Nick Di Carlo

Reunions

You might call it fate, destiny, or just dumb luck, that I was the only available social worker/police-response liaison that Saturday night. It was none of those. As my buddy Crutch always said, “Shit happens. Deal with it.” Crutch had a saying for everything. That was his favorite.

The phone rang at 2:47 a.m. Hell, another 13 minutes and I’d have been shaken awake by my regular-as-clockwork 3:00 a.m. nightmare. Ghostly memories of every sordid catastrophe from my past haunted me. In the daylight, I could block out the demons, but at night, they infiltrated my defenses. The nightmares had mostly stopped while Meg—my soon-to-be second ex-wife—and I were together but returned unabated when she left. She blamed those nighttime hauntings on my time in Vietnam. “You can’t blame everything on the war,” I’d say. “It’s been over far more than a decade, and I’d lived eighteen screwy years before that.”

Meg had been gone less than six months, but in the dark, I could smell her Shalimar. I could feel her touching me, and I’d reach for her. So, when the phone rang, I reached for her, apologizing, “Sorry, Meg,” my hand falling upon her absence. 

I grabbed the phone handset and the curlicue wire that tethered it to the phone’s base was tangled. I yanked the cord, and the base crashed onto the floor. Got to get one of those new cordless jobs. “Victor Santoro here,” I said.

The police dispatcher said, “Sorry to call you. The on-duty shrinks are all tied up.”

I didn’t explain that I wasn’t a “shrink.” The liaison program was experimental. Few cops knew what we did but nonetheless derided us as bungling amateurs bound get somebody killed. But I wasn’t about to educate anybody in the middle of the night. I asked who, what, and where. 

“There’s a guy in a second floor flat.”

“Domestic incident? Hostages?”

“Girlfriend got out. That’s all I’ve got.”

“Not to worry,” I said. “I’m on my way.”

I stepped out of bed, shuddering from the shock of my warm feet striking the cold hardwood, and pulled aside the window curtain to do some recon. It had snowed all day and into the night, typical February weather for upstate New York. The snow was deep, and plows hadn’t come through. A full moon, no less. The moon glowed hideously, as if mocking me, “You sorry bastard, getting this call out.”

I wondered what awaited me in the second-floor flat of the Dove Street brownstone. Nothing good—not after 2:00 a.m., not on a full-mooned Saturday night. But I chose the work. Or it chose me—like a calling, a secular vocation, so I got dressed, and I mustered my determination to go forth and do good.

The main roads had been plowed. The drive down Washington Avenue was easy going—and my mind drifted. I wondered how things got so screwed up for that Dove Street couple that somebody called the cops. I ruminated about my own relationships. What did it say about me that my twenty-six months humping through Vietnam’s jungle lasted longer than my two marriages?

With green lights all the way, I kept ruminating: I’m not even forty. Is this the story of my life? Living alone? Nightmares every night. Time to start over—I need a mantra, some rules. But at 3:25 a.m. I was shooting blanks: “Life is a journey starting with a single step.” Then, “This is the first day of the rest of your life.” Geesh—my existence reduced to clichés.

# # #

I turned right onto Dove. More than a foot of snow still buried the street. Gotta love Hudson River Valley winters. The 4-wheel drive jeep handled it fine, but my thoughts floated off again. I visualized my favorite stretch of the Hudson River, its moonlit surface thick with ice, blanketed with snow, and beneath the frozen crust the water’s eternal rush to the sea. Snap out of it. I snapped the rubber band I wore on my left wrist to get my mind right.

When I pulled up near the brownstone the street was lit up like a psychedelic dance club with police cars’ red and blue lights flashing. Some squad car spotlights were aimed at the brownstone’s second-floor windows. Others scanned the surrounding buildings and alleyways. I spotted the police van. Some cops were huddled next to it, stomping their feet, and slapping their arms to keep warm. More cops were crouched behind squad cars, their guns drawn and aimed at the building. I parked and got out of my jeep. I asked the cop logging names, “Who’s in charge?”

