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Send to FriendIt might as well have been two decades, for that is what it seemed like to him as he reflected upon that period of life. The toll it had taken upon his body had been that of more than twenty years or, more accurately, perhaps, forty or fifty years. He looked old, and he felt old at times, but he couldn't have been as old as he had seemed to be. It was only two years ago that he had the strength and vitality of his youth. And although his age and birthday had been a complete mystery to him, he knew that he shouldn't have appeared and felt as old as he did. It should've been impossible, and yet it had happened. He looked and felt like hell. What could have drained him so in such a short period of time? Stress, maybe. His life as a derelict. His constant servitude to the Lord. The ever recurring uncertainty of where his next meal would come, or whether or not he may be killed in his sleep within whichever dark alley he chose for his bed. The uncertainty he felt (though fiercely denied both to himself and anyone who may ask) that the Lord may sometime cease providing for him. The growing burden each new day brought to him, the pieces of information that everyone else got to know and could take for granted, information that he was cruelly denied. Perhaps all of those things and more. Or perhaps something else entirely. He would never know for sure.
Perhaps the simple fact was that he really was an old man, as old as he felt and looked, and the years has finally caught up with him. The Street Preacher would have no way of knowing for sure. His age; just one of many crucial tidbits of information he would forever be denied. His entire life up until the accident two years ago had been erased from his memory. No traces remained. No random memories scrambled or fragmented. Nothing. It was forever gone, the slate wiped clean. It was the price he paid for having survived the accident, for having been saved, both from the deadly crash and from his own forgotten life of sin.
He considered himself a born-again Christian. Yet when you got right down to it, how could he know for sure? Perhaps in his old life he wasn't the horrible, depressed, drunken drug addict that the Lord had proclaimed he was. But perhaps that wasn't the case at all. Perhaps he had even devoted his life to God back then in some way or another as he had done so now (though now his sacrifice had been much greater). It was possible.
And when the Street Preacher thought of that, he began to think of other unpleasant possibilities: What if everything he lived through now was a delusion? What if it wasn't God speaking to him in his head but his own mad delusion, his own psychosis, which others could detect, but which of course wouldn't register to him? But if that were the case than he would have no reason to go on, no reason to survive, and thus, he would end it all, put himself and the rest of the world out of their misery by jumping off the nearest bridge or go into a subway station and leap in front of the next oncoming train. If they were delusions, they still gave him purpose, a reason to live, a reason to fight on and survive, when he would otherwise have nothing. Thus, when thoughts that this may all be a farce within his own damaged mind crept into him, he pushed such loathsome thoughts away. They were upsetting, and thus, he would never allow himself to dwell on them, but to force them out of his head and keep them out, put up a protective barrier against these terrible thoughts if he could, and do what he believed...what he knew, had to be done.
Such dreary thoughts could easily be ignored or denied.
His desire to learn of his life before the accident, however, wasn't so easily repressed. Nor should it have been. After all, why should the Street Preacher not be allowed to know his own age or birthday? Or his name for that matter? It didn't seem fair that he should forget his own name, be left without an identity of any kind other than the shitty diminutive of the Street Preacher. It wasn't good enough because he knew it wasn't his real name. Would it be such a crime if he were at least given a glimpse of his life before becoming the Street Preacher, to know even the murkiest detail from that era of his life? What was he like before the accident? Was he a good man? A bad man? Did he have a lot of friends? Was he well liked and respected by his community? Where did he live? What kind of job did he hold? Was he married? Did he have children? Was he rich, poor, somewhere in the middle? What kind of a home did he live in? What had his childhood been like? Answers to any of those questions would have been enough to satiate his yearning for the truth, though he knew of the real possibility that for every answer he received he would have yet another question to ask, perhaps a whole set of questions. But still, he would at least know something, and knowing something about his past was far better than knowing nothing at all. Even the most ambiguous hint, the most obscure clue—
He struggled to recall something of his past, but nothing came. The amnesia was that strong, and it stood unhindered, blocking all but those events that had occurred after his '97 Camaro had crashed into that thick oak tree down that rural two-lane highway, nearly one hundred miles south of Terma. He'd been much younger then--decades younger, his hair much shorter, darker, and his face less rippled with age. And even that event was hazy in the Street Preacher's mind. He couldn't even remember how he had crashed. Only what had happened afterward, when he finally came to. His earliest memory...
