May 4, 2005
BUD

In the end, I never even gave notice. Didn't have to, as things turned out.

Being fired from a major police department for refusing to follow orders did me no career favors.  So, there I was. Ready to leave and the decision made simple as to where I'd go next. Only one place where I could go: the one place where a job was waiting for me.

Because, in the end, that's the last club they held. Money. It was the wrong club to beat me with. I may have been down, but I was far from out. I knew it then, if I'd never known it before. It just made me more resolved. That's really all it did, in the end.

And that's how I ended up back in New Orleans less than a week after I'd left. They asked me when I could start and I said, "Now."

Few days later, I'm cruising with Nate who loves me because he got a big fat check for recruiting me ... it's something they do, reward their current cops who find experienced cops to join the ranks of the NOPD.

Okay, well, that's not the only reason he loves me.

We're partners now. At least for now. At least until I get acclimated to the job here and to the city. But there's something you know right away when you're considering what it would be like to be permanent partners ... you know when it's right. And this felt right. Like we each had a role to play in the partnership that made it something to behold. Even then. Even just starting out together.

Nate says that partners are only good if they love each other. "In a totally non-homo way, of course," he says, giving me that shit-eating grin of his that makes me want to bop him one.

"You're mighty un-PC for a cop in a city like this," I tell him. "Even I know you can't talk like that."

"But you want to, don't you, Bud? Yeah, you do. I can see it in your eyes. You'd like it if I had a beef with gays, wouldn't you? That's lesson number one, partner. Here in this town, we can get away with a lot. But we got enough battles to fight so we got to choose wise."

"Or not get caught if we do," I say.

"Speaking of getting caught ... here's someone I want you to meet."

He pulled over to the curb along Piety. Cluster of guys. Hanging out. Shooting the breeze in the parking lot of a package store. I backed Nate up as he busted into the group, sending them scattering, making them mutter as they moved on. One guy, short and wiry, stuck around like he was the cock of the walk, giving Nate lip and getting in his face. Until I decided I didn't like his attitude toward my partner. And then he was being pressed by me into the dull grey metal of the package store's window covering.

This is how I met one of Nate's snitches. In the time to come that first week, I met more each day until I was becoming known in the places that mattered to us in the district in which we worked, me and Nate. Known as Nate's nasty half. He was always smiling when he'd be the hard ass. I never smiled. So they thought he was a good guy and I was not to be messed over.

I thought a lot about my first partner when I was new in the uniform of LAPD. Old guy. Walked the beat and then got saddled with new guys like me to show the ropes. Didn't take me long to know I didn't want to be walking a beat at his age.

Besides, I wanted to be a detective for one big reason and it had nothing to do with money back then. Nope, when I was with the LAPD, I wanted to be a detective because I wanted to find my father and kill him for killing my mom.

Sometimes things change. Usually, not by much.

Here I was, in a city where being a cop felt a lot like the old times. But it wasn't the old times and I wasn't the old me. I never did find out if my old man had been alive back when I was with the LAPD; that was something that haunted me in those days. He for sure as hell wasn't alive now all these many years later.

It's been making me think lately ... about what that means to me on a personal level.

Maybe I was looking for a new personal war to take to the streets.

ANN

When I was young, my father used to play in a rock band. He was the singer and he also played guitar. I had pictures of him that were taken in that time period. I don't have those pictures anymore. I don't actually have anything tangible from my past since it took place in another world and I came here with nothing I owned. So I have none of that.

All I have are memories.

One of those is a song my father used to sing to me long before I ever knew what it meant or why he sounded so sad when he sang it. I remember hearing it on the radio one summer when I was in high school. I thought to myself that the person singing that song sang it a lot rougher than my father did. One of my friends told me what the lyrics were about when I mentioned that to her.

I find it highly amusing that I was shocked when I found out my father was singing about wasted times in a brothel-slash-gambling den in New Orleans. I find it interesting that it's this song that seemed to give his voice resonance. I wonder sometimes if he ever went to prostitutes or if maybe he'd some experience with gambling.

