The Promise

Chief Larsen put Waller’s statement back into the folder, and scanned the one made by the two women who shared the apartment on the floor above the murder victim. Jarred from sleep on Wednesday morning, they’d noticed the clock at twelve-thirty. It might have been screams they’d heard, they couldn’t be sure. Couldn’t make out names either. They didn’t call 911, didn’t want to get involved. If only they’d known. Like Newark, Larsen thought, where people grew ever more distant and apathetic, from day to day more impervious, accepting, ultimately numbed. "The bell’s tolling for thee," Larsen mumbled.

Next, Chief Larsen shifted to the folder marked Pathology. Combing the apartment had left he still in the dark, without a weapon or alien fingerprint. He reread the report, underlining sections, and scribbling notes in the margin, highlighting the only hard evidence as yet in hand: "Several strands of human hair, dark in color, found under victim’s fingernails, apparently torn out, definitely not from the body of the victim." But hairs alone wouldn’t be enough, he knew that.

Josh woke abruptly. The sunlight piercing through his window woke him. Last night, he’d tossed and turned until the clock by his bed read two, and when he finally did close his eyes, slept lightly, as if on the brink of consciousness. How suspended time now felt, how surreal, as if all life had stopped, and everything that had happened was a figment of somebody’s imagination, a nightmare not of his own making.

He shuddered at the thought of his sister in the bathtub, feeling warm and sleepy, probably daydreaming, then hearing the door open and seeing some son of a bitch coming toward her. In his mind he heard her screams, saw her fight the way he was sure she had. His heart felt torn apart, knowing that the last person she saw in life was the fucking bastard who killed her.

From outside came a sharp sound like an infant’s scream. The shriek came and went away and came again. He heard, too, the squeal of tires screeching to a halt. Standing at the dresser, he ran his fingers across the polished, pitted top, then started to shake. An overwhelming desire to hurt someone struck him, a need to flail, to plummet, and he began pounding his fists against the dresser. He hadn’t the will to stop the tears running down his cheeks. Even minutes later, after he regained control, and wiped his face dry, the hurt in his chest pulsed on and on, pushing deeper and deeper inside him.

The crack of the rifles, and the sharp tapping of the honor guard’s heels, startled him. He became aware of other noises, of people pressing in, but his mind had no room for them. He stood riveted as the white gloved fingers peeled the flag from the coffin. The Captain marched toward his mother, offering her the triangle of folded cloth. For a second or two, she stared at it. The red and white stripes dissolved into a light so brilliant that he had to squint against it while she gathered the cloth in her arms. Across from him, Brian’s big knuckled hands curled around the second flag. His Uncle Rob embraced Brian, pulled him in with his strong arms, whispering something in his ear, which Josh couldn’t hear. Slowly at first, and then more quickly, the others turned and tramped back down the path, but Josh stayed where he was. He knew no word to describe what he was feeling. The gaping hole mesmerized him, held him, almost pulled him in.

It was Christmas Eve, they’d been seeing each other for about a month.

"I’m your present," she’d said, when he’d answered her ring. "Santa just left me at your door." She’d stood in the doorway with a big red bow tied around her waist like some doll he’d won at a fair.

He brought her into the bedroom and laid on the bed, watching her undress. When she pulled down her underpants and stepped out of them, she left the red bow circling her nakedness. He tugged at the end of the ribbon and it slid soundlessly to the floor while he kept her standing there, making her turn around and bend over and sway so he could watch the shifts in the soft slopes and curves of her nakedness, before pulling her down beside him. Whether he wanted them or not, he chuckled, it was his fate to have women fall in love with him.

A yelping woke him. The high pitch squeal of an animal from somewhere outside the window. At first he thought it a dream, but the cry, lower and more mournful, came again. Where was he? He felt disconnected from the sunlit room with its pale green translucent curtains. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, striking the top of his black bag with his foot, and remembered-- this was the Miller's house, their guest room, and it was the morning after the funeral.

Closing his eyes, he sat a few moments longer. The whining stopped, but a strange thing was happening, he heard water tumbling. Nervously, he rubbed his palms across the top of his thighs and snapped his eyes open. It was quiet, absolutely quiet.

He got up, walked into the small adjoining bathroom, and took a leak, then flipped the light switch and studied himself in the mirror above the sink, running his fingers lightly over the scabbing on his arms. Better, much better. Sweet Jesus, he thought as he stepped into the shower, it’s almost over. He blocked what had happened from his mind, didn’t allow the events back in again until he stepped out of the shower and heard someone thumping down the stairs. Tossing the bath towel over the rack, he dressed quickly and left the bedroom. He expected to see Harold in the kitchen when he walked in, and he did.

Minutes later he pushed through the front door, gripping his bag in his hand. Somewhere a church bell was tolling. He glanced at his watch, ten on the nose. His step lightened at the sight of the shiny green Buick parked in the driveway. Before sliding behind the wheel he turned and looked up at the house. Ruth stood at a second floor window, looking down at him with the edge of the curtain in her hand. He shot her a soft, half-smile and waved but the curtain fell across the windowpane and she disappeared. Screw her, he thought as he drove out of the driveway, with no set destination in mind.

It felt good to be moving again, and he turned on the air conditioner and the radio and sang along with Sting as he swung onto Oak Street. Hard hat jockeys were jack hammering through the pavement. He turned up the volume. Up ahead of him, cars were strung out bumper to bumper. He took a cigarette from his shirt pocket, lit it and sat, his thoughts turning to Sanchez. Where the fuck was he?

Brian stood as if frozen, yet shivering with sweat, his eyes glued to his cousin’s back, watching him walk further and further away. His legs came back to him, moved beneath him, stiffly at first, then smoother and faster, past Paul, past the school yard, and the kids ambling across on the field. He ran down the street and around the corner until the Buick glowed in front of him. With his mouth open, his throat dry as sand, and the blood pounding in his chest, he flung open the door, threw himself behind the wheel and sat completely still, his eyes open, staring blankly ahead, until his chest quieted. Sweat pasted his shirt to his back and trickled in rivulets down from his forehead. His fingers shook as he jammed the key into the ignition-- the motor groaned, then coughed, then started.

At High Street he pulled to a stop at the curb in front of a field. He’d been gone two years and the field was new, he’d never seen it before. For a long time he sat with the motor on and the windows rolled up,