Finals (29 page)

“
I’m certain you’re aware of what needs to be done now, Wayne,” I heard the priest say, as I now stared incomprehensively at this portrait of the oldest building on campus in an attempt to gather my wits about me.

Taking an immense guzzle of the alcohol I was beginning to get accustomed to, I turned and angrily began telling the old man off. “You’re going to turn me in? I’m like your son and you’re going to sit here and pretend you don’t care. I know you do because you just told me that Vietnam story that I know you haven’t told to just anyone. Not to mention, I’ve told you a bunch of the fucking details about my life. Now, it’s like I’m nothing to you!”

The booze was apparently causing me to revert back to my old rebellious high school days because as I continued to empty my glass more nonsensical bullshit flowed from my lips. My head ached immensely. Trying to convey my side of the story was far more difficult than I would have guessed. As much as my darkness continued to fight, my overwhelmed logic knew it was futile. I sensed I had reached the end.

Father O’Connor sat patiently waiting, as I continued my tirade, looking for an opening to speak. “This has absolutely nothing to do with our relationship, Wayne but it has everything to do with the laws appointed to us by our government and our Creator,” he said, when my breath finally gave way.

I was certainly too drunk to listen to any philosophical or religious justification about why I was in the wrong. Again reaching for the bottle, I snatched it away from the priest before he was able to get his mitts on it and I served myself as I started jabbering once again.

“
You told me that whole story about Finch and the war because you felt guilty about
everything
. How would you feel going through that for the second time, huh?” I’m not a bad guy. Those guys, the guys I killed, those were the bad guys, and they was gonna keep doing bad stuff if it wasn’t for me. Brent was into drugs, into coke and was destroying lives. He wasn’t a good person. And Harvey
fuckin’
raped chicks.
Raped ‘
em
,
Father. It was wrong, yeah, but it was right too. Don’t ya think I woulda
been
caught by now if I was supposed to? This is fate Father, and the one thing in my way is you. You’re sitting here, pointing your finger and judging me when you just told me how those boys like Finch dying was your bad. Could you live with yourself doing that again? Putting me behind bars all because of you?”

I inhaled the rest of my scotch and stood there waiting for a response. However, as I gazed at the priest hoping for an answer, my eyes started to feel like a ton of bricks, and my head was throbbing and feverish. When Father O’Connor did at last move his lips, I was unable to grasp what was coming out of them. With the scene becoming dark and fuzzy, I moved back to my chair and slumped into it, closing my weighty, weary eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

M
y head was throbbing as I regained consciousness. It felt as if a muscular toddler was attempting to bash in my skull with a plastic Wiffle ball bat, but when I opened my eyes to check the child had scampered away. It took a few minutes for me to realize I was sitting in Father O’Connor’s now abandoned office, the scent of scotch perforating from my being.

Oh God, what had I done last night? I had drunkenly confessed to my murders. My shirt was already drenched in sweat. I felt sick, like I was going to throw up, I needed to find a place to recuperate and come up with a game plan
. A
place that wasn’t Father O’Connor’s apartment.

Silently, I opened the door to the office and tiptoed lightly through the hallway, ever so gently opening the front door and closing it with tenderness.

I had no clue what time it was, but it was still dark outside so I knew it had to be early. The queasiness in my stomach was growing stronger by the second and I knew I had to find a place nearby before I blew chunks all over The Village walkway.

Neighboring O’Connor’s apartment was The Village’s church and adjacent to the tiny chapel were the public bathrooms. I grabbed the handle and flung the door open fiercely, racing inside to find an open toilet.

I’m not sure how long I kneeled over that toilet puking my guts out, but it seemed like an eternity. When my stomach was finally empty, I curled into a pathetic ball around the toilet’s base and closed my eyes.

Is this what the final hours had come to, wrapped around a toilet, regretting my many, many stupid decisions? In spite of someone learning the truth about my dastardly deeds, I did feel sorry for blasting Father O’Connor. It wasn’t my place to scream at him in such a manner, despite being drunk and coming to the conclusion that life in a jail cell was inevitable. What did I honestly expect him to do? What do you tell a person who murdered his classmates? “Oh, you’ll be fine. I bet no one will even care they’re gone.” There was nothing he did that I wouldn’t have done had I been in his shoes. Miserable disappointments coinciding with shameful sorrow were the final emotions I had evoked from my beloved priest and it really made me feel like a genuine jerk.

Father O’Connor did not have the easy task of admitting to the police that one of his most beloved students was a homicidal maniac, but I hadn’t thought about Hayley having that same problem. The sappy romantic in me believed my adored ex was going to share her feelings after centuries of bottling up her emotions, but was that the real purpose of our little get-together yesterday? I doubted it. She was going to tell me she knew I was a classmate-killing lunatic, and just like Father O’Connor, she wanted some justification for my killings before turning me over to the police.

With the support of the seat, I pulled myself up, flushing once more before lowering my bottom onto the white plastic. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and turned it on. After the initial start-up jiggle the phone jumped to life. It was 5:30 a.m. No wonder I felt like crap. Within a few seconds, another little jiggle sounded and the symbol indicating I had a text became visible.

“
Hey!!! Where did you go? I want you to come back? :)” read the text from Hayley.

Her cutesy act was wearing thin and I was tempted to text back a whole bunch of expletives and ask why she felt the urge to turn the guy she was “in love with” over to the police, but I managed to refrain. Instead of sending back a slanderous message, I texted
,
“Sorry about last night. Where are you now?”

