The Whirligig Dance

The albino held the fire of my expression for an uncomfortable moment and then, saying nothing, rose from his chair and moved to a pine kindling box that sat against the near wall of the fireplace. I watched him finger down through a stack of newspapers and slide one out. Then he brought it back to the sitting area and dropped it on my lap. I barely noticed that it was an issue of my hometown periodical, my eyes magnetized to the huge bold headline — LOCAL BOY HAD REASON TO RUN — its implications leaping through my brain like a fiendish jack-in-the-box. Frantically, I devoured the article line by line, my stomach tying itself in tighter and tighter knots with each completed paragraph. When I reached the part where the one person I’d always felt I could count on through thick and thin, Bobby Reddick, suggested in an interview with Chief Deeks that I had had a “stormy relationship” with Dame Blackmoore, my mouth dropped agape and I began shaking my head back and forth in disbelief. When Bobby went on to say that I’d been crushed when the gypsy broke it off, I found myself muttering, “No, no, no…” And when the commentary went on to state that a diamond engagement ring found crumpled inside a torn, lovesick letter outside Dame’s window had been traced back to “the Van Hutton boy”, I heard the incredulous gasp escape through my lips as my hands fell limp and the newspaper dropped to the floor. “Oh my God, Bobby!” I cried. “How – how could you have?” My face dropped to my hands and I began rocking back and forth. Sounds were jetting from my mouth without registering in my brain and I felt that I was losing my grip on reality. It was as if the guilt that I’d been harboring in my soul had created a world of its own and sucked me to its core. I could hear a deep voice, but its context bounced off the walls of my despair and faded into oblivion. It wasn’t until I sensed the huge hand upon my shoulder that a fear of reprisal had me nearly jumping from my seat. “Just how close were you an’ this Bobby Reddick feller?” Focusing on the aberrant face that beamed upon me through the dark room, I had to fight hard to add credence to its benign intent and gather the meaning of the question. “C-closer than any two brothers could be,” I managed, the once profound truth of the statement now stabbing at me with the intensity of its falsehood. I rubbed my hands frantically over my eyes, as if desperately trying to see things as they were. “This can’t be happening,” I said in a near whisper, shaking my head back and forth once again. Then I repeated it and squeezed my eyes shut against a tide of implausible questions. That’s when Kendrick Watts brought me swiftly and convincingly to the crux of my situation. “What’s happenin’ is one of two things,” he judged in his controlled baritone. “Either yer a killer an’ yer puttin’ on a good act, or yer best friend ha’ framed you but good fer a crime you din’t commit.” “I didn’t — I never — I couldn’t kill anyone if my life depended on it,” I professed, my eyes wide open to his examination. “If you believe nothing else about me, Mister Watts, I beg of you to believe that.” “Then now yer faced with the most diff’cult of ‘cisions, Master Jeremy. Do you rush back with fire in yer heart to defend yer good name? Or do you do ‘zactly what they say you did an’ hide from the injustice of their justice?” Still stunned from Bobby’s deception, I was unable to cope with the choice. Watts, as if reading my mind, made things a little easier. “The Mount Jensen Group’s due to make its next drop in twelve days. You’ll be strong by then. We can either flag ‘em down with the flare gun or wait ‘til they’re gone an’ read what else the world has in store fer you… You got time to make yer ‘cision, Master Jeremy… If it helps any, I made mine years ago, an’ in return I got more peace than regrets.” This man who barely knew me had granted me an option few others would have. I should’ve been appreciative, but I wasn’t. A phrase in his query kept rolling through my mind — defend your good name; defend your good name — and the fact that I’d sullied my own reputation beyond repair long before the plane crash or my arrival here or Bobby’s lies added a layer of convolution atop the decision process that tossed within me like rancid butter. It was as my thoughts turned back to that night aboard the Cessna and my sullen wish to be free of all that had once held sweet promise only to fail me, that I found myself staring at the mountain of a man next to me and entertaining a growing voice in the back of my head that asked, Why didn’t you just let me die? That voice would dominate my world for days to come.