=Still, But Almost Not About Me=

When I came home from the park that afternoon, the apartment downstairs was crisscrossed with a web of bright yellow police tape. Through the open doorway, I could see large men moving around inside like lazy bears half-heartedly marauding the place for snacks, but presumably gathering evidence. “What happened?” I asked the uniform cop standing guard at the door. “You live here?” he asked, none-too-friendly. “I rent the apartment upstairs.” I peered anxiously past his shoulder. He shifted to better block my view. “Was anyone hurt?” “Are you family?” “I told you, I live upstairs.” He grunted. “Someone will be up to talk to you. Wait there.” “Can you at least tell me what happened?” “Someone will be up.” 

What more could I say? I continued up to my apartment, took off my jacket and shoes, and looked at the mail I’d retrieved from my box. A handful of junk flyers and a small envelope postmarked from Arizona with a return address and a last name I didn’t recognize. I opened the envelope and unfolded the pastel-colored letter inside. It was from a girl I knew in college. She was writing to inform me that she was now a recovering alcoholic and she wanted to apologize for sleeping with my boyfriend back when we were in school. She was on the step of her program that required she make amends for past transgressions to those she’d wronged. If I didn’t forgive her, that was okay, she understood, but she wanted to say she was sorry all the same. There was some more but it wasn’t of consequence, just the sort of stuff you write to round off a letter. I skimmed through it without much attention and besides I was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. “Police,” said the gruff voice on the other side. 

I opened the door to a man in a red windbreaker holding up a billfold with a badge clipped inside. “May I,” he motioned, leaving me standing at the open door. “Sure,” I said, to the empty foyer.” When I follow hi into the room he didn’t waste time with any preliminaries. “How well did you know Mr. Athenos?” He was wandering forlornly off into his fifties, had a narrow chapped face, and thinning black hair, probably dyed. “Mr. Athenos?” “The man living downstairs,” he clarified. “Oh.” “I guess that answers the question,” he said. “Well, I didn’t know his last name, obviously. We just used first names. It was just like Hi Greg. Hi Karen. You know, passing each other getting the mail or carrying grocery bags.” “His name wasn’t Greg. It was Lars.” I didn’t know what to say to that so I said “Oh.” Then it occurred to me that I still hadn’t been told what had happened. I was about to ask when the detective said, “Did you hear anything recently…or ever…for that matter, that would lead you to believe that anyone would want to do Mr. Athenos harm?” I felt a mild sense of alarm. “Has harm come to him?” “I didn't say that,” the detective said, looking annoyed, which I guess was better than him looking suspicious, but come to think of it, he looked a little suspicious too, although that was probably just the way his face had worked itself in over his years of being a cop, like a catcher's mitt that had caught too many curve balls. “Well what did happen?” “That’s what we’re trying to find out. He’s been reported missing. When was the last time you saw him?” I thought for a moment. “I really couldn’t say. You know how it is.” The detective looked at me like he was waiting for me to explain how it was. Well, how was it? You had a downstairs neighbor, you nodded, said a few words to him now and then, but mostly you did your best to pretend he wasn’t there, to give him his privacy and hopefully he’d give you yours. That’s what's generally constituted a good neighbor, isn't it?

“I guess that’s it for now,” the detective said. “If you remember anything else, or maybe I should say if you remember anything at all, give me a call.” He handed me his card. I looked at it. His name was Otto Reddick. “Okay. I will.” By the time I closed the door, I understood why people break down and confess even when there’s no evidence against them. Even I couldn’t help feeling like a suspect. But then I was feeling pretty fragile at the moment. 

I plopped myself down on the love seat and stared at the window. There was nothing there, a blank screen, like a program had just crashed on my computer. It was times like this that I wished I had a cat, something to crawl into my lap, warm and uncomplicated. I felt completely depleted. There’d been so much commotion since I’d arrived home that I lost the train of thought I’d been following in the park, but I caught up to it now. I’d been brooding on the break-up with my boyfriend three days earlier. We’d broken up in that very park and I'd been returning to the scene of the crime every day since. It was hard to say who broke up with who. It started with an argument and quickly escalated into something else. His exasperation and exhaustion were palpable. I guess mine were, too. We were like two gunfighters at high noon, our fingers twitching nervously across our belts toward our holsters and the worn, notched handles of our six-shooters, each of us afraid that the other was about to go for their gun and get off the first shot. Even now I couldn’t tell you who drew first or if we even meant for it to happen. It was about as simultaneous as these things get and as inexplicable. 

