The Black Flag

 

I’ve always considered my neighbor Gresham to be one of the good guys; the guy who waves when you drive past his house, the guy you run into at church, at PTA meetings, or at his daughter’s ballet over at the community center. Gresham and his wife Jessica have been married twenty-two years. I know this because they have lived next door to me for eighteen of them. They have two mostly well-behaved kids, both close to my own daughter’s age. He and Jessica drive Toyota Tacoma’s and minivans’s, respectively. They consistently pay their homeowner association fees on time, and their dues at the country club, where I am the accountants for both. There is nothing special that stands out about him, or them, really, or at least there never has been before. They are just good, quiet neighbors. Oh, and not unimportantly to this story, Gresham is a veteran who remains quiet about his service in Iraq. Quiet, that is, other than the 25’ flagpole in his front yard with the 8’ American flag, which he never fails to treat with its due respect. But the flag and pole are the only outward signs that he is different than most of us in the neighborhood, or at least that he has differing values (politically speaking that is). Still, all in all, Gresham is a good neighbor. Or, I should say, I’d always believed him to be up until now.

He was, that is, up until his daughter Gillie got into a scrape at school. What happened was that some of the kids at the high school here in our small town got a wild hair… you know how kids will do? But anyways, a bunch of kids who felt like their toes had been stepped on over some little matter decided they would stage a protest. You know, like we used to do back when we were kids. Rebel, that is. Go out and make some noise over something that might not even make much sense, but that feels right at the time. Something that inevitably seems a bit more shocking than it actually is simply because it pushes back on some conservative boundary.

Then Gresham’s daughter Gillie, undoubtedly with the intention of setting herself up higher on her old man’s totem, stood up to the protestors at school, telling them they didn’t understand the situation, that they were out of line, and that they needed to stand down. I really don’t know what Gresham’s kid was thinking, I mean it was twenty-five against one, and twenty-five can’t be wrong and the one right, you know? So yea, Gillie got roughed up a little. It was unfortunate, but she should have been a little bit smarter, don’t you think? My girl McKayla was there and saw it all. She says that Gillie would have been fine if she’d only minded her own business. McKayla is a smart kid with a massively kind heart that is chocked full of sympathies and empathies, so I have no doubt that my little girl was on the right side in this matter, whatever it was.

But I went by the hospital to see Gillie anyways when I heard what happened. She was some worse off than Kayla had described to us, but I was assured by her nurse that she should be fine in a few weeks. Regardless though, nothing was so bad that the kids who did it, nor certainly their parents, deserved what happened next.

The next morning I noticed an odd thing, a surprising thing, a thing I would think could not possibly be “not” noticed, but driving in to work the morning after the incident involving his daughter I noted that Gresham’s American flag had been replaced on it’s pole with a solid black one. I am not dense, so the symbolism of this “black flag” was upsetting to me in the moment, but I went on to work as usual, believing that Gresham was maybe a little overly wrought about the incident involving Gillie, yet there were no behaviors exhibited in his past eighteen years to make me think that Gresh wouldn’t let the school system and possibly the law take their courses, being that he has always been the good neighbor I previously described.

But then, the very next day, kids began disappearing. Those same kids from the protest, with no one having seen or heard a word from any of them afterwards. The first two were Dax and Dylan Lee, senior and sophomore brothers (who were also the apparent ringleaders of the controversial protest). I’d gotten to know the Lee boys fairly well since my girl McKayla had been seeing Dax for the past eight months or so. Dax was a well set-up kid with the great hair and perfect teeth you would expect to find in an all-state quarterback, and younger brother Dylan was his favorite target. Any idiot could see that there were Division I scholarships in both of the boys’ futures, and I must admit to taking a little pride that McKayla was dating Dax, and in having him hang out at our weekend bar-b-ques to talk a little football (I was once all-region on the JV squad myself, you know? And I might have done more with football were it not for this damned near-sightedness which plagues me still today).

But the boys disappeared, and then Annessa Fournier, again with no trace. When I heard about Annessa, I must admit that in the back of my mind were the beaten Gillie, the missing Dax, and the black flag flying ominously atop Gresham’s flag pole… and I was apparently not alone with these suspicions, as not an hour after hearing the news about Annessa there was a marked police car parked in front of Gresham’s. To be honest, it was a bit surprising to see Gresh go with them so willingly, but it wasn’t a couple of hours later that Jessica pulled the minivan back into their drive with Gresham in the passenger seat. Too embarrassed to go over and ask my own questions (despite my screaming curiosity), I was left to assume that the interview had disclosed nothing, although Gresham’s guilt seemed fairly obvious. I even found myself a little angry that he had been so casually freed. You would have to be an idiot not to see that Gresham was behind this. I mean, how would you feel if you were me? Three kids now had disappeared, and me with a daughter of my own. There was a potential kidnapper (or worse) next door and no one was doing anything about it? 