“Detective Lieutenant Henry Crutchfield.” He pointed toward the van.

“Good,” I said. Crutch was a good cop, a good man—a friend.

The cop called out, “Lieutenant,” and pointed to me.

Crutch nodded to me, then motioned his head toward the brownstone. I nodded back. I got there first and scanned the terrain. There was a short walkway, then six wooden porch steps up to the entry. The door was open, revealing only a lightless cavity. I checked out the houses across the street to be sure that I wasn’t a target. From darkened rooms, behind the frosted windows of the row houses, faces, large and small, young and old, watched me watching them.

Crutch, only a few feet away, turned his gaze skyward and groaned, “Dear God, are you screwing with me?” He shook his head at me; his breath formed a cloud as he sighed.

“Hey, Weed,” Crutch said.

He’d called me Weed since we first met. I was a high school senior, alone, guileless, clueless, and having a rough go of it. One night Crutch—well—rescued me. He said, “Christ, kid. You’re growing up like a weed, like some wind-blown seed that took root in barren ground and grew wild. You need cultivating.” Crutch always said shit like that.

Crutch and I were about the same height, about six feet, but he had a way of carrying himself that made me feel like I was always looking up at him. Over the years, he’d added a few pounds, a bit of a gut, a hint of jowl. I was more heavily muscled, but I wouldn’t mess with him.

“Why all the firepower, Crutch? Who’s up there? The resurrected Legs Diamond?”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Right. It’s my weekend off.”

“You’ve got history with the guy. It’s Ramon.”

“Rinaldi?” The past just won’t leave a guy alone.

I met Ramon when we were high school freshmen at St. Beoc’s Catholic High. It was not a match made in heaven. 

“That look in your eyes makes me nervous,” Crutch said.

“I hate high school reunions.” 

“Don’t screw with me, Weed. You okay?”

“Copacetic. Anyway, I’m all you’ve got. Run it down for me.”

“He’s holed up in the second floor flat, hunkered down in the bathtub.”

“Where’s the woman?”

“Paramedics carted her to emergency.”

“Why not just go in and get Ramon?”

“He won’t come without a fight. He says he needs to talk to somebody. I tried talking him down, but he said no cops—especially me. Remember, he and I have history, too. The guy can hold a grudge.”

“It’s in the Rinaldi genes. Is he serious or just screwing with you?”

“Oh, he’s screwing, delaying the inevitable. On bail, awaiting trial. He’s been in the joint before and learned that prison isn’t like high school.”

“Now he’s bound for lock-up. He’s high, right?”

“Coke.”

“You saw the gun? Revolver? Semi-auto? M-16?”

“Girlfriend called it small and shiny.”

“She meant the gun, right?”

Crutch grimaced. “Don’t screw around. He’s already fired off a round. Neighbors called it in. I want to avoid gunplay. Are you up for this?”

“Here’s the thing,” I said., “Ramon’s been squatting in that bathtub a long time. He’s probably crashing. I’m all you’ve got. Whether I cock this up, we hunt down another counselor, or you go in guns blazing, we’re screwed. Either I go in, or you do. Your choice.”

Crutch gave me his squinty eyed, tight-lipped stare as he pondered which card of a bad hand to play.

“Crutch, do you trust me?”

“With my life.”

It was Ramon’s life and mine at stake. Both were in my hands.

“I’ll have Mike back you.” Crutch meant Detective Sergeant Mike Close, a veteran plainclothes cop who looked like he’d come straight from Hollywood central casting: stocky, grizzled and disheveled, but a straight shooter. A stand-up guy. Crutch and Mike had been damned good crime-busting partners for years: Batman and a shorter, rounder Batman.

Mike walked up to us and nodded.

# # #

Standing in the entryway, I studied the dark, narrow stairway leading to the second floor. Fatal Funnel. My flesh felt monsters under the bed, walking into an ambush clammy.

Halfway up, a flashback struck. My knees buckled. I leaned against the wall, feeling like I’d had been gut-punched. I hadn’t faced or fired a weapon in fifteen years.

