Promises

by Richard Brown

          “You ready to tell me more about where you disposed of all these bodies, Mr. Stephens?”

          “I told you, Detective . . . THE body . . . singular. Just one.”

          “Right. Well, tell me again.”

          “It’s my dad. I killed him two years ago.”

          “Tell me about that. How and why. All the wh-” He made a wha sound, “questions.”

          “We were arguing for the first time I can remember. He was the most distant dad ever. Never came to a game or debate. Never even asked about school or work. Never asked about my life at all. One day, I feel like acting like a good son, and I go visit him. He complains that I don’t call him, or care about what he’s doing with his life. I couldn’t take it, so I yelled at him about the hypocrisy, about how he never cared about my life, either; about how he wasn’t there at my wedding, or the birth of his grandson; about how I never heard from him once while I was going through my divorce. I went on for a good while. He had the nerve to just sit there and let it roll off of him, like water off a duck’s back. Near the end, he bows his head and mutters something and nods his head, like he’s agreeing with himself. He might’ve been praying.

“With his eyes closed and head bowed, I grabbed the rock with all the barnacles on it that he called his “fishing trophy” and smashed it against his head. He called it that because he brought it back with him one of the countless times he went fishing with his buddies. Said he struggled with it for twenty minutes before he finally brought it up, thinking it was a monster the whole time. I cut my hand on the barnacles when I hit him. Then I filled the bath halfway, dragged him over to it, rolled him into it, and held his head under. I expected his eyes to open, but they never did. He didn’t even care about what I was doing when I was murdering him.”

          “Two years ago, you say. So, who was it that you dropped into the lake yesterday, Mr. Stephens?”

          “That was him. Never wanted to go ice fishing with me.”

          “So, you thought you’d force him to have a full immersion experience with it, huh? So, to speak.”

          “Something like that.”

          “Why’d you keep him around for two years?”

          “I didn’t want to. I buried him in the garden right after I drowned him. I’ve buried him thirteen times, both near and far. This is the ninth time . . . no, tenth . . .  that I’ve tried a watery resting place. But he won’t rest. Tried burning him once, but he won’t burn. Wood chipper broke as soon as I got him close to it. He keeps coming back. He won’t leave me alone, now.”

          “Well, we have to wait for Spring to dredge the lake, but we’ll verify at least part of your story, then.”

          “It never thaws up there, but don’t worry. He’ll be back.”

##

Two mornings later, Andre Stephens woke in the lower bunk of his jail cell. He started to roll out of bed, but froze when he saw the pale, hairy, limp hand hanging from the upper bunk, dripping water on the floor. His gaze drifted down and he saw the pale, hairless ankle and foot mimicking the hand’s inaction near the foot of the bed.

          “Hi again, Dad. Thanks for being with me through this. I think I’m finally figuring out what you were muttering, there, at the end. I appreciate it. It really means a lot.”