Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  I realize that I am rambling. I stop suddenly and look over at her. She is looking at me impassively. Waiting for me to stop. “What?” I ask.

  “You have money for the car? It’ll be a few hundred.”

  But I’m not ready to talk about the damn car.

  “I’m fucking trapped in my own life, Cee.”

  “Oh, you’re trapped all right. No doubt about it.”

  “At least you agree. That’s something I guess.”

  “I’m not sure I agree at all.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your life is fine, Dave. Your life is not the problem.”

  “Were you listening at all?”

  “Every word.”

  “Then, how…”

  “Your life is there to be lived in whatever way you want to live it. That’s totally up to you. You, Dave. Not the school, not the cops, not your principal, not your girlfriend, not your lawyer and not your father. Sorry for the psycho-babble, but it’s the fuckin’ truth. The way I see it, tomorrow is brand spankin’ new. It’s virgin snow and you get to track it up however you want. You’re trapped, sure as shit. But, Dave, if you will pardon my presumption, that’s only because you live in the past.”

  “I live in the past.”

  “Yes.”

  “My problem is that I live in the past. That’s…that’s your take on all of this.”

  “Yes.”

  My chest constricts in the way it does whenever I am trying to contain a rage I am unwilling to fully acknowledge. I do not want to be angry; not with her. I want a fucking ally. The last thing I need is sympathy? No. The last thing I need is a fucking critic.

  “Well then,” I say with some extra condescension, “maybe I’ll just tell the cops that. Maybe I’ll just explain to the judge…”

  “Fuck the cops. Fuck the judge, baby. You are the cops and you are the judge and you’re already sittin’ in prison. The door is wide open but you won’t come out and just live your life on your own terms.”

  “You don’t think I’m living my own life?”

  “You’ve been sittin’ in that fuckin’ cell since you were thirteen years old.”

  “Then just whose life am I living?”

  She smiles down at me. The smile is etched in stone and her eyes are ferocious.

  “I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you what you already know. So don’t insult my intelligence by pretending that you don’t already know the answer.”

  “Cait, … I …” my head is pounding and I want to rip my hair out. “What in the fuck are you talking about? You’re not making any sense and you’re really starting to piss me off. This is fucking serious. Do you get that? They are coming for me. I have done nothing wrong and they are coming for me and I have no way to defend myself. I’m being persecuted, here. Okay? Do you understand the stakes? I’m sinking. I am fucking sinking and there is no one to help me. Do you understand that?”

  “I understand the stakes and I understand that you are sinking. I understand that there is no one who can help you but you. I understand that we were made to float, but that we are only as buoyant as we believe ourselves to be.”

  “What, are you fuckin’ Yoda now? I think I’m sorry I told you any of this.”

  “And I’m sorry that you’re sorry, Dave. I really am. Because, whether you believe it or not I am on your side. And if you want someone else to feel bad for the way things are playing out – if you want someone to bear witness to tragedy and to mark the place where you finally sink beneath the surface – then I can do that. I can do that. Okay? You have my number and I will come running to bear witness. But if you want me to help you cook the history books so that you can play the victim… uh, uh.”

  “I’m not casting myself as …”

  “No?”

  “No, goddamnit!”

  “Glad to hear it. So then how is all of this going to turn out?”

  “What? How should I know?”

  “Best guess.”

  “I’m a sitting duck with no money to fight back. I’m gonna get crucified. That’s my best fucking guess. I’ll be lucky if Brittany doesn’t show up dead. I’ll never teach again, that’s pretty damn clear.” I say most of this to the floor of the van and when I look up, she is shaking her head to herself. “What.”

  “Nothing.”

  “No. What.”

  “How about a little optimism?”

  “Jesus. It’s not easy, Caitlin. I’m trying.”

