CITY OF WOE by Alexander Sanders A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Ogden, Utah April 16, 2019 Approved L J3i Sian Griffiths L a u r a ( i # Alexander Sanders Professor Ridge MENG6960 16 April 2019 The Season of Depression: A Critical Introduction to City of Woe Sanders 1 Growing up in Utah, a place where every season gets an an opportunity to parade its natural wonder (sometimes all four in one day), has afforded me a unique perspective in regard to our emotional reliance on the environment. I've learned, albeit slowly, that weather can drastically affect mood. Here in the Beehive State, the tailend of winter is often characterized by bright mornings and devastatingly cold evenings. As the temperature of these deceptive days drops so does one's mood. Grey skies can define an entire season and one may find themselves in a rut of emotional clouding, as a result. Once I made this climactic connection, I came to understand that the problem of weather-centric-discontent was a self fulfilling prophecy. Not only does the weather condition emotions, but emotions often dictate one's understanding of the environment. If, for example, I awake in an amicable mood, I might view the winter season as a picturesque wonderland where snowfall means opportunity. However, should I be depressed, that very same snowfall would dim the bright sky and the snow would appear grey, rather than white and fresh. This problem is compounding and one day of winter-hate can quickly become months of seasonal depression. The same can be said for a character's relationship with the environment in a story. The setting and environment of the created world should be filtered through the emotions of the character in order to set a scene that is consistent with the story's tone. Sanders 2 In City of Woe, Dan battles with depression. His work has warped his perception of reality and the dregs of society have dragged him through the dirt. He feels hopelessly alone because his fellow men adamantly refuse to treat each other with dignity. Because depression is difficult to portray, I ran into the problem of how to best demonstrate the severity of Dan's mental state. In order to refrain from abstraction, I had to find a way for Dan's depression to manifest in his physical reality. Weather and environment, or rather, Dan's perception of weather and environment, helps to bring his depression to the forefront of the story. Dan's depressed description of what he sees around him charges the environment with emotion and, therefore, paints a bleak picture of his life. This helps to provide a backdrop for an unseeable illness. Though physical injury is easily observable, the mind is elusive and depression is difficult to understand when not experienced firsthand. In contrast, the environment can be seen, and Dan's biased description of it plays as a projector, giving physical manifestation to that which would normally go unperceived. City of Woe takes place during nighttime in the middle of winter. Winter is a time of death and decay; the foliage sinks into the ground and is entombed by the cold, wet snow, while the fauna disappears; resulting in a deep sense of isolation. The darkness of night robs us of our senses and prolonged darkness is the physical manifestation of nothingness and death. For a man unwittingly obsessed with death because of his life experiences, winter and night can be the only setting. Dan works the night shift for the Pueblo Police Department and these shifts present special difficulties to his psyche during the winter months. The environment reflects his character and visa versa. To illustrate the value of the relationship between environment and character, I'll use the most extreme example I've found within contemporary fiction. Sanders 3 In Ben H. Winters's novel, The Last Policeman, Hank Palace must work as a police officer on a murder case while a meteor catapults toward Earth. The world is in all encompassing chaos and the need for actual police-work sits atop a rocky foundation, leaving Detective Palace's profession and whole life an outright joke to everyone but him. His cohorts mock him and file his dedication to detective work in the cabinet marked 'misplaced and silly.' Detective McGully illustrates this point very succinctly, Winters writes: "'You're like an alien, Palace. You know that?' says McGully. In one swift motion, he balls up his sports section and bounces it off my head" (30). Detective Palace's unspoken inability to relate with his coworkers- his personality exile-has the perfect backdrop in the environment surrounding the inevitability of a ginormous meteor colliding with Earth, which is something very strange in and of itself. The detectives of Winters's world lack genuine drive to solve cases and Palace's dedication in the midst of such a strange event illustrates just how strange HE is. Without Detective Palace ever thinking it outright, the reader can see how weird he is because of the environment and its role in his life and how he reacts to it. Palace's defining characteristic plays off of the environment and the environment is a reflection of his strangeness. In City of Woe, Dan's defining characteristic is his disdain for humanity and the environment must help to illustrate this. As a police officer, Dan deals with many emotionally draining situations. He sees people at their absolute worst and it becomes increasingly difficult to separate these instances from his personal life. To him, people are not complex. They are very simple; simply bad. He has entered an unhealthy realm in which his negative thoughts dictate his emotion and, eventually, lead to suicidal ideation. This problem was initially presented through sheer monologue. Since City of Sanders 4 Woe was originally written in first person, Dan's thoughts were laid bare. There became a significant problem with this, however; it is tiresome to read. Listening to Dan's internal monologue about how people are bad does not evoke sympathy from the reader. On the contrary, I found that Dan became rather unlikeable and seemed an awful lot like a whiner. Truth be told, Dan IS unlikeable, but his complaining should be justifiable to a certain extent. So, the question became: how best to transition from internal monologue to something more tangible? The answer comes in two parts: first the perspective had to change, and second the environment had to give tangible form to Dan's internal conflict. By switching from first to third person I eliminated some subjectivity that made Dan unrelatable, but this was simply not enough. Though he is somewhat unlikeable, I was aiming for someone who is a bit more complex; someone who is unlikeable, but not easily so. Third person helped make Dan more relatable, but he was still whining away his work. The problem remained. After a bit of wheel spinning and self-loathing I was introduced to a novel idea: use the world around Dan as a means to express his personality and help portray his developing mental instability. In her essay, "Character Motivation," Aimee Bender explains it like this: "If the character ends up in a strange hotel on a mountain, alone, for weeks and weeks