LOSING CHRIS

By H.J. Cruz

7/29/07

   On a warm southern California evening he met his precious Annie, be-bopping to the beat of the thumping Gaelic music their band belted out. She became enamored with the gangly musician, now hanging like a bat from a pipe without losing tempo on his squeeze box, then serenading her with that old sax of his in a solo that sealed their fate.

The scrawny red head with eyes in eternal surprise became the fan who refused to be ignored.

   He was still a Marine at Camp Pendleton, balancing his military life with the ever bourgeoning music scene. It seemed he’d finally found someone who liked his quirky pursuits. Not many at that time were into the big band music of the forties, the swing dancing and all the nostalgia that he brought with it, not to mention the new wave gaelic music they played across the west coast, which wasn’t exactly in vogue. But the binging insanity it promoted sat well with local establishments as the bars erupted into madness and mayhem. The day Irish dancing and slam dancing evolved into an independent form of expression.

   All the while he and Annie became inseparable. But as the weeks turned to months Chris soon realized that they were not alone.  A ghost from Annie’s past had been stalking them, someone she refused to mention, hoping he would just go away. But now the new love in her life caused it to become more frequent. She confessed that after one date the tall dark and brooding man refused to be brushed off and hounded her for weeks, but she never thought he would go this far. The stalking led to confrontations, which led to blows. One night as Chris left a gig late he was accosted while getting into his car, and although he was able to fend off the knife wielding foe, he got cut up good. They filed a restraining order but that was all the cops would do. So Chris and some of his Marine buddies set out for vigilante justice; busting down doors in what they thought was his apartment, but after bashing in the third door and finding a terrified old woman, they fled in disgust.

   Months had passed without signs of the psycho so they figured it was over and let their guard down. Chris had a gig in San Francisco over the Labor Day weekend and left Annie behind. How she was captured by the creep I have yet to learn, but he managed to drag her off bound and gagged in duct tape. He took her to a sweltering garage where for the entire three day weekend he beat, raped and sodomized her cutting up her face and hair so that her beauty would be defiled for all the world to see. Her sweat eventually loosened the adhesive and she managed to escape the physical abuse whereas the mental abuse was just beginning.

   My brother returned to find a tight lipped audience to the whereabouts of his precious Annie, finding himself pleading with her distraught parents who through teary eyes mentioned the name of the hospital she was in, knowing that anything more could only do more harm than good. The sight of Annie, who appeared to have been hacked with an evil scythe, was more than he could take. Her wailing and pleading fell on deaf ears as he headed for the door brushing past her parents who now tried consoling him from the inevitable.

Now the stalker became the stalked. He found the demon packed and waiting for a bus on a busy street corner on that sunny afternoon. There were no words spoken, just the report from a .45 auto as the bullet ripped through the chest of evil. He now stood over the beast as surprise turned to eyes of horror, oblivious to the screams that rang out around him. The second bullet ripped into the poisoned mind painting the concrete with its remnants and silencing it for eternity.

   Love triangle ends in murder! Killer still at large.

Read the headlines, as a dragnet now hunted him like a mad dog. A thousand miles away,  two Dicks watched my every move for three days. I flipped e’m off; their queue to bring a confession to my door followed by an inquisition, brandishing graphic photo’s, with accusations and threats and the repercussions of harboring information on such a ruthless killer before I showed them to the door. Wanting to rip the windpipe’s from their chubby throats.

   Three weeks later I got a call from one of Chris’s oldest friends in San Francisco, where he had been holding out. He told me how Chris tragically took his own life as the authorities were closing in. He left a note admitting his crime and offering his own life as just compensation, maintaining that his friend was ignorant of his crime.

   At the wake I hugged a despondent Annie; she couldn’t look me in the eyes. I consoled her letting her know that in no way did I hold her accountable for what transpired. Not wanting to add insult to injury. Her shattered soul now peered into mine and she grabbed my neck and wept there refusing to release her grip until her parents came to pry her off.

   I wanted to tell her the truth about my brother.  I wanted to tell her how many times I gave him up for dead, how many times he evaded the grip of grim. Like when he was born to a mother deathly ill from pneumonia and almost perished in the womb, or when at three he was lost to a lagoon for almost twenty minutes, or the time he went through the ice when we were crossing that graveyard pond on a cold January night. The time Jimmy and I found him hanging lifelessly by the neck in that sun porch; a purple head boasting a balloon sized bubble from a gasping mouth. Then there was the time Alex and I were throwing planks off the third story porch and he wandered from below as we heaved the largest one and watched in horror as the board sprang from the top of his head with an eerie flutter as his limp body hit the ground and these stories went on for years. But then I knew that she had her own story one that she would live with for the rest of her life.

   Perhaps his guardian angels were the ones that kept him alive, and the only way he was going to pass was by his own hand, no doubt the thought crossed his mind before he pulled the trigger, sealing his fate. I asked the humbled crowd at his service why the brightest stars burn out so quickly. I told them how he bested me in every endeavor. I guess I was always a bit jealous of Chris; the way he could get straight A’s when I never seen him crack a book, how his quick wit would add a pun to the end of a joke before I had time to assimilate the punch line. How his courage would surface when I saw folly, he seemed to see some form of opportunity. Always the life of the party, sweeping women off their feet with his dashing well mannered charm and fancy dance moves.

   I met the old woman who rented him her cottage out back, Chris brought her such joy while he stayed there, doting on her as if she were family. There was also an old flame of his there who shared one precious memory of them bumping into each other one rainy afternoon downtown, he just parked behind her a grabbed her out of her car in the middle of rush hour stopping the flow of traffic as he passionately kissed her for a full five minutes as commuters yelled obscenities and honked angrily while he made a mock waving motion for them to go around knowing full well there was no room.

   I dreamt of him shortly after the wake, my way of communicating to the other side of consciousness. It was in black and white. We were both at a party full of women and the only men there. For some strange reason he kept insisting he had to go, I tried to make him see the reality of our predicament but he headed for the door and I followed him into the street lined with parked cars as he walked away towards a dense fog maintaining that he had to fly. “Fly? Fly where?” I asked, then pleading for him to come back to the party. Suddenly finding the idea of flying much more appealing than a room full of women and asked him if I could come. He momentarily turned and said “I love you brother but I must fly alone. You can’t come where I’m going.” He walked into the fog and was never seen again.

From my memoirs; Oct. 1994