One would have thought that Les had recommended CJ Hardin be stoned to death, I thought the next morning while I got ready for work. His “interview” was all over the radio. I finally had to switch it off because it became so stressful. One person would call in and proclaim Les a hero for speaking truth in the face of religious persecution, then the next would rant that he was a hater and a redneck who needed to go back to the 18th century. Actually, by my informal count the hater votes outvoted the truther votes about three to two.
The morning DJs loved it. Another controversy! In Lubbock! That was two in one week!
“Why don’t you tell your listeners about all the people Les has helped?” I shouted at the radio. I jabbed at the button with my index finger.
I turned on the TV morning show, hoping for some news that didn’t make me want to throw things. Instead, the first thing that popped up was Les.
“...in the same passage that it forbids incest and bestiality.”
The picture switched to a close-up of a cow’s face, eyes going suddenly wide, accompanied by the sound of a startled “Moo!”
A knock sounded at the front door.
I groaned. Dale. There was yet another prayer not answered.
I didn’t bother pasting on a smile when I opened the door.
He spread his arms wide. “I made it. I probably had Hombres tailing me all the way here, but I made it alive.”
“That’s excellent,” I said. “So now they know where I live.”
“That’s the crazy life we chose, though, huh?”
I glared at him.
“Bad day already?” Dale asked cheerfully. “Better turn that frown upside down,” he said. “It’s Friday. Flo said that’s one of our busiest days!”
“It is,” I said tiredly. Even I could recognize it was unreasonable to want to punch him for saying ‘our.’
“So, did you find anyone else to try to get me bumped off today?” Dale grinned and jabbed his elbow in my general direction as we walked to the car.
He chattered all the way to Flo’s, critiquing my use of the turn signal to change lanes (You’re just encouraging people in the other lanes to speed up so you won’t get in front of them), my recognition of the posted speed (They have to give you five miles over, that’s actually a law but they don’t tell anyone about it), and the way I’d worn my hair, (Too tired after your big night out to put in much effort this morning, huh?).
Weirdly, his annoying-ness actually made me feel better. I was going to want to punch him no matter what, but if he was a jerk then I didn’t need to feel guilty about it.
Although God had not answered my prayer to make Dale disappear, he had at least sent in an Alaskan Malamute that was blowing his winter coat, which meant Dale was going to be in the backroom brushing out undercoat for a good hour. That would give me time to corral what patience I had left.
As it happened, I had ten minutes. Then Dale came back in the room to announce he was done.
Flo and I looked at each other. No way could a dog like that be brushed completely out in ten minutes. Dale would require a lesson in undercoat management.
The phone rang. I snatched it before the first ring ended. “Flo’s Bow Wow Barbers,” I said. Please take a long time, please take a long time, I prayed silently.
Flo sighed and grabbed a rake from the basket she kept by her desk. “Let’s take a look at that undercoat,” she said tiredly.
I felt kind of guilty because it was my fault Flo had hired Dale, but I couldn’t help it. My pride still stung from the day before, and he’d made me feel insecure about my hair that morning. Combine that with the low-level but constant urge I always felt to punch him in the throat, and I was a person in need of a short break from the charm that was Dale. I considered it somewhat like putting on my oxygen mask.
I kept grabbed the phone and waited on customers, grooming my dogs in between, and interacted with Dale so little that I was approaching a good mood again when I heard the bell over the door ding around noon. I looked up to see Pita Brown being carried, football style, through the door.
I like dogs. I mean, I really like dogs or I wouldn’t have chosen to work with them. Dogs are sweet and funny and cute and lovable – except when you’re trying to trim their toenails, at which time they can become cranky. Sometimes they turn into actual man-eating beasts.
Pita Brown was a Westie of this last variety. Mr. Brown told me his name stood for “Pain in the Ass”. While I laughed and pshawed to Mr. Brown’s face, as soon as he left I agreed wholeheartedly with him. Pita was basically a decent dog as long as you weren’t doing something he didn’t like. Unfortunately, everything to do with grooming fell into the Don’t Like category.
