

### Beneath the Skin

By

David George Howard

Smashwords Edition

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Beneath the Skin

Copyright © 2011 David George Howard

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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

For the included works of fiction, names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in these works, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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I would like to thank Professors Robert Rebein and Karen Kovacik of the IUPUI Department of English. Many of the following stories came from the work I did in their classes. Their expertise and guidance are greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank my fellow students in those classes for not only reading my stories but also allowing me to read theirs. Reading those stories helped me more than one might think. I must give thanks as well to my wife Michele who provided the final editing comments to this collection.

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If you wish to contact the Author, he can be reached at any of the following:

http://artfulscribbler.wordpress.com

artfulscribbler@yahoo.com

<http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/theartfulscribbler>

The stories in this collection came from the various writing classes and workshops I have taken over the past few years. Each was written or at least reviewed with the dual-purpose of practicing the writing craft, and formulating and presenting a central idea. I cannot speak for other writers, but each story I write requires a personal investment. By that I mean, in my mind the characters exist in all dimensions with lives of triumphs and failures. I get to know these folks and put them through stressful situations. In some cases this is difficult to do. If this makes sense, these created lives exist beyond the pages, and when it comes time to put them through an experience that might have an unseemly end this takes careful consideration. This gives me pause when I get to a point where a life has to change or even end. But, if it is part of the story it has to be there.

When it came to choosing a title for this collection, I wanted an idea that meant we were seeing beyond this public image we all project. As we pass through life, we come in contact with a great many fellow humans, but rarely view beyond the outer person. I wanted to bring out that cluttered part we all have, but seldom talk about. Each piece in this collection has a short epilogue that describes the germination of the idea that was then made into the full story. With that, please join me in these tiny spheres of humanity I have tried to create.

I, Me

Always the Lake

A Reasonable Murder

The Voices

They Belong to Everybody

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# I, Me

"All of you. A swift kick is what you need. All of you," Beatrice yelled when she walked around the corner. "I don't agree with you at all," she said, approaching a man, stopping him in the middle of the sidewalk. "I'm talking to you." The man stepped around her and went on his way.

Nearly everyday, Beatrice wandered down from her apartment to search the neighborhood for her living. For over a year, this was a habit she had rarely changed. Her routine was to visit specific places, trashcans, parks, public buildings, before returning to her room hours later. Beatrice looked around at cars passing on the street, and then pulled the blue stocking cap further over her dirty hair. She went a few hundred yards then stopped before a dumpster in an alley between two buildings. The trash had been collecting for a few days, and she knew the dumpsters might have items of interest. Beatrice lifted the lid and began to look at the contents. After a few minutes, she pulled out a lamp, with its torn shade and frayed cord. The lamp would be a fire hazard if anyone tried using it. She slowly set the lamp down at her feet, before turning back to the rest of the trash. After a moment, she returned to the lamp, where she looked at it with confused attention. Her gaze traced the cord as it stretched along the ground away from the base. She picked up the lamp and slid her right hand down the length of the cord until she reached the fray. Her grimy thumb ran over the exposed wires a few times. "Hell mongers," she said before setting the broken item back with the rest of the junk.

Her dementia first appeared about a year before her husband died. There was the loss of direction, and the odd phrases spoken and repeated. At first, the doctors would say things like, "Mrs. Haney, we can control this with the proper treatment," or "this may only be a one time occurrence, we won't know for some time." As her condition worsened, phrases like, "Additional care," and "institution" began to come into the conversation. Though she was having difficulty understanding, these words came through and terrified her. Nothing scared Beatrice more than being shut away in a dark smelly room, in a forgotten building. Now, this thought was all she could recollect from those doctor visits.

Leaving the trash, she went back to the sidewalk and continued until she came to a small diner. She went around to a back door and knocked softly. Oblivious to the street noise and the commotion from inside the diner, she let her attention focus on the door. A minute passed. Two minutes. Other than shifting her weight from foot to foot, she looked content to wait. Finally, a young man stepped out.

"Hello Bea," he said.

"I'm trying to..." she said before the thought trailed off. He handed her a half-eaten loaf of bread and a small box, and then disappeared back into the restaurant. She stuffed the loaf into a pocket in her jacket and opened the box to find the man had been generous enough to give her plenty of food for two or three days. "Kind boy," she said while wandering away.

Beatrice returned to the street, intending to go the park. Instead, when she came around the corner, she became distracted by a woman wearing a green dress walking in a crowd moving the other direction. She craned her neck watching until the woman disappeared from site. People of all shapes and sizes were going by, while her head went back and forth trying to see their faces. "Hey," she said.

They were all going somewhere, and after a few moments, she joined them. Keeping pace, she held the box close in front of her and stayed three or four steps ahead. The crowd thickened, as people heading to work came off subways and busses. Footsteps, traffic and voices, all fought to be the loudest. More people pushed in until she was engulfed, her blue cap and dingy coat in contrast to their business attire. Everyone was walking shoulder to shoulder, moving in a single direction, making it difficult for one person to deviate from the rest.

Beatrice continued walking for blocks until most of the crowd thinned out. She came to a tall building with a rotating door. Without hesitation, she went into the department store, and walked through the women's clothing section. Beatrice went to the escalators and rode up two floors until she saw the kitchen appliances and a microwave oven. She placed the box of food into the oven and waited.

"Ma'am," a security guard said as he came up behind her. He opened the door on the oven and took the box out.

"I have to get ready for lunch," she said, as he gently pulled her away by the elbow. She looked at his uniform and a dark grimace came over her face.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid you can't stay," he said.

"But I live here. I have to get ready for my friends, they are coming over," she said.

"There isn't anyone who lives here," he said, taking her towards the escalator.

"I do," she said in a broken voice, grabbing the box out of his hands. "Don't take me there, don't take me there."

"Where is that?"

"To the room," she said, her voice getting small and tight. "Don't take me there, I'll never come out. Oh please please. I don't want to go. Leave me here. I live here."

She pulled her elbow loose and tried to hide behind a display. The guard reached around, but she moved to the other side. With small lunge, he was able to grasp her arm again and pull her to the aisle. "It's time to go now."

"No no no," she said, her voice getting louder. She shook her head hard enough that he had to stop walking. "I won't go. Not there!"

The guard again started leading her out of the area and down the escalators. They reached the ground floor, where he took her through the rotating entrance and back out to the sidewalk.

"This is my house," she yelled at the guard once he let go of her elbow. "I live here. Why are you doing this? I will not leave my home!"

"Sorry, you have to go home. Your home." The guard went back inside.

"Home. Yes. I live here," she replied shaking her finger at the rotating door, dropping the box. She took a step towards the building.

Her eyes followed the entrance as it spun around. She was breathing fast as she looked up at the building and put her hand on top of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut and jammed her tongue in and out between her teeth. People walked by, glancing as they passed, while she wrestled with her splintered thoughts. Finally, opening her eyes and dropping her hand to her side, she took a deep breath and looked down at the box. "Yes to my home." She bent over and grabbed the box off the sidewalk.

Beatrice went back to her building and began climbing the stairs. As she tottered her way up the dark passage, the stairs groaned and bent, sounding like they would give way and send her backwards. She almost fell a few times, though she failed to notice. "Damn it, why isn't it here, why isn't it like this," she said at the top of the first flight. "God damn you all!"

Her apartment was on the second floor. After fumbling with the keys, she opened the lock and moved the door open to enter the disheveled and desperate space. She set the food among the filth of the kitchen counter. "You need to put the food away," she said before she walked off. She went back and placed the box and the loaf of bread in the empty refrigerator.

Beatrice settled into the only chair in the room. As she sat mumbling to herself, she picked up an old framed picture on a table next to her. The picture was of a woman sitting on a stool, and a man standing behind her. She struggled, but after several seconds, the two people in the picture began to look familiar. The woman was herself, she was able to figure that much out, but the man puzzled her. The dark hair and eyes brought up a level of recognition that left him just out of grasp. She gave up, and put the photo back on the table. Beatrice stared at the television, before reaching over and turning it on. On the screen there was a woman wearing green. Beatrice began to remember everything that happened that morning. However, as each thought came up, the trash, the diner, the department store, it would focus, and then fade. All the memories of that day went blank, except for one thing.

"I know he was going to take me away," she said, the image of the store security guard fixed in her memory. "They do that. They take you away. Take you away someplace. They do that." The television droned on in the background as she started to fall asleep, thinking for sure he intended to lock her up in the dark room.

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I had been attending a writer's conference in Muncie, Indiana when I thought I would take a break for some fresh air. I went out to my truck in the parking lot and sat on the tailgate to eat a snack (those who know me know I am always eating a snack). Presently I noticed or rather heard a woman walk into the parking lot talking in a loud excited voice. In that she seemed to be engaged in a commotion, I looked around to see who might be involved in the other side of the conversation. There was no one. My conclusion was that she was in some extreme distress and/or not in complete control of her mental faculties. At the time, I was dealing with an ageing parent going through some declining mental capabilities. I often wondered what happened, in cases like this, to all the logic and control gained throughout a lifetime.

The conference was in a large hotel and I must have imagined a person looking down from a room at this woman in the parking lot. My thought was that this person looking down was in fact the logical controlling part of her consciousness. It took a few years, but I returned to this and wrote the story. The original plot had this logical part of the person telling the story. However, I did not reveal this split personality until the very end. Through one of the workshops, I realized this was too complicated and actually was a trick ending. Since I did not want to fool the reader into thinking they were reading one thing but were reading another, I changed this to a straight third person point of view where the protagonist somewhat talks to this other self. The title made more sense with the original plot, but I liked and kept it even though it may now be slightly obscure.

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# Always The Lake

For me, elementary school in late spring was about the youthful anticipation of leaving behind the daily grind of public education and entering three months of summer vacation. Similar to most students, towards the end of May I would be in an unairconditioned classroom, forearms sweaty and sticking to the desk surface, watching the clock tick away the minutes. The teacher, whoever she was, must have wondered as well, as twenty to twenty five kids squirmed, and barely listened to whatever she was teaching. This was a drawn out ordeal that stretched until the last bell on the last day, when we would finally be released and pour out of Judge Haynes Elementary in Portland, Indiana. In that strange expanding and shrinking of the perception of time, three months as an adult does not seem that long. As a child though, this was an eternity, and for the Howard family meant two weeks at Lake Gage, two weeks to be allowed to play to my heart's content. For most the first seven years of my life, this was part of what our family did each summer, and was often the highlight of the year.

The vacation had become a ritual since before I was born, and was really the result of two things. The first was that when my father was young, his family vacationed in Sister Lakes, Michigan every summer, and for him this was what middle class families did. The other was that there were five children in the family, and a vacation at one location two hours away was easier to handle. Susie, Barbie, Janice, Bill and myself were spread out in age by fifteen years. Susie is the oldest and I am the youngest, with Bill being two years older than I am. Five children made for an active household, and when July 4th approached, tensions would begin to rise as Mom and Dad would start gathering all the groceries and household items we would need. This was part of the difficult task of corralling us towards the goal of getting everyone into a car or cars at the right time with the right things. There was some shouting and stretched nerves as Mom fanatically cleaned the house for our departure, and ordered us around to help her. Bill and I would repeatedly be told to go clean our room. We whined and complained until we were faced with the inevitable of having to spend the few minutes to put clothes and toys away in our bedroom. We did this, but I could never understand why we needed to clean a house we were not going to live in for two weeks? However, her wisdom was sound, in that after the let down of a vacation, a clean house makes for a welcome return. A few days before we were ready to leave, Dad would take the boat out of storage and park it in the backyard. The boat was jointly owned by my family and friends of my parents, the Hardy's. We would dutifully clean out the remnants of the last usage and put a little gas and oil in the fuel tank. Climbing into the driver's seat, Dad would hunch over slightly and turn the key. After a few seconds of cranking the motor would catch and start with a billowing cloud of blue smoke, a combustible signal that we were now ready to go.

