Then Bob Benson took to the pulpit.
“Welcome to Hillside,” he said, his voice full and vibrant. “We hope this is a place where you can settle back and be comfortable for a while. We’re glad you’re here.”
Behind him, on the big screen, a video appeared. A dour- looking man walked along a busy sidewalk.
“I’d like to introduce you to a guy I know. Negative Ned is a guy you’ve seen around. Probably pass him on the street all the time. He usually has his head down. Probably just kicked his dog too.”
On the video screen, as if on cue, the man looked directly at the audience, frowning, and that’s where the image froze.
Ripples of laughter around the church. Though it was harder than she’d expected to see someone besides Ron up there, Dallas had to admit Bob had
it.
The charisma, delivery, and timing that put an audience into the proverbial palm of his hand.
“What would you say to ol’ Ned if you met him on the street? Go home and kick the dog again? Or would you try to tell him that God has a better way? Would you tell him we all go through tough times, but we all have a choice how to handle them?”
If only it were that easy
.
The video started up again, this time with an actor smiling and practically dancing down the street. It was over the top, and the whole church laughed.
“That’s my other friend, Positive Pete. He’s the guy with the perpetually sunny disposition. You don’t see him as much, do you?”
Jared leaned over to Dallas and whispered, “Are we in third grade here or something?”
“Shh.”
“But Positive Pete has learned to trust God and make the choice to be positive about his circumstances.”
“Why doesn’t he crack open a Bible?” Jared said.
“Quiet.”
Bob did use a few Bible verses, shot up on the screen for all to see. But mostly it was an entertaining and uplifting sermon. Dallas couldn’t help feeling some tension, though. Part of her didn’t want the people to be uplifted or entertained. She wanted them to be sad about Ron. Were they so quick to forget?
At the end of the sermon, as if reading her mind, Bob changed to a serious tone. “As we leave today, let’s remember to keep praying for our brother Ron Hamilton. Pray for justice to be done. For his protection. For his recovery.”
The last word rankled her a bit. But she couldn’t argue with it. Ron did need to recover.
More well-wishers approached her after the service. Lisa Benson was last of all, with a warm embrace and an invitation to have coffee the next day.
Cara said good-bye in the parking lot and kissed her brother. “Be good.”
He looked at her, plastered a huge grin on his face, and jumped up in the air. “I will! I’m Positive Pete.”
“Nice sarcasm,” Cara said.
“I’m trying to be good at something,” Jared said.
Dallas took Jared’s arm and started him toward her car at the far end of the lot. “Your sister loves you,” she said.
“That makes two of you.”
“And your father.”
“Sure.”
“Jared.”
He was about to say something, then stopped. He pointed. “Look at the car.”
Dallas saw that her front left headlight was smashed. “Just great! When did that happen?”
“There’s a note.”
A piece of paper under the driver’s-side windshield wiper. Dallas removed it and read:
Why don’t you return my call?
“What’s it say?” Jared said.
Dallas couldn’t speak.
“Let me see.” She handed it to him. “It’s got to be a joke,” he said.
“A sick joke, if it is. But who would do that? And who would know this is my car? Someone at church?”
Jared shrugged. “I think we should call the police on this.” “Wonderful. Just what I need to cap a fine day at church.” “Don’t be a Negative Ned, Mom.”
“Be quiet.”
All night Dallas kept jerking awake, thinking about the headlight, trying to find some way to believe the vandalism was just random. She knew it was not. Somebody was out to mess with her mind. But who?
In the morning she took a long bath. At nine o’clock she felt just human enough to meet Lisa for coffee.
Dallas wore a broad-brimmed hat and dark glasses and drove out to a Starbucks in Agoura, making sure no newshound followed her.
When she got there she found Lisa similarly attired. It was Lisa who had suggested the disguises and the location. Agoura was far enough away from the Valley that Dallas felt she could walk around without hassle.
Still, she was glad for the hat and glasses.
“This is all so cloak and dagger,” Dallas said as she and Lisa took their lattes to an outside table that afforded a fair degree of anonymity.
“But fun, you have to admit.” Lisa fairly giggled. “Don’t you think half the fun in the world is putting the big runaround on the know-it-alls? Like the stupid media that’s hounding you?”
