2 Drink Minimum

The bar is small, dark, and trite, nestled in a strip mall between a prosperous and garish Korean nail salon and the upscale Gourdough’s Public House. This bar is not upscale. It survives precisely because it’s a hole people can climb into and pull over themselves.

It’s as anonymous as porn theater sex. It has no windows, no sign over the door, no chipped and faded little cigarette-company decal with a penguin proclaiming Come on in, it’s KOOL inside! The metal door is old and rusted, dented here and there, with two punctures that let in rain. It works with a scream of protest, just like most of the bar’s patrons.

The place has weathered barn wood nailed to the wall at the far end, and a few dart players of unreliable skill throw feathered projectiles at a target hung from a nail. A ragged color printout of someone’s ex-wife is taped over the ten-ring, encouraging accuracy. Most of the darts embed into the barn wood anyway.

As a celluloid Nick the Bartender said to the you-never-existed George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, this too is a place where men, and now women, are hard customers who come to drink hard liquor, and get drunk. If you can’t drink at least two, you are out of your league here. Go next door to Gourdough’s where there is better lighting and you can order your fucking Mojito.

Coincidentally, the bartender here is also named Nick. He hasn’t mixed a White Russian in two years. There was that Manhattan last month, but it was served to a regular who followed up with a triple Lagavulin neat. The woman’s date never showed—married prick, got cold feet. After almost two years on that bar stool, she never came back.

This is a destination bar, where men and women often meet with others not their spouse. Couples huddle in booths around the perimeter of the main room. A few more sit at booths and a few tables in satellite rooms even darker than the main area. There are other regulars, too. You can buy or sell information here, or plan some deal, but don’t get caught with dope or it’s your ass. If someone calls in looking for a customer—a frantic wife, an angry husband—no one is ever there. Sorry, really busy. Take a message?

Detective Inspector Douglas Lee Pavlichek is distinguishable from the other customers only to the bartender. Nick has served the cop booze since he came on the job; through two marriages, three killed partners and six promotions. He does a very passable simulation of a businessman, with his Abboud suits and Burberry trench coat. The homicide cops are well known to be natty dressers, and Pavlichek does his part. You need nice suits when you go to your partners’ funerals. Pavlichek doesn’t have a terrible average, though, for his thirty-two years. That works out to less than one dead partner per decade. But after he lost Mooney, Pavlichek decided he’d rather work solo. He’s on the glide slope to a disappointing retirement anyway, so the bosses agreed.

He also doesn’t care about any two-drink minimum, because Detective Pavlichek hasn’t had two or fewer drinks at a sitting since 12th grade, when he partied so hard that he barely graduated. Only Mrs. Ellsworth had saved that, allowing a retake of the final exam over the angry objections of Mr. Crawford, the so-called “guidance counselor” who hated Pavlichek since he was a southmore. That’s how they say it here, southmore, not sophomore. So he passed with a D-plus—still hadn’t studied—and drew the Logan green cap and gown to make the high school perp walk with almost a thousand other seniors that year.

Here’s a piece of info for that next lull in class reunion conversation: Today, a man named Logan Green is the co-founder and chief executive officer of the ride-sharing service Lyft.

No, that doesn’t mean anything. Nothing does.

Pavlichek doodles on a bar napkin. When he looks up, Nick is already watching him. The detective waves an index finger in airy, imperfect circles, ordering another round. Nick pulls a Stroh’s from an ornate tap and then pours an extra-double Johnny Walker Black while the beer foam settles. By the time Pavlichek survived the summer after high school, he could drink a whole fifth of Johnny Walker Black and still be just walking-around high, could drive and everything. That time he wrecked his car down the street from Griff’s house, where Griff’s mother always bought the party alcohol, the local uniforms didn’t even know he was wasted. That was the first time Pavlichek thought about a career in police work.

