Cindy McMullin is a writer-paralegal-teacher-psychic reader and just generally too busy for her own good. She has previously published nonfiction works in the Memphis Flyer and Memphis Magazine . She lives on a lake in Memphis, Tennessee, with her big, black dog Sirius—named after the star, not the fictional character. (I am an adult, after all. Sort of. At least once in a while. Okay, whatever.)
Taking Control (July 20, 2011. Issue 29.)
August Night in Memphis (May-ish, 2011. Issue 28.)
Taking Control (July 20, 2011. Issue 29.)
The stairwell smells like urine. It always smells like urine. The grey concrete walls and concrete steps are smeared with gangland graffiti, dirt, oil and years of built-up human waste. Still, thinks Laurie Meeks, trudging up the stairs of the parking garage, the stairs are better than the elevator. Once about three years before, Laurie stepped into the elevator before she saw the drunken street person huddled in the corner of the 4' x 6' space. He stank of stale beer and vomit, and when she stepped through the door, he reached out to her. She stumbled backward and barely made it out of the elevator before the door closed. For months afterward she had nightmares that he had grabbed her leg.
Since that day, she has alw
ays taken the stairs to her silver Ford Escort which is always parked on the second floor of the E-Z Park garage. She prefers one particular space, the third one down from the stairwell in the far right row, but since the parking isn't reserved, she doesn't always get the space she wants.
Reaching the second floor landing, she turns to go through the door from the stairwell into the garage just as a man shoots another man in the back of the head about 30 feet in front of her. She stops before she steps out of the stairwell. She isn't sure at first what she is seeing because the only sound is a low, quick whooshing sound from the gun and a choking gurgle from the shot man as the bottom half of his face explodes all over a nearby champagne-colored Maxima. His knees buckle and he falls forward face down on the concrete. He is an older man, perhaps 60, and is wearing a dark grey suit and carrying a black leather briefcase, which makes a muted thwack on the concrete as it hits the floor beside him, his hand still tightly wrapped around the handle. A circle of blood around his face grows larger, spreading out like a ripple on the surface of an otherwise featureless lake.
Laurie doesn't move. She doesn't breathe. She stares as the blood pool flows out across the concrete in an ever-widening circle.
*
Earlier that day, Laurie did not get her regular parking space when she arrived for work. Having to park in a space other than her favorite left her feeling out of step with the world. On her way from the garage to the office, she dropped her lunch sack on the sidewalk. Three teenaged boys skateboarding across the street stopped to laugh at her.
"Hey, Orca, don't lose your lunch," one of them yelled.
"Yeah, you might accidentally lose a pound or two," added another.
Trying to ignore the skateboarders, she fumbled picking up the sack and her Jello Pudding Cup fell out. The boys howled with laughter. She left the chocolate pudding cup on the sidewalk and scurried to her workplace. Walking into the lobby of the office, Laurie nodded at the receptionist, who said, "Good morning, Laurie," with mock cheerfulness. Laurie knew that the receptionist and the other women around the office made fun of her behind her back. She knew because of the abrupt silences and muffled snickers when she walked into the break room. She knew because sometimes they didn't see her coming and she caught pieces of conversation like "freak parks in the same spot everyday" and "fat ass" and "still lives at home at her age." Laurie was still sensitive from the incident with the skateboarding boys, and her face burned at the receptionist's greeting.
Her mother had told Laurie since the second grade to simply ignore the people who made fun of her. When Laurie came home from school crying because she had no friends or because someone made fun of her—called her four-eyes or Fat Albertina—her mother scolded her and told her that she was too old to cry, adding, "Some girls are born pretty and some girls are born with a good personality, but you, on the other hand, were born with common sense and a high moral fiber—the best way to be in God's universe." Or apparently the safest at least. Her mother promised that the pretty and popular girls were almost certainly going to Hell when their sin-filled lives ended, most likely as the result of some tragic but well-deserved drug- or sex-related accident.
She remembered these exchanges with her mother as she walked, head down, to the break room. Laurie arrived at work at 8:20 every day, ten minutes before official starting time. It took exactly ten minutes to go to the break room and put her lunch in the refrigerator, get the one cup of decaf she had each morning, then get to her desk and put her purse away so that she could begin work promptly at 8:30.