The bathers were terrified of him because he actually tried to bite the water. He tried to bite them, too, and succeeded from time to time. One day, in a generous mood, I’d tried to help and turned out to have a fair talent for dodging snapping teeth, unfortunately, because that meant I was the designated sole handler of Pita, every time he came to visit.
I told Dale as much when Mr. Brown dropped him off. “I’ll bathe this one. He can be difficult.”
“What?” Dale drew his head back and studied Pita. “This little guy?”
Admittedly, Pita didn’t look particularly vicious. He was fluffy and white and had cute pointed ears. When Dale squatted to scratch his ears, Pita panted happily and wagged his tail.
“That Salem is a bald-faced liar,” Dale crooned to Pita. “Isn’t she? Isn’t she?”
Pita, happy to create conflict wherever he went, licked Dale’s hand and gave him big doe eyes.
“See,” Dale said. “She must have just been mean to you, huh? This cute guy wouldn’t bite a biscuit.”
He slipped his hand around Pita’s middle and lifted him.
Pita snarled, whipped his head around, and snapped at Dale.
With a yelp, Dale dropped him and leaped back. Fortunately for Pita’s stubby legs, he hadn’t been far off the ground. Now he stood, vibrating with rage and glaring at Dale. He took one step toward Dale. Dale backed up.
“Are you insane?” he said to me. “What in the world are you doing, giving me a psychopath like that?”
I bit back a satisfied smile and took a lead off the hook on the wall. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said.
I lassoed Pita carefully and walked him back to the bathing room. My phone beeped in my pocket and I pulled it out.
“Hey,” I said to Viv as I led Pita to the tub.
“You busy?” she asked.
“I have four left,” I said. “But one of them is Pita, who is like another three on his own.” The cool thing about working at Flo’s Bow Wow Barbers is, when you get done with your dogs for the day and clean up your station, you can leave. I don’t have to stay until a certain time every day unless Flo needs me to close up shop, which is rare.
“So what do you think? Another couple of hours?”
“Maybe three,” I said. “It depends on this guy here. Hang on.”
I put the phone down while I tightened the leash on Pita’s neck and held it firmly forward in my right hand. With my left hand I circled his middle and lifted. He screamed and flopped like he was single-handedly fighting off a herd of wildebeest, but I had his head secured and he couldn’t get at me.
I put him in the tub and clipped the leash to an eyebolt. Pita stepped gingerly in the damp tub and gave me a look of pure hatred.
“Holy cow,” Viv said when I came back on the line. “What are you doing to that poor dog?”
“Putting him in the bathtub.”
“The Hardins are going to give a press conference at 2:00,” Viv said. “Do you think you’ll be able to make it?”
I checked the clock on the wall, but it was already 12:30. “No way,” I said. “Even in the unlikely event Pita doesn’t try to disembowel me, I’m sure I’ll be here till around 3.”
“It’s okay. I’ll go and take notes.”
I frowned but didn’t say anything. Viv’s note-taking skills were legendary, but for all the wrong reasons. What little could be gained from her horrible penmanship was generally useless information, like spotting undercurrents of tension that didn’t exist or noting that someone was wearing last season’s hottest colors. She was convinced that if she gathered enough pointless minutiae, it would come together in the form of a smoking gun, a la Sherlock Holmes.
“Is Dale working today?” Viv asked. “Or did Matt Macon and his gang of lawless thugs knock him off?” She cackled.
I frowned and watched Dale through the doorway into the grooming room, telling Flo and Tammy the story of singlehandedly protecting me and Viv from a group of murderous thugs.
“He’s here,” I said, because one couldn’t say he was working, exactly. Then Pita decided to lunge at my throat and I had to hang up.
I turned on the water, letting it run against my hand as it warmed.
Pita growled, his lip curling to show a wicked white tooth. I let him growl.