  “No. Do or don’t do. There is no try.” She is scrunching up her face and sounds like a Frank Oz on helium. I know she is trying to lighten things, but I am too far gone.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, Dave. You should think about that. Because judging from the story I just heard, you haven’t been paying much attention in class. You are, as you say, fucking trapped.”

  “Cee…” My face is flush and I can feel the frustration backing up into my eyes. The world has become watery again. My fists are clenched. It is the only thing that keeps me from screaming. “Cee Cee…”

  She kneels in front of me, taking my hot cheeks in her hands. Her face has softened and her eyes are sad like eyes might be sad for a wounded child or animal that cannot comprehend pain.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong, David.”

  “I know that, Cait.”

  She kisses me on the lips. It is brief and chaste, but it is enough to eliminate every thought in my head.

  “No, Dave. You don’t. You really don’t.”

  I have lost all interest in listening. In understanding. I am reduced to staring at her. Not just at her but, more particularly, at the lips so recently separated from my own. So imperfect. At least the upper with its slightly swollen divot of flesh in the center; the way it slips ever so slightly over its lower mate in a kind of protective dominance. The way the hidden musculature of her face pulls her entire mouth just a little left of center into a permanent wryness, underscoring those eyes.

  “Will you wait?” I ask. “We can go get something to eat. Pancakes.”

  “I’ve got to relieve Trudy.”

  “Trudy?”

  “Hospice. She’s been sitting with Mr. Stokes all night. Nice old guy. Dancing Danny. Used to be big in the ballroom scene. That’s what he likes to talk about the most. That’s how he met his wife. He lives alone up in Bexley.”

  “Oh. How … how long…”

  “Pancreatic. Won’t be much longer but he’s fighting for every second. I’m assuming it will be my watch, but you never know with Dancing Danny. Anyway, I don’t know when I’ll be free. Trudy’s done more than her share on this one.”

  “Jesus, Cee. How do you do that? I mean…what do you do?”

  “I pay attention. Bear witness. Confirm reality. Provide comfort with every swallow of truth.” She smiles a little. I am staring again. “I try not to be late.”

  “Oh, yeah, okay. Sorry.” I stand up and open up the back of the vanbulance and step out into the parking lot. I try not to feel kicked out for being more needy and pathetic than Dancing Danny. The sun is warm on my face, but the air coming off the Scioto smells strongly of autumn. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Do you need money?”

  “I’ve got it,” I lie, waving her off. “I’m still really angry, you know.”

  “Yeah. I know,” she says.

  I cross the remainder of the parking lot to the administration building. There is a line inside comprised of bitterly disposed automobile owners. They shift their weight from one hip to the other, crossing and uncrossing their arms, sighing and looking around discontentedly for someone to complain to about the poor service, slinging around the unconscious mannerisms of American consumers who will, by God, vote with their feet and give their money to the competition unless something is done, and done right now. But this is the Columbus Police Department Vehicle Impound Facility. The clerk at the front of the line seems wholly unconcerned about losi
ng market share.

  Another twenty minutes and I am three people from the front of the line. My cell phone vibrates in my pocket.

  “Dave?” says the perfidious wench paralegal.

  “Oh. Hello, Mae.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Okay? What do you mean, okay?”

  “I heard about the arrest.”

  “You heard about it?”

  “Yeah. Rob told me. He talked to Glenda.”

  “When?”

  “About twenty minutes ago. You were arrested, right?”

  The woman in front of me turns to let me know that she is adding my telephone conversation to the long list of things that really piss her off today. She is too large for her tee shirt. The sleeves are cutting into the flesh of her arms. The right sleeve decapitates a tattooed parrot.

  “Yes. Yes I was arrested. Glenda bailed me out.”

  She sniggers a little and I have an impulse to hang-up. But I don’t.

  “Oh, is something funny about all this?”

  “No. No. It’s nothing. Rob thinks she’s got a thing for you. I remembered that and then I got a visual and…it was a little humorous. I’m sorry. So, possession?”