and weeks, and something magical happens, that is actually revealing something about the internal life of the character on its own" (56). What Dan sees and does matters just as much as what he says; or, perhaps, even more so. The events that were taking place around him could weigh in on his motivations. The way he perceives the world helps to illuminate his character. Perhaps it is easier to show what I mean. Sanders 5 To demonstrate how the the early version of City of Woe felt less relatable, let me give an excerpt of both the first and third person versions as a means of comparison. The first excerpt is not good. It's focus is primarily how Dan feels, but it lets the reader's mind wander because it is not rooted in anything tangible. It goes: "I just want to be alone; I have to get out of this hell. I need to leave everything behind and never look back. These people disgust me and there's no other solution than to be alone." The reader gets the picture, sure, but it is not tethered to real life. This next example comes from the second attempt; it is the evolution of the first excerpt, with added emphasis on the physical world: "The black and white tiles have streaked brown from the smeared blood, which reminds Dan of hardwood. More specifically, the hardwood of the cabin in Montana. There's Heaven for you. It's ungodly cold there, but the isolation is so overwhelmingly worth it. Plus a bit of Jerry will warm him from the inside out." In the second example, there is not only the sense of Dan's desire to be alone, but an actual location where Dan can make his desire a reality. The imagery of hardwood gives the reader something to focus on and the cold enhances the physical nature of Dan's desires by giving it a corporeal quality. Even though both examples involve telling the reader something (rather than showing), the second seems more real because the description of the physical world that surrounds his feeling of isolation makes the feeling more tangible by channeling it toward an actual location with specific details. This concept extends beyond Dan's desire to be alone and into his actual thinking processes. When Dan explains his surroundings, what he sees, his emotions guide his line of sight, and what one sees, is what makes up their entire existence. Picture this: two neighbors have drastically different lawns. The first neighbor, the one to the south, has a perfectly manicured yard. The hedges are shorn and the flowers are properly Sanders 6 pruned. The neighbor to the north, however, has quite an array of useless items strewn about the walkway leading to the front door. The brown weeds growing in place of grass leave little chance of reconciliation for the flora of that particular abode. Character A loves the perfectly tendered roses that sprinkle the neighbor to the south's flower boxes, and the northern neighbor's yard goes unnoticed. Character B (Dan), however, only sees the horribly dishevelled mess of his neighbor to the north and the southern neighbor's flowers might as well be imaginary. Though Character A may see the gathered snow piles at the edge of the road as opportunity for sledding, Dan sees piles of rot that have been blackened by the dirt of the road. It is Dan's emotion that defines his environment. Emotion and place should be married. In her essay, "Place," Dorothy Allison describes what really makes up physical location: emotion. "I want a story that is happening in a real place, which means a place that has meaning and that evokes emotions in the person who's telling me the story. Place is emotion" (Allison 9). In other words, emotion dictates the way a place is perceived. Why do two people visit the same foreign place and come away with totally conflicting descriptions of it? Their experience (as well as their life experiences and personal preferences) defines their visit. For Dan, the winter is unbearable because his emotions are dictating the way he sees everything, whereas his partner Virg's perspective is totally different. Dan has become so deeply entrenched in his depression that it colors every thought in his head: the cold air cuts deeper, the night sky looks darker, and every hue of the color wheel has faded into a dull reflection of its former vibrance. Two perspectives of the same thing can alter its very meaning and add dimensions that weren't previously associated to it, as seen in Ian McEwan's novel, Saturday. Sanders 7 In Saturday, Henry Perowne can't help but see an airplane's equipment failure as something more sinister given the recent catastrophe of 9/11: Plastic fork in hand, he often wonders how it might g o - t h e screaming in the cabin partly muffled by that deadening acoustic, the fumbling in bags for phones and last words, the airline staff in their terror clinging to remembered fragments of procedure, the levelling smell of shit. But the scene construed from the outside, from afar like this, is also familiar. It's already almost eighteen months since half the planet watched, and watched again, the unseen captives driven through the sky to the slaughter, at which time there gathered round the innocent silhouette of any jet plane a novel association. (15) Perowne's fear of terrorism, incited by 9/11, changes his perspective of the world around him. He is not alone, and soon the whole of Britain is terrified. Their emotionally charged reaction to a simple equipment failure altered their perception of reality which, in tum, alters the reader's perspective of the events taking place in the story, as well. What would have likely been passed over by the evening news only two years prior suddenly becomes an intense, emotional funhouse mirror version of reality because of perspective. For Dan, the entire world is viewed from behind funhouse mirror glasses. Fifteen years of police work have ingrained 9/11-like fear into Dan's psyche. He's on edge because he's been pushed there, but he doesn't even realize it. His profession has taken a big red brush stroke right across the canvas of his mind and colored his every thought; stained it red, like blood, which is something he is very familiar with. The negativity has silently crept in and now he has no other way of thinking. Take, for example, when Dan and his partner, Virg, get Sanders 8 into the squad car at the beginning of their shift. Virg is particularly large, which leaves little room between the steering wheel and his chest and Dan pictures the steering column pushing its way through Virg, because death is what Dan knows: "If he crashes, there's not much room for airbag. The steering column would drive itself through Vug's chest. Big as he is, that metal would glide through him like he wasn't even there." Dan is very acquainted with death and his depression creates a tornado of destructive thoughts; picking up everything he sees and whirling it into death obsession. As Benjamin Percy says in his essay "Moving Mountains": "Never give us a generic description. When we enter a new space, show it to us-but through a particular lens: your character's point of view, modified by mood" (120). Dan sees death and death turns Dan into a morose, empty mold of his former self. The result