Chapter Twenty Eight An Opera in Three Acts But with Five Parts
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| without any officially obtained search warrant! but I also had to have present at this specific search an Ames police official conducting a totally thorough search of it –– because Herry, in some future court action, would lie –– another imminent perjury. I needed to be able to defuse and to counteract the falsehood that the prevaricated scenario would morph into –– by overseeing at my own residence, right now Monday night, 28 October 1991, a totally thorough search. I had to preempt a strike against me in some upcoming court appearance of which I did not even know yet –– by, right now, leaving no shower curtain drawn and no corner closet exhaustively uninspected! Too, the scrutiny absolutely had to be performed by a methodical force which could perhaps act as a neutralizing one in daMan’s court! An unbiased third party I needed, a witness or testifier that would be … the cop! Right now in my throes of becoming geographically separated for gaaawd knows how long from all three of my Boys, I had to first be concerned about a future attack and cross by Herry’s Mr. Shindy Scheisser which would run something like, “But you really didn’t even go in the Havencourt condo, did you, Officer Pam?”
“Actually, that is not correct, Mr. Scheisser, I did.” “But you really didn’t even go upstairs and check into anything or behind anywhere, did you, Officer Pam?” “Actually, that is not correct, Mr. Scheisser, I did. Even though I had no warrant to check anything or behind anywhere! ! ! I still did. As a matter of fact, Mr. Scheisser, I checked everywhere and behind everything, a complete and thorough search, and there was not a goddamn sign there of anybody resembling a Jesse. There were, however, Jesse’s and his two brothers’ belovéd pets, Mr. Scheisser, all three of them. No! More than three. Her boys’ mama bird’d had babies. That’s how mother – fuckingly thorough my search was; I even searched the finch’s nest, too! Not just the DEhuman mother’s nest! Hypothetically speaking here, Mr. Scheisser, why wouldn’t a supposedly loving father, swiping custody of her kiddos, not also wanna take custody of her children’s pets?!” “I will ask the questions here, Officer Pam! And you will do the answering, Officer Pam, and only the answering. Not the judging. I have no further questions, Your Honor, for this witness.” This was the sort of future “anticipatory guidance” pediatricians tell parents about their growing children’s activities, actions and what to expect? No, this was the sort of anticipatory guidance, a medical term used daily in these doctors’ dictations after the well – child checkup visits of little kids nationwide, which I had to also employ in order to try to guide myself around and past the crimes of the older – brother Joy Toy Boy bully, Daddee Edinsmaier himself. In order to attempt to –– later –– save my own ass within ‘the court’ that Pillar Herry could so easily manipulate to his advantage. I arrived on Havencourt. László had broken peripheral speed records, I thought, in order to get there. He and Judd lived five miles out of town in the diagonally opposite direction of The Teacup, and he from the northwest then was there already when I drove up. So was Officer Pam except that she was a he, Officer Chris. Up to the door the four of us went, and I even invited in Herry; and had he entered, this would have been his first step inside the Havencourt condominium ever. He did not; he declined of course, and László decided to wait outside with him. I still have never figured out for certain when all of my tools came up missing from my two garage cabinets’ worth, but I don’t think it happened this specific Monday. I believe Herry stole them all, but I now believe the burglary occurred at a later date, still yet another thuggish thievery of Herry’s to be realized –– just not on this particular 28 October. Because László, Ancestor in Training in Cinqué – style as well, was right there beside him –– standing in silence. The search ended; Herry and Officer Chris both drove away from Havencourt Drive. László came inside then and sat down at our brown kitchen table as I proceeded to dial, from memory of course, the Urbandale police station. Waiting on the line for the correct person to take my transferred call, I told László that I had kissed Zane and Mirzah for the last time for a long, long, long time, that the Boys were to be spirited out of town the very next morning and that to where the four of us, in the words of Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive’s infamous and favored ‘scriptural verse,’ … “had no idea!” Where my 15 – year – old, 13 – year – old and 12 – year – old children were next to call ‘home’ was a secret –– even to them. Assuming, that is, that middle brother would be caught. Jesse was. And I was never told that he was. And ‘caught’ is the correct verb, not ‘found’. I