Dallas smiled in agreement. She couldn’t help feeling swept up in Lisa Benson’s youthful exuberance. The girl was so full of life and energy.
Putting on her Bette Davis voice, Dallas said, “Fasten your seatbelt. It’s going to be a bumpy morning.”
Lisa shook her head. “You crack me up. Where did you ever learn to do that stuff?”
“It’s a gift.”
“You should be on Leno with that act.”
“Thanks. And thanks for asking me out.”
“I just wanted to spend time with you,” Lisa said. “For support and prayer.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Bob and I are just like you and Ron, in a way. I absolutely know what you’re going through.”
Did she really? She and Bob were in the spring of their marriage, and it was still fresh and clean and vital. And she did not have a husband who was an admitted adulterer.
“How did you and Bob meet?”
Lisa leaned back, her flaxen hair framing her face. “Oh, wow. I was the one who pursued him.”
“Really?”
“We were in the same youth group at church. He was mister big shot. All the girls had their sights set on him. It was pretty funny.”
“He fought them off with a stick, huh?”
“He had a big head too. Had to be taken down a peg. That was my job.”
Dallas took a sip of coffee, enjoying the tale. “How’d you do it?”
“I ignored him. Totally. Just to get his goat. I knew it’d make him crazy. I knew eventually he’d make his move. And sure enough, he did. One night after youth group I was walking slowly to my car, knowing he’d been scoping me, and he called my name. I pretended not to hear him.”
“You’re a stinker.”
“Oh, yeah. So he calls out again, louder, and I slowly turn around. I give him a look, like, why are you bothering me? And it stops him cold. For a couple of seconds he doesn’t say anything. And then, finally, he goes, ‘So, how come you never talk to me?’ ”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. And I say, ‘Who are you again?’ And his mouth just drops open. I keep a poker face as long as I can, which was about five seconds, then I just started cracking up. And he starts laughing, which is why I decided I liked him. And the rest is our little history.”
“That’s a cute story.”
Lisa said, “How did you meet Ron?”
“It was a God thing. I was running away from a very bad situation, ran up to San Francisco. This was ’77 and I thought maybe I’d try to become a hippy poet. But all the hippies were pretty much gone by then. I was a day late and a flower short.”
Lisa laughed.
Dallas searched her memories. “I stayed in North Beach with a friend who had her own little marijuana operation going, which caused me to lose track of about a week of my life. But I do remember walking along Columbus Avenue this one night, in a stupor, when I heard music coming out of a place, rocking and rolling. I went inside. All these smiling faces looked at me. I thought I was tripping. Somebody showed me to a seat. It was a little theater. I thought that was cool. Or
groovy
.”
“I got it.”
“I was into the music, and then it stopped, and then this guy comes out and starts talking. He’s got all this energy and he’s goodlooking too. Pretty soon it breaks through to me that he’s talking about Jesus. And he’s holding a Bible. And pretty soon I really
was
tripping, but it was on what he was saying. I know now that was the Holy Spirit doing his work in me. When he gave the invitation, I walked up to the front and asked for Jesus to save me. It was Ron, of course.”
“Revival Ron?”
“You wouldn’t have known him then. He was really into street preaching, and he was good at it.”
When did he lose that zeal?
“Anyway, we were two completely different people. How we ended up together is really something God did.” Dallas said it and wanted to believe it.
After a pause, Dallas said, “If you ever found out Bob had an affair, and lied to you about it, what would you do? Would you forgive him?”
The half smile that Lisa had on her face faded. “My first instinct would be to kick his loving you-know-what. My second instinct, and I’m being totally honest here, would be to divorce him.”
“Wow.”
“Wait a second. I said instinct. That’s just a knee-jerk reaction. I think . . .”
“Go ahead, Lisa, if you want to.”
Lisa looked away.
“Lisa, what is it?”
Lisa looked like further words might crush her.
“Please,” Dallas said. “Maybe I can help.”
“It’s not about me.” Only then did Lisa look at Dallas again. The look was a bridge to a cold, dark place.
