Jackson Bell - Trigger Finger

Now I began to cry.

“That’s important. People need to understand the way Kevin thought, and they need to understand that his mindset predetermined the choices he made that night. Because it’s easy to judge somebody after the fact and point out the things you think they did wrong. It’s really easy. Unless you’ve been there.”

What choices did he make? What did he do?

More to the point, what did he not do?

“When a man named Travis Wayne Arnold accosted him from behind in his kitchen,” he continued, “he overpowered Kevin with a surprise attack, but the way he really gained control there was by relying on his victim’s innate belief that everything would ultimately turn out okay if he just stayed cool. He didn’t know anything about Kevin Swanson, but he didn’t need to; that’s a common reaction to something like this. A robber sticks a gun in your face, whips out a knife, whatever, most people just hand over their wallets. Nobody ever fights. They just go along with it. Hope they don’t get killed. Most of the time, they don’t.

“Travis Wayne Arnold told Kevin everything would be okay if he just stayed cool. And Kevin believed him. He let Travis Wayne Arnold handcuff him, because Travis Wayne Arnold said the only thing he wanted was electronics, jewelry, other valuables. You just be cool, Kevin, and everything’s going to be okay. So Kevin stayed cool. He let Travis Wayne Arnold take him down into the basement, and then he told his wife and daughter to stay cool, too. And Travis Wayne Arnold handcuffed them, as well.

“And then he raped them.”

My stomach upended. I leaned forward and opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Apparently, I hadn’t eaten anything that day; I couldn’t even upchuck acid.

“He raped Kevin’s wife and he raped Kevin’s daughter while Kevin laid there on the floor watching, listening to it happening for the better part of the next day.”

“No,” I choked.

“Yes.”

“No. No.”

He reached out and grabbed my hands. They shook, and they didn’t stop when he touched them.

My head swam, but I didn’t pass out. I didn’t slide, either. I was beginning to understand that that was so much bullshit.

A question rose in my throat and although I didn’t want to ask it, I couldn’t stop it.

“Where are they?” I asked. “Allie? Abby? Where are they staying? When can I see them?”

He looked away from me again.

“Where am I?” I cried. “Doc? Can you please explain this to me, because I don’t…”

“I’m not a doctor, Kevin,” he said. He looked at me with sad compassion, and it sickened me because I didn’t want anybody looking at me like that. Ever.

“I never said I was a doctor, okay? We’re in your doctor’s office, yes; he’s allowed us to use it so that we can get away from all the hooting and hollering out there. I’m a prosecutor. Dr. Koenig is your psychologist here at Magnolia Plantation. My name is Daniel Wheeler. I’m the Assistant District Attorney working on your family’s case.”

“What kind of case is it? It’s a… a rape case?”

He shook his head.

“Not just that,” he said. “Rape and double murder.”

He said: Bobby is dead, too. Dead for several years now, the victim of a roadside bomb in Iraq. He said: your wife is dead, your daughter is dead, your brother is dead. Kate, she’s still alive. She’s your legal guardian.

But Bobby couldn’t have been dead, because he came to see me that night. I lay in the bed, drugged, and saw him standing by my window. He must have entered through that same window, because they told me that I stayed now in a lockdown ward—like Brandon Cross, and his roommate Kenny.

Guess where? Ta daaaa! Magnolia Plantation.

“They want me to testify,” I said.

Bobby snorted. “Yeah, I guess they would.”

“And I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, Bobby, I’m telling you, I can’t. It doesn’t seem real to me, everything they’re saying, but I think that if I have to get up there and say all this shit that it’s going to become very real very quickly and…”

“You know why I really joined the Marines?” He interrupted.

I fell silent.

“I joined,” he said, “because the recruiter said it was hard as shit. Said out of all the services, Marine Corps basic training is the hardest. Some dudes can’t make it in the Marines. Might make it other places, but not there. Because the Marines are hard.”

He smiled out the window. I wondered what could possibly make anybody smile in a world like this, but then I understood that the things he saw didn’t exist on the other side of the glass. They existed somewhere else entirely.

“Greatest thing about finishing Basic,” he said, “wasn’t the uniform or the benefits or the chance to shoot machine guns and throw grenades. Wasn’t even the right to walk around knowing I was a Marine, saying I was a Marine, being a Marine. The greatest thing was knowing that I could do absolutely anything in this world. Because I could. I said, I made it through Parris Island. They didn’t wash me out. They didn’t run me off. And now I can do anything. Impossible doesn’t exist anymore. Not for me. This world bends to my will. This world does what I tell it to do.”

I opened my mouth. I said: “I’m not a Marine.”

“But you’re a Swanson,” he said. “And you could have been a Marine. You’re a hard son of a bitch, Kevin. Impossible doesn’t exist for you either. You can do anything. You hear what I’m saying? Anything .”

He looked back at me, still smiling.

“A lot of guys washed out,” he continued. “I almost did. There was this one point, when I’m down on my face doing pushups with fire ants running all over my goddamned hands and arms, but I don’t even feel them biting me because my chest is cramping up. There’s this drill instructor standing right over me screaming about what a pussy I am and I think, he’s right. I’m not cut out for this. I’m never going to make it in the Marine Corps, I should just quit right now. I can’t handle it. This is my reality. This is who I am.”

“So what happened?” I asked. “Apparently you made it.”

The smile broadened.

“That D.I. called me a pussy one too many times,” he said. “And my reality changed. I said, fuck this. I’m not washing out. Every last one of you motherfuckers can kiss my ass. Because I’m going to do this thing.”

He looked out the window again, his smile fading. He looked thoughtful now, older.

“You can change your reality, Kevin,” he said. “You can be anything you want to be. You’ve just got to tell everyone and everything around you to kiss your ass, because you don’t accept this. When it all comes down, you make your own rules.”

“We’ve got this in the bag,” Dr. Koenig said on the way back to Magnolia Plantation after I’d given my testimony. I understood he wasn’t Dr. Koenig, but I’d tried out Daniel Wheeler and it just didn’t seem to fit. So he remained, in my mind, a psychotherapist. “You did great. I’m in awe of you. Bobby would have been very, very proud.”

I took a drug called clonazepam, which allowed me to testify. By the time we made it back to the car afterwards, I’d forgotten almost all of it. I took that as a blessing. The drug, an abnormally large dose for today, dragged clouds across my ability to feel. Eventually, it would stop working and I would need something that only came in needles. For now, though, I could walk and speak like anyone else.

I rode with my head resting against the window glass, but at the last stoplight before Magnolia Plantation, a question occurred to me, and I asked it of Dr. Koenig.