The One Eyed King

The One Eyed King

By B.W. Gragg

Smashwords Edition

Text copyright © 2013 Brandon Gragg

All Rights Reserved

Dedicated to my Bombay

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

-Socrates

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 1

March 1, 1989

The word sacrament is defined as a rite in which God is uniquely active. Augustine of Hippo said it’s a, visible sign of an invisible reality. The Catholic Church went on and established the seven sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. Traditionally the church said these sacraments were, an outward sign of inward grace, a sacred and mysterious sign or ceremony, ordained by Christ, by which grace is conveyed to our souls. Later John Calvin defined them as an earthly sign associated with a promise from God. To natives of Sacramento the word is nothing more than the meaning of our Spanish namesake.

Sacramento is located in California’s central valley along the Sacramento River and just south of the American River’s confluence. The great capital became a city due to the strong efforts of John Sutter and James W. Marshall back in 1839. They needed protection and a major distribution point for Sutter’s Fort during the great Gold Rush. The rivers and the first ever Transcontinental Railroad became steppingstones for the large influx of settlers entering the region. Due to the consistent growth John Sutter Jr., against his father’s wishes, decided to hire topographical engineer William H. Warner to help design the city. The original design rested solely along the American and Sacramento River’s confluence. The steady upward growth continues today as the design has expanded to roughly ninety-nine square miles making it California’s seventh largest city.

As a child I grew up in the suburb of Fair Oaks. I was an only child and went to St. Mel’s Catholic School. My father sold insurance and my mother taught 5th grade at Northridge Elementary. I spent most of my childhood riding bikes along the American River. Every once in a while my friends and I would scrounge up enough cash to go rafting down the San Juan Rapids. Otherwise we would just make do by skipping rocks at Sailor Bar or jumping off of Red Bridge in old town. As we grew older the river still served as our natural play ground, but instead of just rafting we used it for adolescent solace; a place to drink beer or smoke some of California’s most lucrative cash crop. It was the perfect hideaway for people within the city. A camouflaged haven of oak and maple trees, hiding the frozen waters flowing down from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was usually too cold to swim in other than the rapid entrance and even quicker exit after hurling yourself down from Red Bridge. The more inebriated we got the more bearable the waters were. I can still picture the dead salmon along the banks after they swam upstream to lay their eggs. They swam up every year to spawn and after exhuming such an extreme amount of energy, they just didn’t have the nutrients to get back to the sea. I often times would think about that as I would stare at their decaying, animal bitten bodies. What love they’ve shown for their species to continue. I’m not sure I would be willing to die so that others could live, even if I had offspring. We used to go to a place that was overrun with carcasses and we coined the place Dead Man’s Bay. That wasn’t its official name, but to me and my friends it was the only name we knew.  I had a lot of fond memories of the prosperous area. From the freak show at the Renaissance Faire in the park to house boating on the Sacramento River all the way to the State Fair at Cal Expo. My youth was exciting and full of energy.

As college quickly approached like every other adolescent my goal was to get out of Sacramento. So after my senior year at Bella Vista I decided to go to college down at San Diego State University. I enjoyed my time down in San Diego, but such is life, the grass is not always greener on the other side so I decided to move back home.  After achieving my goal of attaining a B.S. in psychology I packed up my belongings and moved back into my parent’s house in Fair Oaks. I briefly thought about going on to grad school in Davis, but after a job offer from Benson Eagle I decided it was best to enter the work force as a commercial real estate agent. It ended up being a wise decision. Two years later a home in Folsom, another suburb of Sacramento, a wife, Tracy, and a golden retriever mix, Beefcake, followed. I met Tracy at Mass at St. John’s one Sunday. She became Mrs. Ron Johnson six months later. I know people always say that it seems like you have known the person forever, but the cliché rang true to our situation. Hence a quick and painless marriage. During our first year of marriage we mulled over the idea of children, then ultimately decided to go the dog route first. Another one of my better decisions as Beefcake, although a little crazy and destructive, became family and slept on my feet every night, until two days ago yesterday. The day I was brutally murdered by a man they call The Visitor.

Chapter 2

April 5, 1989

Everything was black. She could feel what she assumed was blood trickling down her face. She heard footsteps heavily walking around her. She knew it was still light outside yet her world was dark. She tried to call out to her husband, Tim, but for one reason or another she was having difficulty speaking. She could taste the blood in her mouth. Everything was foggy. Was she drugged? Why was her world so dismal? Was she awakening from a deep sleep? Everything around her seemed off. She could feel her heart in her teeth, in her shoulder, in her neck, everywhere the anxiety crept into her like an unseen bacteria entering your mouth after you forget to wash your hands before supper. She had suffered the same horrific fate as my beloved wife, Tracy, and her husband, Tim, had joined me in the netherworld.

