Brian (VIII)
Days after his discovery, Brian found himself parked on the very street where his donor had died.
The street itself was nondescript, hardly recognizable in daylight. After all, he had only seen it when it was dark in his dreams. But the record store across the street looked identical to the photograph he’d seen on the store’s website. Housed in the lower level of a two-story brick building, it had a big picture window featuring a cluttered display of concert memorabilia and a neon sign over the door that spelled out the store’s name: Vintaj.
It was owned by Marjorie Wilder’s former fiancée, Alexander McLean, and when Brian had learned of the store’s existence, he had wanted to come. When he discovered its location, a mere two blocks down the street from where the hit-and-run had occurred, he knew he had to come.
Becci had been against the idea. It was only a two-hour drive to Lockland, Ohio, but she worried about Brian traveling that far alone. “What if something happens?” she’d fretted.
“Like car trouble, you mean?” he’d teased her, knowing that was the furthest thing from her mind. “If the car breaks down, I’ll call a tow truck.”
“Brian Thomas Littrell, you know that’s not what I mean,” she’d replied, putting her hands on her hips and giving him a stern look. He returned it with his most charming smile, the one he knew she was unable to resist.
“Babe, my heart’s fine, and that’s because of her and whoever agreed to donate her organs. I owe them both my life. The least I can do is go up there and see what I can find out. If I see the street where she died, maybe it’ll help me remember more details from my dreams. Maybe I’ll even meet her fiancée.”
“What would you even say to him if you did?” Becci wanted to know.
“Thank you, for starters,” Brian said and then shrugged. “I’m not really sure what else. I guess I’ll figure it out on the drive up.”
She hadn’t been happy about it, but he’d made the trip anyway, and now, sitting in his car outside the record store, Brian realized he still didn’t know what to say to the man inside. He couldn’t just waltz in and announce, “Hi, I’m the proud new owner of your girlfriend’s heart!” That would be too weird. But he felt like some sort of stalker just sitting there, scoping out the place, so he knew he would have to go in and say something. He’d driven too far just to turn around and leave.
Summoning his courage, he climbed out of the car. He crossed the street and stopped on the sidewalk outside the entrance to the record store. Then he sucked in a deep breath and held it as he reached for the door handle. A bell tinkled over his head as he opened the door and walked inside. A man behind the counter looked up, acknowledging him with a nod and a wave. “Hey. Looking for anything in particular today, or just browsing?”
For a moment, Brian hesitated, unsure of how to respond. He recognized the man from photos he’d seen online: deep brown eyes, receding black hair, artfully-trimmed goatee, and tattoos everywhere. He was the owner, the fiancée, the one Brian had come to talk to. But he had no idea how to begin, so instead, he said, “Just browsing.”
Alexander nodded. “Cool. Lemme know if you need anything.” He returned his attention back to the magazine he’d been reading behind the counter.
Brian wandered slowly through the store, pretending to browse while he worked out what to say. He fingered racks of vintage band t-shirts and thumbed through bins of old records. He gazed in wonder at the wide array of posters that plastered every inch of the walls. He flipped through a box of old prints and pulled out a photograph of the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park, a circular mosaic inscribed with the word IMAGINE. Someone had arranged flower petals in the shape of a peace sign around the center circle. Finding himself drawn to the beautiful picture, Brian decided it would work as the opening he needed. He carried it up to the counter.
“Ready to check out?” asked Alexander, standing up.
“Just about,” said Brian. He set the print down on the counter and proceeded to rifle through a box of buttons on the edge of the counter, stalling for time. “Cool place you got here,” he remarked, hoping the comment sounded off-handed.
“Thanks. This your first time stopping in?”
“Yeah. I’m not from the area. I live two hours south of near, near Lexington.”
“Oh, cool. So what brings you to Lockland?” Alexander asked conversationally.
“Just visiting someone,” said Brian vaguely, keeping his eyes on the buttons. “How long y’all had this place?”
“Going on three years now.”
“Nice.” His fingers closed around a Beatles button that said “All You Need is Love” in a psychedelic font. “I’ll take this, too,” he said, setting it down on top of the IMAGINE print.
Alexander looked down at the two items. “Beatles fan, I take it?”