Police work is how he describes it, because cops will tell you honestly, in quiet moments, that “law enforcement” isn’t the same thing. Rookies do law enforcement; veterans do police work. Police work maintains order and keeps people safe and free, keeps the jackoffs in their own districts, at least. Those lofty goals are not always the purview of laws, so most cops don’t enforce laws. They do police work.

Pavlichek’s phone buzzes in an inside-left coat pocket, but he doesn’t have to look at it to know who it is. His personal cell is in the inside-right pocket, but it never buzzes. He downs the scotch at once, then powers down the beer.

“Gotta run, Nick. Work,” he says. He leaves a fifty on the bar, because if you tip a bartender well now, he tips a cop well later. Pavlichek gets only two steps away before turning back to Nick.

“Hey, you havin’ a good day, man?”

Nick shrugs. “Yeah. I guess. You know, it is what it is.”

“You are right about that.” Pavlichek waves a two-finger salute and turns to the door. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Okay, Inspector,” Nick says. He wipes wet rings from the polished surface of the bar and picks up the napkin. Pavlichek has carefully torn up the business card of the department psychologist and left it in a perfect teepee of matte pasteboard on the bar.

On the napkin, Pavlichek has drawn the crude image of a handgun shooting a bullet through a cartoon badge, and all around it, over and over, he’s written the words Kill me now.



Written by: Daniel Charles Ross
Photograph by: Chris Boyles

The Guest

He’s an unofficial sort of guest; a guest because the only guest on the list is him. He’s alone, separated from the bounding noise vibrating on the highway; separated from the people who apparently wouldn’t understand. We call him Uncle J. Well, he calls himself that. He’s been here awhile. Five months, actually, though he says he used to live here; in childhood. “I was glad to see my old place; the room’s the same, but the clothes have changed thank God!” We laugh as if we’re in on the joke. He changes the subject, his gloved hands motioning calmly as his mint leaf breath wafts towards our chilled nostrils. His breath was always minty. Toothpaste? Gum? “My father was pretty famous…” his eyes search a thick fog for the word he needs. “He taught me how to do it. Everything.” Do what? Who knows. He continues, and a slight smile cracks his fragile lips. “The money, well, the money is good. Whoa good.” He sizes the air with his hands and smiles again, and this time we can see the sense of humor buried in his mixed-up thoughts, like a shining piece of silver in a pile of ashes.

We try to hand him money; he refuses, like always, making mention of the “whoa good” money once again. We smile, letting the whispers of the passersby on the well-traveled trail seep through the halfway woods, sliding across the door of his tent. Uncle J doesn’t care.

“My father was pretty famous,” he says again, “and because of that the famous people knew me.” That part’s true, we find out later. Uncle J isn’t totally unaware. What does he really know? “So, when I talked to the famous people I could tell them how to do it, because he taught me how to do it.” What is it? We laugh again, working to decipher his twisted truth. “I was the only doctor in Hawaii, er, California, and that’s a lot of people.” The doctor part is true, too, apparently. Though that was before he forgot who he was. Or before they forgot who he was. His face softens, his bright eyes conveying either sadness or nostalgia, though over what is not clear. Nothing is with him, but that’s why we talk. He knows something. Maybe not everything, but something.

“I knew when I met you yesterday - that you were right on.” The same smile creeps across his wrinkled face. “I knew, because you just know.” I get the eerie feeling he does, and even if we don’t, we smile too. He breathes a sigh of relief or congestion, and moves on; quickly, like always, though with the impression of having stayed with the exact same thought as before.

That’s when the cops come.

They show their shiny badges as per the usual and ask Uncle J if he’s aware the property is “restricted.”

