“No, ma’am. I can’t begin to imagine. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Lord, no, it’s not a loss for long. We had so much more than most people. I really can’t complain. There were rough times to be sure, but everybody has rough times. We’ll be together again before long. She fought back a tear that was slowly forming at the corner of her eye. When it broke loose and infiltrated the creases on the weathered skin adjacent to her nose, she reached for a tissue on the end table stocked with all the resources she might need from medicine to crocheted coasters. She changed the subject to avert being conquered by her moistening eyes. “Are you married, officer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. And children, too?”
“Yes, ma’am, three.”
“I hope you treasure each day with them because we never know which day will be our last.” Doc nodded and stole a glance at the ornate cuckoo clock hanging over the solid oak breakfast table. He wondered if its hands were as arthritic as the rest of the furnishings.
“We got that clock in Bavaria when the children were little. Mr. Dowd was a contractor in Germany for two years. Do you have a picture of your children, Mr. Harrison?”
“Doc, ma’am, and no, not on me.”
“How very unusual. In my day and age one always carried family pictures to show off. I suppose times change?” Her voice inflection went up with the last question as if she were punctuating an incriminating comment. Doc didn’t answer.
“I hope I’m not talking out of turn. You see, young man, once you reach eighty years old, you can say or do anything you want. If somebody tries to take offense, everyone will say ‘she’s just a crazy old lady’. Such freedom!” Doc chuckled in spite of himself.
“So the next time I see you, if I’m still breathing, we’ll sit down and look over those pictures of your children, won’t we?”
“Yes, ma’am, we will.” Doc had almost forgotten the late Mr. Dowd chilling on the bathroom floor when the first of Mrs. Dowd’s adult children came through the apartment door. Doc melted into the background until the callback from the medical examiner’s office set him free. He remembered a wonderful photograph of Amelia, Ben and the girls playing on the sand below the seawall in Galveston the previous summer. That would be perfect to show her if they should ever meet again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On quiet nights Doc took his breaks in the large municipal park along the river. The long, expansive park divided downtown and the hospital district from the mid-twentieth century residential sprawl to the west. The ancient oaks used to reign the entire length of the river, but attrition was thinning them out. Some died of disease, some from lightning strikes, and some reached the end of long, useful lives of creating shade, homes and food for the animals of the night. In the fall leaves coated the narrow winding asphalt lanes. The sheets of orange and brown leaves were as slippery as ice under the tires of unsuspecting drivers.
By day citizens could jog and picnic while watching birds, squirrels and feral cats, but at night a menagerie of raccoons, opossums, rabbits and coyotes roamed the inner city refuge. In the spring the mother raccoons haunted the trash cans with three or four masked bandits trailing behind her, but by late summer the hefty cubs were full-size scavengers packing on fat for the winter. They would shop inside the large, green trash barrels, popping their heads out as the hum of the Ford’s engine attracted their attention, then ducking down in the barrel when the light hit them like wooden ducks at the state fair shooting gallery. Although the raccoons didn’t hibernate, the pickings of human leftovers became scarce in the colder months. Each spring the process repeated.
The bane of police work was the frequent fliers - the carbon copy calls involving the same people, the same circumstances and the same lack of permanent resolution. Frank Pierce was a frequent flier who tried to live invisibly in the park. In his youth he was a top dog in a Northside gang until his following grew up and got jobs or landed in prison.
Frank wore indelible inks on his chest, back, neck and arms. They were tattoos of now insignificant people, relationships that soured, and social commentary that were no longer applicable in the stagnant life of a forty year old homeless man. He was unwelcome wherever he went because of his general appearance, even before people became familiar with his irritating personality. The police kicked him out of the park on a regular basis, and business owners gave him the bum’s rush off their properties. No one liked to see failure incarnate.
Doc caught sight of Frank underneath the Lancaster Bridge along the bicycle path lying on a cement pad by the footer of the bridge. His filthy green Army blanket was a contrast to the fresh yellow, green and blue spray painted tags on the concrete pillar above his head.
Although no one was enjoying the closed park, save for Doc, Frank and the creatures of the night, the city ordinances forbid overnight camping in the park. Doc walked around the still body dressed in ragged jeans and a ripped and faded blue t-shirt advertising a roofing company from some long ago day labor job. Frank’s hands were in plain view clutching his worn out tennis shoes to his chest. His tarnished socks remained on his swollen feet - both needed airing out.
Doc nudged at Frank’s foot with his boot, but Frank’s chest continued to rise and fall in a slow rhythm of a deep stupor. Doc increased the force of his nudges.
“Frank, time to move on. Get up and get moving.” Frank rustled until enough encouragement was applied to his foot to make him stir.
“Sit up, Frank. I need to talk to you.” The weathered middle-aged man sat up and rubbed his eyes. He adjusted his disheveled clothes and summed up the experience: “What?”
“How many times have I told you that you can’t sleep here.”
“Then where can I sleep? I don’t got anyplace else.”
“Go to a shelter, Frank. Get a job. Find somewhere to be that isn’t here.”