The darkness had completely enveloped him at first, and the man thought briefly that he must surely be dead until the throbbing headache hit him, overwhelming him in shear agony making him want to cry out. Then a thin crevice of line shone through, burning his eyes. It widened. There was a sense of sudden elevation, as though he were ascending, reaching for the widening crevice of bright light that seemed to lay just out of reach, more like being pulled toward the light and away from the darkening void. The light seemed to explode in front of him when he came into contact, a barrage of white luminescence completely engulfing him.
It was as though he were being born again...
The man's eyes fluttered slowly open, darts of sunlight stinging his eyes, and he found himself sitting on the driver's seat of his now demolished Camaro, whose windows were now all completely shattered into billions of tiny cubes of glass scattered everywhere, and whose front end was now completely smashed. The front end was like an accordion against the tree in front of him that he had apparently crashed into. The hood was bent outward, the sharp crease jutting upward like a pitched tent, smoke billowing from the engine.
The man was barely aware of the gash over his forehead that bled profusely, barely aware that his face was now a purple mask of blood. He wiped the blood from his eyes, pushed the car door open, and stepped outside, his head exploding in agony the moment he was on his feet and he bellowed shrilly, perhaps attracting attention, had there been anyone else upon that rural road passing by besides him.
Gaining only a few feet from the Camaro, he suddenly felt a wave of nausea overtaking him. The man fell to his hands and knees and vomited profusely over the pavement. When he was done, he lifted his achy head, then rose slowly to his feet, the pain now becoming unbearable. He staggered a few steps, and then lunged forward, falling on his face and passing out a second time.
The man still had the world's worst hangover when he gained consciousness once again.
He emerged from the ground, wondering how long he had been out, wondering why no one had found him, why no one had tried to help him. And for the first time since he had awaken the first time, who he was. He thought perhaps he could check his wallet; he would surely have a driver's license if he were driving, some form of identification. But when he fished his hands through all of his pockets, nothing would come up. His wallet was gone. That could only mean one thing: Someone had found him after all. But rather than calling an ambulance or getting him to a hospital somehow, the one who had found him instead pulled the man's wallet out of his pocket and then left him for dead, simple as that. No identification. No memories whatsoever. His mind was a complete blank.
He had no identity.
The man was quickly filled with anger at the thought, and he despised the culprit who had robbed him while he was unconscious, because his robber had not only stolen the man's wallet, with whatever cash, credit cards, and photos inside, he had stolen the man's name, the man's life. Perhaps had he still had his driver's license, or some form of identification, he might be able to get back to his old life despite the fact that he could remember nothing of it. He would at least know his own name, and with that, they could check records on him, find out where he lived, what he did for a living, whether or not he had been married or had children and so much more, all on the basis of his name, his address, and phone number which would be imprinted upon his license. But he didn't have his license; it was gone and he had no way of regaining his life ever again because he could remember nothing. It was the ultimate degradation, the ultimate violation put forth against any man. His very life was robbed from him.
Feeling defeated, knowing that he had nothing, no life, no home, and was nothing more than a face without a name, he continued to walk north, roaming aimlessly, wherever the road would take him. Cars zoomed by, paying him no heed, though he wished one would pull over and give him a ride. He held out some hope that his memory would return, but nothing came; he couldn't recall one single event in his life. Nothing. And without a past, he felt he had no future as well, no direction except that straight line he followed now.
At one point during his long walk, someone finally did pull over. The man was relieved when this had happened; he was very tired. His feet were sore, and he could feel blisters forming over his heels, popping with every step he took. It had been a clear and starry night when it had happened, the full moon gleaming above him and he could hear the crickets chirping from every direction.
The eighteen wheeler came slowly to a halt beside him, stopping him in his tracks as the passenger side door of the truck sprang open. "Hey, buddy, need a lift?"