When I finally turned the water on Pita, he exploded in a frenzy of furious barking, flailing and snapping that made the rest of the dogs come to the front of their crates and look around in concern. “It’s okay,” I crooned. It did nothing to soothe him or the rest of the dogs, but I felt it my groomerly duty to try. “It’s just water, Pita. It’s the same thing I’ve done every six weeks for the past two years, and you’ve survived every time.”
We finished the bath with just one near miss and I carried Pita at arm’s length, flopping furiously with his head covered in a thick towel, to the drying table. Dale came through and grabbed his baseball cap from the shelf by the back door. “Catch ya later,” he said cheerfully. “Viv and I are going to the press conference. I’m going to help her take notes.”
I froze, brush in hand. “What?”
“Viv is picking me up so I can go to the press conference with her at 2:00.” He tugged his cap down to his ears and cocked his head knowingly. “You know how useless she can be with the notes. But don’t worry, we’ll brief you tonight when I get home.”
And he was off, whistling happily. The bell over the front door chimed as he went out.
I stuck my head around the corner. Sure enough, Viv’s Caddy was pulled to the curb. Dale climbed in and away they went.
I stood before Pita with a brush and the hair dryer, frozen in disbelief. I couldn’t go so she took Dale? Pain in the neck Dale?
“He’ll brief me? When he gets home?” I asked Pita. “What the hell?”
To my dismay I felt a lump build in my throat. I felt like I was back in high school and Trisha Thompson (now Patrice Watson) had decided she preferred hanging out with girls who didn’t get drunk during school lunch and take off their tops at keg parties. I was rejected, not good enough.
If Pita was one of those dogs that can sense people’s moods, he clearly didn’t give a crap about mine. He snapped and snarled through the entire drying and brushing process. By the time I was through with him, I had tears in my eyes and my insides matched Pita’s outsides. If I could have gotten away with biting someone, I would have.
“He giving you a hard time?” Flo asked, her lower lip stuck out in sympathy as I carried him back to my table.
I set him down and took a deep breath. “Just the usual.” If Flo could see I was upset, I needed to suck it up.
But it bothered me. I kept telling myself that it shouldn’t, that Viv could have all the friends she wanted, that I didn’t have some kind of exclusive contract with her. She had asked me to go to the press conference first, after all. Someone should be there, and if I was unavailable, it only made sense that she go, and take someone else – someone who happened to be the most annoying person on earth.
It bothered me.
“Okay, God,” I thought. “What is this? I’m a grownup woman and my feelings are hurt because Viv has another friend. What am I supposed to do about this?”
I couldn’t help but feel it was kind of God’s fault. I had read that stupid scripture and thought I needed to help Dale. Now he was frigging everywhere – at work, at home, horning in on my friendships. If this was helping my fellow man, I wasn’t impressed.
I lugged Stump to my hip and walked out to my car. I froze when I saw Marky sitting on the curb.
He rose and gave me a tentative wave. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi?” I hadn’t meant it to be a question, but I was a little surprised to see him. More than a little.
“I hope it’s okay that I came here,” he said. “You put your work number on the back of that card. I just...I needed someone to talk to.”
He reached out and scratched Stump’s ears. Stump turned her head and licked his hand, giving him the look that said, “I’ve been waiting my entire life for someone to scratch me in that very spot.”
He looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot and his thin body hunched in on itself, as if he’d taken a beating.
“What’s wrong?” I asked without thinking. “I mean, besides...”
He shook his head. “Just that. Just...” He stepped back and ran a hand through his hair.
A thought occurred to me. Maybe God has sent Marky to me for friendship, support. I’d been whining all day about Viv and Dale becoming so chummy. Maybe Marky was God’s way of saying that there were other fish in my sea. Clearly, he needed a friend, and so did I.
“Do you like tamales?” I asked.
He looked a little unsure. “I think so.”
“You’ll like these,” I said. “Follow me. I know a place where we can talk.”
He climbed into his car and followed me and Stump out to G-Ma’s place.