“Get real, man. They don’t want me at the shelter ‘cause they say I cause too much trouble, and who in their right mind would hire me to do what? If I had a permanent address, I could send away to become a mail-order brain surgeon.”
He had a valid point. Frank was one of those lost souls who blew all life’s chances. There was no erasing over a couple decades of homelessness and unemployment, and the inks on every visible part of his body documented the fall. What was the point for him to even try to acclimate to a society that didn’t want him?
Doc sat on the arm of a nearby park bench. “Just out of curiosity, Frank, how did you end up such a loser?”
“Long story.”
“I got time at the moment.”
“Well, I’m just a victim of society. Nobody ever gave me a chance. All they ever did was kick me around.”
“I think you’re just lazy, pardner. Too lazy to work, too lazy to make anything of yourself. Am I right?”
Frank scratched his head under the greasy wisps of hair, checked his fingernails on that hand and looked around to get his mind oriented before returning to the conversation. “Maybe it’s a little bit my fault, but I’m still the victim of society here.”
“Where did you grow up, Frank?”
“Michigan, gets cold there.”
“Is that anywhere near the Northside?”
“I thought you meant as a kid. We moved here when I was about twelve.”
“How far did you get in school?”
“There you go again. Everybody seems to think the answer to everything is education. Solve poverty - education, solve crime - education, have worldwide peace - education.”
“How far did you get before you dropped out?”
“Eighth grade. But they didn’t teach me to read or nothin’.”
“So you’re saying the teacher intentionally taught the rest of the class to read and skipped over you?”
Frank wagged his finger, “If they really wanted to, they would have forced me to learn. But they just wasted my time in class and got up there and talked, talked, talked, talked and tried to
give us a lot of homework to figure out by ourselves. I had more important things to do with my life. I had my friends and we were doing stuff. I was too smart for them. I was smarter than all of them put together. They were just holding me back.”
“I can see that, Frank. You’re doing important things with your life right now, huh?”
“Nobody would give me a decent job. I coulda been a great songwriter, but they missed out on that. That’s their loss. I coulda been richer than you could ever dream of. I wasn’t gonna take one of those low-pay, loser, kid jobs. No, man. I’m better than that. I got street smarts which is better than booksmarts.”
“So your plan is to hang around my park until your ship comes in?”
“One of these days you’ll be buying my records and you can tell all your friends that you personally knew Frank Pierce. You come by and see me and I‘ll even give you an autograph.”
“Frank?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Get the heck out of my park before I arrest you for something.”
Frank leisurely rolled onto his knees and hoisted himself to his full height of five foot five using the metal arm of the park bench. He grabbed his worn red backpack and slung it over his left shoulder. With a nod and a smile he sauntered off toward Seventh Street with the intention of doubling back along the railroad tracks.
It would not be a long walk to a temporary camp in the brush by the rails to find rest until morning. If no one staked a claim, there was a nice spot a quarter mile in with a couch salvaged from renovation trash and a metal grate if he could find some coffee grounds, a lighter and an empty can in his backpack.
Doc exerted his authority because it was expected of him. He had no dog in that fight. Whether Frank or another homeless wretch slept in the park in the deep night didn’t make that much difference to the general public. Since the area was closed and the hour was late, good citizens would be home in bed resting up for a new day. As far as crime was concerned, sleeping vagrants were not out thieving from cars and businesses.
If the homeless were crime victims, they often thought twice about exposing themselves to the police to make reports. Besides, with no contact telephone or address, the prosecution of the court case would be dropped for lack of victim testimony long before the docket arrived at the court.
The cards were against men like Frank when protection from night travelers was at stake. Janis Joplin put it best when she sang that freedom is just another work for nothing left to lose. Frank paid for his freedom with his spirit and his dreams. There was very little reason to stay alive, but the basic human spirit rarely gives in, even under the most hopeless of situations when a rational mind should see the wisdom of foregoing the next breath.
Doc thought of the times when his own life could have taken a devastating turn. When he was a senior in high school, he talked John and Anna Scott into allowing him to drive the red and white Blazer on a weekend camping trip to Liberty Lake with three friends. His stepfather was slightly less reluctant than his mother, although Doc was more persuasive than either.
In the end Doc and his buddies prevailed and drove off on east Interstate 90 with tacit approval from both parents. The first teenage road trip was the thing dreams were made of: complete freedom with no adult oversight, never mind that Doc and the other young men were allegedly on the cusp of adult responsibility.
They cranked the radio up just short of ear-shattering intensity and rolled down the windows to share their teenage culture with the passing scenery. Doc felt the vibrations of the bass nervously pounding through his ribs to the point where his stomach contents were considering the idea of raising a white flag and returning from whence they entered. The speedometer needle hovered just above seventy-five while the broken white lines between the lanes were swallowed at a lope.
By late afternoon they arrived at the deserted campground outside Liberty Lake, set up their tent about a half mile up the trail, and started work on two twelve-packs of hijacked beer. Doc had tasted beer at other parties, but was not versed in the imbibing arts.
