Page 27 of Jealous of the Clouds
“Present!” The voice behind me was one I knew well from podcasts and a few meetings. I turned to find Karl behind me; he’d just come in the door.
“Good timing.” I forced a smile I wasn’t feeling and let the host lead us to a table that had just opened up next to the windows facing Belmont. The sidewalk outside was crowded with commuters just getting off the L at Belmont and revelers headed east for Wrigleyville and farther east, Boystown. In another time, I might have felt happy, excited.
But that was another time. Now, the crowds only served to make me feel more alone, more out of the loop of what passed, I assumed, for thesenormalfolk. You know, the ones who’d never dated a murderer…
Once we were settled, cinnamon rolls and coffee ordered, I came right to the point. “I listened to your latest podcast. At first, I almost made myself sick with worry that you were about to include me in it.”
“I told you. I would never do that.” Karl smiled. He cocked his head, “I hope you’ll come to trust me.”
I believed him. Sometimes, we just have a sense, deep within, that something is true and right. “Anyway, the guys youdidprofile? They have me worried.” And it was at this very moment that I realized just how anxious I was—and concerned—and afraid.
I went on to tell him how increasingly possessive and jealous Josh was becoming—how he seemed to want us to be in our own tiny bubble of two. “Look, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need a few friends in my life, a little diversity. He wants no one around us. Ever.”
“Isolation is often the beginning of abuse. Classic. Has he done anything threatening?”
“Threatening? No. Not really.”
“So you’re concerned you have a possessive boyfriend on your hands?” Karl asked.
“That would be the logical conclusion. But that would be for a world we both know I’m not living in.” I paused for a minute and then words poured out of me that I wasn’t planning on speaking, at least not yet. But they’d been so pent up, it was though a dam was bursting. “He killed your brother, didn’t he?”
Karl set down his coffee and peered for a long time out the window at the throngs of people on the sidewalk, hurrying east or west. The street was clogged with traffic. “Do you really want me to answer that? Isn’t the tone and theme of my podcast enough of an answer for you?”
“I’m sorry.” Karl’s pale blue eyes appeared darker somehow. I felt as though I’d wounded him—and I probably had. I had anurge to stand and move around the table to hold him. I resisted the urge and waited for him to respond.
“Yes. I believe he killed my brother,” he spoke the words softly, so softly that even I, across the table, could barely hear him.
Karl looked around nervously. I guess he thought the same as I did—that most people in the Swedish restaurant were not talking of murder, especially the killing of family members. In spite of the comfortable temperature of the room, I was chilled, once again, an outcast from the so-called normal world.
“I’m hoping what I can uncover withMeat Lockerwill urge—or maybe force is the better word—the authorities to take a second, and harder, look at the case. It’s never been officially closed, but I know for a fact it’s dropped well off the radar. That’s often what police do—if they can find a solution that fits in the puzzle, it can be good enough, no matter how hard they have to shove to make it fit. It’s one more case off their load. And don’t get me started on prejudice and homophobia.”
Karl paused to stare out at the night. His mouth turned down at the corners when he looked back. “After all, it was just a random gay drug addict killed in an alley. Who gives a shit?”
“I do. And lots of folks like me.” I cocked my head. “Why are you so sure it was Josh?”
“Richard Blake, mainly. I mean, come on. You listened to my last podcast?”
I told him I had. What had happened to Richard Blake was also my reason for concern, or at least a prominent reason, a compelling one.
“Concern?”
“More than concern, I guess.” I looked down at the cinnamon roll before me. Nothing had ever looked more unappetizing. It might as well have been a cockroach. I shoved it away. “I need to escape from him. But I’m afraid. I’m certain he’ll come after me.”
“What do you want to do, Ted?”
I thought again of Richard Blake and how he’d escaped. He’d set up his own personal witness protection program. I pondered my life here in Chicago, my job, the friends I’d neglected since meeting Josh, the lakefront, the diverse ethnic neighborhoods, the bars and restaurants I’d once loved frequenting. Chicago was home—the lake was always east, its streets a logical grid (for the most part). I could navigate this metropolis now with ease. The possibility of giving all that up seemed hugely unfair and filled me with rage at the mere prospect of such a loss. I realized suddenly just how much Josh—and his jealousy—had stolen. “I want to free myself, but I just don’t know how.”
“I can’t make that decision for you. But I can promise you this, even though we don’t know each other well—I will do everything in my power to help you. It’s the least I can do. For Reggie. For you.”
His words hung in the air between us, touching my heart deeply. Was he offering a lifeline to a drowning man?
Or an anvil?
It all snapped into place how precarious a position I’d put myself in. And all just for wanting a man to love me. Was that so much to ask for? It didn’t seem fair.
“Thanks.” It was all I could think of to say. The lights in the restaurant seemed too bright, the conversation too loud. I wanted to escape, but had no idea to where. I threw a twenty-dollar bill on the table, supposing it was enough to cover our small bill. I stood on legs I wasn’t at all sure were able to support me. I imagined how I must look to Karl, literally sick with worry—pale, sweaty, trembling. “Look, I need to get out of here,” I practically gasped.
“Going home? Is he there?”
