“A failure…” Matt quietly told himself while staring at his uniform. He gazed at it, his eyes fixed on the stripes on the sleeves, “I’m not that strong…” he sighed. The sergeant patch raised off the sleeve like an embossed icon; each thread on the chevrons had a distinct feel while moving his index finger across them—three atop each other. He muttered, “If you’re real, what the hell did you mean by ‘accept’?”
Another sigh, and he resigned himself to the fact that his shift started within the hour. Acceptance or resignation, not knowing which drove him on, he slowly and methodically put on his uniform. Wrinkles, scuffed boots, and on a sleeve, a small Irish pennant—an affectionate Marine Corp term for a thread come undone and poking out of the symmetry of his regalia—all were neglected on purpose. Matt slid both thumbs along the inside of his trousers, opposite of each other, from the front center along his hips to smooth out the front of his shirt. It took every bit of effort; as it did to strap on his duty belt—another 25 pounds total, each bit of weight extracting a long sigh from Matt with each movement he made.
Silently, in spite of the morning’s events with Trish, and through the agony of feeling like an abject failure, the distinctive flavor left in his mouth from earlier, haunted him.
Randy, the only deputy on duty for the day shift, stopped in the doorway of Matt’s office and waited until his sergeant looked up from the endless piles of paper that were either neatly piled or strewn across his desk.
“Sarge,” Randy began, “I’m headed out.”
“And…how is Randy today?” Matt asked while smiling, ignoring his statement.
“I’m okay, Sarge, it’s been a busy one so far today,” Randy replied and gave a short whistle. “Except for the last hour, since you came on. Other than that, busy, since the crack of dawn.”
“Gotcha. Anything interesting?” Matt reclined slightly in his chair.
“Nope. A lot of piddly shit.” Randy looked down, then scanned his sergeant’s office, searching for any tidbit that he might need to relay for the night shift coming on later. “Nothing I can think of.”
“Cool. So what do you have going on now? I didn’t hear anything over the radio.”
“Ah, I was in dispatch goofing off,” Randy said with a grin. “Someone called in to check on a friend—welfare check. They hadn’t heard from this guy for a couple days.”
“Copy. Well, holler if you need anything.”
“You got it, Sarge,” Randy acknowledged with a tap on the doorframe and then slid past into the hall.
“Randy!”
“Yeah?” he peered back around the edge of the doorway at his sergeant.
“Complacency is our worst enemy, brother. You be safe out there,” Matt admonished his deputy. Then, with a slight nod, he added, “Please.”
“Ha, copy that, sir.” Randy tapped the side of the doorframe again and smiled before disappearing into the hallway.
“‘Please?’” Matt quietly derided himself. “And ‘you be safe?’ God Matt, you’re an idiot! You couldn’t have made it sound more clichéd!”
He shook his head slowly as he looked down at the heap of paper laid out before him. A sea of reports, copies of tickets, and memos on his desk; the ink on the pages swirling in his eyes that moments ago were ordered letters of the alphabet intelligently placed into words; now simply whirls and loops of black on a white background with a few others blurring into a three dimensional pattern that jumped off the pages in the center of his vision.
A small disturbance of voices in the hallway, just around the corner of his office, and the sound of a familiar voice caused the swirling to cease. “…accept your apology, Randy!” the familiar voice laughingly yelled down the hall and then took form in his office doorway.
“Hey!” the familiar voice said. Matt flinched, looking up as though startled out of a dream. Alie slipped into the chair behind the other desk across from Matt’s, “Hi! How’s Matt this afternoon?”
“I’m good,” he said smiling. “Much better now.”
“Mmm, I see. So…” she adjusted herself in the seat and tucked a pinch of her hair. “What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?” he immediately bristled and sat more erect.
“Matt, come on, the moment I stepped in here, I could tell…sense…you’re troubled. I can see it in your face.” She tilted her head to the side, “For some reason, I can read you. And, I think I’m pretty good at it. You don’t have to tell me, but I just want you to know that I’m concerned. You carry a lot on your shoulders, and you’re so damn hard on yourself.”
