RECKONING: Redemption Book III

By Ronan James Cassidy

THE REDEMPTION SERIES: 100 years after Margaret Anne transformed an American family, comes the profound 4-part finale to the Calhoun saga.

BOOK THREE: Reckoning


Sacrifice birthed the unsettled world of Margaret Anne. Now, only surrender can pave the way for closure.

As Matthew’s harrowing and highly anticipated journey to deliver the Spanish Cross into the hands of his estranged son reaches its climactic conclusion, the one who has been ordained to fulfill the ancient promise of the often maligned and unjustly persecuted Miss Margaret Anne Basseterre is revealed.

Reckoning portrays the troubled life of Matthew’s son, David Michaeal Sonneman. From his tragic and destitute beginnings, which are sparingly revealed in Angel Ascending, the story of David’s life, including the true nature of his trials and tribulations and his sacred mission, is brought into focus in this scintillating and thought provoking third book of the Redemption Series.

When David ultimately discovers that his earthly salvation from that darkened basement in Baltimore was something far different than what he had always supposed, he is forced to reconsider his lifelong desire to avenge those wrongs that were served upon him, at least those wrongs that he understood as a young child.

He must decide between his developing faith, which accompanies his hope for a better tomorrow, and those deeply entrenched desires to put an end to those responsible for the worst of his childhood afflictions when the true story of his life is made known to him.

“Reckoning” is the fascinating continuation of the Redemption series, uncovering the next intricate layer to the Margaret Anne saga of fate, faith, reckoning, and mercy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823013208

Ronan James Cassidy

Ronan James Cassidy is the award-winning novelist of Margaret Anne and the Redemption series that follows. Mr. Cassidy has spent time living in various regions throughout the United States. His primary field of interest is colonial literature from the Americas, Ireland, Africa, and India. Mr. Cassidy has also spent the last twelve years studying the evolution of the current monetary order. Ronan was inspired to write Margaret Anne and the Redemption series as a loose yet captivating metaphor for his journey towards devoted faithfulness to God and the tearing down of the veils of deceit so rampant in the modern age. His website is https://ronanjamescassidy.com. In addition to his three beautiful daughters, his beautiful girlfriend, his father, his four brothers, and his stepmother, all of Mr. Cassidy’s writings are dedicated to the tireless hours his devoted mother spent living her life as an eternal example of the joys of enduring love and assisting her son with the creation of his published works. Mr. Cassidy’s credentials include a Bachelor’s degree in English from Boston College and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. Mr. Cassidy’s first novel, Margaret Anne, which was released in the summer of 2022, has been featured in the US Review of Books and has won the following awards: • Named to the Short List for the 2023 Hawthorne Prize • Winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Award: Religious Fiction • Honorable Mention: 2023 London Book Festival: General Fiction • Finalist: 2023 Montaigne Medal • Nominated for the 2023 Eric Hoffer Award • BookFest Book Awards 2023: 3rd Place: Literary Fiction/Historical • Spring 2023 Reader's Choice Book Awards: Finalist: Best Book for Adults • eLit Awards 2023: Bronze Medalist: Religious Fiction • Winner of the March 2023 Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Historical Fiction • Maincrest Media Book Award 2023: Literary Fiction

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© 2023 Ronan James Cassidy. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/09/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1321-5 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1320-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023914967

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

To: The beautiful lady who has my heart

Prologue

Chapter 1: Denouement

Chapter 2: Coming Home

Chapter 3: The Third Vision

Chapter 4: The Articles

Chapter 5: Invocation

Chapter 6: Awakening

Chapter 7: Redress

Chapter 8: The Black Despondency

Chapter 9: The Missive

Chapter 10: A Walk with Sonny

Chapter 11: The Innocent

Chapter 12: The Rune of The Shadowlands

Chapter 13: Into The Wilderness

About the Author

TO: THE BEAUTIFUL LADY

WHO HAS MY HEART

While there were times when I didn’t always understand the ways of your heart or that always endearing, often quite necessary, and occasionally exacting scurrying of your mind, none of this would have been possible without you. I can never thank you enough for your steadfast love, your patience, and your faith in me and the beautiful things we have yet to say and do together, even during those seasons when I offered you so little that might encourage you to hold safe your belief in just what might come to be. Only you would have understood and maintained your conviction in what was beyond the depths of our doubts and fears. But through it all, there were always those precious whiles when your beautiful, heartwarming smile, your precious laughter, the sound of your voice, even when our words were of little consequence, and that knowing look in your eyes were more than enough to overcome the worst of life’s trials and that oftentimes raw and unnerving feeling that comes with currying one’s essence to the dawning of the light. I know in my heart that we were always exactly where we were supposed to be as the world came undone around us. I count each look into your beautiful eyes as a blessing, and my heart flutters when I think of how much we have left to do. I love you always and no matter what.

PROLOGUE

There are certain truths manifested in earthly love that are etched into the fabric of our lives, our souls, our spirit. They are indelible pieces of art that tell the very story of who we are. A story made permanent and sung throughout the heavens. These truths are indisputable and beautiful and protected in their innocence and sincerity by the glory of God. This world shall never have them but know they do mark the time we all have shared and are a source of eternal light. We carry the truth of God’s love with us always.

Chapter 1

DENOUEMENT

W hile it was clear from Matthew’s journal that he and Jimmy had left Myrtle Beach quite hastily that Saturday morning, in fact, as soon as they could gather their things and get to the car, it was also readily apparent to the reader of said notations and musings that some of the most pertinent details surrounding the event of their hurried getaway had been omitted per the author’s discretion. Consequently, it was not until a handy yet hastily arranged meeting with a woman by the name of Chanci Grace Harden, a surname attributed to the radiant mistress of readily apparent means by way of her seventh marriage and a name not accruing to any of her seven children, was attended to by Mr. David Michael Sonneman on the island of Aruba that Mr. Sonneman gained a far clearer perspective of the mind of his father on that day. The impromptu luncheon, as it were, occurred a few months after David had received the replication of his father’s journal from Mr. James Martin Jemison, more than forty years after those tumultuous events of the spring season of 1977 had taken place. Mr. Jemison was self-portrayed as an old friend of David’s father and a gentleman who was still drifting about somewhere in the hinterlands of his native South Carolina at the time of the secret reproduction and penultimate conveyance of the theretofore unknown diary of Mr. Benjamin Mattingly Sonneman.

