The Trouble With Bodyguards: Part 2 (2 page)

              Resting in the porch swing, her feet tucked beneath her as the afternoon sun warmed her bruised and battered face, Alex watched as the dark town car crawled down the drive to the house. It was Rick, coming to talk to her father about the incident, the kidnapping, she assumed. He hadn’t come to hospital to check on her well-being, leaving her alone in the darkness to fend for herself. She yearned to have the comfort of his arms around her, holding her tight. Since the night that they had spent together, their passions running high, he had been cold and distant, emotionally shut off from her to the point of rudeness.

              She just wanted to understand. To know why all of this was happening to her, and what his involvement in the whole thing was. As the car came to a stop in front of the house, Alex slowly stood from the swing, her body aches complaining at the movement, and walked into the dimness of the main hall. The doorbell chimed, ringing softly through the house, and Alex made her way to the door, her bare feet making no sound on the tile floor of the hall as she crossed the room.

              A momentary look of surprise crossed his face when she opened the door, followed by the serious expression that was his professional mask. She leaned against the door frame, crossing her arms around her chest, an act of protection from whatever dangers this man would bring into her life.

              “Hi,” she said. “Are you here to see my dad?”

              “Yeah,” he said, pulling the sunglasses from his face. He wore his usual uniform, form-fitting black t-shirt and jeans, and he looked magnificent with the sun behind him, his skin glowing with the heat of the day. “But,” he said, hesitating, “I think I should explain things to you first.”

              She gasped, her fingertips going instinctually to her lips, as she saw the bruise across the bridge of his nose, its darkness spreading, pooling under his right eye. Guilt overwhelmed her: she had done that to him, she had broken his nose while she struggled with him last night in her panic. “Oh Rick,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

              “Why?” he asked, concern in his dark eyes. “Oh, the nose. It’s all good, you were freaked out. I would have done the same, or worse, if I were you.”

              “But doesn’t it hurt?” she asked, reaching out her fingertips, as if to pluck the tenderness from his wound. She would take his pain away, into herself, if she could. He didn’t deserve to suffer after trying to rescue her.

              “I’ll survive,” he said, taking a step back, avoiding her touch. “Is there somewhere that we can talk?”

              “Sure,” she said, tucking her hand into her pocket, her attempt to touch him rejected. She held the door open for him, stepping to the side to allow him to slip past her into the spacious hall. “Let’s go out on the veranda,” she said, leading the way to the French doors leading onto the wide porch facing the river to the east of the house. She slid into one of the deck chairs, pulling her legs up beneath her, and gestured for him to sit beside her.

              He sat, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He looked off into the distance, toward the river, the blazing color of the setting sun reflecting in his dark eyes. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, as if unsure as to where he should start.

              He cleared his throat, not turning to her as he began, but telling his story to the shadows lengthening on the lawn. “We didn't always know that my brother was,” he paused, searching for the right words, “troubled. He grew up just like any other kid, playing baseball in the park, riding his bike through the neighborhood, watching cartoons on Saturday morning. I was right there with him, doing all those things. We grew up normal, you know?”

              Alex could only picture what normal meant to him. Having grown up the way she did, she was sure that her idea of a normal childhood was vastly different than his own. In her mind’s eye, she saw two young boys, lying on a braided rug in front of the television, spooning sugared cereal into their mouths, poking each other as they enjoyed their weekend animated ritual together.

              “Nothing really changed until he started high school. I always thought that it was the pressure, going through puberty, while dealing with the academic and social struggles of being a teenage boy. It was just too much for him, I think.” He ran his fingers through his hair, frustration apparent in the creases around his eyes as he continued, “He started spending more and more time by himself. He would lock himself away in his room, heading right in there as soon as we were home from school, shutting everyone out. On weekends, we sometimes wouldn't see him for an entire day; he just never came out. Mom worried about him, but Dad just excused it as teenage angst, saying that this was his form of rebellion, not spending time the family, and that he would grow up and get over it. But he didn't.”

              He turned to Alex for the first time, and she could see the horror and anguish in his eyes. Something terrible had become of this man's little brother, the boy that he had spent more time with, been closer to than any other human being on this earth. She was not sure that she wanted to hear the rest of the story, to see the suffering in Rick's eyes, but she held her tongue, tightening her arms around herself as a cool breeze blew over them both, raising gooseflesh on her skin.

              “The house that I grew up in had really thin walls, like paper,” he said, looking away from her again, lost back in the world of his past. “Late at night, when the house was quiet, I could hear him in his room, mumbling to himself. He didn't sleep, just sat up at night, talking. It was like he was having a conversation with someone, someone who wasn't there. I tried to listen, but could only pick up bits and pieces, and it scared me. I went to my parents, told them about the things that I had heard. My dad tried to brush it off again, making light of the situation, but I saw in my mother's eyes that she had seen the changes in him too, and that she was worried. She tried to talk to him about it, the next morning at breakfast, and he exploded. He shoved all the breakfast dishes, the food, the coffee, to the floor, screaming in rage. Said he felt violated, that we were conspiring against him, that no one loved him. Then he ran out of the house, crying, and didn't come home for two days. We looked everywhere for him, called all of our friends from school. Not like he had many friends left; he had alienated all of the boys that he had known from before, preferring to spend time in seclusion then socialize with anyone else. I walked the woods for hours, calling his name, my voice echoing back at me from the emptiness. To this day, I still don't know where he went when he left that day.

