“Della sends you her love,” Ross said, tongue firmly in cheek, and moved over to the coffee machine. He would have preferred a 1atte, but that meant a two-block hike. He wasn’t up to it.
“Yeah, Della’s in love with me, sure enough,” Ray agreed solemnly. “Can’t blame the woman, can you?”
Ross shoal his head, pouring himself a cup and stirring in a little cream. “But it isn’t right for you to string her along like you do. You have to fish or cut bait, Ray.”
“Fish or cut bait?” Ray stared at him. “What’s that, some sort of midwestern saying, something you Ohio homeboys tell each other.”
“Yep.” Ross moved over and sat down across from him, leaning the black staff against his chair. He took a sip. “What do you Seattle homeboys say?”
“We say, “Shit or get off the pot,” but I expect that sort of talk offends your senses, so I don’t use it around you.” Ray shrugged and went back to his paper. After a minute, he said, “Damn, why do I bother reading this rag? It just depresses me.”
Carole Price walked in, smiled at Ross, and moved over to the coffee machine. “What depresses you, Ray?”
“This damn newspaper! People! Life in general.” Ray Hapgood leaned back and shook the paper as if to rid it of spiders. “Listen to this. There’s three stories in here, all of them the same story really. Story one. Woman living in Renton is depressed-lost her job, ex-husband’s not paying support for the one kid that’s admittedly his, boyfriend beats her regularly and with enough disregard for the neighbors that they’ve called the police a dozen times, and then he drinks and totals her car. End result? She goes home and pets a gun to her head and kills herself-But she takes time first to kill all three children because-as she says in the note she so thoughtfully leaves-she cant imagine them wanting to live without her.”
Carole nodded. Blond, fit, middle-aged, a veteran of the war against the abuse of women and children, she was the detector of Fresh Start. “I read about that.”
“Story two.” Hapgood plowed ahead with a nod of satisfaction. “Estranged husband decides he’s had enough of life. Goes home to visit the wife and children, two of than his from a former marriage, two of them hers from same. Kills her, “cause she’s his wife, and kills his children, cause they’re his, see. Lets her children live, “cause they aren’t his and he doesn’t see them as his responsibility.”
Carole shook her head and sighed.
“Story three.” Hapgood rolled his eyes dramatically before continuing. “Ex-husband can’t stand the thought of his former wife with another man. Goes over to their trailer with a gun, shoots them both, then shoots himself Leaves three small children orphaned and homeless in the process. Too bad for them.”
He threw down the newspaper. “We could have helped all these people, damn it! We could have helped it we could have gotten to them! If they’d just came to us, these women, just come to us and told us they felt threatened and . . “
He threw up his hands. “I don’t know, it’s all such a waste!”
“It’s that, all right,” agreed Carole. Ross sipped his coffee and nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Then, right on the same page, like they cant see the irony of it, is an article about the fuss being created over the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit in Disney World!”
Ray looked furious. “See, these pirates are chasing these serving wenches around a table and then auctioning them off, all on this ride, and some people are offended. Okay, I can understand that. But this story, and all the fuss over it, earns the same amount of space, and a whole lot more public interest, than what’s happened to these women and children. And I’ll bet Disney gives the pirates more time and money than they give the homeless. I mean, who cares about the homeless, right? Long as it isn’t you or me, who cares?”
“You’re obsessing, Ray,” said Jip Wing, a young volunteer who had wandered in during the exchange. Hapgood shot him a look.