Stevan Mena - Transience

“I know it sounds crazy,” Laura said, “but… Rebecca thinks she remembers this place. Remembers you. She has these dreams, that she and Carmen…are the same person.”

Rebecca caught a closer look at the framed photo of Carmen amongst the flowers. A yellow flag in the center read: In loving memory. “ Please don’t be angry,” Rebecca whispered softly to Hester.

Hester turned to look at the photo, sorrow welling up in her eyes. “The night she disappear, we had a fight. I said things. Terrible things. I tell her, Jesus will never take you now, you have shamed him, shamed yourself. She rip her cross from her neck and throw it at me. She never come home—” Hester’s words got caught in her throat from the emotion. It spilled out, tears flowing.

Francisco stepped towards her, reaching out. “Mama?”

“I pray and pray; please, Jesus, I honor you every day of my life. I ask, please, give me another chance. Please, let me speak to my daughter one last time…tell her how much I love her.” Hester’s eyes closed with grief.

Laura got caught up in the emotion too. “These last few months have been so hard… I didn’t know what to do. I thought if I brought her here, it would satisfy something, but… Oh God, Rebecca.”

Hester turned to Laura, gulping air, her eyes draining tears. “How…?”

Laura smiled. “I don’t know—”

“How dare you?”

“What?”

“Get out!” Hester shouted, her face red. Her words were like a slap across Laura’s cheek. Laura looked back with absolute confusion, nearly losing her balance as the rage in Hester’s voice grew with intensity. “Get out of my home!” Her voice echoed loudly in the tiny kitchen, the air in the room grew hot.

Rebecca reached for Hester, but Hester slapped her hand away like it was diseased. Hester’s cheeks hardened with anger and resentment. Rebecca recoiled at the fierceness of Hester’s disgust. Laura hugged Rebecca close.

“How dare you come here and tell me that my Carmen is anywhere but by the side of Jesus!” Hester nearly fell over with rage. Francisco reached for her. “Cuidado, Mama!” As he comforted her, he looked over at Laura. “I think you should go. I’m sorry.” His sorry was genuine and heartfelt, as if a part of him believed.

Hester wailed, collapsing into her chair in a pile of grief, head down. Francisco rubbed her shoulders. She came up for air, face wet and contorted from crying. “My Carmen sits beside Jesus in Heaven!”

Rebecca pushed out her bottom lip as her face went red. She too started to cry. Laura pulled her towards the door.

“I’m so sorry, for everything,” Laura said. Francisco gave her a nod of understanding. Satisfied with that, Laura exited with Rebecca.

She held her hand as they descended the steps in retreat. She could still hear Hester crying out, “Jesus cradles her in his arms! Jesus cradles her in his arms!”

As they reached the ground, Rebecca pulled away from Laura and raced back up the steps. “Rebecca!”

Laura watched her go back inside, but didn’t follow.

Rebecca approached Hester, whose head was still down, sobbing. She fiddled with the clasp on the gold cross necklace. She opened the latch and unwrapped it from around her neck.

She draped it onto the table next to Hester’s hand and gave one more look to Francisco. He stepped forward and knelt down to her, gently embracing her.

“Thank you,” he said, staring into her eyes, spotting something familiar. It made him smile.

His acceptance brought no smile to her face, just wonderment. Rebecca wasn’t sure what she was feeling, but the sense of urgency she had been experiencing for so long seemed strangely absent at the moment. She went to breathe in and her heart skipped a beat, which made her gasp mid breath. She turned and ran out the door, so hard and fast the screen door slapped the metal guardrail outside with a thwack.

She flew down the steps to where her mother was waiting. Laura didn’t ask why she went back, but noticed the gold cross was no longer around her neck. She put her hand on her shoulder and they walked back to the car.

Laura wiped one errant tear from her cheek and started the engine. Rebecca turned and looked out the back window, Francisco was watching from the balcony. She waved to him.

He lifted his hand to acknowledge her. As Laura pulled away, Rebecca kept staring at Francisco until he was no longer in sight. She kept looking back until the building disappeared around a bend.

Finally, she turned and sat down. She faced front the entire way home, not looking out the side window, not looking at her mother in the rearview mirror. Just looking straight ahead.

The large wooden doors of the detention center swung open. Reporters and curious onlookers battled to get a glimpse of the killer. Bishop was led out wearing a white coverall jumpsuit, his hands zip tied behind his back. Two burly officers escorted him forcefully through the crowd to a waiting police van. He appeared meek and frail next to them; his cheekbones flush and protruding, as if he was sucking in, clenching his jaw.

Bishop played to the cameras, not talking, but not shying away from their lenses either. He appeared calm, almost serene in the chaos, the attention not disagreeing with him. From the look on his face, it was clear that this was the moment he had been working towards. This lonely drifter was now in the spotlight, people were shouting his name. So what if it was because they hated or feared him. So what if he would be infamous for such violent, nefarious deeds. He was somebody now. He stuck his chest out, almost strutting, but remained silent. They would have to wait and wonder what went on in the mind of this mindless killer.

“Did you murder those girls?” one reporter shouted.

Another, the same woman that had interviewed Jack on the 6 o’clock news, stuck her large rounded microphone under Bishop’s nose. “Can you tell us why you did it?” One of the officers swatted her microphone away with the back of his arm.

Reporters started to overlap each other, screaming questions at the same time, louder and louder, trying to drown each other out, hoping their voice would be the one that solicited a reaction from the monster.

Bishop was hustled into the back of the van. An officer climbed in and closed the door, nearly taking the arm off another reporter for The Detroit Free Press.

The officer sat beside Bishop as they rode through the city to the courthouse. Bishop’s air of indifference — the look on his face, the lingering smile — irritated the officer more as each second passed.

“Wipe that shit grin off your face,” the officer said. Bishop widened his smile to show teeth. “You’re the flavor of the hour. Tomorrow you’ll be locked away, left to rot in a cage. And no one’s gonna give a shit.”

Bishop continued to smile, infuriating the officer, who kept making fists inside his leather gloves, anxious to vent his disgust. Then bishop’s face abruptly grew solemn and straight. He looked at the officer with a sort of pity.

“My place in history is secure.”

“As a fucking nut job.”

“Exactly.” Bishop ate back a smile. “It’s you who’ll be forgotten. I’ve left my mark on society. They’ll spend years agonizing over clues they missed, how I could have been stopped, studying me in order to prevent the next one.” Bishop couldn’t contain his grin, perhaps trying to goad the officer into a physical altercation.

“I know all about you,” the officer said, looking away, not giving him the courtesy of eye contact as he spoke. “Let’s see; loner, parents were assholes, no friends at school, probably bullied because you were such a witless pile of shit. No girl will have anything to do with you, so you sit home alone, pity yourself, and you get angry. You want what you can’t have, what no woman will give you. You got tired of paying for it, so you decided to just take it, take out your frustration on a poor defenseless girl. And it made you feel like a man. But that’s all you can do, because you’re not a real man, you’re a rat. A worthless piece of trash no one gives two shits about. And now, for the first time, people are saying your name, talking to you, and you feel important. You’re even grinning like some fucking retard. But by tomorrow you’ll realize what your mother must have realized long ago — what a total failed experiment giving birth to a fuck up like you was. As you stare at those same four cement walls for eternity, you’ll have forever to think about what a complete fucking loser you turned out to be. I give you three weeks before you hang yourself with your bedsheets.”