“The Less Traveled Road”

Hitchhiking wasn’t the smartest method of travel. But Thompson had left in a hurry and there was no turning back.

Childhood memories lured him toward the ocean. Carefree days of play on the beach under protective eyes of parents. Eating mountains of ice cream and riding the double decked carousel imported from Italy and the white washed roller coaster soaring out over the ocean. The boardwalk at night sparkling thousands of lights flashing colored neons while just a few feet away, surf melodically rolled across the darkness, coaxing him to sleep cradled safely in his mother’s arms.

How old had he been?

He’d grown away from it, carrying a wealth of child half-memories, stored for use in times of crisis.

He chose now to return to this idealized place.

All he’d learned about manhood had failed him. A personal tragedy which the rules of that learned manhood dictated that he should have had control has crushed his spirit and all he could think of was running away, or rather back to that simpler, happy time.

Thompson gave up on hitchhiking when he entered a desolate wooded stretch, where cars were few and those few weren’t stopping.

He didn’t mind walking. The cool shade of overhanging trees and the pervasive quiet made walking pleasant.

He walked along for several miles, at first without seeing any sings of human existence. After a while, the air grew heavy, a musty smell which weighted him with drowsy depression.

His pace slowed to a ponderous plod, each step a burden and he wondered if he should go on.

But he could not turn back.

Eventually, he stumbled out of that dark place into a different sort of desolation. He passed fields now long unplowed and overgrown, passing tumbled down hunting shacks, abandoned gas stations, a restaurant that long ago stopped serving coffee and pie after the homemade meatloaf dinner for which it had been famous, according to the faded sign dangling forlorn from the slumping post near the roadside.

Without realizing it, he found himself standing at dusk in the center of the town of Twinings.

Twinings wasn’t much of a town. He paused at a general store that looked like it had materialized from grainy black and white photos from the Depression era. All that was lacking was the wooden Indian on the sagging front porch.

A long abandoned gas pump, boasting hi-octane fuel for pennies a gallon completed that picture. The store was closed and didn’t appear to be opening soon.

The rest of the business district consisted of ramshackle offices. A doctor, general practice. A lawyer/notary public, a real estate agent. A one story town hall stood apart on a lot overgrown with weeds.

If Twinings had a pulse it appeared to come from a lunch counter, closed for the evening.

It wasn’t late but judging from the blue glow of televisions flickering behind drawn window blinds, everyone was home and Twinings had called it quits for another day.

“Good idea,” Thompson thought, stretching. “Maybe I can find a place to hole up, with night coming on fast. I sure could use some sleep.”

He passed a barn beyond the edge of metropolitan Twinings. The door was open, rather it was gone, the barn’s owner apparently not concerned with the possibility of trespassers.

He trespassed. He found a ladder leading to a loft. Finding a dark corner, he made his bed.

In the unfamiliar quiet and dark, he sought sleep to avoid thinking. But Thought intruded.

He thought about her. Didn’t want to think about her, had run away from her and thoughts of her. But there in that abandoned barn, he saw her, her eyes fixed unrelenting on him.

Eyes. That’s all he remembered of his daughter now. That last image of that sweet and unoffending child, beseeching with her eyes before they were shut forever and she was inexcusably snatched away. In that instant, two other lives were snatched away; his own and the life of the girl’s mother.

“If only we’d known sooner…”

“If only they’d been able to catch it in time.”

The doctors chorused from the sidelines as husband and wife looked at one another and then away, for good. Not daring to blame but not able to do anything but assign blame.

“If only…”

After their daughter’s death, there was no reason for them to stay together. She would have wanted them to do that much at least. In a movie scene, she would have rallied on her death bed long enough to clasp their hands to her bosom and in a parting speech, make them swear. To stay together. A family. Her mommy and daddy always. But there had only been the eyes, frightened and questioning, beseeching silently.

There had been no death promise.

Her trusting innocence had been the adhesive holding together the hollow shell of a tight knit family. That gone, the shell easily shattered.

He’d never been good enough to be a father and husband. Her parents had always said it. He’d worked to prove them wrong only there was always something that kept showing him in his true colors. Finally there was tragedy, his daughter’s sudden illness. And his response had been inadequate.

There would have been a period, forcing smiles, putting up brave fronts, avoiding uncomfortable truths. Excruciating politeness that strained them both before the inevitable. He ran off to spare himself. Seeking a place and time before all that pain, where all was innocence and bliss.

