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Blur
by Ed Miller
I
God knows the Detellos always made me sick. They made me sick physically and sick in every other way. Listening to them talk, watching those mouths jabber and pop—their voices rising in an odious fog, rolling in black waves through my head—was a test of intolerable suffering.
It was the combination of pathologies, I suppose.
Taken separately I might’ve handled them. Individually they might’ve been all right. Under other circumstances, in another time perhaps.
But not together.
Together they were poison.
II
The Detellos were friends of Susan, my lovely wife. They came with Susan when I married her. A part of the domestic package, as it were.
For the last two years the Detellos had rented a place a half hour’s drive north of Los Angeles, in an unincorporated area of light industry and anonymous warehouses. Their small tract home was a modest three bedroom, one bath structure, with a meager yard, flat roof, and single car garage—an unassuming abode built in the 50s, and set against the Santa Clarita mountains in a great smear of smog and soot, just above the 210 freeway and three miles down the road from a shuttered Occidental chemical plant.
They were one of those couples for whom things were always astir: something was always shaking with the Detellos. Jerry was changing jobs (under vague circumstances, usually); or Gina was selling Avon, Mary Kay, Tupperware; or they were leasing a new car, having just wrecked the last one; or they were moving out of state; or they were deciding to stay; or they were suing somebody; or they were heading off on a road trip, to some redemptive locale like Vegas or Reno.
They had no children—rather, they had no children together: Jerry had two grown daughters with whom he rarely spoke, and only then by long distance, to tell them, often as not, that he was sorry, but he was flat broke this month (Reno, Vegas) and didn’t have any dough to send them, to help them defray their college expenses; still they were good young people by all accounts, Liz and Kelsi, and assiduous students, products of a brief and lonely marriage in the years after Jerry had signed up for the service.
By the time he had mustered out as a tech sergeant from the army, at the age of 46, Jerry had divorced Belinda, his first wife, and had already met and married Gina.
Gina however was a leg up on Jerry. When she and Jerry had married, Gina was already twice divorced—from the same husband, in fact: Lyle Burnett.
Burnett, a longhaul trucker, was a Tennessee cowboy, halfsmart and luckless, but he remained—to couch it in the gooey language of one of those dog-eared Harlequin Romances she kept stashed in her purse—a smoldering ember in Gina’s life. He also had the bad manners of showing up at just the wrong time, which could be anytime.
Gina’s adult son, Marco, lived in Vancouver. Their relationship was, like Jerry's relationship with his daughters, unintentionally estranged. There would be an occasional phone call. Then say a year would pass. Then maybe a snapshot would appear in the mailbox at Christmastime.
That’s pretty much the way things stood with these two.
Gina and Jerry Detello. An American couple.
III
I was in the middle of preparing my lightly regarded pasta with bacon and arugala the night the Detellos darkened our lives for the last time. It was after seven. The phone rang in the kitchen and occupied as I was I hollered to Susan to catch it and she did, picking it up and walking into the living room, talking animatedly, dropping into the sofa.
Usually I can get a fix on a caller just by the way Susan responds to them.
It was the DTs again, the voluble Gina.
The whole business ticked me off; I’d missed lunch and was hungry and wanted to eat and here comes one of those long-winded conversations that wrecks the dinner schedule. I filched a beer from the refrigerator and swiveled into a grim slouch at the table.
I always resigned myself to this kind of thing.
My manhood had packed its bags and left.
Susan said: And when did this happen?
I worked at the bottle cap with an opener and popped it with that familiar chit.
In August? Susan frowned. And then what?
The beer tasted good. It was a German pilsner. On the label was a well-endowed Brunhilde. I began to peel the label back, as if undressing her.
I don’t get it, Susan said.
The whole label came off. Mein Lippeschön!
Oh wow, Susan said. So it’s all squared away, then.
This rambled on for a while, then Jerry picked up the extension and the conversation flared into a new cosmic stream. Susan curled her legs under her and shifted the receiver from one shoulder to the other.
