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Barnes. The classic suburban setting.
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Chapter Fifty-Two
Barnes was late for work when he ran into
the traffic jam…
Fred
Barnes lived in the classic suburban setting. His morning commute was only
about twenty minutes, if he didn’t stop for coffee, and if he drove at or about
the speed limit. He closed up the white-painted front door of the cinnamon
brown, brick-fronted, four-level split where he lived with his wife Dolores.
Then
he hopped into his grey sedan.
He
backed out of the driveway, scene of so many good memories. Like the games of
catch with their son Jonathan as a teeny-bopper. Past the clump of lilac where
daughter Debbie and, the newest member of the family, Brad, had posed for their
wedding pictures. Barnes went out past the rural mailbox, and onto the two-lane
blacktop which wound through the prim lakeshore village of Comelichmie Bluffs.
Fred
was impatient this morning. Dolores slept in, and then she needed help with her
bag. A recent colostomy was quite frankly adding a level of complication to
both of their lives. Along with the depression she suffered, it was a real
crimp in her daily activities. Having to give up her job at the walk-in clinic,
where she had once earned a small salary on the reception desk, was a real blow
to his wife. He hoped she would find a new reason to live, and new ways to get
involved with life. To be out there helping people, who quite frankly needed
her.
Barnes
was in a bit of a hurry. The strident chirp from the front wheels of the grey
Honda sedan attested to the pressure he felt. After a lifetime of endless
deadlines, he knew he would eventually pay some kind of price. He didn’t care
to speculate as to what that price would be. Barnes liked his quiet. One good
reason not to turn on the radio.
Sometimes
he even shut off the phone.
Stress is a silent killer as one of his
previous editorial headlines read. Having written that, Barnes would have
thought he was okay with it, and coping just fine. Being late ten or twenty
minutes was stressful, but the news would go out. His people might make jokes
if he walked in late, with what sounded like an excuse.
It’s
just that Dolores hated him telling anyone about her affliction, and the fact
was, no one at the office was really welcome inside of his personal, family
life. He owed his family that much, after dragging them to a dozen different
cities during the formative period of his career. They were all so young. Back
then, he was filled with enthusiasm, and working his way up the ladder.
Yes,
moving the kids was a tough thing for them, but they turned out fine, and thank
the Good Lord for that. Too much craziness in the world these days. Like many a
parent, when the kids got to a certain age, he began to think of their future.
He felt a sense of concern. Perhaps a kind of dread.
Not
exactly naked fear or anything like that.
He
had a lot of confidence in his kids, but there were too many temptations, too
many potential pitfalls.
“Without temptation, there is no virtue.”
That
damned Brubaker again.
So
wise in his words, so immature and confrontational in his behavior. At least
that was the impression Barnes got from his letters. Brubaker pushed his
buttons, and made him mad. Barnes could live without the slanderous way he
attacked the police, the courts, the municipal government, any government or
authority figures.
Brubaker
had called him a few names.
You
didn’t do that in writing.
No
one ever did that. Brubaker was unique in that sense.
It
seemed calculated.
Not
like some hockey mom just losing it, a momentary aberration.
Fred
had a lot of power, and everyone wanted a piece of it.
Everyone
wanted his time. That’s where the objectivity came in. It was a kind of litmus
test. An editor with a grudge could cause a lot of unnecessary harm.
The
classic, official line was that it represented compassion.
Sometimes
he wondered if it wasn’t also a kind of cop-out. Did it mean he couldn’t get
involved? And sometimes it wasn’t too pleasant. It felt like sitting in
judgment on people, when a story just had to go in the paper. As often as not
on the front page.
He
knew people got hurt. It was a hard call, sometimes.
Sometimes
it really did feel like the odious arts
of the informer, or whatever.
To
really bust someone. Like the unfortunate Mrs. Achmed-O’Malley, for example.
She used to be a Member of the Provincial Legislature, and a Cabinet Minister
to boot. Mrs. Achmed-O’Malley had a lot of friends, some of whom would be more
or less well-balanced than others. As an editor you could make a lot of enemies
without getting personal. Truth is, everyone took it personal. When someone freaked
out on you, you never knew just how far it would go. Sometimes you wondered
what they were even capable of. The plain truth was, she shouldn’t have lied.
Why
should Fred feel guilty about that?
Brubaker
was as mouthy as all heck, and deep inside lurked a heart of gold. Always
fighting for the disabled, in the worst possible way. Anything short of
violence.
He
had to admit, it took a while to figure that one out. They were focusing more
on those issues at the paper lately, precisely because Brubaker just seemed so
darned incompetent.
Fred
felt a small grin steal over his face.
Barnes
had seen it all.
From
the soft-spoken science teacher who showed up with a baseball bat at the front
desk, to the people whose last name was the same as a convicted felon in a news
story.
They
were slightly apologetic, but all their friends were phoning them. The mistakes
in the grocery ads. Apologies, retractions, and lawsuits threatened both ways.
Fred
Barnes had seen a real slice of human nature.
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Yet he was not cynical.
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Yet
he was not cynical.
He
didn’t think he was cynical.
As
he drove, he was kind of pushing it, but he knew there were rarely cops on this
stretch. At this time of day, they would almost inevitably be attending to a
traffic accident closer to town. The speed limit was technically sixty
kilometres per hour, but people usually did seventy-five or even eighty. Barnes
was doing about eighty-five today. But he wasn’t drunk. He didn’t do drugs.
Visibility was good. He knew the road, and the car was only four years old.
Not
like some of the rattletraps that persisted despite clean air tests and safety
checks mandated by the Ministry of Transportation.
He’d
just had new brake pads and shoes put on.
