69 INCHES OF STEEL (2 page)

He continued walking, passing one memory after another, stopping briefly every now and then to dwell just that little bit more on one thing or another that reminded him of his time there. Much of it, however, reminded him of the bullies at school. They would tease him about not having much money or about the funny haircut his grandmother had given him to save his mother and father a few dollars even though their own haircuts were just as funny to Jonathon as his were to them. He just had the good manners, perhaps the good sense, to leave well enough alone and get on with doing those things he did best which was write stories. He hadn’t heard much about any of them since school ended and he always guessed it meant their lives amounted to pretty much nothing. Serves themselves right, he had always thought.

At last he arrived at the front gate of the cemetery. It was as old as the town itself and every bit as cold as the town could sometimes be. He stood underneath the sign that stretched from one gatepost to the other. It read, BELLINGEN CEMETERY, HOME TO THE LATE, GREAT CHARLES A. JOHNSON. Charles Johnson was a famous jazz musician who only ever spent the last few years of his life in Bellingen and when he died there they claimed him as his own. His widow accepted the town’s offer of an all-expenses paid funeral which was offered on the condition he was buried in their cemetery. It was also home to Jonathon’s father. It would also be home one day to Jonathon who would go down in history as its other famous resident. One day, but not yet. Jonathon had too many more stories to tell and too much life to live and too much he wanted to do with it.

He went inside the cemetery over which hung a thick blanket of death and despair and headed straight for his father’s grave, passing along the way, as he did every time, the grave of the only person outside of his family he knew that had died. It was a guy he had gone to school with who died at eighteen years of age when the guy and a friend were driving home late one night from a party. Their car careened off the road and hit a tree, crushing the front end of the car and killing both men instantly. The really shitty thing about it was that the fathers of both men were priests who then presided over their sons’ funerals. There on a wet, wintery day stood the Father, the Son, and the Holy Shit.

When Jonathon got to his father’s grave, he saw how neglected it had been. He reached down and pulled away the weeds that covered the picture of his father, the one his mother had taken a few weeks before he died. He looked happy then. At least as happy as Jonathon remembered him to be. But he wasn’t really. It was all a façade. A ruse. Alcoholics were good at that, covering up their tracks. And his father, for the most part, was the heavyweight champion of the world.

Jonathon sat down on the edge of the grave and brushed away the leaves that had rested themselves upon the cement slab that covered the dirt that covered his father’s coffin. “I so wish you were still alive. I really wanted you to see what I’ve become.”

A gentle breeze blew and lifted the leaves that Jonathon had brushed away. It carried them several feet across the ground and they came to rest at his father’s feet.

“You’ve never once looked at me, Jonathon,” his father said. “Not in all the times you’ve come up here and not in all the times I’ve come to see you.”

“I don’t want to.”

His father sat next to him. He looked around the cemetery that was his home then at last his gaze came upon his son. He watched him closely for several moments then said, “I’m proud of you, Jonathon. If nothing else I want you to believe that.”

Jonathon looked up at the full moon that was shining brilliantly among the twinkling stars now. Then he looked down at the ground by his feet.  Underneath it were the dead bodies of hundreds of men, women, and children. Some died at their own hand, others at the hand of God. Others still had their lives taken by other men, women, and children. One, Percy Robertson, was the first person in the history of Bellingen to be found guilty of murder. In 1878 he was hanged with the blood of two young girls on his hands, neither of whom had reached the age of puberty, and neither of whom had had the good fortune of knowing a lover’s touch.

Jonathon’s father told him every time he came to visit that he was proud of him, but Jonathon still hated him for killing the other driver that fateful night on which the Devil danced in Bellingen and nothing he had said since had made up for it. Nothing much could.

He climbed to his feet and brushed his jeans with his hands. He walked away toward the front gate of the cemetery. His father called out to him. “I love you, son.” Jonathon didn’t stop and he didn’t look back either. He just kept walking. After all, it was getting late and his mother would be wondering where he was.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I
’m home, Mom,” Jonathon called out. He closed the door behind him and looked around the room. His mother had lit a fire to warm up the house. Thank you very much Mom, and this time the pleasure was as much hers as it was his.

He heard voices in the kitchen. It was his mother and, judging by the voice, a younger woman. His mother called him into the kitchen and he went there. The pretty thing from across the road was standing there with his mother and she was holding a copy of the first novel he ever published,
Thy Kingdom Come
. It wasn’t a bad first effort to create something longer than a few thousand words if he remembered correctly, though it was hard to remember
too
much because it had been some time since he last read it and even longer since he wrote it. He smiled at her. The pretty thing from across the road holding a copy of one of his books smiled back.

“Jonathon, I’d like you to meet Serena,” his mother said.

Serena was in her early twenties, had dark hair that hung straight down to her shoulders, and blue eyes and a smile that plenty would die for. Jonathon guessed they would also kill for it.

His mother continued, “She’s a big fan of your work and wanted to meet you. I hope you don’t mind.”

Jonathon shook his head. “Not at all.” He reached out and took Serena’s free hand. He pulled it to his mouth and gently kissed the back of it. Serena blushed. Jonathon’s mother watched her son and smiled. He hadn’t stopped by for some time now and when he did it was only for a short while. She always wanted to make that short while as happy for him as possible and as he got older and enjoyed more success with his career as an author it meant she had to share him with more and more people and if the whole darned thing meant giving up some of her time with him to a pretty girl she knew and cared about instead of someone she didn’t, so be it.

“I’ll leave you two alone for a moment,” Jonathon’s mother said. She went out to the lounge and tended the fire.