Lake Gage is about two hours north of Portland, near Angola, Indiana, and is in a collection of lakes in the northeastern part of the state. Along the way, we drove through downtown Ft. Wayne, where I would hang my head out the car window and marvel at what were the tallest buildings I had ever seen. From there we would get onto the interstate and finally the country roads until we came to The Lake and cottage. Once we arrived, Bill and I would lug our bags to the second floor bedroom, and then help with a few other things before we would be released. We would put on our swim trunks and run down the stone stairs leading from the house to the waters edge. After two hours in the car with us, Mom and Dad were probably glad to let us run off and go jump into the water. I don't remember my sisters being that eager to run to the end of the dock and leap off the end. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what they did at that point, as Bill and I were for the most part left to our own devices for the next two weeks.

Lake Gage itself is a medium sized lake at about 350 acres. We rented the same house every year, a two story grayish-brown cottage, with three bedrooms on the top floor and a living room and kitchen on the bottom floor. There was also no television, however, we never lacked for forms entertainment. Next door, the Hardy's, John and Margaret with their daughter Susan, best friend of my sister Susie, would be staying. On the other side, for a few years, we were joined by my Aunt Nita, my father's sister, and my cousins, Nancy and Candy. The owners of the houses were an older couple, the Roth's, who lived across the street. Mr. Roth was a lanky man who always wore coveralls or work cloths, chewed tobacco, and never let on to what else he actually did for a living. Every other day or so, he would show up to see how things were going, though he was not one to stand around and chat with my parents. He took good care of his properties, and saw to all the maintenance needs. Mrs. Roth was a small rotund woman, who claimed she was a past President of the local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, WTCU. When Mrs. Roth came around drinks were quietly hidden under chairs and tables, only to be brought back into view when she left.

Part of Mr. Roth's maintenance included capturing small wild animals and disposing of them. Often in the morning, we would see him walking through the yard with a squirrel or raccoon in a live trap. We would usually be in the house as he took the cage down to the bank and set it in the water to forcibly drown the creature inside. After several minutes of thrashing about, he would pull the cage out and carry it back by the house. This was a gruesome sight that served no purpose, and since nobody in my family hunted or trapped animals, we were not used to seeing anything like this. Still, I watched this act with that morbid curiosity of a child.

Soon after we arrived, Dad and Mr. Hardy would tow the boat down to a landing to set it into the water. There were actually two boats involved with our stay at The Lake. The first boat was an odd looking affair with a seating arrangement that had two distinct bench seats separated by a deck. One of my very first memories of being at The Lake was being helped out of this boat. I may have only been three years old, but I remember wearing my tiny life jacket as somebody lifted me out of the seat and onto the dock. The boat was unusual in that the driver sat in the back and looked over the heads of any passengers in the front. Powered by a small motor, it was not fast, but could pull one skier fairly well. The boat, with the strange seating arrangement and burgundy and aluminum colors, had a unique nickname. My Dad and Mr. Hardy called this the Nigger boat. By any standard then and today, this was a vulgar expression, however, in the mid 1960s for two men who grew up in the depression and fought in WWII, this prejudice was in line with where they came from. Even at that age though, my sensibilities knew this was not an appropriate term to use, but I was compelled to later ask Bill where this came from. Bill explained they called it this because you rode in the back. This boat was eventually replaced with one that had a conventional seating arrangement and a red deck and white fiberglass body. This was christened the "Barracuda Queen", a name that seemed to have no meaning. My only guess is that it sounded cool and Dad had a particular liking for Plymouth Barracudas. Adding Queen made this into a proper boat name.

With the boat in the water, the car unpacked and the initial excitement expended, the family and friends would settle in for the two weeks. Most mornings started quietly. Often I would wake up early, come downstairs to the front room and look out at the lake. Mom, an incurable insomniac, would have already been up for several hours. Usually, I looked out at the lake below and saw her sitting in a lawn chair on the dock, smoking one of many cigarettes that day and drinking a cup of strong percolated black coffee. When I saw her, I come out of the house and climb down the long stone stairway that went to the shore. There she would be, glad to see me awake. I would walk out on the dock, still bleary eyed from having only woken a few minutes before, and go over and stand next to her as she took the last few puffs and downed the remainder of the coffee. She often spent the mornings there before anyone else was up, looking out over the glass smooth lake if it was calm, or watching the sailboats tool around before the speed boats came out and chopped up the water.

Years later, I was to learn that this was her favorite part of the vacation, and she really did not see this yearly ritual as a relaxing time. Once her quiet moments on the dock were over, she would spend most of the day fixing food, doing laundry and trying to take care of the family. When the opportunity presented itself, she would take the time to drive into the surrounding countryside to buy produce and eggs. There were stores in the area she could have easily gone to, but she enjoyed finding food at local farms for part of our groceries. I can distinctly remember going with her to a farm and standing in the kitchen while Mom paid the farmwoman for a batch of eggs as I watched a boy about my age eat breakfast. As he picked through a bowl of what was probably oatmeal while sitting in that dingy kitchen, I stood there in my nice neat shorts and shirt. The boy never looked up or seemed to acknowledge we were in the same room. Instead, he methodically moved the spoon between the few inches from the bowl to his face. The place reeked of farm animals, a smell that is always offensive to people who do not grow up around livestock. I did not know what to make of him, and felt both sorry for his condition and embarrassed to be standing there in my clean clothes.

We usually spent much of our day in the boat. Dad was incredibly patient in trying to teach the older children how to ski, all the time starting and stopping the boat as one kid after another tried to master the trick of sliding on the water. I was too young to ski so I rode along with the wind whipping across my home barber kit summer crew cut, calling out when the skier went down. By the time I was five or six, I was allowed to drive the boat under supervision, though never to pull skiers. Today, this would probably be illegal, and when I think of a six year old driving a speedboat, I am stunned. Then, they thought nothing of setting me behind the wheel when the lake cleared late in the day and shooting off across the water.

Throughout this constant stream of activity, Mom and Dad never spent that much time together, other than the barbeques and bridge games. I was not privy or aware of what was going on between my parents, but theirs was not a settled and affectionate relationship. My mother was born Jewish and grew up in constant poverty and some of my Dad's relatives never accepted her into the family. The Howard's had come from a long line of solid Presbyterians who arrived into the Boston area in the mid 1600's and worked their way to Michigan and on to Minnesota and Wisconsin. My mother's family, the Cohen's, more or less showed up around 1905, with relations from Poland, maybe Lithuania, or possibly Russia and Hungary. This vacation was never comfortable for her, and years later, she told me that even though she was accepted into this circle of friends, her background always made her feel different. Knowing that group of people as I do, I doubt they truly ostracized her though she still felt separated due to her ethnicity. When she was with them she always seemed to be enjoying herself, but impressions are often difficult to decipher. Upon reflection as an adult, and now understanding her better, I realize those quiet moments in the morning sitting on the dock were her real vacation. The still water was her solace. She said that when she died, she wished to have her ashes scattered on Medicine Lake in Minnesota were she had played as a girl. When she did finally pass, we rented a boat and chose a calm quiet part in a cove of Medicine Lake as her final resting place.

During the day, Bill and I spent most of our other time in the water until we puckered up like pale prunes. We had a few water toys, one of which was a small blue plastic boat that was just big enough for the two of us to sit in and float around. Somewhere in our young minds, we realized that floating in a tiny boat with your brother lacked the needed excitement. Always in search for the next best thing, we one day looked at the hill leading down from the house to the shore and put the two together. We started hauling the boat to the top of the hill and pushing each other off. It was a hell of a fast bumpy ride that ended at the top of a four-foot retaining wall. This was tremendous until Mr. Roth came by and exclaimed, "What happened to my grass?" The boat was relegated to water use, however years later we discovered it made a decent snow sled. During the sledding incarnation of the boat, one of us ran over my friend Glenn Thurman's head. He said he looked up and saw me coming in the blue boat, and then the next thing he knew his face was being slammed into the snow. I don't remember doing this, and think he was addled by the boat going up his back and over his head. There was no injury, and I forgot to ask why he just didn't get out of the way.

Our two weeks at The Lake continued this way with no real commitments other than riding in the boat and playing in the water. We also celebrated Bill's birthday on July 5th, an event that he thought was the entire reason for the vacation. However, vacations always draw to a close, and each year leaving was difficult. By the time I was six, the family began to drift in another direction. Towards the end of our visits there, Susie and Barbie were of college age and had other things going on in the summer. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the biggest influence was an impending job change for Dad. He had been working as VP of at vegetable packer in Portland, where the owner's son-in-law had taken over the company and put Dad into a much lower position. These changes were going on around me, and though I was too young to grasp the dynamics, I knew the not too distant future was going to be different.

There was never a definitive statement that we were not going back, but on the last day as we packed things away, I had a sense this was not like the previous year. One of the final tasks was to pull the boat out of the water. I had been trying to learn how to ski and I was going to have one last chance in the few hours left. It was cold that morning, but I jumped in and slipped the skis over my feet. I lined up behind the boat with my ski tips sticking out of the water and the rope running between them. It took a few tries, but finally I came out of water and looked down at my six year old legs going into the full sized adult skis. I wobbled around for about fifty feet then fell down. There was no more time left, so we had to bring the boat over to the landing.

As we were getting ready to take the boat out, I must have talked about trying again the following summer, but received an answer that amounted to a maybe. When you are very young, you often do not comprehend all the words, but know the meaning behind them or sense the body language. There was a resignation that I must have noticed. Driving home, I heard sniffles from the other side of the back seat, and saw Bill looking out the window as tears ran down his face. We both sensed this pull into another era of our lives, though neither of us knew the workings behind this. Later the following year, Dad would quit his job, to get away from the son-in-law that had taken over the business. The next summer there was no vacation, and never a mention of going to The Lake again.

With five children, Barbie in Carthage College, a private school in Wisconsin, Dad decided to start a couple of Laundromats, one in Coloma, Michigan and another in nearby Benton Harbor, while taking a sales job at a nearby fruit packer. There was also rental property in Benton Harbor that had belonged to his family for decades that he wanted to maintain. One could look at this move and call him either brave or foolish. Maybe both. He was fifty-two years old, and over the previous couple decades had moved across the country chasing jobs, and this may have seemed like one more. However, the life they had created in Portland, though never idyllic, was as close to comfortable as either of my parents would ever see in their married life, with a good job in a small town, decent schools and friends everyone enjoyed. It also gave us the resources to take this vacation every summer. Now, he was leaving this to a very uncertain future, requiring a substantial sacrifice. The family moved away from this life to one of dwindling resources and a rented house in Keeler, Michigan on the edge of a large asparagus field.

After the move, my parents struggled on a meager income and often argued or lived in difficult silence as spouses tend to do when they are resigned to their changed fate. At one point, I remember Mom saying we had qualified for Welfare, but she was determined not to go that route. They did what they could for us, and we still took some great vacations to places like Colorado and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. However, we always rushed out and back, and that combination of youth and unfettered enjoyment that was part of the summer vacation was gone. Separately, they were great parents, however there was never going to be resolution to their relationship and they were to live the rest of their lives in that same house but emotionally divided.

Talking to anyone in my family, they will remember those visits to The Lake with surprising detail. I know I am not alone in the view of what this meant both to me personally and for other members of the family. Those two weeks at The Lake every summer stand out as prime moments in my family's history. The innocence and eventual realization of it all are almost cliché, but I cannot help but think in those terms. The memories are so vivid, that the mature peeks into my family condition and the importance of this time will always remain.

