… There You Are

Tuesday, 28 April 2020

My brother’s wife sent an unsigned email today. This happens to be Junior's forty-first birthday. But my father couldn’t even let him have that on his own.

Joan:

Your father passed away this morning.

Thought you should know.

Funeral’s on the 5th.

This is not an invitation.

They married five years ago and are raising three-year-old twins—one of each. The kids are cuter than buttons, though they haven't met me in person. I haven’t had contact with family members in a decade—phone, email, text, or the newfangled Zoom meeting. Definitely not in person. Ten years ago, I hit my then-girlfriend and beat my father. The restraining orders expired, but the emotions haven’t.

I’m surprised that Pa hasn’t died before now. Between dipping, drinking, and the fact that he’s about to turn seventy—the same day he’s being buried—he probably should’ve died decades ago. Lord knows I would’ve been better off. I feel guilty, but a tiny part of me wouldn’t have minded helping.

I’m an alcoholic—Hi, Joan. This time, I’ve been sober for twenty-nine days; I’d go get my new chip tomorrow, except that AA meetings are among the things currently banned. My most recent bender started and ended the penultimate day of March, because I panicked on the first day of the Lockdown. My sponsor, Lieu—Captain Brandon Kelly of the Greensboro PD—talked me back onto the wagon. I finished off the bottle of Jim Beam, first, as I wasn’t in the mood to waste it.

The Lockdown cut off most of my sources of employment as a private investigator. No court docket means that no documents need to be delivered. With all the “sheltering in place,” there aren’t many philanderers to follow. No work means no hiring, which means no background checks needed. The Powers That Be realized that making everyone unable to work would cause difficulties, so I’ve managed to qualify for the Paycheck Protection Program. Employees: one. Well done, boss.

I have two current contracts, caused by the same thing that’s interfering with everything else. The Lockdown’s sudden imposition caught a few persons separated from their loved ones. A couple of those outside of Greensboro have asked me to confirm that some inside the city are still isolating. One man from Oregon had his temporary visit here extended for over a month; his wife isn’t too pleased. The other’s the opposite: a husband stuck in Michigan wants to make sure his wife isn’t too neighborly in his absence.

A part of me believes they should just relax and extend understanding in these desperate times; the end of the world causes people to do uncharacteristic things. On the other hand, I need to eat and pay rent; maybe more people should be paranoid. Besides, making excuses for adultery is something Pa’d do. And I am not my father.

These jobs are awkward even in the best of times. Only two-party recording’s permitted, which means you can’t record someone audibly without them knowing about it or a court order. Furthermore, unless you’re invited to do so, you may only take pictures from public property of exterior locations or rooms that don’t grant an expectation of privacy. Thus, bedrooms and bathrooms aren’t kosher, even if the curtains are open. Also, photos cannot use magnification—so no telephoto lenses or zoom shots.

So when people can go out and about, we want them to hide from their loved ones by going to hotels and other locations, where we can catch them in public, coming out of a door they’ve no reason to be in. However, when the entire world’s suddenly agoraphobic, one has to become creative.

Wednesday

This morning, during my daily check-in with Lieu, I ask him about my thirty-day chip. He points out that I’ve got enough to make a friendship bracelet. I tell him I need just two more to complete the set. It’s funny to us.

Around mid-morning, my silver Civic, Gidget, and I park in the back lot of an extended-stay hotel on Gate City Boulevard. I alternate jobs to keep from getting bored. Sometimes I might stick around for an evening, to see if there’s something different. I’ve nothing better to do than watch doorways, windows, and foot traffic while contemplating my life choices.

If I still held a badge, I’d have stuff to do. There are two drug dealers operating from opposite ends of the building, and they’re staying busy. And I’ve spotted three different “massage therapists” making house calls. I’d have more faith in their integrity except for the showers they took before leaving. However, with the pandemic, the state’s released a handful of criminals for “health considerations,” and rumor has it that they’ll do a whole lot more. I doubt they’ll be adding many in the meantime.

I don’t want to think about my father—or my family. But there’s not much else to think about. I wonder what he’d have said to me if we’d had a chance to talk. No, we had the chance. If they want to talk, they can reach out, as proven by yesterday’s email.

I recall things he said to me when he did have the chance. He expressed his anger, his disappointment, his fears, and his nightmares. He spoke not only with voice but with violence, fury, and a storm of chaos that seemed to roil around him. I don’t remember happy times with him. I can’t recall him telling me he loved me, he was proud of me, or I was his princess: not when I got into the academy, not when I graduated high school, not ever.