“What
the…”
Up
ahead he saw brake-lights and a long line-up of vehicles. They were stopped dead
in the middle of the road, surrounded by farm fields, trees, and ditches. No
intersections up ahead. Slowing, he gently cussed in the cute little
swear-words he used. These were the only ones he allowed himself. To swear
eroded his credibility, and to a newspaper editor, credibility is his most
precious asset.
The
next intersection was a half a mile ahead.
His
respectability, his impartiality was all he had as a defense. His
professionalism was all that kept him out of trouble. The company hated being
sued. It’s expensive and the results were always uncertain. Hence out-of-court
settlements. Too much of that sort of thing could be hard on a career. Being
late wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a guy, he thought patiently.
“Sugar.
Someone must have gone off the road.” He muttered, gently braking to a halt
behind a big red work truck.
It
was last in line. Difficult to see around, and impossible to see over, with
ladders and bins and racks on the back. There was no snow yet, what with the
global warming and all. The road was dry. What was happening? Everyone was
aware of all the drunk drivers, but lately there was a real spate of them.
Fred
had no idea of what was going on up there. There were no sirens, nothing
visible from here. Fred edged up closer to the truck, pulling out to the left a
little to see around it.
The
oncoming lane was clear. The line of vehicles was pretty long, maybe ten or
twelve vehicles all jammed up for some reason. The dashboard clock stared him
in the face, a persistent reminder that he was late.
All
of a sudden, for no reason at all, Mr. Fred Barnes snapped. There is no other
way to describe it. While he couldn’t see what was happening, the road up ahead
was clear.
Normally,
he would be concerned if someone was in the ditch, but there was plenty of help
on hand and he was late. Barnes wasn’t in the habit of carrying a camera, so
all he wanted to do was get around these people. No one else was trying to
bypass the distraction, or whatever it was. The road ahead was still clear, with
no oncoming traffic.
He
eased out and began to speed up to about forty kilometres an hour. As he
cruised up alongside, everyone at the back of the line was in their vehicles,
but the front couple of cars had no drivers.
‘Good,
they’re getting some help,’ he thought.
Rising
impatience made him do it.
He
took a quick glance to the right, but there was nothing to be seen as he
punched the gas pedal down in gratitude.
He
was doing seventy-five kilometres an hour when he suddenly realized that there
was a man, “some crazy whacko,” he
blurted angrily.
Time
suddenly stood stock-still.
There
was a man who leapt out, standing in the road and madly waving his arms to warn
him about something. Fred stomped on the brakes as hard as he could, gasping in
dismay, white knuckles on the steering wheel.
He
waited.
Whomp-crack-tsh-tsh. There came the
shocking noise as the man’s face came through the windshield. Barnes careened
down the road, barely conscious of the fact that his brakes had gone right to
the floor and there was no hydraulic fluid pushing on the calipers.
Fred
Barnes had just killed a man.
In
horror he stared at the shattered face and bloody drops falling on his knees.
He held the car steady as it gently rolled to a halt a hundred metres down the
road. Fred felt warm gobbets of blood falling on his legs and knees. All of his
past successes went through his mind, yet he had no thoughts.
A
vision of this person’s family danced through his head.
His
heart pounded and his guts ached and tears stung his eyes.
Irrationally,
he found his hands scrabbling to pull out a handful of tissues from the space
between the seats where the little packet was kept. Failing, he gave it up,
hands clenching and unclenching convulsively. All he could do was to hold his
head in his hands, covering his eyes from the awful reality. The enormity of
what he had just done sank in.
The
man’s bulging, dead eyes stared at him accusingly.
When
revelation comes, it hits with a bang.
“Oh,
God, no.” He moaned.
Fred
Barnes was having a busy, happy, and successful life and he had just taken
another’s. Barnes had never in his entire life run into anything that he
couldn’t handle, couldn’t explain, or couldn’t make good or go away.
Until
today.
He
sat there shaking uncontrollably. Nauseous, and crying, Fred put the shift
lever in park more by instinct than anything else. Unable, or unwilling to
reach for the phone, he would in fact be unable to talk for some minutes.
There
was really nothing more to be said.
Chapter
One.
Chapter
Two.
Chapter
Three.
Chapter
Four.
Chapter
Five.
Chapter
Six.
Chapter
Seven.
Chapter
Eight.
Chapter
Nine.
Chapter
Ten.
Chapter
Eleven.
Chapter
Twelve.
Chapter
Thirteen.
Chapter
Fourteen.
Chapter
Fifteen.
Chapter
Sixteen.
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Hi, guys. Louis is on ArtPal.
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Chapter
Seventeen.
Chapter
Eighteen.
Chapter
Nineteen.
Chapter
Twenty.
Chapter
Twenty-One.
Chapter
Twenty-Two.
Chapter
Twenty-Three.
Chapter
Twenty-Four.
Chapter
Twenty-Five.
Chapter
Twenty-Six.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine.
Chapter
Thirty.
Chapter
Thirty-One.
Chapter
Thirty-Two.
Chapter
Thirty-Three.
Chapter
Thirty-Four.
Chapter
Thirty-Five.
Chapter
Thirty-Six.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven.
Chapter
Thirty-Eight.
Chapter
Thirty-Nine.
Chapter
Forty.
Chapter
Forty-One.
Chapter
Forty-Three.
Chapter
Forty-Four.
Chapter
Forty-Five.
Chapter
Forty-Six.
Chapter
Forty-Seven.
Chapter
Forty-Eight.
Chapter
Forty-Nine.
Chapter
Fifty.
Chapter
Fifty-One.
Images.
Louis. He steals them from the internet.
Louis
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Thank
you for reading.
