Roots Rain     I'm indebted to Melissa and Taz  for encouragement,
to Bone for helpful consultation, and most especially to Lori Goldman, for
superlative editing.  Many thanks. 

   Roots Rain  Kat Allison
 
 
 

As it turned out, it was just as well that an irate cook spilled hot and
sour soup on my uniform at the seventeenth Thai restaurant, or I wouldn't
have gotten Ray's message until much later.  Not that my missing it would
have made any difference in how things turned out; I merely would have
ended up feeling like that much more of a fool. 

The case had been hopeless, hopeless from the beginning, but I'd pushed on
in blithe ignorance of that fact, and knowing now that the rest of them
were equally in the dark doesn't ease the sting.  Egotistically, I tend to
assume that I can see what the others can't, that my value as the
outsider--the misfit, the freak, the man from another planet (and I know
this is how they think of me)--is to notice things they might miss,
blinkered as they are by familiarity.  I have no right to make the same
mistakes as they; but make them I do. 

The cook had been angry at me for questioning his staff, and was entirely
unmollified by my apologies and my assurances that the disruption of his
lunch-hour rush was in the cause of catching a murderer.  I'd mopped soup
off myself as best I could, and finished my questions, and then started
back to the consulate to change into a clean tunic before continuing to
Thai restaurant number eighteen. 

Chicago was in the middle of a July heat wave, and the streets were like a
steam oven.  I should have been thinking about the case, as I trudged
along, but the temperature made logical thought difficult, and I found
myself reflecting instead on how odd it felt to be working alone.  I'd
left Dief behind at the consulate; I knew bringing him to restaurants
might make them uneasy about violating health codes, and in any event the
heat disagreed with him. 

Normally his absence wouldn't have mattered, because normally Ray would
have been beside me, jittering while I plodded, agitating waitresses so
that I could calm them down, grousing about the weather and the lack of
progress and people's uncooperative attitudes, leavening the doughy tedium
of the work with his own distinctive verve. 

But this was not a normal case, and normal assignments were in abeyance. 
Prostitutes were being murdered--three, in eight days.  Though the manner
of the killings was more savagely efficient than sadistic, the bodies were
disfigured and left displayed in a way that seemed deliberately staged to
draw attention.  I'm by no means a forensic psychologist, but it had
seemed to me clearly the work of a sexual psychopath, an organized serial
killer, and the experts had reached the same conclusion. 

It hadn't remained a local case for long; even before the third killing,
federal investigators had arrived at the 27th.  External Relations had
produced a press release filled with vague platitudes about cooperation
between the CPD and the FBI in this joint investigation; meanwhile,
Lieutenant Welsh had begun the labor of turning the precinct's staffing
upside down to accommodate the Bureau's requirements, and informing his
detectives of their new roles. 

On the morning after Krystalle Hendricks' body was found, we'd sat for
some time, Ray and I, amidst the hubbub that had overtaken the squadroom,
waiting to be notified of our assignment, I attempting to sort out the
backlog of case files strewn across his desk, Ray tipping his chair back
at a hazardous angle, scowling at the dark-suited strangers and lobbing
paper clips into an empty coffee cup on the floor.  When the lieutenant's
summons came at last, however, it was only my name that was called. 

Without word or hesitation, Ray thumped his chair to the floor and
followed right alongside me, closing the door to Welsh's office firmly
behind us.  The lieutenant looked at him, at me, back at him.  "I don't
recall inviting you in, detective." 

Ray just stood there, weight on the balls of his feet and chin pushed
forward, exuding an attitude that in anyone else would have been
insubordinate but which I knew was merely impatience to get a distasteful
job over with.  He hated the prospect of dealing with federal agents. 
"There some reason why you're leaving me out of the loop on my partner's
role in all this?" 

Welsh sighed.  "Yeah.  Cause there isn't one."  He aimed a look at me. 
"Constable, understand this is nothing personal, and if it was my say-so
there's no one I'd rather have on this case.  But--"  He spread his
hands.  "It's the Bureau.  You've seen 'em in action before."  He caught
Ray's look of consternation, and then he was back at me.  "They're running
this show, and believe me, they are not going to welcome any
extracurricular Canadian involvement.  They're not real big on the liaison
concept." 

"Lieutenant, c'mon."  Ray's voice was filled with incredulity and
outrage.  "You cannot do this to Fraser, that's--it's disrespectful is
what it is, and christ, this means I gotta work with one of the suits, no
way am I--" 

"Sir, I quite understand your position."  The interruption got me a glare
from Ray, and I knew I'd hear about it as soon as we were alone.  "I
comprehend that my role here is--anomalous, and likely to be confusing to
outside authorities.  While I'm disappointed not to be able to assist,
what matters is that all parties focus their full attention on the
investigation, rather than on extraneous personal or political wrangling
over staffing issues." 

"Fraser, quit doing the reasonable thing, OK?  Lieutenant--" 

Welsh cut in, ignoring him.  "I appreciate your attitude, Constable. 
We'll get you back on board as soon as we can."  Then he turned to Ray,
and his tone sharpened.  "And you, Vecchio, although I did not in fact
invite you in, as long as you're here--"  He rummaged out a folder and
thrust it across the desk.  "You're going to be working with Agent Milson,
doing background checks on the victims."  I edged out the door, leaving
Ray and the lieutenant glaring at each other over the folder. 

I'd left the station right away, stifling as inappropriate both a
lingering childish sense of hurt, and a curiosity as to how Ray would hit
it off with the unknown Agent Milson.  Since then, per orders, I'd kept
clear of the official investigation.  But I'd persuaded Mort to let me
examine the bodies in the morgue (feeling more sympathy than usual with
Ray's struggles to maintain his composure in the face of violent
death--wire-ligature strangulation leaves an unsightly corpse, to say
nothing of everything else that had been done to them), and I noticed a
small smear of a substance which I was certain from the smell was nam pla,
Thai fish sauce, on the heel of the most recent victim's hand, bruised and
torn where she'd slammed it against her assailant's mouth.   Blood and
saliva traces on the skin were being tested for DNA; my suggestion, routed
through Ray, that the other substance be analyzed had merely resulted in a
terse "organic substance, unidentified."  Certainly no one involved in the
official investigation seemed to feel my scent perceptions made it a lead
worth pursuing. 

So I'd sat down with the phone book and made a list of all the Thai
restaurants in Chicago, prioritized in rank order of their proximity to
the crime scenes, and obtained from Francesca duplicate photographs of
known sex offenders whose previous crimes most closely matched the current
ones.  Then I set out on my own, reasoning with myself that my actions
didn't precisely constitute interference. On the rare occasions we had a
chance to talk, Ray had seemed pleased, though not surprised, that I
hadn't let myself be chased off the case altogether.  He gave me to
understand that he'd apprised Welsh of my endeavors, and the Lieutenant
was turning a blind eye to them. 

