nobody reads this

I’m addicted to reality shows and documentaries. Documentarians would hate that I related reality shows to their genre, but I don’t give a shit. Well, I do, or I wouldn’t have mentioned it. But I prefer watching real people to movies, reading real stories to fiction. If I find out something is scripted or not real, I don’t like it anymore.

I can’t type today because I’m hungover.  This took forever to type out;.

 

–30–

Murder in Baltimore Part 5

The ride home from Springs Grove was the most uncomfortable I’d ever been in my life. I was trying to digest what Dagmar had said to me, and from the look on Tim’s face, she’d said something similar to him as well. I don’t think he could have gripped the steering wheel any harder. I don’t think I could have clenched my jaw any tighter.

I didn’t speak until he pulled up in front of the house that I’d just rented three blocks from my father’s.
“Call me if you need anything,” I said. He didn’t respond.

My life returned to normal over the next two weeks. I’d tried to share with my stepmother what Dagmar had said in the hospital, but as soon as Rose got an inkling of what was coming, she told me to stop.
“I don’t want to hear about this, and you shouldn’t be talking to her either,” she said sternly.

Dagmar was released from the hospital sometime in mid March and she went back to her house where she no longer had her dogs, but atleast she had her cat. Tim stayed in town too, and I didn’t hear or see much of them for about a week. Dagmar went back to the temp agency, and the pizza place didn’t care that she had been gone for three weeks. They still had pizza that needed to be delivered. It was easy for Dagmar to fall back into her regular routine.

On March 27, that routine changed. Armed with a warrant, county police came to her home and arrested her on a charge of first-degree murder. Her bail was set at $1 million. I found out about her arrest when her brother Tim called to ask me to take her cat. He said their mother was coming into town and she was allergic.

I told Tim I didn’t think that was a good idea since my basement wasn’t very secure. If cat-sized rats could get in, I was fairly certain that cat-sized cats could get out, I explained. Tim didn’t push the issue and I thought I had avoided the obligation. That was until Dagmar’s mother came to town.

In her 80s, Berta may have looked fragile, but she was formidable. She called me almost immediately upon her arrival and introduced herself over the phone. I wondered why I had suddenly become Dagmar’s only friend. My stepmother and aunt had pretty much cut off all ties with her, but I thought for sure there were other people in her life besides just my family.

“I cannot stay here with this cat,” she said in a heavy Dutch accent. “There is so much dog hair here still, that I might have to find someplace else anyway. But if you take the cat, we can clean up the dog hair.”
I repeated my concerns about my basement, but it didn’t matter. The conversation ended when I agreed to take the cat.
Tim and his mother showed up at my house an hour later. There was little fanfare as they handed over the black cat and its food.

“Thank you,” said Berta as she looked down her nose at me.
“I just hope it doesn’t get out” I said. “I went downstairs and shored up all the holes I could see.”
“It will be fine,” she said, then turned on her heel and marched out the door.

I put the cat down and went into the kitchen to get dinner ready for the kids. It followed me for a little while, and as I went to bed that night it was on the couch. In the morning, however, I couldn’t find the cat. After my job at the restaurant, which by this time had turned into a waitressing stint, there was still no cat. I looked under every piece of furniture, in every closet and cupboard and under every loose floorboard in the basement. Still no cat. After three days I was certain the cat was gone.

Berta reading my mind, gave me a call.
“How is the cat,” she asked.
“Oh, yeah. Um, I think the cat got out,” I stuttered.
“The cat got out,” she squealed. “Dagmar is going to be very upset.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” I said, telling her that I didn’t think she should mention it to Dagmar while she was in jail.
“She made us promise to take care of that cat,” said Berta, being sure to solidify my guilt.
“I’m so sorry,” I whined, then attempted to deflect some of the blame, “I warned you about the basement.”
“You could have fixed that,” she scolded.
“If I could have fix it, I would have done that when I found rat turds,” I said getting defensive.
“She’s going to be very upset,” repeated Berta.
“I know,” I whined again.

Berta hung up. What a bitch, I thought.

