Amy Gustine - You Should Pity Us Instead

He looked at the boxes, then at the door handle and the dangling keys, trying to fight the feeling coming up from his knees. It entered his stomach, then his chest. As it invaded his throat, Obi sunk to a kneel, hands pressed against the apartment door. Grief took his breath away, then returned it in gulping sobs. Obi let his forehead fall with a clunk against the metal door, its heat a blank brand, and beat his palms against the beige indifference, cries turning to shrieks like a baby seal.

“Excuse me?” a deep voice said.

Obi looked up. A man stood there, not swarthy, but dark enough to be Lebanese. He’d come out of the neighboring apartment. “You!” Obi said, pushing himself to a stand. He tore the note from the door. “Is this yours?”

“Yes,” the man said.

Obi started forward. The man flinched, features puckered as if ready to take a hit. Obi stopped. “What’s your name?”

The man opened his eyes. “Brian.”

Obi unfolded the note and read it. “Why wouldn’t she be your friend?” he snapped.

“What?”

Obi flapped the note at him violently. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” Brian said. “I never did anything.”

Obi took Brian in. He wore socks, jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt. “Why are you dressed like that? It’s hot. You aren’t supposed to be dressed like that.” Though Obi himself was dressed like that.

“Air conditioning,” Brian said. He looked suspicious. “Who are you? How do you know Jocelyn?”

The yelp broke from Obi again and he shook the note in the air. “Did you kill her!” he shouted. “Did you kill my Jolly?”

The man’s expression was enough to exonerate him. “Kill her?”

Obi leaned on the wall, pressing hard against the jagged stucco.

Brian whispered, “Somebody…killed her?”

Obi bleated, “I loved her. I loved her,” and covered his face with his hand.

There was a long pause before Brian said, “You must be her father.”

Obi nodded.

“Come into my place. Come in here for just a minute.”

The man’s apartment hummed with cool. Obi felt as if his execution had been stayed.

“Will you sit down?”

Obi looked at the furniture. “Here,” Brian said, fetching one of the rope-backed rattan chairs from the kitchen. Obi sat facing the living room, like part of an audience, and thought of the days when Jolly put on shows for them. Dances, skits, sometimes readings of stories about princesses and rocket ships.

Brian sat on the edge of the coffee table, his folded hands clamped between his big knees. Despite his size, he looked incapable of hurting someone, which disappointed Obi.

“I don’t understand.” He shook his head. “I just watched her newscast and they didn’t say anything.”

Obi ground his fists into his eye sockets. “I’m supposed to clean out the apartment. Her mother is waiting.”

“In the car?”

“Ohio.”

Several seconds passed. Obi was looking at the floor. “I was supposed to find out why. Did they say anything about why?”

“The news?”

“Yes, it was her station, wasn’t it?” Obi looked up with a glazed, desperate hope in his eyes.

“They didn’t say anything, sir.”

“There’s got to be a reason, you idiot!”

“Right, right,” Brian agreed. “Do they know who did it?”

Obi looked at him with disgust. “Jolly did it.”

“Jolly?”

“The police are telling us Jolly killed herself,” Obi said, his voice accusing.

Brian shook his head. “She wouldn’t do that.”

Obi nodded, his tone now beseeching. “That’s what I said. She had no reason to do that. There has to be a reason.” The sun had sunk near the horizon. It shone straight across the room, a hot spot on the far wall above the kitchen table. Its careless light made the tears at the edge of Brian’s lashes glisten.

“So you knew her?” Obi asked.

Brian shrugged. “I moved down from Chicago for my job. We both liked to swim at night, and when she hurt her leg, I helped her get around a little.”

“Are you Lebanese?”

“No, sir. Italian and German, a little Greek. Maybe some Russian. Nobody remembers exactly.”

Obi looked around the place. “Did the police talk to you?”

“The police?”

Obi explained about the investigation, the lack of a note. “They said they talked to everyone who knew her.” His voice had grown suspicious again.

“They probably did look for me. I’m a pilot, though, and I’ve been out of town.” Brian spoke like a job applicant, striving to explain himself without giving the impression he thought his personal views or circumstances worthy of discussion.

“They should have left you a note, or a phone message. Idiots!” Obi shook his head. “I knew they had missed something.”

“I’m sorry. I wish I could help. I don’t know why…” Brian raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “Can I do something? You’re hot. How about a drink?”

Obi shook his head. “I’m supposed to pack up her things and bring them home.”

“Do you want some help?”

Next to Brian on the coffee table were the TV remote, the pad and pen he’d used to write the note, and the first draft. Obi narrowed his eyes. Brian picked up the note and casually crumpled it, as if he were just keeping his hands busy.

“Give me that.”

Brian reluctantly extended the paper. “It’s stupid.”

Obi read the note. “Why wouldn’t she be relaxed here?”

“I got in some trouble recently. It was reported in the papers. I thought maybe that’s why I hadn’t seen her around since I’ve been off work. I thought she heard about my trouble and was staying away from me. I didn’t want her to feel like she had to avoid me. I wanted her to know I wasn’t going to bother her.”

“Drugs?”

“No, sir.”

“Stealing?”

“No, sir.”

Obi examined him a moment. “Rape?”

Brian looked down and squeezed his folded hands together until it hurt. “Yes, sir.”

“Well, aren’t you going to tell me you aren’t guilty?” Obi’s tone implied this would be futile.

“I don’t know for sure.”

“You don’t know?” Obi sneered.

Brian shook his head. “I really don’t.”

“We always know when we’re guilty. Were you drunk?”

“No, sir.”

“Were you in the room with the woman? I assume it’s a woman?”

“Yes, sir.”

A long moment of silence passed before Obi asked, “Why did you scratch out that part about being relaxed?”

“I thought she might think it was dumb, or that I was sort of, like, threatening her. Like when you say the opposite of what you mean to make someone uncomfortable. I wanted to be plain. Not misunderstood.”

“Did the girl, that other girl, misunderstand?”

“Maybe. Maybe I misunderstood.”

“You better tell me exactly what happened.” Obi sounded like the police.

“I put an ad on Craigslist.” Brian never planned to do anything the woman didn’t want. “If I did, why would I place an ad? Or meet her here, where I live?”

Obi leaned forward and nodded. “Okay, yes. But what did you want from this girl?”

No one had asked Brian this question, and until this moment he would have said he didn’t want anyone to, but now that someone had, he wanted to answer.

Brian described that afternoon. It had been a little like using an escort service, except because the girl wasn’t a professional, that had made it better and more difficult at the same time.

Obi nodded. “Yes.”

When she sat with her legs apart to show Brian she hadn’t worn any panties, he’d reached up slowly and she’d had plenty of time to close her legs or tell him to stop. He couldn’t say for sure what he’d touched. “It just made me so happy that she trusted me.”