Chapter Twenty One
The third event that improved Seth's outlook on life was a trip he made out of town. He told Sarah that he needed the car for the day, but not why, and he drove downstate. He had sweet-talked the address of Jerome's parents from a sympathetic woman in the guidance office, and he was going to pay them a visit.
He waited until the evening and knocked on the door. It was opened by a tired looking woman,. "Are you Mrs. Dowell?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered. "Who are you?"
"I was a friend of Jerome's from school," Seth said.
"Oh," she replied with a little catch in her voice. "Is there something that I can do for you?"
"Well, I wanted to give my condolences to you and Mr. Dowell, and I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes."
"Sure, come in," she invited. She showed him to the living room and gestured to the couch. "Have a seat and I'll go get Zeke. Can I get you a drink?"
"No, thank you," he said.
She left the room and was back a minute later with a man, presumably Zeke. He looked like life had not treated him too well, or perhaps he didn't treat himself well throughout his life.
"What do you want?" he asked brusquely.
"As I told your wife, first and foremost I wanted to give you my condolences. I had become very close to Jerome over the last month of his life, and I know that it must be a great loss to lose someone as special as Jerome."
"Are you queer?" Zeke sneered.
"No, sir. I was his friend and I knew he was depressed," Seth continued. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Jerome seemed happier over the few months before his death, and I was shocked when he took his own life. I was wondering if you knew of anything that could have happened that could have pushed him over the edge like that?"
Mrs. Dowell looked sadly at her husband, but his response was far from polite.
"Jerome always was a troubled boy. He never knew how good he had it, and he couldn't mind his elders. I don't know why he did what he did, but it didn't surprise me in the least."
"Do you know what might have happened, Mrs. Dowell?" Seth asked.
"I just answered your question!" Zeke interrupted before his wife could say anything. "Was there anything else that you wanted?"
"No. Thank you very much, and once again, I'm sorry about your son."
Mrs. Dowell nodded, a tear in her eye, but her husband merely grunted and showed Seth to the door.
Seth went out to his car and drove it just around the corner. He parked the car, lowered his seat and tried to sleep. Jerome's father had the look of a man who didn't go a day without alcohol. Seth's visit had probably disturbed him enough that he would turn to drink, or at least Seth hoped so.
Seth pondered his plan. He would first discover if Jerome's father was as controlling and manipulative as he suspected, a suspicion bolstered by actually meeting him. If his fears were true, he would influence him into doing something fatal. Seth had never even considered killing someone before — he'd never even had so much as a fist-fight in his life -- but his blood boiled when he thought of Jerome, and he knew that he was quite prepared to do it now. The world would be a better place without Zeke Dowell.
Seth fell asleep, though he was so agitated it took him longer than he had anticipated. He found Jerome's mother first. He started probing her conscious mind, and he discovered that Mr. Dowell was getting ready to go out drinking. She was scared, because that nice young man who had been friends with Jerome had upset him, and when he got upset he drank heavily, and when he drank heavily he became abusive. Then Seth dove deeper.
Seth discovered that Zeke Dowell was an abusive man all around. There were many fantasies of killing him in Mrs. Dowell's mind. He discovered that Jerome was an only child, but that his mother had been pregnant again. A fight with her husband had caused her to lose the baby, and in the process the ability to have children. Mrs. Dowell had doted on Jerome, but he was never good enough for his father.
A few minutes in her head cemented the image that Seth had of Zeke Dowell.
Seth broke off and quickly found Mr. Dowell's mind, just before he left his home. He hoped that he wasn't going far enough to take him out of Seth's range. As Zeke drove to the bar, Seth examined his mind. His surface thoughts were roiling anger at the insolent prick who had come asking questions about that no-good dead son of his. But upon a deeper search of Zeke's memories, Seth was horrified.
Seth spent a long time in Zeke's mind; he got lucky and Zeke stopped at a bar well within range, a place where he was clearly a regular. If Zeke had been a bad father, Zeke's father was a monster. He had abused Zeke horribly, physically, emotionally, and in some ways, sexually, instilling in him a sense of might makes right and the strong belief that a woman's place was under a man's thumb. It was no surprise that Zeke had turned out the way that he did. However under all of that was still a scared child, terribly disgusted by what he had become.
