There had to be more points on that starmap. Points whose lights hadn’t yet reached me.
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I popped a martini onion into my mouth, savoring the refreshing bitterness of the gin.
A voice intruded.
“Another?”
Lorna’s beringed hand swept my glass away. Her frank green gaze met mine without judgment. She’s very pretty, I thought, not for the first time. Maybe ten years older than me, her elaborately tattooed flesh seemed more a part of her tank top and jeans uniform than immodest display. A high ponytail and cat-eye glasses lent a librarian feel to her tough-girl appearance. I figured she made at least three times her actual salary in tips.
“Why not?”
“Why not, indeed,” she rejoined with a smile. Relief flooded me at the sound of ice in the martini shaker.
I wasn’t a cop, after all. Or a doctor. Or a bus driver. I was just a washed-up reporter turned pathetic small-town editor. And if there was one thing borne out by Hemingway and Thompson and Kerouac, it was that a correspondent’s work could only be improved with alcohol.
Write drunk, edit sober. – The Great Man
Not Churchill―although he certainly had his points, too.
Of course, I hadn’t put an honest pen to paper in … how long? It was disingenuous of me to pretend, even to myself, that I didn’t know exactly when, but why start being honest now? Maybe that was the real reason Ada left. Not that I ever lied to her. I have strict rules about that sort of thing. No, I simply stuffed all the truths I could find into drawers and cupboards and fought to keep them closed. While Ada was forever dragging them out into the sunlight, painting them in outrageous colors, and giving them names. Maybe she grew tired of trying to coax this sad little packrat into the light.
“Happiness in a glass.” Lorna deposited my second gin martini with a flourish. “Or at least comfort.”
“I’ll take it.” I summoned up a smile. “Thank you.”
Or maybe Ada’s reason for leaving had been exactly what she’d said it was. Maybe there was a string drawn between all of these events, all of these strangers, that could be tugged.
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God knew Ada wasn’t the only one playing connect-the-dots. The big media heads were forever forcing connections between events that could only be linked by the most ephemeral of facts or suppositions. Still, when juxtaposed to the public, cause and effect assumptions were inevitable.
Cause versus correlation―I vividly remembered that fallacy from logic class in university. At the time, it had been touted as inviolable, the lowest, most pathetic sort of pandering to the uninformed. That was theory. In practice, its application drove ratings, sold papers, bought memberships. Correlation could imply cause, of course. It was possible. But true or not doesn’t matter. All that mattered was feeding the hunger, the thirst for justification. For affirmation of whatever conspiracy theory, paranoid delusion, or comforting platitudes motivated the reader to seek out a voice that sounded exactly like his own.
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What is related? What isn’t? Quantum physics would argue that everything impacted everything else. But perhaps the influence runs in the opposite direction of what we perceive. Or maybe there is no influence at all, just random events, random people, random violence, random acts of kindness.
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I stared at my empty glass, painfully aware that I was going to have to attempt the fake-sober walk all the way back to the office. Damn it. How the hell could I have drunk them so fast? I wanted another, but I wasn’t going to have one. Not until I was done at the office, at least.
Deliberately I focused my eyes, spoke clearly. “Can I close out my tab, Lorna? Duty calls.”
“Of course.”
Like probably every other guy―and girl―in the place, I added a generous tip to my receipt, signed it, and walked out, trying to look as if I’d just left the office supply store. I doubted it mattered to anyone else in this town, but I needed to pretend that I had to act as if I was sober.
Fifteen down: five letters, frightening
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Locking up the newspaper office at the end of the night, I was swamped by a sense of futility. It wasn’t a new feeling, of course. It was the ragged, familiar overcoat I wore to and from the office every day.
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Foolishly I’d thought Ada immune to the sort of despair that I drank in like coffee. Her buoyancy, her resilience, had seemed irrepressible. While she nagged at me for not having put a single word of my own on paper for months, she filled her whole world with canvasses and color. I hadn’t realized that, in spite of that, she still felt trapped, stifled, silenced. But she must have, right? That had to be the answer. The explanation she’d given for leaving just wasn’t enough.
Too many times she’d come face-to-face with the suffering of others and been impotent to affect it. And somehow leaving me, leaving Brisby, would allow her to make a difference? Something about being tied to me, even only barely, had left her feeling unwound from everyone else.
That was her story. And I guessed she was sticking to it. I’d checked my phone a thousand times today. Not one message from her had crossed my screen.
That alone undid me. We’d never been one of those fashionably self-possessed couples who eschewed any hint of codependency. We probably texted each other a few dozen times a day. Nothing of consequence, really. Or had it been? I realized I didn’t know anymore what had been consequential and what hadn’t. Had she been warning me all along? Had every news story, every epitaph she shared, been a breadcrumb I was supposed to be following?
* * *
I went on a walk through the cemetery today. Did you know they have a plot just for babies?
