Witness Me Chapter 5

The three of us sit at the quiet bar.  There are two other people here who are quietly chatting on the other side of the bar top.  Leon and Chris chug a beer in competition.  I’m a bit too old for that.  Chris wins.  As punishment, Leon has to take a shot.  Leon demands a rematch as he slams the empty shot glass on the wooden bar.  He loses again.  Thankfully, our burgers come to save Leon from more embarrassment.
“You think it’s a fake?” Chris asks, leaning around Leon to look at me.  I pick up a fry and shrug.  “Betty is the only one who won’t get in on the pool.”
“That’s because it’s juvenile to bet on this girl’s life,” I grumble bitterly and drop the fry.  I have nothing close to an appetite.  The thought of food mixing around with the mental picture of the girl with the dead eyes nauseated me.  I finish off my beer and wave down the bartender for another.
Behind us, the door bursts open with what sounds like a small army coming through it.  The three of us look over our shoulders to see a dozen or so noisy college kids migrating to the back where the pool tables are.  They are noisy as expected.  That’s where she belongs.  Not in our office.  Not in my chair.  Not in my mind.
Chris lets out and irritated sigh and looks back down at his food.  Both he and Leon are 27, not much older than the crowd he detests.  The swarm of energy hollers for the bartender.  The bartender took a deep breath through his flared nostrils with hate in his eyes pointed at the people beckoning him.  One of kids put on music as the worker stiffly moved out from around the bar.  ‘Enter Sandman’ started in the speakers.  Chris groans at the song.  I smile.
“You are the only one in the office that likes this old shit,” Chris teases as she stuffs his face with greasy burger.
“Bite your tongue!” I gasp.  “This is a classic.  You are the one who’s music taste is over a century old.”
“Better to be classy than a greasy head banger,” he challenges.
“I never went through that phase,” I laugh.
“What does Marge think of your juvenile taste in music?”
“I just keep it in my earphones,” I say with a dismissive shrug.  I pick up a soggy fry and attempt to eat.  “She likes the quiet after working with kids all day.”
“How was the goodbye?  Hard?” Leon asks as he flags the bartender down.  He just orders a bucket of beers so we don’t have to keep bothering him.
“It was weird,” I say then finish my glass.  The man sets a small, metal bucket packed with ice burying eight beers in front of Leon.
I think back to that moment.  I was startled awake by the door closing.  My heart nearly leapt from my chest because for a second I thought it was the sound of her leaving.  I thought she had left without saying goodbye.  I still wonder if she would have.  With that half-filled duffle.  That could have only been one or two outfits.
“How much would you bring for a two-month vacation?” I ask.  They both grab a beer, pop them open, and shrug in synchronization.
“A suit case each?” Chris suggests.  “A third for Leon’s hair supplies.”  Leon shoots him a glare and Chris cracks a smile as he brings his beer bottle to his lips.
“He’s just jealous he has to buzz off all his curly ass hair or else he’s be the only gay, white man with an afro since the 1960’s,” Leon teases and smirks at me.  “I wake up with this gorgeous mane naturally.”  He flips his shaggy blond hair.
“Why do you ask?” Chris asks as he picks up a handful of Leon’s fries and shoves it in Leon’s mouth, holding the back of his head steady against the struggle.  His face shows no awareness that he is trying to smother his husband with b grade bar food.
“She only filled, maybe, half a duffle bag,” I explain.  Chris looks up in though as he releases his husband.  Leon brushes himself free of fries while whispering of murder under his breath then took a drink.
“She’s got clothes at her parents, right?” Chris asks.  I nod hesitantly.
“Something just doesn’t sit right.”
“What else happened?” Chris asks as he works a large chunk of burger into his mouth.
“She just said goodbye in such a strange way.”  I look down at my left hand on the bar and twist my silver wedding band.  She’s long since taken hers off.  “She just looked at me with such sad eyes and kissed me and said ‘goodbye’ so pointedly.  It’s just…” I pause to think of the right word, but all I can come up with is the same word.  “strange.”
Leon and Chris are the only people I have ever told of my current home situation.  I usually lie and come up with stories of when we used to be happy to those who ask about her, but to these men I’m truthful.  Telling someone that your wife’s heart died and we live together as nothing more than passive roommates is not something you bring up that the company Christmas party.  I look back at them and their eyebrows are high.
“I can see why that’s bugging you,” Leon mumbles and finishes his beer.
“Try not to dwell,” Chris suggests.  “Call her soon.  She’s probably just stressed from her job.  After a breath of country air, she’ll feel better.”  He offers a small smile.  The mob of collage kids roar with excitement back at the pool tables.  ‘Puppet Master’ comes over the speakers.  I pop open a beer.

I stare at myself in the mirror and run my fingers over my two day old scruff.  I only shave because Marge let it slip the first year we were married that she prefers me clean shaven.  I’ve shaved almost every day since then.  She’s told me repeatedly that I don’t need to shave for her, but I don’t mind.  But, now that she’s gone, I don’t see a point.  My scruff is salt and pepper though my hair has stayed faithfully the same shade of dark brown.
