Humidity

by Joe Schwartz

Humidity

Uncle Casey lost his leg in a motorcycle accident but told everyone he lost it in the first Gulf War. Didn’t matter to me one way or the other. However, it did strike me as unethical for a former policeman to lie.

I had aspirations of becoming a cop. I thought by working with him that the experience would prove invaluable. It certainly couldn’t look bad on my police academy application that I was an assistant private investigator.

So far I had learned PI was synonymous with amateur pornography. My uncle’s favorite proverb was “If their pants are down, they’re gonna be found.” I thought it was stupid, if not inconsiderate, seeing as our specific job was to destroy somebody’s life. Curiosity, though, is a dangerous thing. One moment, a person is happy as hell with two cars, a home in the suburbs, and kids who say sir and ma’am. The next, they were sitting in a booth at the Waffle House, crying their eyes out. Uncle Casey with digital pictures by the dozens of the unfaithful spouse playing ‘does it fit’ with some stranger. Secretly, I believed he took pleasure in watching the whole damned thing unfold.

The pay, though, was terrific. I had friends with degrees busting their chops at jobs, working forty hours or more a week, who struggled to survive. In the year since I dropped out of college and started PI’ing, money became a non-issue. People paid you whatever you said it would take, and Uncle Casey taught me to always get the money in advance. Once you showed the pictures it was game over. If you didn’t have the money by then, it wasn’t coming.

The hours were an insomniac’s dream. On a typical night, we would start to shadow a cheater no earlier than nine and if we were lucky, we were on our way home with the goods by two a.m. Most nights, however, I didn’t hit the sack until sunrise.

It could go on as long as three or four days with some of these people. Out of the house to meet their dirty little secret at some secluded destination, to make out like curious teenagers in the back of the family car, then back home to pretend nothing happened. It amazed me we were ever hired. How in the hell could these people not know? Then again, I guess you see what you want to see.

Somewhere about one in the morning, I was on fumes. Uncle Casey and I sat in his van behind the silver reflective glass that was good for seeing out but not vice versa. Three cameras (one digital, one still, and one streaming video) watched tonight’s alleged cheat. He was a middle-aged guy, too fat and too old for the clothes he wore. The woman was half his age, probably somebody he worked with, genuinely smitten with his worldly expertise. A total Daddy fetish if I ever saw one. Sick to death of the whole cat-and-mouse game and tired as hell, I asked Uncle Casey if he wanted some coffee.

The Coffee Cartel was a few blocks over. It was a gourmet coffee shop modeled off the Seattle wunderkid but without any of the pretension. It was also open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. A bastion for students cramming for exams with bottomless refills of dark roast Colombian and free wi-fi. The great thing about coming in at this time of night was no line. Come in here during the morning rush and you were twenty people deep, about to stroke out from a lack of caffeine, and the pressure of being late for work. Lunch was the middle-class housewife hour. Women in their mid-thirties drank coffee for three hours with more sugar than Cap-n-Crunch while they ate diet biscotti. Every night an open mic was available. Bad poetry, odes to angst that made Nirvana lyrics seem happy, pleased the disaffected set. Despite all that, I liked it. The coffee was good and it was always ready.

This job had been a record six-day crawl. It seemed chickenshit had a complex about an extra-marital exchange of fluids and couldn’t pull the trigger. Fine by me. The longer hesitant-Harry wrestled with his conscious, the more money I made.

***

Tommy was born rat snitch. If you wanted everyone to know something, all you had to do was tell him. It was no wonder why he wanted to be a cop.

I took him on as a favor to my brother. Him being a one-year community-college wash out, working thirds at a local stop-and-rob wasn’t a big resume builder. Besides, I could use the company.

I hadn’t had a partner since the force. It was a deliberate decision on my part. Partners were a pain in the ass. Before long you were knee deep in their life, whether you wanted to be or not. Generally you only had the job in common, but that didn’t stop the chatter. I never married or had kids, but every one of my partners did. The torture of feigning interest in little Johnny’s school play or little Susie’s dance recital was enough to drive me to drink. Their lives were a scheduled list of things to do. I was overjoyed when I got reassigned to the motorcycle division.

I was more embarrassed than crippled when I dumped my police-issued Harley-Davidson. My leg was no big deal, hell I had two, but the idea that I wasn’t in pursuit of some wanted felon is what killed me. That I overcorrected to miss a fucking alley cat totally pissed me off.

After I got out of the hospital, I planted my prosthetic foot in front of the other and decided to hang out my shingle. Money wasn’t much motivation. I had plenty with my disability and partial pension. It was the job, the thrill of adult hide-and-seek that motivated me.

I rented an office in Soulard smaller than my bathroom. The rent was triple what it should have been, but I liked the location. A short limp away stood several good taverns that catered to the bored and thirsty at ten in the morning.

I charged clients on a sliding scale. The more I thought they had, the more I charged. Nobody came to me who couldn’t afford it. Blue-collar folks didn’t have affairs. They fucked around and came home or didn’t. Either way, no mystery there.

White collars were an entirely different story. Those people were clueless. With all their money and education you would think they would know better. I heard the same thing so many times it blended into one standard story.