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The vacation is often the highlight of a kid's summer. Years later when we are on the planning end of that vacation we realize the pain connected with the pleasure. Of course, a family vacation means you are spending exclusive and intense time with your family. Since this causes all those familial interactions to compress into a tight space, emotion and meaning are ramped up.

I forget the exact assignment this came from, but this story was for my Creative Non-fiction class. It may have been to write about a significant family event, or maybe I'm just saying that to convince myself I fulfilled the intent of the project. Either way, I was not quite sure where this piece would go when I wrote it, though many of the images described are still fresh in my mind. Lake Gage is so ingrained in my memory that, decades after we stopped going, certain sounds and smells will take me right back there. It was only years later, when I came to understand the nuances of relationships, that I realized what was going on around me.

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# A Reasonable Murder

There was a bar in Chicago a few blocks from Wrigley Field that did not welcome people stopping by after a game. Leo Posbolouski had originally named it the "Home Run", but once he saw the types of people that came in, out-of-towners, suburb dwellers, southsiders, he shortened the name to the "Run." This kept visitors away for some reason. Leo was not unfriendly in general, he just knew his local customers would eat and drink with only certain types of people. Max Rhodes, having long been a friend of Leo's, found this assuring.

Max often ate his lunch there when he was not out running down a case. Most of his clients were trying to track a wayward spouse, or an acquaintance who had not paid. Occasionally, he had people come to him with difficult problems the cops could not, or should not, be involved with. These were people who preferred to keep their inquisitiveness to themselves. However, on this particular afternoon, business was slow, he had a few hours to kill, and wanted to eat lunch in a familiar place.

"Leo, how are you," Max said. Leo was in the back of the room, wiping off a table.

"Max, what do you know? We have your table open, right here," Leo said pointing to a booth along the window. It was a seat where Max could watch people coming in or out, but still be secluded from view.

"Burger, fries and a root beer," Max said while sliding into the booth.

"Ah, same as Monday," Leo said. He disappeared into the kitchen and Max heard a brief conversation in Polish. Max knew Leo's brother would be cooking up his lunch.

On the table, he set out three newspapers. When he had free time, he usually scanned the stories that did not make the front page. There were often people in the police reports that he knew, and he could never predict when such information could lead to a new case or help an old one. When WWII ended ten years before, he was released from the Army and shortly thereafter hired into the Chicago Police Department. However, after a couple of years, he decided the life of a cop did not suit him, and he joined an investigation agency to learn the trade. Once he felt he had gained the skills he needed, he set out on his own, working the northern part of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. He never was going to break the bank with his yearly income, but it was enough, and he was his own boss.

On the fifth page of the first section of the _Tribune_ , he saw a small title that caught his attention. "Morgan Shot Dead." He read the article, and then found a similar one in the _Sun-Times_. Both said basically the same thing, that James Morgan had been shot once by an unknown assailant. "There are no leads" the police were quoted as saying. The investigator on the case was a man named Tony Palmer, who had been a friend of Max's for years. What concerned Max was that Morgan had hired him about three months before to track a person that kept threatening him. Max felt Morgan was over reacting, but decided to look into it for him. He had not been able to figure much out and told Morgan this two days before. Now, looking at what happened, Max thought he needed to give Tony a call to let him know what little he could.

Leo appeared by his side with the burger, well done on an open bun, and a suitable pile of fries on the side. He let out a low whistle. "Lady friend coming in the door. Nice."

Max looked up to see Camille pulling the heavy door open. He had not been expecting to see her this afternoon, but having her show up unexpectedly was not surprising. Even after all the weeks they had been together he could not figure out why she was with him. She was college educated, quiet, a devotee of classical music and fine clothes. Camille took Max to the first opera he had ever been to. In return, he drove up to Lake Noquebay in Wisconsin for her first fishing experience. Unlike his small world of working around Chicago tracking down questionable people, Camille owned an antique store and traveled all over the world in search of furniture she could trade or sell. A few of the other men in the bar looked when she came in, but unlike most women that turned heads, she always came across like a cool drink of water on a hot day.

"Hey lover," she said, taking the seat across from him. She took a french fry from his plate, dipped it in the ketchup and ate it.

Max snuffed out his cigarette, knowing she detested the habit. He first met Camille when she had called him to help her find a customer who had bought an armoire and failed to pay. At the time, Max did not even know what an armoire was, but the case was easy and they had developed a relationship from there. "What brings you here? Shouldn't you be buying a sofa?"

"I'm seeing a customer a few blocks away." Camille slid one of the newspapers around. "What are you reading?"

"This thug, Morgan got shot yesterday. I was doing a job for him."

"Know him well?"

"Only in a professional sense," Max said.

"What was he like?"

"Mean bastard. Stole from people on both sides."

"Sorry he's dead?"

"Doesn't matter to me one way or the other." Max moved a ketchup laden fry towards his mouth. He carefully ate the fry and looked at her while she read the article.

She finished reading it before scanning over the other one. "I think I remember you mentioning this. Was he the one who thought there was a person in Joliet that was after him?"

He generally did not disclose his cases to other people, unless he thought it would help. Since he had been stymied on this for a couple of months, they had discussed it at length, though he had not used Morgan's name. "That's him. Remember you thought it might have something to do with a half-assed business he had going."

"This was the man trying to start a dry cleaning place," she said, eating another french fry.

"Anyway, looks like I wasted about two months and came up empty handed."

"What're you going to do?" she asked, brushing her hair back from her shoulder.

"Well, guess I need to turn it over to the cops." Max went ahead and took a big bite out of the hamburger, and wondered what kind of mess Morgan had gotten into. He was a borderline lunatic, and this was probably the result of one last stupid trick he tried to pull. He took a deep drink of the root beer and looked at Camille over the top of the glass. She had a stony set to her face.

"Why do you need to talk to the cops?" she asked, her voice quiet and a little tight. He had not heard this tone from her before, as she always exuded a smooth confidence.

"It's fine honey. I'm not in any trouble," he said as he put his hand on hers. She did not return his affection. "Sometimes this happens with what I do, you know. Besides I know the cop on this one."

"Sure, but won't this cause you trouble. Once you tell them, they might think you were involved."

"Look," he said, caressing her hand. "Like I said, this happens. It's part of what I do. Tony's a good. The best cop I ever worked with. I either go to him first, or he finds me and wonders why I didn't say anything."

"No. I think you might want to stay out of this as much as you can. This man must have been a problem for many people. I'm sure the police won't be bothering you with this. No." She pulled her hand back.

"Dear, trust me. I've been through this. I know what to do. Besides, if I help out Tony, he owes me one. That's the kind of stuff that runs my business."

"What if whoever killed Morgan comes after you? He could do that couldn't he?"

She seemed genuinely worried. At first, he thought this was a quick reaction to what she did not understand, but from looking at how she crossed her arms and averted her gaze, he knew this deeply disturbed her. Other women in his life were scared away by similar incidences that he became involved in. Until now, he thought that Camille was too smart and logical to be this upset. "Camille, please. Don't be like this. I'll be fine. I know how to handle myself."

Camille started to get out of the seat. "No," she said. "Stay out of this."

"Just give me a minute to explain," he said, touching her shoulder.

She stayed where she was, but looked to be ready to leave at any second. "From what you said, this sounded like a dangerous man. I don't think you should be tempting the authorities, or any of his friends."

"I understand how you feel, but let me explain. First of all, Morgan had no friends. I doubt if there'll even be a crappy little funeral." Max was not even sure if Morgan had any family in town. He seemed to have just grown out of the street.

"But whoever did this doesn't want to be caught, right?" she said.

"Of course, but..."

"And I'm sure this is a dangerous person that could kill again." She turned back around in her seat. "I just don't want anything to happen to you."

He leaned closer to her across the table. "This is what I do. I can take care of myself."

"Don't," she said. She shook her head. "There's no reason to help them. If your friend Tony needs you I'm sure he knows how to find you."

"There is really little to tell. He knows Morgan almost as well as I do, so a few minutes of my time won't hurt."

She crossed her arms again. "Do whatever you have to do."

"Camille."

She stood up and quickly walked towards the door.

"Wait," he said getting out of his seat. She was already out of the bar before he had a chance to stop her. He sat back down. "Damn it." Not only was he not going to get paid on this job, now he had an upset woman to deal with. He was not sure which was going to be worse.

Leo came up to his side. "Problems?"

"Maybe," Max said. He put three dollars on the table. "Sorry Leo, I have to run."

Max needed to talk to Tony Palmer, and since it was still around lunchtime, he knew where he could find him. Tony had the habit of eating in Winnemac Park on nice days. Max wanted to talk to Tony alone, since what he said to him had to be held in strict confidence. Others down at the station knew Max from when he was a cop and he did not want people with curious ears hanging around. Max went to the park, and sat down at a bench to wait for him. It seemed rather quaint for a cop, but Max knew that Tony enjoyed this as a few moments of peace in an otherwise hectic day.

After only a few minutes, Max saw Tony come walking through the grass, holding a couple of bratwursts in one hand and a bottle of soda in the other. Tony made a line right for where Max was sitting, as if they had planned to meet there. He set his lunch on the picnic table and eased his large body onto the seat. The table groaned under his weight, and Max felt his side rise up a few inches. Tony seemingly ate half a bratwurst in one bite, moved the food around in his mouth and asked, "What's on your mind Max?"

"Wanted to see how you're doing? Haven't spoken in a few weeks," Max said.

"Aw," Tony said, swallowing, then taking a large gulp of the soda. "Cut the crap. Think I'm some housewife of something?"

"Sure Tony," Max said, using his best Chicago accent. "I think you're the biggest ugliest housewife in town. I'd hate to be your husband."

Tony laughed and took a much smaller bite out of the bratwurst, as if the initial engulfing had been enough to get him started.

Max smiled for a moment, but knew Tony had only a few minutes to talk. "Listen, I saw Morgan was shot last night."

"Some lucky bastard finally took him out. It's about time," Tony said. Having spent ten years seeing the worst a civilized society could produce, Tony no longer cared if this attitude made people uncomfortable.

"I got this for you," Max said. "He called me a few months back, saying there were some people that were getting on his nerves. Real vague threats from a bunch in Joliet. I dug around and found nothing. I talked to him a few days ago. He said he was still hearing things and wanted me to keep looking." Max knew Tony was aware he sometimes worked for people that were on the other side of the law. However, there was an understanding between them that they could help each other if they only went so far with the information they shared.

"What kind of stuff was he hearing?" Tony asked, having stopped eating for a moment.

"The usual. Moving in on Morgan's business and territory. Morgan was trying to start a dry cleaning place, probably as a front for something. They were saying nonsense like they were going to the Feds. Seemed to know enough about him to get him scared. I don't know what to make of it all to be honest." Everything Morgan had told him was so doubtful, Max was confused about who was really behind this. Most of the people like Morgan were not clever enough to lay out an involved plan. They would have just taken what they wanted and dealt with the consequences

"That's all?" Tony asked, going back to the bratwurst.

"That's about it."

"Tell you what," Tony said, "Morgan had so many people mad at him, you know, people that can cause trouble, there's no telling who got him. The man had no respect for anything."

Max studied his friend for a moment. "Let me look into it. Maybe I'll turn over a stone or two."

Tony finished one of the brats. He wadded up a paper napkin and wiped his face. The napkin made a scratching sound on his skin each time he dabbed around his mouth. "You know something, don't you Max."

"I really don't have much else. But I'd like to check into this. See what turns up."

"You going to tell me if it does?" Tony asked.

"I'll need to see what I find. Give me a day to look. Then I'll call you. I'll leave it up to you after that."