A few months before, G-Ma had leased the kitchen attached to her run-down motel to Lubbock’s best-in-the-entire-world tamale maker, Mario. Mario used the kitchen to make tamales and burritos. He had an army of family members and college kids who went all over town selling his stuff out of insulated carriers. They came by Flo’s regularly, and I figured I had probably funded the tuition of at least one of those guys. I wasn’t sure how many Fat Fighter credits were in a Mario tamale, but I was past the point of caring.
Mario didn’t keep the restaurant open to the public, mostly because not many people with any money hung out on the Clovis Highway, and what money they did have was spent on booze, drugs or prostitutes. That was okay because he did a booming business just using the kitchen and selling straight from the carriers. But he liked me (my best customer! he always beamed at me in his awkward English) and I figured he would let me and Marky hang out in the old dining room for a while.
Mario had the back door open and Tejano music blaring when we walked up. We entered the kitchen and I stood for a moment to let my eyes adjust. Stump sniffed dramatically and clawed her little legs into my side for me to let her down. I knew what she was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing: Here was a bit of unspoiled paradise. Broccoli had never entered here.
If G-Ma saw Stump running around sniffing for crumbs, though, she’d have a stroke, so I tightened my grip and found Mario cleaning a big stock pot in the sink. I asked if we could buy some tamales and hang out in the old dining room, and he agreed happily. Mario basically agreed happily with everything. He looked behind us, then turned a questioning look on me. “The abuela?” he asked.
Viv wouldn’t like that, I thought smugly. The grandmother. I hadn’t realized the two of us had become quite so attached at the hip, but when I thought about it, I hadn’t seen Mario once in the past six months that Viv hadn’t been with me.
I shook my head. “She had some errands to run,” I said shortly.
He shrugged, then handed me three foil-wrapped packages of tamales and nodded toward the fridge full of canned soft drinks. I grabbed a Diet Coke, because of course I did.
Marky and I sat at a vinyl booth and shared the tamales.
“Did you go to the press conference?” he asked. His eyes were redder, I realized, than when I’d seen him at Flo’s. He must have been crying again on the way here. I wanted to reach across the table and take his hand or something, but I didn’t.
“No,” I said. “I couldn’t get away from work. Did you?”
He shook his head. “They don’t want me there. They want to forget I exist.” He took a drink from his Dr. Pepper. “I’m just a reminder of their son’s imperfection.”
I thought about what Desiree had said, that CJ’s family loved and supported him. “I don’t know about that,” I said. “Did they ask you to stay away?”
He shook his head again. “No, I didn’t even ask if I could be there. I didn’t need to. It’s easy enough to pick up on vibes, you know.”
“That’s true, but...” I wasn’t sure what to say, but I felt like I needed to say something. “I heard that his family was actually very understanding when he came out. Supportive. It’s possible they would like to meet with you, as someone who clearly meant a lot to CJ.”
He gave a small snort. “Who told you that?”
I searched my mind frantically, but couldn’t think of a legitimate-sounding lie, so I told the truth. “Desiree. I mean she didn’t say the Hardins would like to meet you, she just said they were very supportive of CJ.” I hoped fervently he wouldn’t ask what else she said.
“What else did she say? Did she say anything about me?”
I frowned like I was trying to remember.
Stump, bless her heart, chose that moment to flop her wide nose up onto the table and try to inhale one of the tamales. I made a big production of keeping her away.
Marky reached across the table and scratched her under the chin, letting her sniff wetly at his hand. “I’m sorry, pretty girl,” he said. “But I doubt this spicy food would agree with you.”
“No doubt,” I said. “I shudder to think of the intestinal explosion that would result from that.” I laughed too loud, thinking that surely, if I needed to change the subject, I could find something else to change it to besides Stump’s digestive escapades. But if I couldn’t, oh well. Stump ate anything she could find, including aluminum foil and bugs. I had stories. “One time, she – ”
“Listen, I really don’t want to put you in the middle of things. I don’t. I know this isn’t a comfortable place for anyone to be. But...” He made a sound that was almost a sob, shook his head once, and looked at his hands folded on the table. “I have to know. I can’t sleep at night, I can’t stop thinking about it, and I just...I need to know. You talked to Desiree. Did she say anything about me? About CJ and me? Did she talk to him, that last day? Did he say anything about me?”
