his head once, thoughtful again, and then stood up.
“Okay, I’ll leave him be – for now. But if I see a report with his name and the words “national security risk” on it, he’ll spend the rest of his days inside a box at the Mountain.
The old man snorted in response to that. The colonel put his hat back on and started for the door until he was interrupted.
“Colonel, you might want to take this with you.”
When the officer turned around, he caught a shiny object that was already in the air heading his way. It was a security key on a chain. The colonel’s mouth opened in shock after a moment of realization.
“Doctor Manters?”
The old man nodded with amusement. “Yep. The kid had it on him, gave it to me as a token of his gratitude.”
“Jesus…” The colonel’s face went from shock to cynicism and he regarded the old man carefully.
“You could have kept it, used it yourself. Why didn’t you?”
“Oh, Colonel,” the old man said dismissively. “My days of intrigue are miles behind me. Besides, it was worth it just to see the look on your face.”
The colonel shook his head and pocketed the key. “You are one crazy old coot, you know that?”
“Crazy like a fox,” the old man replied, causing the other man to crack a smile.
“Take care of yourself, old man,” the colonel offered before walking out the front door to his waiting helicopter.
“I always do,” the old man replied to nobody, as the copter lifted into the air.
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Comments
This was a great look into
This was a great look into Stone's life, Trak. Wonderful job, it makes me like stone even more.
--
Imagination is the seed of intelligence. Nourish it and watch it grow.
Son of a mother, that rocked.
Son of a mother, that rocked. You left a bunch of stuff open so there'd better be a sequel.
Good job. The Superhuman
Good job. The Superhuman version of the he man woman hater. That nun should be given villain status.
Why isn't the word 'phonetic' spelled the way it sounds?
The writing was impeccable.
The writing was impeccable. You've found your stride with Stone my friend, and I'm jealous as all hell.
Fantastic!
John,
This was fantastic. From start to finish and tells so much about him.
You made such a villain out of that nun and his sister...gawd I hated them!
...and the intrigue behind who and what he is, very interesting and something that we should figure out how to pursue.
And that question, 'what are you'. :) That still needs to be answered.
Not to get sappy or anything, but I'm so excited to see Stone so completely explored and shared in this game. I know that you've had him for as long as I've known you, likely longer and I'm thrilled to give you the backdrop that allows you to explore him and develop him this thoroughly. Thank you for that. It's a treat.
I'm not done yet, but can I
I'm not done yet, but can I just say...I really HATE the penguin. So, uh, good job.
So, behind every great man is
So, behind every great man is a great woman, and behind Stone are two evil bitches and two shady father figures. All things considered, he's turned out quite well. Great writing, and I really enjoyed learning so much about Stone's past - including more hints about the SB connection. Can't wait for part two.