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face was both a product of
reality and imagination. Had I really taken the time to get a good look at
my attacker during those frightening minutes down inside the dirt
floor basement of his house in the woods? I had been too afraid to look closely into his
face; into his eyes. Yet I still knew what he looked like. And I
could reproduce him detail for detail.
    So what then possessed me to compulsively
sketch the face? Do it for my eyes only?
    For some unknown reason it gave me comfort to
draw him; to be able to compartmentalize him like that; to be able
to control him. Therein lay my refuge in a world where I had no one
other than Molly to cry to and to cry with.
    Taking my coffee with me, I opened the back
door and stepped out onto the stone terrace. I breathed in the
sweet smell of a rain-drenched morning that now warmed itself by
the new sun. A bright, breezy, cheerful day loomed large. Even if
it killed me.
    For a
brief moment I finally succeeded at forgetting about Whalen. I
looked out across the large expanse of green grass, large oak
trees, wrought iron benches, neatly trimmed paths, and the old
four-story brick buildings, the green ivy running up the sides to
the slate roofs. I was a student at Princeton, Yale or Harvard.
Gazing up at the white wispy clouds, I felt like I had become a
character in an Impressionistic Monet. Maybe Boats Leaving the Harbor or my favorite, Sunrise . I
sipped the still too hot coffee and I felt my body shiver from the
morning chill. Something Monet characters never did.
    The white dreamy angels that floated above
me… Every one of them bore the name Molly.
    A second cup of coffee later, I was showered
and dressed in my most comfortable Levis, black Nicona cowboy boots
and black turtleneck sweater. Hair pinned back, I put on sunglasses
to mask tired, wired eyes. Throwing my knapsack over my shoulder, I
went to leave the apartment the usual way. Via the back door.
    But Franny’s painting stopped me cold.
    It tugged at me, pulled me in with its
invisible tractor beam. I stared down at the many lines and
patterns but even now the main focal point came in the form of the
word ‘Listen’.
    Was the painting Franny’s way of
communicating with me? If it was his was of communicating, what
exactly was he trying to tell me? Listen? Listen for what
exactly?
    Bending at the knees, I picked up the
painting by its border, turning it around so that it faced the
bookcase. Then I left the apartment for what I prayed would be an
uneventful day at work.

Chapter 9
     
     
    SOMEHOW I KNEW THAT the day would be anything
but uneventful.
    Something was happening inside me. I wasn’t
in any pain. I didn’t feel queasy. I didn’t have cancer, God
willing. I just had this feeling that I was no longer guiding
myself; that the events of my life were being guided by
circumstances beyond my control. Maybe this explained why instead
of passing by the Saint Pious Roman Catholic Church like I had day
in and day out for the past ten years, I acted on impulse, turned
into the empty lot, pulled up close to the church doors and killed
the engine.
    I couldn’t honestly admit to being a believer
anymore. But for reasons even I could not understand I opened the
door, stepped through the vestibule, walked past the wall-mounted
Holy Water decanter, past the marble Baptismal font, past the
Christian magazine rack, past the padlocked poor box.
    Stepping into the big empty brick and wood
church, I was hit with the organic smell of smoke and incense. At
the same time, I became engulfed in a kind of cold that wasn’t
freezing, but that somehow still managed to penetrate my skin and
bones.
    I slid into a pew toward the back. For a
split second I was tempted to kneel, but instead I chose to sit. I
stared out across the pew, focused on the dimly lit altar, the
focal-point-crucified Jesus hanging from the far back wall. The
early morning rays that poured in through narrow, parallel stained
glass windows bathed Him in blood red. The