  “Yeah. Among other concerns.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Rob said. Dave, I am so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you mad, Dave?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Dave, you.”

  “No. I’m not mad.”

  “Are you sure? You sound mad. I wasn’t laughing at you.”

  “Yeah. I know. I know.”

  “Do you want to get together?”

  “Uh, no. Really, that’s okay. I know you’re busy.”

  “Well, yeah, but I’ve got an hour for lunch or something.”

  “That case of yours still raging?” I ask because I know she will not be able to resist the opportunity for self-indulgence and what I want more than anything is the opportunity to ignore her. Actually, what I want more than anything is the opportunity to tell her off, but standing in the bail line for impounded vehicles is not that opportunity.

  The line advances another person and the headless-parrot lady starts in on the clerk with how long she has been waiting and the absurdity of the staffing situation. I have tuned Mae out, unwilling to absorb anything about her stupid, steady, lucrative employment.

  As she buzzes away in my ear I try to gauge the sincerity of her suggestion that she never witnessed my arrest. Could that possibly be true? How could she not have seen? She and Shepp had been right there, twenty feet away and separated from the spectacle of handcuffing only by a clear piece of glass, a salt and pepper shaker and a bottle of olive oil. It is not plausible, I conclude. She had to have seen.

  “But we think the judge is on to them and we are filing for sanctions before the week is out, assuming, of course …”

  So why would she deny it unless she believes that I was in front of the restaurant by pure coincidence and that I never saw them. She’s denying witnessing my arrest because she intends to deny that she is seeing Shepp behind my back. So… what? So she is just going to string me along?

  “Dave?”

  Is she just waiting for me to get locked up for twenty to life so she can pull the plug without the whole, I’m-seeing-another-man-well-it’s-actually-one-of-your-friends, scene? Well, fuck that. I’m ending this right here and now. If she thinks…

  “Dave?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh. I thought I lost you.”

  “No. Sorry. I’m here.”

  “Anyway, yes I’m busy, but we can still get together. I feel so bad. You are really getting screwed over.”

  “Mae, listen…”

  “Mark Shepherd thinks so too.”

  “What?”

  “I said Mark Shepherd thinks so too.”

  “Shepp?”

  “Yeah. He dropped by yesterday and took me for a drink.”

  “Oh?”

  “Easy, big guy. Nothing like that. He’s got a sister looking into the Columbus paralegal market and he wanted the inside scoop.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “He was very nice. And he’s really worried about you. You should call him.”

  “Right.”

  “I need to go, Rob just walked by and gave me the look. Listen, the other reason I called was about that message your mom left me.”

  “Oh, that. Look, don’t even…”

  “I…Dave, your family is really nice, but I just don’t have the time to fill in for your mom by…you know…by making dinner and all of that.”

  “She should never have asked. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Are you sure? I could drop off some take-out or something, but, you know, I probably couldn’t stay. But if it will help…”

  “My dad is not an invalid. She should never have asked. Go to work.”

  “Hang in there. I’m thinking about you. Let me know if you want to get together.”

  Silence fills my ear, but I continue to hold the phone up to my face. She is thinking about me? Is she? Why? What, exactly, is she thinking about me? What the hell does that mean? She is thinking about me?

  The woman in front of me is furiously signing something. She leaves in a huff, returning abruptly to snatch a yellow parking map off the counter. The clerk, a white, bent man, probably in his forties who looks no younger than seventy-five, watches her go and then receives me with indifferent, bloodshot eyes. I take a step forward. He points to a sign on the counter. Be courteous. Please terminate all cell phone conversations. I snap the phone shut, slip it into my pocket, pull out my wallet, extract my credit card and say a silent prayer to the gods for whom my life is now just plain bad reality entertainment that the nice folks at VISA have more compassion than the gods.

