The Anchor Eyes

Prologue:

A father has gone through a rehabilitation program and is close to starting the last level. Having been traumatised by the loss of his only daughter he sub-consciously separated himself from the other patients at the centre. This changes when another patient sparks up conversation with him asking him about his “story”. As they progress through a conversation David didn’t even feel comfortable having he grows tied to this mans eyes. Something about them is hitting a spot in his heart, but he cant figure out what. He continues his conversation in hopes to figure out why this is happening but is interrupted by a mandatory appointment with his psychologist. It isn’t until she allows him to sign release papers that he realises why this mans eyes anchored him down.

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He sat down beside me on the bench that evening. No introduction, no forced greeting – he just sat down beside me and looked on at the other patients mingling in the courtyard behind the beautiful Victorian building.

"What's your story of doom and gloom?"

I hesitated, not sure if I was ready to shed light on that part of my life to someone other than doctor fields. I hadn’t said a word to anyone but her and the other doctors since arriving. I didn’t speak in group, I didn’t associate with the other patients during free time.

I coldly replied; hinting that I wanted this conversation to end immediately,

"An accident."

He looked confused when he spoke,

"What kind? Everyone’s here for that reason. We all have our demons."

He replied, insinuating that despite my efforts this discussion wasn't near finished. I looked around trying to find an excuse to get up and walk away; to avoid this conversation completely, but to my misfortune, there was none. I was stuck again.

"I watched my daughter get shot by my drug dealer."

He looked at me with a mix of shock and terror in his eyes. I could tell this was going to be a long night. I never understood why people were so interested in the lives of others. I always said it was none of their business, that it had no direct effect on their own pathway.

He finally murmured,

"That's it?"

"That's it?" I thought to myself. What does he mean "that's it?" Watching my only daughter have her life taken because of me wasn't a big deal? He was starting to get on my nerves, I didn’t want the conversation to continue but I also found myself unable to depart from it, I didn’t know why.

"Have you ever watched your child die? Have you ever seen the life in your child's eyes fade in front of yours?"

I cracked. I hadn't shown emotion in years, decades even. Why now? After three months of nit picking my mind with Doctor Fields - the only person I could trust - now my emotions drowned my mind? I didn't understand, and I couldn't stop it.

He looked at me again, sensing he had hit a tender bruise on my soul. He knew he had just caused me to lose her all over again. His eyes glazed over in such a familiar manner. Where had I seen this before? Why were they putting an unbearable weight on my heart?

He spoke quietly when he responded,

"I'm sorry. I’ve never had family to lose, been on my own since I was a kid"

He avoided eye contact, attempting to hide the pain that now resided in his eyes too. Again, such a familiar sight, yet no concrete image in my mind to compare to. My heart grew heavier, it knew what it was seeing but the connection failed to spark in my mind. I grew steadily irritated.

"She's all I had. The mother, my first love disappeared after Julia was born. She was my world. She kept me alive."

I closed my eyes tightly. I could feel them burning from the salt of tears. It was a completely new feeling. Tears didn't exist in my world. The only burning I had felt since I was a teenager was the burn of the drugs in my system. Burning away my insides; corroding my mind, destroying my soul.

But those days were over. Sobriety was weird; it was like a whole new life. My daily routine didn't include meeting "Big D" at the corner of (Insert street names here) every day to get my fix. I miss the warn and faded streets of lower East Side. Communities left behind; people forgotten. I miss the graffiti; the sign of home. The local artists who claimed their territory with their art. She wanted to be an artist, she studied every wall in the neighbourhood, trying to understand how they did it. Now it's just white walls and shiny hardwood floors. It's clean, tidy, and perfect. Just like they want us to be. I craved to be back there, in the grimy city; back where her memory lives on, she’s only a ghost here.

He finally mustered up,

"How old was she?"

