Heaven or Hell (25 page)

Yep, it was that man. Joe looked behind him to see who the guy was talking to.

“No, you. I’m talking to you. Joe, Juan, or whatever the hell your name is.” The man stepped forward. His fingertips protruded from the frayed sweater gloves, and he held a smoking pipe in one hand and a lighter and a baggy full of tobacco in the other.

“You can see me?” Joe asked, somewhat surprised.

“Not only can I see you, I know you. Don’t you recognize me?” He pointed to the stripes on his jacket.

“General? You look so different. Where’ve you been?” Joe asked. He was startled but pleased, but then wondered if his reaction was appropriate. Did this mean the man was no longer alive?

“I’ve been waiting for you, son.” The General lit his pipe.

“What? You don’t smoke a pipe. You look so … young,” Joe said.

“My name’s Nathaniel Becket. I am young—at least I am, now.” He laughed. “You can call me Nate, or General. Whichever you prefer. What the hell do I call you? Joe or Juan?”

“Call me Joe—it seems right.” A grin filled Joe’s face; he thought he’d never see the General again. And then his smile faded as the seriousness of his own situation brought him back to his new reality. “General, where are we? I have no idea what’s going on here.”

“Let’s walk this way, and I’ll tell you all about it.” The General directed Joe forward on the sidewalk. “I’m treating you to a cup of coffee. It’s my turn to treat.”

A few moments later, the General emptied his pipe at the double door to a small establishment that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. “The Cafe” blinked on a neon sign in the window of the small brick store that the General signaled Joe to enter. He then pointed toward a table and followed behind Joe, stopping at the counter to pour two coffees into paper cups along the way.

“Black, how you like it.” The General winked as he pulled up a chair across from Joe.

The cafe seemed a lot like a school cafeteria, with that pale, cheap linoleum flooring. As familiar as it felt, it was a place Joe had never been to, or had seen in his life, although it reminded him of his first AA meeting: folding chairs and tables, stark walls, and free coffee. The place was mostly empty except for a few folks scattered in the seating area.

“You like the setting? I thought it was appropriate,” the General commented.

Joe looked at Nathaniel Becket and slowly began to recognize the General in the man in front of him. Nate was a much younger, cleaner version of the old guy who Joe’d become so close to over the last few years.

“This looks a lot like my first AA meeting room, but I’m sure I’ve never been to The Cafe,” Joe said.

The General saluted and winked. “It’s all about comfort, my friend.”

“What … Where do we start? I’d like to know who Nate Becket is first,” Joe said, sipping his coffee and leaning back in the plastic folding chair. He was amazingly at ease in this strange place.

“I thought you’d want to know my story once and for all.” Nate stood up and turned completely around, and when he faced Joe head-on again, Joe saw the General as he’d last seen the man. Gray hair, familiar wrinkles around the eyes, but much more clarity within the eyes. “This might be easier for you if you can see me how I was when you knew me.”

Joe smiled. What a pleasant surprise, seeing the General.

“Well, I think my heart gave out or something. I’m sure my body is still rotting at the trash dump. Drunk as a skunk, I crawled into a trash bin about a week ago. I never made it through my first night outside. I sat inside that trash bin, dead as a doornail. I felt bad that you guys were out looking for me for so long when I was dead and in the next world already.”

“So what happened when you died?” Joe asked. He wanted to learn from the other man’s experience.

“Oh no, we’re not going there just yet. Let me go back a ways first.” The General took a sip of his coffee. “I got a brother in Cincinnati, and that’s about it for living relatives. I was a mechanical engineer with a seemingly bright future. I moved to Los Angeles, had a nice job with Pasco Industries and a beautiful girlfriend. Until my brain thing happened. Yep, I had brain damage.” He smiled sadly.

“Brain damage?” That would explain quite a bit, Joe realized.

“Yes, so bad I lost everything. I hurt my head in a fight at the bar when I was just a kid, barely in my thirties.” The General let out a nervous laugh. “The only car accident I ever had was with a tree, and really I think that was my memory of an accident.”

“Interesting.” Joe looked into his coffee cup while he spoke. “Okay, so what’s with the pipe?”