I'd been grateful for that forbearance, and for the opportunity to do
something.  And yet, as I trudged back toward the consulate,  I had to
admit that I was finding the work tedious and tiring, made worse by the
heat and the lack of a car and my relative unfamiliarity with Southeast
Asian languages.  None of which, I couldn't help thinking, would be an
issue if Ray were with me.  I was shocked to discover how badly I'd let
myself get out of hand, the extent to which I'd allowed myself to get used
to his company.  Being without it felt like being put on dry-bread
rations, the savor gone out of life and work 

Get used to it, I reminded myself.  This partnership is only a temporary
and happenstance arrangement.  Soon enough he'll go back to his own life,
his own name, his real job, with a permanent partner. 

On that comfortless thought, I arrived at the consulate, sighing in relief
as I stepped out of the grilling sun and into the dark cool hallway.  The
moment I shut the door, Turnbull came bounding out of the main office to
tell me I'd had a call from Ray. 

Feeling freshly heartened, I phoned the station, and he picked up on the
first ring.  "Squadroom.  Vecchio."  The falsehood still stings just a
little, every time I hear it. 

"Good afternoon, Ray, I'm--" 

"Fraser."  Flat and hard. 

"Yes, I got your message to call, and so I'm calling."  You sound like
Turnbull, I told myself severely. 

"Come in." 

"Well, actually, I am in, Ray, in the consulate, that is, I'm not sure
what you--" 

"Come back to the friggin' station, Fraser, what the hell do you think I
mean?"  The angry pain in his voice sent me hurrying out the door without
even stopping to change my tunic, and I flagged a cab to the station
rather than take the time to walk. 

The squad room was surprisingly quiet when I arrived, not at all the
anthill I'd left a few days earlier, and there was no sign of the federal
agents.  Francesca, phone jammed to her ear, gave me an uneasy look but
waved me toward the lieutenant's office.  I walked in and found Ray
leaning back against the file cabinets, face set, arms crossed so tightly
his circulation might be threatened, and Welsh sitting behind his desk
looking more tired than I'd ever seen him. 

"Constable."  A flip of the hand.  "Have a seat." 

He'd never asked me to sit before.  "Thank you kindly, sir, I believe I'll
stand." 

"Suit yourself."  He looked down, shuffling some papers on his desktop,
sighing.  I could sense the near-audible hum of Ray's impatience, but he
didn't move, and I set myself the discipline of not letting my eyes stray
toward him, fixing my attention on Welsh, who finally spoke, without
looking up at me.  "You're off the restaurant detail, Constable.  You will
allow the Thai-food purveyors of the city to go about their business of
giving people heartburn, in peace and quiet." 

"Well, actually, sir, it's a misconception that all Thai food is hot, or
in fact that capsaicin induces heartburn."  I couldn't help it--my mind
was spinning with the implications of his directive (I've done something
wrong; I've erred, I've failed), and this sort of tripe is what makes its
way out of my mouth in such moments.  "In fact, it's been established--" 

"Fraser, shut up.  Just shut up."  Ray's tether had abruptly snapped, and
he pushed away from the wall toward me so fast he almost knocked me over. 
"Nobody gives a shit about Thai food, including the killer, which there
isn't one of, or I mean there is but not the kind we thought.  OK?" 

He was right up in my face, seething, I could smell his sweat and his
anger; and his nearness, after our time apart, the intensity with which he
was looking at me, made it even harder than usual to disentangle his
words, or to clamp down on the feelings that his proximity was causing. 

"Kowalski.  Cork it."  This, rapped out by the lieutenant, shocked me out
of my befuddlement.  Though he's not a man with any stomach for pretense,
he'd been scrupulous about maintaining the sham, addressing Ray always as
'Vecchio.'  I wasn't sure how to take this break in the facade, but at the
very least it seemed to imply that whatever was said here was
non-official, off the record, Welsh to Fraser and not Lieutenant to
Constable.  That this was private--no ears here but our own.  And,
perhaps, it was meant as a way of letting me know, just once, that he was
as sick of the lies as I was. 

Ray stepped back, pulling away from me, gave Welsh a hard look, and then
leaned back against the file cabinets, pointedly, almost noisily, silent. 
Welsh was silent a moment as well, taking his time before speaking again,
swiveling his chair around, staring at the shelves of awards and
mementoes, the plaques and photographs on the walls, tokens of an
honorable career of service. 

"The investigation's over," he said at last.  "Not just your bit of it,
the whole thing." 

"You've made an arrest?"  The relief I felt was audible in my voice.  
From the corner of my eye I could see Ray flinch. 

"There's no arrest.  There's not going to be an arrest." 

"I'm afraid I don't understand."  My brief elation shriveled, as I
realized the mood in the room was, if anything, darker than before, Welsh
more weary, Ray wound even tighter. 

"Look.  Fraser."  It was Ray, staring at the floor, speaking as if every
word cut him, hurt him to say.  "They know who did it.  How he did it, why
he did it, even.  And we can't touch him." 

"Ray?"  As plain as his words were, I couldn't take them in or make sense
of them. Seeing him like this was painful.  And he wouldn't look at me. 

"So.  That's it.  Fee-nee.  Kaput.  All over."  He still wouldn't look at
me.  He'd never refused to look at me before. 

I stared at him for another moment, trying to will some connection, and
then I turned back to Welsh.  "With your permission, sir, I believe I will
sit."  I lowered myself into a chair, feeling an unfamiliar unsteadiness
in my knees.  "And though I'm not officially entitled to one, I'll make
bold to ask for an explanation." 

"Yeah."  Welsh was playing with a paper clip, straightening it, bending
it, twisting it into a pretzel.  His voice was flat and tired.  "You need
a little background to get this, Fraser.  Here's the deal.  The Outfit's
been taking it in the shorts these last few years--" 

"The Outfit?" 

"The mob, O.C., whatever you want to call them.  The old guys.  RICO put a
dent in 'em, the fibbies put a dent in 'em.  They're down.  But they're
not out, not yet." 

Ray suddenly pushed away from the cabinets and started pacing, clearly
impatient with the history lesson.  I kept my eyes away from him, with
effort, and nodded at Welsh to continue. 

"They had to let go some of their turf, over time. Drugs--the street gangs
took most of that over a while ago.  Vice Lords, the Latin Kings, the El
Rukns, all of 'em and their brothers. The old guys couldn't handle those
kids much better'n we could."  It was the matter-of-fact tone of an old
soldier, thinking back over battles lost.  "But one thing the Outfit never
let go of was prostitution.  They always ran the hookers in this town, and
they figured they always would.  It was sort of the status quo." 