Was there anything I could’ve said differently to him? This is the part that’s difficult, as I think I said the right things. Maybe I didn’t say them in the correct manner? I told him what I wanted him to hear. I told him what I needed him to hear. I told him what I thought he wanted to hear. On occasion, they were all the same thing. Mostly, they were the truth. I don’t remember outright lying to him, even when I told him I loved him. Some things may have been a stretch—“hanging out with friends” when I was on a date with my girlfriend, Cynthia, for example. At this point, it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done, and I can’t take a word back.

Thursday

Gidget and I sit across South Mendenhall from a rental house in College Hill. Many residences around Greensboro’s universities have been subdivided into apartments. Sometimes they share common areas; here, each apartment has individual facilities. The woman I’m monitoring lives in Apartment D—an upper-floor suite atop the veranda.

I am tucked in under a blanket, with binoculars, a camera, lunch, my phone, and a pile of regrets. In the two weeks I’ve been here, I’ve only seen the woman through the kitchen window and never another person. The tedium draws me deep into my head.

I miss my mother. I wish I’d told her the truth to her face, instead of over the phone. The admission of my sexuality was a conversation she deserved to have in person, not in a panic. It should’ve been calm, as unemotional as possible. I should’ve introduced her to Cynthia. I could’ve shown Mama how much Cyn meant to me and how much I meant to her. Mama would’ve understood. I know because she knows how it is, loving someone that logic says one shouldn’t. Not that I’m comparing my sexuality with whatever sick thing exists between her and my father. But perhaps it’s the same?

Friday

I’m back at the hotel, though not ‘til afternoon. I couldn’t escape my bed—Lieu hates it when I check in late, but it’s better than not at all. This morning, I was too busy thinking about Junior.

We’re siblings. We’re survivors of the figurative conflagration that enveloped our lives. He takes after Mama: they let things occur and then react after, if they feel they need to. I’ve never seen him angry—not even when he pulled me off of Pa, keeping me from killing him ten years before God did. He’s the only one who willingly spoke to me, during the five years previous, after my relationship with Cyn came out. And I know that he accepted her, even with the racial difference and the lesbian thing and whatnot.

I don’t know why I haven’t called him since. In some ways, I feel betrayed, maybe? I know I should get a therapist to discuss these things. But sometimes it’s cheaper to consult Drs. Walker, Morgan, or Crown. And they never tell me the session is over.

No, I don’t go to “therapy” today. I also don’t bother Lieu again; one panic attack a day is his limit. I spend an hour on the phone with my other confidante, Lily, instead. She and Gladys would invite me over, but the whole pandemic thing. It’s good to hear a sympathetic voice. They understand me. Sometimes. At least somebody does.

Saturday

I don’t visit Mendenhall until evening. Gidget and I spend the day driving around instead. We go to Burlington, Reidsville, and Lexington; a huge circuit of the Triad. We could drive to Mocksville. I could turn onto I-40 instead of I-285. I need to see different places. I want to see different people, but they’re just doing what I’ve been doing, driving around aimlessly or hiding in their homes.

Lieu’s invited me over for a family cook-out tomorrow. He knows this has been a rough week, rougher than usual. He said he’s invited Lily and Gladys as well. I ought to be working, but I know that if these two were up to anything, I would’ve already caught them. It’s the end of the world. Criminals are committing crimes. Normal people are hiding. The lost are gypsies across what’s left. Life as we know it is over.

Driving keeps me focused. I think about Cynthia anyway, but the attention needed to stay on the road doesn’t allow me to become overly emotional about her. The last time we spoke, she’d put together an intervention for me, to try to help me regain control. I didn’t want to regain control; I wanted to continue that spiral downward until I crashed and burned and nothing was left. I tried to take Cyn with me. I hit her like Pa would hit Mama. And that, as they say, was that. There are no more conversations. There’s no more exchange of love. I don’t know if she loves me at all. I still love her. And it hurts to see her happy, knowing it could’ve been with me, instead.

Sunday

I check in with Lieu first thing. Yes, I’ll be at his place in a bit. Yesterday was rough, but today’s when I can have my soul cleansed.

I watch a church service streamed online. A positive about this situation is all the pastors trying to draw in the eschatological hordes before His Final Judgment. One can peruse belief systems like one does cable news. Not satisfied with your religion? Don’t get satisfaction from communion with the Lord?

I’ve found a few to consider if things return to normal. Most accepting are the Unitarian-Universalists, but I don’t know what they actually believe in. The Episcopalians seem intriguing; they don’t seem to mind that I’m a woman, much less a lesbian. I only feel slightly like a sinner, not completely abandoned by God.

