Cosette and Miriam sat quietly on the sofa in the sun room as they waited for Logan, who as they re-entered the house, quickly excused himself, then proceeded with a swift stride upstairs, where he then went into his bedroom. “So, what do you think thus far?” Cosette asked her beloved.
“I think that we have not yet heard everything that Logan has to say. This weekend is not yet over and I think there is more yet to come.”
Cosette looked over to the hallway which led to the stairway upstairs to the bedrooms, “He has been up there for some time, do you think he is alright?”
“It has been only ten minutes,” Miriam answered, “but, let us go look in on him anyway, he was acting a bit strange when we came inside.” With that, both women then stood and crept down the hallway. They both stopped at the foot of the stairs and Miriam then called out gently, “Logan, is everything alright?” There was no answer as both women stood quietly waiting for a reply. In a few seconds they both heard the sound of what seemed to be a muted moan. Both women gave looked at each other with an expression of bewilderment. Miriam then looked upward to the top of the stairs and once again gently called, “Logan, are you alright?” Still no answer, but both women still heard the muted moans. Miriam gave a motion with her head to Cosette for them both to go upstairs, then they both proceeded to do so, silently making their way up the stairs. They both reach the top where the sounds of the muted moans were now more intensified, they were coming from Logan’s bedroom. Both women then continued their quiet saunter to Logan’s room, the door was slightly ajar. Miriam pushed the door opened and then both women peered inside.
There they both observed as Logan sat on the opposite side of his bed with his back to them. His face was buried in his hands, his hands were filled with facial tissue as he was weeping. Cosette called out to him, “Logan? What is the matter?” Logan continued his weeping, not hearing her. Both women then made their way to him, each then sitting on either side of him and putting their arms around him to comfort him. Cosette whispered in his ear, “Logan, honey, what is wrong? Why are you crying?”
Logan worked to compose himself, wiped his eyes with the tissue and cleared his nose with it. He took a deep breath and answered, “I do this … always … every day since … since … it happened. I do this. There has not been one day that has gone by, since she was taken from me, that I don’t do this. It’s like a daily ritual.” He looked at Cosette, “Because it’s my fault, it’s my entire fault, she was murdered because of me. She would be alive today if it wasn’t for me. They killed her because of me. I keep thinking of how it would be, right now if she were here. She probably would have some silver streaks in her hair, but I know that she would still be beautiful.” He then began sobbing again, “She was so beautiful, and I still love her so much, and missing her the way I do hurts so much.”
Cosette and Miriam began to massage Logan back and both women wrapped their arms about him, rocking him gently. They too began to weep, Miriam said, “We miss her too Logan, so much.”
Logan calmed himself, “She never had the chance to grow old, hell she never had the chance to see middle age. It’s not fair what happened to her, it’s just not fair. She had a life damn it, she never hurt anyone or anything in her life. In fact, she touched so many people, she was the most loved person that I have ever known, and that’s not fair either. She was an angel on earth, she had so much to offer and give, but because of me, because those sons-of-bitches had to do something to get to me. Why couldn’t they have just killed me? I would do anything to change it. If I had the slightest idea that it would have been like this, then I would have let them kill me when they had their chances.”
Cosette then whispered, “Then we would be here comforting her instead of you. She loved you just as much as you did her.”
Logan looked up to the ceiling, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” He then looked at Cosette and said, “I have not been with another woman, in any way, since Lily was taken from me. I haven’t even so much as had dinner or a cocktail with anyone, even when I was back in the States. I still love Lily too much, that has never changed. She gave me so much in the short time we had.”
Miriam then whispered, “It is alright Logan, it is alright.”
