My Father’s Handkerchief.

A heavy mist blankets my morning. I tread cautiously on the mossy pavement. I dare not step on the cracks. My denim jacket is tight on my arms. It was once my fathers’ jacket. He died nine years ago.

I hear bright song from the blackbirds. They chirp crisp melody that contradicts the dull daybreak. I check each side of the road eight times before crossing. I like the number eight. You can divide it all kinds of ways.

My name is Francis Rivers Junior and I am 37 years old. Today is the first day of my adult life.

I was falsely accused of killing three people before I entered my teenage years.

My exoneration is a quiet affair, as no body wishes me well or waves goodbye. The swish of the automatic doors makes a sterile sound as I exit out onto the street.

I have lived in only three places. My first home was the family house on Bellevue Road. My best memories lie there.

Then I got arrested and I was placed in Westland Centre for six years. I didn’t like it there. The place smelled of cat pee and swimming pool. I was sedated and treated like an imbecile.

My home for the past nineteen years was the Swanson House facility. I don’t want to leave, but I must. People here treat me like an adult, but are suspicious of me.

They advised me yesterday that I didn’t need any legal representation. They gave me $500 cash and I signed a piece of paper with a scrawl. I was to contact a lady in Social Services called Carol for accommodation.

The funeral of an eighty-one year old man changed my life when I was twelve.

His name never registered with me. It was just another service for a bereaved family. I was an altar boy serving penance for robbing a local supermarket.

My statement was rubbished from the moment it left my lips. The police sergeant looked at me with utter disgust. His own brother had died at the scene and I was suspect number one. It was probably something to do with that.

My Mum and sister Kathy, had died two years prior in a car accident. My Dad became a crumpled heap from the inside out. Alcohol ruined him.

I was only ten years old when we lost them. My lack of structure threw me out of sorts. I started to repeat phrases as comfort. Teachers and classmates alienated me. Our headmaster mocked me in public.

I wanted my old life, going home to the noise of my little sister singing nursery rhymes out of tune and to the beautiful aromas from my Mum’s kitchen.

My father wasn’t used to restocking fridges after the loss of half our family. I robbed slices of ham to use in bread long past date. I got caught.

Police Sergeant John “JB” Williams attended. The supermarket did not want to press charges, but he wanted me to do right. He knew about our family. He sentenced me to six months service as an altar boy in his brothers’ church. I accepted his penance, reluctantly.

It was my eighth funeral as an altar boy.

I arrived late to church on my bike. I had flu the week previously. Father Williams barked me inside. He told me to quickly mix the incense prior to mass. I had only seen it mixed once before.

I opened the incense box to find three capsules pre-prepared. They were large and a bit off colour. Sometimes the mix could take ten minutes. Whoever had mixed the capsules was saving my bacon.

I flicked the censer open and grabbed the metal shovel beside the fire. The charcoals were glowing red. I loaded four lumps of burning ember into the crucible at the bottom.

I placed the capsule of incense on top and sealed it shut, pulling the chains down. The thurible was ready, yet I wasn’t.

Father Williams, being ever impatient, proceeded out into church with the other altar boy, Fred Hawkins. Fred was new to the church. He took a long pull on his asthma inhaler.

I threw on my robe and carried the thurible out. Steam was starting to eke through the small holes at the base. I placed it on the stand to the left of Fr. Williams. My robe felt roomier than normal.

Coughing the remnants of flu into my father’s handkerchief, I incurred the evil eye of Fr. Williams six feet from me. He delivered his liturgy in between glances of disdain. On my handkerchief, I had droplets of a cure to inhale through my nose.

The remedy saved my life, but doomed my youth.

I fainted split seconds after everyone. Through blurred vision and lapses of consciousness, I witnessed glimpses of the murder.

The culprit stepped out from the front pew. He had some sort of a mask on. I blinked and he walked toward me. It was as if every time I closed my eyes, it took an eternity for them to reopen.

My robe was pulled over my head. I had no energy. I saw my Father’s handkerchief fall slowly out of my hand and float down to the ground as my body dropped at a ferocious rate. I felt the wind rush out of the side of my chest.

As I regained focus and tried hard to breathe, I saw him raising his right hand more than once. I blinked and the next image I saw was red fluid flying through the air toward me. My eyes followed their fall to the tiled floor in front of the wooden front pew. 

I blinked once again and suddenly he was back in front of my face. He licked his lips, smiling at my apparent face of bewilderment. He replaced the altar robe back over my head. My body was limp and lifeless, yet my eyes flickered. He sat beside me on the red-carpeted altar step.

I closed my eyes once more to see him open a little bottle of red liquid. He dribbled some over my fingers and hands. I could swear I heard him laugh. I felt like I was swimming underwater. He then flicked some liquid over my face.

I was powerless. He picked up my father’s handkerchief and wiped sweat from his brow. It was then placed back into my left hand. I fought hard not to blink.

My head drooped and my eyes closed. I rolled off the step onto the tiles in front of the altar. I heard the clap of someone closing the seat of the organ chair.

I drifted off into unconsciousness.

I woke up with the bloodied knife in my left hand. I was slurring my words and drool oozed from my mouth. Fingers of blame looked in only one direction.

I was placed in tight metal handcuffs that chafed my wrists. Sergeant JB stared at me. My red and white silk robe stuck to me. I was sweating heavily and feeling faint.

I rocked back and forth. He accused me of killing three people. Blood was spattered everywhere. I tried to speak, but I was shushed with impunity. I was already convicted.

I had means, motive and opportunity. The man being buried was the same man who killed my mother and sister through drink driving. He had gotten away with it, having enough money to influence powerful people.

I had also stabbed his aging wife in the front row, the temporarily wealthy, Mrs. Eve Jacobs as retribution.

Father Williams had a heart attack, but they automatically assumed I was complicit in his death. The chloroform mix in the incense capsule sent his heart into an arrhythmia that could not be halted. His proximity to the thurible predestined his fate.

Fred choked without his inhaler. He went purple. The chloroform simply closed his esophagus. He died aged nine years old.

I had poisoned the entire congregation through the incense decanter and holy water. They had unknowingly blessed themselves as they entered, using their thumb to mark the impression of a cross on their foreheads.

My fingerprints were also upon candles of soaked chloroform, throughout the church. The build up of inhalation and skin absorption sent the throng into a deep sleep.

The final act of lighting the thurible sealed the fate of the congregation. It lasted long enough for me to commit the act.

They saw a troubled kid that ticked all the boxes. The Police Sergeant echoed the sentiments of the son-in-law of the now deceased, Mrs. Jacobs. 

Kevin James Moore was his name. He was a big shot.

The psychologists all said that I was guilty. Even my own doctor had his story picked clean by the state’s District Attorney. Circumstantial evidence in my favour was soon ridiculed and discounted.

In the past week prior to my release, former Sergeant JB Williams passed away from cancer. He had been dying for some time and dignitaries and former colleagues called to his home, to get their chance to say goodbye.

He had one visitor that arrived with much fanfare, Kevin James Moore. 

He mentioned how it had always surprised him how they had never looked at the handkerchief. A DNA swab had never been performed on it.

After he left, JB told his daughter to get police friends of his to look into it. He described the evidence bag that contained my Father’s handkerchief and how it was now relevant.

JB recounted that it was a white handkerchief with the initials ‘FR’. He had always assumed it belonged to his brother, the priest. He never thought it was my initials. The handkerchief was bagged by a crime scene tech, but never brought to the attention of the media or court conviction.

Kevin James Moore sat next to the elderly widow in the church. No one had ever suspected him – he was too well respected and connected.

JB revealed in his morphine haze, that in his latter years in the Police force, he never liked Kevin Moore. He saw Kevin become somewhat deviant and hungry for power as he climbed the ranks.

I now battle my way through the fog. The birds do not chirp any longer. The road is quiet. My footsteps make a loud clacking against the pavement. I have a meeting.

This journalist, Alex Melbourne, wants me to meet her in a café. I am looking for Albion Street, but am currently on Brixton. One of the nurses in Swanson told me that the streets are listed alphabetically.

I must be close. I see three blacked out cars all parked next to each other.

Alex said that we should discuss Kevin James Moore. He is running in an election that could put him in an office that is oval.

Is that a red dot on my denim jacket?

  

ENDS.