Into This River I Drown - By Tj Klune Page 0,129

in here?” he asked kindly.

“You tell ’em, Doc,” Christie insisted. “You tell ’em that Benji doesn’t need to go in there. You’ve known Big Eddie since he was a tyke. You can tell if it wasn’t him. Please don’t make Benji do this.”

He looked miserable. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said, darting his gaze to me before looking away. “It’s the law, Christie.”

“Fuck the law!” she snarled, looking wild-eyed. “Fuck the law!”

Mary recoiled and Nina covered her mouth to keep from snorting at her sister using a bad word. My mother shook her head, tears falling from her eyes. None of them knew I’d already talked to the doc. None of them knew he told me he would be more than willing to identify Big Eddie for me, that it was Big Eddie in there, he already knew. He’d fudge the paperwork a bit. No boy, he said, should have to see his father in such a way, especially a boy like me and a father like Big Eddie. Let him help in what little way he could. Let him take some of the pain away so I could remember Big Eddie the last time I’d seen him, that smile on his face, the stubble on his head. Let him do this for me, please. By the time he’d finished begging me, there were tears in his eyes.

But not in mine. No, thank you, I’d said. No, thank you. I will do my job. I will see to my father the way I am supposed to. You shouldn’t try and stop me.

He’d hung his head.

“Fuck the law!” Christie repeated. “Griggs said—” She stopped herself and shook her head. I didn’t care right then to know what Griggs had said. All that mattered was seeing to my father.

Old Doc Heward said in a small voice, “Benji, are you ready?”

No. No, I wasn’t ready. No, I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to stand. I didn’t want it to be true. All I wanted to do was find a dark corner and curl up until I was as small as I could make myself and just stay there until the world passed me by. I’d put myself in this position but could only now fully realize what I was about to do. Some small, tiny part of me still believed this to be a nightmare I couldn’t seem to wake up from. That part of me was sure that any moment now, my screams would be heard, and a rough but gentle hand would shake me awake and I’d open my eyes. I’d open my eyes and find myself staring into green like so many fireworks blasting across a black sky. He’d have a tight frown on his face, lines around his eyes as he squinted at me. “Benji,” he’d say, his voice a deep and worried rumble. “Benji, it’s okay. Wake up. You need to wake up because it was all a dream. Dreams can’t hurt you because they aren’t real. None of this is real and you need to wake up.”

“Yes,” I whispered aloud. “Yes. I think so, yes.”

I’d always heard the first step is the hardest, and once you take that first step, all the ones that follow are infinitely easier by comparison. I contemplated that first step for what felt like ages, but in the end, my right foot lifted slightly off the floor and the step was taken. Then another. And another. It did not become easier.

Doc Heward held the door open for me, his eyes filled with so much pain for me. I made it through the doorway and into the long, cold gray hallway. The door closed behind me, but not before I heard my mother gasp and shatter again, the quiet murmurs of the Trio, the only family I had left in the world.

Doc started to speak, but I couldn’t hear his words because I was so far away. I was so far away and I almost couldn’t tell which was the dream and which was real life. I heard my father’s voice in my head, like so many memories rising at once, the cacophony so brilliantly loud that it caused my—

eyes to water as my father said, “I got a guy, Benji. I’ve got a guy who can get us a V8 cheap for the Ford. He tried to swindle me a bit, but I reminded him we don’t do that kind of thing here and he

“—told me he