of all this heart shredding sadness is an obsession with death so embedded in the fibers of Dan's brain, he doesn't even realize it's there. This extends beyond Dan's descriptions of what he sees around him and into the way he sees himself, as well. When Dan becomes physically cold, he compares himself to a dead body: "This type of cold feels everlasting, like early onset rigor mortis." As Benjamin Percy explains it above, the scene is being set; not just as it is, but by the exhausting emotions coursing through a suicidal cop. When these emotions are applied to the physical world, the environment begins to shape into an entity all its own. One of the most important characters in City of Woe never speaks. The physical world helps define various aspects of the people in the story by interacting with them. Not only does Dan tether emotions to the environment, the environment coerces Dan (and others) to act and speak in certain ways. In the opening of the novel, a storm culminates in the sky and interacts with Dan and Virg as they enter the station for the start of their shift: "Dan slaps his hand away Sanders 9 and a thick wind lifts Virg's thinning hair from the top of his head." The interaction between environment and characters shapes events and dictates how the officers respond to calls. To convince the reader that the environment has the ability to affect the characters in this way, the actual environment of the novel and the characters' reactions to it must coincide. As Karen Russell explains in the essay "Engineering Impossible Architectures": "You need concrete detail to establish the bricks-and-mortar reality of your alternate world: its fauna and truck stops and weather. But equally vital, I think, is the convincing emotional detail" (208). More specifically it is the emotional detail as it relates to the "bricks-and-mortar reality." Russell continues: "Characters must have convincingly human reactions to their world for it to feel real" (208). When this symbiotic relationship is created between characters and the environments they are apart of, the elemental qualities of both begin to directly correlate to one another: one cannot exist without the other. In the novel Report from Engine Co. 82, by Dennis Smith, the interaction between the characters and their environment is an essential aspect to the story; in fact, it is THE essential aspect to the story. Without the fires blazing, there are no firemen and without the firemen, the story is rather boring. The environment and the characters are one, as is especially evident in the last scene of the novel in which the main character, Dennis, works to extinguish a blaze from inside of an apartment: "The smoke is lifting as Royce gets the last room, and I rip my face piece off to breathe freely ... The mask is heavy on my shoulders, and I want to sleep. Breathe. It's a baby. Breathe deep. I can feel my stomach moving. I had to crawl over it" (214). The environment of Dennis's situation dictates his actions, but, even more than that, it also helps to develop a scene in which the environment, and its associations, create meaning beyond that of Sanders 10 just their physical forms; the blurred vision as the result of smoke and the weight of Denis's breathing apparatus (all parts of the physical world) in correlation with the death of a child, work to create meaning beyond the words of the page. What the environment represents holds weight and adds further dimension to a story. As mentioned, Dan's primary conflict is within his own head. His suicidal ideation pushes him beyond rational thought. For consistency's sake, it makes sense that this, too, would coalesce in the physical realm within the story. From the novel's onset, the environment is used as the physical representation of Dan's suicidal thoughts. The storm growing within Dan's mind is reflected in the physical world by the literal growing of a storm. After a spat with another officer and receding into his thoughts, Dan goes outside to see that the night has intensified and the sky has grown darker than normal with the accumulation of storm clouds: "The sun has set and dark clouds have rolled in over the city, leaving no stars visible in the night sky. The short respite from the cold combined with the setting sun has greatly intensified the frigidity." Dan's impending suicidal climax directly correlates to the world around him. The environment and Dan are reflections of one another. As in life, characters and environment must interact. Utah's seasonal ADHD has ingrained in me the idea that the weather has a dramatic affect on our daily lives, just as our perception of the world around us has a dramatic affect on our mood. For Dan, depression and winter go hand in hand. The physical world is a means to express feelings that might normally be difficult to describe, given their subjective nature. When abstraction and pitiful whining occurs (a fraction of the mistakes that have kept me up at night during this extensive writing process) it is vitally important to return to the physical world of the story. Sanders 11 Works Cited Allison, Dorothy. "Place." The Writer's Notebook, Tin House, 2009, pp. 5-15. Bender, Aimee. "Character Motivation." The Writer's Notebook, Tin House, 2009, pp. 51-60. McEwan, Ian. Saturday, Random House, 2005. Percy, Benjamin. "Move Mountains." Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction, Graywolf Press, 2016, pp. 117-129. Russell, Karen. "Engineering Impossible Architectures." The Writer's Notebook II, Tin House, 2012, pp. 197-216. Smith, Dennis. Report from Engine Co. 82, Grand Central Publishing, 1972. Winters, Ben H. The La.st Policeman, Quirk Books, 2012. . Alexander Sanders alexandersanders92@gmail.com CityofWoe by Alexander Sanders One about 6700 words Officers Daniel Vates and Patrick Virgil show up early and take their time in the locker room before shift change. At 1900 hours, the usual suspects are swapping war stories. Most of these stories are light-hearted with a tinge of cynicism, but the self-proclaimed heroes can tell some outlandish shit. Harold Curtis, or "Happy Curt", is the worst offender. "I'm telling you," Happy says, "the fucker was at least as big as Virg." Happy motions his crooked thumb in Big Virg's direction without looking at him. "The bastard could move, so I didn't have time to light him up. I put him down just like that," he thrusts his fist at forty-five degree angle like the fucking karate kid or something.Judging by the other officers' reactions Dan can tell this isn't the first time Happy has emphatically made this point. It's best practice to let Hap ride these rants into greatly desired silence. To confront him is only to compound the problem, but Dan is feeling frisky today: February 22nd, exactly five years to the day that his former partner, Bailey, shotgunned his brains onto the bathroom wall. When Dan closes his eyes he can still see the red and white chunks Sanders/City ofWoe/2 embedded into the light-blue paint. D an helped Bailey paint that bathroom, so he can't help but think how all his hard work was wasted with one trigger pull. What a selfish prick Bailey was. Without look at Hap, Dan