Logan sat there in silence for a few moments, and then he began to speak of the things he wanted to say to his friends, “When I left here, after it happened, it wasn’t really what you would call leaving. What I did was run away. I ran away like I did before, when I was eighteen. I ran away from my home in America because of something that happened, that’s how I ended up here. Lily knew why, Lily knew everything about me. All the terrible things that I did, back in America, in battle, with the Police, everything, yet, she still loved me, unconditionally. She knew all my terrible secrets and she stood by me and never judged me.” He looked at both his friends, and then straight ahead, “I ran away from here because I couldn’t take it. Everything around me reminded me of her, and it got worse when I didn’t have the advantage of being sedated anymore. Everything reminded me of her. This house, that gazebo in the back yard, this village, Paris, and yes … even all of you. I could not bear it any longer. So I just called the man from the Bank of Paris, and took his job offer. I got my attorney to sell this house and place the money in the Swiss bank account that I have always had. That’s where I have my Legionnaires pension deposited. And I just … left. I ran away as I did before. Even though going back to America was a risk to me, I ran away.”
Cosette then asked curiously, “Why was going back to America a risk to you?”
He turned his head to Cosette and answered gently, “Because, I’m wanted there Cosette, I’m wanted there by the police, in Michigan, one of the places that I’m from. I’m probably even wanted by the FBI, because I fled Michigan for the something that I did. Lily knew of this, I told her about it on the day she proposed to me, but it did not stop her from loving me and still wanting to marry me.”
“What did you do Logan?” Cosette asked timidly.
He looked at her and said gently, “When I was eighteen, I came home one night. My father, who was no where near being one of the nicest men in the world, had been home and he had been drinking all day, and he was waiting for me, waiting for me to get home. He found out that I had been secretly saving money up for a few years, because my girlfriend at the time and I were going to go on a trip with our friends from school, we were going to come here, to Paris. My father knew I had the money and he wanted it, he was drunk, he was violent, and he started a fist fight with me. I knocked him to the ground and he had a metal baseball bat hidden behind his chair, he pulled it out and said that he was going to kill me. He attacked me with the bat, and another fight happened.” Logan stopped and then began to breathe heavy, “It happened so fast, I didn’t even realize it until it got quiet … it got so damned quiet … because when it was over, he was dead. I had killed him, yeah, self defense and all, did not matter, I killed him. I killed my father.”
“Oh my Lord.” Miriam gasped.
“I was so scared, but something happened. I figured a way out. I got my money, almost five thousand dollars, I left my house, got onto my dad’s truck to Detroit, left it there and I crossed the border into Canada that very evening. I left everything and everyone I loved behind. They have never heard from me … ever. I got to Toronto, got a flight to Paris and I believe before anyone found my fathers body, I was already enlisted at Fort de Nogent. I hid in the most perfect place all those years … The French Foreign Legion. I changed my name, I had a new identity and new life. But France made me pay everyday for hiding and for the favor they granted me.”
“Do you have a family back there?” Cosette asked.
“Yes, my family back on the reservation in South Dakota, but they have never heard from me ever. I even had a girlfriend back then, I was going to marry her but I left her too. It was for the best, because I knew I was going to prison. What could I do? It was the only way I could let her go.”
Miriam asked, “What was her name?”
“Her name? Her name was Melonie, and she was so pretty and so sweet, and she did not deserve what I had done to her. But it was the only way and it was for the best.” Logan got up from his bed and went to his closet where he produced the wooden box with the seven flamed grenade carved onto the lid. He opened it and took out a folded silver frame and opened it and handed it to the both of them. “That’s her, that’s Melonie. That one there is in front of an ice cream parlor she worked at and the other is she and I at a park. That’s who I was talking about before, when I told you when I was at the Eiffel Tower. It was she who I sensed was there. I believe that she did come here with our friends after what I did, and went to the tower for champagne and strawberries. I told Lily about her, she told me to keep these pictures.”
Cosette and Miriam gazed at the pictures, folded the frame and handed it back to Logan. He replaced it in the box and then took another folded frame and handed it to them. When they opened it he said, “That’s my mother, Tara, Bird in the Rainbow, this is who I saw in the flames in my vision.”