“It’s something I enjoyed a long time ago. I forgot how much I liked a pipe, until I died …” The General examined the pipe and then set it back down. “Though it’s really not the same here as it was back in the flesh.”

“Aha, is that a common term to use? You know, the `in the flesh’ saying,” Joe asked.

“I learned it from Angel.” The General tipped his head and held his cup up as if to cheer the girl.

“You’ve talked to Angel?” Joe asked, dumbfounded. He couldn’t have been more shocked if the General had turned into a … giraffe.

“No. I learned it from you. You learned it from Angel.” The General winked.

“Oh, you’ve been around me, then,” Joe commented. He tried to think if he’d use that expression at the church.

“Yes, I have. But, I don’t know too much about what I’m doing here, either. If that’s any reassurance to you …” The General’s voice trailed off.

“No, it’s not,” Joe said. “I’d like to know what to do next.”

“You seem to be doing all right so far,” the old guy responded.

Joe wasn’t exactly sure how long `so far’ had been—an hour? A week? He felt very muddled about time right now. “So, what happened to you when you died?” Joe asked.

“I noticed a clarity in my mind that I hadn’t had in years. It was as if the limitations of my body were completely gone. I felt unencumbered, free. Did you notice that?”

“Yes, that’s what I noticed first,” Joe agreed. “It’s like the body was holding all of this energy in check, and my soul, or the essence of who I am, popped out of that tight confinement all of a sudden. I felt liberated, but that word doesn’t quite capture the moment.” Joe’s mind went back to his feeling at the second when he’d died.

“I understand what you mean. I felt as if I’d had on a scuba suit that was too tight. And then somebody came along and undid the zipper.” The General chuckled.

“Yep, that’s a good way to describe it.” Joe laughed along with his friend.

“When I clobbered my head, it was on a table in the bar on my way down to the floor. Some guy decked me. I was so drunk I couldn’t stand the force of the punch. It was an accident. That poor sap spent some time behind bars over the fight. He didn’t mean to damage my brain. But I was never the same after that injury.” The General sighed.

“And they didn’t help you or keep you in a facility?” Joe asked.

“They tried, for years. Before my parents died, they kept tabs on me as best they could. I was placed in a facility that let me come and go—it was sort of like a rehab house. Once my folks died, my brother lost track of me. Then again, I was an alcoholic even before the accident. Drinking was my favorite pastime.” The General took a sip of his coffee and paused as if looking right into that time so many years before. “The moment I died I knew what had been wrong with me, and who I was—and that I wasn’t the person who’d hurt your daughters.”

“That had a big impact on you, didn’t it? My girls’ accident,” Joe said. He felt regretful at having passed on the pain to the General, who was innocent after all.

“More than I thought, but you know now—don’t you?” the General responded.

“Know?”

“Well, yeah, you know what happened?”

“I’m not having the same experience you are. I don’t know what happened … Do you?” The sensation of blood rose up through Joe’s body to his brain—an extremely physical feeling. The incident that so thoroughly affected the latter part of his life, and had set the stage for all of his mistakes, was about to be made completely clear.

“Oh gosh, I assumed everyone went through the same thing. You just got here, didn’t you? Have you had any revelations?” the General asked. He stared at Joe intently.

“What do you mean? Like who killed Marilyn Monroe?” Joe asked.

“Well, yes, but that was an accidental overdose, and Robert Kennedy’s people came and took her diary. Did you see the JFK thing?” the General asked.

“I guess you must’ve been a history buff, and it sounds like you still are.” Joe laughed. “Hey, my body feels good—really good.”

“I know. I feel the same way. I was thirty years old when you first walked up a few minutes ago. It seems to be a good age around here.”

“What happens now?” Joe asked, becoming somewhat more serious.

“It sounds as if you still have everything in front of you, Joe.” The General took a puff of his unlit pipe, looked at it, then set it down with a frown. “Sometimes the past leaks in, and my mind doesn’t work too well, though I’m healing more and more the longer I’m in this place … Well, anyway, I’m here to introduce you to Flavio.”

“Flavio? Who’s Flavio?” Joe asked.

