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| panda-like calm through fiction | |||||||||
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All That's Golden
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There’s a knock at the door. The rain is heavy, and for a moment Dagney can’t be sure she heard it. But it returns, again, and again, too metronomic to be natural. She slides out from beneath the baby, realizing she really needs to come up with a name for it- oh, and a gender, too.
Nelson was there, as sopping wet as his trench coat. “She kicked me out.” Dagney noticed a suitcase with the sleeve of a yellowing dress shirt hanging out, dragging through the puddle forming in front of her door. She didn’t need to, but she sniffed the air to at least pretend surprise at the odor. “Before or after you drank a brewery?” “Between breweries,” he said without humor. “You can lay down on the couch. Don’t vomit. I have to go back to sleep because I need to work in the morning.” She led him to her front room, and he plopped down. She heaved a sigh, then scurried about, picking up the more incriminating pieces of clutter. When she hovered in front of him a moment too long, bent over, he planted his hand firmly on her ass. She whirled about, a hurricane of fury, moldering fast food containers flying out of her hands. “Jesus Christ, man. Your wife kicked you out, what, two fucking hours ago?” He tensed, like a dog suddenly aware it’s misbehaved. “You could have fucked up your marriage and got your stupid ass fired for sexual harassment. Doesn’t your life suck badly enough?” From the other room the baby started to cry. Dagney realized she was being cruel, and that she couldn’t turn him in without her bosses finding out about the baby- hell, she had no intention of turning him in just for being stupid and unthinking and- “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Give me your flask. You can crash on my couch, but you’re crashing sober.” His eyes flashed angry, but he was happy to have the out- to survive his lapse so lightly scathed- and gave it to her. But she was still upset enough that, as she reached her bedroom door she turned back to him. “If I thought you were as good as it got, I’d be a lesbian like that,” she said, with a snap that seemed to echo until it crescendoed with the slamming of her bedroom door. It wasn’t lost on Nelson that she bolted the door behind herself. He was still skittish the next morning. When she came out of her bedroom he sat bolt upright, but was careful to avert his eyes. “Are you decent?” he asked. Dagney sighed. “You’re overcompensating. Just don’t be a handsy asshole.” She walked over to her open-air kitchenette to start a pot of coffee, only to find one already made. She turned to look at him but stopped when she saw that there was a pan of eggs and another with bacon. Nelson’s eyes slowly crept off the floor. “I know what time you usually get to work, so I thought I’d make you breakfast. I guessed it would take you longer to get ready, so, so it might be a bit cold.” She couldn’t figure what to say to him, and after a long, cold moment, she turned to pour herself a cup of the coffee that was still warm. “I don’t know what I was thinking- I wasn’t, I guess. It was a shitty thing to do. I’m sorry.” Dagney didn’t usually eat an actual breakfast, and she didn’t really have time for one, either, but she scooped up a plate of eggs and picked at it anyway while she got ready. “I assume you’re staying here; I can still smell the booze from here.” “Yeah. I, uh, I think I actually called in last night, between breweries. I don’t think it was the most professional message I ever left.” Dagney sighed, then lifted the baby up off the bed. “I think you heard her last night, but I was hoping you might be able to watch her. This is my cousin’s kid. She got into something that made her skin green- temporary- but it’s a wait until it fades kind of temporary.” “Kid got a name?” “Her name’s Claire-a. Clara.” “What does she eat?” Dagney scrunched up her nose, and the baby tried to mimic it. “Kid things? I have no idea. Actually, since she got here yesterday I haven’t fed her anything. And she hasn’t made a peep. That’s weird, right?” “Dunno. It’s not like I have any kids of my own. Maybe she just ain’t been hungry. But I’ll find something. Don’t worry.” Dagney handed the newly named Clara to him and walked out the front door. She had no idea if that was the stupidest thing she’d ever done. She didn’t get much of a chance to compare and contrast it, though, because Sharpe called her cell. “Dag, you heading into the office? Don’t bother. Sheriff’s Office has put in a near-as-official request for you to come and assist them- in the other direction. I just texted you the address. It’s going to be a shitty morning, in case you were curious.” ` The address was another farm, just across the city line; in fact, most of the land around the farm had been annexed by the city, and only because the city couldn’t annex farmland was it still outside city limits. The farm was run by Dennis Madsen and a gaggle of quasi-legal immigrants, many of whom had papers that probably weren’t legit, not that INS was hassling Madsen too hard about it. There were already a couple of Sheriff vehicles parked outside a barn-house: literally one-half barn, one-half house. Dagney parked and walked inside, and immediately recognized the deputy from the previous day. “We really have to stop meeting like this,” he said with a smile. “Officer-” “Just call me Marco- my last name’s Polish, and I try to inflict it on as few people as possible.” “Really taking that ‘to serve’ part of the job description seriously.” “I have a giving nature. Speaking of, I managed to get the perp carted off before you got here, so, you know, no green weirdo stains on your clothes this time- or yellow, as today’s case may be.” Dagney took in the room; it looked like an old-school Frankenstein movie, walls filled by shelves lined with cloudy yellow jars with masking tape notes on them, hundreds of them. “So what exactly is today’s case?” “Yeah. Well, That… that’s a story. How much do you know about Dennis