Murder in Baltimore Part 4

A week after Dagmar’s suicide attempt, and with her safely secured in a Catonsville fruit farm, I got a phone call from her brother.

Tim said that he was coming into town from California, and asked me to pick him up from the train station. I have no idea why he was coming in by Amtrack and I didn’t ask. I was mostly depressed that with Tim’s arrival, I would lose the use of Dagmar’s car.

On the day he came in, I was waiting outside of the station terminal for him. I had never met Tim before and figuring out which guy he was from those disembarking was no easy task. Eventually, we made contact and had an uncomfortable ride back to Dagmar’s Highlandtown rowhouse. Tim wanted to get settled, showered and changed, before we made the drive into Catonsville to a psychiatric hospital to see Dagmar. It would be the first time I had seen or talked to her since the night she tried to lop her hand off.

The hospital in which she was staying, Spring Grove, was like a childhood ghost story for me. Growing up in the area, there were always rumors that a deranged mental patient from Spring Grove had escaped and was on a murdering spree. In all the time I’d lived there, I had never driven up to the hospital, though it was practically right behind my high school.

Tim and I pulled into the hospital parking lot about 5 p.m. and surprisingly it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I remember feeling silly for being afraid to set foot on the campus. It was in a pretty spot up a windy tree-lined road. The lawns were manicured, and the buildings modern. There was nothing spooky about this place.

We went inside and after telling a receptionist who we were there to see, she had us sign in and then directed us to a clean, brightly lit common area where I suppose visitors visited. The room was filled with stereotypical psychiatric patients and their guests. Women who stared with blank eyes, men who spoke in a childish language that only their families seemed to understand. There was one man who shuffled back and forth in front of the window, talking to himself. Not one soul in that room looked like a deranged killer. They mostly looked lost and it made me sad to see them.

Dagmar, her left wrist still in a bandage, came into the room and she rushed into her brother’s arms. They hugged for a bit, then Tim put his hands on Dagmar’s shoulders and held her away from him. They smiled and told each other that the other looked good.

Dagmar came to me next and we hugged.
“How are you doing, hon,” I said quietly into her ear.
“I’m good,” she said back, “It’s not too bad here.”

There was an empty round table near the doors of the room, and the three of us sat down. I can’t remember what we talked about, but after a bit Dagmar suddenly said she needed to talk to Tim alone. She told him there was a room off to the side where’d they’d have privacy, and the brother and sister disappeared behind the door.

I sat alone at the table, chewing my fingernails and trying not to stare at the guy pacing in front of the window. I eavesdropped on the conversation of a family behind me. I stared at the door that the Jensens had vanished behind.

It was about a half hour later, that I heard the door beginning to open and glanced over. Tim emerged first, pale and sweaty. He looked at me briefly and then looked away. Dagmar walked out behind him smiling. When our eyes met, she smiled wider. As they drew closer, I heard Dagmar tell Tim there was a bathroom outside the common area. He said nothing, and walked briskly out of the room as Dagmar sat down at the table across from me.

“He’s freaked out,” she said.
“Well, this is a lot to absorb,” I replied. “You’re family really hasn’t heard from you in a while and here you are because you tried to kill yourself. I’d be freaked out too, except I saw you in your basement.”

Dagmar chuckled a bit. Then she started to talk about Ted.

“You know, he was lying to me about everything,” she said shrugging. “He told me he was divorced, but I found out he had a wife. I also found out he lived with a girlfriend.”
“Ouch, really,” I said reaching across the table to touch her hand. “How do you know?”
“The cops told me,” she said. “And I suspected something was going on. The only thing we ever really did when we got together was have sex, and that was always at either my house, or a house he had in Woodlawn that was filled with boxes. He kept telling me he lived there, but it didn’t look like anyone lived there. It looked like it was for storage.It really pissed me off.”
“That sucks,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said sadly.

Then she leaned across the table and whispered something to me.
“What?” I said, shaking my head and squinting my eyes, as if that would help me hear better — or maybe make what I thought I’d heard her say, turn into something else.
“Why do I tell the police I took a gun to Ted’s office?” She asked.

