When Detective Paul Young first met his now ex-wife Darlene, it was the late 1980s. He was born in what eventually became known as Farragut, his birth certificate lists his city of birth as Campbell’s Station, and he lived there until he was ready for police training.
He had been to Knoxville before he enrolled in the police academy, but Young had never lived in a city that he didn’t know like the back of his hand, where he could walk down the street and see familiar faces who called hellos to him. The permanence of the move made the streets seem big and impersonal and he had a moment in the city where he felt truly alone for the first time. It affected him like a creeping doubt; he realized that all of the people around him were strangers and if he really needed someone, if something horrible had happened to him, he would have to call home.
Of course his fears were quickly erased because Young is a very affable man who makes friends quickly, and it wasn’t long before the city of Knoxville shrank into the home that he loves.
The day that he met Darlene, he stopped in at a diner near his new apartment. It was a weekend, a hot summer Saturday and Young got an early start because he wanted to buy furniture for his place and he planned to be frugal but selective, which meant that he would be hopping from consignment shops to thrift stores for most of the day. The diner was typical, but not a chain, and it was frequented by members of the police department. Young waved at his instructor as he sat at the bar to order a big breakfast; sausage and bacon, three scrambled eggs, cheese grits, and a whole sliced tomato. When the waitress said hello to him, he smiled at her. She was about his age but she seemed liked a much older woman. She didn’t look it, Young got lost in her deep brown eyes and she smiled at him with one corner of her mouth and that made her look like she had a sense of humor, but she had a mature presence, Young assumed from dealing with people at her job who could be demanding. She was kind, Young could tell, but she wouldn’t take any crap from anybody.
“Are you ordering something, blue eyes?”
He heard it and then he realized that he had been staring at her while his mind raced.
Young fumbled; his lips felt like they were made of rubber and they were bouncing off one another to create a sound that he was sure made him look crazy.
“Take your time,” she said and she winked at him. Then she went to serve another person at the bar.
Young shook his head. What am I doing? he thought, and he slapped his face. He watched her doing her job, careful to look down at the menu when she looked his way, and he realized that he needed to know her better.
When she came over to him, she said, “You ready to try again?” Her smile was cocked and Young knew that she was teasing him.
He recited his order like he had practiced in his head while she was busy, and then he said, “Are you from around here?”
“Born and raised.” She nodded and smiled a full smile. She was proud of her home.
“I’m pretty new here.”
“What you do?”
“I’m training to be a police officer.”
When he said it, Darlene chuckled. He looked like a cartoon superhero. He was classically handsome, clean shaven with a full mane of hair on his head, blue eyes that were calming, and he was so proud of himself that he was becoming a police officer. He said it with a lot of dignity.
“I figured,” she said.
“That a bad thing?”
“I try not to get mixed up with men that get shot at. If you wanna eat any time soon, I need to go put this order in.”
She smiled and Young watched her walk away.
Young is not a hard man in his old age, if anything he is calloused. He has learned to stare at a crime scene with a methodical eye, to reverse engineer the horror with the hope of understanding the situation that had led to it. He is not immune to the horrors after all these years, he is not a heartless person and he does his job out of a sense of duty to his community. He has learned to shoulder his burden like a callous that he steps on gingerly through his day, careful not to breakdown when he sees scenes of murder.
His callous was ripped off recently and Paul Young experienced a breakdown. It wasn’t exactly a breakdown, it was a panic attack, but he had never experienced one before and he thought he was having a stroke. He went to the hospital and he was placed on paid leave for a month. Sandra lived with him and she looked out for him as she always did, but more so because she could tell that he had been shaken to his core.
When Young came home from the hospital, he and Sandra sat on the porch enjoying the calm of the neighborhood.
“What happened, Paul?” she asked him gently. She had never seen him like he was, nervous, on edge like he was waiting for a bomb to go off.
He looked at her and he forced a smile as a tear ran slowly down his cheek. “Some things best not to know.”
She cried gently and kissed his forehead. She was very concerned for him.
“You know I been through a lot,” Sandra said. “I done seen some stuff. And you look like you need to talk. You can’t scare me, old man. Go on, let go of your burden.”
Young sighed; he inhaled deeply and wiped the tear from his cheek, and then he exhaled slowly.
“I been doing this job for a long time. I done seen some shit. Dead kids, husbands beating their wives to death, some gruesome shit. It’s the job though, I ain’t weak over that. I would do something else if I was. I ain’t got no ego about it neither, I’m happy to say when I’m in over my head. And I ain’t never been, not a single day on this job. Not until…” he trailed off and looked away. “Some things Sandra…” he looked at her again and she saw tears welling in his eyes, “once you know some things, you can’t go back. You can’t forget it, and it change the whole world.”
Sandra wasn’t sure if it was good to push him, but now she was very curious.
He continued, “What I saw that panicked me so bad, reminded me of stuff that I been choosing not to think about. Work is enough, the bad police and all, that’s been keeping me distracted. But then the shit show up at my work and I can’t deny it. I can’t ignore it. The world ain’t what it used to be. Or maybe I ain’t never knew nothing about nothing. But the police ain’t enough, Sandra. It ain’t enough of us to stop what’s coming, and even if it was, if there was a million of us with a billion guns, it wouldn’t be enough.”
Sandra didn’t understand, but she nodded at him.
“I been working this murder, guy got killed at the racetracks. Probably got something to do with somebody feeling cheated outta money, but it’s some wrinkles I been ironing out over the last month or so. There’s this girl, a young woman, folks say she was asking around about the dead man, but she like a ghost, been hard to track her down. Anyway, we finally get eyes on her, we show up at this house and I be damned if it ain’t another crime scene. I’m feeling optimistic about closing the case at least, obviously this mystery woman is the person I need to be talking to, so at least I feel like I got a lead. But these bodies Sandra. I done seen bodies like these before. And I was hoping we burned em all to hell that night, but I know I was being naive, I wanted to be. It’s easier not to think about than to crack my head trying to anticipate what comes next. It’s bigger than me. It’s way over my head, but it keep showing up in my backyard like I’m supposed to do something about it.” Young shook his head. “These bodies Sandra, these people ripped each other apart. And thank God, that’s two less of em we got to worry about. But they out there multiplying and ain’t nobody doing nothing. It’s bigger than me, it’s bigger…”
Sandra wasn’t sure that she completely understood but she recognized the look of helplessness in his face. She had seen it before when the father of her children was young and justifying his decision to sell drugs. Everything was too big and he needed to big up as fast as possible. It didn’t work out well for him.
“You the strongest man I know, Paul. I’m happy to call you a friend. If you scared, then I believe you got reason to be, but I think you selling yourself short. I do. I’m not just saying that to be nice or because of what you’ve done for me over the years. I’m saying it because I’ve been living with a grown white man for five years and we like brother and sister, and it’s the most off the wall thing I think that’s ever happened to me. I never thought I’d be so close to someone like you, but here we are, and that ain’t no coincidence. I’m here to give you this pep talk because this feels real serious, old man. And it seem like a lot, it probably is, but like you say, it keep falling on you, so you got two choices. Either you let it flatten you, or you push it off, deal with it so you can get to some peace. You got people who would die for you, Paul, myself included, and if you worried about something, all you got to do is ask and I know you’ll get what you need.”
She put a hand on his.
“But you could use some rest,” Sandra said and she kissed his head again. “Take some time to relax.”
Young loved Sandra and he was happy that she was there for him. He hoped that she was right. If she was wrong, the world would soon be overrun by zombies, Young was sure of it.
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