The story of the stunning yet ephemerally focused and perhaps mildly unsettled woman from a forgotten past, a past that David Sonneman was then diligently trying to piece back together, remains a story for another day. Herein, I shall only convey that Miss Harden was somewhere in the neighborhood of her sixtieth year on the day of the informal island engagement and that she struggled to turn her eyes away from David’s haunting orbs of an unsettled blue for even an instant. The readily apparent affliction was perhaps due to some endearing similarity or direct likeness that he shared with his father. For one as adept at reading the underlying emotions of those he surveyed, David was left with no doubt in his mind that his father had in some way touched the woman quite deeply. Be that as it may, Mr. Cassidy’s antagonist and shadowy counselor on that dreary April morning of 2017 did not delve too deeply into the ramifications of such an enduring fondness, though it flashed brilliantly in the eyes of such an alluring creature. He understood quite readily that he would never be blessed in this life with the capacity to fully understand the recondite intricacies of his father’s heart back during that trying season of Matthew Sonneman’s sorrowful denouement, absent a singular truth that mattered above all others.

As for those moments presently consigned to the past, it was known that Jimmy and Matthew had planned on heading straight up to Richmond from Myrtle Beach and arriving at that once and future capital of the Confederacy upon the dinner hour of that same Saturday, 7th May 1977. Though they were gifted the grace of any early start on the second leg of their journey to Baltimore, the wayward and perhaps even lost and hopelessly listing pair only made it four hours out on the highway before having to stop in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Matthew had gotten sick for reasons that could only be attributed to hard living, nerves, and some form of lingering emotional distress. His hastily scribbled thoughts from those noticeably traumatic hours were a bit scattershot and vacuous, though one reading through his memoirs could readily surmise that the new cooler the boys had procured a short while after commencing upon their journey had not remained idle for long, if at all.

As for Jimmy, he was pretty shot by the time they had made the falls of the Tar River to accommodate Matthew’s need to perform an exorcism on some being of an alien persuasion that had possessed his insides. As such, the local Holiday Inn was looking quite promising after a rough go of things out on the road and on the heels of a night Jimmy would remember as tenderly as yesterday until he took his dying breath for both the highs and the lows experienced during the preceding twelve hours. The haggard young men got a room there in Rocky Mount and slept until about 6:00 PM in the vaulted darkness of room 121. Not a sound was uttered between the two from the moment they crossed the threshold of their suite until the shade was lifted to accommodate Matthew’s curiosity regarding the time and place of their station following the hours of his sopor spent so near to the fringes of oblivion.

When Matthew and Jimmy finally awoke, neither of them was much for the road, so they decided to get a drink and grab a bite to eat at the local watering hole, which was not more than a stone’s throw from the careworn lobby of the motel. The establishment was a run-down but lively dive that was popular with the truck drivers passing through on their way south to Georgia and Florida or ports of call up north in Virginia, the Chesapeake Watershed, and beyond to the myriad delivery points of the Mid-Atlantic corridor. The barbeque was quite good, the country band was old school and spirited, and the top-shelf bourbon was passable, though branded as exotic. Regardless, after mixing it up with the transients and locals alike for a good while, even the lower shelf bourbon seemed luxurious to the two brightly burning phoenixes rising straight from the depths of the ashes, or at least the scorched earth left behind in Myrtle Beach, and into the raucous mood of the rather pleasant Rocky Mount evening.

The hearty revelers passed the night away in an instant, laughing and reliving their escapades down at the beach. They even gave the contingent of truckers all they could handle in both pool and darts. That held true until a couple of stalwart mountain men passing through from Tennessee bid them cry uncle a few times once the real money went down on the table. Having gotten such a late second start on the day, the two drank straight through the small hours of Sunday before retiring to their room at around three in the morning. Upon arriving at their previously chosen quarters, the two intended to sleep it off for a good while and reapportion the depravity of their current condition as a matter to be reckoned with in accordance with the arrival of the morning light.

Matthew and Jimmy finally hit the road for Richmond at around noon on what was by all accounts a fine offering of the glories of the spring season. The calendar in the lobby of the motor inn read Sunday, May 8th, 1977. The two once-strapping road warriors were pretty well worse for the wear by that point, but they bought some beer for the road and managed the three-hour drive to Richmond without incident. The conversations between the two were thoughtful yet muted, and the magic elixirs of moments past seemed to be losing their potency. Once Jimmy and Matthew arrived at the apartment of Jimmy’s friend from Charleston, Carter Hays, the third day of the festivities got off to a fast start and kept right on rolling. The three of them and a few loosely familiar walkabouts who were quite accustomed to the Richmond bar scene closed down a local college watering hole that catered to the always elusive, or perhaps die-hard, as it were, Sunday night crowd.

Reaching the end of the line on that night did not, however, happen without incident. Matthew, Carter, and, to some degree, even Jimmy got hooked into a brief melee that took place as the lights came on to signal the end of the evening. While the altercation resulted in mostly scratches and bruises for its many participants, Matthew and Carter had taken a few solid shots to the cheek and jaw that were not entirely innocuous. Jimmy managed to keep his good looks fully intact by bunching his lanky wares up in the fetal position on the floor until the bouncers managed to get a serviceable handle on things and then clear the premises.

On the morning of Monday, May 9th, 1977, Jimmy and Matthew awoke again at around noon and were in risibly bad shape. Carter called out sick from work but didn’t seem so keen on keeping his two guests around long after such a disastrous evening. After lining their innards with a greasy meal from a local diner, the two jumped into Mr. Z while intending to make their way on up to Baltimore a day or so earlier than Jimmy had planned, though Matthew was no longer entirely certain which day he had pinned his arrival to in the eyes of the expectant Miss Walsh. To him, it now seemed like a different lifetime ago when he waited so anxiously to hear her voice from the sanctuary of the phone booth perched at the top of the rise near to the back of the prison; to hear her voice for the first time since he had left her alone on that beautiful, unspoiled beach where their boy had come into what he then believed to be this forsaken world upon the glory of the rising of the sun.