“Did CJ say anything about you?”
Marky put his hands over his face and rubbed hard. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “We had a fight. That last day. I didn’t tell the cops that, and I probably should have.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?” popped out of my mouth before I could stop it.
He shook his head miserably. “I don’t know, I should have. I should have. I just – I was so freaked out, and they were asking me all these questions, and I felt...I don’t know. Scared. CJ was dead, and I’m in a town where I don’t really know anybody. Where I come from, you can’t trust the cops. If you’re gay, they’re not going to lift a finger to protect you. For all I know it could be the same here, you know? They could actually be the ones who killed CJ, and look, here’s a fag from out of town, we can pin it on him.” He started to tear up again, and he sniffed hard and cleared his throat. “I was scared and I didn’t say anything, and then later it seemed like, if I did say something, I’d look guilty for not bringing it up before. So I just kept my mouth shut.”
I thought about the message boards I’d read the night before. No matter what I do, I feel guilty. Even for things that couldn’t possibly be my fault, that I know logically aren’t mine to deal with – I feel guilty. I feel responsible.
“What did you fight about?”
“Oh, it was – it was just everything. He was keyed up all week, with the fundraisers and then with the backlash against Friends of Joshua. On edge. So he was snapping at everything. I tried to, you know, keep everything calm and upbeat, but it started getting to me, too, and I snapped back. Anyway, he got worried after the race. He kept talking about all the people here in Lubbock who had been helped because of Hope for Home, and how that was going to be over now. He actually thought about taking Friends off the local recipient list. And I – I bugged out. I didn’t want to let the bullies win. We had this huge blowup and he stormed out. That’s the last time I saw him.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed. When he opened them again, they looked haunted. “Did he go over to Desiree’s?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, no, he didn’t. When Viv and I talked to her, she was very upfront about everything; and she would have said if he’d been there. In fact, if I remember correctly, she said she talked to him earlier in the week and that was all.”
“Yeah, she called him Tuesday, after he’d had the big coming out ordeal with his parents. You know his mom actually called her? Apparently, they’re all just great buddies, practically family already.” He rolled his eyes.
I was uncomfortably reminded of the bitterness in Desiree’s voice when she talked about Marky. Jealousy was an ugly thing.
ABSOLUTELY, this voice in my head said. My mind flashed on a picture of Viv and Dale riding along in her Cadillac, the radio turned up loud, laughing and having a grand ol’ time. A dark ball of jealousy lodged in the pit of my own stomach and I felt sympathy for both Marky and Desiree. People really sucked sometimes.
God had put me where I was so I could help Marky, I was convinced of that now. He was jealous and heartbroken, I was jealous and could offer him some sympathy and comfort. It wasn’t the way I would handle things. If I had my say, Dale would back in the hole he had crawled out of and Viv and I would go back to being best buddies. But since when had God ever resolved anything based on my recommendations?
Of course, I had little to comfort Marky with except my company and some tamales, but I encouraged myself by thinking that was enough sometimes.
“I know it must be hard,” I said. “Losing him so suddenly. Coming to grips with the fact that you’ll never be able to reconcile after that last fight.” Oops. That had come out significantly less comforting than I had intended.
Marky nodded glumly. “It is. My mind is just spinning and spinning. The what-ifs are driving me crazy. What if we hadn’t fought? What if I’d just – just swallowed my frustration and kept everything calm? He might have stuck around and we might have talked things out. Then he wouldn’t have been wherever he was to be killed like that.” He swallowed hard. “How did he really feel about me? What if he did go over to Desiree’s. What if he did seek her out when he needed someone to talk to?”
“Look,” I said. “You don’t have to be jealous of Desiree. CJ chose you. And from what I understand, that was really, really hard for him. He was he kind of person who wanted to make everyone happy, to get everyone’s approval, and he knew coming out would not. Yet he did it anyway. He could not help himself. You should comfort yourself with that.”