She thought of her abandoned pudding cup as she put her lunch in the refrigerator. Someone's large Tupperware bowl was sitting on the right side of the second shelf where she usually liked to put her lunch so, with a sigh, she put her lunch on the bottom shelf.
Laurie worked in a 6' x 8' cubicle with walls covered in grey-green muted fabric. Her desk was always neat, holding only a computer, adding machine, telephone, "in" box, "out" box (both always empty), and a pink box of generic tissue. Her stapler, paper clips, tape dispenser and other typical desk clutter were arranged neatly in her top drawer.
Her computer froze up within 30 minutes after she began to work. She hated to call the tech department—she knew they thought she was responsible for her frequent computer problems by the way they rolled their eyes and sighed whenever they came to work on her machine. They freely threw around the words "user error." Instead, she picked up the phone and dialed extension 750, the desk of Clarence, her one friend at work—or anywhere for that matter.
"Clarence Hughes," he answered.
"Hi, Clarence. It's Laurie, Laurie Meeks. I'm sorry to bother you but my computer has frozen up and I was hoping maybe that you had a few minutes to help me out so I don't . . ."
". . . have to call the tech guys," Clarence finished as he peered over the wall into her cubicle from his cubicle next door. "Listen, sweetie," he drawled, "How many times have I told you to just yell for me over the wall here. There's something just not right about calling somebody on the phone who's sitting four feet away." By then he was standing at the entrance to her cubicle.
"I'm sorry, but you know we're not supposed to be talking to each other except on break, and I don't want to get you in trouble." She stood up.
"Oh, right, and everybody up here obeys that rule." He shook his head as he sat down at her desk and hit "Control-Alt-Delete" on the keyboard.
"Laurie, honey, you've got to learn to take control of your life—or at least of your computer!"
The day continued in much the same frustrating manner for Laurie, culminating with the shooting on the second floor of the E-Z Park.
*
For a moment, Laurie fears that the man with the gun will see her and kill her, too, but he turns away from the stairwell and walks casually in the opposite direction. She notes that he walks slowly and seems unafraid, confident even. He stops beside a black Infiniti and reaches into his pocket to pull out a set of keys. As he turns to open the door to the car, he pauses and looks straight into the stairway door where Laurie stands just inside, in a shadow, and he smiles. Laurie is certain that he has seen her, but he gets into the Infiniti, starts it and drives toward the exit. She watches his tail lights disappear down the ramp.
Laurie looks back at the dead man. The pool of blood from his head has now spread far enough that his entire body lies in it. She wonders about the killer, what kind of person he is. She pictures him again in her mind, his face smiling at her, or at least in her direction, and she smiles back. Her knees suddenly feel wobbly and an unfamiliar fluttering erupts low in her stomach.
She walks unsteadily but quickly to her Escort, parked two rows to the left of the dead man. She gets in, starts the engine and drives toward the killer's exit ramp, looking back once in her rearview mirror at the body face down in the black pool. When she gets home, she avoids watching T.V. with her parents by claiming a headache and instead goes straight to bed. She falls asleep wondering what the killer's name is. William, perhaps, or Alexander. She really likes the name Alexander.
*
The next morning, Laurie wakes up 30 minutes earlier than usual. Her mother and father are already seated at the breakfast table when Laurie comes in and joins them.
"You're up early," her mother notes, rising from the table.
"Yes, I am." Laurie stares at the front page of the newspaper held up by her father as he reads the inside pages. The headline says, "Judge Greer Shot in Downtown Garage." The subheading reads, "Police Have No Suspects."
Her mother pours Laurie a glass of orange juice and spoons some scrambled eggs onto Laurie's plate.
"We already said blessing over our breakfast, so you'll have to say your blessing alone. Do you want some toast?" her mother asks.
Laurie continues to try to read the newspaper as it jiggles in her father's hands.
"Laurie," her mother says, "Pay attention to me. Do you want any toast?"
