my mind, the taste is too bitter to pass over my tongue. I will say that Greg will never chew things easily again, will forever be taunted and teased by neighborhood kids as Smashmouth. He will never be able to provide the proper chemistry to produce children. He will have difficulty turning his head to the left and struggle with bouts of vertigo that will worsen with age.
He will, however, get to live. And this did not sit well with my family.
By the time I returned to my parents’ house, all of my brothers were there. After an update on the status of my mother, I gave them all the details of my experience with Morrison, every strike and blow, every word he uttered as he begged for help, right down to how I left him weeping like a little boy—alive.
Pop and Peter flew from their chairs almost simultaneously.
“I want him dead!” my father yelled. Peter said nothing, just reached in his pocket for his keys.
I stopped him before he could leave the room, told everyone to sit down, explained my motivations—how I let Morrison live for a reason, that if one of us or one of our crew went and knocked him off, he’d be forgotten in a month and someone would fill his place. But by leaving a living, breathing example that people would see, day after day, a constant reminder of what happens to those who harm us, the event would never be forgotten. People would learn. After all, was this not the point of most of God’s Old Testament examples? What would be the point of wiping out Jericho, or of forty years in the desert, if there was not something to learn from it? Peter was the first to come around on the idea, liked the notion of seeing him on the street now and again, being able to give him the evil eye on a regular basis. Once my father calmed and saw the light of the idea, Gino and Jimmy fell in line.
And then the turn of events in my life: At this moment, this very conversation where I managed to sway the angry, rage-filled determination of my siblings and father, I realized I might be able to one day sway them toward setting Melody free, that if I posed a compelling enough argument, they might be winnable. Even though I was much younger then, I knew I could make it happen—if only I could conjure a way to make everything come together, for the timing and reason to be right.
And now here I am, sitting in a seafood restaurant with Melody, mere hours from putting a plan into play whose origin came five years earlier at the notion that keeping an enemy alive was more powerful than killing him. All I need to do is convince the same group of people of the same thing. One last time.
I pray that one day Melody will be completely free, content and living the life she was meant to live, and that I have this story to tell, too. That I can share the details of something beautiful, filled with hope and happiness.
As for Morrison, he now occupies most of his days sitting at the bar of a dive in Brooklyn, cashing in his welfare checks and converting them to lottery tickets, drinking beer through a straw.
But not all things were corrected by my actions. Fourteen months ago, after spending years mired in fear and depression, my mother died of ovarian cancer, the recipient of a painful existence better suited for every other individual in my family.
Melody plays with the rim of her wineglass as she processes this dump of information, seems to be formulating conclusions based on details I didn’t realize I’d offered.
She finally looks up and says, “You’re a strange hero, Jonathan.”
Herman starts heading toward our table. I flick my wrist at him like I’m swatting a fly and he changes direction in midstep.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You may not realize it, but you kept Greg alive when anyone else in your family would’ve killed him. He’d be thankful if he knew.” I doubt that—although things do seem different when I view them through Melody’s eyes. She thinks for a moment and adds, “So, if I understand correctly, your worst violent act was triggered not because you were evil, but because you were human.” She studies me, keeps her eyes on me as she brings her glass to her lips and takes