A Stranger to Sorrow
A Stranger to Sorrow
You were a stranger to sorrow: therefore
Fate
has cursed you. - Euripides
Prologue
Jensen Ackles reached for perfection, the day before his sixteenth birthday.
Against the Texas Rangers ballpark the sky was a break heart blue, showing off the freshly minted nostalgia in each of its clear hard lines. Jensen stood tall on the mound, pitchers mitt and ball ready. His feet raised a small cloud of dust with each movement, testament to the summer’s grip, but his heart soared above everything, touching Matt and Lucas in the stands, swooping over Lottie and Karin and his father, finding his mother standing to one side of the dugout and her family. She was conspicuous in her beauty, as she always needed to be.
Perfect. Almost perfect. Niels wasn’t here; Niels couldn’t make it, tied as he was to his duties as platoon leader at Fort Bliss. His brother Niels was his lodestar, the brightest and best in Jensen’s personal firmament, and his absence was only consoled by the fact that he had volunteered to serve his country and was even now demonstrating the noblest way to live a life. But Jensen would remember everything - the scent of sweet grease, and dust, and grass, the way the stands towered above him but somehow raised him up, too, the somewhere murmur of the crowd, so that he could send it all to Niels and bring his brother with him to this moment. His father, with that quizzical, careful affection as he looked at his son; the announcer, telling the fans that the throw out today would be by Jensen Ackles, state high school champion, with an ERA of 1.97 ; the sound of that voice echoing across the field and rebounding, so that Jensen felt as if the world was a bell ringing out his glory.
In front of him, Kevin Day, first up pitcher of the Rangers, shaking his hand and then coming to stand behind him. It was all dreamlike, and yet the most real thing Jensen had ever experienced.
“It’s just the same as junior league, Jensen,” Kevin was saying, his voice in Jensen’s ear. “Same pitch, same ball, same mitt to aim at.”
Jensen grinned, twisting a little to face him. “No, it’s not.”
Kevin laughed. “Well, ‘long as your arm thinks it is, that’s all that matters. Forget about the crowd, just send ‘er in there. Get her done.”
Jensen turned back, facing the catcher. Dave Challender had given him a pat and a wink before, told him to go easy on a poor aging catcher; now he squatted down, mitt in readiness, sending confidence out to him where his body fizzed and settled on the mound.
A heavy hand came down onto his shoulder. It felt like stone, and Jensen was briefly dismayed by the thought that pro-baseballers were so much more substantial than he, in his adolescent wiriness. It felt like the weight of the earth was on him. The voice was back in his ear.
“Tell me, Jensen Ackles,” the voice said. “Would you rather have good fortune in your youth or your old age?”
It was a bizarre, bewildering question, and Jensen twisted to look back at Kevin again; but the sun flared around the Ranger’s cap, and it seemed as though he were looking at a tall, hooded shadow, with no features to be seen in the penumbra.
Off-putting, certainly, both question and brief shadow; but then Jensen grinned again. He had good fortune already, and it was as sure and solid as the mound beneath his feet. Good friends in the stands, a family full of love by the dugout, and a lifelong dream unfolding about him. It occurred to him that this was part of the initiation into baseball’s paradise, a hazing of the apprentice.
“Old age,” he said. “I’mma win the Series all by myself first.”
Hooded Kevin nodded, and the hand left Jensen’s shoulder. A little shiver ran down his arm.
“Put it right over the plate, kid,” Kevin said, and was his voice different now? Jensen couldn’t tell. Kevin stepped away, and Jensen was on his own, the announcer winding up the crowd with his trademark cheer, and the crowd responded with the good-natured applause reserved for children and amateurs.
Jensen squinted up into the stands, saw Matt and Lucas stamping and hollering. Then he left them, put them out of his mind, because to the side and directly down from them the plate was gleaming, and it looked six yards wide. Jensen spun the ball, lifted it to his chin, mitt brushing his face. His body coiled, shifting his weight up and back, eyes on nothing but Dave Challender’s mitt, hanging there above the plate like a harvest moon come to play.
He pivoted forward, his arm a slingshot, his whole body existing for nothing else but to send that small white ball in a spinning fast curve straight into Dave’s hand.
The sound of the ball hitting the glove ricocheted into the stands. A collective gasp; and then the crowd roared. They were seeing their future, and they approved. Col Parry, the Ranger’s coach, was on his feet; Dave Challender was standing up, ostentatiously shaking out his hand then pointing at Jensen. Somebody was running onto the diamond, and Jensen realized it was Kevin, his hand stuck out, shaking Jensen’s in front of thirty thousand people. Perfection sizzled, and then slid away. The thought of Niels in Fort Bliss took it.