The man was stunned. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if it were true or a mere hallucination. Perhaps he really had been on the road too long, or had been hit in the head too hard--he still suffered a throbbing headache. Not only was this the worst hangover ever, but it was also the longest-lasting one as well. If this was a hang-over, it had to have been the worst of breed ever; though he didn't even know if he'd been drinking. The bright lights all over the truck only served to exacerbate the lingering headache.
But still, if this offer was for real, he'd be a fool to reject it. "Sure," the man said calmly, and climbed into the passenger seat of the truck, pulling the door shut with a loud slam that seemed to make his aching head throb even more painfully. The trucker applied pressure to the accelerator and the eighteen wheeler slowly began to pick up speed once again.
"So where ya headed?" asked the trucker.
He'd been a broad shouldered bearded man with shoulder-length dark hair, dressed in a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing his thick, hairy forearms. From the looks of him, he was probably somewhere in his early thirties, appearing to be a kind and trusting man, with not an ounce of suspicion in his hazel eyes. Though had he been suspicious of his current hitch-hiker, then the trucker probably would have rode right past him like all the other motorists. Most people didn't bother with hitch-hikers. Too risky. No telling what kind of a psychopath he may be, so it was safer not picking them up. Yet trucking across the country could often be a lonely existence, so the company was nice every once in a while despite the risk.
"Wherever the road takes me," the man answered.
The trucker chuckled softly. "Live for the moment, eh?" He grinned amiably. "Keep going north, you'll reach the city of Terma. Not a bad place really, for the most part. It's got its garbage, like any other city. It's derelict scum. But not as bad as some of the other cities I've been to, let me tell ya. Nowhere near as bad!"
"I can imagine."
"Say, what's your name anyway?"
"John Cunningham." The name wasn't his own, and he knew that. But it was the name that had come to him immediately upon being asked the question, and unable to think of anything else, he went with it without hesitation. What would the trucker say if his passenger had confessed to not being able to remember his own name? Why, the trucker might think it kind of strange indeed. And things were tense enough with the dried blood encrusted over the man's face, curdled over his skin, which the trucker somehow seemed oblivious to.
"Nice to meet ya, John," said the truck driver as he glanced over toward the man in the passenger seat, tipping his Boston Red Sox cap at him, smiling warmly. "The names Tillman," the trucker put out his hand, "Gary Tillman."
"Nice to meet you, too."
They shook hands briefly.
Gary continued to ramble on about his life story, his breaks becoming few and far between, and the man sat in the seat, listening for who knew how long as Tillman went on. He could hear country music on the radio, one song making way for another, then for another, then for another, on and on. How much time had gone by, he honestly couldn't say. In the end, it really didn't matter.
"Like I said, Terma's not a bad place to go to, or even to live," the trucker babbled on. "It's got quite a few bad apples, but it's an okay city for the most part. Up north of Terma is a small town called Simmonsville. Gorgeous town! I love it there. Wish there were more roads there that I can get this truck through, but what'cha gonna do? Still a very nice town, with a lot of really nice people in it. Man, if I had to settle in some place to live in for the rest of my life, I think I'd choose Simmonsville."
"Never been to either of those places," the man professed.
"Well, Simmonsville is a very nice place," replied the trucker. "Good thing you were headin' up north, by the way," the trucker pointed out. "Don't wanna go down south, not to the city down there, man. I swear, you wanna stay away from that."
"Why? What's down south?"
"The city of death," said the trucker, his voice taking on a morbid tone. He shuddered. "The Shit Zone."
The Shit Zone? Strange name for a city, thought the man. But what he was going through now had been strange, and he supposed he could have come out of that very city before crashing. It was possible. No way of knowing for sure. Still, it seemed unusual that they would select such a vulgar term to name a particular city, unless that was some kind of strange diminutive that the locals used and not the official title. "I don't think I've ever been there...or heard of such a city."