"I'm sorry," she says, turning her attention to her plate. "No, I'm fine."
"You need more to eat than a little bit of eggs for breakfast," her mother continues.
"I said I'm fine. If I want some toast, I'll say so."
Laurie's mother's mouth drops open. Her father comes out from behind the newspaper.
"Laurie Taylor Meeks! Don't speak to your mother in that tone of voice!" he says.
"I'm sorry, but I don't want any toast. I'm fat enough as it is."
Her mother gasps and quickly says, "You are not fat. You're a healthy size—no bigger than I am."
"I'm not blind, Mother. I know I'm overweight."
"What's gotten into you, young lady?" her father says.
"Well, for one thing, I'm not a young lady. I'm 37 years old which is plenty old enough to decide if I'm overweight or not."
Her father starts to rise from his chair, but her mother reaches out and lays her hand on his arm to stop him.
"Laurie," she says in a low voice, "Is it that time of month? Is that what's wrong with you?"
Laurie stands up from the table. "Oh, for . . ."
"You sit down right now and apologize to your mother, then say your blessing and eat your breakfast," her father bellows.
Laurie hesitates, then sits down.
"I'm sorry, Mother," she says in a monotone.
"Your lunch is ready and in the fridge," her mother says quickly.
Her father picks up the newspaper and continues to read. Her mother walks to the toaster and drops in two slices of white bread. Laurie lowers her head and closes her eyes, pretending to pray, but all she can see is the man with the gun—strong, confident, attractive, and smiling at her from his car.
When Laurie arrives downtown for work a couple of hours later, she isn't surprised to find her garage closed, the entrance blocked by several strands of yellow police tape and a large sandwich board sign which says "closed for the day." She drives to a garage two blocks away and pays the daily rate to park her Escort on the second floor.
As she walks into the lobby at the office, she says "good morning" to the receptionist, who responds with a snort of contempt. In the break room she discovers that the big, blue Tupperware bowl still occupies her space, so she moves it over slightly to put her lunch bag in her favorite spot.
"Hey, don't touch my lunch!" booms a voice from behind her.
Laurie turns to face one of her co-workers, a woman named Brenda, glaring at her.
"I'm sorry, I was just trying to. . . ."
"I don't care what you were just trying to do; just don't touch my lunch again." Brenda turns to the coffeemaker to pour herself a cup of coffee. Laurie decides to skip her daily decaf and heads for her cubicle. She meets Clarence in the hall.
"Can you believe that Judge got shot in our garage last night!" he says, walking beside her.
"Yeah, that's something, isn't it?"
"I mean, what if it had been one of us that got shot? Or what if one of us had seen it happen! I guess it's a good thing we all got out of here last night when we did."
"I think you're right." Laurie walks into her cubicle and puts her purse in the bottom desk drawer. Clarence stands in the entrance.
"They don't have any leads, either, from what I hear," Clarence continues.
"Really? It would be terrible if someone got away with something like that, wouldn't it?"
At the end of the day, Laurie walks to the substitute garage and takes the stairs to the second floor. As she steps through the door from the stairwell, she sees a man putting a laptop computer case into the trunk of his car. Laurie stops and watches him arrange the case in his trunk, then close the lid and walk to the driver's side door.
She wonders what he would look like if he were suddenly shot in the head from behind. The way he is standing, he would fall forward onto his car, she thinks, then slide to the floor. He would leave a trail of blood down the side of the car as he slid to the concrete with empty eyes. She imagines what it would feel like to be the one with the gun.
*
The next morning when her mother offers Laurie some toast, Laurie accepts it. When she arrives at work, she passes the receptionist without speaking. By midmorning, her computer locks up. She starts to pick up the phone to call Clarence but instead she stands up and yells "Clarence" over the cubicle wall, only to find that Clarence is away from his desk. She sits back down at the computer, takes a deep breath and hits "Control-Alt-Delete." Nothing happens for a moment, then her screen goes blank and turns blue.
"Clarence," she yells, but still gets no answer.
She picks up the phone and calls the tech department. A young, long-haired man in his late 20's shows up within a few minutes. Laurie remembers that his name is Kyle. As he sits down at Laurie's computer, Clarence shows up at the entrance to her cubicle.