He nods, asking them if they know how long his father lived there and whether or not they know who he is, all the while keeping his hands to himself and his breath minty fresh. He offers them a piece of gum. Gum. How? Uncle J keeps talking. “It really is great to be back here.” He carries on; he thinks they’re visitors. Just like we are. Like everyone is. They show their shiny badges again and repeat the “restricted area” comment. Uncle J laughs. Not out of scorn. Over something he’s said. He chuckles, sizing the air with his hands “I knew. I knew when I met you guys the other day that you were right on. I knew you’d show.” His eyes are hopeful, staring at something invisible behind the cops as his cracked lips bleed all for the sake of his widening smile. The cops make another pretend effort at their misunderstood jargon, using words like “sir” and mumbling something about property rights. Uncle J dismisses them again.

“I thought I had seen the worst of this place – that was when my father was pretty famous. He was. And I knew the people he knew. They’d say ‘J!’ if they saw me. But that was before. He passed, bless his soul, but I kept in touch with the people. A lot of pe-“

They take out their handcuffs. The game is up. Uncle J’s smile fades, a confused fog seeps over his face. The uniformed homewreckers repeat their words with newfound authority and reach to take his arms. We try to intervene, claiming Uncle J is our relative, our friend; anything to keep this from happening again. They decline less than politely, pulling Uncle J’s arms away from his lower back. He apologizes as tears form in his eyes, coating them in a crystal layer of clarity.

He knows. He knows he’s not home. He knows he’s not supposed to be here. He knows we only pretended to understand. A tear slides down his wrinkled cheek as his serene brown eyes clamor for the truth of his circumstance.

And then he smiles.

He chuckles, revitalized by his fall back into his hazy reality. “Take a picture. Please. Take a picture. I need to show them that I found where my father was. He was pretty famous. He was.” I nod, noting Uncle J’s still minty breath and the sudden change in his eyes. He’s staring past his nylon home into the thin woods as if looking for something. Something he’d lost, or found. Who knows.

The cops shuffle him away. We stand, incredulous. I reach for my phone, snapping a picture just before he yells:

“I knew you were right on. I knew you were.”


Written by: Tyler Wilborn
Photograph by: Garrett Carroll

The Violent Acts of Poets, Part IV

Continued from The Violent Acts of Poets, Part I, Part II, & Part III

Lily Miller died in my arms, gut shot, on a day in the middle of April. The weather was beautiful. A chill surfed along with the wind under a shining sun. I didn’t get to hold her too long before the police came into our little fort and busted me with the blunt end of a shotgun. There was lots of screaming about the gun, where was the gun, that sort of thing. But I just kept repeating, “I ain’t got no gun.” It was the truth. Lily had left it in the car.


                                                                                                      ***

On her last day, I drove while she read Lolita, by Vladimir Nabakov. She’d picked it up for a dollar at a garage sale we’d stopped at sometime before. One dollar for a piece of genius like that. “What a deal,” I said. She never got to finish it, but she liked it fine, the bits she did read. She had one favorite passage in particular, and she read it to me as we passed a sign that said Welcome to Durham’s Corner. She read it three times in a row, and each time her voice got a little bit sadder, like the realization of what we’d done finally coaxed her out of our dream. You could hear it in her voice, and as the police lights flashed in my rear view mirror, she hardly moved. She looked back, held the gaze of the policeman, and then turned back to me. I’d never seen her look that way. She looked like a little girl. And that’s when I realized that’s exactly what she was. Both of us, really, were children in the scheme of things. I concluded then and there that I was going to get her out of that mess, no matter the cost, and she was going to go on and be a real person, with a real life, even if she could no longer do it with me.

                                                                                                      ***

The flashing lights multiplied and followed us into town. I was panicked, I’m ashamed to admit, and yelled at Lily to get the gun out of the glove compartment. But she wasn’t listening to nobody then, just staring out the window, and finally I stopped yelling when she looked at me and smiled. We didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. I loved her and she loved me, and I think even when everything gets taken, that’s what we hold on to, that’s what we take with us to heaven, or hell, or prison, or freedom, or wherever we end up. In the end it wasn’t complicated at all. It was just about love. So when I saw the trees I ripped across the road and headed toward them. I figured the trees gave us the best chance to escape, and it was strange, bumping across that field, because I really did believe I could lose them in the trees. Even with four, five, six cars on our tail, I believed.