He was roused by a rustling noise from another corner of the barn. He heard scuffling. A number of people tumbled about. He could not see but could hear male laughter and the muffled cries of a female. Frightened cries.

He started to climb down toward the sound but hesitated when he heard a female scream of pain. He crouched in the loft and hid. He heard more screams, muffled. Then several figures hurrying out of the barn.

Silence until the remaining figure rose on wobbly legs, heavy breathing punctuated by a single extended animal groan. He made out the figure of a young girl, adjusting a skirt, buttoning a blouse, fussing with hair. He could not see her face but he heard her weeping. The sobbing stopped and she sighed heavily in resignation. Finally, treading unsteadily, she left the barn.

He threw on a sweatshirt and paused at the top of the ladder. He thought about following the girl. Instead, he hunkered back into the dark of the loft hoping for sunrise and time to be away from this place.

He woke up hungry. He figured he’d grab some coffee and eggs before heading out. Walking into Twinings, he was followed by the town constable who drove slowly behind him.

When he entered the café, the morning buzz of conversation stopped. He sat at the end of the counter and when the waitress finally demanded his order in a surly tone, he figured on a coffee to go.

No one spoke. All eyes were turned his way. He couldn’t help but grin, figuring that a hick town like Twinings wasn’t used to strangers actually pausing on their hurried way through.

But he stopped grinning when he realized the attention was more than typical small town wariness before the outsider. He felt a collective animosity generated toward him. He had no desire to confront it, he wanted to get out of Twinings fast.

He paid for his coffee and, head down, hurried for the door, pushing past the constable who was just entering. His way out was blocked.

“Kind of in a hurry, ain’t you son?” the constable asked, his tone inquisitive and folksy but decidedly unfriendly.

He shouldered his back pack and shrugged, replying that he was on his way to the shore.

“No law against that is there?” he asked, realizing that he sounded defensive.

“No there ain’t. There are laws against other things though.” The constable stepped aside to let him pass, nodding toward the other side of the road as he entered the café...

As he walked briskly toward the shore highway, several figures emerged from one of the back yards and crossed the road heading toward him. “What’s the hurry?” the obvious leader asked in an out the side of the mouth style mimicking the popular tough guy movies of the time.

The last things he saw were the baseball bat as it slammed into his chest while four of them surrounded him, punching and kicking and, as he slid bleeding and helpless to the ground before losing consciousness, the constable’s back as he turned to reenter the café.

Hours later, or was it days?

Actually, it was several months later. He woke up in a jail cell. He’d been waking up in this same cell for weeks since he’d been “apprehended”, arrested, and charged with rape.

He guessed they didn’t know about due process in Twinings. Each morning now started with a bit of hope that it had all been a nightmare and he would find himself sitting on a lounge chair poolside at his parent’s retirement condo in Point Pleasure.

He had been beaten badly, laid up for several weeks but not hospitalized. They’d kept him in a room over the doctor’s office across the road from the jail. “Doc”, yes they called him that, had a small clinic with four beds. Being in “custody”, he’d been confined there until he was well enough to move and then he was taken across the main street to the jail house in the rear of the town hall.

There he lingered, assuming no one in the real world was aware of his predicament. His only visitor was the public defender, one of the two attorneys who practiced in Twinings. The younger one who received little of the town’s piddling legal business. His livelihood consisted of handling desperate cases.

“Like defending the rapist from out of town.”

“Yep, that’s what they’re calling you.” Brian MacCullough informed him the day they were introduced.

He tried laughing but his ribs still hurt.

“What’s the victim say?” he finally asked.

“Well, she’s not able to swear for certain, it being night and all. But she’s indicating that you’re the one.”

He didn’t want to say anything. The situation was ludicrous and he felt like he’d fallen into a stale movie plot filled with stock characters. He asked the lawyer why he hadn’t been transferred to a hospital for his injuries or to a more secure jail facility away from Twinings but MacCullough waved his questions aside.

“Oh I’m certain the good people of Twinings will do what they have to do to see that justice is done,” MacCullough noted, shuffling papers.

He experienced one of those flashes that come over a man who has traveled out to the edge, an instant when he saw the totality of the place, a glimpse that flashed quickly but left him knowing that he had to be in Twinings, had to face this absurd inquisition, that a ledger needed balancing and this farce was being staged to resolve accounts

He told the lawyer about his night in the barn. MacCullough asked if he could identify any of the men, either by sight or from the sounds of their voices. He conceded that he could not.

“By the way, that straw they found on your clothing didn’t help you any, the girl being raped in a barn and all.”

