Rip

by Paul Sating

  Janis plopped into her car seat and started the engine, punching the radio power off to end the annoying country song filling the small space with its sorrowful vocals and twangy guitar. She collapsed against the headrest and closed her eyes. Exhaustion melted into her. She needed to get something to eat before heading home, but a moment to reflect on everything that happened today was a first priority before her thoughts swirled and she made a regrettable decision.

  From now until this was done, every step had to be calculated or she would pay.

  When the day started she had been in that weird space hovering near unemployment, and now, more than half a day later, Janis stood fully immersed in the Memphis murder story, regaining control of how it was told. She'd almost fully regained her sentry duties and, given a little more time, she would have exclusivity on them again. But time was running out. With each subsequent killing, the intensity and focus ramped up. The next few days would be crucial.

  Memphis would be a different city tomorrow and no one could predict how that would play out. Not a single one of them. Not Monica. Not Marshall. Not herself. Public discourse would drive everything else going forward once the first set of eyes fell on the headline. Panicked workplace conversations would spontaneously bloom, politicians would scramble to satiate frightened constituents, and in that dynamic environment, unpredictability would reign.

  Tomorrow, she would dedicate her efforts to becoming the sentry. But for tonight, things still needed to be set up, and it was already late. Tonight was about taking solace in the miniscule, to revel in these events, in the fact she had re-established herself and reclaiming her right.

  She knew what Marshall knew. She knew what they all knew. And that would keep her one step ahead.

  Always.

  It felt great to be back in the game, back as the person creating the narrative of the Memphis murders. To be the sentry of the legend, captured in digital immortality that would outlive them all.

  Three quick knocks on her car window solicited a scream. "Jesus!" Her eyes shot open, and she stared into the face of a man who took her breath away. Reacting on instinct, Janis reached over into her passenger seat, blindly searching for her purse while not taking her eyes off the smiling bald man who bent over to look into her window.

  This can't be happening. This couldn't be him.

  "Janis? Janis Herring?" The bald man queried. Completely shaven, face and head, he wore a black jacket that helped him blend into the night. Fit for someone in his fifties, he smiled, his eyes not mimicking the joy of his expression.

  "What do you want?" she tried to hide the shaking in her voice, inspired by fear or adrenaline, Janis didn't know. Still, her fingers danced inside her purse, searching for her pepper spray. Her pistol was in the trunk in its case. No use to her now.

  The man made a circular motion with his fist while pointing at her with the other hand. "Can you roll down your window? I'd rather not yell and have someone overhear me." His muffled question surprised her even though she had been waiting for this moment for weeks.

  She shook her head. "And I'd rather not roll my window down. What you want?"

  "I want to talk to you," the man said, stopping that ridiculous gesture and replacing his hands on his thighs bending over uncomfortably close to her window.

  "No thanks," Janis snapped. Lipstick. Extra keys. A credit card that wasn't hers she'd one day return to its owner. Everything except for the pepper spray. "Now get the fuck away from my car or I'm calling the police."

  "If you do, you'll lose your story," the bald man beamed that dark smile, standing to his full height but backing away.

  She knew it!

  "What are you talking about?" she asked through the window, the answer already forming in her head. This bald man with the fake smile wasn't exactly what she expected during all the nights she thought about what it would be like to see him again. From the mugshots Marshall had shown them all those weeks ago, to him sitting at the bus stop outside her home and the parking lot outside the paper, he was unremarkable. Even as middle aged lines etched his face, a youthfulness played along with his spry evasion of her twice over.

  The bald man spread his arms out as if he were the main character at center stage for the world to applaud. "What I'm talking about, Ms. Herring, is that I'm the story."

  Time to leap.

  "Roman? Roman Byars?"

  The smile switched to genuine. "That's me. Can we talk for a minute?"

  40

  Can we talk for a minute?

  Did she want to? Could she risk it? The parking lot was empty except for the pair, no one around to save her if she needed saving, which wasn't reasonable. This was the man she'd been dying to see, alone. Fate, destiny, brought them to this moment. Whatever made him who he was today, Janis didn't think he was so different from who she thought he was that he would try anything. The bald middle-aged man looked like he was only looking for a late-night chat, no threatening gesture or posture. His eyes danced with the excitement of a groupie, bouncing back and forth alongside her car, the parking lot, and the building. He even fidgeted from foot to foot as he waited. An odd feeling, since she was beyond thrilled to be looking in his eyes.

  There was a softness to Roman, a comforting warmth that Janis hadn't felt in in a very long time.

  No. Focus.

  But ...

  Was this really happening? Could it be yet another one of the delusions her mother claimed were happening more and more often?

  All the years and struggles, the avoided conversations and unanswered questions, everything Janis had waited for was staring at her right now.

  It was hard to trust her mother. Pam was notorious for being evasive and constantly covering the truth. She'd acted like that from time immemorial, long before the incident that lead to Janis' school suspension and its subsequent fallout. Dedicated to hiding the truth, from neighbors, friends, and even the church, none of who had an idea of the family's darker secrets, Pam directed the course of so many lives.

