Absalom's Folly

By Vaden J. Chandler

Dante Lewandowski is a child of privilege, and one who could have anything he wants. Top-notch sports cars? Absolutely. Living in the best neighborhood Detroit has to offer? You got it. But Dante has a secret. You see, he hates his father, so he is going to do a school shooting. He didn't count on one thing though. He didn't count on the janitor. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vaden J. Chandler
• Release date: Aug 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223302940

Vaden J. Chandler

Vaden J. Chandler has been writing since the age of six and he currently resides in the Amarillo area with his wife Cheryl. He is also the author of A Little Bird Told Me, Absalom's Folly, and Solomon's Pen. 

Book preview

Absalom’s Folly

by Vaden Chandler

Chapter 1

I’m not exactly sure how I decided that my big dream in life was to become a killer, but I know that it had to have started with my father. That and the private school he had so effortlessly put me in. 

Once I finally made it home, I had the ironic epiphany that both the front door of St. Theresa Preparatory School and the Oswald County Correctional Center were one and the same: they both had that metallic, electronic grating sound followed with a jagged click! that would let the would-be student or inmate inside the building. Cynically, the outcome once inside were yet again one and the same, but that was another story altogether. When it came to the school, some kids had parents who did two full-time jobs and even a couple part-time hustles to afford this place, and no doubt, everything was top notch. The kids in the public schools got Chromebooks. Not us. We got Apple. Steve Jobs would have been so proud. But where many of these parents sacrificed to get their kids in here, not mine. Oh no, not my old man. 

This was just a drop in the bucket to him, and boy howdy, did he love to let me know it. Oh, you do not know who my old man is? Well, let me tell you a little something about him, starting with a little hint: his name is Earl. Yeppers, that’s right. Have you ever heard of Crazy Earl’s New and Used Cars? Yes sir, that Earl is my old man. You know, he’s the same dude who has branches of his dealership not just in downtown Detroit, but also in some of the suburbs as well as Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Dearborn, and even tiny little Marquette for the Yoopers! 

I suppose I should be proud of him, but in all honesty? I feel nothing. The man is a multi-millionaire, and he has this carefully crafted public image, complete with the giant smile on billboards all over the Motor City. Granted, it’s been years now, but at one time we had a Motley Crue concert, and it was just one billboard over from my old man’s smiling face. One! Who wouldn’t want a father like that, one who was a local celebrity? Well, apparently not me.

Still, I always tried to be happy, and as I looked at the monolith of that school building with the large glass partition in the center, I kept telling myself that I’m not some ogre that no, simply cannot get my father’s approval to save myself. Ah, I thought sarcastically. The power of positive thinking. I have to try to believe somehow that I’m not going to grow up and be some monster in a prison yard with a hundred tattoos that everybody stays away from. All the while as all of the high-achieving, preppy students were crowding around that cafeteria, I kept humming lyrics from 3 Doors Down’s When I’m Gone and Staind’s It’s Been Awhile to make me feel better. 

And I kept staring at that stairwell, you know, the one that goes up to the second floor and houses the math and history departments right? Of course, I’ve never been the academic type, so the only reason I like that second-floor is because I like the fact that the boys’ room there isn’t used much. There was also a third and fourth floor to the complex, but that had mostly been living quarters for the nuns in the past and was now mostly used just for storage. 

Anyway, that second floor was my refuge, my secret alcove, and so on that morning before I went to my classes on the bottom all just to hide in the back that’s exactly where I went. I was peering at myself in the mirror. Yes, that’s what I was doing, and trying to pretend that my Eastern European features weren’t so prevalent. I was a fifth-generation American kid, big into pop culture such as Ozzy and Rammstein just like everyone else, but I still had those ridiculous high-cheek bones, that brown hair that I hated, and those green eyes shaped like almonds. 

Someone will like this, I growled into the mirror. Either a guy or a gal will like this.... but then in the next instance I made a death-stare into it and flipped off that mirror. I was looking at that face, at my own facade, and luckily I only saw a small resemblance to my old man. He too had a facade, but his was one of a pillar of the community. Goodness knows, he had carefully cultivated that as well, making generous donations to children’s’ hospitals all across the state, the March of Dimes, Habitat for Humanity, and many others. Basically, all you had to do was name the charity and chances are he had donated to it. Personal GoFundMes for people going through their own hellish health crisis were no different. Chances are you would see his name on those as well. 