“You okay?” Mike asked.

I took a deep breath and remembered Crutch saying, “We’re not put on this earth to avoid danger.” I snapped my rubber band.

“Vic? You okay?”

This is gonna be one unhappy reunion. Another deep breath. “Never better. Let’s go and do good.”

At the top of the stairs I called, “Ramon? I’m a county social services counselor. You wanted to talk?” Better not identify myself yet. He might freak out, maybe kill me. Instant failure. “There’s a detective with me. Can we come in?”

“No cops.”

“Ramon, he has to be here. But you’ll be talking with me. Let me help you get through this, okay?”

“Hands up. Walk slow. Show your I.D.” His words ricocheted off the bathroom tiles.

I took a breath. A single step…. “Easy does it. Here I come.” The journey begins.

With my left hand I pushed the apartment door wide open. No one was hiding behind it. A solitary table lamp cast a jaundiced light, the air smelled stale. I performed a slow scan of the room, beginning to my right, corner to corner, bottom to top. Nobody was lurking in the shadows. The place was cluttered; tattered posters taped to walls; a pile of videotapes littered the floor in front of an expensive looking TV. Across from the TV—I had to squint to make it out—a small dog was curled up, shivering under the sofa. Has a dog. Can’t be all bad. Still—critter looks scared to death. I walked along the wall to my left. Mike cleared the bedroom and the kitchen. Near the bathroom I stifled my gag reflex. I held my I.D. where Ramon could see it.

“We okay?” I asked.

“You armed?”

“No.” I peeled off my coat and turned completely around, hands raised.

“Okay.”

Stepping through that portal, I crossed the Rubicon. The first day…. I saw my longtime pain-in-my-ass Ramon crouched inside the clawfoot bathtub, his body gaunt, his flesh jaundiced. A jitteriness had replaced his high school bravado, making him seem even more dangerous as I stared down the barrel of his nickel-plated Colt snub nose .38 Detective Special. Crutch and Mike used the same gun, just without the nickel plating. Nice gun. Very shiny.

“Whoa! Lower the piece. Please take your finger off the trigger. I’m here to talk, to make sure everyone leaves alive and healthy.”

Ramon’s brow furrowed, then his eyes widened in recognition. “Are you kidding me?” His expression hardened, and his resurrected hatred emanated like a stench. He aimed the pistol at my head.

“A strange reunion,” I said.

“Reunion hell. Your bad luck. Come meet your destiny—your last day on earth.”

“Not luck. Not destiny. Stuff happens. This is happening here and now, so let’s let the past be past.”

“Why don’t I just blow your brains out?”

“That’s one approach. Probably not your best. A better option is to give me the pistol and walk out with me. Those cops are edgy and ready to storm in instead of freezing their asses off.” Why did I say that?

“If they come, they’ll have to climb over your dumb, dead ass.”

I hated him as much as I did in high school. I wanted to snap his scrawny neck. Instead, I gritted my teeth, snapped my rubber band, and reminded myself that as an adult—dedicated to doing good—I could ignore childish bullshit. The past was, after all, the past. Now that’s bullshit.

“Let’s start over,” I said. “Tell me what happened. Let me get you out of here safely.”

“Why did they send you?”

“Ramon—you wanted to talk. I’m what you’ve got. It’s me or the cops. Your choice. I think I’m the better choice.”

Ramon glared at me, his face contorting into a sardonic grin. He waved the shiny, tiny gun at me.

I felt like I was staring at a corpse, its facial flesh desiccated and stretched obscenely exposing its yellow teeth, a cadaver metamorphosing from face to skull. 

“Please, take your finger off the trigger. Tell me something that I can spin for the guys downstairs to make things easier for you.”

Ramon rubbed the gun muzzle against his cheek.

“What do you need for everybody go home alive and healthy? Is there anybody you want me to call? Your mother? How’s your mother?”

“Dead.”

Hypocrites. Eighth level of hell. “Sorry for your loss.” Did I sound sincere? “What about your sisters or brothers?”

“They won’t help.”

