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J O A N N E [1]
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Date: 2023-05-01
“J O A N N N N E ! ! ! !”
The sound blew through the open doorway of her office and engulfed the wide-open corridor of the old high school building as if it alone had license to be there; so forcefully that there was not the usual empty hollowness merely being interrupted as when voices seemed to bounce off the walls and ceiling from normal conversation. It caused heads to lift or turn to face their own closed office doors all along the hallway. Conversations stopped. Faces froze, mouths dropped and brows furrowed as eyes tried to make sense of it. It was unnatural, less directed at anyone than to the gods, an exclamation, a denial that what had just been heard could have been said. Not after what they had been, had done, had meant to...hadn't they always, hadn't he always loved her, always told her how he loved her, touched her with such...kissed her allthetime knowing they...this was not a possibility; in the weirdest of dreams it could not be happening, yet she had said it. She had said that. First that she wouldn't be going to lunch with him today. Why? What's the ma…."Because I don't want to be with you anymore. I don't love you anymore." She'd said it while glancing up from her work, glancing up from her paperwork with a pen in her hand and looking him directly in the eyes with that perplexing look that he knew he could never forget. And she looked now with that emotionless look of it’s over, with no empathy, no feeling as he'd beseeched the heavens to nullify it. She sat behind her desk amongst travel brochures and contracts, pens and pads and file-folders, with schedules and destinations flickering on her computer screen, and nothing more. She would never get up from her desk and leave her work behind to be with him again for that hour. She with primped hair and makeup, polished fingernails and the deepest red matching lipstick. She so businesslike in her petite dark blue skirt, white blouse and dainty gold necklace, he straight from his own work, Levis, Timberlands and a thrown-on red flannel shirt. She wanted more than that. She wanted to be more and see more, and have more. She'd met men, there in that office, businessmen, professionals, making their plans, planning their trips. She'd flirted with them. It was part of her job at the agency, after all. "Be friendly and smile readily and don't be afraid to flirt." Hadn't Ms Oates told her that from the first day? She'd been tempted you know, with compliments, invitations, with offers; she knew she was pretty and she knew there was more; and she could have more. More than Chinese dinners or any dinners with a pot-smoking vinyl-siding contractor's helper. Even if one day he really could start his own business. Even if he could become successful, it's all he would be. Ever.
"JO - A N N E!!!" This time was different from the first. This time it was thrown right in her face like an iced-cold glass of water because she'd just sat there with that look. Now his cheeks reddened with building anger. His brows lowered and his face tensed as it seemed to move closer, leaning toward her, though he'd not moved, yet. His teeth were tightly clenched and cheek-muscles bulged, and suddenly without warning he was across her wide desk on his stomach and everything on it was flying in its own direction and onto the floor. Without forethought his arms went out and his calloused hands went tightly around her throat. The tiniest scream had time to leave her before she was taken by him, swirling sideways in her chair as he slid past her computer screen and partly into her lap. She couldn't do a thing to loosen, let alone escape the anger of his grip. His cocked and flailing right leg sent the monitor crashing to the floor. Suddenly there was a man rounding her doorway. He was a slight man, in a dark blue suit and red tie, who despite his age and size had come straight-forth from three doors away, out his own lettered frosted-glass door where his name was neatly printed there in script.
"W-what are you do ing?" he yelled as forcefully as he could. "Stop it! We-we-we've called the police!" Other doors had opened and others of the occupants, mostly women, were moving a step or two into the hallway, still not knowing what was happening or could be awaiting them. They glanced worried looks at each other and then back down the hall. "Stop it!" And suddenly, he did. He just stopped, now with his own cold empty look piercing through the pupils of her widened brown eyes with a look of exacted revenge and disgust and betrayal, past her fear-filled expression, past her disheveled hair and heaving chest and half-limp body slumped into that weaving chair. He stopped because he knew he could've finished it, and he broke from her as his body slid down further and onto the floor, spinning her chair a full 360 where she came back almost facing him again, then he got up, still with that look turning now to stunned uncertainty, and groped himself around the side of her desk and had the slight man not stepped back from the doorjamb he would've most assuredly been swept somewhere into the hallway. Suddenly people were scrambling back into their offices and doors slammed abruptly and locks clicked as they recognized the face of the young man stumbling clumsily out the doorway then breaking into a full run down the long hallway toward the rear exit. And was gone.
When Mr Zinakis arrived from his work he found a smattering of people in the hallway outside that first open doorway on the left; they in turn sidestepped his path whilst with short erratic sentences told him with all-at-once over-lapping tidbits of what had happened and how utterly frightening it had been. He passed through them quickly but deliberately as they reached from either side to touch his shoulder, and entered the small office to find two policemen, one jotting as his daughter was finishing her recounting of the ordeal. The slight man was just inside the doorway still, adding details of what he'd witnessed while a lady from further down the hall, a casual friend stood leaning over the back of the victim's chair with her hands on the sides of her shoulders.
