I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2)(32)

Stubborn and tough, that’s Will. Maybe he’s more stubborn than tough, now that I think about it. Hell, I’m still waiting for him to return even one of my calls, or reply to any of several texts I’ve recently sent him. I know I’ll probably be waiting a while longer before he finally comes around.

Until then, I’ll be content with reminding myself of the times Will liked being around me, how he loved hanging out with me and my friends. How it didn’t matter we were so much older, or that everyone knew my brother was a klutz. He still always managed to fit in.

Right from the start, my friends knew to be cool with him. Otherwise, they’d have to answer to me. But I never had to follow through with any threats; my friends accepted Will of their own volition. Little bro was funny and cool in his own unique way, and he won everyone over just by being Will. At one time or another every friend I had told me they wished they had a little brother like mine, and not a day went by that I didn’t count myself lucky that Will was in my life.

I smile at the memories, choosing to forget that I f*cked things up by turning into a criminal. I want to remember the kid who adored me, the Will who trusted me not to fail him. But, like my dad, I did. Just in a different way.

But I’m still here, I remind myself, I can fix things. My dad, he’s gone forever. There will be no fixing from him.

I take my phone out. What the hell, it’s worth a try. I dial Will’s cell. It goes straight to voicemail, like it always does these days. Will doesn’t want to talk to me, clearly. That thought squeezes my heart so f*cking hard it hurts.

Well, fine, I can be as stubborn as that little shit. I’ll keep trying. I’ll bug him forever, if I have to. I will never give up on that kid. He’ll come around. I know he loves me somewhere deep inside. At least, I hope he does.

I shoot a final glance to the cemetery, then get in my truck. Life can change in an instant; mine sure did four years ago. Kay’s did too, as I now know. I make myself a promise before I pull away: I am not going to spend any more time beating myself up over what happened last night. It’s over and done. But I sure as f*ck won’t be making the same mistake again.

In some ways it was a wake-up call, reminding me of the temptations I need to avoid—getting blown in disgusting alleys behind bars; women like Missy who are all-too-willing to do the blowing; and, for sure, blow itself.

I need to spend my time concentrating on things that are important—being a better person, mending my relationship with my brother, and doing a good job for the church.

Maybe, just maybe, if I start accomplishing these things, people like Father Maridale and Kay Stanton won’t ever regret giving me a chance.




Later that evening I’m searching the house for my old digital camera.

It has to be here somewhere, I tell myself.

I need to find it so I can take a picture of the apartment above the garage. I want to add a photo to the flyer I’ve just done up. Sadly, my cheap cell is talk and text only, so finding the digital is a must.

I rummage through the cabinet drawers in the kitchen, scour the buffet in the dining room, and proceed upstairs. I go through all the drawers in the dressers in the bedrooms, the closets too. Nothing, nada. I have no luck. Time to hit the final frontier, the attic, where it’s hot and stuffy and everything smells like mothballs and dust.

Once I’m up in the stuffy space, ducking so my head doesn’t hit the low ceiling, I peel off the T-shirt I changed into after returning from church and toss it to the floor. Shit, I need a fan up here. But there’s none in sight, so I resign myself to just grin and bear the heat.

I start my search by going through some boxes marked my old stuff. In the first one, there are clothes of mine that no longer fit, some old sports equipment, and a few so-so sketches I drew one summer. But there’s definitely no camera. I sit back and watch dust motes dance in a stream of dying light coming in through the window and think: What next?

Some of my grandmother’s recently boxed-up belongings are on the other side of the attic, but I have my doubts the camera will be found in any of those. Still, you never know. I rub the back of my neck, wet with sweat already, and say, “Fuck it.”

I crawl on over to where the boxes are stacked.

The first box I flip open is filled with old photo albums, yellow and worn. I have no desire to peel back the past and travel down memory lane—happy memories from a time long ago, no-f*cking-thanks—so I hastily seal that box back up and push it aside roughly.

The next carton I come to contains a bunch of VHS tapes, and some record albums at the bottom. The vinyl is mostly stuff from the seventies, mixed in with a few of Gram’s old albums. The tapes are movies, all from the eighties.

Ah, my father’s stuff.

I thumb through the records, perusing titles of songs my dad once played for me on my grandmother’s old record player. That old thing still sits down in the living room, dusty and unused.

I set the records aside and start to go through the movies. These are movies we used to watch together, sometimes as a family, sometimes just me and Dad.

It suddenly hits me—hard and fast, like a punch to the gut—that my father is gone forever. His ears will never hear this music, never again. He’ll never again watch these movies. There’s no coming back from where my father has gone. He’ll never again walk through this house that, by all rights, should be his. Not mine. And it’s sad to think now how this house once knew his laughter, his good times, and his bad. Hell, this house watched my father grow, from a boy to a man. I think of how much his mother, my grandmother, loved this house. But she’s gone too. Sadly, now, this house knows only me.