“Anybody?”

“I’m in hell. Nobody can help.”

Ramon, once believing himself blessed, now believed himself damned. I understood how someone’s mind gets twisted, and he damns himself, and creates his own hell. The damned suffer alone. If Ramon ever truly believed, his faith was gone. Hope was impossible. Hell is—inescapable.

“The priest maybe?” I meant to say a priest. Is the priest still in the picture? “What about the priest?” I asked. “Shall I reach out?”

Ramon stiffened and waved the pistol.

That touched a nerve. Victor, you’re in a hole. Stop digging. “I’m looking for anybody you trust.”

Ramon lowered his head, and his shoulders slumped. “I don’t trust anybody.”

You’re ready to collapse. Come on, man, give it up. “You look exhausted. Can we go into the other room? You can sit and relax. There’s a cute dog shivering under the couch. Let’s go get him.”

“You want it, it’s yours. Now, you and the cops get lost. If you guys don’t leave me alone….”

Ramon raised the pistol to his temple. A chill crawled up my spine. He turned the pistol back on me. I had that speeding rollercoaster sensation, like my balls were getting pushed up into my throat.

“We have other options. Please, let’s go in the other room to sit and talk.”

“No way.”

It was futile—should’ve been Crutch’s play from the start. But if I walked out of that room, what would Ramon do? “Let me come closer. Please give me the gun.”

I stepped forward, and Ramon shook his head. But I had to close the gap between us. I couldn’t fail. I took another cautious step.

Ramon’s eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched. His hand trembled.

“Give me the gun, please.”

The cocaine was wearing off and he was crashing, exacerbating his stress. He looked at the pistol again. Then at me. He sighed a long, hard sigh. He stood up. Then I knew: Ramon never intended on talking—he’d wanted something wholly different. I’d screwed his plan. Neither of us moved. My flesh felt clammy. Time to wrap this up.

“I understand. I know what you need,” I whispered, taking a single step.

“Understand what?”

“Everything. Let me help you.”

“Screw you.” He leveled the revolver at me.

 “That’s right.” I said loudly enough for Mike Close to hear. “Hand the pistol to me. We’ll end this.”

Ramon looked baffled.

 “That’s it—slow and easy.”

Ramon’s jaw clenched; his eyes were slits.

One more step brought me to an arm’s length. I held out my hand and nodded to Ramon.

Ramon pulled back the gun’s hammer.

“Easy does it,” I said, nodding again. I reached for the revolver.

The gun’s report got my ears ringing. The muzzle flash blinded me. Bits of expelled gunpowder burnt my face.

Mike Close rushed into the room. “Vic? You okay?”

I called out, “Mike?”

“You hit?”

“Don’t know.”

Ramon’s blood and brains oozed down the wall tiles that had shattered where the hollow-point bullet struck behind Ramon’s rag doll corpse.

Crutch rushed in. “Weed? Mike? You guys okay?”

Several uniformed cops followed him.

 The scorched sulfur and hot metal stink of combusted gun powder, and the sickening sweet smell of vaporized blood filled my nostrils; my tongue felt thick and stung with adrenalin’s coppery taste.

Crutch ordered two uniformed cops, “Get him outta here.” He turned to Mike Close: “Mike, talk to me.”

“He ate his friggin’ gun.”

“Did you see it?”

“I heard the guy say he’d hand over the gun, then….”

“Don’t say anymore”

# # #

The two cops escorted me to the police van. I sat in the front seat. Somebody handed me a Thermos of coffee. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the crackling of police radios and muffled voices. To wash away adrenalin’s metallic taste, I sipped some coffee. I took several deep breaths and slumped into the seat, not conscious of the powder burns on my face or of Ramon’s blood spatter and bits of brain and bone on me.