  But truth wasn't the only thing Pam hid from people. No matter how much Janis asked and begged, Pam was a woman of resolve. When she set her mind to keeping something in the dark, there was no changing it. Even if that meant keeping loved ones apart.

  Roman's face contorted. Janis felt a familiar piercing stab somewhere behind her ear and she blinked away the pain. Was his presence about to bring on a migraine? His face jumped, becoming hazy, looking like a movie pirated off someone else's WiFi signal. She blinked again, trying to push away the distorted face.

  His face.

  Was it time again? Was that why he took a chance to visit her at the paper, where he'd draw attention and suspicion?

  Blink.

  Couldn't they have a normal conversation, one that didn't include duty or destiny?

  Blink.

  To catch up with each other about other things going on in their lives, all those missed times?

  Blink.

  Why wouldn't he take a few seconds to tell her the words she needed, longed, to hear?

  Blink.

  And now he was here, shifting nervously from foot to foot as he waited, almost looking like a boy about to go on his first date. But he wasn't a boy.

  And how long had she waited?

  Blink.

  "Roman Byars?" The specious name, so clever, but so distancing.

  Janis opened her palm, allowing the small, indiscriminate can of pepper spray to drop, unseen by him, to the floor. She reached up alongside her door panel and, without taking her eyes off Roman, unlocked the door.

  "Get in," her calm voice sounded foreign even to her.

  Roman raced around the front of the car, its headlights illuminating his temporal nature, and yanked the door open, jumping inside, and slamming it closed too hard for her taste.

  Janis had so many questions, so many things she wanted to say. But where did you start filling in a lifetime of missing moments? No single question or comment was more important than the othe
r. How did she choose? The haze refused to clear, making it more difficult to decipher which of the questions was the most important.

  They sat in that silence, staring at each other. Her brain didn't have the space to recognize the awkwardness, consumed as it was by the presence of the man in her passenger seat. Trepidation and apprehension, longing and absence; her soul, a kaleidoscope of turbulence. Years of neglect built an eagerness for resolution and acceptance, the very things Pam Herring refused to bestow upon her daughter. Janis longed to physically reach out and spiritually connect with the support and love she'd been deprived of ever since she put a girl in the hospital all those years before and her father extracted a father's vengeance.

  Mother isn't here to fuck this up.

  The word welled up inside, a word Pam had forbid her from saying just months after the assault charges were dropped, saving her from a juvenile record that would have ruined any chance of going to a good university, a word that remained foreign until she pursued his ghost behind her mother's back.

  "Dad?"

  Her head exploded in pain again, Roman's face distorted in a fuzzy jerk. She tried to disguise the wince, but doubted she'd fooled him. Roman said something, but she couldn't make it out, the pain was too intense, and she didn't want to ask him to repeat himself. The moment was there and gone; she'd opened up and become vulnerable in the middle of an empty parking lot and the headaches deprived her of enjoying this experience. Janis leaned her head against the headrest, turned in Roman's direction, and subtly pressed harder against it. The pressure point, activated, subdued the pain enough for her to find the energy to offer Roman a tender smile.

  He smiled back.

  "It's so good to see you," she said as the tears welled in her eyes.

  "You too," Roman said, reaching across the console and patting Janis's knee. "I wasn't sure you'd ever let me get close to you without anyone around."

  Janis understood. After everything that happened in the past two decades, his concern was valid. It wasn't his fault. Her mother was to blame for everything she had lost, everything they had lost. "I'm sorry—"

  Roman shook his head. "Don't. It's not yours to apologize for. I could've done things differently. I know I've been acting very strange, and have been avoidant. But I had to be careful. I hope you understand? So many don't, and probably shouldn't."

  Even though she didn't, she would not tell him that. She didn't want to disappoint him. Janis ached to rest her hand on his, but couldn't bring herself to do it. Not yet. That might frighten him away and she needed him to stay close.

  Now that he was willing to take this chance, to see her without Mother around, Janis wondered how everything would be different. For the first time in too long, the world made sense again. Like it never had before.

  As he spoke like the man known as Roman, her mind drifted away. His voice floated, muffled, in the background, speaking about her investigative work and how the story was progressing. Words, distorted and without meaning, didn't register. Janis was moving forward, reflecting on what this meant to her and the story, but also to what happened after. Without her mother's interference, how could things change? Maybe the telling of the Memphis Murders wasn't the end? With him, the last of the murders wouldn't necessarily be the terminal point. She tried to listen, his deep voice thudding against her ears, but she was distracted, tantalized by intervening fates. By the prospect of being wanted again.

  Loved again.

  The shakes came hard, even before Janis recognized their approach. It started in her legs and moved upper torso. Janis wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her hands under each arm in an effort to play it off. Weakness belonged to the weak; he didn't need to see her shame. Hiding from the world was easy; but from him, tucking away her vulnerabilities was nearly impossible.