“I must be a pretty dumb rapist to come walking into town the day after the big barn dance and me with straw hanging out every which way.”

“A ‘dumb’ rapist would fit in here,” MacCullough countered with a chuckle. “Twinings isn’t known as a hotbed of deep thinking. This is one of those places you pass on your way somewhere else and as you blithely zip on by you ask yourself what were people thinking, getting themselves stuck in a place like this.”

“Well, Twinings is what it is because it never really tried to be anything more. People here may not be satisfied but they go along. They’re reluctant to do anything that requires them to assert themselves, take control. They just let things go along.”

“A trial like this,” MacCullough whistled low, “might upset the apple cart a little. A few good ol’ boys letting off steam with some trailer trash. No big deal hereabouts. But you had to be there. Now this town might have to take a look at itself and it might not like what it sees….more likely, it’ll not see anything but you and they’ll take it all out on you.”

Uneasy days followed. The mothers of Twinings, egged on by their righteous clergyman, picketed the jail, demanding swift retribution.

At night, their men folk took over, visiting in the dark vowing to exercise their own brand of justice. He wondered if the preacher had sent them as well.

The mayor made weekly speeches denouncing him. The chief men of Twinings joined him, including the Reverend Harcher, princes of Main Street collected on the steps of Town hall, bloodthirsty for revenge before remembering their lofty positions in the community. They’d settle for “justice”.

By the time his case came to trial, only MacCullough held onto any illusion of presumptive innocence. Outside, the mob awaited, noosing their stiff rope of righteousness.

He kept reminding himself that he was in New Jersey in the USA and it was the middle of the 20th century.

Locals filled the court room, overcrowding it so that a flustered judge moved the proceedings to the high school gym.

As he was led by the constable down the long corridor to the gym, he learned that the mayor’s son, along with the sons of Twinings’ leading citizens were the pride and joy of the high school’s gridiron. Trophies and banners and newspaper clippings told of a state championship team and how Twinings’ shining examples of young American manhood had done the seemingly impossible with a long last second touchdown pass. There had been nothing to compare with it locally, before or likely to match it after.

The first time he saw the girl, and their eyes met, he felt a glimmer of recognition from his own past.

She came with her father, obviously a poor laborer. The high and mighty had condescended to acknowledge him on this occasion, an exception from their usual relationship with the man whose role was to anonymously toil in their background.

After that quick eye contact, the girl looked away. She riveted her gaze to the floor where it stayed throughout the trial, out of embarrassment for being the center of attention.

Desperate as his own plight was, his heart went out to her. In their brief exchange of glances, he had seen another and felt the pain that that other might have felt if placed in the same position.

Then he noticed the bulge in her stomach. He smiled sadly and sighed deeply, feeling for the girl and the life she carried and the long difficult road that lay ahead for them both. He whispered to MacCullough. The lawyer’s eyebrows arched in surprise as he looked quickly to the girl.

The lawyer rose to his feet dramatically and requested a private conference with the judge, prosecutor, and the town doctor.

He was led to the judge’s chambers where he was examined by the doctor. A phone call was placed followed by more legal talk, while the crowd waiting in the courtroom grumbled.

Finally, the judge gaveled order and quickly dismissed the charges.

“This is an outrage!” the mayor bellowed from the gallery.

The victim was three months pregnant, impregnated by the rapist, the judge explained. As the judge spoke, the girl left the courtroom, unnoticed.

“It has been established beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is incapable of impregnating anyone. Evidence has been presented proving that the defendant recently underwent a procedure called a vasectomy after his only child died. Our own Dr. Kunkle has confirmed this just now by examination and a telephone call to the doctor who performed the procedure.”

The judge let that sink in and again gaveled order and reiterated his dismissal of the case before he hurried out of the courtroom. Twinings was left to digest this and other, unresolved issues.

That night, he left Twinings a free man. MacCullough had offered him a lift to Point Pleasure but he refused. He wanted to walk out of town and hoped everyone was peeking out from behind their curtains as he left the place in his dust.

He heard steps behind him as he passed the fateful barn but looking back, saw no one. Spooked he thought. He walked faster. The steps followed, keeping pace, now on both sides, and finally in front of him. He was surrounded and of course, he knew who…

The first blow broke ribs. Held now, he took a relentless torrent of blows that broke various parts of his body. They continued kicking and beating him as he slumped in a broken heap. Finally, the beating stopped and they dragged him to a parked vehicle.