says, "Bullshit," and continues striding toward his locker. Utter silence washes over the locker room. Thick air replaces the murmuring that was echoing against the brownish metal of the lockers. It's so quiet before Happy turns toward Dan that the silence is more th an auditory. The stale mugginess of the room is so thick you could chew it. Happy finally swivels on his bench toward Dan. He mentally unravels Dan's skin into black ribbons. Happy isn't used to being challenged. The light glints off the cross around Hap's neck and his pockmarked face twitches with the effort of trying to subdue his animosity. How can a man as stupid and arrogant as Happy also be so goddamn ugly? How can a man as stupid, arrogant, and ugly as Happy have faith in a benevolent God? Surely, no divine creator would purposefully mold such a putrid creature. Dan thinks he'll ask him. "What the fuck did you just say?" growls Happy more animal than man. Dan is prepared and doesn't hesitate, "I'm confident you heard me. Those satellite dishes on the sides of your head can't miss many signals." The hushed laughter from the other officers only adds fuel to the fire burning within Happy. He leaps to his feet and gallops over to Dan, breathing acrid coffee breath in his face. Dan's eyes water as the fumes crawl into his nostrils like worms. He reaches to thumb the cross and Happy takes a half step back; fear distorting his features. Dan says, "How can anyone with such a poor excuse for a face put faith in an all knowing being? Honestly Hap, if there is a God, he fucked you hard." Happy Curt doesn't like that. His face is a mess now as he strains to hold the blasphemous weight of Dan's words. He pushes hard and Dan slams into the lockers behind him. Sanders/City ofWoe/3 Happy's screaming rises above the metallic clanging, "I fear no man! Not that giant I put down earlier, and definitely not your bitch ass. I fear God, motherfucker. Only God!" Dan catches himself against the lockers and the cross lies in a pool of blood in his hand. Dan must have squeezed it hard when he pulled it off because there's a pulsating sting shooting up his arm like he's put a fork in a light socket. His hand oozes deep red. Blood edges around his palm and falls to the floor in slow drops. With a spray of blood, Dan hurls the cross at Happy, but Happy ducks, avoiding the cross, but not all of the blood. Dan tackles him to the ground. The two wrestle for position for only a moment before Dan finds his way atop Happy. Dan raises his fist to change Happy Curt's mind about who he fears, but a hand catches his arm and he is suddenly weightless. The only man with the strength to handle Dan this way is Virg-the colossal creampuff. If Big Virg had his way, Happy and Dan would be sharing one of his oversized t-shirts for the rest of the day. After Virg sets him down with an affectionate plop, he helps Happy off the ground. "Easy ladies. You're both real pretty," purrs Virgin a silky baritone. Big Virg could've been a radio-show host or a sportscaster, but all of that gargantuan mass would have been wasted. That ginormous frame and all the empathy in the world to fill it up; he was born to be a cop. Happy wipes a drop of Dan's blood from his face and says, "That's right Dan, keep hiding behind your bodyguard, you bitch." "It's not me he's protecting." Big Virg booms, "For fuck sake! Would you two shut up. Go that way Hap. Sit down Dan, cool off." Virg grabs Dan by the shoulders and forces him to a bench, leaving little room to interpret his words as anything less than a command. In the cracked mirror of an open locker, Dan watches Virg guide Happy toward the sinks. Dan catches his own eyes in the reflection. How long has he had this Sanders/City ofWoe/4 much grey? It wasn't long ago that his tight curls were deep black. Now his temples are as grey as the clouded sky in the window. Dan is forty-six, but he looks and feels at least ten years older. Wrinkles frame his brown eyes from years of grimacing and his once black stubble is sporadically silver. The blood from Dan's hand falls to the ground in slow drops. This bravado bullshit has always disgusted him, but that's not enough to keep him out of it. Dan was raised by the police force. He resents it just like any child comes to resent their parents in a frustrated, loving sort of way. Though Dan's love for his profession is hardy and thick like his mother's stew once was, he can't overlook how it has cast every imperfection in his mold. Police departments are full of people who have seen too much. Their perception of reality is irreparably altered. They tend to think that their view of the world is the only correct one, but the truth is, it is greatly warped. An ugly, distorted version of the truth, like a funhouse mirror. He supposes that's why some cops have come to think of themselves as Godsends. It's their way of dealing with the ugliness of day-to-day police work: a mask to hide the blemishes that multiply every shift. As a result, Dan has become a nonbeliever. This locker room is full of holy, non-believers. Each doing their best to pretend their work serves some grand purpose, all the while feeling hopelessly alone. Even Happy; the festering puke. He clings to that cross, but Dan knows it's failed him because Happy has told him so. Now he's tethered the fucking thing to his neck and it's choking the life out of him. An enormous shadow appears and Virg's smooth voice surrounds Dan like a blanket, "What the hell are you doing? You're letting that blood all over the damn floor. Jesus, clean yourself up." Dan replies without looking up, "So I am. Stop looming and grab me some toilet paper to clean this up, dear." Sanders/City ofWoe/5 Big Virg leaves and returns mumbling beneath his breach. Dan kneels to the floor and Virg extends the paper. Virg says, "So, Dan." D an rep 11. es, "So , P acn·e k . " "It's the 22nd of February." Dan sees where Virg is going with this. His voice is full of dread as he responds, "Right you are, Virgy. Your point?" "Is chat what all this is about?" Dan's just smearing the blood at this point. "I think I need a mop. Would you be so kind?" Virg scans Dan's face with trepidation and says, "I'm serious. You good?" "I'll be better when I'm not on my knees in front of you. Besides, your incredibly large head is blocking my light. Maybe while I'm down here I'll pray for chat mop and it will magically appear in my hands. You're a catholic, aren't ya, Virg? Isn't that how God works?" Virg understands that being genuine isn't working and attempts to lighten up a bit. He smirks as the fluorescent light shrouds his head and says, "Former catholic, thank you very much. I got out of there as soon as I could. The priest started eyeballing me at age six, so I quit listening around that time. I was too busy surveying every church we went into for the nearest escape route. Why don't you pray to Saint Bailey and ask him how it works?" Maybe this tactic will work better. Dan's resolve is unshakeable and he replies coldly, "It might be a bit hard for him to respond, what with the missing head and all." Virg's smirk dissipates into his wide, porcelain face. "So. About that mop." Dan's