                                                                                                      ***

I slid the truck to a stop on the dirt road, rushed to Lily, and dragged her out of the passenger side door. I could hear the cop cars rolling in behind us, but I did my best not to look. The sirens felt like they were pounding out from my chest, they were so close. Lily ran beside me as we headed for the crumbling brick building. Durham’s Corner. Random observations and questions seemed to rush through me like bullets. I thought of Durham and his corner. His own place. His own stake. Something to own and grow with, and now all that was left was the crumbs. They’d named a whole town after him. What a thing, to be the namesake of a home. Even if it was only for a few hundred people. What a thing. Then Lily collapsed beside me and pulled me out of my daydream. It was like she was on strings and some puppet master jerked her leash back. That was the bullet, no doubt. I often thought about the police, the gunfire, and which one of those gentleman sent that lead slug into her belly and out again.

                                                                                                      ***

I carried her into the broken building like a bride. There was so much blood, and I tried to stop it, tried to cover her with my hands, and when that didn’t work I held her up to me as she wrapped her skinny arms around the back of my neck. She whispered to me that she was in a great amount of pain, and I just kept repeating sorry, over and over and over again. There was a commotion outside, but I didn’t pay it no mind. We rocked back and forth until I felt her go limp, and then I just cried, wept like a child, until they came and knocked me unconscious. They wouldn’t have known it, and it surely wasn’t intended, but I thanked them for that small mercy.

                                                                                                      ***

In the weeks that followed there were many headlines and opinions. Politicians and parents alike concerned themselves with what we’d done. Some saw us as sinners, some as victims. Most all of them saw us as children, and plenty more as killers. To their credit, I suppose that’s what we were. Ultimately, I didn’t mind all the questions much. I stayed pretty quiet in the police station once I’d come to. Stayed pretty quiet in the interrogation room, as men with mustaches and pot bellies played good cop-bad cop, trying to ring my confession. They asked what my parents were going to think, and I didn’t answer them then neither. The one playing bad cop eventually got upset with all that silence.

“You’re a killer, son!” he screamed at me, but I only smiled. He probably thought I was a loon, but it wasn’t that. It was just that he had reminded me of Lily Miller, of her reading that book she’d bought for a dollar, a piece of fiction, of something not real, something cooked up long ago by some Russian guy, but something that spoke across time to a runaway girl in a car, through her favorite passage, which I repeated.

“Emphatically, no killers are we,” I said to the police officer. “Poets never kill.”

Written by: Logan Theissen

Photograph by: Luke Pamer

Common Denominators

When we last saw Anna, she was battling a particularly difficult ghost who attacked her in a parking garage. The ghost came to Anna's attention through her client Suri, whom the ghost haunted for fourteen years, inhabiting a series of different men. With Suri recovering from the ghost's latest attempt on her life, Anna plans her next move.  Read the whole Anna the Extractor Series--"The Extractor," "Bury Their Own," "Beloved," "A Tremor in Your Name," and "Stress in the Workplace," and "Calling" (an introduction)--to learn more about Anna and her supernatural adventures.

Anna leans against the cement wall at the edge of Allen Park with one foot propped up and her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets. Detective Michael Cohen called her yesterday evening to set up an appointment to discuss some of the facts regarding her previous client, Suri. The police found Anna’s profession amusing to say the least; it’s not everyday you meet a chick exorcist. After a few questions and making sure she wasn’t an accomplice for Suri’s attempted murder, they let her go.

A man with light brown hair and glasses approaches her from the sidewalk, an obsessive shine to his dress shoes and a too-crisp look to his windbreaker.

“Miss Hirsch? I’m Detective…”

“Cohen. Yeah, I know. It’s not like all my best friends are cops,” Anna says.

