Blood In Electric Blue Read online

  “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Just making a point. Besides,” he said softly, “I won’t never kill another living thing ever again, I don’t care what it’s done.” He gave Dignon a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, kid. They’re probably long gone anyway.”

  “That’s not the point. Those kids, they—”

  “Shit, in ‘Nam I saw things done to children that made molestation seem merciful.” He flinched, as he often had when speaking of his time at war. “After a while you just learn to say fuck it, you know? Don’t mean anything anyway.”

  “It means something,” Dignon said. “It has to.”

  “That’s the lie they tell us. But the truth is, Hell exists, and it’s right here on Earth. I’ve seen it. Now there may be a good Lord and there may be a Heaven too, but until we get there, we’re on our own down here. There’s no right or wrong, never was, never will be. There’s just the shit we do and the shit we don’t do, what we can stomach, what we can’t and how much we’ll take either way. Look at me. Think anybody gives a shit I lost my leg—my fucking leg, man? I was nineteen-motherfucking-years-old, should’ve been getting stoned and banging every girl that stood still long enough. Instead I get to be facedown in a puddle of mud and blood and teeth and hair with strings and bone and shit dangling where my leg used to be. All that death and madness, for what—tell me, man—for what? For a bunch of fat rich old white men somewhere, that’s what. They ring the bell and we run the maze. They get fatter and richer and people like me, if we’re lucky, we get lighter, leave an arm or a leg or maybe even both behind. If not, we go crazy or die. And after all the TV reports and all the speeches, all the Senate hearings and all the talk and crying and medal ceremonies and movies and books and stupid-ass T-shirts and tribute concerts and all the rest of the horseshit civilized people do to convince themselves they do care stops, it all just goes back to the way it was. You think I got it bad, brother man? Swing by a vet’s hospital. Better yet, ask ten people on the street where one is. Tell the poor bastards in there anybody gives a shit. Go ahead, I dare you. Tell them their lives and their ‘sacrifice’ meant something. Hand out some bumper stickers or have a bake sale, that’ll make their fucking day. Nobody cares, man. Not about them, not about you, not about me, not about those kids.”

  “Well that was uplifting, you depressing fuck.”

  Jackie Shine laughed. It was something he rarely did, which is perhaps why Dignon remembers it so vividly whenever he thinks of him.

  He also remembers his partner was right. They both moved on with their lives. Neither pushed the issue with the children and strange men in that tenement. They tried to forget about it, hoped for the best, and felt ashamed for having done so.

  Life, such as it was, rolled on.

  “They try to sell us on killing, but they’re lying,” Jackie Shine would often say. “Once you kill something—I don’t care what it is, a man, a deer, whatever—something changes in you. Most times you don’t even realize it at first. But it’s in there, in you, something that wasn’t there before. And you can’t ever get rid of it. If you’re smart, you do your time in this life, you mind your business, you don’t fuck with The Man and you lay low. Maybe, if you smoke plenty of good dope, drink lots of hard liquor and crank one out every morning in the shower, you make it through the day without losing your mind, or worse. But even then, sooner or later something gets every single one of us. The trick is, don’t be afraid. Never go out afraid, kid. Don’t give them the fucking satisfaction.”

  On the last day they worked together, they were on their final delivery and only moments from the end of their shift. The last drop was a stereo system and DVD player being delivered to a duplex in a working-class neighborhood.

  Dignon remembered Jackie Shine had been in a hurry to finish up. His flask was empty, the last of his whiskey had run out and he was anxious to call it a day and get to the liquor store.

  While Dignon unloaded the boxes from the back of the van, Jackie Shine took his clipboard and paperwork to the front door and knocked. After several attempts and no answer, he stepped back and looked up at the second floor. A window slowly slid open and a middle-aged man poked his head out.

  “Tech Metropolis,” Jackie Shine called to him. “Got a delivery for this address.”

  The man glared down at them suspiciously, shook his head no and waved an arm at them as if to shoo them away.

