It was a lot like here, Johnny said. Houses, apartment buildings, streets, gardens, trees, the river, factories, animals, cows, pigs, chickens, people. All blown to shit. All turned to garbage. Every day, every stinking day, and I do mean stinking, cause there ain’t no stink like it in the whole world. When people die, when animals die, if nobody buries them, as soon as they die they start to rot. And when they start rotting, they give off all kinds of smells, there ain’t any words for it, at least I don’t have any words for it, all I know is it gets in your clothes, in your hair, in your mouth, in your nose, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of it. And you think, the first time you smell it, what could be worse? Nothing could be worse than this. But there is something worse. It’s called Graves Registration, a nice bullshit army term. And if you’re unlucky enough to get put on GR, what you do every day as long as you can stand and bend over and zip and unzip body bags, you walk through wherever they drop you off, and you pick up bodies. And it ain’t a picnic if the poor slob got dropped with one in the head or the heart, because the real hell is when you got to pick up the pieces of a whole lot of slobs that got hit by 88s. Cause that’s when you have to walk around picking up heads, hair, brains, ears, eyeballs, noses, tongues, arms, legs, torsos — and that’s if you can even make out what it is.
There’s only one thing left I have to tell. Dog tags.
Everybody gets two. If you find a guy that died quick and in one piece, more or less, you open his mouth, you wedge one of his tags between his teeth and you take his rifle or carbine or whatever he was carrying and you put his bayonet on it and you stick it into the dirt beside him and you hang the other tag on his weapon someplace, wherever you can put it. Then you move on to the next one. Sometimes you have to use a rake and a shovel. And before you zip the bag, the last thing you do is write on the paper that goes with it, A soldier known only to God.
So now, Oh-high-oh, maybe you can tell why after thirty days of collecting that kinda thing, I wanted to blow the back of my head off. Didn’t do it. Somebody knocked me down, beat the shit outta me. Smashed my nose, cut me all over my eyebrows, my cheeks. First time I saw a mirror, I looked at it and I said, Who is that? I really couldn’t tell it was me. And so here I am, Oh-high-oh, I just dumped it all in you. Cause I can’t carry it no more.
So far you haven’t said anything. I don’t think you’ll blab no matter what I tell you. I’m pretty sure you won’t. Not that I have anything else to say. I already told you the worst part.
A couple of hours later, Johnny stood and dusted off the seat of his trousers.
Then he stretched his arms up and said, See you, Oh-high-oh. Tomorrow, probably. Don’t worry if I don’t show up. Cause my dad and my mom, they’re already worrying about what’s gonna happen to me when they die. They think I don’t hear them whispering about it. Bad as their hearing is, they have to talk loud, so it’s easy to hear them. So, one day not too far down the road, I’m sure they’ll throw their hands up and say they can’t stand me anymore. Then they’ll call the cops. And the cops will do what cops get paid to do. Take me to some nuthouse. Make sure I don’t get loose.
I have to think of some way to make them understand I won’t hold it against them for calling the cops. That won’t be their fault, any more than any of the rest of this was ever their fault. Gonna be tough convincing them, though, cause no doubt they think I lost my mind, and as long as they think that they’re never gonna believe anything I say. And anyway, I haven’t lost my mind. I know right where it is. Same place it’s always been. Under my hair.
Remember what I said, Oh-high-oh. Cause I’ve just decided I’m never gonna repeat it. Not to anybody. In fact, I might never say anything to anybody again.
Part III
Universities, Parks, Recreation
Intruder
by Kathleen George
Schenley Farms
They were partners. One was white, one was black; they got along and liked working together. They’d come up through the ranks at the same time, slightly competitive, mostly friends.
The call came at one in the morning. All the good murders happened at night. The 911 operator told them, “Schenley Farms Terrace. A guy hit an intruder over the head. Called here, we sent the paramedics. They’re saying the guy is dead. Patrol just got there.”
“Breaking news,” said Tolson, looking at his watch as he beckoned his partner down the stairs and outside to a fleet car. “Way too late for the eleven o’clock hash and nobody much watches the morning news, so we caught ourselves a break. I hate sounding dumb on the eleven o’clock news when we don’t know what’s happening.”
“You can manage to sound dumb anytime,” Paulson said. Tolson shot him a look and then Paulson laughed and asked, “Okay, what is it?”
“Manslaughter, probably.” Tolson gave the few details he had while he radioed patrol to call him on his cell.
Damion Paulson drove them, expertly shooting to the parkway and then passing everybody on the road.
Tolson’s phone rang, speaker on. The patrol cop had five minutes on them. “Anything you can tell us?”
“He’s dead. Mashed-up head and lots of blood. Man, he must’ve got hit hard. Family is all upset. Everybody is shaking and crying. They have accents. I don’t know what kind. They’re foreigners.”
“Okay. What else?” Tolson asked.
“The daughter. She’s something else. She looks like some kind of movie star. Like maybe Indian or something, but with light eyes. Maybe she’s somebody famous, I don’t know.”
Paulson was laughing silently.
“Anything else about the homicide?” Tolson pressed.
“Not yet. Just everybody’s upset. They’re talking in their language.”
Tolson hung up. “Check your prejudice at the door,” he quipped. He was serious, though. Now was not the time to fuck up. Respectful to foreigners was drummed into their heads. Also other lessons: Poor doesn’t mean dumb. Every poor dead son of a bitch was a human being.
“You ever hang around Schenley Farms?” Tolson asked Paulson, who had grown up near there, in the Hill District.
“Nah.”
Schenley Farms, they knew, had some fancy properties, but the fanciest mansions were closer to Oakland. Old money as well as some high brass from the universities resided there. Then there were the somewhat fancy houses on the steeper streets of Schenley Farms, and then way up above them was the beginning of “the hill,” a black ghetto. Five minutes later they were at the house. It was far from shabby.
A couple of TV news trucks were parked on the street. Tolson told reporters he passed, walking to the house, “We’ll have a statement for you in thirty minutes.” They went inside.
The inside of the house was super fancy. Glass, white, glass, white. Plush carpets. Tolson knew they were bringing in dirt and he felt uncomfortable. It was late May and the earth was moist. The patrol cop said, “Down here,” and led them down a set of carpeted steps to a finished basement that was basically a well decked-out apartment. The paramedics were standing around like oafs. The guy on the floor of this downstairs apartment was so totally dead — extreme measures definitely not necessary. He was a black guy, and they could see that he was wearing running shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt of a good quality, nice-looking things. A pocketknife lay near the body.