3:20 AM. Time For the Headlines.

Joseph Koper lay immobile in bed. It was just another Monday morning. “Here we go again”, he thought, with a not fully awake mind. Having not been for his alarm clock, 6:30 am would have gone by undeterred. He woke up this morning at 6:30 am, but that was his second awakening; the first one was at 3:20 am. Almost every night, for years, he would wake up at 3:20 am and start reading the newspapers. He enjoyed reading an article or two from the Economist magazine before he would inevitably go back to sleep. He learned to have a deep distrust for the US media. He liked to call them “tentacles of lies, misinformation, and propaganda”. He routinely ranted aboutthe moral decay and gross corruption of the American democracy exercise. He discovered that reading the “news” was a very effective way to resume his sleep. Alternatively, it was the perfect time to reflect on what had become of his life and the latest sign of his aging process taking hold. He was 59 years old. His growing list of ailments included constipation, bouts of sadness, inexplicable joint pains and, most recently he discovered stiffness in both hands and sensitivity to cold on his feet. At a young age, he used to make fun of old-timers’ habit of sleeping with socks, now he understood. He would amuse himself by thinking that he was becoming one of them. In his solitude, he would unavoidably question his life and his choices. His wife no longer by his side in bed, gave him the chance to enjoy his own company and to fantasize about his never-fulfilled dreams. His life was not a bad one. It was just a life. A grinding monotony trapped between desperation and anger.

His wife, Meredith, who was 10 years younger than him, was the typical American woman: brutal, nagging, with an exasperating nasal voice. She barely reached five feet and, by all accounts an average-looking girl. She was trapped in the limbo of commonality; she was neither pretty nor ugly. Just painfully common. After 29-plus years of marriage, soon to reach their 30th anniversary, they managed to raise three children and own a home they could hardly afford. She was the smallest and youngest of her sisters, the baby of the family, who never figured that the world was not at her service or indifferent to the whims of her shifty moods. She was an unhealthy and weird mix of petulance and ignorance, covered by a deep American sense of entitlement. To her advantage, Joseph Koper was just a congenial, good-natured, mild-mannered man. He was easily content and did not ask for much.

His recurrent, circular monologue used to go endlessly, without rhyme, with his thoughts jumping from subject to subject. Sometimes, he would just be there staring at the ceiling with an empty mind, devoid of any thoughts or desires. The closest thing to being dead. Perhaps, in some sort of instinctual reflexive mode, his mind would assume such deadly silence to protect him from the thoughts of his own life. On the unfortunate nights that his brain failed to protect him, he would invariably go on thinking about his job and his home life. He wondered how he came to inhabit such a junkyard of dreams and passion. He was not a fan of “The Walking Dead”, but always felt some degree of connection with them, with the way they ambulated, true to their nature, like penitent corpses devoid of intention, dreams, or purpose. Round and round like trapped in the seventh circle of hell. It was always a sad thought because encapsulated his self-view. He saw in them his proper reflection. The clock rang again. The snooze button was on. He forgot to stop it.

This morning, he was feeling unusually well. No stiffness, no back pain. His body did not hurt much. He did his prescribed hygiene routine; combed his receding hairline and promptly went to the kitchen. Was he going to have tea or coffee? Each morning, he agonized over that decision. “Ginger tea will be”, he thought to himself. Meredith was already there. He knew on his way downstairs by the banging of the pots in the kitchen. “Good morning, Honey”, he ventured in a jovial mode, while busied himself with the teapot. “Is Jimmy up?”. she abruptly asked, without ever contemplating his well-intentioned greeting. “I don’t know Honey”. The teapot started whistling. “What do you mean you don’t know?”. He knew already what was coming his way. He clinched. “What kind of fucking father are you?”. He tried putting two words, in an attempt to answer “but, but…”. The teapot whistled the louder, it was time to pick it up from the stove. She exploded “God damn! I am so fucking tired of your shit”. Joseph tried again, as he struggled with intrusive thoughts of pouring the boiling water on her, “he’s 16 years old, you know…”. He managed to mumble, sounding reasonable but apologetic, which always had the opposite effect. Her eyes had the intensity of a welding torch, an infernal blend of rage and hatred.