It was what I thought I heard her say. I froze. What the hell was she talking about?
“Why do you tell the police you took a gun to Ted’s office?” I repeated. And she quickly nodded yes.

I didn’t know how to answer that question. I didn’t think to ask any follow up questions. I was dumbfounded and suddenly felt like Tim had looked, pale and sweaty. My heart was pounding. I was scared. Dagmar stared at me waiting for a response.

What do I say? What is she saying? In retrospect I would have done a thousand things differently, namely ask her what she meant. Or act like I hadn’t heard her. But instead, I did the obvious, I answered her.
“Tell them you took it to scare him?” I said, but it sounded like a question.
“And then what,” she said.
“And then you accidentally shot him?” I said-asked again.

Tim came back to the table and Dagmar sat up, startled.
“You okay, brother,” she said reaching up to touch his arm.
“Oh yeah, I’m ok. You ready to go, I’m tired,” he said toward me. But he didn’t look into my eyes.
“Ok,” I said too quickly and jumped up.

We said our goodbyes and Dagmar asked how her dogs were doing. Tim said they were fine and he would take care of them now, but I knew that was a lie. He had told me on the ride to Spring Grove that he was going to get rid of them all. I wanted to tell Dagmar. I knew she would be upset. But I also knew she was probably in this hospital for a bit longer.

And then, who knew what was in store for her.

Murder in Baltimore Part 3

Unbeknownst to me at the time, Dagmar had called her brother in California on Thursday morning and left a voice message that she was going to kill herself.
 
Her brother didn’t get that message until 9 p.m. The time difference meant that he got that message about the same time I was leaving her house after locking up the dogs.
 
Her brother called the Baltimore City Police Department and asked them to check on his sister. The cops got to the house at about 1 a.m., and when Dagmar didn’t answer, they broke down the door.

They looked through the house and didn’t see her. But they did see the screensaver going on her computer, and they hit the space bar.

Who the hell was Ted, they wondered.

City homicide was called, but there were no open investigations into the murder of anyone named Ted.

Homicide called Baltimore County Police.

You got any murders of a guy named Ted, city police asked.

Sure do, county police said, we have a guy that was found shot to death in his office two weeks ago.
 
Well, city police said, we have some broad here named Dagmar who tried to kill herself and she left a note that said she didn’t kill Ted. Does that ring a bell?
 
It sure does, county police said, as matter of fact, she is our prime suspect.

Murder in Baltimore Part 2

The next day, as I was taking my nap, Dagmar showed up again and woke me.

“The cops came and talked to me.” She was wringing her hands. “I think they think I had something to do with it.”

I laughed and half shouted, “THAT’S PREPOSTEROUS!” (I really didn’t say that. Who the hell says that? But I said the equivalent. Probably something like, “That’s stupid!”)

I told her not to worry about it, that they’d figure out she wasn’t involved and move on.

Dagmar left and I went to work.

The next day, she came over again and woke me up. I was really aggravated. I told her this was my nap time and she was fucking up my mojo.

“I really think I’m in trouble,” she told me, “Because I lied to the cops.”

“You lied, about what,” I asked, no longer aggravated but intrigued.

“I told them I hadn’t seen or talked to Ted for a few days, but really that night I went by his office and his back window was broken. I reached in the window to see if I could unlock the door, and I got a little cut on my wrist,” she said, showing me a tiny red line. “I’m worried that if they find that blood, they’ll think I had something to do with it.”

“Why the hell did you lie? That was stupid,” I told her.

“I don’t know. I was scared,” she said.

“Why are they even coming and talking to you,” I asked.

“Because he sent me a Valentine’s Day card, but he put the wrong address on it and it went back to his office” she replied.

Now this was getting really interesting. And not the kind of interesting you people think. I was actually excited to know that Dagmar was dating someone.

“I didn’t know you were seeing anyone,” I said all singsongy. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because he was black,” she said.

“So,” I said.

“I don’t know,” she said smiling, “I thought you would think it was wrong.”

It was then that I, sleuth Heidenrich, found this the kind of interesting you people think it is. Some guy she was dating was killed three days before and here she was smiling about him.