hung up the telephone for the last time around 1 in the a.m. of Tuesday, 29 October 1991, not knowing. By 4:30 pm that afternoon and off shift, I zoomed down to the 69th Street bungalow and pulled Ol’ Black plain as day right up into the driveway. There was nothing there. Nothing of evidence around the outside of the house and the property’s detached garage that my family of three Truemaier Boys had ever existed there. I hauled ass off of 69th and out onto Douglas Avenue and careened westerly toward the Urbandale Police Station. The speeding was out of anger, yes, and certainly not out of any misperceived capability to catch up with someone, anyone. After 5 p.m., I could not enter its front door without having to first press the security intercom and summon someone to come unlock it and let me in. I blitzed by the doorman enroute to the dispatch window and was given there, by a very nice woman who of course knew nothing, the name of someone to call “in the morning.” So began a blizzard of queries to the cops, whether there in Urbandale or five states away or half a nation away or a full continent away –– it didn’t matter. Always, always courteous to me I proceeded to get out of any law enforcement authority anywhere not one shred of information on or about my very own babies whom I alone grew. Not one fragment of knowledge. I am reminded of the time Zane ran away from home in Columbia –– and Jesse and I in that beige Shitbox Dodge had quietly followed behind him and his tracks. The cop then in the blazing heat of that July never truly ‘saw’ my little boy in his winter coat packing a long, skinny bundle that could’ve contained a rifle. Didn’t –– but could have. Zane had determinedly claimed that his fishing pole would permit him to survive ‘out there’ … alone. Although the policeman, Jesse and I so well saw, had looked squarely at Zane, the lawman never even stopped to inquire if there might be something rather at bit amiss with this scenario here. “You have papers that say we can tell you if we know, do you?” the named individual on the post – it scrap asked me the next morning. “Ah, no, I don’t have those papers.” “Well, then, I’m awfully sorry, but I don’t know if you’re really the mother plus, anyhow, if you don’t have official papers, then I certainly am not going to say anything. Is that understood?” “Can’t you even tell me … if … Jesse’s found and safe?” “No. I’m hanging up now.” Click. The night before until the wee dark hours of the early morning it had been the same with the police. And with Ms. McLive. Herry wouldn’t even come to the telephone to talk to me nor had Mirzah or Zane been allowed to answer the phone or take my calls. Ever before –– when they all were still sequestered in west Ames or existing inside that Urbandale bungalow. Mothers worldwide know this routine on a regular basis –– from the doctor to the teachers to the parole officer to the male – identified, maternal grandmother to the child’s commanding, milifucking officer. Not to mention, when there’s the colossal crisis of one of hers in trouble, hurt or missing, we still cannot get information. No way. No how. And if one is a noncustodial mother, why then it is a given that the backlash fuck – off will nowhere approximate a polite kiss – off. Understand the standard measure that is ownership of information. Information is male; it is patriarchy and belongs only within all things androcentric. Smack in line with martin luther’s “… woman was no more than a machine to make babies for him with neither the need nor the right to …” … to know anygoddamnthing else! Knowledge is power and the withholding of knowledge is even more power. And from fat, old buddha, “ … a woman’s body is filthy and not a vessel for … the law.” The law? She soooo cannot! for chris’sake, have the least bit o’ knowledge, lest the fucking woman dare to think, dare to believe that she is entitled to actually possess some … power! Just ask Mehitable, the most male – identified of all – knowing, maternal grandmothers whom the Truemaier Boys have ever encountered. Only weeks later did I actually know that Jesse had been captured and that not only was he all right but that he had fought the abductor and his continuing thralldom the only way he could think of at this last minute. A portion of the overture to Act Three had played out exactly as Zane had intuited. Zane and Jesse both possess to this day, sometimes even Mirzah too, the uncanniest powers of near extrasensory perception. I in no way believe in ESP nor in supernature and so doubt that, atheist that I am, I ever shall; but if I ever do, I’ll wager my believing will have to do with some event or situation spawned because of Jesse’s or Zane’s minds knowing ahead of time what was going to happen or their abilities, given just a very, very few items of information or clues, to piece together what the hell went down at a place and time far, far removed from them. Zane was correct. Jesse had, from inside