"Fair enough."

"Honestly, how hard are you going to look for the killer? He was a mean little wheel in their machine. Never did anything good for anybody. You got better things to do besides look for the killer of a dupe like that."

Tony ran his hand across the top of his head and pursed his lips. "Depends on who it was. I could get rid of Morgan and throw a greaseball in jail. If I could do that, I'd be happy.

"Think that'll really happen?"

"Hasn't yet, but I can keep hoping. I'm going over to the house. I got two of my men over there talking to neighbors. You know where Morgan lived. Meet me there at two. After that, we can go look at the body."

The house was nothing more than a one story ranch style in a middle class neighborhood. Certainly, the people in the area had no idea there was a member of organized crime living there. A policeman was waiting in a squad car when Max walked up the driveway. He introduced himself and showed the cop his private investigator license.

"How long have you known Detective Palmer?" the policeman, Donny, said, getting out of the car.

"Let's see, it's been almost ten years. We both the joined the force right after the war. We never knew each other in the Army, but turns out we were stationed at the same bases."

"Funny how that happens," Donny said. "Well this is the house." Donny opened the front door and let Max step in before him. Tony was standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, looking at an outline on the floor.

"Shot the little creep right here," Tony said. Morgan was found laying on his left side, and it looked like the arm underneath was stretched out over his head. His legs were folded around like he was squatting down.

"Took him right out," Max said, kneeling down to look at the outline. "Find anything else in this room?"

"Nothing of importance. Usual household stuff, some personal papers, crap like that."

Max stood up and walked over where he thought the killer must have been standing. "What do you think happened?" he asked.

"Don't know. No sign of a struggle. No forced entry. He got shot straight on in the face. If anyone in the area saw or heard anything, they're keeping quiet about it." Tony turned to Donny. "Anything new from the people around here."

"Not a damn thing. Everyone here's in bed by quarter to ten."

Max looked around the room, taking in Morgan's life style. The furnishings were moderate, department store items. Possibly rentals. We went over to a cabinet and opened the door to see it was made out of some sort of pressed wood. Cheap stuff. "What do you think of this place?"

"He was just a street hustler who bought a house in the suburbs," Tony said. "I know he always thought more of himself then he would ever be. They're like that."

Max walked into the kitchen and opened a drawer to find it had the same cheap look. "Don't know what I can add." Max said, continuing through the kitchen. "Mind if I take a look at the back rooms.

"Go ahead," Tony said. "Don't touch anything without calling me."

Max walked back to the bedroom to find a messed up bed and clothes scattered about on the dresser and floor. He went into the bathroom. There was nothing of real interest that he could tell. He continued from there into another small bedroom that Morgan had turned into an office. Among the things on the desk was an ash tray, various pens and pencils, a few bills and a smooth rock serving as a paper weight.

He was walking out of the room when he saw a ceramic vase on the shelf in the back of the room. Sitting with a broken clock, a Sox baseball and a deck of cards, the long fluted vase looked out of place. Max went over, and despite Tony's warning, he picked it up and found it was actually quite delicate, to the point that when he held it up to the light in the window the sun would actually shine through. He turned it over to see if there was a mark on the base. Instead, there was a sticker with the name of the store the piece came from. When he read the name, _Chicago Antiques and Furnishings_ , he was confused. That was Camille's business. For a split second, he was not sure where he was, but then his senses returned and an incredible thought passed through his mind. This vase was totally out of character from anything else in the house. Was there was a relationship between Morgan and Camille? Morgan was not the type to walk into a business like hers and buy a delicate, almost feminine piece of ceramic art. Max set the vase back and realized he had to keep this to himself until he found out more. This could or could not bring an entirely different meaning to his relationship to her and the murder as a whole. Maybe it was stolen, but that would be an almost unbelievable coincidence. He left the room just as Tony was coming down the hall.

"What do you think?" Tony asked.

"Well, nothing of interest," Max said, going past, hoping to lead him away from the office. He went back out to the living room where Donny was standing. Tony came up behind him a few moments later.

"What you got left to do?" Tony asked Donny.

"We interviewed most of the people in the five or six houses right around here. I was going to start knocking on doors on the places across the back alley. Joe's over there now talking to a neighbor."

"Be here the rest of the afternoon?" Tony said.

"Likely," Donny said.

"You two quit about four o'clock and stop by my office and we'll get together for a few minutes and see if any of this makes sense. Max, need to see anything else here?"

He was staring at the body outline trying to fit Camille into the equation and had barely heard what Tony had said. "Oh, sorry. No, can't think of anything."

Max followed Tony on the drive over to the morgue. While they were picking their way through the city streets, Max began to put a time line together in his mind. Camille arrived in his life only a few weeks after the first call from Morgan. When he first met her, she had not shown much interest in what he was doing, but then she starting asking questions around the same time he became stuck on the case. That was about two months ago. Then, after he visited Joliet again and came back with no leads, he told her more about the case. Morgan got another call about a week later. "No," Max said to himself, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. His conclusions were not based on solid facts. Then again, he had learned many times from being a soldier, a cop and now a detective, that he needed to trust his intuition. In a few cases, this had saved his life. Now he had that same odd, hazing feeling of when he knew a picture was not what it appeared to be.

The morgue was in the basement of a building the police department used for record storage. Max arrived at two o'clock and waited in the deserted lobby. The building was quiet, with only the vague sound of a record keeper moving a cart around in a storage room. After a few minutes, Tony came lumbering up the steps and led him into the basement.

Tony found the coroner, Dr. Charles, in his office. Dr. Charles was a tall, scholarly looking gentleman who quietly took them through the various examining rooms to an area where they stored the bodies that were under question. The doctor flipped open a file folder, apparently looking for the location of Morgan's body. With a flourish, he closed the file and opened a drawer in the refrigerated cabinet built into the wall. "James Morgan, aged 53," he said pulling the sheet back. "I've found a few things."

Max saw a definite entry wound where the left eye used to be. "Give us some details, Doc, type of gun, how far away, that sort of thing."

"Doctor Charles," the doctor said, giving Max a raised eyebrow that arched above his glasses. "The weapon found in the victim's hand was a .357. The wound and the bullet found match that caliber."

"This was a suicide?" Max said.

Dr. Charles put a pair of gloves on and grabbed Morgan's head by the hair. "No, not at all. See the exit wound?"

"Not really," Tony said.

The doctor carefully twisted the head around until they saw a sizable divot in the back of the skull. He pointed to the exit wound with his index finger. "This hole would be about twice the size if he had shot himself." When the doctor moved the head back down to the metal bed, the neck vertebrae popped a couple of times. The sound echoed off of the concrete walls. "Besides, he was shot in the eye. Who shoots himself in the eye on purpose?"

"Morgan was pretty stupid," Tony said.

"Cops," Dr. Charles said under his breath, but loud enough for them to hear. "The shot was fired from between five and twenty feet. There was some residue on his face, but not enough to have been done from any closer. It's a little difficult to tell, but I would estimate the killer is between five foot three and five seven. Certainly no taller than that."

"We didn't find any prints on the gun," Tony said. "Other than Morgan's, of course. The killer must have brought it and shot him. Tried to make it look like a suicide."

"You gentlemen need anything else?" the doctor asked. "I have other cases to attend to."

"Real quick," Tony said. "Find anything on the clothes?"

"Not really. I have them in the other room." They followed the doctor into the lab area, where he pulled a heavy lined bag off of the shelf and set it on the examining table. He unzipped the bag. "Like I said, not much here of interest. We looked his clothes over thoroughly."

When the bag was opened, Max caught a brief hint of perfume. Camille used a Belgian perfume that was not available in the United States. He commented on it once and she told him that she always made a point to buy a few bottles when she was in Europe. Often after spending the evening with her, he would smell the muted lavender and spice fragrance on her pillow when she got up to take a shower. It was the same perfume she had on earlier in Leo's. The smell was marked into his memory, and when he leaned towards the clothes the doctor was laying out it was a perfect match. She was so unique. The conversation between Tony and Dr. Charles melted into the background as Max began to realize the facts fit together. She matched the height profile Dr. Charles had described. He tried to picture her pointing the gun at Morgan at a slightly upward angle and calmly pulling the trigger. Again, Max cautioned himself that he might be reading too much into the facts.

"Let us know if anything turns up," Tony said to the doctor. "Max, you ready to go?"

Max brought his thoughts back to the present, though he knew Tony's keen sense picked up that he had been disturbed by what they found. "Sure. Nothing else here."

The doctor left them and they returned to the sidewalk outside the building. Tony wiped off his brow. The day was a warm, and he was starting to sweat just stepping out of the building. Big men in cheap sport coats tended to do that. "Give me the deal Max, what's on your mind."

"Can't say for sure."

"You got an idea who did this?"

"Remember what you said about how hard you want to find the killer?"

"Sure."

"Give me a few hours to run this down."

Tony put his hands on his hips and moved a few inches closer. "I saw that look on your face. I could haul you in and make you talk. "

"But, you won't," Max said. "You won't because you might not want to go after this person."

Tony dropped his hands down to his side. "I'll be at my desk 'til six. I want you to call me before I go home."

Max got in his car and started the engine. He pushed in the clutch and put the car in gear. After a moment, he shifted back to neutral and listened to the car idle. Up until Dr. Charles opened the bag, logic had allowed him to hope he was mistaken. The hard truth was that she had created a relationship not out of interest, but out of a need to commit a murder and to dupe him into playing along. His entire occupation was built around people with ulterior motives, but this was different. More personal. A few hours ago, he was glad to believe he had been lucky enough to find a beautiful woman to spend time with.

The antique store was about a quarter mile from the lake in an area that had a collection of boutiques and shops. Other than going to her store, he rarely visited that part of town. When he stepped into her shop, she was seated at her desk, talking to a man in a suit and tie. Max glanced at her before he went around looking at some of the pieces she had on display. The leather chairs, dark wooden desks and tables in Camille's store tended to be on the masculine side, allowing her to play off her looks and confidence with male clients. Max had been in the store many times and was always amazed that people could afford such furniture. He had been looking at moving his business out of his small apartment and into a rented office. However, between the cost of rent and buying a few desks and chairs, he had been hesitant to make the move.

The meeting with her customer ended a few minutes later. When he left the shop, Camille said, "there's no one else here."

He looked around and found a vase, darker than the one Morgan had, and picked it up. Max walked over to her desk and pulled a chair up. After a few moments, he placed the vase on the desk.

"It's a German piece," she said, reaching across for it. When she did so, he could smell her perfume. "I picked that up about five months ago on a trip to Milan. Are you interested in this?"

"In a way yes. I found Morgan was curious about ceramic vases as well. In fact, I think he liked to shop in your store."

She set the vase in front of her, where it wobbled back and forth a moment before settling down. She drummed her fingernails on the polished surface of the desk. "The white one with the blue swirls," she said. "I forgot I had given that to him. How much would you like to know?"

"Enough so I have an idea why you tricked me into this."

She rolled up the sleeve of her blouse to show a scar he had seen before. Then she rolled up the other sleeve. There was a fresh line of bruises on her upper arm, obviously from fingers gripping too tight. "He did this before you and I met," she said, pointing to the scar. "He did this a couple of nights ago," she said, pointing to the bruises.

"Let me get this straight, you were still seeing him while you were with me?" Max found this revolting.

"No, I stopped seeing him before I hired you. A few days ago I said I wanted to see him again. As soon as I came into his house, he thought he would have his way with me. He started grabbing me. I knew what he was going to do and had brought a gun. At that point, I shot him."

The entire story was told with no more emotion then if she had stubbed a toe. "There has to be more," he said.