“Oh, she was beautiful.” Cosette said.
Logan then straightened himself up and said, “You see, I had another vision, just three years ago, out there in that gazebo, I fell asleep and had a great vision of something that was revealed to me.”
“What was that?”
“That what the holy man, the Wichasha Wakon, what he had told my mother was true. That I would have two woman spirits who would guide me and protect me through my life. Those spirits revealed themselves to me and made themselves known to me one night out there in the gazebo. The woman spirits are Lily and my mother. They are here with me right now, in this room, in this house, no matter where I go, they are with me.”
Cosette looked at him wide eyed, which caused him to smile at her.
“Don’t be concerned Cosette, I’m not crazy, not crazy any more that is.”
“Not any more?”
“Yes, not any more.” Logan answered, he then went to his chair that was next to the window and sat down, he leaned over with his elbows on his knees and looked directly at the two women, “You see, while I was back in the States … I went crazy. I did things there that you probably may have heard about here. I snapped, I went insane you could probably say, I reverted back to something that I was a long time ago.” He saw the expressions on their faces, bewilderment mixed with concern, “You see, the vision that I had out in the gazebo, it was of an incident that I was involved in, it was the night I totally went over the edge, and I did things, I did bad things … bad things to bad people.”
Cosette was wide eyed, “What kind of things Logan?”
Logan looked straight ahead and he began to speak while not looking at either woman, “It started actually just a little over a week after I arrived in Chicago. I reported for work at the Bank of Paris and wouldn’t you know it, there just happened to be a large photo of the Eiffel Tower as you entered the main lobby. I found myself avoiding looking at it because I would look at the top platform where Lily asked me to marry her, and where I confessed to her what I did to my father. I avoided looking at it every time I walked in. Then one night while on the train going home to my apartment, at one of the stops in between mine, there was an advertisement on one of the walls and I saw it out from my window. I was for some travel agency and it showed the view from the platform where Lily and I stood that day. I saw the whole view of the city that we saw. I felt one of my crying jags coming on and it took all I had to suppress it. I got home, and I immediately broke down and cried. I usually was very tired whenever I did this but that night I wasn’t, I felt something different. Instead of deep sorrow and guilt, I felt antsy, and then that turned into rage.”
Miriam now slid closer to Cosette and placed her arms about her, “What did you do then?” She asked.
“I felt like I had to just get out of my apartment, I felt that I had to move or do something, so I changed into one of my sweat outfits and went out for a walk. I don’t know what happened but I walked for hours, for miles, I was like in a trance the whole time, next thing I realized I was a good ten miles from my apartment.”
“Oh my Lord.” Cosette gasped.
“This then began to happen all the time,” Logan continued, “I did everything I could to conceal this rage and I didn’t want anybody to see me as I left my building so I found myself sneaking out. After some time I began to memorize every place that I would go. My old ways began to take me over. I began to make strategies, and I would find places and think of how that would be a good place to hide, or how I could conceal myself here or there, I would do that in the field when I was back in the Legion. Making strategies, escape routes, concealments, for, you know, the ‘just in case’ type scenarios. I then found myself walking in the alleyways and through the dark places where no one else would ever go. I walked in the empty subways and tunnels under the city. I would find abandoned buildings, and even spend the night in them sometimes. I walked where nobody would see me; and then I expanded on that.”
“How?” Cosette asked.
