How They Were Found (21 page)

Do not fly in airplanes.

Do not forget that you are destined for death, that your family carries doom like a fat bird around its neck, that it is something you will never be rid of.

Do not forget to set the alarm when you leave the house, when you go to sleep at night.

Do not fuck around.

Do not get divorced.

Do not get in fights, in bars or otherwise.

Do not get married.

Do not go looking for trouble.

Do not go outside at night or during the day.

Do not go skinny dipping in dark ponds with anyone.

Do not hire a private detective. They may find what you are looking for, but they will also find out about you.

Do not hitchhike or pick up hitchhikers.

Do not have acquaintances.

Do not have friends.

Do not hope too much.

Do not leave trails of breadcrumbs showing which way you have gone.

Do not leave your phone number written in match books or on cocktail napkins.

Do not linger outside of buildings. Do not smoke or wait for busses or cabs.

Do not look back when you should be running away.

Do not love a man with a temper.

Do not love men at all, or women either.

Do not make enemies, if you can help it.

Do not meet strange men or women you find on the internet in coffee shops or bars or motels.

Do not play with fire.

Do not pray for salvation, for protection, for deliverance.

Do not push your luck.

Do not put your trust in security guards, in the police arriving on time.

Do not raise your voice in anger.

Do not sleep, for as long as you can avoid it.

Do not smoke marijuana, as you are paranoid enough already.

Do not take any drugs at all.

Do not take shortcuts.

Do not take the same way home twice.

Do not telegraph your punches.

Do not telephone home and say you'll be out all night.

Do not think that not doing any of these things will be enough to save you.

Evidence as symbol of a crime committed, of a deed done.

Evidence, locked away in locked cabinets inside locked rooms.

Evidence, not harmless, even behind all those locks and doors.

Ex-wives, as likely suspects.

Eye, as in, keep an eye out. As in, keep your eyes peeled.

Eye, as point of entry, as wound.

Eyewitnesses, reliable enough for the courts, but not for me. They never tell me what I need to know.

F, tattooed on my left bicep, the first initial of a father lost.

Family, as in mother and father and brother and sister and me.

Family, as something broken and lost.

Family, as something destroyed by external forces deadly as tornados, destructive as wildfires.

Fate, as explanation, as probable cause.

Father, memory of: Always I see my father walking out doors. I see him shutting the door to my bedroom, refusing to leave the light on, even after he gave me something to be afraid of. I see him shutting the car door, locking me in for delirious summer hours while he drank, sitting near a window so he could keep an eye on me. I see him walking out the front door of our house, suitcase in hand, vanishing forever.

Father, murdered. Gunned down by a complete stranger, outside a bar, in Bay City, Michigan. They had not been fighting, nor had they even spoken, at least according to the murderer. This murderer, he said he didn't know why he did it, why he felt compelled to pull the pistol out of his jacket and shoot my father dead. We didn't know either. We hadn't talked to our father in five years, didn't even know he was still in Michigan, waiting to be killed.

Fingerprints are hard to get a hold of, but not impossible. I have spent a fortune to get these cards, these five-fingered imprints of the men and women who have torn my family to shreds. I have placed my own fingers over theirs, but they do not match. I am not accountable, at least not in this most surface of ways.

Fingerprints: Once you know your own, you can dust your house, can prove that no one has been there but you.

Fire, as possibility, since it did not claim any of the others.

Forensics, as method of investigation.

Girlfriend, brother's. Calls over and over, crying into the phone. One reason to get Caller ID.

Guardian angels, non-existent, as far as I can tell.

Gunpowder, smell of: My father's face, when I bent down to kiss him in his coffin.

Hair samples, stored in plastic bags inside folded manila envelopes. Labeled with name, date, relationship. Fragile, dangerous to handle.

Her, the only one of them that remains.

Her, who has separated herself from me, for her safety, for my own.

History, familial, patriarchal and matriarchal: This is not just us, not just my mother and father and brother and sister and myself. This is uncles killed in poker games, aunts smothered in hospitals. This is babies exposed in vacant lots and brothers holding sisters underwater until the ripples stop. This is history as an inevitable, relentless tide.

History, of an event, of a series of events.

History, personal and also partial, as in this index.

Hospital: The place we were born, the place we go to die, the place we will be declared dead.

Identity, as in, Can you identify this body? As in, Is this the body of your father/mother/brother?

Identity, as in, If I could identify my sister's future killer, could I stop her murder from taking place?

If I can't have him, no one can.
Words overheard but ignored. A lesson about the importance of warning signs.

Index as excavation, as unearthing, as exhumation.

Index, as hope, as last chance.

Index, as how to find what you are looking for.

Index, as method of investigation.

Index, as task, as thing to be completed before I die.

Index, as time capsule, as guide to understanding the collected evidence of a life, of a history, of a family tree.

Index, as understanding, however incomplete.

Inevitability, as a likely end to this story.

Insurance policies, as in, Good luck getting one, if you're me. They never tell you that being from a family of murder victims is a risk factor, but it is.

J, tattooed on the inside of my right wrist, first initial of a brother lost.

Jars, for holding each organ individually after they are weighed and categorized and examined for meaning.

Jars, full of brains and livers and hearts. They will not give these to me, no matter how persistently I ask.

Knife, as weapon, if you hold it right.

Like being torn from the arms of the father.

Like being wrenched from the bosom of the mother.

Like closed caskets, like graves all in a row, like the last two plots, waiting to be dug out and then filled in.

Loss of limbs is less important to those who will not survive than those who have to see what is left.

Love, as necessity.

Love, not nearly enough.

Luck, as in bad luck, for all of us.

Madness, temporary, blinding.

Manslaughter implies that what happened was a mistake. In my family, we do not believe in manslaughter.

Memory, doing the best it can.

Memory, failing to do enough all by itself.

Memory, inconsistent, remembering the wrong events, seeking significance and signs where probably there are none.

Memory: When my brother and my sister and then I went off to school, my mother gave us each a St. Christopher's medallion. When she placed mine around my neck, she told me it would protect me, that it would keep me safe from accidents, from accidental death, as if that was all we had to worry about.

Mirror, the only place I see my father's hairline, my mother's nose, my brother's ears, my sister's thin, frightened lips.

Mother, memory of: Lonely before he left, then worse after. There were men with good jobs and men with no jobs, men with tempers and men with appetites, men who were kind to us and men who used us as punching bags, as whipping posts, as receptacles for all the trash they carried inside themselves. Of all those who have failed to protect our family, she was only the first.

Mother, murdered. Died strapped into the passenger seat of a car, unconscious from a head wound, from a wound to the head. I have heard it said both ways. Her boyfriend—a man she started dating after our father left but before he was dead—thought he had killed her with his fists, but was wrong. It was the drowning after he dumped the car that did it.

Motives are almost the opposites of alibis, but not quite.

Mug shots: One, two, three, all in a row on the wall of my office. A reminder of who they were.

My brother's dog, which I take care of but do not trust. He failed to bark in the night once before, and he could do it again.

Mystery, unsolved, even after all this investigation.

Nothing, as inevitable as an ending.

Nothing: impossible to index, to quantify, to explain.

Over-protectiveness is something you learn, but always too late.

P, tattooed on the left side of my neck, first initial of a mother lost.