You Left Me Behind

Dell Creason looks around the infield, focusing on Hobey Clarke, his third baseman. He intuitively knows that in 1974, only four years away, Hobey will die in a skiing accident. Dell wants to tell him, but he believes nothing can change Hobey’s destiny.

Dell goes into his windup, striking out his eleventh batter.

The crowd cheers, responding to his pitching a no-hitter and a perfect game as well, something an eight-year-old shouldn’t do. Fifteen little leaguers have come to the plate and eleven have struck out. News of what Dell is doing has spread through the park, and the crowd of twenty spectators has swelled to hundreds.

Looking around, Dell’s mind is flooded with other people’s lives. He knows that right fielder Larvelle Buck is going to win the lottery and die broke; that shortstop Billy Packer will gain fame as the “Bacon King,” and that Coach Toque will be arrested for getting too friendly with some of his players.

What bothers Dell the most is no matter how hard he tries, he can’t predict his own future.

Dell smiles at Freddy Coogan as he comes to the plate. He’s already made his best friend look bad, striking him out twice. Freddy is a lousy hitter destined to soon give up baseball and eventually become a successful architect. The only contact Freddy usually makes with the ball is when he bunts, and he’s not a particularly good bunter either.

Dell catches sight of Freddy’s parents and sisters in the stands. He considers them his second family, and he becomes aware that someday, Freddy’s sister, Jackie, will be his girlfriend.

He decides to serve up a meatball for Freddy with the intention of throwing him out and preserving the no-hitter. That way Freddy’s parents can brag that their son was the only player who came close to getting a hit.

Dell goes into his windup. Freddy takes a full swing. The ball comes back at Dell as a blur.

The ball ricochets off the side of Dell’s head, ending up in right field. Dell gets the ball back, his no-hitter gone. He turns and nods at Freddy, who was standing on second base.

The sudden ringing in Dell’s ears muffles Freddy’s voice.

“…You left me behind…”

“What did you say?”

Freddy shrugs. “Nothin’.”

When Dell turns back, he sees the catcher and umpire wearing identical bewildered looks.

Dell signals he’s fine. He goes into his wind-up, falling flat on his face.

Dell wakes up to the sight of three men wearing masks looming over him.

“You left me behind,” a rawboned man with glasses says. Wielding a scalpel, he reaches down, ready to carve up Dell’s face.

For the rest of his life, the plate in his head will make him wonder if he’s living or remembering his life.

Shaking the cobwebs from his head, Dell finds himself sitting on a bench with his soon-to-be girlfriend, Maureen Hope, his friend Barry Bernstein, and Maureen’s promiscuous cousin, Joy Taylor.

He holds Maureen close. The voluptuous sixteen-year-old redhead teen giggles as he drapes her neck with kisses, tickling her,

Maureen leans her head against his shoulder. He looks down at her freckled features, feeling like the most grateful seventeen-year-old on the planet until a history of their brief and tumultuous relationship passes through his mind. He senses that Maureen will marry twice, have three children, and commit suicide when her second husband abuses her one last time.

“Don’t marry Robert or Henry,” he says aloud.

She kisses him on the cheek. “I’m going to marry you.”

“No, I’m going to break your heart.”

“You don’t know that,” she says, playfully kissing him.

Barry clears his throat, tapping Dale on the shoulder.

“Got a sec?”

“Your timing is horrendous, Barry.”

“It’s important,” Barry says, pulling him away from Maureen.

“You’d better have a terminal disease or something worse.”

His curly-haired friend’s features droop.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Go through with this farce,” Barry replies.

“You’re getting cold feet? I know Joy’s a bit, well, she’s not like Maureen… But you should be happy about that. No first date jitters, flowers, or having to meet her parents, you can skip first, second, and third base, and slide into home.”

“I’m gay,” Barry blurts out.

Dell's dark eyes pop and he shushes Barry. “This is no time for jokes. I finally broke the ice with Maureen, and I’d like to jump in, if you know what I mean. You’re the school’s best guitar player, a future jazz great. You dated one of the prettiest girls in high school for over two years. I watched you chase after – and catch – Marilyn “the Body” Bowen and pretty Polly Perkins, and you want me to believe you’re gay?”