Naturally, while I was staring at that mirror the next thing that crossed my mind in that bathroom is that I wanted to slug that mirror, and just keep pounding the shit out of it into oblivion until the blood was trickling down my knuckles and making a ghastly reddish trail down the wall and the sink as well. Of course, that would be proceeded by a laugh as I saw that this facade of a mirror also had a cacophony of cracks in it, so much so that it would have made my old man that con-artist Earl Hugo proud as can be. But alas, the mirror would have been almost cracked in two, just like that private demeanor of verbal abuse and bullheadedness that my old man only showed to me and my mother while she was still alive. She had truly been one of those people that was the glue that kept everybody in the family together and helped them to get along. 

Ah yes, my mother, and as I glared at that mirror and observed that it was still as intact and spotless as ever, I knew it wasn’t me who was responsible for that, but her. She’d been gone since I was ten, but we had bonded. We had bonded when I was three or four over Old Testament stories from the Psalms and Genesis and everything in between. My mom was a Messianic Jew, which I believe means she was Jewish, but she still accepted Christ as the Messiah. She believed that anything was possible, and I believed that too up until the day that a drunk driver plowed into her when I was running a fever and she was on her way back from Braum’s to bring me some chocolate ice cream. Suddenly, nothing made sense anymore, and life for me had been turned upside down. I was no longer looking at the inside of the kaleidoscope and admiring the beauty therein. Instead, I was glaring forlornly at the individual pieces of the kaleidoscope strewn about and shattered on the floor. The only parent I had left was an absentee father who to this day I swear has never uttered the word love to me in any way, shape or form. No. I am not exaggerating when I say that I love you was truly a nonexistent phrase for this man. The only thing that he knew, the only thing that he understood, were business propositions and facts and figures. My old man was the polar opposite of my mother. Instead, he looked at everything (everything!) in terms of dollars and cents. Where my mother would look at the inner beauty of everyone she came across, my father would just look at the costs involved and how much (if any) that a person could be an asset to his bottom line. 

But turning my thoughts back to my mother, since those thoughts are more pleasant...What did she always say if someone happened to ask her about his old man? I mused. Well, surprise, surprise, she would just smile in her widest expression and simply laugh and say, He’s always been a good provider. Indeed. Indeed he had been. A workaholic to the bone, but yes, he was a good provider. Either way, the fact remained that I was no longer listening to my mom’s enthusiastic and high-pitched voice reading to me about how Jacob was wrestling with God until daybreak. Instead, I was the one wrestling with God. My mother was gone, and after the funeral I recalled all too well the first of many conversations I had with my old man, who it seemed had barely said more than three words to me the whole of my childhood. 

Guess what, kid? he rasped with that dense cigar smoke of his high in the air and Metallica blaring in his main office in the background, I think we’re alone now. 

I just stared at the glass chandelier on the ceiling near the stairs going to the second floor and didn’t say a word. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to say for a few agonizing seconds. 

Yes, sir, I finally uttered, and immediately after that was the first time he pounded the coffee table in front of me, among many other things. 

He glared at me with a look that could have turned a Roman centurion to stone. Dad! You call me Dad, you little asshole! I helped bring you into this world and I sure as hell can take you out just like your mother is now gone. Trust me. I could do it so fast it would make your head spin. 

And with that, I had an epiphany: he was giving the drunk driver a free pass even though I was in that courtroom a year-and-a-half later when the judge finally sentenced that red-headed alcoholic guy to ten years in prison. Was I too going to get a free pass? No, not so much. My old man’s blunt words proved as much just a few hours later as we both were glancing at the fireplace. 

You know, Dante, he began, not even taking his eye off the fire devouring those logs. She loved you a great deal. She didn’t give a damn about Braum’s, but she loved you a lot. 

It was indeed truly big of my passive-aggressive Pops to say that. I’m a chip off the old block, I smirked, lost in my own thoughts. He’ll find that out soon enough. Or maybe he has already figured it out.

"Whatever you say, Earl Hugo," I said without skipping a beat, and he flinched. He hated his middle name, and I had just discovered his Achilles Heel. He cleared his throat, an attempt to appear strong and full of resolve, but he didn’t say another word to me the rest of that evening. I suppose I should have killed him right then and there but I still lacked a growth spurt. 

