by Paul Griner
Letters
Who seeded your town with new families, including yours, in the years leading up to the “shooting”? And why were so many black and silver (Government-type) cars in place around the school before the event? How far back in time did you and your government handlers begin planning this?
I guess that’s what disgusts me the most, all the time and effort and money that goes into these things. Think what a use you could be to society if all that was for good purposes. But I guess cockroaches like you don’t have hearts, so it doesn’t bother you a bit.
Know this though. Boots are coming, by the thousands, to squash you and yours.
The Bakery
OCTOBER 17, 2018
She had been a prostitute. Silver. That was the name she’d gone by. They’d all been prostitutes and they’d all had one name. She used the name now as a badge.
We were like rock stars, you know? Silver said, sliding scissors into a drawer, a soft southern burr to her voice. Tennessee, I thought, and wondered about the chain of events that had brought her this far north for that kind of work.
Celebrities, she said. It was how we made it through our work. It wasn’t us.
Wide cheekbones and startling green eyes. Not Paris or jungle; jade, I decided.
Talk to me about the bakery, I said
A sketchy neighborhood, which realtors called up-and-coming; I’d walked to it from my new apartment. Cars with mismatched hoods and doors, deferred-maintenance shotgun houses, closed businesses with plywood windows, the open ones with metal safety grills. Adults came around on Halloween, without kids, and it was patriotic and poor: flags and flowers out all along the street in honor of Veterans Day, its streets and squares named for the fallen.
I put my thoughts aside and listened to Silver. Products and goals we’d gone over at the start, competitors, target clients, the job schedule and project deadlines, but it was useful to have clients talk. It gave me time to sketch and sometimes they would say things that weren’t in the corporate bios or on websites. You had to be there to hear it, and you had to connect your hand to your ear so that most of your brains and all your imagination were in the tip of your pencil as you drew.
So I sketched as she talked, just a few quick strokes, her face full on at first, though that didn’t seem to work. It would be better in three-quarter profile, highlighting those jade eyes. If we ended up working together, she’d grow used to me sketching in every meeting, ideas that would come to me as she talked.
Okay, Silver said. So, we’re trying to give these women useful skills. Mine was baking. It led me out, and I decided to use it for others. She dusted flour from her thighs. We were sitting at a small table with a computer and receipts and inspirational slogans push-pinned to a corkboard. Fifty-pound bags of flour stacked like grass seed in a hardware store, the smells of cinnamon and baking bread.
She kept talking, and I listened to her words but also to the space behind them, to what the way she spoke meant. Focused and exact showed she had clear expectations for the work, and wouldn’t likely have an endless list of changes. I was drawing a thumbnail, but this first meeting was a thumbnail too; all the things that happened in it would likely happen again as we worked together, good and bad.
Silver said, We have volunteers from the culinary school and yoga instructors who also volunteer. And teachers who provide day-care while the mothers are in classes. And accountants who teach them how to balance checkbooks, also for free.
For a while there was silence, other than the sounds of my pencil scratching over my sketch pad and of the heavy metal oven doors clanking open and of the women sliding trays from the hot ovens onto cooling racks. Rolls baking, an exhaust fan blowing. Then I realized Silver was waiting for me to speak. In my head I replayed what she’d been saying and said, So, you have a lot of pro bono work.
Everyone, she said. Well, almost. She looked over my shoulder at the women working behind me. We pay the girls an hourly wage so they can transition from their former lives. Above her head was a big gray square time clock.
I nodded. I had the composition now: Silver kneeling in a garden planting small seeds that bloomed into cupcakes, stills and animated GIFs for a website. Okay, I said. And you’re looking for another.
Another? Silver said. She shifted in her creaking wooden chair and the light changed on the planes of her face but it didn’t matter, I had it down. The hum of a big industrial mixer switched on, its huge paddle swirling around the giant bowl.
Yes, I said. Another person working for free.