"Honey, what have you done to your computer now?" laughs Clarence.
Kyle says, "Yeah, what have you done?" His voice, however, is without humor. He sighs loudly, but Laurie ignores him and leaves the cubicle.
She motions to Clarence to go to his cubicle and follows him.
"Don't pay any attention to that little smart ass," Clarence says.
"Oh, I'm not worried about him. But I am kind of worried about going into our garage by myself."
"I know what you mean. The police still don't have any real leads or suspects."
"Right. And I'd like to have some protection when I go in there," Laurie says.
"So why don't you buy a gun?" Clarence suggests.
"I thought about it and I would like to, but you have to file an application and get investigated and wait forever to get the permit, and I don't want to go through all that. I'm scared now."
"There is a serious waiting period to buy a gun," Clarence says, nodding.
"Hey, I just thought of something," Laurie says. "Didn't you tell me you had a cousin who was always into something? He's been in and out of jail a few times."
"Yeah, my cousin James. What about him?"
"Well," Laurie drops her voice to a loud whisper. "Do you think he might be able to get me a gun without, you know, going through the 'usual channels'? I'd pay him well."
"Oh, yeah, yeah. I bet he could. I can certainly ask him."
"That would be great," says Laurie. "I'd feel so much better if I had a gun."
*
The next day, Clarence slinks into her cubicle, looking in both directions down the hall before coming in.
"I talked to my cousin. He says he can hook you up, but it's going to cost you some serious cash."
"I told you, I don't mind paying him whatever he wants."
"Yeah, I know, but I didn't tell him that. He's gonna get whatever he can out of you. You've gotta know how to negotiate these things, girl."
"Well, I don't, so why don't you negotiate it for me and just let me know how much, okay? I'll even pay you a fee for negotiating it for me."
"If that's what you want, you got it. I'll take care of it, but only on one condition—you can't pay me for helping you!"
A few days later, Laurie gives Clarence $250 cash and he gives her a Glock 9MM in virtually new condition. She goes straight home to her computer and Googles "Glock 9MM" for her first lesson.
*
Laurie's computer at work has not locked up for well over a month, but now her luck has apparently run out. She stares for a moment at the screen, then hits "Control-Alt-Delete," closes out her programs and reboots. When the computer comes back up, it works for about five minutes before it freezes again, hourglass spinning in the lower left corner of the screen. Laurie picks up her phone and places a service call to the tech department. The woman at the help desk says that she'll send someone within 10 to 20 minutes.
Laurie walks out of her cubicle and into Clarence's. He looks up from the stack of ledger sheets on his desk. "Hey, Laurie, what's up?" he asks.
"Computer's down. I'm waiting for the help desk to send somebody."
"Mmmm, maybe they'll send that cute new guy, what's his name, Justin?" Clarence muses.
"The one with the great ass? Yeah, that's Justin," confirms Laurie.
"Oh my God, girl, what's gotten into you lately? You're losing weight, wearing contacts and make-up, got some stylin' clothes and a new 'do. Now you're even checking out the boys!"
"I guess I'm a late bloomer," says Laurie with a flat voice and deadpan expression.
"You're a trip is what you are," chuckles Clarence.
"Yeah, I guess I am," Laurie says. "Did I tell you I'm looking for a place, too?"
"A place? To live? By yourself?"
Laurie nods.
"You're kiddin' me, right? Of all the times to be moving out by yourself—you really are a trip."
"What do you mean?" Laurie asks.
"I mean everybody else in town is scared to be alone anywhere these days with the murders and everything, but you're looking to move into your own place. That's what I mean."
"Well, I'm not planning to move into a parking garage," says Laurie.
Clarence laughs loudly. "You've got a point," he says. "I just can't believe there's been three parking garage shootings in, what, less than two months? That's scary. I hope you're keeping your gun with you all the time!"
"Wouldn't leave home without it," Laurie lies, picturing the gun hidden in the inside pocket of an old wool overcoat hanging in the back of her closet.
