Page 7 of Jealous of the Clouds
I suppose shock is a credible excuse for leaving the partner he claimed to love to die alone on oil-stained alley bricks, surrounded by garbage. I suppose Kade’s mind might have gone into self-protective mode, obliterating the horror of the incident, if only for a few hours. I suppose a lot of things.
Yet I can’t help but wonder why the story, to my mind, doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny. Sure, hate crimes happen. Unfortunately, they happen every day. And some of our political leadership, especially in red states like Florida and Texas, stop just short of encouraging, if not condoning, them.
Yet the term hate crime was eventually applied to the case and it was essentially closed. I say essentially because the killer has never been found, so there’s always a chance…
Meat Lockeris determined to at least garner some renewed interest in the case and, at most, find the killer ourselves or help the authorities do it. It would mean justice for Reginald Baker, and maybe, just maybe, a kind of peace and some closure for those who actually loved him.
*
I clicked the pause icon on my iPhone and plopped down on a bench facing the lake. It was Saturday morning, about a week after Josh had made his startling confession. With work and my own unease, I’d made excuses not to see him this week, but that was about to change tonight, since we had a date to go out to dinner in Evanston at Cross-Rhodes, one of my favorite Greek-American spots. It was a little hole in the wall, but had delicious food and was only a few stops north from my place on the L.
Today, I’d woke earlier than usual, around six a.m., perhaps trying to chase down dream fragments. Since Josh had told me about his traumatic and tragic history, I’d been troubled by nightmares—terrifying images of shadowy figures wieldingknives, of me running through the tunnels that went beneath Lakeshore Drive, of hiding in a closet while someone with heavy black boots and malicious intent prowls my apartment, breathing outside the partially-open closet door where I waited, paralyzed.
The worst thing I could recall was a dream I had a few days ago, which was so real because it was me, waking up in my own bed in real time. Josh hovered over me, holding a knife at his side, and smiling. “Good morning,” he said, just before he raised the knife.
I woke screaming, my bedclothes damp with sweat and perhaps tears. My alarm clock was playing “Gloria.”
I woke once more, heart racing and glad to finally be in the real present, or at least I hoped I was. I looked down at the foot of the bed, where Mrs. Davis sat, grooming herself in a perfect shaft of sunlight. I was tempted to reach for my phone on the nightstand, but then relented. Did I or the social media world really need another picture of my cat?
Slanted golden light flooded in through the mini-blinds. Now alert, I forced myself to lie back, listening to the sounds of traffic on Fargo Avenue, just below. And because my vintage red-brick six-flat building was next the L tracks, there was also the familiar sound of trains as they rumbled into the northern terminus of the Red Line at Howard Street.
A gentle breeze wafted in through the bedroom window, bringing with it the scent of new leaves and, even though it was six blocks to the east, the slightly fishy tang of Lake Michigan.
I had canceled my usual breakfast date with Josh at Tweet for the morning, telling him I needed the day to catch up on work I’d brought home from my job as a communications consultant at a downtown healthcare professional association.
I used to be a runner—twenty, thirty miles a week. It had been my Zen, my sanctuary, my escape, and my release since Ifirst took up the habit twenty years as a high school freshman back in Ohio, on the cross-country team.
My passion had ended a couple of years ago, with a persistent and painful (and cruel) bout of plantar fasciitis.
I’d vowed I’d get back someday, but as more and more time passed, the possibility of resuming my running became remote, even as the pain in my foot dissipated.
Until this morning, when my alert state, the cool, light breeze, and the sunshine conspired to force me to wonder, “Why not start today?”
I got up, dug out my old red and black Asics from under my bed. I slid into a pair of black running shorts and a tank top, finishing up with socks and the Asics. I grabbed my phone and keys off the nightstand.
At the front door, heart rate already up in anticipation, I paused to ponder what to listen to. I jammed my earbuds in, paired them with the phone, and was just about to fire up a playlist of 1980s disco remixes I’d once created when I ran because it kept me energized, when I had a brainstorm.
Why not listen toMeat Locker, the podcast Josh had mentioned that was delving into the cold case involving him, my boyfriend. The thought chilled me. It still seemed unreal. Perhaps getting another perspective on what Josh had shared with me would put my mind at ease…or not.
I found it quickly and waited until I got outside to press PLAY.
And now, having listened to most of the current podcast, I found myself troubled. I should have been calmed by the gentle movement of the waves on the beach before me at the end of Ardmore, by the gulls pinwheeling in the sky, their cries distant and oddly comforting.
I questioned Josh, my own intuition, and circumstances from a decade ago instead of celebrating my victory. I’d run almosttwo entire miles after not having done so for at least a couple years.
But the tone of the podcast and the announcer’s doubt made me ask all sorts of questions I’d avoided all week.
Why was the podcaster seemingly suspicious of Josh? I understood some of his reasoning, but none of it made Josh a killer. None of Josh’s excuses and reasons for doing what he did back then were that much of a stretch of credibility, right? And, the fact that the police laid off him in what seemed to be short order bolstered the probability that everything had happened just as he said it had.
There was only one thing that was out of sync with what was reported and that bothered me. Because if that was off, for whatever reason or misdrawn conclusion, what else was off? On one of our first times together in bed, I traced the scar down Josh’s arm because, well, and don’t call me weird, I find scars sexy. A flaw in someone arouses me way more than perfection.
“How did you get this?” I kissed the scar.
His voice came out of the darkness. “I tripped and fell at a friend’s house near the lakefront. He had an old sliding glass door and I—or my arm—went right through it. Ten stitches.”
“I like it. Don’t ever feel embarrassed.”
I can’t recall if he said anything after that.