“So the guy you were seeing was shot to death in his office, and you went by there the night he was murdered and cut yourself on a broken window?” I said. “Yeah, you better tell the cops that. They are going to find that blood.”

Dagmar agreed. She asked to use the phone and she called her mother for money for an attorney. Amazingly, her prepaid attorney thing didn’t offer murder attorneys.

For the next few days I didn’t see or hear from Dagmar.

And then one day she showed up again during my naptime.

“I’m going out of town the next Friday. And I need you to feed my dogs,” she told me. She said she had this weekend job where she was some sort of skiing tour guide and she had to take a busload of tourists to some mountain resort for the weekend.

I told her I would feed the dogs.

“Have you heard from the cops again,” I asked.

“No,” she said.

She handed me a spare key to her place and told me the dog food was in the kitchen.

Every Thursday, my girlfriend who owns the restaurant would take me and the kids shopping. We’d go to the mall, then have dinner, and make our way back to her restaurant.

On the following Thursday, we were returning from our shopping trip when Lenny the cook came out from the kitchen.

“Some woman keeps calling here for you,” he said, wiping his hand on his grease stained apron and pulled out a phone number from the pocket.”She’s called like four times.”

It was Dagmar’s number.

I popped some coins into the payphone.

“Hello,” I heard faintly on the other end.

Immediately I became worried.

“Dagmar, what’s up. You don’t sound good.”

“I need you to come here right now,” she said.

“What the hell is wrong,” I asked. She sounded so creepy I began to panic.

“I think I have to go to the hospital.”

“Dagmar! What did you do!”

“Please, you need to come here,” she begged.”The back door is open.”

I hung up and called my dad to tell him what Dagmar said. He told my stepmom.

From the background I could hear Rose yelling, “Don’t you go over there!”

“That Dagmar’s crazy,” my father said.

I told him to ask Rose to go with me.

“I ain’t going over there.” She said.

So I went alone.

It was about 7 p.m. and pretty dark outside.

Dagmar’s alley was filled with garbage. Her back gate was locked.

I scaled this ridiculously high cinderblock wall and twisted my ankle jumping down.

Her five big dogs came running out barking and growling and nipping at me. My dog danced happily at my feet.

I waded through them all and went into the kitchen.

“Dagmar!” I yelled.

No answer.

The house smelled awful, like wet dog, and I tried to find a light switch, but couldn’t. It was dark as hell in there, with the only light coming through the front window from the street.

“Dagmar!” I yelled again, swatting the dogs away, and limping into bedroom. It was empty. The only other place to look was her basement.

I started down the stairs, still calling for her when, from the back I heard, “I’m over here.”

I stumbled through clothes hanging from pipes and over boxes and kennels until I could make the faint outline of her body lying on the floor.

“Where’s the goddamned light!” I growled.

She told me to feel on the ceiling. My hands landed on a naked light bulb and I pulled the string. Light flooded the basement.

And lying on a carpet remnant at my feet was Dagmar covered in blood.

“You have to take me to the hospital,” she said, half smiling.

“What the fuck,” I said, staring at her wrist. It looked like ground meat.

“I tried to kill myself, but it didn’t work” she smiled.

I didn’t know what to do. Should I call an ambulance? How long would that take? I guess I could just drive her. Johns Hopkins was right up the street. Yeah, that would be quicker, I’ll drive her.

She had on a pajama top, underwear and no pants.

I’ll have to get her dressed.

I was panicked, pacing back and forth and cussing. I still dont’ know why, but I was so pissed.

“Get the fuck up,” I ordered, but she couldn’t.

“Where are your fucking clothes!”

I ran into the basement bathroom, and in the bathtub there were crusted pools of blood and a serrated bread knife.

That sight me me even angrier.

I called her stupid and screamed at her for calling me. The goddamn dogs were all over the place, tripping me up and still barking.

I pulled her to her feet and helped her to the front of the basement which she used as an office. She told me where the light switch was, and I hit it.

Dagmar stood there, her hand dangling from her wrist. Her smile was still there, but it was apologetic.