He stared at me for a few moments with those slanted eyes that I would later grow so accustomed to, for good or for evil I am not really sure. In what must have been the best comeback of all time because it resonates with me to this day, he finally snarled, You realize you were an accident, right? Do you realize that, you little shithead? 

I had nothing to say, probably because I was numb and in total shock. 

What’s the matter? he taunted me. Cat got your tongue? I never wanted kids Dante. I was getting ready to go get fixed, but oh no, she wanted a kid! 

I was trying to do my part though. I might have been a little kid, but seriously, I was doing my level best not to disturb him. Even then, I knew people would say things in the heat of the moment, so I figured that was what he was doing. Oh no, not Earl. 

After he cupped my chin and forced me to look in my direction, he had more to say. 

"You will look at me when I am talking to you, son, he said. Here is our understanding: you keep out of my way and I’ll keep out of yours. Otherwise, I don’t really care. I never wanted you anyway." 

His progeny. That’s what I was. But of course, I suppose the other wrinkle in all of this would have to be that he really does not view me as his progeny. No, not even. Instead, he viewed me as just another business proposition in a long line of business propositions. I wasn’t working out for him, so I was just dead weight to him. Thus, all I could do was go upstairs to that landing and open the heavy oak door that led to my room, and just go ahead and relax continually in that cavernous space. My room not only had a California King bed, but it also had the latest and trendiest XBOX, not just one but a fleet of Apple laptops, a desk made of the finest mahogany, and even two foosball tables in the corner. I had a room that would not only rival a high-priced lawyer’s office, but in some of the poorest spots of Detroit such as the East Side or Brightmoor it could even beat out somebody’s complete demolished old house, no less. 

Were some people in my class impressed with it? Sure. I even had a few girls up there, if you know what I mean. I was getting all hot and heavy with one of them, a voluptuous blonde who was two grades below me at that St. Theresa Preparatory School - I was in 11th and she was in 9th but she looked and acted older than her years - when I heard that distinctive knock on my large wooden door. The room was big, no doubt, but it was also large and expansive, and at the time I hadn’t had the presence of mind to lock that door, so my old man just swung it open as wide as it could go and walked right on in, sneering as he went. 

Well, well, well, what do we have here? he uttered in mock approval, all the while staring daggers at me. My blonde bombshell just automatically grabbed all of her things and rushed down the stairs and out the door without saying a word. Take care, honey! We’ll see you on the flip side! he shouted and laughed after her with a cat-eating-the-canary grin, the cigar smoke flaring up from his nostrils. After the front door had ceremoniously slammed, he again turned that ungodly grin in my direction. I thought he was disappointed and showing off his anger by being sarcastic, but I thought wrong. In one fell swoop, he approached me and before I had time to even give that silly brown hair a nice toss, he proceeded to slug me in the face, knocking me over. What can I say? You’ll soon figure out just like I did after Mom died that the man is a major league asshole. Yes, it took everything in my power not to retaliate and slug him back right then and there. Instead, I just sit in that chair in my room and gave him a death-stare through those freshly-bruised eye sockets. He glared back at me, but it must have unnerved him, because he also didn’t say a word. He just briefly repeated the same look at me as quizzically as possible before yet again trotting down the landing to his home office and leaving me to my own devices once more. 

Either way, I suppose that was enough time for reminiscing on my Norman Rockwell-like existence (sorry, I do enjoy my sarcasm still). Needless to say, things didn’t go well for me for a while at St. Theresa’s after that. No, there was no Dear John letter between me and that stunning blonde knockout, but that was partly because we never got that far anyway. Instead, she spent at least a week telling anyone within earshot of her (including teachers, no less!) that my old man was indeed living up to his name. According to her, he sure enough was crazy, and not just in the realm of finding someone a good deal on their next vehicle. When you couple that with the fact that it was in that same week that some of the other boys caught me beating off in the locker room, it was definitely a long period of time and one that I thought I would never live down. But enough reminiscing. Now it’s time that we get to the present.

Like I said, the Oswald County Correctional Facility and the St. Theresa Preparatory School had two very similar entrances. It truly makes me laugh out loud, simply because you gotta love the similarities and the ironies of day-to-day life. I suppose after my old man scared off my latest one-night stand girlfriend that was when I finally decided to go off the deep end. 