He nodded to himself, seeming almost nostalgic for a moment.  Then his
voice hardened.  "Until one fine day the BGDs decided they wanted a piece
of that too." 

"The BGDs?" 

Ray jumped in, sounding as his patience was fraying again.  "Black
Gangster Disciples, you met some of 'em once, remember?"  That got a
raised eyebrow from Welsh, which Ray disregarded, speeding on.  "They
run--oh hell, Cabrini, Robert Taylor, Ida B. Wells, pretty much all the
projects, plus most of the drug action in the city." 

"That's about it."  Welsh overrode him.  "They've done pretty well for
themselves.  Good old-fashioned American success story, you know, expand,
diversify, build your bottom line, whack the competition.  But the day
they decided to start running hookers is the day they diversified a little
too far."  He tossed the mangled paper clip, missed the wastebasket. 
"That was the day the Outfit decided there was some shit up with which
they were no longer going to put." 

For a moment I thought I saw where he was going with this, but it was too
repugnant for me to believe.  I tried to keep the disgust out of my voice,
and ended up merely sounding prissy.  "And this relates to the murder
investigation how exactly?" 

Silence in the room, except for the thump of Ray's boot heels against the
floor as he paced, the arrhythmic metallic rattle as he slammed his
knuckles against the file cabinets in passing.  Then Welsh said, "When I
was a kid ... I grew up in Cicero, which the mob pretty much ran. 
Everyone who did business there paid up, and they got--"  He lifted a
hand, let it drop.  "Protection, you could call it."  He was staring down
at his fingers, talking quietly.  "One day ... Freeman's Furniture, they'd
been there for years, on Cermak, and one day some guy opened up a new
furniture store right across the street from them.  Undercut Freeman's
prices, put some ads in the paper, had a big opening celebration.  Next
morning I go by, on my way to school ... the place had been broken into,
and it had been trashed but good.  Every stick of furniture in the store
was smashed up.  Paint and shit dumped on it.  Looked like a tornado went
through."  He looked at me.  "See, they could've just burned down the
place, but they wanted to send a signal." 

"The owner?"  Ray was still pacing, but clearly he was also paying
attention. 

Welsh shrugged, and they exchanged a look, a knowing nod.  For a moment I
felt I could not be any more foreign if I were from Mars, sitting here in
my naiveté and outrage. 

"Lieutenant, far be it from me to disparage the value of storytelling in
subtly conveying a complex message, but I'm still at a loss to understand
how this relates to the murderer and his alleged invulnerability to
prosecution."  Under any normal circumstances Ray would have found some
way to tweak me for that sentence, but he was silent again, leaving it up
to Welsh to respond. 

"The point is, if you'd seen that store you'd've thought a crazy man was
at work, that someone'd have to be crazy to want to do that kind of
damage.  Just like we figured someone'd have to be a wacko to do those
hookers that way.  But it was ... just business.  Not for kicks, nothing
personal."  He looked at me from bloodshot eyes. 

"Sir."  I took a moment to compose myself before I went on. "With all
respect for your greater knowledge of the situation, I simply can't accept
that the analogy's valid.  Those were human beings.  They were murdered. 
It's not like--property vandalism." 

Welsh leaned back, tilting his chair, adjusting his belt.  For a moment I
felt a twinge of irrational dislike for him, his padded chair and his
comfortable belly and his bone-deep, invulnerable cynicism.  "With all
respect to you, Fraser, that's exactly what it was to these guys.  They
don't see it like you do.  Those weren't human beings to them.  They were
merchandise.  You can trash merchandise any time you want." His voice was
calm, but then he shook his head once, hard.  "Look, you think I like
this?  I don't like thinking people operate this way.  But that's the word
out on the street.  Just that--the Outfit couldn't let it pass.  Had to
let the BGDs know real clearly they'd made a bad business decision.  Had
to hit back, and--"  He shrugged.  "Smart man picks an easy target.  You
kill their soldiers, the other guys hit the mattress and you've got a war
on your hands, maybe, which nobody needs.  You burn their whores, you're
just...sending a signal." 

"So that's what it's called."  I was struggling to keep a grip on my
anger, but it twisted away from me and came out as sarcasm.  "In this
city, the vicious and wanton murder of three young women translates as
'sending a signal.'  Interesting.  I'll have to remember that." 

Ray suddenly slammed  a fist into the front of a filing cabinet, and the
crash made me jump.  He was rolling his shoulders, a belligerent, thwarted
movement as if he wanted to hit something else, harder, but couldn't find
the right target. Welsh watched him impassively, as if he were immune to
the emotion roiling around the room, or perhaps just too weary for it. 

"We done here?"  Ray's voice came out raw and scratchy. 

"You can leave any time, detective, I just--" 

"Lieutenant."  I jumped in.  "What about the murderer?  Ray said 'they'
know who he is.  The federal agents?  Is that what he--"  I half turned
toward Ray, who was slumped against the file cabinets, not looking at me. 
"Is that what was meant?" 

"The feds."  Welsh grimaced.  "Like I said before, they've had a lot of
success lately getting a handle on these guys.  And a big reason for that
is they've got a few plants deep in the Outfit. Deep in."  He shot me a
glance. "Kind of like someone you know of." 

I nodded. 

"Here in Chicago, they got a guy--not one of theirs originally, somebody
they turned.    They been cultivating him for years, he's got 'em a direct
line into the Andriacci branch.  They've gotten to know him pretty well
over the years, but I guess they didn't know before that he--"  Welsh
paused, seemed to have some difficulty finding words.  "That he's got a
taste for hurting women.  Dunno if his capo knew that or not.  Hell, maybe
he didn't, even, till he got started.  Till they gave him this job." 

Ray had picked up the cords for the venetian blinds and was flipping them
back and forth, open and shut, one way and then the other, with a
maddening jangle. 

"The point is--"  Welsh came back to brass tacks, sounding almost
brusque-- "no way the Bureau's going to do a damn thing to him, not till
they've pumped that well dry.  And nobody else touches him either.  He's
worth too much to them, to the big picture."  He had picked up a binder
clip and was clamping it onto a fingertip, frowning down at it.  It must
have stung.  "Could be his own guys'll take care of him--he's brought a
lot of heat down.  Or maybe not, maybe just tell him to watch his step
from now on. He's too useful to 'em to dump." 

My head had started to throb, in rhythm with the clatter of the blinds. 
The oblique reference to Ray Vecchio hadn't been lost on me; I couldn't
help thinking This is the world my friend is moving in now, right now, at
this moment, wherever he is.  I couldn't help wondering if he'd return at
all, and if he did--what would be left of him. 