“I’m sorry,” she said ” I wasn’t supposed to wake up.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the gaping wound, crosslength on her wrist. It was no longer bleeding.

“That’s not how you cut your fucking wrist you idiot. You cut the other damn way!” I snapped.

I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and practically had to lift Dagmar to get them on her. I slipped some loafers onto her feet, then grabbed a sweater and put it over her shoulders. For a split second I started to put the sweater on her, but realized there was no way I could get that mangled arm through the sleeve.

I helped her up the stairs, found her car keys on the table, and put her in her car.

I cursed her the entire 20 blocks to the hospital.

She told me that earlier that morning she decided it was time to kill herself, so she got into her bathtub and started practicing on her right arm.

She held out her arm and showed me the six or seven superficial cut marks.

After doing that for a bit, she finally got up the courage to really do it. She raised that big old bread knife and zipped it through her right wrist.

“God that hurt,” she said. From the blood loss or pain, she blacked out.

Seven hours later, she woke up and called me when she realized she wasn’t going to die and couldn’t get herself to the hospital.

“I can’t even kill myself,” she said with a half laugh.

She was amazingly chipper, considering the fact that I thought they’d have to amputate her hand.

At the hospital, we walked up to the nurse at the counter and I told her what was going on. She told us to take a seat.

We probably sat there for about 20 minutes in mostly silence except for an occasional loopy comment from Dagmar.

“The plan was that you would find me when you came to check on the dogs,” she said looking sweetly at me.

“You’re an ass,” I hissed, “By then the damn dogs would have eaten you.”

She babbled on some more about how she had thought of asking me to get her some pills.

I shushed her.

Then I heard “Plop. Plop. Plop.”

I looked over and blood was pouring from her wrist. The droplets were smacking onto the linoleum floor and were so thick that when they landed, the blood made little splatter patterns around them.

I jumped up and ran over to a nurse.

“She’s bleeding to death! Can we get a doctor.”
The nurse yawned as if to say, this is Baltimore, lady, you’re friend is better off then most of the people that come in here.

“You’re next,” she said, waving a long, curled sparkling fingernail at me.

We sat there until some woman came over and took us to a desk for paperwork.

She asked about insurance and I had to get Dagmar’s card out of her wallet. Dagmar was bleeding to death in the chair next to me, going on and on about pills and killing herself and giggling.

The woman was typing like a letter a minute. I huffed and sighed, and crossed and uncrossed my legs and scowled wide eyed at the woman as she swam through molasses.

A nurse came and took us into a little curtained off room and we sat there for a just a minute before some young kid doctor came in.

“I have to go home to my kids. Please don’t release her. Keep her here,” I whispered to him after he checked Dagmar out.

He said Dagmar would have to go into surgery and she would stay the night. He was very kind and put his hand on my shoulder and told me it would be OK if I went home.

So I left, muttering to myself in the car.

I went the restaurant and told Bangs what had happened, and then I remembered the dogs. I couldn’t just leave the dogs there, unkenneled with the back door open. I was going to have to go back there to and lock them up.
The dishwasher agreed to go with me.

By the light from the basement, we made our way through the living room, and down the stairs. The dogs followed and Mark and I grabbed each as it walked by and put it into a kennel.

As we were heading back up the stairs to leave, I noticed the screensaver was going on Dagmar’s computer.

“Wait a minute,” I said, and hopped off the stair. I walked over to the computer and hit the space bar.

Up popped a letter.

I do not want to live anymore. I have not killed Ted and have lied.

I will go to jail and my prints are there and my blood is there.

I did not kill him.

There is something very strange going on. I do not want to live.

I cannot take the pain of horrible things people do.

Dagmar rambled on some more about her failed relationships. She talked about what a jerk her last boyfriend was because he wouldn’t have a baby with her.

Suddenly, I was spooked.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” I said and Mark and I scrambled up the stairs and out of the house.

Murder in Baltimore Part 1

My dad had a neighbor in Baltimore whom I met over the cinderblock fence when I was home on leave from the Army in about 1991.

Dagmar was accepted into the family pretty rapidly after our first meeting because my family sucks in weird people and keeps them.

And Dagmar was weird.