Though they had no earthly idea what might occur in response to Matthew’s early, or for that matter, perhaps even late, arrival into Baltimore at around four o’clock in the afternoon, no readily available alternative option beyond continuing onward appeared viable to the dampened minds of the two young men. As their approach drew near, the situation was quickly spiraling out of control, yet reaching its intended climax all the same. Neither Matthew nor Jimmy realized just how far they had drifted, both mentally and emotionally, from the intended purpose of their journey northward, or otherwise, at that moment. There was to be no saving grace offered by the fact that such well-meaning and tightly focused designs had been set firmly in place in the minds of both gentlemen regarding the time they would spend together out on the road and the reasons behind Matthew’s deliverance from the familiar haunts of their youth just three days prior, upon the very moment they were reunited in front of room number nine, which was hidden just off of that strange and haunting crossroads to nowhere back home in Carolina.

After they made a few additional stops along the way, Matthew rifled down a half-dozen or more beers while Jimmy remained almost oddly and piously devoted to his duties behind the wheel. The two then shared a few more laughs born of the absurdities of the circumstances of their recent past to calm the nerves as they approached the moment of Matthew’s reckoning. When the last of their buoyant laughter was silenced by the heavy air of uncertainty that accompanied their proximity to their intended destination, Jimmy and Matthew pulled into a bar that was tucked into a remote and confined corner of the Fell’s Point neighborhood of Charm City. After crossing the antiquated threshold to the establishment of their choosing, they meandered on up to some stools at the bar for a few parting shots and a quick meal. At that moment, the two bedraggled and worked-over ragamuffins were nothing short of eyesores and, in many ways, rivaled a few of the better-kempt of those cast-off and forgotten urchins and panhandlers wandering the old yet somewhat revitalized maritime neighborhood.

The tentative plan at the time was that Jimmy would be on his way back down to Washington to stay with some friends of his family. While there, he intended to look in on some of the Jemison family’s commercial business interests at the request of his father. Jimmy would depart for that station of his journey after dropping Matthew off uptown at the apartment of Maggie Walsh and her boy. To say the two road-weary gentlemen were in a bit of a deplorable and disoriented mental state would have been quite the understatement. They had not had proper sleep or a substantiated respite from the illicit substances of their fancy since Jimmy had arrived to pick Matthew up at the Crossroads Inn on Friday morning. Matthew had been drinking during the preponderance of his waking hours without relent, and Jimmy was either drunk or stoned or both over the same span. On top of that, neither gentleman had committed to the exercise of beginning their journey on a proper evening’s rest, being of sound mind, or remaining sober for any discernible period prior to departing for differing reasons.

The old saloon where the two now sat, hungry, tired, and generally spent from their three-day wandering blowout, was situated catty-corner to the old Fell’s Point Pier and its armada of crimson tugboats. The downstairs tavern and the upstairs inn, which now served primarily as a more refined area for seated dining, had been around since the pre-revolutionary days of the strategically positioned seafaring harbor. The harbor in and of itself was a national treasure steeped in the traditions of the great sailing vessels of the Atlantic trade routes that ran through the Chesapeake Bay from the onset of the earliest days of the American experience. The old, brick colonial-era edifice of the tavern had served several purposes throughout the twentieth century and beyond. By the spring of 1977, the current proprietors had made quite a name for themselves with the bar and restaurant, as the later seventies had been something of an era of rebirth for the old neighborhood situated along the northern banks of the Patapsco River, about a mile to the east of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Jimmy and Matthew were the only two patrons settled in at the dimly lit bar at five o’clock on that Monday afternoon, but there were a handful of other guests seated at two of the tables in the casual dining area just beyond the taproom.

A young, clean-cut-looking gentleman by the name of Andrew Higgins, who was known to the more faithful of the establishment’s local adherents as just good ol’ Andy, was tending bar upon the hour. Truth be told, good ol’ Andy carried a bit of a chip on his shoulder by nature and would have rather shit in his hands and clapped than deal with the flavor of the moment upon having one good look at the dynamic duo seated before his always anxiously shifting eyes. To Andy, the two stray dogs appeared as if they had been dragged in from the gutters out back. Nevertheless, good ol’ Andy approached the two bedraggled newcomers to the neighborhood not long after they had dropped into the two seats positioned in the middle of the bar. Andy approached in a forthright and industrious manner, but took a long and discerning second gander to size up the pair before inquiring as to what might suit their fancies. There was no telling what the answer to his question might be for derelicts such as they were—feral creatures who were clearly surfeit from the drink and appeared to have taken a liking to lingering long in the valley of the shadow of death.

Evenin’, gentlemen. What can I do ya for right about now? asked Andy, with a bit of a condescending glower projecting from the edges of his rather serious yet schoolboyish countenance.

Matthew cut in sharply to answer Andy in an effort to keep things moving in the event Jimmy was still high or decompressing from the drive. Matthew was starving, and he had already rifled through the single-page menu that had been sitting atop the bar. He also needed a drink. More than anything else, he wanted to make that fact plainly known in case Andy’s initial intent was to wander on off to the back while he and Jimmy perused the menu. In accordance with those thoughts, driven by the curious amalgamation of the need for bodily sustenance and a compounding addiction to the spirits, Matthew greeted the barkeep and placed an order without hesitation. Good afternoon, my dapper squire. Thank you for asking. We’re parched and famished. How about two black and tans? Bass and Guinness are preferable if that’s doable, two Jamesons straight up, an order of the crab claws, and an order of the steamed shrimp with extra old bay.

The bartender offered Matthew a lingering sidelong glance in response to his rather heady order while Jimmy cleaned the lenses of his sunglasses with a recently procured cocktail napkin. Eventually, good ol’ Andy replied by saying, Coming right up, lads. By the way, where are you fellas in from?

Matthew’s mood brightened some knowing that the food and the drinks were in the queue. He answered Andy heartily. We are South Carolina boys up this way just now from Richmond.

