Culture Shock (2 page)

"Oh God, Sis, Haven't you made any new friends?” Concern tinged his voice. “I don't like you being there all alone and knowing no one."

"Don’t worry. All I do is work, eat, and sleep. I haven't had time to meet anyone, except the people at work. If you count sitting at the BART station waiting for the train there and back, I'm gone twelve hours a day. When I get home, I'm too tired to do much of anything."

"And you thought San Francisco had so much more to offer." He chortled.

"It probably does, but I've yet to experience it," she confessed. “One thing is for sure, I’ve never seen such a different lot of people.  So many strange haircuts, colors and clothing. Do you know that some men here dress like women for a living?  I had to ask someone on the train about the gal…er guy across from us. Oh well, to each his own.”

His laughter lifted her spirits. As her best friend, he'd kept her smiling and made life tolerable during their parents' split. She pictured his freckled face and laughing blue eyes and sighed. "I sure miss you, Kev. Your weekly phone calls are great, but I wish we weren't so far apart."

"I know, Sis. I miss you, too. If it weren't for Sara, I'd probably have left Ord right behind you."

"If you ever do decide to leave home, make sure you check the cost-of-living situation. You have no idea how expensive it is here."

"Well, then, I guess I'll find out. I've decided to see what the big attraction is for myself."

"You mean…"

"Yep, I'm coming to visit. If that's all right? Do you have room for two?"

Where in the heck would she fit two more people in such cramped quarters?  She cleared her throat. ‘Sure, there's always room. As long as you don't mind sleeping on the floor. You did say two?"

"Sara is coming along."

Cynthia's thoughts of her dismal living situation were lost in feelings of excitement. Besides, Kevin already knew her money issues. "When? I can't wait to see you."

"In three weeks. Maybe our visit will be the opportunity you need to experience San Francisco first hand. You can be our tour guide."

"Some tour guide I'd be." She laughed. "I can only find my way to work and back. Maybe we should hire a professional, or ride around the city on one of those buses that show you where all the notable places are located."

"Or…maybe you can actually get a date and we can double like we did when you were home.”

She rolled her eyes. "If you could see me right now, you wouldn't even suggest such a thing. I'm in the middle of cleaning and I look horrible. Besides, I haven't been out with anyone in ages. I haven't met anyone here, and even if I had, I don't think I'd know how to behave on a date."

"Why are you always so hard on yourself? When you're all dolled up, you're a looker, whether you want to admit it or not. Just put on your best smile and do a little flirting. You remember that old cliché, men prefer petite blondes?"

"Sure!" Her cheeks warmed at his kind words. "That's why men are beating down my door." She thought how easy it would be to pummel one’s way into her apartment and almost laughed aloud.

"Yeah, yeah! I give up." Her brother sounded frustrated. "You never could take a compliment. Okay, you're ugly, and men will never give you a second look. Is that what you want to hear?"

"Not really. I liked your first description better." She chuckled, but wondered why she was always so unreceptive to positive comments. Did her behavior have anything to do with her parents divorcing? She didn't remember being so negative when she was younger. Why couldn't she take a compliment? After all, she wasn't the ugly duckling.

"So, do you have your flight number and arrival time?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Not handy. Sara made the reservations. I'll call you the week before we come and give you the info. Love
ya, Sis!"

"Right back
atcha." She hung up thankful for the call but wishing she hadn't missed the rest of the news. Surely, with the crime being a hot topic on all the broadcasts, she was bound to catch a report on TV later. Her thoughts wandered back to the safety of Ord and her family there. Why hadn't she stayed put?

She shook her head. "What's done is done. No use whining about bad choices."

Standing with dust cloth in hand, she recalled Kevin's suggestion about double dating and laughed. He must think single men grew on trees in California.

She hummed as she went about the rest of her Saturday cleaning. Still, in the back of her mind, she wished she lived somewhere more presentable. How was she going to explain this rat hole without being embarrassed? She stood back and assessed the drabness. Maybe if she planned lots of fun things, they wouldn't have to spend much time at The Cairns.

She took a deep breath. "Stop it Cynthia! Kevin and Sara know you're just starting out. They won't be expecting the Ritz!" She laughed. They also wouldn't be expecting her to talk to herself as much as she did lately.

Armed with her bottle of window cleaner, she pushed aside the tattered rags masquerading as curtains. Once her checkbook was back in the black she planned to buy some new ones. There was no use asking the super about replacements. He hadn't even fixed her lock.

She misted the glass then wiped it dry. Why she bothered she didn't know. It must have been years since the outside was cleaned. So many water spots made it look as though she hadn’t touched the pane, but there wasn’t much to look at in the littered alley below.  The scenic view fit the rest of the motif.

She leaned in. Movement caught her eye in the form of someone seemingly pilfering through the trash bin. Maybe one of the vagrants she passed every day on her way to the station?

She wasn't used to seeing so many bums and homeless people on the street, but this man didn't look like one of those types. At least she considered the person a “him.” Something vaguely familiar niggled at her--perhaps his frame, his hair. What was it? She squinted through the blotchy glass.

He bundled something inside a blue wrapper then, glancing side-to-side, he poked around in the trash, appearing to move things about before tossing his package into the dumpster. He almost looked to be hiding something, and when he turned, she recognized the building super
.

She shrugged and pulled the window coverings back in place. "You watch way too much television, Cynthia. The man is only throwing out his trash."

***

Alexander Carlyle slammed his apartment door so hard, the "2E" on the other side loosened, and swung back and forth several times. The paper-thin walls attached to the door shimmied like plywood in a windstorm. He had already placed two calls to the new apartment super requesting that the latch be fixed, but still no dice. Besides not responding, there was something about the guy that bugged Alex.