She was about 41 when I met her and had several masters degrees that I’m not clear on. The only one I am clear on is that one of them was in Arabic studies. She had been married once to an Arabic man and had lived in an Arabic country. She said her husband beat her.

She was also still bogged down in student loan debt and worked as a temp to pay off the debt. In her sparetime she rescued dogs and delivered pizza.

She was actually very pretty in a dog-lady kind of way. I always thought she looked like a young Katherine Hepburn, covered in dog hair of course.

So over the years, Dagmar became a part of the family. She’d be at Sunday dinners and birthday parties and weddings. I would see her there when I came home for visits.

When she lived next door to my dad she lived with some guy who looked like Bob Villa, only with poofier hair.

Dagmar wanted children, but he did not.

One day during a visit home, I went over to her house and she revealed that after she and what’s-his-face would have sex, she’d scoop up his goo from her belly and put it into a turkey baster and freeze it for insemination at a later date.

I remember standing in her hallway and she was telling me of her clever plan as if it were completely normal. I would say things like, wow, well that’s cool. When, really, I was like, um, you’re a fruitbat.

Sometime in 1996, I moved back to Baltimore to live with my dad.

Because my dog had once eaten through my his basement door, the dog was not welcomed.

Dagmar was living a few blocks away at the time, and being the dog lady that she was, she offered to keep Xavy.

I was grateful.

I rarely saw her except when I’d go down to see Xavy. Once she came by and tried to convince my dad to buy into some prepaid attorney thing she was selling.

I was tending bar from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. at my girlfriend’s restaurant up the street. Every day I’d nap from 3 to 4 p.m.

On Feb. 21, 1997, Dagmar showed up at my dad’s house and woke me up from my nap.

“This guy I know named Ted was murdered,” she said.
She told me she and Ted worked together in this prepaid attorney deal. She told me he also had a radio show about the prepaid gig and that on Feb. 18, his son found him shot to death in his office.

Weird, I said.

Dagmar went on to tell me that the day after Ted was murdered, his friend called her work and accused her of killing Ted.

She was indignant.

Did you kill him, I asked.

No, she scoffed.

I have five dogs

I have 4.25 weiner dogs and .75 jack russell dogs. In reality I have three full-blooded dachshunds, one half-weiner-&-half-jack-russell dog and one three-quarter-weiner-&-one-quarter-jack-russell dog.

It’s illegal to have that many dogs. I worry all the time that the animal control guy is going to come and take my dogs away. Then I realize that the animal control office is really far from my house, and they probably have more important things to do than come to my house and swoop in on my weiner dogs (and .75 jack russell dogs.)

I also have a neglected cat. Skeeter has lived in everyone’s room over the last three years because once Lance and Morrie moved in, I couldn’t leave Skeeter in the living room anymore. Because once Lance and Morrie moved in, my dog quota went from two dogs to five. And a litter box in the living room wasn’t cutting it.

Dogs eat cat poop and not right from the fountain either. They get into the litter box and drag litter across the floor and chew on the poo like taffy. It completely grosses everyone out, except for me. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a dog, so I can’t imagine what it would it would be like to eat cat poop. Lacking that imagination, I dont get grossed out. The way I look at is, I’m happy when my dogs are happy. So if eating Skeeters poop makes ‘em happy, more power to ‘em.

I also have two ducks. One is gorgeous and named Artemis. He is white and regal and I love to look at him.

And then there’s Gomez, the replacement duck.

My girlfriend’s son gave me Gomez because one of the full-blooded weiner dogs kept eating my other ducks.

Pickle the dachshund is crazy and partially paralyzed in her back legs (subsequently, she can’t feel when poop comes out and leaves a trail of turds around the house. It doesn’t bother me to pick up the poop because, again, I dont’ imagine putting the poop into my mouth). But no matter how crippled she is, she is a sniper.

When we first got the ducks, we’d go to the store and come back to duck bodies in their fence and decapitated duck heads outside the fence. Pickle would lay in wait, and when the ducks would stick their heads out the fence to eat the grass, she’d drag her dead ass as fast as her front legs would take her, and snipe off there heads.

