Manticore

I could nearly describe exactly the exact wording the Sherrif used. Almost, I could show you the way it felt when he grabbed me in mid-sprint, wrestled me to the ground and assured me nothing could be done. Without hesitation or error, I could imitate the tone of his voice and how unwavering his verdict was. But that would be pointless. What’s done is done and there’s no bringing back the lost.

It started with a knocking I could barely hear from the basement. The afternoon was rare with excitement and unease, what little I had to my name was being packed up in well-used plastic totes, ready for an extended stay in my in-law’s storage. My wife and I were shipping off to Job Corps; it was an uncommon admission, the counselor told me, but they were excited to have us. The tension of rebooting our lives was tangible. So unwelcome was the knocking on a door that didn’t belong to us, I almost considered not answering at all.

I nearly didn’t, but the past month had been all about decisive action and not being lazy, so I made my way up the stairs. There didn’t feel like anything was unusual about where I was headed. Never mind the unconventional nature of my entire situation, my wife and I living with my Sister-in-Law in the wake of the so called “Great Recession”. I could blame the economy, but I knew better. I just didn’t act like it. Victim mentality was rife in my 20-year-old mind, and the soothing balm of pity felt so good, rather than the cold burn of reality.

But the time to grow up was closer than I ever would have expected. In fact, it was basking in the summer sun, right outside. God, I could paint it for you if I didn’t have the artistic skill of a teapot. The symbolism would be of a mystical beast with a Lions head, terrifying to behold, absolutely deafening was its roar when it came crashing into my life on tremendous wings; the only way it could arrive so unexpectedly could be from the sky. And its tail would be laced with venom, because long after I was mauled by what was waiting behind that door, my life was toxified. I wouldn’t be safe, confident, or sober for many years. Even as I live and breathe, I can taste metal on my breath. A lasting, salient reminder that I could have- SHOULD have, been a better Husband and a better Son.

I crossed the kitchen where my Niece and Nephews ate, missing their clamor distinctly. I had grown accustomed to feeling like part of a family again. Through the living room to the front door at last. A spark of excitement ran through me as I visualized the adventure ahead, a new life was about to begin, just as soon as I dealt with this last distraction.

My phone broke the still air and stopped me in my tracks. The ringtone was specific to my stepmother. I could count the times she and I talked on the phone on one hand. That was enough to seize priority from the person outside. Her voice came across alarmingly broken, like a misused record on a player left on too often. She delivered the headline in tones of despair and remorse. The copy didn’t matter; I was finished listening.

I stood there in a courtroom with three lofty benches, a judge at each. Fight, Flight and Freeze labored long on my mind, vying for position in the seat of my authority. An eternity to a treacherous thought, but a split second in reality. I hung up on my Stepmom and Flight took the wheel. Through the waiting door I flew from where I had been to where I was cursed to go. The empty doorstep didn’t even register on my mind, the knock had long since been left behind on the shores of the old country, lost in the sand so one wondered if it had ever existed at all.

Space had no meaning to my transfixed mind. My hands were as iron on the wheel, my body red-hot and steaming. Fear and foes, murder and mistrust were my heart’s passengers, and they worked the forge to its limit, stressing the steel of my soul. I am blessed to have had the tempering waters of my wife by my side, or I would likely be dead and this tale untold.

When I arrived, my car was the only one on the block. The middle of the street was a painted line, a spot just for me. All that remained there were specters, red and blue, painting green grass in their glow. Voices pounded in my ears, all a distraction. I was fully committed. Someone had killed, and I was going to kill them. There was no other possibility. My life was forfeit. Consequences didn’t mean anything anymore.

The Sherrif was a neighbor, he had watched him water the grass, lent him shears for the bushes. I slammed into his practiced arms like he was nothing but a shadow. But he was very real, and he smelled like rain-soaked dirt and sounded like a thunderstorm. He wouldn’t let me go inside, and I hated him for that. I looked him in the eyes, and he saw the murder in mine.

“Who killed my dad?” I demanded him.

What knocked at the door that morning was something I could never answer in time. I had already missed the knock when it was timely. It had come long before, when his hands proudly clutched a tiller in the garden he was so proud of. And I could not be bothered. The knock was when he had challenged me over and over and I could not be less interested. It was deafening when I was deep in my teenage misdirection, threatened to kill myself, and he closed the door, looked at me, and said “Let’s do it together.”

The knocking had weakened so much by the time he called me on the phone and said, “I wish I could help you, I hate that I can’t help you” and I told him “So do I”. Only a week separated then and now. And I could not have been a bigger failure. But the past year had never been about decisive action, I had been quite lazy.

I would give anything to hear the knocking again.