"Don't ever go there," cautioned Gary Tillman. "That place is cursed, I swear man. The Shit Zone is a city of death." He shuddered again, his grip tightening around the steering wheel. "I get bad vibes every time I step foot in that place. God...anyone who'd ever wanna live in a place like that has to be completely insane."
The man nodded, unsure of what the trucker was talking about.
He suddenly felt drowsy, and as he listened to the radio, now playing a hit by Garth Brooks, the man lay back against the seat of the truck and slowly began to doze off.
His eyes fluttered open a second later, and he felt a cool breeze brush against his face. He was no longer inside the truck now, but lying on his back over a patch of grass staring up at the full moon in the clear sky above. Outside again? What happened? He hadn't the slightest idea. Perhaps some bizarre supernatural event. Perhaps the trucker had been some kind of ghost whom had been killed in the Shit Zone, the city of the damned. Or, for a more down-to-earth reason, he might have simply passed out onto the grass or simply fallen asleep and dreamed the whole thing. He would never know for sure, he supposed, and with his memory still a complete blank, it really didn't matter either. Still, it would be kind of interesting...
Who cares?
He emerged from the ground, his head still throbbing in pain, and continued walking slowly due north, with no particular destination in mind, eventually (within another couple of days) making his way to the city of Terma.
* * *
The Street Preacher stopped immediately in his tracks upon exiting the alley as he saw a police cruiser crawling slowly down the street. Oh no, he thought wildly, they saw me...they found me...those heathen bastards found me! A crack of thunder went off due east, startling the Preacher, and he felt hot urine moistening his crotch, feeling a mild sense of disgust for what he had done in the back of his mind. The Street Preacher stood motionless, watching the slowly moving cruiser that had its sirens and flashers turned off go by, anticipating what the officers inside the car might do, what might happen should they see him, and whether or not he should turn and run the other way.
The officer in the passenger side of the vehicle, a man appearing to be in his late twenties with dark hair shot the Street Preacher a contemptuous glance, before the cruiser rode off down the road, never stopping. The Preacher stood a few more minutes, first transfixed by the police cruiser, then looking at the spot where the cruiser had been, which was now an empty patch of road. For those few minutes, he was petrified--he couldn't move even if he wanted to, still half-expecting the cruiser to turn around, to reappear before his eyes once again and for the cops to come out and haul him to jail.
Reality hit him then, and he realized that it was only contempt in that young officer's eyes, and not an ounce of recognition. More than likely they had nothing to do with the crime scene investigation and hadn't yet been informed as to what had transpired. With the realization came a sense of relief. The Street Preacher was still a free man, still free to do what must be done.
But where was he to find Kathy? That was the question that plagued him now.
If God was unable to guide him to her location, he would have to rely on his own dumb luck. It would be a guessing game, guessing which direction to take, right or left, north, south, east, west, and hope he stayed on the right path. He had two choices now; two possible paths to go, and only one was the right one. Which side--left or right--he didn't know, and thus would have to rely on his own intuition and luck with this journey, which on many levels he thought of as a foolish guessing game.
He brushed a few grimy dreadlocks away from his eye.
Which way did she go, George, which way did she go?
His eyes swiveled from left to right, then back again. The same thing on both sides: a myriad of shops, small business establishments, and cars coasting up and down the road. There were a few pedestrians as well, most carrying umbrellas to shield themselves from the pummeling rain. So which direction would Kathy's apartment be in, if she was even at her apartment? Could be either one, but the Street Preacher had a strong feeling that it was left, so he chose to go that route, hoping it was right. Hunches were all he had to go on.
He turned the corner toward the left and walked slowly within the vast crowd of people beneath the black canopy of unbrellas, hoping it would be enough to conceal him, hide him from prying eyes so that he could lay low. The best course of action, he realized, for the time being was to keep a low profile.
* * *
Bart nudged pressed the handle gently and heard the swish of the toilet flushing and watched, staring blankly, as the water washed away in a clockwise direction in the bowl, staring blankly as it emptied into the drain and was gone, then quickly refilled once more. The water was gone, and replaced by more water, clean water, not yet tainted by urine or feces.