I remember, she giggled. I sure do. Your husband’s crazy, Gina. I’m gonna get him. I’m gonna get you good, Jer. You hear me? You’re on my list, bucko. Watch yourself.
I wondered how much beer I had left.
Now that’s an idea, she continued. I don’t know. Let me ask him. Susan turned and said, Gina and Jerry want to know if we’d like to go to dinner with them tonight.
Tonight? I’m making dinner. Ask them to come over here. There’s plenty of food.
But Ralph, you just started. Susan was holding her hand over the receiver. You just started making dinner. They want to take us out.
I took a long pull on my beer. Are you kidding, I said. I’m in the middle of this. Look at this. I swept my hand in the direction of the kitchen where everything was spilled out in disarray.
Susan cocked an eyebrow.
It’s late, I said.
But they want to take us to The Atchison Grill. Come on. The Atchison Grill!
Well you go with them.
Susan looked at me; I felt her eyes penetrate my skull like a laser beam. I could smell the smoke from the exit wounds. But they want to treat us, she said, narrowing her voice.
I don’t care, I said. I’m in the middle. Look. I’m making. Oh hell OK all right then.
Susan turned back in her chair and continued midstream: Sure that would be great, she said. No, it's not too late. Not a problem, Gina. No, of course not. Why don't we meet? That way you don't have to come way out here and then go back again.
In loathing and disgust I abandoned my chair and walked back into the kitchen.
I’d punted.
What would be a good time, Susan asked.
How about next year, I offered. After Labor Day—or maybe the Feast of Unbraining.
Oh that'd be fine, Gina. OK. 8:30 then.
IV
The Atchison Grill anchored one corner of a trendy shopping center and was several miles closer to our place than to Jerry and Gina’s.
We’d made no reservations so we left our name with the hostess and hiked into the split-level bar to wait for the Detellos. We claimed a spot in back; as the dulcet croonings of Dean Martin breezed overhead, I asked the server for my German pilsner. She apologized and said they didn’t stock it. Somehow I wasn’t surprised. I asked for a Heineken instead. Susan looked at the color pictures on the drink menu and picked out a giant fruitbowl thing full of Bacardi and blue fluorescent light.
The evening was taking off.
The drinks came and we sat and passed the time talking about important matters, such as what fabric our sofa should be made of, when and if we finally decided to get a new one, and maybe we ought to buy a battery for the Ford, because the old one seemed to be on its last legs, and maybe this year we should go to Susan’s mom’s for Christmas, just for a change, and was our neighbor to the north of us, the mysterious one, gay or was she just lately taking an interest in crossdressing—these and similar topics that occupy so much idle colloquy among couples.
Two more rounds followed the first and I kept an eye on my watch and began to wonder about the Detellos and wondered if they ever going to show or had they merely become entangled in some new misadventure. Then I thought about my pasta at home, sitting in the garbage.V
At nine o'clock the Detellos rolled in; rather, they blasted into the room, full tilt, as was their custom: Gina's shrill and nasal sturm und drang nearly emptying the room of life, with what remained only to be swept clean by Jerry's hornblower ad nauseaums.
Susan! How are you, dear? It's so good to see you.
Oh Gina, give me a hug!
They flung themselves around each other as if siblings separated at birth, raised by wolves—now deliriously reunited.
Let’s sit down, I said. Come on, let's all sit down here. There's room.
Ralph, you look great, old sport! Jerry seized my hand and shook the life out of it
Maybe our table is ready, I said, uncoupling from his deathgrip. Let me check.
I soldiered my way to the hostess' stand, hoping to get this dog-and-pony show on the road.
Twenty minutes, the girl said, checking her log.
The place was packed. A line stretched out the door.
I went back again and sat down. I said: Boy, they're busy, aren't they.
But no one heard me. It was like talking into a woodchipper. Anything I said was chewed up the moment it came out of my mouth and sprayed in pieces all over the room.
Assuming the position, I reclined slightly in my chair and endeaved to impose a zen-like silence through a sheer force of will.
VI
At some point I became aware of the general drift of the conversation and decided to assay the maw of the woodchipper once more.
