There were five police cars in the lot when I returned home that night.
Not an overstatement.
Not an exaggeration.
Five.
The reason I am certain of the exact number is due to the fact that shortly thereafter, when I would encounter the lone officer patrolling my parking lot with a flashlight, it would leap out to me what a strangely tipped ratio existed in the pulsing red and blue lights.
I had been out of town for the weekend visiting friends, and to return to such a commotion was (to say the least) disconcerting . . . a feeling that was not set to ease in the slightest when, upon exiting my vehicle, the aforementioned flashlight was shone directly into my face.
Now, obviously, I had done nothing wrong. But I'd be remiss if I said I didn't feel a slight moment of guilt and panic to be caught in that beam. I'm not sure what is is, but there's something about police officers that inspires even the most pious of us to instantly assess whether we have any cause to be in trouble. I suppose, in our way, we all still fear being sent to the principal's office.
That's why, when I finally blurted out that I lived there, I'm sure I did it with less charisma than I'd have liked.
The stories around the police station waster cooler simply must be unparalleled.
I learned shortly thereafter, as my eyes were readjusting to the dark, that the occupants of the vacant vehicles that surrounded us had long since fanned into the night, beating down bushes, peering into darkened corners, and leaving their sole compatriot to mind the store in their stead.
"He got away," the officer said to me with little more explanation, "We're trying to get him and bring him back."
I waited for more, but even as the words had left the police officer's lips, it was clear I was already an afterthought. He hovered politely for a moment, but as he scanned an area of the lot over his shoulder (what exactly, I cannot say), he began to drift away. He spoke a final time, urging me to let him know if I spotted any strangers in the building, and then sauntered off into the night--an image that I would concede was cliche if it wasn't the honest-to-god truth.
I made my way up the stairs to my apartment, a trip I had made hundreds of times, but in the moment carried a certain ominous weight that seemed befitting--an evening where one is told a potentially dangerous, yet unknown man is lurking about.
Locking myself in, I took care to check all the closets and under the bed, a ritual I had not done since searching for the boogeyman of old, and was relieved, probably for the first time in a while, to find I was alone.
I found myself returning to the window often that night, peering down at the unmoving police cars with their silent lights washing my building in color, and occasionally catching glimpses of the officer I had met making his rounds.
I knew very little about the situation that was playing out below me, but I couldn't shake it from my mind.
A single sentence kept playing in my head:
"There's a man outside."
I knew nothing of this man, who he was . . . what he had done.
But he was out there, just the same.
So I stood there, in the quiet of my apartment, looking out into the dark . . . for the man outside.
And as I was perched there in my window, waiting . . . for what I do not know, I could not help but wonder:
Could he see me too?
* * *
They found Dixie Joe outside.
In the summer of 1993, my parents and I moved to a small Midwestern town half a world away from everything that was familiar. It was a postage stamp kind of community that seemed perpetually stuck in a golden era of television that never actually existed in life. Since it was the kind of community that would balk at having a corporate supermarket (perhaps they didn't even know such things existed), the majority of life's necessities could be found at the locally owned general store.
The store was owned by a character whom the locals referred to as "Dixie Joe."
Dixie Joe was an affable sort, a little strange, but had the comfortable position of being the man who helped get you the food you put on the table, so people put up with his eccentricities.
As an eleven year-old who didn't have the immediate forcible luxury of school to help him make new friends, a lot of my days that July were spent popping into Joe's store, dollar bills clutched in my hand. He was probably the only guy left in America who still sold slushies for fifty cents and I figured running with a blue raspberry tongue in the summer sun, even if I was by myself, beat helping my parents unpack.
Such was the pattern, until one day, in the most nondescript of fashions . . . the store was closed. I returned several times over the week to similar results. Word began to spread that Joe was on vacation, and even as the locals grumbled that they now had to go the next town over to get that night's meal, Joe's store and blue raspberry tongues soon drifted from my thoughts just as surely as summer soon drifted into autumn.
Joe's never did reopen, and I would discover, many months later, that Dixie Joe had traveled in the dead of night down to Florida to confront the woman who broke his heart, hoping to win her back from her new lover and return to town triumphantly hand-in-hand.
I guess Dixie Joe was a romantic like that.