My husband (or wife) recently got that big promotion or some mega-client. I knew the change would be difficult, certainly more hours at the office, but lately things are different. He always seems so preoccupied when he’s home. Constantly making phone calls with the bedroom door shut and when I ask, “Who was that dear?” he practically tears my head off. Then there are the meetings in the middle of the night. If I call, I can never reach him. When he comes home, he stinks of cigarettes and liquor. In the morning, before I can ask how things went, he is already telling me that things are going terrible with this new client, and he will probably be stuck in a meeting until late tonight. “Don’t wait up,” he yells from the driveway without a kiss on the cheek or hug goodbye. Then he is suddenly called out of town. “Unavoidable. I’m the only one who can go, dear. Do you want me to stay home and lose my job?” No, of course not, but why the sudden urgency? I’m not the suspicious type, and I know this will be money wasted, but I have to know.

That’s it in a nutshell, the four magic words that give me carte blanche to dig deeper than a grave robber at midnight. I would like to tell you I have been surprised on occasion. That Mr. CEO or Mrs. Powersuit was putting together a gagillion dollar merger to conquer the world and secure a golden parachute for retirement by age fifty-five. Maybe they were, but the camera doesn’t lie.

I always choose a public place to show them the pics. The atmosphere of the Waffle House is best. I order coffee and tip the waitress early to leave us be.

Then the damnedest thing always happens. After the shock turns to numbness, after the wronged party realizes the horrible facts at hand, they say, “Thank you.” It never fails. The first time it happened I wanted to scream, but the more it happened the less it began to effect me. Now I have to control the urge to laugh.

I had my doubts at first about Tommy. He felt more compassion for the clients than I liked. He was always wondering who they were and why they would do this? They had everything life could offer.

I was careful to never refer to anyone by name around him. Instead I would use some iconic figure from bad television to identify the targets. It unnerved the kid and gave me a hobby. I would say, “Looks as if Mrs. Brady loves Sam the butcher’s meat,” or “Ward sure is teaching the Beaver a lesson tonight.” Eventually, he quit asking stupid questions.

***

I’ve worked at the Coffee Cartel for the last eight months. The money sucks but the fringe benefit of all the free coffee I can drink can’t be beat. My personal favorite is the extra strong Ethiopian blend. It’s like swallowing raw nuclear energy.

I have to wear a uniform, but beyond that my appearance isn’t taken seriously. Black lipstick and nail polish are essentials for me. Since I started, my hair has been blue, green, and a brilliant pink cut into a bob. In a place like this, I hardly get noticed. My manager has a Mohawk, and the other girl keeps her head shaved to display an intricate array of tribal tattoos.

The continual infusion of caffeine into my system also helps me to keep from crashing. On average, I sleep five hours max. My time outside of here is a never-ending pursuit for methamphetamine. As a kid, my mother was hooked on what she called trucker diet pills. When she got clean, she ballooned from a hundred twenty-five pounds soaking wet to over two-fifty. The woman who used to move at the speed of light now puttered along in agony. Sobriety seemed an unfair trade of bad for worse.

Now that I had the habit, I had no plans to ever quit. My friend, Reggie has snorted so much meth she burnt out her sinus passages. She has lost the ability to taste anything. She could be fed a shit-filled sandwich and it wouldn’t matter. Her nose is a sieve constantly oozing a clear mucus tide that doctors say can’t be fixed. She always has a crumpled hand-full of wet tissues trying to contain the mess, but that is not her biggest sorrow in life. Her chief complaint is that she cannot snort it anymore. I mean she’s tried like hell, but it gets all caught up in that gooey mess and none of it goes down. There ain’t nothing sadder than a junkie sitting on a mound of their favorite chemical and unable to use. She has to inject it to get high now. I’m certain it’ll be the death of her. It’s just a matter of time. If an accidental overdose don’t kill her, then a dirty needle will.

My work certainly doesn’t suffer any from my addiction. I recently made employee-of-the-month due to my ‘outstanding work ethic.’ Shortly after that, the day-shift manager offered me a sunshine slot. I thought seriously about it. The money was better for sure and I could probably triple my tips. On the other hand, I wasn’t the greatest people person. The zombies I served now were my kind of freaks. People who talked little and asked for less in the way of friendly service. Take the money, give them the coffee, and they went away. No one ever complained.

The day shift was an epidemic of clean smelling, wide-eyed coffee elitists. When I first walked in here to fill out an app, I heard this: “I want a tall, half-skinny extra hot split quad shot latte, hold the whip.” I almost walked out. What the hell happened to, “Give me a coffee to go?” That’s why I liked the night shift. Nobody gave a shit. If you were in here between twelve and six, your only goal was to keep awake.

When the clean-cut republican came in for the sixth night in a row, I knew he wanted to talk. Typically, no one came in here to stay without a book, a computer, or a friend. After I served him two Turkish Vente dark roasts, I turned my back on him and pretended to wipe down my station. When I turned around and saw him still there, I felt trapped. I gave him his goddamn coffee, what more did he want?

“Can I help you, sir?” I asked with as much derisiveness as I could muster.

“You’re name is Jenny,” he said.

“Congratulations. You can read.”

“I’m Tommy.”

“Good for you.”

He continued to stand there, not ready to leave, and not certain if he should try again.

“I’m not interested,” I said.

“Interested in what?’

“You.”

“How did you---”

“It’s one o’clock in the morning. If you’re not pimping for Jesus or trying to sign me up to vote, then what’s left?”

“You’re right,” he said. A cup of coffee in each hand, he used his back to push open the door. I watched him until the sticky, black night swallowed him whole.

He reminded me of a boy, the first boy, I had kissed. Maybe that’s why I had been so mean toward him. Then again, maybe I was too strung out to know good from bad any longer. Christ, I thought, at this rate it was a matter of time before I would be completely delusional.