The Junebug and Her Mistress

Chapter 7

         Peter had never been what some would call stable. He had worked in newspapers for more years than some reporters had been alive, and through that time he was viewed with a wary infamy by his fellow staff members. He never missed a deadline and his writing was top-notch, but his personality was always slightly off-kilter, like a poorly-supported table. Many felt his sanity hung by a thread and felt guilty when they were proven right.


         In 1990, after a 30-year career in journalism, Peter was relegated to the news desk. He was officially an editor, but took a hands-on approach to leadership. Rather than sitting at a desk and doleing out tasks, he shared in the responsibility and took his portion of leads.


         He was the only one in the office that September when the call came in that Liza Huddleston and the rest of her classmates were being shot at. The only information he had came from the police scanner like a machine gun. First came the 415 – a disturbance at a local elementary school. Calls kept coming in short succession: 417 – a person with a gun, 10-71 – shooting, 187 – homicide. Peter grabbed his camera and notebook and sped off.


         The entire block was closed off. The SWAT team had arrived and were figuring out what to do. Peter could hear the sounds of gun fire and screams muffled by distance.


         “What's going on?” he asked as one police officer ducked under the tape and out of the crime scene.


         “Bastard's shooting children in there. We don't know how many are dead.” tears poured down the officer's face. “My daughter's in there. That mother fucker has my daughter!”


         Another police officer came over to escort his friend away. Peter's stomach churned. During his career, he had seen a lot, but the stories involving children were always the worst. He silently said a prayer of thanks that he was the one on this, and not one of his younger staffers.


         He snapped pictures as best he could from his vantage point. It was a standoff. The man inside was not coming out, but the police could not risk going in for fear of more deaths. Peter was figuring out in his head the information he would need and the way he'd present the story when something caught his eye in his viewfinder that made his blood run cold. The sign on the school – Posey Elementary. He'd been in such a rush that he didn't even hear the name of the school, just driven to the address provided by the dispatcher. His mouth went dry as he dialed his phone.


         “Junior? It's dad. Look, I got something to tell you. You sitting down?”          


         Peter Huddleston Jr. was everything a father could want in a son and more. He, his wife Amanda and their daughter Liza lived across town. Peter Jr. worked as an architect with a national construction company, working long hours, but always making time for his family. He made a point of visiting his father at least twice a week, sometimes calling in between to check up on him or just to talk.


         The two men were cut from the same cloth. When Peter Jr. was a child, he became intensely interested in anything his father did. Peter worked at the newspaper, Peter Jr. would proudly display his home-made crayon-and-construction paper publications. Peter would go hunting, his son would tag along, being quiet when he needed, but asking a multitude of questions otherwise. He heard stories of his father's time in the Navy and signed up on his eighteenth birthday.


         Peter had an intensely introverted personality, but around his son, he knew he could be himself. The day his granddaughter was born and he held little Liza in his arms, he knew it was possible to love someone even more.


         Liza was a bundle of energy that always seemed to be full of hugs and kisses for anyone who stopped long enough to let her hand them out. Peter and Clarice kept their grandchild as often as they could. They took outings to local parks, where the child ran on sturdy legs to examine the marvels the world had to offer.


         And now that precious child was trapped in her classroom with a madman running lose. Peter explained the situation to his son, who was quiet a long time.          


         “What should I do, dad?” said Peter Jr., choking on the words.


         What advice could Peter offer? He felt helpless. “Pray, son,” he said. “I'll keep you updated.”


         The standoff lasted five hours. The police gave regular reports to the press, asking them to keep the public informed. Negotiators stood in front of the school door, shouting to the maniac. Finally, they talked him out. He exited the building and was immediately swarmed by uniforms. Emergency medical personnel entered the building to offer assistance and bag bodies.


         Peter kept in touch with the office and his son throughout the ordeal and let them know when the seige had ended.


         “Oh, thank God,” said his son when he delivered the news. “Is Liza ok?”


         “I don't know. I'll try to find out.”


         “Thanks, dad. I'll be there as soon as I can.”


         Peter began the sad task of gathering facts about the massacre. The count was ten children and five teachers dead. He swallowed the lump building in his throat.


         “Any names yet?” he asked the public information officer.


         “We should have them soon. Hey,” the PIO was shouting at someone over Peter's shoulder. “Parents are supposed to go to the school office.”


         Peter turned and saw his son, pale and scared, coming up toward him. Amanda was trailing behind, holding onto his hand for dear life. “It's ok,” said Peter to the officer. “He's with me.”


