"I know they're there
I know
The ghosts with no faces
The ghosts with no names
And the voices started to sing
Silence don't faze us
Watch and wait
As the desert blooms and dies
And blooms and dies"
Johnette Napolitano – Poem for the Native
Death. It's a funny thing.
When expected, it's less funny. When not expected, it's funnier. Death. Sudden, catastrophic, everlasting. It hits like a hammer, striking down out of the blue, suddenly taking that that apparently only ever belonged to Death itself. It takes and gives a broken, emptied heart, silent, uncomforted tears and dark, dark, lonely nights. They say He comes to take and make room for life, for others, but what if I didn't care about others? What if I only cared about him? Him that is now dead, or as also said, resting peacefully. Sleeping eternally.
It's all a load of crap. He's not sleeping eternally, he's eternally dead. Forever gone. And he's not resting peacefully. He was murdered, shot, because I just had to prove myself. Because I just had to show that I was at least a better cop than them, for I was definitely not a better person. I was rigid, adamant, austere, living only to do what made me feel iniquitous, because only then I felt alive. I loved feeling in peril. I loved living in danger. It kept me going. Without that constant, fragile rush of adrenaline, I would slowly shut down and not be able to continue. Or continue on my warpath, it depends on how you look at it. I guess living, for me, was living as I ran down that compelling, putrid, incipient path of destruction.
I am not allowed amends. Simply because of this. Because I am a robot set to make my streets safer and better for those that deserve it. I am not allowed amends. And through my adrenalin rush, right through my infatuated, vigorous shield of armor, a shining silver knife stabs deep, deep into my heart and soul. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is stupidity. This I cannot ignore, to this I cannot turn the cold shoulder. Because it's real, it's live, it's intrinsically and ethereal. I am not allowed amends. And though I hate myself for it, I love myself for it. It's who I am. It's what keeps me going. It's like a burning, scorching bullet chasing me throughout the thickest fog and horrendous shadows.
The tip of my cigarette lights up, spreading a reddish glow of light through the black shades in my car. I inhale the intoxicating smoke and let it fill up my lungs completely. I love the feeling of slight arousal I get still from the twenty plus cigarettes I smoke a day. My doctor warned me about it. Well, everybody dies, right? If not from flesh eating, destructive cancer in my black and polluted lungs, then from bullets with wings at the speed of light that are impossible to dodge, set for only one thing. Destruction.
Smoothly, I turn the steering wheel with one hand and turn the corner of 98th and Arthur, as my other hand brought the smoking cigarette back to my lips again, those hungry and willingly, taking it all in. Circling, dancing smoke escaped as I parted my lips. I pondered life and death some more until I pulled my car to a halt. There was only an inch left of the cigarette. It was just as life. You smoke it, inhale it as deeply and as passionately as you can. As you near the end, you can stop smoking, but your cigarette keeps burning until it's over. Done. End of story. Fairness is something that doesn't come around often.
Entering the bar, I catch the eyes of some that are already accompanied by a drink. Ignorance may be stupidity, but this time I can ignore them. So I do so and coolly, controlled and unfazed, I sit down at the bar. The thought of choosing a different seat crosses my mind once I realise where I positioned myself. I feel too lethargic and beat from the rollercoaster of thoughts in my head, that I choose to stay seated. What do I care after all?
For a couple of wasted precious minutes I'm able to ignore it. The image staring right at me. The bartender blocks her view as he appears before me and my eyes wander over his body and face. I snort as I realise they all look the same and all of them all look like my father. Then again, that can also be because of the reminiscent scent of the alcohol and cigarettes. I order what I always do. Not because I always order it and in this time of falling down, familiarization is the best rope you can get, no, because, simply and plain, it's good.
The liquor of the ordered bourbon feels like a razor in the back of my throat, scraping all the crap I took these last two days away, as if I'm holding a pre-summer cleaning party. It scorches in my throat as it glides down. If I drink long enough, order enough, pay enough, it will all go away and then ignorance will be bliss again.
After four or five drinks, slowly, my ears go numb and all the sounds of the past days, the hollow screams, still echoing fired shots and piercing sirens, will all become muted. After another four of five, surely, my vision becomes blurry and the images that constantly flash before my eyes non-stop become unrecognizable and, finally, those dead, empty eyes no longer look right at me.
Somewhere in between, the putrid stench of corpses and excoriating gunpowder fades away. I'm not completely happy until I get drunk enough to still find my apartment keys yet won't remember how I got home. However, the keys that lay on the bar, remind me of my own keys, stuffed away deep inside the pocket of my leather jacket. Tonight, I can only get drunk enough till the point I can still drive my car and not be noticed by the police. This, today, is not the right time to get arrested by colleague's that hate my guts and be confronted by a still raging lieutenant.