The set of his jaw changed for just a moment, setting into an attitude of defiant triumph that I was glad Desiree could not see. Then he swallowed again and stood. “Can I hold your dog for a minute?” he asked.
I was caught off guard and said, “Sure.” I forgot to warn him that Stump was a lot heavier than she looked, but he didn’t seem to mind. He lifted her (she grunted and allowed the intrusion with some ill humor) and sat again with her in his lap.
“You’re a sweetie,” he said. “Look at those big brown eyes.”
Stump has always been a kind of people-barometer for me. She’s a much better judge of character than I am. For a moment I even considered the possibility that God had sent Marky to us so Stump could comfort him, and with a surge of parental pride I felt my own eyes get teary. My baby, used to serve humanity! It was possible that was worth losing Viv’s friendship over.
We sat in silence for a while, Marky rubbing Stump’s belly, Stump giving the occasional hurts-so-good groan and shifting on her fat behind to give him better access, me wondering how Marky could just leave those two extra tamales on his plate and move on like there wasn’t more food right there. Stump was like therapy, though. I could see him visibly relax, little by little, as Stump gave him doe eyes.
“You know,” he said. “This guy I used to know at the shelter back home – he used to tell me that when you’re struggling with a bunch of unknowns, the best thing to do is go back to what you do know. List it all. Everything you’re absolutely sure of. Then measure the unknowns against that list, and use a bit of skepticism. Like, if you know the world is round, it really doesn’t matter how flat it looks, right? You know that’s just the way things look from this angle. But the truth is still there, and the truth doesn’t change no matter what things look like from this angle.”
“That sounds like something Les would say.” I took another bite of tamale.
“Les?” Marky’s eyes narrowed. “That bald guy that was on TV?”
Uh-oh. I didn’t even have a chance to make up a story – I could tell from his face that everything was written all over my face.
“He’s actually a very nice guy,” I said lamely.
Marky looked stunned. “I’m sure he is. For a hater.”
“A hater? Les is not – ”
“He’s the one who lumped homosexuality in with incest and bestiality, right?”
“Well, no, actually, that was the Bible that said that, Les just – ”
“This guy is your friend?” He looked absolutely betrayed. And Stump, the traitor, sat in his lap giving me the same how-could-you?! look. She might have been mad about the tamales, though.
“Look, all you know about him is this one thing. One two-second thing he said, one time. You can’t judge a person based on one thing. Just yesterday he was – ”
“You talked to him yesterday?”
“I was with him at the awards. He was getting an award for all his contributions to – ”
Marky stood abruptly and deposited Stump onto the booth. “I see.”
I moved to stand, too, but he waved me back down. “Don’t. Don’t get up. I see how things are.”
I sat there making generally clueless noises while he stormed through the kitchen and out the back door.
Stump watched him go, then turned a disappointed look on me.
I shrugged.
She looked pointedly at the uneaten tamales at Marky’s place, then back at me.
“No,” I said firmly. I hadn’t been kidding about the intestinal explosions. That was not the way I wanted to end this crappy day.
Mario came in wiping his hands on a damp dishtowel, grinning his big grin. He looked back the direction Marky had gone and then back at me with a questioning eyebrow. “Bueno?” he said.
I shrugged to him, too. “He wasn’t happy?”
His grin immediately turned to a look of concern. “The tamales were not good?”
“Oh, no, the tamales were excellent, as always.” I rubbed my tummy to illustrate. “Very good. He’s just mad because...” How to explain? “He’s mad.”
Mario nodded, then we both stood there for an uncomfortable moment. He motioned toward the tamales. “I’ll wrap up some tamales for you,” he said.
As much as I secretly agreed with this philosophy that good food can brighten the most rotten situation, I forced myself to shake my head. “No,” I said. “Thank you, but no. I can’t.”
This concerned him more than Marky’s abrupt departure. His brow drew together and he frowned.
“Actually, you know what? I’d love to take some home. Thanks. That would be great.”
Smiling once again, Mario headed back to the kitchen. Stump and I followed him through, and he put three more packages of six tamales in a paper bag for me. “Refrigerate,” he ordered sternly, then smiled again.
