January Justice

“I got into a little more trouble.”

“Something to do with what happened before?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He leaned back and crossed his right leg over his knee. “Tell me.”

I began at the begi

He said, “There were only two of them?”

“That’s right.”

“And you had a sidearm?”

“I, uh… I actually left it in the vehicle.”

Ta

I had nothing to say.

He said, “Did you want them to kill you?”

I continued to be silent.

He uncrossed his leg, put his other boot on the ground, and leaned toward me. “You should have killed those guys, Gu

I stood and went to stare out the window. The color of the hills had begun to change to golden hues. From my time at Pendleton, I recognized the effect of a Pacific sunset. “I’m not thinking straight, Bud. I haven’t been since the thing with Miss Lane.”

“How do you feel about the fact that those guys didn’t kill you? Disappointed?”

I stood there and said nothing.

“Are you drinking much these days?”

“A little.”

“Did you drink last night?”

“A little.”

“And earlier today?”

“I need it to stay calm.”

“What do you want from me, Gu

I turned to face him. “I don’t know. Advice. Therapy. Something I can use.”

“I’ve already told you everything I know.”

“It’s not working.”

“Really? So God isn’t getting the job done for you?”

“I’m talking about that thing you said in the hospital.” I closed my eyes, shutting off the view of glowing hillsides. I spoke the Bible verse he’d taught me. Whatever is true, whatever is excellent… think about such things.

He said, “Solid advice in every circumstance. What about it?”

“It helped a lot at first, but it’s not working anymore. I keep thinking it and saying it, but everything is getting worse.”

“It’s not a magic incantation. I’m not a wizard, and God’s not a genie. You don’t just say the words, and everything gets better.”

“Lighten up a little, Bud. I’m just looking for some help.”

“I’m sorry. Have a seat, will you? It hurts my neck to sit here looking up at you.”

I went back to the chair across from him and sat.

“Okay,” he said, “what is it you want to do?”

The thing I wanted was impossible—Haley back, everything the way it was before—so I didn’t bother to answer his question. Instead I said, “You say I’m supposed to think about what’s true, but how am I supposed to do that when the truth keeps changing all the time?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken there. The truth never changes.”

“Miss Lane was here. That was true. Then I let somebody kill her. Now she’s not here, so it’s not true anymore.”

“You’re talking about a truth. I’m talking about truth. Listen, this is important. You’re talking about rain. I’m talking about water. You’re talking about wind. I’m talking about air. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“It’s about faith, Malcolm. You have to have a little faith that this world isn’t everything or all that matters. That there’s a plan at work beyond our understanding. That’s what makes things true in the final, absolute, unchanging sense. Like air exists even though the wind isn’t blowing to prove it. Like water exists whether there’s rain falling or not.”

I was shaking my head. “I have to have something real. You don’t need to tell me this world isn’t everything. I know that. I’ve been outside this world. It nearly killed me. And the only thing that saved me was knowing there was something back here in the real world. Not pie in the sky. Something I could see and touch, something actually there, outside of me. I just need you to help me focus on that kind of truth so I won’t go back to being crazy.”

“You say you knew there was something real. You mean you knew that while you were still lost in the delusions?”

“Yes.”

“But how did you know that? When you were still hallucinating all the time, how did you know that anything existed other than the craziness inside your head?”

“I made myself remember. There were all these constant disco

Ta

He leaned to his right, placed his elbow on the arm of the chair, and rested his temple on his fist. He considered me that way for a few seconds, as if I was a mildly interesting specimen.

Finally he said, “In the middle of the craziness you decided to believe something was real, not because you had solid evidence but simply because you needed to, and that decision saved you, actually in fact and in reality saved you, and now you’re seriously sitting there and telling me you have no use for faith?”

I stared at a spot on the wall beyond his head. When he put it that way, my logic did seem a little out of whack. “Like I said, I’ve been mixed up.”

“There’s no shame in it, Malcolm. Grief will do that to a man.”

“I let her down, Bud. She was counting on me, and I let her down.”

“Are you talking about Haley Lane again?”

“I let her die.”

“As I understand it, you were completely incapacitated.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it matters. You do know that, don’t you?”

I found I couldn’t speak.

“Malcolm?” said Ta

I shook my head and covered my eyes with the palm of my right hand.

He leaned over and put a hand on my knee. “What was this woman to you?”

It took another moment before I trusted myself to speak. “What we talk about in here, it’s confidential?”

“I’m not a priest, and this isn’t a confessional, but unless I’m ordered to reveal the details of this conversation, you have my word it won’t go any further.”

“She was my wife.”

He leaned back in his chair and stared at me. “You and Haley Lane were married?”

I nodded.

“Oh, Malcolm. I’m so sorry.”

I had nothing to say.

After a few moments, he said, “You know, the press seems like it’s got nothing better to do than dig up dirt on that whole Hollywood crowd, and the Hollywood people seem to make it easy for them. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single negative thing about her.”

I said, “I wish you could have known her, Bud. She was magnificent.”

“Seems like I remember reading that she did a lot of charity work.”

“People have no idea how much she did.”

He nodded. “Okay, Malcolm, here’s what you do. A couple of things, actually. You listening?”