The Influencer

When Kylie was awake, the time seemed to drag on forever, especially since she couldn’t do anything but watch the TV mounted on the wall or flip through magazines. But the TV couldn’t entertain her nearly as much as thoughts of Liz could. Liz had come to see her! She was both surprised and touched that Liz would care enough to visit her, and especially with her offer to take her in. Her thoughts turned from happiness to sorrow as the realization came over her that she’d never be able to walk again, but that emotion was quickly replaced with anger as she thought of the drunken judge who had caused the pain and misery she was now experiencing. She could literally feel the rage-fueled adrenaline course through her veins. Kylie closed her eyes tightly and concentrated with all her might on the judge, even though she didn’t have a clue as to what he even looked like. She pictured him lying somewhere down the hall with just a few minor bumps and bangs. You may be immune to the law and even to God, she breathed silently, but you’ll never be immune to me. Liz returned to the hospital the next day, before she was scheduled to be at work. Kylie was propped up in bed with a book a nurse gave her. She smiled at the sight of Liz when she entered the room. “Hi,” Liz said brightly. “Hi,” said Kylie. “They moved me a little this morning.” “I know. I heard. I ran into your doctor on the way here.” “I still have the same amount of feeling I always had, but the sucky thing is that I still haven’t regained any mobility. They say I’ll always be able to move my legs from the hips, knees, and ankles, but my legs as a whole won’t be strong enough to walk on without aid because it turns out that I have some nerve damage as well. From what they tell me, the nerve damage is turning out to be a bigger deal than the cracked vertebrae.” “Yeah, but you’ll still be able to get around with crutches, and before you know it, you’ll be cruising around like a real expert.” “I suppose,” Kylie said, trying not to seem depressed. “They exercised my legs a bit, and then later on today they’re going to remove the IV and have me try out the crutches.” “That should make you feel a little better,” said Liz. “I hope so. So how are you doing?” Liz pulled something from her pocketbook. “Fine. I brought you your mail, although it looks like all you’ve got is an electric bill and a few junk flyers.” “Thanks.” Kylie took the mail from Liz and gave it a quick once-over. “We watered your plants and heard your neighbors, too.” They laughed. “How do you stand it?” Liz asked. “I barely can, but I don’t have much of a choice.” “Hopefully, you will soon. Want me to put your mail on the table for you?” “Sure, thanks.” Liz took the mail and put it on the table. “If they don’t discharge you by the time the bill’s due, I’ll help make sure you get it paid.” “Thanks, Melanie.” Liz turned back to face Kylie with a frown. “Melanie?” “Oh, sorry. I mean Liz. You sort of look like my old dentist, is all.” “Oh, okay,” Liz said with a quick laugh as she placed her hands on the bed’s guardrail. Kylie glanced at her hands and saw that the diamond ring was gone. She looked back up into Liz’s face and found her staring down at her with fondness. “How old are you, Liz?” she asked, feeling herself begin to blush under her gaze. “Twenty-seven.” “I’m twenty-four.” “I know.” “What’s your middle name?” “Rene.” “Do you know mine?” “Actually, no, I don’t.” “It’s Rose.” “Kylie Rose? Oh, that’s right. They said it on the news. How pretty.” Kylie wrinkled her nose to show she didn’t agree. “What’s your last name?” “Sobek.” “Elizabeth Sobek,” Kylie said, trying out the name verbally. “Elizabeth is kind of long. I think I like Liz Sobek. Anything on good old Judge Mackey?” Liz’s smile dropped. She hadn’t been expecting that one. She cleared her throat. “The doctor told me about it, and I’ve also seen news reports,” Kylie said. “Uh, no, I haven’t heard anything. As far as I know, he’s already been sent home.” Liz eyed her with the intense emotion evident on her face. She realized that Kylie was more with it than she’d thought. “I’m sorry, babe. I know it really, really sucks that he’s going to get away with it.” Kylie’s expression never changed as she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Oh, he won’t get away with it. Of that, I can assure you.” Liz watched Kylie with a bemused expression. Did she know something she didn’t? “What do you mean by that?” “I’m going to kill him,” Kylie told her, still using that same matter-of-fact tone. “Oh, come on, honey, you can’t mean that. I know you hate him, and I don’t blame you. I’d want to kill him, too. Really, I would. But if you go out there and shoot him or something, you’ll only end up in jail. The piece of scum isn’t worth it. We’ll think of some other alternative to shooting him.” “Who said anything about shooting him?” Liz continued to study Kylie. She wasn’t sure what to think. “But you just said you’re going to kill him. If you’re not going to shoot him, then how else do you plan to kill him?” “I don’t.” “What are you saying? That you’ll get someone else to do it for you?” “No, not at all. I don’t send others out to do my bidding for me.” Maybe Kylie wasn’t as sharp and perceptive after all. “Kylie, I’m way confused.” “I guess I’m just going to wish upon a little star, is all.” Liz laughed, and the tension that had spread through her suddenly