“So,” I say to Jess, “you think thatifthis is me, the artist used a photo of me, or knows me personally?”
We’re sitting on her hotel bed, studying the sketch together on her laptop. She’s freshly showered and ready for bed in a sleep shirt and pajama bottoms.
I’m acting nonchalant and sleepy, like my ol’ buddy anger isn’t visiting me when I think of how this strange sketch weirdness cropped up precisely one year after the rape. I fake a yawn, but I’m not tired.
I’m wired. Even after getting up at three thirty this morning to catch the red-eye.
She tells me the artist understands the fundamentals of portraiture, especially the basics of facial proportions. “Good sketches aren’t about looking at photos and copying them. They demonstrate your talent at observation mixed with adding your own style.”
That doesn’t narrow the field much,I think. So many people sketch or paint for a hobby.
“For example,” she continues, “if someone has more of an anime style, they’ll exaggerate some features but blend those with realistic traits to get the full effect through tone and texture.”
Her tone is direct, her professional side kicking in. I love it.
“This isn’t that. This is more realistic, nothing is exaggerated like with anime, and it’s not cartoonish. The edges are sharp. It leans toward precision, which worries me even more. Cros?” Her voice rises in pitch.
“What?”
“It’s not just the earrings.” She shakes her head.
“Thewhat?” I say.
“The jaw. I don’t know. It’s the tension in it.”
Brownie points for the artist capturingthat. How is it that my jawbone is capable of revealing so much?
“Jess.” I need to switch gears. “It’s going to be okay. Whatever this craziness is, I—we—will figure it out, okay? Like we always do.”
She bites her lower lip. “But what is this? Why now? After everything I’ve ... we’ve—”
“Everything is going to be fine.” I put my arm around her. Her T-shirt is damp from her hair and her shoulders are bony spikes.
I have this image of her and me treating hotel beds like our own private trampolines when we were young and took trips with our mom and our stepdad back to DC, where Les arranged a tour of the Capitol building.
And Cleveland, where we visited Les’s brother and toured the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Later, when Mom got bumped to part-time status at the hospital and Les’s auto shop wasn’t doing as well, we’d crowd into Mom’s Honda and head to places closer: Wyoming, Idaho, Utah. If the hotel was cheap enough, Les and Mom would get their own room. Of course, this put Les in a much better mood and gave Jess and me an adjoining room with each of us having a queen. We’d hop back and forth between the two of them until Les scolded us for creating a ruckus.
Now, seeing how frail Jess is, it seems impossible to me that we’ve gone from those giggling girls to grown women inhabiting a world where phrases likedate rape,sexual assault, andconsentare not only common, but seemingly inescapable.
“Believe me,” I say. “This is just some strange game. I promise you.”
She isn’t convinced. “If itisyou, what are we going to do?”
The question hangs in the room for a moment. “I told you,” I say. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Do you think this has anything to do with your latest case, that guy Ridgeway?”
Robbie Ridgeway.
Just thinking about him takes me back to my visit to him east of the mountains two weeks ago. About his own sketches on his wall, about how I slashed his tire, something I’m not proud of. It makes me wonder, could he—ishe—finding a very creative way to get back at me?
A Confession
X: @EricLFiero #SKConfession—I realize how prejudiced I was about some people and have been feeling bad about one incident for some time. I was working my EMT shift in Huntington, WV back in 2019 and called to an address in West Huntington on Jefferson. When I arrived, the guy struggled to talk. I assumed he had taken too many opioids, like so many from that part of town.
After we got him in the ambulance, my partner and I took our time. We even chatted with a neighbor before we left. He ended up dying. Turns out he’d had a stroke. Time was of the essence, but we thought he was another loser and took our sweet time. We could have saved him. I’m sorry our prejudicial assumptions got this guy killed. I really am.
Chapter 10
