It's not too long a drive from my old apartment to Relampago. Maybe fifteen minutes, give or take five depending on the traffic. Especially if you find yourself between 103rd and 119th street off the 95 freeway. But it's only noon. Still, can't blame a monster for being too careful. So I'll take the side streets. The NW 7th Avenue parallel is near perfect at this time so I shouldn't be late, assuming I didn't want to upset Debs. I like her more when she's happy. Maybe I will take the freeway.
"You're late." Debs had a way with words I could only envy.
"Traffic." Would you believe it? Traffic on the 95 between 103rd and 119th just before noon. I'm usually pretty good about listening to my instincts. Figures. This is what I get for putting others first. "Sorry. Did you already order?"
Even through her pitch-black Miami sunglasses, I could feel her disappointment. Her eyes chiseling clean, almost surgically, through the back of my head and intimidating the customers behind me. "Did I order? How fucked up are you?" I'll admit, my sister asks some genuinely poignant questions. Crass, but poignant. How to respond? I imagine I could pretend that Rita's death was debilitating to me as it was to the kids. It would temporarily explain a lot of my natural behavior (the nights alone, detached disposition, night-time be-headings...) as circumstantially relevant. But that wouldn't be Dearly Deluded Dexter, and when given the opportunity for cathartic release – to be truly honest with someone else – I'll take it gladly.
"Pretty fucked up." I replied. Debs removed her sunglasses.
I knew where this conversation was headed the minute I finished NOT eating breakfast twenty-four minutes ago. It's been three weeks since Rita's death. She was my wife and the mother of my two adopted children, Cody and Astor. On the outside, we had a loving, albeit problematic and often times frustrating, but normal relationship. Normal. Normalcy. She was everything that made me normal to the rest of the world. She was the touchstone of my humanity while my Dark Passenger gleefully sauntered through his bloody midnight ambitions. For all intents and purposes, she was the cloak to my dagger. If frustration is the emotion with which I excel, then grief is my anti-thesis. Rita's death, while painful in its own strange and alien ways, leveed me to no higher spiritual awakening. I am, as I was and will always be, Dexter the Disturbed. However, there is a part of me that misses that smile. But it's just a smile, isn't it? Everyone's got one. Even me.
"That's the understatement of the fucking year. Dex. You haven't said more than two words to me in almost a month. How fucked up are you?" Suddenly, mixed in all her Deborah bravado, her involuntarily ambiguous query became clear. She was searching. Trying to connect with a humanity she saw in me. Looks like you're up, Dex.
"I find it hard to talk about." The words came out slowly and haphazard. My sister stared at me blankly. I think she expected more. Alright then. "I loved..." Deborah's stone gaze suddenly shifted behind me. I was still in mid-sentence, but her random attention set me into curiosity. "What?"
"The fuck?" Deborah finished. She slowly arose from her chair and drifted almost drunkenly toward the TV above the bar; the epicenter of her newfound interest. I didn't follow, so I had only my keen predatory eyes to rely on as I watched the TV screen from my seat. At first, it seemed like nothing of interest. A white man, mid-thirties with perfect hair sitting behind a large desk talking to the camera about whatever-the-fuck. The news, I guess. Maybe something new? But what? Deborah wasn't the type to be whisked away by nonchalance or fits of fancy. She was otherwise compelled by passion. Whatever the anchor was breaking, it caught my sister's very sagacious and particular attention. There was no sound, and I could have followed the poorly transcribed live subtitles, but I don't speak bullshit. So I waited. Like Deb seemed to be doing. But for what?
"Debs?" I asked. She merely thrust her right hand behind to shush me. This was important. As I continued to watch the screen, the image of the mid-thirties male was replaced by yellow caution tape, reporters, forensic analysts, and a dismembered female body cut into equal length portions. Nothing was shown, of course, but it was definitely inferred. And it certainly didn't help matters much that they frequently showed comparison footage of the old Ice Truck killings. Before my trained, unflinching eyes, my dear sister became Darkly Derailed Deborah.