Andy nodded contritely, though he remained convinced that drinks of any sort were about the last thing those two screaming hot messes required under any circumstance, even if they had been reared on sugar rum and sour mash somewhere down in the backwoods of Dixie. With just a bit more knowledge given over to his wares concerning the two first-timers, Andy remained just flat-out confused by the beaten-down urchins. Regardless, the bartender said nothing further, as he was quite certain that they would be around for a while. Instead, Andy turned in a slow and deliberate manner and placed a green notation slip, which was marked in pencil with broadly stroked scrivening and could be decoded by someone somewhere as Matthew’s food order, through to the kitchen. Andy delivered the order via a small square window in the wall next to the liquor shelves. Once the food order had been placed, Andy got to work concocting the drinks. He took a balanced and methodical approach to serving up the fairly straightforward order.

Jimmy put his sunglasses back on and looked around the dark barroom with a childlike curiosity. He appeared to Matthew as if he had seen nothing of their surroundings prior to that very instant. The way Jimmy quickly pricked up his head and then slowly panned his eyes around the room in amazement did indeed make it appear as if he had not seen a thing before placing his shades back over his eyes, though the lenses surely only served to further obscure his perception of the already dimly lit room. Beyond his amazement over Jimmy’s nocturnally fashioned eyes, upon watching the relative ease and attentiveness of Jimmy’s motions as he scanned the barroom, Matthew was quickly led to believe that Jimmy was having a rare moment of clarity.

In order to verify such an unlikely state of affairs, Matthew thought carefully back and recalled that Jimmy had finished the last shavings of his dime bag somewhere south of Washington, D.C. Furthermore, Matthew swiftly discerned that his friend hadn’t had a drink since they crossed over the Potomac River. After taking the aforementioned into consideration, it made perfect sense to Matthew that Jimmy was now attempting to take stock of their situation on that chilly, cloud-covered afternoon. The unseasonably hostile climes out of doors possessed a stern whipping wind that was coming in off of the rather choppy water of the well-sheltered harbor tucked into the broadening mouth of the river, which was visible over and across the broad cobblestone street that had first been laid out in front of the tavern a few centuries ago.

Matthew questioned his friend candidly. You okay, JJ? You look a little mentally stirred up at the moment.

Jimmy turned his head slightly and looked over at Matthew with a bit of a blank stare from behind his sunglasses. He then replied to his friend’s question with a definitive tone, but in his own roundabout sort of way. What a shitshow, Matty boy. It’s honestly hard to believe everything that just went down. Beyond that, it’s hard to believe that we’re still alive to tell the tale. I’m okay, though. I still gots all of my teeth, so it ain’t no skin off my hide.

Jimmy paused his words and his guise artfully drifted into that patented mischievous grin of his before he added, Tell the tale after the dust settles out for a few dozen years, of course. Jimmy then cackled half-heartedly from a burned-out and tired throat while Matthew laughed in a tempered and somewhat distracted manner in response to Jimmy’s insinuation regarding their devilry of the recent past.

Matthew was beginning the process of coming to terms with the actuality of the time and circumstance in which he was now situated as it concerned his future. Moreover, Matthew was beginning to realize the glum reality that the two had reached the end of the line in that rodeo. Matthew responded to Jimmy in the manner of one attempting to talk his somewhat disheartened friend back down from the ledge. He was a bit taken aback by the tone and mannerisms of defeat now being openly displayed by his usually carefree and easygoing traveling mate. Jimmy had always thrived on exactly this kind of monkeyshine back in their high school days and the days slightly beyond those rather heady years. Our recent escapades weren’t quite all that, now, Jimmy boy.

Matthew then shook Jimmy lovingly by the shoulder and added, We made it compadre, just like we always do. Keep the faith, my friend. Matthew then faced forward and became promptly transfixed by what he saw before his eyes as he pondered the nearly incomprehensible notion that something was vexing his eternally insouciant companion.

Jimmy continued to gather his faculties and took stock of his frazzled friend through the dimly shaded, amber tint of his sunglasses for a short while. He said not a word. Matthew did not notice Jimmy probing him. His own enchanted eyes were fiercely locked onto his broken image in the mirror mounted to the wall behind the five shelves lined with assorted liquor drinks. The bottles containing those well-spirited libations stood upright like strangely uniformed soldiers of remarkably differing make and origin that were capable of delivering differing payloads depending on one’s preference or need at a given time. Almost inexplicably, at least as far as it concerned the troubled displacements of Jimmy’s heavily taxed gray matter and not present circumstances, the notion flashed across Jimmy’s mind that Matthew was in no shape to take on what was ahead of him.

Jimmy then proceeded to execute on a rare executive decision that managed its way through the scrambled rumblings of his thoughts and held resolutely just long enough for him to ask of his friend, Hey buddy, are you sure you are up for this?

When Matthew did not respond and continued staring into the mirror behind the bar, Jimmy added the following for provisional support to his thesis regarding Matthew and to draw a reply forth from his mesmerized companion: You look a little banged up. This isn’t some careless hussy passing time at the beach. You are trying to take on a lot here by yourself. Maybe a good night of shut-eye would be the way to go for the both of us. I know I’m fucking dragging ass, compadre. I’ll get you uptown to them sometime tomorrow.

Matthew continued to stare into the mirror. He was lost in a daze and examining the visible contours of his face and his bright blue eyes in the dim, shallow light that timidly sifted through the ancient, overarching darkness of the bar area. Matthew suddenly understood that the old inn still catered to the ghosts and hobgoblins of the once glorious colonial maritime era, those seafaring scamps who had long since passed into lore. When Jimmy’s question and subsequent proposition finally drifted through the clouded fog of his miasma, Matthew began to think how strange it was that he had no truthful response to Jimmy’s question outside of his belief that his friend was selling Chanci Grace far too short. Furthermore, Matthew felt certain that the broken reflection returning to his eyes from the mirror behind the bar did not belong to the young and expectant man who had journeyed across South Carolina merely three days ago. While Matthew continued to ponder the meaning of such thoughts, Andy placed the shots and the pints down on the bar between the two deeply reflective gentlemen.

Matthew instantly snapped back to a more vibrant state upon the diversion that was the arrival of his awaited libations and bellowed, Thank you, kind sir! We certainly appreciate ya!