I am a sinner. Not because of my sexuality but because I'm human. Knowing that fact is a good thing. It gives me something to work toward. If I don’t have any sins, there’s nothing to improve. If my entire life’s a sin, there’s no point. So maybe, if this isn’t the end, I’ll give them a try.

Lieu’s yard party is pleasant. There’s more than ten people gathered, but I doubt the captain of Headquarters is going to be hauled in. He and his wife Marisol have four beautiful children. Lily and Gladys aren’t as close to the Kellys as I am, but they get along just fine; Lily’s always good with kids. There are three other couples as well, though I’m not familiar with them; Marisol’s co-workers, I think. Marisol and Gladys start putting their heads together about playing match-maker, so I stay outside the rest of the day.

Being around other people is a distraction. A good distraction. Whoever thought locking people up for weeks on end was a good idea deserves to be put in solitary for the rest of their life.

Monday

I spend today alone, mostly. I had enough of people yesterday. It’s a good experience, don’t get me wrong. But I’m a natural introvert. So the fewer people, the better. Unless there’s no people, and then that’s too much.

I send weekly reports to my two clients. If they want me to continue, that’s fine; it’s something to do. And if they don’t, that’s fine too. Envy’s one of the big sins, and at some point you just have to admit that it’s paranoia.

The rest of the day I go through newspapers, until I find Pa’s obituary. Steven Dark is preceded in death by my grandparents—I never met them, they both died back in the early ‘70s, while he served in Vietnam. He’ll be buried next to them in Rose Cemetery in Mocksville. He's survived by Deborah, Steve and his family, and Joanie. I hate being called that. I probably deserve it.

I leave the apartment in mid-afternoon. Enough time to drive over to Mocksville before sunset. Gidget slips into the lot at the library, where nobody else is, but nobody is around to notice. I sit inside her, smoking half a pack while I wait for darkness to blanket everything. There’s streetlights, but beyond that, what with the Lockdown, there is nothing else but the night.

I walk a block toward downtown, until I get to Eaton’s. It’s been a funeral home for over a century, with different owners and partners. I didn’t imagine Pa would be anywhere else; the paper confirmed it. I circle the building, to confirm all lights are out. Go to the big metal box mounted to the side of the building, cut the lock, and pull the meter out of the socket. If there’s an alarm—there ought to be, to prevent criminals from breaking in—it won’t be going off.

The tools I’m not supposed to have make quick work of the door locks. I find him in the back, in his casket, awaiting tomorrow’s proceedings. I sit on the metal table and stare at him in the dark.

“If you knew how much make-up they put on you, you’d probably scream.” I light another cigarette—hope there’s not a still-working smoke detector—and hop down, approaching him. “All those years telling Mama she put too much cover-up to hide your bruises.”

I reach in and open his eyes. They look sunken and shriveled, in the light of my phone. “You always did have beady eyes.” Brown eyes, like mine. “I have some things to say to you, Pa. For once I won’t have to worry about you hitting me, or me wanting to hit you.”

I knock the ash off into the casket. “Pa, I like women. I like them a lot. Love them even. Always have. Always will.” I take a deep breath and exhale. I feel better.

I take another draw off the cigarette. “Pa, I’m sorry that I drank your beer all those years. I know you didn’t give a shit. But I’m an alcoholic. I’m not blaming you. It’s my thing. But I think you’re an alcoholic too. You definitely have issues. I wish that I’d tried to get you help.”

I pace back and forth, smoking my cigarette. “I’m not sorry I hit you. You deserved that. I’m sorry I didn’t stop hitting you. Not because you didn’t deserve it, but because I cut myself off from everyone else by doing that.”

I lean in close. “Papa, I love you. But I wish I wasn’t like you.” I try to open his mouth, but it’s stuck. So I put the cigarette out in the palm of his hand instead, and return things to how they were before.

Tuesday, 5 May 2020

Gidget sits in the YMCA parking lot as the sun rises; I sleep ‘til nine, then go hide in the treeline, smoking and watching through my telephoto lens. The hearse and two cars arrive at nine-thirty, following the one-way trail around to where the hole’s dug.

To one side, my brother and my mother stand. They aren’t crying. The pastor and the undertaker fold the flag up from his casket and hand it to them. I get a dozen pictures of Ma and Junior.

On the other side, the twins are restless. I take some pictures of them alone and with their mother.

I focus on their mother’s face. “You haven’t changed a bit, Cyn.” I get one last shot of my ex, my brother’s wife. And I turn to leave.