Oh, yes, she said, and looked right at me, unafraid to ask. She wasn’t going to say another word, I knew. The power of silence. I admired Silver for that. How many times must she have used it to help her workers? Two were behind her with their strong tattooed arms in vats of dough up to their shoulders, punching it down. One, Silver told me, had become a prostitute at thirteen to pay their mother’s hospital bills. It was probably true, but it might also be embellished. I’d read about that very person in one of the articles, and maybe it was her, or maybe she was the most recent incarnation of her; it wouldn’t be any less true just because she wasn’t the one. Essential truths remained true, even if they arrived in counterfeit packaging.
Pro bono was a judgment call. I liked her, and thought I could do it. I still had money from the Victims’ Compensation Fund and other jobs were coming my way, so I turned my sketchbook around to show her. Lines appeared on her forehead as she looked, and she traced the design with her finger, intrigued. If she hadn’t been, I’d have stood, shaken her hand and left, no point in going farther; I never charged for the first visit. But because she liked it, I shook her warm hand across the table and said, Yes. I can do that. Two things, though. First, I can only do pro bono initially. Planning out the campaign and generating the first materials. Anything after that, which will be a lot less expensive, I have to bill for.
She nodded, diamond studs flashing. And the second? she said.
I get to use the finished product in my portfolio.
I wouldn’t keep you from doing that, she said. We all have to make a living.
Her fingertips had picked up a silvery sheen from the underside of my hand; pencil-lead residue. Silver on Silver, I said, and she laughed.
Such a clear sound, as untroubled as a church bell. Remarkable, I thought, given all she’d come through. She’d said that as a girl she’d been a storm with a skin.
One more thing, I said. Won’t change my answer, but I wondered how you came across my work.
Oh, she said. Her smile showed beautiful teeth. Business Insider.
Our local business paper; they’d run an article on me. It didn’t mention Liam. They wanted to, but I refused to profit from my son’s shooting, and it kept awkward questions at bay. The article did say that I was quirky and always prompt. I put my sketchbook away and gathered my papers and stood and told Silver I’d call in a few days with a detailed timeline and she thanked me and returned to her other work.
The one who might have been a prostitute at thirteen was transitioning. They stopped me on my way out. A cheek tattooed with blue stars and a black smock over a white service uniform with straws lining one front pocket. Thin forearms. Must be new, I thought. Here, they said. The deepest voice, eyelashes like bird wings, a them fatale. They gave me a chocolate cupcake with orange frosting. For Halloween, they said. For free! Oddly, they also gave me a straw. What a smile, I thought, and knew I’d use that somehow too. I was glad they’d come through to the other side.
I walked back to my apartment eating the cupcake, which made it hard to look like I shouldn’t be messed with as I passed a methadone clinic, wondering what their home life had been like. Not good, I imagined, mourning a past I knew nothing about, because after all they must have loved their mother to do what they did. But it was a difficult past, and some with difficult pasts became prostitutes while some with difficult pasts became school shooters. Which wasn’t a fair leap; kids with loving pasts did t
oo. Really I was mourning other irreplaceable things, wayward pasts and possible futures.
Because I wouldn’t see Liam today, I ate the entire cupcake. When he was seven, he turned contrary. Later, we decided it had to do with the upcoming move. He’d ridden his bike to Aiden’s house, even after we told him he couldn’t, and when he came back, he told May he was going to be a detective when he grew up.
May said, The way you’ve been acting recently, you’re more likely to end up on the other side of the bars.
That night when she put him to bed he said, I know I’ve been bad recently. I’ll be better. And there’s one thing you’ll never have to worry about.
What’s that? she said, and stroked his cheek.
I’ll never nail somebody to a cross like they did to Jesus.