Dixie Joe's body was a discovered weeks later, chopped into little squares and buried in Tupperware in the backyard. The woman and her lover long since gone. I imagine, being a grocer, Joe would have at least appreciated that they packed him for freshness.
I haven't had a slushie in years, but I must confess that when I am at restaurants and am served a salad with cubed chicken or ham on top . . . I'll occasionally think of old Dixie Joe.
In the summer of 1993, my parents and I moved to a small Midwestern town half a world away from everything that was familiar. It was a postage stamp kind of community that seemed perpetually stuck in a golden era of television that never actually existed in life. Since it was the kind of community that would balk at having a corporate supermarket (perhaps they didn't even know such things existed), the majority of life's necessities could be found at the locally owned general store.
The store was owned by a character whom the locals referred to as "Dixie Joe."
Dixie Joe was an affable sort, a little strange, but had the comfortable position of being the man who helped get you the food you put on the table, so people put up with his eccentricities.
As an eleven year-old who didn't have the immediate forcible luxury of school to help him make new friends, a lot of my days that July were spent popping into Joe's store, dollar bills clutched in my hand. He was probably the only guy left in America who still sold slushies for fifty cents and I figured running with a blue raspberry tongue in the summer sun, even if I was by myself, beat helping my parents unpack.
Such was the pattern, until one day, in the most nondescript of fashions . . . the store was closed. I returned several times over the week to similar results. Word began to spread that Joe was on vacation, and even as the locals grumbled that they now had to go the next town over to get that night's meal, Joe's store and blue raspberry tongues soon drifted from my thoughts just as surely as summer soon drifted into autumn.
Joe's never did reopen, and I would discover, many months later, that Dixie Joe had traveled in the dead of night down to Florida to confront the woman who broke his heart, hoping to win her back from her new lover and return to town triumphantly hand-in-hand.
I guess Dixie Joe was a romantic like that.
Dixie Joe's body was a discovered weeks later, chopped into little squares and buried in Tupperware in the backyard. The woman and her lover long since gone. I imagine, being a grocer, Joe would have at least appreciated that they packed him for freshness.
I haven't had a slushie in years, but I must confess that when I am at restaurants and am served a salad with cubed chicken or ham on top . . . I'll occasionally think of old Dixie Joe.
* * *
We were sitting outside when we found out about the woman across the street.
In a new town, one with a corporate supermarket, my parents found themselves living in a house that had the beneficial feature of a rather spacious front porch. It was that very spot that, in the warmer months, became the site for ritualistic family gatherings . . . a way to appreciate nature without going out into it, and a find spot to share the details of one's day.
Across the street from the parental porch perch was another house, as befitting a suburban neighborhood, lived in by a quiet woman and her husband, who drove an old black Cadillac which was regularly seen fussing with during the daylight hours, whether is actually needed the attention or not.
Until one day . . . he wasn't.
My parents didn't notice right away, but as the weeks went on and the car sat unattended and the husband was nowhere to be seen, it became evident the routine had been broken. The quiet woman, on the contrary, was seen regularly outdoors. Snipping flowers, sweeping the walk, and always taking great care to avoid the hulking behemoth in her driveway, as if the Cadillac was a hated enemy who happened to show up at the same cocktail party, and her best discourse was to avoid eye contact.
I recall, very vividly, the day I plopped down in a cushy deck chair next to my dad on the porch as the sun was dipping down for the night, and noticing he was peering at the woman across the street as she entered her house, the screen door slamming behind her. Waiting a few seconds, as if he was worried she might reemerge to the outdoors and hear, my dad pointed across the street, waving his finger rather carelessly and state the most awe-inspiring six words I had ever heard in my whole little life:
"I reckon she killed that guy."
With one sentence, my dad had set the three of us off on countless afternoons of amusing speculation. Of course, he had his initial explanation as to why he said what he did. My father, a car enthusiast himself, didn't believe that a man who had taken such loving care of his automobile as the man across the street had with the Cadillac could possibly leave without taking the car with him. He also posited that if the woman had gotten the car in a divorce, we'd at least have heard.
But the details of the original explanation were inconsequential to the initial statement. I can't tell you how much time we spent on that porch, positing different theories about how she did it.
"Did she whack him with a shovel and bury him in the basement?" I wondered.