That memory never fails to flash through my mind when I drive down Esplanade and wonder which of these old white buildings inspired the lyrics, "there is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun."

It's funny about memories and things that trigger them, isn't it? I've lost every single touchstone of my past. But I have my memories.

I miss my touchstones. I miss the man that I love. But I'm not getting him back. I still wish like anything that I had just five seconds to say that I am sorry for what I did.

May 9, 2005
BUD

The first day off I have, I spend it finding a place to live. 

Staying with Nate has been fine, but it isn't a long-term solution. I need my own space. I sign a lease in the first apartment building that has something open and that Nate says is in a good spot.

New Orleans is a tricky town that way. Most cities, there's the bad areas in one section and the good areas in another. But here, they are mixed up and jumbled together like some kind of crazy quilt pattern. Few blocks either way in lots of neighborhoods and you're going from million dollar houses to projects. It's what makes crimes of opportunity something the citizens have to learn to live around.

Even though I sign the lease, I can't move into the apartment for a week. It's to give them time to get it repainted since the last tenant moved out just a few days ago; gives me time to get utilities hooked up, buy furniture, stuff like that.

The night I sign the lease, Nate wants to go out drinking to celebrate. But I got this thing I got to do.

I have decided I have to go see her. Annie, I mean. If I am going to be living here, I have to tell her that, right?  If I don't tell her, it makes it too big a deal. Like I'm afraid to tell her or like I think it's something so huge that we are now living in the same city that I'm having trouble being casual about it.

That's the mood I want to strike when I tell her. Casual. 

C'mon, we were two adults who happen to be living in the same town. What are the chances we'd ever have to run across each other if we didn't want to?

Except I want to. I can admit that.

There are things I have thought about her after that night at her apartment. Things I wonder. More than anything, I want to know what happened to her. I want to tell her that I am sorry she lost everything in coming over to this world.

I want her to know I am more than the man who'd been losing his way. I want to find my way again. That's the man I am. I'm the man who's not too proud to try again to be a better man.

She is the only person I know who might understand what I mean. And might care to figure out why that is important to me. Maybe even care to help me find the better man inside.

In mind, I play the video of that last time I saw her. I play it over. And over. In slow motion. Frame by frame. There was so much more going on there that I didn't get at first. I'm not sure I had it all, but I am closer. It's confusing.

Even I confused myself that night. I was angry when I first went up there. Jealous. But I am not sure why or maybe I just am not ready to admit there was no good reason, that it was just a reaction. But I do know that there was a moment there when it changed ... and she saw it, too, I know. I know she did. It happened when I felt the breath go out of me and I was sitting on her couch, knowing what I needed to do to get my life back within my own control. And I was clutching on to her and all she was trying to do was let me know I wasn't alone. It bothers me that I ruined that moment between us because I touched her with a need to get lost in something physical just to work out the mental catharsis I needed. Even now, when that video plays in my brain, I can feel how she held her breath when I held on to her and she gave me the sense of real strength.

Would I have taken it further with her if she hadn't stiffened and drawn away in the next moment? I don't know. Sometimes, I imagine I have. It's like I have a fake memory.

It nags at me. It makes me nervous.

I wonder something else about her.

Nate says nothing really happened between them. I wonder why he feels I need to know that.

I wonder why I am glad to know that.

But I am glad. I am.

I admit that to myself the second I reach to open the door and enter her bar.

A flash of a memory comes over me. Of that crystal moment when I'd first come into this world. Of the confusion. Fear. Sense of loss. Disconnection. And then those first tentative steps.

This is a lot like that.

I've entered something new. This time, though, it's voluntary. When I see her, that first glimpse, I am startled to feel a real sense of empathy for just how involuntary her coming into this world was. I can't help the way that makes me ache on her behalf. What did she ever do to deserve that? How has she coped?

No wonder I think she will understand what I am feeling. We have a connection. And I can feel it, strong and true. 

ANN

Hector had come in one night, two weeks ago or so. It was the same night that Nate showed up again at the bar. Maybe that was an omen.

I am not totally sure I believe in omens.