They shake hands and make their way over to a wrought-iron bench, which felt freezing through Anna’s skinny jeans.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions about Suri Mathis, just to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

Anna does not make eye contact, but looks out at the river, breathing in the chill of an early morning. Detective Cohen clears his throat.

“Miss Mathis was your client, correct?”

“Listen, man. If you’re just going to ask me a bunch of questions that you already know the answer to…”

“Hey, I come in peace,” Cohen says, hands lifted in surrender.

Anna meets his gaze and folds her arms over her chest as she says, “She’s been haunted by the same ghost for fourteen years. She hired me to extract it.”

“And were you able to?”

“Not entirely.”

“Did Miss Mathis happen to mention any characteristics about her assailant? His lifestyle, habits, hobbies?”

“No.”

“What about her previous assailants? There have been at least thirteen others, I’m assuming.”

Anna shakes her head. “She only described her dad. She said he drank. A lot.”

Detective Cohen nods, pulling out a large envelope from inside his jacket. He reveals a handful of photographs depicting dead women, all having suffered from different forms of violence.

“These women died within the last two weeks. There isn’t a common denominator that makes them targets. We’ve detained five of the six assailants involved in their murders. And you know what, Miss Hirsch? They’re the ones with stuff in common.”

Anna frowns, brow furrowed.

“Each one suffered from temporary amnesia when they committed the crime.”

“I didn’t realize that was a thing…”

“At first, we thought they’d all been drinking, blacked out, and then killed their girlfriends, wives, daughters. It was especially compelling when alcoholism came up in some of their histories. But when the blood alcohol concentration wasn’t matching up, it made things a little strange. We couldn’t just call it domestic violence under the influence.”

Detective Cohen puts away the photographs and leans back, draping one arm over the back of the bench.

“Suri’s boyfriend didn’t remember trying to kill her,” Cohen continues. “Neither did any of the others with restraining orders. I checked.”

“So, you’re telling me that the police department is willing to follow a lead suggesting possession by ghosts?” Anna asks through a scoff.

“Well, not the department. Just me.”

Anna scratches the back of her head and sighs, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. Detective Cohen folds his arms over his chest and sighs.

“My dad beat my mom once when I was in high school. He’d never hurt her before. And he’d never been a drinker, but all of a sudden he couldn’t keep enough Icehouse in the fridge. One night, he just started wailing on her. I got between them and punched my dad square in the eye. My mom screamed his name and then...it was the strangest thing. It was like a light turning on. He didn’t know what he’d just done, only that it was horrible.”

“What’s his name?” Anna asks.

“Huh?” Cohen murmurs, wading through the memory.

“You said he came to when your mom screamed his name.”

“Oh. Yeah. Lucas. His name’s Lucas.”

“Fucking hell,” Anna breathes, standing up and pulling out her cigarettes.

“What’s wrong with Lucas?” the detective asks, startled by her reaction.

She turns on him with a cigarette dangling from her lips and says, “That’s the goddamn ghost’s name, Cohen. The one who’s been haunting Suri. Your dad snapped out of it because your mom said the ghost’s name. That’s the power. She cast him out.”

“Jesus. This is unbelievable.”

“Listen, man. You better start believing real quick if you want this shit to stop.”

Anna finally gets her cigarette lit and sucks in, closing her eyes like it’s saving her life. It’s supposed to be so simple. Get the ghost’s name. Ask what he wants. Give him what he wants. Collect the money. But Lucas is playing a game. He’s making men kill the women they love most in their lives, and they end up alone.

“Just like me,” Anna whispers, remembering what Lucas said when she encountered him last.

Detective Cohen watches her, a question forming on his lips.

“That’s what he said. ‘All alone, just like me.’ He’s reliving something,” she says. “He’s reliving what he did.”

“How do we make him stop?” Cohen asks.

