The Death Agreement (11 page)

"All right, fine. But I'm warning
you, I'm not good at the whole family thing."

"So you say. Now pack. We're
already running late."

The trip took three hours. The sun
had set by the time the cab pulled into the driveway.

Mrs. Christina, Taylor's mother,
ran outside to meet us. She grabbed Taylor before he could even get
out of the back seat. She kissed him on both cheeks then pulled him
to his feet and took a good look at his uniform. I exited from the
other side and walked around the car. Her face lit up when she saw
me, and she pulled me in for a hug. The way she held me had made me
feel as though I was her son, too. It was a warm, loving embrace.
All my hesitation and anxiety melted away, and I felt
welcomed.

"Jon," she said, "it's so nice to
meet you. I'm Christina, but you can call me Chrissy. Come on, let
me introduce you the rest of the family." She grabbed me by the
hand and led the way around to the back yard.

Kyle, Taylor's brother stood over
a flaming grill. He introduced himself by handing me a cheeseburger
on a paper plate. "Enjoy!" he said, then he went back to work
flipping the next batch of burgers.

Taylor's sister, Tiffany, swam in
the pool with two of her friends. When the three girls saw us come
around the corner, they whispered and giggled to each
other.

"Tiff, say hi to Jon," Mrs.
Christina said. "He's going to stay with us for the
week."

"Hiii, Jooon," she mocked, her
voice comedic and flirtatious. "You can share my room."

"Tiffany Ann Taylor! Manners!"
Mrs. Christina shouted jokingly. "Oh, don't mind the harlots, Jon."
She laughed. "Come on, Hunter's on the porch."

I let Taylor and Mrs. Christina
take the lead. Once they were in front of me, I looked back and
winked at the girls, who then broke out in another fit of
laughter.

Taylor looked at me
suspiciously.

"Sorry, bro," I said, unable to
hide my smirk.

"You're gonna be if you keep it
up."

I cleared my throat theatrically
then gave the boy Scout salute. "Yes, sir."

Mr. Hunter sat in one of the
oversized picnic chairs, laid back with his arms folded behind his
head.

"Boys, take a seat," he said.
"Babe, bring a couple cigars? Thanks, love."

"Hey, Pop," Taylor said, "meet my
friend, Jon Randon."

"Nice to make your acquaintance,
Jon."

I shook his hand. "Nice to meet
you too, Mr. Taylor."

"Please, call me
Hunter."

"Sure thing, Mr.
Hunter."

Mr. Hunter sighed. "My, you two
are green as grass, but you'll grow out of it soon." He put a hand
on Taylor's shoulder and squeezed. "Jesse, how are things at
school? Behaving, I hope."

"Great. Glad we're almost
finished."

"You're just getting started. You
both realize that, right?"

Taylor and I looked at each other,
then back at Mr. Hunter. We nodded.

"Well, you think you do, anyhow."
He turned toward the house. "Chrissy! Where are my cigars,
woman?"

"Hold your horses!" Mrs. Christina
shouted back.

"Bring the Scotch instead! Let's
make this a real party!" Mr. Hunter looked back at us and smiled.
"Alright, boys, I got some advice. Listen closely. Rule number one:
Officers should always keep a bottle of high-quality liquor around
to share with the enlisted folk. Got that?"

"Got it," Taylor said.

"If you slip 'em a fifth of decent
rum and grant 'em a night off-duty from time to time, they'll
respect you three times as much, and they'll bend over backward for
you when you need them. At least that's how it was back in my
day."

"That's good advice," I
said.

Mrs. Christina walked through the
open glass doorway and set the Scotch on the table. Tiffany
followed her out of the house, still dripping wet, and carrying
several snifters on a tray. Kyle, now done with grilling, snatched
up the bottle and poured a few fingers worth into each
glass.

Mrs. Christina sat next to her
husband. Kyle and Tiffany sat on either side of me.

"Daddy?" Tiffany asked.

Mr. Taylor raised an
eyebrow.

"Becky and Monica just left. Can I
have a glass too?"

"Just a little, if it's okay with
your mother."

"Sure, sure," Mrs. Christina said.
"Not a peep to anyone though."

We all raised our
glasses.

"To the future," Mr. Hunter said.
"Salute."

We drank.

"Jesse," Mr. Hunter said, "your
mother is proud of you." He leaned forward and lowered his voice,
"You went green instead of blue, but the world needs grunts just as
much as it needs airmen, so I suppose I'm proud, too." He laughed,
raised his glass, and we all took another drink.

Time flew by as the six of us
enjoyed each others' company. At some point Kyle and I knocked
Taylor into the pool. As retribution, he threw me in, too. While
the three of us goofed around, Mrs. Christina cleaned up the mess,
and Mr. Hunter and Tiffany gathered wood for the fire pit.
Eventually we all settled down by the warm glow of the flames. We
sipped from our glasses and looked out toward the darkness of
Blackbird Bay.

"Hey, Jon, where do your folks
live?" Kyle asked.

I shrugged. "They're
dead."

"I'm sorry." Tiffany said. "What
happened…if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, my father was a banker in
New York City. His office was in the World Trade
Center."

Mrs. Christina gasped.

"It's okay," I said. "I never knew
him. He ran out before I was even born. As for my mom, she raised
me until I was thirteen. Then they took her."

"Someone took your mother?" Kyle
asked.

"Why don't we change the subject?"
Mr. Hunter took another sip. "You're prying into business that
isn't ours."

I smiled. "It's not a problem.
Even Jesse doesn't know the whole story."

Talking about my family was
something I had always avoided growing up; maybe it was the warmth
of the fire, or the warmth of the liquor, but for the first time
ever, I wasn't afraid to open up.