  Dignon stopped unloading. “Sure you got the right address?”

  “Yeah,” he said, glancing at his clipboard and comparing the numbers to those on the building. “This is it. Must be for somebody besides this douche, maybe someone else lives here too, who knows?”

  “Can you come down and open the door, sir?” Dignon called.

  The man again waved them off.

  “Like I got time for this bullshit,” Jackie Shine muttered. “Hey, listen up, buddy. We got a delivery for this address, OK? Now you either open the door and we bring it in for you, or we leave it here on the street, got it?”

  The man shrugged.

  “I don’t think he speaks English,” Dignon said.

  “Fuck him then, leave it on the street.”

  “We can’t do that, it’s against policy.” Dignon moved closer to the building. “Can you open the door, sir?”

  Jackie Shine reached for his flask then remembered it was empty. He hobbled over to the van, threw the clipboard onto the dash then pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and let it hang open, the way a police officer might show a badge. “Watch this, bet this gets his ass down here.” He approached the door and pounded on it again, then held his wallet up and aimed it at the man. “Open the door! Do it now! Immigration, asshole! Open up!”

  “Jesus,” Dignon sighed. He returned to the van, prepared to put the items back and leave. “Come on, we’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “Immigration! Open the door, now!”

  The man’s face fell, and he disappeared back into the building.

  Dignon leaned against the van, wiped perspiration from his brow. It was a particularly hot summer day, the humidity off the charts. Sweat dripped from every pore, and he remembers just wanting to go home and sit in front of the oscillating fan in his den.

  Jackie Shine put his wallet away and chuckled. “Told you that’d get him moving. We’ll do the drop and be out of here before you can say green card.”

  But when the front door opened, the man began to scream at them. Dignon saw right away that he was holding something, and at first, he remembers he thought it was a broom or some sort of stick. But as the clearly terrified man stepped farther into the light, he realized what it was.

  Jackie Shine turned in time to see it too.

  “Fuck,” he said quietly.

  And then a deafening boom filled the air. There was smoke, Dignon remembers smoke wafting about. Not a lot, just a small patch of it. And he remembers Jackie Shine leaving his feet, his arms out on either side of him as his body vaulted backwards and into the air in a spray of blood. It all happened so quickly, yet he remembers it more in slow-motion, like a dramatic death scene in a movie.

  Dignon stood frozen, staring at the man in disbelief.

  He continued to scream things Dignon couldn’t understand.

  He remembers looking down at Jackie Shine. He was already dead, a toothpick still stuck in the corner of his mouth. And the blood, he remembers that most of all. There was so much it didn’t seem possible it all could’ve come from one man.

  “Don’t,” Dignon said, or perhaps only thought, he still can’t be sure all these months later.

  The man pulled the trigger, but this time it made only a clicking sound.

  And then the man seemed to see Jackie Shine for the first time. Realizing what he’d done, he dropped the shotgun to the floor then followed it, collapsing into a sitting position in the doorway, face in his hands as he wept uncontrollably.

  Dignon sat next to Jackie Shine. He could feel war
mth emanating from the jagged hole where his chest and stomach had been, the insides now his outsides. There would be no melodramatic last words or goodbyes.

  At that moment Dignon went numb.

  In shock, he had no idea what to do, so he simply took one of Jackie Shine’s hands in his own and held it tight.

  Later, after the police and the paramedics and the hospital and the reporters and the representatives from the company, after all the chaos in the subsequent hours and days following the event, Dignon learned that the delivery had been for the man’s son, who had not been home at the time. The man had a history of mental illness and aggressive behavior, spoke not a word of English and had apparently believed the men in the van had come to deport him.

  All Dignon knew was that Jackie Shine was dead. He’d survived the horrors of Vietnam to come home years later and die in the street like a piece of trash.

  He doesn’t understand any of it. But then, he never has.

  So Dignon staggers about his tiny apartment, joint in hand, and replays the scenario again and again.

