Midnight Lullaby

by James D F Hannah

  We came inside as the mountains swallowed the last bits of sunlight and the sky turned black and starless. My cell phone rang as I set the kettle on the stove. The caller ID read Maggie’s number. I sucked in a lungful of air before answering.

  “Hey,” I said. It was one of my smoother lines.

  “Hey yourself, soldier,” she said. Music played in the background. It sounded like The Eagles, which meant Duffy’s, a place on High Street in Morgantown that Maggie liked. Drinkers took their drinking seriously at Duffy's, and “Greatest Hits, Volume One” was often the evening's soundtrack. I pictured everything about the moment. “Take It to the Limit” was muffled, which put her right outside the door, to the side, under the entrance awning. People made plenty of phone calls from that spot. Promises of “just one more” and they’ll be home. Lots of lies told underneath that awning.

  “How you doing?” I said.

  “Great. I’m great. Thinking about you. Wanted to call.”

  She wasn’t drunk yet, but the wheels were pointed in that direction. I recognized it in her voice, where her words were getting loose. She was about three beers in.

  “I’m glad you called,” I said. “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing much. Our education reporter got a job doing state government PR down in Charleston. We’re celebrating her leaving. We're so happy about it, we even invited her.”

  "Good for her."

  “Fuck that shit. Snooty bitch won’t last six months.”

  “Oh, well then, fuck her.”

  Maggie laughed. “Right. Exactly. Fuck her.” She laughed again, harder. No one found Maggie as funny as she found herself. It was a trait I’d found endearing, whereas it pissed everyone else off. She cleared her throat. “So you know, I’ve got an interview for a gig in Philadelphia.”

  My stomach sank. “Newspaper?”

  “Yeah. Working the city desk.”

  “You on the desk? What the hell happened? Have you had a head injury?”

  “I'm being realistic, Henry. Time I stop acting like I'm going to change the world or the Pulitzer committee gonna call anytime soon. This is better money and steady hours.”

  “But Philadelphia is ... so goddamn far,” I said. “The other side of the state. What about Pittsburgh? Did you look there? Another paper in West Virginia?”

  The connection got quiet.

  “Hello? Maggie?” I said. “Maggie?”

  “I’m here,” she said, her voice soft. “I should go. They’re wanting to move on to another bar—”

  “Sure, but can we talk about this? That’s a lot to process.”

  “It’s a job. The interview’s next week. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Have a good time tonight. Be safe.”

  “I will. I love you, Henry.”

  “I love you too, Mags.”

  The line fell silent.

  The kettle whistled. I turned off the burner and opened the refrigerator and got a beer.

  6

  Here's the thing about Alcoholics Anonymous meetings: never go to one BEFORE you plan to hit a bender. You'll end up washed over by the vibes of "one day at a time" and "easy does it" and "live in the now" and "we're all here because we're all not here" and next thing you know you're somewhere having coffee with a half-dozen other slobs as bad off as you, instead of going and getting the righteous buzz you so desired.

  It's always better to find a meeting afterwards, while there's still a twinge of hangover and you'd rather be somewhere where they serve biscuits and gravy 24 hours a day, and instead there you are, listening to all the same shit you've heard at every other meeting, drinking the same shitty coffee, struggling to remember why all of this seemed like a good idea to begin with, but satisfied in the knowledge it's always better to beg forgiveness than it is to ask permission.

  Thought processes like this explain why I'm a shitty sponsor.

  Serenity is the county seat for Parker County, the third-largest county in West Virginia by sheer land mass, covering about 1,000 square miles. If you believed the last census, there’s 38,000 souls in the entirety of the county, and just less than half of them are in Serenity. The rest are scattered throughout hollers and tiny unincorporated burgs that barely qualify as geographic blips. On maps, you’d mistake them as printing errors; “blink and you’ll miss it” doesn’t do them justice.

