Who Killed Johny Westcott?

Friends, Family & Fans

This is an attempt at writing in a genre totally different and out of my realm of experience. I have a few projects in motion, but wanted to post the intro to the story with hopes of getting your thoughts. Those of you who know me will be surprised, but don't judge me too quickly, or harshly. There is a method to the madness.





August, 21^st 2014
(6:30 PM)

    I was disoriented when first awakened by rain drops falling softly on my face and thought it strange that I was not wet. Pulling myself off the ground, I saw a myriad of red and blue lights. Flashing beacons from one fire truck, two police cars, and an ambulance that littered the highway. 
     I could not hear anything, so I stood looking over the chaos in absolute silence.  I did not know who I was, or where I was at. It felt like walking into the Second Act of someone else’s story.
     People were talking, but I heard no voices. And though I was walking through a crowd, no one knew I was there. Then I saw the tape. The kind used at crime scenes, or at the sight of an ugly accident. It had been pulled to serve as a barrier for the crowd that had gathered.
     I was curious, so I lifted the tape and walked over to where a group of firemen and EMT’s stood huddled around a deer lying on the asphalt. It was a large buck.  His neck was broken and shoulders were crushed. A thin red line ran from one nostril.
     “Nice buck.”
     My head snapped up to toward the voice that had broken the silence!  Suddenly I was fully aware and in command of my senses.
     I asked, “This much Calvary for one deer?”
     No one answered.
An EMT questioned, “What were the chances of his crossing the road, on this day, at the exact time that poor guy passed by?”  I traced his gaze Seventy-Five feet up the highway to where a motor cycle was lying on the pavement.  It looked like my bike.
     I ran up to get a better look and learned, it was mine!  A red Yamaha 750 Special! I bought it the summer I graduated from high school. A low down payment with forty-eight easy installments made it an affordable ride.  My memory was coming back.
     The front wheel was gone, the handle bars were wrapped around the fuel tank, and my body was lying another 25 feet up the road where two men sporting coats and ties were standing. One was taking notes.
     More confusion.
     How could I be in two places at one time? But, when one of the coat and ties yelled to the firemen, “You can bag him when we’re done!” I knew I was dead.  
     I gasped, and walked over to where the coat and ties were standing. Looking down on myself, I was overwhelmed and could not believe what my eyes were seeing. It was not so much my death that set me back, but the way in which I had departed.
     There I laid.
     On the asphalt.
     Belly down.
     Head turned to one side.
     Both eyes open,
     and a machete
     sunk in my skull.
        I instinctively reached up and rubbed my head, but felt nothing. Suddenly, I was dealing with the reality of two disturbing revelations. First one being, my death and secondly, there was a machete wedged in my skull and I could not recall how it had gotten there.  
     The detective’s conversation did not help matters.
“Hey Pete, what do you think took him out, the deer, or the blade?”
     “Not sure Mike, but some one sure split his melon?”
Then Pete asked, “I wonder if it happened before he climbed on the bike, or somewhere between here and there?  And, if it was during the ride, what happen to whoever wacked him?”
     Mike squatted as he reached for my back pocket to recover my wallet. “Do you recognize the kid?
Pete responded, “He looks fimaliure. Something about him is ringing a bell.”
     Mike withdrew the license from my wallet, looked up and said, “Johnny Westcott.”
“Johnny Westcott? I remember him. Running back for Mystery High. Had a big year, a few years back. He played at Wake Forest for a season, or two.” 
    “Yeah, took a couple of nasty hits early on. First one broke his femur, the next year a linebacker from Clemson tore his ACL. After that, it was all over. He lost his scholarship money and dropped out. Hung around Winston; waited tables in Old Salem and attended community college for a while. Then found his way home.”
     Their conversation brought on a flash back and suddenly I was in Winston Salem, on the fifty yard line at BB&T field. The ball was snapped and I took an option around the strong side. When I turned up field a linebacker appeared out of nowhere and hit me low. I went down, grabbed my knee and started groaning. I missed the rest of the season and with two major injuries in my first two years, my career was over.
     When I graduated high school I was just a young kid with visions of sugar plums. I was recruited by Wake Forest and actually believed I was on a fast track to the NFL. Then life happened.
     My first reality check came when I got the phone call from a friend and learned Laura was going out with Kyle Turner. Then she sent me a letter:

Johnny,
     I’m sure you’ve heard I went to the homecoming dance with Kyle. We’ve been seeing each other for a while and it’s time you and I go our separate ways.  I read stories about the Frat House parties, and heard a few rumors about you and a couple of other girls. It broke my heart, but with you away in college, I suppose you forgot about the rest of us here at home.