Again, I managed to prolong execution by lighting up a smoke, taking my gaze away from the picture I know that is awaiting my eyes, only to be penetrated and to fill up my mind. While breathing in the smoke of the freshly burning cigarette, our eyes meet. It was as I expected. Fierce, keen, vibrant and radiant eyes staring right back into my soul. I never could escape from myself. And so I sit, solemnly and alone on a chair at the bar, knocking down the bourbon, licking my lips and smoking my cigarettes.
I know why people look at me all the time. I know why my colleague's look at me the way they do. The latter because they all know what I've done and what I still do. I'm the reckless, irresponsible, hazardous, wiseass sergeant when I'm on the job. When I'm off duty, I'm just a pitiful person, catching secret glimpses and hearing hushed conversations behind my back because they all see what I already know. I'm the circus act. My former lover would be the one throwing decorated daggers. The rest of the world is the crowd packed in the yellow striped tent, crying out as one every time a knife is thrown at me but making no efforts to stop it. Nor am I walking away, because I'm part of the act.
It's like I forgot to iron my face, as if it's a shirt of mine that once it washed, it's thrown into a corner under the label 'things to do when I feel like it'. Wrinkles in my face. Or it's the old side of me, lined and creased elderly signs. To me, it's the prove I needed that told them I was right and always have been. That I could count on myself and that my father has indeed always been a loathsome, low-life bastard. To me, it are my 'hero scars'. My sign that's saying 'Don't fuck with me' from miles away and keeps annoying visitors and useless information far, far away, left to be used or seen by people that are lower on the ladder of fucked up. To me, it are simply the last scars that my father gave me.
The doctor counted. One-hundred-and-sixty-six stitches. A total of thirty-four scars all bound together into one pretty, eye-catching bundle of horror. Four huge lines, deep and wide and still blue and unhealed. One from my hairline halfway through my cheek. The other starting above my eyebrow and flourishingly curved as a backwards 'C', stopping at the same height of my nosewing. Another from the corner of my eye, pulled all the way to my earlobe. The final scar, starting somewhere between my temple and my ear, drawn like a pencil to the other side of my face till it split my upper lip nearly in half. Then he decided to move down, which make the bigger picture even grander than just a single one of those scars. The beauty is that they are all paintedly carved on the left side of my cheek. It would have been better if he had carved up my entire face. Now he had little room to play by limiting himself to only use the left side of my once handsome, charismatic face.
I cannot say that I am bothered by my new look. It took me some time to get used to the fact of looking in the mirror and not recognizing myself, but devasting events made me strong enough to take the white covering bandage off. I quickly got used to my new Frankenstein looks. Too quickly. The world was not ready for a new monster yet. Tonight was, tomorrow wasn't. Yesterday was full of monsters. Tomorrow would be another fake day. Suddenly, the hairs in my neck rose, slight shivers rolled down my spine and all my senses were alert. Somebody was intensively watching me. My eyes moved to the left within a second, finding the one that had raised alarm inside my head.
Destructive. Destructed. Destruction. It are three words that pop into my head like sudden blown up balloons, abruptly and instantly. Those and failure, but he did not fit into the category that breaks things. It's all in her eyes, because her face only tells me to watch out, this barking dog does bite. It tells me to try to take her for a spin and be thrown of hard and corrupt. Her face is hard and ardent and callous. I can't think of a witty comment and softly I think that I don't I would dare to taunt this woman.
But her eyes, her eyes are different. It's almost as if she has practiced this expression in front of the mirror so if we might ever encounter, she would know how to defend herself. But her eyes stand hurt and broken, helpless and hopeless.
I watch my moves carefully, ready to jump and run for dear life, for whatever that is worth to me. I never remove my eyes from her as I push the red and white pack of cigarettes towards her. Her exquisite, vivid eyes glance at the smokes. At first, I thought that she might kick me out, but then she steps forward behind the bar and takes a cigarette. Expertly, she lights it, obviously done too many times before, and she inhales.
Her entire expression softens, breaks like a mirror and falls apart into a thousand pieces.
"I heard about your partner."
Simple words that threaten to break me as well. However, I tend to fight threats with every piece of life I have in me, causing me to recover forthwith. Still, I can only nod and knock down another shot.
If I'm lucky, I get drunk enough to stop thinking about the imaginary phantom blood from my dead partner that's cleaving onto my hands. If I'm lucky, tonight I might actually sleep a couple of hours. If I'm lucky, I might manage to fool myself long enough to let the storm blow over and I'll become the adamant me again.
Death. It's a funny thing.