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Summary: a peek inside Bobby's head right after "Reality"
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It's been five hours and many miles traveled back into the city, but in my mind I'm still on that rainy mountain, staring down into muddy holes that cradle the bones of women who, for all their mistakes, never deserved such a horrific end.
I'm not even sure those rough gravesites were the worst things I've ever seen. The victims who survived their horrors, and the faces of those who didn't...those are the visions that flit through my nightmares. They have mouths and voices to ask why. Why didn't I protect them? Why couldn't I stop the monsters in time? Why this, why that, why, why, why?
The monsters also haunt me. The sociopaths are always the worst. The unconcerned smile on Williams's face when they led him, in cuffs and shackles, to the site will stay with me for a long while. I didn't have to be up there when he made the identifications to know he felt no remorse, no guilt, no regret...no feeling that would be in the least bit humanizing. He'd never displayed much more than annoyance at getting caught, so when he truly gave up his protestations of innocence, it was a small step to showing his true nature. Cold as the rain falling on the mountain-- that's what Larry Williams was, completely untouched by what he had done.
I'm torn between pity and contempt for his wife. She finally gave him up, but she had to have known something was up with him before then. She lived in the same house with the monster, and there's no way she didn't know. They always know...the spouses, parents, families of the monsters. Some of them tell themselves that everything's normal, convince themselves and everyone else of it so strongly that they're genuinely surprised to find out the awful truth. Some of them know all along and cover for the monster, try to shove the deeds back in a dark closet or under the bed. They know, but their mindless devotion makes them think they're doing the right thing. Protecting the monster.
Bits of tattered yellow silk and dirty red velvet flutter, just at the corner of my vision... This half-empty bottle of J&B won't be enough tonight, not enough to quiet the voices, to shut down the images. I guess I can either find another bottle or accept the ghosts. Not an easy choice really, although tomorrow's hangover might be worth getting rid of the ghosts and monsters for a few hours. The only thing that keeps me on the couch and not digging through the kitchen cabinets is the thought that they might hang around anyway, no matter how drunk I get. There's no sense wasting a perfectly good bottle of scotch on a futile gesture.
Ghosts and monsters...always out there, waiting to make themselves known. My being alone seems to make them feel welcome to come right in and make themselves at home, settle in for a good long haunting. Nights like this I can't help but miss Gwen, but then she probably wouldn't have been here, would she? She'd have been out there on her quest, her never-ending search for the daughter that would be turning tricks in some high rise penthouse, unknowing or uncaring that her mom was walking the streets in backbreaking shoes looking for her.
More ghosts. Mother and daughter tag team ghosts. They come with a set of monsters too, of course, don't they always? The vicious animal who took Gwen away from me, and the lowlife scumbag that's treating Maddy like a piece of meat to be bought and sold and passed around...
And they all ask why... Why didn't you talk me out of it, Bobby? Why can't you catch me, Detective? Why can't you change my mind about the mess I've made of my life? Why can't you stop me? Why didn't you try harder? Why are you such a fucking failure, Bobby? Why have you lost everything, over and over again? Why?
I don't know. Maybe I'll find some answers at the bottom of this bottle, and maybe all I'll find is a headache and more questions. Maybe I'll just drink enough to forget the questions and make the world look new again...
Or maybe I'll call up Dominic and make *myself* look new again. He's better than a shot of anything, because he *knows*. He sees the ghosts too, and the monsters. Hell, maybe he's got even more of them than I do. He knows when to confront them and when to ignore them and pray they go away.
Wonder if he'd be home right now if I called him? Couldn't hurt to have someone to talk to, someone to scare the ghosts and monsters away, if only for a little while.
The End.