But I had to set that aside.  It was difficult enough to encompass the
present situation.  "So you're saying--they won't prosecute." 

"They can't prosecute, damn it, they lose this guy and they lose a case
they've spent years building up.  Another few years and they figure to
take down half the Chicago Outfit.  They're not going to flush that for
three hookers." 

"And we can't--"  I stopped to correct myself.  "You can't prosecute him?"


"We got nothing to go on,"  Welsh snapped, flinging the binder clip across
the room.  "We got no evidence, because surprise surprise, the feds took
all the evidence.  And you notice how sloppy the FBI labs have gotten with
evidence lately?" 

Ray abruptly turned away from the wall and was at Welsh's desk, fists
resting on the scattered papers.  "Lieutenant.  Look.  OK, I know, you
can't give me a name, I got that.  But just--maybe just a first name,
initials, or--or neighborhood, y'know, ten-block radius, what kind of car
he drives, anything.  Anything.  Give me something here."  Halfway between
a demand and a plea, and Welsh was granite against it, stronger than I
could have been. 

"Can't do that, detective." 

"Just one thing.  Anything.  Give me something to work with." 

"I can't do that."  Ice, impervious to the bonfire of Ray in a passion. 

Ray smacked his palms down on the desktop, spun away, kicked the
wastebasket across the room.  "Then why the fuck, why the fuck did you
tell me about it in the first place?  Huh?  Why'd you do that to me?" 

Welsh watched him, with the emotionless clarity of deep fatigue.  "You
want to know something, under normal circumstances I wouldn't have. 
Wouldn't've said a thing.  But the fact of the matter is, I figured I owed
him the truth about it."  He tipped his head toward me.  "Knew I couldn't
tell him a lie.  And I figured, telling him, I better tell you too.  Might
as well save him the trouble." 

"Do you think I can't keep a secret, if need be?  Even from Ray?"  There
was too much heat in that question, and I throttled myself down, checking
my face and bearing. 

Welsh transferred that unnervingly acute gaze from Ray to me.  "Didn't say
you couldn't.  But it's not a good idea, partners having secrets from each
other.  Puts a big hitch in the swing of things." 

 That was not a topic I wanted to pursue.  Ray was staring out the window,
head bowed and shoulders slumped, but I needed to turn my attention away
from him, back to the case.  "And the public will just let all this
lapse?  Three murders?" 

Ray swung around suddenly. "I saw the press release.  They already got it
out, on the noon news."  His fingers framed his words in air-quotation
marks, his voice filled them with contempt.  "'It is believed that the
killer has moved on to Texas, and may have crossed into Mexico.'"  He
dropped his hands.  "Shit, why stop there?  Bet they'll get a sighting of
him in--uh, Costa Rica next, Upper Volta, whatever."  I refrained from
correcting his geography. 

Welsh said, "People'll forget about it by the end of the week.  Hookers
get killed all the time.  As long as they don't think the guy's moving on
to real people, no one's interested." 

"Except perhaps for the young women's families." 

Ray gave a harsh bark of laughter.  "Fraser, did you talk to the
families?  No, I know you didn't, I did, and trust me, nobody's holding
any candlelight vigils there." 

I plowed on.  "And it won't be forgotten by the other women, the other
prostitutes, out there.  To know that their lives are so little valued." 

Ray's voice went gentler.  "They know that already.  That's what their
families taught 'em, y'know?" 

I had no reply to that, and neither of them seemed to have anything more
to add.  For a minute we were still, the three of us.  I could hear phones
ringing in the squad room, the machinery of crime and justice, life and
death, grinding onward. 

Finally Welsh spoke, without looking at me.  "Fraser.  You can't--"  He
stopped, rubbing a thumb over his nose, and started again.  "I used to get
dragged to church every week, when I was a kid, and I remember--you know
that line from the Bible, where it says  'Blessed are they who hunger and
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.'"  He shook his head
slowly,.  "No offense, I hope, but I never had much use for the Bible
myself.  I mean, that's a beautiful sentiment.  Only problem is, it's a
crock.  You can hunger and thirst after righteousness all you want, but
the fact is, sometimes you're just going to go hungry."  He looked up and
caught my eye, speaking even more deliberately than usual.  "You can't win
'em all, Fraser." 

I nodded, reasonable as ever, tractable, though all I felt was beaten. 
Welsh held my eyes for another moment, then turned back to shuffling the
papers in the file, as if he were trying to sort them, but abruptly he
shoved them together into a ragged stack and slammed them into his "out"
basket, heedless of the ones that fluttered to the floor.  I started  to
retrieve them, but he said, "No.  Don't bother." 

I stepped back, hesitantly.  "Sir--" 

"Constable. Thanks.  For everything."  He paused, as if he wanted to say
more, and then only said, "The inspector's probably got plenty for you to
do, back at the consulate.  Probably should get on it."  He looked over at
Ray.  "Detective.  Get out of here.  I don't want to see you till
tomorrow.  But I do expect to see you tomorrow.  Bright and early." 

Ray yanked open the door with a shattering crash and jangle of the
venetian blinds, and was gone so fast I stumbled trying to start after
him.  By the time I was out of the office he'd reached the hall. 

"Ray.  Ray.  Ray." 

He stopped, not turning, head down, and I caught up with him. 

"What."  He sounded tired. 

"Where are you going?" 

He raised his head, looked at me, glanced up and down the hall, and then
stared at me again, defiantly.  "I'm going up to Kerrigan's, and I'm gonna
get shitfaced.  Anything else you need to know?" 

My head automatically pivoted around to check the clock--2:34 p.m.--and
then back to him.  His eyes looked bruised, and there were sharp lines of
tension around his mouth.  "Do you think that's a good idea?" 

"Good idea?  Hell no, I think it's a great idea.  Best damn idea I've had
in weeks." 

I let it pass.  "And after that?" 

"What do you mean, after that?  After that, nothing, sooner or later the
bar closes or I run out of cash, maybe I meet someone, maybe I get lucky,
probably I don't, either way I pass out, I get some sleep, I wake up, I
drink some coffee, and I'm back here, back at that fucking desk at 8 a.m.
sharp, trying to decide which of the fourteen case files I got in my inbox
I should look at first, assuming I can get my eyes open enough to look at
anything." 

"And ... you're going to let this drop."  I tried to make it a neutral
statement, a clarification, but his head snapped back, and I could see the
hurt for just a moment, before it hardened over with anger. 