Dazed, his smile hurting his face, Jensen found his way to the side of the field. There were cameras, and a family snap with Kevin, and Col Parry was talking to him, reined excitement in his voice, in the way he pumped first Jensen’s hand then his father’s. Col didn’t reach for Ulrike - she was not a woman who submitted herself to common hugs. But he gave her a half-bow, anyway, and she seemed amused.
Lotte and Karin were swung into the air, and for the first time since that strange moment on the mound Jensen could understand what people were saying.
“Keep pitching them like that, son, and we’ll be seeing you in the colors before you graduate, y’hear me? Not seen a fast curve on a youngster like that since Goose Gossage. Beautiful, son. Just beautiful. You got a champ there, Mister Ackles.”
“Well, we’ll see,” Conrad Ackles said, and it was slow and warm, but the dizzy heights settled back into perspective for Jensen. Because his father was looking at him with pleasure and pride, but there was also a message there in that quirked smile. ‘Don’t go getting too big for your britches, now’. Jensen nodded, message understood, because these two had read each other all their lives, and Conrad’s smile widened as much as his son had ever seen it.
Matt and Lucas came bounding down the stairs, Matt’s glasses slipping off his nose, Lucas’ red hair blazing in the brightness that seemed to be everywhere. They leaned over the railing, like fans reaching for a fly-ball, and Jensen slapped their palms.
“Jensen! Jeeeeeensen!”
Jensen laughed, hugged Lotte first, then consented to piggy-back Karin down into the shade beneath the stand where the family could join his friends. They would watch the game, guests of the Texas Rangers baseball team, then crowd into the stretch limousine Conrad hired for the day and head on in to Dallas for a meal in Deep Ellum. It would be the pinnacle, the day from which Jensen Ackles could stand and see his glorious future stretching out around him. It would be the beginning of the life appointed to him, second son of the wealthiest man and most beautiful woman in Titchville, baseball champion, A grade student, youth leader and charity worker and beloved big brother.
The next day, Niels Ackles took his perfectly cleaned and assembled M4 carbine and shot all ten of the Titchville men who had volunteered with him a year before. His journal would show he was convinced they were secret agents of terror. He only needed one bullet for each of the friends he killed. It took fifteen bullets to bring him down.
You were a stranger to sorrow: therefore
Fate
has cursed you. - Euripides
Prologue
Jensen Ackles reached for perfection, the day before his sixteenth birthday.
Against the Texas Rangers ballpark the sky was a break heart blue, showing off the freshly minted nostalgia in each of its clear hard lines. Jensen stood tall on the mound, pitchers mitt and ball ready. His feet raised a small cloud of dust with each movement, testament to the summer’s grip, but his heart soared above everything, touching Matt and Lucas in the stands, swooping over Lottie and Karin and his father, finding his mother standing to one side of the dugout and her family. She was conspicuous in her beauty, as she always needed to be.
Perfect. Almost perfect. Niels wasn’t here; Niels couldn’t make it, tied as he was to his duties as platoon leader at Fort Bliss. His brother Niels was his lodestar, the brightest and best in Jensen’s personal firmament, and his absence was only consoled by the fact that he had volunteered to serve his country and was even now demonstrating the noblest way to live a life. But Jensen would remember everything - the scent of sweet grease, and dust, and grass, the way the stands towered above him but somehow raised him up, too, the somewhere murmur of the crowd, so that he could send it all to Niels and bring his brother with him to this moment. His father, with that quizzical, careful affection as he looked at his son; the announcer, telling the fans that the throw out today would be by Jensen Ackles, state high school champion, with an ERA of 1.97 ; the sound of that voice echoing across the field and rebounding, so that Jensen felt as if the world was a bell ringing out his glory.
In front of him, Kevin Day, first up pitcher of the Rangers, shaking his hand and then coming to stand behind him. It was all dreamlike, and yet the most real thing Jensen had ever experienced.
“It’s just the same as junior league, Jensen,” Kevin was saying, his voice in Jensen’s ear. “Same pitch, same ball, same mitt to aim at.”
Jensen grinned, twisting a little to face him. “No, it’s not.”
Kevin laughed. “Well, ‘long as your arm thinks it is, that’s all that matters. Forget about the crowd, just send ‘er in there. Get her done.”
Jensen turned back, facing the catcher. Dave Challender had given him a pat and a wink before, told him to go easy on a poor aging catcher; now he squatted down, mitt in readiness, sending confidence out to him where his body fizzed and settled on the mound.