But it was the first night Hector had come in for a while. And he played a song on the jukebox because that's actually how we got to know each other better than as bartender and bar patron. It was dancing to that song about six months earlier. He was really good. Men often aren't. But he had this way of moving that made it a blast to be a woman dancing with him. Halfway into the dance, you'd almost forget he was gay because he makes you start thinking he is hot for you. It is the way he caresses you into his rhythmic movements.

Anyway, we decided to dance again when he played that song. It was just a bit of nonsense. Someone was clapping after.

I turned around; it was Nate. Sitting at the bar. Tilting his head. Waggling his eyebrows.

He teased me at first, acting like he was there just to see me. I thought, "What's a nice boy like you doing around me?"

But then I often thought that way when I was holding a party invitation from Hector and knowing I'd be going somewhere looking for a man as opposite to a good boy as you could find them, really.

This was the night that Nate told me that Bud was moving to New Orleans. That he was coming down for a job. With the NOPD.

I thought to myself, I bet the criminal class in this city just gave a collective shiver. Imagine Bud White set loose around here?

Fast forward to this week. Nate called me a few nights ago; asked if Bud had been in touch yet.

So I am not shocked when Bud does walk in my bar. Though I am frankly more than a little wary that it's taken him weeks to show up. 

I have practiced this moment, over and over, every night when I'm driving to work. I never have thought he would approach me anywhere but at the bar. That's Bud's style. And I know that. That's why I practiced this.

Two night ago, I was at the party Hector had given me an invitation for. I'm still wearing long sleeves like I have been ever since. Tomorrow night, there's another party. I told Hector to bring me invitations to any that come up. That I just have this need ... I am willing to ditch work, if it comes to that. He says he thinks I should slow down ... that if I am too anxious, it's not good for the experience for me.

He may be right. So I have planned to sit tomorrow's party out. See how I feel. See if I need it any more.

I don't know why it is but I think about that the moment Bud walks in the door. He's standing over there looking at me before he walks to the bar to say hello. I think I want him to know ... just knowing he's in town has given me shameful dreams. Things I have to work out. Maybe I need another party. I think this ... I do ... and I wonder if I called Hector if he'd have a spare invitation he'd give me.

And then Bud is sliding onto a barstool before me. I place a drink before him. I pour myself a drink. 

"A toast to you, Bud. But we have to be discreet," I tell him. "If there were a cop around, I could be pinched for drinking while tending bar. So, it'll be just be between us, okay?"

He shakes his head, but he meets me head on. "Just so you know, there's a new lawman in town, little lady."

"Yeah, I heard that. I also heard he's a bad shot." We clink our glasses before we toss our shots back. There's a pause between us ... and I wonder why I'm so nervous around him. I notice the fine sheen of moisture on his lips from where his tongue has swiped away remnants of the bourbon. I have this almost unbearable urge to reach across the bar and just touch his lips, just to feel their warmth and their supple give. I wonder what he'd do if I did something like that? I have to stop with thoughts like that.

With a flourish, he reaches to his waistband, unsnaps his badge holder. Slaps his brand spanking new gold shield down on the bar top.

"Damn. Does this mean I'm busted, detective?" I say as I finger the crescent that is the most recognized symbol of the NOPD logo.

BUD

First girl I ever asked out on a real date was older than me. I was a junior in high school. She was a senior. I only got the courage up to ask her out because one of her friends told me she would say yes.

I took her out for dinner and a movie. Only at that time, we weren't talking dinner like in some restaurant with tablecloths and snooty waiters. This was the neighborhood drive in. I took her to the inside section, where you could grab a table and where others would see you. That was important, see? Because I wanted people to see me with her. And because I wanted to be nice enough to make some effort.

We could have sat in the car I borrowed from my social worker. We could have had curb service.

To this day, I can remember the way it felt to sit across the booth from her. I tried not to stare at her. She tried to get me to talk.