“What is it then?” Dallas said, wishing she hadn’t been insistent.
“I didn’t think I’d ever have to say.”
“Say what, Lisa?”
“This is so hard.” Lisa lowered her voice. “All right. I guess I have to say it, because it’s something Jeff Waite needs to know about.”
“Jeff? What’s he got to do — ”
“Because the prosecutor is probably going to find out.”
“The prosecutor? How — ”
“They want to interview me and Bob.”
“Interview?”
“That’s right,” Lisa said. “They want us to come in. I told Bob to tell them to take a flying . . . Well, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get out of it. I think it stinks.”
“What could he possibly hope to accomplish?”
Lisa took a long moment to answer. “That’s what you need to tell Jeff. There’s something, if they ask me, I’d have to tell them.”
“Tell me now,
please
.”
Lisa inhaled deeply. “This woman, this Melinda whatever-hername-is?”
“Yes?”
“She’s not the first woman Ron had an affair with.”
How does it begin?
In innocence, I tell myself, as if that makes a difference. In ignorance
too, as if there were no danger involved, and no consequence. You tell yourself that you can handle it, that you are an adult and
therefore beyond the juvenile temptations to associate with this kind of
stuff. And you tell yourself that it is merely research, as if by labeling it
that way you remove the sin from it.
You also know, without admitting it to yourself, that you like the
power. You like the idea that with the touch of a button, the click of a
mouse, you can control a veritable universe of forbidden fruit. I wanted to see just how easy it was to access pornographic images
on the Internet. I could have answered that question quite easily one
hundred miles from a computer. Everyone knows it’s easy. Everyone
knows the skin trade and the pedophiles and the sick and the bored
control the vast majority of territory in the electronic cosmos. But I told myself it was research as I typed the word into the search
engine, a word I would never use in public or even privately. And in a
microsecond I had it all before me.
I was sweating, I remember that. Sweating and trembling. I was not
praying, nor was I thinking about God at all. Or if I did, I shoved those
thoughts far back into the dark alleys of my mind, stuck them into abandoned warehouses with boarded-up windows and firmly locked doors. The images literally took my breath away. My research was done.
It was easier than getting a Coke at the 7-Eleven or channel surfing at
home. Indeed, it was easier than almost anything, and that was the
lure of it.
That, and being all alone in my office, no one to look over my shoulder, no one to call me in to dinner.
My “research” lasted almost two hours.
And when I was done I knew the images would always be there
waiting for me.
Always.
And when they weren’t on my screen, they would be in my mind. Always.
Jared sat in the truck across from the apartment complex and waited. What was he doing here? What possible good was going to come out of this?
He had no ready answer, but that wasn’t strange. He didn’t have answers to a lot of things.
But this was something to do, something besides stew in his own juices at home, feeling like a total loss.
For an hour that morning he’d tried to get to someone at the VA, a human voice. He wanted somebody to tell him what he could do to stop the bad things, what pill he could take, what injection to the brain would stop the memories.
No human voice. And his next appointment wasn’t until August.
August! He wondered if he’d even be breathing in August. He wondered if he could stand it until then. There were other ways out. There were guns, and he could get one and —
He saw Jamaal run into a fenced front yard. Or what was a bad excuse for a yard in this fallen suburbia.
Jamaal was alone, holding a football that was as big as his chest. He cradled it, looking like he didn’t know what to do.
Jared got out of the truck and walked to the fence.
“What’s up?”
Jamaal looked at him, then smiled. “Nothin’.”
“Your mom around?”
He shook his head.
“Dad?”
Shook again.
So what’s he doing in a yard all alone?
Jared told himself to leave. This was a stupid idea. A desperate reach. What was he looking for? He shouldn’t have come.
But something about being with the kid, one of the innocents. For a moment at least it soothed the burn inside.
“Why you here?” Jamaal asked.
“Hey, came to see how you were, you know? So . . . how are you?” He looked closely for any marks on Jamaal. Saw none.
“Good,” the boy said.
“Cool.”
An older woman shuffled down the walk and gave Jared a suspicious look. A long look. Like she was remembering his face. Then she went on.