Madsen?” Dagney held up a big old goose egg. “He’s about the most bizarre individual we’ve ever dealt with, and that is including Johnny Pumperseed from yesterday. See, he has a fetish for urine. We caught him last year installing a system for collecting urine in the men’s room of a Burger King. But all we could charge him with was criminal mischief- sixty days in the clink.” “District attorney didn’t like that, so he pushed through a law making it illegal to collect urine for non-medical purposes, which carries up to six months jail time. Madsen got cautious, and we haven’t been able to catch him in the act since- and we also could never figure out what he was doing with the urine- though if you guessed “nothing pleasant” you’re pretty much there. Amongst other things, he’s been soaking in it, drinking it, uh, pleasuring himself with it-” “Okay, so what? He collects urine, and our mildly insane district attorney got collecting urine turned into a crime- but why am I here?” “Because there’s corn… and, um… apparently he’s also been using the urine to water the corn.” “Aw fuck.” “Yeah. So, uh, apparently, you’re going to need to swab every jar and send it to the lab. A lot of money and a lot of jobs are tied into the corn that’s come off this land- so word is we have to make sure nothing um, untoward has happened to the corn. As a word of caution, or maybe trivia, Madsen claims not all of the urine is his. And um, for what it’s worth, sorry about the call. I quietly asked if maybe this was a job for the FDA- but apparently the Sheriff took issue with us not being first on the scene yesterday, or called earlier or whatever asinine reason, so he was adamant we call you, personally, by name. I didn’t fight him much- not that I wanted to inflict this case on you- but that FDA guy is a real deutsche-hole.” She smiled. “He really is. Of course, he’s never handed me a room full of urine, before.” “Aw, never pegged you for a traditional girl; next time, coffee.” “You’re planning for a next time?” “In this county? No shortage of odd jobs. I took the liberty of stopping by your office, got all the supplies we’d need for this.” “We?” “Yeah. I convinced the Sheriff we couldn’t, in good conscience, leave Agriculture holding the bag at a crime scene- on the odd chance Madsen’s telling the truth and he has a partner in crime.” “If you really believe that, shouldn’t we call in the FBI to investigate this organized urine conspiracy?” “URICO!” he said. “I think that might have been too far.” “I just get excited around this much piss.” “Careful- that’s how it starts. Next you know you’re collecting and you’ll have to arrest yourself.” “My relationship with the gold stuff is strictly platonic.” “So you and urine form a regular convex polyhedron?” “Would it be weird if I admitted that was so awesomely nerdy I wet myself a little?” “Under the circumstances, I think the weird mostly comes from whether or not the urine itself excites you.” “Hmm. Nope, no. Pretty uncomfortable, actually.” “More or less uncomfortable than the prospect of spending an entire day cataloging a strange man’s urine?” “Ask me that at the end of the day.” The day was less unpleasant than it might have been, actually. It took them until 2 in the afternoon, from an early start. At the end Marco concluded, “I would rather experience Hurricane Katrina in my pants than have to do this again.” Dagney deadpanned shock. “What, too soon?” “Thanks, for helping me today. It probably would have taken twice as long- but I imagine you’ve got that whole protecting and serving thing to get back to.” “Oh, I’ve been off duty for a couple hours, now.” “Really?” It took a moment for the implication to register for her. “Then, I suppose I owe you a cup of coffee.” He smiled, and then her phone rang. She looked at it, hoping it was a telemarketer or someone she could ignore. “Shit, it’s work. I have to-” “No worries,” he said, putting up his hands. “Next time.” “And coffee next time, not bodily fluids- and not coffee with bodily fluids in it, either. I’m a stickler.” She sighed as he got into his car, and answered her phone. It was Sharpe. “Dag? I wanted you to hear it from me: your partner’s suspended. I know he’s been fobbing off his responsibilities on you, coming in late and only partially sober. But that shit yesterday was a bullet we dodged.” “Nelson’s an asshole and an alcoholic. You’ve been a good partner, but it isn’t your job covering for him. He’s supposed to be covering you. But it’s gotten bad enough I can’t overlook. I don’t know if he’s still got a job here, so I want you to think on this: there’s a world of difference between loyalty and enabling. So don’t let your tendency towards the former make you vulnerable to the latter.” “Yes, sir,” she said, and he hung up. She spent the last few hours of her workday carting samples to the lab and finishing up a mountain of paperwork. When she arrived back at her apartment, there was a note from Nelson: “Took baby for walk.” “She’s not a dog,” Dagney said, rolling her eyes. But for all she knew babies liked walks- she was just frustrated. It was only a moment later when there was a knock at the door. As soon as she opened it Nelson pushed through a handful of flowers, yellow roses and daisies. “I got these for you- an apology, nothing else. I asked the guy at the flower shop for the least romantic flowers I could buy, like I was getting them for another guy. He got all huffy, asked me, ‘So a man can’t be romantic towards another man?’ And then he wouldn’t say another word to me, not even when he took my money. It’s just one of those days when I’m going to end up with my foot in my mouth, no matter what. But I’m sorry… and I think I need to find a second flower shop to buy apology flowers for the guy at the first flower shop. And I ain’t figured out what Clara likes to eat, yet, but she’s been sucking down water like she’s been in the desert for a week- and she really seemed to take to the greenhouse lights in the flower shop.” “Hmm,” Dagney said, taking Clara from him, barely remembering to give the flowers a cursory glance and a nod. |
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