Uggh, she uttered as she again tried to speak. Shock had alleviated her pain.

Soon her natural suppressant would wear off and when it did her province would never be the same.

You need to spit out the blood or you will choke to death, the man said. You must do it till I remedy your little problem.

She moved her head around in all directions trying to figure out whose voice she had heard. Again she tried to speak. It was useless. Every effort was followed with a wet cough. Panic was starting to set in.

Spit or you will die, he said. Do you think this is a game?

She spit a large portion of bloody mucus onto the carpet.

Do not swallow the blood, he said as he looked around the room for his backpack.

He made sure not to trample through the bloody puddle forming underneath Tim’s chair. He didn’t want to track blood all through their home.

Hooooooo, she screamed, still unable to formulate any words.

She couldn’t understand what had happened to her. She remembered being attacked and raped by a welcome guest, but the aftermath had been erased. She could see his face in her memory, but now he was hiding in the dark. What was happening to her and where was all this blood coming from? And where was Tim? Last time she had seen him he was being tied to a chair and forced to watch her assault. She had distant thoughts of hearing a loud meat slapping sound of a knife being continuously buried into his body followed by a painful roar. Only now it seemed as if she heard those blood curdling sounds in her dreams. She could feel her hands being untied. She had never even noticed that they were tied behind her in the first place. She reached up and wiped the blood away from her cheek only to realize that her hands were both already covered in a thick liquid.

The man scanned over the room one final time, walked over to the coffee table to grab his book, and then helped her up from the chair.

You seem to not believe me…I don’t think you realize how vital it is that you spit out that blood, he said.

She did as she was told and looked up at him. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t stopped the bleeding in her mouth before she woke up, but chalked it up to being too into the moment. He promised himself he would never make that mistake again. For some reason he needed the women to go on. He needed my wife, Tracy, to go on and now needed Beth to follow that journey as well.

Let’s go get you to bed and then I will take care of your little bleeding problem, he said. It’s going to hurt, but it will save your life.

She tried to reply, but again nothing proper surfaced.

Chapter 3

April 6, 1989

He had to blink. His vision froze as a fly-like buzz spun like a carousel in his ears. He was certain Ryan could feel his eyes beating down on him, yet Tom couldn’t shift his focus. His eyes watered. He wanted to look away but the spell was too strong. His only comfort was straight ahead at the back of Ryan’s shortly cut hair. It had been almost two years since Tom had last seen Ryan Kaplar. And he had hoped this would be the last time. He had no plans of attending his execution. The United States Government only required him at the court hearings. Besides it had already been six years since Ryan’s arrest and all the appeals were still taking place. For all he knew he could be old and gray by the time they decide to strap Ryan to old Sparky.

If only I could have killed him myself.

He thought about that everyday. Instead he was left drugged and had to stagger to his car radio so he could finally let the world know the name attached to The Manikin Man. Tom swiped at his ear as if a fly were really swarming around him. He looked around the musty courtroom. The media was out in full force. A few of the victim’s families were in attendance. They too were growing tired of due process. Since his heinous crimes, Ryan had become sort of a celebrity. He even got himself a high profile piece of shit attorney, Richard Syphers, pro-bono.

I’m sure all the bottom dwellers were lined up to help him.

Tom loved hearing the attorneys press the insanity plea. To Tom an insanity plea for a psychopath was about as redundant as a whore telling you she liked dick. This wasn’t because Tom had no pity for the mentally ill either. Tom, in fact, had very strong feelings towards leniency and proper care when a suspect was in fact suffering from mental disorders such as schizophrenia or other deficiencies. But when it came down to something like sexual sadism, he had no sympathy whatsoever. Their insanity stemmed from something far deeper and more sinister, and no form of medication or fancily educated white coat would be able to curb their appetites.

Tom had really tried to distance himself from the Manikin Man case from a legal standpoint as much as he could. He only did what was required, which usually consisted of him staring at the back of Ryan’s head and testifying from time to time. At night, while alone in his bed, now that was a different story. Those terrors couldn’t be avoided and zoned out–the horror movie played on.

As much as Tom tried to escape Ryan it was impossible to do so entirely. Ryan was all over the place; the news, newspapers, books, magazines. He was a phenomenon. A vicious knight in shining armor and society swallowed it all up. It disgusted Tom to no avail. He wondered how people could let this monster gain such notoriety. How could people be so appalling? He asked himself this question over and over again. If they could see Robin dangling from a hook then they wouldn’t be so curious, he told himself. But even then he wasn’t so sure. Violence sells in America. It’s a fact and a strange one at that.