 Every time he looked into her eyes, he wondered how they got to that point. But at this point, after so many years, what was there to find out? They reached the button of a very old and dark well. The thoughts, as they travel in milliseconds, could filter into his mind and momentarily freeze time, disconnecting him from whatever else was going on. For those few seconds between the first whistles of the tea kettle pot and her second enraged answer, he was deep in thought when the scene unfroze. A loud bang woke him up from his stupor, by the time he fully became aware of the scene, she was throwing pots against the wall and in his direction. The automatic discharges of “F-bombs” continued unstopped, “fuck you, useless…”, filling that space between the bangs. He mumbled to himself “I better get the hell out of here”. He rushed and managed to get unharmed to the front door, forgetting his tea. He heard that teapot desperately whistling. As he ran, he quickly grabbed his car keys and his wallet. He was about to reach the front door when his youngest son, Jimmy, from the stairs landing, said, “Have a good day Dad”. His voice sounded very sad and apologetic.  

He started driving and realized that he had forgotten his blood pressure medications; his heart was pumping, and his stomach was in knots. He felt nauseous. He felt poisoned by rage and sadness; he felt like spit seeping up to his throat. “It’ll be okay” he repeated to himself like a calming, self-soothing mantra. He knew that they no longer love each other; that spacecraft departed long ago. Instead, he felt a sense of duty. He stayed because wanted his last child at home, Jimmy, to grow up with both parents. But Meredith was not making it easy. She needed help but refused to get it. Her monumental arrogance and Italian stubbornness would not allow her to see the irrationality in her actions. The drinking was also getting worse. It was a mystery to him the speed at which she would explode. In the past, she used to have good days and awful days, He used to excuse her by knowing that the next day she would be a loving mother again. Now, however, the awful days were all there was.

He arrived at work. He was a software engineer at Lockheed Martin, in Moorestown, NJ, and from the beginning, he thought that it was his dream job. The exception was his long commute along Route 42 North because he needed to share the road during the rush hour with the Philadelphia-going traffic. A second letdown was the hierarchy of his job. He was professionally stuck at a distance not too far from the bottom. After 29 years, with his retirement years approaching, his long-promised promotion never arrived. He understood one day that given his unique set of skills, his supervisor would not easily find a replacement, and in a higher position, he might even have thought of Joseph as a threat. At this point in his career, however, his only remaining ambition was to collect his well-deserved pension. In his mind, he would go to a retirement place where he would be an expat in a foreign and kind land. He would be finally whole. Reality had other plans. With time and the blows of reality, one becomes like a tree after a windstorm. The only remaining parts were the trunk and a few flimsy branches. All passions, hopes, and dreams, were forcefully blown away.

He parked his car in the crowded parking lot and walked to his office. Always the same. He would turn on the computer and immediately would be greeted by dozens of emails waiting for him. Today was no exception, but he was not feeling well. Meredith’s recent blowout was more intense than usual. He wondered if she had a hangover. He must soon attend a scheduled meeting, or as he wanted to categorize it, “a self-congratulatory session” of upper managers while they appropriated their underlings’ ideas, then pompously presenting them as their own.

In the hierarchy of Lockheed Martin, the top brass squeezed and robbed the last drop of the intellectual treasures and the creative juices of the rank-and-file nerds, and then appropriated the benefits of their work. The official proclamation was “All intellectual products are the company’s property”. He knew it, but it no longer bothered him. He was in countdown mode. “Joseph, please show us the aggregate results of the data you worked on”. His supervisor demanded, with a rather authoritative stance.