handiwork is illuminated as Big Virg steps out of the light. The black and white tiles are streaked brown from the smeared blood, which reminds Dan of hardwood. More specifically, the Sanders/City ofWoe/6 hardwood of his cabin in Montana. There's Heaven for you. It's ungodly cold there, but the isolation is so overwhelmingly worth it. Plus a bit of Jerry will warm him from the inside out. Jerry is Dan's best friend. He may not grab mops, but at least he doesn't question Dan's motives. If Dan wants to punch an ugly, self-aggrandizing fool, he'll do it, goddammit, and he doesn't need some subconscious motivation about long lost buds for a reason. Virg returns making the mop look like a matchstick. He hands Dan a bit of gauze along with the mop and Dan says, "So, ugly, we gonna have a whole shift of counseling, or can I protect the public in peace?" "Is that what you call what we do? Protecting the public? That's awful sweet of you, Officer Vates." "Not me, Patricia, I'm just trying to appeal to your feminine sensibilities." Virg places one hand on the mop and the other on Dan's shoulder, no doubt letting Dan know he could squeeze the life out of him with minimal effort. ''And as the woman of the relationship, it only makes sense that I should be cleaning up your mess. Go wash that cut big fella, I'll take it from here." "Thanks, dear. I'll meet you at the squad." Outside, the sun has set and dark clouds have rolled in over the city, leaving the night sky starless. The short respite from the cold combined with the setting sun has greatly intensified the frigidity. It's probably Virg's turn to drive, though it's hard to say. They don't do much turn taking. Dan doesn't like driving and, as he frequently reminds his partner, he's just along for the ride. Virg squeezes all of his enormity behind the wheel of the Impala; there really are some disadvantages to being so big. If he crashes, there's no room for airbag. Dan pictures the steering column driving itself Sanders/City ofWoe/7 through Virg's chest and emerging through the other side. Big as he is, that metal would glide through him like he wasn't even there, leaving a messy pulp o f pink tissue in its wake. Dan hesitantly picks up the mic and keeps it far from his mouth like it's poisonous, "Dispatch, 22 is 10-8." A nasally female voice returns, "10-4." Dan tries to picture what she looks like. Fat, no doubt. Virg says, "Ready for this big fella? Last shift before vacay for you, right?" "And don't you forget it. Get me through this alive 'cuz I can hear Montany singing my name." The nasally voice is back. Yeah she's fat alright, "22, Report of a 10-16 at 1265 Florence Ave. 1-2-6-5 Florence. Neighbor heard a female screaming and reports a possible assault. EMS is holding short." "22 received and en route." Dan turns the computer to show Virg the screen, which lists the mass o f calls that other units are responding to and says, "Goddammit, already? Look at this shit, the city is blowing up. Christ almighty, kill me now. These pieces o f shit are going to make me earn that vacation." "Welcome to Hell, Dan-o." Virg flicks on the lights and speeds onto the street heading eastbound. Two Pueblo PD doesn't get many calls on this end of town. It's nice up here. Relatively nice, rather. It's an old town with lots o f cockroach people scattering about so 'nice' really means that the lawn gets mowed and the shingles are mostly intact. The cockroach people, as Dan refers to them, are the meth-heads who, like cockroaches, refuse to die. This time of year evens the playing field, though, and as the winter wears on, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell which homes are roach-dens. The Sanders/ C ity ofWoe/8 blackened snow banks on the edge of the street make even the nicest homes look untidy. It's the smell that helps differentiate the decent joints from the festering piles. Dan will swear on his mother's grave that he can smell a meth house before he sees it. The smell is dull and all encompassing. It finds its way into every fiber of cloth within a home and drives itself into the very foundation. The smell reaches out and grabs you by the throat; coating your trachea with a thick, unearthly stench that would drive away the wildest of animals. The walls teem with the deep, methy ache: it is inescapable. Fortunately, this house seems free of the memorable effluvium, but Dan knows that the night is young and the likelihood of drowning in meth-stench before the shift is over is still high. Another tell-tale sign of a roach-den is the car in the driveway. 1265 Florence has a silver Mercedes Benz SUV out front. Behind the decaying snowbanks lies a little red-brick job with white shutters and trim. A nice little bungalow, no doubt, but it must be full of shit if PPD is here. "Don't you live near here D an?" "Just a few blocks south." "It's not so bad." Virg opens his mouth to continue, when the front door of 1265 flies open and out runs a blabbering blondy. Dan and Virg step out of the Impala to the sound of a man shouting incoherently from inside the home. The blondy stops at the sight of the officers and sits on the front step. She places her chin in her hands and elbows on her knees like a pouting child. She's clearly been hit. Her lower lip looks like a tragic botox accident. From afar Dan thought she was sticking out her bottom lip like a sad cartoon character, but up close it looks more like an overinflated balloon. Surprisingly, there is only a small streak of blood on her chin and her lip is not actively bleeding. "Get your ass back in here! You think you can ... " Sanders/City ofWoe/9 Golden gloves appears at the door with clenched fists. He doesn't look like much of a puncher. A university professor, maybe. Tweed jacket and all. "Go cuff the all-star Virg and I'll talk to the punching bag." Big Virg doesn't like that joke and heads toward the house without reply. He shuts the door behind him, deliberately separating the two lovers. The girl doesn't look up as Dan approaches her. "22 to dispatch, the scene is secure for medical. What's your name?" "Francesch." "What? Frances?" "Yesch." "What's going on, Frances?" "Nothing." She can't look up. Her eyes are fixated on a snowbank at the curb. "It sure as hell doesn't look like nothing. Looks like punchy had one too many." "No, no. I'm fine. Really it'sch nothing." Blondy looks familiar, but Dan can't place her. Has he been here before? "We'll let the medics decide. My partner is going to load the professor up and then you best be off to the hospital. Which one would you like?" "No, I'm not going to the hoschpital." "Like hell. You're going to the hospital. You're lip does not look good at all." "I'm not going. He hasn't done anything to me, if that'sch what you think. I did thisch myschelf" "So you're suicidal?" Sanders/City ofWoe/10 "That'sch not what I schaid. It wasch an accident. A car accident from a few daysch ago; the other car isch in the schop." Fuck sake she's really going with this routine. Who is she protecting? The sonuvabitch who just tenderized her face like a flank steak? Finally, she looks up at Dan. Christ, those baby browns are hurting. It's unbearable