Barry gives him a tearful, sincere look. “It was all a smoke screen to keep from getting hassled.”

“Well, I need you to put on an Oscar-winning performance just one more time,” Dell says.

“No! It’s tearing me apart!” Barry screams.

Dell signals to the two girls that everything is alright, and they need another minute.

Dell grabs Barry by the shoulders. “If you don’t do this, I’ll tear you apart, got it?”

Barry looks up at his brawny friend like a beaten dog.

Realizing he’s still touching Barry, Dell pulls his hands away.

“Don’t make me tell everyone your big secret. Try to enjoy yourself, okay? I’m going to.”

Dell returns to Maureen, nearly smothering her.

Looking over Maureen’s shoulder, Dell watches Barry fake desire as Joy draws him close.

Kissing Maureen, any remorse he feels for Barry quickly disappears.

Maureen looks up at Dell with teenage lust in her eyes.

“…You left me behind…,” she says.

“What?”

“I said, kiss me again.”

A memory of three men wearing masks standing over him engulfs him.

When Dell opens his eyes, he’s walking alongside Jesus Alfaro, his pint-sized cameraman.

“You’re awfully quiet today, sport. Something on your mind, or did Irv get to you again.”

“Irv?” Dell replies, slowly remembering that the dictatorial Irving Levine is his Managing Editor. “Yeah, he’s been a real terror lately. He’s still upset that he got passed over for a promotion.”

“Just like him to send us out on a day like this,” Alfaro replies.

Dell slowly becomes aware they’re in the midst of a blizzard.

“Won’t be a problem if we were at the office,” Alfaro continues, “but goin’ home’s gonna be a nightmare. And I bet the snow is gonna wreck those fancy boots of yours.”

Dell looks down at his embroidered black Tony Llama boots, pulling the collar of his cashmere overcoat around his neck for warmth.

“….Caroline, Joel. It was a dream, a memory, this is reality…”

“You say somethin’, sport?”

“I said, here we are,” Dell replies, opening the door to the theater.

An eager intern greets them.

“I’d like to see the manager. We’re from Con Ed…”

“Thank you for sponsoring our Christmas show!”

“Sure. Jesus is going to take a few shots of the show. I’d like to interview the manager.”

“He’s backstage,” the intern chirps. “Follow me!”

Dell closes his eyes, trying to think of his life after twenty-nine. Opening them, he’s relieved to see he’s still in the theater.

Barry comes out from behind a curtain.

“Of all the theaters in New York…,” Dell jokes.

“Nice to see you too, Dell. What’s it been, twelve years?”

Dell conducts a perfunctory interview. The entire time Barry looks at him with a sad, doomed expression.

“I thought you were going to be a big-time jazz guitarist?”

“We may be living in the enlightened eighties, but there’s still a lot of musicians with closed minds, and a boy’s got to eat.”

“Do you like managing a theater?”

“No. Too many drunks and divas. You?”

“I’m a hack for Con Ed’s in-house magazine. So that’s a no.”

“I’d like to think we’ve got plenty of time to still be successful, but I know better,” Barry says.

Dell hesitates before quietly saying, “I’m sorry I blackmailed you into doing something you didn’t want to do.”

“It was quick. Wendy’s reputation for being loose was understated.”

Dell reaches out his hand. Barry hesitates but shakes his hand.

“How are things now? Now that you’re…out?”

“People can be cruel, Dell. It doesn’t matter if you like men, women, or gerbils.”

“…You haven’t…”

“No!”

Both men smile wanly, walking away. They turn and take a last look at one another.

“You left me behind,” Barry says.

It’s then that Dell senses that Barry has a year left to live.

Walking down the stage steps, a memory of three men wearing masks fills his mind.

The metal plate in his head stabs at his skull.

“CLEAR!” a voice yells.

Dell looks in the rearview mirror. His six-year-old daughter Robin smiles back at him, sticking her tongue through the space where her missing front teeth should be.

“Again?” he asks.

“Yeah, again. The way you and mom met seems so fantastical.”

Turning to Claire, he says. “You tell it this time.”