"He was r-red with rage, I thought he'd never let go of her. Then finally he stopped.”
"Let me see," said the father almost in monotone and the girl lifted the cold wet compress away from the sides and front of her neck. The towel had soaked her blouse, and the father's eyes widened and he gasped to see the deep red and already-purpling welts circling her throat. His anger couldn't stop the tears from streaming down his cheeks.
"Oh, Jo, I'm so sorry we never thought he'd react like thi…we jus….”
"Look Mr Zinakis," said the nearest officer, "You can come on in and have a few words with your daughter, but this kid's still out there and he's not in a very good state. We've gotta get to him before he hurts himself or someone else." The father's face flushed red and dropped into an angry look of imminent attack.
"Hurts someo...I hope he hurts someone I hope he drives off a fucken bridge."
"Mr Zinakis, comeon out here," and the other officer guided him gently out the door and deepthroated whispers could be heard as he tried to calm him down in the hallway as his partner wrapped up his questioning then turned to go...
"Is that it?” the father asked in a still excited voice as his head jerked in the direction of the movement, as his eyes darted with astonishment from one cop and back to the other and then into the eyes of the building crowd.
"Yes, we'll be looking for him and we'll be in touch. You should both come to the station this afternoon when you feel up to it."
Her parents were beside themselves. They'd always treated him courteously, they felt, had him now and then to supper, once to Sunday dinner. They'd fully accepted that the two would inevitably marry, one day. They'd wished, of course...they were Greek, after all; they'd given her so much, wanted so much for her to have a good life. They'd always thought that a professional man, educated...a handsome Greek young man could make her happiest. Hadn't she been brought up that way. Hadn't they carefully slipped that in now and then during innocuous conversation these past few years. But they'd started so young; in the beginning he would call every day after school, and visit whenever they'd consent, in the afternoons or, later, after the supper meal. They'd never liked the idea of them being alone in the basement rec room like that, though. She especially had never liked the idea of that at all, but of course it was their daughter, whom they trusted. Soon he was coming there nearly every night, the two of them down there in that room. They'd never liked that. Or how those first few visits, just a few days their junior year had turned to months, then a year, two, three, and four.
Three days had passed. The father and daughter had returned to the police station several times for pictures, interviews, and more interviews. A restraining order of course had been enacted. Charges had been filed; attempted murder. The sargent had talked to them about that several times in their interviews. It seemed so harsh; it seemed extreme. The young man had not been seen since he ran heavy-footed down that hallway and out that door, but now they learned that he had gone to the station, walked right into the station wearing the same clothes and looking hell-haggard with ashen unshaved face disheveled blonde hair and red-welted eyes. He'd been incarcerated on the spot, retained a public defender who'd worked feverishly from the beginning trying to get bail and the charges at least lessened, and after two days he'd finally been bonded and released. His parents had placed their home as collateral, and he'd been released to them with the stipulation of course that he have no contact with the principals. And he would never see or talk to her again. Eventually there were preliminary hearings and postponements as his defender tried to mount the defense. Of course it had been temporary insanity, he’d argued, of course it was. It was still very serious, everyone involved knew it, but he was a kid, a good kid who’d never had trouble in his life. The lawyers of the two parties had conversed, had talked candidly of the unfortunate circumstances and the extreme penalties the young man faced. The Zinakises, the mother most adamantly would hear nothing of proposals, though, and ultimately it would be left to the courts and the people.
On a warm and sunny Saturday morning in May Charlie Boucher leaned over his rake working the side lawn. His lower back ached, but their belated spring cleanup had him by the collar, he having already cleaned all the leaves and junk behind the huge freestanding six-bay garage. In coming weeks they’d be putting in 52 replacement windows from basement to attic, scraping housetrim and painting. There were large rickety front and rear porches and outside stairs going up the three floors to fix up and spruce up, outside screens to install around each’s perimeter and much more after that. The place was definitely a fixer-upper. He and one of his younger brothers had lucked out during the recent downturn in the housing market and had scored this big six-unit renter. They'd taken the worst two for themselves, Mickey and his girlfriend, Charlie and his wife and baby girl, but they were well along with their inside preps and had rented three of the remaining four units. Up until this weekend, today really, they'd been pretty sure they'd made the right move, he was thinking, but...young kids playing gleefully in the street scrambled screeching in mock horror while older ones sauntered to the sidewalks as the old red-and-white Chevy pickup turned the corner and bucked up the street trying to find gears, then turned at the big white house, and he stepped further onto the grass as it crunched along the gravel driveway and clutch in, coasted down to where he was standing.
