A Tough Night for Forgiveness (720 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.89 on 19 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by charminglybeef (View user info) at 2006-12-23 00:57:46 EST
I suppose you could call it a love story.
I try not to tell them because they're difficult to tell. And they're difficult to enjoy, especially when they're sad, and I'm sorry, but it's the only one I've got.
It starts with this:
My wife. Angela.
I won't use that word I've already used because I don't think it means the same thing to everyone. Better just to explain.
Through her I learned what it truly meant to live my life with someone else. For an entirely new entity. I suppose you could say she taught me about 'us'.
And it's funny how even the beautiful thing that it was, it wasn't borne of good.
It was more like, I was so disgusted with how much of myself I saw in this woman that I was compelled to do something about it. No more fighting. No more sarcasm. No more hurtful, petty acts. No more cheating. Sincerity instead. Kindness. Personal responsibility. Accepting that my fate in a relationship and indeed life is ultimately decided by me. At least in terms of my happiness.
And if it's not working, that's no one's fault but my own. And the power to change it is within me.
And all obstacles to my peace of mind are self-created, and inexplicably self-perpetuated.
That was the epiphany, translated from warm liquid thought, into its closest English.
I led by example. I refused to quarrel. I went out of my way to make sure that I did everything I could to make each of Angela's days joyful. And you know what? It felt good. Giving selflessly felt good. And it made her feel good. And she saw the things that I was doing and she reciprocated. Not out of a perceived debt, but because she was grateful, and it made her happy. She wanted to see me feel the same way.
Slowly, and not without great difficulty, we slid further into this rut of joy. The walls were slippery. We couldn't escape. Kindness begetting kindness, we became something truly greater than ourselves.
Greater than any one person. That was how Angela taught me the meaning of 'us'.
One day she said to me, "We've done something wonderful, haven't we?"
I said, "We have".
"Could you have imagined this a year ago?"
"I most definitely could not," I admitted.
Then she took my hands and kissed me once, softly, and wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her head against my chest.
I felt my throat close and my eyes get wet. That was one of those moments that will always remain for me -- one of those limestone pillars in the desert.
And as wonderful as that was, it demanded the question: 'How would it feel to do this on an enormous scale?'. It was a natural and sensible progression. We thought about what we had done, and what we could do.
We spoke animatedly of a plague of kindness.
"It's horrible to say, but it's almost like a disease. If you're sitting in the same room as me and I'm breathing it all over you, eventually you're going to catch it. It's contagious, and I think we have a duty to spread it."
She called it 'a pleasant manipulation of illness'. It was noble, but not entirely selfless. There was the idea that through it, we ourselves might attain an even greater happiness, and in hindsight there was a certain amount of greed involved in our decision to move to Monrovia.
There was a posting for the president of the Liberian Electric Company, as requested by the Liberian government. They wanted foreign expertise. It wasn't exactly a glamorous position, and few qualified people wanted anything to do with it.
For us it seemed a brilliant opportunity. Our motivations were pure, and we wished nothing more than to help and make people happy, but somewhere behind all that was the knowledge that it might bring us unfathomable pleasure. And I humbly admit my greed, and admit that if not for that, we might have chosen a less ambitious circumstance.
But we were emboldened by our success together, and irresponsibly optimistic.
So, Monrovia it was.
We settled in. I volunteered at the city hospital and Angela began the groundwork for taking over LEC. We found our house -- a small, two-bedroom thing with no gate and no alarm. It got power only eight hours a day, and running water for less.
We had the means for more but felt noble in our solidarity with Liberia and Liberians. It was part of the process.
Which was agonizingly slow, it must be said.
We knew it would be hard. Intolerably difficult, even. But you can know that and still not know how it's really going to feel. Our jubilance made it hard to imagine ever feeling poorly. I think that made it worse.
People are ungrateful and miserable and apparently happy in that. Volunteering at the hospital was thankless, and the satisfaction as transient as the patients. For every person I helped I could do nothing for the next ten. The people I dealt with were sick and discouraged and sometimes hopeless and standing up to that every day was far more difficult than I had imagined, if not impossible.
Angela found much of the same. She told me of the corruption in government. Of the nervous whisperings of change amongst the employees. Of the fear.
But we still had that overwhelming feeling that good would triumph.
We reminded each other of just what we were doing and of our great successes and of the ridiculousness of it all. We could always find joy in that -- our outrageous quest for kindness. It was silly. And what do you do in the face of absurdity?
You laugh. So that's what we did. But I was to later learn that sometimes the absurd demands a frown. Or a scowl. Or tears.
It was several weeks and many difficult days into our new life that I saw those white eyes floating in the darkness of my home -- wet and wild and trembling -- harbingers of loss and death and misery.
The offer letters had been sent out for the new positions at LEC. Many people didn't even bother to apply -- apathetic as they were in their assurance that the government had work for them regardless of whether the electrical company did or not. So three days after the letters went out and the government negated its promise, there were a lot of very angry people.
And rightfully so.
