by Kris Ripper
It wasn’t all hate. The usual Togg fans piped up to laud his “investigation” and pledge their support. A few others, who’d known the folks mentioned in the article, shared their grief and hopelessness. One or two had me tearing up, so I skimmed down. Togg himself rarely commented on his own site, leaving the impression that the skirmishes waged at the bottom of the page were far beneath his interest. He never turned the comments off, though, and they never collected spam, so he was clearly monitoring them. Or he had the best spam filter on earth.
I refreshed when I got to the end, just for the hell of it. Sixteen more comments had hit while I read, probably from people staring at the screen with their coffee like I was. The same, mostly, except for one lodged seven minutes ago, by someone calling themselves WarriorTruth: An artist’s work is never truly appreciated until he is dead, unfortunately.
That was it.
What the actual fuck did that mean? I stared at it, read it a few more times, refreshed again, but no, it was still there, a few comments deep now, slowly but surely about to be buried by Togg’s traffic the rest of the day.
On a whim I took a screen shot of it and messaged Togg. I’d talked to him once before about an article he’d written that I’d tentatively requested additional sources for, because I’d wanted to pitch it to Potter as something we could cover. I’d spent a day and a half on that email, trying to make it perfect so he’d understand that I wasn’t interested in plagiarizing his copy, or stealing his work. He’d messaged me back almost immediately with a list of books and articles, and after we talked for a few minutes he’d offered to give my name and information to two of the people he’d interviewed.
He’d been generous and direct, but I still didn’t know exactly how to say what I found so disturbing about that particular comment. I sent it with a postscript: Am I being paranoid, or is that creepy?
Fifteen minutes later, after I’d closed the tab and gotten to parsing my assignments, Togg messaged back: Don’t think I’m not keeping records and digging into IP addresses.
That was it. I sent Good call and got on with my day.
Who would read an article about the systemic mistreatment of a group of people, leading in some cases to murder, and write a comment about art? It wasn’t any form of spam that I recognized. Which made it, what, a joke?
I had to stop thinking about it in order to proceed with the important work of covering La Vista Repertory Theater’s announcement of its fall schedule. I thought about asking Joe how the article about Honey was going (he’d already posted the web-optimized version to the Times-Record website), but I didn’t need to know and maybe it was better if I tried not to dwell on it any more than I already had. Or something.
Abuela would know the minute she saw me that something was wrong, and I couldn’t deal with her mija-ing me today. I decided to hit the gym instead. Maybe I could sweat the fear and gnawing anxiety out.
Free weights still made me feel a little inadequate, so I opted for the mindless drone of an elliptical machine and plugged my earbuds into my phone, pulling up a radio station I liked. Quick-paced punk rock with lyrics I couldn’t always make out, sung mostly by young angsty white men agonizing over their privilege. I didn’t care what the music was. I needed to get out of my head, so I pushed myself harder, chasing exhaustion and its pleasant white-noise buzz.
Half an hour into my workout someone tapped my machine, almost scaring me into tumbling off. Zane waved apologetically and climbed up on the next elliptical over. Jaq waved from the treadmill on her other side.
I waved back, my bubble of physical absorption popped. Now I felt the heaviness in my calves and the strain in my thighs. My back ached, and my shoulders protested. I kept it up for a while longer, losing all hope of recapturing that sensation.
When I finally gave up and tugged my earbuds out, Zane said, “Sorry I scared you, Ed.”
“’S okay.” I started to slow my pace. I could do a cooldown, get chitchat out of the way, and—what? Go home? Sit in my room? Refresh Togg’s site and rake myself over a new batch of heartless comments?
Or not.
I tried not to rush my cooldown. “Are you guys going to Club Fred’s after this?”
“Please yes,” Jaq said. “I cannot deal with that smoothie bar, Zane. Fred’s is better.”
“I’m trying to lose weight!”
“Have you even looked at the nutritional info for that smoothie you love? I think it’s got an entire day’s worth of sugar in it.”
Zane pouted. “Fine. So wait, are you saying I might as well get fried mozzarella? Because that’s what I’m hearing.”
“I’ll buy the first round of mozzarella sticks,” I said. “I need to be out in the world.”
“Sure thing, buddy,” Zane said, and I had the impression that “buddy” was a last-second revision of “babe” or “hon.” Jaq hadn’t seemed to struggle that much with me transitioning. She’d slipped up sometimes early on, but she’d apologized and it wasn’t a big deal. Zane had slipped once, telling someone I’d graduated a few years after them, calling me “she” accidentally, and she’d been totally horrified by it for weeks.
I wouldn’t have minded “babe” or “hon,” which were terms she used for everyone. Not that it mattered.
“I think I’m done. I’ll see you guys over there.” I left as they were debating whether or not they should cut their workout short in the name of mozzarella sticks.
Jaq’s voice lectured as I walked away. “So you’re trying to lose weight and this is how you’re doing it? Shorter workouts and more fattening food? Good luck with that.”