Claire’s brown eyes sparkle. “We met in a bar…”

“A place I don’t want you going into before you’re ready to retire,” Dell interrupts.

“My best friend, Arlene, dragged me to see a band. Your dad was the lead singer. We took a lot of pictures of us with the band. The only one that came out right was a shot of us together. I was a little…forgetful that night so when I saw the picture, I had to ask Arlene who the guy with the mullet was.”

“Same here. Everybody had the Farrah Fawcett look back then,” Dell adds.

“A month later we went to another bar two hours away. Guess who was singing with the band?”

“Daddy! Meant to be!” Robin exclaims.

“Together forever,” Claire says, reaching for Dell’s hand.

Dell sips his drink, his eyes glued to the big screen TV in front of him.

“Still time to increase your bet,” Kyle Jarvis says to him. Dell knows that his jocular, husky friend will suddenly desert his wife of twenty years for a pneumatic stripper, and flee to Louisiana and become a shrimper.

“I’m good, Jimmy the Greek,” Dell replies. “What’s the score?”

“You mean you’ve been sitting here soaking up vodka for the past hour and you don’t know the Patriots are winning?”

“Of course. Brady’s playing.”

Kyle leans down, whispering, “Something tells me you’re not gonna see the end of this one, bud.”

Dell turns to see Claire, her hands on her hips, boring a hole through him with her smoldering brown eyes. Robin stands by her side, yawning.

“Are we leaving?” she asks.

“In a minute.”

“You’ve been saying ‘In a minute’ for the past hour. Robin’s got school tomorrow, and I’ve got three houses to show and a mountain of paperwork to do. Let’s go!”

Dell watches Tom Brady throw another touchdown pass. “That man’s something else, isn’t he?” he says to Kyle.

“Dell?”

“In a minute, hon.”

Claire groans. “You don’t even like football! Kyle, can you make sure he gets home?”

“Sure, Claire.”

Dell and Claire exchange air kisses. Robin gives him a hug,

“Don’t stay up past your bedtime, daddy.”

Despite the size of the screen, it begins to blur after Dell has another drink.

“Say, have you seen Claire and Robin lately?” Dell asks Kyle.

“They left fifteen minutes ago.”

“Was Claire pissed?”

“Not as much as when you tried to deep fry the turkey next to the garage.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of overtime lately, even weekends. I’ve really been neglecting her and Robin.”

“So, the one day you take off, you spend it with me, a crowd of drunken friends, and Tom Brady? Smooth.”

“I’d better get home.”

“I’ll drive you,” Kyle offers. “I’ve got a bet with my wife whether or not you end up sleeping in the spare bedroom.”

Dell is playing with the radio when Kyle begins to slow the car down.

“What’s up?”

“Roadblock.”

Five police cars, their lights spinning like carousels, frame a horrific accident. A car has skidded from one side of the road to the other, slamming into a tree.

“That’s our car!” Dell exclaims.

Before Kyle can hold him back, Dell is at the wreck.

Turning to a policeman, he wails, “What happened?”

The bull-necked officer, his nameplate, G. HARRISON, slightly askew, replies, “A woman swerved to avoid a deer. It crashed through the windshield. She was badly hurt already and couldn’t see. Then she overcompensated and hit the tree.”

“That’s my wife…Is she?...”

“Sorry.”

“Robin! Where’s my little girl?”

Officer Harrison points at a female officer a few feet away. Robin is clinging to her leg, unharmed. Spotting her father, Robin runs into his arms.

“Are you okay, sugar?”

Still shaking and crying uncontrollably, Robin manages, “I’m fine, daddy. But mommy… Bambi kicked her…Bambi kept kicking her!”

Dell looks at Harrison, who pats him on the back.

Gashing his teeth, Dell says, “Where is it?”

Harrison points to the end of a bloody trail in the road.

“It’s still alive.”

“Stay with Officer Harrison for a minute, Robin,” Dell says, marching off.

The deer, its front legs broken, and the fur torn off one side of its body, is squatting in the road, dazed, a stream of blood flowing from its mouth.

A moment later, the female officer comes up to Dell, who is still breathing like a stoked locomotive.

The deer is lying flat on the ground, its head nearly twisted backward.

“That was a pretty humane thing to do,” she says.