“Yeah… only recently, though. It’s the weirdest thing – I had a heart transplant last November, and ever since, I’ve been listening to the Beatles and other rock bands from that era, stuff I never really listened to before. Isn’t that crazy?”
Alexander raised his eyebrows. “Pretty crazy,” he agreed, ringing up Brian’s purchases. “You look good, though, man. Four months doesn’t seem like a long time to recover from something that major, but I never would have guessed.”
It wasn’t the reaction Brian had hoped for, but he was struck by something Alexander had said. “Four months, that’s right. Good math!”
The careful tone of flattery he’d inserted into the comment had exactly the effect he desired. Alexander snorted and shook his head. “Not really.” He looked down at the button in his hand, running his thumb over its smooth surface. Then he added, “It’s just that I lost someone close to me in November. When you lose someone that special, you never forget how long it’s been.”
For the first time, Brian caught the scent of whiskey on his breath as he spoke, and his heart – her heart – ached for the man she had left behind. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“Thanks. That’ll be $12.78, by the way.” Alexander dropped the button into a small bag with the photograph. “You would have gotten along great with my girlfriend, Jori. She was a Beatlemaniac.”
As Brian handed him a twenty dollar bill, he looked directly into Alexander’s eyes and said, “I know.”
When the two men locked eyes, Brian could see the look of bewilderment flicker across Alexander’s face, which paled a few shades. “What do you mean, you know?” he asked gruffly.
Brian hesitated, looking around the store. Besides the two of them, it was empty; he was the only customer. Still, he didn’t want someone to walk in as he was having a conversation around such a sensitive subject. “Is there somewhere more private we could talk?”
Alexander hardly hesitated at all. “Howie!” he shouted suddenly. “Yo, D!”
A short, Hispanic man emerged from a smaller room at the back of the shop. “What’s up?” he asked, looking between Brian and Alexander.
“My business partner, Howie,” Alexander said, with a vague wave toward the other man. “Can you cover the counter for me? I need to talk to...” He looked uncertainly at Brian. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Brian,” he supplied, wondering if it would sound familiar. He had only been allowed to use his first name in the letter he’d written to the family of his donor. “Brian Littrell.”
“AJ.” The nickname suited him. As AJ extended his hand for Brian to shake, Brian noticed that even his knuckles were tattooed, and his fingernails were painted black, ragged around the edges where he had picked at them. “C’mon.”
AJ led Brian into the back room, where there was a table and two chairs. They sat down, staring across the table at each other. “So what’s your deal, Brian?” AJ asked finally. “Who are you really?”
Brian took a deep breath. “I think you may have figured that out,” he said. “I’m the guy who got Jori’s heart.”
Time seemed to stand still, as he waited for AJ’s reaction. For a few seconds, AJ just stared at him. Then he said, “Are you serious?”
Brian nodded. “I’m pretty sure. It all fits. I found her obituary online. I got my transplant the same day she died.”
“Worst day of my life,” muttered AJ, bracing his head against his hand as he slumped over the table. “Probably one of the best of yours, huh?”
Brian swallowed hard. “I sure felt blessed that day,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I wouldn’t have made it much longer without a new heart. You and Jori gave me the greatest gift I could ever hope for you. Her heart saved my life. So thank you.”
AJ nodded, acknowledging Brian’s gratitude without looking at him.
In the brief silence that followed, Brian remembered how he had felt when he’d woken up in the hospital after his operation: weak, sore, but grateful… so grateful. Thank you, he had whispered to his donor, after hearing her heart beat for the first time. Now he looked at her grieving fiancée and wondered if there was a way to give him back a part of the loved one he’d lost.
“Do you want to feel it?” he asked timidly. “Her heart?” He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and parted the material to expose the tip of the scar, barely visible over the top of his undershirt. “Here,” he said, reaching out to take AJ’s hand.
AJ recoiled. “No,” he said quickly. “No, that’s okay.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”
“Thanks, but I’m sure.” Abruptly, AJ stood and crossed the room to a small desk in the corner. “It wasn’t my idea to donate her organs, you know,” he said, opening the bottom drawer. “They asked at the hospital, and I just did what I thought she’d want.”