to see someone like this; pathetic, really. Tweeds is in the house hooting and hollering at Big Virg, and here she is defending the piece of shit. "I must have heard you wrong. We're pressing charges. You're going to the hospital. This is not your fault." "Bullschit. I know my rightsch and I'm not going to the hoschpital." "Do you know your rights? It sure as shit seems like you don't know your rights considering you're letting that P.O.S. do whatever he wants with you." Shit. Now the water works. It's the same thing every fucking time. You could write a script up at the station, take it to every domestic abuse call, and only the names would change. Dan thinks he would have learned not to yell at a woman who's just been beaten by now, he's had training on it for Christ's sake, but he just can't stand the part where she defends the bad guy. It gets him fired up almost as much as the actual abuse. "It'sch my," she's sobbing now with deep inhales between words like she's just come up from a long dive, "it'sch my fault. I cheated on him. I told him about Paul. I've been going out with Paul for almoscht a month now and I couldn't keep it from him anymore. I didn't have schex with him though I schwear." "I don't care who you had sex with. I don't care if you cheated on your husband. I don't want to know about Paul. Did your husband hit you?" "No." "That's enough. That sunnuva bitch is going to jail." Sanders/City ofWoe/11 "No! He didn't hit me." The wind makes a mess of her blonde hair. She shivers hard and her ivory skin visibly tightens. Instead of asking to grab a jacket, though, she just takes it. The cold has wriggled its way into her interior and she just sits on those steps like stone. It's like she's punishing herself. She knows how to combat what ails her and, instead, she lets the cold have its way. An ambulance rumbles in behind the Impala. "Talk with these guys, Frances. I'm going inside and then I'll be back to talk to you before you go to the hospital." "I'm not going to the hoschpital." Dan wishes that bastard knocked her unconscious. At least that way she couldn't protest an ambulance ride and he'd be twisting Tweeds' handcuffs until his hands fell off. This house is about as nice as it gets for Pueblo. The entryway is full of wood. The front door, the bench on the left, and the exposed beams running horizontally from wall to wall are a deep, inviting walnut. This entryway doesn't shock and awe, but smooths the transition from outside world to in. Following raised voices, Dan walks down the hallway, over a decorative hall runner swirling crimson and sapphire. How did these two fuck-ups manage something so nice? Apparently the ability to wonderfully furnish a home and the habit of domestic disturbances are not mutually exclusive. Dan turns left under a walnut archway to find Virg and sir-punch-a-lot in the living room. Tweeds is sitting on a leather Chesterfield and Virg looks twelve feet tall standing next to him. Virg's size doesn't phase the intoxicated instructor, though, because he's talking unnecessarily loudly, like he's front row at a Metallica concert. Big Virg interrupts Tweeds' hysterical ranting, "John, listen to me now" Sanders/City ofWoe/12 "No, no, no that's bullshit! I didn't touch her." Why Virg lets people speak to him this way is unfathomable. Dan steps in. "Lots of walnut in this joint. Pretty refreshing to see a home like this in Pueblo. Was it like this when you bought it or did you do some remodeling?" The professor's jaw about hits the floor at this abrupt change in conversation and he doesn't answer. "So, you bought it this way then? That figures. I wouldn't expect you to be the handyman type." Tweeds finally pipes in, "Officers, I don't have time for this. If you're going to patronize me, then please just leave." Dan replies slowly to emphasize his point, "You're in no position to be making demands professor. I'm just trying to have some honest conversation." "Professor? What the hell are you talking about?" His blue eyes are glossy with pupils dilated but his speech isn't slurred in the slightest. Dan ellaborates, "Well you've got lots of dark, nutty tones going on in this house and the tweed jacket and tortoise shell glasses and all. You're like the nutty professor, ya know? Walnut here, tweed there. You're like a little brown nut living in a shell, and I'm the nutcracker." Sheer disbelief in his stupid, marble eyes. He's a doll that's seen a ghost; the ghost of a police officer that wants to slap the shit out of him. How can a policeman insult him like this? He deserves respect, goddammit, and he's too important to waste his time talking to lower class citizens like Dan and Big Virg. "You're telling me you're not a professor?" "No, I am not and I don't see how that really pertains to the situation. Please leave." "Pipe down, Tweeds. We're not going anywhere." "Excuse me! This is my house and" Sanders/City ofWoe/13 "What did I just say? Shut the fuck up before you and your wife have matching faces." The professor stands up to face Dan. Dan's thinking Tweeds will actually do it. Please do it, he's thinking. Swing, you motherfucker. Give him a reason to crack your little nut head. He'll let Tweeds hit him, of course, and that's a felony on top of the domestic abuse charge that will surely come with it. The professor's eyes fl.ash up to Virg and then falter and he falls back into the Chesterfield. The coward. "So am I going to jail?" Virg looks at Dan for confirmation. "Your wife says you didn't hit her, but so help me God, if we come back here again I'll make sure you get locked up. Stay here until we're gone. I don't want you near Frances again for awhile." One last look around the living room reveals that there are no family photos, only nonsensical paintings in ornate gold frames. The thermostat is set to sixty. All this nice shit and they can't afford to heat the house? On his way out, Dan pauses at a blanket on a bench. It's a big, feathery nightmare of a blanket. They spend no money on heating the house and hundreds on decadent blankets? 22 needs to get out of here before Dan starts slapping paintings off the wall to quell his ever expanding inferiority complex. He grabs the blanket and heads for the front door, where Big Virg is waiting for him. The EMTs are packing up their medical bag when Dan and Big Virg get to the front steps, where Frances is still sitting. "What's the verdict?" Dan can see that it isn't going to happen. A firefighter almost as tall as Virg but half as wide with round glasses and brown hair yawns his reply, "She's refusing. We told her that she needs to go, but obviously we can't force her if she's still oriented. She signed a release against medical advice and I told her to call back if she changes her mind." An alfalfa hair on the back of his head bobs as he talks and there's sleep in the corner of his eyes. His partner is waiting behind him with a computer in his hands and he's at least a foot shorter. These two Sanders/City ofWoe/14 are Dan and Virg's bizarro twins and Dan thinks back to when he started his career. Firefighter was an option, but with his father and grandfather being policeman, he fi gu red