Camille set both hands on the desk, and sat up in the chair. "The truth is, I heard about him from a friend, one of his girls. He pushed her down a flight of stairs. Broke a bone in her back. She'll never be right. I asked a few questions and found out hurting women was a habit of his."

"Why not go to the cops?"

Her face twisted up as she considered how to answer the question. "There are some things you don't know about my past, things like this." She ran her palms across the polished surface of the desk. The pained look was still present.

They had only been together for a few months, but still, he had not seen her like this. The cool control had been etched, and she was biting her lower lip, like she was trying to shut down images she could never reveal. Camille had not mentioned anything like this to him before, but Max knew she was thinking of past abuses. He had known other women that had been through the same hell and each had been torn down to the harshest depth of their lives. Some were emotionally destroyed, others pieced themselves together and went on. Camille must have had a different reaction. "I know this is difficult, but you have to give me an answer," he said.

"Max, I wasn't always what you see here. I learned early on that, there are men, who like to harm women. I've seen it and been part of it. The police never do anything. Morgan knew how to do it. He could beat up a girl far enough to where... to where she was almost dead."

There was more here than he would be able to sort out. "Why me?"

"I'm so sorry Max. I'm just so sorry I brought you in. I was so careful at first. I never even told him my real name. When I started seeing him, it was for the purpose of killing him, but I didn't know how. One afternoon, I went through his desk and found your name in an address book, and an idea came to me. I started sending him threatening letters from Joliet. I would call up and talk in a whisper and tell him the FBI was looking into his businesses. He bought it and started to get worried. Then he called you to look into it. I sought you out so I could keep track of what he was doing."

The plan was simple, though full of problems. "You wanted to establish a motive and a track record of people after him, and then kill him yourself."

"Exactly."

"Whatever you tried to do, it was stupid and sloppy. Do you have any idea how this could have turned out? Any good cop could track you down in about a week."

She shook her head in agreement and settled back in the chair. "You're right. I had not thought this through well enough. But, he's now gone, and I know he'll never be missed. Admit it. I did everyone a service by killing him."

This was one of those dilemmas that he had agonized over since he was in the war. Right and wrong often get mixed up when one considered what was best for people as a whole. Morgan was a mean little bastard who liked to beat up women, and the cops would never get him for that. Sure, he deserved to be taken out, but did that make it right? After seeing how cruel people could be, in his mind, yes, that did make it right. Morgan was gone, and Chicago was better off without him. He knew Tony felt the same way. "You're right," he said.

Camille looked down for a moment, then back up at him. She said in a quiet, but determined voice, "Max, women like me don't go to jail."

Despite all that had happened Max had to grin after she said that. He had not met anyone like her. She had pulled a risky little con on him with the full belief that she would never be punished. Camille had played on his personality, knowing he would investigate this as long as Morgan kept asking. That and the fact that he believed she did what should have been done years ago. "You know, we're through. I should be angry, but I'm not sure how I feel. Tell me. Was there anything else between us besides getting to Morgan?"

She stretched back in the chair like he had seen her do dozens of times. "I enjoyed every minute we spent together. I almost didn't do this, because I knew I would lose you."

"I'm not sure I'm buying any of that, but, nice try," Max said. He wished this were true, but he could not reconcile the enjoyment they had together with what she had done to him.

"I understand. I know there's nothing I can do to make this up to you, but anything, just name it."

"I don't know if the cops will come after you or not. Either way, you're playing a dangerous game," he said.

The tension went out of her face, as if she had crossed over a mental threshold. "Yes, of course."

"I also don't work for free."

"I can pay you for your time." She took a checkbook out of the desk and began writing his name on the top check.

Max reached across, placed his hand over hers and slid the pen out of her fingers. She looked at the checkbook for a moment. When she pulled it back towards herself, he kept looking at the desk and thought about how it would look in his new office. He would keep it away from the window, so there would be no damage from the sun and moisture. "How much is this desk worth?"

"I bought it for $500, but I could sell it for $5000."

This was small compensation for what had happened, but it was better than leaving with nothing to show for three months of frustration and a false relationship. Max stood up. "Give me a few days, and I'll tell you where to have it delivered."

"So, what should I do about my problem?" she asked.

"Nothing. If the police find you, my guess is you'll walk. If they don't find you, consider yourself lucky."

Max left her store and found a phone booth a few blocks away. He hesitated before dropping the dime in. The next few minutes would determine whether or not Camille got on with her life with little interruption. The dime fell into the slot and he dialed the number. Tony picked up on the second ring. "Tony. Max. What we talked about, I said I would check this out."

"Sure."

"The question is if you care to know."

"Is it someone I might be interested in?" Tony asked.

"No, not at all."

Max could hear background noises over the phone line as Tony thought this over. "Leo P. still make a decent cheeseburger?"

"His brother cooks them now, but he does a good job."

"I got other problems to worry about, but if that changes I'll meet you there to try one. Understand?"

"Yes." He hung up the phone and went back to his car. The newspapers from that morning were still in the passenger seat. Maybe he would find a quiet place where no one could find him and finish his reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Max Rhodes was a minor character in a book I had written a number of years ago called _The Customer._ The book languishes on my computer hard drive, though somehow he managed to escape into the above story. He is, essentially, someone I can use to discreetly go around and metaphorically or actually knock heads together.

For one of my fiction writing classes we were asked to write a story where one person tells a friend of a crime they had committed. I varied from this by having Max discover the crime through an investigation. To make up for the fact that I took liberties with the assignment, I had Camille confess the crime to Max at the end of the story. I claim technical compliance to the assignment.

One of the interesting aspects of Hard-boiled detective fiction is that the detective ultimately decides the method of justice. Max has a sullen but grittily realistic persona when it comes to dealing with criminals and Camille offers him a choice of going by the letter of the law, or applying his own standards. Maybe he does both. I'm not sure.

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# The Voices

Ray had stayed awake as long as he could hoping to tire himself out. The previous two nights and days had been an awakened haze. His fear was that this evening would be like the last and the one before that, where he tossed and turned, feeling every lump in the mattress, every fold in the sheets, every imaginary scratch and itch. He would try to sleep, since certainly, exhaustion had its limits and rest had to come. Ray folded the top sheet back and stretched out on the bed, not bothering to cover up, instead laying still and listening to his bunkmate, Tripper, breathe loud and even, a sign he was fast asleep and unconcerned. Ray could barely see him in his bed across the room, and could not imagine how the man was able to sleep after what they had done. They had not talked since that night.

Ray closed his eyes and placed his hands across his stomach, listening to the air conditioner outside the hut make a deep relaxing drone in its struggle to pull the desert heat out of the room. A gust of wind blew sand against the wall outside, just feet from his head. Ray moved around to relax his shoulders and let his body sink into the mattress. Two weeks away from a long vacation, he began thinking of going home and fishing on the Apple River in Wisconsin, and then as he drifted off to sleep, he saw this thought turn into a dream. The line in the water and sound of the river were as real as he could remember, and he quickly began to flow away from the turmoil of the past few days. Then, he heard a voice he was not able to decipher. Arabic. Then more voices and soon they rose to a steady arguing mass, waking him and pulling him from the river. His eyes shot open, and he sat up and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. Then the voices quieted. All he heard was the steady breathing of Tripper in his bunk and the air conditioner.

Ray held his head for a few moments, running his fingers through his matted hair, wishing he had taken a shower earlier. He knew where the voices came from, but the previous two nights he had only seen images of the people. The grimy faces of the people who kept coming. Three days before, Ray was leading a security squad that had been called to the north end of the refinery. Another routine disturbance, they thought, between the various Sunni and Kurdish Iraqis who lived in and around Bayji. These people were Scratchers, short for Sand Scratchers, a derogatory term used for uneducated Iraqis.

Everyone on the security detail knew there were centuries of fighting between them, but daily they wandered in from the small villages and city in an attempt to work together in the rebuilt refinery. The working arrangement was the result of a well-intended third party negotiation between Sunnis and Kurds to calm the Sunni triangle. Keep the population employed, have them process and sell their natural resources, establish control, and the trouble would end. However, they still clashed, using whatever they had - rocks, sticks, fists - to pound on each other. To keep order, the Iraqi government had contracted the company Ray worked for to help provide an enforcing presence. When called, they seldom fired shots, since the show of force and direct physical contact usually quelled the trouble.

Ray went into the bathroom, drank a glass of water, and then relieved himself before returning to bed. Scratchers. Tripper called them "bastard raggies" since they dressed in tattered clothes and often wore headscarves. They were always dirty and smelled of cooked onions and sweat. Tripper was right; the Scratchers knew nothing but violence. Ray saw that when he was in the Army. Ignorant, he thought, they were only good for manual labor, and even at that, they were only passable at the most menial jobs. Ray lay down again, rolled over on his side, and closed his eyes, trying to go back to the river and the clear running water. After a few moments he did, but he began to listen, and in one rush, the voices came back. He opened his eyes and they continued until he sat up and stomped his foot. Tripper rolled over, grunted, but continued to sleep. God, Ray thought, gritting his teeth, how could Tripper sleep this off?

They had been called to a section of the refinery at the end of a dirt road, and when they arrived, they saw no disturbance. Tripper was driving the truck, and had pulled into an area where a collection of large pipes came out of a building. He shut off the engine and all four - Ray, Tripper, Ozzie and Deke \- stepped out.

"I don't know what the hell's going on," Ray said, looking at the darkened building and pipes running through the scruffy landscape. Other than the machinery of a running refinery, nothing else was making a sound.

"We'll take a little look and see who's here," Tripper said.

"No," Ray said. "It's not right. Stay close." They stayed within a few paces of the driver's side of the truck, with Tripper holding his gun up slowly scanning the area. Ray called back to the base to find out if they had been misdirected, but learned there was no report of trouble. He clicked off and was about to leave, when he heard the chanting. Ray, Tripper, Ozzie and Deke focused their attention down the road through the canyon of dull gray buildings and refinery towers that formed the complex. In an instant, Ray's training came in and he knew what had happened. He recognized the signs of being walled in, and had been pinned down in similar locations as a soldier a few years before. Tonight, they had been directed to this location, not by the dispatcher, but by someone else, and he realized there was no avenue of escape except up the road they drove in on. A crowd began to gather from behind the buildings and pipelines.

"We got some shit going on," one of them said. The safeties came off the weapons.

The pillow under his head felt too soft. Ray did his best to flatten it out, but then set it on the floor and lay on the bed without it. This time, he did not even bother closing his eyes, but instead tried to pick apart every sound he could find. Any ticks of the wall, wind outside, anything. He knew they were alone in the room, but then he heard the voices again. The language was strange and the voices all ran together. He tried to figure it out, he spoke some basic Arabic, but he was not able to decipher what was being said. The voices started to rise and sound like arguing, all talking at once, to him, to others, to anyone. A collection of words that grew to a fever pitch screaming, yelling, at each other, at them, at him, at him.

The Scratchers kept coming down the street, chanting as one chorus. "Fire a shot over their heads," Ray said. A second later, their shots rang out, but the crowd did not change course.

"They're not going to stop," Tripper said, pointing towards the growing mob. "What the hell. Let's take them out."

"No," Ray said, concentrating to see if there was any change in the people approaching them.

"Damn it," Tripper said getting about a foot from Ray's face.

"Settle. Now. That's an order." Tripper backed off a few steps. Ozzie and Deke started to pace around by the side of the truck, while Tripper kept looking from Ray to the crowd.