“He’s raging. We’ve gotta calm him down. I’ve gotta talk to him, but I need him to trust me. If I can get him to show himself to me - to haunt me - then I can help him.”

“Anna, he’s a murderer. He doesn’t deserve help,” Cohen states.

Anna grabs the collar of his windbreaker and yanks Cohen toward her with her fists. She looks him in the eye, noses touching.

“Look, asshole. No one deserves anything. We don’t deserve mercy. We don’t deserve justice. But if you want women to stop dying, then I need to help him.”

“And what happens if you help him?”

“He’ll cross over,” Anna says, letting go and stepping back. “And then whatever god you believe in will deal with him.”

Written by: Natasha Akery

Photograph by: Nathan Mansakahn

Rx

The way the light reflects on the water makes me think of my old life. The world looks doubled over. There are two treelines in the distance, one on the horizon, one seemingly subterranean. In my old life, I‘d stand beside the water and take a photo of my feet kissing the edge of the reflection. I’d text the photo to Joshua, saying, It’s so beautiful. Wish you were here.

That all seems so ridiculous now. I’m disconnected. My pulse pounds an urgent rhythm where once it was smooth.

I had to get away. I’ve been hiding out in this tunnel since I made a run for it yesterday evening, but in the daylight, I’m exposed.

It’s still early. Nobody in sight. I gather up the wrappers from the energy bars I stole when I left and shove them in my purse. Gotta cover my tracks. It’s time to move.

                                                                                                     ***

Officer Harkless slides his sunglasses into the pocket of his uniform shirt. It’s a new idiot every week—desperate and demanding, and with no comprehension of the system.

“Like I told you,” Harkless says to the man, “it’s too soon. We can’t do anything till she’s been missing for over twenty-four hours. I’ll take your information, and you can call again if she’s not back by tonight.”

“But—she’s gone!” the man stammers. “Isn’t this your job? Finding missing people? She’s never taken things this far before.”

“So she’s done things like this before?” Harkless asks.

“No! I mean—no,” the man barks. Short-tempered and idiotic.

“Just give me your information, sir.”

“Joshua,” the man says. “Joshua Brenner.”
                                                                                                     ***

Save the date!

Joshua & Julie

17 May 2014

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. –Helen Keller.

It was Julie’s idea to add the fucking Helen Keller quote. She said she saw it on Pinterest and thought it was so inspiring, so representative of marriage. The great adventure! Two people wandering into the unknown with nothing but the stars to guide them! I told her if she found one more thing on that goddamned website I was going to take back the ring and call the whole thing off. No more handmade boutonnières or cutesy place cards constructed of Scrabble letters and burlap. And no. No to Mason jars. Forever.

Now the save-the-date card taunts me from its shrine on the fridge. Julie smiles her radiant, fake grin, the one she gave to the clerk at the Kum & Go just before I watched her shoplift a handful of shit and go around the corner of the building to “find the ladies’ room,” never to re-emerge. I remind myself I love her. I love her.

                                                                                                     ***

Maybe I was born for life in the wild. I’ve been taking what I needed from this world for as long as I can remember. But I should’ve taken more food from the Kum & Go.

I look around for edible plants. This area’s a treasure trove—mint leaves, honeysuckle, mushrooms of various degrees of risk. I fill my pockets with them all.

In my old life, honeysuckle was the color I’d chosen for bridesmaids’ dresses. Honeysuckle yellow satin. I can’t remember why that would have been so important.

My mind rushes. For once, it’s not my legs that tingle, but my brain. A mantra, chanting between my temples. I can’t be caught. I can’t be caught.

                                                                                                     ***

He’s back. Harkless sighs and flips to a new page in his notepad.

“Mr. Brenner, can you describe your fiancée’s recent behavior? Is there any reason we should believe she’s in any sort of danger?”

“Danger? No! I have no idea. She’s probably mad about something—some passive aggressive shit.”