Ramon

I was starting ninth grade. My parents had finally divorced. However, my joy over the departure of dear daddy’s flying fists was short-lived. My mother and I moved from a shabby suburban bungalow to a decrepit inner-city walk-up, and I transferred to St. Beoc’s Catholic High. In the fifth century, St. Beoc founded St. Patrick’s Purgatory Monastery on the site of a narrow, dark pit believed to be purgatory’s entrance. St. Beoc’s High was like purgatory: pain and agony while you were there, but eventually you got out. It was a small school: ninety-something students, mostly girls, and only thirteen boys—a small pond, and Ramon Rinaldi was its big fish. Altar boy and teachers’ pet, Ramon was a bully. I was the new kid: scrawny, poor, and neglected by my alcoholic, excommunicated mother. Ramon’s widowed mother, an imperiously pious Catholic, declared us white trash and infidels who deserved ostracism and Old Testament justice, and ordained her eldest son to dispense mine. Ramon was predator. I was prey.

# # #

When Crutch, Mike and I got to police headquarters, they wrote their reports. Meanwhile, the watch captain had me put into an interrogation room.

First, the forensics crew gave me a thorough once-over. I was, after all, evidence. They bagged my clothes for the lab guys. They swabbed my face and hands and dug under my fingernails. Afterwards, they let me wash up, gave me a set of Crutch’s sweats and the high-tops from his locker to wear, and left me alone in the room to sit and stew and stare at my reflection in the mirror side of the one-way glass.

I was tired so I folded my arms on the tabletop, set my head down on them, and fell asleep.

The watch captain and a burly detective burst in and made a spectacle of sitting down opposite me, slamming chairs, slapping brown folders onto the table, and rustling papers. They went at me—not debriefing but interrogating. The captain kept saying, “Let’s go through it again,” followed by, “How far from him were you? You went for his gun? Are you arrogant, stupid or what? Why not let the cops do their job? You hated this guy, right?”

“I’ve been doing this work for ten years, dealing with domestic crises, potential suicides, and drug-crazed lunatics. I’m goddamned good at it. Where the hell were you while I, unarmed, was staring at his gun? Ramon was damaged goods. He was determined to hurt somebody or himself. The guy wanted the cops to take him out. When that didn’t happen….”

“You held a grudge. Wanted him dead. Took your shot.”

If they had let me keep my rubber band, I might have strangled the captain with it. I took a breath. I wondered if Crutch was watching on the other side of the glass. I ignored the accusations and asked the question, “If I had called in the cavalry, would anything have been different?”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“We’re talking about you. A wannabe hero? Bloody amateur? Cold blooded killer? What are you, incompetent or a killer?”

“Maybe I’ll call my lawyer.”

“Did you commit a crime?”

“We’re done here.”

# # #

Afterwards, I followed Crutch to his house. His wife Angelika had gone to Mass and then a Rosary Society luncheon. Crutch cooked breakfast.

“Victor—what really happened up there?”

Victor? What the…? “Henry,” I said, “for some guys, high school’s never over. Ramon still hated my guts. Why? I did my damnedest to get everybody home alive—but that look in his eyes. He never wanted to talk. He’d wanted you guys to gun him. But I showed up, and if he had to kill me to get you to do it….”

“But what happened?”

“I got close and reached out….”

“You never fired the gun? You tested positive for GSR. You were wearing his blood, brains, and bone. Raises questions.”

I shrugged. “I reached out. Shit happens. In a blink. I went to do a good thing. I did the right thing.”

“Right,” he said. “Tough night. We both need some rest. You know there’s a shit storm coming.”

“Right now, I know my emotions are strangling me. Up there, knowing I might die, I fought my feelings. I did my job. Now? What happened to ‘I trust you with my life?’” I took a breath. “And there’s still a defrocked priest out there who now has more to answer for.”

“Nothing to be done about that,” Crutch said.

“Really?”

“Forget it.”

“Young boys got ruined. Ramon freaked when I asked if a priest could help. Now he’s dead. And I’m screwed. What about justice?”

“Do you think last night was justice? Are you going Old Testament on me: ‘let justice roll down like waters?’”

“Right! And mo-ther-fuck-ing ‘righteousness like an everlasting stream.’’’

“Victor, Victor….”

