City, Chapter Three

News of the dead. And what the living do to mourn.











Getting off of the train at 2nd Street Station, I start thinking about what I’m going to say to Jamie. While she’s not even remotely my favorite person in the world, she’s still human, a crazy bitch or not. Hoping for my own fast way out of this mess of life this morning, I find I’m still as human as ever, and wish now that I never fucking woke up this morning at all. That I was still standing on top of the highest point in the city, staring into the four corners of life, feeling the pangs of cold air on my skin, letting the sun soak into me one last time before I dove into the dark streets below in one last spectacular hoo-rah.

         Almost ten minutes later I was making my way back up the stairs leading up to our office. The building was warm. It was tricky, false, feeling so warm when I really was so cold inside. A warm blanket of comforting heat enveloping me just as I was about to open up a wave of coldness onto Jamie’s life, as one had just been opened up onto mine.

         

         Getting past the top stair this time, I walked the hallway down to the newsroom on the right, making my way past the other people at work by now, busy at their desks, while I dropped my stuff down at my own.

         What do I say to her? Where would I even begin? Sparing her the details, first of all, just like Kyuski pointed out. Just try to be human. Realize that as much as she’s public enemy number one, she’s still as vulnerable as the rest of us. You can do it. Go.

         I walked back out of the newsroom to Jamie’s office across the hall. Looking through her door, I could see she was busy, straight faced and all. She looked completely pre-occupied, like something important had just come up. That meant she knew about what happened down at City Hall. Not being a total wreck right now meant she still didn’t know yet about Jordan.

         Knocking first, I opened the door and walked in.

         “Jamie, hey, what have you heard so far?”

         “Dell, Jesus, there you are,” she fired at me, getting up from her desk, “I’ve been trying to call you. Where the hell have you been? What happened down there? Tell me you went down there. Tell me you didn’t blow me off?”

         I took the liberty of sitting across from her desk as she sat down on top on the edge of it. Finding the right words to start with, I can’t help but notice her legs. Northern most ending point not exactly the best memory for me, I forgot how nice everything south of there was, and still is.

         “Jamie. It didn’t go so well down there.”

         “Obviously, you haven’t called me by my first name in 8 months, without at least using some coy euphemism first. So what happened?” I knew using her name would change her demeanor as she waited to know what I knew. If only she had known.

         “I need you to sit back down for me. Please.” I stood up, taking her by the arms and sitting her back at her desk, taking the chair across from hers.

         “Jamie, Jordan’s dead.”

         Nothing. A blank stair in her eyes. Bright green eyes, soft red hair. Dead pan stare. Then, very slowly, tears.

         “He’s… what. How? How do you know he’s –”

         “I was down at city hall, like you asked. I looked for him down there and didn’t see him anywhere in the crowd. Then just as the mayor came back out, he was suddenly rushed back inside by his own people, all of us saw it, and I managed to find my way inside. Jordan was found dead inside, Jamie. In the mayor’s office. I’m so sorry.”

         Those eyes I wanted to gouge out in earnest this morning, watching their liquid ooze mess just falling down her face, now were a mess of tears, smeared with make up. She put her hands to her mouth to choke back the sobs. And I felt at a loss of what to do or how to comfort her. In one corner, I was the maniacal manic depressive who was laughing in the corner at the sight of his own funeral services, at all the family and friends and fake ex’s whose world was torn apart by my complete and final death. And in the other corner, I was the one comforting those who mourned the dead.

         Not knowing what else to do, I leaned forward to try to console her, putting my hand on her shoulder for comfort, to which she very suddenly replied with slamming her whole body into mine, filling my shirt up with her tears. Petulli. Paint thinner. Sickening. But so was Jordan’s death.

         I had no choice here but to hug her and telling her it’s going to be okay, it’s not her fault, it’s not his fault either, the police are going to get to the bottom of it, and all the rest.  Collecting and unlocking herself from me, she sat up and rubbed her face with her sleeve, trying to clean herself up a little.

         “How – how did he look? How could you know it was really him? I mean, if he had anything, any reason to go to the mayor for any kind of story, he’d have told me, he would have. How can you be sure it was him?” She was trying to make sense of the news.

         “It was him, Jamie,” I said, “I was there. I saw him.”

         “You were there?” she replied, surprised. “What do you mean you were there? Why were you there?”

         “I told you, I found my way inside, and just as I had, two cops brought me up to the mayor’s office. I just wanted to try to get a real story from it, and it turned out that a cop there knew both me and Jordan from the magazine, and seeing me outside before hand, he sent those two guys after me. They found me snooping around at one of the entrances and took me up to the office.”

         “They just took you up? Just right in there? Why?” Clearly it didn’t make sense to her, and to me, it didn’t make sense at first, either.

         “This guy, Kyuski, he wanted me to – to I.D. Jordan’s body and he asked me if I knew why someone – why something like that would happen to him.”