Jerry was out of work again.
So when did you leave this job, I said, raising my voice to an unpleasant volume.
Four weeks ago. I'd had it with those idiots. I can't work under those conditions.
It was awful, Gina said. They cut Jerry's car allowance, and then they began hassling him about his per diem.
They're real jerks down there, Jerry said. They even threw me into cold calls with the rookies. Naw, I'll never work for them again. I'd go back to Bollinger's before I'd sell for Muntz again. Advertising is a game I understand. A lot more than some of the jerks I've worked for, at least.
Anyway, you're looking good. Looks like you might've lost some weight. I'll bet you're still going to the gym.
Oh yeah, are you kidding? I wish. The gym's just a little pricey right now. But I still hit the old Nautilus machine at home. Every night I'm out there in the garage busting iron, right Gina?
My gosh yes, Ralph. Jerry's very dedicated to his fitness.
Reps and reps and reps. I put it in, boy. You should try it.
His face was close to mine. I slid back in my chair a little more.
Beertender, I shouted, and waved a hand at our server. Mas cervezas, merci beaucoup.
VII
The night tore on. We all were well torched by the time we were led weaving to our table. We must've waited an hour or more in the bar. The waitress had one of those longsuffering smiles, and when at last she took our order I saw we were making a loud and obnoxious presence of ourselves.
What's this, Gina asked, holding up the menu to the waitress. Is this shrimp?
That's our scampi, yes.
How do they cook it?
It's a little Cajun, a little spicy. It's really good.
I hate shrimp, Gina said. Just hate it. Creepy little crawlies.
Gina revolved through six or seven other entrees while giving the waitress the third degree and making faces and describing the various faults and obvious shortcomings of this and that for the benefit of those within earshot. In the end she ordered something safe—the salmon almondine, I think—and I felt the jaws of the vise on my neck back off, just so.
But Jerry was next. He proceeded to interrogate the waitress in a similarly incoherent fashion, waving the menu around, demanding answers.
How do you cook the veal? Are these pearl onions? Fresh or frozen? What kind of salad? What kind of soup? Are those the only two kinds of soup? Can I get beets instead of carrots? How do you cook the beets?
Why didn’t waitresses go postal, that’s what I wondered.
Finally Jerry submitted his order.
It was more of a proclamation: Hear ye, Hear ye . . . I pictured him in high-buckle shoes, frock coat and powdered wig.
Then Susan ordered and then it was my turn.
I’ll have the scampi, I blurted. Scampi’s the ticket. Tell Chef to fix it any way he wants. I don’t care. Soup, salad, vegetables, a lump of coal, whatever. But definitely another one of these.
I tilted the empty glass toward her. Keep them coming, fraulein.
The waitress nodded, collected the menus, and fled.
The roar and din redoubled. Gina fidgeted and Jerry gestured wildly and Susan rocked her head back and forth and laughed and I sat there with my mouth agape, eyes wide, staring. All was awhirl, all was agog; I felt as though chained to some kind of medieval, fire-belching calliope.
VIII
We would’ve finished about eleven, probably, but somewhere during the course of the meal our friends fell into a quarrel. Jerry remarked that Gina was an insufferable bitch—he’d said it half-sarcastically but Gina went ballistic. She launched into a fusillade of invective and spat venom like a cobra. Then she commenced a blistering recitation of Jerry’s many transgressions.
You’re not worth a damn, she declared, as a husband, as a father or a man. You’re a bum.
This turned some heads. Those few that hadn’t owled on us already.
You put everything on me, she continued. You don’t take any responsibility. For anything. You blame me for your screw-ups.
Why don’t you just stuff a rag in it, Jerry said.
Why don’t you go to hell.
Guys, Susan said. Hey, come on.
The manager appeared and asked us to keep it down. He was getting complaints.
Really, I said.
He looked at me.
We’re advancing a peace process here, boss. We’ll be good. We promise.
The ceasefire was shortlived. Soon Gina was weeping again, muttering obscenities. Jerry pivoted in his seat and began talking to Susan, ignoring Gina.
