Tracy Gets a Ride

"Did somebody say anything to you?" I asked on the way home, trying to mentally retrace the steps our day had taken us, from the breakfast nook to the grocery to the drug store.

"No, people were nice," Tracy said. "Those blueberry pancakes were awesome."

"Then why are you walking around like you've committed a crime?" I asked. "Is it because of being with a black man?"

"No, Deacon," Tracy said quickly. "It's not that, I swear. I've never been prouder to be with anyone in my life. You're my friend - my only real friend. And my lover. Never had either one before. Not really. Don't you know how I feel about you?"

"I thought I did," I replied. "I thought we felt the same way about each other, but when we're out in the real world..."

"He's out here somewhere," Tracy said coldly.

"Who? Your... father?" I asked, spitting out the title he didn't deserve.

"Yes. Him and Roy. At home, I'm safe with you. Out here where everybody can see me, I know that he's going to find me. I didn't go far enough away."

"He's 200 miles away!" I exclaimed. "How far do you think you need to be?"

"I don't know," Tracy said, looking out the window with her hand cupped over her forehead. "It's a small world."

Tracy stayed quiet until we got home. Home. It struck me that Tracy had called my place home. That sounded nice. Even though we were a mismatched pair, and she deserved someone more her own age, it sounded good, but there was some unfinished business that I had to attend to.

***

The house was even rattier than I had imagined it when Tracy had described it to me. Cars without wheels and old appliances made it look like a Jeff Foxworthy joke come to life. Even looking at this hellhole turned my stomach, but I never considered going back home without taking care of this unfinished business. Tracy deserved that much, even though she didn't know what I was doing. Hell, I wondered as I tapped on the decaying door, maybe I didn't either.

"What you want?" said the vermin that answered the door.

He was a greasy looking guy with a look that made my skin crawl, and as he peeked out from the narrow opening he had made in the doorway I put on my cop attitude one last time.

"You Comstock? I asked.

"Who wants to know?"

"Lt. Jackson, NYPD," I announced, giving myself a promotion as I flashed my old badge in his face and leaned on the door. "Need to talk with you sir."

"What about?" the man asked.

"You Ray or Roy?" I asked as I looked around the house, which was a dump.

"Ray."

"Nice place Ray," I said, surveying the grand dump and trying not to think about Tracy being forced to live in this squalor. "Maid's day off?"

"Fucking wife took off on me last month," Ray Comstock declared as he lit a cigarette. "Bitch will be back though. Now what is it you want? New York City, you said?"

"Brooklyn. Unsolved mysteries division," I lied while trying to keep in character, and only when I thought about what Tracy had been subjected to was I able to keep from laughing out loud at my behavior. "You say you've got a wife? What's her name?"

"Tracy."

"She your wife or your daughter?" I asked, making the weasel flinch as I spoke.

"What the fuck is it to you?" he sneered.

"Because Tracy Comstock is dead," I snapped, and while he reacted to the news a bit his reaction wasn't anything like a father would feel toward hearing about his daughter's death. Then again, this piece of shit was no father.

"Dead?" he finally said, taking a drag off of his butt and exhaling slowly.

"Found her dead in the park. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you Mr. Comstock?"

"Hell no. You sayin' I done anything to her? I ain't that type."

I know what type you are, I thought.

"Maybe your brother knows," I suggested. "Where's he at?"

"You should know that. In the county lock-up," he said defiantly. "What kind of a fucking cop are you?

I had done my best but finally snapped, grabbing this little maggot by the neck and slamming him into the wall, knocking off a picture a little further down. Ray Comstock got contrite really fast about then, his eyes bulging out wildly as I lifted his skinny ass off the floor for a second episode of spine meets wall before letting him down.

"You know what kind of a cop I am now?" I sneered as I kept a fist-full of the collar of his shirt in a tight grip. "I'm the kind of cop who hates having to drive all fucking morning up here to East Buttfuck to tell some shithead that his daughter is dead, and then to get a reaction like I got from you when I tell him?"

"We... we had a falling out," Comstock said. "She ain't been the same since her Mama passed."

