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©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
DARWIN'S GAME
By Wayne Webb
CHAPTER 32
“Hi everyone. My name is Jason.”
“Hi Jason.” Everyone answered back, Helen
squeezing his hand for support.
The leader of the support group, a kindly older
man who wore a priest’s collar but no robes or other vestments
signifying his religious affiliation incline his head toward the
group. “You can say whatever you like here, there's no judgement
and there's no blame, there's just people like you.”
“That's a bit hard to believe, that there are
people like me.” Jason held on tight to Helen's hand, she had
convinced him to come to the support group at her local community
hall, run by a priest, but only semi-religious at best according to
her. It was a mixed bag of people who came here, and it was a place
to share freely without fear, that was how she put it. Jason knew
that she had issues with her father as well, a drunk or a violent
man, possibly both as she never really told him the details.
“We all feel we are alone, Jason but that is
a part of the way you are feeling and that is completely valid to
feel that way, it may even be true, but I think you'll find more in
common than not here.” The man's name was Michael, he eschewed all
titles and honorifics here, in favour of an open and balanced
discussion where anyone could say anything, and it would be safe.
“I understand that everyone goes through
different things, and sometimes those things are hard to talk about,
but that's not my problem. I... I want to talk about it. I do.”
“Then why don't you just say whatever you
want to say?”
“I... I guess it's a trust thing, I need to
know that no one … no one will talk about it. I don't mean to be
rude, it's just that if I tell someone, someone tells someone else
and … it's something I think people want to know and I... I want to
talk about it. I do.” Jason blinks away a few tears welling up and
the mood of the group changes from offended to protective in a
heartbeat. Helen puts her arm around his shoulder, comforts him. They
are not going out, but it feels like they might be soon if they are
not careful or if they care at all. She knows he is having issues
with getting to know his absentee father, something she could
sympathise with, but he has not shared any of the details with her.
He started to but she suggested that they bring the whole thing to
group, in a trusting and caring environment where there was more than
one reaction and more than one person to help him get in touch with
how to handle his grief, anger or whatever else was driving him.
Jason felt that if he brought it to the group
then it would either excuse Helen from the relationship if she wanted
to, or let her put aside the feelings that would undoubtedly come out
once she knew what he did. It felt like a proposition with less risk
for the relationship he was interested in. Helen was damaged, and
vulnerable, possibly like that forever and he was becoming protective
and caring for her. She was attractive and needy, wasn't that a good
combination for him? It was a selfish approach and he knew it, but at
least there was good in it for both of them. That had to make it
worthwhile, isn't that what everyone was looking for?
“Jason, this group is private, we share no
details about who we are if we don't want to, we don't use last
names, and I'm a priest, I am bound by confidence in this and pretty
much all settings. Everyone here is sharing something painful and
private they don't want anyone else to know, so unless you are
harbouring some huge secret like you know who the second gunman was,
or maybe who this Darwin person is, then maybe, just maybe you'll be
ok?” Michael smiled at him when he saw Jason pale at what he was
saying, but did not make the connection.
“Well...”
“Go on, just say whatever you want to … and
if you don't maybe it's not the right time, we can try later or try
something else or...” Helen was being the strong one all of a
sudden and it was not the way that he saw this working at all, wasn't
he here to save her, not the opposite?
“It's about my father. I never knew who my
father was, and my mother she was not very big on the details. I
guess I know why now, but for years I wondered what kind of man he
was, and what kind of man would just run out and leave a young girl
with a baby to fend for themselves, I mean what would my life be like
if I knew him, you know?”
“We do, it's not uncommon among children who
lose their parents at a young age, through accidents or through more
… deliberate actions like yours, perhaps?”
“It's funny you talking about Darwin and my
Dad.”
There's a collective gasp in the room and he
hurriedly adds, “He's not my Dad and I don't know who he is … but
he knows who my Dad is.”
Everyone is leaning slightly forward in their
seats now and Jason sighs. Michael sees this is what what he was
referring to, the interest in all things Darwin, the risk he's taking
in exposing himself to strangers like this. “No one here is
interested in sharing ANYTHING we hear outside of this room today, no
one yes?” There is a murmur of assent, but they both think the same
thing, that it's to find out what Jason has to say butt likely true
that they'll keep the secret as well.
“My mother, she saw him on the TV, not the
day he died but before that.”
“So he's one of the eight already dead then?”
A lone voice asked out of the group, “I'm sorry I didn't... mean
to pry and I'm just... the whole thing is so... I feel for you it
must be hard to find out and to find out this way, I'm sorry.”
There is another agreeing murmur, this one a little more sincere.
“I know that inside me there is a different
person than him and that my mother brought me up well, to be a better
man than him too, and I know that, I do know that.” Jason stops
again and Helen squeezes his hand again, this time keeping it clasped
until both their hands turn white.