So Joe brought us the replacement duck. Victoria and Lance decided the replacement duck looked like he was wearing a tuxedo and they christianed him Gomez after the dad on the Adam’s family.

Anyway, Gomez is like the ghetto duck. Just plain ugly. But Artemis and Gomez are buddies.

And sometimes, when the dogs start barking, Artemis gets right up to the fence and quacks angrily in the dogs’ faces while Gomez stands behind him and throws up gang signs.

Overheard comments …

 

A woman said into her cell phone as she walked past the ice cream section:”You are going to divorce me over a bottle of tequila?”

Exchange between a man and the photo clerk: 

“Would you be the person to develop dirty pictures?”

“If you mean your playing in the mud, then yes.”

I was at the grocery store today …

and as the guy was bagging my groceries, he made an unsolicted observation.

“You must have been hungry. You got a lot of snacks here,” he said, like he was too cool for school.

Hmph.

“No, we’re just bad eaters,” I responded, as if to say shut up and stop looking at my f’ing food.

A short time later, the gal ringing up the groceries was running a ruler over the scanner.

“You didn’t miss a thing,” she chirped.

What the hell is going on? What’s with the snide comments? I just want some goddamned groceries, not editorial comments on what I’ve purchased.

I wonder if I had bought tampons, one of those goobers would have noted:

“Oh, bleeding like a stuck pig, are ya?”

Shaddup.

I never talk to strangers

 

I never talk to strangers because it’s uncomfortable.

But on Thursday, when the town was socked in by a fog like I’d never seen here before, I found myself standing outside smoking one last cigarette before going into the courthouse for arraignments.

Some 19-year-old kid in a beany cap was standing out there too, puffing on a smoke and staring out into the fog.
For some reason I said, “This fog is nutty, huh?” 
“What,” he asked.
“The fog. It’s crazy, isn’t it?” I replied.

I got lost in my own head for a moment wondering why I used the word nutty, only to have the thought interrupted.

“Fuck yeah, this fog is weird.”

It startled me for a moment.

Now, anyone who fucking knows me, knows that I use that word liberally. Matter of fact, my favorite bumper sticker reads, “Fuck you, you fucking fuck.” But for some reason, it really didn’t seem appropriate at this moment.

Trying to turn the conversation around, I said, “They say its going to be in the high 60s today.”

You had to be there to appreciate how unbelievable that forecast would be, since as I talked, steam came out of my mouth. 

“Yeah right,” the kid scoffed, “They never get that shit right. One time they said it was going to be in the 70s and it was like goddamn 33 degrees out.”

I prayed to a passing bird to take me with it.

“Gotta see my P.O.today,” he offered snapping his cigarette into his mouth and walking over to me.
“Oh, you have to go to court?” I replied.
“Nah, just gotta check in,” he said.
“You mean alternative sentencing?” I asked.

He nodded yes.

In my book, alternative sentencing isn’t really a P.O. P.O. stands for parole officer — people on parole are people who were once in prison. A probation officer keeps track of people who get probation instead of prison. Though one may feel tougher saying P.O. it’s really bullshit to refer to your probation officer as your P.O.

“What did you do to get on probation,” I asked.
“Battery with a deadly weapon,” he said, with an upnod of his head.

\We stood there quietly for a moment.

“Who’d you assault,” I asked.
“My brother in law for hitting my sister,” he said.

I nodded, because everyone agrees a brother is allowed to beat up the guy who hits his sister.

The kid went on, “Yeah, I told him when he moved in, if he hits my sister I’d stab him.”
I chuckled and asked through a curled lip, “You didn’t stab him, did you?”
“Yeah I did,” he scoffed.”And I told him if I went to jail I would kill him.”
“Did you kill him,” I asked.
“Nah. We’re friends again.”

I started to dig through my purse, but there was too much crap in there to really dig without taking stuff out. And the truth was, I didn’t really need anything, I just wanted out of the conversation.

Finally, I butted out my cigarette and started to walk inside.

“Nice talking you,” he said, as I walked through the automatics doors into the courthouse.
“Take it easy,” I replied.