With a salute to none but the ghosts inhabiting the glass of the mirror, Matthew quickly dropped his shot into his pint glass and ravaged the offering down to the brown foam that ran up the side of the glass. He did so without even taking a breath. Once he had completed the suddenly quite necessary ritual, he gave Jimmy a firm love tap on the shoulder and called out, You’re up, JJ.

At that point, Jimmy was growing deeply concerned. He probed his friend in earnest: Seriously, compadre, are you going to make it? I’m getting a little worried about this situation and your ability to manage what you are about to walk into when we wrap things up here. Do you understand what I am saying to you? Such was about the closest Jimmy had ever come to directly reproaching his friend in all the years they had known each other.

Matthew smiled fiendishly at Jimmy as the tangy taste and gelid feel of the cold alcohol instantly kippered the mounting dread that had been washing over his thoughts. Matthew waved his hand heartily as if he were flagging a cab out on the streets of Manhattan and called over to Andy, Two more if you please, my good man. My noble friend here is refusing to give me a proper send-off.

Jimmy held his ground with his companion, who seemed just below the surface to be most inclined toward that of an almost contemptuous nature. C’mon, man, Jimmy responded begrudgingly. Enough bullshitting around, Matty. This is your time to step up and be present, and you’re acting lowborn. You all have a chance here, compadre, but you are not making things better for anyone by keeping things going like this. The kid is five, and Maggie is not always on solid footing from what I hear.

So, there it was. There was the statement of truth regarding the entirety of the affair, which both of them had danced around for over three days now, or so Matthew perceived at that moment. Matthew straightened up and then paused to consider the line he was preparing to cross—the line that he was callously or perhaps even cruelly preparing to cross without the hope of ever returning to what was once so natural and innocent between Matthew Sonneman and the very last of his intimate friends. Andy set the requested drinks down on the bar. Without hesitation, Matthew quickly repeated the rapacious mechanics of the prior moment with his second offering and slammed the pint glass on the bar when he had taken it all down. The throttling of the thickset pint glass sent the shot glass within rattling dully yet forcefully around the sturdy pint’s thick and stout filmed insides for a brief tick after it struck the obdurate wood of the old slab.

Once the clamor of the glasses being slammed into the bar had died down, Matthew thought about the old blue-blood class divides that had in certain ways always set the two friends apart. He thought derisively about those well-defined, and beneath the surface, rigidly adhered to tiered social orders of their privileged upbringing. Matthew began to grow agitated because at one time he knew, and perhaps maybe in some respects he had always known, given what little he truly discerned of Maggie’s current condition, that no matter how determined her declarations of intended independence from the forceful hold of Charleston society, Margaret Anne Walsh would always belong to and furthermore be ward of the same refined class as Jimmy and the Jemison family; a family that probably rubbed elbows with those deviant scions of the Morgenthau clan, which produced the woman of the shifting tides down in Myrtle Beach who now walked with the angels by night and held the hand of the devil by day, though she would forever dance upon his dreams.

With such a situationally unfavorable set of beliefs established as a backdrop and set firmly within his now nearly manic and paranoid mind, Matthew became harshly aware that Jimmy knew of and understood certain things regarding Maggie, and perhaps also his son, that he did not. Matthew’s guise darkened considerably following his adept rendering of what he felt was the deeper meaning behind Jimmy’s clear and defining plea. Worse than that fact, the ex-convict’s mind was beginning to possess a dark bent from the unending currents and the pickling stew of the alcohol washing over his mental faculties, which for a brief spell had once again allowed him to perceive at least something of the light and the good things that may yet await him. Because of that dour phenomenon, Matthew had also misappropriated those same dire feelings and that same imagined underlying premise of insincerity and applied them to Jimmy’s plea. Though it was certainly not Jimmy’s intention, Matthew felt as if he had been harshly separated from what he believed that he possessed of Maggie and the boy’s desires by the strange yet powerful nuances entangled within Jimmy’s tacit revelation and his knowledge of her station. Upon that maddening flash of but an instant, Matthew also believed that he alone desperately needed to possess those otherwise unknown yet cherished and peculiar details of the mother and her son if the unbroken singularity of his prospective hopes of a future living among them was to proliferate.

Matthew turned to face his concerned friend and spoke cogently. He spoke through the depths of that burning irritation racing toward rage, which prickled with an enflamed intensity that was throttled onward by tiny filaments of hot, bursting static that ran unchecked like lightning on a rod through the marrow of his bones. In truth, that fiery irritation, or perhaps mounting rage, was beginning to consume Matthew as it approached the event horizon while running its given course. He became caustic to the point that he was feeling directly betrayed by those simple and familiar truths that had always been part of their upbringing. What was most perplexing and perhaps irrational about Matthew’s suddenly burning ire was that he had acknowledged those inviolable allegiances of Jimmy to be merely circumstantial and belonging to the essence of their friendship only days ago when their journey began.

The tone he employed to respond to Jimmy could be perfectly ascribed to those hateful feelings simmering within by any that had known him reasonably well. That’s just it then, isn’t it, Jimmy. You came all this way for her benefit at the request of your folks, didn’t you? You’re no better than that ass cracker Jackson Satterfield back in Myrtle taking his turn with the fallen daughter of the governor in the hours after the well runs dry!

Matthew felt himself cross the line. He knew he had done so because he had no desire to scorn even the name of that soulful yet spirited wingless angel from the beach. Be that as it may, his burning indignation had far more fuel to burn. Beyond that, he saw them all as one now, one privileged tribe set against him ever having the woman born so well and far superior to one such as him; one spawned from the suicidal and the penniless. One spawned from the disgraced descendants of vile Nazis. That unquenchable fire within him soon began to rage hotter and burn higher as it took on more combustible fuel from the twin vices of conjured jealousy and a very real fear of what might become of him, whether he managed to reach Maggie and the boy or not. Sadly, those were vices that the raw and newly exposed heart of Benjamin Mattingly Sonneman possessed no mechanism to control.