An empty bus, its driver gone off, pausing somewhere on a rest break before heading on to his next destination.

After a few more blows, they threw him in the baggage compartment on the side of the bus, covered him with parcels and slammed the door, encasing him in an airtight vault where it was presumed he’d be found dead by an astonished driver later during his run.

Brian MacCullough never handled another case in Twinings after his big victory.

One night, shortly after the trial, the lawyer suffered near fatal injuries when his car slid off a dirt road through the woods and fell into the pit of an abandoned quarry. MacCullough nearly drowned and was blinded in the accident.

He sold his family’s home of several generations and closed his office. He relocated to Trenton where he hooked up with a prominent capitol law firm.

Folks in Twinings weren’t curious about why Brian MacCullough was driving so deep in the woods, on a night of heavy rain, at that. They knew better than to examine too closely into the affairs of their community.

With Brian MacCullough gone, that was enough for Twinings.

The girl, as people disparagingly referred to her, left town as well. In disgrace and good riddance. The town considered the entire sordid affair to be closed and settled back into its normal routines.

Real estate booms came and went over the years, but always seemed to bypass Twinings. The town was locked in the grip of slow economic death and Mayor Jack Drew was helpless to reverse the trend. It hurt Drew professionally as town’s mayor and personally as a lifelong local, to watch his town die.

Born and raised right on Main Street. Graduated from its schools where he excelled in three high school sports. His father had been mayor before him. His great grandfather one of the area’s original settlers.

Drew was also tied to Twinings by his building trade. He built much of what remained of the town, or rather rebuilt it. He and his partner Ed Halpern held a virtual monopoly on construction business in the community. But there wasn’t any new construction, mostly odd jobs, repairs, an occasional addition to an existing house.

The building boom on the barrier islands to the east didn’t reach Twinings and work on the islands went to the locals.

One day, town hall was buzzing with news that an “out of town” developer was sniffing about Twinings, buying vacant lots, snatching up property long thought to be abandoned. Big money from “somewhere up state” was coming in with “big plans” for the area. Nothing more specific than that. As mayor and head of the town’s construction office, and a man used to being in the know and having his own way, Jack Drew was worried.

The mysterious developer had made an odd request. He wanted to deal exclusively with one individual who would represent the entire community. That instruction had been emphatic. Odder still was a remark tossed in that this person should be “as pure as the driven snow”.

Jack Drew had guffawed when he heard, dismissing it as a North Jersey “wise guy” witticism.

But the developer was in earnest. He wanted no complications with old criminal activities, no skeletons in any local closets. Millions of dollars were at stake.

“No local fuck-ups”.

Jack Drew winced at the obscenity, expressed as it was by an attorney representing the developer meeting in closed session with Twinings town council. The attorney had been odd, too. A blind man led by a guide dog.

None other than Brian MacCullough.

“I didn’t think you practiced any more, Brian,” Drew observed, exuding uneasy good fellowship.

“Hell, I didn’t even know you were still around,” Councilman Rudy Antonini loudly bellowed. Rudy owned the local cab and shuttle bus service started by his father. He thought he had to speak louder than usual because the man was blind.

MacCullough didn’t respond. He cleared his throat and produced sets of binders bulging with documents, one binder each for the mayor and members of council.

A golf course. Surrounded by upscale housing, certainly beyond the budgets of anyone living in Twinings. Lots of houses, hundreds even thousands depending on the ability of the developer to obtain sufficient adjoining property.

A mall.

“No more driving over an hour just to shop,” Dwight Oakes commented.

“Of course, there is that interesting stipulation…” Drew dryly noted.

“Oh yes,” MacCullough replied evenly. “My client is insistent upon that.”

“Of course, we applaud that your client wants to do business with locals.” Drew noted, hesitating lest he speak out of turn. “Won’t accept a corporation or anything like that. Has to be an individual?”

“Absolutely,” MacCullough answered. “Other part’s non-negotiable too.”

“‘Pure as the driven snow’. What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Something like that even legal?”

“Your client’s kind of eccentric ain’t he?” someone asked.

“‘Eccentric’…exactly,” the lawyer countered. “I guess when you have as much money as my client has, that’s what they call you.”

“It must be nice having so much money you can call any tune and everybody has to dance whatever fool way you want…” Ed Halpern shot back, not at all liking poor blind Brian’s attitude. The lawyer didn’t react.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “Besides, no one is forcing anyone to do anything.”