I looked each of them in the eye,
then said, "My mom was different from most of the other parents. I
noticed it for the first time when I was four. I asked the
question: Where do babies come from? She gave me a very strange
interwoven answer, and I knew something wasn't right."

Kyle leaned forward.

I looked him in the eye, and
quickly said, "'The Stork. No! Fertilized zygote. Sperm enters the
egg creating an embryo and…. No! The stork drops off a bundle onto
a doorstep of mommies and daddies and…. No! The cells multiply
during the gestation.'"

Jesse's jaw dropped.

I laughed. "It was like that most
times I asked her questions. She was fully functional
otherwise."

"Wow," Tiffany said.

"By age nine tough, she had
developed other…quirks." I took a long drink from my glass. "I came
home from school one day and found she had made dinner. It was a
feast. A
real
feast. Plates were laid out all over the house, enough for a
hundred people."

"Schizophrenic?" Mrs. Christina
asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"That must have been tough," Kyle
said. "How did you two get by for so long?"

"My father had set up a trust
account when I was born. I used to get a monthly draw. I don't
anymore. I send it all—"

"He took care of you financially."
Mr. Hunter shook his head and waved his finger. "But money doesn't
replace a father."

The breeze from the bay brushed
against my face and carried along with it a gust of
guilt.

"Yeah, you're right, Mr. Hunter.
Money doesn't replace a father." I lowered my head and sat quietly
for a while, hoping someone else would pick up the conversation. No
one did.

I cleared my throat. "Anyway, Mom
realized she couldn't take care of me anymore and had herself
institutionalized. Spring Grove was okay, I guess. I visited her
whenever I could…but she died six months after being committed. An
aneurism, they said. Officially it was complications with the
anti-psychotic medication. But I think it was from a fight she'd
gotten into with another patent, some violent woman named
Sally."

Tiffany wiped her eyes. "You were
on your own?"

"No. Aunt Sara took me
in."

Patting my arm, Mrs. Christina
said, "At least you have her."

"Actually, I don't. She died
during my first year in West Point. She had gone on a cruise, and
her heart gave out while trying to scuba. They don't tell you how
dangerous that actually is. You'd be surprised at how many people
die on a cruise ship." I laughed.

Mrs. Christina shook her head.
"Poor thing."

"Hey!" Tiffany shouted. "I'm
sorry, but this is really depressing. Let's play a game
instead."

"We can go into the kitchen. I got
a deck of cards," Taylor said.

"No, we can play out here,"
Tiffany said, smiling. "It's a drinking game."

Mr. Hunter squared his shoulders.
"What do you know about drinking games, young lady?"

"Shush, Dad." She smacked his hand.
"It's called
Wishes
. Everyone takes a small drink then declares a wish. The
others decide if it's a real or a fake wish. Once everyone chooses,
we tell the truth. If someone guesses wrong, they take another
drink…. Now, if a wish is true, and everyone's guess is right, that
person vows to make their wish come true. Everyone has to help if
they can."

"Alright, let's do it." Kyle
raised a glass to his lips. "Cheers!"

We all followed his
lead.

"I wish I could sing," Tiff sang
her wish, badly.

"I wish your father wouldn't snore
so loud," Mrs. Christina quipped.

"I wish your mother wouldn't snore
at all!" Mr. Hunter shot back.

"I wish I had Monica's number.
Tiff, your friend is seriously hot." Kyle nodded.

"I wish I hadn't subjected Jon to
this torture." Taylor slapped his forehead.

"I wish all your family
get-togethers are as fun as this one." I smiled.

For my wish, everyone guessed
true.

It was true.

***

When Taylor and I had first
written The Death Agreement, he thought it would be a good idea to
include a section on what our last wishes would be so that the
surviving party would see them through.

My wish had been
simple.

One day I had said, "I want you to
deliver a message to someone special. Just go to the address in
Texas and hand them a letter…and let them know I'm sorry. Would you
do that?"

"Of course. Who's it
for?"

I shook my head. "Her name is in
my copy of The Death Agreement for when the time comes."

"You're not going to tell
me?"

"I don't want to talk about
it."

"Fine." He shrugged, seemingly
uninterested. My refusal to tell him had stung, I knew, but even
best friends have to keep some secrets from each other.

Earlier, when I said we both never
looked back with regret. That wasn't true. The regret I felt about
one aspect of my life had been too great to talk about then and
even more so now.

Taylor though, he never had
regrets, at least none he had ever mentioned to me.

His last wish: Get the family to
play a game of
wishes
. He had said, "I hope everyone plays it straight. I want
everyone to share a wish and then I want you all to make those
dreams come true."

But corpses don't have wishes.
Corpses don't have dreams. As the last man standing, despite only
having one leg to stand on, it fell to me to play the game in their
place.

Eight shot glasses sat in front of
me, filled to the rim. One by one I poured them into my mouth. The
liqueur, sweet and heavy, fought to come back up.

"Little Jon wishes he was still
alive…." Drink. "Lorie wishes she was still alive…." Drink. "Your
mom and dad and sister and brother all wish they were still
alive…." Drink, drink, drink, drink.

I threw Taylor's still-full shot
glass across the room and it shattered against the wall. After
that, I took my own shot, picked up the bottle and let several long
swigs slide down my throat, then slammed the bottle onto the table.
"True!"

***

I woke to someone pounding on my
door.

"Police! Open up."

I cracked my neck and sat up on
the couch. My head felt as though it had been hit with a
sledgehammer.

"Hold on!" I yelled. Out of the
corner of my eye I saw movement on my bed. A lock of auburn hair
poked out from beneath the blankets, and I nearly
screamed.