I nodded solemnly, then asked, “How is the delivery business going?”
“Oooh, busy. Busy busy,” he said. “Can’t keep up.”
“Do you ever go to Channel 11?”
“Channel 11? The news?”
“Yes,” I said. “They have a lot of people there, and I know they’d love some tamales.” I gave him the address.
He scrambled it down on a pad beside the phone, then nodded enthusiastically. “Bueno, bueno,” he said. “Good.”
I drove home, feeling like I had been hit by a truck. I couldn’t even feel good about the possibility that Tri-Patrice might fall for the tamale temptation and not lose more than I did for a change, because I felt so crappy about intentionally trying to sabotage her. Fat Fighters had an entire weeklong curriculum devoted to how to deal with people like me.
Plus, I was full. Somehow in all that I’d eaten six tamales, when I’d planned to eat only two. This was going to wreak havoc with my Strat-EAT-Gic Plan.
I flopped onto the sofa and hauled Stump up to me. She sniffed intently at a spot on my thigh. I must have wiped tamale residue on my jeans. I checked the clock. The news was about to come on, so I dug around for the remote control and switched the TV on.
Les again. Apparently, he’d gone viral. The reporter who’d been at the Watson Building the previous night was giddy with excitement. She smiled brilliantly as she stood to the side of the anchor desk.
“Patrice, it’s not often that something that happens in Lubbock reaches the national news, but one local man is garnering attention all over the country, and in less than twenty-four hours!”
Then came a montage of clips of comedians, anchors from other stations, and people on the street quoting Les. She’d even put music behind it. It looked like one of those how-many-people-can-fall-on-their-butts-in-this-thirty-second-video bits from the home movies shows. Les saying the words, “won’t inherit the kingdom of God,” and “bestiality.” Then his words repeated soundbite-by-soundbite by solemn talk show hosts, sarcastic comedians, indignant people on the street. Again they showed with the startled cow, and to this was added a bleating goat, a wary tail-switching cat, and a seemingly oblivious hamster.
It was all supposed to be funny. Except it was Les, and he was being made to look the fool, and he was my friend. It made my heart hurt.
The reporter started talking again, and I hit the mute button. I didn’t want to hear it when she managed to work in the phrase “swirling around Lubbock” yet again.
To her credit, Tri-Patrice looked annoyed when the taped portion ended, but I probably picked up on that better than her general audience member did. I’d spent enough time annoying her to detect the subtler signs.
I clicked the sound back on when she was the only one in the shot.
“This controversy started last week with the coming out of CJ Hardin, whose body was found Monday in a City of Lubbock garbage container. His death has been ruled a homicide, and the Hardin family held a press conference today from the Lubbock Police Department.”
Four women and four men stood behind the podium that Lubbock PD always used to deliver their press conferences. I recognized Bobby Sloan and another detective who routinely served as a TPD spokesman, and I thought one of the women was assistant police chief. There was a younger woman who could have been CJ’s sister, and another woman that I was fairly sure was his mother. Desiree Shaw stood between them, red-eyed and solemn. The man at the podium, however, could only be CJ’s father. He was an older, sadder version of the large picture of CJ that stood on the stand to the side of the podium.
“We are heartbroken,” he said, his voice cracking, “at the loss of our son. Our brother. Our friend. CJ devoted his life to making the lives of others better – whether through his work at Lubbock Children’s Hospital, his volunteer work, or his daily walk through life. He was the most giving and generous person I’ve ever known.” He stopped then and swallowed, gripping the edge of the podium and blinking. “We will stop at nothing to bring the person responsible for this disgusting crime to justice. We are announcing today a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for CJ’s murder.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, I whistled. Now there was a reason to be chasing people down alleys, I thought to myself. In addition to all the exacting-justice-on-bad-guys fun stuff, that was a nice chunk of change. Even split two ways. Or three. Stupid Dale.