MacCullough rose to leave. Drew and the others shot Halpern hot looks. As the lawyer knew they would, they asked him to stop, “to talk things over”.

“We’re small town folk here,” Drew stammered apologetically. “Small town values. Small town ways. We’re not used to doing anything on this level… you understand, Brian.”

“Oh yes, I understand you completely,” the lawyer assured them, reopening his brief case.

No one talked about it but everyone thought the same thing. Was there anyone in Twinings, able to deliver on a project as large as this? More troublesome was that stipulation.

Folks hereabout are good people, the thinking went. Hardworking and honest. Most have been having a hard time of it since the glass factories in Cumberland County closed, since the state decided to run the highway to the south, through a swamp, bypassing Twinings…

There were plenty of “sinces” in the excuse repertoire of Twinings. They all added up to years of bad luck for a community that didn’t deserve it. Somebody “up there”, whether that meant heaven or the state capital, had it in for the good people of Twinings.

This was a chance to change all that. All they needed was one man “pure as the driven snow”.

People started looking at one another differently. Looked closer, harder. Hoped to see what they realized upon close inspection, wasn’t there. Didn’t see it in the bathroom mirror in the morning, either.

One morning, Brian MacCullough appeared at town hall bearing a cast iron box. Slot in the top. An oversized lock clamping the lid to the body. MacCullough made a big show of stowing the key in the breast pocket of his vest.

“Place the names of any person you think qualifies for this job in that box.” he proclaimed. “Anyone can write a name on a scrap of paper and put it in the box. I’ll open the box at next month’s town meeting.”

Throughout the month citizens of Twinings stopped by Town Hall to marvel at the box. Some touched it reverentially. No one was seen writing any names.

Town Hall looked patriotic the night of the council meeting. A show of American flags. Bunting in the nation’s colors on all the walls and draped along the dais. The hall overflowed so Mayor Jack Drew adjourned it to the high school gym where more people had already gathered.

Gaveling the meeting to order, Drew began conducting routine town business but the crowd cut him short.

“Open the box,” someone shouted.

“Yeah, you guys can vote to raise our taxes some more after you open the box.”

“All right, since none of you civic minded people want to miss Monday Night Football, we’ll have a look at the box. Is Brian here?”

The hushed crowd parted like a human Red Sea for Brian MacCullough and his yellow Lab guide dog. Getting into the theatricality of the moment, he held the key aloft so that everyone could see it before he opened the box. There were four sheets of paper in the box. The township solicitor read the names:

Jack Drew, Ed Halpern, Rudolph Antoni, Mark Harcher.

“The heroes of our immortal state championship football team. Still heroes in the heart of their community,” MacCullough announced.

MacCullough listened for the crowd’s reaction. There was none of the cheering and jeering that usually accompanied “pageants” of this sort. The crowd stoically accepted the list of names as though they expected to hear nothing else.

“Now the real fun begins.”

The dog led him back through the crowd, leaving it to fathom his meaning.

How do you separate Drew and Halpern, the scuttlebutt wondered. Those two are joined at the hip. Have been ever since one threw the big touchdown pass to the other.

Mark Harcher’s a good pick. Deacon at the church. No drinking. No fooling around. Married, father of six…and the biggest private landowner in these parts. He’d be a rich man if the town had gotten a few breaks over the years, not that you ever hear him complain.

Rudy’s a good guy. Lets the school use his buses without charging. Lets old people ride free. Hell, he even sends his cabs into Philadelphia when people need to go to a hospital for tests. Pretty “pure” if you ask me…

In the eyes of their community, these were all good men. They’d make a great team for the project just like they made a great team for that state championship.

Brian MacCullough indicated that there would be a one month review period during which time the box would remain at town hall. The public could submit its comments about the candidates anonymously. The comments would be read at the next town meeting.

Even with the tension of being potential competitors for the first time, Jack Drew and Ed Halpern tried working together, but found themselves increasingly unable to do so. Before the end of the month, they couldn’t even look at one another.

This project would be the biggest event in their lives. It wasn’t right that two men who’d done everything together since they were children, were being forced apart at a moment when things might go their way.

They’d always been partners, share and share alike. Married twin sisters. Never cheated on their wives. Swapped the town’s mayoralty back and forth from one election to another.

There had to be a way to do this together. They went together to see Brian MacCullough. The lawyer was adamant about his client’s wishes. As the month wore on, they went to see him separately.

Each came away feeling ashamed. They stayed together by habit, insisting upon the steadfastness of their partnership, but each was thinking hard about the other, looking for something that one might use against the other…if it came to that.