These upper management guys, being that most of LM work was contracts for the Department of Defense, were retired upper-echelon military officers, cashing in on their years and connections within the DOD. They were essentially middlemen, brokers, squeezing the brain bank of the company and selling it to their contacts within the DOD. Given their little understanding of the engineering of software design and other technical specifications surrounding complex weapons systems, they were especially pestering to guys like Joseph Koper. These guys were like baton-yielding, bottom-feeders, correctional officers. Thus, Joseph’s impossibility of escalating the corporate ladder. It was a no-brainer that promoting him would automatically jeopardize his supervisor’s position. It would make evident his gross ignorance, and, at the same time, it would deprive the company of the people able to ensure its “Raison d’etre”. Joseph abides, with the patience and humility that his temperament made easier.

I’ll spare the details of his presentation, too technical for me to explain well, but suffices to say that it contains the distilled product of almost 30 years of experience and a well-earned reputation as a very smart guy, with solid and sound judgment. Launching this “new” product was for him nothing but more of the same. Another gimmick perpetuating Washington’s corruption. These weapon systems became nothing more than a way to justify the nation’s bloated defense budget, to the tune of almost 800 billion dollarsa year. Three-quarters or more of these weapon systems were never used. There are only so many wars at any given time in the world. He figured that also the world would not be able to stomach detonating a weapon that would wipe out hundreds of thousands of lives in a matter of seconds. Or would it be able to? The “Tentacles of disinformation and propaganda” always find ways to justify genocide. To them, in their secular ideology, colored life was just a null number. 

He went back to his office. The presentation concluded. He felt nauseous again. His buddy of thirty years, the occupant of the office to his right, Richard Scarpato, walked to his office to congratulate him on his presentation. He knocked on the door softly; it was almost open anyway, and found Joseph seated, with glassy eyes, pale, facing the wall. He had the look of someone who had seen a ghost. “Joey, Joey,” his friend called him, trying to wake him up of his dream-like state, “Are you okay, man?”. Joseph remained silent. “I don’t know man; you don’t look so good”. Richard liked to talk and often played unsolicited psychologist. “I think you may need a break…”. He could not finish, as Joseph, who seemed to have woken from the death, answered “Richie, I’m okay… I just have a headache. These meetings always get to me”. He lied. It was already late afternoon hours, after the presentation, but he still battling the sick feeling from the morning. Now he was dreading going home. Meredith was out of control. The verbal assaults, the destruction of the walls, the passing out, the vomiting spells, and the blackouts, were no longer bearable. Not a secret. The neighbors were aware of the mayhem happening at 5500 Alluvium Place.

When Richard Scarpato arrived in his office, Joseph was entertaining the thought of contacting Meredith’s sister -the sane one- seeking some support. He thought that “Carmel”, the sister, would convince her to go to rehab or at least to detox. He felt that there was no other choice; he had exhausted all reasonable means; marriage counseling was a disaster. Her regular doctor’s visits also seemed useless, Dr. Blathe seemed more interested in physically “examining” her. They were not churchgoers, thus not a choice either.

He left for the day. He said good night to Richard on his way to the parking lot. He then headed south on Route 42. Another battle with traffic. This time the commuters will be coming from Philadelphia. “The weather forecast, cloudy, temperature in the lowest fifties”, said an upbeat voice in his car radio. “Here we go again”. He knew that such a forecast would add 10 or 15 more minutes to his commute if there was not an accident. As he drove, he could not beat the nauseous feeling and queasy stomach. He couldn’t help it. His home became a battlefield. He felt like his warring side was suffering a long siege.

Josep Koper was a man of calm, quiet temperamental disposition, and a rather congenial nature. Aggressive confrontations were not in his nature. He abhorred violence, which made his home life untenable. He could not get out of his head the thought of leaving. But each time, the thoughts of letting his son Jimmy stay with his mother, were to him like the ultimate betrayal to his son. He was deeply worried about his son’s safety.