Serena held out a pen and her copy of
Thy Kingdom Come
and asked him to sign it for her. He took both and flipped open the cover. He scribbled a note on the first page and signed his name underneath. He handed the pen and book back to her - “Reach for the stars and don’t ever hold back. Yours, Jonathon Steel.” - and she smiled gratefully.

“I’ve read all your stuff,” she said. “Where
do
you get your ideas?”

It was a question Jonathon had been asked so many times he had lost count. The other question he was asked so many times he had lost count, and the question was based on the fact that much of what he wrote was blood and guts and balls-to-the-wall terror, was
why
he got them. His standard answer to both was that he simply didn’t know, that he just opened his mind to them and they came in from wherever. And that was true. And then there were times he philosophized. “There’s a field of energy of which we are a part,” he said. “It’s called the Universe and it knows everything and it tells us what we need to know when we need to know it and while the things we need to know are more often than not rainbows and cheery lollypops, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they are blood and guts and balls-to-the-wall terror. And while we suffer the horror of real-life crime everyday on the news, its better to suffer it, if we must, and obviously we do or we never would, its better to suffer it between the covers of a novel where the only person who really suffered at all was the person who wrote it and it’s the suffering the writer goes through so he might tell a truly great story that he is
really
rewarded for, not so much the amount of books he sells.”

Serena’s heart melted at Jonathon’s words of wisdom like snow in the heat of the sun. But there
was
no sun. Not in that moment. In
that
moment, there was only Jonathon Steel, best-selling novelist. And she was smitten. “I especially liked the vampire story that appeared in
Horror House Magazine
this year. It was so real I couldn’t help but think you must really have been a part of it. Have you written anything else lately?”

Jonathon smiled. “As a matter of fact, I have.” He took her by the hand and led her to the lounge. He sat her down on the two-seater and smiled. “Wait here.” He turned to his mother who was still tending the fire and winked. She smiled at him then turned to Serena as he headed down the hallway to the room that was his as a boy and still was as a man.

“You’re in for a real treat, Serena,” Jonathon’s mother said. “The book he’s talking about? It hasn’t been read by anyone except his editor and publicist and by all accounts it’s a doozy. You should be honored that he’s even talking to you about it, especially seeing as it’s not due out for a few more months. Not even the
reviewers
have got their copies yet.” His mother hadn’t read it either, but she didn’t mind, for the stories he told often cut so close to home for her as this one did for him they hurt. They made her bleed inside and she no longer read them because of it. But she was happy for him and for the success his stories brought him. After all, he was her son, and mothers are
always
happy for their sons.

Serena smiled. “I
am
honored. You can be assured of that.”

Jonathon came into the lounge holding a book that had a black cover with bold red letters on it. He sat next to Serena and showed it to her. It was called
Bad Moon Rising: The Resurrection of Elizabeth Bathory
. The letters danced on the cover like blood dripping from a black heart.

“Who’s Elizabeth Bathory?” Serena asked.

Jonathon ran his palm over the cover. “She was a Countess who lived in sixteenth century Hungary. She was someone who preyed on the hearts and souls of young girls. She killed them and was rumoured to have bathed in their blood.”

Serena was intrigued, and a little bit shocked. “Why do you write about such bad people, Jonathon?”

He had been asked so many times where his ideas came from and
why
they came but he had never been asked why he wrote about such bad people. Truth be told, he didn’t think he did. He just wrote about people. True, most of them were based on people he knew and experiences he’d had, but none of the characters were real people in every sense of the word. Nor were they bad. They just . . . were. Elizabeth Bathory, on the other hand,
was
a real person, and while much of what was in his book was dramatized for full effect, he had to research the woman and who she was and why she did the things she did. Much of it cut close to home. Much of it made him look at who
he
was and why
he
did the things he did. That the end result was a sure bestseller that he had already been paid handsomely for in the form of an advance ten times greater than most people earn in a year made the journey worth every step he had been made to take. Money made him forget about all the bad things that had happened in his life, as did writing about them, and it made him smile when little else could. “It helps to not think of them as bad,” Jonathon replied still looking at the cover of his book. “Instead, I prefer to think of them simply as people who do bad things. That way I have nothing to fear when I reach into their hearts because there is nothing bad to be found. Only good things will be found because deep down people are full of love and have a deep affection for those they share that love with. What they do besides that is what they do. It’s not who they are.”

Serena shifted her body a few inches closer to Jonathon’s. “And when the line between who they are and what they do is crossed?”

Jonathon looked down for several moments at Serena’s leg which was pressed against his now then back at the cover of the book. “They are capable of doing the most horrendous things imaginable, even to those they are full of love and have a deep affection for.”

He turned to Serena. She was looking at him with adoration in her eyes, like some star-struck 60’s teenager who had just caught a close-up of her favorite pop star. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to press his body against hers. He wanted to feel her naked breast in his hand and her nipple in his mouth. He wanted to make love to her. He really and truly wanted his mother to leave the room.

“Would you like to ask Serena to stay for supper, Jonathon?” It was his mother and there was a cheeriness in her voice that was becoming more evident every time she spoke about him or Serena or both of them put together.

Jonathon looked at his mother for a moment then turned to Serena. He smiled and shrugged. She smiled back and nodded. Jonathon’s mother picked up the phone and called Serena’s house. Serena’s mother answered. “Hi, Marie,” Jonathon’s mother said. “Just letting you know that Serena is staying for supper. I hope you don’t mind.” Several moments passed and Jonathon’s mother smiled. Jonathon began to wonder if there wasn’t a little bit of matchmaking going on. “We’ll have a coffee after he leaves,” his mother said before hanging up the phone. She smiled at Jonathon and Serena then went to the kitchen. Jonathon had no doubt at all there was in fact a
lot
of matchmaking going on.