“I know you're not that person, who ever your
father is or was, I know you Jason, I know you are better.” That
starts him crying again, this was very definitely not how he saw this
going at all.
“I saw what they did to that old woman, the
Washington woman, the mother of that guy, you know the one? The one
that drown himself trying to kill, I mean killing that guy. I don;t
want any of that, I don't want to be known as “so and so's son” I
want my mother spared the pain and the attention for something that
was a part, an unwelcome part too, of her life thirty years ago. I
don't want people thinking that about me, I don't want them thinking
that about her and looking at us and thinking... well I don't want
anyone thinking anything.”
“There's no judgement here and there's no
need to fear, no one here wants to share your secret, we don't even
need to know which one you're talking about. You said he's one of the
eight, you said he's dead already and that he's a bad man, which kind
of goes without saying as there are no innocents in that... whatever
that is... what you have shared, that's all we need to know.”
Michael could sense some disappointment in the group, there was a
sense of celebrity around this Darwin phenomenon and this was as
close as they would ever get, two degrees of separation.
“I hear them talking about him on the radio,
I see pictures of him on the Television all the time on these shows
and he's just one of many, many others in there, but they may as well
be printing my name under his picture, that's how it can make me
feel. And when she talks about him now, when she tried to explain to
me how and why... it makes no sense. The woman she is and the girl
she was are two totally different people.”
“I'm sure that it's hard to process, it must
be having your family wounds so publicly open, even if only you know
that it is your family and no one else does.” Michael was choosing
his words carefully because he didn't really know what to say to
Jason, what could you say?
“I watched him die, I watched him die with my
mother. She wanted to see it and I sat with her and we watched him
die. It was over in flash, he was there and alive even though she had
thought he was dead a few years before that, she had let go of him
twice before already. When he left her she got over it and realised
it was for the best, my grandparents, her parents, wanted to keep her
as far away from him and the people he knew as possible. He didn't
know about me, no one did except us really. She let go of him then,
then when he was supposedly dead already, she let him go again
knowing that he'd never turn up out of the blue and take any... make
any... connection maybe? Who knows, but he wouldn't because he was
dead right? But then he wasn't dead, and there he was on her laptop
screen, on the internet and alive not dead at all.”
“That must have been...”
“It was mind blowing, there she was watching
him die and she said to me “do you think this is real?” like I
would know some how? This was my sharing with my mother, I was there
for her and I was strong so she would not have to be, but it was like
she was watching TV or a film or something. It was not as real as I
thought it would be, it was … I was screaming inside my own head
when I watched him, wanting to kill those other men, I could see it
in him, I could see exactly how bad that man that gave life to me
was. And when he got … his reward, justice or whatever you call
it... I was relieved when it was done, and so very tired, I was
exhausted. I was tired of it all. And she... that's when she started
to tell me about him, when I was screaming in agony and exhausation,
she needed me to listen to her, and I needed... I needed this.”
Jason looked around the room as if it were the
first time he had seen these people, in that very instant and he had
said so much, and still there was more and they had to listen, al
they had to do was listen. That was what he needed, just this once
and then he would be done.
“I didn't know anything about him until then,
and now he's my Dad and he WAS dead, but NOW he's alive and a
scum-bag and a fucking paedophile... oh sorry excuse me father, I
forgot my language.”
Michael scanned the group and they were hanging
on every word he said, he hoped the faith he had in them was not
misplaced.“That is completely understandable and you're probably
giving away more than you need to.”
“Too late for that now, it was Thomas
Somerset, he is, was my father. He was older than my mother even
then, she was so young and legal though only just. It just got worse
when he got older, the girls got younger still. They interviewed one
of the slightly girls he raped as he was on the run with that fifteen
year old, child, he convinced to help him kill. She, the one he raped
but didn't kill, she was damaged and scared of him even after he was
dead, it was … that was my father.”
“Biologically he was, obviously in spirit he
was far from involved who you turned out to be.” Michael felt out
of his depth, it was a lot to take in in a single session but Jason
obviously had a need to pour it out.
“That girl she watched him die, but all she
could say was “where's the body?” She wouldn't believe he was
dead, he'd been dead before … or brain dead... but she couldn't let
get of the fear, I thought seeing his head explode like that would...
do something, let her let go maybe?” Jason was wringing his hands
and looking around the group, he was feeling the guilt for all his
father's actions emotionally though academically he knew innocence,
that was not how he felt.
“It's OK, it's not you, it's not you.”
Helen had never felt closer or more protective of another human being
in her life. She had been drawn to him for his certainty and his
strength, but with feet of clay came a balancing between them that
gave her a greater share in a future relationship, she could feel a
righting of the world, she would not be dependent, maybe co-dependent
but equally so.
Jason stopped wringing his hands and took hers
again. “I know it's not me, and I know so many things here” He
tapped his head “... but...” he tapped his heart and said no
more.
