Sacrifices of Joy (23 page)

I got as far as the bed and crashed.

As my eyes closed in sleep, I meditated on the meaning of joy, and the determination I had not to let anything steal it from me.

The joy of the Lord is your strength,
another verse echoed within me as I offered up another sacrifice, exchanging my fear for his peace.
The joy of the Lord is your strength.
I set my mind on those words, knowing that I was going to need all the strength I could get for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I was putting this whole business behind me. I was determined that the sun would not set without me having all the answers I needed for myself, my safety, and my sanity.

Tomorrow was reckoning day and I was determined to get a full account from all interest-bearing parties.

4:27 a.m.

My eyes opened before the sun had even decided to get the day started. At least one of us had some sense. I got out of bed, struggling to remember why I was waking up in a hotel near DC and why I had nothing on me but my purse, some cash, and a bag of new tourist-looking clothes from the hotel gift shop. As my memory woke up, I began to plan out my morning. First on my list was to get more information about that man so I could find his whereabouts to direct the attention of authorities to him and off of me. My next task was figuring out how to get home.

I'd been wearing the same clothes for nearly twenty-four hours, so it felt good changing into the ensemble I'd bought from the gift shop. I put my sneakers back on, grabbed all my things and headed to the hotel's computer room. Though I no longer had my notes or the paper that Roman had printed out for me, I had what I needed.

The name J.B. Infinity. I Googled it. No result.

Roman had told me that his school's library was open twenty-four hours a day. I looked up its phone number online and called it on the courtesy phone that sat in the business center.

“I'm trying to find more information about an article I attempted to read on one of your databases yesterday,” I informed the journals specialist to whom I was transferred.

“Sure, what's the name of the article and what information did you need?”

“I don't have the name, just the author. I don't even remember what journal it came from.”

“Okay, give me a second and I'll get onto my master database to see what I can find to help you.”

I held my breath as I heard the librarian's fingertips clicking on a keyboard. After a few moments, she got back on the line. “Okay, what's the name you have?”

“J.B. Infinity.”

The woman chuckled. “Now that's funny. I had a student in here late yesterday looking for more information about that same author. He said he was helping his mother with a research project.”

I let out a light laugh. “Ha, ha, ha, that is funny. Uh, were you able to find any information?”

“As a matter of fact, we did. I called the database company to find out if there was another way to access the article, and was informed that they removed it following a revelation of fraud.”

“Fraud?”

“It's an unusual story, really. The database only publishes theses and dissertations from master's and doctoral students, and this person pulled a fast one over them. He submitted it as his dissertation when in reality he was not enrolled in any real program.”

“What school did he attend?” I held my breath.

“That's the thing. I guess an intern or somebody had been the one to upload and accept the paper, because the school the author listed was simply ‘Life Lessons State University.' The author tried to argue that he or she was getting a PhD. in a self-created program of study based on life experience, and that an accredited institution was not necessary to validate a person's understanding of the world, specifically philosophy and religion.”

That explanation sounded consistent with everything I knew about the man known as J.B. Infinity. He didn't want to be categorized, challenged, or validated by an outside structure. He set and met his own standards of conduct.

“If he didn't want to have an institution validate him, why throw ‘State' in his self-created university?” His reasoning made no sense as I thought out loud.

“Apparently the author stated that he or she was living off of government benefits and that's how his life lessons were being funded.”

“You keep saying ‘he or she.' Did the database company not have any other identifying information?”

“No. All their correspondence with the author was by e-mail. That is what I was told.”

“So no other name, no address?”

“No, nothing. The person I spoke to said that the author gave a city and state of his or her supposed university, but when they looked it up it was in the middle of nowhere. Literally. Like farmland in the middle of Amish country, miles away from anything. That was their first clue that something was awry with the submission. Wait, hold on, please.”

I heard another voice asking the specialist for help finding an article on DNA sequencing, and I knew that my phone call was about to come to an end.

“Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I do have to go,” the woman said when she returned to the line.

“Thank you. You've been very helpful. I'm surprised you remembered all of this.”

“Well, a story that unusual would be difficult to forget. Really, you should thank your son. He did the legwork for you on this one.”