Angela was distraught. She felt horrible for these people who queued at the door to her office, seeking advice or a place to vent. The government was not at all accessible, but she was -- giving audience to anyone who wanted it. She realized she had a hand in deciding their fates and she knew the fact that she was a foreigner was awkward and sensitive and maybe even inflammatory. If she couldn't offer them work, she was determined to offer them help and guidance and kindness.
It was after all, what we were there for.
After a day of this she came home feeling very low. Worse than any other day. She told me about a woman who had been working there for twenty-seven years and had a handicapped son. He was thirty, and unable to care for himself. This woman was unmotivated and cynical and didn't bother to be interviewed; but that was irrelevant in the face of her and her son's suffering.
Angela told me many other stories just like that one. They enveloped our joy. You can't eat good will.
And then there were the other kinds of injustice -- the Director of Operations, for example, who was fat and lazy and comparatively wealthy and educated in America. He had been offered a job in spite of all these things and in spite of the fact that he had been in charge for almost fifteen years and his department was in shambles.
"But you're still going to take him?" I asked.
"I'm working on the assumption that everyone here has the skills and the will, just not the tools."
"And you intend to give them the tools."
"I told him, 'I'll give you the seeds -- what grows is up to you'."
He too had come into her office that day, but not to seek guidance or offer support or to yell. He came in to tell her something.
"You know, it's a different place here, Mrs Thompson -- the rules that apply in America might not apply here, and people deal with things differently, and a lot of people are upset."
My wife responded honestly: "Believe me, Mr George, no one sympathizes with that more than I, and I've tried to be sensitive to the cultural differences, and to make every effort to ensure people are treated fairly and with respect. But ultimately, I'm here to do a job that your government has requested, and I have to do it within the framework they have created. Between you and I, I think what they are doing to the old employees is awful and immoral and it makes me ill."
"Well, I hear what the people are saying, and they're saying that all of this began when you got here."
"You know, it hurts a lot to hear that because it's just not fair. I've been lobbying the government in support of the ex-employees. I've been talking to people and helping however I can. My motivation is nothing more than the desire to see this project succeed and to see this country and its people prosper because of it."
"Unfortunately Mrs Thompson, that's not how it's being perceived. And as I said, people here have different ways of dealing with these things than you may be used to."
"Yes, you've mentioned that; and what exactly does that mean, Mr George?"
"It means you might have security walk you to your car from now on."
She didn't have security walk her to her car. She chose instead to believe in good. But that evening, over a dinner of fried fish and rice and beans we couldn't pull ourselves out. We couldn't laugh. We couldn't smile.
It hung like a stench in the room.
We sat silently, and eventually Angela wept -- her face buried in her hands, tears leaking through her fingers.
"I want out, Dave," she said without looking up.
"Do you really mean that?"
"Couldn't we just go somewhere and do this where we won't be killed?"
I paused. Cleared my throat. Thought. "Absolutely. But do you really feel like your life is in danger?"
She lifted her gaze. "I don't know."
"Well, you've received death threats doing similar work at home."
"True," she said, wiping at her eyes.
"And really, it's not you the people are upset with -- it's the government. You just happen to be accessible. They're frustrated and they have nowhere else to turn. You're doing the right things. You're out there helping. People will notice that and people will appreciate it. The principle is sound. We're proof."
She washed her face and returned to the table. We ate with few words.
"We'll get through this, darling. It was never going to be easy."
The next day I came home from work late. It was past dusk when I pulled into the driveway. The breeze blew hard off the ocean, and the first thing I heard after opening my car was the front door of our home banging against the wall. I swallowed deep and hard as I stared through the doorway, ominous, open as it was, and made more so by the darkness beyond. I stepped forward slowly and flicked the light switch. Nothing. There was a flashlight in the front hall closet.
I tried to think good thoughts, but I couldn't.
I walked up the stairs without light. The house itself stood silent, save the banging of the front door and the whipping of the wind against the windows. Each step creaked quietly. I finally reached the top of the stairs and stood, straining my ears. I could hear rapid and scratchy bursts of friction. It sounded almost like a whisper -- like a snake begging for silence. I clicked on the flashlight.
It stopped.
I waited a moment and then stepped to the threshold of the master bedroom, my light pointed down to the ground. On the far side of the room, shining in the weak light, I saw the whites of eyes, suspended in mid-air. They narrowed and then widened again, and I heard something hit the floor. The movement of my flashlight revealed a woman, shaking slightly and standing above the body of my wife. I forced myself to look. Her head was pulled back and her throat was opened and gaping and showing everything inside of it.
A kitchen knife shone on the carpet between the woman and my wife.
Her and I stood silently a long time, considering the circumstance. I had no weapon, but I had no fear. Whatever menace must have possessed her earlier had now clearly escaped. She trembled and her eyes were bulging with emotion. Guilt. Sadness. Her chin crumpled.
I put the flashlight to my face so she could see it. Tears trickled slowly down my cheeks.
