Signs of Life

The breakfast rush at Dames Diner is beginning to disperse. This Texas breakfast house is the epitome of Americana as sports memorabilia litter the walls. A Dallas Cowboys signed jersey is framed, Aikman. A Texas Rangers World Series banner hangs above the cook line. Texas pride is big and on full display. This type of diner paints an accurate picture of the community, just as a Walmart does on the 3^rd of July. Only a handful of stragglers remain. A small family of four is paying at the counter—two parents without smiles. Two children lost in the tablets they hold. An obese couple with matching Longhorn T-shirts sit in conversation, drinking their large diet Cokes while they wait on their “Big D special,” two eggs, two sausage links, two sides, which in this case are grits and house potatoes, and of course two of Dames Diner’s famous flapjacks with extra chocolate chips. They order a 3rd serving just to make sure they get their fill. Two men, Rob and Larry, sit in the corner booth.

            On the table is an open folder displaying images of recently murdered Texans. The photos are of “John Doe,” Caucasian, 6 ft 4 inches, 28 years of age, and “Jane Doe,” Latina, 5 ft 1, 30. The man in the image is naked, his hands bound behind his back. His face is mutilated, nothing but hair, blood, and bone. His chest has four gunshot wounds in the upper quadrant of his right side. Jane Doe is face down in a tank top and shorts. Her body is deeply bruised and lacerated around the thighs. The right side of her tank top is soaked red as blood has seeped out due to 18 stab wounds. A flat-tip screwdriver lies beside her—the apparent murder weapon. A splattering of 2 percent milk falls upon the image.

            “I don’t know how you can eat while you do that,” says Rob, cringing at the photo and looking away. He has only been working with Larry for a week and is not thrilled with the new assignment.

            Larry, Rob’s partner, smudges the milk on the photograph with the side of his hand while he eats cereal. A small bowl filled with powdered sugar sits to the right. Larry scoops a heaping spoonful of the white powder and dumps it atop his breakfast. Cheerios. Larry and Rob are dressed in cheap dress shirts, Van Heusen, and look like they should be slinging 15-year-old Buicks at the local used car lot. But they are not used car salesmen. They are detectives at the Grapevine Police Department. Robb is pushing 50, and his dad-bod reveals his lack of exercise and love for craft beer, burgers, and anything fried. Larry just turned 52. He is slim. He is tall. He is clean-cut. Pomade slicks his hair perfectly back. His beard is trimmed with exact precision.  His fingernails are cut and clean and his hands are without scars, calluses, or a wedding ring - without signs of life. He is quiet and calm while he stares at the images of John and Jane Doe and slurps the 2 percent milk and Cheerios from the spoon as if casually reading the Sunday paper. Calm. Quiet. Without signs of life.

            The waitress approaches the booth with a pot of coffee. Rob extends his mug toward her and gives it a shake.

            “I’ll take a topper.”

            As she fills his cup, she glances at the photograph. Her eyes try to hide away in the corners of her head to avoid seeing the content. They fail.  In a shocked trance, she over-pours and coffee spills out onto the table and the folder of images.

            “Oh, my Lord. Im sorr-.”

            “Just lend me that towel you got there, ma’am. I’ll take care of it.” Larry interjected as he patted down the brown wet that stained his work.

            Outside, the city of Grapevine is cooking in the hot summer season. Grapevine is a true product of gentrification at its best. What used to be nothing more than pastures of dirt and clay with an occasional mobile home and a population of 10,000, is now mile after mile, condo after condo, restaurant after restaurant, Starbucks after Starbucks, Target after Target; it is overcrowded as 60,000 Texans live out their daily lives.

            Larry takes a break from his Cheerios and looks up to see a black-and-white aerial photograph of Grapevine from years past. 1981. He recognizes the plot of land and remembers being a child. In his youth, Larry was raised by his father, Steve. Steve drove rock in and out of the quarry and was gone from the black of the morning to the pitch of the night.  They lived in a single-wide mobile home surrounded by dust and dirt and desperate blue-collar Texans trying to avoid generational addictions, evictions, and the law.