“Huh? Oh,” I replied and we both laughed. “I guess it was too obvious.”

“It would have been too much of a coincidence otherwise, and there's not that many coincidences in one day.”

“You got that right.” I thanked her again and the call disconnected.

Roman thought I had been overreaching, but he must have trusted my judgment enough to try to search for answers.

Then again, knowing him, he may have thought it had something to do with his father. I had no idea what he planned to do with the information I'd given him about RiChard, but it occurred to me that since he said he was taking care of it, I truly felt like I was finally free of my search for answers.

I trusted my son and he trusted me.

I guess, despite my shortcomings, fears, and failures, I'd done a good job with him after all. I would thank him later. If he'd been calling my phone, I did not know. And I didn't want to call any of my loved ones until I had the current situation resolved. My mother and sister would just panic, my father would grunt loudly and pass the phone back to my mother, and Laz . . . Well, he would just tell me, as he already did in so many words, that I was completely on my own.

Leon would have known what to do.

I stared at the phone I'd just hung up.

In the unlikely event that authorities were tracking my loved ones' phones waiting for me to call, Leon would not be on that radar. I had not talked to him in nearly three years.

I knew his cell phone number by heart. I'd dialed it in my dreams, mumbled it in my waking hours, whispered it in my prayers.

I picked up the phone and dialed before I gave it another thought.

“Hi, you've reached Sam and Sandra Ellison,” a chipper female voice greeted me. “We can't take your call right now, but leave a message and we'll call you when we can.”

Someone else had his number.

Leon was gone. There was no way to reach him. For three years, I'd held on to that number: my last life line, my final resort.

And he was not there.

I was on my own. I was officially, unequivocally, completely alone.

I am with you always, even unto the end of the world:
Jesus' last words to his disciples before he ascended to heaven. For some reason, that's just where I felt like Jesus and I were going. To the end of the world.

I took the Metro to Union Station. Caught a train to Baltimore. Transferred to the light rail and then boarded a bus to Liberty Heights. I got off in front of a dollar store, the destination my only plan to address my lack of wheels.

The store had just opened and I saw her clearing out seasonal merchandise on a shelf by the front door.

“Yvette,” I called out to my younger sister and she turned around.

It was her first real job since she'd become a mother at age sixteen. That was twenty years ago. She'd had a couple of other gigs over the years that my mom or dad managed to get her, but she always seemed to lose them or quit after only a few weeks. This job at the dollar store had held out for over two years. She'd started as a part-time cashier and had now worked her way up to a full-time assistant manager.

It was not easy work for her, and not just because of the heavy lifting and crazy hours. She had to learn to watch her tongue, and dealing with the general public and moody management had not been an easy teacher.

I was proud of her.

We never talked about it.

Her oldest son Skee-Gee's arrest and subsequent imprisonment for armed robbery and assault just last year seemed to have changed her, aged her, settled her down once and for all. He had seven years left to serve and she had four other children to raise differently.

“Hey, Sienna,” she called back at me over her shoulder, as if it was normal for me to be walking into her store 8:30 on a Saturday morning. I walked over to her, helped her pack some pink stuffed Easter bunnies into a large cardboard box. One let out a loud plastic squeak as she threw heavy bags of jelly beans on top of it.

“You look tired.” I helped her seal up the box.

“Yeah.”

“Everything okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” She turned to another aisle. I followed.

“Wedding plans going well?”

Her face brightened slightly and a small smile took over her lips for a quick second. “Yup.” She took out a box cutter and opened up a package filled with wind chimes. They tingled and clanged in the otherwise quiet store. “What you need, Sienna?” she finally asked, pausing for a moment, two chimes dangling in her hand.

“I need to use your car.” I swallowed and felt my throat bob up and down.

She stared at me a second, then looked back at her work. “My keys are under that first register.”

“Thank you. I'll bring it back before you get off.”

“No worries. I can get Demari to pick me up when I'm done.”

“Thank you,” I said again, grateful that she hadn't asked me any questions. I turned to leave. “Oh.” I turned back to her. “By any chance, did you move my car from BWI's parking lot last weekend and drive it to my home Sunday night?”