"How about you?" I asked. "I'll bet you haven't changed much. How you survive up here? Got a meth lab out back?"

"Hell no," Comstock said, rubbing his neck after I let go of his shirt, but I wasn't all that sure I hadn't guessed right. "I don't work much. Hardly got enough to get by."

"Well then how are you going to pay to have Tracy's body shipped up here?" I asked, and proceeded to give him a list of expenses and fees that he was responsible for, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and when I gave him the ballpark figure I came up with his face looked ashen.

"24 thousand dollars?" he croaked, gasping and looking around like a rat in a maze. "I ain't got no kind of money like that."

"Maybe put a second mortgage on the house," I offered, trying not to laugh as I tried to think of a bank willing to give him a thousand bucks for the place.

"Already got one of them," Comstock said, proving that indeed there was a sucker born every minute, and one of them apparently works at a bank.

"Well, what do you want me to tell them?" I asked, my skin starting to crawl more every second I was in this rat hole. "You want me to tell them that I couldn't find you? Just let them bury her and be done with it."

"Dead is dead," Tracy's father said. "Don't matter much where you go after that."

"Might actually be better that way," I concluded. "Otherwise, there might be some investigating that needed to be done around here. You say your brother's in the county? What's he in for?"

"Statutory," he said calmly. "Second offense, plus he didn't register as a sex offender. He's gonna die in prison. Health ain't too good."

"That's a shame," I said with as little obvious contempt as I could manage. "Well, guess I better get back down and tell them you had left with no forwarding. Right?"

"Yeah," Comstock said, and as he followed me out the door he cleared his throat as I left. "Tracy? She suffer much?"

I looked back at this man, a bit surprised at hearing at least that small glimmer of caring from this poor excuse for a man, and almost felt bad about the ruse I had pulled upon him for a brief second. If he had shown me anything like this at the start - well, no I still would have hated his guts.

"No," I told him honestly. "When I saw Tracy, she looked at peace. Like she was happy to be in a better place at last."

Ray Comstock's expression never changed as he nodded and calmly closed the door behind himself, and I made my way back to my car. The air was a lot fresher out here, and now all I had to do was get Tracy to understand that she didn't need to look over her shoulder any longer.

***

Epilogue:

It's been a year since that night I picked up Tracy hitchhiking, and Tracy's still here. When I had returned to the house I tried to explain a little bit about the visit I had paid to her father. She bit her lip and her eyes filled up when I told her about her uncle, shaking her head and just whispering the name Amanda, who was a neighbor girl that I assume Tracy suspected as the victim of her perverted imprisoned uncle.

"That part of your life is over," I finally said. "I know that it's easier for me to say that than it is for you to believe it, but it's true. You're free to go whenever you want, but don't leave because you're afraid. I know saying don't be afraid is easier than actually doing it as well, but it's true too. That 200 miles - there might as well be an ocean there."

"Me staying her with you - is that really okay?" she asked me with those big green eyes melting my heart once again, and all I could think of was that this precious angel's mother must have been a knockout at one time too, in order for Tracy to overcome the genes the father brought into the mix.

"Okay?" I asked, opening my arms and letting her ease against my body. "I think we make a pretty good team, don't you?"

Tracy's put on about 20 pounds in that year, and even though she's still slender her voluptuousness is less exaggerated. She's even gotten a job at the local grocery running the cash register. That stunned me when she asked if she minded if she did that, given that it was out in the real world, but she said she really wanted to contribute something to our household. Our household. I liked hearing that.

Who knows? Maybe she'll meet some guy her age and that will be the end of me. I even mentioned that one time and Tracy seemed shocked that it was even possible. Possible that someone else would think she was desirable? No, shocked that I would think that she would ever want to be with anybody else. I liked hearing that too.

So there we are. I haven't had the urge to go out for drives in the middle of the night in the last year. Instead, I sleep like a baby, in the arms of the woman I love. Maybe Tracy healed me as much as I did her. We were both damaged goods 12 months ago, but we're doing just fine now.

***

thank you for reading.