“I saw Walinda Rivers at town hall the other day,” my Mom said as I loaded groceries into her refrigerator.
“Oh wow!” I replied, completely surprised. After the incident with Marcus, the family couldn’t get out of town fast enough.
“How she doing?”
“She’s good,” Mom said exhaling deeply. “She asked about you. Wanted to know how you’re doing.”
“What brings her to town?”
“She said she was looking for old property records.”
“How’s Marc?” I asked wanting to get to the main question right away.
“According to her he’s all right. He’s living a quiet, simple life. He has a good job. Keeps to himself.”
“Understandable,” I sighed.
Twenty years ago Marcus went on a date that would change his life forever. When they had a “chance” meeting at the coffee shop on a Wednesday at 2:30 while he finished his usual coffee nothing seemed out of place. Unbeknownst to him she had stalked him for about a month. It was found during a subsequent investigation that she was involved in an abusive long term relationship fueled by infidelity and cocaine. She would lash out at her long term partner by sleeping with other men she knew he found unacceptable and harbor that little secret.
Their first and only date was a short hook up that ended in a gross miscalculation. Her significant other came home sick from his night shift factory job to find that the focus of his abuse was out.
When she returned home he attacked her again. This time her boyfriend’s misogynistic, coke fueled rage was brought to an almost homicidal level when he realized she had slept with the man right next door.
Her injuries were so severe that the next day she was taken to the hospital. While her man stood over her with his hand intimidatingly on her shoulder they told the doctor that this wasn’t a domestic incident it was, according to him, the results of a nasty encounter with a neighbor.
Due to the nature of the assault the state police were called. I, unfortunately, was there when the officer interviewed Marcus three days after the hook up. The accusation of assault by a white woman was the manifestation of every black families fear.
Marcus had a few things working in his favor. The first thing was a diligent investigator. Rather than a jaded officer who just wanted to clear a file from his desk, the trooper wanted to get to the actual truth of the matter and look into both sides of the incident.
The second thing was the history. As the officer looked into both parties he followed the nuanced truth rather than the easy path. His investigation found the aforementioned history of drug use and physical abuse.
The couple’s history spanned five years and eight states. They had lost two children to the department of children and family services. There were a list of misdemeanor arrests for shoplifting and breach of peace.
Marcus had a history of promiscuity and ghosting on girlfriends. The officer found that even though he had been a shitty boyfriend there was no history of violence or assault in his previous encounters. Even some of the girls he had ghosted didn’t have anything horrible to say about him.
The third thing was that the doctor, who had experience with domestic violence counseling, had the impression that the couple’s story was suspicious. She listed off each of the signs she recognized that pointed to this as a domestic incident.
The inquiry lasted just under a month. Marcus was not charged but by the time his name was cleared in the incident he had changed. The outgoing, friendly, well dressed person who was easy to laugh was replaced by a withdrawn, disheveled recluse.
We tried to stay in touch but it was a lost cause. Walinda would always warn my brothers and I that this could happen to us. She would tell us that we couldn’t get too comfortable in this area no matter how big the smiles or how firm the handshakes. We had to stick together. The rest of the borough was a different story.
Any trust he and the family had in the town were shattered as “friends” stopped calling and a whisper campaign tried to undermine the vindication provided by the police probe.
This continued until the couples pattern repeated itself five years later on a much larger scale. The local newspaper did an exposition on the couples exploits of the past ten years.
“People are trash,” Marcus would say on the rare occasions when you would see him out. He had taken to hibernating away from the world. His trust of people had been shattered. He no longer trusted his judge of character.
“Maybe I deserved this,” he would then say. “Maybe I should have treated some of my exes better than I...” he would trail off, lost in reflection.
And so was born the hibernation. He would disappear for three to four months to rest and reset. He would spend time purging his frustrations through exercise and meditation. By the time spring started he would reappear, guarded but refreshed.
“Did she say where they were living,” I asked already knowing the answer.
“No. She said it was good to see me but she couldn’t really talk. She wanted to get in and out.”
I finished loading the perishables and close the refrigerator. “I’d love to hang out, Mom, but I think I’m headed out.”
“Understandable,” she said as I gave her a kiss on the cheek.
After being reminded about the incident with Marcus I just couldn’t get out of town fast enough.
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