John Swinburn

At 1:43 a.m. on the morning of March 18, 2012, Jennie Mae Elquart’s loathing of police officers blossomed into fully formed hatred.

Jennie Mae’s youngest son, Nixon, erupted from his mother’s womb during a late-night traffic stop on a flooded highway. After Nixon’s good health and stability had been confirmed at the hospital a few hours later, Jennie Mae received a ticket for speeding and learned she would be charged with child endangerment, thanks to her excessive speed on a dark, rain-swept highway—Jennie Mae’s condition and extenuating circumstances notwithstanding. Officer Conway Sluck explained he felt little empathy for her in the matter.

“I can’t let you off just because you were having a baby, ma’am. You know how many mothers have their babies every day without endangering the lives of others? It would be unfair to them to let it slide fer you. And, besides, driving like that could have been deadly for the tyke; you could have had an accident.  Let this be a lesson for you.”

Jennie Mae’s eyes widened and her face contorted into a snarl as Officer Sluck, standing at her bedside, handed her the ticket. Her shouts and screams at the policeman brought several nurses to the room, almost instantly. One of them, Grace Mewshaw, sneered at him as she ushered Sluck out of the room.

Two days later, Officer Sluck’s body was found face down in a seasonal stream near his house. All the evidence pointed to a tragic accident; it looked like he simply slipped on an exposed root, and then slid part-way down the muddy stream bed, before tumbling face-first into the water, slamming his head onto a submerged rock.  And that would have been it, except that Glance Creighton, the head of the sheriff’s criminal investigation unit, decided to look at Sluck’s daily activities reports and came across the following notation from March 18:

Subject Elquart became verbally combative after I handed her the ticket and informed her of the child endangerment charge. She shouted ‘You are the stupidest excuse for a cop this county has ever seen! I ought to rip your balls off you and shove them in your mouth! If there’s any justice in the world, you’re going to end up dead in a ditch, you asshole!’

I informed subject that her temper was doing her no good and, further, that if she touched me I would arrest her for assault on a peace officer. Though her verbal abuse abated, it appeared to this officer that her anger did not.”

Sluck’s report made no mention that Jennie Mae Elquart had spent the previous nine hours in painful labor at home and had finally decided the only way she could save her own, and her baby’s, life was to drive herself to the hospital. Nor did his report make note of the fact that, at the hospital, Jennie Mae had been given strong painkillers, nor that she had a history of violent reactions to the medications administered to her. His report made no mention of those things because he did not know. He knew only that he stopped a pregnant woman driving recklessly on a dark, wet highway and that she gave birth on the scene. And he believed her decision to drive placed her baby in danger.

Creighton made logical assumptions, of course. And he deftly shared details of his investigation into the matter with his maternal uncle, Calvin Schlunger, a senior deputy. Schlunger reported right back to the sheriff, whose campaign for re-election was just getting underway. The sheriff conferred with the district attorney—whose own campaign announcement was just days away—about the matter.

Whether the decision to pursue murder charges against Jennie Mae was politically based may never be known. The timing, alone, convinced Lana Schlunger, Calvin’s estranged wife, there was more at work than concern for public safety.

Lana shared her suspicions with her closest friend. “Grace, I just don’t think this whole case against Jennie Mae passes the smell test! I mean, she was half-delirious with pain when that cop stopped her and then she got pumped up with painkillers that made her crazy. Why would a woman who had just gone through that experience decide, two days later, to kill the cop who stopped her? Not only why, but how?! Two day after delivering a baby!”

Grace Mewshaw calmly listened to Lana’s tirade. When she spoke, her response was soft and quiet, a barely audible whisper. “She didn’t kill the cop, I am sure of that. Best to just let this play out for awhile, though, honey. Don’t get involved with something that’s driven by politics. It’ll eat you alive. If things don’t settle down pretty quick…if they don’t drop the charges against Jennie Mae…I’ll get involved.”

“What do you mean you’ll get involved? What can you do about this?”

“It’s too convoluted to explain. But you don’t need to worry, honey. This is going to work itself out, I promise you that.”

Shortly thereafter, Mica Comal slipped out of his coffin and, grabbing a cane from the rack, ambled toward the front door. Episcopalia, the blind woman from Costa Rica, stopped him at the door of the church. “¿Tienes un corazon blanco?”

The last paragraph doesn’t belong with this story—perhaps it belongs with no story at all—but I like it there, anyway. This thing could develop into a paranormal fantasy, with the right mix of alcohol, hashish, and prescription medications.

I lumbered up the slight incline of the trail as it came to an end at the shoreline. The lake covered only ten acres, if that.

A bench, placed at trail’s end by an environmental organization, invited me to sit and stare across the still water. Though I had walked nearly five miles, the brisk air kept me cool. I felt fresh and comfortable, but the allure of the bench told me I needed to rest my muscles.

The sun was high enough by the time I reached the water that only a trace of morning haze remained on the margins of the lake. Across the reflective expanse of water, directly in front of me, I saw a doe and her fawn step out of the woods for a drink. Suddenly, the mother raised her head and froze. I think she saw them at the same moment I did. The deer darted back into the woods as two figures rose slowly from the water in the middle of the lake. At first, I couldn’t make out what they were; I thought they must be large turtles but quickly determined, as they rose higher and higher from the water, that could not be.