“I would look for military surplus stores and I bought the equipment that I use to have in order to survive in the field. Good military boots, binoculars and such, and especially a good knife, the big ones that we use to have, along with a compass. Then one long weekend I decided to go to the train station, the METRA as they call it there also. It’s the train system for the commuters who live outside the city. They all start out from Union Station there in the city, I went there very early on a Friday morning and just randomly took one of the routes out of the city. I took that train all the way to its final destination. I had all the things that I would need that I purchased from the surplus stores. The knife, the compass, and a backpack with some supplies. I then got off the train, and then began to make my way back to the city on foot. I would follow the train tracks, the towers that carried the power lines, I would hike through the forest preserves and right through the suburbs. Then the next long weekend I did the same, with a different route, after some time I did all the routes, going to the final destinations, then hiking all the way back, thirty, forty miles sometimes, maybe more. I would sleep right there in the woods, or somewhere concealed, right out there in the open, sometimes just fifty yards from a neighborhood, and nobody would ever see me. It was like my days back in the Legion, the long marches, the camping out, the surviving with just the bare minimum. It became second nature with me, the long hikes from the suburbs and throughout the city.” He then looked to Cosette and said, “However, it was one night while I hiked through the city that something happened.”
“And what was that?”
“It was a Saturday night, I felt the rage coming, so I dressed up in my black sweats to take a long walk. Apparently I walked too far and I found myself in a not so good neighborhood near the United Center, where the Chicago pro basketball and hockey teams play. I was in a dark alley and some black teenage boy stepped in front of me. He asked me where I was going, but I said nothing back to him, I then sensed the presence of someone else and I turned and there was another black kid behind me. The one who was in front of me demanded me to give him all of my money. I still said nothing, then kid then pulled out a switchblade, as did the other one behind me, and, well, as you both know I have this thing about knives being pulled on me. I stayed silent and waited for them to get close enough to me, and when they did … I took them both out. I hurt them real bad … I broke bones I know that … but then I stepped over a line.”
Miriam then said, “Oh Logan, you did not kill them did you?”
“No, no I didn’t because of the promise I gave my mother, when she came to me in my vision and made me promise to never take another life. Even when I was with the French National Police, I never shot to kill, even when I had the perfect kill shot, I never killed anyone. No, Miriam I did not kill those boys, but what I did reach down and searched the one that was in front of me, and I found a huge roll of cash, and I took it from him. I know it was drug money, I took it from him and I pulled his head back by his hair and told him that I knew that he had to turn that cash over to someone, so try and explain where it went to them.” Logan looked to the floor, “No, I didn’t kill him, but somebody else sure as hell may of.”
Logan then stood up from the chair and stepped over to the window, he stared out to the direction of the road to the spot where he once stood and looked up to the very window that he was now gazing out of, on the night he returned home and scared Mrs. Pinchot.
“Then, one night, I …” He began.
“What Logan?” Cosette asked.
“Then one night, something happened, I came across something that was happening, and what I did then …” He then looked at the two women pleadingly, “You have to understand … they were hurting her … she was just a kid … I had to stop them.”
“Who was hurting who?”
“Two men … I was in an alleyway and something made me stop. I knew something was wrong. I … I saw them … two men. They had this little girl … on the ground … and they … they were … they were raping her.” He said as his throat tightened.
Miriam and Cosette gasped and both brought their hands to their mouths. “What did you do Logan?”
Logan then stepped back over to the chair again and sat down, he looked up to the two women and asked, “By any chance, did you both follow anything that was in the news some twenty years ago about some crazy vigilante in Chicago?”
Miriam said, “Yes I do recall reading something about that.” Logan just stared back at her, and then Miriam realized what he was trying to tell her and Cosette. “Oh my God, Logan, that wasn’t …” Logan just nodded “yes” to answer her.
Logan then spent the next few hours telling Cosette and Miriam the details of his vigilantism during his years in Chicago. Beginning with the attacks on the two serial rapists William Freeman and Raul Ortega, that he came across just “quite by accident”. How he later overheard the Russian mother who knew her son was being molested by one of the wealthiest men in the region. How he watched Jared Bartholomew for months before he attacked him and how that led him to the man who was selling young boys to him. The attack on the street gang leaders and on Julian Chekov, the son of the Russian mobster. Of how he watched to two police officers that were looking for him, and of the political scandals that his actions had caused. When he had finally finished, he looked at his two friends who were now obviously stunned from hearing of his actions that happened two decades ago.
