Journals of Bayliss #7

A chronic family tradition.

Altered Image of Marina Abramovic

[TW: Dialogue about SA, DV and r*pe]

Dec. 24, 2006

I can’t move my shoulder. Getting stabbed will do that. In pain but not suffering, as Lousy would say. Maggie’s passed out on the bunk. Sid is curled into her belly. Duffy is outside in the car, wrapped up in a sleeping bag. He said he wanted to stay on watch. Just in case.

Tonight was good for some but not good for others. This town still has a few odd corners where loyalty can be carved out; however, I’m uncertain of the reasons for that loyalty. What if these people have their own agenda regarding backing the right horse? Trusting anyone is hard; I’m still not ready for it.

I did what I did because I didn’t want to pressure anyone to lie. But I also didn’t want anything to happen to Cassie. Walt Jamison’s killer is still out there, and I’d be willing to bet that half the town knows who it is, probably even little Virginia.

Walt put himself in deep shit. In his passive-aggressive way, he exposed one of this town's dirtier secrets. Was he a hero? Maybe. Even hammered on oxy and booze and weighed down by his secrets - he at least had a code.

He made mistakes - the first one was just being born. Lousy liked to say everything lines up after that. Walt started to believe his mind’s bitter propaganda about who he was, what he could never reveal about himself, and how best to make amends for that.

I understand those contradictions. I thought I’d come to some peace about them in lockup. I’m back to not being sure about anything.

Except kink. It appears I’m still a sucker for the oddball sexcapade.

Goddamn Walt. Paul and Cassie were his first test bunnies on the path to redemption. He couldn’t accuse his friend Paul straight up, so when fate gave him his excuse to do an end-around, he ran with it.

A friend of Walt’s who worked at the Flat Hill medical clinic told him Cassie wandered in back in June all beaten up and delirious. She said she’d been assaulted, then went ahead and got tested. She was high and terrified. His friend said she jumped up and stumbled out of there before the sheriff showed up or she signed the statement.

According to Duffy, Walt traded Oxy for an envelope of papers and photos - Cassie’s intake. Because of his family’s long residency at BAR up in Fairville, Walt knew about this performance artist—Maggie-and her solo show. It was a Hail Mary, but he gave the packet to her - thinking she’d know what to do with it.

She did. Like she did with all the other subjects in her installation, she became Cassie. She swallowed her whole. Maggie/Cassie sat across, looking straight into each man’s eyes, taking direct action to expose and crush a chronic family tradition.

“Fuck catharsis.” That’s right. Maggie tore open the padlocked doors and gave whoever was unlucky enough to be her audience a little taste of hell.

Sometime in September, the local news got wind of the installation. They praised the effort, noting that all the horrific photos and stories were from Flat Hill and its environs. That brought in some press and high-end donors for the clinic, but the backlash included a fair share of graffiti, vandalism, and death threats from down Flat Hills way, from those pissed about the intrusion into their privacy.

Someone, or some persons, linked it all back to Walt. So Walt got beaten to shit, abused by his ukelele fretboard, and then murdered. Then, all this junk landed in my lap, and I wound up taxiing my cousin and her dead husband to the sheriff’s station in her blood-soaked Dodge Caravan.

Tony was bound to be pissed. This dead body would ruin his plans for an idyllic fish feast because dumbfuck Paul was a blood relative, and even though Tony had decided that all creekers are expendable, this was different. He now had pressure from the Jamison Family Band, along with Gino and Paul’s ‘extended’ brood.

That’s what made him push me out of the way to call his wife, Lauraine, and say he’d be late for the feast: “You can thank Tim for that!” He was on the hook to solve the case NOW and get things back to normal—to Protect Flat Hill and keep Fairville and its judicial reach at bay.

“Jesus, Tim, are you a curse or something? We’ve never had anything like this before you showed up.”

I stayed as calm as possible— a lotus in the mud—like Lousy told me. I just listened and sensed all my anger, turmoil, guilt, and helplessness.

“A red ball once in a while makes life worth living, cos.” That was a shitty thing to say at that moment, but it felt so Bawlmer.

Tony stared at me, long and hard.

That’s when I started to feel the goo, like that term, ‘thick as blood.’ On the face of it, we’re all Americans. I’m half-Italian, Paul was full-Italian before being fully dead, and Tony is as West V Italian as they come. We’re all related, so you get your ass in line.

Cassie’s the outlier, German-Scotch.

Tony got his two deputies, nephews maybe 18 or 19 years old, to cordon off the crime scene—Cassie’s Caravan. I had driven it around and obliterated any evidence. So unprofessional. But they didn’t need to monkey around with all that. Cassie would tell the truth, even though she was still a mess.

She said, “Paul has a gun.”

“Had a gun,” I tell her.

Tony said he’d do the correcting. “Paul’s dead. He don’t have nothin no more.”

Cassie seemed confused. She said Paul was just sleeping. Just shake him.

“It was a defensive move, cos,” I said, knowing Tony wouldn’t like that. “He came unwelcome into the car…”

“He’s her husband, ain’t he? He can go wherever he wants.”

Tony eventually got the story out of her. Cassie said Paul had forced her, against her will, to drive to Ohio. Less than 10 minutes later, there was a struggle for the gun - proof being that she had bruising on her arms and wrists, and her lip was swollen.

She shot him. Through the ear. Exiting through the other ear.

She came to find me, too distraught to drive, and I brought her in. Tony actually smirked.

“I’m supposed to believe you got his gun away from him. He’s twice your size.”

I reminded Tony that though the ravages of her addiction and poor dietary habits had turned her into a near skeleton, Cassie had been an athlete in school. She was one of the first girls to try out for the boys' wrestling team when that sort of thing was frowned upon. She was slippery and quick. I remember she pinned me a couple of times, way back.

“Jesus,” he said.

It's hard to believe this happened today. I know there’s no ‘me’ to be found, but I still feel bad about my part. I remember leaving and driving to Tony’s; I’d had a moment of clarity, an idea about how to fix this without lying…too much. If you pick up a sleeping man’s gun and shoot him in his ear - that’s nearly indefensible, even if he was a piece of trash. Cassie would go away for years.

My idea? She needed bruises and a cut or two. Ok? She nodded. It was quick. We did what was necessary. I’ll have to bear that.

I told Tony that if he needed to lock Cassie up, to do it after Christmas so she could see her kids. I’d guarantee she wouldn’t go anywhere.

“You’re a felon; you can’t guarantee shit,” he said.

I had no power at all. But anything is better than being behind bars.

Then Duffy drove up right on time. He had Maggie in the car with him and a camera ready to roll.