         “And…?” she replied, driving at me, too, for anything I might have known.

         “Nothing. I couldn’t tell him anything. I wouldn’t have known how to say anything if I did know something. I felt like I couldn’t speak at all when I saw –”

         “I know. When you saw him.” She sobbed again and drew her chair closer to mine.

         “Dell, you didn’t have to come yourself and tell me this. I’m sorry” She reached in for another hug from me.

         “I’m sorry, too.” Not sure what else to say, that’s all I could find. Sorry I was having a shitty morning; sorry I had even woken up in the first place, sorry a guy I knew was dead; murdered, moreover.  And I was sorry Jamie had to deal with this when things were just starting to take off with her and Jordan, crazy as he might have been to even give her a chance.



         After much convincing, I got Jamie to leave what was going on in the office for the day to her assistant and to her junior editor, Mark Janney.  Telling Mark what happened, he agreed to help me convince her it’d be okay to go home for the day. Finally she accepted, but only after much argument.

         Meanwhile, I decided I was going to try to clear my own mind of what happened and leave the detective work to the professionals. Like Kyuski said, we’re not a news source suited for solving murders or any other kind of violent crimes.  I had to find a way to get through the rest of the day and let this one go for now, letting the big boys do their thing and getting back to us later.

         “Dell,” Mark said, coming up behind my cubicle, catching me off guard.

         “Yeah, what’s up?” I replied turning around.

         “I think you should go, too.” This, too, caught me off guard.

         “No, I’m fine, Mark, thanks. I’ll be okay. A little work will set me straight.” I was lying.

         “No, you’re lying.” Damn, he’s good.

         “Take off. You can pick back up where you left off later. See you.” And with that, he left and I was about to be leaving as well.

         Mark was right. I was doing no good here. Brooding over what I could and couldn’t do wasn’t going to help anything. So I opted to take his offer. I gathered my things and took the stairs back down and out, on my way back to the apartment.



         Back outside, I lit another smoke and made my way back to my place, all the events of the morning stirring in my brain. My Timex reads 9:02. Long fucking morning. 

         The walk back is quiet. Or so it felt like it. I made the left and right turns, passed the places I knew. But none of it was really there. Death, today, all morning, the prospect of it, and the aftermath, have made me completely closed off to the world. I comforted Jamie as much as I could. Was nice to who I had to be nice to. And even now am playing the part of the inconsolable one. So what do I do with myself now?

         

         The door to my place is locked. I unlock it. I’m inside. I’m patient and calm. I am not dead. Jordan is. I lived the first five hours of the day I’ve been awake. I am aware of everything around me. Table. Sofas. Television. Book shelves. Kitchen. Dining room. Lights. Bathroom. Bedroom.          Bathroom?

         The door was locked, everything else I left in place was in place, nothing was disturbed, but my bathroom light was on and I could hear the shower running. What the fuck now?

         I walked to the wall across from my bedroom, the bathroom at the end of the hall in between. Convinced that if there were someone sneaking around my apartment, they first of all picked the lock, second of all wouldn’t actually be in the shower, and third, would have attacked me by now after getting this far in, I look into my room to see what might be going on. Opening the door I find the answer.

         Scattered on my bed, as if she owns the damn place, are a woman’s clothing. Jamie’s clothing.

         “Hello? Dell, is that you?” She turns the shower off and after a second comes out wrapped in a towel, wet and dripping onto my bathroom floor.

         “Jamie, what are you doing here? Why are you doing here? And why are you taking a shower here?” I asked her, frustrated and going to get her clothes off the bed.

         Drying her hair with another of my towels, she looks like she’s the one who’s surprised.

         “I still had a key, Dell, and I didn’t want to be alone. I needed to be somewhere familiar with someone familiar, I’m sorry.” This didn’t stop me from picking her clothes up off of the bed and handing them to her.

         “You have to go now. I’m glad you’re fresh and clean and seemingly okay, but you can’t stay here with me today.” Downtrodden, she didn’t let up.

         “Look, I was – I was really starting to feel something develop with him, okay.” Tears again. And the nerve to walk past and go right for sitting on the edge of my bed, completely ignoring me and her clothes. Followed by more crying.

         “I can’t do this alone, Dell,” she sobbed. Dammit, why did I have be such a nice guy sometimes?

         “Jamie,” I started, kneeling down in front of her, taking her hand, “this is not what he would have wanted right now. He wouldn’t want you coming right here to me, showering at my place, naked in my room –”

         “I’m not naked, okay” she yelled, storming away from me. “This is naked, Dell,” and right then I suddenly stiffened, as she flashed open her towel to me and showed me what I haven’t been missing – and holy fuck, she did learn to use a razor - for the past eight months. She quickly closed the towel around herself again.