She was a nice girl. We went out a couple more times but money was tight for me and there were only so many times the social worker would let me have use of her car for dates even if she did like me doing something so normal as having dates. So I stopped asking that nice girl out. I was saving up for more dates with her, working my after-school job washing dishes at the local hospital. I also had this plan that maybe I'd find a way to buy my own car, even if I knew they'd say 'no' at the home. But then I heard she got tired of waiting on me to call her and she started going out with a guy in her grade.

All in all, it taught me a good lesson about me and women. Not that I've always followed that lesson, but I have tried when the woman makes enough of an impact.

Sometimes women make me nervous. When they do, I shouldn't give up if it looks like at the beginning, before we really know each other, if it looks like there may be some obstacle to us getting together. I mention this because I saw that girl, my first date, about ten years later. She said she'd gone out with the other guy to make me jealous. That it still pissed her off that I didn't make any kind of real effort when I found out, that I just accepted it and didn't even punch the other guy or yell at her or try to win her back.

So I walk in Annie's bar and I figure I'll put that lesson to some use, even if it is years later and another girl. I decide to forget that she probably has lots of reasons to not want anything to do with me. She knows what my life had been like lately. I know she didn't approve; we all knew that; they made sure we knew that. I could have seen that as an obstacle, no doubt. But I still figure there was interest between us when I was here before. Even when I thought she'd chosen Nate and not even looked at me ... but I've reconsidered that and feel differently about it now. She is worth forcing myself to not give up.

She is dressed different tonight. No more little strappy shirts. She is wearing a long-sleeved, turtleneck top that is stretchy and I can't help just watching the play of her muscles moving beneath the cling of the fabric. I think all over again about how different she seems. It still takes me a bit to focus on how weird it is knowing her body as well as I do and her not knowing mine.

It feels good to see her. It is nice that she smiles when she sees me. I appreciate the patter when we face each other across the bar.

She touches my badge when I show it to her. It's like proof I'm giving her that I am here to stay. She says Nate had come around few weeks back to tell her I was taking a job with the NOPD. I ask her right up front if she has got a thing for Nate. I want to see if her body language confirms what Nate has said ... that he'd jump her in a minute but she wasn't interested in him.

When I ask her, she shrugs her shoulders and wanders off to fill drink orders. I watch her work. I see her look at me every so often. So I'm ready when she comes to stand before me, refills my drink, her hand lingering atop the bar in front of me.

I ask her out.

On a date.

Dinner and movie, I ask. "I'd like to get to know you, Annie."

ANN

When I first came into this world, the enormity of it all didn't hit at first because it was too enormous.

Imagine facing that?

One moment, I am with Terry and I am utterly terrified that I have to face a man whom I have betrayed in the most horrible way and who has betrayed me in a way I hadn't been able to wash out of my brain. The next moment, I am with Jack and have no clue what has happened.

Now granted adjusting to all that is a trauma I refuse to keep revisiting. But one thing I think of so often is how I could not believe this other woman, this other Ann, ever let herself get involved with this aberrant sexual behavior that I found out they engaged in within this other world.

Of course, the irony of that is not lost one me considering what has become of me in the aftermath of going through the initial months of being totally numb to the new reality of being in this place.

But the set up this group of people had was just ... man. It was just ... hard to fathom. I remember telling the Terry of this world that I found it disgusting. I don't know if that's what it was so much as it seemed so ... sad when you thought that it was all it was ever going to be. Endless and repetitive. And then to find out that it was being held together by something that seemed so emasculating ... that made me feel some pity.

Wait. I said I'd never pity him. And I won't.

If he's like some of the others, like Dino has said, then he's looking to find a way forward after he's left behind something he now wishes he hadn't taken as far as he did. I don't know but I think that could be how I'd feel. I also think that I might seek some way to regain my sense of self-worth. But, when you think about it, he has nothing that needs forgiving because it wasn't like he was ever really sinning against anyone else. But what I know of this Bud White tells me one thing: I bet he feels he has some debt to pay off and I bet anything he thinks I'm part of that debt, like I am a new responsibility simply because I am close at hand and because of that connection we have.

I know all about sinning against someone else.

