Day 126

Writing exercise

…

Nobody believed this story when I told them, because I embellish, I omit, and I invent; in short, I lie.

I never thought the world I had woven for myself to live in would have consequences I could never have imagined.

I mean, it’s not as if I invented a spaceship and told people I was an alien posing as a human sent to suss out earth’s population before my planet sent a peace delegation.

But that didn’t mean it was on my list of stories.

This was a story about self-preservation. I already had the unenviable reputation of telling lies, and it had reached the point where everyone rolled their eyes and simply ignored me.

Except a lie turned into what could be truth, and led to the police swarming around my parents’ house and everyone being roused from their beds at gunpoint.  For me, it was particularly brutal, being dragged out of bed, thrown to the floor, and having three burly policemen hold me down until I was cuffed.

Then, after a few extra blows to reinforce the notion of I tried to escape there would be worse to come, I was unceremoniously dragged from the house in full more of the other family members and worse, the neighbours.

They were not horrified.  I heard one say, “That little shit finally got what he deserved.’  Others had similar sentiments.  My father was stony-faced, my mother was in tears, and my sister, furious

The arrest had broken two of my ribs and made it very difficult to breathe.  My complaints fell on deaf ears until I spewed up a mass of blood in the back of the police car.

Only then did they realise there had been excessive force used, not that it mattered, I was a dangerous criminal, and had to be subdued because I ‘had put up resistance to the extent the arresting officer feared for his life’.

I couldn’t make that up even if I wanted to.  And worse, as the paramedics took me to the hospital, the police officer accompanying me had said no one would believe me if I told them the truth.

The sad fact about that statement is that he was right.

Stabilised and bandaged, but not given any pain killers, I was taken from the emergency room to the police station, tossed in an interview room, and made to sit in an uncomfortable chair for two hours.

The pain was unbearable, and I realised after the first hour in that small, overly hot room, that I was only at the start of the roller-coaster ride.

The bigger question I asked myself was why, after all this time, was I there?

It was not as if I wasn’t well known for living in a fantasy world.  My foster parents, as much as they were dismayed at the trouble I’d brought to their doorstep, knew just how troubled a child I was.

Seventeen years ago, I was found in a house with five dead people: my mother, my father, two brothers, and a sister.  I was a baby, not six months old, who had been spared.

Why?  Because, it was speculated in nearly every newspaper in the country, I was too young to identify the killer or killers.  There had been no motive established, and the half dozen suspects the police had on their list had all been cleared, and, years later, with no clues or evidence available, it had become a cold case.

The thing is, it had traumatised me and for as long as I could remember, I had the recollection of the event, the gunshots that killed my family, and an image of a man or woman looking down at me. 

It was not anyone I could recognise, and had wisely kept those details to myself because no one would have believed me.

But as long as I could remember, and after being placed in foster care, I had constructed a fantasy world for myself, the people I assumed to be my family.  Foster care did that to you, bouncing from one bad home to another, until you finally land in a good one, or you end up on the wrong side of the law.

I’d finally landed in a good one when I was fifteen, but by that time, learning to dodge and weave the brutal, neglectful and horrible people, I’d become so entrenched in a world of lies that even I didn’t know truth from fiction.

But as to why I was in that interview room?

Well, that all started seventeen days ago, the seventeenth anniversary of the murders.  I was home alone, the real members of my new family out celebrating one of my step sisters’ birthdays.

I had not been invited, having been grounded after another incident at school.  I was watching the TV news and saw an item about a man who was from my hometown, a man with a face that registered in the back of my mind.

My first thought was that I’d seen him before, which was not unlikely. He had been the Assistant DA who was in charge of the investigation into my family’s murder, or so I’d been told.

And then I thought nothing more of it until I went to sleep that night and, for some odd reason, relived the events if that night seventeen years ago.

Only I could not have.  I was only a few months old. There was no way I could remember any of it.  But that was not the worst of it.  Lying in bed, I woke suddenly, and before I could clear my thoughts, a face was staring down at me, clear as day.

The man who had been on TV.  It was not possible. 

