“HIV-positive,” I yelled to the men. It was the only thing that came to mind to keep them back. “I’m HIV-positive and if you come near me, I’ll aim for your eyes and mouth, I swear on everything that is holy!” They didn’t come any closer as I crouched down and shuffled through the files that Sharon had left on the floor. And the plan worked.
I memorized the details: Virgil and Carol Paul, Goshen, Kentucky.
And then I fainted from the blood loss.
* * *
“Mattley.” The voice sounds far away, through what sounds like TV static and distant foghorns. “Help me out here. This woman is hurt.”
“Whootha …” I try to ask, pretty pissed that this guy has a bright-ass flashlight in my face.
“She’s not hurt, she’s just drunk,” says the all-too-familiar voice. Fucking great.
“Awwficer Matt … Lee … is that you?” I try to formulate sentences, words, anything. I struggle to sit up on the rocks.
“That’s just Freedom. C’mon. Help me get her up,” Officer Mattley sighs as he helps me up.
“Don’t, you fuckin’ raper … rapist … rape.”
“She always says this,” Mattley tells his new partner. “Always afraid cops have nothing better to do than comb the rocks for drunk women and rape them.” They help me to my feet, but I can stand for only a few seconds at a time; my bones become rubber bands. They are relentless sexual predators. I can swear this when I’m drunk. Sober? I really respect Officer Mattley. In fact, I’m head-over-heels in love with the guy. But if you try to tell me while I’m drunk that you’re not there to rape me? I’ll just scream it louder. And Mattley knows how I am when I get drunk. He’s one in a very few who knows how to deal with me in this state. “Yes, Freedom, I want to … you know.” I see him cringe at the thought. “But only if you get in the car.”
The rape that occurred twenty years ago never really left me. I don’t talk about it, don’t really think about it. But when alcohol livens up the darkest corners of my brain, those alleys where many of my skeletons dance, they just spew the most cringe-worthy parts of my mind, of that rape, right out of my mouth. The liquor dissolves any filters that I might have been born with. I don’t mean for it. When I black out, those demons like to come out.
“OK,” I say as I walk with them to the car. For the record, he’d never in a million years do such a thing. But for whatever reason, this works when I’m drunk.
“Matt … Lee,” I dribble in the backseat of the cop car. “This new cop is newbie, new. Is he gonna rape me too?”
“What?” asks the new partner with shock. This amuses me. I see Mattley in the driver’s seat nudge the new guy.
Mattley answers from behind the steering wheel. “He says he will, but only if you promise to go to sleep as soon as we get you home, OK?”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Everything around me is distorted. “Tell him I like it rough,” I slur.
“I will, Freedom.” Mattley starts the car. “Just try and get to sleep fast, then, OK?”
“Sir, yes, sir.” I begin to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
“Quick, turn around and grab her head,” Mattley yells to the newbie.
“What?” he responds. Is that all this guy knows how to say? What? Mattley skids the car to a stop on the soft shoulder. He turns from the front seat and grabs my head, right as I’m about to head-butt the window. Don’t ask me why I do the things I do when I am drunk, I just do. I hurt myself constantly, try to start fights so I get hurt, I feel I deserve to be raped, I’ll sleep with anyone with hopes that they’re sadistic just to feel the pain. This goes back to the glutton-for-punishment thing, I suppose.
After a small struggle, I give up on trying to break the window with my forehead. I think at one point I bite his hand. Probably. Mattley sighs with heaviness and turns to his partner.
“Next time I tell you to do something quick, do it quick and ask about it later.” He’s composed. See? That’s what I love about Mattley. The coolest and most collected man you’d ever meet. “When Freedom starts singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ she’s about to hurt herself.”
“So, now what?” the kid asks. “We put her in the drunk tank for the night?”
“No.” I scream bloody murder, as loud as I can, and throw myself around the backseat like a slug on a salt mine. I lie on my side to kick the shit out of the back of the front seat.
“No, Freedom, don’t worry. I promise we won’t take you to jail, got it?” Mattley has a way of calming me down, but it always takes a few attempts. He really should be canonized for his patience. Saint Mattley. “There’s no point. She’ll be like this the day after tomorrow too,” he explains to the newbie. We pull up to my house. What a fucking depressing sight. Mattley pushes me up the steps to my shoddy apartment.
“Have I ever told you about Layla and Ethan?” I ask him. “Only now they’re Rebekah and Mason, or some stupid shit like that. I mean, who names their kids Rebekah and Mason? Amiright?”
“Shush now, Freedom. No need for any of that. You just get some sleep,” Mattley hushes as we reach the second story.
“Quakers! Quakers name their kids names like that.” I begin to laugh. “Like that Quaker Oats man on the oatmeal cans with the white curly wig.” Suddenly, I do my best impression of a Quaker. “Ho, ho, ho, I’m a fucking Quaker, and my Quaker offspring shall be called Rebekah and Mason Quaker Walton,” as I mock in a Santa Claus voice. I actually don’t know anything about Quakers.
He directs the conversation to Newbie, who stands behind in case I fall. Even I’m surprised I haven’t yet. Mattley knows to never take me through the front entrance. I just can’t stand the sight of the meth-head super, hate him telling me to keep it down. Sometimes it turns ugly, if I’ve had enough to drink. “Never mind what she’s saying. Just grab her key from under that plant.” He motions to the fake plant on the wooden fire escape at my front door on the second story of the building. And what fucking good are wooden fire escapes, anyway? Mattley carries me to my bed, kicking the mess in the dark with his toes.
“Try and go to sleep, Freedom.” God, I love his plummy voice. It’s audio Valium. I look up at Officer Mattley in the dark. He’s a stern copper with most everyone else, but for whatever reason, gentle with me. He feels sorry for me and I hate it. I don’t need anyone’s pity. I’m no victim. Faint white light from the shades paints him into a recognizable being in the bedroom. I can smell his spearmint gum and see his bald head, but he’s sexy. Good Lord, he is a sexy man.
Mattley helps my head onto the pillow and grabs a few blankets from the floor to drape over me. I pretend I’m dead. I pretend he wraps me in a sheet to take me to the morgue. I shut my eyes. I will have no recollection of any of this in the morning. Mattley is a good soul. I truly love his soul. Too bad he’s a Goody Two-Shoes, and too bad I’m the town drunk and too bad for a lot of things.
“Mattley, I need a huge favor.”
“What’s that, Freedom?”
“Those letters in the living room.” I point to piles by the hundred. “If anything were to happen.”
“We’ll talk about it when you’re sober, hon.”
“Third-Day Adventists. Mason and Rebekah Paul, Goshen, Kentucky.”
Mattley strokes my forehead for just a second. “Get some rest and forget all that.”