I caught my breath then as Bobby’s face filled the screen. I forgot for a second that I was mad at him. He looked like someone who could solve any problem, or handle any bad guy. I was glad for the Hardins that Bobby was on their side.
My phone rang and I picked it up, muting the TV again.
“It’s Marky.”
I was so shocked – it was the second time in one day he’d shocked me by appearing out of the blue. I didn’t even answer, but it turned out that I didn’t need to.
“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry I spazzed out on you today. I regretted it as soon as I got down the street.”
“Oh,” was all I could say. “Sure, okay.”
“I understand that guy is your friend and you want to be loyal to him. I admire that, I really do. I’m coming at this issue from a different angle, obviously.”
“I understand.”
“I just...” He blew out a gust of air, and I could practically see him pacing the floor of his small apartment. “That way of thinking – it looks nice, Salem. It looks good. It looks honorable and earnest and – and even Godly. I’m sure he seems like a really nice guy.”
“He is a really nice guy.”
“Well, I’m sure he is. And I can’t blame you for not seeing that it’s people like him that are behind the violence that people like me face every day.”
“But he is not, Marky. Les would never – ”
“He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to lift a finger, Salem. He gives the bullies the moral high ground, and that’s all he has to do. It’s his rhetoric that fuels all the violence. People have always looked for a reason to dominate each other. They always will. And people like Les give people a target for that domination. Rhetoric like that makes it okay. They make it justified.”
“I really don’t...” But I didn’t know what to say.
“You know, a few hundred years ago, people were beaten for being left-handed. It was considered wrong. Unnatural. Demonic, even. And you know who was behind that? The clergy. It sounds crazy now but it’s a fact. These guys went around speaking for God, spouting righteousness and holiness, and people trusted them. They were the experts on right and wrong.”
“Marky, that was a long time ago. People were different then.”
“Really? Were they really?”
I thought about all the ignorant-sounding comments I’d read lately.
“They had a Bible verse to support everything they did. Back then. They didn’t just get the abuse out of nowhere. They had justification to back it up.”
I sat in silence for a long moment. Les had saved my life. Les was the reason I was not either dead or in prison at that very moment. Les had found me, hungover and suicidal, in a jail cell, and he had not let me go since then. He had refused to let me go back to drinking and doing my best to screw up my life. He had refused to let me say that I was anything less than a child of the Most High God, even when I despised every ounce of myself. He had refused to do anything but allow me to pick myself up and slog through another day, day after day. Until eventually, I built a life: A life with people I loved, people who loved me. I had built a life where I treasured things like sunsets and snuggling with my dog. If Les hadn’t shown up that day, none of that would have happened for me.
And it wasn’t just me. The awards banquet had proved that. Les wasn’t just a nice guy. He was the closest thing to a Saint I’d ever known.
People trusted them.
“Look, I called to apologize and here I am, getting worked up again. Please, don’t be mad at me,” Marky said. “I don’t have a lot of friends here in Lubbock, and I’ve been so freaked out since CJ died. I just...I need a friend. I’m not even going to insist that you think about what I said. Just...please don’t be mad at me. Please don’t stop being my friend.”
“I won’t,” I said. To be honest, I was really flattered. I hadn’t known Marky that long, and aside from this murder investigation, we had nothing to talk about, really, nothing in common. I supposed that he had sensed some kind of connection with me, and I wasn’t about to mess it up. I had too few friends of my own. “You’re going to stay in Lubbock, aren’t you?”
“They can’t get rid of me that easily,” he said vehemently. I wasn’t sure who he was talking about – CJ’s detractors, his killer, or the opposition to Friends of Joshua, probably all of them. “I came here with a job to do and I’m going to do it. This has made me more determined than ever.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad.”
“We could use some help,” he said. “On the house. This Sunday is clean-up and demo day. I’ve rented a portable dumpster and we’re getting a group together to clean out the place and maybe get started with some of the gutting. Rip up the rotten floorboards, tear down the old wallpaper. That kind of thing.”
“That sounds great,” I said, but in my head I was uncomfortably aware of the theme of dumpsters running through my life.