- Laura

P.S. By the way, if you can’t find time to visit your parents, at least try and call them.

And just like that, our relationship was over.  It ended faster than it started, and now I was alone, dead, and standing over my corps, trying to figure out who had parted my hair with a machete.
     When the detectives said something about informing my parents I snapped out the flashback and was in real time. Together, the three of us watched the firemen bag my body and place me into an ambulance.
     As it headed to the morgue, Mike said, “Let’s go break the news.” I followed behind thinking about how hard this was going to be on my parents.
     They got in the car and Mike started the engine. I blinked my eyes once and found myself in the back seat.  I did not intend on riding along, in fact I did now know what to do, or where to go. But, there I was, in the back of a squad car with two detectives, going to inform my parents of my death. I expected to hear Rod Sterling’s voice say something about this being the Twilight Zone, after which I would wake from a horrible dream.  But, I was not sleeping and this was no dream.


(8:00 pm)

 

As the car pulled into the drive way of my parent’s house I felt a heaviness in the pit of my dead stomach. I knew it was going to hit them hard; I also knew their world would fall apart when they learned someone had laid into me with a machete.  
     Mike and Pete got out of the car and walked up the side walk to the front porch. I was not prepared to watch Mom and Dad deal with my death, so I stayed in the car and sarcastically said something to the detectives about being on their own for this one. Of course, they could not hear anything I was saying.
     From the back seat of the car I looked out and saw the big oak tree and tire swing I played on when I was a kid. I also noticed, three bicycles leaning against the side of the barn. I had ridden them all while growing up; graduating from one to the next. Until I turned sixteen and got my first dirt bike. A Street legal Kawasaki 175. 
     I heard three knocks on the front door, closed my eyes and dropped my head. When I opened them, I was on the sidewalk standing behind Mike and Pete, thinking this whole teleporting thing was getting to be a real problem. Dad opened the door.
     “Hi Mr. Westcott. I’m detective Pete Busey and this is my partner, Mike Buchannan. My we come in and talk with you for a few minutes?”
     I had seen my father on his best and worst days. We had walked through those topsy-turvy adolescent years and came out on the other side. When I was on the football field, he was my biggest fan. But, when I was younger he was also a stern disciplinarian when I crossed the line of what he considered to be acceptable behavior.
     Coming from the old school, he believed in the belt and had lit up my hind side on more than a few occasion.  I had seen every conceivable emotion the man had, but when he looked at the declivities and asked, “Is Johnny alright,” He showed me something I had never seen in him before. Brokenness.
     Pete replied, “Mr. Westcott, may we please come in and talk with you?” That was all the confirmation my father needed. The look on his face reflected the feeling in his gut. It was like he knew I was gone. Reaching forward, he pushed the screen door open and said,” Sure. Please come in.”
     Walking into the house I heard my mother call out, “Marty, I think someone’s at the door?” Dad asked Mike and Pete to have a seat, then excused himself and walked into my mother’s sewing room.
      She was busy working on another quilt which would be entered into the county fair. Most years she and Wilma Turner won the Red and Blue Ribbons. It was usually a tossup between the two of them for first and second place. In spite of the competition, they had remained close friends. Even when Kyle and I had our falling out.
     I’m not sure what dad told my mother about the declivities sitting in the Living Room, but I heard her response. “Is Johnny Okay? Has something happened?”
     The detectives looked at each other and took a deep breath. Mike whispered, “You take the lead and I’ll back you up.” Pete nodded in agreement.
  I took a quick survey of the room.
     ESPEN was on the television, with the volume turned down.
     Mom and Dad’s Bibles were lying on the lampstand between their two recliners.
     A new quilt hung on the wall behind the sofa.    
     The Trophy Case was filled with every milestone I had reached
     from fourth grade through senior year.
More than a house, this was my home and the place where I was raised.  The place of Christmas celebrations and birthday parties. A place of refuge when things were crazy and security in times of doubt.
     I was temporarily caught up in the nostalgia of home until my parents walked into the room holding each other and wearing a look on their faces that told the story. They knew something was wrong, but were holding on to hope.  Dad escorted mom to her recliner, then sit in his own and looked to the detectives as he asked, “Is there something we could do for you?”
     Pete hesitated for a second and responded, “Mr. Westcott, I’m sorry, but your son has been in a terrible accident.”
     Pulling her hand to her mouth, my mother sighed and raised her voice in a panic as she asked, “Is he okay? Please tell us Johnny is alright!” Dad sat there stoic, like he knew what was coming.
     “Mr. and Mrs. Westcott.  Your son was involved in an accident out on HWY 135 and we’re sorry to have to tell you this, but he did not survive.”
     Mom doubled over and lost it. “No! No! It can’t be! Not Johnny. Not our son. It can’t be true!”
Tears welled up in my Father’s eyes and ran down both cheeks as the emotion broke through his exterior. I had only seen him cry on three other occasions. First time was when my grandfather died, then two years later when grandma passed. He also wiped a tear on the day I signed with Wake.   
     I stood there and watched as they began to grieve. Though I no longer had a heart, there was a heaviness in the center of my chest, an ache for the ones I loved me. I recalled a line from the old Clint Eastwood movie, Unforgiven: “It’s a hell of a thing killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever going to have.”
