No1 - The Psycho Surrealist

Chapter 9 - Katrina

Christmas 1996, Chicago, IL

The turkey awakened a hunger in him as he carved into the breast. His stomach gurgled as he sliced into the breast. Much to his dismay, blood leaked out from the breast. Ten hours the turkey cooked, and the damned turkey was raw. Doq had been busy that cold, snowy Chicago afternoon in his mother's kitchen. He prepared, the best he could, their annual Christmas feast, plugging away on the fixings while keeping an eye on that twenty-pound bird since seven in the morning. It was as much his mother's turkey as it was his, and Lydia insisted that she be the one to keep cooking and preparing. But Doq needed something to keep his mind occupied, anything off the near tragedy that happened to him just two months before.

Being the perfectionist that Doq was, he hated that the turkey was still bloody. The thing had been up in the oven all day. He wanted to kick himself, but his mother prevented him from any self-condemnation. Lydia would say it is what it is, and there's no way to change it. Well, most of the time. But this time, darling Corby, it's just the fluorescent lights. The turkey's not undercooked. It's perfect. See that plunger there? See how it's out?

See the plunger when it's fired.

And the blood leaks out.

Those past few months in Los Angeles weighed heavily on his mind, particularly his promotion and his last case ending in grief. He'd kept his mind busy with his mother, Lydia Roberts, that day, having not seen his mother for almost three years. He was there in Los Angeles to catch up with Lydia as much as he was to share fond memories. If this had been the last moments of his life, if indeed his job had claimed him, he wanted those moments in that warm, festive home to never end.

This dinner, no, this gathering at her home in Chicago with friends and family, was therapeutic. The lights. The music. The warm fireplaces and snow outside. The feelings of goodness and cheer. The large feast. Something ripped straight from a Currier and Ives painting. Doq needed it to shed the weight off his shoulders, to start anew. If only he hadn't screwed up the dinner.

You're fine, Doq. There's nothing wrong. Not when your mother says everything's fine. He stared at that knife in hand, hovering over the juicy breast, and paused in the last few moments of his previous case. The blade's tip glinted in the low glow of the Christmas garland lining the soffits of the kitchen cabinets, glinting off the back of his mind. Doq trembled as his eyes blurred and his thoughts distanced to those last tragic moments of a hand attached to a similar blade, pale skin sprinkled with blood, shaking with the last breath, the death rattle. To take one's life— He squeezed his fists tight, sighing as a familiar flowery perfume cut through the apple and cinnamon—Chanel number five. Something about that scent extracted him from his momentary mental lapse. Maybe it was how it slithered around his heart and guts, warming him with emotional support and an almost ecstatic content.

This day is for your family, Doq, thought the newly-appointed police sergeant. Keep work from bleeding into this moment.

She hovered behind him, wrapped her arms around his, hugging him tightly. "It's just juice. The bird is beautiful," complimented his wife, Rena Iyengar. She kissed him. "It ain't blood. It's just the fluorescents, that's all. It's fine, darling."

"It's bloody. Look at it," Doq protested.

Rena pointed at the built-in poultry thermometer; the red plunger was up, signifying a cooked turkey. She shushed him, kissed him on the cheek again, and caressed his shoulders. He returned her love, setting down the knife on the counter, rubbing affectionately at her swelling stomach—pushing off the vivid memories of killing that young man. Don't you dare believe that all you do is take life!