Matthew reached for one of Jimmy’s untouched shots and a pint. He quickly made the presumed elixirs waiting within disappear. Jimmy watched on with an intensifying anxiety concerning his friend that was rooted deep within the pit of his stomach. For the first time in Jimmy’s life, as it pertained to his once-dear friend, who was suddenly akin to some skulking demon fueling its anger with the drink, Jimmy feared that nothing would be kept safe and sacred between them once that unbridled rage within Matthew was set to ignite. He was right about that, but he sorely underestimated the proximity of Matthew’s burning fuse to the powder keg.

Not knowing what else to do, Jimmy foolishly rushed a bit in responding to Matthew’s prior insinuation in the misguided hope of calming him down some. Jimmy spoke timidly. He also refrained from being deceitful because he implicitly understood that the moment to speak his piece was upon the two old friends. I just heard that Maggie was getting into some occasional trouble with the kind of stuff that most folks don’t make it back from, that’s all. I mean, sure, Matty, I’m worried about Maggie as a matter of principle too. I knew her growing up, and I knew a little something about the bad shit that went down with her folks, while many were left to presume that she was nowhere near that wreck for a time. I don’t know why that would be, but I do know that she’s been through a lot.

Jimmy paused for a quick yet infinite breath, lowered his head, and added a detail that he would forever wish that he hadn’t. I know about Maggie’s folks just like I know about the bad shit that went down with you and your folks. But make no mistake, compadre, what I’m really worried about now is leaving you on your own with them while you seem to be looking to pour gasoline on just about any fire you can find.

A scornful look came over Matthew’s face. The look seemed to exquisitely exhibit the absolute rancor of an enmity that had been suppressed for far too long and was rising uncontrollably within the angry and frightened young man. Jimmy’s words, and perhaps all that Jimmy stood for, had become a direct threat to the entirety of Matthew’s wholly imagined yet soon to be purposeful future. Matthew remained far too cross to speak in reply to Jimmy. As such, he reached down to the bar for the only tincture he could command.

He grabbed that unattended drink forcefully as the sable iniquity of his disdain ran savagely and unchecked, like hot, bubbling tar, through his boiling blood. When Matthew had finished with that offering, he put away Jimmy’s other untouched shot and pint feverishly and without ceremony. Yet again, he pounded the empty glasses down on the bar. His forceful exhibition lacked even the small measure of restraint pertaining to his previous bit of coarse showmanship. That particular display of wanton commotion was intended to signify some false and whimsical yet boastful command over his spirit and, perhaps, serve as some sort of feckless warning to those whom Jimmy might counsel where it concerned Matthew’s capacity for malice in conjunction with his complete disregard for their cruel intentions and bankrupt mores.

Andy heard the hot smack of the bottom of the pint glass hitting the dense wood of the bar and the trauma of the thick-rimmed shot glass rattling within that sturdy vessel. The surprised barkeep quickly stepped over from the server’s post behind the far side of the bar and spoke to Matthew calmly but with a warning firmness to his tone. Take it, easy man. I’m going to need you to take it down a few notches. This is a reputable establishment, not some spring break muscle bar.

Andy paused to look into Matthew’s wildly raging eyes and added, You don’t look so hot, my man. Are you okay? Maybe you need to get wherever it is you’ll be headed and sleep it off for a while.

Matthew apologized roughly to Andy, with barely a look of common consideration offered in response to Andy’s slight but not entirely insignificant warning. Matthew was still focused intently on Jimmy and the significance of what his old friend had just said to him. He refused to miss the opportunity to deliver his indignant message in reply, as his reasoning had become entirely sour and grossly distorted. After just a short while lost within that maddening silence of the intensity of the moment, Matthew retorted bitterly to his downcast yet mindful friend. Bullshit, Jimmy! I know you grandees are all thick as thieves. Why don’t you just say what you mean to say, compadre?

Jimmy was deeply disturbed by the harsh words and the elevated tone of his friend, who seemed beyond infuriated and confined to the realms of utter madness. Jimmy was doubtful that he might reign in anyone with such contemptuous and wild eyes, but he refused to give in to or give up on his rancorous companion and former schoolmate, even if Matthew had all but called his people back in Charleston to task. As such, Jimmy mustered up a serving of courage the likes of which he had not had to call upon since his strange roommate back in Talatha had stolen his unattended bag of weed.

Jimmy beseeched his friend ardently, raising his open palms towards the ceiling but leaving his sunglasses firmly in place over his widening eyes. Come on, compadre, you know me better than that. I’m here for you. You’d understand that if you’d just be honest about the mess you were in when you called. All I was trying to say is that there is a lot of baggage up on the rack that you need to be wary of where Maggie is concerned.

Jimmy paused to study Matthew’s eyes. Seeing no change in their sharpened rage, he quickly determined that it was best to come clean by saying, You know, compadre, you might want to give something like her past issues some deeper thought; and maybe even where you and Maggie are concerned. I don’t know. I just want to make sure you have thought everything through. There has been a lot of water that’s run under the bridge since you saw her last. She refuses to be helped anyone back home, and that has some folks worried about her and about the boy.

Matthew became yet more indignant and callous in his provocation of Jimmy. I know exactly what you mean, Jimmy. You mean that maybe the wise and eternally royal tea crowd let a few things slip regarding Maggie and me. So good of you to finally reckon that now is the time to show enough decency to let your lowly, convicted felon of a friend in on the privileged gossip bantered about from on high.

Jimmy understood that he was in deep. Matthew was pressing him to the point that he would have to declare the true measure of his loyalties. This was something that Matthew had never done directly throughout the entire course of their long and colorful friendship. Since Jimmy was nearly cornered, or merely lacking a favorable direction in which to turn, he responded rather passionately. His desire to appease his friend carried audibly in the undertones of his wavering voice. Yeah, compadre, I hear things about Maggie that I keep to myself. It’s no different nowadays than it was back then. But what I’m trying to tell you now is that getting bent like this isn’t going to be good for anyone. You really need to get your shit together before you head on over there. I know that you have already been through some heavy shit, the likes of which I can only imagine. I don’t want to leave you up here in Baltimore alone if you are not ready for what may come your way. That is all, my friend. That is all I’m trying to get through to you.