they might stone him. Some days he knows he made the wrong choice. Big Virg is always quick to please. He says, "Thanks for coming out boys, sorry to wake you." The tall fireman looks to Virg and says, "We'll see you again tonight, I'm sure." Dan interjects, "Hope not," and the fireman turns to join his partner at the ambulance without reply. Dan meant he hopes not to unnecessarily wake them again, but realizes how his words were perceived. So be it. Frances is back to her eye-averting ways. Dan pleas, ''At least, for the love of God, tell me that you aren't staying here tonight." "No, my schischter is on her way and I'm going to schtay with her." "Praise Jesus. Listen to me Frances, you've got to get away from this guy. Ifhe does it once, he'll do it again, assuming he hasn't already." "He didn't hit me, I schwear it. He isch a good man." Dan says, "Good men don't beat their wives, Frances. Look at you, you're freezing out here and your face is a mess." He attempts to wrap the blanket around Frances' shoulders, but she refuses. Frances says, "I'm fine, I don't need this." Dan begs, "It's frigid out here, there's no way you're fine. Please, God, please. Just let me do this at the very least." Frances begrudgingly accepts without a thank you and Big Virg ventures a risky question with the intention of changing her mind about pressing charges, "Do you think he asked me if you were okay when I went in there?" Sanders/City ofWoe/15 Frances sees through his question and replies without emotion, "He didn't hit me." This is growing tiresome. Dan diverts the conversation, "Does your sister live nearby?" "Yesch, juscht a few blocksch." "Alright, well Big Virg and I are going to wait here until she shows. Whether he hit you or not, you two clearly need to be apart for the night." In the silence that ensues, Dan thinks to himself that he and Virg are genuinely the only people who give a shit about the situation. Tweeds wants to get back to his whiskey and brooding, no doubt, and the bag is protecting him because of some imagined moral code. She's overcomplicating this thing; he punched her and now he should be in jail. It's so fucking simple, yet, you'd think she's taking a trigonometry test. Sputtering over each question, trying to make sense of the equations. There is only one equation to know in this scenario, and it isn't trigonometry. Elementary algebra, maybe. Punch your wife is X, and go to jail is Z. Three X times Y equals Z, solve for Y. Any guesses? Y is press charges. You punch your wife, you go to jail; but, of course, the wife never presses the fucking charges. A black Volkswagen SUV pulls in behind the Impala, where the ambulance was only moments ago. Before Dan can turn and impart some final wisdom, Frances is already gone and the empty blanket lies crumpled in her place. In a flash, Frances is in the Volkswagen, AND ... not even a wave. Frances's sister sure didn't seem surprised. Virg throws the blanket inside the front door and the two officers return to the cruiser in no particular rush. This beautiful house is just an illusion to distract from the utter shit that's going on inside it. Illusions are what define us all, Dan thinks. There are no real people, only the fa ades they build to cover what they don't like about their nature, but the fa ades crack and warp over time leaving the exposed nature beneath visible to everyone. Like the professor, Dan works diligently to keep his Sanders/City ofWoe/16 fapde from crumbling, but even he has allowed people to see the real him on occasion. Luckily, the only person at PPD who has witnessed the essence of Dan-the high frequency ectoplasm of his nature that has been squished into its too-small container-was Bailey, who is obviously no longer around to blab about it, thank God. Officer Paul Bailey, though not as large as Big Virg, was a big fella and strong as an african elephant, despite his adamant opposition to gyms of all kinds. The strength of twenty cops couldn't save Paul from his own head, though. PPD doesn't talk about him much, and Dan supposes it's because he was so well liked. Why are the ones that off themselves always so well liked? Based off of this rationale, Dan decides that he would be spoken of often should he ever decide to kick his own bucket. In the squad, Dan opens the computer to find that three different units are on calls, making 22's next one only a matter of minutes. Dan hates to leave this call unresolved, but they have no choice since neither the bag or the professor were honest and there were no witnesses. The only real objective was to separate the love birds, anyway, and at least that was achieved, even if 22 didn't have much to do with it. Tweeds will get his sooner or later. Dan lifts the mic, but hesitates. Fuckin' A, Montana has never felt so far away, "Dispatch 22 is 10-8." The husky nasal responds, "10-4." In his best fat-girl voice, Dan mimics the dispatcher, "10-4. Too bad you're married Virgy cuz I have a feeling this dispatcher is ripe for the picking." "You're a bad person" says Virg trying not to smile. This oafloves fat girl jokes for some reason. He must've been dumped by a heavy weight in high school. Sanders/City o f Woe/ 17 "I am a product o f my environment. Let's hit the Sev, Patricia, it's gonna be a long night and I need a liquid kick in the ass. Hey, speaking of the fact that you're a whipped bitch, how is the dumb ol' fam anyhow? Virginia keeping it nice and tight?" "Oh ya' know." That's it? Oh ya know? This is new territory. Normally Dan can't get Virg to shut up about his stock-photo family. "No, I don't know Patrick." Silence. Dan probes further, "Did she finally realize the ridiculousness that is the name Virginia Virgil and dump your sorry ass, or what? Honestly, her name is Virg Virg." Virg isn't laughing. Dan tries again, "What's the deal Big Virg?" Dan's just called Big Virg by his official title, so things are getting serious. "Not exactly," says Virg being coy. "Spill it Virgil. Something is clearly up with you." "She brought up divorce, Dan," replies Virg with eyelids half closed. Apparently this conversation bores him, even though it's news to Dan. "Well she was probably just mad, Patrick. Women are fickle, you know this." Virg's eyes are suddenly alight, "We've never talked about divorce before. I've never even thought about it, man. I'm fucking freaking out. What if she means it? I rarely see the kids as it is with this schedule, I don't know what I'll do if she's serious." Oh Christ, this isn't good. If Big Virg and Virginia can't make it, this world is on a crash course for annihilation. They are the only good ones left. Dan isn't sure how to respond, so he doesn't. "Were you ever married, Dan?" "Yeah I was married. That was the longest twelve years of my life." "Th fi k " e uc you were. Sanders/City ofWoe/18 "I was, friend, I really was. She was my highschool sweetheart even. Damn she was fine. Tight little ass and whatnot. It keeps me up at night, Virg." "This job keeps you up at night. What happened, she get sick of the rugged cop routine?" "You could say that. She cheated on me. I didn't know the guy, though, and somehow that helps. You can bet every