“That obvious?” he leaned back in his chair.
“Well,” she began while quickly shaking her head and leaning forward. “I think I know a little about Matthew.” With a smile, she sat back again and reassured him, “Hey, seriously, no worries though. If you don’t want to talk or it’s not the right time, it’s okay. No pressure, alright? I’m just…concerned, that’s all.”
“Thank you, but I’m fine,” he replied looking down into the sea of work before him. “So, what brings you in on your days off?”
She held up a half-sheet of dark yellow card-stock, “Timecards are due tomorrow and I totally spaced out turning mine in. Thought I better get on it.”
“Oh shoot, you could’ve called me, I would’ve gladly turned it in for you.”
“I know,” she replied with a giggle.
“Listen,” he began with a sigh, “to be honest—and I haven’t, nor do I plan on, saying anything to anyone around here about this—but…Trish moved out this afternoon.”
“What?” Alie’s face scrunched up, eyebrows raised, and she leaned halfway across the desk.
“It was inevitable, right?”
“Yes, I know, but wow, Matt. Kind of sudden, wasn’t it? Did you know she was moving out today?”
“I suppose it was sudden. I mean, we knew it was coming, just a lot of foot dragging to get here, but right as I come out of a crazy dream—which I gotta tell you about sometime—she’s pounding on the bedroom door to wake me up. Then tells me she already found a place in town to rent and moved out this afternoon.”
Alie slowly shook her head, “I am so sorry, Matt. You okay?”
“Yeah, really, I’m fine. I knew it was going to happen, and it’s for the best, but…I’m a little scrambled between the ears.”
“I hear you, and I really feel for you, Matt. It’s painful. I know you’ve mentioned a little bit about your relationship before, and honestly, most people around here know your marriage hasn’t been good for a while. And, you’re going to experience a type of mourning. I went through it too with my divorce. You have to process some things with the loss of a relationship, a bit like a death in the family.”
Matt sat silent as he listened to her—his elbows on the edge of the desk and his thumbs and index fingers under his chin—he made no reply.
“But Matt,” Alie leaned further over the desk, “you have to accept—”
“What?” Matt interrupted sharply, dropping his fingers from his chin.
“I’m not trying to offend you, I’m sorry if I overstepped anything here, I—”
“No, that’s not it at all,” Matt interrupted again. “You said, ‘Accept’. In the dream I had right before Trish woke me up, I was with Yeor.” Matt had begun to slowly shake his head, “Long story. I was actually there, I think. Feeling, seeing, drinking, it was all too real. He told me some crazy things, but before I came to—at least back here—he told me to, ‘Accept.’”
Alie sat back in the chair. “Accept what?”
“Holy cow! That’s the million dollar question,” Matt replied in frustration. “I. Have. No. Idea.” Matt punctuated each word with his palms open slightly, and shook them at Alie on each syllable. “I can be such an idiot…I truly don’t know.”
With her head turned slightly, she softly told him, “Matt, ever since I’ve known you, you have never given yourself credit. The little you have let me into your world, you have alwa
ys berated yourself; your decisions here at work; your decisions at home. Nothing you do meets some sort of internal standard you set for yourself.”
He shifted in his chair as her eyes scanned his.
“Matt, your men respect and love you and all I ever hear is how they wouldn’t work for another sergeant. You might make a few mistakes but these guys see a real man before them and try to be like you.”
“Naw, there’s no—”
“Look,” she firmly interrupted, “it takes two to make a marriage work; it takes two to break one. It’s not all your fault, so stop beating yourself up—please, Matt. Accept the fact that you are a sergeant here at the sheriff’s office, and a damn good one! Accept the fact that in spite of a marriage that you couldn’t change, or that your partner didn’t meet your needs, it’s not all your fault. Accept the fact, Matthew Jameison, that you are more than what you admit yourself to be.”