I’ll just cut to the chase here: the reason I was put in county for a few days was because I was violent. Oh, that’s so blase’ nowadays, you say. Well, it’s true, and even though I am trying to control it, it still rears its ugly head. I saved my worst episodes for St. Theresa’s diminutive, cancer-stricken principal, a woman in her mid-sixties who was simply counting the days until her retirement. I’ll just put it this way...if some type of hell exists, then I’m absolutely headed there just for how I treated this woman alone. Why did she call me in her office? Partly because I had been in the computer class with my latest MacBook, and instead of working on my essay or my typing skills I had been looking at dirty pictures. I wanted the adrenaline rush, if you will. My apologies for being so tongue-in-cheek with you my friend, but when I say adrenaline rush, what I mean is that I was really getting into it again, if you know what I mean. Namely, I was trying to see if I could pull off beating my meat right there in the public realm without someone noticing it like they did in the locker room last week. A little moral victory, if you will. 

Everybody in that classroom had a workstation that would have made those customer support workers in some crowed Indian office completely jealous. Many of these kids had their workspace decorated with stickers, family photos, you name it. Mine just had me and my computer, because of - you guessed it - that asshole I called an old man. Neither one of us cared about the other, and we had given up the pretense of being family years ago, so no, I didn’t have any decorative pictures. What I did have, on the other hand, was a nice porn website, so instead of typing away like my fellow classmates, I had my hand inserted down my pants, with quick movement and everything. That is, until I felt a tap on my back...

Excuse me? the bearded computer teacher said wearily. Just what, pray tell, are you looking at, Dante? It sure doesn’t look like computer work to me... 

I couldn’t help myself. No shit, Sherlock! I shouted, and the rest of the class - even the aloof preppy girls - began laughing. Needless to say, this pencil-pushing accountant of a computer teacher was not impressed. 

Mr. Lewandowski, go to the office! he bellowed. 

So that’s exactly what I did without saying another word. There were two brown chairs with a black cushion positioned at the front of the room, and the receptionist barely even made eye contact with me as I sat there literally just twiddling my thumbs. It had always been a nondescript office, with a gray, utilitarian desk that was matched by one nondescript and equally gray utilitarian wastepaper basket. That receptionist was too busy typing away on yet another MacBook to give me much notice even though I am sure she was probably inwardly disgusted that I was yet again in that office for my latest misdeed. 

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally arched her head in my direction and spoke. Dante, the principal is going to see you now. 

I was ushered in and she too was typing away at her desktop, complete with the screen and one of those old-fashioned screen towers. She motioned irately toward a chair, her eyes still always transfixed on that computer screen and barely even giving me a glance. 

Have a seat, young man. 

So I did. 

In a different realm and somewhere in a distant galaxy light-years away, I’m sure I would have admired this woman just like everyone else in that private school did. They had held a tremendous amount of pep rallies while she had been away battling her cancer diagnosis and going through the horrors of chemotherapy. Now that she was back and the cancer was in remission, the evidence of what she had been through was still very clear due to her splotchy hair and her gaudy earrings that every student strongly suspected she wore just in an attempt to detract from the top of her head. At that moment though, there was nothing but raw contempt for her in my eyes, because as far as I knew, cancer survivor or not I was just looking at another version of my father. 

She glanced at the report that the computer teacher had sent with me, and that’s when her tough Boston demeanor began coming through. 

So let me get this straight, Carpenter began in that thick Eastern accent without looking up. You were pleasuring yourself in Mr. LaPierre’s computer classroom instead of working on the typing drills? 

I was silent for what seemed like an eternity, even though it was probably just five seconds. To be honest, I was fighting the temptation to give her the exact same response that I had given that geeky Mr. LaPierre, but I came up with something better as I was staring at that ridiculous coffee mug filled to the brim and festooned with a German shepherd picture on the side. She was droning on and on, I suppose discussing how terrible it was that I had been jacking it in the middle of class no less, but it was all a bit of a blur. I kept ogling that cup of coffee just sitting there at the bottom of her profile, the hot steam rising from it much like the allure of a forbidden lover from that computer screen. 

"Are you even listening to me at all?" she roared. 

Oh, but I am... I replied just a little bit too calmly and snidely. Guilty as charged, Miss Carpenter. Guilty as charged. 

Then, I proceeded to grab her steaming hot coffee and throw it in her balding face. And that, my friends, is how I got thrown into county at the ripe old age of 17, earning the respect of the other scofflaws in St. Theresa’s and the jeers of the brown-nosers and teachers alike. 

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