his seventh – grade classroom and out its window accidentally or uncannily looked up and watched Herry in the Humvee hurl past his building and haul into the high school’s front horseshoe drive just a block east, headed he accurately presumed, at midday on a Monday morning when Herry was usually long gone outta town since the early, early hours of the first workday to his “job” wherever the locum tenens per diem contract was for that particular week, … headed instead this noontime to Zane’s Principal Druid’s office. Excusing himself from the classroom and I’ve never yet asked him how, Jesse beelined to his locker, cleared it out as much as he’d wanted and managed to signal a friend whose name I don’t know. Indeed, it was around 12:30 or 12:45 when Jesse, out a side door unguarded on that Monday afternoon, exited off the grounds of the Metro suburb’s middle school. And disappeared. Just as Zane in the Flunks’ front room had imagined to me Jesse must’ve done. I don’t know how he made it past adults, but Jesse’s darling and quite the athlete so perhaps he either just smiled and kept on walking, sack of locker shit and all, or he may have explained about needing to return something to or retrieve something from off of the soccer – football field out back. Like his independence or something. With backpack and some belongings then Jesse, at any rate, was gone quite missing by the time Herry next returned with already snatched Mirzah and Zane to the Urbandale Middle School to pluck Jesse out as well. And instead of quizzing the school authorities or the local fuzz if Legion True had been spotted anywhere in the Boy’s immediate vicinity or not, Herry decided, one way or the other, that even if I had not been seen around, indeed that even if I had actually not been around, … he would still exploit the situation against me. Herry knew Jesse had jumped; and if his escape hadn’t been with me, then it was accomplished with someone else or carried out by himself. He knew. Herod Edinsmaier simply determined, with less than only a full day’s time left to Daddee’s getting done “for his family” all of the moving – away kinds of chores and last – moment minutia, to still choose to take out some of those remaining few hours several miles away and harass the mother – fuck out of Legion, the ex – Cunt and Present Bitch. While all that while –– permitting Jesse to stay missing and purposefully to not jostle and scramble together all manner of proactive functions and efforts to find him! To let Jesse stay missing to him, to me and to his brothers! That level of gruesome cruelty only one who has recognized and violently lived, day to day, with this passive aggression can predict and expect. László stayed with me as I was on the telephone calling and calling and calling all night long and getting back only clicks and hang – ups from both the Urbandale police and Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive. The madam was so transparent that if László and I weren’t genuinely most worried about Jesse, it would’ve been hilarious! With every phone call, and there must’ve been a dozen at the least which I placed, all long distance, … with every one, the Next Cunt answered soooo ridiculously syrupy sweet and cheery –– herself modeling and very well mimicking Horrid Herod’s aggressive passivity, “The Edinsmaier and McLive residence, Fannie speaking. How may I service you?” Er, no. Correction. “How may I serve you?” After about the second or third consecutive call of mine to the 69th Street number, it became crystal clear that Herry’s newest Next Cunt was taking her mother – fuckingest revenge in this manner but way, way worse than that: with her and Herry’s folie à deux operating at top speed in its so slickly slamming operatic duet again, there was the very real fact that she, too, was also … not … searching for … nor … finding my child! Apparently around 10:30 p.m. that signaled friend of Jesse’s had attempted to flee his own residence with extra warm boots, a wool shirt, a poncho, a flashlight, some books and not only the canned goods, the pork and beans, tuna and corn, but he’d also remembered to pack the can opener next to the canteen and a couple of store – bought bottles of water. Perhaps it was the bulk of the sleeping bag and two blankets that gave him away to his mother, but Friend was discovered all right before he’d managed to exit their back door around about his bedtime on a school night. Kiddo ‘fessed. Jesse was holed up in a fort he had fashioned for himself somewhere in an urban forest not too far away. Late October outside in the city’s woods in the dark. Not exactly this particular ex – Cunt’s accommodations after all, but Jesse had bivouacked his own ‘home’ if Herry was –– again –– about to fuck with mine. And, of course, neither Jesse nor I nor Mirzah or Zane knew at all then of Herry’s affidavit – “pledge” to daMan, to daJudge, to Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor, to “never” take