The men’s locker room still felt a little like no-man’s-land to me. It wasn’t the alienating experience that being in the women’s locker room was—where I’d always felt splintered, divided into two people, the one who could “pass” as female, and the one couldn’t help being male despite appearances—but it didn’t quite feel like a place I belonged. I hoped that would change the longer I was on T. Right now my body hair was thicker than it used to be, which helped, and my voice had evened out lower than it was before. Testosterone was cumulative, though, so while I could kind of pass now, in time I’d probably feel more confident.
Cameron told me once that he suspected “passing” wasn’t really about hormones or appearance. That at least part of the battle was in my head, and a lot of it had more to do with making eye contact and keeping my head high, and not looking like a guy who was trying to avoid being noticed. I thought of that every time I entered an all-male space, like a bathroom or locker room. A space where I’d be among strangers, not people who’d already slotted me into however they considered me in their head.
I kept my chin up and didn’t seek out or avoid eye contact. Then I grabbed my stuff and locked myself in a shower stall, relieved to be alone.
It was still warm outside when I got in my car to drive downtown. Club Fred’s was quiet on a Monday night, and I nursed a beer and hung out with Zane, keeping one eye open to see if Alisha would arrive. She didn’t, so once I finished my beer, I went home.
Togg kept posting updates about Honey to his site while the Times-Record hadn’t even published her name yet. When it came out Thursday morning, I read the final copy of the story and found it basically identical to the version of the facts Togg was telling. Nothing new, nothing novel, nothing that gave me any hope the case would ever get solved. I gave in and knocked on Rodriguez’s door late in the afternoon.
“They don’t have a fucking clue.” He swiveled all the way around and leaned back in his chair. “And to be honest with you, Ed, they’re not exactly tripping all over themselves to figure it the fuck out, either.”
He sounded more angry than I would have expected. Since it wasn’t a brush-off, I sat down. “They connect it to the drag king murder back in March?”
He made a face. “You’ve been reading that site, haven’t you?”
“Um. I plead the Fifth.”
“The kid’s sharp, I’ll gi
ve him that, but not everything’s a fucking conspiracy.” He shook his head. “I tell you my boy is gay? My son. A little younger than you are. I really hate that the read I’m getting from this shit is that they’d look into it harder if anyone who actually mattered had bit it.”
“Now who sounds like a conspiracy theorist?”
“Oh, that ain’t conspiracy. That’s just plain fact. You want your murder to count, you better be white, straight, and have enough money to make you sympathetic. Baker’s doing his best, but no one else gives a flying fuck why a lady with a dick let herself be lured to the waterfront in the middle of the night to be beat to death.”
I wanted to argue with his phrasing, but it seemed like there probably wasn’t much of a point. “She wasn’t stupid. I don’t know why she’d’ve done that.”
“People who aren’t stupid do a lot of stupid things. They hauled the boyfriend in, but Baker said he alibied out pretty fucking fast. You know the guy?”
“Max? Not well. They were always fighting, though. It was part of the charm in their relationship, I guess. If one of them was going to get violent, I’d bet on her, not him.”
“Yeah, well, if he didn’t do it, they have no leads at all. And her friends weren’t necessarily forthcoming, some of them.”
I didn’t know if he expected an apology on behalf of the community, or commiseration that we’re a bunch of distrustful fools who don’t know how to help ourselves. “I don’t think anyone actually expects the cops to solve it. Melissa Loren died months ago and no one’s bothered.”
“Loren had a lot of people in her life who didn’t particularly like her. Not like this Honey. No one says a damn word sideways about her except her parents.” He grimaced. “They pissed me off. Acting like she had it coming. The parents always piss me off, Ed. Because I know what it feels like to have your kid upend everything you thought you wanted for them. You gotta be the fucking grown-up with that shit, you know?”
Not really. I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Yours too? Jesus. What the fuck is wrong with people?”
It was the closest we’d ever come to acknowledging that I was queer. Maybe he thought I was gay, like his son. Or maybe he’d figured out I was trans. I could tell him, but it didn’t really seem important at the moment.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with people. I wish they’d at least find whoever killed Honey. She was good people, you know? She helped me when I didn’t even know how much help I needed.”
“Sounds like that might have gotten her killed, if she wasn’t out there looking for tail.” He shook his head. “I’ll keep you posted, kid. But focus on your shit. And I’m sorry, again, that I called you out for that.”
“You couldn’t have known. Thanks, Joe.”
He grunted and I left.
I wasn’t really sorry that he’d called me out for it. At least one person standing there that morning had known her, mourned her. Had looked at her fingers and remembered knitting needles, and drinks, and the way she used to stand out in the alley at Fred’s with the smokers, lighting match after match and watching them burn down to her fingers.
I’d asked her once why she did that. She’d said, “I like to be reminded of impermanence, honey. ‘Nothing gold can stay,’ you know.” I’d teased her about quoting Robert Frost at me in a stinking alley off Steerage Street, but she’d just smiled and burned her matches.
My assignments were done early, and I slipped away with enough time to visit Abuela before Mom got home. When Zane texted me to meet up with her at Club Fred’s later, I jumped at the chance. Anything was better than being at home with my notebooks, getting no closer than the cops to figuring out why Honey had died.