  * * *

  I am in danger of over-identifying with my car; of becoming an auto anthropomorphist. Poor thing, out here alone, locked up among all of these strangers. It doesn’t deserve this any more than I do. Minding its business, holding a little bit of pot for safe-keeping, but still, peacefully minding its business when it is descended upon by self-righteous brutes, yanked off the street and incarcerated as though it is a danger to society. My humble, well-meaning, gas-sipping, polite-driving Civic, a danger to society. Hasn’t it been through enough? Isn’t the highly public defilement enough? Isn’t the slanderous branding, for the benefit of a public who will always presume guilt before innocence, isn’t that punishment enough?

  But my Civic does not seem any worse for the experience. The glove box is a bit of a jumble, but it’s always a jumble and I cannot really say the search and seizure has made it any worse. It might even be a little better. The impound lot is packed, but it is peaceful in its own way with nice a view of the river. My own impoundment – which offered a panoramic view of my cellmate’s genitalia – was much worse.

  I drive to the courthouse and ask directions to the Columbus office of the Ohio Public Defenders. I tell her I would like to see who over there might be available to help me out with an increasingly serious misunderstanding. The clerk smiles in a way that tells me I am being foolishly naïve in some way. She hands me an eligibility form and tells me I will need to submit it before anyone will give me the time of day. She tells me how to find the place where actual lawyers dispense free legal services to the innocent, persecuted citizens of Ohio.

  When I get there, a receptionist – easily the sister of the clerk at the courthouse – hands me the same form. I tell her I would like to talk to the lawyer that would get my case, just to make sure I want to do this, before I put everyone through the trouble of evaluating my application. Just a quick interview, I say. But she has her sister’s smile.

  I borrow a pen and sit down in the nearest chair and attest to my indigence. I take a wild guess at the value of the condominium that I own, but did not purchase. I do not have to guess the amount of
the monthly loan payments. The question I had feared – has your family profited from the banking industry and, if so, what makes you think the good people of Ohio should pay for your poor judgment – is not on the application. I hand over the form to the receptionist and she tells me that someone will call me.

  I leave the public defender’s office to a stunning lack of purpose. I drive in circles through Columbus looking for a diversion. I pass Barnes & Noble and park the car. I wander through the aisles gathering books almost at random, almost any impulse enough to warrant inclusion. I find a chair and try to immerse myself in anything other than my own life. Book after book after book proves impenetrable. Page after page of black, meaningless squiggles. Whenever I am able to force myself to comprehend what I am reading, it always seems to be about people for whom life is generally a fair proposition; which does not help anything. At the bottom of my stack are books by Frank McCourt and Cormac McCarthy, but the prose is mocking. Now even my misery is inadequate. I am reminded of Caitlin Carson Lewis watching over poor Dancing Danny.

  I re-shelve the books and head back to the car. Time has flown. The sky is already starting to brood its way toward evening. The air is cooling and thickening itself into a pinkish soup and the few distant clouds are bruising in tones of mottled eggplant off on the eastern horizon. My car waits patiently for me across the street. I prepare to step off the curb and a police cruiser pulls past me. I am suddenly conscious of my heartbeat. I am back to being intimidated by the very sight of the people who have the power to take away my freedom. I am no longer an Ohio WASP. I am a Chicano from East Los Angeles. I am a black man from Harlem. I am secretly terrified at the mere sight of the police. I am not Nelson Mandela, but I could be his distant, deeply flawed, morally challenged, cowardly American cousin. I am the Rodney King of Ohio history teachers.

  The police pass, utterly unconcerned with a jaywalking in progress. I cross the street to my car; my loyal, ever-patient steed. For ten minutes I sit behind the wheel staring out at faces of indifference and self-preoccupation. Coming and going. Carrying things. Talking on their phones. Chewing, smoking, coughing, laughing. They all have lives to lead. Families to tend to. Money to manage. Careers to advance. Tomorrows of promise to anticipate. I am not of them. I occupy a sliver of the space-time continuum all my own. I am invisible.