Jobs were like that as well, in their own way, at least for Bart Dawson. You have a job for a little while, then something happens and it goes bad, and you lose the job and are forced to find another, and another, and another. The dreadful cycle continues. Just like the water inside your toilet, which could remain clean for only so long, maybe for fifteen minutes, or for a half-hour, or an hour, or even two hours. But eventually someone would have to relieve himself, and then flush, and bye-bye toilet water. It was the same way with jobs. Bart might be able to hold a job for a few months, perhaps longer if he'd been lucky, but eventually something had to give. He could be fired, or laid off, or perhaps the place where he worked might go out of business. Either way, he would be unemployed once again, and forced to get a new one, find a replacement, just as the toilet would have to replace its water with each flushing.
Get a grip, man, he told himself, realizing the absurdity of comparing things such as his job history, life, and nature to such a petty concept of flushing a toilet. He snickered, finding a little bit of humor in the analogy he had just made, yet still, even under normal circumstances was never one to laugh out loud at anything even under the best of circumstances.
Bart washed his hands, and then stood for a long time with his head bent slightly, looking in the mirror, staring at his reflection, his short, dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin and thick stubble that wasn't quite thick enough to make a beard. He remained in deep thought, dwelling on recent events, on the Street Preacher, and at how his life could yet again spiral out of control so fast. Yet he was wrong to think that, because his life wasn't out of control. Sure things were bad, but he had been through so much worse as a child. He should be able to handle anything now.
When he thought of his childhood, of the pain and indignation he had suffered then, he knew that no matter what happened to him in his adult life, no matter what obstacles he was faced with, things would never be that bad again. The worst of his life was long over. The endless winter nights spent locked in the cold, lurid basement, shivering both because he was freezing and because he was frightened. Scared of every bump that he had heard set off. Afraid that he might die down there, scared that perhaps a monster might get him when in fact the only monster in that house had been his mother. The utter horror and shame he felt as a child when he'd been raped and degraded by Father McCarthy. The perpetual guilt that gnawed at him, nagging him that all of what he had been through had been his fault, that he had somehow been the cause to all the suffering and in turn deserved every last ounce of it. While most people reflected upon their childhood with a sentimental refrain, what Bart felt when such childhood memories struck him was a sense of utter revulsion, all the old shame and guilt, and the utter terror perpetrated by the monsters that plagued him as a kid. Yet the worst of his pain was over many years ago. He would never again suffer as he had suffered as a child ever again. And the Street Preacher, no matter how relentless, should have been nothing more than a mere annoyance.
"The Street Preacher should've been my problem and mine alone," he grunted.
Try as he might, he couldn't figure out why the Street Preacher had to incorporate Gino and Kathy into his mad delusions, and thinking about it only made his head hurt.
It was supposed to be MY problem, not THEIRS, damn it, MINE!
It was this thought that made the pain worse, for with the grief he felt came the sense of guilt. He felt as though Gino's blood had been in his hands as much as on the hands of the Street Preacher. Maybe if you'd called the police earlier...a lot earlier, none of this would've happened. Maybe they might've gotten the bastard off the street weeks ago, and he wouldn't have been able to murder my uncle now! Kathy had a point when she had said this. She may have apologized later and regretted that she had said such things, but that didn't change the haunting fact that she had a point. He had three weeks to go to the police before the Preacher so much as utered Kathy's name, and he did absolutely nothing at all, and now both Gino and Kathy were forced to pay the price for his folly, because he was unable to foresee what the Preacher might do. It was like being a man with a communicable disease, a disease which would at first be his problem and only his problem, but because he refused to say anything and to have himself quarantined, the disease festering and eating away at him would soon spread to everyone else that came into contact with him, and everyone else after that, and it would then become their problem as well.