He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but this time he wouldn't be quite so nice when he left a message. He pulled on the knob to make sure the door had shut securely. It hadn't.

"Friggin' thing!" He slammed it again. "Whadda ya gotta do to get service in this hell hole?" He exploded from the stress that had built all day from dealing with the scum of society.

Alex worked for the San Francisco Police Department, and had lived in 2E in the building for two years. His fiancée had fallen for someone else and asked him to leave their shared home.  The Cairns was the best he could do on short notice and matching funds.

Why had he stayed so long in this dump? The building sure held no charm and allure, but at the time he had no choice. Once he saw the inside, the vacancy sign made sense, but he didn’t give a shit about the appearance, he needed a home.

His hopes of building a family were as dead as his mother and father, and Alex, an only child, lost track of whoever else might constitute family. He had no visitors to impress, and certainly wasn't eager to enter into another relationship and have his heart broken again. Besides, he spent most of his time at work and the apartment served as a place to eat and sleep, and that was all he needed.

He secured the dead bolt and snapped on the light switch, illuminating the squalor. The peeling paint and fading curtains did little to enhance the well-worn furniture that came with the apartment. The avocado-green carpeting, a throwback to an era gone by, had more bald spots than remaining shag.

Odors of rotting leftovers wafted past his nose when he opened the fridge, but he ignored them and grabbed a beer. He dropped all six-foot-two-inches of himself into his easy chair and twisted off the bottle top. As usual, he engaged in a game of trying to bounce the cap off the wall and into the trashcan, but failed. The metal
cap landed among the other missed shots that peppered the carpet around the wastebasket. He shrugged at one more missed attempt.  Wasn’t being a slob a perk of living alone?

He took a long, satisfying swig then placed the bottle on the coffee table, almost perfectly atop one of the many other watermarks left by previous beers. Leaning forward, he searched the debris around his beer for the remote control and found it buried under last Sunday's comics. The ancient table teetered precariously to one side, but Alex bent and pushed a folded piece of cardboard back under the uneven leg.

He moved his half-empty bottle to the end table, and despite it not being empty, rose and grabbed another from the fridge. Draping one long leg over the frayed chair arm, he drained the first Bud Light, while he selected random buttons on the remote, channel surfing for something to occupy his mind.

Normally, he worked a regular beat with his partner, but they'd been the two uniforms assigned to assist detectives on the recent kidnap/homicide. Thoughts of the crime invaded his mind on a constant basis. Another young woman had vanished
—the fourth in a month. One body had been recovered so far, but there were no leads as to the perp's identity. Alex shuddered at the thought of finding the other women dead and ran a hand through his hair. No matter how he tried to block the case from his mind, the crime connected him with memories of another that haunted him.

His mother had been murdered when he was only twelve, but he still remembered the event as though it happened yesterday. Her battered body had been found sprawled on the floor, her face still contorted with fear
of the intruders who robbed and beat her.

Eventually, the coroner covered her with a sheet, but Alex still had visions of blood soaking through, changing the white to crimson. That was the moment he chose a career to follow.
Although young, he vowed to spend his life trying to protect others from the same nightmare.

He lost both parents that day. His father was never the same and died within a year. He’d withered away before Alex’s very eyes and there wasn‘t a thing he could say or do. He took a healthy draw from his second beer, set it aside and rested his head against the back of the chair and stared at the stained ceiling.

The local police never caught his mother's killer, and once Alex graduated from the academy, he pushed himself to the limit to solve any cases assigned him. He'd be damned if his current investigation become the only one to defeat him.

Determination waning, Alex splayed his fingers through his hair again then leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. A long sigh whooshed past his lips.  Lack of clues and the perpetrator’s motivation made solving the crime an impossibility. He grabbed his beer, took a swallow and pushed his feelings aside.

Another Friday night with no plans. His fingers thrummed the worn chair arm. His work buddies had invited him out for a drink, but he got his fill of their braggadocio during the day. Alex preferred to leave his badge at work when he left, even if he couldn't leave his thoughts. He'd swear some of the guys had egos so big they actually wore their badges on their pajamas.

He focused on the TV screen. Going out with his pals probably wouldn't have been any better than watching this nerdy-looking guy on Channel six forecasting the weather. Besides, drinking at home was cheaper. Alex took another gulp of beer and glanced out the window to confirm the accuracy of the weather report. "Yep, sun going down, sky is clear, day is done."

***

Alex rolled over on his back and stretched. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand and was perturbed to see it was only seven thirty a.m. Even on Saturday, his internal alarm clock wouldn't let him sleep in.

Thoughts of his job flashed through his mind. Too many missing pieces of the puzzle made it impossible to link the few clues together. He curled one arm beneath his neck, snaked the fingers of his other hand under the waistband of his boxers, and scratched his flat stomach. "Okay Alex, what big plans do you have for today?" He sighed. "Oh ... nothing again. How exciting."

Maybe today was the day he’d clean up the pigsty he lived in.  Maybe not!  He stretched and yawned, feeling the need to pee.

Alex rolled to the edge of the bed and sat for a moment, then swaggered into the bathroom to relieve himself of the six pack he‘d polished off before bed. As he stood at the toilet, he stared through bleary eyes at his reflection in the medicine chest mirror. His dark shock of hair lay flat on one side while the other looked like a tornado had rumbled through. Rubbing the palm of his hand against his stubbly chin, he longed for the days when he didn't have to shave every morning.