His eyes, again, filled with so much curiosity – pulling me further and further in. I couldn’t figure out why his eyes kept catching my attention. I was killing my mind trying to figure it out,

"Eighteen, just graduated. The kid had her whole life ahead of her. So many hopes and dreams. So many things she wanted to do. Now it's gone ... just like that. Gone like a flash of lighting on a peaceful night. There one second, gone the next."

I was curious to see his reaction, but he spoke on,

"Why her?"

Total disregard. I should have walked away then, but the eyes and the way they shined in the setting sun, the way they filled with curiosity and wonder. They kept me bolted down.

"She was doin' her job. I told ya, the kid kept me alive, did everything for me ... she came with me to meet my dealer. He was actin' weird that day ... He wasn't someone she felt comfortable around. She was timid, probably from a life of a drug addict father who had always been too numb to deal with life.. anyway ..."

I paused to take a drag of my cigarette and embraced the sudden kick of nicotine in my body. Nothing like heroin, but it would have to do. It was all I had now, I promised myself this was the end. The end of that part of my life, the beginning of my new one. My life without her, without her eyes and her smile.

I missed her laugh the most. I didn’t hear it often for life was depressing in New York, but when I did the numbness I felt temporarily faded. My heart would become warm as I heard her signature sound and watched her beautiful eyes light up like the sun peaking through clouds after a rainstorm.

"He didn't like how quiet she was. Thought she was up to something ... I don't know what but there was a lot of tension. It got ugly fast, he started accusing me of trying to get him busted. He grabbed her - arm around the neck, gun held in hand at the head."

That look of familiar terror again,

"He shot her, just like that?"

He seemed intrigued with my demise so I continued on,

"Nah... we fought back and forth. Kept trying to get her out of his grasp but he just kept pushing me away and accusing me of betraying him. He was on something new, this wasn't how he normally acted when he was using. I knew I'd be getting something from that batch, so I refused to take the package. This hit a nerve, he snapped. I get it though, he had just lost a two hundred dollar drug deal that he had grown to rely on every day for the past fifteen years. I could see the rage rising in his body; blood shot eyes, red face, pressure building in his veins. Watching him in his crazed anger holding my daughter in his arms set something off in me. I suddenly understood why she wanted me to rid the drugs from my life. He was a mirror image of me. We had grown to be exactly alike without even noticing.”

I took another drag of my smoke, the ashes had gathered, a sign I wasn't paying attention. I knew the slightest move of my wrist or hand would cause them to break and fall off, leaving a pile on my worn out jeans. Just a pile, a pile of life come and gone, just like a memory of her lying in my mind. I continued on,

"The next few minutes are a blur - Lots of screaming, lots of chaos. The fear grew in my babies eyes. She cried, I watched as the tears drowned the beautiful blue sparkle away. She tried breaking free and all I heard was a loud bang followed by nothing but dead silence. It was too quiet for ten in the morning in the heart of ghetto New York. It was as if the whole city had shut down in an instant. The only sound to be heard was the bullet casings hit the ground. Two shots fired, and the sound of a guilty man vanishing. "

Stunned, he shook his head and spoke low,

"He shot her, right there?"

He continued after a few seconds of silence,

"I've known people who have gotten killed because of a deal, but nothing like this..."

I didn't really know what to say, I could tell my single person audience in the courtyard was doing his best to be sympathetic and also try to push the information out of me. But how do you give sympathy to a man like me? I surely don't deserve it, this whole situation is my fault. It's all on me.

"She died right there. The silence hovered like a thick, black rain cloud. The storm was coming. I waited for the laugh to bring the sun, but the silence, the cloud, lingered. I grabbed her and just started into her eyes, trying to apologise with mine. Her whole face went blank. No emotion, no sign of pain felt. I held her in my arms and sat on the corner of the street. Not able to move. I looked up at the sky, hoping to find an answer in the clouds, but life had failed me again. The life literally drained from her body; like someone had pulled the plug in a sink and let the water flow away."

"What happened to "Big D"?"

