The Cabin at the End of the World(45)

Andrew thought about the attack before every boxing lesson and workout, before each trip to the shooting range. For the first couple of years postattack, when he couldn’t sleep, he internet-searched his attacker’s name and he’d spend hours digging into the digital lives of other people named Jeff O’Bannon. After exhausting the information on his O’Bannon (and that’s how he thought of the man, as belonging to him like a disease might), Andrew read about an O’Bannon who lived in Los Angeles and worked in the art department for major Hollywood movies, and there was the one who was a middle-school social science teacher in New Mexico and hosted a Looney Tunes viewing party for his students the first Friday of every month. Andrew spent one night poring through the 1940 government census and finding a twenty-five-year-old Jeff O’Bannon who had a wife, three kids, and his mother living in their Mississippi home. Later that night, Eric woke to find Andrew asleep in the desk chair, and he gently led him back to bed.

Andrew has long since quit those internet searches and he doesn’t look over his shoulder in public places as frequently and as urgently as he once did, though the hypervigilance will never go away completely. In unguarded moments, he’ll still pick and worry at why he was attacked. Well, he knows why, the hate-filled why was made painfully clear, but why did O’Bannon choose Andrew? How did O’Bannon know Andrew was gay and by proxy that Ritchie was not? If Ritchie had been standing with his back to the bar, would he have been the one who was attacked? Had O’Bannon simply made a terrible, lucky guess? (O’Bannon maintained in court his faggot wasn’t why he attacked Andrew and it didn’t mean he thought Andrew was gay; it was a word he and his buddies used all the time and it didn’t mean anything to them and the slur didn’t and wasn’t supposed to mean what it actually meant.) Had O’Bannon seen Andrew outside or even inside the Boston Garden and then followed him to the bar, his dumb, ravenous hate fueled by Andrew’s visage, the way he talked, the way he walked or smiled or laughed or shook his head or blinked his eyes? Did O’Bannon first see Andrew when he walked to the bar and ordered the beers? Did he look at Andrew and instantly see whatever it was he saw? Was Andrew like a bright orange flame to O’Bannon, burning only to invite his violence? Did O’Bannon patiently observe and deliberate and plan and have doubts that he overcame with a grunt and a swing of a glass bottle? As galling as Andrew’s being somehow read and then classified by that fucking loser as an other, a thing, was that Andrew, at least for one night, was then marked as a victim.

Andrew says, “It’s him. He buzzed his head. He’s older and more than fifty pounds heavier, and that bloated up his face and everything, so I didn’t see it right away, but Christ it’s him. Redmond is Jeff O’Bannon. You know who I’m talking about, right?”

“Yes, of course. Yes.” Eric furrows his brow and Andrew can’t tell if Eric remembers O’Bannon and/or recognizes Redmond is the same guy. “Um, okay, you might be right.”

“Might be?”

“I mean, I don’t see it but—”

“How can you not see it?”

“—but if you say it’s him, then it’s him. I believe you.” Eric won’t meet Andrew’s eyes.

Andrew sighs. “Dammit, I’m telling you it’s him. I would know, Eric.”

“Yes, yes, of course you would.”

Adriane says, “Hey, guys? We don’t have time for this? We need you to make the choice?” Her statements are questions.

“Wait, hold on,” Sabrina says, and her weapon wilts in her hands. “What are you saying Redmond did?”

Andrew says, “Going on thirteen years ago I was in a Boston bar with a friend and your guy—totally unprovoked—snuck up behind me, called me a faggot, and smashed a bottle over my head, knocking me out and cutting me open.” Andrew spies Wen watching him. Her empty expression breaks open as she flinches and blinks hard twice.

Adriane says, “Oh shit . . .”

Sabrina exhales sharply, distending her cheeks.

Adriane says, “Hey, you’re not, you know, making that up, to get us to—?” She stops talking as though the question mark is worth a thousand more words.

He considers telling them to take a good look at his scar that runs from the base of his skull down the back of his neck, but he doesn’t want to risk their closer inspection now that his hands are finally loose enough within the ropes to wriggle free. He spent his waking hours in the dark last night flexing and unflexing his fingers, twisting and bending his wrists. It’s no longer a question of if he can free his hands, but when should he?

Andrew says, “I’m not lying or making any of this up. And Redmond is the guy who attacked me. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. How about one of you go out to the deck and find his wallet, his license, and read his name? It’ll be Jeff O’Bannon.”

Sabrina says, “I’m not calling you a liar, Andrew. I believe you’re not making up the getting assaulted—”

“He does have that nasty-ass scar on the back of his neck,” Adriane says, pointing at Andrew, and backs away from him to stand between the others.

Leonard’s shoulders are slumped. Some unseen great weight is pushing him down. “Andrew, you told Wen your scar was from getting hit with a baseball bat when you were a kid.”