After a couple hours, a pizza from the town at the foot of the mountain by the interstate turned into an irresistible quest. They packed into the Blazer and set off down the narrow dirt and gravel road. Doc could feel a buzz from the beer, but nothing he felt he couldn’t handle. Clouds of dust spewed from the rear tires at each bend and flex of the road leaving a youthful trail of enthusiasm and macho pride.
Doc suddenly realized that he couldn’t make the next curve to the left. The big tires skated on the gravel as Doc locked up the brakes. The Blazer skidded down the embankment and through a barbed wire fence into a pasture surprising a half dozen grazers. The cattle returned to their munching endeavors as if nothing had happened before the dust settled.
“You can let go now,” one of his friend prodded. Doc’s fingers exercised a bloodless white death grip on the steering wheel. He looked around at the three other drunken, ashen faces, realizing how close he had come to killing them all. Why does fate allow some men to slip her tether, yet exact every penny from the next human wretch?
The old Blazer had more than its share of dents and scratches before they left Spokane and appeared to come out of the adventure more or less unscathed. The boys crawled out the passenger door and surveyed the extent of their dilemma before the mood lightened. They carefully pulled the barbed wire off the truck and from around the tires and bumper, found a more gentle grade and spun the wheels until they reached the gravel road back to camp after abandoning their pizza quest.
They hiked back down the embankment to make their best attempt at restringing a good portion of the barbed wire back into place. The cuts to their fingers and forearms from the wire were not serious scratches. The few trickles of blood were sopped up with a sacrificial t-shirt on the way back up the hill.
Not much was said for the first few minutes of slowly creeping back up the mountain road to camp, but soon they were boisterously celebrating their encounter with mortality as only young people are apt to do. With age the expression of relief from the jaws of tragedy is usually solemn and subdued.
Doc paused at the risk he had taken with the underage drinking and driving under the influence. He would have lost John and Anna’s trust, his license, possibly his life. He could have been branded by everyone he knew as the driver of the ill-fated truck if the trespass had been fatal. No one would have ever looked at him again without the imperceptible flinch of remembering the grief he instigated.
The appearance of two ivory coyotes five hundred yards away on the riverbank brought Doc back to the present. Frank had hobbled away twenty minutes ago like a Dickens’ ghost of Christmas past leaving Doc and the coyotes alone in the park. They were beautiful, destructive animals forced from their homes in the woods by rapidly expanding residential development. Like Doc, they were lost between the past and the present, between the security of a home long gone and the task of adapting to the entanglements of progress.
The coyotes’ needs were simple: food, water and some woods and grassland in which to roam. The big city’s greenbelt and bike paths connected a myriad of good sized parks and undeveloped areas with gullies for covert transients of both the four-legged and two-legged species.
Doc’s needs were more complex because he had not figured out what his basic needs of life were. Basic subsistence and routine interpersonal relationships were insufficient to claim as a life well-lived. Life ebbed and flowed like the tide washing in, obliterating and rebuilding much the same patterns in the sand along the shore with each retreat and encroachment.
The needs of frequent fliers boiled down to one major theory: they wanted to be someone other than themselves and would give up any sense of stability to achieve their nebulous purpose. It was as if they were going on a road trip without a map or destination, yet hoping they would miraculously arrive at their destination. Anything was preferable to living a structured life over which they felt that they had little control or influence. Some las
hed out with violence, some retreated from conflict, and some were just searching for a place where dreams can come true without exertion. The cycle was rarely broken once it was established.
Ruth Hays was a frequent flier. At fifteen she had logged runaway reports numbering in the double digits. She was pretty enough to be a model and traded on her appearance to get by, yet at times she possessed a childlike timidity and lack of confidence which allowed the vermin of the streets to prey on her. Her favorite play was to make a new friend at school and ply the friend’s parents with stories of parental abuse and abandonment.
For some ungodly reason the well-meaning parents of her new friends would “adopt” Ruth as one of their own for weeks at a time to save the poor girl from her hellish nightmare at home. By the time the parents realized that they were taken in, Ruth had moved on with assorted jewelry, mementos and cash that could be traded for drugs and food. Often their own children suffered Ruth’s indoctrination into the world of deceptions and of flaunting authority, creating a havoc of untold proportions in the lives of the well-meaning parents and their children.
The moon was a hair shy of being full as Doc trudged up the walk to the large frame and brick ranch-style home of the Hays family in a quiet, respectful neighborhood. The Hays’ family home was landscaped and maintained like the rest of the homes on the street. An orange glow of light escaped through the decorative panes at the top of the hardwood front door. Doc rapped lightly three times as if the runaway call would dissipate if they didn’t hear him knock. Mr. Hays promptly opened the door and ushered him into the living room where Mrs. Hays was busy worrying.
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name, officer. I know you’ve been here a few times before. Can I get you coffee, a soda, anything?”
“Harrison, sir, and no thank you. I brought in an old notepad with Ruth’s information. Is she leaving or returning tonight?”
Living in Quiet Rage Page 10