"Maybe she introduced him to the garbage disposal, piece by piece!" My dad proclaimed.
"Perhaps his body is in the trunk of the car, trapped with the thing he loves for eternity!" My mom declared.
Sure it was grotesque, and perhaps it wasn't board game night, but we had fun, and boy could it get us howling. If that lady only knew how much entertainment she provided, shed probably have felt like a saint for bring that much joy . . . well, minus the whole suspected murder part (Note: my parents have since moved from that house, so if you happen to be a lady across the street from them now, we don't think you killed your husband. However, if it just so happens that you did, kudos to you . . . because they haven't noticed yet.).
Months passed, and still the topic never ceased to be amusing. then one not so descript day, a car pulled into the driveway across the street, and a woman came rushing out her screen door to greet the newly arrived visitor climbing out of the vehicle, and embraced him . . . a visitor who turned out to be her husband, who was very much alive.
You can imagine how disappointed we all were.
In a new town, one with a corporate supermarket, my parents found themselves living in a house that had the beneficial feature of a rather spacious front porch. It was that very spot that, in the warmer months, became the site for ritualistic family gatherings . . . a way to appreciate nature without going out into it, and a find spot to share the details of one's day.
Across the street from the parental porch perch was another house, as befitting a suburban neighborhood, lived in by a quiet woman and her husband, who drove an old black Cadillac which was regularly seen fussing with during the daylight hours, whether is actually needed the attention or not.
Until one day . . . he wasn't.
My parents didn't notice right away, but as the weeks went on and the car sat unattended and the husband was nowhere to be seen, it became evident the routine had been broken. The quiet woman, on the contrary, was seen regularly outdoors. Snipping flowers, sweeping the walk, and always taking great care to avoid the hulking behemoth in her driveway, as if the Cadillac was a hated enemy who happened to show up at the same cocktail party, and her best discourse was to avoid eye contact.
I recall, very vividly, the day I plopped down in a cushy deck chair next to my dad on the porch as the sun was dipping down for the night, and noticing he was peering at the woman across the street as she entered her house, the screen door slamming behind her. Waiting a few seconds, as if he was worried she might reemerge to the outdoors and hear, my dad pointed across the street, waving his finger rather carelessly and state the most awe-inspiring six words I had ever heard in my whole little life:
"I reckon she killed that guy."
With one sentence, my dad had set the three of us off on countless afternoons of amusing speculation. Of course, he had his initial explanation as to why he said what he did. My father, a car enthusiast himself, didn't believe that a man who had taken such loving care of his automobile as the man across the street had with the Cadillac could possibly leave without taking the car with him. He also posited that if the woman had gotten the car in a divorce, we'd at least have heard.
But the details of the original explanation were inconsequential to the initial statement. I can't tell you how much time we spent on that porch, positing different theories about how she did it.
"Did she whack him with a shovel and bury him in the basement?" I wondered.
"Maybe she introduced him to the garbage disposal, piece by piece!" My dad proclaimed.
"Perhaps his body is in the trunk of the car, trapped with the thing he loves for eternity!" My mom declared.
Sure it was grotesque, and perhaps it wasn't board game night, but we had fun, and boy could it get us howling. If that lady only knew how much entertainment she provided, shed probably have felt like a saint for bring that much joy . . . well, minus the whole suspected murder part (Note: my parents have since moved from that house, so if you happen to be a lady across the street from them now, we don't think you killed your husband. However, if it just so happens that you did, kudos to you . . . because they haven't noticed yet.).
Months passed, and still the topic never ceased to be amusing. then one not so descript day, a car pulled into the driveway across the street, and a woman came rushing out her screen door to greet the newly arrived visitor climbing out of the vehicle, and embraced him . . . a visitor who turned out to be her husband, who was very much alive.
You can imagine how disappointed we all were.
* * *
She was the voice outside.
I don't remember the glass exploding in my face or the moment when the airbag ripped loose and burned a savior's trail up my forearms. What I do remember, however, was the woman tapping on my window asking if I needed her to call 911.
You have to understand that in the moment, such a question's validity doesn't occur to you. In fact, I think my initial response was revulsion and concern, because it seemed some crazy woman had taken it upon herself to come tapping on my car while I was sitting inside.