I got up to leave. “What happened to the dog?”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

Crutch said, “Mike changed his story.”

“How?”

“Told me he heard what happened. He wrote the guy ate his gun. You risked your life trying to stop him.”

At the front door, Crutch touched my shoulder and said, “I’ll do what I can for you.”

I nodded and turned away. The door closed.

Crutch

I drove home remembering senior year when Father Finnigan, in aid of Ramon, created and choreographed a repeated scenario, a set-piece wherein the priest had recruited six men, two of them off-duty cops, to chaperone school dances. The action played out this way: Ramon would start a fight. I’d fight back. Six grown-ass men would tackle me, wrestle me to the floor, and pin me down while I struggled and shouted, “He started it!” Meanwhile, Ramon and the priest loomed over me, grinning. 

That spring, Hank Crutchfield had substituted for one of the cop chaperones and witnessed the Friday night ritual: Ramon provoking, me attempting retaliation, the goon squad descending, wrestling, pinning. I remembered Crutch’s voice, “What the hell are you guys doing?” reverberating through the gym, drowning out the rock music blaring through the loudspeakers. I recalled him yanking one man after another off me. He reached down and helped me off the floor.

“What’s this about?” he shouted.

The priest and goon squad chorus sang out, “Troublemaker. Maniac. Lunatic!”

“Bullshit, Father,” Crutch said. “I saw everything. Laughing boy there,” he pointed at Ramon, “riding this kid all night, throwing the first punch. Are you all deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid?” He turned to the other cop. “You know better!”

All my life, I’d witnessed anger, even blind rage. But that night, for the first time, I witnessed righteous anger.

Until that night, Ramon had a mother, siblings, and, it seemed, the whole damned Catholic Church behind him. I had me. As far as I knew, nobody ever questioned the priest’s relationship with Ramon, or why a priest would persecute a kid as all alone in the world as me.

Crutch became a surrogate father. After graduation, he drove me to the Marine recruiter. “It’s important to belong to and believe in something greater than oneself.” He pointed to the Semper Fi tattoo on his right forearm, “This is what life’s about.” After my discharge four years later, he helped me get into and survive college. He encouraged me to serve others, to do good in the world—tried to get me to go to church. Crutch was a true believer. I wanted to believe, but….

Crutch asked, “What do you believe in?”

“My own holy trinity: the man on my right, the man on my left, and the guy covering my six.”

Crutch shook his head. “Sometimes you still act like a knuckle-headed kid.”

I would have preferred that he said I was a man of grace, wit, and daring—that he had dipped into his mental treasury of literary or biblical quotes to laud my heroic traits. He had a sage quote or pithy saying for every occasion, quotes he considered signposts guiding his journey through life. Having no guideposts of my own, I followed his.

# # #

The investigative shit storm hit. Full of force and fury at first, then it slogged on through spring. In the end, nobody went to jail. The mental health/police liaison program got buried and forgotten. Mike Close retired. Crutch wasn’t promoted. I got fired.

With my vocation gone I had no use or purpose. With my latest sordid catastrophe, the nightmares worsened.

Crutch cautioned, “Put this behind you. Don’t look back. Let it go.”

I found most of Crutch’s sayings useful. But not “Don’t look back” and “Let it go.” I’ve never had to look backwards for ghosts. The past wouldn’t let go of me.

# # #

It was spring; the scents of fertile soil and new life perfumed the air. I’d sit on the Hudson riverbank, mesmerized as winter’s icy crust shattered, and the Hudson’s rushing waters swollen from the spring thaw’s runoff from the Adirondacks transported slabs of ice southward toward the sea. I envied the river’s unconquerable nature, and its unceasing forward movement. Inspired, I determined I’d make things right. You know, the first day of my new forever. I filled time doing volunteer work, seeking a new calling, hoping to do good. But just filling time was killing time. I couldn’t get my head straight. I needed a change of—everything.

You’ll think I’m nuts. I sold my house and put my material life in storage. I arranged to spend the summer with a Marine buddy in his Adirondack cabin on Blue Mt. Lake. It seemed like heaven: a wilderness, the mountains, a deep-water lake. In the end? Self-imposed purgatory.