Fred’s was tame and quiet, a Thursday evening crowd more interested in talking than dancing. It took me a few minutes to realize that Honey was the main topic of conversation, and the reason everything was so subdued. It had probably been the same on Monday, but I hadn’t noticed, too lost in my own thoughts.
No Tom tonight, so Fredi served me, placing a pint on a coaster and lingering for a minute. “Heard they called you out of bed to go down to the waterfront Saturday morning.”
I didn’t bother trying to figure out where she’d heard that from. I already knew Togg had been there; it wasn’t all that unlikely that another one of those random people had been queer, chatty, or both.
“Yeah.”
“You saw her?”
“Yeah.”
She flattened one hand on the bar in front of me. “You’re on the house tonight, Ed. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Me too. And thanks, I guess.”
“It ain’t much, but I don’t suppose there is much that’d make up for seeing what you saw.”
“No.” She was beaten so much her face was black. Her dress kept rippling in the wind. I proved it was her by her tattoo. Do you remember her tattoo? A little heart, right there, where a wedding ring would be if she’d ever wanted to get married.
“The cops came around, wanting to know exactly where everyone was on Friday night, who she talked to, who she left with.”
“Did she leave with someone?” I asked, interested in spite of my grief.
“I didn’t see it. A few people thought she was escorted out by a boy half her age, but I don’t take that altogether seriously. Half her age wasn’t really Honey’s style.”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“Unless she was helping someone, anyway.”
“I know they took Max down for questioning.” I kept my voice low and watched her face, but clearly this wasn’t the first she’d heard about it.
She waved a hand in dismissal. “They had that fight, and everyone saw it. Nearly everyone who talked to the cops mentioned it.”
I wondered how many people had refused to talk to the cops at all. “They let him go, so I guess his alibi checked out.” It hadn’t even occurred to me that Honey’s death might be a straightforward domestic dispute, something easily explained by the unstable cocktail of rage, love, and alcohol.
“Sure it did. He was still here until I closed up, then went down the street for last call at the Bayside. He’s real broken up about it.” Someone called to her from the other end of the bar, and she tapped the counter one more time with her palm. “Take care, Ed.”
“Thanks, Fredi.”
Max must be devastated. He and Honey had been going back and forth for years as far as I knew; by the time I was regularly showing up at Club Fred’s, they were that couple, the one most likely to get into a screaming match and leave with other people, then most likely to come around hand in hand a week later.
Now she was dead, and she’d died after one of their blowouts, but before the reconciliation. I had a feeling Max was going to regret that for the rest of his life.
I nursed my beer and greeted Zane and Jaq when they arrived, taking stools on either side of me, grateful for the distraction.
They were mid-bicker.
“Why would I do it if I’m not interested?” Zane dropped her purse on the ground at her feet. “Why would I bother? What would I gain?”
“You still haven’t actually addressed the question of why you aren’t interested. If it’s because you just don’t care in general and you’re happy being alone, then fine, but—”
“I’m dying of thirst over here, Fredi!”
“Keep your shorts on, Jaffe!”
Zane sighed. “She so hates me. What were you yammering on about?”
“Answer the damn question!”
Flicking a lock of purple hair out of her eyes, Zane leaned toward me confidingly. “I don’t even remember what the question was, to be honest. Don’t tell Jaq.”
“You are so fucking infuriating, Suzanne Amanda Jaffe! Ed, have you ever used one of those online-dating things?”
“Um.”
“Tell Zane it’s a totally normal thing that totally normal people do.”
Fredi showed up at that mome
nt and took their drink orders. I tacked on an order of mozzarella sticks for them as well, hoping the diversion had permanently derailed Jaq’s conversational choice.
No such luck.
“There’s nothing wrong with using an app or something to meet people, or just to talk to people.”
“I talk to people all day long,” Zane countered. “What am I doing right now? Fucking talking to people.”
“You’re talking to me and Ed. It doesn’t count. Neither does work. It’s about companionship, babe. Where in your life are you leaving room for something new?”
“This is that thing where you hooked up with someone and now you want to wave fairy dust over the rest of us as if it’s some kind of prescription?”
“No, Zane, this is the thing where for the first time in our entire friendship you didn’t say you’re happy being single. That’s what this is.”
“I’m fine.”
Jaq sat back with finality. “Exactly.”
I tried to focus on my beer, but it was no use. “Can you guys . . . not fight around me? I mean, literally, in space, if you’re going to fight with each other can you at least sit on neighboring stools? I don’t mind listening to you bicker, but it’s harder when I’m in the middle of it.”
“Sorry, Ed. I just have one more thing.” Jaq leaned over to address Zane. “All I’m saying is that if someone was interested in companionship of the affectionate variety, that person might benefit from branching out. That’s it.”
Zane reached around me to shove Jaq’s arm. “All I’m saying, Jaq, is cram it.”
Jaq sighed.
We split the order of mozzarella sticks (there was only so long I could smell mozzarella sticks without tasting them; I’d be a better vegan tomorrow), they went to hit the dance floor with Jaq’s girlfriend, and I was contemplating another beer when Alisha appeared.