Journals of Bayliss #5

The switch out.

(Content Warning: In this episode, I refer to fictional events of sexual abuse. The scenes are not depicted and only referred to.)

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Thinking back that first month in lockup was not good, almost too much. Lousy chilled me out. Anxiety levels were high, but he found the right pharm mixture that allowed me to cruise and deal. Just in the beginning, he said, don’t worry about getting addicted. Lousy had done it for a few guys.

Lousy was a pro. Then, he went on to The Lessons, as he called them.

Lesson #1: You’re not who you think you are.

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December 23, 2006 (9 pm)

After the Art Gallery, I drove back to Flat Hill and pondered.

Maggie had sat across from me at the gallery, transformed into Cassie. She did a dramatic monologue about being caught up in a web of abuse, even though she’d never met Cassie. Like the other women she inhabited during my private performance, she created her piece about Cassie by studying a couple of hospital forensic photos and a victim statement.

But she had Cassie down. Her posture, her eyes, her spirit even. How’d she get that from just a photo and some words?

“I’m an observer. I know her pain, her aloneness, what’s at stake for her and for me.”

She’d slid closer and said she needed to slap me and would I be okay with that?

Without thinking, I’d said, “Sure”. She packs quite a lick.

“Fuck catharsis,” she said. She was two inches from my face

Then what was that whole operetta for, I asked.

“That type of violence against us,” she said, “the residual trauma is a shapeshifter. The instant you think you know its form or name it, it’s already changed - you’ll always be just behind it.” She didn’t think her performances - one-on-one with male participants - would heal or release anything. “I’m against that kind of thinking. I don’t believe whatever we call catharsis can heal you.”

Then why do it?

“Someone’s got to speak for them.”

She slapped me again. This time, without asking. “Wake up, Bayliss!”

I asked if I could see her and get a drink sometime. She said she’d like that.

Then I remembered why I was there: Walt had come to see her. Why?

“Walt’s a sad case. All the sadder because he’s in West Virginia, and he’s not who he thinks he is.”

Cryptic. But why exactly had Wayne come to see her?

Walt told her someone snuck him a copy of Cassie’s hospital report and forensic photos. Then, they told him about Maggie’s work at the Women’s Aid Clinic and Gallery. He went there because Cassie wouldn’t name her abuser. After all, in Flat Hill, marriage issues stay in the marriage.

I broke the news about Walt’s death. She barely blinked, “It was bound to happen.”

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So, what do I have? Cassie was raped, and if I believed the story told by the only performance artist in West V, it was Paul. Not Walt.

At first, I’d thought Walt’s death was drug-motivated and being violated was overkill. But then Duffy’s report gave me reason to believe Walt was the rapist and Paul killed him. But now I knew Walt had taken Cassie’s pictures to Maggie. So now what?

I thought back to what the bartender told me: Walt had been there three nights before, and he’d come looking for Maggie. He didn’t buy anything. That’s key. He had talked briefly to a man in his 50s, and the bartender said Walt seemed scared.

Was there a drug dealer? At BAR? Maybe? I pulled over, found Duffy’s number, and plinked away at the flip phone keypad, certain there’d be no service.

But, he answered. He was eating greasy fries by the sound of it.

Duffy said he wasn’t surprised Cassie hadn’t named anyone in the report but was sure it couldn’t have been Walt. “Walt, for all his shortcomings, wasn’t a killer. He was a musician who nodded off during gigs, stole money from everyone, and would sell his soul for three or four pills. A coward mostly, not a killer.”

When I returned to Morningside Market, a 2001 Ford SUV was parked next to Hildy. It had WV plates and bumper stickers for places like Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio and Mammoth Cave Park in Kentucky.

Playing hopscotch next to the Ford was that 8-year-old girl, Virginia, from earlier at the cafe. She was wearing a pink parka and had chalked out a hopscotch grid. “Thought you’d never get here,” she said, “Granddaddy’s inside.” I took a quick hop on the grid. Virginia just crossed her arms.

I hoped Sid had used the litter box.

The gas had been turned on, so the place was toasty. Gino was drinking one of my Cokes. Tony was there. That damn Siddhartha had re-shredded the cushion.

“I told my granddaughter we’d get some chicken and rice soup after. But you took so long. Now, what do we do?”

Tony just shook his head, “Kids are resilient, Gino.”

Gino told Tony to respectfully fuck off. Then he brought up his dad being a miner. Gino and all his friends would play Nascondino or jacks until all their dads came home from the mines, coal-faced and tired, “That type of love. That takes generations to nurture. If you start breaking promises? Game over.”

Tony said, “Everyone’s stressed, Timmy. This Jamison case came at a bad time. It’s Christmas.”

“The Feast,” Gino mumbled.

“Absofuckinglutely,” Tony’s says, “And we’re stretched thin. If it weren’t for the Jamison’s being the musical talents they are, this goes differently.”

Gino reminded him they weren’t the Carters for Christ’s sake, or the Neville Brothers.

“Floyd’s no slouch on the harmonica, Gino. They have a following, they have Judge Ornstein who’s a longtime fan. I’m just saying this would already be a closed case. Or, at least, we could put it off, no problem.”

I told him the thing I couldn’t work out was Cassie. That she’d been sexually assaulted multiple times and never talked about it.

“Who said that? Who gave you that information?”

I told him it was a rumor.

Tony said it’s unfortunate, but it’s Flat Hill, not fancy-ass Baltimore. This shit happens all the time here. The creekers get loaded, up in the holler, and go nuts.

I remind him she’s my cousin.

Gino jumped in, “Right, your cousin.” It was subtle. “Cassie’s a good girl but a lost cause.”

Tony said, verbatim: “From the evidence, it’s clear Walt raped her back in September. He and Paul were on a bender on Tuesday, and maybe that came out. Walt went after Paul, Paul defended himself, then panicked and left the scene.”

What do I say to all that? I’m on ancestral land. I’m owned. I’m a felon. This is family. I could give two shits about any of it. I just want to be knee-deep in the Tygart.

Gino opened the door and called to Virginia to grab her chalk and climb in the Ford.

He told me Cassie would get the help she needed once she admitted Walt raped her. The details of how it happened weren’t that important since Walt was dead anyway. Thank God, Christmas and the Feast wouldn’t be interrupted. Tony said fewer creekers running around would make life easier.

Right. So, Tony would get some ink. Poor innocent Paul, who defended himself and Cassie’s honor, would be arrested, get a few months, and justice would be served. Didn’t they know who they were talking to?

I walked Gino and Tony to the SUV. Gino nudged Virginia to tell me about “the natural order of things”.

She said, “Men are the defenders of women, so they have certain rights: their dinner and other grown-up stuff.”

Gino and Tony laughed. Tony said that once Cassie cleans up and rethinks some things, she’ll come around, and it’ll all be straightened out.”

I glanced at Virginia, and in a flash I saw her future - being part of a system she didn’t even know existed. I could feel my mouth zipping tighter; there was so much wrong, and nothing I could do about it.

Fuck if I didn’t want just to go fishing.

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