My eyes told me the figures were two young children, a boy and a girl, but my mind instantly dismissed the idea as sheer illusion. Yet my vision would not yield to another explanation. I continued to look in their direction, my eyes fixed on the two figures. Slowly, the figures moved in my direction. I was undecided; should I run from whatever this was? Should I stay?

The  closer they came, the more certain I was that my imagination was not responsible for what I saw. The figures  rose out of the water far enough so only their calves remained submerged. I could discern no movement of their legs; they seemed to be drifting toward me on an unseen current.

The girl, slightly taller than the boy, had blonde hair and the boy’s hair looked brown. Their faces, with the looks of innocence one associates with young children, had neither frowns nor smiles on them; rather, they appeared vacant and angelic as they approached.

I could not bring myself to say anything, for what I witnessed was too odd and too unnatural to allow my brain to function the way it normally would. Finally, just thirty feet from me, they stopped. The girl spoke.

“Can you help us find our way home? We’re lost”

Still, my voice refused to leave my mouth.

“Sir, will you please help?”

I was unable to talk, unable to answer. From my seat on the bench, I watched, trying to comprehend the scenes and the sounds before me. I tried to move my legs, my arms, but they would not respond to me.

The boy’s eyes filled with tears. The girl put her arm around his shoulder and drew him closer to her. The ethereal radiance of her face dissolved into a hard glower. I saw the anger well up in her chest. Her face flushed and her lips curled into a sneer, a scowl that cut into me with the ferocity of a knife wielded by a madman.

“Damn you, sir! God damn you! May you rot in hell and burn for all eternity!”

With that, the children turned their backs to me and moved toward the center of the lake. The girl turned around and cast her eyes in my direction. Her glare was so hot it burned my cheeks. I felt and smelled my eyebrows shrivel and singe from the focus of her gaze.

Just as the children slipped beneath the surface, my voice returned to me. The paralysis that gripped me, that help me fast to the bench, released me.

I leapt into the water and swam to the spot where they had appeared, then disappeared. Taking a deep breath, I dived straight down, intent on finding the children and bringing them to the surface. The water was clear, but the commotion of my arms and legs thrashing the surface caused light to reflect on the waves and ripples.

Finally, when my eyes adjusted to the water, I saw two figures below me. I made my way down to them. Two headstones, both upright, jutted up from the bottom of the lake. A chiseled inscription was legible on each: “Samantha Marks, Age 9, Lost.” “Jeremiah Marks, Age 8, Lost.”

I needed to breathe, so I turned my face up toward the surface of the water, but I could not go. So I stayed and touched the markers and spoke to the children.

“I am sorry I did not help you before, children. I am here to help you now, though. You are no longer lost. You are found.”

As I lost consciousness, I saw Samantha’s gaze again. Her lips turned up into a smile, her eyes were gentle and forgiving. I felt her hand on my shoulder as my eyes filled with tears.

I awoke quite early this morning, long before the sun would begin to nudge the darkness aside, replacing it with smudges of grey fog-laden daylight.

I made a cup of coffee and held it in my hands. Too warm, I thought to myself, for a day like this.  As I passed a mirror in the hallway, I glanced at the image of an old man; wrinkled, fleshy face, uncombed long grey hair suggestive of neglect and disdain, and a body clearly ignored and unpracticed in exercise.

Something had to change, I decided, something then and there. I couldn’t do much about my face, nor about the shape of my body, at least not immediately, but I could rid myself of that ridiculous fur atop my head.

Beginning with a pair of scissors, I cut away as much of that fibrous bristle as I could, only patches of the mane remaining.  Next, I drenched the remaining hair on my head with hot water, dried it slightly, and smeared shaving cream all over my scalp.

I stood for a moment, staring at the stranger in the mirror. The old wrinkled face wouldn’t be changed by this, I thought, but at least I’ll get to see what my head looks like with no hair to conceal it.

Pulling the razor across my scalp in repetitive motions, I could feel the blade skirt the skin, the way it feels when I’m beginning to shave my face; the hairs on my face catch on the razor for a fraction of a second before the blade slices them off at skin level.

I found that, just like I have to approach the whiskers on my face and neck from different directions, I had to drag the razor across my scalp in perpendicular paths to assure a smooth shave.  The hardest part was the lower part of the back of my head and upper neck; I had a hard time reaching.  But I got it done.  And then I rinsed my naked scalp and dried it with  a thick towel and stood to look in the mirror again.

I didn’t like what I saw. A pasty grey and beige cap seemed to have been sewn onto my head, concealing the skull and brain. That was not my skin, was it? That expanse of bumps and ridges and ugly pallor; was that me?

The deed was done, though, wasn’t it? What were my options? I could either learn from my snap decision that snap decisions sometimes go horribly wrong or I could spin time backwards to a point before this horrible experience in self-mutilation took place.

I chose the latter.

I awoke quite early this morning, long before the sun would begin to nudge the darkness aside, replacing it with smudges of grey fog-laden daylight.

I made a cup of coffee and held it in my hands. Too warm, I thought to myself, for a day like this.  As I passed a mirror in the hallway, I glanced at the image of an old man; wrinkled, fleshy face, uncombed long grey hair suggestive of neglect and disdain, and a body clearly ignored and unpracticed in exercise.

I have to do something about my appearance, I said to myself. I have to fix this. This bastard needs some repair and refurbishment. The question remains as to what repair and refurbishment I will pursue.  Perhaps I’ll shave my head; see what that looks like.