              “My mother was a wreck,” he continued, “lying in bed crying, staring out the window, waiting for him to return. She was sure that she had somehow caused him to lash out, to destroy her kitchen then leave her in such a state of distress. She needed him to return, her little boy, so that she could put her arms around him and snuggle him until he was better. But he didn't get better. When he returned, filthy and starved, he headed back into his room, shutting us off from his world, his place of solace and contentment. Mom tried to talk to him, to reach out to him, but he wouldn't even acknowledge that she was in the same room. He ignored her pleas, and she would often head into her room in tears after trying to spend time with him.

              “It went on for months.” He twisted his hands as he talked, lost in the memories, seeing his mother’s tears vividly in his mind’s eye. “I tried to reach out to him, offered to take him with me when I went to go hang out with my friends. I wanted to be like Dad, to believe that he would just snap out of it, just come out of his room one morning, smiling at us all, and sit down at the breakfast table to eat pancakes, normal.

              “But it just never happened. Years went by, with him locked behind that door. He would sit at the table at dinner, picking listlessly at his meal. We didn’t dare attempt to engage him in conversation; he would dart back into his cave at the slightest provocation. He lost weight, his bones poking out of his skin more than is normal for a preteen boy. His skin was sallow, pale and sickly from a lack of natural light. Dark circles ringed his eyes, evidence of his nightly ritual of sitting in the dark, holding himself, and laughing at what the nothing had to say instead of sleeping.

              “My parents began to worry about his health, and the fear that he might take his own life became a reality that none of us wanted to talk about, the elephant in the room, so to speak. Mom and Dad would argue in whispers about what they could do to help bring their little boy back from the darkness. Dad seemed to think that he needed friends, outings, discipline, all of the things that keep a normal boy in line. Mom knew, she could see that he was not normal, that he needed some kind of help. She wanted to take him to a doctor, a psychiatrist, who may be able to explain to her why her little boy had turned into such a reclusive monster, practically overnight.”

              Rick held his head in his hands, his mind echoing with the screams of his brother and mom that night. She had broached the subject over dinner, gently suggesting that Jacob go see a doctor. His brother’s eyes had risen from where they were staring at his half-eaten plate, unbridled hatred boring into his mother’s heart as he stared at her.

              “Doctor,” Jake said, the first words that he had spoken to her in months, his tone odd, disconnected, eerie. “Do you mean a shrink, Mom?”

              “Well, Jacob,” she said, squirming uncomfortably under the penetrating gaze of her youngest son. “We all love you very much, and you seem to be struggling.”

              “Uh huh,” said Jake, laying his fork gently down next to his plate. “And you think that I need to see a shrink.”

              “It wouldn’t hurt to go and talk with someone,” said his mother, folding her hands in her lap.

              “What do you expect the outcome of this little visit to be, Mother?” said his brother, leaning his head on his hand, his elbow propped on the table. Rick stared at this young man, unable to comprehend how his sweet and playful younger brother had morphed into this, this creature, in just a few months. An unhealthy glow flickered in his eyes, a burning hatred for a woman whom he had cherished dearly, wandering through the fields on the way home from school, gathering bundles of wildflowers to present to her when he arrived home.

              “I,” she said, hesitating, choking on her words, the strength of his glare too much. She looked away as she said, “I really don’t know.”

              “Perhaps they’ll drug me,” his brother chimed in, a maniacal lilt in his tone, as if he were singing a song to her. “Placate me with tranquilizers. You can prop me up in a corner, put me in my Sunday best, display your perfect son for the neighbors to gawk at.”

              “Jacob,” said his father, silent until now.

              “Maybe,” said his brother, leaning back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. “Maybe they’ll lock me in a cage. Take me away to a safe, white room where no one in this family will have to deal with me anymore.”

              “Baby,” said their mother, reaching across the table, offering her hands to him.

              He was having none of it, shooting up from his chair at the table, pacing around the room as he ranted, his eyes wide, staring at nothing. “Oh, I know,” he said, his voice growing louder as he paced, gesturing wildly with his hands. “A full frontal lobotomy! That would get the job done in one fell swoop!”

              “Stop it, Jake!” said their father, pushing his chair back from the table as he stood abruptly, his face reddening with fury and fear as he saw for the first time how far his youngest son had traversed into madness. Tears rolled down his mother’s cheeks as she tried to catch her breath, whimpering cries emanating from her with each punctuation of his brother’s rants. Their father reached out his arms, crossing toward his raving brother, and Rick shrank back in fear as Jake lashed out, sweeping the dinner dishes from the table, causing them to crash noisily to the dining room floor. He leapt onto a chair, climbing up on the table, his eyes filled with rage as he charged his sobbing mother.

              “Is that what you want, Mom!” Their mother screamed, shoving her chair violently away from the table, attempting to escape him as he came closer to her. Her chair toppled, and she crashed heavily to the floor, her head knocking hard against the hardwood floor, knocking her unconscious.

              “The police were called,” Rick said, making eye contact with Alex for the first time in a long while. “The way that my mother was screaming, the neighbors thought that some crazed axe murderer had broken into our house and was busy slaughtering us all.”

              “Was your mother all right?” asked Alex.

              “She had a concussion,” Rick replied. “They kept her in the hospital for a few days for observation.”

              “And your brother?” Alex asked hesitantly. She wasn’t sure that she really wanted to know, but she held her tongue, letting him continue with his story.

              “The police took him away in handcuffs. I’ll always remember that, standing in the dining room, unable to move, watching as my little brother was dragged through the house by two men in uniform, thrashing and spitting like a wild animal. It was unreal.

              “He was sentenced to assault and battery,” he said, “But instead of sending him to lockup with all of the other criminals, the judge ordered a psychological evaluation. After several days of questioning by different doctors, they judged him to be criminally insane, and sent him to a psychiatric hospital upstate, where he spent the next several months.