     Someone had taken my life and robbed my parents in the process. It’s like the mother of a still born.   She’s still a mom, but due to unforeseen complications there’s no baby to hold; just an empty filling and unfulfilled longing for what cannot be. Like Eastwood said, “It’s a hell of thing.”
     No parent should have to endure such loss and pain, but my parents were sitting at a table playing the hand they had been dealt. I started getting angry over the injustice and wanted to know who had done me in and wondering if it were possible for a dead man to have amnesia.
     Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Déjà vu! In my mind’s eye, I was back at the scene of the accident taking a closer look. This this time I noticed the machete in my skull looked a lot like the one I had received on my sixteenth birthday. The same one I had used countless times while hiking through North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains
     I left my parents with Mike and Pete and ran up the stairs and down the hallway to my room. I stopped at my door and hesitated for a moment, thinking the last time I walked out of this room, I still had a pulse. Then I reached for the knob and watched my hand pass through the door. I hesitated for a moment at the weird phenomenon then walked into my room. 
     Looking to the bed post where my machete should have been hanging confirmed my suspicion. It was gone. Someone had taken me out with my own blade. More alarming was the thought that it had probably been someone I knew.
     I stood there blown away by the mystery when a heard something blood curdling. It was my mother’s wail. I looked in the direction of her cries and instantly teleported back to the living room where I learned Mike and Pete had told my parents about the machete in my skull. 
      Dad had crawled out of his recliner and over to my mother. His head was laying in her lap and she was doubled over him as they embraced each other. Learning someone had taken my life was more than they could bear.
     “We’re sorry Mr. and Mrs. Westcott.  No parent should have to go through anything like this. The coat and ties were doing their best to comfort and console, but in such moments, words are inadequate.
     My father pulled himself away from my mother’s embrace, looked at the detectives and said, “I don’t understand. If it had been an accident on the road, if it had been the deer, but someone took our son’s life!”      
     Mr. Westcott, the Medical Examiner has ordered an autopsy.  The forensic team has been called in and the department is committing every available resource to the investigation. We will find the responsible party and justice will be served.
     In his grieving process, dad had already moved passed the denial phase and had become angry.  My mom, however, could not bring herself to believe I was gone and covered her face as she sobbed, “It’s not true, he can’t be gone, he just can’t be gone.”  Dad held her close as he looked up to Mike and Pete and said, “He didn’t come home last night. When he called and told us he would be staying at the cabin, I didn’t realize it would be our last conversation. I’m glad I told him I loved him.”
     My father’s words triggered another memory and I recalled having taken my machete to the cabin a few weeks earlier and leaving it there. It left me with a bitter sweet feeling that perhaps my machete was still in the cabin and maybe the person that done me in was a total stranger who used his own blade.
     The detectives looked at each other, then to my father, and Mike asked, “What cabin?”
    “We have a cabin on Blews Lake.” We spent a lot of time out there when Johnny was young. It’s where he learned to swim and water ski. It had become something of a refuge after his second injury.“
      Mike said, “You’re talking about the Clemson Game, right?”
       Dad reached up, wiped a tear and asked, “How did you know?”
      “I was at the game the day he took the hit. It was ugly.
      “You saw Johnny Play?”
       “Watched him play in high school and college. He was good. When he was recruited by Wake, everyone in the county was happy for the local kid that made it. We all knew he had potential, too bad he got hurt.”
     “Yeah. He lived for the game. When he could no longer play he lost interest in the campus scene and dropped out. We begged him to stay. I was willing to mortgage the farm to cover the last two years, but he wasn’t interested in being there if he couldn’t play football. So, he packed it up and came home.”
     The expression on my father’s face began to morph as the detective’s words became a light piercing his darkest hour.  For a brief moment he was finding comfort knowing Mike had seen me play, and was there for him.  I realized and regretted how I had taken my parents for granted.
     I lost my identity when things started clicking and coming together during on the football field. The driving impetus became recognition and expectation I was receiving from others.  When scouts started showing up at games and practices I began forsaking values that had been instilled in me since childhood. One of those values being--church. I had pretty much stopped attending services. I still believed in God, but did not have much time for Him, or his people.
     And with that assessment came a staggering blow that challenged the foundation of a world view. Standing in the living room of my parent’s house I wondered what was coming next. All my life I had been taught, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
    I assumed I was not I heaven because I had not seen pearly gates, nor heard the angelic choruses. Though I was alarmed, I found comfort in a couple of other things I had not seen, or heard like—The lake of fire and the cries of the damned being tormented day and night. It left me wondering if heaven was real, or a product of tradition. Then I questioned, “Dose hell exist, or is it a concept borrowed from the Bible and embellished by Dante?”