  Coal grew the county for years, until accountants and actuaries figured out some seams weren’t worth the money it took to clean them out. When the jobs left, so did most of the people, though the die-hards stayed, folks who owned land, farmed and raised animals and could still make something of their lives. Some stayed because they were out of options, so they became the third generation squeezing out an existence in run-down trailers or dilapidated houses, all within spitting distance of the rest of their relations.

  Technology changes shifted how they mine coal, though, and when the seams became worth mining again, a lucky few, they got those jobs and clung to them until finger imprints were left. They slapped bumper stickers on their pickup trucks that read “If You Don’t Support Coal, Just Sit In the Dark!” and kept right on like the past fifty years had never happened, not understanding they’re the only ones who haven’t realized the sun’s coming up, and no party lasts forever.

  St. Anthony’s, the Catholic church, held meetings every night at 8, in a small room downstairs, set away from everything so the drunks wouldn’t disturb evening Mass or baby showers or whatever else happens in a church when they aren't telling you how you're going to hell. There were other meetings scheduled throughout Parker County, but St. Anthony’s was the most consistent, the one you knew you could turn to every night.

  I recognized a lot of the faces. With small towns, you learn the faces and the stories and the glorious disasters that our lives tend to be. It doesn’t provide much variety in the meetings, but becomes a comfort, the familiarity of knowing that there’s someone out there with a story worse than yours, and you’ll get to hear it if you show up and pay your dollar cover when they pass the basket around.

  Woody chaired the meeting. Woody had been my sponsor since I'd left Morgantown and come back to Parker County, metaphorical hat in hand. He was a thin guy, built out of nothing but sharp right turns, with graying hair to his shoulders and a face craggy enough to make Sam Elliot look like a member of a boy band. I'd never seen him in anything but 501s and battered work boots and black T-shirts. Today was no different, though he was also wearing a red hoodie, a slight concession to winter weather.

  Chairing a meeting meant keeping everyone on task, which is like herding cats when you’re talking about alcoholics. This was open discussion, so everyone went around the room and talked about their drinking or the fact that they weren't drinking, and rah rah sis boom fucking bah for them. The hour passed with minutes dragging along on their bellies until we stood and held hands and closed with the Lord's Prayer.

  I always said the prayer, rote memorization after years spent in Baptist churches where threats of eternal damnation had hung over my head for every time I cranked off a shot into an used gym sock because I was 15 and had nothing on my mind but boobs and an absolute dearth of offers from any girls to help relieve the pressure. I wasn’t sure anymore I believed the words I said, but I said them anyway, the capstone to the hour. It didn’t feel right otherwise, the meeting incomplete without the half-hearted recitation. I didn’t think about what it meant, just using the familiarity to let me know I was done for the night.

  The temperature had dropped, and it was colder than a well-digger's ass, but that never discouraged smokers after an AA meeting. It sure as hell didn't discourage me, and I bummed a cigarette from Woody.

  "Haven't seen you in a while," he said. He’d grown a beard since the last time I’d seen him a few weeks. Woody was a guy, had a five o’clock shadow by noon, though. He might have grown it since breakfast.

  "Been busy."

  "You haven't called, either."


  "Part and parcel of that 'been busy' thing."

  He nodded. "Drinking?"

  I shook my head.

  "You lying?"

  "An alcoholic lie about drinking? How dare you."

  Woody didn't smile so much as push up one corner of his mouth for a second, then let it go. I always wondered if this was an odd twerk of his, or if he'd had a stroke. I'd never asked, partially because it seemed rude, and mostly because I'd never given enough of a fuck to bother asking.

  "How you doing?" he said.

  "Like Sheila E. said, living the glamorous life."

  He crushed his cigarette underneath his steel-toed boot and lit another. "Sounds like you're awesome."

  "King of the world."

  "Nice you've got time to hang out with us rabble."

  I put out my cigarette. "Gotta get home. Plans tonight." I smiled. "With a lady."