Rudy Antoni’s transportation company had been losing money for years. Rudy was too generous. But Rudy’s generosity concealed his other business interest.

Rudy’s cab frequently traveled to Philadelphia on missions of mercy. Rudy drove on those occasions himself. In the big city, Rudy attended to his other affairs.

He was one of the largest heroin dealers in southern New Jersey. His school bus drivers sold to the high school kids they transported. These in turn moved the merchandise through the schools.

Mark Harcher’s land holdings in Twinings were extensive. Credit for that went to Harcher’s role as minister of the community church, a position he’d assumed from his father who’d preached from the same pulpit for many years

As Twinings’ minister, he counseled numerous elderly folks, many of whom were barely literate. All of these placed their trust in the reverend as the Lord’s local representative. He would, Harcher assured them, guide them to eternal happiness.

That guidance included leaving their modest property to the church, the reverend named their personal beneficiary.

All perfectly legal. After all, Harcher was a member of Twinings Town Council as well as being a man of the cloth.

He rationalized his behavior by proclaiming that he was building God’s portfolio…but it was always Mark Harcher’s name that wound up on the deeds.

Antoni and Harcher quietly withdrew from consideration about midway through the trial month. Each cited overriding personal and family concerns. Each noted that he would be overwhelmed by all the details and high levels of finance involved in a project of this scale.

Neither mentioned that he had been tipped off that their secrets might be revealed at the end of the month if he did not withdraw.

Brian MacCullough accepted their decisions without comment.

“Besides,” Antoni concluded. “I own all the public transportation. I’ll be involved. I’ll make out like a bandit.”

Mark Harcher did not feel it necessary to inform the lawyer that he too felt pretty smug since he owned most of the buildable land in the area.

That left two.

The luncheonette became a hotbed for gossip. Sniping and innuendo, became the daily specials.

While the subjects of the talk worked at separate projects for their strained partnership, their wives, the inseparable twin sisters, held court at opposite ends of the lunch counter, surrounded by their partisans.

Each group brainstormed, searching for hints of shortcoming at the other end of the counter..

“They’re both so perfect,” Maria, the coffee pot wielding waitress and arbiter of luncheonette disputes decided.

Brian MacCullough, seated alone with his dog in the no man’s land between the warring camps, sputtered his coffee.

“Ladies, surely your husbands must have at least one vice,” he sweetly wheedled.

“Well, John does snore,” Mrs. Drew confessed. Her followers giggled in unison.

“And my Ed does have this nasty habit of chewing with his mouth open,” the other end of the counter observed with commiseration from her support group.

“Say, didn’t you tell me that Ed has a tendency to drive with a lead foot?” the mayor’s wife offered helpfully. MacCullough smiled, listening now.

“Oh all men do that.”

“Yes, but your Ed hollers all sorts of horrible things at drivers he passes. Thinks he owns the road.” This time she spoke for the lawyer’s benefit.

“That’s child’s play compared to the way your husband badgers the hired help,” the other countered, approaching the blind man to make certain he heard. “Works them like dogs all day. My Ed says that’s why we can’t keep any decent help.”

“If your Ed concentrated on getting jobs done rather than worrying about poor mistreated employees maybe the company wouldn’t be in the fix it’s in.”

They volleyed back and forth. ‘Sometimes, I wish it was my hearing that went,’ the lawyer thought. ‘Even blind, I can see what’s happening here.’ The loyal dog lay at his feet, stoically bearing it all.

A crowd assembled at the high school for the town meeting at the end of the 30 days. Brian MacCullough lingered in the hallway while the crowd cattle walked into the gym. He remembered the faded photos and news clippings enshrined in glass cases on the walls. Twinings High School’s pride and joy, its state championship football team. Trophies bearing the names of the players including the co-captains: Jack Drew and Ed Halpern.

The championship season had come down to a final play in the final game, a long pass from Drew that Halpern leaped and snagged before tumbling into the end zone, nearly out of bounds.

A miraculous catch of the longest pass in state high school history.

Record still stands, MacCullough remembering. He’d been in the stands, cheering that day, a Twinings High alumnus, home after finishing law school.

The crowd’s mood was light and there was a lot of chatter in the room. With two exceptions. The mayor and the president of town council sat in stony silence at opposite ends of the dais.

As the crowd settled, Brian MacCullough unlocked the box. He reached and came up empty-handed.

