Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (3 page)

He doesn’t say anything, closing his eyes to enjoy the sun and the warm buzz of the champagne.  It’s not for him to question her schedule. 

This is established.

“You want to come?” she asks.

“I’ve got research to do,” he tells her.

“About that caution tape
and cop chaos
weirdness?” she inquires.

“Yeah,” he says, trying to downplay it.

“Stop wasting my money on helicopters.”

“Yes, dear.”

“I’m serious,” she insists.  “I’ll cut you off, I swear.”

“Somebody has to expose the danger of imposing order an inherently chaotic universe,” he insists with a grin, a little humor.

“I agree,” she indulges him with a smile.  “But not on my dime.”

“Fine,” he concedes, “but I’m using the convertible at least, then.”

“Whatever,” she indulges him again.  “But maybe you should use something less conspicuous to spy on the police.”

He ponders this, but is mostly incapable of pondering anything very seriously at the moment.

“That’s actually a pretty good idea.  Is the Mercedes less conspicuous?”

“Dodge,” she snaps, tired of his bullshit, he presumes.

“Yes, dear?” he asks.

“I’m putting you back to work,” she tells him.

“We tried, that, remember?” he reminds her.  “Now I get pulled over every time I get behind the wheel.
” 

Hence the helicopters.

When Dodge goes to work for Siobhan, he doesn’t get a paycheck.  It’s not the kind of work she wants a record of paying for.

Digging up secrets.

Everyone’s dirty little secrets.

Including the cops.

“Yeah, but look what you’ve turned into since you stopped,” she reminds him, clearly talking about the naked, hung over man waking up on the patio furniture.  “This will help me and the company, but really, it’ll be good for you to do something with yourself again.”

He can tell how serious she is.  He figures it’s more important to defend his precarious position in life than make another wisecrack. 

“Sure,” he agrees, sincere.  “You have a point.”

“Can you come by the office tomorrow afternoon?” she asks.

But it’s an order. 

“I will,” he promises, thinking how that giv
es him time still for a flight in the morning.

The Monday commute is prime research time.

“And Dodge?” she asks, standing up, starting to walk away, pausing only briefly.

“Yeah?”

“Stop thinking about my secretary.”

She fixes him with a serious stare before pitter pattering off without waiting for a response. 

He’s already thinking about her secretary.

J’aime tu.

*****

Observing the world
from above – specifically, from the fishbowl of a Bell 206 JetRanger chopper -
reveals an order that takes on a life of its own, imposed upon a wild
erness, a means of traversing
dangerous landscape
s
, of always knowing which direction one
is meant to
go.

It’s not natural.  More than nature abhors a vacuum, it abhors an order not
its own.  It unleashes floods
on cities below sea level, burns houses built in its driest woodlands
, drowns homes in mudslides built at the bottoms of its slopes,
and levels buildings built upon its faults.

What never occurs to us as we travel these highways is that we c
an just leave them at any time - that we
don’t need to reach their pre-
determined destinations.  W
e can leave our cars on the side of the road and
e
nter the wilderness and
f
ind less
chaos in our lives.

Find t
hat
this
order is superficial,
that our lives are
no safer for its existence.

That nature
abhor
s nothing more than being denied.

From the helicopter
, Dodge
watch
es
a trooper
car
slip onto the Thruway below
, reminding him of an alligator sliding into
a
river
.

S
ilently stalk
ing its
prey.

All around the trooper
, traffic suddenly changes.  Driver
s slow down, move without warning from the fast-moving left lane to the slower moving center lane.  Brake lights spark to life in rapid succession from one car to the next.  The distance betwe
e
n each braking car shrinks as
Dodge
look
s
back down the le
ngth the length of the Thruway through the lens of his video camera.

From up here, the drama plays out like a movie. 
Cars dance around
each other li
ke props in an elaborate
set piece,
directed for action movie entertainment,
not the decisions of dozens of drivers who can guess, but never really know, what everybody around them is going to do next.

Most of the time, we’re right when we predict what everyone else is going to do.

When we’re not,
the raw nerve of the whole universe can be exposed.

Below, v
ehicles cut to
both
left and right lanes from the middle to adjust. 

More cars brake.

Trigger.
 

Domino
. 

Butterfly.
 

Ripple.

Doppler.

Cause.

Effect.

Eventually the front
of one
car clips the rear
of another as it cuts into the right lane, causing both cars to veer in opposite directions, one toward the shoulder, the other back to the center lane, where it hits another car.  Both
of those
cars go into a spin.  More cars collide.  They pile up in the lanes, on the shoulders, metal frames suddenly looking more like accordions, people abandoning the safety of their cars, rushing to
the aid of others
-
a macabre dance
from above, played out to the sound
track
of si
rens already making their way up the Thruway, more ambulances and trooper cars themselves creating ripples throughout a sea of unsuspecting traffic.

Illusions are
shattered - cars fleeing for the shoulders and the rumble strips as emergency vehicles rush past them, brushing them to the side
to clean up the mess the cop car caused simply by existing, by doing its job.

*****

“
Did you get that
?” Jason asks
, grinning wildly, circling the copter over the accident.

“Yeah,”
Dodge shouts
, excited
, not pausing the video camera
.  “The whole fucking ripple effect.  The cop, the cars, the crash - everything!”

“Unreal,” Jason says, shaking his head.

“Actually, way too real,” Dodge
tell
s
him.  “That’s the whole point.  The cop
caused that whole thing.
I mean, not on purpose
. 
Just incidentally
.
  He doesn’t eve
n
know.
”

“Jesus,”
Jason says
.  “And you got the whole thing?”

“
In all
its raving, unnatural beauty,” Dodge
assure
s
him.

“What now?” he asks.  “Should I take her in?”

“Yeah,
I got to
hit the office this afternoon.
I’m going to
head over early and
try to catch Siobhan for lunch,” Dodge says, pulling his cell phone out and hitting the speed dial.

“Right o
n, man,” Jason says, shooting him
a sideways glance.  “She pays the
bill
s, after all.”

“Fuck off,” he
grumble
s
at the wisecrack.
 
It hits a little too
close to home.