Matthew calmed a bit and closed his eyes in response to what seemed to be a genuine concern. It wasn’t long before the burning question within him, which he pined and then raged to have answered, was at the forefront of his shaded thoughts. At exactly that instant, the wicked fire still burning within him consumed an abundance of fuel once the alcohol Matthew had just rifled down took hold. The crisp blowback of the sudden burst of that internal conflagration, which was violently ripping through its required oxygen, was then taunted by the musty, alcohol-saturated air of the barroom. That confluence of unfortunate events instantly set something off within Matthew’s head. He unexpectedly thought of Miss Sonny and those questions that arose regarding certain instances of a chance or curious nature that were left unanswered weeks earlier in the prison infirmary. He was beginning to feel as if they were all somehow set against him.

Without further regard for his destruction, Matthew uttered the words that were prelude to the inquiry that would put Jimmy firmly to the wall. Okay, Jimmy, that’s fair enough and quite seemly of you. But if you are that worried about me as a matter of principle, why didn’t you just come out and say as much?

Matthew stood up from his stool at the bar and put his face close enough to Jimmy’s that the liquor-scented intensity of his hot breath began to steam the lenses of Jimmy’s sunglasses and warm the tendrils of his nose. Matthew then devilishly dared his friend to choose a side by asking, Why don’t you just tell me, Jimmy? If you are so worried about me, why have you not mentioned that the goodly folks of the afternoon tea club have, in some curious way, set such a miserable path forward for Maggie and me?

When Jimmy heard what Matthew had said, he became instantly flustered beyond any measure of suitable recourse. James Martin Jemison could not fight his way out of a paper bag. Nevertheless, Jimmy still possessed a peculiar yet deep and proper appreciation for the condition of his openly challenged character and, of course, the reputation of those who belonged to his elite parsonage. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to get that hot, musty devil away from his face. Therefore, Jimmy directed the entirety of his purpose toward delivering the two responses that he thought would accomplish that burning wish. He answered Matthew sharply by saying, Look, man, you know how it is. I don’t know anything as a directly reported fact. I told you as much earlier. But when you watch things with our folks go down for long enough, you start to figure a few things out.

Jimmy then gathered what remained of the immediacy of his rapidly receding courage and shoved Matthew forcefully back and away from him. Shortly thereafter, Jimmy barked out something carelessly and without restraint, though his words were intended for the benefit of Matthew’s feelings, in the event that such constructs born of emotion were indeed still present within his friend. Look, man, I did you a favor. I care about how all of this crazy shit works out for you two.

Matthew straightened up after being on the receiving end of Jimmy’s not entirely innocuous but not altogether overbearing thrust just as he backed into his barstool. He took a determined step forward and replied calmly to Jimmy while the conflagration of his mounting rage once again began to consume him. Matthew spoke so calmly and so coldly that Jimmy knew instantly naught but disaster was sure to follow in the wake of his spoken words. Sorry, Jimmy, but I hope you know how it is too.

At precisely the moment the last syllable had cleared his sharpened tongue, Matthew struck his friend forcefully with a tight fist. He struck Jimmy squarely in the thin bridge of his prominent nose. The sharp and crisp yet hollow cracking sound and the commotion of objects falling to the floor that followed pealed rancorously throughout the sparsely populated bar.

Jimmy fell back with his barstool after being struck. He and the sturdy wooden stool fell hard and nearly simultaneously to the dirty, old floor adorned with small squares of red laminate tiling. At hearing the violent crack of Jimmy’s nose, Matthew promptly snapped out of his vile trance. He found that he was standing over Jimmy and staring at his open and rapidly convulsing right hand. A feeling of harrowing revulsion, which was the result of his exceedingly violent transgression, began to drive a sickening feeling into the pit of the young man’s stomach. Matthew continued to stand over the motionless heap lying at his feet. He began to tremble while staring at that slightly framed mass of humanity, which was once upon a time his only friend. Soon thereafter, that old familiar terror that came from the knowing—the knowing that those terrible things once done will never again be undone—knifed through Matthew’s erratically shifting stream of consciousness.

Not much time had passed beyond the incident of the assault before Andy came running up to Matthew from behind the bar with an exuberantly charged sense of urgency. Everything Andy did, both at that time and as a procedural matter of exhibiting the persisting qualities of his high-strung nature, was a bit overdone in a precise yet noticeably aggressive and perhaps contentious manner. When he arrived on the scene, Andy pushed the dazed assailant back towards the far wall of the room to separate Matthew from his fallen victim. Andy then raced over to Jimmy, untangled the barstool from Jimmy’s limp and lifeless legs, and forcefully slid the fallen chair headlong against the scuffed and filmy wooden underside of the bar. When Jimmy was clear of the object, Andy went to his knees and rolled Jimmy flat on his back to assess the untold damage certain to be aligned with such an ungodly sound.

Matthew stood against the far wall and watched on with nothing but the blank stare of shock flashing across his ashen face. He continued looking on in despair while Andy delicately shook Jimmy back to his senses. When Andy had propped Jimmy’s head up with a towel he had procured from behind the bar, Matthew could see the endless flow of Jimmy’s crimson blood, which had run upward and over his eyes and into his hair in addition to the emergence of the downward streams that coated the entirety of his mouth and chin. Shortly thereafter, Andy set his stance to rise from his kneeling position beside Jimmy and retrieve more towels. Before he made a move to depart, the always-busy bartender instructed Jimmy to apply some delicate pressure to his nose to staunch the bleeding.

The blow had arrived like a lightning bolt delivered from the ether at a level and perfectly forward-facing locus. Jimmy had been spared at least the anguish of a facial reconfiguration similar to the one that Boonie had been gifted back in Myrtle Beach. Seeing that his ward was at least moderately responsive, Andy rose rather deliberately and made his way to the back of the tavern to retrieve the items he needed to tend to Jimmy.

When Andy was out of sight, Matthew took an unsure step forward with the intention of checking on his friend. However, before Matthew had brought the first of his steps to a close, with his feet evening up in their forward-facing alignment, he wretched violently. The horrid convulsion brought forth an unholy mass of tarred stout, whiskey, and stewed bile that rushed forth uncontrollably from his gaping maw. The harshly projected vomit spewed copiously onto the floor. The flowing amalgamation of churned gruel then proceeded to beautify the bottoms of his pants and his old running shoes before it was finally spent. Matthew had been jolted from the grips of his crapulence following the contact of his coiled hand with Jimmy’s flesh and cartilage. Once free from the confounding burden that had been tied down to his innards, he was seized by a moment of clarity while he wiped the final remnants of the tacky residue still clinging to the corners of his open mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. Such was the unsavory nature of the sudden onslaught of his due reckoning with what had come to pass.