“I guess no one knows anything sordid about either of you gentlemen,” he announced as the crowd murmured. The township solicitor cleared his throat, a signal to the crowd for silence.

“What now, Mr. MacCullough?” he asked. “Your client stipulates one as pure as the driven snow. It appears that Twinings has produced two who fit the bill. Do we continue this farce or can we do business like adults?”

“Twinings has spoken…” MacCullough interrupted. “It puts forth two men it agrees satisfy the requirement. My client, however, was specific: one man. I’m afraid we will have to reconsider the entire project…”

Everyone shouted at once. A lot was at stake for the entire community in this project and they weren’t about to let a lawyer weasel out on a technicality.

“Do something,” Ed Halpern hissed at Jack Drew, “or he’s going to walk out and we’ll have a mob on our hands.”

“You dropped that pass,” Drew suddenly shouted. “He dropped that pass.”

The room went deathly silent as Drew’s words sank in. The silence was quickly followed by a huge groan.

“He hid it from the ref,” Drew continued. “The ball hit the ground and he scooped it up before the ref had position.”

“You saw it,” Halpern squealed. “Knew about it and never said a word. Took the trophy, enjoyed it all. And never let on…”

MacCullough laughed, relieved for the disruption.

“Greatest achievement in the history of Twinings. A lie. And here they are, your heroes, a couple of cheaters.”

“Brian, that was a high school football game,” the solicitor stammered, trying to salvage the situation. “Surely your client isn’t going to base a multimillion dollar business decision on the outcome of a high school football game years ago?”

“Of course I’m not!” a voice boomed from the back of the gym.

A white haired man shuffled forward carrying a case, his steps slowed by a limp. Every few steps, he paused to rest his hand on the shoulder of an attractive young woman walking beside him He reached the podium, facing the committee, watching Drew and Halpern, who looked away, strangely unable to meet his gaze.

“I’m a businessman. My interests are substantial,” he said. “I have to depend on the people with whom I do business. I must insist that these people be honest. Having heard what I’ve heard, I’m satisfied.”

The hushed audience leaned forward as one, hanging on his every word.

“You see, I know this town. I know its people.” He looked around the gym. “I’ve been your guest before…”

“Maybe this will help you remember,” he said, holding up a case. “A short film. I promise.”

At first, no one recognized the face that appeared on the screen after a few flickers. But once awareness set in, there were murmurs and groans from various parts of the room, most loudly from the committee table.

“She looks different on tape than she did all those years ago. She isn’t a frightened high school girl anymore and she’s not bound to a weak father who took a few dollars forced on him by a group of stronger men to purchase silence.” He turned up the volume.

“Let’s hear what she has to say.”

“….I was so happy John Drew wanted to go out with me. I lied to my father and told him I was going over a girlfriend’s house. Not that he cared much…he’d been drinkin’.

“Anyway, I was meeting John and we were going to drive down to Point Pleasure and spend the night at a hotel at the shore. That’s why I went out to the farm. To meet John. It was supposed to be secret…

“Instead, he was there with Ed and the others…”

He switched off the set and faced the crowd.

“Should I play any more of this?” he asked.

Jack Drew sank in his seat.

“Do you know me?” he asked. Drew slowly nodded.

“Is there anything you or any of your fellow luminaries up there on that stage would like to say?”

“Does it make you feel big, destroying good hard working people, tearing up the hopes of a community?” Drew finally stammered.

“Is anyone innocent? Should anyone be exempt?” he asked. “Look at me. Broken, inside and out. I feel pain in my body and in my soul. I was innocent…or was I?

“I was half dead in my soul when I came upon this place. You folks tried to finish a job I’d started myself long before I set foot in your town. But you also gave me a reason to go on. To one day come back and finish my business with your town.

“At first, it was hatred and revenge. It hurt to hate as fiercely as I hated. It was only that hatred that kept me alive. That was causing the pain. Eventually, I realized that I’m no different than you. I cheated. I tried living a lie. I denied my weakness and I hurt others because of that.…I dreamed of coming here one day to play out my revenge and as your ruined town finally met the end it deserved, reveal myself and say to you all…‘Now find fault with me, oh you who are as pure as the driven snow…’

“Happily for me, I was able to change and I’m here to forgive you for all your failings, just as I forgave myself .”

He turned and with the help of the young woman, left the building, all eyes following him. After he’d gone, the crowd grew restive, not certain what to do next. Finally, they turned in unison toward the dais. Twinings prepared to deal with its heroes.

But Drew and Halpern were gone. They would never be heard from again.

