THEO
THE FILE HAD TILLAMOOK COUNTY JAIL in black square letters across the cover and smelled of cigar smoke. Inside were snapshots of young girls with swollen eyes and bloodied lips; one girl’s head had been shaved, and they all had a look of terror in their eyes like the concentration camp photographs in last month’s LIFE. Words jumped off the page: kidnapped, held hostage, tortured, ten years old. I closed the folder. Pictures and names lodged in my throat like undigested food. How was it possible this monster hadn’t been caught? But then there’d always been evil in the world, always would be. The only real question was what to do about it.
***
After I showered and dressed, Solomon came through the back door.
“Mornin’,” I said. “Anything on Neahkahnie?”
I poured a shot of Murphy’s into my morning coffee to help dislodge that undigested bit of matter, slumped into a dining room chair and said, “Just calming my nerves.”
He shook his head no, gave a dark glance at the bottle of Murphy’s, picked up the file from the table, and opened it.
“Can’t look at it anymore,” I said. “Besides, I need to get to Saint Mary’s for confession.”
“You need that ritual?” he asked. “For your Korea?”
“I never go to confession myself. Should, but I don’t. This is for the parishioners.”
“Catholics like confession,” he said. “Creates change, helps stuck energy flow, lightens saddle of guilt, shame. It is ceremony. Ceremonies are good for lost, sleeping people.”
“Excuse me, you have all kinds of ceremonies.”
“I am different kind of lost . . . I am left behind . . . but I am awake.”
“Never thought of you as any kind of lost,” I said, tying my shoes.
“This not about me. Is about you. You are sleeping in your life.”
“What? Is there a sign on the door that says ‘come on in and nudge the bear’?”
Solomon glared at me.
“I’m awake,” I said. “I know who I am—”
“No,” he said. “You know who you’re supposed to be—you have forgotten who you are. You sleep, like Neahkahnie Mountain, a warrior who slumbers beneath dark blanket, slumbers to hide from pain, hide from true self.” He placed his forceful hand on the file. “To know your enemy, Theo, is to know yourself. You know this.”
I stared at the file. A sudden consciousness came over me. I had been afraid to look at them. If I kept my head in the sand, whom would that serve? “All right, I get it. I’m awake.”
“You have stone on your heart . . . weighs you down. You need ritual to lighten load . . . for Ireland, Korea . . . for guilt or shame?”
“No guilt,” I said, realizing that the gravity of shame was the only real emotion I felt anymore. “And no, I don’t need a ritual for shame.”
“Shame is hard,” he said, “like festering bullet in your hip. Only way to heal, return to source, cut open, drain poison before it cripples body.” He picked up the letters and saw they were unopened, unread. “Then do fire ritual. You used fire before to cleanse a festering wound.”
“Yes,” I said. The image of the Mc Murtry brothers’ building in flames came to life. No shame. No guilt. I’d healed a festering wound. “I have. But that was then, this is now. How?”
“A way comes . . . soon. I see it. Soon you, Raven Two Fists, will be one to nudge bear.”
He set the stack of letters back in their place where I kept them like decoration on the table. Then he picked up the file and handed it to me.
“Now,” he said. “You have enemies here. Right now you must wake to know this enemy. He grows strong. Both men, afraid of nothing on this earth, apart from you.”
“Why me?”
“Toreck is fool. He wants revenge for what you took from him. Revenge is deep well more potent than fear. He cannot help himself. But the man with snakes, he is dark spirit. A demon with powers of control. He will force you to your greatest battle.”
“I’m not a soldier anymore.”
“Remember your lessons? Sometimes you choose peace, sometimes fight for it.”
“At seminary they taught that a man of God always chooses peace.”
“Man cannot walk two paths,” he said. “Know this enemy. Remember your lessons.”
The back door banged closed behind him.
***
The faces of the orphans passed through me again; an eternal, far-reaching shadow. I pictured their protector, Father Answar—the most peace-loving man that ever walked this earth—tearing off his robes and picking up a rifle before all his orphans were gunned down. It was a short, barbed distance between peace and violence—a distance a man should be prepared to travel to protect those he loves. Like Kiernan, Father Answar had underestimated his enemy’s hatred. We all did. I wouldn’t again.
I downed my last shot of Murphy’s. The fiery warmth rushed through my veins. Then I took the half-full bottle and wrapped a thick barrier of medical tape—used to wrap my knuckles—around the seal. I placed it next to the letters. Solomon was right—it was time to be fully awake.