Also in the back of my mind was the question of whether or not Gresham was aware that my girl McKayla had taken part in that protest? Had Gillie even seen McKayla there, and would she tell her father if she had? After all, the girls were life-long friends.

My fears mounted that evening when McKayla revealed to Sarah and I over dinner the news about Nadia Patel… again with no trace. 

Four now! And just children! I held McKayla out of school the next day, both because she was understandably distraught, and for her own safety, though I did not voice her safety as a reason. Then the local news channel revealed that Houston Kelly had gone missing, and that the entire school was being temporarily closed for the safety of the student body until the cause of the students’ disappearances could be ascertained. 

What the Hell? We all knew the cause! 

But I‘ll tell you, it was a great relief for me when a string of police cars pulled into the driveway next door before the news segment I was watching had even ended. “Thank goodness there are multiple cars this time,” I mused as I watched them come. “And with their lights flashing, too. Someone is finally taking this shit seriously!”

Again, Gresham was led peacefully away, and when he was gone his wife and son stood huddled together in the glaring lights of the news cameras and police cars which were now lined all the way down to Beacon Street while their house was invaded by faceless, white bodysuits which searched its every crevice. I tried to feel sorry for the two of them, I truly did, but they were complicit. They had to be, didn’t they? There was no way Gresham could be doing this and they not know? Can a man realistically do anything without his wife knowing it? I found it doubtful.

The police held him longer this time. Overnight. My suspicions were reassured when there were no new disappearances while he was locked away. But then the next morning the minivan returned, again with Gresham’s wife Jessica driving while Gresham lurked across from her, invisible behind the windshield’s glare. 

Then that very afternoon Chrissie Adams’ parents (from directly across the street) were shocked to discover that Chrissie had vanished from right out of her bedroom. As I listened to this new revelation the now familiar chill along my spine grew, enveloping all of me inside it now. Chrissie had not even been safe in her own bedroom! Was there no place where I could keep McKayla safe? So it was with a feeling of foreboding that I went to my upstairs office and removed Dad’s old .38 from the safe hidden in my desk cabinet. I had never fired the thing, hating everything it stood for. Never-the-less it’s weight felt reassuring in my hand. I checked the loads, and moved the pistol to the drawer of my bedside table, where it would be useful if needed. And it was a good thing I did, though it (and I) still failed to protect McKayla.

I awakened to the proverbial bump in the night, and I knew immediately, with everything in me, that the sound I heard portended to something bad happening to my family, and specifically to my daughter. Knowing this with such certain-surety I felt no fear for myself. Grabbing the pistol from the drawer I cat-footed towards the door on the bare balls of my feet, the pistol stretched out before me, as I was apprehensive about the thing actually firing, whether intentionally or accidentally.

From the darkness behind me came Sarah’s tense voice. ”Honey? What is it? What are you doing?”

”Shhhh….”

”Oh my God! Is it McKayla? Where is she? Go get her, damn it!” And then louder. “KAYLA! Come here, Baby! Hurry! Come to Mamma!”

With any hope of surprise ruined by my wife’s wails I stepped into the hallway, still remarkably calm, surprising myself with my own… not bravery, but more like… steadfastness? It wasn’t really me moving towards the danger, but some instinct to protect my own that calmed me, slowing time and pushing me forward.

The family room was dark. As was usual Sarah had left the under-cabinet lights in the kitchen on, spotlighting the hallway in a hushed light, but without my glasses I could only make out shapes and shadows. “Kayla? Is that you?”

I heard the back door then, as the shadow I’d been staring at broke towards it. I was completely and unexpectedly surprised by the bark of the pistol in my hand, and could not have told you where it was aimed, or even if my eyes were opened when it fired, though they did open long enough to see the shadow race out of the door with another shadow close behind it. The pistol fired again, again, and then again, each shot shocking the darkness with its vulgarity. The mini explosions, for such they were, coming along with Sarah’s screams from the bedroom unnerved any remaining calmness. After one final, accidental shot into the floor between my feet, I let the pistol slip from my hands and raced for McKayla’s room, where I threw open the door and flipped on the light switch.

Empty. McKayla was gone. I had failed.

It was the longest night; its impressions flooded in flashing lights, neutral faces, and endless coffee which only magnified the unceasing worry. The voices and their questions melded to nothingness before reaching my conscious mind, so that there was only a constant hum to attend the interminable activity right up until it all ended leaving Sarah and I with nothing but each other, and she a mess and I a failure. Needing something, I walked out to the sidewalk, still in my pajama bottoms and robe, where I watched them leave my house, walk down the driveway, cross over on the sidewalk, and circle back up to Gresham’s. They allowed him time to dress… strange, as they hadn’t given me time to do that. But they returned shortly, leading him down the sidewalk once more by either arm, his hands cuffed behind him this time. He looked up at me then, standing there on the sidewalk at the end of his drive. I was happy to see the anger in his eyes, though the lack of fear in them was unexpected. I hoped there was anger in my own eyes, though I could not be sure in the moment. ”It will come,” I thought. “If he has harmed one hair on McKayla’s head, his time to fear will come.” And in the weary, early morning moment the irony of that thought completely escaped me.