The meeting quickly broke up and the citizens of Twinings returned to their homes, bitter in the belief that once again they had been bypassed by good fortune. Leaving the gym, they ransacked the cases, desecrating the sacred news clippings and smashing the trophies that had signified Twinings’ single moment of glory.

Years ago, a man was beaten nearly to death. His body was concealed in the cargo bin of a bus bound for Atlantic City. At the end of the run, the driver, unaware of the nature of his cargo, opened the bin and found a near lifeless body.

The driver brought the man to his small home on the edge of the Pinelands, on the remote outskirts of Twinings. There, he and his son nursed the stranger. The injuries had been so severe that it required many months to get him up and walking and able to take care of himself.

The driver had been reluctant to bring the man to report the matter to authorities because he was black and his past experience in Twinings, had not been pleasant.

Many times, the broken man asked to be left to die, that he had no reason for living, but his caregivers convinced him that he had to live. He had to complete his journey, wherever it might lead. He had no right to squander the precious gift of life.

They said that would be the worst kind of sin.

The man had laughed at that at first. He’d seen how life wasted, cruelly and senselessly.

But their selfless devotion imbued him with a strength he didn’t know he had. So he endured. And as he lay in his invalid’s bed, he constructed a reason to endure.

He planned and schemed and devised a grand plan for revenge against those who had hurt him.

“Undo his works,” he thought. “At least one of them.”

The man was deeply touched by the tender care he received as this stranger welcomed him into his home. He regained strength, and with his daily exposure to these kind and simple people, he began to see people, including himself, in a different light.

He helped with chores around the house and garden. More significantly, he tutored the boy. Helping the bus driver’s son became a source of great pride. The boy, Dante, grew up to be the first in his family to finish high school. The pair formed a bond that was as close as father and son.

Dante’s scholastic record was so extraordinary he was awarded a full scholarship to Princeton where he went on to earn an MBA.

The man invested money he’d inherited from the sale of his parents’ condo in Point Pleasure in real estate, especially in depressed areas near Twinings. When he deemed the time right, he formed a corporation with a certain bright young Ivy League MBA and a lawyer with whom he’d become reacquainted. The lawyer knew the area intimately.

When the man met Brian MacCullough again, he instinctively knew how the lawyer came to be blind.

“It was the boys,” MacCullough concurred. “They beat me up and threw me in the car and drove it out to the quarry. Thought I’d die. Guess they figured it worked once, with you.”

They were out of control after the state championship, MacCullough explained.

They thought they were invincible and could do whatever they wanted.

“It wasn’t all their fault. Twinings allowed them to be that way. Twinings needed that football game, I guess. Funny, I see things better now without the use of my eyes. I forgave them a long time ago and just moved on…”

As the corporation prospered, the man located the woman who’d been raped. Years later, she still felt badly about what had happened and upon meeting her, the man learned to forgive as well.

During one of their conversations, the woman introduced him to her daughter. The man suddenly understood that he was being offered a new purpose in life.

The girl was in poor health, suffering from a debilitating liver condition. Acting quickly, the man hired the best doctors and hospitals in Philadelphia and eventually the girl’s long term illness was cured. The experience influenced the girl and she dedicated her life to the study pediatric nursing.

He arranged for her education.

He altered his plan for the good people of Twinings.

He parlayed his investments into a multimillion dollar operation that built major housing projects, malls, golf courses, and more. One on land whose ownership listed a soft-spoken black man who for years drove buses. It also included a young woman who worked with terminally ill children.

Hers was a storybook tale, Twinings’ gossips whispered.. Born into poverty, she’d been sickly as a child and there had been little hope for the future for her.

She had never known her father but a kindly stranger one day entered her life and took an interest in her. He cared for her, saved her life, and changed it for the better.

Today, that man’s eyes mist up whenever she would introduce him as “dad”.

Today, she’s rich. And married, too, the gossips wagged, to the young partner who ran the operation here in Twinings. Nice black fella, named Dante. The townsfolk spoke with genuine respect for these people who had brought prosperity and with it a sense of pride and honor to a town long thought to be dead.

Heads turned her way and nodded in deference whenever she walked down the busy main street of Twinings to the office where her husband worked with the man who was responsible for causing all the good things that were happening in so many lives.

The man would be chatting with Brian MacCullough, Twinings’ mayor. His tired legs propped up on a iron box, he would greet her joyfully, gaze long into her eyes, and sometimes see other eyes he’d never forgotten.

And he’d be glad.