penny in that very small check of yours that I didn't hit her, though. That fucking piece of shit is gonna' get what's coming to him without my help." Virg looks sad and surprised like he's just walked in on his mother fucking a stranger and he lets slip a half-assed reply, "I didn't know that. Christ, how did I not know that?" "Because you're a self-absorbed ego maniac and you only care about your own problems?" Virg is laughing now. Dan continues, "Seriously though, man, I'm sorry to hear about Virginia. Let me know ifI can help. Clearly I can't, though, seeing as how I couldn't even keep my own marriage together." With a smirk Dan offers, "Coffee is on me." Virg knows as well as Dan that the Seven-Eleven they are pulling into never makes cops pay for coffee. Dan's hand is aching. The wound has bled through the gauze and Dan retrieves a new roll from the trunk of the patrol car as Virg goes into the Seven-Eleven. The clouds overhead have thickened and Dan hurries to rewrap his hand because the cold makes his bones ache. The wind is biting. This type of cold feels everlasting like early onset rigor morris. He can't wrap fast enough. Sanders/City ofWoe/19 Dan has forgotten why this is the staple Seven-Eleven for PPD. The free coffee is nice and all, but, honestly, it isn't worth it. The coffee is one, ma y be two, dollars at the most? Yes, they'd have to pay at most other gas stations in town, but at least they wouldn't be surrounded by roach people. Ma y be they come here because it's right in the center of town. It's the ideal location for a group who has to leave to God-knows-where in a hurry. The linoleum is sticky and black from spilled slushie syrup. The windows aren't boarded up, but might as well be because they're clouded over from years of mal-maintenance. There are two roaches out front and the cashier is suspect himself He looks like he's all methed out the way he's pacing back and forth behind the counter. His thinning, mousy hair is standing on end and his chin and neck are scarred from picking scabs. When Dan enters, the cracked-out cashier looks up at him and then at Virg and spurts out words quickly and loudly like bullets from a Mac-10, "Wow, you two make quite the pair. You're like opposites in every way." Virg glances up from filling his cup and Dan ignores him entirely. This doesn't sit well with the cashier because he mumbles something incoherent in an angry tone. What is he looking for, a big laugh and and a junior policeman badge? No shit they look different, bud, they hear it every single day. The cashier looks like he's just climbed out of the toilet that hasn't been cleaned in a month, but the officers keep quiet about it because, news flash, it's rude as fuck to point out looks. Dan swears that i f he hears one more reference to the movie Twins he'll start slapping motherfuckers at random. No shit, someone once followed up the reference by calling him the black Danny De Vito and he thought he was going to have an aneurism. Virg meets Dan at the aisle end cap and hands him a coffee, "Just the way you like it Dan-o. Black." Virg's eyes narrow. He didn't think that one all the way through. "Easy now, Patrick. This Sev's got me on edge." Sanders/Ci ty ofWoe/20 Virg pretends like it didn't happen, "Remind me why we come here." "Well," Dan offers without enthusiasm, "as you know, us cops don't make much cash. A couple free coffees go a long way." Virg isn't convinced. When he glances up, the cashier is listening intently to their conversation. Virg's eye contact gets him all shifty and he starts pacing again like he's training to be a competitive race-walker for the Olympics. Dan and Virg approach the counter. The roach's pacing stops abruptly and his gaze is surprisingly intense as he says, "Just the two coffees for you heroes?" The fucker. Most crackheads just keep to themselves but this guy has some balls on him. This demoralizing technique is not uncommon. It's difficult to directly insult a police officer, but people find ways to do it, no problem. By over exuding gratitude and exaggerating his appreciation, this cocksucker is essentially reaching across the counter and slapping the officers in their faces. He's insinuating that their work is pointless. Not only that it's pointless, but that they are hyp ocrites for believing they are heroes themselves; though that's never the case. To the cashier, the opposite is true. Not only are they not heroes, they are villains of the highest order, masquerading as the good guys when really they get their rocks off on hurting people. Truth be told, Dan would absolutely love to hurt this roach, though it would be hard to get his rocks of doing it, given his offensive odor. The rumblings of a retort start in Dan's chest, but before they can reach his vocal chords, Virg hurriedly replies, "That's right, friend. Just the two coffees." "That'll be 4.05." Dan guesses the coffee is only free when the cashier isn't tweaking and angry for no reason. Virg reaches for his wallet, but Dan hasn't forgotten his half-assed offer. Both officers start pushing and pulling in an effort to get their card into the reader. Dan snarls, "Fuck off, Virg. I told you I've got this one." Sanders/City ofWoe/21 Big Virg is revitalized by the challenge and pushes Dan, but Dan rolls on contact, ducks under Virg's enormity, and slides his card into the reader. The cashier has resumed his pacing and as Dan punches in his pin number, the cashier's mumbling picks up volume, "Seriously guys, ya'll are some real heroes. I mean, what would we do without you. Thank you guys. Thanks for your service. I don't care what the citizens of Pueblo say about you, you guys are the real deal." Dan does his best to keep it under wraps, "Okay. Thanks for the coffee." "No, man, seriously, thank you guys." He draws his final words out slow like he's speaking to a half-wit, "t-h-a-n-k y-o-u." Even Virg is beginning to grow tired of the roach's game. He could wring this cashier out like a wet towel but he maintains his cool as Dan jogs for the door. Virg looks the cashier dead in the face and says, "We'll see you around. Stay safe, we would hate to see anything happen to you." The cashier gets the idea and continues pacing without reply. Dan and Virg reconvene in front of the store. Exasperated, Virg genuinely asks, "Jesus, man, what the fuck is wrong with these people?" It's nice to see Virg fed up. Dan admires Virg's empathy and understanding, but it can get old fast. Despite the cold, several more roaches have gathered at the front of the store. Their conversations have seized with the appearance of the officers. Dan isn't sure how to answer, so he doesn't. As the two officers gulp their coffees in attempt to warm themselves, another call comes in, "22, respond to a 10-14. A passerby saw a man lying in the snow face down. The caller honked, but the suspect didn't respond and the caller was unsure if the person was injured or not. Paging medical." "22 copies and en route. Twenty bucks says it's a drunk, Virg." Sanders/City of Woe/22 "That's not much o f a bet." "Okay, twenty bucks says it's a dead guy." "Deal." "Fuckin' dead guys. Now our coffee is gonna' get cold."