He finally broke the silence, “You both must think that I’m evil or something.” Both women slowly shook their heads “no”, he continued, “You see, three years ago I had my latest vision, it was out there in the gazebo. Something was drawing me to there. I went outside, stepped in, sat down and immediately fell asleep. My vision was of that night I caught those two men hurting that girl. That night when it really happened? I was in a trance like state anyway and I felt ‘something” that made me stop, ‘something‘ that was making me feel that there was something wrong. In my vision I found out exactly what it was. In my vision I heard and saw both my mother and Lily, they stopped me and pleaded with me to help that girl, they were right there that night in that alley, pointing to her and asking me to please help her. You see? They were the ‘something’ that stopped me and led me to her. But, just as I was about to attack those men, my mother stopped me, and she reminded me of the promise I had made to her.” He looked at the astonishment on the faces of his friends, “I know this sounds crazy to the both of you, but it is what I believe. Lily and my mother are both with me always, just as the holy man said they would be. My two women spirits that protect and guide me.” He looked again to his friends, with the hopes that they believed him.
Cosette then said, “We believe you Logan, it is just, well, this is just so much and it is shocking to hear what you have done.”
He looked down to the floor, “I know what I have done, and to tell you the truth, I have no regrets. All those men I hurt, they are part of the whole thing. They are part of this thing I have been fighting all my life, the killers, the rapists, the torturers … the bullies. They are all the same to me, they are all one in the same. They are all the same as the men who murdered Lily, they are the same group, the same brotherhood. Lily was my refuge, she gave me my life back, and all of them are part of what took her from me. Anyone involved with shit like that, I see them as the same as those who took Lily, they are all connected, that’s how I saw it.” He looked at his friends and then said, “Please don’t hate me for what I’ve done.”
Cosette and Miriam then went over to him, Cosette placed her hands on his shoulders, “Oh we could never hate you Logan, don’t even say that.”
He looked into her eyes, “Lily made me come home. The last three days I was in Chicago, she came to me in my sleep, I heard her as plain as I hear you now Cosette, she told me that I had to leave, that I had to stop what I was doing, and … come home to her. The last night that she came to me I found two men watching me, they were police, and I left that morning. She told me to come back to her. Because, like I said, she was my last refuge, and she is here, with my mother, in this house and with me wherever I go, they are with me here. Lily is my refuge, and this is still our home. This house and village are my final refuge. I will always stay here, until the day I die, I will never leave here . . . or her . . . ever again.” He bowed his head and Cosette began to stroke his hair, “I was so angry, so full of rage back there. I went insane,” he then looked into Cosette’s eyes, “but ever since I’ve been here, since I’ve been home, I’ve never felt the rage again, ever.”
Logan began to cry again, in a few moments after he composed himself he then told them both more details of the times in his life that the only Lily knew of until then. He told them more of his exploits in Chicago, of his mother and the life on the Lakota Sioux reservation, of his father and how he mistreated his mother as well as himself, of how his mother came to him on the night he accidentally killed his father. Also, he told them of Melonie, of how much he had loved her when he was a boy, and that he loved her enough to leave her the way he did so that she could live her life happily.
He also told them of times when he would go to ‘visit Mama’. He would take the Wolverine back to Ann Arbor and then make his way to visit her gravesite near the little town of Ypsilanti. How he would always be careful so that he would not be recognized ‘just in case’. How he would visit where his home once was, and of the gas station that he worked at. They both had been razed long ago. He even sometimes went to his old high school, and yes to Melonie’s old home. That was still there.
He also told of the couple of times that he even made his way to go see the Lakota Sioux reservation, again without being recognized.
When he finished he then looked around the room and said, “Yes, Lily and my mother are both in here right now, but even as I know and believe this, it doesn’t take away the fact that I love them and miss them so much.”
