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O is for — Or else.  It all depends on who actually says it

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When my older brother used to say ‘or else’, it usually meant that if I didn’t do what he asked, I would find myself on the end of my father’s idea or corporal punishment.

I hated my brother for all of my teenage years and then some.

What I learned from it was that everything I did had consequences, mostly those I didn’t like, even if what I did wasn’t bad.  Someone could always put a spin on them so that it sounded a lot worse than the actual outcome

It was the reason why, in the end, I did nothing of consequence, and it meant that by the time I reached the pivotal age of forty, I had done nothing with my life.

No special girl, no marriage and divorce, a run-down car, a rented rubbish pile that could be called an apartment, and nothing of any consequence.

I was always with one foot out the door.  No attachments to people or possessions, and to a certain degree, free as a bird.

And I might have stayed that way if I had not answered a phone call and stayed in one place long enough to receive a letter and an invitation.

To a high school reunion.

Josie Brixton, another name for the nemesis Josephine, was the one girl i hated more than my brother.  It might have been because they were boyfriend and girlfriend all through high school, and she tormented me as much, if not worse, than he did.

They had their prom moment; I wished them well and then promptly packed a small bag and ran away from home.  They had driven me to it, and with no support or relief from my parents, I no longer wanted to be part of that family.

I had a plan, as good a plan as a seventeen-year-old could come up with.  I was going to find a jog on a ship and sail the seven seas until I could forget about the people who made my life impossible.

Of course, if it had been the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, that plan would have worked well, but in the twenty-first century.  Instead I hopped on a train until a ticket inspector threw me off, in a small rural town in a place I’d never hear of, and when I asked at the nearest hotel where I could find a room, he directed me to a farm about six miles put of town, a farm always looking for workers.

The farmer, an old and lonely man, wife recently deceased and children gone, couldn’t pay much but offered a room, one his son had lived in until he left, and a job doing chores he couldn’t do himself, for the prove of a room and food.   And a slice of the profits, if there were any.

I stayed for ten years.

No one asked where I came from. No one was really interested in who I was, and that suited me fine.  I stayed until he died.  Then, the children returned and fought over the inheritance.  Five greedy, horrible children whom I left to sort themselves out.  I read later that one shot the other four and then went to prison for the rest of his life.

Clearly, he had more problems than I did.

Twenty-three years later, I was on the other side of the country, a cleaner in an old hospital, working the night shift.

I made the mistake of never getting rid of my old phone number, and that was how Josephine found me.  It was a number that seemed familiar but not a family one.  I never spoke to any of them again.

“Hello?”

“I’m looking for a man named Christopher Blunt.”  The voice sounded familiar, too.

“Speaking.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath, then, ” My God, you are alive?”

“Last I looked.”  Then I recognised the voice and its little tonal inflections.  Josephine, the kitchen from hell.

I disconnected the call.  I never wanted to speak to her again, either.  More than likely, she was married to my brother, and he was definitely on my “I don’t want to see” list.

The phone rang again, the same number.  I ignored it and then switched off the phone.  No one ever rang me, but that was more likely because I never gave anyone my number.

But over the next seven days, I mulled over why she would be calling me.  When I told Wally, my daytime counterpart, at the shift change, he said in his usual philosophical way, “Things happen for a reason.”

He was probably right.

My brother was missing, making my life miserable.

In a moment of weakness, I answered the phone again.

Before I could get a word in, she said, “Don’t  hang up.”

I said, in my best taciturn manner, “Then don’t call me.  The fact I haven’t called you or anyone for twenty-three years should be a clear enough reason.”

“You caused a great deal of concern.  No one knew what happened to you.  We all believed you had been kidnapped and killed.  Or worse.  We had the sheriff, the county police, the state troopers, and then the FBI.  Your parents were suspects for years, and your brother spent time in jail until he could prove his innocence.  I guess, in a sense, they all deserved it.  Even I was terrible to you.”