I had to make a pitstop for the third time and got a funny glance, or thought so, from a guy leaving the men’s room as I was going in.
Problem, buddy?
He didn’t reply and kept going. I felt like decking someone.
I went in and the room spun and I looked at my face in the mirror and it was an ugly face. A gross caricature. The face of a caveman. What was I doing here? This was horrible. This was death. This was the end.
I wandered into the first stall; on the partition someone had written in black feltmarker: Christ Is Seen In Our Service To Others.
Afterwards I washed up and sailed back to the table.
Jerry and Gina were gone when I returned.
Where’s the Wild Bunch, I asked.
They left, Susan said. Your zipper’s open.
Gah! I cinched up.
Do you always have to drink so much? Here. Pay this. Susan passed me the bill and gathered her purse and coat.
What the hell, I said. I hung onto the chair with one hand and studied the damage. I thought you said this was their treat, huh. This is messed up, Suze—
I looked around. Suddenly I was talking to nobody. My wife had bailed. I spotted her wicked heels disappearing through the door.
It was almost midnight. I was feeling ill.
IX
At the exit I paused by the cash register and let my Visa card absorb another body shot, then headed out. But I didn’t get very far. I folded at the news racks and spewed.
And then I let go again. It was a bad scene. But I pulled myself together and mopped my mouth with a handkerchief and walked on.
I found Susan in the parking lot.
Kiss me, I said.
Oh give me the damned keys, she said. You’re in no condition. No kinda condition. She latched onto the doorhandle and worked it up and down with effort.
I informed her that this wasn’t our car.
This is a white Sable, I said. Ours is a white Taurus. Dear.
What the.
She peered through the glass.
Then she released the doorhandle and the alarm went off.
Let’s get outta here, she said. Where’s our car?Over there. Where we left it.
We walked and stumbled and walked to where our car was parked and Susan said, You drive. I don’t feel so good.
I unlocked the doors and we climbed in and sat there a moment. Susan slowly slid back in her seat and closed her eyes.
You know, I said, Christ is seen in our service to others.
Huh?
That was written on a wall in the can. A little graffito. I saw it when I went in. Christ is seen in our service to others. What do you think about that?
Don’t talk to me about Christ, she said. Oh—
She put her hands over her face.
I drank too much, she said.
Sometimes it’s hard to start a conversation. My woman was out of it anyway. I let it slide.
I put the key in the ignition and turned it but the engine didn’t kick over. There was just this click click from the starter. The battery was dead.
Glory to God on the Most High, I said. Click click.
We went back to the restaurant and called a cab and waited. It grew colder. I told Susan I didn’t think I could handle another dinner with the Detellos. I didn’t think I had it in me. She said she didn’t think she could handle it either. On the cab ride home the driver pulled behind a 7-11 so Susan could jump out and throw up, a crackerjack performance.
X
At five minutes to five I was jolted awake by the ringing of the phone. I lay there under the blankets, with the clock radio casting its lonely glow in the corner of the room, but the phone kept ringing. Kept on. They wouldn’t give up. I groaned and got up and went to the kitchen and answered it but it was a wrong number. Someone shouting in my ear. I couldn’t understand them so I hung up, unplugged the phone, and went back to bed.
Sometime the next morning I connected the phone again and made a call.
Don Wheeler, senior manager at the claim center where I work, picked up, and I said: This is Gillespie, Mr Wheeler. Ralph Gillespie. I can’t come in today. I’m sick. I think maybe I’m coming down with . . . pleurisy, but I’m not sure.
Pleurisy? Holy cow. Well, you rest then.
Yeah. Thank you. I coughed miserably and hung up.
I imagined Wheeler walking through the maze of cubicles and desks, asking people: What the hell’s pleurisy anyway?
I went into the bathroom and crawled into the shower and pointed the showerhead down and sat like a supplicant on the tile and let the hot water wash over me. It felt good. The previous night had come screaming back into my head all at once and hot water was the only way to drown it out.