Though he would never admit it, least of all to himself, Zeke blamed himself for his son's death. If Seth did nothing, Zeke would soon do it to himself, not by committing suicide overtly, but by the reckless behavior that he was finding himself practicing more and more.
Seth backed off for a minute, his initial desire for vengeance somewhat dulled. He knew that he couldn't let things stand as they were, however in some ways he no longer blamed Zeke quite so much. He had another thought, then dove into Zeke's mind again. He found what he was looking for, and by that time Zeke was in just the right condition; drunk enough to be suggestible, yet not so pickled as to be incoherent.
Seth created some memories, and then released them, so that to Zeke it was if he had just experienced them. Zeke was not a strongly religious man, but he believed in God, and Zeke made sure he thought that God believed in him.
"Stop this behavior, Zeke!" the voice thundered in his head.
Zeke looked around, trying to figure out what was happening.
"You know very well what is happening, Zeke," the voice thundered again.
"God?" Zeke asked.
"Maybe not the God that you're thinking of, but that is close enough for the purposes of this discussion."
"What do I need to stop?" Zeke asked, firmly believing what the voice was telling him. He just sensed that it was what it said it was.
"I have looked into your soul, Zeke, and I know that though there is much evil, some good still remains. I know there is a child inside of you that is not as corrupted as the man that you have become. Your father was an evil man, Zeke. You know that, I know that, and now that he is dead, he certainly knows that. However you have time to save yourself!
"You know that the behaviors that you indulge in are wrong. You must treat your fellow man with kindness, not disgust, and that goes double for those closest to you. It is too late for your son, and for that you must atone for the rest of your life; however it is not too late for your wife.
"Zeke, your father, along with being evil, was an idiot! Woman was not made in Man's image. Women are as important as men in every way, and deserve just as much respect. You will begin treating them as such, starting in your home. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Lord," Zeke sobbed.
"When you drink, you become less of a man; therefore, you will no longer drink. It will be distasteful to you."
"Yes, Lord," Zeke affirmed.
"I am not a vengeful being. I do not want your prayers. I do not want your money. I do not want you to convince anyone else that I am the right God, the one God. I do not want you to try and change others. I want you to change yourself.
"Zeke, I see in you that there is goodness. Let that goodness guide you. Show the rest of the world that you are a good person, and then they will come closer to believing in a benevolent god. To truly please me, all you need do is live a good life. Remember this, Zeke, and you will be a happier man."
Zeke looked up suddenly, and realized that he was still in the bar. He remembered the conversation perfectly, word for word. "Am I going crazy?" he thought, taking a sip of his beer.
As soon as the beer hit his tongue, Zeke spit it out all over the counter.
"Hey!" the bartender yelled at him. "What the hell are you doing?"
The taste of the beer had been nauseating, and not in the good way that excessive amounts of beer sometimes made him sick. It was as if it were the most disgusting thing he had ever tasted. He remembered the voice, and how it said that drink would be distasteful to him. He looked up and saw the bartender muttering to himself as he wiped down the counter. He thought for a moment, then said, "Joe, I'm sorry for that, and for the way that I've treated you before. I hope you have a good life."
He dropped fifty dollars on the bar; not enough to make up for the bad behavior and bad tips over time, but it was all he had with him, and he walked out. The people around him looked at him like he had gone crazy, but Zeke ignored them.
Zeke got into his car, put the keys in, then stopped himself. He realized that he was still somewhat drunk, and he thought about the day that his father had died coming home from a bar hammered, and how he had taken a whole family with him. Zeke removed the keys from the ignition, got out and began walking home.
Seth stayed with him, observing his thoughts as Zeke took stock of his life and tried to find the goodness that he was assured was in him. When he got home, his wife looked up in surprise. She had not heard the car drive up, and it was much earlier than she expected.
"Is everything OK?" she asked fearfully.
"No, it's not Marge," Zeke replied. "I have been a bad husband, and a bad father, and I'm so sorry about that."
His wife looked at him in shock. "What do you mean?"
"I know I've been a bad person, as bad as my father was, but it stops now. I'm sorry for what I've done to you, and even more sorry for what I've done to Jerome. I can't fix Jerome, but I won't let anything bad happen to you any more." At that point, Zeke broke down, grabbed his wife in a hug and cried. Marge soothed him, unable to understand what was going on.
But Seth understood. As he broke off from Zeke, he felt that though he had been unable to save Jerome, through Jerome he may have been able to save others.