Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

‘I’m late and I can’t find my car keys.’

Ian sighs. ‘What do you want me to do about it, Thompson?’

‘I don’t know, look around.’

‘They’re not here or you couldn’t have driven home.’

‘Well, shit.’

‘Did you check your pocket?’

‘Did I. .’ A startled laugh. ‘Well, I’ll be goddamned.’

Ian pours himself a cup of coffee and drinks it in near silence, the only sound the swamp cooler rattling in the window.

‘Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?’

‘Hello.’ A small girl’s small voice.

‘Hello. Are you playing with the phone?’

‘No.’

‘Who are you calling?’

‘I’m calling emburgancy.’

‘You are?’

‘Uh-huh. Are you emburgancy?’

‘Yes, I’m emergency. What’s your name?’

‘Thalia.’

‘Hi, Thalia, why are you calling emergency?’

‘My mommy.’

‘What’s wrong with your mommy?’

‘She won’t get up.’

‘What happened, Thalia?’

‘Daddy stopped her.’

‘Daddy stopped her?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What did he stop her doing?’

‘Packing a suitcase.’

‘Was she trying to leave?’

There is silence from the other end of the line.

After a moment: ‘Thalia?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you just nod your head?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Mommy was trying to leave?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Mommy was packing a suitcase and Daddy stopped her?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he stop her?’

‘He hitted her.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He went to gone.’

‘He’s not at home anymore?’

‘No.’

‘Where’s Mommy, Thalia?’

‘She’s tired.’

‘Where is she?’

‘In her bedroom.’

‘Is she asleep?’

‘Daddy hitted her and made her take a nap.’

‘When?’

‘Before he went to gone. She won’t wake up. I’m hungry.’

‘Is Mommy bleeding?’

‘Is it okay to call emburgancy to be hungry?’

‘It’s fine, Thalia. Is Mommy bleeding?’

‘She stopped.’

‘Okay. I’m going to send a policeman over to say hello, okay? I want you to stay on the phone till he arrives.’

‘Police man is the good guys.’

‘Will you stay on the phone with me, Thalia?’

‘Okay.’

Ian is looking through the files that the sheriff’s department photocopied for him when he hears Diego push into the station and mumble a greeting at Chief Davis. Ian takes off his headset, gets to his feet, and walks to the door connecting the dispatch office to the main department.

Diego falls onto the couch which sits against the front wall. An unlit hand-rolled cigarette hangs from his face. He pushes his sunglasses up onto his head, pinning back his wavy hair. He looks very tired and his eyes are red. When he sees Ian standing in the doorway he nods toward him and grunts a greeting.

‘How many you get?’

‘What?’

‘Dogs.’

‘Oh, four. Was going for five, though.’

‘Warden pay up?’

Diego nods, reaches into his front pocket, and pulls out two twenties. He holds them up a moment, then slides them back into his pocket.

‘She press charges?’

‘Who?’

‘Genevieve Paulson.’

‘Oh. No. One of these days Andy’s just gonna up and kill her. Shoulda seen her face.’

‘Bad?’

‘Looked like a plum with eyes.’

‘How was Thalia?’

‘Same as always. Full of smiles and hellos.’

Ian shakes his head. It makes him sick to think of what having a dad like Andy Paulson will end up doing to that beautiful little girl. It will end up ruining her, turning her into just one more trailer-park wife whose husband beats her when the foreman at the warehouse gets on him for not loading the trucks fast enough or for not changing the tank on the forklift when it ran out of propane.

‘Someone should talk to Andy.’

‘I went to the feed store and did just that.’

‘And?’

‘He was all sorrys and it’ll never happen agains.’

‘Same as always.’

Diego nods. ‘Same as always.’

‘Warnings won’t ever fix him.’

‘No, he’s not a man responds to words,’ Diego says.

‘Maybe someone should do more than just talk then,’ Ian says.

Maggie sits cross-legged on the mattress in the basement, her empty lunch plate on the floor near her. The light overhead is out and the sun has already passed over to the other side of the house, shadows now beginning to lay themselves out upon the ground. The light in the basement is thin and gray, and the shadows in the corners are dense. She watches them for movement. Borden has disappeared, as he does sometimes, and she doesn’t want him sneaking up on her. She doesn’t trust him after the things he said this morning. She hasn’t seen him since, though she has said aloud that she is not going to try a second escape. ‘It’s too risky,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll just stay down here.’ She said it as if she were talking to herself, but Borden was, of course, her real audience. She hopes that he was listening. She suspects that he is always listening. Maybe it will prevent him from telling.

Even if it does she now knows he cannot be trusted. She thought he was on her side, but he is not on her side at all. He is on his own side and no one else’s. She’ll have to get out soon and she’ll have to be sneaky about her plans. Even when alone down here she’ll have to be sneaky. Because alone isn’t really.

Tonight will mark the beginning of her escape. She won’t make her move yet. She needs to think things through. But tonight will mark the beginning. She will soon escape the Nightmare World. She doesn’t care if Borden can’t leave. In fact, she hopes it’s true. She never wants to see him again. Soon she will escape and she will stand beneath the light of the sun and she will not be afraid.

‘You’re going to make Beatrice sad.’

She looks left, then right.

He’s across the room, in the farthest corner, next to a stack of cardboard boxes. The boxes are full of Christmas ornaments, old magazines with pictures of naked ladies in them, cowboy novels, old clothes saved to be used as rags. He is mostly hidden in shadows, but some of him is visible. He stands very still.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I know you’re still planning to leave.’

‘I’m. . I’m not.’

‘You could stay.’

‘I am.’

‘Beatrice loves you, you know.’

‘No, she doesn’t.’

‘Of course she does.’

‘She loves someone named Sarah.’

‘You could be Sarah.’

‘But I’m not.’

‘You could be, you’ve been Sarah longer than you were anybody else. You could let Beatrice love you. If you let yourself be loved, you wouldn’t hate it here so much.’

‘But this isn’t where I belong.’

‘It is where you belong. That’s why you can’t escape.’

‘I-’ This is not a discussion she wants to have. ‘I’m not gonna try to escape,’ she says.

‘I can see your thoughts.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘You know I’m not. I can see the darkest corners of your mind. There’s nothing you can hide from me.’

Tears begin to well in her eyes. She knows what he says is true. He has responded to mere unexpressed thought before. Throughout the years he has done this: responded with echoes of her deepest fears, fears she never voiced aloud: your parents got a new daughter and don’t even think of you anymore, Henry’s going to put you on the punishment hook one day and never let you down, you’re going to die here.

She blinks the tears away and wipes at her eyes. She stares across the room and into Borden’s glistening, rolling tar-pit eyes. His nostrils flare. His big square teeth form the shape of a smile. It is an ugly thing.