by Kaylee, Katy
Something kept nagging at me, though. There’d been something very odd in his tone. I’d heard him drunk many times, and the same went for when he was high. His voice had been different this time. If he needed help, why didn’t he call for an Uber himself? Why did I have to go?
I knew why. It was because that’s who I am—the one who rescues people who need help, whether they deserve it or not. I’m the one who forgives with her last breath. With a disgusted at myself sigh, I tossed back the covers and began yanking at my nightshirt. I pulled on what I’d worn the night before and slid into a pair of moccasins. I looked around for my bag and finally spotted it in the kitchen sink. That was my version of being pissed off at the world and having a strong physical reaction—I threw things in the sink. More than one plumber had been called in the past to counsel me into not doing that again.
“Damn!” I’d reached into the pocket for my phone and it wasn’t there. I remembered it on the bed and retrieved it, but not until I stopped in the bathroom and had a good puke. I was beginning to rate them on a scale of 1-10.
I tapped the Uber app and I must have found someone who’d dropped off his last customer who’d closed a bar and happened to be in the area. He was out at the end of the alley ten minutes later. I gave him directions and when we arrived, I asked him to wait for me. “Have to go rescue a friend,” I mentioned and his face was reasonably doubtful, given that we were at a park at almost four in the morning.
“Macon?” I called out, but there was no response. I knew where the fountain was and headed for it on foot. It was lit at night and in the shadows, I could see something on the pavement next to it. I hurried as fast as my tired feet and urpy stomach would permit, only to recognize Macon and his bike.
“Macon?” Just about then, two tall, skinny guys in jeans and denim jackets burst out from under a large, snow-covered bush and took off. I didn’t care about them. What I did care about was the bleeding man lying in the snow at my feet. I knelt down. “Macon?”
I pulled off my glove and felt for a pulse, but I’d never been exactly sure what I was supposed to feel, but he looked bad. I pulled back his jacket where the blood was running from and saw a gash in his shirt. “Oh, my god, Macon, what happened?”
He didn’t answer. Fumbling in my pocket, I dialed 9-1-1 and eventually convinced the operator that it wasn’t a prank call and that I had a stabbing victim with me. She agreed to send an ambulance.
Macon wasn’t moving, not even his chest. I put my ear down to his mouth but couldn’t hear a sound. He was as silent as the snow that was now sticking to his well-remembered face. I knew he was dead. He had to be cold if the snow was sticking to him. I began to cry and tried pumping on his chest the way I’d seen it in the movies. I argued with god that Macon needed another chance, to be merciful this once and I’d personally see to it that Macon would never screw up again. I shouted at Macon, calling him every name in the book, but he’d already blended in with the snowy pavement, as still as the statue that stood in the center of the fountain. Macon was dead.
The paramedics came then, pushing a gurney. One of them pulled me to my feet and told me to stay out of the way. But I’m blocking the snow for him, I wanted to say, but the ludicrousy of my logic was apparent to everyone on the scene. They didn’t even try chest compressions, but covered Macon with a black, plastic tarp and began taping off the area with yellow crime scene tape. In the distance I could hear sirens and then there were police milling about. One seemed to be in charge. He took me to one side and put a wool blanket over my shoulders. “Miss, your name?”
“I’m Christina McKay. That’s Macon Abernathy, my former roommate… and boyfriend,” I added as an afterthought. It seemed the respectful thing to do.
“Okay, Christina, do you know what happened?”
I shook my head. “Macon called me about three, saying he needed help and asked me to come help him here. I took an Uber and when I got here, I found him lying on the pavement, not moving. Two men were hiding under that huge bush and they ran when I knelt down.”
“Did you know the men?”
“No. No idea.”
“Can you give me a description.”