There were three infants there with the same last name.
Did you hear about the mudslide in Italy? They have actually found survivors!
Big storm moving through the mountains tonight. I don’t think they’re going to find those lost hikers.
I love you. What should we do for dinner?
* * *
I couldn’t help it. I checked my phone again.
7:30 pm. 42 degrees
Nothing.
I knew there wouldn’t be. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself from looking.
I wasn’t sure if I didn’t feel like food at all or if I wanted to start eating when I got home and not stop until I fell into bed. I decided to walk the extra two blocks to pick up some fast food at the drive-in diner. I ordered a foot-long chili-cheese dog, extra-large cheese fries, and a chocolate milkshake. Throw some bourbon in that baby when I got home, and it would be perfect. The salty, greasy smells made my stomach rumble, and I realized I was ravenous.
Even though spring had emerged a couple of weeks back, cold came on quick once darkness fell. I welcomed the bite in the air, taking a perverse pleasure in the discomfort as the cold sank through my thin jacket. A few yards ahead, at the intersection, I saw a dark figure huddled against the crosswalk sign, a cardboard sign illegible in the gloam propped against the figure’s knees.
Fella must have fallen asleep, I thought. No point panhandling after dark. Not much point panhandling in the daylight in this town. With no homeless shelter and few tourists, Brisby wasn’t a good mark for transients. I wondered, suddenly stricken, if this man was just passing through, hoping for a ride from a trucker or some such, or if he’d been here for weeks and I just hadn’t noticed him. I was certain Ada would have noticed him, if she’d passed him. Had she even mentioned it to me, a
nd I didn’t remember? Maybe hadn’t even heard her at the time?
Damn it.
Twelve down: four letters, of little or no meaning or relevance
Gingerly I nudged the bundle of clothing with my toe.
“Hey.”
With an incomprehensible oath, the creature sprang to its feet, rags hanging off its thin frame.
I held out my palms, taking a step back.
“Hey, man. I’m sorry I scared you. Just thought you might be hungry.”
In the glow of the streetlight, I could make out meth-ravaged features under a dirty ball cap. Just a kid, really. Maybe as old as twenty, maybe not. Days-old sweat and cigarette smoke rolled off the kid in waves. I held out the greasy paper sack.
Snick. The steel spring snapped.
The blind, animal fear I’d seen in the kid’s eyes gradually passed into a pathetic gratitude that turned my stomach.
“Thanks, man.” The kid took the sack with an obvious effort not to snatch. I figured he hadn’t made out too well working this corner. Folks around here tended to be suspicious of people with their hands out. Suspicious or downright contemptuous.
With a sigh, I handed over the milkshake, too. I wished I’d taken a drink first. Suddenly I wanted that chocolate milkshake more than almost anything in the world.
“You just passing through?”
I wasn’t sure why I was still standing here, talking to this kid.
Lips wrapped around the straw, the kid sucked in long, strong swallows. His naked need was embarrassing.
The kid raised his eyes, and there … I felt a rush of relief. The craftiness, the slyness I’d been hoping for, had returned.
That would make things easier for me later.
“I’m trying to get to Grand Junction. For a start, anyhow. Can you give me a ride?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. But good luck. I’d better get home.”
Unexpectedly the kid stuck out his hand. “I understand. But thanks for the food. I was starving. My name’s Brett.”
Unwillingly, I accepted the handshake. “Jeff.”
I didn’t like giving the kid a name. Especially a ridiculous name like that. A name that implied all sorts of hope and expectations that meth and the streets were never going to answer. I wondered if his parents knew where he was. If they cared.
“Good night, Brett.”
The flavor of that name lingered on my tongue all the way home. I had to force myself not to glance back, to see if the huddle had resumed its pile-shape or if Brett were walking on. I wondered if he knew the way to the highway.
It’s a small town, I told myself. Only a handful of intersections even have lights. He’ll stumble on it eventually.
Or maybe he’ll stay a while.
My stomach growled. I could have walked back to the restaurant, ordered the same meal once more. But I was reluctant to risk walking past Brett again tonight.
An embarrassment of riches.
Instead, I walked home and headed straight for the shower. Canned cheese and a box of crackers made a satisfactory entrée paired with some Coke and bourbon. Not as good as a chili-cheese dog and a drunken milkshake, but hey. I turned on the television, scanned through the news stations, and settled on a sci-fi movie that, hours later, I couldn’t name or identify a single character on the screen. I fell asleep in my chair, my phone charging in my lap.
“My trouble,” wrote poet Robert Lowell, “is to bring together in me the Puritanical iron hand of constraint and the gushes of pure wildness.”
I dreamt about a watercolor Brett walking down a highway toward a black-and-white Ada in a charcoal world.
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Dayla offered a cheery wave and a distracted smile, barely looking up from her computer as I came in the glass-front office door.
