of yellowing papers. A phone number here, an illegible marking there. I could feel my hands slowly drying up, just begging for moisturizer. At one point, after hours of skimming, a wave of itchiness hit as though hordes of dust mites had swarmed up my arms. Eventually I found a handmade flier regarding the 2004 annual Sing the King contest at the Blue Suede. On the back, I saw various names followed by hastily drawn question marks. For the most part, the handwriting was unreadable.
All papers I found led to a single overwhelming conclusion: Loyd was one phenomenal pack rat. Along the back wall, behind an old poster of Farrah Fawcett, I made an odd discovery. In a stack of half a dozen Florsheim shoe boxes were hundreds of different-sized photographs. There were also lots of negatives, and when I held a few of them up to the single bulb, I could make out voyeuristic closeups of intertwined black-and-white ghosts.
Usually the photos showed couples. Frequently they were poorly lit and ill-focused, probably taken with a broken zoom lens. Precisely who these people were or what their significance was remained a mystery. One photo in particular caught my eye: a sleazy-looking guy and a younger, cute blond girl. Something about the girl’s cowboy boots and longhorn belt buckle grabbed me. In one slightly clearer photo she appeared to be giving him a blowjob, but I could only see the top of her head. Something about the guy gave me the willies, I didn’t know why.
By two or three in the morning, I had checked out all but two rusty filing cabinets buried in the back like a pair of upright metal coffins. I leveraged my body around one, spinning it, then pried open the top drawer. It was packed with yet more trash. In the middle drawer, however, I made an exciting find—a half bottle of Jack Daniel’s. There in the bottom drawer, I made an even more surprising discovery—emptiness. Odd in that hoarder’s paradise. I just couldn’t help sensing that something had been covertly removed from it.
Inasmuch as alcohol sped up time and opened part of my brain, allowing me to read deeper into things, I took enhancing sips from Mr. Jack Daniel’s. Eventually, though, looking through more shoe boxes I collapsed on the rickety old mattress. Before passing out, I noticed that three of the four legs of the wooden cot had snapped. On the floor I also spotted what I initially thought to be a short, fat snake skin. It wasn’t until I delicately picked it up that I realized it was actually lambskin—a used condom.
After shrieking and tossing it in the air, I realized that dear departed Floyd wasn’t quite so innocent. Perhaps to get away from all the little screamers, he and the misses would sneak down here for a little privacy. Yet in a family of seven children, where family planning was God’s work, I just couldn’t imagine him ever unraveling a condom. Looking further under the bed, I saw that even more cardboard boxes were holding it up. Inside them was yet more clerical garbage. Rifling through one, I spotted “case history forms.” The boxes held files of divorce cases Floyd Loyd had worked on.
I skimmed through dozens of copies of these case histories loaded with phrases like subject seen going into and signs of intimacy evident. Photographic evidence of infidelity included was the one phrase frequently at the bottom of them. It painfully reminded me of Paul’s infidelities toward the end of our marriage. Feeling increasingly crappy, I finally slugged down the remainder of the Jack Daniel’s and knocked myself out.
When I woke up late the next day, my drooling face was submerged in a pile of his canceled checks from the late 1990s. Despite a severe crick in my neck, the only thing I could take away from this endeavor was the answer why Vinetta hadn’t gone to the police: Loyd had nothing. No leads, no motives, no real suspects. Nada. For that matter, other than a colorful wall and Vinetta’s accusation, I found only
All papers I found led to a single overwhelming conclusion: Loyd was one phenomenal pack rat. Along the back wall, behind an old poster of Farrah Fawcett, I made an odd discovery. In a stack of half a dozen Florsheim shoe boxes were hundreds of different-sized photographs. There were also lots of negatives, and when I held a few of them up to the single bulb, I could make out voyeuristic closeups of intertwined black-and-white ghosts.
Usually the photos showed couples. Frequently they were poorly lit and ill-focused, probably taken with a broken zoom lens. Precisely who these people were or what their significance was remained a mystery. One photo in particular caught my eye: a sleazy-looking guy and a younger, cute blond girl. Something about the girl’s cowboy boots and longhorn belt buckle grabbed me. In one slightly clearer photo she appeared to be giving him a blowjob, but I could only see the top of her head. Something about the guy gave me the willies, I didn’t know why.
By two or three in the morning, I had checked out all but two rusty filing cabinets buried in the back like a pair of upright metal coffins. I leveraged my body around one, spinning it, then pried open the top drawer. It was packed with yet more trash. In the middle drawer, however, I made an exciting find—a half bottle of Jack Daniel’s. There in the bottom drawer, I made an even more surprising discovery—emptiness. Odd in that hoarder’s paradise. I just couldn’t help sensing that something had been covertly removed from it.
Inasmuch as alcohol sped up time and opened part of my brain, allowing me to read deeper into things, I took enhancing sips from Mr. Jack Daniel’s. Eventually, though, looking through more shoe boxes I collapsed on the rickety old mattress. Before passing out, I noticed that three of the four legs of the wooden cot had snapped. On the floor I also spotted what I initially thought to be a short, fat snake skin. It wasn’t until I delicately picked it up that I realized it was actually lambskin—a used condom.
After shrieking and tossing it in the air, I realized that dear departed Floyd wasn’t quite so innocent. Perhaps to get away from all the little screamers, he and the misses would sneak down here for a little privacy. Yet in a family of seven children, where family planning was God’s work, I just couldn’t imagine him ever unraveling a condom. Looking further under the bed, I saw that even more cardboard boxes were holding it up. Inside them was yet more clerical garbage. Rifling through one, I spotted “case history forms.” The boxes held files of divorce cases Floyd Loyd had worked on.
I skimmed through dozens of copies of these case histories loaded with phrases like subject seen going into and signs of intimacy evident. Photographic evidence of infidelity included was the one phrase frequently at the bottom of them. It painfully reminded me of Paul’s infidelities toward the end of our marriage. Feeling increasingly crappy, I finally slugged down the remainder of the Jack Daniel’s and knocked myself out.
When I woke up late the next day, my drooling face was submerged in a pile of his canceled checks from the late 1990s. Despite a severe crick in my neck, the only thing I could take away from this endeavor was the answer why Vinetta hadn’t gone to the police: Loyd had nothing. No leads, no motives, no real suspects. Nada. For that matter, other than a colorful wall and Vinetta’s accusation, I found only
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