Andrew Klavan - The truth of the matter

I sat down. Mindy and Jen started talking to each other, obviously trying to give Beth and me some time for conversation. I tried to think of something to say, something ordinary and cheerful. But my voice kept trailing off, and I guess I kept sitting there for long seconds just kind of gazing at Beth.

“Are you okay?” Beth asked me.

And I said, “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just…” And then my voice trailed off again.

And then, just like that, I thought to myself: I’m not going to do it. I mean, I don’t have to do it. No one can make me do it. All I have to do is say no and Waterman goes away, right? The whole thing goes away just like that. They can find someone else to frame for murder. They can send someone else to prison to have his throat cut. Someone else’s mother can sit on the other side of the prison glass, sobbing. Let someone else leave his life and his friends and his girlfriend behind forever. It’s probably all baloney anyway. I mean, Sherman-a terrorist murderer? No way. Maybe this Waterman is just some nutcase who goes around pretending to work for the government…

As I went on thinking these things, the sadness began to lift from me. It really was as if someone had taken this huge boulder off my back. I began to feel practically lighthearted. Why had I been torturing myself like this? Just because some guy named Waterman showed up and proposed this insane plan didn’t mean I had to agree to it. It wasn’t written in stone or anything. All I had to do was say no, and the whole thing would go away.

I reached out across the table and Beth reached out and we held hands. A surge of feeling for her went through me. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt certain she had been created especially for me, that we had been created especially to find each other and be together.

This is good, I thought. This is what really matters in life. I’m not giving this up for anyone.

And with that, my sadness was gone completely. I was happy, in fact. In fact, I felt great.

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, I was in the karate dojo. For a second, I felt confused. How had I gotten here? Wasn’t I in the forest somewhere…? lying on my side writhing in pain…? people searching for me…?

No. No, now I remembered. I was back in Spring Hill. I’d gone home after school. I did my homework. I borrowed my mom’s car to drive to my karate lesson…

Now I and my sometime-karate-partner Peter Williams were moving together back and forth across the dojo carpeting. We were doing a paired kata, a kind of mock fight where I would move through one memorized series of punches and blocks and he would go through a complementary series so that every time I punched, he deflected it and struck back and then I deflected his punch and struck back and so on.

Sensei Mike moved along beside us, watching us, calling out instructions: “That foot should be right between his feet, Charlie. You’re not close enough. You can’t reach him with that punch. Come on, pay attention, West; you know better than that.”

I was making a lot of mistakes. I knew the material really well and I was trying to keep up, but my mind just kept going back to my next planned meeting with Waterman-tonight. I kept thinking: I’ll just tell him no, that’s all. All I have to do is say no and things’ll be back to normal.

But at the same time I was also thinking about my friend Alex. Stabbed in the chest, dying in the park, whispering my name with his final breaths. What if it really had been Sherman who’d killed him? What if he really was part of a terrorist organization out to attack America? How could things ever go back to being normal now that I’d heard what Waterman had to say? Once you know something, you can’t un-know it.

“All right, chuckleheads, that’s enough,” said Sensei Mike. “Williams, bow out and hit the changing room. West, stay here and tell me what’s on your mind and why you’re messing up so badly-and it better be something really, really important-like your shoes are on fire or something.”

“No, no, it’s nothing, Mike,” I muttered. I didn’t like to lie to him, but I’d promised Waterman I wouldn’t tell anyone what he’d said. Government secret and all that. I stood there in my karate gi, my head down. I was still breathing hard from the exercise. “I’m just… distracted, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” said Mike. I could tell he didn’t believe me. Mike had this amazing ability to figure out pretty much everything that was on your mind just by watching your karate practice.

For a second, I stood there, not really knowing what to say, not wanting to lie any more than I had to, unable to tell the truth. Then, the words sort of just came out of me: “Hey, Mike, can I ask you a question?”

“No. And don’t ever try it again.”

I rolled my eyes.

Mike pulled his mustache down over his mouth with one hand, hiding a smile. “Go ahead, chucklehead. What question?”

I hesitated. Mike never talked much about being in the Army or what he did in the War on Terror. He never told anyone how the president gave him a medal for running to an armored truck under fire, getting hold of a big.50-caliber gun, and fighting off more than a hundred Taliban to save his fellow soldiers. He never told anyone about getting hit by a bullet that day and having to have a piece of titanium put in his leg where the bone used to be. But I’d looked him up on the Internet and found out all about it.

“You know that thing you did in Afghanistan? That thing you won the medal for from the president?” I asked him.

Mike’s hand went on hovering at his mustache. He did that a lot, usually to hide his smile. Mike always had this smile on his lips and this look in his eyes like he was secretly laughing at something. It was as if he thought just about everything was a joke, as if the whole world was just one big collection of chuckleheads making a mess of things and it was all pretty funny. But now, his eyes had gone serious. The smile that usually hid behind his mustache was gone.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Yeah, I seem to remember something about that.”

I wasn’t sure I should go on. I knew he didn’t like talking about it. But now that I’d started, I said, “Would you do it again? Knowing you could get killed. Knowing you might never get home to see your wife and daughter. Now that you’ve had time to think about it, I mean, away from the battle, if you could go back and make the choice sort of more, I don’t know, calmly… would you still do it?”

For a long moment, Sensei Mike didn’t answer me. The dojo was quiet except for the sound of Pete banging around in the changing room in back.

When he did speak, Mike still didn’t answer me. He just said, “Life’s funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don’t want to throw it away. But you can’t really live it at all unless you’re willing to give it up for the things you love. If you’re not at least willing to die for something- something that really matters-in the end you die for nothing.”

Then, all at once, I was standing in the dark. I looked around me, dazed. Where was I? Oh yes, now I saw. I was at the reservoir again. Back at the place where I always met Waterman. There was my mom’s SUV parked by the curb…

Tonight was the night. I was going to give Waterman my answer. I was going to make my choice.

I had that weird feeling of confusion again. How had I gotten here? Hadn’t I just been in the dojo a second ago? But no, now it came back to me. After talking to Sensei Mike, I’d driven out to the end of Oak Street. I’d parked in the same place I’d parked that night Alex and I had our argument, that night he’d gotten out of my car and walked into the park where he was killed. I’d sat there behind the wheel of my mom’s SUV and stared through the windshield into the twilight descending on the park. I prayed silently. I asked God to help me figure out what I should do.