At first I didn’t think I was hit too badly; I walked away under my own power, without so much as a damp eye; I was fuming. But later, recalling what he said in excruciating detail, I realized how deeply he’d wounded me. I’d been bleeding self-esteem internally ever since. “It’s not always about you” he’d said, bitterly. I'm summarizing, of course, ruthlessly editing and retooling the point of his argument, but that was basically the bullet that hit home. And walking around the park today, some seventy-two hours after our showdown, I’d concluded he was right. I was a selfish, self-centered bitch; no matter what it was, I always took center-stage. I couldn’t spell team without “me.” “I” was both my favorite vowel and my favorite pronoun. The more I thought about it, the more remorse I felt. Walking around the park today, I’d decided to call him and apologize. I was determined to turn over a new leaf. I took my cell phone out but then remembered, shortly after our showdown, in a fit of pique I’d already deleted him from speed dial and I didn’t have his number memorized since I never actually dialed it. He was always simply #2. That seemed poignantly symbolic of a lot of things, of something important in the way I’d been living my life. Anyway, that’s why I’d headed home when I did because I was sure I’d written his number down somewhere or other. At worse, I could Google the white pages and find him there. But then I came home and I found the police there and, well, you already know everything that happened then. 

Now that I’ve had a little time to think through it all again,  I realize that I’m seeing things a bit differently. Now I'm thinking, thank God, I changed my mind again, that I didn’t call to apologize, that I impulsively removed his number from speed dial. What a mistake it would have been to call and apologize! It would have been impossible to un-apologize once I came to my senses! What was I thinking? I was just feeling sorry for myself, as usual. I was putting myself at the center of my own self-pitying martyrdom  It’s not all about me, it’s true, he’s right about that, but you can’t leave me out of the equation altogether. I’m in there somewhere. I’m not entirely negligible. It’s not nothing about me. I’ve got to count for something. That’s only mathematics. Or physics. I do wonder what happened to the guy downstairs. I wonder why he told me his name was Greg when it wasn't. I wonder if he’ll ever come back. I think about Sara, my recovering ex-friend, who I hadn’t thought about for twenty years or more. Was I supposed to write her back now or what? Was I supposed to forgive her? I can’t even remember the face of the boyfriend she stole from me. Out of nowhere, without even realizing it, I begin having a sex-fantasy about Detective Reddick. After a while, feeling a little flushed and embarrassed, I watch it fizzle out. What was it with that chapped face of his, anyway? And who wears a red windbreaker? I briefly consider ordering out for pizza; it’s been a long and tiring day and I'm thinking I deserve a treat. When was the last time I allowed myself to pig out on pizza, I mean really p-i-g out, I can't even remember and isn't that part of the problem, whatever the problem is? Besides, I’m healing inside and I need my strength. I was hit bad. I’m lucky all my self-esteem didn’t bleed out. Still, I’m fearful of all those excessive pizza calories. The last thing I need is to get fat on top of everything else. I think I’ll just chop up some strawberries. I think I’ll just have some yogurt and cereal instead. Oh go ahead and have the pizza, for crissakes, isn't this what you've been talking about? Who cares if you get a little fatter, who's paying that close attention, and what difference does it make? Don't you have anything more important to worry about? War, poverty, doctors without borders, something, anything? 

The cellphone appears in my hand like a drink in an alcoholic's without me even knowing how it got there but I don't have the pizza place on speed-dial and I don't have the number memorized any more than I did my ex-boyfriends. Whose number do I know by heart? Is any number closer to my heart than #1? 911. That's the only other number I can recite without a cheat cue. Forget it, I'm not having pizza tonight. No, there's no point in me getting fat, whether it's about me or not, whether anyone's looking…well, that's just the sort of thing they would notice, isn't it, snickering with fake sympathy behind my back. After she got dumped, she got so fat, poor thing. No, I'm not going to give anyone the satisfaction. Still, I'll have the pizza one of these days. Yep. I will. One of these days I won't give a damn. I promise. One of these days it won't be anything about me. That'll be a relief, I swear. Just not yet. Just not today.