to eat, the hospital staff didn't give her the standard slop.
He never asked her for details of that night because, in truth, she really could not provide any. Over the next few months they talked for countless hours. He told her stories, mostly about his failures as a father. He had used his connections to get into her hospital room that first night. He had paid off security--interestingly enough, the security firm at the hospital was actually controlled by organized crime--and then he had simply sat with her.
Eventually other parents followed his lead. It was weird. They wanted to be around her. That was all. They found comfort in it. Their child had died in Grace's presence and it was as if maybe a small part of their souls, their forever-lost son or daughter, somehow still lived inside of her. It made no sense and yet Grace thought that maybe she understood.
These heartbroken parents came to talk about their dead children, and Grace listened. She figured that she owed them at least that much. She knew that these relationships were probably unhealthy, but there was no way she could turn them away. The truth was, Grace had no family of her own. She'd thrived, for a little while at least, on the attention. They needed a child; she needed a parent. It wasn't that simple--this malaise of cross-projection--but Grace wasn't sure she could explain it any better.
The limo headed south on the Garden State Parkway now. Cram flipped on the radio. Classical music, a violin concerto from the sound of it, came through the speakers.
Vespa said, "You know, of course, that the anniversary is coming up."
"I do," she said, though she had done her best to ignore it all. Fifteen years. Fifteen years since that awful night at the Boston Garden. The papers had run all the expected "Where Are They Now?" commemorative pieces. The parents and survivors all handled it differently. Most participated because they felt it was one way to keep the memory of what happened alive. There had been heart-wrenching articles on the Garrisons and the Reeds and the Weiders. The security guard, Gordon MacKenzie, who was credited with saving many by forcing open locked emergency exits, now worked as a police captain in Brookline, a Boston suburb. Even Carl Vespa had allowed a picture of him and his wife, Sharon, sitting in their yard, both still looking as if someone had just hollowed out their insides.
Grace had gone the other way. With her art career in full swing, she did not want even the appearance of capitalizing on the tragedy. She had been injured, that was all, and to make more of it than that reminded her of those washed-up actors who come out of the woodwork to shed crocodile tears when a hated costar suddenly died. She wanted no part of it. The attention should be given to the dead and those they left behind.
"He's up for parole again," Vespa said. "Wade Larue, I mean."
She knew, of course.
The stampede that night had been blamed on Wade Larue, currently a resident of Walden Prison outside Albany, New York. He was the one who fired the shots creating the panic. The defense's claim was interesting. They argued that Wade Larue didn't do it--forget the gun residue found on his hands, the gun belonging to him, the bullet match to the gun, the witnesses who saw him fire--but if he did do it, he was too stoned to remember. Oh, and if neither of those rationales floated your boat, Wade Larue couldn't have known that firing a gun would cause the death of eighteen people and the injury of dozens more.
The case proved to be controversial. The prosecutors went for eighteen counts of murder, but the jury didn't see it that way. Larue's lawyer ended up cutting a deal for eighteen counts of manslaughter. Nobody really worried too much about sentencing. Carl Vespa's only son had died that night. Remember what happened when Gotti's son was killed in a car accident? The man driving the car, a family man, has never been heard from again. A similar fate, most
He never asked her for details of that night because, in truth, she really could not provide any. Over the next few months they talked for countless hours. He told her stories, mostly about his failures as a father. He had used his connections to get into her hospital room that first night. He had paid off security--interestingly enough, the security firm at the hospital was actually controlled by organized crime--and then he had simply sat with her.
Eventually other parents followed his lead. It was weird. They wanted to be around her. That was all. They found comfort in it. Their child had died in Grace's presence and it was as if maybe a small part of their souls, their forever-lost son or daughter, somehow still lived inside of her. It made no sense and yet Grace thought that maybe she understood.
These heartbroken parents came to talk about their dead children, and Grace listened. She figured that she owed them at least that much. She knew that these relationships were probably unhealthy, but there was no way she could turn them away. The truth was, Grace had no family of her own. She'd thrived, for a little while at least, on the attention. They needed a child; she needed a parent. It wasn't that simple--this malaise of cross-projection--but Grace wasn't sure she could explain it any better.
The limo headed south on the Garden State Parkway now. Cram flipped on the radio. Classical music, a violin concerto from the sound of it, came through the speakers.
Vespa said, "You know, of course, that the anniversary is coming up."
"I do," she said, though she had done her best to ignore it all. Fifteen years. Fifteen years since that awful night at the Boston Garden. The papers had run all the expected "Where Are They Now?" commemorative pieces. The parents and survivors all handled it differently. Most participated because they felt it was one way to keep the memory of what happened alive. There had been heart-wrenching articles on the Garrisons and the Reeds and the Weiders. The security guard, Gordon MacKenzie, who was credited with saving many by forcing open locked emergency exits, now worked as a police captain in Brookline, a Boston suburb. Even Carl Vespa had allowed a picture of him and his wife, Sharon, sitting in their yard, both still looking as if someone had just hollowed out their insides.
Grace had gone the other way. With her art career in full swing, she did not want even the appearance of capitalizing on the tragedy. She had been injured, that was all, and to make more of it than that reminded her of those washed-up actors who come out of the woodwork to shed crocodile tears when a hated costar suddenly died. She wanted no part of it. The attention should be given to the dead and those they left behind.
"He's up for parole again," Vespa said. "Wade Larue, I mean."
She knew, of course.
The stampede that night had been blamed on Wade Larue, currently a resident of Walden Prison outside Albany, New York. He was the one who fired the shots creating the panic. The defense's claim was interesting. They argued that Wade Larue didn't do it--forget the gun residue found on his hands, the gun belonging to him, the bullet match to the gun, the witnesses who saw him fire--but if he did do it, he was too stoned to remember. Oh, and if neither of those rationales floated your boat, Wade Larue couldn't have known that firing a gun would cause the death of eighteen people and the injury of dozens more.
The case proved to be controversial. The prosecutors went for eighteen counts of murder, but the jury didn't see it that way. Larue's lawyer ended up cutting a deal for eighteen counts of manslaughter. Nobody really worried too much about sentencing. Carl Vespa's only son had died that night. Remember what happened when Gotti's son was killed in a car accident? The man driving the car, a family man, has never been heard from again. A similar fate, most
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