30 Shame, Sham, Abraham Lincoln

Maggie and Kris rolled quietly up to her place in her tan sedan and Maggie killed the engine.  The two of them sat silent, not knowing who should make the first move.  “Kris, are you familiar with the word ‘livid’?”

“Yeah, I can see . . .”

“That’s the Shack, Kris!  If you ever . . . don’t ever bring someone to the Shack again.  That place is sanctuary, you get that, don’t you?”

“So you don’t want me to bring anyone to the Shack, ever?  Should we rather be telling everyone we know about the Shack?”

“Don’t bring him to the shack again, or anyone like him.  And you know exactly what I am talking about.”  They were each looking out their own respective windows, avoiding eye contact.

“Kris, listen, I got you into some deep stuff today, so the way I see it I owe you big.  So let’s just call it a wash and have a do-over tomorrow, ok?  We can start fresh – brand new day.” 

Kris laughed to himself.  “Yeah, the ‘brand new day’ was supposed to be today.  But ok, yeah, that’s good with me.”  He rubbed his funky hair.  “Never did get that cut.” 

“Listen,” he added, “I need to talk to you about something.  I’m not sure how to say this, so I will just lay it out there.  Alpha has contacted me.”

“I’m sorry, what?!  What do you mean contacted you?”

Kris pulled out his phone and showed Maggie the mail that Alpha had sent him.  She became very serious and very excited, “Omigod, Kris.  This . . . is amazing.”

Kris had been more or less terrified by the message and so was understandably confused.  “I don’t understand.  I mean, Alpha has us in his sights now.  It’s personal with him now apparently.  He knows who we are; he knows you’re on the case.  Isn’t there some professional distance that you’re supposed to keep?”

“Has he sent you anything else?”

“No, that’s it.  So far , anyway.”

“Hmm.  Alphamail, huh?  In-teresting.”

Kris was not encouraged by her cavalier attitude.  “Listen, Maggie, the message says for you to stop.”

“And what?” she said, “I’m supposed to stop?  This is my job, K.  There’s not a psycho out there who wants me doing my job.  Um, excuse me, but if it’s ok, could you please just, like, stop investigating me.  You know, these people aren’t going to serial-murder themselves.  The only difference with your Alpha-boy here is that he has your email address.  Big whoop.  No, Kris, this?  This is gold.  I hate to let you off the hook, but this might even everything out after that Kamal stunt tonight.”

Kris didn’t understand, but he knew he didn’t like it.  He decided that he wouldn’t show her any more emails from Alpha.

He got out of the car made for Maggie’s place.  She rolled down the window behind him and said, “You still did good today.”

“Hey,” he replied, “We just had our first argument.  How sweet is that?”  And then in a mock sign-off, “Good night, honey.”

Kris hobbled up the steps and discovered that his knee hurt pretty good as well.  He opened the door, threw the keys into the small bowl near the door and checked himself out in a large sunburst mirror hanging in the foyer.  This was the first time he had opportunity to really assess the damage, and when his battered visage looked back at him, Kris decided there on the spot to get really, really drunk. 

Being the responsible man that he was, he was mindful to feed Abraham Lincoln before ransacking Maggie’s cabinets for something harder than beer.  There was nothing in the kitchen so he moved to the large built-ins in the living room.  One door revealed stacks of music and movies, another door contained miscellaneous wires and unread owner’s manuals for all of Maggie’s electronics.  The third door was locked, but the last door – aha! – the last doorconealed a goldmine of booze:  good, strong, really expensive booze.

Kris helped himself to a two-thirds full bottle of some gorgeous, golden liquid.  A quick sweep and he had his buffet of self-medication laid out neatly before him on the coffee table.  A single Darvocet was placed with care before its yellow, cylindrical container.  Next to it, a single Ambien was placed similarly before its own yellow cylinder.  Next in line was a fancy, stemmed sifter, standing at the ready before a bottle of Gran Marnier; and last of all a stoneware cup of salsa orbited a large bowl of tortilla chips. Kris was good to go.  He downed the pills, a shot, and a chip, in that order, and tried to forget the day.  Instead he began to grow overcome with curiosity about what lay within that one locked cabinet.  “I wonder,” he said to Abraham Lincoln.

Kris retrieved the Maggie’s keyring from the foyer, and sure enough, one of the smaller keys opened the hutch right up.  “I have no business in here, in Maggie’s private things,” his right brain protested.  “Yeah yeah, whatever,” his left brain countered.  In the locked cabinet Kris found a stash of photo albums, yearbooks and mementos.  “Oh wow, get a load of this, Abe.  Did you know all of this was in here and not tell me?  Shame, shame Abraham Lincoln.  What would Seward have thought?”  Kris pulled a pile out and took it to the couch.  He poured himself another shot and began to dig in.

The first album Kris opened was full of photos of Maggie with a girl named Hannah.  She had a cute, blond boy-cut and an honest smile.  “How about that?  I guess she really is gay,” Kris said to Abe.  The book was packed with photos: shots of skiing, cooking, hanging out with friends.  Kris wondered what must have ever happened to Hannah.

Kris found an old yearbook, from the 9^th grade, and marveled, as we all do, at how much everyone had changed, how goofy they looked back then, how they could have ever thought that was stylish.  He found Maggie’s picture: Margaret Lauralei Kennedy.  He couldn’t take his eyes off of her picture.  He thought he might fall right through the 1-inch frame and land back in that time, half a lifetime ago.  He thought that he would kiss her again for the first time and never let her go – not this time.  There was an innocence, a brightness in her eyes, that Kris had not realized was absent from the adult Maggie Kennedy.  He could easily understand how he had fallen in love with her.

The drugs and alcohol kicked in faster than Kris had expected, and he passed out with the yearbook on his lap, his queasy   awash in memories of what he imagined to be a simpler time.

The night’s sleep would not be an easy one.