"Uncle Jeff."
"Heyy, Chuckie, got your sawz-all for ya."
"That's okay, I told'ja I didn't need it back yet."
"Well, sometimes it's nice to return something before it's needed." That was Uncle J all right, he was a oner, always thinking beyond himself. It seemed all the men in the family were carpenters, or sheet-rockers or roofers, except him. So what he missed out on behind a desk weekdays, he'd make up for with his own projects on his two free days. He called it having fun, and even though Charlie loved the work and always had and could do absolute wonders with what would start out just a pile of pine or oak boards, it was still work to him, at least during his week, which too many times were more than 5 and 40. The driver's door made creaky cranking noises as it opened and the uncle slid off the seat with the right foot helping ease the favored left to the ground. His pained grunt that he’d tried to muffle could still be heard.
"So what's goin on?"
"Aagh, you wouldn’t believe it, Uncle J, we got a problem."
"What?"
"One o' my renters came home drunk about one a:clock last night an' when he swung inta the driveway he clipped the edge o' the fence over there." As he pointed with a cock of the chin they both looked in that direction to see the rotted paint-bare pickets leaning off-square, where it was apparent they'd previously been erect.
"Soo…so what?”
"That's what I told him, but he was all upset about it an' kept saying what a loser he was; I kept telling him it was a piece o' crap an' I was gonna tear it up an' replace it later this summer anyway. He was so caught up in what he did, I don't even think he heard me. I told 'im it was okay. He parked his car down the enda the driveway an' staggered up the back stairs an' I figured he'd be asleep pretty soon. He was ripped. I mean, I didn't even hear it, but about a half hour later one o' my other renters comes an' tells me they heard a gunshot; he shot himself in the fucken head."
"Wwhat?"
"Yeah the police were here all night. He was such a nice kid, too. He was always smiling, always in a good mood. He was the nicest guy."
"Wo-ow, Charlie, I-I’m so sorry.”
"He lost his job about three weeks ago, an' I figured it was prob'ly causa the drinking, an' he had some kinda court case going on since last fall with his girlfriend, but he never talked about it so I thought everything was okay with it an' he told me he had enough money saved ta cover his rent till he got another job. He did siding so I'm sure there was gonna be work for 'im."
"What a shame. How old?"
"Twenty-two. Mickey an' me went in an’ we were talking to the cops, an’ we’re looking inta cleaning up places like this. They said there's a lotta money in it; they just hire a company. We were talking ta the cops about it. His brains were all over the place on the walls an' ceiling I don't think there was a spot that was clean, a big puddle o' blood an' blood everywhere all over his bed."
The uncle was just about wordstruck as he stared with a crumpled brow and mouth cocked partly-open with discomfort and empathy.
"His parents are coming over during the week I guess if it's clean by then an' gonna take his stuff. We just got done painting it in April, an’ I guess we gotta paint it again now."
"What an awful thing,” shaking his head not knowing what else to say.
"Yeah. Mick an' me are thinking about going ta Kuwait for a year or maybe a year-ana-half. We both saw those ads about needing guys for construction an' they pay wicked good money."
"Man, Chuck, I don’t like hearing that; it's dangerous."
"Yeah I know that's the only thing but we could really get ahead on everything I mean really ahead. You don't get a chance like that too often."
"Well, I hope you think about it a lot, Chuckie."
"Yeah, we're gonna, but we could really catch up on stuff an' get ahead."
"Okay. Well, I guess I better get back home," and he had a troubled look as he climbed back up onto the worn seat, started his truck up and pulled the floor-stick into reverse. As the truck started to move he leaned out the open window past his resting elbow.
"I hope you think seriously about that."
"Yeah we're gonna, we're only going if we both go."
"It's not a very good idea, you know." In all of that he hadn’t said anything about Vietnam and what it was still doing to him. But they both knew it had its place without saying.
The sides of Charlie's mouth tightened as he nodded in partial agreement.
"Okay then, I'll see ya." Then he squealed the breaks to a pause again and leaned out.
“If you’re thinking any more about Kuwait, we need to talk.” His voice had turned to all kinds of cracks and his eyes seemed filled and ready to explode. He’d never seen him like that.
"Okay, see ya," And as the truck backed whining out of the driveway, then scraped into first and drove back down the road and taking a left around that nearby corner, the kids made way again then returned to the street and Charlie arched his back trying to stretch his tender muscles, then turned back to finish up his lawn. He’d always looked up to his uncle, being 7 years younger, and couldn’t guess that he was he just trying to protect him from something he knew.
[END]
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