“Now why would I do that?” She glared.

“Nothing.”
Let me get out of here.
“Thanks, sis,” I called out to her as I grabbed the keys to her '99 Buick Century. The air conditioning didn't work and it stalled on occasion, but I was glad to have a way to get around for the moment.

I had more plans.

“Oh, one more thing.” I walked back over to her. “Do you have another box cutter and do you know where I can get a prepaid phone?”

Yvette didn't even raise an eyebrow. “Here, just use mine.” She folded up the box cutter she'd been using and put it in my hand and then grabbed a cheap cell phone out of her apron pocket.

I didn't want to tell her that I wanted a phone with no ties to anyone, but I'd never known my sister to share anything with me without a fight. I accepted both. Her keys jingled in my hand as I walked toward the front door.

“Sienna,” she called after me. I looked back and she looked away. “Be careful out there.”

I would have said thank you one more time, but she had already disappeared down another aisle.

“Love you, sis,” I whispered and shut the door behind me.

Rare books.

One thing that jumped out at me from the night I saw RiChard in that old church library was that there had been a section in it for rare books. The idea that a forgotten library could house books that were seldom seen by the masses appealed to me. I hoped that this appeal was my gut guiding me to the next step on my journey. J.B. Infinity's hardcover volume did not show up on any Internet search, except for the cached frame of a young man—a now-dead young man—holding it up for a Webcam. If this book wasn't considered rare, I didn't know what would be.

Of course that did not mean any bookstore or library had it; heck, even the college database had deleted the dissertation it was based on from its listings. And, if for some crazy reason that young man's death was somehow related to that book, I was certain it would not be simply sitting on a shelf for purchase.

But if I was willing to come to such a drastic conclusion, that the young man's unfortunate accident had something to do with that book, then it would not be such a stretch for me to believe that I could find that book by following my latest hunch about rare book stores.

I'd done an Internet search of rare book stores in Baltimore before I left the hotel and I had the printed list with directions in my purse. I took the list out and planned my stops. Most of the bookstores were either in or near downtown.

“Sorry, I doubt that we carry that book you're describing.” A man in gold wire frames looked down at me from the elevated platform where his antiquated cash register sat. “Just because a book is not commonly known, that does not make it rare in the pure sense of the word. It has to have some type of intrinsic value. A self-published work on religion and philosophy would not be here just because it's not at Barnes & Noble.”

“J.B. Infinity? Nah, haven't heard of that.” A young woman with fiery red hair and facial tattoos shook her head apologetically at the next rare book store. “That name isn't showing up in our catalogue either.”

“Ma'am, this is a comic book shop.”

“Oops. Sorry.” I left the third shop wondering if I needed to come up with another plan.

The fourth shop had not yet opened for the day and the fifth and sixth shops were boarded up, vacant.

“Should I even bother?” I mumbled to myself as I pulled up to bookstore number seven. This one was in Charles Village, an area of the city known for its large, Victorian-style row homes, many of which had brightly colored porches and pillars and ornate architectural details. The bookstore I entered was in the basement of such a row house.

A burly white man with a gray bushy beard was just opening the front door as I descended the steps. “You're up early looking for books.” He smiled at me as the door swung open with a loud thud.

“I'm looking for a specific one. I don't think the author's name is on it and I barely remember the very long title; but I can recall some key words from it.” I smiled back as I followed the man. Both he and the shop smelled of tobacco. I had to blink several times to adjust to the dimness of the small room. As my eyes did adjust, my heart sank. There would be no success here, I surmised. The place had only a few bookshelves with even fewer books.

How is this even a store?
I kept the smile on my face despite my disappointment.

“All right, what words from the title do you have for me? I'll see if it sounds familiar.” He went through great motions, straining and stretching, to flick on several light switches. Even then the room still felt dark.

“Deconstructing heroism. Theological. Philosophical. Finite universe.”

“Finite universe, heroism.” The man repeated after me, scratching his balding hairline as he looked up at a teardrop chandelier that had only one working light bulb. “Was it a little blue book with gold letters on the front?”

“Yes.” My heart quickened its pace.

“I may still have it. Not what I usually keep in my stock, but I might not have gotten rid of it yet.”