“I wasn’t trying to be humane.”

Dell looks down the road at Robin clinging to Officer Harrison's leg.

A shadowy figure glides past the carnage, standing next to Robin.

Her clothes stained with blood, her face battered to a pulp, Claire whispers, “…You left me behind...”

Closing his eyes, Dell sees the masked men peering down at him.

A voice yells “CLEAR!”

When he opens his eyes, Dell is sitting on a fluffy white couch in a gaudy mansion. Imported furniture, hand-woven oriental rugs, and rare paintings tantalize his eyes.

He recognizes the men in designer clothes as his partners and co-conspirators - Hunter Barrow, Dillion Agar, and Paolo Vanzetti. They’re the men he betrayed to the F.B.I. to save his own life.

Barrow will soon escape to Australia and live a long, wealthy, and unfettered life. Agar will die from a heart attack during his seventh year in prison. Vanzetti will be stabbed to death in the shower eight months later in retaliation for their embezzling investor’s funds.

“It isn’t that bad,” the beetle-browed Barrow says, noticing Vanzetti’s tears.

“No, not for you!” Vanzetti shrieks. “Your name’s not on any of the contracts!”

“Like my daddy said, never sign anything,” Barrow says, his southern accent slick and syrupy.

“What am I going to do? We cheated Big Tom Murphy out of millions!”

“I told you we shouldn’t deal with gangsters,” Agar says, brushing back his shock of silver hair.

“You didn’t complain about the three million dollar payout,” Barrow replies.

“I’ve got two daughters, and a wife I actually care about,” Agar says. “What’s going to happen to them if I go to jail?”

“Nothing, if you planned things out the way I told you,” Barrow says. “Your money is safe. Dell put it in offshore accounts that can’t be traced, right, Dell?”

Dell looks down at the white shag carpet, thinking about Robin.

“Dell? You with us?” Agar asks.

“…Right… The Feds will never find it.”

Suspicious, Barrow asks, “What were you thinking about just now?”

“How short my career in finance is going to be.”

“No, really. I saw your wheels turning.”

“I was thinking what a rotten father I’ve been.”

“You’ve taken care of your daughter,” Agar says. “You gave her riding lessons, sent her to music camp, paid for her to go to Harvard.”

“So, I wouldn’t have to spend time with her, and I wouldn’t be reminded of what happened to Claire. My sister raised Robin, not me. I’ve only seen her three times since her wedding day, and now, because I have to change my name and go into hiding, I may never see her again.”

The memory of his daughter’s voice enhances Dell’s despair.

“…You left me behind…”

Dell wakes to the sight of three men in masks standing over his bed.

“CLEAR!” a skinny man in glasses yells, pressing the defibrillator’s paddles against his chest.

“We have a faint heartbeat,” a male nurse says.

“…Freddy, Maureen, Barry, Claire. Robin, Paolo…” Dale mutters.

“What’s that he’s saying?” Dr. Noyce Gregson asks one of the male nurses.

“Must be people from his past. That’s all eighty-year-old dudes talk about, right?”

Dr. Gregson huffs. “I’ll have you know I’m seventy-four and still have full control of my faculties.”

“That’s debatable.”

“What?”

“I said I’m going to get his daughter. She hasn’t seen him in twenty-five years.”

Dell’s eyes flutter open.

“…Not ghosts in masks…,” he says, his voice barely audible.

He looks up at a familiar but older face.

A winsome smile spreads across the woman’s features.

“Robin?”

“Yes, dad.”

“How did you get here?”

“You called me and told me where you were.”

“…I’m so sorry. I didn’t do right by you or your mother…”

“Mom loved you. I’m sure she can’t wait to see you.”

“…I was a horrible father…”

“You took care of everything I ever needed.”

“Everything but love.”

Reaching into her pocketbook, Robin pulls out a photo.

“I stopped at the house to get it. Can you see it, dad? It’s a picture of you and mom the night you met. That’s love.”

Robin pats his sparse, coarse white hair. Dell closes his eyes as the monitor flatlines.

“Smile,” Arlene says, taking a picture.

Dell and Claire put their arms around each other, knowing that this time they’ll be together forever.