And then he thought of what he had reaped after Gino had been butchered, of the kiss that he and Kathy had shared. Had Gino not been killed--
No, that was bullshit. His and Kathy's kiss wasn't reaping in the benefits of a man's death. At most, Gino's death would be a catalyst for their love, because both Bart and Kathy had been very fond of each other since the day they'd first layed eyes on each other. Bart hadn't benefited at all from anyone's death or misery, because he and Kathy would've become a couple anyway. They might've still been in that awkward, shy stage, where both liked each other but neither was sure if the other liked them back, but surely they would have surpassed that eventually. And with Gino still alive, they could've made a happy couple, perhaps one that resulted in marriage, or perhaps they might decide sometime that it just wasn't working and break up. But either way, it would've happened without Gino's death as it would with it, which made what the Street Preacher did in that regard completely unnecessary.
It was completely unnecessary no matter how you look at it, you fucking idiot.
"Yeah, good point," he sighed, unaware that he had spoken aloud.
Bart couldn't believe how deep the pain was that he felt over Gino's death. He had barely known the man a month, and Gino had only been his employer
(friend)
yet Bart was truly devastated over the man's death. It was the shear pinnacle of insanity that he would suffer so greatly over the man's loss. He would expect to feel some sense of melancholy, but it should've have gone this far. It stabbed at his heart, tearing it apart, however. And he couldn't even imagine how much turmoil Kathy herself had been going through over what had happened.
He sighed again, took a final glance at his reflection in the mirror, of the haggard expression over his face, and then buried his face in his palms and began to cry.
* * *
While Bart was in the bathroom, Kathy still sat on the couch, staring at the blank TV screen, still in shock over the day's events, still unable to fathom that her uncle could truly be dead. She enjoyed the kiss she had shared with Bart, and felt that perhaps she might be falling for him. Kathy wanted him now more than ever, she thought of him lustfully, yet was still saddened by her uncle's death.
Memories of her uncle continued to flash through her mind. How Uncle Gino had always used to take her to the amusement park at least once a year when she was a kid. The way he had comforted her when she was eleven when her parents had been killed when she was only eleven years of age, and how he had held her tightly as she cried over his shoulder. Kathy thought of how Uncle Gino had fought fiercely for custody of her afterward, when the state threatened to put her in a foster home, and how excited she had been when he had finally won and appointed as her legal guardian. He had always been there for her from that point on, always giving advice when he could, and bought her whatever she needed and doing whatever he could to keep her happy. When that train had derailed all those years ago, killing her parents along with several others, and injury even more, Uncle Gino had taken on the role of both her mother and father, and no matter how hectic things might get for him at work, he always made sure he had time for Kathy as well. It had been Gino who had given her her first job when she was sixteen, and had taught her how to make a pizza, and she was really good at it too. She didn't intend to make a living out of this like her uncle had, but it had made a decent part time job and Gino was about the nicest employers you could ever have. He was one of the nicest people you could ever meet, truly a saint among men, and now he was gone, butchered because of some psycho's made delusions.
Kathy sighed dejectedly.
I just can't believe he's gone, she thought somberly.
Kathy smiled wanly as she saw Bart coming out of the bathroom, his face solemn, and he looked at her with an expression of grief mixed with sympathy. "How are you taking it?" he asked softly, and she could tell by his voice that he had been crying, but said nothing.
"I'm fine," Kathy sobbed, her eyes filling with tears.
Bart sat back down on the couch next to her, looking at her, tears filling his own eyes, just as saddened as she was over Uncle Gino's death, and not just because Gino had been merely his employer, but for a while, at least, he had been Bart's friend as well. Her uncle had touched a lot of lives, and the more she thought of it, the more unbelievable it seemed that anyone would want to do anything to hurt him. It all seemed like a bad dream to her, but if it was a dream, then why couldn't she just wake up from this horrible nightmare?
"How are you taking it?" he asked softly, and for a second, Kathy wondered how he could even ask such a question. How do you think I feel? she thought sullenly and almost wanted to say it aloud, but bit it back at the last minute. He was merely trying to make conversation and nothing more. She could relate, of course; after all, there wasn't much she could think of to say either, given the circumstances.
"I'm fine, I guess," she sighed.