Matt remained motionless. He opened his mouth to protest but Alie didn’t give him a chance.
“I don’t know what your upbringing was like. Nor do I know whatever, or whoever, it is that ran you down and told you were no good,” Alie continued her speech, leaning forward on her elbows while her hands gestured about frantically, “and I’m sorry if I’m crossing the line with anything here—I really do care about you and that’s why I’m so fired up right now! I think if Yeor is a real person, in a real place…I would tell you that he wants you to accept the fact that you’re a leader, you’re better than you think you are! Accept it, and become who you were made to be.”
Alie finished her impassioned plea with her palms flat on the desk—she seemed to be suspended in midstream with her bangs appearing to sparkle under the office lights, now untucked and flopping down around her face. Her eyes afire, piercing through her bangs, and her lips pursed.
Her countenance held Matt’s attention. A side of her that he had not seen before and whatever it was, it lit a flame within; mesmerized at the beauty of her fierce delivery, now burning with an issue she whole-heartedly believed in. It left him speechless.
Unmoving, they gazed at one another, sharing a silence that would make most feel uncomfortable. A silence that drove her words deep. He couldn’t look at her any longer and dropped his gaze to the blanket of paper in front of him and found himself looking at a blurred and distorted mess due to the tears that welled up in his eyes.
“Sergeant,” greeted the undersheriff as he walked through the doorway, stopping a few feet inside Matt’s office.
“Afternoon, Undersheriff,” Matt replied, quickly looking up while pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Hey Alie,” Undersheriff Eldret said, surprised to find her occupying what should have been a vacant seat.
“Hi, Undersheriff,” Alie replied with a large smile. “How are you?” A quick shake of her head and her hair fell back into place, minus a lost strand that was quickly taken care of by a pinch.
“Well, I’m fine, thank you. What brings you in on your day off?”
“Timecard…that I forgot to turn in,” she stated with a scrunched face like she just bit into a lemon.
“Ah. Well, I sure hope you enjoy the rest of your day off.”
“I will, thank you.”
“Matt,” the undersheriff turned his attention back toward his sergeant. “Two things.”
“Fire away,” Matt said confidently, having wiped away any signs of tears and masking the tempest raging within.
“Randy’s been trying to get a hold of you on the radio—”
“Oh no! Stupid reception just sucks in here. I think I sit in the armpit of the office,” Matt blurted out with eyes widened. He caught a glimpse of Alie at the same time; her head lowered a bit and she had a look that said, just relax.
“No worries,” Tim assured, “sounds like he’s got a question for you, and I told him I’d touch base with you in person here. So we’re good for now.” Tim readjusted his duty-belt and continued. “The other thing is Lane called off tomorrow: he’s taking a personal day. I was wondering if you could cover tomorrow morning for him and I’ll call Jake to see if he can come in earlier in the afternoon so you don’t have to work a whole shift on what should be your day off.”
“You bet.” Matt caught the frown on Alie’s face and grinned back up at Tim. “I’ll be here at zero-seven tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Sergeant. Please try to get off a little earlier tonight though.”
Matt gave a quick nod as Tim smiled, turned to leave and pointed his finger at Alie, “And you have good a day off, young lady.”
“I will. You too, Tim, when you get there,” she replied with a smile, watching him leave the room.
“Why?!” Alie whirled around in her seat to face Matt straight on—her hair spinning around her face, and returning to her former fiery visage, hands spread wide as if to plead with him, “Why do you continue to do this? You work yourself to the bone. No time for yourself. Are you purposely trying to punish yourself? For what? This place? Something you feel you need to prove? Matthew Jameison—“
Matt held up an open palm to her in an attempt to slow down the barrage, and let out a sigh with a slump of his shoulders. He had no reply to her questions, which he knew were rhetorical anyway, but deep down he knew the answers.
