"Dead."
The man shakes his head. A paramedic patch on his shoulder sparkles under the full moon's gaze. He doesn't look up when the police officer approaches from behind.
"She ok?" the policeman asks.
"Drowned," the medic answers. The officer nods then looks away, past the bridge, to the flashing red and blue lights of his car. I walk over and look down at the body of a young woman laying perpendicular to the creek. Her head lays limp in the water, long hair streaming in the glowing current. Splotches of blood stain her green silk shirt which had been ripped to expose her left breast. A smooth inner thigh lay open, an invitation to the night and the full moon overhead, a memory of youth. A dark, maybe black skirt lay crumpled at her side.
I turn my attention to the lights. There are two police cars. Past them, barely visible through the branches of an old oak tree, is an ambulance. It's doors are open, waiting its next passenger. But there will be no living passengers tonight.
A few people congregate on the bridge under the protective arms of an old fashioned looking street lamp. Two carry backpacks while a short black girl with braids in her hair flashes off a couple of shots with a camera. All students, no doubt, and the one with the camera's probably taking a photography course. I recognize one of them, Jennifer Willow. She was in my Cultural Anthropology class last term. Lives on the same floor of the dorm. My best friend Jody thinks--Hell, I'll be honest--both of us think Jennifer's a dyke afraid to leave the proverbial closet. And damn if she hasn't got that thing bolted tighter than her ass.
But they're here looking at the body and I'm here looking at the body.
"Who is she?" I ask. It had taken forever for the ambulance to get here and in that time I hadn't found the nerve to touch the body. I was rattled enough just finding it.
The paramedic sets the girl's blouse gently over her exposed chest and covers her legs with his jacket. He shivers and steam escapes from his thin lips. "Damn," he mutters without lifting his head. "Probably just a girl walking to the dorm. There's some wet blood on her hands, definitely not hers. Whoever did this isn't far off."
I gulp. For all we know he's up on the bridge examining his work like some sort of sadistic artist. Shit. This could have happened to anyone. Jody. Jennifer Willow. Any one of my friends. That girl shooting photos. Even one of my teachers. I walk over this bridge every night after I get done working at the library; it could have been me.
The cops is looking down at the body quietly, steam escaping his nostrils in short puffs. "Hey, are you all right?" the medic asks.
I look away and wipe a tear from under my eye. "Yea, I think I'll be fine."
The officer's face tightens and he whips out a walkie talkie. "High probability the suspect is still on campus. Requesting more units to begin a search." With that he puts it back on his belt and turns to the medic. "Gonna leave her head in the water, Jim?" he asks in a harsh tone. He crosses his arms but won't look at the body.
I feel a cold shiver run down my back and cross my arms too. It's damn cold. Reminds me of winters in Montana--but I've never been to Montana, regardless of the season. I hold myself a little tighter; it's become obvious that this whole thing is getting to me in more ways than one.
The paramedic stands up and wipes his hands on his pants. "I'm not moving anything till you guys give the go ahead."
The officer sighs. He's staring blankly up into the full moon and he rubs his left hand over a growing forest of stubble on his chin. His ring finger is as naked as the night sky, but he probably has a girl friend waiting for him at home. I can easily imagine him, cleanly shaven with nothing on but a green robe, popping the cork out of a bottle of cheap champagne and cradling beside her warm, naked body, then pulling her legs around himself...
"Jesus," I say under my breath. One second I'm walking casually to the dorms, no worries on my mind, then this. And now I'm fantasizing about some cop I've never met before. "What are you guys gonna do?" I ask.
"Move it," the officer says in a lowered tone.
Somehow I know he doesn't like the way the girl's hair is wiggling helplessly in the current. He doesn't like how her legs remind him of his girl friend. In his mind this girl has become an it. But I can't distance myself and have to shake my head again. Nausea sweeps over me so I brace myself against a tree trunk and close my eyes but it doesn't seem to help. I can still see the body, her head bobbing quietly in the icy November water...
"Here," the policeman continues. "I'll pull her legs, you get the torso."
The moon hangs over our heads and I can't help but believe that a goddess is casting a protective gaze over us. "Thank you so much," I tell them. "I just didn't know what to do when I found her."
"No problem," the medic says. "But next time I get the legs."
"Fair enough," the officer agrees. He looks away and grabs the body near the feet. I'm sure he can feel the last moments of warmth in the girl's fragile ankles. The medic carefully lifts her torso and head out of the water. Damn, he wants a cigarette. He'd stopped smoking two years ago when he'd seen the tumors from a smoked out cadaver. But he wants one bad now and he's planning on buying a pack as soon as he can--shit! What's happening to me? I lower my face into my hands and try not to hyperventilate but I can't stop feeling like I'm shaking like a jack hammer gone crazy. Finding a body, hearing peoples thoughts, wild hallucinations--
"Hey guys!"
