Teresa Troutman
Chapter 1
Jessup sat back in his chair within the darkened office and tried to imagine that he was watching some foreign cartoon channel as images both surreal and inhuman bounced across the screen. Every now and then, his imagination worked to fill in the blanks; hell, the actors began to look like some freaky Saturday morning cartoon show. He had viewed the evidence tapes for a couple of hours played on fast forward, taking only occasional breaks for coffee.
Jessup had worked for the California Department of Justice for 15 years and had created the Sexual Predator Apprehension Team five years ago. He had spent five years knocking on parolees’ doors to make certain they were in compliance, five years of sending registered offenders back to jail, and five years watching internet porn looking for exploited youngsters. Jessup thought he might be able to get through all twelve tapes in this eight-hour workday. The investigator wondered if he would feel anything if he found the prize that made the search worthwhile.
His partner had started this investigation a year ago and of the thirty surveillance tapes collected, only twelve remained to be screened, about twenty-four hours of work. Within the first five minutes, Jessup had wanted to clean his eyes out with soap, but he continued to watch with an objective affect, like the veterinarian who put pets to sleep for a paycheck.
One of the two cellphones on Jessup’s belt began to buzz, vibrating all the way through to the Glock holstered neatly on his back. At middle age, he was already beginning to experience the sciatica caused by the weight of the tools of the trade he carried strapped to his back. He would’ve ignored the insistent buzzing but his caller I.D. named Jessup’s supervisor. Jessup flipped open the phone.
“What’s up, bruddah?” Jessup continued watching the children play “yum-yum” and “boom-boom.” There were about a half-dozen young asian boys, on the border of adolescence, playing the game. They were small with fairy-light bodies and fine facial features, femmed-up with doping tricks to keep them looking about ten years old when they were really much older. Old enough, Jessup paused the tape and smoothed back the hair on his head and thought, old enough to be legal.
“Where are you, Jessup? It’s an insult to the family, the department and to Joe for you not to show up.”
Jessup turned off the tape and returned it to the stack sitting in the evidence bag.
“Tell the family I’m going to be late. By the time the mass is over, they’ll never notice I wasn’t there. Joe did what he had to, but he left me to clean up this mess.” Joe, Jessup's thoughts intruded again, never had to watch another minor being mauled by some obese, egg-shaped, trucker trash.
Jessup had watched his partner turn alcoholic after the first six months. Jessup didn’t need to drink because he didn’t feel the pain. He had become acutely aware he didn’t feel much of anything. There was no pain, no hurt, no lust, no anger, not even fear. Joe had feelings. Joe got hurt.
“Have you talked to the psych yet? You know you’re required.”
“I’ll make an appointment tomorrow.”
“Sure you will. I’m going to have to put you on release time until you have that meeting. The mass is starting. I’ll send his wife and kids your sympathy."
Jessup slapped the phone closed. He had given up on having children of his own which was not long followed after by giving up on making his marriage work. Jessup didn’t know if the feelings stopped before or after his wife had given up on him showing her any affection. It had been so easy between them when they were young and fighting over the important things, like what names they once planned for their future sons and daughters.
Each time there was a call to check out an internet site and each time he had to call off a missing child search because the little, cold body lay beneath a tarp before him, he felt more disconnected from humanity. At some point, Jessup felt something sacred leave him. The names of his future children floated away on the same breeze.
It was just another day at the office; a cup of coffee and a paycheck. It was never a job to love, it was a job to do and his marriage shadowed his soul down that path.
His wife left him after sex became unbearably sad for her. Jessup let her walk out the door. He didn’t think about it, at all. His own mother had died the year before but he was too busy gathering evidence in the snow outside an elementary school storage shed to take the time off to go to her funeral. Why should it be any different for Joe. Dead was dead. Jessup was alive but what difference did that make, anyway?
Jessup used to like to believe that he was good at what he did. Monday was supposed to be another day of case reviews and interviews except that Joe had come into work early, drank his coffee, sat down at his desk and then blew his brains out with his service revolver. Jessup arrived and found the corpse. While he waited for the coroner and Internal Affairs to arrive, Jessup pulled out his digital camera and began to take the photos that would be necessary for the report. Waiting and watching while the photos printed, the investigator identified what was there inside himself, what had taken the place of his emotions. There it was, screaming inside him without making a sound where anyone else could hear it. Jessup didn’t give a shit about good and evil in the world.
After his partner had been cleaned up and shown out of the office, part of him in a body bag, the rest in a bucket, Jessup felt no need to grieve but he needed to find a way to play his part before he promoted out or retired.
Jessup knew one man who had done the trick once, had found the way out of emotional darkness and it was the only path Jessup saw for himself now. In high school, he had found his friend Leo spiraling down from a rope in the boys’ locker room. Jessup had brought him back to life. Leo woke up from death angry, raging at Jessup for interfering.
After a stay in am mental health hospital and medication, Leo had changed. His attempt at self-strangulation opened the scream inside him as an infant taking that first, painful breath out of the womb. Leo was re-born alive. Leo had always been a dark, moody child, but after Jessup interrupted his plans, Leo began to live.
Prior to Leo's failed self-murder, Jessup remembered that his friend hated doing anything associated with groups or with speaking in front of people but his new destiny changed him, led him immediately out of Iowa and towards Los Angeles. Leo seemed a natural born performer, able to make a connection to his audience and make them laugh. He found an agent after a short run as a stand-up comedian. More and more, Jessup wanted to know what the switch was, what had turned Leo's life from a downward spiral to a radiance of life? There was his first movie, and then his second and third. Leo had made Jessup’s wife cry, the way he acted up on the screen. Jessup knew it had to be an act, a pretense of connecting. When Leo accepted his Golden Globe the year before, a critic had called Leo’s performance “full-bodied, able to handle a full range of emotional color.”
Jessup thought of his own emotional life as black and white and mourned the memory that it hadn't always been that way. Leo had found some trick, some way to paint colors into the lines of his existence. Not that Jessup wanted to do stand-up or read lines or audition for dinner theater. What Jessup needed to know, needed desperately to realize, was how he could act human again. Leo had discovered the knack and exploited it. Jessup felt Leo owed him one.