“I’m sorry,” she said in response to his body language. “I just see a man before me that gives of himself all the time, and yet doesn’t slow up to take care of himself. I see a man, who is more than what he lets himself be, and honestly, Yeor’s right: ‘Accept.’ Stop trying to analyze everything to the smallest detail and stop trying to prove yourself.”
After a long pause he said, “There’s no need to say sorry.” He looked up at her; the fiery visage of a woman had transfigured her into a countenance of grace, love, and compassion—hair flowing behind her and down her shoulders once again, bangs neatly tucked behind her ears that appeared soft, and watery eyes fixed in a gaze of concern as she sat upright with her hands folded in front of her.
“Please, think about what I said here,” she continued. “I know you need to get with Randy now, and I need to get out of here, else Tim will have some sort of crazy gossip stirred up around with management about me being in your office for so long.” Alie giggled.
Matt roared with laughter, “Like that’s never happened around here! Why does management do that? It’s the worst drama I’ve seen in any place I’ve worked and it usually starts at the top and works it’s way down.” The laughter felt good and broke through the cloud that hovered over his mind. He sat grinning at Alie now, but his thoughts were centered on the upwelling of desire that filled him.
“He’s the worst,” Alie whispered while pointing in the direction Tim left. “Well, Randy’s waiting for you. And please, think about what I said. And…call me if you need anything.”
“I will, and thank you,” he replied and stood up when she rose to leave.
She carefully stepped around the corner of the desk and without saying another word she gave Matt a strong, long embrace. With a quick peck on his cheek, she quickly left while giving him a wave of her fingers, and a wide smile as she turned the corner of the door and disappeared into the hallway.
Matt stood motionless as he watched her leave; the upwelling had reached a peak and was now a wash in his system. Almost paralyzed by the tide of passion breaking upon him, he looked at the door hoping she’d return and give him another hug and a long, heartfelt—
The radio hissed with unintelligible static. With a sigh, Matt unholstered his pack-set—that handheld radio that never received a signal while sitting at his desk, no matter what the brand name stamped on it claimed it could do—and walked over to the center of the office. It was Randy, needing his sergeant’s advice.
19
FACE TO FACE
The sun hung like a dazzling yellow ball in the western sky, seemingly propped up by the darkened horizon of Fairburn Mountain. It wouldn’t be long before darkness would settle upon the mountainous community,
even though it was early evening. Matt smiled at the sunset and its crepuscular rays before he turned at the T-intersection onto the highway.
He tried to focus on the task at hand. Randy had relayed over the radio that the guy he needed to check on seemed okay but refused to come to the door—did he have enough cause to enter the house? A common, reoccurring question that his rank needed to address regarding Fourth Amendment issues when the situation was unclear.
Unclear, thought Matt. Everything seemed unclear, but he couldn’t dispute anything Alie had said—which ran through his mind incessantly the moment he left the office. Consumed by the memory of her presence, of the lasting taste on his palate, and of Yeor’s last words.
“Oh man, you better plug in—and quick,” Matt berated himself. He found his thoughts removed him from the present and he had driven to the address without thinking about the task of driving, or the pending call.
Randy stood on the side of the road where a driveway began to descend toward the house he had been dispatched to. He gave a short wave and walked up to Matt’s patrol truck as it came to a halt.
“Hi, Sarge,” Randy greeted him with a perplexed look. “Here’s what we got…”
Matt turned off his patrol truck with his window down. While he quietly listened to Randy’s account of the situation, he kept his attention on the house that was to the front and right of the roadway, downhill a few paces, for any threats that could materialize.
“…so I knocked on the front door,” Randy stated while pointing at the house, “and when no one answered, I walked around to the back. There’s a sliding glass door on a small deck back there. The door’s open, but the screen door is closed. I gave it a slight pull and found that it’s unlocked. There’s a dude in there wearing only his underwear. He refuses to come to the door to talk to me, says he’s fine but won’t move out of the hallway he’s standing in.”
Shadows of Reality (The Catharsis Awakening Book 1) Page 13