I had no clue whether Hayley had talked to the police at this point, but I was guessing Father O’Connor was bound to tell them sooner rather than later given my confession last night. I anticipated I had two maybe three hours until the campus was covered with yellow police tape and my getaway plans were thwarted. As the seconds ticked down until the looming hour of my capture, I decided I had one thing left to resolve before heading to the clink. I had to talk with Hayley.

†

In one of my favorite Jack Johnson songs he sings, “I sing ya songs, I dance a dance. I gave your friends all a chance. Putting up with them wasn’t worth never having you.”
In many respects, this statement accurately describes my feelings towards Hayley’s roommates. Having a discussion with Hayley’s friends was more uncomfortable than watching a porno with your parents. Simply stated, my experiences were never very pleasant.

Conceived from two marijuana-loving, tree-hugging liberals, Willow Sanders was one of the most peculiar girls I have ever encountered. Willow was an English major who loved medieval literature, which I’m guessing is stuff like
Beowulf
but I could be wrong. For my extensive purposes, I never like to read anything over a decade old, let alone a century old
.
Honestly how often do people mention
Beowulf
or Chaucer’s
The Canterbury Tales
at a party? Oh, that’s right, never. Thus the reason having conversations with her was usually a mind numbing experience. When she wasn’t reading outdated literature, Willow spent her free time practicing her French conversational skills and playing the piccolo, the reject of the flute family.

To this day, I still firmly believe that Hayley’s other roommate, Avery Decker, could become an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers. Avery was one of those overconfident big girls who likely gained her ill-conceived bravado from constant parental encouragement. Her scandalous attire frequently made me want to staple my eyelids together. One encounter that I’ve tried to erase from my mind that seemingly won’t go again away occurred when I saw her at a party wearing a bright pink tube top and matching hot pink pants. I believe I puked in my mouth a little when I turned the corner to find her bending over to pick up her purse. I also hated the fact that she called me “dude” whenever we ran into each other. For one thing, she was in half of my classes and I had dated one her best friends, meaning she knew my name. Secondly, I hate girls saying the word “dude.” It’s a complete turn off in my book. To me, a dude is someone you share exaggerated sexual feats with while you stuff your face with nachos and pound back a couple of brewskis, not an overly plump chubster.

I normally tried to avoid these two mutants at all costs, but I knew they would know where Hayley was if she wasn’t in the apartment. I hoped to high heaven she would be there to avoid a painful discussion with either roommate, and so I wouldn’t have to continue to run around like a chicken with my head cut off looking for her.

If today was my last day as a free man, and at this point, that appeared to be the case, I was going to see Hayley no matter who or what got in my way. I still didn’t know what I was going to say if I did finally find her. She cared about me, that was certain, but she also was probably the one responsible for informing the police.

With my rap sheet, conjugal visits were out of the question, and spending my last few hours making love to a beautiful woman was one of my best alternatives. Slowly cutting each of her fingers off as she watched had a nice ring to it too, since her dexterous little extremities may have sealed my fate, if she had emailed or called the police. Still, I needed to locate the short blonde first before selecting the best course of action.

I am an advocate for beauty sleep and I find it to be cruel to wake anyone before 8:00 a.m. Then again, since these were my final hours and since I hated Hayley’s roommates with a passion, the thought of waking them at such an unholy hour wasn’t too unnerving.

As I approached their door, I heard a faint murmur that sounded an awful lot like the television, as well as thunderous footsteps, which meant Avery was up at least. Ringing the doorbell, I prayed that Hayley was awake too.

Willow opened the door wearing one of those atrocious wolf baying at the moon t-shirts that you find in Indian casinos along with black jazz pants. In spite of the early hour, Willow’s dark hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail and her smirking face gave off the impression she wasn’t in dire need of a mocha like I was at the moment.

“
Hello, Wayne. I haven’t seen you in eons. Are you having a pleasant morning?” Willow asked, in an unusual upbeat tone, illustrating why she was obviously friends with Hayley.

“
I’m fine and yourself?” I asked, trying to be cordial.

“
You don’t look fine, Wayne,” said Willow, looking me up and down as if she was a mother observing her child before the arrival of the school bus.

“
Thanks for the concern Willow, but I’m great. Is Hayley here?”

“
If I may speak candidly Wayne, you usually appear well groomed and I imagine you spend time primping in the morning, as to prepare for the day ahead. However, this morning it looks as though you slept with an owl.”

“
An owl?” I said, rather confused. Either Willow’s inadvertent tangent was way out in left field like the majority of her statements or I was way too hung over for this conversation. Whatever the case, I did not like the direction of this conversation because I was not getting any closer to locating my girl.

“
Yes, an owl, Wayne. As I am sure you are aware, owls are nocturnal creatures that hunt in the dead of night. Did you know that dating back from Greek mythology, the owl is also a symbol for wisdom? Kind of an indicative representation since many students have their noses buried in textbooks as they prepare for finals week. And might I add that since your hair looks as ruffled as the owl’s feathers, I would fathom to guess that you were burning a bit too much of the midnight oil last night,” Willow said, letting out a meek laugh as though she actually deemed something she had said to be humorous.

Feeling as though I was in the middle of a lecture from a PBS children’s television show, I was becoming more and more upset that I was wasting my time talking with this oddball.

“
You caught me, I went out last night to find an owl so I could finally figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of Tootsie pop,” I said sarcastically. “Is Hayley here? I need to see her.”