Bart nodded; he had been hurting just as Kathy had been. And why should that be surprising. Naturally, he might not feel the loss as deeply as Kathy had, since Gino wasn't family to him per se, but in his own right, Gino had been Bart's friend at a time when Bart didn't seem to have too many, if any friends at all. They had their own special bond, which was now broken, ruthlessly torn apart by some mad fundamentalist from the streets who should have been locked away in an asylum.
And after what he'd done to Uncle Gino, Kathy thought, should be put to death and rot in hell for eternity, the same hell he feared and strived to avoid through his fanaticism, his insanity, which he couldn't seem to help but drag everyone else into, against their will.
Kathy thought of what Bart had told her this afternoon, when they had been eating their pizza right before Gino had been killed. How unfair it now seemed that Bart should be forced to go through any of this at all, after having worked so hard to conquer the abuse he had endured as a child, conquering his dreadful childhood itself, only to have it rear its ugly head once again in the bitter reminder represented by a psychotic vagrant. Was that how it seemed to Bart? Was that how Bart had felt about this entire situation? It surely must have.
And the feeling had now been mutual among Kathy as well, and the more she thought about it, the more she hated the Street Preacher, and the more she wished him dead. She had never wished such a fate as death or eternal damnation upon anyone before in her life, yet no one she had come across had been more deserving as the Preacher, who had been not a man but a monster, an abomination who had been the epitome of the very same evil he had so often claimed to abhore.
"Oh Uncle Gino..." she sobbed, looking up at the ceiling through teary eyes.
"You okay?"
Kathy sniffed, wiping the tears from her eyes, and nodded. "Yeah," she croaked, I'm fine...its just that..."
"I know," agreed Bart, the look of concern on his face never faltering as he reached over, put his arm around Kathy's shoulder and drawing her closer, holding her tightly, comforting her as she continued to shed tears, which he wiped tenderly from her eyes. "And I'm sorry," he went on, his own voice becoming distorted, "I'm so sorry..."
For what? Kathy wanted to say, but didn't. The guilt she felt over having initially blamed him for what had happened to Uncle Gino was now at its peak and she could no longer fathom how she could have even concevied of such a notion that Bart could possibly be to blame for any of this. The very idea had been completely absurd, but could she blame herself either, since she had been under such duress, and still was even now? But at least now her thinking had been clear enough to realize that Bart was not the bad guy here, but only an innocent victim, like herself, and even more so, her late uncle as well.
He was more than just a victim, though. In his own right, Bart Dawson had been a hero as well. He was a hero for conquering his childhood, for going beyond the abuse he had known as a child, and not allowing it to overtake him, to make him into the same abusive monster that had been his mother and his childhood priest, as had been too often the case with children of his same plight. For that, he deserved respect and admiration, in spite of the fact that he had never once--as far as Kathy could tell--asked for it.
"Don't be sorry, Bart," she whispered. "You've got nothing to be sorry for."
"I just wanted to be left alone," he replied. "I don't even know what he ever wanted with me in the first place, how he found me, or even found out who I was." He said the words not enranged, his voice raised, but instead uttered them softly. Kathy could sense the helpless despair in his tone, his feeling of hopelessness.
"That priest who...who touched you..." Kathy mentioned, not wanting to put it too bluntly, knowing that Bart would know whom she was referring to.
"Father McCarthy?"
Kathy nodded. "Yeah, him."
"He's dead...been dead for years now. Beaten to death by his fellow inmates. And if there really is a hell, I hope he's down there burning, rotting away for eternity. The son of a bitch got exactly what he deserved, and I hope the other convicts made it as painful and miserable for him as humanly possible." The despair in his voice was replaced with scorn at the mention of Father McCarthy, but she could still see the helplessness on his face that he felt over this whole sordid affair.
Kathy agreed and nodded.
She then wondered who had been the worst of the two: the late Father McCarthy or the Street Preacher? The Preacher, as far as Kathy knew, had never raped anyone (though she could have been wrong. Yet Father McCarthy, as far as Kathy knew, had never killed anyway (though again, she could've been wrong about that, too). Who was worse? Good question. A tough question, as well. Did it matter? She supposed it didn't.