And Ryan’s violence didn’t end that day at his mother’s retirement home either. Still the media swarmed to him like catfish on a wad of spit. A few years back Tom heard that Nashville beat writer Sal Cavanaugh was granted an exclusive with Ryan and during his questioning Ryan head-butted Sal, while shackled, and then bit off his right ear. A year later, Ryan snapped the neck of a twenty-three year old guard on death row. Tom figured one of these days the penal system would learn that this wasn’t some acid-fried-hippie-freak like Charles Manson behind bars. This was a natural killer; a savage who will kill until he’s pronounced dead, dead, dead.

Again Tom’s eyes focused in on Ryan. His faded orange jump suit blinded Tom’s water-marked eyes. His attention was so detailed and the daze too energetic to break. Tom’s sadness would never cease. He didn’t want it to. He wanted the sorrow. It was the driving force behind his passion, his work and the only way he could alleviate the persistent demons. Before they were just visions and nightmares, faded memories, often times embellished and sugar coated so he could find a moment of rest. The truth was there, but pushed back. The feelings were bad enough as they were. His mind figured a little lighter shade wouldn’t hurt him. It understood that a greater depth would kill him. But seeing Ryan in court brought his haunted past back to reality.

Just go on and kill him you fucking idiots.

Barbara was his everything; his angel. The only thing good his life had to offer. How ironic was the fact that his therapy for grieving his loss of purity was to search out evil. Barbara was again strong in his head.

After the judge ruled out his verdict that Ryan would indeed be executed they led him out of the courtroom with a four officer barricade. He gave Tom one long, baleful look and winked. Tom’s tense facial expression readily showed his fury. He wanted to jump out of his seat and snap Ryan in two.

Isn’t this whole thing about justice?

He stormed out of the courtroom. He never noticed the hoard of reporters outside. His rage wouldn’t allow him to do so. He rushed down the stairs with tears pushing out from his eyes. They were tears of rage, tears of sadness, and tears of remorse.

Special Agent O’Conner, Special Agent O’Conner, John Evans said from behind him. Can I ask you a few questions?

Tom was in no mood to speak to reporters, especially a scum-bag such as John Evans. He had spent the last six years avoiding these vultures like the plaque. Tact was something associated with failure. He picked up his pace and walked through the parking lot towards his car.

Special Agent O’Conner, John yelled. Please, just a few questions.

Tom stopped in his tracks, but never turned around. The tears had come to a halt. His depression had momentarily taken a back seat to his fury. Of all the reporters in Nashville John was the last one he would ever speak to about the Manikin Man. John was a fisherman of sorts; a reporter who sniffed everywhere even when the truth was nowhere to be found. He searched avenues of a love-triangle, infidelity; all sorts of juicy inaccuracies to liven up his story. All of these women died horrific deaths and their flaws were not to be invaded by some parasite trying to make a name for himself. Tom despised such tactics. Barbara was to be revered not drug through the mud by some panty sniffer’s bullshit fantasies.

John caught up to him. He could tell Tom wasn’t in the mood for his type, nevertheless he had a job to do.

How was it to see your wife’s killer again? John asked.

What? Tom said.

I mean you hadn’t see Ryan Kaplar in some time. What was it like?

How the fuck do you think? Tom said and walked off.

Could you elaborate on that? John asked.

Tom looked down at the asphalt. His eyes reddened to the point where noodles would soften on his cornea. He swiftly turned around and grabbed John by the throat, immediately bringing him down to the ground.

Do not fuck with me. Let my family rest in peace you piece of shit, Tom said with a lunacy to him. Do you understand me?

After about ten seconds of hearing strange sounds crumble from John’s throat, Tom finally released his grip and went on to his car. He could hear him mumbling threats from the distance, only to shake it off as smoke filled garbage from another chicken-hawk. Tom needed a case and needed one soon.

Chapter 4

April 7, 1989

Tom sat at his desk reading about the sinking of the Soviet submarine K-278 in the newspaper.

What a horrible way to die.

Their predicament was dire. There was no hope, no real solution, just sitting at the bottom of the Barents Sea waiting to die. All forty-one sailors are presumed dead was the last sentence he read when SAC Daniels walked up.

Crazy, huh? Daniels asked.

What’s crazy? Tom questioned.

Those forty-one sailors drowning, Daniels said.

Fucked up way to go, but I guess at the end of the day, dying is dying, he said.

I’m sure some are better than others, Daniels said.

"If that makes you feel better about it then keep telling yourself that, but I doubt it really matters if you’re trapped under the sea or beaten to death