            Monday through Friday, Larry was alone. He woke alone. He caught the school bus alone. He came home alone. And he warmed up his microwave dinners alone. But the weekends were spent with Steve. Saturdays were spent in the country riding four-wheelers that Steve’s more affluent friend owned. They’d usually ride from sunrise to sunset. Larry was old enough now to ride on his own and loved the freedom of riding away alone in that dusty world. He was officially 10 years old and “old enough,” he argued often. Sundays though. Sundays were sacred. Sunday was the Lord’s Day. Sunday was Larry’s day to be with his mom.

            “I don’t want to go to church,” Larry whined as he put on his Sunday best: his cleanest pair of blue jeans that were stained with a light shade of brown around the knees, and his snap-up long-sleeve shirt that was just a tad bit too small.

            “You gotta go, son. It’s Easter Sunday. Besides, the church is the best place for you to be with your momma,” Steve said as he pulled on his boots.

            “Does momma live in there?”

            “Kinda,” Steve replied as he brushed off some of the dust on Larry’s jeans.

            “Your momma went to be with the Lord. And the Lord is in the church so, yeah, I guess you could say she lives there too. Come on, son. We’re gonna be late.”

            Inside the church, Larry would stare at the figure of Jesus on the cross, transfixed. The blood dripping down from his crown of spiny thorns. The blood from the iron nails that were driven into his hands and feet. The look of despair on his face. His limp body hanging there, sprawled out on display. He stared and thought about his mom and began to talk to her in his head.

            “I wish you’d come home, Momma. And I wish you were with me when I go to bed. Daddy says this is the best place to talk to you, but I try in the house too. I miss you, momma.”

            The following Saturday, Larry and Steve woke in the darkness of 5 AM and made the drive to the outskirts of Grapevine. There was nothing but a labyrinth of muddied trails and an overgrowth of trees and brush for as far as the eye could see. Today, it is a Home Depot, a Whataburger, a Strip Mall, and Grubbs Volvo, right off of N. Airfield Drive. They arrived at an open pasture where Adrian, Steve’s friend, waited with a hauler loaded with three four-wheelers—lonesome Texan scenery sprawled for miles except for a small country home about a mile down the road.

            Larry had only been out a few times alone, so Steve gave him a quick reminder of the rules.

1.     Stay on the main tracks and don’t take any of the side trails.

2.     Don’t drive into anything that looks wet. Stick to dry ground.

3.     If anything happens stay with your quad and don’t leave.

As the sun began to illuminate the sky, they all took off into a cloud of dust and disappeared into the barren Texas landscape to start their adventurous ride. It didn’t take long for Larry to peel off and go his own way. Steve never minded it. He thought it was good for the boy to be free like that.

Larry was driving fast around the outskirts of the tree growth when he thought he saw a truck drive into a trail up ahead. He pulled up to the entrance, looked deep down the cavernous canopy of trees, and saw taillights disappear in the distance. He knew better than to go down the side trails, but he couldn’t help but follow and explore what lay ahead. He throttled down and drove inside. It wasn’t long before the trail got wild and rough with erosion and mudholes. Larry noticed fresh tire tracks heading deeper into the tree growth and farther away from his father.

Larry stayed in pursuit of the tracks and came upon a puddle that covered the entirety of the trail. He could see the tire tracks he was following coming out the other side, so he decided to try and cross. As he entered the water, it was a mere 6 inches deep, but as he made his way to the middle, the depth increased and swallowed the four-wheeler completely. Larry, now sitting waist-deep in black and brown water. He stood and jumped off to the side and was submerged as well. He splashed and sloshed in a panicked flail and waded in the dark muck toward solid ground. He was covered from head to toe in a muddy film, and he couldn’t help but worry what might happen to him when Steve found him. Worst, he was deep inside on the side trails and worried that Steve wouldn’t be able to find him at all. So, he took off on foot in search of a way out.

