The Arrogance of the Living
by Dawn Bedore Proctor
It all started when I was watching one of those detectives shows on television. You know, the ones that start with the dead body and spend the rest of the hour trying to figure out “who done it.” Gathering clues from said dead body is part of the drill and I always wonder about the actor who has to play this nasty part, the part of being dead and mysterious must require enormous patience and bring on some fear of its own. After all, we are all going to end up there anyway. We face death before the first commercial even begins.
But the detectives on these shows are full of beauty, vim, and vigor. Eager for the chase. Spurred on by the inconsistencies and somehow smug about their inconceivable number of correct guesses. I watch these shows all the time. Way too much. I’ll watch them even if I’ve seen them before. Somehow knowing the ending doesn’t matter. So that must mean it’s not why I’m watching. I already know “who done it.” I’m watching to see the details repeated, their reactions reenacted. But why? Then I figured it out.
Because I was on the side of the detectives. Not as attractive or talented to be sure. Still, we both held the opportunity to figure it all out. We were all living. And feeling sorry for those who had died and for their families. We were superior to these poor suffering comrades who needed our help and our sympathy. Even if it was acting. I felt superior, luckier, like I had escaped.
And with so many of these types of shows these days, I wondered if that was the strong universal appeal? How else can we explain the relentless barrage of initials like SVU, CSI, NCSI, etc. Or is it worse when the story is real like “Snapped” or “American Justice.” I mean, let’s face it, we know what is going to happen and that someone is going to “Snap.”, but we watch it anyway, just to see the drama complete its arc and know once again that it wasn’t you.
A friend of mine once confessed to killing someone. In real life, in real time. Only once and not over and over again. A long time ago. He was such a joy, such a ray of sunshine. With blonde curls and a wide, embracing smile. I had a secret crush on him, and a boyfriend already, so we were truly friends. There was no unnecessary sexual tension between us.
It was college and I was having an off night. David came up to me, he had noticed and he cared. “Why such a dim, Dawn?”, he joked and I shrugged my shoulders. Sometimes, you just don’t know. We were having friends over to the apartment for no good reason. The way you do when you are young. We found ourselves alone on the porch sipping beer, and gazing out from the second story into the quiet neighborhood. And he suddenly said it. “You know I killed someone once.” I didn’t react much. Now, looking back, I wonder why not. It felt impolite somehow. As if the fact that he had chosen to tell me meant I was obligated somehow to control myself. “There was this girl I knew,” he went on. “And her boyfriend beat her up. Not once, but over and over again. She was afraid to go to the police so I confronted him. We were outside, on a porch twenty-seven stories off the ground. And suddenly I just pushed him. And over he went. He just disappeared from my sight. I didn’t say anything. I just walked away from the building and never went back. I waited on edge for days, but no one ever came for me. And she was safe again. So, I left town and haven’t gone back since.” He finally paused. Took a breath.
“So, I guess I got away with it.”
And there was sadness in his voice. Sadness that it had happened. Sadness that he had seen no other way out. Maybe sadness there had been no consequences, I mean, what did that say about the world? About violence and justice? About trust? About living and dying? And people caring.
Detectives probably investigated, just like on TV, but must have decided it had been an accident. I can picture the episode forming in my mind. But the facts never came to light. The story never came together. And David carried it in his heart, in his deepest, quietest space. There was something about me that had brought it out. Suddenly, we didn’t know what to do. How to look at each other, how to relate to each other. I knew I would never see him as the carefree soul he had been to me and I would never be the same to him again. We barely spoke again afterwards and one day he had quickly and quietly moved away.
I think about David often. More often than I am sure he knows. I consider the risk he took to save someone else’s life. I don’t think of him as a killer. Though I guess I should. That’s what happens when the bad guy dies on TV. The person who does the killing of the bad guy is painted in heroic or sometimes ambiguous light. I wonder how David is and if he ever returned to the scene of his crime. That’s when they always get caught, you know. When they can’t stay away from the place they had exercised their complete and total control over another human being.
Later in my life, I was in a relationship with a man who beat me. It started off small and just kept growing in intensity and regularity. People avoided us, as if they knew and maybe they did. So, they stayed away. Probably, with all the excuses that people use under such circumstances. “Maybe they don’t want anyone else involved.?” Or, “It’s really none of my business.” All I know is that I became more and more isolated. And more and more in danger.
The day would come when I wished that someone had risked what David had to save me. Instead, I saved myself. I packed up my entire life into two cardboard boxes, used my last paycheck to buy two plane tickets, grabbed my small son and disappeared, leaving behind a good job, an apartment filled with furniture and a host of people I would never see or talk to again. Including members of my family.
I know now he would have killed me eventually. I moved far away, kept my phone unlisted and my profile as low as I could. The police tracked me down, how I don’t know, and invited me to come and view some photographs. With my son playing in the corner with some battered toys, they showed me photos of other women, their faces beat to a bloody pulp. I did not know if they were alive or dead. I had no information for them, I was too afraid of making him angry. Much later I would find out he ended up in prison with a ten-year sentence for drug possession. The door to my own personal cage was open. I had survived until the end of the episode.
Maybe that’s why I watch. To relate to the living, knowing how fine the line can really be. Thinking I am somehow a better, luckier person because I got out. Because I am still breathing and can still bear witness to the suffering of others. With all the arrogance of the living.