him away from Ames until he was 18, had graduated Ames High School and could choose for himself to where to be off exploring next! Back into Ames and The Teacup and at or under the posted speed limit, I hunkered down at the brown kitchen table next to the telephone and tried to think of what to do. It was the evening of another day when another moving truck had yet again pulled up to my children’s lives and in the course of another couple of hundred minutes or so into it had been swallowed up all of the available stuffs of their childhoods. And in a vehicle following the van out onto interstates had been swept up and spirited several states away, as well, my three Truemaier Boys –– jettisoning them all over – again – somewhere between Ames, that Invisible She – Devil there … and the Deep Blue Sea. Only weeks later did I know that Mirzah, too, had been captured. Mirzah, my little man of so, so many talents. From soccer to French to percussion to baking, actually making skilled use of, even at just five years of age, the nesting set of Pyrex mixing bowls, to entrepreneurial endeavors, especially ones involving the ‘investing’ of his money, to piano to volleyball to political leanings and leadings to keyboarding and computers just appearing on a very, very few kiddos’ horizons. Except in the form of Nintendo or the few Pacman or Pokémon games before those. And, most especially, and of a truly magnificent treasure to both him and to me, to his mighty fine art for making friends and establishing and maintaining friendships. All of the Truemaier Boys possessed this wizardly craft. If ever I’d wanted to know who someone was, all that I had to do was query out loud to the thin air, “Who’s that?” Himself suddenly interested also, Zane at three, four, five years of age, would swiftly shift focus from whatever activity he was engaged in, slip – slide on over to the person in question, look longingly up at her or him and with pinpoint clarity and precise pronunciation the first time he would simply ask, “Who are you?” And then I, too, would know because Zane was so irresistible and, thus, always commanded by his wee, sweet presence the correct answer back! I so worried about this trait in the Truemaier Boys though; it could be endangering to them all to be so open and unafraid to approach total strangers. It could save their lives, too; but it still concerned me so all throughout their little, little boyhoods. The Boys’ belovéd nanny, Rosemarie, loved to repeat the story of lunchtime one noon in the Hershey household when she’d served up food to the three of them. Rosemarie invented lovely themes, ideas and topics with every meal to foster in them amongst themselves not only camaraderie but also the finesse of fine conversation. During the discussion at this particular repast, she had asked each Boy to individually tell them all collectively assembled around the dinner table what he wanted to be when he grew up. First Zane expounded; then came Jesse’s discourse. When Rosemarie came ‘round to Mirzah poised in his high chair at the grand ol’ figure of a mere 2½ years in age, he paused and paused, eyelids scrunched shut with his right arm and fist doubled up under his little chin, elbow on the high chair tray –– just silent like Frenchman Rodin’s so – famous Le Penseur statue of 1902, thinking and thinking and thinking. Then when she and two brothers by their cocked heads and raised brows in Mirzah’s direction appeared to query him again … he finally opened his eyes, his little arm shot skyward from out its place under his mandible and, with set jawline and princely ceremony, Mirzah exaltedly proclaimed to all gathered therein, “Prezdunt o’da Knighted Tates!” In the sixth grade now and eleven years old that Fall of 1991, things hadn’t much changed in this regard. Although they may not have been able to actually come over to visit Mirzah at the daddee’s residence patrolled there as it was by Nottingham Sheriff McLive, Mirzah still made friends as easily as drinking pure water; and, of the collections of people he found himself within, one such group was the Extended Learning Program’s early morning class of ultimate conversationalists, the children there who participated in the Mock Trials project. By 7:15 a.m. since late August and early September, Mirzah had had to be at the Karen Farmer Elementary School two to three times a week and ready to rehearse the courtroom scenes for his group’s involvement in local and regional competitions. The kids at Karen Farmer’s had beat out several other elementary ELP mockers; they advanced to win the locals’ championship! So much so had the ELP sixth – graders won already that autumn that Mirzah, in two different mock situations, was slated with the other actors of his class to perform their two trials at the regional finals’ competition. On Monday, 28 October 1991, I can only imagine that as Mirzah left the bungalow around 7 in the early morning in the chauffeuring accompaniment