"You mind telling me what the fuck I'm supposed to do?  Go to DC and
snatch one of the fibbies off the street and beat a name out of him,
maybe? You heard the man.  Can't win 'em all.  No use thinking you can. 
Right?"  I could see him wrapping himself up in feigned indifference,
shouldering his way into that protection just as he shouldered into his
leather jacket on cold days.  "Shit, those girls, you know--"  He looked
away from me, pushing his hands around in his pockets.  "Crack whores. 
They'd probably be dead before they hit thirty anyway." 

It was like a blow to the face, and though I instantly started
rationalizing--he's a police officer, he's had to become hardened as a way
of protecting himself against horror, it's a defense mechanism--despite
myself, I flinched, and as he looked over at me I knew that he saw, for
just a moment before I recovered, that brief unconquerable moment of
revulsion.  He saw me pull away, and he responded with a set stare of
defiance, and I could see, behind that facade, a deep, deep shame.  "Hey,
's the world we're living in," he said.  "Not a nice place, Chicago.  You
just started noticing that?" 

All our ease together gone, and instead this flinty edginess, like walking
barefoot on gravel, and the fault all mine.  I never meant to shame him. 

"You probably gonna be booking your flight back to Canada pretty soon,
huh?  Sorry we let you down." 

"You've never let me down.  Not in any respect." 

"Yeah.  Thought you didn't tell fibs."  He looked away, pressing his lips
together tightly. 

"Ray--" 
He spun back, abruptly.  "Tell me one thing, just one thing.  You're a
cop,  right?  Same as me.  So where do you get off, where the hell do you
get  off, being so--so fucking innocent?"  He was almost spitting the
words  out.  "Like maybe up there in Canada nobody does anything bad, like
the  worst thing you ever saw was ear-biting-off fake-wrestling guys or 
something." 

"You know that's not--" 

"Like, just cause I deal with reality, Chicago reality, that that makes me
some kind of a  sell-out. Like just 'cause I got my brain around the
concept cut your losses that makes me dirty. Like just cause you want the
good guys to win every time, that  means they're always gonna win.  You
know what? The good guys don't  always win."  He was stabbing at me with
his fingers, punching out the  words.  "Just 'cause you're Mr. Perfect,
you don't always get to have  things turn out the way you want.  Tattoo
that one on your eyelids,  Fraser." 

"I'm aware of that, Ray.  Believe me.  I understand that." 

He went on as if he hadn't heard me.  "Deal with it.  I do."  He swung
his  arm around, bracelet flashing, taking in the whole station.  "We do. 
And--you got no right to act like you come down here  with a special
dispensation from God Almighty and suddenly everything's supposed to go
your way." 

Then he stopped, took a deep  breath, scrubbed his hands over his face. 

"Ah, hell.  It's always like this, Fraser, why is that?  I mean--from the
get-go,  starting day one, I haven't even known you an hour and you're
charging  into a burning building to rescue fish while I'm sittin' out
there like a  moron with my thumb up my ass going What the fuck? and all I
been  doing since then is playing catch-up."  He slumped back against the
wall,  rubbing his eyes.  "And I never do."  He was talking softly now, 
rough-voiced.  "I'm a fucking good cop.  You know?  So why is it I feel 
like I never get caught up to--"  He made a vague gesture, let his arm 
drop.  "Wherever you are." 

I wanted to tell him--I almost said--I never do either. I didn't; too
weak, I  suppose, to get those words over the walls. Instead I said,
feebly,  "That's--that's not true, Ray." 

He ignored that, letting his head roll gently back and forth against the
wall.  "We did good work on this case.  Take the feds out of the picture
and we would've put it down." 

"I know.  I believe you." 

At that, he looked at me.  "But it's not gonna happen.  And you can't let
it get to you."  It was almost a plea.  "You're a cop.  If there's  one
thing you gotta learn when you're a cop, it's how to tell when 
something's truly, one hundred percent, dead in the water hopeless.  How 
to let go of it." 

He pushed away from the wall, looking hard at me, speaking very
seriously.  "I learned that. It  didn't come easy, not one inch of it. 
But I got there." 

I wished there were some way I could tell him just how well I'd learned 
that myself.  Instead I said, "All right.  I'll accept that you and the 
lieutenant are correct, that there's nothing more we can do on the case
for  now." 

"Swell.  Fine.  Great."  He nodded at me, once, and turned to go. 

"But I'm coming with you."  Presumptuous of me, since no invitation was 
extended, but I had no intention of letting him go off on a solitary
bender. 

He halted with his back to me, hunched and staring at the floor, shaking 
his head.  "No. No, Fraser, that is not a good idea.  Me getting  hammered
is not something you need a ringside seat for, trust me." 

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to be alone just now."  Since he 
couldn't see me, I let myself look my fill, taking in the defensive cant
of his  shoulders, the little movements of back muscles under his tight
t-shirt, the  gentle incurve of the nape of his neck ... that place, right
there, where  close-cropped prickly hairs turn into soft down ... "People
need support in difficult circumstances, in fact social support has been
shown to buffer the immune system from the harmful physiological effects
of stress--"  I didn't know what I was saying, it was like the nonsense
one uses to gentle a spooky animal.  I could see the tautness in the 
muscles in his neck, steel cords under high tension.  "I'd like to be able
to help you."   I could see exactly  the spot where I could put my thumbs,
knew how hard I would press,  how slowly to stroke, to get him to relax,
the sounds he would make-- 

He whipped around, so suddenly I took a clumsy step back.  "You think  I
need your help?"  He was glaring at me, face tight and cold.  "You think 
I need Mr. Perfect to come charging in and rescue me?  Wipe my nose and
put me to bed, maybe?   That's real big of you, Fraser, but--news flash. 
I can take care of myself.   You know?  I may be a sell-out but I can take
care of myself." 

His hands were moving fast, signaling stay back, stand clear, keep  away.
I locked my own hands together, hard, behind my back.  "I've  never
doubted that, Ray, it's only that--" 

"I can deal, you know what I mean?  I got my ways of dealing, you got 
yours, and I know you think my ways of dealing might be, what, I dunno, 
you probably got some big word for it that boils down to fucked  up, and
your ways of dealing are probably what I'd call, y'know, stupid."  We were
getting some curious looks from passersby; I moved,  slightly, angled to
try to shield him from their eyes.  "So go on back home,  why don't you,
Fraser, and--and polish the silverware, or something." 

I didn't know what to say, and for once, when I didn't know what to say, 
I had the wit to keep my mouth shut.  After a moment he looked down, 
away, and I could see the anger drain out of him, leaving a weary sadness.
" I'm outta here."  He pushed away from the wall.  "See you in the--" 

"Why don't you want me to come with you?" 