“I guess so. Macon? Macon, can you hear me?” I looked at the officer. “They say people can hear you long after you think they’re gone.” They wouldn’t let me any closer. “Macon, I did love you. If you can hear me, know that. I’m sorry about how everything worked out and that I didn’t see you for who you really were. I should have been paying closer attention. Macon, I’m sorry and I love you.” I started to cry then, and the officer put his arm over my shoulders. I heard him tell someone to dismiss my Uber and that they’d get me home. I felt like I wanted to collapse under the weight of all that was happening. How would I tell Nathan? It had to come from me. I wouldn’t have long. As soon as the police found Macon’s wallet, they’d send a car over to talk to Nathan. I couldn’t let that happen. It was too cold. “Officer?” He looked at me. “I need to tell his father. Please let me do it?”
“That’s not procedure, miss. We need to follow the rules.”
“Please? You don’t understand how close we are and all that’s at stake. I’ll call him from here, just please give me the time?”
The officer looked over his shoulder. “Tell you what. You can call him from here and when we take you back to the station to make out a report, we’ll go by and he can come if he wants to.”
I nodded and pulled the wool blanket higher onto my shoulders. Damn, but it was heavy. I walked away from the crime scene in the direction I’d come. I found a bench and swept the snow off with my glove. I was shivering, but it wasn’t entirely from the cold. I brought up Nathan’s phone in my contact list and sat for a few moments, trying to think how to break it gently. I wanted to cushion it, to make it not Macon’s fault even though anyone who knew him would know he was making a drug buy. I wanted…Piss on it. He’s got to know. I tapped the number.
It rang several times and went to voice mail. I tried again immediately and this time he picked up. “Christina? Are you okay? Is something wrong?”
Bless his heart, he was worried about me.
“Nathan, it’s Macon. He’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“To heaven…” was all I could get out before sobs burst from me. From his end I heard nothing. The seconds were filled with disbelief, denial, hatred, love, regrets, fear… every human emotion conceivable and he had to take it alone, in the dark save for the light of a cell phone screen and the voice of the woman who had dumped him. “I’m on my way to get you,” I whispered and tapped the line dead. My tears had frozen on my cheeks. Photographers had arrived and a man I supposed was the coroner. I went up to the officer who had been kind to me. “Can we go get his father, Nathan?”
“Sure thing.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Guys, headed in to the station. Taking this young lady and picking up the victim’s father en route.”
A couple of hands of acknowledgment went into the air but we’d already headed to the squad car… and to Nathan.
The officer pulled into Nathan’s drive all the way to the end, as though he meant to block the exit if Nathan ran. I had no idea what that was about, and it didn’t matter, because Nathan wouldn’t be running anywhere.
“Let me go up, will you? He knows I’m coming. If you show up at the door, it makes it so cold and official.”
“Sure, I get it.” The officer nodded and reached over me to pop open the door. “Try not to take too long. I know this is a shitty thing, but I go off duty in a couple of hours and I’d sort of like to see you through this. Anyway, the victim will be taken to the coroner’s office and will need an official ID.”
I shook my head. “I was right there with him. I told you who he was. He has identification on him.”
“It’s procedure, Miss. We always ask for the next of kin.”
“Please, don’t make them do it. It’s his only son. His wife died, cancer, you know.”
&
nbsp; “So how are you related to the family?”
I looked downward to see if my tummy was visible. “It’s complicated, but Macon and I lived together for a while. I got to know his dad pretty well.”
“Okay, go ahead, but remember what I said. As soon as he thinks he can make it, having come out with you and we’ll all go down to the station together.”
“Can’t he drive his own car?”
“I’ll let you be the judge of that. He may not be fit to drive. But you would know.”
I nodded and slowly climbed out of the backseat, pulling at my clothing to make myself as presentable as I could under the circumstances. After all, there was blood on my coat and my face was swollen from crying. I didn’t think it would matter.
I walked up to the door. I still had my key, or rather I knew where he hid the spare. I wanted to show respect and after all, I wasn’t sure where Nathan and I stood. I knocked five gentle raps on his door. “Nathan, it’s me. May I come in?”