“No disrespect, Mr. Brenner, but this case is taking time and resources we could be spending elsewhere. So if this is all some sort of domestic dispute—“

“No, I’m sorry. Sorry,” Joshua says. “This is different.”

“Again, I don’t mean any accusation, sir, but have you noticed anything different about your fiancée lately? Spending time with new people? Any alcohol or drug abuse?”

                                                                                                     ***

Along with joining Pinterest and adopting a frenzied skincare regime, Jules stopped eating meat the millisecond we got engaged. She always bitched about the idiocy of her friends who did juice diets, but figured going vegetarian would help her with the whole bridal beauty vision. It’s all a giant racket, women getting too worked up over all that crap. Something’s always wrong with them. Things that aren’t even real. I have fat under my ass. My stretch marks have stretch marks. My legs feel like they’re crawling all the time. Julie went into full combatant mode for all of these imaginary ailments.

“I’m going to teach you the most important two words of your married life,” my father-in-law told me after Julie came back from two days of doctors’ appointments with a prescription for curing restless leg syndrome and a pamphlet about liposuction.

“What’s that?” I asked him.

“Yes, dear.”

                                                                                                     ***

“Hello?” I hear from behind me.

I freeze. I shouldn’t have left the tunnel. I should have stayed until it was dark.

“Ma’am, are you lost?”

“Stay back! Stay away from me!”

“I’m not going to hurt you. But this is my land.”

“I won’t be here long—I’m passing through. I’m gone!”

“Hey, wait—aren’t you the woman from the news? The one who went missing from that Kum & Go?”

                                                                                                     ***

“Harkless, they found your girl.” Rhodes stretches the phone in his direction. Harkless waves it away.

“Get the address. I’m on my way.”

                                                                                                     ***

Mirapex. I squeeze the bottle in my fist as I watch the cop escort Julie up the driveway toward the house. She looks confused, as she should—the drugs are probably still in her system. In my other hand I’m clenching the packet of fine print. Mirapex may cause trouble breathing, tremors, changes in vision…and in rare cases, compulsive behaviors such as gambling, excessive drinking, or shoplifting.

Of course I wouldn’t have noticed. Planning a wedding breeds compulsion. I’m not sure what I can blame on the wedding and what on the drugs. What is Julie and what is some phantom.

“They caught me,” Julie says, freeing herself from the cop’s grasp. “I guess I’m back.”

“Why did you leave?” I say. I’m trying to slow my breathing, reminding myself I shouldn’t expect a coherent response.

She doesn’t answer me. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a flower—a honeysuckle blossom?—and offers it to me.

“I’m back,” she says again.

My muscles, tensed for two days, loosen. Then she reaches into her purse and retrieves a pair of shiny aviators.

“I got these for you,” Jules whispers.

                                                                                                     ***

Harkless pats his empty pocket.

“Rhodes,” he says. “You seen my shades?”

Written by: Dot Dannenberg

Photograph by: Angela DeRay

The Outer Borough

It was all too familiar. After awhile, all crime scenes started to feel the same. Especially the smell. The tinny smell of blood always saturated whatever shithole apartment the victim died in. And they were all shithole apartments in this part of town.

“Give me the rundown, Peterson,” Detective Thorne said as he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, squatting to get a better look at the body.

“The victim’s name is Esther Walker. Sixty-three years old. Cause of death appears to be multiple stab wounds to her chest. Lives here in this apartment with her husband, Charles Walker.”

“Do we know where he is?” Thorne asked.

There were gelatinous mounds of blood surrounding Esther’s body, which told Thorne that the stab wounds he saw had penetrated her lungs. The blood had coagulated inside her body before seeping out onto the dated beige carpet.

“He’s supposed to be at work. South Bronx Auto Body over off of White Street. Our boys already checked it out, he’s not there. We got an APB out on him. Get this though, Charles is six months out of the pen. He was released last year after serving thirty years on a life sentence for the murder of a seventeen-year-old girl back in '79. The medical examiner’s report indicates that the girl was sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death.” Officer Peterson eyed Esther’s body and the similar wounds on her body. He was giddy, “You think he did this?”