It stopped him, and I went on, as quietly as I could.  "Is it--do you
think I'm that weak?  That I can't handle anything that's not perfect? 
That's  I'm so brittle I can't take a few--a few dents, without
shattering?" 

"Weak."  He stared at me.  It was as if he'd never heard the word before. 
"No, that--believe me, that is not what I was thinking, it's just that--" 
His eyes, tracking toward the floor again,  stopped; then he reached out
and, to my astonishment, gently touched his  fingertips to the dark
soup-stain on my tunic.  Let them rest there a  moment.  "I just don't
want to get any more shit on your shoes.  OK?   You don't deserve it."  He
shook his head and laughed, a soft unhappy  laugh.  Then his fingers
straightened and he pushed away from me,  turning, starting off down the
hall. 

"Ray."  I struggled for something more to say, something that would get 
through, but my words had finally deserted me.  All I had was his name.  
"Ray.  Ray." 

He didn't even pause, only made a sudden flailing motion with his arm,
oddly graceless, not at all like an actual wave, the motion of a man
pushing something away, and called back over his shoulder, "Go home,
Fraser."  And then he was gone. 

I stood, staring down the hall, wanting nothing more than to follow
him--telling myself my only concern was for his safety, that if he got
drunk he'd need someone to watch out for him, make sure he didn't drive,
make sure he got home safely.  But I knew that was rank hypocrisy.  It was
no friendly fraternal concern for his safety that was urging me after him,
and that awareness kept me from following. He didn't need me.  He'd laid
down the terms.  He didn't want me with him; he'd made that abundantly
clear.  He didn't want me. 

I stood there for some time, feeling the men and women of the station
moving around me, feeling their eyes on me.  Finally I started moving,
stiffly, and walked out the door.  Walking just to be moving, with no
destination in mind. 

  
  

I head down the street, feeling the sun burn down on my back.  I'd had
some thought of finding a phone book, looking up the address for
Kerrigan's, hailing a cab.  But I find myself not doing any of those
things--just walking blindly through the smothering heat, refusing to look
at street signs, trying my hardest, despite the unrelenting compass in my
head, to lose myself in the city's chaos. 

Chicago is dirty year-round--I've seen a fresh snowfall turn grey within
hours--but the filth is especially striking in midsummer, the green slime
trickling in the gutter outside the grocer's, fast food wrappers sticky
with grease swirling in the hot exhaust of buses, fresh graffiti on every
surface.  I can smell pollutants in the air, and the stink of decaying
things, and my own stench--sweat, and the reek of sour soup mixed with hot
wool. 

At one intersection, somewhere near the river, is an enormous cement
planter filled with annuals that have withered in the heat, slumped over
onto the baked soil.  The crowds surge past, oblivious; I stare at the
dying flowers, trying to think of who, which office, what authority in
this vast mechanism is responsible for the homely task of watering
plants.  Public works, parks and recreation, street maintenance?  I start
casting about for a pay phone, always a challenge in this city, but when I
finally find one three blocks away it's broken, vandalized, and I realize
that I don't have pocket change in any event, even if I knew whom to
call.  I stand for a moment looking at the tangle of shredded wires, and
then I give up, and walk on. 

Sounds of the city, diesel engines, jackhammers, airplanes, auto horns,
pounding music from car windows and boomboxes, none of it loud enough to
drown out Ray's parting words to me, echoing in my head-- 

Go home, Fraser. 

I'd like to believe--I do believe--that in his pain and shame he simply
spoke impulsively, without thinking.  I know he wouldn't deliberately be
that cruel. 

My home is two thousand five hundred miles from here.  There's no place in
this city that isn't exile for me. 

All of it, asphalt, crowds, cars, cement, steel, exhaust, glass, buses,
glare, sweat, noise... 

...even the green and quiet park, where, after hours of roaming without
plan or forethought, my feet eventually take me--this, too, is foreign
soil, this artful, heartless simulation of nature. 

 I wander off the main path, leaving behind the joggers and rollerbladers,
find a shaded spot and settle on the grass.  It's less bad here.  Quiet,
or at least relatively so, though the roar of the city is an endless
trouble in the background.  A little cooler, the earth soft and damp under
the thick grass, which tells me the park employees must have watered
today.  Probably there are sprinklers embedded in the soil, a maze of
subterranean pipes and valves, all engineered to make a pretty
pleasure-grounds for the people who live in glass and cement. 

I brush my hand over the mown plush of grass.  It's pretty here, yes, soft
and restful. Verdant. Pleasant, certainly.  And about as homelike, for me,
as the rainforests of Borneo.  The tundra is a desert, after all, as dry
as it is cold, and the only trees that survive on the permafrost are
stunted whippy shrubs, dwarf birch and willow, or the stingy spikes of
jackpine, black against the snow. 

In my grandmother's makeshift library, back in Tuktoyaktuk, there was a
picture hanging over the encyclopedias that used to frighten me, as a
child.  I know now it was a cheap print of a painting by Henri Rousseau, a
jungle scene, showing two dark-skinned men on horseback being attacked by
a tiger.   I wasn't afraid of the tiger--its eyes, though hotter, were no
fiercer than those of wolves, and I was already more than half in love
with the beautiful danger of wild animals.  No, what terrified me was the
surreal vegetation:  the giant smothering leaves, the phalanx of
sword-like grasses, the ominous palm trees reaching out like huge
many-fingered hands.  Every time my eyes came to rest on the picture, I
had to turn and look out the window, to reassure myself with the
comforting sight of barren ice and snowfields. 

I believe that print is what gave me my childhood nightmares of being lost
in the jungle, suffocated by undergrowth and strangled with creeping
vines.  Remembering that, I feel the familiar self-disgust (to be
frightened by a picture!), but at the same time ...remembering, recalling
the tender child that I once was, thinking of that child lost in the
jungle ... and the women, girls really, hardly out of childhood
themselves, gone astray in this concrete wilderness, brought down by the
predators.... The trees hang heavy over my head, leaves glittering in the
breeze like razors, and under the ripe odor of greenery I can smell
decay.  There's a humming in my head, and I can feel words, words rising
and taking form in my mind. 

Carefully, feeling almost furtive, I pull out the little notebook I always
carry with me.  Its ostensible purpose, of course, is utilitarian--making
notes at crime scenes, recording information, always in the clear smooth
script I learned from my grandmother.  Those entries start at the front of
the notebook and proceed onward in orderly chronological sequence. 

But there are other jottings that start in the back of the book, made in
an entirely different handwriting, backslanted, knotted, a gnarled
scribble I came up with long ago to thwart my grandmother's failing eyes.
Though by no means an impenetrable code, it's difficult to decipher, and I
find myself still using it when I want privacy.  As I do now. 