Every day in this place, I have to face the knowledge that no punishment in this world will ever absolve me of my sins from the other world. I can try. And when I try, I do have fleeting moments of hoping to atone.

No. That's not it, not really. It's not really atonement; it's more base than that. It's that I hope someday to punish myself enough that I will finally feel it's enough. That I can wake up one day and say that I have paid my debt. That I am free and clear. I don't know when this will happen.

And now, having Bud White around is a reminder that I am never really going to have back the part of me that I lost during all that trauma in the world I cannot return to. Because like my possessions, I seem to have left that part of me behind in the other world. All I have is a fleeting, fading memory of that better part of me.

I knew Bud coming back in this bar was something I would face. I knew he would feel, as I do, that there is a connection between us that we would sever at our own risk. It's a symbiotic thing. Somehow, I think, we need each other. We are a link to a past that we are both trying to outlive but still needing someone else around to remind us we have much to pay for.

We are in each other's lives to hold ourselves accountable.

That is what I think.

And so I know, whatever attraction I feel for him is not to be toyed with. It is not to be taken out and examined. It is not to be an object of fascination. It is to be acknowledged and then it is to be put in its proper place. It needs parameters. It is there but it is not to be indulged. I know he is attracted to me ... but that's mainly because he was screwing her and they had some affection for each other. So now that he's out on his own and he's probably feeling lonely, then of course he's like most men, he'd fall back on old patterns. That does not mean he's a bad guy. It just means he's a man.

But he won't hold me accountable if we get too close. He needs some objectivity. So do I. Besides, and here's the real raw reason: he has absolutely no business being a man I go to for sex. And that's rather the bottom line, I imagine. It always comes down to the question of sex: for him, my answer is 'no.'

There is no sense denying the attraction. I do like him. I do. Seeing him makes my heart do those little flutters. I don't remember the last time any man made me nervous in that way where I actually cared what he thought of me. And he walks in the bar. And my whole body grins because I am happy to see him, like the light's been snapped back on.  Hell, he looks happy to see me, too.

So he asks me out. And I know what to do. I am rehearsed. I am note perfect. Right down to the little details.

"I've thought about you ... about hooking up ... ever since Nate told me you were moving here," I say, smiling at him, nice and easy, like this kind of thing is so simple to say. "You know what I think? I don't think it would be a good idea."

I see his face go through two emotions ... quick strikes ... first, he's elated as he thinks I'm admitting I have a crush on him and have been thinking of him. Then, he's hurt because I've just shut him down like it was nothing. But the emotion that comes on his face after, it stays there, locking him up tight. It's the jaw-clenching confusion of a man.

"Yeah? Annie, you need to think again," he finally says, trying to sound like he's playing around ... even grinning at me around his scotch he's raising to his lips now.

I lean in toward him, pull in on his sleeve so he'll lean in across the bar toward me. I speak as low as I can in the noise of the bar. "Bud, I really did think about it. I like you. You're a good guy. But I don't want to date you. I was kind of hoping that instead, we could be good friends. I could use a friend. I truly could. Try to understand. You know a lot about the baggage I am carting."

He blinks; he's looking deep in my eyes, waiting on me to dodge his, to back down, to move away. But I just don't. I have no reason to. This is the truth I'm speaking.

"Friends?"

"I would treasure it," I say.

He swallows. Takes a deep breath. "Ain't nothing wrong with friends."

"I kind of think we both need a break in that way, don't you?"

His eyes dodge away from mine. After all, he's really the one who should be ashamed to be trying to jump into some new relationship when his old ones aren't exactly ancient history. I mean, let's face it ... this man has got to take some time to recover if he's ever going to be capable of really knowing that he's with another woman for the right reasons.

He considers what I've said. I think maybe he knows he was trying to find an easy way forward here. He knows I'm right. He has no more business trying to date and romance me than I have in letting him.

Still ... still and all ... I dream about him that night. And we are not friends. We are lovers. It is the most frightening dream I've had in a long time.

I call Hector the next day.

May 17, 2005
BUD

Annie and I have become friends. That's all there is to it. I may want it to be more, but she doesn't.