He walked on foot following the wet tire tracks, hoping to find the truck that created them and ask for help. He walked until the wet black mud on his body dried, becoming a flaky grey crust that crumbled with every new step. He walked until he heard what sounded like a car door slam. He froze in his tracks. He listened with intent and heard another noise, perhaps a tailgate, and walked fast toward the direction it came from. With every new step toward the noise, Larry quickened his step with excitement and eventually began to run. A bend in the trail ahead turned to the left, hiding the rest of the trail from sight. The tracks were fresh with dark dirt spit backward from truck tires. Larry ran around the bend, and as soon as he cleared the corner, he was caught dead in his tracks. Frozen.

Before him was a white Ford Bronco with a blue stripe down the side, parked under the canopy of trees. It sat very tall with a 6-inch rough country lift kit and big, old-school, Buckshot mud-bogging tires. Larry stood, unable to move, and stared into the eyes of the driver, who was standing on the hood of the truck with a rope around his neck tied off to a strong tree limb extending out above. He had sweat dripping down his face and submission in his eyes. The man stared back at Larry in a catatonic state. Expressionless. No signs of life. He let out a final breath and stepped off the front of the hood of the truck.

Larry could hear the wind softly blowing his hair away from his eyes. He could hear the trees lean and sway from left to right. He could hear the sun drying the earth beneath him, his skin, his clothes. He could hear the rope rubbing harshly against the tree above as the man swung and twirled from side to side until he finally stopped. Larry couldn’t look away. He just stared at the man, completely engrossed. The color of the man’s swollen face. The bulging of his bloodshot eyes. The blood dripping slowly from his nose. The wet stain that seeped from his pants. The man’s tongue protruding from his mouth. His limp body hanging there, out on display. He could hear the birds landing on branches above. He could hear the rustling of brush as rodents ran through it softly. And he could hear his mother speaking out to him. He could hear her voice louder than all other sounds, and he wanted to stay and listen to her. He wanted to be with her.

The Texas sun spun slower in that moment - that day. And Larry stood still with it until darkness fell. His eyes locked on the man hanging in front of him. No signs of life. He could hear every sound from his environment but could not move a muscle. He couldn’t blink. He stayed with the man until darkness hid him from sight. In the distance, he could hear voices calling out. He could hear them, but he could not respond. Finally, the darkness of night was interrupted by flashlights and the sound of four-wheelers. The sound of Larry’s father calling out to him.

Steve found Larry just before the sun came up. He had been standing with the hanging man for the entire night. Steve drove to the nearest home to call the police as fast as possible. Larry was still silent. He sat in the passenger side of the truck, staring out of the window, and could still see the man hanging in his mind.

They arrived at the home, called the police, and waited for them to arrive. The officers had Steve in the living room asking him questions while Larry sat in the kitchen with the house's owner, Carol, an aged Texan woman with wrinkles that cut deep into her skin.

“You must be starving.” She said to him.

Larry didn’t respond.

            “Let me pour you my favorite breakfast treat.”

Carol went to the cupboard, pulled out a box of cereal, poured a bowl, and brought it to Larry. Cheerios. Larry looked down at the bowl of wet O’s while Carol grabbed a small container filled with powdered sugar from the counter, brought it to him, and opened it.

“This is how I make it special,” Carol said as she spooned the sugar onto the cereal.

Steve entered the kitchen to find Larry eating the Cheerios and powdered sugar.

“Son. The police want to ask you a few questions.”

            “Is there anything else I can get for you?”  the waitress says, interrupting Larry’s memory.

            Larry turns his gaze from the photograph to the waitress,

            “Just the check, ma’am,” and returned to eating his Cheerios.

            Larry’s attention returned to the images of John and Jane Doe while he finished the final bite of his cereal. He lifted the bowl to his mouth and slurped the remaining milk sweetened by sugar, and some dribble of the white liquid made its way down his chin, dropping onto the images. He wipes his chin without regard and closes the file.

            “You ready?” Larry says to Rob as the waitress drops the check.

            Rob scoots out of the booth and reaches the door as Larry stops at the register and pays. The two men exit the diner. The parking lot is hot and empty. No signs of life.