He couldn’t blame her. The way things were these days, a stranger talking to a boy was something to note. She was a one-woman Neighborhood Watch.
“You a football player?” Jared pointed at the pigskin in the boy’s arms.
“You said.”
It took Jared a minute to figure that one, but then he remembered. The kid wanted to be a Marine. Jared had suggested football instead.
Amazingly, the kid had apparently listened, taken it to heart. Jared could hardly believe it.
He went around to the gate and let himself into the yard. Jamaal ran up to him.
“Toss it,” Jared said.
Jamaal made an attempt to throw Jared the football. The ball was so large in Jamaal’s hands he had to use both for the throw. The ball went nearly ninety degrees sideways, hitting the fence.
“Oops,” Jamaal said.
“Looks like we got a little learning to do.” Jared picked up the football. It was all rubber. He held it up to Jamaal. “See these white things here?”
Jamaal nodded.
“Those are the laces. Let’s see your hand.”
Jamaal put his right hand out. Jared turned it palm up and placed the football in the middle of it. Jamaal’s hand disappeared under the ball.
“No problem,” Jared said. “You’ll grow into it. You feel the laces on your fingers?”
Jamaal concentrated. “Uh-huh.”
“Okay. What you want to do is keep your fingers on those laces when you throw. Pretty simple, huh?”
Jamaal shrugged.
“Give it a try.”
The boy paused, then started to lift the ball. It teetered. He put his left hand on it.
“Hold it,” Jared said. “Try it one-handed.”
Jamaal took his left hand off. And then was motionless. “I can’t.”
“Yeah, you can. Keep your fingers where they are and just move your hand toward me. Go ahead.”
The boy gave it a try. The ball went about a foot. But it went forward.
“Yeah, man,” Jared said. “Good one. You see that?”
The kid blinked.
“Wanna try it again?”
“Yeah,” Jamaal said.
Jared put the ball back in the kid’s hand, then took two large steps backward. “Okay now, all the way to me.”
With a determined look, Jamaal reared back with his arm and flung the ball. It made it all the way to Jared, who caught it over his shoes.
“Yeah, baby!” Jared put his hand up. “High five.” Jamaal ran over and slapped Jared’s hand.
“Let’s do another,” Jared said, and Jamaal nodded.
Then a voice said, “Hey.”
Jared turned and saw a man walking toward them from the east side. And then he saw Tiana, right behind him, her eyes wide with surprise.
Jared knew this was the boyfriend, Jamaal’s father. Jared sized him up. He was about Jared’s height, but his shoulders were broader and he was older, maybe thirty. He wore a tight black T-shirt and he had packed muscles.
Jared noticed that Jamaal did not run toward him. Didn’t move, in fact.
“What’s goin’ on?” the man said, hard and quick.
Jared looked at Tiana’s face. It virtually begged him not to say a word.
“Just doing a little football,” Jared said. “Kid’s got quite an arm.”
“Who are you?”
“Just passing by.”
The guy stepped up to Jared, closer than was comfortable. “I said who are you?”
Jared felt the heat,his muscles tensing.
From behind, Tiana said, “Rafe, he’s the guy brought us home.”
Rafe gave her a snap look, then came back to Jared. “So what are you doin’ here?”
“I was driving by and — ”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Were you drivin’ by?”
“Rafe,” Tiana said, “drop it, okay?”
“I ain’t droppin’ nothin’.” He pointed at Jared’s face. “Don’t come around here no more.”
“Rafe, he’s just — ”
“Shut up.”
Tiana closed her mouth.
It was all Jared could do not to grab Rafe’s throat. He was conscious of Jamaal watching everything.
Jared looked at Tiana. “Is this what you want?”
Before she could say a word, Rafe was in Jared’s face. “You don’t be talkin’ to her, you got that?”
“Go, please,” Tiana said.
“Yeah,” Rafe said. “Now.”
There was something else here, not just the four of them. Not another person, but a presence. Jared felt it as fully as he had sometimes in Iraq. He always thought it was just the circumstances, the obvious stress, a thing stirred up by the acids in the stomach when the heat was on.
Now he wasn’t so sure about that.
He gave a quick look at Jamaal before walking back to his truck.