# # #

That fall, I left the mountains. I bought a cozy house in an historic neighborhood within spitting distance of the Mohawk River. I hadn’t kept in regular contact with anyone, not even Crutch. So, I set out to resurrect some relationships. I struggled. Everyone else’s life had moved on.

Eventually, I found a job teaching sociology at the community college. I lived day-by-day, trying to create some semblance of normalcy.

# # #

I tracked down Sarah O’Connor, a former high school classmate who’d also become a social worker and had worked for me during in a youth program I ran one summer. She’d been a troubled soul then, but good at her job. She was living in Skaneateles, NY. She’d married but was still troubled. We phoned frequently, baring our souls, sharing secrets and sins. Occasionally, I would visit Sarah and her husband, or she would travel the 150 miles to visit me. But two years had passed before I told her about Dove Street, Ramon, and the priest.

“I always thought Father Finnigan was creepy,” she said. “And that stuff at the dances and concerts with Finnigan’s Gestapo squad—nobody ever understood what that was about. Us girls felt sorry for you—especially me—and I would’ve, you know, if you’d showed an interest.”

“Sorry. I was oblivious. Do you think your husband would mind if now…?”

“Don’t tease me. I’m vulnerable. But is this fate, or what? Finnigan spends every June and July at Skaneateles Lake. I know where he stays. I can show you.”

The Priest

Sophomore year: That priest, Father Finnigan, came to St. Beoc’s newly minted from the seminary. He was a twenty-something, pudgy, carrot-topped, freckle-faced fireball who’d formed a bond with Ramon that I’ve never understood: a pair of gossiping, giggling schoolboys. Father Finnigan became an enabler and ally to Ramon’s bullying. Years later, Finnigan had been defrocked for misbehaving with little boys. Some might have considered mere defrocking justice. I didn’t.

# # #

No, Sarah—not fate or destiny. Not horoscopes, Divine providence, or dumb luck. Nothing is foreordained.

Shit happens, and that summer, so did another disconcerting reunion, during the two weeks I spent with Sarah in Skaneateles. We’d been waterskiing when she noticed Finnigan on the beach. The demon who had facilitated my torment in my personal purgatory was nearly bald with scattered patches of carrot-hued fuzz. He was paunchy and slumped, and I couldn’t tell if the brown bits on his round, silly putty face were age spots or what I’d once mocked as Howdy Doody freckles.

I studied the defrocked one, wondering what to do about or to him. One afternoon I approached him as he sat slouched and dozing on a beach chair near the water. I leaned over him, casting a shadow.

He stared up at me, blinking, his face pink from the sun.

I leaned closer. I whispered, “I shot your pet, Ramon’s, brains-out.” I walked away.

Speaking those words unleashed a dopamine flood. But that rush of euphoric invulnerability was fleeting, and I panicked with the revelation of how desperately I desired vengeance. I recognized my insatiable hunger for violent retribution, and that horrified me. I lay awake that night, my head throbbing as I ruminated on a quote that Crutch once read to me: “Violence is like a weed—it does not die even in the greatest drought.”

The next day, still struggling with my emotions, I approached the creature as he ambled along the shore. I had thought, perhaps, to make amends and quell my lust for vengeance. When he saw me, he scurried off. I despised him for his cowardice. I could never forgive him. I convinced myself that regarding Ramon I had done the right thing. And I would do what needed doing.

I sought him out but could not find him. On my third night searching, I saw him plodding alone along the shore. I followed him into the night.

Shortly after I left Skaneateles Lake, police pulled a pudgy old man’s bloated body from the waters. Newspapers reported the corpse as a once upon a time priest the church had eighty-sixed. People pondered: An accident? A futile death? A righteous one? I believed that some profligate and predatory abomination had been consumed by the everlasting stream.

A few days later, Crutch left me a one-word answer machine message: “Victor?”

