Gunmetal Blue by Joseph G. Peterson

Author:Joseph G. Peterson [Peterson, Joseph G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tortoise Books
Published: 2017-12-14T22:00:00+00:00

PART II: JUST SHOOT ME

The interview should have been innocuous. I don’t recall anything about the situation that seemed abnormal. A man and a woman were getting divorced. I was hired by the wife’s lawyer to interview the husband. His name was Adolph Meyer. At the time, it meant nothing to me.

•

That was then. This is now. Since Adeleine died, the adventure of my life has worn thin.

Maybe it’s the detective business and all the disappointments that have made me surly. I don’t know. Maybe it’s everything combined.

I feel at heart as if I’m a nice person but I also know that I don’t come off that way, not since Adeleine died. A lot of people find me difficult to get along with. Just look at Rita. We’ve spent five years together, on and off, and we’ve been at an impasse the last year or so. She feels I’m too crabby. I’m always down in the dumps. She doesn’t like the attitude.

I tell her—I say: There are facts and attitudes, Rita. If you don’t like my attitude, change the fact.

Don’t worry, buster, I might, she keeps threatening.

I keep making pledges to be nice to her. I try to be friendly when I see her. I always make a point of keeping a smile on my face when I talk to her, but she’s not convinced.

You’re not happy, she tells me.

Yes I am.

No you’re not.

Yes I am, I tell her. Just look at the smile on my face.

You may have a smile on your face, but there’s a tone in your voice and I don’t like it. It’s irascible.

What do you mean? Irascible?

You know what I mean.

No I don’t.

Yes you do.

No.

Yes.

And we go back and forth like this until not only is the tone in my voice irascible but whatever smile I had plastered to my face is gone and I’m shouting at her with genuine rage and anger.

Maybe this thing with Rita isn’t meant to be. I’ve never fought with a woman so much my entire life. Adeleine and I never fought.

I once told Rita this in the heat of an argument.

What is it with you? I asked her.

With me?

Yeah. You’re always causing arguments. It seems like all we do is fight.

You’re the one who does all the fighting, Art. I want nothing to do with fighting.

Then stop starting them.

It’s you, Art, who starts them.

It is not.

Yes it is.

Listen, I tell her. Before I met you I never had an argument my whole life. Adeleine and I were married for eighteen years and we never had a single fight that I can think of.

That’s because you’re idealizing her, Art. Don’t you see this?

I am not idealizing her. I wish she were here right now to support me on this issue. We never had a fight.

Yeah right, Rita says. If you’re so holy, how come you don’t talk to your daughter anymore? If you’re so high and mighty, why has your daughter estranged you?

It was the accident that estranged me and my daughter.

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