  "Sure thing," he said, not giving two good goddamns. "Wanna come out and shoot, next day or two?"

  Woody owned 65 acres of farm land that now sat fallow and empty except for his old house, and the personal shooting range behind it. Despite that on any given day he looked 20 bucks away from homelessness, Woody had cash somewhere, though I'd never asked about it, either. I suppose my lack of questions asked pointed toward something about my cop abilities.

  "Sounds good," I said. "I'll drop a dime in your direction."

  "You do that," he said. "Be careful."

  I was already walking away when he said it. I stopped and turned and started to say something witty, but he was already talking to someone else from the meeting. Just as well. I might need that clever retort another day.

  7

  I was already there when Doria got to Marlowe's. I was at the bar, sipping a Michelob, telling myself I could have two but no more.

  After it became clear I couldn't continue being the cop I wanted to be, and Maggie told me she needed space away from me, I dragged myself back to Serenity, and Parker County, because that's what you do when you lose everything, right? You go home.

  The first year back was okay. I stayed sober, and I kept up with physical therapy. Then things went stagnant, and I blew off therapy appointments, and then I stopped going completely. I started keeping beer in the house, and told myself it was for the company I knew to be non-existent since I kept myself at arm's length from almost everyone since coming home. Jackie, Woody and Billy comprised the trifecta of relationships maintained in two years. Otherwise, I wallowed in my losses: Job. Identity. Wife.

  At the core of everything, I missed being a cop. And working to find Bobbi Fisher — to at least find answers — seemed like real work. Cop work.

  Bobbi Fisher was dead. No doubt about it. But I couldn't just come out and tell that to Mitch Fisher. He didn't want to hear that answer. I had nothing definite that said she was dead, outside of logic, intuition and fourteen years of cop experience.

  What Mitch had, though, was hope. No matter what they tell you, people always have a little hope that a missing person is still alive. I’d seen parents keep bedrooms untouched years after a child went missing, pristine for that homecoming they told themselves was eventual. Stuffed animals unmoved. Posters for long-forgotten bands hung on the wall with yellowed Scotch tape. Life frozen and perfect in those rooms, like insects in amber, locking in grief, always delayed, always waiting.

  I thought about Billy, and what it had been like when my mother didn’t come home. I was young, and there wasn’t much in the way of memories about it, just a day when she stopped being there. After the funeral, Billy took her clothes and bagged everything up and gave it to churches or to Goodwill. He never talked about her. Photos disappeared from walls. It was like she’d been smoke, and a hard wind came and blew her away into nothingness.

  So I would not begrudge Mitch Fisher for letting logic and good sense interfere with the fact that his sister was dead. But I still felt wrong, knowing this made me feel right somehow.

  That's why I needed to get to Marlowe's early, to have an extra beer before talking to Doria Newland.

  Doria walked in wearing a denim skirt a few inches above her knees, no hose, motorcycle boots and a leather jacket thrown on over a scoop-neck T-shirt that showed off her décolletage.

  The bar was half-full, and most of those guys stopped to watch Doria walk through the joint. Toby Keith blared from the jukebox and the nightly news clattered along on the flat screen behind the counter, but no one paid attention to either. Doria was an interruption to clinking glasses and cigarette smoke.

  She smiled and took a seat on the bar stool next to me and ordered a Killian's Red.

  "You're punctual," she said.

  "Technically, I was early," I said.

  The bartender put Doria's beer on a napkin in front of her. She drank some, a thin line of foam gathering on her upper lip. She licked it off

  "You drink here much?" I said.

  "Never been here before. Just drive by it on the way to work."

  "Then why here?" one

  "No one I know drinks here, and the last thing I need in my life is people finding out I'm talking to you after hours."

  "People saw us talking back on company time."

  "Completely different," she said. "You talked to people and got nothing from it, because no one wants to tell you a truth today and have to empty their desks out tomorrow."