         Peter Jr. collapsed in his father's arms. “Liza's dead, dad. I had to identify her body. Her face,” he clawed at his arm, biting hard into the exposed flesh with his nails. “Her face was covered in blood. There was a hole in her head the size of a baseball.”


         Peter held onto his son and swept his disconsolate daughter-in-law into his embrace as well. He angrily fought away the thought of how great a picture they made for the story.


         “I'm sorry son,” said Peter, trying to hide his own tears. “I am so sorry. How about stay here while I finish talking to people. I'll take you two home.”


         He got a few brief interviews with half a dozen witnesses and packed up. The drive to his son's home was silent. He dropped them off, came inside briefly to offer a bit more comfort and went to meet his deadline.


         When the editor-in-chief found out about Peter's family, he offered to put another reporter on the case.


         “No way, boss. I got to tell this story.”


         The initial story was not too hard for him to write. It was the first report of many and the information was still sketchy. The police had not released the name of the shooter or any of his victims yet, but eye witnesses said the man was out to find a boy they thought was his son.


         It was only after Peter had finished the story that he allowed himself to fall apart. He went to the breakroom and collapsed onto a chair like a marionette whose strings had been cut. There weren't many people left in the newsroom this time of day, and he was the only one in the breakroom. He cried until there was nothing left, then sat for a few minutes to calm down before making the trip back to his home.


         His wife was waiting for him when he got home, the tears on her cheeks standing as mute testament to her grief. They sat and held each other most of the night, worried for their son, worried for their daughter-in-law, worried for each other's well-being. When the morning came, Peter got onto the phone and explained to his boss he needed to take a leave of absence. His boss was more than accommodating and told him just to keep them informed as to when he would be back.


         He and Clarice spent as much time with their son as they could. His daughter's death had left him broken, and it was a shadow of Peter Jr. who got up every morning for work and went through the motions like an automaton.His wife, deep in grief, resented him for not being there for her, but Peter and Clarice tried best they could to comfort her.


         Liza's funeral was three days after the shooting. A total of eight friends and teachers performed the duties of pallbearers, though the tiny casket could easily have been carried by one person. The family sat in the front row as the preacher prattled on about God and heaven and absolutely nothing that made the situation better to Peter or anyone else. Peter Jr. did not cry at the funeral, did not even look as though he realized what was happening around him. When Amanda reached out her hand, he took it but more out of habit than conscious action.


         The weather was rainy in a pathetic fallacy of empathy as the funeral procession made its way to the cemetery. Each one of the 100 or so attendees took turns throwing something in the hole with the casket – a toy, a shirt the girl would have liked, pictures painted by classmates. And roses. They stacked the stuff so high on the casket that Peter imagined the dirt wouldn't cover it all. But the next day, when he came back to see the site, there was no sign of the loving tributes thrown in with her. He knelt at the grave a long time, trying to think of what would be appropriate to say or do. Finally, he gave up and just went home.


         Peter's leave of absence lasted nine days. After the funeral, he spent much of his time trying to distract his son from his despair. But as the days passed, it became apparent that Peter Jr. was not the same man he was and he may never get better.


         “It will get better, son,” Peter would say. “Would Liza want you going on like this? Come on, let's do something to get your mind off things for a while.”


         “I'm fine dad,” was always Peter Jr.'s response, sometimes followed by, “don't worry about me ok?”


         So Peter returned to work, the one place where he could forget his grief and get back to the business of deadlines, copy and budgets. The first day back, it seemed like everyone had to come by to offer their condolences. After the fifth well-wisher in the first half-hour of his return, Peter wrote a note and stuck a copy on each side of his desk:


         


         I appreciate everyone's concern over my personal tragedy, but would greatly appreciate it if everyone would just butt out. Thank you and have a nice day.


Peter





         Peter hardly heard from his son over the next few months and when he did, it was only because Peter called him. Their conversations were short, strained. Peter could think of nothing to say, and his son didn't seem to want to hear it anyway. Clarice talked to Amanda to find out exactly what was going on. The poor girl was in a deep depression. First her daughter, now she was slowly losing her husband. She said he was like a stranger in their house, coming in just long enough for food and sleep before returning to work. He didn't even talk to her anymore.


         When the call came in that March after Liza's death, Peter was grief-stricken, but sad to find he was not surprised. He heard it on the scanner first –  10-56, suicide at his son's address. He ran out of the office, leaving his reporters looking after helplessly.