“Still… thank you,” said Brian, watching as AJ pulled a flask out of the desk drawer. He twisted off the top and took a long swig, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You want some?” He offered the flask to Brian, who shook his head. “Yeah, you’re probably not supposed to drink after a heart transplant, huh? That’s smart. Jori liked her liquor a little too much. Not as much as I like mine, though.” He sighed and slammed the flask down onto the desk. “So,” he said, looking back at Brian. “Did you drive all the way up here just to say thanks?”
“No, not exactly. I wrote you a letter to say thanks, not long after the transplant. Did you get it?” It didn’t really matter if AJ had received the letter or not. Brian was just stalling for time while he searched for a way to explain why he had come without sounding crazy.
AJ shrugged. “Yeah, I guess maybe I did. Sorry I never wrote back or anything. I was in a pretty dark place after she died. Still am, some days.” He picked up the flask again and took another drink.
“I’m sorry,” Brian said again. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose Becci – or Calhan. AJ had lost both a fiancée and a child.
AJ swallowed and set his flask back down. “So why did you come then?” he asked.
Brian collected his thoughts, struggling to put them into words. “Ever since the transplant, I’ve felt this… connection to my donor that I can’t quite explain. I wanted to know more about her, so I did some research online. I found Jori’s obituary and some articles about the accident, but they didn’t give me a sense of who she was as a person. I wanted to know about her life, not just how she died.”
It was half true, even if it wasn’t the whole story. Only through learning more about his donor’s life could Brian expect to answer the questions he had about her death. Like who would run down a young bride-to-be in the dead of night? And why?
AJ stared at with a hardened expression for a few seconds before his features softened. Sagging in his seat, he sighed and said, “So what do you wanna know?”
Brian considered the question. Of course, he knew more about Jori than he was letting on, but he wondered what other information AJ had to give. “I don’t know. Just… tell me about Jori. What was she like?”
AJ chuckled, actually smiling for the first time since they’d sat down together. “Oh man… where to begin? Jori was… Jori was a real firecracker. Wild… unpredictable… even explosive at times… but a whole lot of fun, too. She even had the red hair to prove it, though it was totally dyed. Her mom gave her so much crap about that color…” He paused to laugh, shaking his head. “I loved it, though. It was bright… and different. That was Jori. She was one of a kind.”
Brian smiled. “I didn’t know she had red hair. The only picture I saw of her was in black and white.”
“Really? Here… hang on…” AJ sat forward, pulling his chain wallet out of his pocket. From inside it, he took out a photograph and passed it across the table to Brian.
His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at the picture of a petite girl with vivid red hair that went almost to her waist, posing against a pick-up truck. The truck’s paint job looked like rainbow tie-dye, and it cast a bright backdrop against the neutral colors of her clothing. “She was beautiful,” Brian said, bringing the picture closer to his face as he peered into hers, noticing the blueness of her eyes and the light dusting of freckles across her nose.
“Yeah, she was. Seriously, the day I met her, it was love at first sight.” And AJ proceeded to tell him all about his and Jori’s history, how they’d met at a tattoo parlor in Florida, how he’d given up his whole life there to follow her here to Ohio, and how he’d opened the record store to support her as they started their new life together. It was strange and sad to hear the story told when he knew what a tragic turn it would take, but Brian sat back and listened without interruption.
“We even had a kid together,” said AJ, the light in his brown eyes fading as he glanced up at Brian. “I guess you probably read about Lucy.”
Brian nodded. “I’m so sorry,” he said for the third time.
AJ’s chin jutted forward as he clenched his jaw. Brian could tell he was trying not to cry. “When we first found out she was pregnant,” he went on hoarsely, “I didn’t know how to feel. But Jori was thrilled, and she got me excited about it too. We had a blast getting ready for the baby. We decorated her room with a Beatles theme, and Jori painted this whole mural on the walls; it was awesome.”
Brian could clearly picture it, the nursery from his dreams.
“And when she finally came, I felt…” AJ paused and shook his head, seemingly at a loss for words. “I can’t even describe the feeling.”
“I know that feeling,” said Brian. “I’m a father myself.”
AJ nodded. “Then you can imagine how it felt to lose her.” His eyes were bright again, shiny with unshed tears. “I loved that little girl more than life itself. When she died… I felt like my life was over. It was never the same after that. Jori took it even harder than I did. She just shut down. Fell apart. Started drinking again. She was drunk the night she died, you know.”
For the first time, Brian felt truly surprised by this bit of information. “She was??” None of the articles he’d read had mentioned it.