Ray told me once that he was, beneath the surface, a poet.  I kept a
straight face, moved by the knowledge that he was alluding, not to any
skill at the art of catching feeling in words, but rather to his
sensitivity.  His vulnerability.  I knew that was something he usually
strove to conceal, and that I was being honored in having it unmasked,
even so glancingly and guardedly.  He trusted, rightly, that I wouldn't
laugh at him. 

 I'm sure he believes that beneath my own surface lies the soul of ... a
regulations manual, perhaps, or a text of prescriptive grammar.  I
seriously doubt that he could keep a straight face if he read the things I
write in here. 

Poetry.  Or bits of poetry, to be more accurate.  Random phrases and
lines, an image that pleased me once, a scrap of talk overheard on the bus
that rang in my head.  Fragments, actually.  Disconnected shards that
never build to a whole thing.  Nothing carried to completion. 

I test the pen in the margin, trying to put Ray out of my mind, trying to
be still, waiting for the phrases to connect. Lost in the jungle, I write,
to be writing something.  Deciduous, serrated, foliate, smother, razor,
shimmering, blade, suffocate--the isolated words are still buzzing softly
around in my head, like drowsy bees, but when I reach to touch them they
scatter, drifting off into silence.  When I grope after them, clutching,
they lie limp and flat in my clumsy hands.  Gone. Strangled, broken, no
clues left behind.  Only silence, the silence of death. My failure, yet
again. 

I bite down on the pen so hard that I feel the plastic casing start to
crack under my teeth, before I make myself unclench, let it go, and wipe
it off on my sleeve. Empty, brittle and broken.  Nothing will be salvaged
from the wreck of this day. I'm too tired to fight off the only words I
can find, the old, old, hateful ones:  It goes nowhere, it means nothing.
Not good enough.  Never will be.  The words are a lead vest, shielding me
from the lethal peril of hope; crushing the air out of me. 

When at length I get my breath back and shove the blurry wetness from my
eyes, I look up and find a young couple has flopped down on the grass not
far from me, a boy and girl, wrestling and squirming together.  The girl
starts shrieking as the boy holds her down, and I'm actually up on one
knee and poised to charge before I catch myself, tell myself to sit down,
that the hand moving on her belly holds no knife, that he's merely
tickling her, or caressing her, that the gurgling sounds she's making are
just giggles, not the sound of someone choking on blood.  But I can't look
at her without seeing Latisha Robinson, Krystalle Hendricks, Bethany
Paulus, laid out on Mort's slab, disassembled. 

I wonder where the killer is right now.  Dining, perhaps; I picture him in
an air-conditioned restaurant, filling his belly with a steak--rare, I
imagine, resting in a puddle of blood.  A bottle of wine at hand, or a
beer possibly.  Planning, as he eats, how to get his other hungers filled
this evening. 

The young couple is kissing now, joyously ardent, bodies pressed against
each other on the green turf.  I look away quickly, down at the notebook
that's still open on my knee.  Smoothing out the blank page, I pick up the
pen again, and suddenly my hand is moving, words forming on the page in
knotted furtive cryptogram.  Not my words, to be sure--no creation of
mine, but lines etched on my memory long ago, that spill out now, whole,
without effort: Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend 
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. 
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must 
Disappointment all I endeavour end? I pause only long enough to shake out
my fingers, cramping from the tiny script.  The words crowd at me: Wert
thou my enemy, O thou my friend, 
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost 
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust 
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, 
Sir, life upon thy cause. A sudden breeze flutters the page, bringing me
the green rank smell of mown grass.  I flatten the paper out with my hand,
and write on: See, banks and brakes 
Now, leaved how thick! laced they are again 
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes 
Them; birds build -- but not I build; no, but strain, 
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. I stop a moment, looking
at the flea-scratch scribble, illegible to anyone but me; and then write
the last line, slowly, in my clearest, most open script: Mine, O thou lord
of life, send my roots rain. I stare at the page for a long time. 
Hopkins.  Not my words, his.  Words I'd tried to forget but couldn't erase
from my soul. 

Words can save a life; I knew that even before Fortitude Pass, I learned
it my last year at home, before I left my grandparents' house forever,
when I could almost feel myself being torn apart inside by forces I
couldn't control.  When I'd felt Duty piercing me, as a beetle being
mounted on a specimen board must feel the pin driving through its thorax,
leaving me to flail impotently, transfixed. 

I hadn't read poetry in my boyhood, scorning it as soppy drivel, but that
year, devouring my way through the library in desperation, I found the
thin volume--Selected Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins--and a brief
biography of him, guarded and formal, drawing lines I didn't yet know how
to read between. 

I don't know why I latched on to him to instantly; god knows I didn't yet
understand much of his work.  Perhaps I sensed a fellow spirit, under the
convoluted and dazzling words.  All I know is that the words themselves
became a lifeline for me. 

And so, when I encountered those words years later, in Victoria's
beautiful voice, coming from that beautiful mouth--to find that she knew
him, knew and loved his lines--that was what convinced me, more than
anything else, that I'd known her across a thousand lifetimes, that we
were bound together, and that if his words had saved me, they could save
her too, soul as well as body. 

I wanted so badly to believe that.  I know now that I saw in her what I
wanted to see.  I know now how fallible my judgment is, under the
influence of passion and hope. And I've read the research on the
unreliability of human memory; I know how inaccurate our recollections
are, even in the most mundane situations.  As it was--trapped in a
blizzard, starving, freezing, with death at one hand, and at the other,
passion, a bond such as I'd never known.... 

How can I trust anything I remember from that time?  I know what I think
is the truth, but I wanted, then, to believe one thing; I wanted later,
urgently, to believe the opposite.  I ended up funking both, and taking a
coward's way out. 

I couldn't make out what she said. I never heard the words. A pathetic,
feeble lie--god knows, whatever other defects I may have, there's
certainly nothing wrong with my hearing.  Such a feeble lie that I'm sure
Ray Vecchio would have seen through it, had he been awake to hear it.  But
the only person I'd really been trying to convince was myself.   All I'm
convinced of now is that I'll never know for sure.  And that it no longer
matters. 

Some memories I'll never be sure of, and others I can't seem to lose.
Thinking of Hopkins, I find myself, against my will, recalling the class
in English poetry I took in that mutinous year before I'd entered cadet
training, when I still thought a different path was possible for me, that
I could force my life into some direction other than the one that seemed
preordained for it.  The professor had been a disappointment--an aging
Anglophile with a pretentious mid-Atlantic accent, who clearly was
embittered at ending his career in St. George, BC, and who curried cheap
favor with his students by regaling them with racy gossip about the
intimate details of the poets' lives, rather than discussing their work. 