When I make coffee, I again make too much.  I run my finger over the handle of the pink mug.  I think back to her brown eyes.  How she pushed her wavy hair delicately behind her ear just before she reached out for me.  I absently bring my fingers to my lips.  I still feel that kiss.  It felt like the world stopped and like a kick in the gut when she pulled away.  My heart ached then.  It aches now.  I miss it.  I miss her.  The old her.
I put her mug in the sink and pull open the front door, juggling my briefcase and travel mug.  It takes and sturdy yank to free the door from the jam.  I look at the jam near the top.  Paint is worn away where the door rubs against the jam.  I reach up and rub my fingers over the worn wood.  My watch catches my eye.  I rush to the bus stop.  Once I sit on the bus, I realize I forgot to lock the door.  I shrug at the thought.  No one would rob that eyesore we have.  We have nothing worth stealing anyway.
Janis and I exchange absentminded pleasantries in the elevator.  I lean back in my chair and look at the ‘needs to be redone’ basket.  Each one needs to be called and told their process needs to start over because of the egregious amount of errors in the paperwork.  Next to it, the lesser filled basket of ‘needs to be revised’ is taxed with only a few missed signatures.  Two packets lay in the ‘finished claims’ basket.  I scoop them up and look at the names.
Meredith Bishop, putting in a claim for her mother, Catharine.  Second is Jacob King, 42.  Same age as me.  He’s been battling depression his whole life.  He’s been in therapy and on medication since he was 16.  ‘Nothing helps’ as he puts it.  Next to doubles and children, everyone hates these kinds of clients.  A young or middle-aged person riddled with mental illness just barely hanging on to the day to day.  I rub my brow.  I have to call Meredith and Jacob today to schedule their appointments.
Leon pops his head in my field of vision.  He’s sitting with Chris at my entrance way.  I roll over to them with my coffee.
Around ten, Betty calls out for me.  Once I step into her area, she hands me the paper with the ID in question.
“I called the DMV,” Betty explains, rocking side to side in her hair, fidgeting with a pen.  “They’ll have someone look her up for you.”  I snag a manila folder from my desk to keep the paper in, grab my book from my brief case, and check my watch.  The bus is coming any minute.  I run out the door.  I catch the bus at a sprint.  I stand in the back and at every stop, I look up from the pages of ‘The Anthem’ to see if anyone has forfeited their seat.  I stand the whole way to the DMV.  I disembark and see across the street, through the front windows, the DMV is standing room only.  I cringe thinking about what I have to do.
There is a short line for the ticket kiosk and I feel every dirty look as I breeze past it and sneak to a counter a woman had just left from.  This particular counter was for taking pictures.
“Get a ticket, sir,” the woman says in a bored, tired voice as she typed on her computer.
“My manager should have called the manager here about me,” I rush my explanation before I can eat away at her probable short patience.  “I’m from the Asist office.”  Her eyes spark with a bit of life and she finally peels them off the screen to look up at me.
“I’ll call him.  Sit,” she commands and jerks her chin to the side to the only empty chair in the place made just for her counter.  The woman who just had her picture taken was sitting there.  I stiffly sunk down next to her.  I feel all the eyes.  All the glares.  I’m the man who skipped in line.  I feel my face get hot but I just burry my mind in my book.
Traffic continues around me.  The next to me got her freshly printed ID and a new number was called.  After his picture was taken he sat next to me.  More and more numbers.  Some for pictures.  Some for tests.  Some for questions.  There was a baby screaming.  My work sucks, but at least I’m not here.
“John?” a man asks.  My eyes snap up to the 60-something year old man standing in front of me with an outstretched hand.
“Yes,” I gasp and scramble to my feet.
“Good book,” he comments as I shove the small book in my back pocket to free my hand to finally shake his.  “Follow me around back.”  He waves for me as he turns.  I still feel the eyes.  The man who skipped the line got seen before most.  I must be the most interesting thing to happen this morning.  We skirt around the counters and go into a back office.  The screaming baby is mostly muted when she closes the door behind me.  He sits behind his desk that swallows up most of the room in this closet he calls an office.  I sit across from him, behind the swing of the door, were it to open.  His plaque on his desk reads ‘Mike Vance, Manager’.
“Who are we looking up?” he asks as he types on his computer.  I slip the photocopy out of the folder and pass it off.  After a minute, he turns the screen to point and show me.  “Applied for an ID a month ago.  Not a license, just an ID.  And it says here,” he drags his finger across a line of text.  “she turned 18 yesterday.  Do you want our whole record on her?”  He looks at me with a questioning eyebrow raise and I come to the realization that I don’t know what I need.  This has never happened before in my ten years.
“Sure,” I say with a shrug.  The printer groans out a small stack of papers.  He generously staples them together.  I look down at the copy of her birth certificate.  On June 1st, 2054, a Jane Thomas gave birth to a Kaylee Megan Thomas.  No father listed.  I thank Mike as I stash the papers in the folder and squeeze out of his office.
As I left, the eyes made the hairs on the back of my neck stand.  The tension of the hate is almost tangible.  The man who skipped the line got in and out before most got called.  As I close the door behind me, the baby is still screaming.