A cloud of dust began to form over the crowd from the hundreds of feet pounding on the dirt road. Ray looked at the truck they had come in and realized this would be no protection from a crowd that size. They would be dead in a matter of minutes once the mob reached them. The Scratchers were at the low end of the social scale and only knew violence, having grown up with and been on the receiving end of it on a daily basis. Remaining insurgent groups used this pent up anger and still caused sporadic disturbances, though there was no organized resistance. This meant people like Ray were always able to defend against them. Tonight was different. This was planned, clearly the work of one of the remaining groups. Ray concluded that the only way to escape was to cut through the crowd.

"Put your weapons up and be ready to fire on my order," Ray said. "We'll take out as many as we need to get out of here." All four raised their weapons and took aim when a smaller group of people walked to the front of the crowd.

Ray watched the ceiling fan over his bed spin. Those children, he remembered, they stepped in front of everyone. He sat up again and closed his eyes, still not able to believe that any class of people, no matter how degenerate, would do that. Anyone that would take their children and clutch them to their chests and advance towards a security detail came from a place he could not comprehend. They were a completely different type of being. These people were animals, as Tripper often said. They knew nothing better than to behave like that, and should be treated accordingly. If this kind of behavior was acceptable to them, then what difference did it make. They were children though. Kids, maybe five or six years old, held up between the adults and a line of high-powered weapons. People like himself, Ray thought, were raised to treat the life of a child as sacred. That was what the Scratchers were counting on, that Ray and the other security officers would not harm anyone as long as the children were there as a shield

The crowd was within about 100 feet, when they started throwing objects at the four of them. At first, a few rocks landed around the men. Then a couple heavier can like objects hit and exploded. These were crude devices, with little power outside of a ten-foot circle, but if close enough and in sufficient numbers, a few could cause harm. Ray thought the crowd would reach them in about thirty seconds. The other three men around him stood with their guns pointed level, waiting for an order. "What's it going to be?" Tripper said.

The crowd plodded forward, their speed unchanged. At any moment, they could break into a run and overtake the four of them. The choice was automatic. "Now!" Ray ordered and with an exploding burst, the four guns opened up and sent their message into the crowd. The first volley may have only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to drop everybody in the front row. They continued firing and the others behind started going down as well. Then the remainder turned and in a mad rush trampled over anyone behind them in an effort to escape the pressing death. This was the opening Ray needed. Without an order, the four of them jumped into the truck and with Tripper driving, turned towards the people laying on the ground or crawling out of the way and ran them over. The truck jumped up in the air and lurched from side to side as they sped through, but he did not slow down, nor did Ray tell him to take another path. At one point, a boy, maybe fourteen years old, stood and tried to run out of the way, but he was not fast enough. He looked over his shoulder as the headlights panned over him and the truck bore down. The boy's head snapped back and hit the top of the grill before he disappeared under the front wheels. Once through, they tore up the road and out of the complex.

When they were clear, Tripper let out a wild yell. "Whoa! Hell yes, that was close," he said, slapping his hand of the steering wheel. "Those shiteaters'll think twice about trying that again."

"Stop the truck," Ray said.

"What?"

"I said, stop the truck." Tripper slammed on the brakes and the truck skidded to a dusty grinding halt.

"What?" Tripper repeated.

Ray did his best to control his breathing before speaking. "I don't want to hear it," Ray said. The light in the truck was dim, and the dirt from their sudden stop came rolling into the cab. One of the men in the back coughed three or four times. Ray felt the bitter sting of the dust going into his nostrils.

"We got out. Alive," Tripper said. "What?"

"I don't, want, to hear it."

"Don't want to hear what? We just escaped," Tripper said.

Tripper put the truck into neutral and took his foot off the brake. They rolled forward a few inches. "Don't you know what we just did?" Ray said.

"I know can fire a gun and get the hell out of there," Tripper said, gesturing with his hand out the window. "I wouldn't have waited. Shit I would've fired as soon as they came around the building."

"No," Ray said, turning sideways in the seat. "What I mean is, were you in the war?"

"What's that got to do with it?" Tripper said.

"Answer me," Ray yelled.

"I was at Fort Bragg for a year," Tripper said, putting his hands back on the steering wheel.

"Were you in Baghdad, or some other dung hole around here breaking down doors and running people out of their houses? Not knowing if one of those piss-shits had a chest full of dynamite or was just scared."

Tripper swallowed a few times and looked out the side window. "Aw. No, what difference does it make."

"All the difference," Ray said. "Every bit of it. You have to make the right decision, and live with it forever."

"Ever shoot anybody?" Tripper asked.

"Sure, had no choice."

"If I was there, I would've shot every one of those smelly bastards. I wouldn't give a shit," Tripper said. "Why are you starting to now? What do you care about these idiot camel jockeys. They can't work, can't read. They screw their sisters. They just want stick a post up your ass and set you on a flagpole. I say kill every one of them."

Ray had seen and served with men like Tripper for years. Men who would seemingly take a life and not think twice. Those who would see a situation in black and white with no thought of second-guessing. At one time, Ray had been like that, and certain circumstances called for that type of outlook. However, Ray was not sure why, but this was not the same as before during the war. Those past images came to him in a series of flashes. The images would not stop, and he was stunned by the sudden and vivid portrayal. He saw each of those families he burst in on, his gun straight and level looking for that one clue to start taking them out. If anyone made a break for a door, they were dead. Reaching into a pocket was sure sign. It was simple as that. Now, he just did not know. How many had fled in fear? How could he have taken a chance? He was alive today because of the training and knowledge that soldiers before him had died in hesitation. Ray realized the truck was running and then what was playing out in his mind came to a halt. The dust inside had settled. The other three were looking at him. Ray wiped his hand across his nose to clear the grime away. "Drive." Tripper threw the truck in gear and took off.

Sleep just was not going to happen. Ray got out of his bunk and quietly walked across the cabin to the side of Tripper's bed. Since that night, they had not talked other than a quick hello. Tripper was asleep on his left side, turned away from where Ray was standing, his mouth slightly open and breathing into the pillow. The man looked harmless, and helpless. Ray leaned over, watched the man sleep, and asked himself, "Does he know what fear is?" Sleeping put a person in the most vulnerable position possible. Unconscious, and if awakened, disoriented, he was at the mercy of whatever anyone wanted to do. Tripper had no idea what they were talking about that night. He had no concept of thinking your life could be over at the next step, or that you may have to take another's in the same space of time. Other than what happened a few nights ago, Tripper had never been there, but he assumed he knew. Maybe he needed to learn. If he felt what they had done, maybe he would understand this was not a game or movie. Wake up, damn it. Wake up so I can scare the shit out of you. Ray leaned in closer, hoping Tripper's eyes would open. He waited. If they opened, Ray was going to wrap his hands around his throat and squeeze. Tripper needed to find out what it meant to be living the last minute of his life. The man continued to sleep. Ray stood up and left the cabin.

Floodlights around the compound obscured the night sky, and Ray was glad, since darkness, along with the exhaustion, only made things worse. Ray was unsure why Tripper even mattered. He would not have really strangled Tripper, just teach him what he really needed to know. Most everyone that came through a war learned things about human behavior that previously seemed impossible. This was clear after the first day he was in a hot zone and pulled the trigger. Most importantly, he and most other soldiers learned what they were and were not capable of when pushed to an edge. Ray shoved his hands into his pockets and checked around to see if anyone else was about. He was too wrapped up in this. _Damn it_ , he told himself, walking away from the cabin, _Tripper was not worth it_.

The grounds of the compound were well guarded, and wandering around was discouraged. "Why bother," he said aloud. "It's not my problem." He went to a common building that housed the food service for the workers. The light inside was bright, and as he sat at a table with a bottle of water, he thought maybe this would keep the voices away. Each one of those voices had a story, and a life behind it. Stories he was not interested in hearing. However, the longer he sat, the more he could almost feel the truck lurch from side to side again, and wondered if he would ever shake the knowledge that they had simply crushed the life out of them. He was not supposed to care, to think of these things, but there had been a change that night. Ray had doubts now that he did not have before, and wondered if he needed to give this up and go to where things made sense. He put his head down, realizing what this was. He had always assumed he would be immune, but now that boy looking over his shoulder seemed to be staring him in the face. Ray bit down on his lip.

Ray stayed and passed the time reading a magazine and watching the satellite CNN broadcast that was constantly running. When the sun began to come up, he went back to his cabin and as he was stepping through the door, Tripper was coming out. They bumped shoulders.

"Watch it," Tripper said.

For a moment, they stood there about arms length apart. Tripper was dressed to go out on patrol. "Or what?" Ray asked.

"What's wrong with you? You're not right?" Tripper said.

"And you know what right is?" Ray said. Tripper had a slight twist to his lips that became pronounced when he was being sarcastic. Ray hated that twist.

"I do. I know I'm going to my job, and you'll be in your bunk all day," Tripper said.

Tripper's lips curled up. Ray leapt at him, grabbed him by the lapels of his vest and slammed him against the wall. "Don't you understand?" Ray said, as Tripper tried to push out of his grip.

The two men were about the same size, and they struggled against each other for a moment, before Ray managed to get his leg behind Tripper and crash him to the floor. Tripper stepped back as best as he could, and they crashed into a chair. "What the?" Tripper said. He tried to punch at Ray, but they were too close. He only managed to pummel him on the side of the head.

"You don't understand," Ray yelled, spittle spraying from his mouth and falling on his chin. "You don't understand what it means."

Tripper pushed and kicked, until he was able to position himself sideways to Ray and move his legs around to get some distance between them. Tripper managed to get in a quick blow to Ray's solar plexus. Ray lost his grip as the air went out of his lungs.

Tripper jumped up from the floor. "What the hell was that?" He kicked Ray in the side. "Are you crazy? I'll beat you to a greasy smear if you try that again." He kicked him, but Ray managed to slide out of the way so the blow landed on the back of his thighs.

Ray began standing up, but he was unable to straighten due to the pain in his midsection. He staggered back onto his bunk. "You don't know what we did to those people, how we killed them."

"What people?" Tripper said stepping back. "You mean at the refinery? They wanted to kill us. A few seconds later, they would have. We're alive and they're dead, that's what I understand."

"But they were kids, somebody's children," Ray said, the pain easing slightly. He looked up at Tripper, sideways.

"They were animals. Shit, not even that. Cockroaches. I ran over a bunch of sand roaches, and I'd do it again." Tripper straightened his shirt, and fastened a couple of the buttons that had come undone in the struggle. "I don't know what happened to you, but you better get it together or get out, 'cause this is what we do." Tripper left the cabin, not bothering to close the door.

Ray heard Tripper's footsteps disappear as he walked away, before going over and shutting the door. The blinds were closed, and the room was dark. He went back to his bunk and began to stretch out as best as he could. Tripper really could have hurt him, but he did not. What Tripper said made sense, in that he had to live with this kind of violence around him, or leave. He had to leave. When Tripper reported what just happened, the supervisors would order Ray to take an early vacation. He would probably go to another assignment, hopefully domestic. Ray eased off the bunk and opened the blinds. After the scorching sun filled the room, he went into the bathroom to rinse his face. He did not bother toweling off, and instead went back to his bunk, lay down and closed his eyes letting the water run off his cheeks to the pillow.

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Every month I try reading _Playboy_ , but those darn pictures keep getting in the way. Actually, the magazine often features interesting articles, and is one of the few major periodicals to publish short fiction. A few years ago, _Playboy_ featured an article on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder of Iraq War veterans. One image from that article that stayed with me was a description of how a small patrol had to drive through and over a crowd of people to escape. One of the soldiers was later cleaning the truck and found bits of hair and bodily material stuck in the bumper. The man went into a catatonic state when he remembered what happened.

In the preceding story, I wanted to place a person in a similar mental state. I have never been in a combat situation, but it seems that people compartmentalize emotions so they can be dealt with later. The protagonist in the story, Ray, is able to control this compartment until he is forced to do something that breaks it open. Once it is broken, what does one do then?

