Apathy and Other Small Victories (19 page)

Redemption is important. And it’s fun to be Christ-like, when the circumstances fit.

  part two

  Chapter 8

When I woke up that Sunday after getting fired Marlene was dead. I was in a salty bed and two detectives were staring down at me. Three hours later I was jerking off in a police station bathroom. It was not the resurrection I’d been hoping for.

When they let me go I went straight back to my apartment. My phone was ringing as I walked in the door. Even though I hadn’t spoken to her in a long time and she didn’t have my number I hoped it was my mom. It probably wasn’t but I picked up anyway.

“Momma?” I said.

“IS THIS SHANE?” a man shouted, so loud and atonal and nasal it made me wince.

“Yes.”

“YOU KILLED MY WIFE!”

It was either the worst telemarketer in the world or Marlene’s husband.

“No I didn’t,” I said.

“YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

“Stop shouting, I can’t understand you. Use the robot voice,” I said. It was hard to understand him. He talked much deafer than Marlene.

“FUCK YOU!” he wailed.

“What?”

Then there was a pause.

“you-killed-my-wife-you-mo-ther-fuck-er,” the robot voice said slowly, and I was back on
Battlestar Galactica
.

“I did not.”

“i-have-proof.”

I knew it couldn’t have been true, but in that flat, dispassionate, mechanical monotone, it was still quite chilling.

“she-tried-to-end-the-af-fair-and-you-would-not-let-her.”

“What? I didn’t have an affair with her.”

“you-are-a-li-ar.”

“Listen, I’m sorry Marlene’s gone but I had nothing to do with her, uh, passing.”

“you-bet-ter-hope-the-po-lice-get-to-you-be-fore-i-do.”

“I just came from the police station. They asked me some questions and told me to go home.” I didn’t mention that they’d also told me not to leave town or I’d be the star of a statewide shoot-on-sight manhunt. That I kept to myself.

“what-they-let-you-go.”

“Yeah, see? I’m innocent.”

“you-killed-my-wife.”

“I didn’t kill anybody.”

“I-found-her-blee-ding-in-the-bath-room-i-know-what-you-did.”

“I didn’t do anything, but I told the police about you shit-head.”

“what-are-you-talk-ing-a-bout.”

“That black eye you gave her? Yeah you’re a real tough guy beating up on your wife.”

And I was a real tough guy telling him so over the phone as I checked my door to make sure it was locked.

“you-fuck-ing-li-ar.”

“Nice try framing me for it though. Too bad it didn’t work out for you. I bet you’ll be real popular in those prison showers.”

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER! I’LL KILL YOU—”

I hung up and hoped he wouldn’t call back and prayed he didn’t know where I lived. My ears were ringing and I still had the shakes from the creepy robot voice.

So that was his angle. He’d already gone to the police, trying to set me up. His “proof” was probably that picture I’d drawn of her with the horse teeth sitting on a pile of garbage. Even with the crooked cops that wouldn’t be enough. I was safe.

Still, he sounded pretty sure of himself. It was hard to really judge, since he talked like a robot most of the time, but he seemed like he believed what he was saying. He was already preparing for the polygraph. He was a crafty deaf man.

So Marlene had died in the bathroom, just like Elvis. That was a shame. I hadn’t even known how it happened. I’d never even asked the police. Fuck. Did that make it seem like I already knew? Was that suspicious? But I was in shock, how could anyone expect me to be thinking clearly? I was anguished. I was in no condition to ask thoughtful, obvious questions. But I could crack jokes before jerking off into a plastic bag. That I could easily do. It wouldn’t look good to a jury. I’d convict me in a heartbeat, then be home in time to watch the ripped-from-the-headlines TV movie. I would be played by a pretty boy actor who was looking to showcase his gritty, serial killer side. The Greyhound Strangler they’d call me. Fuck.

I went down to the bar to at least get my alibi straight. There was an unlit neon-lettered sign over the door that I made sure I remembered: The Mickeypot Tavern. So that’s what it was called. I liked it better when it was just the place with the seven-to-ten
A.M
. happy hour.

I sat at the bar and paid regular price for a pitcher of Miller High Life. Five dollars was a lot to spend, but I needed something familiar, something I could trust to sicken me in that old reliable way. Projectile vomiting can be very reassuring sometimes. And I needed to talk to Sooj. I had to make sure he’d vouch for me. I knew I hadn’t done anything, but the police and the robot voice had gotten me pretty spooked. Not spooked enough to where I was doubting myself, but pretty spooked.

Still, asking a strange man from Cleveland to please, please keep you out of prison isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Etiquette is important. And there were other considerations, the biggest one being that I wasn’t sure I was even in here the night Marlene died. I thought I was. I didn’t know where else I could’ve been besides here or passed out in my bed. But what if I wasn’t? Would that make me seem even more suspicious, like I was shopping for an alibi wherever I could get it? From some pissed off bartender whose parents weren’t even from this country? How would Sooj play on the witness stand, shouting, “Deadly force is authorized!” during the cross-examination? Christ.

All I had in my defense right now was my good word and a bag of sperm. I was nobody, and who knows what they do with DNA testing? It can be faked and tampered with just like anything else. And how the fuck would anyone know? Are you a scientist? Are you?

No, I needed Sooj. Sooj was the best I could do. Christ.

But how do you ask someone for an alibi? What are you supposed to say?