The disappearances stopped with Gresham’s incarceration, just as everyone in town assumed they would.

The courtroom was the expected circus. Local news cameras vied with network camera crews who tussled with cable news channels. Sarah and I were there early. We were led to a bench three rows back, immediately behind Gresham. For three days it went on, and the lack of evidence put forth was startling, even to me, whose mind was already so sure in its guilty assessment. The prosecution had nothing. Nothing at all, but fortunately they did not let the facts deter them, as the jury was made up of locals who, like myself, already had Gresham convicted, and the attorneys on both sides knew it. Evidence is unimportant when you have public opinion on your side. Like it or not life is, indeed, a popularity contest. So along with the others I patiently waited. There is no need to run along behind when you know where the circus is headed. 

The mood in the courtroom was light during deliberation, as there was only one possible outcome. I cannot say that I was happy about any of it, but I think at least a small amount of smugness might have been warranted. Kayla was still gone, replaced by an ice cold ball in my belly, but there would be justice. 

And then the strangest thing happened. As things were quite obviously turning against him Gresham hiked his leg up onto the table in front of his seat and began rolling up his pants leg. Being such an odd thing for a man suspected of such depravity to do in that moment, those of us in the courtroom leaned in as one to see what it was he was about?

Eighteen years I’d lived next door to Lawrence Gresham and I‘d never known he had a prosthetic leg. Funnier thing is, eighteen years and I’d never known his name was Lawrence until the trial, or if I had known it was forgotten. Upon meeting him all those years ago he’d told me his name was Gresham, and I guess it was, but I’d never bothered to learn if Gresham was a surname or common. But the man the bailiff announced to the jury as Lawrence Bayne Gresham began rolling up his pants leg, revealing an aluminum and stainless steel prosthesis. To say that those who knew him were surprised would be a huge understatement, but come to think of it I’d never, in all that time I’d known him, seen him in a pair of shorts… but neither had I found it odd that he didn’t wear shorts. Gresham was a jeans and boots guy; a quiet, country-cowboy type, so who would suspect?

The rolling up of the pants leg was too lackadaisical to be alarming. When the cuff of his pants reached Gresham’s knee the courtroom watched in fascination as he unstrapped the prosthetic leg. Unstrapping it, he pulled it away from his exposed thigh as though it were a bother, and once away he looked down inside the cavity of it as though there was a missing pad, or cushion inside. His expression while doing so was so childlike as to make one smile. No one could have expected anything out of the ordinary when he reached down into the prosthetic’s cavity… surely he was only making some adjustment to the awkward thing that would make it more comfortable, and we all believed that, right up until his hand re-emerged holding onto some “thing.“ And when it did the people in the rows closest to Gresham drew away. Gasps ensued, followed by a hush which fell over the courtroom as we in attendance came into view of the old fashioned, WWII-type, pineapple looking grenade in Gresham’s hand. And then, without a word of warning, he pulled the pin.

The “cold hand of death” is real, and it froze everyone of us there in that courtroom.

There was a scuffle from the back rows as a few made their escapes before Gresham stopped anyone else from trying with a couple of short, sharp, un-ignorable commands. “Stop! Sit! I have something to say to you all.”

The room fell completely silent then, as even the hum of the air conditioning died off in obeyance to the former Ranger’s sharp commands. But Gresham didn’t speak. Not at first. Rather he laid the little bomb on the table amidst his attorneys’ scattered papers and laptops while he bent to reattach his leg. I mean, the grenade was right there for anyone on the first row to grab, but no one moved toward it. Those closer-by sat as silently as the rest of us, their eyes glued to it, waiting like the rest of us for they knew not what. With his leg re-attached and his pant leg unrolled Gresham picked up his grenade and stood, pausing to allow his stump a moment to seat comfortably down into its prosthetic. Once satisfied he turned to face his audience.

