Collateral Damage

Class #2.

Writing below inspired by Tommy Clarke from the book"The Fat Baby" by Eugene Richards, published by Phaidon, 2004/Photograph © Eugene Richards, courtesy of Magnum Photos



The doorbell had broken her sedative-forced rest on the third chiming. She had finally succumbed to sleep, fully clothed on the living room sectional only two hours before and the vertebrae in her neck registered loud disapproval of the interrupted slumber, joining the chorus of siren-pitched pain echoing through her brain. Unforgiving winter sunlight shone through the mullions of the large bay window, illuminating oceans of dust particles on their aimless travels.
Bill Henderson, her husband's partner on the force, was on the front stoop in full uniform when she opened the door. "Janine, I'm so sorry," said Henderson tightly, his face drawn, "He was a good man." She stood motionless and unable to find a reply, unsure if what confronted her was dream or reality. Her throat felt coated with shellac. "I'm sorry I don't have time to come in. Got court duty this morning. But I wanted to bring you this myself," he said before turning away towards his cruiser, engine still running.
He had left her with a large cardboard box, sealed shut with silver duct tape and 'Peters' labeled hastily on its side in large black letters, all upper case. She sat now at her kitchen table, the contents of the box laid out carefully before her on top of yesterday's classified ads from the Akron Register. A jolt of raw emotion pierced her numbness as she imagined him with his hand resting confidently on the butt of the gun in its holster, sporting that proud, somewhat cocky cop's grin. The smells suddenly confronted her without mercy, obliterating the remnants of her fragile state of denial. The oiled leather of the ammunition belt. the faint whiff of of stale Stetson cologne from the police-issue, blue collared shirt. The chain smoker's acrid reek, ingrained permanently in the uniform jacket and Sargent's cap. Hands shaking, she fished through the ashtray for a cigarette with something left on its end. What was she going to tell Ruthie? Their daughter, in her first year at Dartmouth college was returning from Spring break in Ft. Lauderdale and would be calling to be picked up from the airport. A shrill hoot escapes her
and she covers her mouth as if to keep the boiling grief trapped inside her body. She bites down hard on her index finger between chafed knuckles, drawing blood. The phone begins to ring. She does not move. Five rings pass but she does not get up, gripping the green laminate table as if welded to it. Eight rings gone, each one prying her threadbare nerves further from any grasp of composure. Violent sobs force their way up from her stomach where she has been holding them down, jumping from her throat like the barks of an anguished blood hound.
With both arms she sweeps the neatly arranged effects of her dead husband off the table, scattering them across the cracked linoleum floor as the phone continues to sound its politely cloying tones.