Thorne glared at him. Peterson’s smirk quickly faded.

“Any eyes on a potential murder weapon?” Thorne asked as he scanned the one-bedroom apartment, hoping to gather enough clues to reconstruct the events leading up to Esther’s death.

“No, nothing yet.”

There was religious imagery everywhere. Esther was a woman of faith, after all. She had held on to hope all those years that her husband was innocent. For three long decades, she had filed petition after petition to have her husband freed, paying attorneys inordinate amounts of money, and begging non-profits to take on her husband’s case.

“My Charlie is innocent,” she had told reporters. “Charlie always told me that we would save up and move out to the country together. He wanted to get away from the big city. Charlie never did like it here. He said it corrupted people. After this experience, I believe it. The prosecutors, they didn’t have any leads, so they pinned it on him. Well, I have faith that Charlie and I will be reunited again one day and that we’ll make his dream of leaving this place a reality.”

Esther’s resolve ultimately paid off. She had finally brought her husband home and they would start saving up to move upstate, out of the city.

                                                                                                    ***

Charles had been nursing a glass of Jameson for a few hours now. The Blarney Stone was a few blocks away from his apartment, but Esther would never know to look for him there. He had lost his taste for alcohol in prison, but didn’t know where else to go.

“Charlie,” Gary started from behind the bar.

“Don’t call me that, only Esther calls me that,” Charles replied, still looking into his glass of brown liquor.

“Charles,” Gary continued, “what’s going on? You’ve been coming here every morning for the past week, ordering a glass of whiskey that you don’t touch, not saying a word to anyone.” Gary had known Charles from before the conviction, he hesitated before adding, “Look, I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, but you gotta start living again. Get back into a normal routine – go to work and at the end of the day, go home to your loving wife.”

“I killed her Gary,” Charles said suddenly.

“What?” Gary was taken aback.

“I’ve never told anyone, but I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. I was drunk, that’s not an excuse, just a fact, and I killed her. I killed that girl.”

“Alright Charles, I think you should stop talking about all that now.” Gary wasn’t sure what to do with the information he was now privy to, wasn’t sure if he was supposed to do anything with it.

“I wanted to confess to the police, I really did, to get it off my chest. But Esther…I couldn’t break her heart. She was fighting so hard for me, you know? I never actually thought she’d be able to get me out. But she did it and they let me go...they let me go on a fucking technicality.”

“Charles, look buddy…” Gary was desperately trying to plug the leak he had inadvertently caused.

“I accepted it Gary,” Charles was looking straight at him now. “I was guilty and I accepted that I was supposed to be in there. I thought it was all over. How are you supposed to go on living after you’ve already accepted death?”

                                                                                                    ***

Nothing in the apartment appeared to have been disturbed, Thorne realized, at least not in any obvious way.

“What happened here?” Thorne wondered to himself.

The only thing that caught Thorne’s eyes was two framed paintings that were hanging at an angle. One was a reproduction of the Last Supper and the other was of a farmhouse. Thorne couldn’t be sure if the paintings had been jarred by a struggle or if they’d been crooked all along.

                                                                                                    ***

“Prison was supposed to be my punishment,” Charles continued, “It was supposed to be how I suffered. But now I’m a free man, living on good fortune that I didn’t earn. Human experiences are always paid back in turn,” Charles said as he threw back his glass of Jameson.

“You’ve been given a second chance Charles,” Gary mustered, not really knowing what to say at all.

“I’m an old man Gary. Even if I had all the time in the world, you can’t make up for taking away someone else’s.”

“You can at least try to lead a good life with what you have left.”

“Maybe, Gary, maybe. At least I have Esther.”

Written by: Sam Chow
Photograph by: Emily Blincoe