You Have Always Been The Detective
You don’t like nostalgia. You don’t like regret. And yet you work homicide in a post-industrial town, which, whoops. Aren’t you cheeky? Gently smirking your way through life like the Mona Lisa on horseback.
But maybe that isn’t you. You, you like things easy. You like the simple things, the material things, the thingy things.
Put another way: you know people who are tempted by the perpetual horizon line of freedom, who are forever chasing it the way a golden retriever seeks the tossed ball of the sun — and maybe they succumb. And maybe that’s fine. You, though? You’re a by-the-booker. You like your three meals a day. You like your exercise. And — of course — you like your shows. Your lovely, lovely shows.
In other words: routine. You like routine, and who doesn’t? Routine is like someone has planted a certain kind of garden within the confines of a clock, and you get to have the privilege of watching the hour and minute hands methodically water every inch of it as the circle subsequently fills with green.
Damian Willoughby liked his routine. That’s the name you found on the driver’s license. That’s the name you saw sketched onto the back of the photo with Roberto Clemente. That’s the name the foreman is using with you now. It’s a name that leaves you with an odd taste in your mouth, a taste you can’t quite identify.
“Damian,” you say, trying the name out loud. “Dam-i-an.”
The foreman nods. Solemn. You look at him the way your cat always seems confused in part by the sheer existential nature of food.
“How well did you know Damian?”
The foreman looks out a nearby window now, as if there might have been something to see at this time of night. Morning. Whatever time it was. Maybe there were footprints off in the yellow streetlamp dark. Maybe he was floating in one of those places that didn’t quite have a time, didn’t quite have a place. Whatever the case: he was gone for a moment but then came back, which wasn’t a great sign.
“Quite well. I’d — I’d like to think I’m one of the good ones, you know? You know what I mean when I say that, right? Not, like — And what’s with all the tongues? Like, that’s not — that’s not normal, right?”
“No,” you say, grateful for this strange form of certainty. “It isn’t.”