  From his position on the couch, Mr. Tibbs watches like an attentive parent.

  Dignon has not returned to work since that day. Thankfully the insurance through the company provides for a disability payment, and since his doctor has officially deemed him disabled due to “severe psychological and emotional distress as a result of post traumatic stress disorder” he is able to collect his monthly stipend and continue to live at the near-poverty level he has become accustomed to for so long.

  He thinks of his mother just then, and his pacing comes to an abrupt halt. He wants so desperately to see her face at that moment, the one he’s seen in a photograph. But it eludes him. She eludes him, lost in shadow and night. He sways, nearly falls over but catches himself as he comes to rest near a window overlooking the street.

  Dignon squints, tries to focus on the beam of light coming from the streetlamp on the far side of the street. He watches it a moment, and in that patch of artificial light, sees what look like countless tiny dust motes coursing through the night air.

  It has begun to snow.

  THREE

  It is still early morning when Dignon awakens, but in winter it’s hard to differentiate this time of day from the middle of the night. He lies in bed and watches patterns of shadow play along the ceiling. There are degrees within the darkness here, each level unique. He studies them a while, tries his best to decipher their mysteries. As always, Mr. Tibbs is by his side, snuggled up close, warm and purring softly. The neighborhood, the building, it’s all still asleep. He imagines Mrs. Rogo in bed in the apartment beneath him, wrapped in leopard print blankets and imitation satin comforters, her little wiener dog Schnitzel curled up at the foot of the bed. Of course Dignon has never actually seen Mrs. Rogo’s bedroom, but in the silence of his own isolation, he envisions it quite vividly. He wonders what she dreams about, this former go-go dancer who looks like some aging porno star or stripper, her hair teased too high, her makeup too heavy, her clothing too dated and better suited to a younger woman, this late-fifties widow who has never been anything but kind to him and Mr. Tibbs. Guilt rises, and he feels badly for having snuck into the building the night before. She was undoubtedly sitting at her kitchen table with a roasted chicken and all the fixings, a bottle of champagne chilling, candles burning, old Christmas tunes blaring, waiting for people who will never come or perhaps no longer exist. He often wonders why she still makes such elaborate meals for herself. She has a daughter who seldom visits, and several grandchildren. Dignon has only met Mrs. Rogo’s daughter twice in all the years he’s lived there. He doesn’t care for her. She’s as plain and uptight as her mother is garish and glitzy, a harried and unpleasant woman who barks at her children and rolls her eyes whenever Mrs. Rogo says anything. Yes, he thinks, he should’ve gone and seen her last night, even if only to stop in and say hello, to let her know someone cares. They could’ve at least shared a nice meal together. And Mr. Tibbs is always welcome in her apartment as well; he and Schnitzel get along famously. But instead there he was, just feet away occupying the space above her head, drinking and slowly killing himself the same way his father had so many years before.

  No, not exactly like his father, he thinks. He’s nothing like his father, yet they share at least one of the same demons, perhaps more.

  The cat raises his head and looks back at him, as if he’d heard Dignon thinking. He yawns, reveals a flash of impressive teeth then stands, climbs up onto Dignon’s chest and sits down.

  “Hungry?” The cat stares at him with an expression that illustrates this should already be evident. “OK, pal, come on.”

  As Mr. Tibbs hops down to the floor, Dignon rolls out of bed, rubs the back of his aching neck and consults the alarm clock on the nightstand. The digital display reads: 5:38.

  After a detour to the bathroom, where he pees, swallows a few extra strength Excedrin and splashes a bit of water on his face, Dignon shuffles to the kitchen area, pours some dry food into the cat’s dish, refills his water bowl then checks the refrigerator. A carton of milk, some orange juice, a small tin of coffee, a half-eaten brick of cheddar cheese and something in Tupperware he thinks was at one point Mexican food, occupy the top shelf. A few condiments sit in the trays on the door. Otherwise, the refrigerator is empty.