The three of us turn in unison. Ten yards away a short officer waves a flashlight at us, then under the bridge. His name's Brad Smithers, but I can't remember where I've seen him before. Only twenty-four but has three kids. They like to call him The Six-Shooter down at the precinct. But his kids are probably the last thing on his mind. "You guys had better get over here!"
I can see another body under the bridge's dark arms, but I'm having enough trouble coping with the stress involved in seeing one. I'd really like to know how they deal with this kind of thing day after day. "Someone should stay here with her," I tell them. "You should go. I'll stay." With that they run over to Brad's find.
"Oh God," I hear one of them curse.
I turn away. Those people up on the bridge might want to know what's going on, but I can wait for tomorrow's paper. One body is one body too many. I'd never had to deal with death before.
On my thirteenth birthday my parents gave me a hamster. Named it Fee Bee, short for Fuzz Ball--by two letters at least. When I was seventeen I came home from the regional AAA volleyball tournament and was more excited than I'd been in years. The team had just won and we celebrated by going out for pizza. I was ecstatic. But when I got home and Fee Bee was gone... My younger brother buried her in the garden so I wouldn't have to see. I hated him for it. Didn't let him know till years later when I called him a bastard in front of everyone at the Winter Formal.
I look back down at the body. There isn't much too see, now. The medic's jacket covers most of her. Her legs jut out from beneath them like when the Wicked Witch of the East got crushed by Dorthy's house--only I'm sure this is no witch. Her arms stick out as well. I get down on my knees. Her shirt's made of a forest green silk, like the one my boyfriend gave me last Christmas. Somehow I doubt I'll ever be able to put that shirt on again.
Her hands are beautiful. Small, like mine. She's wearing a simple engagement ring that shines silver in the dim light. Although frightened, I force myself to touch her hand, to hold it in mine. It makes me feel more mortal than I've ever felt before and I can't help but allow another tear to escape.
"I'm so sorry," I tell her. Maybe she's here; maybe she can hear me. I'd like her to know that somebody out here cares. But I can't do anything for her now and somehow hate myself for it. If my shift had only ended a little earlier. Would that have helped?
"I really fucking doubt it."
I look up. Just a few yards away a boy with long black hair glares at me. He's got one leg propped up on a log that separates us. He closes his eyes for a moment and rubs a hand over a dark spot on the left side of his chest. The moonlight seems to flow around him as if he's somehow untouchable and I know something's wrong with this. I move backwards, my foot slips in a pool of mud, and I find myself on my side.
"So who's the bitch?" he asks. I look up and he's staring right at me, but somehow I feel like he's looking through me. He has that look of a blind man, that staring empty look that makes you want to stick a bag over your head so they can't stare at you like that. An anger burns inside me. How can anyone be so callous? Someone was murdered--two people! And all he can do is throw insults.
He tilts his head to the side and scratches the back of his neck. "Well, who is it?"
I look at him then down to the crumpled form. Her head, now out of the water, looks sad, out of place. It lays motionless on a carpet of smooth, round pebbles. The hair, which had so freely danced in the creek, now outlines the contours of her face. I can make out where her eyes and nose are. Her slender lips, free of hair, are clearly visible in the moonlight.
So young.
"Well, who the fuck is it?!"
"I don't--"
"God damnit!" He seems to race right through the log and at me, then gets down on one knee and carelessly pulls the girl's hair away.
A hammer of recognition hits my gut and I scramble on my hands and knees to the creek and dry heave. Convulsing once isn't enough for my stomach which repeats the action four times before letting me breath. The acrid taste of vomit covers my tongue and fills my nostrils with its unwanted companionship. I cup my hands and scoop a handful of water to clear the taste.
A jolt shocks my shoulder, knocking the water out of my hands. I twist and find his hand gripping me tightly and it's glowing a golden and white. His green eyes stare directly into mine and his mouth drops. I can feel the stream move into my knees and up through my stomach and chest, into my shoulder then to his hand and arm and up toward freedom, toward the moon. I find myself melting, swimming like a rainbow in the sparkling current. I head toward the radiance then everything darkens into hollow nothingness. Something begins to form around me like a cage of pure cold. It's something I've experience, something I've known: Pain.
I know the shape, but the depth startles me. I try reaching out but a debilitating loneliness prevents me from reaching up. I feel like I'm stuck at the bottom of a bottomless well lit only by a small circle of light. I can hear people walking by, laughing, talking about their weekends and what they're going to do over the break.
