Then there must be some other cause. Do you care to speculate?
I’ll speculate. She’s going through menopause. That’s all it is. She’s having a down time. She’s depressed. She’s unhappy. Her hair is turning gray and she’s got a wrinkle. She’s turning into an old lady and she doesn’t like it. She’s blaming her troubles on me. That’s all. It’s not me who’s caused her to be unhappy. It’s a biological condition called old age. But I have five kids and I can’t emotionally afford to be separated from them. I had six and lost one to leukemia two years ago. He was only eight years old. My youngest. After he died, my wife started to have her menopause. With that came her depression, for which she blames me. Do you have any idea, detective, what it is like to live with someone who is chronically depressed?
No.
Always being blamed for one thing or another is what it’s like. From morning ‘til night, the screaming that takes place in my house. The screaming that comes from her mouth. The screaming and screaming about how it’s my fault everything has gone to hell. What do you mean? I ask my wife. What’s going to hell? You know what’s gone to hell, she tells me. Everything has gone to hell. This family has gone to hell. Our relationship has gone to hell. There is no more happiness in our family. I need oxygen, she keeps telling me. I need a breath of fresh air. I can’t take it anymore. I need for you to move on. That’s what she keeps telling me, how she feels trapped. She tells me I need to move on because she’s unhappy. But the way I see it, being unhappy isn’t grounds for a divorce. We sign on for life. That’s what marriage is. It’s a life-long commitment. ‘Til death do us part. A divorce…let me be frank with you, detective. A divorce would kill me. It would utterly destroy me. I know you see me here ranting and raving and you think I’m a madman. I can tell by the way you’re looking at me. I can tell you think I’m a lunatic. You’re trying to hide your judgment of me, but I see your smirk. I can see the smirk on your face. Please. Remove the smirk.
No sir. With all due respect, I am far from smirking.
I am not a madman, I tell you. I’m a reasonable man who’s angry. I’m angry that my wife’s menopause is threatening me. I'm pissed off that you and a dirty lawyer are trying to do me in. This is what makes me angry. Not angry. Berserk with anger. I’m berserk. This whole thing is making me berserk. I can’t believe it’s happening to me. I’m a normal man whose wife has gotten out of control and now she, you, and a lawyer are threatening to destroy me.
With all due respect, sir, this isn’t about destroying you.
I have five living kids that depend on me, detective. I don’t need people like you and that high-priced scumbag lawyer of hers to try and take it away from me.
I’m recording all this, I hope you know…
You’re smirking is what you’re doing. You’re smirking at me, and if you don’t remove the smirk from your face you will pay a high price, I promise you, detective.
I’m not smirking.
You sit there and you think you’re safe. You laugh at me. You think I’m some kind of monkey. The truth is I have dedicated myself for twenty-eight years to this family of mine, and I don’t intend for anyone to take it away from me. I’m a bricklayer. Do you know what that is? A bricklayer is a slave. Someone who gets his balls busted every hour of the day and who comes home dead tired from work. A bricklayer is someone who actually works for a living. Do you even know what work is, detective? I will tell you what work is. It’s not sitting in coffee shops like this trying to ruin people’s lives. I stand on a scaffold all day with a trowel in hand laying bricks. Or in my case, heavy blocks. All day long laying sixty-pound blocks. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year. I lay them in hundred-degree weather while you sit in your air-conditioned office. My skin scorched by the sun. I lay them in the winter, too. My fingers so cold I can hardly pick the blocks up. The antifreeze they put in the mortar to keep it from freezing destroys my skin. I work my ass off building buildings while guys like you sit around interviewing people in coffee shops. I don’t have time like you to sit around in coffee shops sipping coffee, detective. I can’t afford to miss a day of work. Unlike you, if I miss a day of work my family goes hungry. Do you think I would have been able to carry on with this labor all these years if I knew that it was only going to result in my wife taking it all away from me? Taking it away because she became unhappy because she noticed a wrinkle in her skin? Do you think that a man like me is going to let an unhappy woman and a money-hungry lawyer and a fucked-up detective who’s never worked a day in his life take away from me the only thing in this world that I have? My family?
Sir, if you want, we can end this interview right now.
I will tell you this, detective. This ain’t no game. You want to spy on me and break up my marriage? You want to try and ruin my life? Well I can play that game too. Believe me.
Sir, it’s your wife who started all of this. Without her initiating this, neither the lawyer nor myself would be here.
You fuel the fire is what you do, detective. You fan the flames. If you think you can win this, you are sorely mistaken. I am stronger than you, and I know how to play this game too, if I want to.
Sir, with all due respect, as I mentioned, I am recording this conversation. You do realize that…
Too late for that. Too late for anything.
Is there anything else you need to tell me, sir? Because I am afraid I won’t be able to continue under the conditions…
Under the conditions, you would do well to leave me alone. That’s all I have to say.
OK, then, this interview is done.
I stopped the recorder.
Have a nice day, I told him.
He pushed the table so it cut into my gut, and tilting his head said: You already crossed the line. I'm on to you, detective.
Abruptly, he was gone.
I watched him disappear down the sidewalk. He had a loping stride. His arms seemed powerful, dangerous. He wore work boots coated in dried concrete. I tried to imagine what he would do to me. Beat me over the head with those hands of his? A red bandana hung from his rear pocket and swung in cadence to his walk. He turned left around the corner and was gone out of my life.
?
I called Cal. What are you doing?
I’m lifting weights and pluming pot smoke out my window. I’m still paranoid my mom is going to catch me smoking weed.
Cal, you’re a grown man. Are you telling me she doesn’t know you smoke weed?
I never told her.
Surely she can smell it on you, don’t you think? After all these years?
I’ve never been certain what my mom can smell or not. I’m not sure her nose is very good. If she were a bird dog, we’d have to retire her. Thankfully, she’s just a fluffy old poodle with bad joints. Now what do you want Art? You caught me between reps. I’m trying to build up my pecs.