Interim 2
Number of school shootings since:
143
Number of school children killed:
223
Boo Humbug
SEPTEMBER 30, 2015
A month before Halloween, Liam hadn’t decided on his costume. In a secondhand bookstore, I found a book on Egyptian beliefs that I thought he’d like, maybe use as a guide. We’d always made his costumes together and usually he planned two months ahead but so far he hadn’t said a thing about it. He was eight, it was a new neighborhood, but there was no way the romance had worn off, so I wanted to nudge him.
He was practicing cursive when I gave him the book, small looping letters in pencil on lined paper. He put it aside to finish his letters and then leafed through the book slowly, without a word. Finally he closed it and put it aside and said, I don’t think it’s very nice, people being mummies for Halloween. It’s not like being a witch.
Why’s that?
It’s kind of like making fun of someone’s religion.
Not for the first time, I wondered at how his mind worked. You create these little beings, who grow up to amaze and enrage you, to fill you with love and wonder, and, after, when they get hurt, with cruelty toward others.
Whatever darkness hides inside you? Their pain brings it out. I didn’t know Kate yet, but she was on my horizon.
The Kindness of Strangers
OCTOBER 12, 2016
I sat in the faux-wood-paneled reception area of Safeway 6 Trucking, flipping through mock-ups. New truck logos, for advertising in Overdrive and LandLine, the biggest trucking mags. Safeway 6 wanted to be placed alongside upcoming stories on employee drug testing and counterfeit parts; big readership, evidently. Not a glamor client, but it would pay bills, and, a year out, I was rebuilding my freelance client list, ready to work again. Money, peace of mind.
Beside me sat another freelancer in a too-small blue suit, watching the TV bolted to the wall, a morning talk show about teenaged parents and questionable paternity. He listened to the girl and addressed her. He does what he do, he said, shaking his head, and that’s on him, but, dang, girl, close your legs and open a book.
His drawings looked to be dashed off by a reluctant child, and when he noticed me checking them out he introduced himself. Bill Scott, he said.
Otto Barnes. We shook. His soft hand felt like he’d never done a day’s work. I’m the 9:00, I said. What time are you?
9:30.
I glanced up at the clock over the secretary’s head. She was on the phone, running a pick through her hair and ignoring us. Half an hour each.
Yeah, Scott said, and smoothed his retro sideburns with both hands. Nothing worse than when you run out of time, he said. You just always got to be ready, Mr. Barnes. You just never know what’s coming. He spoke with his hands, which flashed light and dark, like leaves and their pale undersides in a high wind, and his eyes vibrated with the intensity of a Bible salesman, but freelancers tended to be a motley crew, so I didn’t really think much of it; I did give an interior shout of triumph, though. The competition!
Right at nine the secretary hung up. Evelyn had pictures of two school-age children taped to her computer monitor and her coffee was a flat white from Starbucks; she wore a lot of very floral perfume. Helpful to notice small things. I kept a notebook with entries for every place I went; if you got on the good side of secretaries, it could make all the difference.
Evelyn said, Mr. Barnes? Mr. Swanson will see you now.
I thanked her and said good-bye to Mr. Scott, who stood and shook my hand with both of his this time and said, Kate says, Good luck.
I was so startled I couldn’t respond, but my mind was awhirl as I went into Mr. Swanson’s office. Tall and with a long shoebox-shaped head and wire-rim glasses, in another faux-wood-paneled room, this one smelling of pipe tobacco. His voice sound garbled when he asked what he could do for me.
Was he having a stroke? I thought that maybe I’d misheard him, flustered by Scott, so I reminded Mr. Swanson that he’d reached out to me for some possible freelance work as I shook his hand. His face was so pale it looked as though he’d never left this room, but now it grew even paler.
I’m sorry, he said, frowning and running a hand over his crew-cut gray hair, so flat you could run on it. There must be some mistake, he said.
When I came back out, Scott had gone. Evelyn thought he was with me, a partner, to help with a cold call.