On the day we were to finish up the Victorians, he had arrived late, and
then spent much of the session on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
relationship with her father and the ins and outs of the
Swinburne-Rossetti circle.  Hopkins was last on the syllabus, and as the
minutes ticked on I'd grown more and more apprehensive, feeling oddly as
if a friend were waiting for a public humiliation. 

With five minutes left to the bell, when my classmates were beginning to
fold up their notebooks, he had intoned, "And last we come ... to the
eccentric and unfortunate Gerard Manley Hopkins."  I'd folded my hands on
the desk, staring down at them.  "A most peculiar poet, unpublished during
his lifetime, little read for years after that, and even now admired from
a distance more often than truly understood."  He blew his nose, cleared
his throat, glanced at the clock and went on. 

"God knows what he might have written if the Jesuits hadn't gotten their
claws into him at Oxford--but he became, not just a priest, but a parish
priest."  The honking voice insinuated an amused contempt. "Subsequently
exiled to various low and brutish urban slums, where he suffered under the
belief that the wretched lives and miserable deaths of his drunken,
impoverished, illiterate parishioners were somehow of greater moment than
his poetry.  Why, he even believed that he had some obligation, and even a
capacity, to be of help to them, when apparently they mostly found him,
though oddly endearing, to also be more than slightly bizarre, unnerving
in his zealotry, and in many respects an alien and inhuman presence." 

Another glance at the clock; four minutes left.  "The poems themselves--" 
a dismissive waggle of the fingers-- "though usually religious in theme,
are notably sensual, in language and imagery.  Likely they were the poor
chap's only sensual outlet, deeply repressed as he was, and when they
dried up, under the onslaught of his trivial clerical duties... well, one
can only hope that his parishioners' squalid sins gave him some sort of
vicarious thrill; although it's clear he harbored--unnatural
inclinations--" A suggestive twitch of the eyebrows, and much snickering
from the louts in the back row-- "it also seems evident that he died ...
at the age of 44 ... a virgin."  That had sent the back row into spasms of
guffawing, while I sat with my eyes locked on my balled fists, certain
that my own shameful secrets were blazing over my head like hellfire. 

Years later, older now, better armored, I sit on the grass and contemplate
that phrase.  Unnatural inclinations.  I'm no longer a virgin, to be sure,
but what intimacy I've had is hardly worthy of the word, more a confused
collision in the dark than any true joining.  Lord knows if anything in my
life has felt unnatural, it has been those moments, when I felt myself
helpless the grip of something I couldn't control, something that I craved
without ever entirely willing or wanting it. 

Knowing, as I know now, what I do most truly want--the most natural
inclination I've ever felt in my life--and knowing I can't have it, that
it's not welcomed, that I'm not wanted ... 

I look back down at the notebook and fold it away, hiding it behind my
stained tunic.  Suddenly I feel like a fool, sitting here scribbling verse
as if I were a lovesick boy.  Indulging myself in poetic pretense, when
it's clear the words inside me will never come to anything. Certainly no
one will ever see them; the only one I ever showed my nonsense to was
Victoria, and that's the kind of mistake I won't make again. 

I stare out over the park, trying to bring myself back to present reality,
and I realize the lawn is empty, the young couple has gone away.  I can
hear in my mind's ear Ray's muttered Get a room!--his typical response to
public displays of affection--and perhaps they have indeed gotten a room. 
Perhaps Ray himself has--I can't keep my mind on track--perhaps he himself
has, how did he put it, gotten lucky, perhaps he's found a room and
someone to share it with him, and immediately I picture--because I can't
stop myself--a room, an anonymous room somewhere, and a woman, a faceless
anonymous woman, soft, pliant, accommodating, and Ray with her, all that
steel-taut tension slowly unwinding, uncoiling, as he holds her, opens
her, slides into her... 

Mentally, I take a knife and excise that image, slicing a wide swath to
make sure it's cut away clean.   Cut clean and it won't hurt, I think, and
without giving hurt any time to be felt I move on, to other disciplines I
learned long ago.  I think pear, picture the word in my mind written in
graceful italic type, and then I let my brain fill with the image of a
pear, a red Anjou, curving and rosy, and then with the smell of it, the
flavor, thick and winy, the faint graininess of its flesh against molars,
the softness beneath the resilient skin, letting there be no room in my
mind for anything else, and then I let it fade.  It leaves me peaceful, in
an empty calm. 

Calm, until I idly wonder why I'm still sitting here, loitering in this
park.  My brain, handed the question, industriously digs for an answer,
which turns out, idiotically, pathetically, to be--that I'm waiting for
Ray to come find me.  At the same moment I realize that, stroking the soft
bristle of grass, caressing it, I'm imagining that that's how Ray's hair
would feel under my hand, and I know in that moment how utterly hopeless I
am, how badly lost.  How badly I've lost. 

You can't win 'em all, Fraser. 

Welsh is a compassionate man, behind the cynicism, and a perceptive one; I
wonder at times how much he sees.  Sometimes you're just going to go
hungry. 

I know he thinks--they all think--that I'm a naive innocent, that I live
in a black and white dream world.  And I may be a dreamer in some ways,
but I comprehend reality in all its harshness.  I know some dreams are by
their nature doomed.  The world we live in is awash in cruelty, brutality,
injustice, and all my life's hard work at times seems no more than a
child's sand-fortress against the tide. 

I can live with that because I have no choice.  The hunger for justice,
the thirst for righteousness--I learned long ago that those can never
really be sated or slaked.  Knowing the goal is inhuman, unattainable, in
no way excuses me from giving my life to its pursuit. 

But ... if not justice and righteousness, can I at least not have--the
justness, the rightness, of joining with the one soul that matches mine,
that completes me?  To have that simple human hunger filled--is it wanting
too much to want that, just once, before I die? 

Send my roots rain.  I lie on my back, staring into the sky for a long
time, but never a cloud crosses it, never a drop falls from it.  Bland,
barren blue, the blue of the Virgin's cloak in a Renaissance painting; but
I know the comforting color is just an illusion, the scattering of light
waves by air molecules, and that what I'm really staring into is the black
emptiness of space.  Hopkins at least had his faith--the certainty that
there was a presence up there, a divinity that gave meaning to his life,
that justified his sacrifice.  I know better than that.  The heavens are
empty, and we are all alone. 

I lie on the grass until the shadows grow long and the blue turns to
violet and navy, and in all the time I lie there no one comes near to me. 
At last I sit up, get to my feet, and start walking again, out of the
park, through the dirty and violent streets, into the thickening darkness,
back to my solitary cell at the consulate. 

  
kat@katallison.com 

http://www.mrks.org/~kat/