"You can't change what you've done," I said. "And believe me, that hurts a lot. But you've made a mistake. Granted, a very bad one, but a mistake nonetheless." I put the light out. "No one deserves to be in jail here. Not even you," I said. "But you will have to live with knowing that you took the life of a good, innocent woman -- a woman who came here to help, and did nothing to wrong you." I clenched my fists. "And I hope that will motivate you to do some good yourself."
She didn't move.
"Go," I said.
I stepped slowly into the room and knelt beside my wife. I touched her arm. It was warm, but not like it should be. My jaw clenched involuntarily. So hard that it hurt my teeth.
"Go."
She took a pensive step forward. I didn't move. She made her way out. I could hear her step quickly down the stairs and then break into a run when the light came on and my movement groaned on the floorboards. I picked up the knife and I too began to run. Through the doorway and into the hall and down the stairs. Her silhouette flapped into the street and the wind, where it was stained orange by the glow of the lamps. I let the flashlight drop and heard it smash and spread on the pavement behind me.
The street lights hummed and the wind pushed at my chest. We both ran silently. Desperately. With everything we had. Her, fueled by fear and adrenaline and me by both of those, but hatred as well. I hadn't felt it for a long time and it surged through me, strong and venomous.
Lungs ached. Muscles loosened. The space between us shrank. She stumbled. Turned her head. Panic filled her gaze as she realized how close I was. She turned completely, putting her hands up into the air and shaking them. I ran at her headlong and pummeled my shoulder into her chest.
The air escaped her with a dull and desperate whoosh and we hit the ground together. The concrete bit into my shoulder and I felt it go loose. She lay choking on the street and I stood, blood trickling down the length of my arm, its presence cool in the wind and the night.
I put the knife into my other hand and kicked her as hard as I could in the ribs. She gasped, trying to scream but all out of air. I leaned in above her and then dropped a knee onto the side of her head, pinning it against the pavement. Without hesitation I plunged the knife into her neck until it hit the hard concrete below. She stiffened unnaturally and both of her hands came up, one around my head and the other on my arm. Her fingers and their nails dug into my flesh and she pressed them suddenly harder as I wrenched the blade inside of her. Red bubbles boiled around my fist and at her mouth as she exhaled -- a raspy, wretched hiss.
She loosened her fingers and then wrapped her arms around me completely, pulling me soft and close, and holding on for a long time. Slowly her grip loosened, and eventually fell limp altogether.
I collapsed to my buttocks and sat dumbly in the middle of the street. The knife protruded from her neck like a beacon. I leaned forward and pulled it out. It scraped against her spine as it came, with more difficulty than I expected.
I lay on my back and watched the clouds pass steadily overhead. It is a windy night, I thought.
A tough night for forgiveness.
Then, with hands numb and feeble, I pressed the blade to my own throat.
User Reviews
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-12-23 22:06:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-12-23 12:06:25 (#)
Ranking: 0
I agree, and I hate to use it, but I thought it fit the circumstance.
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That's why I backtracked.
Submitted by sweetcheebs (user info) at 2006-12-23 16:05:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
that was a good read.
Submitted by ih8u2man (user info) at 2006-12-23 12:22:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by GnarlsBarkley (user info) at 2006-12-23 12:15:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
wow
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-12-23 12:06:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I agree, and I hate to use it, but I thought it fit the circumstance.
Losing his wife, trashing his morals and then killing another person -- presumably the woman with the son at home.
But it seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people, so maybe it wasn't believable enough.
Thanks for the feedback.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-12-23 11:56:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I feel it's an ending that's overused, and it's quite easy to use. Writing a suicide just feels like the soft option in a story like this. But then, fuck it, maybe it was the right one for this story.
Submitted by justagirl27 (user info) at 2006-12-23 11:50:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
this was beautifully written. so sad, but i loved it.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-12-23 10:31:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Unfortunate because up until the last sentence, this is excellent.
Submitted by BranDo (user info) at 2006-12-23 09:45:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Double WOW.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-12-23 08:21:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
...and jfreakman, yes, it's supposed to be entirely unsatisfying.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-12-23 08:13:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Stagger, I like it. Even in reading it again. But I respect your opinion and if you feel that way, obviously others will too. Can I ask what about it ruined the story for you?
Submitted by yhywstudios (user info) at 2006-12-23 04:58:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by jfreakman (user info) at 2006-12-23 04:26:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hated the ending...was I supposed to?
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2006-12-23 03:04:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was too long to read. Everyone else liked it, so I imagine I would have as well.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-12-23 02:51:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Sorry, but the suicide ending ruined it for me. Everything was awesome and then that happened.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-12-23 01:24:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I can't write nice things. This is the closest I've ever come.
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-12-23 01:22:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wonderful.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-12-23 01:21:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
...
I experienced a whole range of emotions while reading this. That doesn't happen very often in short stories. And I hated the ending, in the way I was supposed to.
Now please write something with happy little elves or penguins making snow angels or something.
Submitted by GMCrayon (user info) at 2006-12-23 01:13:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment