…Always a Minute Late

 

While my 11-year-old daughter was tying the scarf that was knotted around her neck to a branch overhead in Peoria, Illinois, I was partying my ass off in Atlanta, Georgia.   That Saturday night, the 7^th of June, 2008, I ate the best goddamned mushroom-and-swiss burger in the world at the Hard Rock Café while my baby waved to a passing neighbor, wrote a note in her sketch-filled notebook to say good-bye, clasped her hands behind her back, and leaned forward to her death in her front yard. 

That was the best day of my life.

Just one minute,

Before I let you go

Let me talk to you,

There’s something you should know…

Erin’s job as a training manager for water and wastewater treatment operators occasionally dictates that she attend conferences around the country so that various associations, vendors who manufacture technologies and products related to water treatment and whoever else may be vaguely close to the whole boring but necessary industry could lecture, sell/buy, network and party for a few days.  With her company mostly picking up the tab, all she had to do was get to Atlanta; the hotel, transportation costs, and most of the meals were paid for.

Erin wanted the companionship and help with making the long drive, and I needed to get away from the claustrophobic intrusion of apartment life for a few days.  She had just moved in the night before we were to leave, and immediately my already-small world seemed maddenlingly smaller.  On the other hand, a free trip with a woman who walked on water and the promise of all the alcohol I could possibly drink felt like pretty good reasons to go. She was a paradox to me; her spontaneously detailed-planning was as attractive to me as the confident strut which turned her hips into a seductive pendulum, swinging below the Kleininger-gleam of her honey blonde hair kept in time by her impish blue eyes.  She was adamant that this voyage to Atlanta wasn’t going to be a drag—it was going to be an experience.  She couldn’t have known how right she was.

Driving, stopping, having drinks, having dinner, driving some more, numbing our hearing with road-worthy and boisterous rock music, and discovering that posted speed limits mean absolutely nothing in Georgia (I was ecstatic that I had to drive at 90mph or above just to stay with the flow of traffic), we arrived at the $300-a-night Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta and set to planning our invasion of the Hard Rock Café on Peachtree Avenue.  As we approached the storied establishment on foot, I cheered the neon globe that spun atop.

Once inside, I absorbed, catalogued, and photographed damn near everything in that place; from Eddie Van Halen’s first Peavey Music Man guitar, to the waitress who carried a tray of tall beer-filled mugs on her head, and the stage where the Black Crowes had recently given a homecoming show, I shutter-bugged like the tourist I was.

On Sunday, we went to the Georgia Aquarium, the world’s largest.  I videoed a lazy but graceful whale shark swimming mere feet from my face while young hammerheads lurked along the concrete floor of the massive Ocean Tank. I’d only seen most of these creatures on the Discovery Channel. I ate $7 French fries.

Give me just a minute

To change your mind

Baby, I don’t really wanna be left behind

I’m left behind

Streaking north from Atlanta to Peoria, Illinois, on Monday with our hastily packed-and-loaded luggage and no regard for interstate traffic laws, my jaw clenched and my fist gripped the phone so hard I caught myself admiring its construction.

“You fucking bitch! What did you do to my daughter?!” I screamed at Bethany’s mother, Christina.  I knew in my soul she was the cause of this.  Her cold arrogance hinted none of the desperate devastation that was engulfing me, drowning me.  I’ve always known her better than she could ever know herself, and what was pouring into my ear was the same acidic soullessness I’d come to know and hate.

“She’s not your daughter—she’s my daughter.”

With the ferocious intensity that furrows her brows when she’s focused, Erin handled the driving while trying to keep me from climbing through my cell phone to rend Christina to bits; the conversation was on speakerphone and Erin was hearing every word.  “Try—try to stay calm, baby,” she was saying.  I’d already scratched staying calm off my list of Things to Do Today.

An effort, though, hissed into the phone through clenched teeth, “She is my daughter, goddammit.  Now would you pretty fucking please tell me what happened to my daughter?”

Christina’s tone sweetened with her victory.  It was a game played countless times with only one rule—her way or the highway. The sing-song, disaffected cacophony that passes for her voice matter-of-factly parroted a string of tales with not even the slightest waver. The whole thing was everyone else’s fault, she said.  Bethany was being teased at school for not being rich.  Bethany disobeyed her mother and couldn’t handle being grounded.  Bethany was a pain-in-the-ass, and by the end of the conversation, the sickening feeling that Christina was relieved that Bethany’s characteristic stubborness was no longer going to be a hassle wrenched my gut. 

The newspaper was sending out a reporter to interview Christina. I heard the anticipation.  I heard the…excitement.  Christina’s sense of entitlement and the opportunities she saw for herself overshadowed her ability to understand the truth; my last conversation with Bethany ended with her whispering, “Dad, Mom’s a failure as a parent.”  I’d chided her for speaking disrespectfully of her mother. 

And only you could list

All the reasons why

Christina was only supposed to be a sexual and spiritual conquest when we met over 15 years before in a fast-food restaurant. She was days from turning 18 and I was days from turning 21.  Her wide-eyed innocence of worldly pleasures such as having a beer or smoking some pot was rooted in a life-long immersion into Pentecostal warpings—none of their flock was allowed to even own televisions, and attending social gatherings such as baseball games was the most evil of taboos.  Her wardrobe was restricted to long dresses and loose-fitting long-sleeved blouses—clothes meant to hide from temptation the huge boobs and perfectly round ass I knew was hiding under that get-up. 

On the other hand, I had long hair, tattoos, heavy metal music, a constant thirst for all things carnal, and an unabashed love of self-medication; I was intentionally and purposefully everything her religion stood against. I took great relish in corrupting Christina—smoking pot in front of her and eventually coaxing her into trying it, goading her into incorporating as much foul language as I could, and taking her virginity on the bed that squeaked the announcement of innocence lost. 

To the chagrin of her family—who’d instantly disowned her for hooking up with a “devil-worshippin’ nigger”—and the curious amusement of my family and friends who couldn’t understand what I was doing with “such a nice girl,” we professed a love for one another that was borne of corruption and could never be pure. 

When she got pregnant with Erik in 1995, almost two years after we met, she’d also been boinking the next-door neighbor at the apartment complex in which we were living. For nine long months, I stocked up on baby-related supplies while planning to return them and get my money back if the baby wasn’t mine.  He was, but I never trusted her again.  

We broke up on a weekly basis, it seemed, with her moving out for trivial reasons and moving back in days later.  The days in between became weeks, until she got pregnant with Bethany.  Bethany’s entire pre-natal life was constantly threatened with abortion and eventually, adoption; she never stood a chance—she was doomed to a premature death before she was even born.

It was easy

For you to say goodbye

 

Earlier that Monday morning, when Erin had left the hotel room to attend a meeting, out of sheer boredom, I decided to check my email from my phone.  A message from my sister sent me spiraling down a hole I may never climb out of.  My mind will only allow me to recall, “…happened to Bethany. She’s at St. Francis. They’re saying it was self-inflicted.”  Frantic calls to 411 provided me with the first steps I would take off a plank leading to nowhere.

The charge nurse at St. Francis hospital in Peoria was out of breath after being paged, “Mr. Lutes!  We’ve been wondering how to get ahold of you!  Bethany’s mom said she didn’t know how, and would tell your family to try to find you.”

That’s a bold-faced lie, I thought, she’s always at least had my email address—and she’s one to talk about not staying in contact. This woman has devoted her life to keeping me from those kids ever since Erik was first born.  She likes to punish me for being a bad boyfriend. 

The nurse spoke with professionally measured compassion and told me what she knew: Bethany was admitted Saturday night after a neighbor saw her hanging from the low branch of a tree in her maternal grandmother’s yard. I found out later the same passing neighbor she’d sweetly waved to only moments before was the same man who’d screamed and yelled for help while he desperately worked to free Bethany’s neck from her silken resolve.

She spent the rest of the weekend on life-support, her brain robbed of oxygen too long for it to function.  There was no hope, but the hospital had allowed the family to try and talk her back, and “since Bethany’s registered as an organ donor,” she sighed, “we’re going to let her go once the paperwork comes back.”

BAM!  It felt like being hit in the chest with a 20-pound sledgehammer.

“Waitwaitwaitwait…wait!!  What do you mean ‘let her go’?! What do you mean?” The walls of my hotel room swirled in and out of focus.  She’s still alive, right? I can go see her, I can talk her back.  She’s daddy’s girl.  She’s daddy’s angel.  She’s still alive! 

The nurse guessed that everything would be in place that evening, probably in the nine o’clock hour.  That gave me about ten hours.  Peoria was 11 hours away.  I needed the winds at my back. “Don’t you touch my daughter!  I’m in Atlanta, and I’m coming NOW!” 

Bethany was still alive, but she wasn’t coming back. My powers of persuasion couldn’t override the decisions and signatures that would finalize Bethany’s will to cup her hand behind her life and snuff it out. 

And all I’ll ever want

Until the end of time

Is just one minute, babe,

To change your mind

 

The nurse told me a police detective was assigned to investigate the case, and gave me his contact information.  Christina had conveniently omitted that fact, and was too quick to point out that when she’d attempted CPR on her dying daughter, that Bethany had had the nerve to vomit on her.  Being puked on traumatized her more than the smoldering wick of her only daughter’s body in her arms.

Wait just a minute

Can’t seem to let you go

Look inside me, baby

You’ll see you took my soul

I’d made it to town only minutes too late and now wouldn’t get to see Bethany until after the autopsy and subsequent craft of the undertaker.  Autopsy, undertaker—neither of these words had any business being used in conjunction with my child. 

After booking another room, the endless string of phone calls, fact-finding, questions, no answers, and the coming days of verbal warfare between Christina and me weighted around my neck like a black albatross and threatened to drown me.  I allowed myself to function because none of this was really happening. I was ashamed of the surreality—I needed to see her to believe it for myself. Until then, this was all hypothetical, this was all conjecture.

The funeral was scheduled for the following Monday in order to give the detective, the coroner, the undertaker, and the press time to do their jobs.  I developed a rapport with the detective and he was not bashful in expressing a sincere desire to find something on Christina in connection with Bethany’s death.  “You know she’s a piece of shit, and I know she’s a piece of shit—but I can’t charge her with being a shitty mom, Erik.” He had to have proof that Christina directly caused Bethany’s decision. 

Not even Bethany’s note, which began with “Mom, I’m not mad at you, but a lot of this is because of you,” was enough.  Bethany’s hand had committed this brutal act, but she still had been murdered slowly, and no one was going to stand trial. 

I finally got to see her on Saturday.  Victor, the funeral director, was young but the grief of his profession had etched itself into his fair Aryan features, eroding his youth.  He was sickeningly accomodating and comforting as he led me to “her” chapel, then he and Erin excused themselves. 

She was lying in a cruel grey casket, her face pancaked with an attempt to mask almost a week’s worth of death.  At first, I refused to get any closer than a few yards—this allowed me one last attempt at denial while I paced back and forth shaking my head and repeating “No, no, no, no,” as though this mantra would somehow negate the stark reality that my daughter was in that box.  Then an involuntary wail escaped me and I threw myself on her.

She was so cold and quiet—not at all the affectionate and vivacious clown I’d last seen.  Her eyelids, which had once blinked over sparkling brown eyes, were now glued closed to hide whatever it is undertakers use for cavity stuffing—cotton, I’d guessed.  The lips that had couched the most beaming, disarming smiles were closed forever—sealed by an adhesive and coated with a grotesquely applied lipstick in a macabre attempt to lend them the appearance of life.

My hand rested on her upper chest as I bent to kiss her cold forehead, and in wretched horror, I felt the cause of many, many nightmares to come—tape covering the stitches from the autopsy.  I could feel the brutality of the coroner’s saw hidden under the tape ringing her head. I knew that the tape on her chest, which had become visible in my grief-stricken grip on her body, barely concealed the Y-shaped calling card left by the Peoria County coroner—whom I’d never met, and now hated for pillaging my daughter.  Her torso was unnaturally quadratic—man-made.  Her hands were clasped across her voided abdomen.  With her organs donated and her brain removed, what was before me was only a shell—an extinguished flicker.

Can I have a minute

To look into your eyes

I didn’t even know Bethany had been born for the first two weeks of her life.  Christina and I had split for good toward the end of the pregnancy, and went a couple of weeks without speaking.  I knew Bethany’s delivery was going to be an induced C-section, just like Erik’s, and it had been scheduled for the end of October.  On the 21^st of October, she called me at work—I remember thinking when I heard her voice that the date had been moved up, and we were ready to go. 

No, she’d only wanted my Social Security number, or something.  When I asked her to confirm the projected delivery date, she told me that she’d had the baby two weeks prior. 

“WHAT?!” I demanded.  “What the hell, Christina?  Why didn’t you call me and tell me? This is bullshit!” Appalled and furious, it took near-biblical strength to keep from slamming the phone against the wall.

“Well, first off, I didn’t want you there.” Breathe, Erik—just breathe. “Also, I didn’t think it was my responsibility to tell you—you should have been calling me.”

Seething, I growled: “And this would be a classic reason why I don’t call you—you’re fucking evil!”

I met my daughter for the first time on her 2-week birthday.

Bethany grew into a statuesque beauty.  Her golden-brown skin boasted a complexion that most fairer-skinned people squandered small fortunes on in tanning salons.  She could adorn the most exquisite of dress or the rattiest of playclothes with equal pulchritude.  Her mind was as sharp out of the classroom as in, and I would delight in trading witty retorts and barbs with her.  She could be frustratingly stubborn, but mostly heart-warmingly sweet; I think most of all, I miss those too-few times she would run into my arms and throw hers around my neck. 

I guess I’ve never been all that good at long goodbyes

No last goodbyes

The morning of the funeral, I searched for something to accompany my daughter into the next life.  After a frustrating search, I’d found a music box topped by an adult angel holding aloft a baby angel.  Daddy’s Angel—Rest in Peace, Bethany was inscribed on the base of the music box.  I couldn’t wait to give it to her. 

Victor asked me to stand at the foot of Bethany’s casket and greet the mourners.  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I spat and stormed out for a cigarette.  I was not about to play a host—this was a funeral, not some goddamned dinner party.  This was my baby’s funeral.

Three hours of sitting in that chapel (kept chilly for preservation purposes, but not cold enough to stave the rivulets of sweat that soaked my deep scarlet dress shirt), the stench of embalming fluid, the beautifully haunting strains of the music box that was played over and over, the endless promenade of translucent mourners, and watching Christina put on an Oscar-worthy performance as The Grieving Mother could not have prepared me for watching my son, as tall as me and sharply handsome, load his sister’s casket into the hearse.  Erin’s hands, assisted by my brother’s and Jeff’s, kept me from collapsing as I rocked unsteadily.

Jeff Farran was a hulking Irish hellraiser, and one of my dearest long-time friends.  We’d hit it off famously when we met at a party and never lost touch, even after I’d moved to Ohio.  Impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit and evoking rumors that I’d brought a bodyguard, he risked his job to pay his respects to Bethany and to offer his titanium support.  He was never so far away he couldn’t protect me—from myself, mostly. 

And only you could ease

The agony I feel

And how I pinch myself

Because this can’t be real

The 10-hour beeline from Atlanta had felt like the longest drive of my life.  It was a jaunt across a street and back compared to the agonizing crawl to, then through, the cemetary.  Winding and twisting through the historic Springdale Cemetary, I was convinced they were intentionally taking the scenic route, “Come the fuck on!” I growled, pounding the steering wheel. 

The hatred boiling in me for Christina was not abated upon learning she’d been caught by Victor spitefully trying to remove the music box from Bethany’s casket after the chapel emptied, and was admonished to have a little respect for the dead.  This fresh knowledge was one more straw on my back as I sat behind her at the graveside service.  Only Erik, sitting next to her and displaying the maturity and poise I’d tried so hard to instill in him, kept me from fulfulling my fantasy of garroting her with my tie and exacting a small measure of justice.

The freshly dug hole and the mountain of dirt that was to serve as my daughter’s eternal blanket had less impact on me than did the two gouges in the ground next to the grave.  Left by the backhoe commissioned to digging Bethany’s grave, those marks are unmercifully still visible a year and a half after the funeral. 

The graveside service concluded in a blur and I needed to talk to Erik.  I’d bought for him a cell phone so that he could contact me anytime he wished, unencumbered by his mother’s interference.  He followed me to my car.  I looked back to say something to him.  Christina was in tow.  “Back off,” I warned. “I want to talk to my son alone.”

“Nope, you’ll do it right in front of me.” Her smirk was the final straw.

I’ve tried so hard to remember what happened next, but the screen in my mind is blank…and red. I can only remember screaming, “You fucking killed my daughter!”  Bedlam.  Chaos.  She later claimed in court I lunged at her.  Others say I couldn’t have—my brothers, Erin, and Jeff all had seen this coming, and were already herding me into the car.  Christina may never know how badly I wanted to see her strung up, wrapped in concertina wire, and showered in brine in that instant.

I would like to say that I remember tearing out of the cemetary, careening and speeding—not caring if I wrecked and killed us all.  I would like to recount the décor of Gorman’s Pub, where I inhaled many shots of whiskey in rapid succession.  I would like to say I remember asking Erin to take me back to Bethany after we’d dropped Jeff off at his car.  I would like to say, in honor of Bethany, that I remembered being back at her grave, now desolate and seemingly forgotten.  I can’t say any of that, though.  But Erin can:

“It took us a few minutes to find it again, she was so far back.  We got out of the car and I think we were surprised that it was all over—nothing but tractor marks on the ground and the dirt was already over her grave.

Sobbing quietly, you just started talking to her, saying how sorry you were and how much you loved her—telling her everything you would have said if she was there.  ‘I would have protected you.’ You damned the ants for walking on her grave, demanding them to get away from her. 

Your demeanor started to change—to desperation, maybe? ‘OK, this is enough, Bethany—stop. Just come back.  You’re not in trouble but you need to stop now. This isn’t funny.  Come on baby. I will protect you. Daddy is here now’.  You begged her to talk to you, ‘Just give me a minute. Why did you do this, baby?? You can’t take it back, Bethany!!  You didn’t have to go this far; I would have listened, I would have protected you – I’m sorry!!  Please come back.’

  You took off your shirt and decided that you were going to dig her up but she had to help you. She had to give you another minute—just one.  You could change her mind.  You would be “better” but she had to help you. ‘Reach out your hand Bethany! I can get you out of there but you have to help me.  Okay baby, I understand – you’re tired…okay you rest.   I’m coming.  Daddy will be right there, baby – wait for Daddy’.  You said to nobody, ‘Find me something to dig with!’ and looked around for a tractor or shovel or anything to help you dig. On your knees, you started to dig into the dirt with your hands, begging her to help you.  I would try to hold you but I don’t know if you even knew I was there.  It was just you and her. 

You laid down on her grave. You decided you weren’t leaving. You stayed like this for awhile, defeated.  Eventually, you asked me to go to the car and get a glass and you placed dirt from her grave in it.  I picked up your clothes and baby-step by baby-step we walked back to the car. ‘I don’t want to leave her here alone.’ It almost killed both of us to do that.”

I’d never ask a thing,

Except for just this one last time

One more minute, love,

To change your mind?

In the weeks that followed, whether or not I’d allow myself to live through each day was a question not even I could answer.  Erin, watching me deteriorate, was sure she’d find my smoldering wick every morning.  I wanted to reassure her, but I couldn’t.  I was seized with fits of sudden rage, usually culminating in me hurling something across the room.  We’d been so excited about her moving in with me, about waking up next to each other.  Now, it seemed we woke only to my screams and sobs from the nightmares. My mind, though, had mercifully hidden the anguished episode at Bethany’s grave from me. 

Emails and phone calls came pouring in—all offering condolences, and some recounting stories of Christina’s treatment of the kids.  Ironically, most of the people who’d been reporting to me were her family.  She and I engaged in a legal war of attrition with Erik being my estranged objective. She cleaned house by setting up a fund obstensibly to pay for the funeral. She raked in about $10k just that I know of.  She spent not one dime on funeral expenses, Bethany’s plot, or even a headstone for her daughter despite a columnist in the local paper imploring the public’s help in defraying those costs.  While my baby lay in an unmarked, unpaid-for grave, Christina treated herself to (among other things) a brand-new laptop computer and gambling trips.  Exhaustive efforts by the police determined the misnamed “memorial fund” was a private account, inscrutable under a fraud investigation. She was spitting on our daughter’s grave. 

I paid for the plot with borrowed money so Bethany would finally have a place to call her own.

The clothes I’d worn for the funeral were bagged, never to be worn again.  The dirt from Bethany’s grave was enshrined in a glass vase vigorously hunted for that purpose.  I began lighting blue candles inside the vase, always blue; it was her favorite color.

I’m always a minute late

Because the clock won’t wait

I was wrong to hesitate

And it’s cost me everything

            Erin got pregnant a couple of months later.  I was happy.  She was not.  We moved from that matchbox-sized apartment in Newark to a house in “historic” Uptown Westerville.  We soldiered on, fighting each other—and ourselves.  She struggled to see the pros of a child being born to parents with deep emotional wounds, and I struggled just to get out of bed and face another day.  I needed an outlet besides the copious amounts of alcohol and cocaine that I was using to numb myself.

Music has never let me down, has always been there for me, and has always spoken the words I couldn’t.  When Erin bought a portable recording studio for my birthday in September, I found that I could have my own voice.  “You need this,” she said.  “You need to write.” I threw up some flimsy walls made of scrap wood in our basement, laid some salvaged carpet, bought a couple of cheap microphones, and christened the basement “My Studio.”  I experimented with the equipment to become familiar with it, recording songs I’d had sitting around, hoping eventually the music would come—and I would be ready to speak. 

It finally did in late April of ’09.  I was watching TV, mildly stoned, and a melody began playing in my head.  I knew this was my chance to speak.  I sprang from my vegetative state and apologized to Erin for ruining our relaxing evening, “I’ve gotta go to the studio—now.”

She understood immediately what was happening, “It’s coming, isn’t it?”  It was. “Go,” she urged. I wrote the music and lyrics, recorded the drums, bass, and three guitar parts in less than two hours.  I was damned proud of the song; it was well-structured, aurally conveyed my grief, and the lyrics were as good as any I’d written—they were too good. When I wrote them, I thought I was merely stringing together words that were honest and heartfelt, but rhythmically cohesive.   I couldn’t wait to show Erin.

When she read them, she went white as the blood drained from her face, and tears welled in her eyes.  “What?!” I asked, confused.

“Erik, this is almost word-for-word what you were saying to her that day.  Holy fuckin’ shit, you do remember.”  She’d known all this time that I couldn’t remember, but we’d chalked it up to the Jack Daniel’s I’d pounded at the pub. 

“No, I don’t.” I was scared now.  I was scared that I’d opened a Pandora’s Box. 

I had. The next night in the studio, I prepped to record the vocals.  The vase of Bethany’s dirt and a lit blue candle as my muse created an atmosphere much like a séance. As the music blared through my headphones, I opened myself and allowed it to fill me. I started to sing. I sang the words that months ago, I’d screamed in denial and desperation. 

I started to remember.

I went to bed that night very drunk, my eyes burning from crying my way through the vocal session, and revisited by the desire to follow Bethany’s lead.  I admired her.  Emboldened to take the most final of steps in order to alleviate pain and torment that never seemed to end; she was a hero to me.     

Singing that song ripped open the scars of my grief that had just started to heal as I looked forward to the baby.  I’d become consumed with writing and releasing an album dedicated to Bethany.  I’d earned my GED, enrolled in college and every minute spent in class was dedicated to Bethany.  I’d sent myself on a mission to be successful—for Bethany.  Now, I just wanted to join her. I fell asleep that night planning my death.

I know I can’t forgive

You’ve left and still I live

One more minute’s all I ask

Shayne Bethany Lutes, her middle name an obvious tribute to her dead sister, arrived the next day—a month early, while I was contemplating the method by which I would die. A divine intervention? Who’s to say? But she saved my life; I wanted to live again. 

Just one minute

Just one—and I swear I’ll never let you go

This past October, I went back to Illinois.  I saw friends and family. I visited Bethany’s grave as I always do when I’m back home. She is no longer alone, but watched over by a 30-something year-old woman who loved to help neighborhood kids and one day just dropped dead of a heart attack not long after Bethany died.  I don’t know her name, but I thank her every time I’m there for keeping my baby company in that awful place.

I talked to Bethany under a chilly, overcast Central Illinois sky.  I updated her on goings-on, stories of her baby sister, and I repeated my litany of apologies.  I took my laptop and played “Just One Minute” for her. My head hung in deferential plea.

I so badly needed her approval. 

As the last notes played, the sun forced its way through the barricade of clouds to shine a few moments’ light upon us.  She was smiling.  My tears were forcing me to taste the pain before dripping onto the laptop’s keyboard. I was smiling, too.