"Have you ever told anyone else of what happened?" Kathy asked. "I mean after it was all said and done and your councelling was complete."
"A few," Bart answered. "Online buddies I talk to on Yahoo! Messenger; people I'll probably never actually meet in person since most of them live so far away. They were horrified by the news, but understanding and compassionate. They didn't know what it was like for me to actually go through such an ordeal, but I'm glad. No one should know what that's like." He cringed, shuddering, apparently not having put the ordeal completely behind him. But could anyone completely get over such a traumatic experience, especially at such a young age that he had been when it had all happened?
She ruffled a hand through his short dark hair. "You shouldn't have had to go through that horror, either, Bart," she said soothingly.
"I guess all those bad experiences shaped who I am," he stated, softly, his voice more like a sobbing hiss. "I hate what happened to me. I hate the people who do did those things to me. And I hate what became of me. For the longest time after I was taken out of my home, I hated the social workers, and I hated Sean Bates, my councellor, whose dead now, but he saved me. Saved me from becoming just like those...those monsters, my mother and Father McCarthy."
How ironic, thought Kathy, that the Street Preacher would be hellbent on saving a soul--Bart's soul--that didn't need saving at all. Sean Bates had already done the job years ago, and he might not have even been into religion at all. Yet Kathy supposed she shouldn't jump to such conclusions since she herself had never met the man.
"Depression hit me for the longest time. I did everything I could to drown the depression and the self-hate, the disgust I felt for myself," Bart went on. "I snuck out for booze to get wasted and drunk off my ass. I broke into people's homes, stealing nothing but Budweiser, Sam Adams, etc., while leaving their valuables intact. I got high. I got into fights, trouble with the law. None of that quelled the depression any. Nothing helped."
"You didn't have a record when Gino hired you, though."
"All that stuff happened when I was still a minor. My criminal record was wiped clean when I turned eighteen, and by then, I had been through with the drugs and booze," Bart told her. "The depression was still strong at times, though. Even now, I'm still not completely over it, no matter how much of a strong show I might put on. Maybe I'm not as suicidal--there was a time when all I wanted was to die, to end all my pain, shame, and grief that they had put me through. I even made a few attempts, but none were successful. And I was still a wreck, so I guess all of that near-death-experience crap is just that: a bunch of crap. I didn't even have one of those things." He laughed bitterly. "I'm sure they're nice, though."
Kathy nodded absently, not sure what to say.
"And after my attempts failed and I had recovered--even in the hospital while I recovered--the depression lingered. That mess with the suicide attempts is long gone, but the depression still lingers, leaving behind its sickening residue no matter how many times I try to tell myself that it hasn't, that its all over and everything is just fine now."
"I'm not sure you'll ever be completely over it, Bart."
"No, you're probably right," Bart agreed glumly. "But I'm making progress."
She nodded again in agreement, and thought: The fact that you didn't become the monsters that victimized you in the first place is definitely beyond impressive in my book.
And now it was Kathy's turn to kiss Bart's forehead and comfort him as he had comforted her just a few minutes ago. He was a hero in her book, but still human and still hurting, both from what had happened to Gino and from his childhood.
"Thank you..." he breathed, then his voice trailed off.
Kathy smiled radiantly as her eyes grew teary once more. "I love you."
He returned the radiant smile. "I love you, too." Then kissed her once again, wrapping his arms tightly around her and she did the same. They kissed once more. Thunder rumbled unnoticed outside. A flash of lightning lit up the room, but neither Bart nor Kathy paid much heed. They continued to grope each other passionately, their tongues tangling, becoming entwined in their long and impassioned kiss.
He seemed a bit nervous at first, a bit awkward, and Kathy figured that with the exception of when he'd been a kid and raped horribly by the priest, this had been his first time, but he still kept at it, pulling his shirt off quickly as she did the same. Before long they were both naked and he was on top of her, her breasts pressing firmly against his chest, and she moaned blissfully as his fully erect penis penetrated her moistening sex.
Another clap of thunder boomed outside from the far distance.
Bart and Kathy continued to make love on the couch long into the night.