They thought I’d initiated the contact—they showed me the email chain, a Yahoo account that I’d never opened, with replies from a dummy account in their name. To prove I wasn’t delusional, I explained about the hoaxers, how they sent me unwanted gifts and messages, had damaged my car, forced me to move. Spread rumors about me that showed up on the internet.
Mr. Swanson was solicitous and sorry, turning his meerschaum pipe over and over in his hands. I don’t actually have any freelance work I can send your way, he said, but let me take your cell phone number in case at some future point I do. Hand on my elbow, he said, I’ll call the police, tell them about this. Awful!
No, I said, and searched the parking lot for anyone who might follow me. Cloudy, which made it easier to see into cars. Scott wouldn’t be hanging around, but sometimes they worked in pairs. I added, They already have a thick file on these people. I’m just sorry you were dragged into it. And they want you to call the police, to waste their time. They think it’s a way to undermine the conspiracy.
The wind buffeted the door as I pushed it, and Evelyn said, Wait, and came around her desk to slip me a small New Testament, with worn green edges. Her personal copy, Psalms and Proverbs. There are a lot of evil people in the world, she said. But some good ones too. I read this whenever the bad ones make me doubt that.
There was nothing to say but thank you, so I did, and went out to find a note clamped under a wiper blade on my windshield, flapping in the rising wind.
Kate was right about your evil ways. No one whose child had been shot would be back to work so quickly. Your new address is 607 Whitebirch Road, Apartment #7. I’m going to post it now. Expect a lot of company in the coming days.
I looked him up on the internet, but no Bill Scott, freelance artist, existed. I sketched him while sitting in my car, took a picture of it with my phone, and sent it to Nash. Kate, again, I texted. That woman is insidious.
Driving home, I doubled back, waited at green lights until they changed, hoping I was followed. My fantasy was to ram him, to pin his car against a guardrail, to watch horror spread across his face as I got out and approached with my Louisville Slugger. On 12th and Eastover I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw him—or that shiny blue suit—and sped up to get beside him, both of us approaching a yellow light. He wasn’t going to stop, I knew, so I kept my foot on the gas until nearly the last moment, when the hood of his car dipped and I had to slam on the brakes, rear-end fishtailing and bumping against his. I grabbed the door handle to get out, only it wasn’t Scott, just some teenager, eyes agog at my craziness.
Impossible to explain, so I punted, shutting my door and turning my face away and staring resolutely ahead as if nothing had happened. Just one more crazy white man out for a drive. When
the light changed, I turned right and drove off slowly, another normal citizen obeying traffic laws.
After five more minutes of backtracking and sudden stops, I pulled into a gas station to check for GPS tracking devices. Under the hood, in the wheel wells, beneath the bumpers. It started to rain, a whipping cold rain, so I didn’t get on the ground to check under the running boards, but they must have had one. How else had they found my apartment so swiftly? I darted into the store to buy a coffee and the clerk noticed my shaking hands when I paid. So tall and thin, I wondered if he’d even cast a shadow.
Long night, he asked, or starting early?
Long life, I said, and I started years ago.
I sat in the car, clothes and coffee steaming, flipping through Evelyn’s Bible until the adrenaline left my system. The pages were heavily underlined, mostly in black, but here and there in red, the red passages about anger. The two I liked the most were from Proverbs, though I doubted for the reasons she had. Anger slays the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple, and Pressing milk produces curds, pressing the nose produces blood, and pressing anger produces strife. I wasn’t simple, and the foolish one was Scott, or would be, if I got hold of him, when I would press his nose with the bat. A peculiar pleasure, enhancing my anger where others sought to master it, but one I was happy to indulge. I thought more and more about Kate.
At last I charted the information in my incident log, though I didn’t think it would change anything, and surfed the web, searching for another apartment, thinking, Heads up, Liam. They’re still out there.
Interim 3
Number of school shootings since:
144
Number of school children killed:
223
Ball Breaker
OCTOBER 7, 2015