  "Sorry," she laughed, reaching out to turn up the fan speed and the temperature setting. "Just got cold for a second."

  Roman smiled understandably and said something, but his muffled voice was again unintelligible. This was the worst migraine she'd had in a long time, at the worst time. Janis' resolve wouldn't be broken though, she was going to enjoy every intelligible word they shared.

  Though it wasn't fair, none of it. They were finally together, alone, for the first time in her adult life, a moment she should treasure, and her body was betraying her. When she should be allowed to hang on his every word with the infatuation of a child, she wasn't even able to discern most of what he was saying. He was talking about the story, but it was impossible to make out the full scope of his words. She pressed her head more firmly against the headrest, trying and failing to subdue the pain. She fought it back, pushed against it.

  "So there's four victims already, leaving just one more?" Roman asked.

  Janis didn't understand why he was asking that. Maybe she was spiraling toward a black out again? That would explain his concerned expression, the way he no longer appeared like a man enjoying an unfiltered reunification with his daughter. Janis struggled to croak a simple, "Yes."

  For the first time in months, the story of the Memphis Murders was no longer her priority.

  Roman faced forward, looking out over the sliver of the world illuminated by the headlights. "You've got to finish this, then."

  "I know."

  She understood what needed to be done, she had all along, from the very beginning. But to have him confirm it, to give her permission, sent shock waves rippling across her skin. Janis winced again as her brain flexed and cringed, feeling as if it was ripping from its stem.

  Still staring out the windshield, Roman said, "It has to be soon, Janis. Very soon. Everything is moving quickly and they're going to bring specialists in, you know that right? When that happens you will lose the story. You need to do something before they take it away from you."

  She nodded.

  The thing she was worried about, he was concerned with. The troubling thoughts that consumed her at night, he just put voice to. The way things unfurled as more and more people betrayed her? His mere presence held the world together too. They shared a vision of the future and its obstacles. Was there nothing he couldn't do?

  "I can help you," she heard him say.

  "I know."

  "Maybe tomorrow?"

  Janis nodded silently. His muffled voice drifted further into the background as she contemplated the day ahead. As he droned on, Janis thought about all that it would mean for her life. Everything she had been chasing would soon be hers, washing away the prickling reminders from her mother of how inadequate she was.

  41

  The ebb and flow.

  The natural cycle.

  Haze and clarity.

  Permanence and ephemeral.

  Pain and ecstasy.

  Hatred and peace.

  Beginnings and endings.

  42

  It was time for peace. A time for constructing it, if necessary.

  But peace was hard.

  Very hard.

  Janis sat in her idling car, two blocks away from her mother's house, which hugged a four-way stop intersection in its decrepit neighborhood. She hated everything about this place. But seeing and talking to Roman Byars—Dad—changed everything. Alone, they had more quality time in a single conversation than Pam had afforded them in the past year. Unannounced, his arrival was a catalyst, the motivation, she needed to put everything right again. The world was brighter today, because of last night's revelation. Janis would try to hold on to that feeling as she confronted her mother, because this wasn't going to be easy.

  More than twenty years ago, her family had been torn apart, fueled by her mother's need for social acceptance and her father's drive to protect. Their lives been ripped to shreds by a community that would never again accept them, one more interested in preserving the façade it presented to the world than exploring the truth. The move to Memphis had fixed none of it like Pam said it would. To this day, the resentment Janis held was a constant companion, affecting every interaction
between the pair.

  As she sat in her car, the radio DJ talking up the imminent arrival of yet one more country music star to Memphis, Janis couldn't pull her examination from her mother's small home, with its flaked paint and rusted chain-link fence. Doubts of a possible peace bounced around, drawing attention and relevance.

  There was only one way to find out if they were legitimate. Janis put the car in gear and rolled forward, not out of concern for reckless neighborhood children, but because she wanted to delay the inevitable. She needed to get her thoughts straight. All the things she wanted to say, the lines she'd rehearsed, were a jumbled mess in her distracted and scattered brain. The headache wasn't better, even after last night's short sleep and a dose or two, she didn't count, of migraine medication. But she had work to do before time ran out, and this was one of the few obstacles standing in her way. Janis needed this conversation with her mother, even more so after the previous night's talk with her father. The bright future she had discussed with him indicated just how essential this upcoming conversation was.

  Parked, Janis strode up onto the porch and knocked on the screen door. With the front door already opened, Janis saw down the short hallway. Pam's shadow moved in the bedroom, paused, and then started for the hallway. Pam peaked around the corner and then stood more erect when she recognized her daughter.

  "Janis? What are you doing here?"

  Janis found solace in the less-than-warm welcome. "Can I come in?"

  Pam was already in the kitchen, retrieving a jar of her homemade unsweetened tea from the refrigerator. "Yes, of course. Come in." Pam pulled two glasses from the cupboard, setting them out on the small table. "Here, sit down."