AS CLEAR AS THE SUN RISING
by A. T. Paul
Copyright 2012 A. T. Paul
ISBN: 978-1-62154-100-4
I looked at those two little girls and I knew.
I was done.
One blond curl swung free from what should have been a face. Somehow that one curl missed the effects of the shotgun blast. One perfect little curl. I had already identified the other little body for the medical examiner. I nodded my head at him again. Yes, I knew them. Yes, these were the same two toddlers who had been playing in my office yesterday. No, wait....Gawd, was it only six hours ago?
I signed the same paperwork I had signed on other occasions. I listened to the same sympathies, looked into the same bruised eyes of the medical examiner. He and I had done this dance. We were not going to do it again.
I was done.
It was a short distance from the morgue to the courthouse. Most days I found that amusing. Today it was merely convenient.
"You can't go in there, miss."
I ignored the secretary.
"Miss. Miss! You can't -"
I shut the door in her red, pudgy face.
"I am quite busy. I am due back in court in a couple of minutes. Come back another time."
I turned around. The chamber was the usual overdone walnut-leather combo office one would expect to find in a judge's chamber. Books were everywhere. He must have a good cleaning crew. It looked like nothing had moved in years, but there wasn't a speck of dust to be found.
"I'll only be a minute. That will give you one to spare before you're due back."
The judge heaved a sigh. Clearly I was disturbing him.
"I do not have time for you. If you do not leave, I will call for security."
"Go ahead," I shrugged, "By the time they arrive, I will have said what I came to say."
I waited. He didn't reach for the phone.
He wasn't the first judge to occupy these chambers. The others hadn't been bad and this one wasn't either. Not really. He just kept letting his personal life interfere. It wasn't the fault of those two sweet dead toddlers that the judge's own children spent more time with their mother than him. But every time a father spewed out a sad story, the judge dished out a second chance.
"Remember the Mackery twins? The heroin-addict father? From yesterday?"
The judge nodded. He recognized me now. I could tell from the narrowed eyes. He didn't like me. His kind never did.
"The father completed rehab. Had a job. Doing well. I try to keep families together. I won't change my ruling."
There was finality in his tone. There was finality in mine as well.
"They're dead."
I watched his face turn a pasty shade of white. His mouth moved several times before any sound came out.
"Mr. Mackery must be devastated."
"Dobie Mackery shot them. He thought they were aliens come to suck out his brain."
The judge looked a little sickly
"So, do you think he got the heroin before or after court yesterday?"
The judge gagged a little, head sagging into his hands.
My sixty seconds were over.
I left the judge with his sad thoughts. Maybe next time he wouldn't be so quick to believe. And maybe our next president will be a lesbian.
"Mouser!"
I gave Dunkel a tight smile.
"Any calls?"
"Did the judge call to complain, you mean? Nah," he craned his neck to look at me, "But then you didn't really expect him to, did ya?"
Dunkel was reclined on the worn out sofa in the middle of my office. His sock-covered feet dangled off one end. It was a long sofa, but Dunkel was well over six feet and most furniture was too small for him. All but one chunk of his shaggy black hair was pushed back from his face. Slate eyes twinkled at me. Dunkel and I were a study of contrasts, tall, dark, imposing versus short, blond, not imposing. We had known each other for a long time. So long, in fact, I knew his real name. And he mine. Which is why I had told him about the judge.
I gave him another tight smile before throwing myself down into one of the overstuffed chairs that squared out from the sofa. A large desk and some bookcases were crammed on the other side. All the furniture combined wouldn't have gotten more than twenty bucks at a yard sale. It wasn't really my office either. It was a shared office. Me, Dunkel and a few others claimed it when the big bosses decided to let some of the former residents, namely us, have more say in the running of things.
"The Bigs in?"
Dunkel gave me another look.
"Yeah. I heard a couple stomping around up there," he made a motion toward the ceiling.
"Your'n not gonna do anything stupid, are ya?"
I gave him my best innocent look.
"Damn it, Mouser. They don't need to know about that pansy-ass judge. Let it ride."
"You know me, Dun."
This place was like a half-way house for runaways, ex-hookers, former drug addicts, ex-gang bangers, street punks of all sorts. The older ones, who had decided to stay, worked hard to get more street punks here, so there would be less street punks out there. The big bosses even paid us to do it. Dunkel and I brought them in off the streets, others worked at making them more presentable to society with education, rehab, retraining, whatever was needed, then we sent them back out into the world to try again. Dobie Mackrey had not been ready. Our failure. And that judge's.
Dunkel threw himself upward. When he stretched out his legs, his feet touched mine. I pulled my feet in a little.
"Let me talk you out of it."
I laughed.
"When does that ever work?"
A grumbled "never" was followed by, "So, tell me about your date last night."
"Went good."
"Went good," Dunkel nodded his head several times, "Went good. So how many 'went good' dates is it now? Eight...no, ten. With the same guy. Lookin' kinda serious. He know who you are yet?"
"No."
"When you gonna tell him?"
"Probably never."
Dunkel nodded that shaggy head of his.
It was a rule. There was life out there. And life in here. The two did not mix. The world outside did not want to know us.
"Time to go talk with the Bigs."
Dunkel started to stand up, changed his mind, and threw his hands in the air.
"Your funeral."
Actually, no.
We don't get funerals.
Big Bob was not happy with me. He shook the paper as if doing so would erase the words printed on it.
"You do not have to fall on your sword."
I relaxed against the leather. This furniture would fetch a lot more at a yard sale.
"I'm not."
"You are. This judge," a swiping motion, "is nothing."
"It isn't about the judge."
Big Bob was so named because his name was Bob and he was one of the big bosses. He also completely filled out his leather chair. Sometimes he was called Big Bald Bob. Though never to his face.
He slapped the offending paper down on his desk, his hand flat against the surface.
"Dobie isn't the first you have lost."
"No. Not the first. But he will be the last. I'm done."
"Can I talk you out of it?"
Two hours later, Big Bob gave up. It was flattering that he fought to keep me. It would be easy to stay. Keep doing tomorrow what I did yesterday and all the days before that for the past five years. Leaving meant the unknown. I had sent many out into the world to try life again. Now it was my turn.
Dunkel took it worse than Big Bob.
"What?! No! You can't! No."
Dunkel was towering over me, his hair falling in his eyes. When I had threatened t
o cut his hair once, he had assured me it was the emo-sexy look. He did not look sexy now. More disgruntled.
"It was bound to happen, Dun. For both of us."
"Yeah, eventually."
I smiled. Everything was eventually to Dunkel.
"I ain't done nothing without you. Not since the rat hole."
The rat hole. It was where Dunkel and I first met. Two runaways in a rat-infested abandoned building eating thrown-out leftovers from the restaurant three streets over. Best dumpster diving spot in the neighborhood. Timing had to be just right. We weren't the only ones who had known about that spot and at thirteen neither of us had been big enough to win any fights. Dunkel was plenty big enough now, except with me.
"Dun, I don't go out on dates with you."
A wide grin, "Good thing, too."
I rolled my eyes at him.
"Maybe it's time you left, too. Use that money you've been saving. Go be the artist you ran away from home to be."
Dunkel dragged a hand through his hair, shook his head, "I dunno. There's a lot of starving artists out there."
He gazed out the window.
I laughed, "You won't starve. I know this really cool dumpster."
That earned me a look.
"We've been here a long time," Dunkel did not sound convinced.
"Longer than most. Too long."
"What are you going to do?"
Good question. What was I going to do? Five years of saving my earnings, I had a pretty good nest egg. College