But it's like when you're in the theatre and they run that THX sound clip before the movie. It starts slow and builds to that signature pitch . . . I swear I could almost hear that as reality came flooding back, and even then, as I looked around at the wreckage, my own blood on the steering wheel, all I could think was, "Oh . . . yeah."
She eventually did call 911, though I can't remember if I gave my consent. I couldn't get out of my car, so I occupied myself with picking bits of glass of my t-shirt, and I remember wondering if the CD that had been in my player was going to be okay.
It may seem trivial, but I really liked that album.
The wreck itself was a blur to me, and remains that way to this day, though the details leading up to it are forever locked in slow motion in my mind. This is not uncommon for individuals who have been in bad automobile accidents. The seconds before seem an eternity, as if the universe slows down so that you can see it coming.
Maybe this is the ultimate proof that God has a sense of humor.
The minute details and fault of the crash are neither the here nor there of this recollection, but rather the importance, for me, is held within those few seconds that seemed an eternity. You see, in the moments that may potentially account to be your final ones, you find that despite how you may view yourself in life, that may not be exactly who you are.
That my final thought before impact was a rather deadpan "Here we go" is certainly not reassuring.
I don't remember the glass exploding in my face or the moment when the airbag ripped loose and burned a savior's trail up my forearms. What I do remember, however, was the woman tapping on my window asking if I needed her to call 911.
You have to understand that in the moment, such a question's validity doesn't occur to you. In fact, I think my initial response was revulsion and concern, because it seemed some crazy woman had taken it upon herself to come tapping on my car while I was sitting inside.
But it's like when you're in the theatre and they run that THX sound clip before the movie. It starts slow and builds to that signature pitch . . . I swear I could almost hear that as reality came flooding back, and even then, as I looked around at the wreckage, my own blood on the steering wheel, all I could think was, "Oh . . . yeah."
She eventually did call 911, though I can't remember if I gave my consent. I couldn't get out of my car, so I occupied myself with picking bits of glass of my t-shirt, and I remember wondering if the CD that had been in my player was going to be okay.
It may seem trivial, but I really liked that album.
The wreck itself was a blur to me, and remains that way to this day, though the details leading up to it are forever locked in slow motion in my mind. This is not uncommon for individuals who have been in bad automobile accidents. The seconds before seem an eternity, as if the universe slows down so that you can see it coming.
Maybe this is the ultimate proof that God has a sense of humor.
The minute details and fault of the crash are neither the here nor there of this recollection, but rather the importance, for me, is held within those few seconds that seemed an eternity. You see, in the moments that may potentially account to be your final ones, you find that despite how you may view yourself in life, that may not be exactly who you are.
That my final thought before impact was a rather deadpan "Here we go" is certainly not reassuring.
* * *
I don't really recall if I stood in the window all that time, though I suppose when I recount the story for others, I'll say that I did.
What I do know for sure though, is that eventually that car graveyard below came to life and one-by-one disappeared into the morning. I never did see the man, learn if they got him, perhaps they didn't. That's not saying much though, as I lost track of my lone officer after a fashion as well. The very story could have come to an epic conclusion below my nose and I could have likely missed the whole thing.
Mostly, I'd like to think they caught him.
Mostly.
I'm not there anymore, that apartment, but I think of it often. In the years since, wherever I am, whether it's home or a hotel, I occasionally find myself drawn to the window to look out at the night, and sometimes when it's too dark to see anything but my own reflection in the glass, I can't help but remember . . .
There's a man outside
. . . and he's waiting there still.
...
What I do know for sure though, is that eventually that car graveyard below came to life and one-by-one disappeared into the morning. I never did see the man, learn if they got him, perhaps they didn't. That's not saying much though, as I lost track of my lone officer after a fashion as well. The very story could have come to an epic conclusion below my nose and I could have likely missed the whole thing.
Mostly, I'd like to think they caught him.
Mostly.
I'm not there anymore, that apartment, but I think of it often. In the years since, wherever I am, whether it's home or a hotel, I occasionally find myself drawn to the window to look out at the night, and sometimes when it's too dark to see anything but my own reflection in the glass, I can't help but remember . . .
There's a man outside
. . . and he's waiting there still.
...