He arrived home. He looked at himself in his car’s visors; he had big bags hanging down his eyes. He took a long sigh and braved his way through the garage door. As he walked through the kitchen, there was nothing but silence. He then headed toward the front door, on his way to the stairs to the second floor. He could hear Meredith snoring. It was almost certain that she was blasted. She was no longer hiding bottles in the closet or trash cans in the garage. There was no more pretending; the empty bottles of Vodka, Beers, and cigarette butts, were everywhere. He walked quietly upstairs and went to “his” room. All the home had become a well-demarcated, “his” and “hers” territory. He freshened up and started thinking pleasant thoughts. He enjoyed the water; it was also calming to him. He was planning his meals. By necessity, he became an adept Chef. He needed to feed himself and Jimmy. Meredith no longer felt the need to eat. Between Ethanol Nicotine and tranquilizers, she became a ghost-looking skeleton devoid of appetite. He knew had another hour to cook because Jimmy was with his buddy next door playing video games, or whatever else kids of that age do.

He was about to get out of his bathroom, still facing the jacuzzi tub and the shower. He turned off the bathroom light and turned around. He was startled. Meredith, like in a trance, was there silently standing, holding a large carving knife in her right hand. She was as expected drunk, but looked possessed; her glassy eyes, tight lips, and rage-filled grin let him know that she meant business. “Meredith, what the hell!?”, he screamed. Reflexively, in mili-seconds, he put up his right arm at the precise moment when she launched the first strike. The knife pointed toward his head, but luckily just opened a large gash on his forearm. Adrenaline was bursting in his head. He was in survival mode. Without any forethought or planning, he pushed her aside with his left arm, already feeling the rapid descent of warm blood down his right arm. He tried to escape and ran out of the room toward the stairs landing. She was right behind him “Today this end!”. She screamed in her lunatic rant. “You loser, piece of shit… how can you call yourself a man?”. He was petrified, no longer trying to escape. His response switched from “flight “to “freeze”. He was frozen. He stood by the second-floor hallway. She raised the knife against him one more time, about to swing again. A voice inside of him yelled “Run!”, as his heart pounded in his chest to get out, “She’s gonna kill you!”. He then switched again, but from a “ freeze” state to the “fight “stage of humans’ responses to danger. She was undeterred. She got near him, stumbling in her intoxicated stupor, now he managed to dodge her second swing and swiftly pushed her away from him with all his might. The staircase railings were behind her and broke as she landed against them. She fell in one abrupt thump to the first floor. But as she flew down, she landed on her back, hitting her neck first. “Meredith, Meredith, are you okay?”. She was unresponsive.

“911 what’s your emergency?”. Answered the begrudging voice of the dispatcher. “it’s my wife, she fell off the stairs!”. He continued “Hurry up!, send help, she is not responding”. The dispatcher asked again “Are you near her, Sir, what’s your location?”. And so forth until help arrived. The 5500 Alluvium place, no longer a battlefield, quickly became the summit gathering place for the police and the ambulance. The yellow tape was already being placed. She died on the scene. No further resuscitation efforts were needed. The body remained across the floor, near the foyer, for the next 12 hours or so. Joseph Koper’s nightmare had just started.  

He thought that living with her was a nightmare, now he had to deal with the glorious American criminal justice system: “The best system money can buy”. He was promptly advised of his Miranda rights and taken to the precinct for processing. After the standard police procedures, given the large amount of blood, the knife, and the broken railings, it was immediately assumed that a homicide had been committed. The coroner’s report ruled it a homicide. After his booking, he was charged with second-degree murder, pending a formal arraignment. 