# # #

Crutch and I had exchanged occasional phone calls but rarely saw each other. Feeling uneasy I returned his call. He invited me to his house for lunch.

It was a pleasant August Saturday. Angelika was away for the weekend, and Crutch had fired up the backyard barbecue. Angelika had cultivated her flower garden like a Monet landscape; the perfume from her assorted flora commingled with the scent of flame-kissed mesquite from the grill. Crutch made small talk about the weather, the plight of the Yankees, and how Angelika cajoled him to buy bicycles so that they could ride together. We lunched on medium rare steaks, baked potatoes, and Angelika’s homegrown vegetables. After lunch we settled onto lawn chairs with a cooler stocked with Canadian ale between us.

“Nice vacation?” Crutch asked. “The Finger Lakes?”

I’d heard Crutch question people before—witnesses, perpetrators—so even his small talk made me wary.

“Visited my school chum Sarah.”

“See anyone interesting?”

“You know who I saw, and you’ve heard what happened to him. I spoke only one sentence to him, then he avoided me like the plague.”

“I’ll bet that brought up some old crap.”

“Sent my anguished soul aflutter.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” I leaned over to grab another beer from the cooler. “Want one?”

“Sure.”

I handed a bottle to Crutch. I inhaled deeply and looked Crutch in the eye. “Here’s the thing,” I said.

Crutch sipped his beer and nodded.

I confessed what I had told the priest about shooting Ramon.

“You admitted that?”

“Just to screw with him! I walked away from him, he was scared shitless, and I felt higher than a friggin’ kite. I’d done some damage and wanted more. That scared me. Was I as much of a monster as he was? Later, I flashed back to that night in the Dove Street flat when Ramon had raised the pistol and moaned a pathetic, plaintive, ‘Please.’ He was horribly broken, and my loathing for him melted into pity. My hand still extended; I watched as he turned the muzzle upward. I’d convinced myself I’d done the right thing and performed a merciful act, releasing Ramon from his hellish torments. Had I deluded myself and committed a vengeful act?”

“What did you decide?”

“Ramon had wanted to commit suicide by cop. I put the kibosh on that. He DIY’d it.”

Crutch shook his head. “What about the priest?”

“Judas hanged himself.”

We sat for a long time, each staring toward a separate infinity.

“I’d better go. What will you do, now?”

“I don’t know.”

# # #

Weeks passed. Since I wasn’t in jail, I figured Crutch and I had made a separate peace. I took a position teaching sociology at the state university and dealt with life one day at a time. I never put Dove Street completely out of my mind, but while I’d moved only twenty-five miles away from my old neighborhood, it might have been another planet as I never went back there.

Did I, as Crutch would say, throw the baby out with the bathwater? Nope. I’d just “let it go.” Sure—I still followed many of Crutch’s signposts, and added a few of my own, like the Francis Bacon quote: “Revenge is a kind of wild justice,” which I tempered with: If you’re driven by demons, you might become a demon. I could remember things and not be haunted by them. While I remembered donning my first rubber band after a hellish firefight early in my second Vietnam tour, I no longer needed one. Often, I slept a dreamless sleep. Years passed. I was doing well and doing good. Then, my past blindsided me, shattering that delusion. A phone call beckoned me to one more reunion.

# # #

When we buried retired police captain Henry Crutchfield, I hadn’t seen him for nearly two decades. I was surprised Angelika recognized me. She asked, “Did you ever think about him? Did you miss him?”

 I confessed, “Every day.”

“You broke his heart.”

Crutch once told me, “Resurrection is always guaranteed after persecution.” After my childhood persecution, Hank Crutchfield resurrected me from a premature psychological and spiritual death. In the end—I failed him.

END

Nick Di Carlo has taught writing and literature in both traditional and nontraditional settings, including New York State maximum security correctional facilities. Lawrence R. Reis, author of Wolf Masks: Violence in Contemporary Poetry, noted: “Di Carlo gained the respect and cooperation of the inmates who recognized many similarities between their experiences and his. Those experiences, often dark and sometimes violent, inform and power Di Carlo’s own writing.”