“Not what you usually keep in stock? You might have gotten rid of it?” I repeated, trying to keep up.

“Yeah. I saw it at a flea market a few months back and would have thought nothing of it, except the print inside looked like it was made from an old-fashioned printing press. Do you know how rare that is nowadays?”

“No, I—”

“I mean, it looked like it was made with one of those presses where you do one page at a time. Have you ever seen one of those before?” The man spoke faster, became more excited as he explained the rarity, all the while fumbling with stacks of books that were out of my view behind a long counter. “You gotta place each letter line by line on one side, on the frame; and then you gotta blot the letters with ink using big pads. Then you press out each page one at a time, like I said. They used to do that in the olden days. Do you know how long that would take?”

“No, I—”

“You have to go through that process for each page, letter by letter, and there were a lot of pages in that book. I can't imagine there being more than a few copies. I don't know if I have one here anymore.”

“Was there a reason you would not have kept it?” I was relieved to finally get out a full sentence, but concerned about what his answer would be.

“Oh, there was a reason, and a good one, too.” The man stopped fumbling through the piles and frowned up at me. “That book was crazy, if you ask me. I was fascinated by the print, but when I actually sat down and started reading what it said, I knew that I didn't want that book anywhere nearby. It was talking about good and evil, heroes and villains and how—in the author's opinion I must stress—the two were backward. Honestly, I felt like I was reading a recipe for how a madman could cook up some trouble, hurt people, kill people, set other people up.”

“You mean like framing others for a crime?”

“Yeah, but it was about more than framing someone for a crime just for crime's sake. It was about proving a point that good and evil can flip on each other and the world would know no different. I'm sorry, miss.” The man shook his head, giving his shelves one final look through. “I'm pretty sure I got rid of it, 'cause it made me too uncomfortable.”

“Thanks for your time. You've been helpful.” I was disappointed that I didn't have the book, but if that man thought its pages read like a crime manifesto, maybe even a terror plot, then maybe the authorities would be able to get a copy of the deleted dissertation from that database of graduate school papers.

It made sense to me. He wanted his story out, but the database didn't accept it. I'd have been willing to bet that he printed the book by hand himself as a way of keeping it in print.
But why not make it public? And why would a young man who had access to it suddenly be dead? And where the heck do you get a printing press from?

As I headed back to my car, I realized that for as many answers as I thought I'd just gotten from the shop owner, I had nothing but more questions.

I started my engine but a loud shout caught my attention.

“Wait, miss,” the store owner called after me, a sheet of paper dangling from his hands.

I rolled down my window.

“I don't know if this will help.” Coffee cake crumbs spilled down his beard and were matted into his moustache. “But I remembered that I did make a copy of one page from that book, just so I could better analyze the print one day. I copied the least creepy page, the title page. There was nothing crazy about that page; well, unless you count that ridiculously long title.” He guffawed. “Here, you can keep it. I made another copy.” He passed me the single sheet through my window and turned back toward his shop.

I looked at the sheet, read it from top to bottom, then called after him just before he disappeared down the stairwell.

“Excuse me, sir. You said you found the book at a flea market. Where was this?”

“Oh, not too far from this little town called Lasker up in central Pennsylvania. My old lady likes buying Amish crafts and such and makes me drive her up there every now and then. I don't mind much, 'cause if we pass a flea market or a yard sale, I always find a book or two to bring back, you know?” He looked down to his basement entrance door. “I got to go, miss. My phone is ringing.”

Amish country.

Old-fashioned printing press.

Life Lessons State University on farmland “miles away from anything.”

An obsession with religion and philosophy, heroes and villains.

Was J.B. Infinity an outcast from one of those peaceful Amish communities?
“I have not talked to anyone in years,”
he'd told me. Or was he simply hiding among them, shielded from discovery since they did not use modern technology like computers and televisions, smart phones. The Internet.

Lasker, Pennsylvania.

I looked at the sheet of paper in my hands again.

There was no author listed, but the publisher's name was printed clearly at the bottom of the page.
Through the Window Press.

And underneath was a familiar hand-drawn illustration of a window framed with striped curtains, a cat sitting on its sill.