Around noon I started getting dressed while Susan still lay curled in bed, moaning.
I’m dying, she said.
The covers were pulled over the top of her head and her voice was muffled.
Ralph, I hurt so much. Oh my God. Can I have some water.
I got a mug from the cabinet and filled it and put it on the nightstand beside her.
I’m going for the car, I said. Your husband is on the case.
XI
Len, a kid from the apartment below us, gave me a lift to the restaurant. We hooked up jumper cables to his old Datsun sedan and ran them to the Taurus and sat there while the battery charged. Then I climbed in, fired up the Taurus and gave him the thumbs-up.
Hey, Len said, you owe me your life!
I'll pay you tomorrow, Len.
I unhooked the cables, looped them into a bundle and stowed them in the trunk.
Well how about a beer then. Got time?
Gonna have to pass on that, buddy. Front me a raincheck, will you.
Got you covered, Mr G.
I drove out of the parking lot and into the slow aimless stream of traffic.
XII
My wife and I conducted a brief postmortem over coffee and cold pizza. Susan said things really disintegrated after I left for the restroom the last time. I allowed that I gathered as much and asked if it had anything to do with Lyle the Wayward Trucker.
His name may have been mentioned, Susan said.
Casting a stain on the festivities.
They were cutting up back and forth and you left and then Jerry sort of tapped her forehead, Gina’s forehead, like this—Susan popped me with the heel of her hand.
Jesus, I said. Watch it. You know I have delicate skin.
Gina was pretty faced. She gave him a taste of the business end of her charger plate, right in the kisser. And then the manager stepped in and ejected the players. Game over.
With friends like that, you need a whip and a chair. And maybe a mojo hand.
I know, Susan said. They're high maintenance. I know that. But they're my friends, Ralph. I don't want to lose them.
They're a couple of certified nutjobs, I replied. You need your head examined. Professionally.
XIII
That night the phone rang and Susan picked it up while we were watching an old rerun of Columbo. I hit the mute button on the remote and let Susan talk unmolested.
I guess it must’ve been a three or four minute call. Maybe longer. When it was over I knew something had gone wrong. Way wrong.
That was LAPD, Susan said.
Even through the shadows I saw that Susan’s face was blanched, stunned.
Gina’s dead, she said.
My God, I said. What happened?
Susan stood there. Then she sank next to me onto the sofa.
She’s dead. A gun. Jerry’s gun—
No way! Christ!
Jerry’s downtown right now, giving a statement. Susan paused, gazed at the ceiling, continued. The detective—the man on the phone, Russell somebody, I don’t know—he says they’ll probably want to talk to us too. Oh Ralph.
I held Susan and said: I’ll be damned. I can’t believe it. Then I thought: the phone call!
XIV
We were questioned the following Friday, separately, Susan and I, in a windowless interview room at the police department annex, a low red-brick building adjacent to City Hall Plaza.
The funeral, closed coffin, wouldn’t be until the next day, Saturday.
I waited while my wife was interviewed and then we traded places, Susan waiting on the bench in the hallway while I went in.
The investigator conducting the interview was a youngish man, of small frame, with a quiet, vaguely European demeanor. His name was Mansor. He adjusted his rimless glasses and apologized for having had us make the long trip rather than meeting us somewhere more convenient but said his schedule was tight and his caseload heavy and he hoped we didn’t mind.
And anyway, he said, as longtime friends of the Detellos I felt confident you and your wife would want to do what you could.
Of course, I said. Absolutely.
He sat down across from me, flipped open a legal pad, uncapped a pen, and proceeded to ask several questions about Gina, then about Jerry, and about their relationship.
Sitting there, I’d have to have been a dope not to infer that Jerry was a suspect of some kind—or at least a person of interest. At bottom I thought it a baseless notion. I mean, good God. There wasn’t any possibility that Jerry would’ve—and it was hard even getting my head around the idea—shot Gina. They fought, sure, had their disagreements, like a lot of couples, married or not. Susan and I could both attest to that. But a squabble is a long way from homicide.