She has helped me shop for furniture for my apartment. She has taught me just how hard to pinch a dollar in this day and age. We have been to yard sales and estate sales and second hand shops. She has allowed me to simply pick and choose pieces I like without regard to fitting them into some decorating scheme.

When she says she finds it incredibly freeing to just pick what you want and to not give a damn if it doesn't fit, she is alive.

I drop by the bar a lot.

She is usually happy to see me. But sometimes, she is on edge. She can be very curt with me on those nights. She likes to bait me into an argument on those nights. Those are nights I call it early. Take off home. Frustrated. Pissed off that she can push my buttons that way.

And then when I see her next time, night or two later, she is easy with me again.

Something is hinky here.

It's just a gut feeling. But I trust these kinds of feelings.

I followed her the last time she did this to me. It wasn't something I planned. But I was sitting in my car, stewing after this testy standoff we'd had over the latest instance of a police officer shooting a teenage carjacker. And a few minutes later, she walks out the bar, gets in her car and takes off. Now, this felt off, in that way a cop notices ... breaking a pattern, you see. She was leaving work early and she the way she was walking ... her body language was almost defiant. So I followed her. Wondering what the hell was going on with her.

Trailed her home. Sat and watched her place. Figuring, frankly, it was drugs. Waiting on some connection to come to her. When she came out about a half hour later, dressed up in some slinky dress that made her look like a million bucks ... I realized she'd surprised me.

Tailing her was easy. She must never have supposed she was being followed. She ended up pulling up to some fancy mansion on Esplanade. From where I was sitting, watching, I could tell nothing other than there was a party.

I might have sat there waiting to make sure that when she left, she was safe. But there was private security guarding the place. That's something I've noticed a lot of here. It's that proximity issue. No place is really that safe. People just seem to accept it as the price of living here ... you pay for security at anything that might attract attention.

So when Nate buzzed me and said a suspect we'd been hunting had been spotted over on Claiborne, I barely hesitated before I took off to meet him and the uniforms.

For once in my life, I should have been a lot more suspicious.

ANN

It's so dark.

I dreamed of him tonight.

His fingers on the bar, drawing a bead of water into swirls.

I wondered what his tongue would feel like.

He has a way of looking at me that makes me take shallow breaths, as if I am aware that I am in the presence of a man who would be lovely in fury.

The attraction I have felt to him was like that flush of instantaneous moisture that breaks out all over your skin the moment you walk out of an air-conditioned building and into the sucking wet heat of a New Orleans summer afternoon about five minutes before the daily rain shower explodes across the sky. One of those instant attractions that comes for a man who not only looks like what you want but who has a certain bearing about him that makes every feminine part of you take notice and want him. It's a want that is so ancient, so eternal. Animal attraction.

I have no right to want him.

If he touched me, I don't know what I'd do. Maybe I'd faint.

I wonder if he ever bites.

This wakes me.

I am sticky.

It hurts but not so bad. I think maybe I wish it hurt worse.

I don't know if I'm alone. I listen, slowing my breathing, searching for signs of life nearby. Then I hear it ... the telltale sound of a man who's been done in by whatever it is he's worked on me.

Did I come? I can't remember at first.

I am scared.

Why am I doing this?

Maybe I need to stop. Except there's a part of me that won't stop. I hate the way I feel after. Except I am so glad I hate it after because I know I suffer and I should suffer. I should.

It's what I deserve. Someday some man is going to really wake me up ... he's going to send me reeling hard enough that I will finally be able to say it's enough. That I've finally paid. I keep waiting for that day.

It never comes.

Only nights like this.

When I leave, opening the door lets in the light and noise from other parts of this house. It's an old house. I often think there must be ghosts. There have to be. Maybe one of them watches over me. Maybe one of those ghosts whispers my crimes to the ones I've sinned against. I know that's silly. I do. But I hope it's true. I hope he knows I'm still suffering.

Still out here, on my own. Unredeemed. Unforgiven. 

Paying and paying and paying for something I can never undo and for which I'll never find forgiveness.