The reason, I believe, as to why I was there, I told the sheriff about the FBI agent, the fact I’d remembered something that involved Herbert W Winfield.

Seventeen hours later, I had the shit beaten out of me and awaited a fate worse than death.

Many years ago, when I had gotten into trouble as an on-the-cusp teen, I was visited by an FBI agent.  She was investigating a case that, she said, was of national importance.

I thought that the fact that she was visiting me, I had finally reached that proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.  She told me that it was not so much the crimes I’d committed as the fact that I was a person of interest in another crime, the murder of my family.

And the fact that she was currently looking at prospective candidates for President.  We had a president.  What did my father have to do with presenting investigations? She didn’t say, just that if I remembered anything, to call her.

She left a card.  Normally, when I bounced from foster carer to foster carer, I usually took nothing with me.  It seemed serendipitous that I still had it.

I was still thinking about that card when the door opened and the sheriff came in.  Whatever I had done must have been very serious.

He closed the door and leaned against it.

I was breathing shallowly to ease the pain and sweating.  To say I was afraid was an understatement. 

“Lies, especially when they involve very important people, can have far-reaching consequences, Tim.  You and I both know that Mr Winfield had nothing to do with what happened to your family, and to involve him like this, well, I just can’t imagine why you would do so, other than it’s just another of your fantasies.  This time, however, there will be consequences.  Unless, of course, you go out there when we’re finished here and admit your lies and apologise for any harm you may have caused.”

“Then I’m free to go?”

“Unfortunately, not.  You have violated your last parole order, and that means the jail sentence is back on the table.  You will not be seeing daylight for at least five years, Tim.  As I said earlier, there will be consequences this time.  Enough is enough.”

Perhaps, I told myself, I might have been wiser not to share my thoughts, but I had assumed the sheriff would uphold the law.

“I’ll give you time to think about it.”

I had to ask.  “If I don’t agree?”

“You don’t want to go down that path, Tim.  Fifteen minutes.”

He pounded on the door, and a moment later, it opened.  I heard, “Sorry, Sheriff, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

He was almost pushed to one side as the woman came into the cell.  She stopped and gasped when she saw me.

“What the hell happened to him?” She swivelled around to glare at the Sheriff.”

“He resisted arrest.”

“That’s one excuse, Sheriff, but not one that would hold up to investigation.  Come, Tim, I’m taking you out of here.”

“This is my problem, Agent…”

“Thomas, Agent Thomas. This is my problem now. You’d best find yourself a lawyer in case we come back.” Back to me, “Tim.”

I stood, slowly, and winced. It was not lost on her.

“Resisting arrest?”

Outside, in the fresh air, I couldn’t sigh in relief; it hurt too much. There was another FBI type standing next to a black Suburban car, like the ones I’d seen on TV.

“Get in,” she said, her assistant holding the door open for me.

I climbed in, and he shut the door. There was no escaping.

She got in and started driving.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

Except we weren’t. We drove past the exit and straight on up the road, heading for the next county. I figured it wasn’t the time to start asking stupid questions. My first thought, now, was they were not who they said they were, but agents working for Winfield, here to do what he should have done seventeen years ago.

At a railway station at the first town over the county line, she stopped the car. She nodded to the man, and he got out and walked across the road to the diner.

She turned around and looked at me. “We’re supposed to put a bullet in the back of your head and throw you down a disused mine. There are a lot of them around here, and no one would bother looking for you, not even that new family of yours. There’s a bag next to you on the seat. Money and a new identity. You take it, get on that train and then disappear. You show your head above water again, I will find you, and do what I should be doing. I get it. You got a bad break. Now, grow a brain and change your life. Completely. Think you can do that?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m one of the good ones, Tim. Now, you have five minutes before the train comes. The ticket and money are in the bag; keep your head down, and no one needs to know. Now, go.”

They had driven off before I reached the platform, just in time to see the train coming down the line. The ticket was to the other side of the country. My name was Jim Chalk. Orphan. There were the names of five restaurants looking for a general hand. I guess any of the five would take me on. There was an address for a boarding house and a lady’s name.

By the time I arrived, Tim had gone, and Jim had taken over. Finally, I could stop running.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025