of another competitor – colleague’s parent in order to get to the rehearsals on time, he was totally pumped for both of his roles, one as the criminal’s defense attorney; and in the second trial, Mirzah actually played the part of the defendant himself charged –– with murder! The regional’s contest was not very far away at all. No one from Karen Farmer Elementary School had to travel any further than Des Moines’s own Drake University. Yes, further than the trip to school but not by much more than 15 to 20 minutes or so at the most; and there was obviously no need to carpool out of town or for any such planning as that necessary at all, one of the fine things about living in a bigger sphere with great opportunities. Out of Urbandale proper and into Des Moines officially a child’s parents would have to drive, but the Olmstead Center there at Drake was so close to Herod Edinsmaier’s suburban rental that Mirzah certainly did not think that he needed even to arrange a ride with other teammates to get there. Mirzah would just appear and meet up with everyone else –– right there at the Olmstead Center. Perhaps from his Grandpa AmTaham and I’d like to think also from me did Mirzah learn and hold strongly and utterly to the precept that a person did not disappoint her or his friends. No way. No how. If one is a true friend, then one comes through for the rest of the posse’s others no matter what it takes; and until the morning of Wednesday, 30 October 1991, when Mirzah Truemaier awoke to find himself five states away and consequently failing to show up at the Olmstead Center of Drake University to uphold his end of the Mock Trial team’s bargain, he had not one time messed up on this … this how – to – be – a – true – friend deal, the most important of matters to him ever. Dr. Herod Edinsmaier had succeeded in capturing Mirzah and by Herry’s subsequent imprisonment of him on the interstate and ultimately at their final roadtripping destination, had literally stolen from Mirzah the loyalty to his friends that he so prized inside of himself. The prize of the Mock Trial Project championship? O well, everyone knows what happens at such times as these. Whether at the mock trials’ competitions or at the city club’s softball game without enough players or with the default on the loan for the family’s next home or “the consequences of all of the other messes he visits upon her when he leaves her home” as John Stoltenberg quotes, the word is –– forfeit. Mirzah’s school friends left the Drake University’s Center and returned to their classroom activities at Karen Farmer Elementary without accomplishing one performance because, without its key and starring actor, there was no performance. And according to the Project’s rules, because of this dazzling absence then, the forfeiture of any ranking of the team’s standing in the competitions –– was required! What I have never been able to justify, coming at this specific October scenario with Mirzah in The Opera from Herry’s possible perspective, is how he could have done this to Mirzah. I mean why?! Why not just wait one fucking day –– more –– before leaving town?! The realization of just the friggin’ timeframe alone of this heinous action consternates me! Blows me clean frickin’ away it does. Even if Dr. Edinsmaier had had to be at work elsewhere, which I soooo do not believe was the case at all, why the fucking hell did Herry – Daddee dump the way that he did … this horrific mess on Mirzah’s spirit?! One day longer is all! Then, Herry could have hired a freakin’ truckdriver for the Truemaier Boys or the household’s moving van –– or for both! –– if Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive wasn’t up to any of it herself! And fuck –– Herry for himself? Shit! –– Herry could’ve taken a goddamn airplane out of Des Moines to said destination of new job five states away, could he not have?! I know. I know. This planning was work –– the work of parenting. And Herry loathed it. Herry had always hated all manner of the preparing and of the arranging that it took to help make everyone else’s lives –– ordered! Only his own life was of importance enough to warrant any such of his own labors and time. And in that own life of his, he so wanted, too, to make damned, friggin’ certain that I was fucked. If Dr. Herod Edinsmaier, Pillar, personally saw all of my Boys out of town, then he personally saw to it, also, that I, at my end, was indeed mother – fucked in possibly –– at all –– trying to stop him from doing so. Despite the irony that there is in all of the weeks and weeks and weeks of preparing and of arranging that it must’ve taken Herry Edinsmaier to keep so secret his impending plans for his own life, still so great was Herry’s neediness to know the Pussy, Legion True, was completely fucked that this is the only explanation which I can come up with as to why Herry Edinsmaier committed this slash – and – burn on Mirzah Truemaier’s so – prized loyalty to his friends. It |