Matthew looked over at his friend lying across the modest span of the barroom. Jimmy remained almost motionless. Matthew could see that his head had been propped up a few inches off of the floor to keep his bleeding nose angled downward with a neatly rolled black bar towel that Andy had positioned at the base of his skull. Upon the instant of such a detailed, albeit from a measured distance, inspection of his friend, Matthew ultimately bore witness to the devastating effect of that which he had wrought. The floor seemed to promptly drop out from beneath his feet as if a trap door had been sprung without warning. Though, in truth, he had been plumbing the depths of an alcohol-driven despondency from the moment they awoke in Rocky Mount to begin the journey up to Richmond, it was right about then that Matthew’s black and unconscionable despair had snapped violently back to protest the young man’s continuing exertions to cheat that doleful, wanting mistress of her turn at the wheel. Yet, have her go of things she would, and as always, she would be certain the scales had been tipped to her advantage before she allowed him to shake free from the torments of her deadly grasp.

As such, Matthew’s despair reached a level he had not felt since his father had taken his own life, and he had done so with Matthew clinging desperately to the shaken and desolate man in those final moments when the cold world beyond refused to hear his cries. Those final moments when the only anesthetic to his father’s sickening anguish was to make the demented ruminations of his mind finally cease by giving way to some presumed semblance of that once smothering silence waiting beneath cold earth, though it seemed to loom warm and eternal amidst the depths of such madness while he lay there at the business end of that old pistol; warm and eternal like a small, windowless room with padded walls, which would serve to eternally mute the horrors of the outside world. The affair with Julius somehow went slightly beyond even that episode as it concerned the young man for the sole reason that he was the one who owned the impulse behind that catastrophe, or so Matthew believed. If Matthew had arrived at that ninth level of hell yet again, or, quite simply, if he had returned to a situation requiring divine forgiveness for his wicked deeds as opposed to one requiring the graces of his own mercy, as was the case with his father, there would be little of consequence left to reveal upon these pages.

In either circumstance, Matthew was still trembling at the knees and throughout his hands and body as he stood there watching Jimmy from across the room. Though his mind was rapidly descending the depths of the darkness once again, he was in reality otherwise fully rooted to his position nearly against the far wall and stilled by the fear of some dismal consequence still to come. As Matthew’s mind involuntarily wandered to try and shield him from the aftermath of the assault, he slowly became detached from a strange world that he was only able to darken, like a long and leaning shadow confined to the plaster of the wall and the tacky residue of the floor while he remained standing in direct opposition to the divine purpose of the light.

Time stood still in those moments for the besieged young man. Though he was still standing on the cusp of repurposing the entirety of his life, the hopes and dreams tied to that once perfectly imagined home to be were rapidly becoming nothing more than a fading illusion; the fading illusion of a wanting heart so mercilessly set free to clumsily knock about the periphery of the expectant manors of this life while the potencies of a dark and ancient affirmation he did not fully understand remained firmly set against him. He then recalled that this illusion of his, at least while depicted in the way that he had proposed to make such honorable intentions a reality, had been besmirched by nearly all he had so eagerly professed his determinations to along the way to that foreign haunting where the spirits held to the old brick of the walls and the glass of the mirror behind the bar, which returned naught but the vacant and hollow reflections of the dead. And so it was that by finally tendering his fealty to those wise words of yesterday, which were so kindly offered but never heeded, he had bluntly come to understand that he had approached everything about as ass backwards as his present reality would allow. As he looked upon the broken face of his friend, Matthew also realized that he never would have conceived of such a thing while he sat talking to that beautiful angel who graced the halls of the prison infirmary.

Although Matthew still refused to step any closer to Jimmy in the name of refusing to further taunt the onslaught of that fateful reckoning, he continued to curiously and attentively study each fine detail of his bloodied and broken friend, who was lying there cold and still upon the barroom floor and yet again entirely disconnected from his sensibilities. Neither the blood nor the frightful swell of Jimmy’s broken nose had culled what remained of the dry, wrinkled seeds of Matthew’s foundering hope. Instead, it was the instant that Matthew got a good look at Jimmy’s sealed eyelid through the missing right lens of his bent and crooked sunglasses that his heart completely broke. Only then had Matthew’s eyes fully reconciled the consequences of his reckless violence, which was senselessly delivered by way of a deadly and impetuous blow from his own hand at the expense of his only friend on this earth.

To Matthew, the large, dark-lensed sunglasses with the gold wire rims had always been the crowning insignia of Jimmy’s free-spirited and outrageous character, which was otherwise wrapped up in the conforming attributes of a preppy country club kid. Jimmy never took those sunglasses off. Jimmy’s laugh, which cackled sharply and undulated wildly with coltish joy, and his wry, shifty smile, which often made one wonder what made Jimmy tick, always came from behind the ample shading of those sleek and prominent shades. The timeless yet fashionable shades paired perfectly with the subtle contentedness of those easy smiles and devilish grins. The exquisite cover the oblong yet stylishly tapered lenses afforded the fun-loving young man of such dubious routine was without compare. Because you never saw Jimmy’s eyes through the tint of the lens when he was stoned, and because Jimmy was stoned perpetually, he always kept you guessing as to what might be discovered beneath the party-loving drifter, who at his heart was an innately good kid relishing nothing more than his freedom of spirit and a good time.

Looking through the missing lens at Jimmy’s closed right eye, Matthew suddenly realized just what he had shattered. He had shattered the trust and affections of his devoted friend and those simple, generally honest, and good things that had existed between the two longtime mates of such a unique nature. As it concerned how Jimmy might react to such a violent assault, the circumstances of the past were indeed no longer a factor. Therefore, Matthew was just about absolutely accurate in assuming he had effectively wiped away all of those enduring virtues and confidences shared between them, years in the making, with his one ruinous act.