Andrew Klavan - The long way home

Instead, he got into the car with me. We took a drive together. It was the first time we'd talked in a long while. Alex was about as upset as I'd ever seen him. He told me how it was at his house since his father left and about his mother crying and all that other stuff.

I didn't know what to say. I mean, my family had its problems like everybody, but this sounded really tough, tougher than anything I'd been through. I just tried to listen to him and be encouraging. I tried to get him to keep strong and not give up on things.

I had a card I used to carry with me in my wallet. An index card Sensei Mike had given to me. He'd written something on it, something a former prime minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, had said when his country was in danger during World War II:

"Never give in; never give in-never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty; never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force: never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

I tried to get that idea across to Alex. It was easy for me to say, I know, but that doesn't mean it wasn't true. You have to keep going. I've learned that for a fact now. No matter how bad it gets, you have to keep looking for a way through.

But Alex didn't want to hear that. As hard as I tried to be helpful, our conversation turned into an argument, a big one. I'd stopped the car near the Oak Street park at that point. We were still sitting inside, still talking, and the conversation was getting very intense. Alex started saying all this stuff about how everything people told you was a lie and how you couldn't believe in anything and everything had to be torn down and started again. It was crazy stuff as far as I could see, but he said he had all these new friends who agreed with him and he trusted them.

Finally, he got really angry. He told me I didn't know what I was talking about or what he was going through. He got out of the car and I got out after him. He was really yelling at me-so loudly that a woman who was passing by walking her dogs stopped to look at us.

Then Alex ran away. I tried to stop him, but he ran off into the park. That was it. That was all that happened that I saw.

But there was more in this newspaper-this newspaper story I was holding up in the church moonlight. I had to strain to make out the words, but I could read it. According to this, Alex never made it out of the park alive.

There were a couple of kids in the park-that's what the paper said. Their names were Bobby Hernandez and Steve Hassel. They were just a couple of middle-school kids who had gone into the park to smoke and drink beer where no one could see them. They told the newspaper that they heard Alex and me arguing with each other on the street. A few seconds later, they said, they saw Alex come running into the park. He paused under one of the park streetlamps. That's when they saw his face-that's how they could identify him later. After that, they said, he walked off into the shadows. They could still make out the shape of him, though. He seemed just to be standing there, thinking about something.

According to these kids, Bobby and Steve, another guy came up to Alex after a while. This other guy was in the shadows, too, so they never did see his face, but they could see that he and Alex stood talking together as if they knew each other. After a while, these kids said, Alex and this other guy started arguing. The kids couldn't hear what they were saying because they kept their voices low, but they could make out the tense, angry sound of their words.

Finally, said Bobby and Steve, this guy who was talking to Alex stepped in really close to him. He took hold of Alex's shoulder with one hand and his other hand went to Alex's chest. The next thing the kids knew, Alex had dropped to his knees and the other guy was running away, disappearing into the darkness of the park. Then, as the kids watched, Alex pitched over and fell to the ground.

"At first, we didn't know what was going on," Bobby Hernandez told the newspaper.

"We were, like, scared, man," said Steve. " 'Cause we didn't want anyone to know what we were doing in the park."

"But the dude just kept lying there and he didn't move," added Bobby, "so finally we had to go over and see what was wrong."

What was wrong was that Alex had been stabbed in the chest.

"It was intense," said Bobby. "There was blood all bubbling out of him, and his shirt was, like, soaked with blood, all red and everything."

"He couldn't move no more, but he was still breathing," said Steve. "His eyes were all, like, open. And he just kept saying this name over and over again. He just kept saying, 'Charlie, Charlie…' "

The kids called 911 on one of their cell phones, but Alex was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.

I lowered the page and let it rest on my chest. There was a lot in the newspaper story I hadn't known before. The day after Alex died-that was the day my life disappeared. The next morning-what I thought was the next morning but was really a year later-I woke up captured by the Homelanders. All my memories of that missing year were gone.

How do you know if you're the good guy or the bad guy?

I lay there on the pew. I stared up at the window, up at the half-moon in the sky with the clouds blowing by beneath it. I thought about Alex, about him lying on the ground with the blood coming out of his chest. I thought about him whispering my name with his last breaths. I remembered how we had been kids together and played ball in the streets and played video games and went to the movies. It hurt to think of him, lying there like that, gasping my name out to strangers as he died.

I remembered what I did the rest of that day. At least I thought I did. I remembered how I went home and did my homework and IM'd with Josh and talked to Rick on the phone. I even remembered going to bed. Wouldn't I have remembered if I'd done anything to hurt Alex?

I mean, wouldn't I?

I wasn't sure anymore. Maybe I didn't remember. Maybe something snapped inside me and it was such a shock that I forgot it all. The police said I killed him. The jury said so after listening to all the evidence. Maybe I was a murderer. Maybe I belonged in prison, the way everyone said I did. Maybe when the cops tried to capture me next time, I shouldn't run away at all but just give myself up.

But down deep in my heart, down deep in every part of me, I just couldn't believe it. I knew I was not that guy. No matter how angry I got at Alex, I wouldn't stab him, kill him. That was crazy. I wouldn't kill anyone. I wouldn't hurt anyone, not unless I absolutely had to. That was something I learned in church all the time, something I learned in karate class all the time, something Sensei Mike drilled into my head. Blessed are the peacemakers. Even if someone slaps you, turn the other cheek. Do everything you can to avoid a fight-everything-walk away if you have to, even if people call you a coward, even if you feel like a coward. The only time you fight is if there's no other choice. If you have to defend yourself or someone else or if you have to defend something even more important than yourself, like your freedom or someone else's freedom. I believed that was right. I believed it a hundred percent. I couldn't remember the entire year after my argument with Alex, and because I couldn't remember and because the police were after me and the court had found me guilty, I was afraid; I suspected the worst of myself. But whenever I looked into my own heart, I knew I hadn't killed him.

At least, I thought I knew it.

About a month before this, the police had caught me and arrested me. They were about to put me in a car to take me back to prison. But just before I got in, someone- I don't know who-someone in the crowd around me-loosed my handcuffs so I could escape. At the same time, he whispered something in my ear.