Gresham was a short, stocky, stiff-backed man with a jutting jaw, and closely cropped, reddish-brown hair. He had once been a Ranger, and it was not at all difficult twenty-five years later to imagine him in desert fatigues and helmet, rifle in hand, running towards some enemy. ”You are all embarrassing, and I am embarrassed to be one of you.” He started. “I’m not blind. I can see how this trial is going to end, and this despite the fact that not one shred of evidence has been produced to implicate me. I can, and will, prove to you all that I had nothing to do with the disappearances of these children, but should I have to? Many of you have known me for twenty-five years, for Christ’s sake!” Gresham walked with no noticeable limp as he spoke, the grenade loose in his hand, as if it had been forgotten by the man holding it, though the rest of us in the room had eyes for nothing else. Watching it as closely as I was, I barely noticed that Gresham had halted his pacing in the aisle beside me. “Take the Taylors’ here for example. Mike and Sarah have lived next door since Jessica and I moved to Salem all those years ago. Our children have been friends their whole lives. I drove McKayla to the hospital that time she crashed on her bike? Don’t you remember that, Sarah?“ I felt my back stiffen as he spoke directly to my wife. “Do you really believe I could hurt her, or abduct her, or even frighten her in any way? For God’s sake Mike, your daughter has spent nearly as much time in my house as she has in yours, over the years.”

”But what about the flag?” The unexpected words cracked in my voice, but the question needed to be asked.

Gresham’s head dropped. “The flag. I was angry. I wanted you all to know I was angry. Your children beat my little girl half to death. But this?“ While it was clear that Gresham was referring to the entirety of the situation, meaning the missing kids and all, it was the hand with the grenade in it that he lifted and curiously inspected, as though he had forgotten it was in the hand. “I could never do this.”

Gresham disappeared then, literally… in a cloud of red vapor which covered me where I sat. His body dropped like a rock, the grenade clunking from his dead hand and rolling to a stop between my feet. Panic stricken, I clawed the mist away from my eyes with fingers which, like the muscles covering the rest of my body, were frozen hook-like in fear. Still though, the wife at my side cast a protective instinct over me. I threw myself on the floor next to Gresham, my stomach covering the ticking bomb, and I awaited the explosion that would be my end, but which never came.

It turns out that the bullet which completely disintegrated the side of Gresham’s head came from outside the courtroom, through a closed window, traveling at such velocity that it did not even shatter the glass, but left only a small, spider-webbed hole in the pane. The SWAT sharpshooter had been concentrating on his target, awaiting a clear shot, so he had not seen the small group of teenagers running up the street towards him, waving their arms and shouting for his attention. Him not noticing them was a shame, and would haunt the poor man forever after. If only he’d waited one more second.

And the grenade had not really been a grenade at all, but had been the ornamentation on a plaque give to Gresham long ago by his military unit, some kind of meritorious service award. The grenade was hollow inside, and had “made in China” stamped onto it‘s bottom.

And the kids hadn’t been abducted at all, but had been hiding out at an older friend’s mobile home up near the town of Warm Springs. Looking to avoid trouble after what happened with Gillie, the kids had seen the black flag and realized how easy it would be to turn the attention away from themselves and onto Gillie Gresham’s rigid, and unliked father. But then the whole affair had exploded far beyond the control of a bunch of sixteen and seventeen year old kids.

But their plot had worked. We’d all been taken in by it. Me, especially. Gresham was dead, and for the exact reasons he’d stated to us at the end, there in the courtroom. We’d all turned on him, and so quickly! We were ready to charge him as a kidnapper or worse, without the first piece of evidence, because he’d gotten angry over what our children had done to his child. And in his anger he had hung up a reminder about it for us all to see. That was his transgression. Hanging up a flag… a black flag.

It was a long, long time that I laid there atop that grenade on that courtroom floor, mouthing prayers I did not even know I remembered. When I did finally clamber up on my shaking legs it was to meet Sarah’s horrified eyes, as I was painted in blood, and bone, and membranes, so much so that McKayla did not even come to me once outside, but ran instead straight-away to her mother, which was fine. She was still my daughter, and I still loved her more than life itself, but she was not my favorite person right then, though it was a relief to see her. No, it would be a good while until she was back in my good graces, and those good graces would never be quite the same. My “Little Angel’s” foolishness and lies had caused a man’s death. Though a father can always forgive, I found it impossible to look at my daughter in the same light as I had before.

But life goes on. Gillie recovered. I offered Jessica my services. It seemed the least I could do, as my family was a big part of the reason she was now alone.

There was not a lot to do, however. Gresham’s accounts were in order. The house was paid off, and with a little bit of creative accounting Gresham’s savings and pensions would be more than enough to see Jessica cared for and the kids sent to college. So I took to mowing their grass, along with my own. I didn’t really have the time to mow it, but some things time must be made for, and doing small things for them seemed to be the only way to wash away the nightmares of bone and blood that covered my face, and lips, and hair every morning when I woke.

Oh! And there is one other little thing that I do. There are, as there should be, reminders placed about our land, here and there, of those things which should never be forgotten; memorials, if you will. And in our little town of Salem there once lived a man who, while not a hero, certainly never deserved to have such an ill-fate meted upon him by his own community.

So to ensure that neither he, nor their deeds, will ever be forgotten… 

There flies a black flag.