  "You saying people kept things from the police about Bobbi?"

  "There aren’t secrets in offices, Henry. At best, you're not spreading the stories, and at worst, you're helping hide them." Doria shook a cigarette loose and lit it.

  "Then what if we focus on the secrets involving Bobbi Fisher?" I said.

  "Like I told you, Bobbi was looking for her white knight. She was young, cute, friendly, and she worked in an office full of old, ugly attorneys who think having money excuses their sins."

  Doria drank beer, took a drag off of her cigarette. I caught myself watching her, how she moved. Nothing about her seemed self-conscious. She paid no mind to the guys staring at her, taking peeks between shots at the pool table or averting their interest from the weather guy with the hair plugs as he talked about the cold front coming in from the west.

  "When she started at the firm," she said, "the lawyers hit on her, and she was nice, and she did her best to dodge 'em and keep everything professional. But they wear you down after a while, and she started seeing someone. And when I say 'seeing someone,’ I mean 'fucking him.'"

  "Who was the lucky winner?"

  “Richard Walters, one of the junior partners.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  "He's about 50. Decent looking enough. Works out, so he’s not gone the all-gut-and-no-ass route. He's a good lawyer, kind of an asshole, but he’s a lawyer, so that’s a given, isn’t it? And his wife’s not bad, either. She’s small-town hot. Dresses like the housewives from all of those shows, but she’s got a good ass."

  I raised an eyebrow. Doria smiled.

  “What?” she said. “I can rut from the same trough as the rest of the pigs.”

  "You think Bobbi told herself Walters was in love with her?"

  "You married, Henry?"

  “That’s a complicated question.”

  “Shouldn’t be. It’s like pregnancy or virginity; either you are or you’re not.”

  “According to the law, I am, but we’ve been separated for a while.”

  “Any chance of reconciliation?”

  “Maybe when the Browns win the Super Bowl.”

  Doria smiled. She had pronounced canines, almost like a vampire. "For women, and this may sound sexist or anti-feminist or some kind of '-ist,' but we like having another person. You get kicked around enough, you learn that there are worse things in the world than settling for whatever you can find. Sometimes something, as meaningless as it might be, is better than the nothing you're getting otherwise."

  The bartender came by and asked if I wanted another. I hadn’t realized I had finished it. I said
no.

  Doria reached out and touched the back of my hand. She kept it there, running a finger over my knuckles. She had a glint in her eyes.

  "You hungry? I got steaks thawed out back at my house. I can throw 'em on the stove, do up potatoes in the microwave. Got a few cold beers, too."

  I watched her hand as it crept up across the top of mine, eventually wrapping itself around my hand. Her fingertips rubbed across my palm.

  "I'm not sure me and another beer are such a good idea. I'm not entirely confident of my ability to get home right now as is."

  That smile on Doria's face lit up even brighter. "Honey, who said anything about you going home?"

  I didn't know what to say on that. I couldn't remember the last time a woman had hit on me. Her expression said she saw me considering things.

  "I'm offering you my bed," she said. 'No offense, but I know for a fact there's any number of guys in here who'll jump at the chance, and I can go other places and find guys there too. So choose if you want to over-think this or you want to follow me home?"

  I motioned for the bartender, slapped several bills onto the counter and walked out the door with Doria at my side.

  Sleeping with Doria wasn’t the best idea I ever had, but it had been so long since there’d been a second person in the room with me during sex, I didn’t give a good goddamn about good or bad ideas. Even though I was rustier than a wagon left in the rain, and it wasn't quite the bullshit about never forgetting how to ride a bicycle, things seemed to fall into place well enough, and afterwards, as we laid there amid the smell of sweat and Doria's post-coital cigarette, I thought I'd acquitted myself well.

  That was until somewhere in the recess of my brain I heard Maggie's voice. Saw her face. Imagined the scent of her perfume. That was all it took to drag me down my particular little rabbit hole of self-pity.