“Last night was busy, huh?” I said, smiling and wishing I had a microphone taped to my balls so I could record his answer and not go to jail.

Sooj looked at me with utter contempt, like I was the biggest asshole in the world, then went back to staring at his hands.

So that didn’t work. I would need a new strategy. And as I drank my pitcher I tried to think of one. But I could not. Midway through my second pitcher I came up with a few ideas. They were convoluted and hilarious, and most of them involved me wearing disguises and running around to funny music like on
Benny Hill,
but I didn’t have the courage to try them. Not yet. By my third pitcher I had forgotten all about them and I didn’t even care.

I didn’t kill Marlene. The whole thing was ridiculous. I’d blacked out from alcohol plenty of times before. Some of those times I’d done things with ugly women that I never would have otherwise done. Sometimes I’d pissed places I probably shouldn’t have pissed. Sometimes I did other things that were gross and sad. But I’d never blacked out and murdered anyone before. You’d have to be really religious to do something like that. Or famous and on designer drugs at least.

Obviously I wouldn’t be sent to prison for a crime I didn’t commit. That happened to the fucking A-Team, not me. This would all be straightened out tomorrow somehow. I was confident my name would be cleared. Maybe I could sue those cops for making me jerk off. Fuckers. I’d like to see them try it now. Yeah, fucking perverts. I’d sue them, then after the trial I’d fight them on the steps of the courthouse in front of all the reporters and I’d make
them
jerk off
all over each other
. Two disgraced cops whacking each other off. People would be taking pictures and everything. Yeah.

There were two old men at the bar, one on either side of me. No one was talking. We were all just sitting with ourselves and our beer.

“Why are dogs better than women?” the old man to my left said suddenly, then coughed phlegm into a filthy handkerchief for about twenty minutes until it was heavy and full. Sooj glared at him from behind the bar, his arms folded, saying nothing. I didn’t say anything either because I wanted Sooj to like me, but I was very curious. The old man had a few strands of white hair that stood up on his ancient head, and they waved like withered grain as he shook with coughing. The other old man on my right had his eyes closed and he swayed on his stool like a dreidel right before it spins out. Chanukah would be ending soon. I hoped he wouldn’t crack his head when he landed on the floor.

Finally the coughing man pulled the sopping wet rag from his face.

“You can give them a bone and you don’t have to call them the next day!” he said, and laughed phlegm and filth into his handkerchief.

It was by far the funniest thing I’d ever heard in my entire life, but Sooj wasn’t laughing so I bit my cheek hard and tried to keep a straight face. The other old man beside me wasn’t doing anything but getting ready to fall down. I don’t even think he was conscious. I was going to tell my sex with a three year old joke, to show Sooj that it was okay to laugh and that I was funny and that he should want to save me, but then the front door of the Mickeypot Tavern opened. We all looked towards the rectangle of natural light. And there, there was Gwen.

She was prettier than I’d remembered, even though it’d only been a week since I’d seen her last and nothing about her had changed. Maybe it was just that the lighting was worse. As she walked over, the old comedian, still hacking his guts up, plastered his swaying hairs to his head with one of his slimy hands.

“Shane, can I talk to you?” she said.

Her face was hardened into a mask of businesslike indifference, but it was the kind of indifference that didn’t have much patience and wouldn’t be indifferent for long. I stepped off my stool and it was like jumping into a rowboat with both feet the way the floor pitched beneath me. I tried to walk a straight line as I followed her over to a small table that was just far enough away from everyone to give us absolutely no privacy. As I sat down I tragically realized that I’d left my half-empty third pitcher on the bar. I also realized that I really had to piss.

We sat looking at each other and I tried to keep my head from swimming away.

“Shane, in spite of everything, I want you to know that I’m sorry for the way things had to end for you at Panopticon.” She was speaking slowly, measuring her words to show how serious all this was.

“Yeah,” I said.

“It’s over between us,” she said, and she paused to give this the weight that it was obviously lacking. “But I think it’s important that we talk about a few things, or else it’s all just been a waste of everyone’s time.”

It was the speech she’d been rehearsing since the night we’d first met. For her, this was the payoff to all those brutal, meaningless nights together. I decided to be the bigger person. I decided to let her have this closure, this satisfaction. I would let her lecture me and teach me and then never think about her again.

“You’re a good person inside Shane, but you need to realize that what you do on the outside affects other people. We all have an impact, whether we like it or not.”

“You mean like the weather?” I said.

“What?”

“Like when a swallow flaps its wings in Africa and then there’s a tsunami in Japan and then a building falls down in Kansas? I think that’s just a myth really,” I said. I decided to be the smaller person after all. I knew that I would.

“Don’t embarrass yourself. I’m being serious. I don’t have to do this you know. I’m just trying to help you. You hurt me Shane. But more than that, you hurt yourself.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You can be such a great person when you open yourself up, when you let people in. But until you start doing that on a regular basis you’re not going to grow, personally or professionally.”

“Sometimes you have to clear cut a forest so that other small plants can flourish.”

“You know what? I don’t have to take this. I’ve put up with enough of your sarcasm. Your cynicism is a poison I’m not going to drink anymore,” she said with great dignity.

I started laughing.

“I don’t know what about this situation is funny to you. The bottom line is you screwed up. You made mistakes, big mistakes, and you need to take responsibility for them.”