I heard an indistinguishable noise coming from his bedroom. I crept in, pushing the door wide and saw him on his bed, laying flat on his back and crying as he stared at the ceiling. I went to sit next to him on the mattress. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere until you kick me out.”
“What… happened? Why did he call you and not me?”
“I don’t know, I swear I don’t. I was having trouble sleeping when he called my cell. He begged me to come help him and I told him he was drunk or high and I didn’t want anything to do with him. I feel horrible. If I gone as soon as he’d called, he might still be here.”
“Who?”
“Nathan, I wish to God I knew. I think he was buying drugs and something went terribly wrong. When I got there, there were two men hiding in the bushes nearby and they ran. I didn’t get a good look at them except to know that they were tall and thin. They ran like young men. Listen, Nathan, there’s a squad car out front. We have to go downtown and make a report. As hard as this is to tell you, they need you to identify him.”
“What? No! Can’t you do it? Didn’t you already see him and tell them who he is?”
“Yes, I did. But they need next of kin.”
“Of course. I knew that. I’ve talked to hundred people through this very same place and never once dreamed it would happen to me. Will you come with me?”
“Of course. I need to give them a statement, too, but even if I didn’t, I’d be by your side.”
“Thank you. Let me go in the bathroom a second and I’ll be out. Will you wait for me by the door?”
I nodded and watched him as he got to his feet, wavered for a few moments and then went into the bathroom. He was in there for long seconds before he even flipped the light on. My heart was aching, not only for Nathan, but for Macon. He really had so much potential and all I had ever done was nagging him. I had a thousand things to be sorry for, but Macon would never hear my apologies. I couldn’t imagine what Nathan must be going through.
We went out to the squad car the Nathan asked if he might drive. I nodded and got into the car with him and we followed the police downtown. Milwaukee is a very old, grungy city on the shore of Lake Michigan. People think of beer or maybe tools, but I think of things that are dark and frightening. I always hated downtown. And there we were and now I hated it even more. Our first stop was the morgue. The officer who had been helping me came up to the car and tapped on the window.
“I’m going to need you to go inside with me, sir. I’ll need you to make an official identification, I’m sorry.”
Nathan nodded and looked at me briefly. “You stay here.”
I watched as he opened the car door and slung his long legs out onto the chipped concrete. The building they went into had bars over the windows. I was curious about that. Just who do they think would that run away? I supposed that the building used to house the precinct itself, but I was exhausted, mentally and physically and trying to just keep my mind busy.
Nathan was ashen when he emerged from the morgue and got back into the car. “That can’t be my son. My son is young and healthy, smart and loving. My son works hard and shows respect to everyone he knows.”
I nodded but said nothing. We both knew the truth but it was an unspoken rule that you only said good things about the dead.
The police precinct was busy at that early hour of the day. The sun was already rising and the smell of hot, somewhat burned coffee wafted down the corridors of the block building. Police were everywhere, like ants coming out of an anthill, pouring onto the streets and into their squad cars, off to pick up a few more bodies here and there. After all, Milwaukee was not a happy city. We were ushered into a room with a long table in several utility style chairs pushed beneath it. The fluorescent lights overhead blinked and hummed. No one could have a tanned face in that room — the lights simply wouldn’t allow it. They may as well have been six corpses talking to one another for all the warmth that room exuded. I told my story and Nathan listened, tears streaming down his cheeks. He answered the questions they asked, but of course he knew very little. When it was over, they handed us their business cards and said they’d be in touch to let Nathan know when he could arrange for the funeral. Stoic, he walked down the long hallway beside me, opened the front door as I passed through and we got into his car.
“Would you prefer I drive?”
“No. I’m okay. In fact, I need to feel in control of something, if only a steering wheel.”