         “I’m alone and afraid because I’m alone and I have no one and I can’t deal with not having him here with me.” She fell to the floor crying in waves now. Feeling ever like the asshole sometimes – just sometimes – I knelt down with her and held her. Strawberries body wash. And her wet hair soaking my shirt.

         “Okay. Okay, I got it, it’s cool. This is cool. All our differences aside, I can deal.”

         “Can you? Can you deal, Dell? Because I need this,” she sobbed into my shirt, “I need someone right now to make all the bad things go away.”

         Need. It’s a funny word. It can mean so much, but not mean anything at all. Mom, I need some money. Dad, I need to borrow the car. Oh, darling, I positively need you. Hey, what the hell do you need that for? Do you need, this, ‘cause if not, I’m tossing it? Dell, I need you right now. And me caught in the middle of that funny little word here with a woman who of all women in the world, I can’t fucking stand. Being the nice guy I mostly don’t like to be, but as a man, can still take being.

         “Yes, I can deal. Come on, get up. You get dressed. I’m gonna make us some fresh coffee. I’ll be right out here, okay?” She nodded and went to pick up her clothes. On the way out the door, I saw just a glimpse of what I used to see every night. Still amazing to see it from behind, and with the other side well groomed.

         “And Jamie –”

         “I got it, no Petulli, especially in your room.”



         I’m sensitive to smells. The slightest smell of anything turned bad or rotten or molded or burnt could make me wretch. Or of Petulli. One time as a kid, my mom took me over to my stepfather’s mom’s house to pick up my sister who she was babysitting, and the smell of the woman, just of being old and years of diabetes, made me sick to my stomach. Even now it makes me sick to think about it. But sweeter smells, the kind that are rosy and soft and mesmerizing, do all of just that to me. I am a victim of being able to get lost in the way a woman can smell after a fresh shower. Body wash, shampoo, conditioner, skin care products of all sorts, they lose me every time. Especially in strawberries.

         I can smell Jamie before she comes in to the kitchen to join me, fresh coffee brewing and all – another favorite smell of mine.

         “You better?” I ask, handing her a cup, not bothering to make it the way she likes it, but at least giving her the milk and tons of sugar to go with it.

         “I’m fine. I’m just not sure how to deal with this. Six months we’ve been seeing each other. I got over you, had some fun time to myself, and he and I just hit if off.” Note to self: she got over me. And I doubt they just hit it off. More like Jordan got caught in her trap and she never let him go. But that’s just my perspective.

         “I mean, we were talking about doing Thanksgiving at his parents place up in the Northeast.” My part of the city. The place I used to call home, but shit – it’s lost like all the rest.

         “Up in Mayfair?”

         “Yeah. They still have a home there.”

         Mayfair was another part of the city derived from immigrants and Quakers. My own home neighborhood of Lawncrest is the same way. Jordan grew up Northeast Philly just like me. Only difference is my parents aren’t one child shorter in the family tree.

         “Dell, who’s going to tell his parents? Do you think the police have let them know already?”

         “Chances are, they know. It’s been almost four hours now. His name is bound to be on the news along with the story. Shitty way to find out.” And thinking this, I grabbed for my remote, aimed for the cable, and turned it on to the local news.

         “Reports aren’t complete as of yet, but what I can tell you, Dave, is that at approximately 7:55 this morning, a body was found in city hall, the exact location of which has not yet been disclosed to the public media. Earlier today, the mayor himself was scheduled to hold a conference at city hall, discussing the up-to-date progress of the Safe Streets program with local press and law enforcement officials. That conference did not happen on account of the mayor being hurried away by officials and the unidentified body being discovered in city hall. Again, as of yet, the press does not know where the body was found or what exactly was the cause of death…”

         I turned it off quick, knowing I’d luck out at the first local station I turned to. As big as this is, it’s bound to be running on every local channel over and over by now.

         “There you have it. The press has no idea. But that doesn’t mean his parents don’t either. It’s the police’s job. Not ours,” I assured her.

         “Yeah. Yeah, it is. Oh, his poor mother. Dell, she has to deal with her son – ” and she trailed off.

         “I know, with her son’s death. I know it isn’t easy. Things will figure themselves out here with this, Jamie. The police will figure this out.” Not sure if I believe that myself, it was still the nice thing to say. Not that I necessarily need to be nice to the girl. I had two years with her before Jordan had his six months. I know her better. And hell if I’m gonna let myself be that nice that I get committed to anything that has to do with Jamie other than work.

         Thinking of it now, this has to be the worst thing in the world for people. Finding out someone you knew or loved died. Aside from being that dead person yourself, I can’t think of anything else that could hurt people more. And suddenly, with all this nicety and compassion spilling out of me like a river, when just hours ago I was hoping for something terrible to end my day, and days, quickly and beautifully, I long to be back in my bed, imagining to myself my eventual and wonderful death. Not to be the one at the funeral being laughed at by the dead guy in the corner with the sinister smile.