But I'm stuck down here and I know there's no way out. I've tried, believe me I've tried to meet people but it seems like no one's interested in knowing a guy like me. I'm quiet, I like to read and have serious conversations. On an exciting day I'll go to the library and skim over the new books. My weekends are spent alone mulling through text books and computer manuals. My parents call and I pretend that I am happy.
No one else calls. I leave the answering machine unplugged.
When I go to bed at night I'm scared of the darkness within myself, but I can't stand waking up to another pointless day alone. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I can see--
"Woah," he says and pulls his hand away. The golden light is gone and we are both alone on the chilly shoreline with the body.
My body.
I look away and spot his reflection dancing on the water. The moon shines behind his head, but its gentle rays do not reach the stream. His stare has changed. No longer cruel looking, sadness seems to be pulling at corners of his mouth. He looks older, shorter even. He lowers his head and begins to cry.
"I'm so sorry," he says through halting breaths. "I didn't know. I didn't realize I could... I was so alone. Day after day. Night after night after night... I blamed everyone for it." He stops and presses a hand to his lips. "I blamed you," he ends with a glance down at my body.
I reach out but am careful not to touch him. When his arm grabbed me it was not physical, in the normal sense. When we died the flesh and blood barriers that had always defined our lives had been soaked into the earth. Free from our shells, we were able to explore the knowledge of another's experience, another's life. Now it was as obvious as two plus two. He knew as I knew.
But he looks away from me and I can sense shame filling the air like the smell of sour milk. He's ashamed of what he did to me. He's ashamed of what he's done to himself. We aren't touching, but can I still feel him; it's like his thoughts and emotions are radiating off an open fire. The same must have happened earlier with the policeman and the ambulance driver. It wasn't the stress getting to me or the body. I wasn't going crazy. They hadn't even realized I was there.
And now, beside a living river and under the dim light of a full moon, I had learned to see.
He turns his face away. "It wasn't your fault," he says softly. "And there's nothing I can to do to take this back." He raises a hand to his chest again and the dark liquid spreads down his arm. He looks at it, takes a deep breath, then turns and begins walking toward the bridge where two flashlights skim over his broken body. His feet don't make a sound as they pass over the pebbles. And there was no sound as he trudged through the water and disappeared under the darkened bridge.
I walk to the bridge but he's gone. Maybe he would spend the rest of time roaming between the earth and the moon, never able to get back to one or able to reach out and touch the other. And somehow I feel responsible. How many people did I walk past from day to day without the slightest thought? There are hundreds of students at the university and many of them spend their days surrounded by their peers, yet totally alone.
What's so difficult about saying hello? Why didn't any of us ask how his day was going? Why didn't we stop the lonely worm before it ate him up inside? We'd all experienced it before from time to time, but something always got us through. Something he didn't have. My fiance would miss school tomorrow, and maybe he wouldn't be able to go back for a week, or for the term--but he had something wonderful. He had his friends and my friends and they'd all get through this together.
But someone had been forced to go at it alone. And he didn't make it.
I look down and surely enough here is his body. His long black hair is back in a tight pony tail. His left hand is gripping a thin cylindrical object that is jutting out of his chest. Dark blood covers his hand completely and has soaked the front of the white sweater he's wearing. His eyes are open.
"So you think she killed him?" Brad asks.
Jim, the medic, rolls his eyes. "What do you think? He just happened to go for an evening stroll, trip and fall on a ball-point pen, and rip his aorta wide open?"
"Hey, I'm no doctor, but--"
"Get back to the car," says the older policeman who I feel must be called Erickson. Last name, anyway.
"But--"
"Get back and call in! Ok?"
With a huff, Brad holsters his gun then sprints back to the patrol cars. By now a large crowd has formed and two more police are holding bystanders back. Jennifer Willow is looking down at me. No, she's trying to see what Jim and Erickson have found under the bridge.
"At least he didn't rape her," Jim says.
Waves of shock explode from Erickson's body as if a rock had been thrown into water. "What?!" he says with disgust. "Should it really matter? This kid held her head under the water." He stops and thinks about his girl friend again. I'm sure of it this time. He's asking himself what he would do if she had been drown instead of me.
Jim looks up. "Well--"
"What?" Erickson cuts him short. "So she managed to stick her Bic in this dick instead of his dick in that--" he stops and looks straight through me at my dead body.
The stream, unaware, continues to trickle through their silence.
"That was bad," Jim finally comments. Erickson just laughs, but it isn't real. He wants to go home, fuck his girl friend, and forget about this. But Jim doesn't have a girl friend. He just wants a damn cigarette. He wants to light one up so badly I wish I could have one too, but I've never smoked in my life.
Erickson closes his eyes. "It was pretty bad, wasn't it?"
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