I nodded and wanted badly to turn on the radio, diversion of any kind was welcomed. I left it off, however. It was his car and I was no longer his girlfriend, or so I didn’t think. We drove back to his house. I guess he just assumed I’d be coming with him. I couldn’t think of any good reason not to, since it was Saturday and I didn’t have to work. We went inside and I walked to the kitchen and put the tea kettle on, waiting for its cheery whistle to blow some life back into the room. I opened the door of the refrigerator but there wasn’t much breakfast I could make from half a bottle of ketchup and moldy bologna I found in the cheese drawer. It didn’t matter. Neither of us were hungry, anyway.
I found him in the living room and handed him the cup of tea, the bag still steeping in the hot water, just the way he liked it. I sat on the sofa across the room and dipped my tongue to test the water. It was too hot, I pulled back, too hot for so many things. I waited for Nathan to speak first and when he finally did, I was surprised.
“I know about you and Macon.” The words laid there in the air between us. They shocked me and I felt a wave of nausea as a result. His voice was calm, unemotional. I wasn’t sure how to respond but I could tell he was waiting for me to say something.
“How did you find out?”
“He didn’t tell me, at least not at first. You know I make my living reading people. There was something about the way the two of you behaved with one another, it wasn’t normal for people who had been strangers just a few days before. There were no questions, no conversation about the future. You behaved like two small children waiting to get caught for having broken the cookie jar. It wasn’t all that hard to see. When I finally realized it, I confronted him. He got quite a kick out of it, one upping the old man, so to speak. We decided it would be a good idea if he didn’t live here anymore and so I gave him some money, quite a bit actually, and sent him on his way. Obviously, I paid for him to die. He would’ve never made that drug by if I hadn’t given him the money.”
“Nathan, don’t do that. Don’t do that to yourself. I blame myself, too. If I hadn’t treated him that way, if I’d shown him a little decent respect, I have 100 reasons if I have one. But it all comes down to the same thing. He’s gone. He made the decision that led to it, not you and not me.”
“I’m glad you can see that so simply.”
“Don’t be so facetious. It’s the truth. You know better than this. Wallowing in guilt will not bring him back. He knew the risks. If it hadn’t happened during the by, it could have happened one night when he mixed too many chemical
s or may be swerved on his bicycle and got hit by a car. I don’t know, Nathan. All I know is he was a troubled man. People tried to help, but he wouldn’t let them. He enjoyed being a troubled man.”
“Well, maybe there’s some truth in what you say. I’m not sure I really knew the man, Macon. I’ll always remember him as my son, the little boy who wave goodbye when I left for work each day. He was very much like his mother and a lot of ways. Actually, he was very generous, but he never had anything material to be generous with. He didn’t judge people, not like you and I do. He let them be who they were and that’s all he wanted and return.”
The silence hung between us as I searched for something more to say. “Do you have any idea who those two men were? Did Macon ever talk about any of his so-called friends?”
He shook his head. “I was going to ask you pretty much the same thing. They’ll be like just all the other pushers in town. They’ll keep their head down and disappear and will never find out who killed him, or more importantly, why. If he was a good customer, you think they want him around. Maybe he had all the money with him in cash and flashed it. Maybe they decided they couldn’t wait, or they didn’t want to use up their inventory selling it to him. I don’t know. That’s for the cops to figure out.”
I could only agree with him, so I nodded. “I hope I can let it go at that.”
13
Nathan
Milwaukee is a hell of a cold city in the wintertime. Even though the lake lies to the east, the wind has a way of doubling back and giving you one more icy shock of it. Once the coroner released Macon’s body, I had a decision to make. I wanted to have a funeral for him, but there were few people who would come, if any. Those who would warrant the kind of people I wanted there. I thought I would bury him next to his mother. She would’ve liked that, having her son at her side. There was an extra spot there, supposedly waiting for me. I didn’t want to be buried there. I had hopes of being remarried and having more family and maybe even smile again before I died I didn’t want to be chained to a burial on my calendar.