I just wanted to get some sense of the Detellos, Mansor continued. As a couple. Outside of and beyond what transpired in their living room.
I understand, I said. Sure.
We definitely want to bring some closure to this; get it off the books, so to speak. And, as I said, longtime friends or acquaintances such as yourselves often provide a unique perspective into the world of two people which might otherwise be closed to inspection. We’re all so estranged, you know. Nowadays. As human beings. It’s almost impossible to identify our friends, Mr Gillespie. We’re separated. Disconnected. And yet here we are, all together. How do we explain that.
I really don’t know.
We lie to each other, that’s how. It’s a process of concealment. We conceal the truth. About who we are. Our motives. It’s never simply a question of alienation. In fact our lives are deeply hidden; others know us only by the masks we wear.
Interesting theory, I said.
Someone called you from the Detello residence the morning of the incident. Quite early. That’s what phone records indicate. That, and a 911 afterward—then nothing.
I nodded and looked past Mansor to a famous portrait of Yosemite, an Ansel Adams work: the summit of El Capitan shrouded in mist.
Anything you can share about that phone call, Mr Gillespie?
Yeah, we did get a call. I answered it—but I thought it was a wrong number. Somebody yelling in my ear. I hung up, unhooked the phone, and went back to bed. We’d been out all night.
You didn’t recognize the voice?
Well, looking back, I guess it had to be Jerry. But I sure didn’t know it at the time.
What did he say?
Your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea, really. It was a scream. A howl, you know. I thought it was a prank. Some high-school kid jerking me around.
Mansor paused, revolved the pen in his hand, put it down.
Your wife said the four of you had gone to dinner together. What was the mood?
At dinner? There was a lot of drinking. That’s about all I can say.
Any arguments? Any words exchanged?
Well, things kind of fell apart toward the end. I’m sure Susan told you. They were both pretty trashed, Jerry and Gina. They lobbed recriminations; got pushy with each other. Got physical, I mean. It went a little bananas.
Mansor said: That corresponds with your wife’s observations. Let me ask you this: Do you believe Mrs Detello took her own life?
I don’t have any reason to think she didn’t, I answered. But as you suggest, how well can we know someone, really? These two were friends of my wife. Susan’s known Gina for years, all the way back to college. She’s close with Jerry too. But me, I didn’t spend a lot of time with them—the less the better, in fact. That night I just went along for the ride. And I guess what I thought was going to be a free meal. What does Jerry say happened.
His story is a little sketchy, Mansor said. Though don’t quote me on that. And the forensics have proven a bit ambiguous, unfortunately. So these are just a couple of the items we’re trying to sort out. Anyway, thank you for coming down. Thank your wife for me too. I’ll call you if I have any further questions.
XV
But there were no further questions other than the ones posed by the darkness and the cold silence on the nights after Susan and I went to bed and lay there and couldn’t sleep. We’d talk about it then. At those times. Gina’s death, what had happened. Or what might have happened. Who was to say.
The funeral passed quickly; the days and months followed. What was left was what we had been told: that sometime after 2 a.m. on November 19th Regina Maria Detello, age 41, had showered, slipped into a satin bathrobe, retrieved from a bureau drawer a Walther PPK belonging to her husband and had walked into the living room where she sat down on the edge of a coffee table, released the trigger lock on the weapon and squeezed off a round and ended everything.
An unaccountable flameout. The report was closed. No complaint was ever filed. By midsummer Jerry had split, moved east. He had some family there—in Chicago, apparently. Some cousins, somebody said. I remember Gina’s ex-old man came around afterwards, wanting answers. But there were none to give.
This morning I awoke to the sound of the TV coming from the other room, that cheesy theme from The Love Boat: Love, exciting and new, come aboard, we're expecting you!
What a load, I thought. I rolled on my side and punched the pillow twice.
Ed Miller lives in Fresno, California, and works as an immigration officer at the federal building downtown. A couple of his stories have lately appeared in Review Americana and Watershed. A volume of poetry, The Whole Enchilada, 2006 Cervena Barva Press, was nominated for a Pushcart.