“He lived in the Los Angeles area about twenty years ago. He was an illegal immigrant who was driving the vehicle that got into the accident with your daughters’ car. Joe, Flavio wasn’t drinking that night. He was rushing to the hospital to be with his wife, who had just lost their baby. It was an accident, nothing more.”

The General fidgeted with his pipe and stirred his coffee before he continued. “Flavio left the scene when he heard the sirens because of his immigration status. He knew there was nothing he could do about the wreck—or the condition of your daughters—and help was on the way. Ironically, both he and his wife were deported that week anyhow. The whole accident wasn’t what everyone thought.”

Joe felt a pain in his left leg where he’d seen Teresa’s injury from the accident still caused her discomfort. His insides swirled. He really didn’t know how to behave; everything his life had been about for the last twenty years instantly felt wrong.

“I didn’t know about this,” Joe said slowly.

“I understand. It was the beginning of the end of your family.” The General bent his face down to look into Joe’s eyes, and then he continued as if he were giving a lecture. “Flavio wants to meet you now. He’s not to blame for this event. It was an accident, something that couldn’t be controlled, or avoided.”

“Why does he want to meet me then?” Joe asked. He felt hesitant—scared, maybe.

“You’ve carried a huge emotion surrounding this event for many, many years. A lot of energy was put into that grudge, your anger over what happened to your daughters. Whether you know it or not, this thing has affected everyone around you. Including those who weren’t ever around you but were actively involved in the incident.”

“You call this an `event,’ an `incident,’ and an `accident.’ The car wreck killed my youngest daughter.” Joe felt a tear run down his cheek. “And yes, it was the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it.”

“You know how people say there are three versions of what really happened? Yours, mine, and the real version.” The General waited for Joe to nod. “Well, there’s one version here, on this side, and it’s what really happened. I want you to understand, the accident wasn’t Flavio’s fault.”

“What are you saying, Nate?” Even as the name left Joe’s mouth, he didn’t like the sound of it.

“Oh, I think I like it better when you call me General.” The General puckered his face.

“Okay, General, what are you getting at?” Joe asked.

“All these years, everyone blamed some drunken driver. Well, that drunk driver didn’t exist. The car crash was an accident.” The General maintained eye contact with Joe.

“This was Teresa’s fault?” Joe asked. “Teresa did this.”

“Not really … It was an accident,” the General answered.

“What?”

“It’s hard to let go, isn’t it? Especially after all these years, all this anger toward the driver who killed your daughter. Joe, sometimes accidents happen. It’s that simple.”

Joe thought about all the hours he’d spent seething over the killer of his daughter. The man whom he thought had refused to stand up and be accountable for his actions. But somebody was at fault, certainly … Somebody had to be blamed. Joe balled his hands into fists and set them down on the table.

“Let it go. It didn’t happen the way you thought it did,” A thirty-year-old Nate Becket said in a soothing voice.

A flash of how the car looked at the tow yard entered Joe’s mind. The cut-away, torn, and twisted metal roof sat on top of the mangled vehicle. Later, several days later, Joe had gone to the accident site. He recalled seeing a few sets of skid marks and some debris on the road.

The police were dumbfounded as to how the driver of the other car was capable of leaving an accident that had injured two young girls. Every single person involved in the investigation, or who had any knowledge of the accident, concluded the fault had to lie with some drunk driver. Not a single one of them thought of any other reason why someone would leave a fatal accident where a child had died. The idea that the driver was an illegal immigrant hadn’t ever even entered Joe’s mind, though it made sense now.

“Where is he?” Joe asked. This was one of the hardest truths he had ever faced. The truth was supposed to be redemptive, so why didn’t he feel a sense of relief now? Because … because if he let go of that long-held anger, well, what might he feel?

Joe began to feel the terrible grief of Angela’s death.

“He’s on his way,” the General answered.

He was coming over from the land of the living? “You mean, literally …”

“Oh no, he’s been gone for quite a while. He’s coming from another place,” the General said.

“Another place?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, another place,” the General repeated.

The front door to The Cafe opened, and a short Hispanic man entered. He pulled a black beanie off his head and scanned the room. The man smiled when he recognized the General, and then he moved quickly to their table.

“General Nate, how are you?” Flavio spoke with a slight accent.