He Was Dead Wasn't He?

     John hated all of them after that. It wasn’t so much the taunting as it was the immediate humiliation. He’d spent weeks preparing and it appeared to them that he’d just thrown it together at the last minute. Donna would find out. She always had a way of knowing the things he’d never tell her. The only thing he could think to do now was go fishing for the weekend, hell, maybe the month.

     The cabin looked much better when he’d hoofed it out there last summer with his son Freddy. Grass was growing through the deck, a couple windows smashed and a section of the roof was definitely caving in. Probably the winter weather tearing at those things we still love when nature tells us to let them die. John pulled into the drive way and loaded his arms full of gear. His sleeping bag, tackle box and backpack might be too much for one trip from the car but that was his style.

     Inside it was very musty and darker than he’d remembered, probably because the lights worked then. He was afraid to use the fireplace for fear of burning the place to the ground again. On the lake it was all exactly as remembered. The boat leaked just like last year and the fish were too small to eat but that’s okay.

     His head was throbbing the first day too so it didn’t really bother him. Freddie was worried but he assured him, “that’s why you don’t drink too much son”. When he fell asleep after trying for two hours he was unable to heed the warning signs. The footsteps outside and the sheets that surrounded his cabin like a spin cycle. This area was known for its pestilence but never had there been any incidents to speak of.

     When John woke in his back seat parked at the baseball diamond he’d grown up playing at he was confident he was still dreaming. His head was throbbing which never happened during his last trip to the lake. But now he wasn’t at the lake so maybe this was another situation all together. The problem John was facing had nothing to do with his trip to the old cabin or his embarrassment at the church. John couldn’t remember when he saw his wife last, much less his son.

     For six days he walked away from the car he’d forgotten he owned. It was as if walking was the cure to a disease that had been handed down to him. He didn’t do this. How could anyone blame him? What they did to him that night at the cabin was unforgivable and warrants any and every irrational act John could ever commit in his life. Perhaps Freddy would grow to disagree but the temptation is always there to abandon responsibility.

     John haunted his wife and son for the next twelve years but they never knew it. He was more devoted than he’d ever been as a living breathing man.