The Judge : A Personal Synopsis.

         

          I watched The Judge earlier this evening, and before the closing credits began rolling I had already given the picture two thumbs up. As you would expect, Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr. each step up to deliver  performances worthy of an Oscar.
          Its a good story that portrays interpersonal relationships not only taxed and strained within a family dynamic, but also compounded by a terrible accident and symptoms resulting from chemo therapy.
     As the story unfolds a father/son relationship develops and by the end of the movie healing is needed. I am not here to share spoilers, but suffice it to say, I was moved. Then I thought of my own dad and wiped a tear.
     My father passed away two and a half years ago. During the mourning process I wrote a few lines.

                                                        THE LUMP

 

 

I stood at your grave with a lump in my throat
hurting too much to cry. And couldn't believe
you were gone, but seven men fired twenty-
one salutes and someone played taps.

I returned a few weeks later to find new grass
breaking through the crust of an old earth.
From the blackened soil of a still fresh grave
life sprang forth as you reached up to me.

I longed for the warmth of your embrace,
but the lump remained. I’ve learned, it’s a living
thing growing like a tumor with a pulse,
beating rhythm with my own broken heart.

I miss you Dad

Grace and more Grace

Friends and fans, sorry for the long hiatus. I have missed you guys and am thrilled to be back in the blogosphere. Writing has consumed my spare time. You will be seeing the results here on the blog and on Amazon, as well.
     I have recruited a talented young lady, (Victoria Orlopp  / AKA Torrey) who has graciously  agreed to come on board and lend me her talents as she puts together the cover art for my writing projects.
     Those of you who have read The Note will recognize the new cover. She used the motif of hands with a water color background of red tones fading into yellow to represent sin falling into grace. I think she has done an excellent job and am looking forward to the creativity she will bring to the table.
     I have been giving tons of thought to the concept of grace over the last few days. Phillip Yancey calls it our last great word. In his classic work, What's So Amazing about Grace? He shares how words, over time morph and the way they are used changes, as well as their meaning.
     In 1611 translators working on The King James Version of the Bible  used the term grace to share the redemption and restoration offered in Christ. That was over 400 years ago, and the word means the same thing today, and is used in the same way now as it was then. It truly is a great word.
     We live in a world that is starving for grace. When relationships are strained, grace brings restoration. When lines have been crossed and boundaries are broken grace has a way of putting it all back together. When our children disappoint us, grace brings them back home and when a marriage struggles, grace offers a healing balm. Because I'm flawed I continue to be a recipient of grace and have found it in both Heavenly and earthly places.
     That being the case, here's the rub. Why is it that we who have received grace, have a hard time bestowing it? If the premise be true, does that not suggest hypocrisy of the highest order?  Please, don't be offended, and before you right me off let me confess that I am guilty.  
    I think it's a product of the fall. The Curse of Adam raising it's ugly head. Something innate longing for a pound of flesh.  Revenge, if you will. And sadly enough, it's easily justified. Like Pharisee of a new day we've become keepers of the gate.  It leaves me wondering: What if, as followers of Christ, we reciprocated grace?
     When I was eleven years old my father showed grace on an occasion that demanded justice. It proved to be an experience from which I have yet to recover. An experience used ten years later, as I responded to the Gospel.
     The Note draws a portrait showing what grace looks like to someone who was not raised in church, yet recognized the blessing when it came.