I shrugged.  No apology would ever make up for what they did to me.

“Who are you calling?”

“A reunion at the high school.  They’re bulldozing it and putting up a shopping mall.  Last chance to relive those happy school memories.”

It was probably the line she used on all the ex-students.  None of my memories were happy.  “If that’s the selling point, you lost me.  The only reason I’d come back is to drive the bulldozer.  With the whole class inside.  Do you really want someone like me there?”

“Everyone’s changed, you know.”

“My brother would never change.”

“Your brother is dead.  Heart attack.  You leaving destroyed everything I’d planned, so maybe I’m just as angry at you as you are with us.”

Well, if I’d planned to piss her off, it worked.  “Then it’s the last I’ll hear about this reunion.  Goodbye Josephine.”

I disconnected the call and then lamented the fact I had managed not to think about any pf them for years and how easily it was to get riled up at just the thought of them.  Right then, I didn’t think I could ever get past that horrible part of life and the people who had made it so.

Of course, life would be simple if we could forget the sins of the past.  I dated a psychiatrist a long time ago, and she attempted to analyse me.  Practise for when she took up practise.

She eventually decided I was a hopeless case and that I needed yo confront those sins of the past.  I just ignored her, but over the years, I had considered going home and then decided I wouldn’t.

Now, perhaps after twenty-three years, it was time.

In the end, it wasn’t a hard decision.  The hospital management told me I could no longer accumulate my leave and told me I had to take it.  All three months of it.

I got in the beat-up car and headed for my hometown, halfway across the country, not knowing if the car would make it.

It did, as far as the city limits, my town now a lot larger than it used to be.  Passing the city limits sign, I picked up a sheriff’s car, and it followed me with lights flashing until I pulled over.

Just what I needed: a speeding ticket.  Only I wasn’t speeding. I was meticulously careful not to show interest.  Actions always had consequences.

Then I watched the deputy get out of the car, adjust his gun, put his hat on, check his reflection in the side window, and then walk towards the driver’s side of my car.

I watched him in the side mirror until, within a few feet, I recognised the face.  Older now,  still the same.  “Bucky Winchester.”  Bucky because he gut bucked off the artificial rodeo bull at the hotel not far from the same city limits I’d just passed.

There was a lot more to that story.

The man’s expression changed, and I knew it was him.  “My God, you’re Christopher Blunt.  You’re dead.”

“Then I can drive off with no charge to answer.”

“Clearly, you’re not dead.  Where have you been?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“Why?”

“Fuck, Bucky, maybe you and the rest of the football teams made my life hell.”

“You were not the only one.  Hell, your brother wouldn’t let us treat you as badly as the others.  Get out of the car.”

“Why?”  Bucky was mean back then. Maybe he was still just as mean.

“Because it’s easier for you to shown me your licence and registration.”

“What was I doing wrong?”

“Nothing, but I still gave to check.”

I shrugged and then got out.  I showed him the documents.

“You been in Maine?”

It was there on licence.

“Among other places.”

“Never thought of coming home?”

“Nope.  Didn’t want to see you lot again.”

“And yet you’re here?  Why?”

“Reunion.”

“There’s going to be a lot of familiar faces, not all of them happy to see you.”

“Then you might have to earn your salary.”

He looked up and down, then stood defensively, hand on gun but still holstered.

“Perhaps it would be for the best that you get back in your vehicle, turn around, and go back to where you came from.  Or else.”

Sound advice from his point of view.  “Or else what, Bucky?”

“I’ll arrest you and put you in jail for the duration.”

The squared soldier look, the very ugly, angry expression he had on his face, and the degree of belligerence I knew he had within him made him look formidable.

Except I knew his weakness.

“Then come and do it, Bucky.”

Boy to man, there was no change in what essentially the definitive schoolyard bully was.

He shrugged.  “You asked for it!”

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©  Charles Heath  2025