One of many baby boomer grandparents who have once again taken on the mantle of parenthood, Dayla Reynolds works part-time on school days to help cover the cost of caring for her two young grandchildren.
I mustered a good morning, determined to make a better showing for Dayla than I had for Andy yesterday. Besides, today I didn’t have to make my own coffee, and that was a blessing to be celebrated right there.
I needn’t have worried about appearances after all, as it turned out. Dayla was zeroed in on something besides me this morning.
“Did you hear about what happened last night?”
For some reason, my thoughts immediately went to Brett. I even experienced a little niggle of worry.
“Um, no. What happened?”
“Three dogs had their throats slit.” Dayla’s voice was shaking with rage. “Can you believe that? What would possess someone to do something so cruel?”
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“I-I can’t imagine.” Filling my coffee cup, I inhaled the intoxicating aroma. “Did they all belong to the same owner? Or was there a series of random attacks?”
Dayla nodded vigorously, her cheeks bright red with indignation. “Random. All in the same neighborhood, though. Right on your way home, too! Imagine if you’d run into that monster walking home last night.”
“I seriously doubt that someone was out slitting dogs’ throats at seven in the evening. That seems like the sort of activity you save for the wee hours.”
The first swallow of coffee always feels like a gun in the hand. I sighed, swallowed again, and headed to my own desk.
Dayla huffed. “Well, I’m sure I don’t know how those people think. Probably on ’shrooms or something.”
I hid my smile behind my mug. I was always entertained by Dayla’s attempts to keep abreast of modern times.
“You’re probably right. How did you hear about it?”
“Danny texted me. One of the dogs belonged to a classmate of his.”
Ah. Middle school information. Highly accurate, no doubt.
“Well, I will definitely follow up on that for the Sunday edition. Hopefully they’ll have gotten to the bottom of it by the time we go to press.”
“I should think so! The last thing we need is some maniac running around slitting poor animals’ throats.”
I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. – John Lennon
I hadn’t seen Brett’s huddle of rags on the way to work this morning. It was nice to think that maybe he’d found his way to the highway and caught a semi heading north. Nicer than imagining him running into Dayla’s ’shroom-eating, knife-wielding maniac.
“How are the ads looking for this week?”
Dayla clucked her tongue. “A little thin, I’m afraid.”
I sighed. I really needed to give some time to building up our advertising revenue. The Herald might depend on the good graces of the media group owner, Rudolph Belichek, but his benevolence only extended so far. I’d been getting calls from the accounting department every couple of weeks for months now. While I hated that side of the business, I couldn’t put it off much longer. Ads were all that kept The Herald in diapers, so to speak. And by diapers, I mean ground-breaking stories on high school reunions, birthday clowns, and Mr. and Mrs. Silvo’s 50th anniversary jubilee. God only knew what would become of us all if our little beacon of journalistic excellence went the way of Life magazine.
“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”
Hmph.
That is also one of the most grammatically awkward stylistic nightmares I’ve ever read.
“All right, well, give me what you’ve got. This baby goes to p
ress in an hour.”
Sami, Jack, and Delores had emailed me their stories yesterday. I whistled absent-mindedly as I scanned through the layouts, dropping in the ads and checking one more time for typos or misspellings. One of my pet peeves was the irresponsible propagation of bad spelling and grammar in online news sources. Let’s not even talk about the words that are missing altogether. They were always in such a hurry to be the first in cyberspace with even the most petty of stories that actual editing was a thing of the past. Sometimes the language hangs together by such ragged threads that I can hardly make out what the reporter is trying to say. It may take us longer to hit the streets, but by damn, at least we’re comprehensible when we do. Nothing makes me crazier than opening my paper and finding a typo that I somehow missed. So I did my best to ensure that occurrence is a rarity.
After emailing our order to the printer, I refilled my coffee cup. I wondered how Ada was doing. I’d stuck my phone in my desk drawer as soon as I arrived so I wouldn’t keep staring at it, willing it to vibrate. When I woke up, bleary-eyed, I discovered I’d twisted around in the night and pulled the charger out of the wall. Panic surged through me when I saw the dead screen. I needn’t have worried. When it charged up, the screen was still blank. No messages. No voicemail. No acknowledgement that I still existed. That she still loved me.
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I could farm out the dead dog story to one of my reporters. Sami would be best. She liked to believe she was building up her portfolio by working for The Herald, and a story like this was as close to hard news as we could possibly get on a weekly publishing schedule. I knew she was tired of feature pieces.
But something in me stirred.
“Dayla, I think I’ll walk over to the police station and see what I can dig up on your story. Do you want me to bring you back something for lunch?”
“Oh!” She lifted her gaze from her screen, her earlier angst all forgotten in a new anticipation. “Crumbly’s? An apple fritter?”
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