         Amanda was the one who had found Peter Jr. hanging from the garage ceiling. The only note he left was 'I'm sorry' written in sharpie across some posterboard. Peter arrived just as the coroner did. They took the body down, wrote a report and sped off. Clarice arrived a little later and the two women held each other and had a good cry. Peter felt useless. He couldn't even muster up enough energy to feel the sadness and anger to which he was entitled.


         Amanda couldn't stand to sleep in her house that night, so Clarice and Peter took her in. They discussed funeral plans briefly, then everyone turned in early. When Peter woke up the next morning, he got dressed, ate a small breakfast, got into the car and pulled out.


         No one saw him again for a week and a half.


         The County Sheriff's office found his car some 15 miles north of Whitehall. They followed Peter's tracks to a nearby lake and found him hiding out in an abandoned house, drunk on grief and cheap wine and bloody from flogging himself with an old bullwhip. Deputies pried him off the floor and drug him, kicking and screaming, to the car.


         “Leave me alone, it was my fault! This is my penance...”


         He was admitted into the hospital, where they pumped him full of fluids and treated him for exposure. He raged against the nurses, but was soon passed out from exhaustion and alcohol. When he woke up, Clarice was sitting in the chair next to him. She jumped up and kissed him.


         “Oh Peter, thank God. I was so worried about you.”


         He pushed her away suddenly, violently. She fell against the table, causing his food tray and its contents to scatter across the floor. Two nurses ran in, helped her up and saw to Peter.


         He didn't remember much about his time in the hospital, just vague visions of food being brought in and his own violent reactions to any help or treatment. They ended up restraining him and, after his recovery from exposure and dehydration, he was moved to a mental hospital.


         Clarice was a study in vigilance as she care for her husband, day after tired day. On good days, they walked around the hospital grounds, two orderlies in attendance behind them. On bad days, she barely got two words in edgewise before his rage was such that she was asked to leave. One day, about six months later, he started slowly coming out of the haze of despair and anger. The doctors had him on anti-depressants, which helped take the edge off but did not eradicate the knowledge that his son and granddaughter were dead.


         When he thought about Clarice, he almost slipped back into the realm of the psychotic. After how he'd treated her, how could their marriage ever be the same again? But the love she had for the man she'd taken for better or for worse was stronger than anything he could do to push her away. She stayed by his side, proud of every improvement, supportive through every rough spot. Peter vowed that, no matter how bad things got, he would never leave this saintly woman alone again.


         He was discharged from the hospital a little over a year after he was admitted. Clarice and Amanda, who had moved in to help with housework and bills, drove him home and helped him get re-acquainted with the place. As the days passed, it occurred to him that he should be getting back to work.


         He called his boss, who couldn't have been more surprised had he suddenly come back from the dead. Peter explained what had happened, even though Clarice called the day after he was admitted. When the conversation got around to getting his old job back, his boss hesitated.


         “Peter, I don't know how to put this, but...well...we didn't hold your job for you.”


         “Well, I wouldn't expect you would have, but is there another opening?”


         “No, there isn't.”


         “I don't mean an editor job, I'll do anything in any department. I just need to get to work again...”


         “Peter, we aren't taking you back, ok? Now that's the publishing company's call, not mine. Make a stink about it if you want, but we can't hire you back.”


         “Sure. Thanks.” Peter slammed down the phone, brooding on his dilemna. His wife came rushing in at the noise.


         “It's alright, Clarice,” said Peter. “I just found out I can't get my job back.”


         “Oh honey,” said Clarice, embracing him. “I am so sorry. Maybe some other newspaper will...”


         “Don't worry about it,” he said. “Maybe it's time I got out of newspapers anyway.”


         Peter tried, at least for a while, to find other work. But the job market was limited for a man who was past his prime, and the jobs he was able to get weren't worth having. After going through five jobs in three months, he was starting to give up hope.


         He came home one day to find Clarice waiting for him at the front door, grinning.


         “Honey, I think I've found what you've been looking for.” She proudly handed over her prize, a copy of the Herald-Times. On the back, circled in red, was an employment ad for a news editor at the paper.


         “I don't know, Clarice. I mean, I went crazy doing news and I know I probably won't get a good reccomendation...”


         “Peter,” she said, placing one well-manicured hand on his shoulder, “I know you, and I know you are happiest when you are chasing the news. Yes, a very bad thing happened while you were doing it, but you can't let that stop you.” She kissed him. “You are a newsman, you've always been a newsman. I will be there for you the whole way.”


         Seeing her standing in front of him, on tiptoes to meet his eyes, he remembered all over again the reasons he married that wonderful woman. She was right. His blood ran black with printer's ink. He had to try to get into newspapers once again.