A heavy hand came down onto his shoulder. It felt like stone, and Jensen was briefly dismayed by the thought that pro-baseballers were so much more substantial than he, in his adolescent wiriness. It felt like the weight of the earth was on him. The voice was back in his ear.
“Tell me, Jensen Ackles,” the voice said. “Would you rather have good fortune in your youth or your old age?”
It was a bizarre, bewildering question, and Jensen twisted to look back at Kevin again; but the sun flared around the Ranger’s cap, and it seemed as though he were looking at a tall, hooded shadow, with no features to be seen in the penumbra.
Off-putting, certainly, both question and brief shadow; but then Jensen grinned again. He had good fortune already, and it was as sure and solid as the mound beneath his feet. Good friends in the stands, a family full of love by the dugout, and a lifelong dream unfolding about him. It occurred to him that this was part of the initiation into baseball’s paradise, a hazing of the apprentice.
“Old age,” he said. “I’mma win the Series all by myself first.”
Hooded Kevin nodded, and the hand left Jensen’s shoulder. A little shiver ran down his arm.
“Put it right over the plate, kid,” Kevin said, and was his voice different now? Jensen couldn’t tell. Kevin stepped away, and Jensen was on his own, the announcer winding up the crowd with his trademark cheer, and the crowd responded with the good-natured applause reserved for children and amateurs.
Jensen squinted up into the stands, saw Matt and Lucas stamping and hollering. Then he left them, put them out of his mind, because to the side and directly down from them the plate was gleaming, and it looked six yards wide. Jensen spun the ball, lifted it to his chin, mitt brushing his face. His body coiled, shifting his weight up and back, eyes on nothing but Dave Challender’s mitt, hanging there above the plate like a harvest moon come to play.
He pivoted forward, his arm a slingshot, his whole body existing for nothing else but to send that small white ball in a spinning fast curve straight into Dave’s hand.
The sound of the ball hitting the glove ricocheted into the stands. A collective gasp; and then the crowd roared. They were seeing their future, and they approved. Col Parry, the Ranger’s coach, was on his feet; Dave Challender was standing up, ostentatiously shaking out his hand then pointing at Jensen. Somebody was running onto the diamond, and Jensen realized it was Kevin, his hand stuck out, shaking Jensen’s in front of thirty thousand people. Perfection sizzled, and then slid away. The thought of Niels in Fort Bliss took it.
Dazed, his smile hurting his face, Jensen found his way to the side of the field. There were cameras, and a family snap with Kevin, and Col Parry was talking to him, reined excitement in his voice, in the way he pumped first Jensen’s hand then his father’s. Col didn’t reach for Ulrike - she was not a woman who submitted herself to common hugs. But he gave her a half-bow, anyway, and she seemed amused.
Lotte and Karin were swung into the air, and for the first time since that strange moment on the mound Jensen could understand what people were saying.
“Keep pitching them like that, son, and we’ll be seeing you in the colors before you graduate, y’hear me? Not seen a fast curve on a youngster like that since Goose Gossage. Beautiful, son. Just beautiful. You got a champ there, Mister Ackles.”
“Well, we’ll see,” Conrad Ackles said, and it was slow and warm, but the dizzy heights settled back into perspective for Jensen. Because his father was looking at him with pleasure and pride, but there was also a message there in that quirked smile. ‘Don’t go getting too big for your britches, now’. Jensen nodded, message understood, because these two had read each other all their lives, and Conrad’s smile widened as much as his son had ever seen it.
Matt and Lucas came bounding down the stairs, Matt’s glasses slipping off his nose, Lucas’ red hair blazing in the brightness that seemed to be everywhere. They leaned over the railing, like fans reaching for a fly-ball, and Jensen slapped their palms.
“Jensen! Jeeeeeensen!”
Jensen laughed, hugged Lotte first, then consented to piggy-back Karin down into the shade beneath the stand where the family could join his friends. They would watch the game, guests of the Texas Rangers baseball team, then crowd into the stretch limousine Conrad hired for the day and head on in to Dallas for a meal in Deep Ellum. It would be the pinnacle, the day from which Jensen Ackles could stand and see his glorious future stretching out around him. It would be the beginning of the life appointed to him, second son of the wealthiest man and most beautiful woman in Titchville, baseball champion, A grade student, youth leader and charity worker and beloved big brother.
The next day, Niels Ackles took his perfectly cleaned and assembled M4 carbine and shot all ten of the Titchville men who had volunteered with him a year before. His journal would show he was convinced they were secret agents of terror. He only needed one bullet for each of the friends he killed. It took fifteen bullets to bring him down.