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# They Belong to Everybody

Jackie Lomax held the repair bill onto the cool white counter with his thumbs, spreading his fingers out on either side as if he was trying to make sure it would not get away. The big knuckles of each finger carried the small scars and scrapes of having spent the previous five years working in an auto salvage yard, using wrenches, hammers and pry bars to tear apart cars that did not want to be dismantled. He ran his hand up the bill and flattened it out again. The cost for repairing the blown head gasket looked about right, though he was unable to total the figures in his head. Whether it was about right or not, he had to pay this to get the car back so they could continue on their trip. Jackie turned for a moment and looked into the sitting area, where his wife Darla and six-year-old daughter Beverly were watching television. Darla was leaning back with her head against the wall, her ample body spread out on the plastic chair. Beverly was squirming sideways in the seat, keeping an eye on the television. He came back to the bill and opened his wallet, knowing he did not have the five hundred and twenty five dollars.

Jackie waved Darla over and, holding the bill, walked a few feet from the woman at the counter. "How much you got?" he asked Darla.

"Let me see," Darla said. Jackie handed the bill to her. She scanned down to the bottom. "Good God, the car's worth less than that."

"I know, but what choice we got. We're lucky the whole motor didn't melt down."

Darla handed the bill back to him and opened her purse. "Stupid car. This is it," she said, giving him a small pile of twenties. She closed her purse.

"Darla," he began, but he stopped. The trip was an important move for her. He knew the sloped shoulders and down turned mouth, and guessed it was better not to discuss anything right then. Darla went back to the waiting area where she sat down again and looked at the ceiling. Jackie paid the woman and she gave him the keys and a copy of the bill. He carefully folded the bill, placed it in his right rear pocket and put the remaining fifteen dollars back into his wallet.

"Anything else we can help you with?" the woman asked.

"No, not right now," Jackie replied.

Jackie rapped his fingers lightly in the counter and watched his small family in the waiting area, and had no idea how they were going to get out of town or even through the next couple of days. Two days before, they had loaded everything they owned into their twenty-year-old Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon and drove out of Green Bay on a move to Fresno. What he now had in his wallet was the grand total of the family funds. The credit cards were maxed out and useless. They had a ten and a five.

"What now?" Darla asked when he joined them in the waiting area.

"I don't know." Jackie sat down between Darla and Beverly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "I hate going back out in the heat."

They had spent the last couple of days in the sweltering car driving the interstates. Several hours ago, they were going well and had just entered Wyoming when steam started pouring from under the hood and the engine light came on. A policeman stopped and called a tow truck for them, which then took the stranded car to the repair shop in Cheyenne. Since then, Jackie and Darla had only exchanged a handful of words.

Beverly clambered out of the chair. "It's nice in here," she said.

Jackie patted her on the head. "I know it is, but we have to go." He ran his hand over his face, and felt the beard stubble and road grit mixed with sweat. He turned to Darla. "We got fifteen dollars left. Maybe we should get something to eat." His legs strained when he stood, stretched and twisted. All the driving he had done over the past few days had left his back tight. Darla got out of her chair and started towards the door. Jackie held Beverly's soft warm hand as they stepped out of the cool repair shop into the blazing hot sun. The feeling of her light grip scared him.

"Where we going now, Daddy?" she said, looking up at him, squinting as her wispy blond hair blew around her face.

"Well, gumdrop, let's find a grocery," Jackie said, doing his best to smile.

"Do we get to camp out tonight again?" she asked.

"Looks like it," he said. He opened the back door of the car, and she scrambled in. Beverly looked tiny in the seat, as she buckled the seatbelt.

Jackie started the car and waited a few moments to be sure everything was running properly before joining the traffic heading into Cheyenne. The car was a relic, one that had come in wrecked, but repairable with parts scrounged from around the yard. Jackie had put it back together with the help of a friend, and had managed to keep it running. However, he had never intended to drive across the country with it, and had not given reliability much thought.

Within a few miles, they found a Wal-Mart. "Fifteen ain't much. I'll go in, you two wait in the car," he said as he pulled into the parking lot.

"Get what you can," Darla said, leaning against the passenger door, looking across the lot.

He drove to a spot that was under a tree to provide some shade. Darla and Beverly stepped out and sat on the curb while he went toward the store.

"Don't forget cigarettes," he heard Darla say as he walked away.

An elderly man in a blue vest welcomed him to the store and even pulled out a shopping cart for him. Jackie wandered past the produce section and into the bread aisle, where he found the cheapest loaf of white bread available. From there, he went to the condiments and added a squeeze bottle of mayonnaise. He also tossed in a bag of potato chips. The lunchmeat case was well stocked. Jackie took a few things and placed them in the cart, but stopped before he wandered away, thinking he did not have enough for everything. The two packages of honey-baked ham and one of bologna were going to be too much, unless he did not buy the cigarettes. Jackie started walking away, but then thought that the cigarettes were the one thing that Darla wanted. At least she mentioned this when he had left them on the curb. Honey-baked ham was his favorite, though. He went back to the cooler, checked the prices again and saw that he needed to make a choice. He finally reached in and put the lunchmeat back into the case.

There was no need to go any further into the store, so he went to the counter, where he paid and bought two packages of Basics. His brand was Winston, and he hated Basics, but he was hoping to save a few dollars. When everything was paid for, he had $2.58 left. Jackie left the store and met Darla and Beverly on the curb by the car and set the plastic grocery sack next to them.

Darla looked in. "What's this?"

"That's all I got." Jackie was standing over her, looking at the top of her sweaty head. The black roots of her hair were showing, indicating the bleach job had been many weeks ago.

"That's all you got? We can't eat bread, chips and mayonnaise."

"We're out of money," Jackie said, sitting down.

"Out of money," her lips voiced, just barely loud enough to hear. Then much louder, "We can't eat bread and mayonnaise. What were you thinking?"

"Sorry." There was nothing else for him to say, so he tried to put his arm around her, knowing how the last few hours had been such a burden. Instead of accepting the comfort, she shook his arm off her shoulder.

"What is this? We got three days of driving. How we gonna get there? We can't stay here. In this stinking parking lot, in this goddamned town. Green Bay was bad enough."

"Darla, watch your language around Beverly," Jackie said.

"Watch my? Get back in there. You want us to starve," she said standing up, putting her hands on her fleshy hips.

Jackie could not look up. "You know I cain't do that."

"Can't do what, let your daughter go hungry? Is that what you want? You want her to go hungry tonight." Darla stepped a few feet away. Her full face was red from anger and heat.

"I can't start, you know, taking things," he said, trying not to say the word "taking" too loud around Beverly.

"Give me another answer then," she said, sitting on the fender of the car.

"What about your brother in Fresno?"

Darla slid off and stood in front of him, bent over slightly. "He ain't there. He's out of town at a job site. Besides that's a thousand miles away."

"Maybe I can find a job for a few days," Jackie said.

"Huh? Get in the car," she said, kicking his left foot.

"Mommy, I'm hungry," Beverly said.

Darla slapped her and put a finger in her face. "Shut your mouth." She seized her arm and yanked her off the curb

"Darla stop," Jackie said, standing up and pulling Darla's hand from Beverly's arm.

"Mommy, that hurt," Beverly said, rubbing her face.

"Don't you start crying, unless you want to get whupped," Darla said. "Get in the car, both of you."

"What're you going to do?" Jackie asked.

"Get. In. The damn. Car."

"I'm not going to start stealing," Jackie said, climbing behind the wheel. "I never have and I'm not starting now."

"Well just what did you have in mind?" Darla said once she was in. "No money, no food, in the middle of God knows where. What, we supposed to go in that field there and start eating wheat? Maybe put some between two pieces of bread and cover it with generic mayonnaise." She grabbed one of the packs of cigarettes out of the bag and pushed the lighter in. About thirty seconds later, it popped out. She put the hot lighter to the cigarette and took a few hurried tugs to get started. The exhaled smoke streamed out the window. "Find another store. Wal-Mart watches like hawks."

Jackie left the parking lot and drove down the road until he came to a small grocery. "Don't," Jackie said. "I can find something if we need to. You get caught and we're in way more trouble."

Darla was not listening to what he was saying, instead looking for a parking spot close to the door. "Right there. Soon as I come out, you start the motor."

"Darla," Jackie tried again. "No." She had already opened the door and was leaving the car.

"Where's Mommy going?" Beverly asked from the back seat.

"Well," Jackie said, watching Darla head towards the door. "She just needs to pick up a few things. We need a few groceries." Jackie looked at Beverly in the rear view mirror and saw her smile. She was a good kid, especially considering how the first six years of her life had gone. He looked down at his lap, not wanting her to see his face.

"That's good. I'm hungry," Beverly said. With both hands, she was holding an old doll, one of the few toys she had been able to bring with her on the trip. The doll was beat up after a number of years of use, and had a head of frizzy red hair that stuck up at all kinds of angles. Beverly ran her hands over the hair to try to smooth it down, but it kept going back up. Finally, she licked both of her hands and gave this one more try. The hair stayed in place.

As Darla went in the automatic door, he was reminded about how she was on the round side when they met, but had gotten bigger every year since. She was still loud though, much like when they first met. While stationed at Lemoore Naval Air Station, he and a few friends went to Fresno for an evening and ended up in a country bar. Darla and her friends were all chatty and drunk, having no hesitation in approaching the young men and getting them to dance. Jackie liked her, and though they only exchanged phone numbers that night, soon they were seeing each other once or twice a week. A few months later, they married, and she traveled from base to base with him for the next three years until he was out, and they settled in Green Bay where he was from. Green Bay was hard for her.

"Just a few years ago," Jackie whispered. He turned on the radio, and listened to Kenny Chesney when he saw Darla come out of the store walking quickly and holding her arms to her sides. Her big breasts were jumping back and forth, as she tried to keep from running. He started the car and leaned over to open the door.

"Go," she said, getting in. Jackie put the car in gear and pulled onto the street. From beneath her shirt, she produced a package of lunchmeat. Then another and another until there were four packages on the seat. She was a big woman, Jackie thought, she could hide a lot of meat. Like a magician, she also produced an egg from each pants pocket.

"How did you do that?" he asked, negotiating the car through traffic.

"You gotta know where to put stuff. I did this all time when I was in high school," she said, stacking the groceries. From her bra, she removed a package of American cheese. "These boobs come in handy."

They drove for several minutes until they found a small wooded park, and stopped the car under a line of trees. After he shut off the car, a cooling breeze came in the driver's window, causing Jackie to close his eyes and relax for a few seconds. The sun was beginning to set, and the heat was backing off. They took the utensils they had, a few plates, knives, and forks, and sat in one of the picnic shelters, where Darla began making sandwiches for everyone. Jackie could rest for the first time all day, with the car fixed, no road noise, or shouting over the furnace-like air blasting in the window. Darla handed Jackie a sandwich of white bread, mayonnaise and a generous stack of honey-baked ham. He took one bite and tried not to think that she had stolen it a few minutes before. The food tasted good nonetheless. Breakfast was over twelve hours before and they had been on the road constantly until the car broke down. Even the water out of the jug tasted good.

"We need to talk," Jackie said finally, lighting one of the cigarettes, breathing in the harsh smoke. "We're long ways from Fresno, and it won't get any easier."

Darla wiped off the plates with a paper towel, and stacked them on the table. "What do you want to do?"

Jackie looked at Beverly who seemed to be ignoring their conversation. "Honey, you get enough to eat?" he asked her.

"Yes," Beverly said, playing with the same doll she had in the car.

"Jackie, we ain't going back," Darla said, putting the lunchmeat into the grocery sack with the bread and mayo.