eased. “Oh, okay. Okay, you do that, girl!” Kylie laughed too, though she knew perfectly well that Liz didn’t understand. “My God, Kylie! You really had me going for a minute there. I thought you were going to go out and shoot the asshole, not that he wouldn’t deserve it. Do you even have a gun?” “Every sane-minded, responsible individual should be armed, though I never was exactly all that sane, despite being highly responsible. So no, I don’t have a gun. Do you?” “We live on a farm, so yes, we have guns.” “So where do you have farms around here?” “Just outside of town. I guess you’re not familiar with those areas.” “No, I’m not. Tell me about it. A farm sounds like fun.” “Well, it’s more work than fun, especially since we do most of the work ourselves. The best part is being able to escape the city chaos and have the privacy that comes from not having people living so close to us.” “You usually don’t get much more than a driveway’s width of space between most houses in the city,” Kylie acknowledged. Liz went on. “It’s a sixty-acre farm. We mostly grow hay, but we do have a few dairy cows and other cattle to keep us going in the winter when we can’t grow hay. Dad’s considering breeding racehorses, too.” “Wow, sounds neat. So you live with your parents?” Liz nodded. “We have our own separate living quarters.” “No siblings?” “Nope. It’s just me. I was adopted.” “That explains why there’s no resemblance between you and your mom.” “Yeah, that’s it. Don’t look like my dad either, but they’re great people.” Kylie smiled almost dreamily. “What about you, hun? Tell me about your family.” Kylie’s expression darkened, and she turned from Liz to gaze out the window. Liz thought better of her question, placed a reassuring hand on Kylie’s shoulder, and said, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it now.” Kylie turned back to Liz. “I don’t mind. It’s just that there’s nothing really to tell. My mother was killed in a tragic bus accident a few years ago.” “My God, how awful! What about your dad, babe?” “I never knew my father.” “That’s so sad. How about friends?” Kylie hesitated a moment, then said, “I haven’t really been all that sociable these last few years. I’ve sort of been locked in a shell.” “I can understand that,” Liz said softly. “Most of the friends I had down there have moved on to other places, but Vanita’s still around and we keep in touch. I’ll call her when I get out of here.” “Would you like to use my cell phone to call her from here?” “No thanks. She’s not expecting to hear from me anytime soon anyway, since we just emailed each other right before the accident. I shouldn’t be here much longer, so I can call her when I get out and let her know what’s going on.” Liz suddenly realized the time. “Oh, hey, babe, I hate to cut this short and run, but I’ve got to be at work soon or Lloyd will have my ass. Remember Lloyd, the manager?” Kylie nodded. “I do. Thanks so much for stopping by, Liz. It isn’t every day that one gives a damn about a virtual stranger.” Liz nodded impishly. “Well, hopefully soon enough we won’t be virtual strangers.” “Hmmm… suggesting something, Miss Sobek?” Smiling, Liz replied, “You’ll just have to wait and see.” She leaned over the guardrail and kissed Kylie on the lips. It was a quick kiss, though Kylie happily clung to it until sleep claimed her soon afterward. Cassie was going through some papers at the kitchen table when Seth entered the room. “Hey, babe,” she said, glancing up at him. “I saw you napping so peacefully when I got in that I didn’t want to wake you. How’d it go with the boss when you showed him the tape of our little gay-bashing priest?” “Fine. Father Hate is ready for his big debut,” Seth told her, stretching his long arms overhead. “Good.” He studied the papers splayed out on the table. “What’s all this?” “You remember that girl who was hit by the drunken judge?” Seth nodded. “Well, I can’t find any real information on the victim.” “You can’t?” Cassie shook her head. “The ID she has is real enough, but other than that, I can’t find any background information on the girl. There’s no next of kin I can locate, no work history, no nothing. It’s as if Kylie Rose Kaminski simply doesn’t exist.” Kylie heard her father pull up to the house with a screech. She saw him exit his truck and then come staggering toward the door. She dove for cover behind the old, ratty couch. Her father slammed the door behind him as he entered the old tract house. “Callie! Callie, where the hell are you? Get your ass over here now!” Kylie dared a peek over the top of the couch as she saw her mother, bleary-eyed, stumble into the living room. She leaned against the wall. Her tattered robe went well with the peeling paint behind her. “What is it, Todd?” “I thought you were going to get out and find work today. Yet I just ran into Arlie at the drugstore, and she and that scruffy little friend she hangs out with said you were home all day.” “I was,” her mother said wearily. “I had the hangover from hell and—” Her father cut her off. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about hangovers from hell! I get hangovers all the time, yet that doesn’t stop me from doing what’s got to be done.” “Doing what’s got to be done?” her mother said, raising her voice. “What you do is illegal, Todd. Do you want to get caught and lose the kids?” “That may not be such a bad idea. After all, if it weren’t for them rugrats, we wouldn’t be so goddamn in debt. And maybe if they didn’t exist, we’d have more time together. Hell, we haven’t had a life since them damn things were born!” “Will you please stop shouting?” her mother asked, covering her ears. “It’s killing my head.” Ignoring her, her father went on. “Know what I ought to do? I ought to kill you, then sell those damn mistakes we made. That’s what I ought to do.” Her mother went from frustrated to furious. “Todd, get the fuck out of here! I don’t need this shit from you now, and the kids certainly don’t need to hear it either.” Her father lunged for her, but her mother shoved him back with enough force to knock him off his feet. He scrambled up to his feet, snarling, “Why you—no woman treats me like this! No woman lays a hand on me!” “Well, obviously one just did, and she’ll do it again if you don’t get out of here now!” But her father wasn’t giving up so easily. Being the macho man he was, he had to prove no woman could beat him. Or at least try to. “Get out now!” her mother screamed as she caught his flailing wrists mid-air. “Like most guys, you’re just a pussy played up to be big, bad, and tough! Yet I could cremate you and you know it. So if you don’t want that to happen, bow out now while you still can and fuck off!” He continued his slew of threats and swears as her mother dragged him by the back of his shirt to the door, opened it with her free hand, and shoved him onto the beat-up walkway before slamming it shut and throwing the deadbolt. It didn’t matter that her father was nearly a foot taller and 50 pounds heavier. It wasn’t until several minutes after the sound of his truck faded into the distance that her mother finally spoke. “You can come out now,” she told Kylie. “Okay, Miss Kaminski, let’s see if we can get you up and onto crutches,” boomed a cheerful voice, pulling her from one of many memories of her unhappy childhood. Kylie turned to face the nurse who had entered the room. “Ready?” the nurse asked. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Kylie replied. She tried to look forward to the hours ahead as they helped her hobble from the bed to the bathroom on crutches. She was dizzy and tired easily, so she didn’t last long. After she was bathed and changed into a fresh hospital johnny, she was back in bed once again. And once again, she thought of Judge Jordan Mackey at home, getting on with his life, never bothering to come and apologize to her, forgetting that she had ever existed. “Would you like some more potatoes, dear?” Marley Mackey asked her husband of twenty-nine years later that evening. “No, thanks. I’m fine,” Jordan replied. They were seated in the dining room of their home in one of Klamath Falls’ fancier sections. If it weren’t for all the barking dogs and loud car stereos constantly whizzing up and down the street, life would be perfect, Marley often thought. She wished there were as many laws to protect citizens from this type of everyday irritation as there were laws protecting criminals. For a country without much freedom, choice, or rights, one sure had all the freedom in the world to badger others with yipping dogs and blaring stereos. Oh well—at least the house was paid for, they were fairly wealthy, and they didn’t have to live in an apartment with doors slamming, footsteps stomping, and music and TVs blasting. Jordan helped himself to more roast beef as Marley watched him. She knew her husband was a man without compassion or empathy. The girl he’d recently hit and paralyzed proved that yet again. Jordan was void of feeling for others, as were many within the courts, but Marley was his one exception. He sympathized when she had a cold, yet when his own mother died of a massive stroke, he showed no sorrow at all. Marley was glad they’d never had children. She knew exactly what kind of father Jordan would have been. She was amazed at what a good husband he’d made despite their differences. Jordan viewed people as clay to be molded, thriving on control. He would regulate everything if he could—where people lived, what they ate, what they said. Marley agreed it wasn’t nice to hurl racial slurs or insults, but she also believed one shouldn’t need therapy simply for calling someone a slur. Free speech mattered. Marley was never black-and-white. She held mixed opinions and shared them freely with the troubled clients she counseled. One client, ordered to see her after a rape conviction, claimed the victim deserved it due to her clothing. Marley didn’t believe that for one second, yet appearance did seem to play a role. In the end, it didn’t matter—the victim stalked him and stabbed him to death after two sessions. As far as Marley was concerned, justice had prevailed. She had just swallowed a bite of broccoli when Jordan made what sounded like a cough. Then the sound grew strangled. “Jordan, what’s wrong?” His face turned red as he clawed at his throat. Not yet alarmed, Marley stood and slapped his back. “Come on, cough it up.” Jordan shook his head violently, knocking over his chair. His face turned gray. He collapsed onto the table, sending dishes crashing onto the carpet, then staggered into the china cabinet, rattling its contents before falling to the floor, silent. Marley ran for the phone. But as she finished giving their address, her husband hit the floor with a final thud, eyes half-open, skin ashen. It then hit Marley that her husband would never get drunk again.