AJ nodded again.
“So what happened?” Brian blurted, before he could stop himself from asking.
“She was out walking. She got hit by a car.”
It was a truck, thought Brian, but that wasn’t the only detail that seemed off. “She was out walking in the middle of the night?” he wondered aloud. “The article I read said she was hit around two a.m.”
“Jori was a night owl,” said AJ, “especially after Lucy died. She had insomnia. She liked to go out for walks after dark, when no one would see her. She was still trying to lose her baby weight, and she was self-conscious about how she looked. I guess she’d stayed up late drinking that night and decided to go out to get some air or stretch her legs or something.” He shrugged. “I don’t know; I’d already gone to bed. I woke up to the sound of screeching tires. I looked out the window, and that was when I saw her, just lying there in the street.”
His voice had taken on a flat, deadened quality as he narrated this sequence of events, but Brian was shocked. “So you didn’t see what happened?” he asked in a whisper.
AJ shook his head. “I’m guessing she stumbled out into the street and got hit. I don’t know, though. The car that hit her was long gone by the time I got out there.”
Brian bit down on his bottom lip. Here was a grief-stricken man who thought his fiancée’s death had been her own fault. How could he tell him otherwise, without revealing too much?
“You can’t blame her,” he said gently. “Whoever was driving should have stopped.”
“It wouldn’t have done much good,” replied AJ, looking at him sadly. “Jori would have died either way.”
He seemed to have resigned himself to this reality, but Brian wasn’t ready to accept it. He felt angry on behalf of his donor and this broken man she’d left behind. He wanted to see the person who had caused them both so much pain caught and put behind bars. He wouldn’t rest until justice was served.
But he had to rest, for only when he was at rest could Brian sleep. Only in sleep could he dream. And only in his dreams could he hope to see something that would shed light on this dark tragedy.
***
He did dream that night, the same dream as before. He was running down the very street on which he’d driven earlier that day. Cold air, heavy with rain, rattled around in his lungs. Little clouds of breath puffed from his open mouth as he panted. His heart was pounding, as fast and as hard as his feet upon the wet pavement. Dead leaves squished beneath them as he ran through the darkness. The icy wind whipped through his hair and the fallen leaves, pelting his face with stinging raindrops.
He tried to keep his head down, but he kept looking back over his shoulder. The street was dark and deserted, but suddenly, in the midst of the darkness, there was light. At first, it was just a pinprick in the distance, like the glimmer of sunlight at the end of a tunnel. But it grew nearer and seemed to split itself in two, twin halos of light that expanded outward, filling his vision. The headlights were bright, almost blinding.
He forced himself to look away, but he could still hear the growl of an engine gaining on him, the roar of tires splashing through puddles. When he chanced another glance over his shoulder, the truck was coming right for him. Startled, he spun around and tried to jump out of the way, but his foot sunk into a pothole he hadn’t seen. He tripped, turning his ankle as he stumbled out into the street. As he straightened up, he was bathed in brilliant light. He stopped, frozen, but the headlights kept coming, so close they threatened to swallow him up.
At first, he couldn’t see anything, but as the light surrounded him, he could make out the silhouette of a pick-up truck. He saw a flash of color and recognized the paint job – rainbow swirls, spray-painted over the rusted white exterior, giving the illusion of tie-dye.
His pain turned to fear.
He was going to die.
The thought crossed his mind a split second before he felt a crushing blow. His body was thrown violently onto the hood of the truck. As his head collided with the windshield, he caught a glimpse of the face behind the wheel, as familiar as the truck itself.
Then it was cast back into the shadows, as the light faded to impenetrable dark.
Brian sat bolt upright in the dark, already breathing hard. He was trembling violently, enough to disturb Becci, who stirred beside him. “Brian?” she asked sleepily, sitting up. “What’s wrong?” She looked over at him in concern, putting her hand on his shoulder to stop it from shaking. “Did you have another nightmare?”
He nodded. “That’s not all, though,” he whispered. “This time, I saw his face.”
“Whose face?”
“The face of the person behind the wheel. The one who was driving the truck. The one who killed Jori. It was him.”
“Who, Brian?”
He shook his head, not wanting to believe it, yet he was sure of what he had seen. “Her fiancée,” he said. “It was AJ.”
***
