It is daytime and I’m standing on the sidewalk outside some police precinct. What city? A dun-colored block. Office buildings and a parking lot with a chain link fence. Tall weeds grow up through the sidewalk. After the catastrophe. I don’t seem to have anything with me, no phone, no wallet, no box of records. I’m not wearing shoes. I am not sure why I am here. Something happened, something in the past. I am in pain. My whole body feels pulpy, disarranged.
A lawyer is waiting on the sidewalk. A man dressed as a lawyer, in the costume of a lawyer. Sharp suit and tie pin and rapacious cuffs. He approaches, grinning like a long lost friend. It is as if he has been superimposed on the blasted streetscape, a man moving through another context (a meeting room, a restaurant) that would allow for such apparent ease and expansiveness.
—The media are all at the other precinct. We asked the Police Department to tell them they were holding you over there.
He’s carrying two large cups of coffee. All I’m seeing, really, is the coffee.
—Sugar’s already in that one.
Reaching out my arm is painful. I only have hearing in one ear. There is a whisper in the other, a flutter of static. Media, I ask. What media? To hear when he speaks, I have to hold my head at a certain angle.
—Look, can I drive you somewhere? They’re probably already on their way over. The PD only stalled them as a favor to us. Out of respect for our privacy.
He can’t be much older than me. Handsome, alpha, well-adjusted. A perfectly symmetrical face in a frame of accurately cut dark hair. When I look away it is hard to retain the details of his face in my mind. All I am left with is a sense of attractiveness, plausibility, an invitation to trust without any of the accompanying qualities (reassurance, warmth) which actually inspire trust.
—Our privacy?
—The family. I represent the Wallace family. And yours, of course. Your privacy. The privacy of all those affected by these terrible events. Please, my car’s just here.
I nod, mutely. It hurts to breathe. I want to get in a car and go home. I want someone to pick me up and drive me to an orderly suburban house, to sit in a kitchen and eat a sandwich and drink a glass of orange juice. We pull away from the police precinct and the solid sound of the doors locking is so comforting that I begin to cry. The lawyer pretends he has not noticed this. After a while I collect myself. We drive out of town along a straight road lined with junkyards. I ask if he knows where my things are and he says what things.
—My clothes. I left my stuff at the motel. I have no shoes.
—Sure, buddy. Thoughtless of me. Let’s get you fixed up.
We pull in at a big box store and the lawyer buys me shoes and underwear, a polo shirt, toiletries, a little rip-stop nylon hold-all to put it all in. I change in the bathroom and wash my face and brush my teeth and plug my ear with toilet paper, muting the roar and the whine. Dressed in my oversized new shirt I feel like a service sector employee. Hellomynameis. When I’m finished changing, I watch the lawyer for a few moments from the doorway before I step back out. He is tapping keys on his phone, pacing to and fro just inside the sliding doors, bathing in the chill of the air-conditioning. Everything about him is precise. The knot of his tie, his unblemished skin. Some men thrive under discipline. They express themselves through correctness. All that pent-up energy is probably released by playing some slightly esoteric sport (fencing, pelote) on weekends.
—You look a lot better.
—I just want to go to bed.
—Rough night. I get it. How about some breakfast? I need to talk to you. It’ll only take a few minutes.
A big grin. Overdoing it. I realize he is nervous. There is something he wants. We drive a tortuous route out of town, taking turns on small rural roads that run between fields of soy and corn. Finally we pull over at a diner, an old wooden shack with peeling pink paint and a barbecue pit in the yard. Inside it is crowded with solid citizens, the atmosphere a steamy fug. An obese young cashier is wedged behind the register at the door. Beyond him, in some kind of open kitchen, women are frying steaks in iron skillets. As we wait, the lawyer sends more texts, updates to whoever is controlling him. The walls are covered with framed photographs, crowded together in drifts and clusters. Black-and-white eight-by-tens of forgotten singers and actors, groups of men holding fish, giving the thumbs-up. White people together, at work and leisure down the generations.
We squeeze through to our table. The lawyer takes off his jacket, revealing a pair of suspenders embroidered with the crest of some team or society. He orders breakfast. I have to turn slightly to the side to hear him talk. He says my privacy matters. He says the family wants to help me protect myself.
—Did he do it?
—Who?
—The man they arrested. Charlie Shaw.
—Try the tamales.
Above our table are pictures of judges, an astronaut. I eat a little food. I am very hungry, but the inside of my mouth is raw and my tongue is swollen, so it hurts to swallow. The lawyer notices that I am in pain. He adopts an expression of concern.
—What kind of health insurance do you have? I’ll give them a call, get them to cover some out-of-pocket expenses.
—I don’t want a doctor. I want to see Charlie Shaw. How would I do that?
—Why would you want to? I mean, come on. You’re being too hard on yourself. You don’t need to take every burden on your shoulders. You know?
—No, I don’t. I don’t know. How would I find out where he’s being held?
He sighed.
—About all that. I understand you must feel very emotional right now. This is an emotional time for you. For all of us, but you especially. My own personal opinion? You should take a step back. The family is grieving for a beloved daughter, as well as their son. Can you imagine what they’re going through? The last thing they need right now is intrusion, and the potential media interest is, well, you understand. It’s not what anyone wants. So they’re worried about you. You don’t have the same resources, so you’re more vulnerable to—to press intrusion.
—Intrusion.
—Violations of your privacy. At this difficult time.