  He grabs the coffee, scoops some into the coffeemaker then turns it on and goes into the den to wait while it brews. He sits in his chair, in the dark, and looks to the window. It won’t be light for a while yet, but he can see it has stopped snowing.

  Dignon rubs his eyes, draws a deep breath and hopes the headache crawling into the back of his skull will go away soon. He feels weightless there in his chair, flimsy and hollow, like everything of substance has escaped him while he slept, leaving him little more than a husk, an emptied shell tottering about by rote.

  Perhaps mistakenly, he looks to the book on the small table to his right.

  He switches on a lamp, picks up the book and flips it open. A quick paragraph or two about some exotic mythical being should sufficiently fill the time until the coffee is finished. The pool of light washes over him dully. He looks to the lamp, a basic cream-colored plastic number with an off-white shade he purchased years ago at a discount store. He makes a mental note to pick up a package of stronger bulbs next time he’s out.

  Leaning closer to the patch of light, Dignon turns to the title page, and again, the writings in ballpoint pen catch his eye. This book belongs to Bree Harper. He hesitates. His finger is tucked behind the corner of the page, but he doesn’t turn it. Instead, he reads the phone number a few times, focuses on the name and realizes he has begun to nervously gnaw his bottom lip.

  Who are you? He wonders. The book itself is from 1980, but there’s no way to date the information written in pen. At some point this Bree Harper, or some subsequent owner, turned the book in at the used shop for something else, another book or a store credit. That could’ve occurred years or only days ago, it’s impossible to know without asking one of the clerks, and Dignon would never do that. Even if he wanted to, how would he explain his need to know? What difference would it make when they received the book, and with the volume of used books they take in each week, would they even remember a single paperback like this? Doubtful.

  His finger slowly moves across her name then slides down to the phone number. He tries to imagine what she might be like. Where does she live? What does she do? Is she married? Does she have children, grandchildren even? Does she have a boyfriend, a girlfriend? Is she alone? Is she young or old or somewhere in between?

  Is she happy?

  What if she’s alone like he is? What if she’s waiting for something too, anything that might save her, rescue her from this life? All these people missing one another, Dignon thinks, runaway kites floating just beyond reach.

  He wonders if he’s seen Bree Harper before without even knowing it. Maybe he’s seen her in the used bookstore or in one of the shops around town. Ma
ybe she’s passed right by him. Maybe—

  A gust of wind rocks the building and the window facing the street creaks. He hears the furnace in the basement kick on and the old radiator against the wall begins to rattle and hum. In the kitchen, the coffeemaker gurgles.

  Lisa comes to him then, like she does so often in early morning. It makes sense, he supposes, that he thinks of his parents when he’s drunk and of Lisa in the quiet moments of the mornings after. Her memory pushes his fantasies of Bree Harper aside, proving that even after all this time it’s still impossible for him to imagine love without remembering her. The time he spent with Lisa was the best year of his life, after all.

  He remembers her face, the feel of her skin, the texture and smell of her hair, and the way her body felt against his. Even all these years later he can recall her with startling clarity. Or maybe he’s fooling himself. Maybe he’s dealt with her in memory and shadow for so long that what he perceives as reminiscence is in actuality blurred fantasy, empty spaces conveniently filled in and smoothed over like pottery taking shape on an ever-turning wheel, the end result never quite realized, the glob of clay and water an unfinished vision of what might have been.

  Yet he knew when Lisa left him he’d never recover. He’d felt it even then.

  “You’re leaving?” he’d asked.

  She nodded, her things collected into a small suitcase at her feet. “I don’t want this anymore, Dig.”

  “You mean you don’t want me.”

  Silence.

  “There’s someone else, isn’t there?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “Then yes, there is.”

  “Why?” he’d asked, angry at himself for allowing the emotion to get the better of him when he’d tried so desperately to prevent it. “What did I do?”

  “Nothing, it’s me.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I fell out of love with you,” she said softly, “and I’m sorry.”