I froze at the sound of his name coming out of his mouth. No one else had spoken it to me since the trial. It took me a few minutes to gather my thoughts. I went on, hoping this weird feeling in my heart would soon be explained,

"Took off... The cops got him a few hours later." The tears were welling up in my eyes - just as they did in hers during the last few moments of her life - Ready to pour over my face like a violent waterfall after a treacherous storm - the kind that last for days. Chaotic panic - I fought them back, or at least tried to. I managed to choke one more thing out through my hysterics,

"They took her away. I refused to move from my spot. I was numb again, but to such a higher extent than before. I sat on that corner for hours, until a cop showed up."

His face flooded with question. He found my eyes and asked,

"Conviction?"

I kept the connection strong, strong enough to burn his eyes with mine. Our sun-dilated pupils connecting like an appliance being plugged in and turning on for the first time,

"life."

I won, he looked away and tried his best to sound sincere when he spoke,

"That's what he deserves, what a sick person..."

I knew he was at a loss for words, just as any other human being would be. I could have easily left it at that, but again, his eyes were anchoring me down.

"He deserves so much more. This isn't just about a bad drug deal. I trusted this guy, he had been dealing to me since Julia was a toddler. He took her life, my reason to live, my constant reminder that life was liveable..."

I had a sudden flashback of Julia as a child. I watched from across the street as I waited for him. I was mad because he was late, I wanted my fix, but my baby girl swinging freely on the tree in the park kept me calm.

I snapped back to reality, hoping this conversation would stir up more memories, more clues, more answers. I eagerly listened to his words,

"I can only imagine. I'm sorry to have stirred up painful memories, I just wanted to know your story. Your silence around here pulled me in, intrigued me a little."

I looked at him, curious as to why he was so interested in my story. He had a look of wonder in his eyes, a look that continued on deep into the dark corners of his mind. No one has ever cared. No one has ever shown interest or concern, except her. My baby girl, my angel.

"It's life, it happens..."

I tried to pretend I could just push it away, like a paper cut or a small sliver. Just a quick tinge of pain, but the fact of the matter was this was a gun shot wound hidden behind the bandages that now protected it. No one can see how bad it is, all they can do is assume. The bandages are here; they are Rolling Acres. This place has helped heal me, not fully, but just so that the unbearable pain, is now a healing wound. It has become a tight scab, so tight that when I move I can feel the skin being pushed to its limit. I’m being pushed to my limit – craving my fix, craving my daughter, craving his life.

My watch started beeping, breaking the air and all the emotion that had filled in it.

He asked,

"Fields?"

One last glance to his eyes, I was hoping for a break through but the mystery of them remained exactly that. I spoke quickly, doing my best to conceal my irritation,

"Yep. I'll see you around."

I got up and took one last drag of my smoke before throwing it into a puddle that gleamed in the late evening sun. Sizzle. Silence. Another life gone.

I walked into the doctors office, sceptical that she would know I had just been crying. She would call it a break through, and would tell me I was ready to start my last level of rehabilitation, but the fact of the matter is I was ready for so much more. As I entered she looked up from her desk and her melodic voice filled the air with her routine greeting,

"Good evening, David, have a seat."

She threw me a smile, but today I didn't return it.

"I'm ready to visit her. I'm ready to say goodbye."

Another smile, paid in return with another flood of tears. Her eyes dropped a little, the cheer flooding out. I assumed it was a bad thing, unsure what to do. It was as if she was disappointed in me. Was it too early for me to be saying this? Was I really ready to leave Rolling Acres? My face fell, only just showing my severe level of self doubt. I was about to take it back when I heard her clear her throat and look up at me,

"I'll get the release forms. You can check out tomorrow and get your life back on track."

She started rustling through papers. I walked to the door and opened it. Before I walked out of the room I turned back to the doctor preparing my freedom,

"Doctor Fields?"

She looked up at me again and spoke softly,

"Yes, David?"

I whispered,

"Will you come with me?"

I asked just as I glanced out the window at the man I had just poured my life to. It hit me then, why I had opened to him so easily;

he had her eyes.