guide me towards salvation | tinsley/goldsworth

chapter four

It's a humid July in Illinois. The sun is an angry shade of reds and oranges, complementing with the yellow streaks of clouds near it. It's a busy evening this day especially, now that summer has officially started. The street is flooded with people who come alive at night, doing God-knows-what. Every city has its secrets, and Chicago is ripe with them.

Tinsley roams the street with a cigarette between his fingers. On his left hand, he's clutching an assortment of white and yellow chrysanthemums. He's wearing a black, fitted Henley sweater, dark denim jeans, and his trusty, brown combat boots. He stops in front of a metal archway—the words OAKWOOD CEMETERY in bronze writing—wide, concrete pathway parts the way from the scattering of tall, looming trees. His feet start moving past the small monuments and the blooming flowers, to the marble gravestones. It should feel eerie, being here as the dusk settles in. The sunlight is starting to fade, giving way to the night as hazy darkness brews around the corner. But Tinsley's never been the type of person who is afraid of the unexplained, being a man of logic and cold, hard science. It's what made him a damn good P.I.

However, while it's still there, he can appreciate the way the sun dances through the trees. It's like looking through an amber stone: everything looks bright and beautiful. It's the kind of thing Selma would have been painting, if she were still alive. But she's not, so this view is left to a man who cannot truly cherish its beauty.

Tinsley stops in front of a gray, granite gravestone. The marker reads:

Sylwia Cieślak Tinsley

Kochająca żona i matka

1886 – 1942

He throws his cig away, and sits on the grass in front of his mother's grave. He takes the wilted flowers from the stone vase, replacing them with fresh ones. It's been five years but the ache is still there. Sometimes, it's little pinpricks in his chest and sometimes it's excruciating pain gnawing away at him. It never really goes away. It stays in you like a shrike that you can't take out. Tinsley closes his eyes, whispering a prayer. He's not a religious person, he can't even remember the last time he went to any church but his mother was a devout Christian. He does believe in God, however. He believes in a heaven, and a hell, and an afterlife of burning through the fiery pits for the truly evil pieces of shit like pedophiles and Hitler, may he not rest in peace.

His mother was an immigrant. She left the river and valleys of Kraków for the cold winters of Chicago, Illinois. Tinsley never met his father, since he left and never came back. But his mother, bless her, was in love with him and always believed he would come back. She had Tinsley when she was eighteen—barely an adult, grasping at straws. They were very poor, and sometimes relied on the kindness of others yet they were happy. Though they lived in a home that was barely a house, and ate scraps, his mother's love was more than enough. When the Nazis came to Poland and took the last of their family, a part of his mother had also died. She never said anything, but he can hear her screaming every night, then faces the morning as if her eyes aren't red from crying. She was always like that; kept everything to herself, until one day, it just burst open.

He talks quietly to her grave for a while, telling her about his life. He used to tell stories to her as a child, laying his head on her lap as she gently strokes her hair. Tinsley tells her about his farm. About how he started a new life, away from Chicago, away from Fayetteville, West Virginia, and away from Los Fucking Angeles.

When he's done talking, the sight of the dark skies and pale, crescent moon greets him. He checks the time: quarter to six. quarter to Tinsley stands up, stomping his asleep legs. He taps his mother's gravestone, 'Spoczywaj, Mama.'