Cue the amped-up, percussive spy music. (Film noir, not Bond.)
Standing in the shadows of trees, rooftop pools, and fat, drunken slobs, Our Heroine comes face-to-face with a different kind of shadow: her arch nemesis, Shadow Kid (duhn-duhn-duuuuh!!!!). Shadow Kid tests Our Heroine’s theory that heroes are not without blemish, villains not without virtue. If Shadow Kid holds a single ounce of virtue in his heart, thinks Our Heroine, it is kept well hidden. It isn’t the first time her theory has been put to test, and it won’t be the last.
With more than a little help from her sidekicks, Our Heroine escapes the clutches of Shadow Kid unscathed, unfettered, and unmurdered. Much to her chagrin, however, she now must deal with the inept Constable Randy, and though Our Heroine has done nothing wrong . . .
Okay, cut, cut, cut.
Sorry, Iz—I had every intention of keeping up the cloak-and-dagger-Bogart-forties-black-and-white bullshit, but honestly, I just don’t have it in me. I’m too hungry. And pissed. I’m hungry and pissed, and I’m sure you understand.
So.
Northern Kentucky seems to be experiencing a substance and despair monsoon.
How do I know this?
Well, right now I’m sitting in an interrogation room at the Independence police station. I’m not under arrest or anything, but apparently little things like constitutional rights don’t matter here in Independence. (I know. The irony. I just . . . I can’t.)
Anyway, it appears I have some time on my hands, so let’s talk Reasons.
Reason #7 ends with a pill, and begins with a grizzly bear.
GRIZZLY BEAR
(Feared, Murdered, Stuffed, Admired)
Ferocious? Yep.
Out of place? Bingo.
Key ingredient to the world’s most awesome doctor’s office waiting room? You bet your sweet ass.
I still remember my first visit to Dr. Makundi’s office like it was yesterday. The waiting room had toys for the kids and magazines for the parents, but it also had that life-sized, stuffed grizzly. For everyone.
On the first of what would turn out to be just under a hundred visits to Dr. Makundi’s office, I walked right up to that giant brown grizzly and touched its claw. I was eleven at the time, and it was a bear, so really, I had no choice. (I mean. It was a bear. A bear.) So I stood there, cowering in its ever-still shadow, staring into those great glassy eyes, positive the thing would come alive at any moment and swallow me whole. I recalled one of my favorite childhood stories, Pierre by Maurice Sendak, about a lion who swallowed a naughty boy named Pierre. (Have you read this book? My God, it is deliciously macabre!) Anyway, as I was quite a naughty child, I was sure the bear would turn out to be just like that lion, which is to say, I was sure he would swallow me whole.
But he did not.
“Mim,” said my father, waving me over.
Clearly, Dad had no respect for murdered/stuffed bears. Reluctantly, I pulled myself away from the terrifying taxidermy and sat in the chair between Mom and Dad.
“You’re okay with being here, right?” said Dad.
I nodded. There was, after all, a bear.
Mom put her arm around me. “If you’re uncomfortable with any of Dr. Makundi’s questions, just say the word, okay? We can leave whenever you want.”
Dad, thinking I couldn’t see him, rolled his eyes. (This eye roll, combined with a textbook nostril flare, would become his trademark, a look that would haunt me well into my teen years.) “It might be tough sometimes,” he said. “But you’re tough, right? My tough girl. You’ll answer whatever the doctor asks, won’t you tough girl?”
I nodded, because whatever, there was a fucking bear right there.
Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase here, Iz, as a slew of doctor visits doesn’t exactly make for stimulating reading. Dr. Makundi, as it turned out, was more than a decent doctor. He was a decent man. He was short and round and always wore a bow tie. He was the only East Indian I’ve ever encountered who had red hair. Like, Weasley red. In fact, he used to joke that he was Irish-in-hiding. (“My name is even camouflaged . . . MAC-oondi,” he’d say. And then laugh, effing heartily.) He let me talk when I needed to talk, and he talked when I needed to listen. He even played Elvis in the background without my having to ask. Over the next four years, Makundi and I took our time “getting to the root,” as he called it. His methods went like this: wait, talk, think, watch, listen. Sitting with him required patience and a certain bold individuality. I had plenty of both, so it worked. Makundi had his own practice, which I know doesn’t really say much these days, but he really did it up old-school. He wasn’t tied down to any one notion of popular treatment, or pulled hither and thither by powerful drug companies. He played games and told stories because as he put it, “Life is more fictional than fiction.” He did things his way. And that was good enough for me. And that was good enough for Mom.