God doesn’t play dice, I do

I found Kay last night with a Google search by proxy, still ensconced sixty miles north, in some cell or other. Three stories above West Central Avenue in a town called Belton she rots unaware of the effort. Last we spoke, she was wistful, but somewhat hopeful and somewhat wishful for a misdemeanor sentence of time served. Seems fair enough to me; her charge of family violence no doubt a delayed rage against some historical violence inflicted upon her.

She bristles at pity and prances with the bravado common to those familiar with trauma and its post-traumatic syndrome. In her dewy, melancholy eyes the pain is clear. The first night I met her she was all fists and spitballs, a beautiful refugee from her redneck past, though she still retained the accent.

I vowed to take care of her in those first moments, though she, predictably, provoked other less noble stirrings. Dressed like a slut trying to be slutty in a skin-tight, midriff-baring tank and shorts spray painted over ass and mons and little more. She wore a cast on her leg, several bruises and self-inflicted scratches looking to me like perfect trouble. But when she opened up her mouth and that sweet voice came out, I lost track of my own name.

And so I found a project bigger than myself that let me not think about myself or, in fact, do anything to help myself, at least for the moment. I had Kay to care for and through her I would find the absolution that had eluded me these last three lost years.

And, of course–now being committed– that’s when she told me about The Voice.