The next few weeks were the most stressful and shameful of his existence. He was presumed the killer of his wife. In the process of posting bail, he lost his job almost immediately. The equity on his home, his bank life savings, and his very elderly parents’ savings were all devoted to posting a $1,000,000.00 bond. His pension was also in jeopardy. His life was unweaving at high speed. He had not heard from Richard, his friend, since this tragic event. They said one knows true friends when one is in jail or a hospital bed. As expected, his neighbors also avoided even looking at him. Only his son Jimmy was by his side. They consoled each other because his son knew that his father was not a killer. It might have been an accident for sure; she was always drunk anyway. For the past year, he witnessed his mother’s descent into madness. Joseph Koper couldn’t stand that look of sadness in his sons’ eyes. How would this poor kid survive having his mother dead and his father imprisoned?. He knew then that tragedy had taken residence in his life. 

Joseph Koper figured that he had bleak prospects. All evidence collected pointed to a crime of passion. He started to methodically analyze his predicament and to balance the facts of his life and how all got to this point. He called Meredith’s sister, “Carmel”, -the sane one-, and pleaded with her to look after his son in the clear eventuality that he would end up imprisoned. She understood and agreed to it. She also knew that he was innocent, but that a very steep hill was ahead of him. Self-defense was going to be hard to argue, given that the prosecution was already alleging that Meredith had a knife to protect herself from him and that on her own, being so emaciated, she did not have the weight to break the stair railings, just by bumping into them. For the past few weeks, his descent into depression and despair was rapid. He felt cornered, defeated. He was trapped, alone, in the bottom of a very dark hole. It was his word against the word of a dead woman. 

He thanked Meredith’s sister, Carmel -the sane one-, for her good wishes and cooperation. He then told Jimmy that it was better to go to Carmel’s home to spend some time and clear his mind. He also needed some time off. The next day Jimmy left. He had not been attending school.

Joseph Koper for weeks ambulated around his home like a penitent in Dante’s inferno. Always nauseous, tortured, with butterflies in his stomach. His sleep was worse than normal. He was now having nightmares. He kept on dreaming about being chased in the dark of the night, by someone with a butcher’s knife and as he ran through the woods, he tripped and fell into an abandoned well. As he fell, however, he always woke up before going down to the darkness of oblivion. He decided that staying busy was the best way for him to preserve his sanity. He compulsively started to clean the house.

Methodically, as it was his character, he cleansed all rooms upstairs, dusted, mopped, rearranged furniture, and compulsively organized items in each room. After a few days of this maddening routine on the second floor, he tackled the house’s first level. The cleaning of the kitchen was challenging. It was the scene of the most intense battles and his deceased wife’s unhinged acts. His nausea intensified, but he muscled through. He went to the garage, the only remaining part to be cleansed. Methodically, right to the left, with tedious engineering calculus, walls first, he cleansed it, organized it, and rendered it spotless. He then brought his car in. He put some scotch tape around the garage door and other small crevices in the window to prevent bugs from getting in. He then took a long sigh. His cleaning was finished. On the seventh day, he rested. 

 He was tired. He started thinking about Meredith again, trying to understand what had happened to her and why she wanted him dead. He loved her so much and was sure that, at times, so did she. What was the reason for her hatred? He had always been a faithful husband, a good provider, and a good father. Perhaps if he knew her reasons at least, he would get some solace. Not knowing was worse than his fate. She took her secrets with her.

He entered the car and sat in the driver’s seat. After so much cleaning, he needed to rest. It was a hot day. He turned the engine on. He was not going anywhere. The garage doors were closed and sealed. His car exhaust pipe was also sealed, and its interior hissed with an interminable, persistent whistle. No heat, odor, or any extraordinary sensation. Just a silence, interrupted by the exhaust calming hiss, as if all of his worries, dreads, and sorrows were escaping his body. He was too tired. He felt the pressure of gravity; his limbs and eyelids were heavy. He just wanted to sleep. He revved the engine one last time and started feeling very lethargic. He was about to fall asleep when a comforting thought sparked in his mind, “Maybe when I wake up at 3:20 am, I will get some good news”.

P. R. Thompson.