"Do you even know how to use that thing?" Clarence asks as an afterthought.
"Sure. I bought some bullets and went out to the country and practiced shooting at some cans," says Laurie, leaving out the part about her trip beforehand to Wade's Weaponry, a small, dirty gun shop in a city about 75 miles away, which is actually run by Harold, Wade's brother, since Wade was left a vegetable a year ago by a massive, mid-life stroke. Like the shop, Harold was small and dirty, and she remembers with contempt how she had to endure listening to Harold tell her much more than she ever wanted to know about Harold and Wade while she bought several hundred rounds of ammunition from Harold and convinced him to sell her an illegal silencer for the Glock.
"Good, I'm glad to hear that," says Clarence, nodding enthusiastically. "I mean, any of us could be next since there's no apparent connection among the victims. It's just incredible that we've got a parking garage serial killer right here in town! It gives me the willies just thinking about it."
"I know," agrees Laurie.
"Did you see that piece on the news last night about how hard it could be to catch this serial killer because the killings are so random? There's no pattern or anything. And the cops say that this guy even used a different gun on the first one, which probably makes it even harder to track him down," Clarence continues.
"I wasn't home during the news, but I heard about that segment from my mother when I got home from the gym. I wish I could have seen it, though."
"The gym. I can't believe you're going to the gym! But I can already tell a big difference. You're looking fine these days."
"Thanks. Oh, here's the computer guy," says Laurie and walks out of Clarence's cubicle back to her own. The tech department did not send Justin; instead, Kyle sits down at Laurie's desk as she walks back into her cubicle.
"So what is it now?" he asks, roughly pulling the keyboard tray out from under the desk.
"I don't know what's wrong. It just . . ."
"I know you don't know what's wrong," Kyle snaps. "If you knew what was wrong, I wouldn't have to be here. Now, what I need from you is to know what the computer was doing when it froze up."
"And what I need from you is some courtesy and respect, or I'm calling the head of your department to let him know about your piss-poor attitude. I've had enough of it," says Laurie.
Kyle's mouth opens and stays that way as he stares wide-eyed at Laurie.
"The computer froze up so I did a 'Control-Alt-Delete' and rebooted, which helped for about five minutes, then it froze up again. Now you know everything I know about the problem. I'll leave you to fix it," says Laurie to the still wide-eyed, slack-jawed Kyle.
As she turns and walks out of her cubicle, she thinks how the expression on Kyle's face reminds her of the look on the face of the man she killed three nights before. She walked up behind the balding, middle-aged man as he fumbled with his keys standing beside his car in the Twin Oaks Mall parking garage. She had not meant for him to see her coming, had meant to stay invisible like she did the first time she killed someone, an older woman, a couple of weeks before, but he dropped his keys when she was a few feet away from him. As he bent to pick them up, he must have seen her out of the corner of his eye because he sprang back up, gasping, and twirled around to face her. The look of surprise on his face exploded when she pulled the trigger.
Stopping in front of a mirrored glass partition down the hall from her cubicle to check her hair, Laurie pictures Kyle's face exploding instead as she pulls the trigger, and she smiles—a confident, content smile.
August Night in Memphis (May-ish, 2011. Issue 28.)
August night in Memphis 10 pm
89 degrees 89% humidity
Mosquitoes swim.
It's all about Jesus . . .
at least that's what the street vendor
says flying at me from the dark edge.
Also says Fuck You when I refuse to buy
the wilting yellow carnation from
his dirty green bucket, leaking down the front of
his gray knit pull-on pants.
They look hot.
$2 he wants.
Carnations stink of death and I hate yellow.
Beale Street neon 2 blocks away flashes
on white stone buildings.
Blue. Red. Yellow.
Red again.
Lonely blues riff wanders by until
blue red yellow stone towers absorb it.
Siren. Starts. Stops.
Smell of horse shit
attaches to thick air, lingers.
I can taste it.
It's all about Jesus . . .
Blast of laughter races from Beale Street,
fades as it passes.
Fuck You.
Could it be that simple?
Probably not.
Heat lightening flashes to the south,
silent somewhere over Mississippi.
I shuffle home.