"I didn't say that," he said.

"Well, you don't have to. I know what you're thinking." Darla took the bag back to the car, set it in the back seat, and then returned a few moments later.

"I can't drive across country like this," Jackie said after she sat down.

"We can't go back, we can't stay here, what choice do we have? Green Bay ain't got jobs for you."

"Why can't we stay here for a few weeks? I don't want to, you know, steal, our way," he said.

"Stay here?" she said, her voice rising. "And do what? Just what?"

"I can find something for a few days," he said. The words slipped out before he could stop them.

"Oh sure," Darla said. "How many times did you try? Couldn't turn anything up. You looked and looked, so what choice did I have?" Darla turned away and looked out over the rest of the park. "I swear. I'm the only thing holding this family together."

Jackie leaned forward and stood slowly. Not long after moving to Green Bay, Darla started locking herself away in the apartment, while he worked the low-paying, salvage job. "I worked so damn hard for you," he said. "I ain't missed more than three days this last year. You didn't go out to find a job. I'm not sure you remember what honest work is. One time you did, but you forgot." The sun had set, with only a small amount of light coming over the ridge in the distance. He could barely make out the features on her face. She changed so much over the past few years. When they were first married, she would go out with other wives on the base and become involved with various social activities for the enlisted men. Since the move, none of his pleading and arguing brought her back.

"I got nothing to add," Darla said. "We're here and we gotta find a way to keep going. Make a choice Jackie."

"What choice?" he began. Jackie gripped the edge of the picnic table and dug his nails into the peeling paint and wood fiber. His voice came out strained and harsh. "How?"

"You know what we have to do," Darla said "I can't go back, I just can't stay there. I can't."

There was another picnic table at the border of the park, and he began walking towards it in slow measured steps. Jackie had always failed to reason his anger, to figure out whether he was right or wrong. This time was no exception, as he knew he did not want to steal, but was helpless to find another solution. The cool began to soak in, as he sat on the table and looked at the nearly hidden ridge, now blending in with the gathering darkness.

Confused. Jackie had spent much of his life that way. The Navy was a good choice, since there was always someone to tell him what to do, what to wear and where to go. Once out, he went back to Green Bay with his new wife, and no real skills other than being able to use a wrench and a hammer. This led him to work for the junkyard taking cars apart for salvage. Hard work, dirty, dangerous, but it was what it was.

He heard someone walk up behind and saw Beverly sitting down next to him. "Don't argue with Mommy."

"Sorry, adults get like that." He patted her little blond head and ran his hand over her hair. The darkness was nearly complete, and the sky was awash with more stars than he thought existed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We'll be fine. Don't worry."

Beverly walked away from the picnic bench, and turned around a few times to see the entire sky. "Do you know the names of the stars?" she asked.

"No, Daddy ain't smart enough to know those things," he said joining her. "Except the Big Dipper. Everyone knows that." He squatted down and pointed it out to her.

"Who do the stars belong to?" she asked.

"Nobody," Jackie said.

"Nobody? They have to belong to somebody," she said, her head still tilted back.

Jackie smiled at his daughter. "They belong to everybody. You, me, Mommy. Everybody."

Beverly gave him a hug, then said, "I like that." She ran back to where Darla was sitting. Darla's lit cigarette was barely visible from where he was standing. He saw it move when Beverly ran up.

He started walking around the area. A saying occurred to him, but he was not sure how it went. It had to do with stealing for his family. Was it right or wrong? Try as he might, the saying would not come, but he began to understand the question. The park had a small building with a bathroom they had been using since they had been there. As he was thinking of this question, he spotted a garden hose coiled next to the building, and had a thought. Was it right or wrong to steal? With the hose, he could siphon gas from other vehicles so they could keep going. They had done this all the time at the yard, taking gas out of a vehicle that just came in and putting it into one of the workers cars. They found all kinds of things in those wrecked cars, most which they were supposed to return but seldom did. The gas was always theirs to keep.

Jackie slid a knife out of his left pocket and had no trouble cutting off a ten-foot length of hose. He carried this back to the car where Darla and Beverly were sitting. He said, "I'll be back in a little bit." She must have understood the meaning of the hose and what he was doing, since she only looked up for a moment.

He tossed the hose on the passenger seat, and drove out of the park and along the street until he came to a dimly lit alley with a delivery truck parked behind a store. The gauge on the car stood at about a quarter full, and he knew a fill would cost about forty dollars. A full tank would take them three hundred and fifty miles at the rate they were going. The tank on the truck was high enough so that when he pulled beside it, he knew the siphon would work. The alley was secluded and hidden from the street, so he felt he was as safe as could be expected. He jumped out of the car and opened the gas caps on both vehicles. The truck used gasoline and was nearly full. He stuck the hose in and put the other end in his mouth. After a number of inhales, he felt the fuel coming along the hose, but he still did not get it out fast enough and took a mouth full. Coughing and spitting the oily mess out, he managed to get the end into the car's tank without stopping the flow. He hacked and spat as much as he could, and even washed his mouth out with the water they had in the back of the car. God, how Billy would have loved to see that.

Billy was a big farm boy who had worked at the yard for a few years. He was clever and had a knack for getting equipment to work. Over the course a week, Jackie and Billy put the LTD together, taking the chassis from one car and dropping in an engine and transmission from another. That last day at the yard was the last time Jackie saw him. Joe Parker, the owner, had bought a case of Leinenkugels and some steaks, and fixed lunch for the workers. They sat around eating and talking about what they were going to do from there on. In the few months since Joe announced he was selling the property for a development, everyone seemed to have made a plan, except Jackie. The other workers assured him something would turn up, though nobody had any suggestions. Towards the middle of the afternoon, people started to leave, and there were handshakes and slaps on the back, and promises to stay in touch. However, Billy moved back to the farm a few weeks later, Joe left town in a new RV and the other workers scattered.

When Jackie had come home, Darla was happier than he had seen her in months. "I just called my brother, and he agreed to let us stay with him until we find a place out there." They talked off and on about moving to Fresno for the next few days.

A week later, after having driven around Green Bay looking for a job, he agreed to the move. "There's not much keeping me here, so what difference does it make?"

"Oh," she said jumping around, clapping her hands. "I can get out of this goddamn place." Jackie swore the color in her face changed for the better that day. She started getting out of bed by 10:00 and fixing breakfast for the first time in weeks. Jackie felt he had made the right decision. Darla had become fun again.

It seemed like a long time ago, but that was only a few weeks before. Now he was stealing gas from a truck to keep going. The fuel continued to flow, and Jackie sat on the ground next to the car, wondering if the owner of the delivery truck would even be surprised the next day. He would probably not even miss it, would he? Jackie did his best to put that out of his mind as he heard the fuel running into the tank a few inches behind his head. For a moment, he tried to think of a way of paying the owner back, maybe sending a check and a letter saying, "Here's money for the gas I stole, thanks _._ "

No. The tank filled, and Jackie pulled the hose out before too much overflowed. He recapped the tanks on the truck and the car, and put the hose in the back. Ten minutes, that was all it took. Ten minutes and a dark alley, and they could continue for another day. Darla had done what she needed to do for them that day, and so had he. Maybe in a few years, after they settled in, he would explain it to Beverly, but for now, he simply hoped she would not notice. Jackie started the car and drove back to join the rest of his family.

"Time to go to sleep, sugar pie," he said to Beverly, when he met them at the picnic table. Together, they spread out the foam mattress and blankets in the back of the car. Darla and Beverly crawled in.

Jackie stayed up for several hours looking at the sky and tried to figure out how they were going to get through the next few days. In Green Bay, Jackie would come home from the yard and find Beverly sitting on the living room floor watching television, while Darla was in bed. Darla might fix dinner, but other than that, Beverly was left to her own devices. She had only been in school for a year, but Jackie knew the limited prospects of children in their neighborhood, and it broke his heart everyday when he came home to see her there alone. Long before, he realized he was never going to be more than what he was, a man who would have to work hard jobs for little pay. Having a wife who was not willing or able to contribute was going to make this even harder on Beverly. What Darla and he had stolen that day seemed of small consequence when compared to Beverly's well-being. With the darkness fully closed around a gentle breeze came in, and with it, Jackie realized he would do anything for his daughter. He would work, he would beg, and he would certainly steal if that were needed.

He did not sleep much that night. The next morning, he and Beverly made a game out of gathering bits of wood to build a fire in one of the outdoor grills. Darla scrambled the two eggs she had stolen the day before, and some of the lunchmeat and cheese on top. After they ate, they cleaned up as best as they could in the restroom and drove out of the park.

"I want some coffee. I'm kind of tired," Jackie said, as he pulled into a gas station near the interstate entrance ramp.

"Sure," Darla said. "Good luck."

Jackie went into the station and found the coffee machines in the back of the store. He poured a large cup, and before going over to the counter, browsed the aisles to see what else he could buy for the money he had. His choices were slim, but he suddenly thought about how well behaved his daughter had been, and picked a bag of M&Ms. He paid for these and returned to the car, opening the back door and handing the bag of candy to Beverly. "Here you go," he said, kissing her on the cheek.

Beverly smiled and opened the package. "Want some?" she asked, holding the package forward.

"Thanks," Darla said, taking a few of the candies and giving some to Jackie after he buckled in.

"Well? Ready?" Jackie asked. "Anyone need to use the bathroom?"

Darla looked at him. "Jackie, it's time. Start the car and let's go."

"We're only going to get about three hundred miles before we have to stop," Jackie said. He had not started the car, knowing that once he did, he would have no choice, but to drive on.

"Three hundred miles is three hundred miles closer," she said.

Jackie listened to Beverly in the back seat, eating the candies one at a time. There was a nice little crunch, followed by a series of smaller ones as she ate. "What are we going to do tonight, then the next? What about when we get there?"

"What then?" she asked, shrugging. "Who knows? But, you'll have to do something. Me too. We'll do what we've been doing until we get there."

He adjusted the seat belt, moving around on the worn cushion. Darla watched a few cars go by on the road, before reaching over and turning the ignition switch. The engine wheezed to life. She said, "keep your speed down, you know, save gas."

Jackie had never made a plan in his life. He did not even know how. The future had always been and still was a blank picture, except before he had been able to buy food and find a place to live. That was always enough. Now he could not even do that. He put the car in gear, and in a few moments pulled onto Interstate 80, heading west at fifty-five miles per hour with the tightening thought that he would have to figure out a way.

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One day I found myself in an automotive junkyard to see if I could find a dashboard for my Alero. Aleros have a propensity for the vinyl on the dashboard cracking and wrinkling until it looks like the topography of Pennsylvania. The price for a new part was around $800, so I thought I would try to find a used one and save a few dollars. I went there after work in my Dockers, long sleeved dress shirt and Ecco shoes to be escorted by an employee around the muddy lot of abused cars. A thought struck me. Here was a group of men working a difficult job finding a way through life. Having spent a career in office jobs, I have long been removed from these types of occupations. Though visiting junkyards and the like was nothing new, this day it occurred to me that I had wandered into a common side of life that I was rarely exposed to anymore.

I coupled this idea with one day seeing a woman and small child in a dilapidated car at a grocery store parking lot. With _They Belong to Everybody_ , I wanted to talk about the reactions of people turned loose in our society with no preparation or means of support. They are ill-equipped for the sudden changes that come along, but survive nonetheless. This is a disturbingly common story and is a burden we all create and share. Hence the title.

We walked around the yard for about half an hour. I am always interested in machines, even ones forcibly torn apart, but alas all the Aleros in the yard either were the wrong color or had a messed up dashboard. I left empty handed. I am too cheap to shell out the money to fix mine, so I just drove it with a wrinkled dashboard for another seven years.

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